The World Gives Way – What The World Need Now, Is A New Hull

The World Gives Way, a debut novel by Marissa Levien, is a super depressing book that you probably shouldn’t read if you are in a bad place. This standalone story focuses on the idea of coping with your impending death, and not in a peaceful, fulfilled, going silently into the night sort of way. It's…

The Descent of the Drowned Cover

The Descent Of The Drowned – Pull Me Under

I have perfectly curated my Instagram feed to solely feature artists that create book (and Star Wars) fan art. It’s glorious. I love seeing how people bring my favorite characters to life, and I indulge in each unique style and expression. I share this because this is how I discovered The Descent of the Drowned…

The Unbroken – Cracked But Not Shattered

After the absolute tour de force of Winter’s Orbit, I had high hopes for my second Dark Horse debut of the year: The Unbroken, by C.L. Clark. This book is all about picking sides and watching characters choose between a rock and a hard place. It has a colonial African setting, which is delightfully refreshing,…

Winter’s Orbit – A Hot Romance With Subtlety And Gravity

Winter’s Orbit, by Everina Maxwell, surprised me in a lot of ways. For starters, it is one of our Dark Horses for 2021, so I knew almost nothing about it other than its plot synopsis. Then there is the fact that I wasn’t particularly sure I would like Winter’s Orbit given its stated plot. It…

Nophek Gloss – Whimsical, Prickly, And Keen

How is it already November in this forsaken year? With less than a month left before we put out our best of the year lists, our reviewers are hard at work chugging through all the books we wanted to get to before the year's end. Part of that effort involves finishing up outstanding Dark Horses,…

The First Sister – A Little Bit Of Everything, Not Enough Of Something

The First Sister, by Linden Lewis, is an impressively ambitious debut, and one of our dark horses of 2020. Part space opera, part social commentary, part feminist power piece, and part character-driven narrative, this book has a lot of moving pieces in a fairly small page count (350). It feels like a tiny explosion of…

The Space Between Worlds – The Abyss As a Mirror

One of my favorite things about writing for this site is the Dark Horse Initiative. One of the best choices we made this year was to split it into halves to discover even more new authors. It forces me to look for books that interest me but I might hesitate to pick up otherwise. The…