Supernatural

This review is based on a complimentary Advanced Reader Copy provided by Berkley. 2026 is only halfway through, but Mackenzie Reed’s adult novel debut I Hope This Email Finds You in Hell is certainly in the running for the most amusing and eye‑catching book title. Mixing bits of office workplace banter with paranormal romance, this book is an accessible and casual adventure turned rescue road trip through hell. Tonally lighthearted while including moderately detailed paranormal fantasy lore, this book is best suited for contemporary romance or chick‑lit/women’s fiction readers looking for some fantasy‑action flavor. However, for veteran SFF readers or those purely invested in romance, the limited detailing and serviceable yet pedestrian romantic beats may leave something to be desired. Demon hunters, office shenanigans, a road trip through hell, oh my! If the title isn’t attention‑grabbing on its own, this book’s premise involving coworkers venturing into the corporate underworld is equally silly and genius. The story has a hilarious and solid start that’s consistently entertaining, with great office‑room banter mixed with familiar contemporary romance beats. Early chapters slightly resemble procedural Supernatural episodes where Sam and Dean Winchester pose as federal agents or office staff and a poor featured character is bewildered…

Fandom culture, celebrity woes, teen heartthrob shows, and nerd-inspired paranormal romance, Fan Service by Rose Danan is a romance novel that’s both light-heartedly fun and relatably honest. Featuring a great premise and a very likable and wholesome FMC, this book is an easy and enjoyable read that smartly incorporates many popular romance tropes while also striving to do more through great queer representation and light socio-political commentary. Despite some reservations with its less impressive portrayal of its MMC and perhaps failing to do more with its compelling story, Fan Service is an otherwise safe and easy romance read with a nice geeky and quirky spin. I will be the first to admit that I’m quite an inexperienced reader when it comes to paranormal romance, this being one of my few forays into the genre and adjacent stories. That said, Fan Service initially caught my eye thanks to its premise of a former teen heartthrob actor teaming up with a jaded yet hardcore life-long fan set around an original tv-show that’s not so subtly inspired by the CW/MTV shows of the late 90’s and early 2000’s. This book is perfectly pitched for millennial readers who grew up during the community forums,…

A modern dark academia urban fantasy story with mysterious hauntings evoked by unsettling moments of déjà vu, Kamilah Cole’s An Arcane Inheritance is a high-concept book that pulls an impressive sleight of hand with its ambitious ideas. A perfect example of a slow burn mystery that is as twisty as it is intelligent, this is a fascinating fantasy book that reads and feels quite different from what its listed genres would suggest. Creative, immersive, and beautifully written, the purposely slow pacing isn’t for everyone nor is its sometimes directionless narrative, but the payoff for those that stick with Cole’s strong storytelling are in for a unique experience and one whose ending suggests a quick re-read on details and clues easily missed. An Arcane Inheritance is a tricky book to talk about and review due to how crucial its major plot twist developments near the end of the story are, requiring the reader to almost fall into its intended sense of familiarity. In a sense, about three quarters of the book is that of its main character Ellory Morgan’s on-campus collegiate school life mixed with mysterious and foreboding paranormal-like occurrences involving familiarity, unknown visions, or conversations that may or may not…

This review is based on a complimentary Advanced Reader Copy provided by Wednesday Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press. A necromancer priestess in foreign territory, a mysterious corpse that isn’t as dead as they should be, and the quest for qi energy across a tense Kingdom under authoritarian control, Deathly Fates has a lot of strong narrative elements in a story inspired by Chinese Taoist mythology. Featuring strong themes such as familial responsibilities, grief/loss, and the corruption of power, Tesia Tsai’s debut novel is a fast-paced and accessible YA fantasy story that has a good mix of adventure, action, age-appropriate spooks and mild horrors involving the dead carried by a very compelling premise. Well-plotted and generally appealing, I personally found this book to be an underwhelming and juvenile in its execution, but is a book with lots of good ideas that is well-suited for young pre-teen readers. The story follows Kang Siying, a young but skilled ganshi priestess who uses talismans to reanimate the dead to return their corpses to their loved ones or to release their spirits from this world. Given the book’s likely intended YA and younger readership, the book follows its summarized blurb and throws the…

A tired and stiff fallen god and a mischievous gumiho that likes to annoy him form an unlikely buddy cop duo in a paranormal murder investigation involving demons, grim reapers, other gumihos, and more. Throw in the potential for the world to plunge into darkness, immortal sibling god rivalry, coffee culture, and you get the overall gist of the God and the Gumiho. Sophie Kim’s adult novel fantasy debut and the first half of a now finished duology, this book is an entertaining urban fantasy story perfectly suited for fans of paranormal kdrama series that deftly weaves together its fantasy romance with a well-plotted serial murder mystery that perfectly walks the line between being lighthearted and fun vs more serious and grave. Heavily inspired by Korean mythological folklore and legend, one of the best elements of this book is Kim’s clever use of these elements within the book’s mostly original story. While this book is sometimes classified as a retelling due to its use of preexisting folklore around Seokga the Trickster god (plus other numerous deities included) and the legend of the Gumiho, the book’s specific paranormal mystery story is largely an original work. I will be the first to…