Staff Picks by Tag

Staff Pick Badge
A Deadly Education: A Novel (The Scholomance #1) By Naomi Novik Cover Image
$28.00
ISBN: 9780593128480
Availability: On our shelves now at one or more of our stores
Published: Del Rey - September 29th, 2020

Did Harry Potter make you long to go to Hogwarts? Could you see yourself as part of a House, making lifelong friends, wearing knitted scarves, enjoying feasts and holidays, and maybe even rubbing elbows with the Chosen One? Be warned, the Scholomance is Hogwarts deadlier cousin. A wizarding high school where every day is a battle with lethal creatures, a murderous building and 4000 other teenagers who will do anything to make it to graduation where, if they're lucky, the alliances they've made will allow them to pass the final exam and survive.


Review by Deborah

Staff Pick Badge
The Unwilling By Kelly Braffet Cover Image
$27.99
ISBN: 9780778309406
Availability: Out of stock, usually available in 3-10 days
Published: Mira Books - February 11th, 2020

I picked this up because I wanted a fund diverting fantasy, maybe with a light romance thrown in for flavor. 

Instead I got this dark, convoluted monster of a novel, in which nothing is simple, event the characters you love can be terrible, ad all your expectations are brought into a startling, hideous light.

This book gave me nothing I wanted, but what it gave me instead was much better. It is not for the feint of hearth. Read it


Review by Allie

Staff Pick Badge
Firelight (Darkest London #1) By Kristen Callihan Cover Image
$8.99
ISBN: 9781455508594
Availability: On our shelves now at one or more of our stores
Published: Forever - February 1st, 2012

This paranormal romance series hooked me to the Romance genre once and for all. The Darkest London series follows three sisters and their various supernatural acquaintances in Victorian England. There's adventure, there's horrible deeds, there's heroes lurking in the dark - all framed by a magical investigative organization that's as old as it is secret. It's like Gail Carriger's Soulless series but with more fabled creatures and very steamy couplings. 


Review by Danielle

Staff Pick Badge
The Ballad of Black Tom By Victor LaValle Cover Image
$13.99
ISBN: 9780765387868
Availability: On our shelves now at one or more of our stores
Published: Tordotcom - February 16th, 2016

What an angry and satisfying story. Apart from creating a compelling and morally ambiguous character worthy of his own series, Lavalle serves up a rebut to the xenophobia writhing in the depths of the Lovecraft mythos. This book made me hold up foot traffic on the way to the store, demanding that I finish the heartbreaking chapter before I took another step. J'adore. 


Review by Dean