dawn.vogel | March 26, 2025
Cursed Shards: Tales of Dark Folklore, edited by Leanbh Pearson (IFWG Publishing International, 2024), is an anthology with ten stories that each contain a shard of a broken mirror at the core of their premise. Some stories touch on well-known folklore, while others use more obscure myths and legends as their core. The stories are […]
dawn.vogel | March 5, 2025
P. A. Cornell’s Lost Cargo (Mocha Memoirs Press, 2022) is an exciting sci-fi novella with elements of thrillers and personal horror. The shorter length makes the stakes high for the characters but also gives it a nicely compact feeling. Parker and five other survivors crash land on a terraformed moon in a one-in-a-million odds accident. They’re […]
dawn.vogel | February 12, 2025
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune (Tor, 2020) is a lovely novel of bureaucracy, music, and found family. With a marvelous cast of characters and occasionally hilarious side comments, it weaves a cozy tale with secrets and a reasonable amount of peril. Linus Baker is a caseworker with the Department in Charge […]
dawn.vogel | January 22, 2025
Vanessa Ricci-Thode’s The Young Necromancer’s Guide to Ghosts (2024) is a young adult novel set within her Fireborn universe, filled with dragons and magic. It’s a charming and sweet look at sisters, found family, grief and loss, and necromancy! Lusi and Marsi lost their mother when Lusi was born, and though their father remarried, he has […]
dawn.vogel | January 1, 2025
Cristina Jurado’s ChloroPhilia (originally published in Spanish as CloroFilia in 2017; English edition, Apex Book Company, 2025) is a dystopian novella with elements of body and post-apocalyptic horror, with a strong focus on the characters. The novella opens with a pair of prologue chapters that introduce the reader to the situation in the world and an unnamed […]
dawn.vogel | December 11, 2024
LH Moore’s Breath of Life (Apex Book Company, 2024) is a gorgeous collection of Black-centered stories and poetry, with a substantial amount of horror and historical fiction, often in the same story! Most of my favorite stories were, of course, the historical ones. “A Little Not Music,” set in 1939 in Washington, D.C., is a dark […]
dawn.vogel | November 20, 2024
Jamie Lackey’s Toil and Trouble (2024) is a delightful retelling of Pride and Prejudice that integrates witchcraft and LGBTQ+ characters seamlessly into the Regency setting, offering a fresh take on the Austen classic. The book opens with Mrs. Bennet making a deal with a witch–in exchange for her daughters Lizzie and Mary, her fifth child will be […]
dawn.vogel | October 30, 2024
Yaroslav Barsukov’s Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory (CAEZIK SF & Fantasy, 2024) is an expansion of his novella, “Tower of Mud and Straw,” which I reviewed previously. Now as a full length novel, the story expands beyond its earlier constraints and plays more with the theme of memories in this fantastical world! The original novella […]
dawn.vogel | October 9, 2024
Alex Kingsley’s Empress of Dust (Space Wizard Science Fantasy, 2024) is an amazingly compelling post-apocalyptic fantasy novel with magnificent worldbuilding and wonderful characters, including several LGBTQIA+ and non-human characters! Harvard is a scavenger of the wasteland and “dusts” surrounding the walled city of Bastion, but he’s the weakest member of his crew, the Ivies, and […]
dawn.vogel | September 11, 2024
The Strange Locations anthology, edited by Marissa Van Uden (Apex Book Company, 2024), is a limited release collection of dark speculative travel guides told in microfiction format. Tiny and beautifully crafted, each of these thirty brief tales hints at a larger story of an unusual place. There were a few pieces that really stood out […]
