Saint Death’s Daughter is an elaborate family drama centered around the Stoneses, a line of royal assassins and necromancers. The current necromancer Stones is Miscellaneous Stones, known as Lanie, who grows up isolated from the rest of her family (to keep her safe from their influence, as she’s allergic to death and violence, including mentions and intentions of it) and tormented by her older sister Nita.

The Atlas Six follows six medeians who become candidates to join The Alexandrian Society, a secretive and extremely exclusive organization that invites only the best of the best to join its ranks. After a year of study, five of these six will become members of the Society. The novel focuses on their year of study and the competition that this exclusivity creates among the group as they fight not to be that sixth person, creating alliances and picking sides, taking advantage of the Society’s resources, and attempting to manipulate each other - while at the same time being brilliant medeians experimenting with and studying magic.

Legendborn tries to do a few too many things at the same time, and as a result is a bit messy and inconsistent when it could have been great. Bree Matthews is a gifted high-school student who gets accepted to an “Early College” program at UNC Chapel Hill along with her best friend Alice. She’s excited to attend, but everything changes when her mom dies in a car accident the day after she receives her acceptance. When she arrives at UNC, she’s dealing with her grief, being a Black girl in a mostly white campus - and a secret society of demon hunters called the Legendborn.

This is the best series I’ve read since Green Bone Saga, and it’s not even close. If that’s enough of an endorsement (and it should be), just go read it without knowing anything else.

Cradle of Sea and Soil is a coming-of-age story with a few twists set in a unique world that I wanted to love, but I only mostly liked. The story has two third-person POV characters: Colibrí and her son Narune, both “Halfborn” with island coyote ears and tail who are scorned by the island’s “Trueborn” humans. Despite their status, both of them are proud fighters and do battle against the Stillness, the deadly opposite of the Flows of Creation; and the halja, unnatural, hollow beasts that spawn from the Stillness. At the start of the novel, Narune is beginning to enter adulthood, and he wants to shake off the stereotypes that come with being Halfborn. Unfortunately, these stereotypes are rooted in tragic reality, and his dreams may be harder to achieve than he realizes.

A dark gaslamp fantasy with a unique world and twelve original races, each with its own god, The Thirteenth Hour is worth reading just for its premise and setting. But its characters and plot more than do it justice too, as it follows co-protagonists Kayl and Quen through a reluctant partnership to solve a case that begins as a simple murder mystery and turns into something much, much bigger.

Iron Widow is not a subtle story. Wu Zetian seeks revenge for her sister’s death at the hands of war hero Yang Guang, a Chrysalis pilot who regularly kills female concubine copilots during battle. Only her sister wasn’t killed during battle; instead, he killed her for some unknown reason outside of combat, and her family wasn’t given any monetary compensation as a result. Her family isn’t upset about the death, they’re just upset about the lack of money. Wu Zetian’s upset about the treatment of women in society.

Many reviews on the internet talk about how wonderful Cradle is. I’m going to try and convince you to give it more than the first book by talking about how much I didn’t like the first book yet still loved the entire series, and why you should suffer through the pain that is Unsouled and continue on with this gorgeous progression fantasy epic.