By Astrid Scholte
** Publication Date 3 November 2026 **
4 stars


As the author herself said, this is a gothic novel combined with a fairytale, and she couldn’t be more correct. Fallen Beauty combines all the best things of a fairytale—a beautiful maiden, a handsome prince, a wicked queen—with those elements of a gothic novel—a curse, a castle, a wicked queen and evil king, a villain. 


Thorelea has lived in a high tower all her life. She’s never witnessed the outside. She’s had only her mother for company. Even her mother would disappear now and again, and come back smelling awful. Her mother would tell her that they were in the tower for their own safety. Yet Thorelea longed to leave.


Eventually Thorelea found that her mother was whisked away to paint portraits. Portraits of dead things. Then the paintings would disappear, and her mother would be so tired. One day her mother was taken from the tower forever. Thorelea went on with her painting and her sequestered life. Until one day she, too, was taken from the tower. Then it was all made clear to her. She was to follow in her mother’s footsteps and be the court painter. 


The court painter is rather important to the royalty of Lagonia. On Thorelea’s first night out, she meets Prince Kelter, who is also mortal. During the dinner, the queen is killed by the king. The next morning, Thorelea is taken to a painting room, where the queen sits, alive. It is Thorelea’s job to keep the royal court alive with her paintings, which offer immortality. Only, she will still be a prisoner. Perhaps Prince Kelter will hold the keys to her freedom. 


When I first started this novel, I wasn’t convinced I would enjoy it. Girl locked away in a tower. Mother has a secret. Mother disappears. But as the pages turned, I became more invested in the story, especially once Thorelea left her tower. While this novel definitely has the feel of a fairytale, it is also quite dark and gory. It is a fascinating premise that a painter can keep people alive by painting them back together. Magical, really. But there is such a darkness to this story. The king and queen go beyond evil. The curse that is coming for Lagonia cannot be fought. Overall I have to say I truly enjoyed this one. 


Recommend to those who already like fantasy, romantasy, and a little bit of horror.

By Tara Goedjen
** Publication Date 13 October 2026 **
4 stars
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Austria seems like a great setting for a murder mystery. Especially when it takes place in a former castle. 


Amelia was just a young girl when her mother passed away from cancer. She was sent to live with her Aunt Iris and her cousin Tristan. Iris was a well-known true crime writer, Tristan, just a teenager himself. Tristan became Amelia’s keeper and best friend. 


They’ve traveled to a small town in Austria, the site of unsolved murders from the late 1960s. At the time that the DeLaney family visits the castle, now a hotel, it is somewhat run-down. It is being run by Augustin Aiglar, the son of the late Gitta Aiglar, victim of the murders. The castle feels haunted and dark. Iris is there to write, Amelia and Tristan are going to spend their summer learning German and hanging out with the landscaper’s children, Matteo and Sabine. Tristan is taken with Sabine, and Amelia with Matteo, even though she’s only 13. 


One night during a fundraising gala at the hotel, Tristan limps out of the castle to go down to the hot springs. He’s on crutches from an injury sustained on his skateboard. Amelia chases after him, but doesn’t reach the springs until Tristan is already lowering himself into the water. Augustin appears and starts an altercation with Tristan, and next thing Amelia knows, Tristan is floating face down in the springs. 


Now Amelia is grown and has changed her name to protect her privacy. She’s now Mia. Working as an EMT in Florida, she worries about her Aunt Iris who has retired in Vienna. When Mia finds a job opening working for the women who is going to reopen the hotel in Austria, Mia thinks this is the perfect thing to get her Aunt Iris out of the slump she’s been in. Mia wants to find out the truth about Tristan’s murder. 


Mia is accepted for the job as a nanny and finds herself on a flight to Austria to the place where her life went sideways. 


This book had me turning pages like crazy, wanting to figure out the person responsible for the murders at the castle/hotel. Mia is written as someone who avoids confrontation, yet she turns out to be the perfect heroine to the story. All of the characters seem suspect in one way or another, as most have worked for the hotel for a very long time. It’s a good novel when you might have a suspicion about the actual killer, but you can’t quite pin it down. Fortunately for us, neither can Mia. 


This is a wild ride from the prologue to the end. Very current with true crime podcasts and media all around. It’s a good one that I definitely will recommend.

By Courtney Gould
** Publication Date 13 October 2026 **
4 stars



I remember the first horror movie I ever saw. It was Carrie. My friend’s mom took us to see it, even though we were eleven years old. That began a lifetime of being drawn to the scary, supernatural, unbelievable things that might actually be, if you let yourself believe. 


Paige and KJ have grown up together. Their moms were best friends they grew up in Miami, and Paige and KJ have done the same. Casey, Paige’s mom, and Tess, KJ’s mom, have secrets. When they were about to graduate high school, they were part of a massacre at a resort off the shores of Florida. Casey and Tess were two of five to survive the night at the resort that took the rest of the lives of their classmates and chaperones, and everyone else who was in the resort that night.


