Strap in! I read over 50 books this past year (a personal high since I started recording!) so here are three sentence summaries/pitches for what each book has to offer. These are listed in order of when I finished them. Many of the books have longer reviews on the blog (here and here (and here next week)) that you can check out, or take a look at my Goodreads, which has my star ratings and more reviews! Buckle up!
Cinder: Steampunk Cinderella retelling. Great main character and love interest. Compelling plot and actual good plot twists/reveals.
Skin of the Sea: Mermaid saves a boy who falls of a slave ship and must help him get home. Great usage of African mythology and culture. Wonderful world building and decent romance.
Onyx Storm: Third book in the series (and unfortunately the worst). Fun if you like dragons and smut and lots and lots of confusing travelling. Overrated imo but not the worst thing you could read.
Fairy Tale: Stephen King wrote a fantasy! Great book if you love when the dog lives. Lots of really cool nods/references to classic fairy tales.
The Rules of Royalty: Princess diaries but they’re both boys! Fun LGBTQ take on an already fun story. Sweet, enjoyable fun, a bit cliche though.
Blood of Elves: Epic fantasy with super warriors, a princess without her crown, and magic. Read it in like, three days, I was so engrossed. Character named Dandelion.
Pet Sematary: Spooky and uncomfortable. Don’t read if you like cats or children. Really haunting and an actual good ending for a King book.
The Shining: A classic for a reason. Watch a man go insane because of a spooky hotel. Different from the movie but both are really great.
A Sorceress Comes to Call: Watch a girl overthrow her evil narcissist mom. Interesting uses of magic. A retelling of a fairy tale I had never heard of.
An Enchantment of Ravens: My favorite guilty pleasure read. A human painter falls in love with a fae prince (against the rules!). They have to navegate the fae laws and find a way to survive.
Skyward: A girl wants to become a fighter pilot to prove she and her father are not cowards. Cool alien enemies. Talking ship who loves mushrooms.
Carrie: Poor girl finally gets one good night before it all comes crashing down. Trauma and abuse react with telepathic powers. Everyone pays.
Dune: A doozy of a science fiction book. Easier to read if you’ve seen the movie. Baffling and intriguing all at once.
Misery: An author gets kidnapped by a crazed superfan and she tortures him. He has to write her a new book in order to stay alive. Suspenseful and dramatic.
The Honey Witch: Girl goes to live with her grandmother and become a witch/guardian of a special island. Fun usage of spells and potions. Pretty good queer romance, too.
The Tommyknockers: Stephen King wrote a sci-fi while he was on coke. A UFO becomes uncovered and starts taking over the minds of a small town. Everyone likes batteries and is smart but dumb at the same time.
The Spellshop: Girl runs away from revolution while smuggling magical tomes. Builds a new life for herself, learning to use some of the magic. Cute cozy world.
World War Z: Series of short stories about the zombie apocalypse. Gathered as stories a reporter collected. Really great scenarios and worldview.
Red Rising: Boy turns into the ship of Theseus (metaphorically) in order to invade the upper echelon of society and break them from the inside. Great politics and schemes. Well written characters and unique world.
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries: Curmudgeonly scholar goes on a research expedition to learn more about fae. She’s thwarted by her lack of people skills and social ineptitude. Luckily, her rival comes to save the day and help her out.
Gallant: Deaf orphan who can see ghouls gets a letter inviting her to her family’s home. There’s a secret second house in the shadows. She must solve the mystery of what happened to her parents.
Darkstalker: Backstory for the dragon version of Darth Vader. Has good intentions but tragically loses his way. Great characters and worldbuilding for fans of the series.
Sunrise on the Reaping: Haymitch backstory is as sad as it gets. Great new view of the world of Panem and District 12. Shows that the rebellion started long before Katniss joined the scene.
Where the Dark Stands Still: A girl makes a deal with a demon in order to get rid of her magic. She learns to harness it instead. She uncovers a mystery about the demon and needs to save the day.
Our Infinite Fates: A girl needs to save her sister before she’s killed by her immortal soulmate/rival, who kills her in every life. Race against the clock and her fate. Mystery about why he kills her and why they’re connected.
Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands: Emily and her rival turned lover, Wendell, adventure once again to learn how to reclaim his fae kingdom. More fae friends and mythology. Introduces more great human characters.
Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales: Emily and Wendell attempt to reclaim his kingdom. Emily worries about the past repeating itself. Really cool experience seeing the fae world vs human world in the series.
The Rose Bargain: Bridgerton but with fae. The queen starts a brutal competition to pick a suitor for her son. Meanwhile, a plot is being made to overthrow the fae queen for good.
Hyperion: A series of travelers take a final pilgrimage to the mysterious and dangerous planet Hyperion. Each chapter is a new backstory for each character. Great world building and unique stories for each character.
Gideon the Ninth: Lesbian necromancers in space. A competition to become one of the Emperor’s elite necromancers. Hilarious writing and great characters.
