Book review: Someone You Can Build A Nest In by John Wiswell

Posted on March 10, 2026 by Lynne M. Thomas

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The cover of Someone You Can Build A Nest In by John Wiswell. Depicts Shesheshen, an all-black tentacled monster wearing a witch hat, with Homily a human woman, lit by firelight in the foreground.

This is one of those novels I’m finally getting around to in my overly large TBR. And I’m glad I did.

For a story ostensibly about a generations-long battle between a monster and a family trying to destroy a monster, this is incredibly sweet. And cozy. It worked as bedtime reading.

Yes, Shesheshen is a shape-shifting monster who consumes humans. Shesheshen is also awkward, ill-at-ease, taciturn, and really just wants to be left alone. But as the resident monster in her area, that’s not a possibility. The local family in charge wants her dead, and periodically sends assassins to her lair.

Then, after being injured, Shesheshen meets a human named Homily. And now Shesheshen is having a whole lot of feelings about a human, and is making distinctions between humans in general and Homily in specific. Shesheshen begins to shift her approach –and her sense of self — as this relationship blossoms.

As the story unfolds, we see repeatedly that the humans in the story are the *actual* monsters. While I’m generally not a body horror person, this novel makes it manageable (think along the lines of T. Kingfisher), and the sweetness of the care that Shesheshen and Homily put into learning to build their relationship together when neither of them have had healthy models AT ALL for that is a delight.

Highly recommended. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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It’s here! The Infinite Loop is published!

Posted on March 6, 2026 by Lynne M. Thomas
The cover for The Infinite Loop: Archives and Time Travel in the Popular Imagination, by Lynne M. Thomas and Katy Rawdon. The title information is in a white band across the center; the top and bottom contain a bright salmon-pink rondule graphic that repeats.
The cover for The Infinite Loop: Archives and Time Travel in the Popular Imagination, by Lynne M. Thomas and Katy Rawdon. The title information is in a white band across the center; the top and bottom contain a bright salmon-pink rondule graphic that repeats.

ALA put out an official press release!

From the release:

“The Infinite Loop: Archives and Time Travel in the Popular Imagination engages archivists and devotees of science fiction alike by exploring common tropes within the genre—and common assumptions in the archival profession—and providing context. Presenting a book that can serve as a teaching text, readers’ advisory guide, and thought-provoking page turner, Lynne M. Thomas and Katy Rawdon:

-connect the concepts in their book to cultural heritage practices that encourage critical thinking about archivists’ roles in documenting our times.

-explore dozens of novels, short stories, movies, and TV series (particularly Doctor Who), spotlighting different science fictional approaches to writing about time travel while pointing out how archives and archivists are represented in different time travel stories;

-examine how various cultures and societies view and understand time differently, using works such as Octavia Butler’s ”Kindred,” Toshikazo Kawaguchi’s ”Before the Coffee Gets Cold,” and Rivers Solomon’s ”An Unkindness of Ghosts” to show how differences in temporal perception affect the presentation of time travel in their works;

-look at stereotypes, outdated views, and biases depicted within time travel depictions of archives, comparing these portrayals with real-world archives and historical records;

-discuss ways in which understanding time travel fiction can help archivists improve their relationships with the public and encourage more accurate fictional depictions of their work; and

-connect the concepts in their book to cultural heritage practices that encourage critical thinking about archivists’ roles in documenting our times.”

Katy and I are super proud of our work on this book. We’re deeply grateful to Connie Willis for her foreword, and to Bethany and Amy, our editors, for getting us through the process.

You can snag a copy at the ALA store (or suggest that your library purchase one!)

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Book review: Rebel of the Regency by Ann Foster

Posted on February 23, 2026 by Lynne M. Thomas
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The cover of Rebel of the Regency by Ann Foster, featuring a white woman in a white regency dress wearing a fetching hat with bright red and black flowers on it. The title is written in a font that recalls paint/graffiti.

I received this as an eARC via Netgalley.

This is a well-researched yet accessibly written popular history of Caroline of Brunswick. Rebel of the Regency re-inserts Caroline into a historical narrative where she is and has been routinely erased. And, as is right and proper, Prinny comes out looking like the absolute jerkface that he was absolutely thoroughly documented to have been.

The author uses a fair amount of popular cultural references as touchstones and parallels to make Regency politics more understandable. It’s very much framed as “here’s the hot goss about what happened with Queen Caroline” but that doesn’t move it away from being eminently readable and enjoyable. Yes, it’s absolutely Team Caroline if one needs to take sides. Caroline comes off as a likeable yet still flawed human, which is far better a portrait than has traditionally been attributed to her, when she’s acknowledged at all in histories of the Regency that don’t treat her as a footnote/inconvenience.

