I still love this series even if I didn’t fall head over heels for the second book in the Fallen Gods Trilogy as much as the first. In “Sunbringer” we see just how quickly Elo and Inara crumble without Kissen there to be their guiding backbone, and we see Skedi learn to resist the irresistible: offerings made to the gods. Each character battles more with their own betrayal and grief (except Kissen, who actually just battles fanatics most of the time) and just how destructive blind rage can be even with good intentions. We also get the added POV of Arren, which didn’t always feel that necessary to me, to show that while, yes some gods are actually good, there was still a good reason why the humans went to war with them to begin with. Namely, a lot of the remaining gods continue to manipulate and destroy those that follow them. It truly does show, mainly through the gods as the perfect embodiment, of how absolute power always corrupts absolutely. And while I genuinely loved that, I still didn’t love this as much as “Godkiller”.

It’s taken me a minute to really organize my thoughts when it comes to “Godkiller”. And even then, they don’t seem very organized… Anyway, with a book with 4 (yes, four) POV characters, I wasn’t really expecting the story to be as good as the gorgeous cover suggested. Especially when one of the main characters is a very angry woman. I love angry women! But it’s so rare for an author to write an angry woman without her being unlikable as a character, or for them to have no morals when it comes to their vengeance and are therefore kind of the villain. Not so in this book! Kissen’s anger is righteous and beautiful and so constant that she’s learned to power through the trauma while not ignoring the atrocities she survived. I instantly loved her! But she’s only part of the reason why this is probably my favorite read of the year. Coming in at just under the wire for 2024, too.

I tend to turn to McMaster for my romance reads when I’m on vacation. It’s not planned, it just always tends to happen that way. Her books are always fast, rather light despite the fantasy elements, and always enjoyable. “Heart of Fire” is no different on the score. We follow Freya, an outcast amongst her people for her mismatched eyes and the power she hides, who is desperately trying to care for an ailing father when the dreki, a type of dragon native to Iceland folklore, steals a ram she needs to survive. As the only person to ever challenge the dreki in his lair, he’s instantly intrigued and goes about pursuing Freya. McMaster uses their pursuit as a way to show the reader this new world she is introducing for her series. And, for the most part, she does a great job of teasing out the world building amongst a lot of steamy angst and tension. Until she just… stops?

“The Nine Minute Diner” is a fascinating concept—a novella that focuses on the brief moments before a fatal robbery in a diner from the perspective of the sixteen patrons there at the time. As each person gives their account of events, they explain to the police recorder how the events of their life brought them to that particular diner on that day just before the traumatic events occurred. It’s up to the reader to decide how reliable each narrator is when they both give their account of the crime, and the events of their life up to that moment. While each of the sixteen characters have a distinct personality, not all were necessary as it tended to spread the unifying incident between each character far too thin.

Harrow does a lovely job making the actual house that is Starling House become a living, breathing entity that seems to care for the unwanted things in Eden, like Opal and Arthur. Coiled up within the house is a mystery as to who the Starling’s are, and why they are so steadfast on never ever letting the coal company, run for generations by the Gravely family, have access to their land. But loneliness is an insatiable beast of its own, and when two lonely young adults find themselves in the same orbit, one small act of kindness unleashes the very thing the Wardens of Starling House have been tasked with keeping at bay for generations.