I LOVED Spin the Dawn, it was one of my favorite books when I first read it, which set up exceedingly high expectations for the sequel, I will admit. Unravel the Dusk starts off almost immediately from where its predecessor leaves off, with Maia trying to save her kingdom by ensuring the emperor marries Lady Sarnai, but of course Sarnai has other plans. When she runs off, Maia has to step into her shoes and hope no one notices, which isn’t even a good plan on paper given how widely different in temperament both these women are. When the emperor’s foes wage war in force again, it’s left to Maia to find a way to save her country, which becomes harder and harder as she loses her internal battle against the demon inside of her. Gone is the fun plot line from the first book where Maia learns to wield her magic scissors to weave garments worthy of the gods, and instead is replaced by demon magic that, I felt, got overly repetitive.

“Candlewick 13: Curse of the McRavens” is the whimsical story of Valor McRaven, a Sorcerer in hiding on an island nation full of “normal” witches. These witches despise Sorcerers, mainly due to the fact that the Grim Warlock has placed a spell over the nation to ensure that the Knight of Night can’t undue the dastardly plans that he’s trying to enact. Early in the story, Valor and his entire family are tossed into a sanatorium-like prison, where dark forces are constantly trying to get rid of Valor, all ahead of the unwinnable tournament that Valor has been selected to partake in. With the help of his adopted sister, Doomsy Gloomsy, and a group of misfits, Valor must accept his role as the leader of their coven, and stop the Grim Warlock before he can enact his plan for the terrible Thirteenth Hour. But first, Valor has to survive this tournament. It’s an exciting Middle Grade fantasy adventure for sure, but I struggled with the story.

I am so impressed with this series. Each time I read a Murderbot Diary I think: “THIS! This must be the pinnacle, no way can the next book top this one!” And I am always, joyously, proven wrong. Murderbot is once again hit with complex emotions over non-fictional humans as it rushes back to help MB’s first group of (favorite) humans before GreyCris can get Dr Mensah to shut up for good about their illegal, murderous activities. Honestly, I didn’t know how much I missed Murderbot interacting with this original crew until the reality of them reuniting was upon me. So many sounds of joy were uttered while reading this novella!

Here we are, the fourth book into SJM’s epic YA fantasy, and this has consistently been one of those series that I’ve been… unsure about the whole time. I’m definitely in the minority with not really falling in love with this series from book one, but I kept giving it chances because people so adore Aelin and her court. In “Queen of Shadows”, Aelin has returned to Adarlan to free her cousin and find out what happened to those left behind as the King devolves into more and more atrocities against his people, and more demons inhabit the bodies of the soldiers. Told in parts, we follow not just Aelin, but get the perspective of several familiar characters: Chaol, Manon, and Dorian (poor Dorian…) to name a few. But we also get the POV of several new characters as well such as Lysandra and Elide, which partially accounts for the sheer size of this book, but it does not account for the reason why it took me so long to finish it.

“The History of Us” follows Andrea and Dustin in a dual POV tale as a shared betrayal brings these ex high school sweethearts back together. Andrea and Dustin first met when Andrea’s father represented Dustin and his siblings after a tragic event took their parents from them at a young age, and once the two met, the rest, as they say, is history. Thrust back together over a decade later, the two must examine how and why they broke up so suddenly in their senior year, and get past their own misgivings and hurts toward the other in order to track down a thief who took advantage of both Dustin’s family, and Andrea by stealing her father’s—suffering from Alzheimer’s disease—prized coin collection. As far as second chance romances go, which can be tricky depending on why the couple broke up to begin with, this one really hits the sweet spot.