The witch has her say about the story of Rapunzel in The Book of Gothel, the layered historical fantasy debut from Mary McMyne. Haelewise has suffered fainting spells since her childhood; her mother tries every remedy she knows to cure them, even allowing her father to take her for repeated exorcisms. No matter how much talent Haelewise shows as an apprentice midwife to her mother, the rest of the village fears her, even considering her skills to be cause for more suspicion. She finds, not long after her mother's death, that she is no longer safe in her village. She sets off in search of a tower, one from her mother's stories, in which only women can find refuge. But along with the tower she discovers a secret sisterhood, which she will need for traveling to convents and castles to keep safe.
McMyne skillfully combines folklore and history with prose that showcases her work as a poet. Although she takes the fairy tale "Rapunzel" as a source, she has crafted it into a world all her own, featuring historical figures such as Hildegard of Bingen, grounded in its own stories and religions--and with just enough detail. This story is complete, but if McMyne wanted to write more about Haelewise's life or a book from the perspective of another resident of the tower, she would have ample room to explore further.
Readers who enjoyed Circe by Madeline Miller, Wicked by Gregory Maguire and the Avalon series by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Diana L. Paxson will be well-pleased. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library
This review was first published in and is reposted with permission from Shelf Awareness.

This review was first published in and is reposted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
Three narratives come together across the decades to examine the question of how the stories we tell ourselves affect our lives in Who You Might Be, the thoughtful debut novel from Leigh N. Gallagher.
In the late 1990s in California, 14-year-old friends Judy and Meghan run away for the weekend to visit Cassie, Meghan's friend from a chat room on eating disorders. When they arrive, they discover that Cassie is not there. Furthermore, her diary suggests she is not the glamorous older girl they were expecting--and she may not have been the one they were chatting with at all. Readers learn in alternating chapters that Cassie is also on a trip. All three girls learn about quotidian dangers and relationships that fall short of what they want them to be. At the same time, Miles and his older brother, Caleb, who has just graduated from high school, are unmoored when their family moves to Ann Arbor, Mich. Caleb stumbles into the Detroit graffiti scene, bringing along his new friend, Tez, and Miles. As the relationships among the three shift, a sudden act of violence changes all of their lives forever.
All of these threads entwine 20 years later in New York City. While readers may wish that some aspects of the earlier timeline were more fully tied up or further explored, those characters who return vividly demonstrate the lingering effects of their teenage traumas and the stories they'd told themselves to address them. Gallagher's debut establishes her as one to watch. --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 remote community of outcasts, human and otherwise, is upended by the arrival of a young nobleman in The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, the lush, anti-imperialist reimagining of The Island of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Velvet Was the Night; Mexican Gothic).
Montgomery Laughton comes to Yaxaktun, Doctor Moreau's isolated estate in Mexico's Yucatán peninsula, to take a job as its mayordomo and as the latest step in his aimless journey to escape his past. He discovers that, apart from the doctor, Yaxaktun is populated by his devoted daughter, Carlota, and the hybrids, combinations of humans and animals created by Moreau's experiments. His patron, Hernando Lizalde, hopes that Moreau will produce hybrids for labor on his ranch to replace the locals he finds too rebellious. For six years the experiments continue, Laughton works for Moreau and Carlota matures. Then Lizalde becomes impatient with Moreau's progress and his son Eduardo encounters Carlota, setting off a chain of events that will change everything.
Moreno-Garcia's tale unfolds slowly, with little in the way of action until after the jump in time. But the setting of the stage at the wild, beautiful estate and the careful parceling out of the central characters' secrets is essential to establishing the gothic tone at the heart of the novel and showing readers how Carlota could easily become either her father's successor or his downfall. Fans of classic science fiction adventure, gothic suspense and fairy-tale reinterpretations, such as Naomi Novik's Uprooted, will find much to admire here. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library