Now in college, Paige returns to her hometown for the memorial to be held in honor of those seniors. Paige hopes to run into KJ and mend fences, but she only runs into Tess, who is still angry. Casey went back to the resort, closed since that night and falling into ruin, to try to pay a debt. Casey never returned. 


Tess lets Paige know that KJ has been missing for about a month. Paige is fairly sure that she knows where KJ is, but does she really want to confront the Kaleidoscope after everything it took from her? With two other survivors children in tow, the three go to the resort to try to solve the mystery once and for all.


Reminiscent of The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig, this is a heart-stopping novel. While the first chapter may be mild in many ways, once the Kaleidoscope Resort gets its teeth into the story, it takes off. It’s hard to imagine a run-down resort being the main character of a novel, but in this case, the resort is a living, breathing entity that wants what it wants and takes what it wants. 


Incredibly written with heart and terror, Gould does an incredible job of keeping the threads of this madly winding story together. She gives us a firm grasp of the unknown, the supernatural, and the darkness that this island and resort have become. This novel does not have a happy ending, but the ending is fitting for the tale. 


If you love horror and the unseen, but still malevolent, this novel is for you. Definitely recommend. 

By Zoe Duhaime
** Publication Date 29 September 2026 **
3 stars


I wanted to love this book, truly I did. It is a book about books. It has all the elements of a fairy tale. It has a likable female main character and an insufferable male main character. It is about love and loss. It sounds perfect.


Noon, rather June Clara Bonaventure, is a young woman who grew up in a home in a land not unlike Montreal. Noon, with her mother, Elizabeth, and father, Arial, lived on the third floor. Below them lived Munro Forrest with his mothers, Esperanza and Anjali. On the first floor was Vermillion Forrest, know to all as Millie. Millie owned a bookstore, La Tobaggane, which was where Noon and Munro developed their love of books.


One night they sneak off after Millie and encounter a circus like none other, known as the Spectacular. The Spectacular was a place of immortal people who lived through stories, literally. They entered and exited the real world through stories. Lukjøe was their Captain, and he organized and ran the Spectaculars, including who was invited. Munro and Noon likely shouldn’t have seen what they did, but it fascinated them endlessly. Enough that it becomes Munro’s passion to find it. 


Later in life, when Noon is forced to close her beloved bookstore, she ends up becoming part of the Spectacular, while Munro is a curator of a very unusual museum. Munro has never given up his need to trap the Spectacular, and when he realizes Noon is a part of it, it becomes his complete obsession.


This book was rambling and incoherent for much of the beginning. I didn’t understand anything until well through 20% of it, when I started to put the pieces together. Noon is wonderful. She has a laissez-faire way of dealing with life and loss. Munro, as I’ve said, is not someone very likable. Once you piece together the bits, it really does have some beautiful qualities. The love of books, the jumping through stories, the unusual museum. Duhaime writes with a beautiful hand, but the strings needed to be tied up a tad more cleanly. I’m not sorry I read it, I just wish it had been a bit more coherent. 


Might recommend, might not. It’s both good, and not so good, but it was interesting. 

Sequel to The Weaver Bride
By Lydia Gregovic
** Publication Date 29 September 2026 **
5 stars
I fell in love with this story in the first novel. I never thought that the second book would exceed my expectations. This story gets better and better.


Spoiler Alert: if you haven’t read The Weaver Bride, you might not want to continue reading this review, as I will provide some of the plot points from book one.


We left off with Cecelia Lovett, also known as Lovett Tamerlane, agreeing to marry Noé, even though her heart belonged to Eliot. Lovett needed to marry into the Alaire family to secure her place in society, and to help destroy the Weaver empire. Lovett loathes Noé Alaire, but he is a means to an end for her. Eliot is truly the man that Lovett would love to marry, however, he does not provide a way for her to end the practices of men stealing magic from the silkwitch they’ve wed.


Noé tells Lovett that he loathes her as well, that this partnership is merely to end his father’s reign and change society for the better. However, Bastian Alaire has plans for Lovett, and none of them are good. When he places another requirement upon Lovett before she can walk down the aisle, Lovett is determined to win the battle. Little does she know what horrors await her along the way.


Often sequels are a let down after the initial book. This one is not. The world that the author has created in Balmoore is amazing. It is such a visual novel. You can picture the Alaire home with its tunnels, many passages, and turrets. The characters are multi-layered; Bastian with his ability to read minds is always one step ahead of everyone else; Eliot is beautiful, but crafty and somewhat stoic; Lovett, formerly a liar and thief, has a depth of feelings that weren’t as present in the first novel; and Noé, the entitled prince, comes across as shallow and uncaring, but in this novel has a lot more depth. I can’t find any fault with The False Vow. I couldn’t wait to read it, and I clearly was not disappointed.


Romance, fantasy, YA. Highly recommend, but you must read The Weaver Bride first. 
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