This is perfect for fans of Bridgerton and other Regency romance (from Austen to Milan and more) who want more actual historical background on the period, and to read about a Queen who had rather 21st century sensibilities in many ways, despite being born in the late 18th.

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Book review: The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst

Posted on February 21, 2026 by Lynne M. Thomas
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the cover of The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst. It features a gently lit cottage surrounded by brambles and flowers.

This is a warm hug in the shape of a book. Durst noted in her acknowledgements that she hoped to write something that felt like drinking the good hot chocolate, and she absolutely succeeded.

This is perfect bedtime reading. Just enough peril to keep it interesting, but at levels that still let you sleep. I used it as my bedtime reading, and it worked beautifully for wind-down.

Think of it as a Hallmark film, but with fantastical/magical elements that aren’t Christmas related, and you’ll get the tone about right.

Kiela is a librarian in the capital city of the empire. She’s got a sidekick named Caz who is a magical talking spider plant. Kiela just wants to do her library work, talking to as few people as possible while caring for magical tomes that she’s legally forbidden from casting spells from. Unfortunately, there’s a rebellion against the corrupt empire, and the library burns. Kiela saves as many of the magical books that she can, and flees to Caltrey, her home island.

She thinks she’ll settle down quietly in her childhood home on Caltrey, hide, and be left alone. She’s wrong about that in several ways, and the point of this book is Kiela learning that she doesn’t have to do everything herself. She becomes part of the Caltrey community. She finds Larran, a cinnamon roll of a guy who literally shows up with cinnamon rolls in his first appearance. He has carpentry skills, and he helps wrangle the local merhorses. She finds her mom’s old cookbook, and opens a jam shop using her mom’s recipe. So, yes, she leaves the Big City and Returns Home to learn the meaning of Community. Just like in a Hallmark movie.

The community of characters is delightful, and if you need a “neighbors take care of neighbors” moment right now, this has all the reassurance and hope you could need.

Highly recommended.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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Book review: Humans: A Monstrous History by Surekha Davies

Posted on February 3, 2026 by Lynne M. Thomas
A bright red/orange background featuring a central mirror surrounded by silhouettes.

Read this as part of my exhibition prep. This is an engagingly written look at all of the different ways in which humans turn each other into monsters, how we handle difference, and how slippery the whole concept of “monster” can be. It’s a historical exploration of the idea of difference, and of monstrosity, and it looks at these things with a global outlook, and a commitment to noting where things like colonialist power play into monstrification. This is a holistic approach, not a linear one, so you will find yourself wandering around the world and timelines a bit as you read, but this is a feature, not a bug, as it thematically lays out all of the different ways that humans keep re-cycling through the process of pointing fingers and saying “you are different” and what our reactions to that experience are… and can be instead.

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Book review: Bound by the Blood by Cecilia Tan

Posted on February 2, 2026 by Lynne M. Thomas
A red cover with white and gold script, featuring an ornate dagger.

I read this as an eARC direct from the author.

I’ve been a fan of Tan’s work for years. Yes, she’s really good at the smut part as a general rule, even when the specific type of smut in question may not hit one’s personal smut buttons. As one might surmise from the title, this particular story emphasizes blood play, so if that’s Not For You, you are forewarned. I would characterize it as being on a par with some of the more intense vampire fiction I’ve read, if you need a sense of just how much blood we’re talking about; not to the point of, say, body horror by any means.

What drives this story is two things: the urge to save the world, and the relationship between Mira and Clive. Both of these are rendered with both urgency and tenderness, and Tan once again creates compelling characters who care deeply about one another, and about their choices, in a novel that was an absolute page turner.

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Book review: How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay

Posted on November 27, 2025 by Lynne M. Thomas
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A picture of a slightly unhinged looking crocheted toy bear in a striped onesie where the stuffing is coming out of it vertically at the neck, on a blue background with confetti.

I received this as an eARC from NetGalley. I’ve enjoyed several of her other books, so when I saw a new one was coming, I snagged it immediately and plowed through it. Preorder link.

