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Cover of Precious Children, by Mary G. Thompson, featuring doll-heads of cherubic blond-haired, blue-eyed boys, with the middle one glowing slightly, against a black background.
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Book Review: Precious Children, by Mary G. Thompson

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I was really impressed by Mary G. Thompson’s dystopic science fiction novel last year, One Level Down. Her new SF novel, Precious Children, shows that she is full of interesting ideas and can explore and execute them really well. I look forward to seeing more from her in the future! From the publisher’s description: A wealthy family trying to cheat death is overmatched—by a stubborn teenager hiding in a body that looks like their son. In this taut tale of genetics and entitlement, nature vs. nurture goes horrifyingly wrong.

Cover of The Night Pool, by Lauren Lee Smith, featuring a female silhouette with long hair in a long dress, with liquid streaming from her clawlike fingers, on the wooded shore of a pond at night, with an owl flying behind her.
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Book Review: The Night Pool, by Lauren Lee Smith

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The Night Pool is a book that’s full of brutality and horror, with the supernatural elements basically secondary to the tragedies and traumas mostly inflicted by white men during the Gold Rush in Conoma, California. Bringing light through this darkness are the female characters who reach out across ethno-cultural divides to support each other in sisterhood. In the end, there is comfort and strength to be found in this novel, despite the sad and terrible things that happen and that are done.

Cover of The Age of Blood and Magic, by Hannah Mathewson, featuring a hand holding a songbird, with fruit and flowers, and blood trickling from the fingernails.
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Book Review: The Age of Blood and Magic, by Hannah Mathewson

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Hannah Mathewson’s The Age of Blood and Magic is a contemporary fantasy where the 0.1% have gotten rich on a new resource: Magic. Billed as “Succession with Vampires”, Hannah Mathewson’s The Age of Blood and Magic actually turns out to be something rather different than what is on the tin. Oh, there are strong elements of Succession, and Vampires do appear, but the “Eat the Rich. Literally” tag isn’t quite what this book is really *about*. 

Cover of A Trade of Blood by Robert Jackson Bennett, featuring a mushroom at the top, an anatomical cutaway drawing of a human head below, and various fungi growing from the sides, with silhouettes of Ana and Din at top left and right, a hanged man at the bottom right, and a woman in a wheelchari and the bottom left.
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Book Review: A Trade of Blood, by Robert Jackson Bennett

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I’m very happy with Robert Jackson Bennett’s A Trade of Blood: An Ana and Din Mystery (Shadow of the Leviathan: Book 3). I’ve had some complaints lately about late-series books that are merely “the further adventures of” their protagonists without advancing their characters or advancing their worldbuilding to any significant degree, but that’s not the situation here. I mean, yes, it’s another episodic book, with Ana and Din solving another murder mystery; however, Bennett also reveals more about how their alchemical-steampunky Empire works (specifically agriculture and animal husbandry, but it’s more interesting and disturbing than expected), and explores more of Din’s alienated family history (more complicated than even he had known)! Additionally, Din himself is undergoing some changes. Also, the case itself is quite intriguing, in some horrifying ways. This is a thoroughly satisfying sequel, which picks up a few plot and character threads from previous books and continues to weave an ever-richer tapestry.

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