A Fragile Enchantment: Seamstress gets hired to design the clothes for a royal wedding. Romance antics ensue. Kinda poor worldbuilding and main character.
A Cosmology of Monsters: A family haunted by monsters for generations. Should they get to know the monster or try to avoid it? What happens when it gets too close?
The Hunger Games: We all know this one. Bloodbath of teenagers. Girl volunteers in order to save her sister and accidentally starts a rebellion.
The Midnight Library: Imagine getting to relive all the choices you regret not taking. At the midnight library, you can! Woman in her midlife crisis gets the chance to explore how differently her life could have gone.
Don’t Let the Forest In: Two high schoolers haunted by their past and what lurks in their minds. Well written queer romance. Dark and deliciously disturbing.
Wooing the Witch Queen: Good romantasy starring an ‘evil’ queen and a runaway archduke. Cozy castle library vibes. Good play on the identity revealed trope.
Catching Fire: What if the Hunger Games were worse? More great characters. Small acts of rebellion can make a difference.
Mockingjay: How do we win the fight and rebuild even stronger? Great exploration of strength vs trauma. Wonderful ending to the trilogy.
The Thirteenth Child: Thirteenth child promised to a god. She has the power to heal any ailment, but the burden of killing those deemed dangerous. What happens if she disobeys her godfather?
Upon a Starlit Tide: Cinderella and The Little Mermaid reimagined. High quality love triangle. Journey of self discovery and acceptance.
Wings of Starlight: Pixie Hollow star-crossed lovers. Has some good parts, like the world building. Falls short with the characters and romance.
Revival: The power of religion and science all together. A priest and his ability to heal with electricity. What will knowledge drive us to do?
When the Tides Held the Moon: A circus story about saving those trapped within it. A caged merman falls in love with the boy who built his prison. Found family, queer characters, and great POC rep.
Cujo: Rabid dog kills lots of people over a weekend. The struggle of a mother trapped in a hot car with her son. What will kill them first: the heat, or the dog?
In the Lives of Puppets: Futuristic Pinocchio retelling with robots and the last human on earth. Hilarious cast of characters who go on a journey together. Nice ace representation.
The Teller of Small Fortunes: Magical fortune teller gathers a group of traveling misfits as they travel the land looking for a missing child. Found family in its finest. DnD style shennanegains and magic.
Homegrown Magic: The heir of a rich family decides to run off and stumbles into their childhood friend and crush. they start to work together in her greenhouse, rekindling their friendship and maybe more. But both of them have things they’re hiding from one another…
Heartless Hunter: After witches are criminalized and hunted, a witch uses her magic to save her kind from. She gets close to a captain of the guard in order to gain intel. But he’s getting close to her since he suspects her identity.
Rebel Witch: Sequel to Heartless Hunter. Rune and Gideon navigate their rivalry turned romance and their goals that may not be as different as they seem. Which side will win, witch, or witch hunter?
The Long Walk: 100 boys join a competition with one main rule. Walk or Die. Humanity is reflected in these boys as we see the best and worst life has to offer.
The End of the World as We Know It: Side stories in the world of The Stand. A lot of people have dreams and a lot of bad things happen. Very repetitive with some good gems.
Insomnia: A air of old people can’t sleep and get magic powers. They need to stop a terrorist from killing a pro-choice speaker. The dogs dies.
The Aeronaut’s Windlass: Flying ships powered by crystals of magical energy. A war is started between two spires. A grizzled captain and a handful of teens (and a cat!) need to save the day
Half a Soul: A young girl has half her soul stolen by a fae noble. As an adult with only half her emotions, she accompanies her cousin who is seeking a suitor. But maybe she’ll find a suitor of her own.
Golden Son: Sequel to Red Rising. A war starts, splitting the solar system between the forces of Mars and those of Luna. Darrow makes some really good decisions and some really dumb ones.
Bane Witch: A woman fakes her death to leave her shitty husband but learns she’s a magical assassin of sorts. She eats plants to feed the poison to dangerous men. And I guess there’s some romance.
Morning Star: As if it couldn’t get worse for Darrow. Awesome fights and great politics. A satisfying ending to the trilogy and a world that offers so much more.
Legends and Lattes: Cozy AF. A retired mercenary wants to start a coffee shop. Her determination and allies are what makes everything possible.
The Enchanted Greenhouse: Woman awakens from a curse on a mostly abandoned island. She agrees to study the magic of the failing greenhouses. Cozy, fun, exactly what it promises.
Wow! That was a lotta books! For this year, I’m still aiming for 50 as my baseline goal, but reaching 75 would be extra special.
I had a lot of fun writing these! Obviously there is so much more to them than just these three simple sentences. Seriously, check pretty much any of these books out. They all have something going for them. If you want my top and bottom five, check out my insta post below.
Welcome to 2026 everyone! I hope this year is full of great reading and writing and creating for us all.
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