The Inkborne Society | The Works of Vermin

How it Works Bookshop

Publishing Team Contact

Log in or Sign up

The Works of Vermin

Hiron Ennes

Save to Your Books

Bookshop

Amazon

He was sent to kill a pest. Instead, he found a monster.

One of BookPage's Most Anticipated SFF & Horror of Fall 2025

Enter the decadent, deadly city of Tiliard, a metropolis carved into the stump of an ancient tree. In its canopy, the pampered elite warp minds with toxic perfume; in its roots, gangs of exterminators hunt a colossal worm with an appetite for beauty.

In this complex, chaotic city, Guy Moulène has a simple goal: keep his sister out of debt. For her sake, he'll take on any job, no matter how vile.

As an exterminator, Guy hunts the uncanny creatures that crawl up from the river. These vermin are all strange, and often dangerous. His latest quarry is different: a centipede the size of a dragon with a deadly venom and a ravenous taste for artwork. As it digests Tiliard from the sewers to the opera houses, its toxin reshapes the future of the city. No sane person would hunt it, if they had the choice.

Guy doesn't have a choice.

“I will follow this writer anywhere.” —Gillian Flynn, New York Times bestselling author of Gone Girl

Show more

Get the Bindery app

Posts about this title from The Inkborne Society

The Inkborne Society\ \ Azhangia\ \ • Oct 3 2025

October 2025 Book Releases (Fantasy & Sci-Fi)

14 books

9

2

The Inkborne Society\ \ Azhangia\ \ • Aug 31 2025

With multiple books hitting 4.5 stars or above, August turned out to be quite the month for good reads! Here are some thoughts on each of the books I read:\ \ My Top 3 of the Month \ \ ⭐4.75 - The Works of Vermin (Hiron Ennes)\ \ One of the most fascinating fantasy books I’ve read in a while, The Works of Vermin featured sharp and deliberate writing, a trans main character, innovative worldbuilding (the magic system is based on a chemical toxin from a giant worm and weaponized perfumes), and a setting that was the perfect backdrop for the book’s themes of systemic exploitation, societal decay, and class division. The veneer of progress hides the rot eating away at society, both literally in the form of vermin and metaphorically in the way corruption thrives, and time and time again, the working class is forced to endure with the tenacity of roaches. This is a story that has crawled under my skin, unsettling and unforgettable, and I can’t wait for more readers to discover it!!\ \ ⭐4.50 - The Strength of the Few (James Islington)\ \ I read The Will of the Many in 2023, which means I have been left on that brutal cliffhanger for two years now… so I was very excited when I got an early copy of The Strength of the Few! In TSOTF, the stakes are heightened, the intrigue ramps up, and though we’re still left with many questions by the end of the book (and another brutal cliffhanger), it is so exciting to witness the puzzle pieces starting to come together!! I also appreciated how Vis felt less like a YA main character in this book, as his perfection became more of a burden and the weight of his responsibility was directly addressed. Overall, I thought this was a very solid sequel and am looking forward to the next installment of the series.\ \ ⭐4.50 - Clockwork Angel (Cassandra Clare)\ \ I was a big fan of The Mortal Instruments series in my pre-teen years, but never got around to reading The Infernal Devices. Boy was I missing out, because this series had everything I wanted in a YA fantasy series, and I was having the time of my life reading it (ily Will Herondale). It feels so nostalgic to be back in the world of the Shadowhunters, and I have been forewarned that this series will cause some emotional damage…can’t wait to get to that point :)\ \ \ \ ⭐4.50 - Daedalus is Dead (Seamus Sullivan)\ \ Daedalus is Dead had a depth and complexity I was not at all expecting going into the novella, and I think lovers of Greek Mythology will find this to be a really thought provoking read about fatherhood, grief, and the monstrous truths we build around ourselves to become the heroes of our stories. That said, I probably wouldn’t recommend it to readers unfamiliar with Greek myths, as it leans somewhat heavily on references that aren’t always explained. Overall, I was really impressed by this - I’ve always wanted a mythology retelling of Icarus, but a retelling of the myth from his father Daedalus’ perspective proved far more interesting than I could have imagined.\ \ ⭐4.50 - A Little Hatred (Joe Abercrombie)\ \ Many people have said that the Age of Madness trilogy is Joe Abercrombie's best work, so I was incredibly excited to finally pick up this series after finishing the previous books in the world of the First Law. A Little Hatred sits at the dawn of a new technological age, with characters grappling for power and control amidst the conflict between technology vs. magic and innovation vs. tradition. This book reminded me a lot of The Legend of Korra (a god-tier show for those who haven’t seen it, I was also actually picturing one of the characters as Asami), and the blend of grimdark and steampunk elements combined with Abercrombie’s signature wit made this a highly enjoyable read. Can’t wait to read the rest of this trilogy soon!\ \ ⭐4.25 - Fate’s Bane (C.L. Clarke)\ \ A sapphic tragedy that felt like a story being sung by a bard around a fire, Fate’s Bane delivered all the yearning I could ever want. Set in a Celtic inspired swampy world filled with warring clans and inescapable fate, this novella offered a take on Romeo and Juliet that felt both familiar and fresh. It’s beautifully written and well-paced, and I had a hard time putting it down!\ \ ⭐3.75 - The Memory of the Ogisi (Moses Ote Utomi)\ \ Inspired by African folklore and set in various desert civilizations, each book in the Forever Desert series reads like a fable, exploring the different forms that oppression can take. While I did appreciate The Memory of the Ogisi, the final book of the series, the story felt slightly repetitive at times. Given that the first book can technically be read as a standalone, I don’t know if I would recommend the rest of the series, but I do think book one, The Lies of the Ajungo, is very much worth a read.\ \ ⭐3.25 - Of Monsters and Mainframes (Barbara Truelove)\ \ I can 100% see how other people enjoy this book, but it unfortunately just wasn’t for me. I loved the quirky blend of science fiction and pulp horror, but I struggled to become emotionally invested in the characters, which ultimately dampened my enjoyment of the read. I still thought it was a lot of fun though!\ \ Since there are some new faces in this community following the launch of the book club, I just wanted to re-introduce some things you can expect from this page in addition to the book club. At the end of each month, I share one of these wrap-up posts with reviews of books I've read, and at the beginning of each month, I share a list of upcoming fantasy & sci-fi releases that have caught my eye (with reviews of ARCs I have read). Other content will be popping up at random (giveaways, deep dives, etc.) - so excited you are all here!

