Reading Round-up: January/February 2026

Don’t Sleep with the Dead by Nghi Vo

This was my favorite novella of the year I am pretty sure (yes, it is February; no, I don’t think anything else is going to top it.) While I enjoyed the original book, and you should in fact read that first, I am not a big Gatsby fan. I am a big fan of demon stories that get at what the heart of demons are at their fundament. Anyway, go read it, I love it, I hope it wins awards. (Horror, Historical, LGBTQ+)

What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher

Continuing the chronicles of Alex Easton, the gang heads to Appalachia to investigate a disappearance, only to discover some really weird biology. A lot of fun, and it’s always nice to see Appalachia in fiction that is not being marketed as Appalachian fiction. (Horror, Historical, LGBTQ+)

Dark Waters/Empty Smiles by Katherine Arden

I have wrapped up my reading of the Smiling Man series, and it was a great ride! If you want middle grade fiction that is still spooky, I can heartily recommend. (Middle Grade, Horror)

The Summer Wars by Naomi Novik

This book is everything I wanted from a comfort read. There is a princess in a tower, wonderful sibling love, a dreadful curse, magical fae creatures doing dumb/amazing fae things. Honestly it felt like someone reached right into my heart and pulled out an ideal dream. Of course it’s also a novella, meaning that it came perilously close to knocking Don’t Sleep with the Dead out of the winning seat almost immediately. All I can say is that they are profoundly different books. (Fantasy, LGBTQ+)

A Mouthful of Dust by Nghi Vo

Continuing my read of the Singing Hills Cycle by giving myself an extreme amount of anxiety about the food supply (as opposed to my normal level of anxiety). Anyway, another clever, concise story that reads as a whodunit, bringing it again into the horror camp. I’m not sure which of these has been my favorite so far, they are all quite different, though connected by the same poor central monk. (Horror, Fantasy, LGBTQ+)

Queen Demon by Martha Wells

Martha Wells always surprises me, in a good way, with her work. I bounced off of this book a few times because I had honestly forgotten who all the characters were since Witch King. I rectified this by reading the character glossary and a brief summary of book 1, and then I was off! The sprawling worldbuilding and epic battles combined with intensely personal conflicts and ethics continue to capture what is best in secondary world fantasy. And the themes of this book in particular seem incredibly timely – how does one build a new world without falling into the traps of the old one? (Fantasy, LGBTQ+)