I grew up on the Muppets, and it warped/shaped enough of my personality and sense of humor that when I find a Muppet in human form who writes, I’m going to read the shit out of it. When my brain is not cooperating, I will liken it to three over-caffeinated squirrels in a trench coat. It won’t shut the fuck up, no matter how much I need it to. Jenny’s prose style frames that feeling like a superpower rather than a drawback. This book made me feel better just by being willing to be that weirdo friend that will sit with me when I am also feeling like I am that weirdo friend. The thing about that weirdo friend is that I can be that weirdo friend for myself, too.

Not every tip and trick will work for me, and that is FINE. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that for the length of this book, I felt like I wasn’t alone in my weirdness, my struggles to function some days, and in the attempts to motivate myself that only make sense in my own brain and no one else’s.

If you, too, have a brain that never shuts the fuck up, Jenny’s work is for you. At the very least, you will find new and inventive ways to convince yourself that you’re allowed to occasionally win the arguments, try something new, or just chill for once.

Highly recommended.

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Book review: The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez

Posted on November 25, 2025 by Lynne M. Thomas

I received this anniversary edition as an eARC via Netgalley.

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A somewhat abstract silhouette of a woman surrounded by plants in shades of blue with a red moon and gown.

This is a great example of a novel that I read back in college closer to when it was initially published, but revisiting it again is a significantly greater pleasure. When it came out it was groundbreaking, and this edition acknowledges that. I remember reading this and liking it, but beyond Lesbian! Vampires! I didn’t remember a whole lot about beyond “it was good.” I remember it being sold as erotic for its time, too, although on re-read it is nowhere near as spicy as current approaches to vampire erotica by a mile. Not quite fade-to-black, but it’s not super-explicit by any means.

Plot wise, this is a bildungsroman story of a young girl who escapes from slavery, becomes a vampire, and lives for a few hundred years. While it’s not strictly first-person, think of it as “Interview with the Vampire” but not as horror: with a protagonist who is actually thoughtful, caring, and careful in her choices. I mean, Lestat is fun and all, but do you really want to hang out with him? Hell, no. He’s a sociopath. Gilda, though…she is a character that you want to spend time with. These vampires have an actual moral code and approach to existing that is focused on trying to find ways to co-exist, meet needs, and minimize harm. Gilda spends the entire novel navigating being both part of and separate from humanity while trying desperately to build community both among her preferred humans and her vampire family. These are characters that stay with you, and you want to hold them in your heart, because you know they will treat it carefully.

Here’s the thing. This novel is actually beautiful, not just in storytelling, but in execution. It deserves every accolade, every “classic” designation that it has earned. In retrospect, I don’t think that it has had enough accolades for how beautiful it is; it feels as though it has been sidelined in the literary conversation it’s actually in because of the vampiric elements. We should be reading Jewelle Gomez with the same attention and care as we give to Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, and Gayl Jones. Each leap forward in time over Gilda’s lifetime provides a sharp, particular snapshot of its setting that is unwaveringly clear about the complexity of being Black in this world, in all of its pain and joy.

If you’ve never had the pleasure of reading this novel, well, you’re about to have a great experience.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Cover Reveal for The Infinite Loop!

Posted on November 14, 2025 by Lynne M. Thomas
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Cover for The Infinite Loop: Archives and Time Travel in the Popular Imagination by Lynne M. Thomas and Katy Rawdon. The title and author text are black text on a white background. Above and below the title block is a pattern of bright pink concentric circles.

BEHOLD! The cover for The Infinite Loop! It is now live and preorders are available on the ALA website: https://alastore.ala.org/infiniteloop. Publication date: Spring 2026.

In addition to Katy and I talking a WHOLE LOT of Doctor Who, Loki, Kindred, and more… did I mention that it has a foreword by Connie Willis?

It’s REAL, and it’s coming. Buckle up!

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Book review: A Philosophy of Thieves by Fran Wilde

Posted on November 5, 2025 by Lynne M. Thomas
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The cover of A Philosophy of Thieves by Fran Wilde, which features a masked female character leaping with style from an ornate window.

I received this as an eARC via NetGalley. Purchase link

This is a delightful YA heist novel. Roosa Carnarvier (Vane) and her family are professional thieves, who, in post-apocalyptic Washington DC, perform heists (with strict contracts and rules) as entertainment for the wealthy.

Only we all know what happens with heists: things go sideways, and you have to improvise.

Roo and her brother Dax have to work together and decide what really matters, where their loyalties lie, and who they want to be to save their father when he goes missing mid-heist. The stakes get higher and higher, and the thieves are not the only ones with major secrets.

Full of twists and turns, this is a rollicking adventure. My one minor complaint is that Roo only had one major scene showing off her skills with aerial silks. 🙂

Strongly recommended. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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