This review was first published in and is reposted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
​Romance, intrigue and betrayal saturate One for My Enemy, a twisty urban fantasy from Olivie Blake (The Atlas Six). Baba Yaga's Artisan Apothecary is only part of the Antonova family's business interests, and both their luxury serums and their illegal intoxicants are the result of their magical gifts. For many years--since Baba Yaga refused to marry their patriarch, Koschei the Deathless--they have been rivals of the Fedorov family. A conflict breaks out when a Fedorov encroaches upon the magical drug market, and a cold war becomes a blood feud between the family heirs. When the youngest of each family's grown children, Sasha and Lev, meet, they are immediately attracted to each other, and Romeo and Juliet doesn't begin to convey the level of complications possible when the two houses in question have magic and otherworldly allies at their disposal.
Blake packs a complex family feud with a history that goes back years into an action-packed tale of magical intrigue that never slows. She vividly portrays the bonds among parents, siblings and lovers, whether they hold or fray, and her occasional use of well-timed flashbacks helps to maintain momentum. Depending on their ability to remember multiple nicknames for characters, readers may want to take notes and refer to the dramatis personae pages at the front of the book. But this web of love, deceit and revenge will keep them on the edge of their seats. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library

This review was first published in and is reposted with permission from Shelf Awareness. 
​A rich Gilded Age setting grounds a vivid historical fantasy world in The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill by Rowenna Miller (Torn). The veil is thin on Prospect Hill, and for generations the farmers there have offered trades with the fairies to improve a crop, create good luck, or ensure good weather for an important day.
The old ways are fading with the arrival of railways and factories, but at Orchard Crest, the family still knows the value of being a little "superstitious." Keep the old bargains, stay away from the tree that serves as the gate to the fairy realm, and don't mess with fairy rings--or somebody might get themselves trapped in a bargain they didn't understand. Alaine tends the farm while her husband works in town, and her younger sister, Delphine, marries a man from the city in hopes of carving out a new kind of life for herself. But when Alaine learns Delphine's plans to be a society wife are going disastrously wrong, she begins to take risks negotiating with the fairies in new ways.
The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill weaves a heartfelt story of sisterly love with well-developed fairy lore, and depicts the growing spheres of power for women in the years before suffrage. Fans of Ami McKay's The Witches of New York and H.G. Parry's A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians will be enthralled. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library

This review was first published in and is reposted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
​The ghosts of buried abuse and other personal tragedies haunt a retired police officer in the elegiac Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry (A Thousand Moons; Days Without End; The Temporary Gentleman). Tom Kettle has been off the police force for nine months, living quietly in his home overlooking the Irish Sea, when two officers arrive asking questions about an unsolved murder case from decades in the past, which has risen to attention in an investigation of abusive priests. The cold case takes Tom back to his honeymoon and the secrets his wife confided to him about the abuse she survived.
Barry's work often deals with Irish immigrants and their roles in the tides of history, but his rich prose works on a more intimate scale. Tom's failing and sporadic memories inhabit a stream of consciousness that, despite its meandering nature, remains accessible to readers; the ride is smooth, even though one is never quite sure what's beyond the next bend. Along with the rampant sexual abuse of children by priests throughout the decades, Tom wrestles with grief over other tragedies that have touched his family; Barry slowly metes these out to readers as Tom assists with the case and navigates the other mysteries of retirement, such as the actress who recently moved in nearby, and the question of her relationship to the older man sometimes seen with her. Lingering on themes of memory, grief and justice, Old God's Time is a lyrical Irish tragedy. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library