August Reading Wrap-Up (Ratings & Reviews)

8 books

2

Posts about this book from across Bindery

Sarah Does Bookish Stuff\ \ Sarah\ \ • Jul 9

Join for free

We've done it. We've made it to the halfway mark of the year! I can't believe it's half over already. 2026 has been a banner year for me with reading and coming out on top reading some incredible books I never thought I would get the chance to read. \ \ I've had so many opportunities and changes and experiences in the last 6 months I almost feel like a different person sitting here typing this up. I've read ARCs, connected with authors, joined a writing cohort, taken on a job doing developmental edits, started a podcast, started an interview series... \ \ All because I just like to talk about my weird and wonderful books. \ \ So, halfway through 2026, let's talk about those wonderful books and what's been a 5-star read for me this year. \ \ The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon\ \ My first five star read of the year. Candon built this incredible, lush, weird, amazing world I wanted to live in. Fever dream mech fantasy about a man trying to figure out how to be normal and escape a past that won't let him go. Sunai makes horrible choices, but all of them consistently lead him back to the one place he never really left. I loved how wild and bizarre this was. I was left wanting more and more of this world and I hope so hard that Candon continues this series. \ \ Slewfoot by Brom\ \ If you want me to rate your book five stars, make it about female rage and killing puritans. Brom outdid himself with this one. He wrote Abitha with such conviction there's no way his wife didn't advise him on it, I refuse to believe a man capable of capturing the frustration and rage about the female experience so accurately. I love the tapestry of witchcraft and small mindedness and the blindness of religion and the effects of patriarchy on us all. This was so delightful and 5 stars well earned. \ \ The Wolf and His King by Finn Longman\ \ Book so good I emailed the author. I've never emailed an author before. Finn was the first. This book is a retelling of a real 13-century fairytale that was the first example of fiction in medieval France. Longman turned it into a beautiful test of prose, writing styles, and an exploration in chronic illness, queer identity, and what it means for love to endure. This book was so full of yearning and so beautifully written I finished it in a day and I bullied several other people into reading it after. \ \ Shark Heart by Emily Habeck\ \ I picked this up on a whim because the premise was bizarre. A man is slowly turning into a great white shark because of a genetic disorder? And someone said it wrecked them? Okay, bet. And bet I did. I walked away sobbing over this heart wrenching, existence examining piece on caretaking, loss, illness, and love. Shark Heart does not get enough love for what it did.\ \ Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir\ \ Muir is incapable of writing something that isn't five stars. Her use of prose and style, turning the writing itself into a character... nobody does it like Muir does. Every book in this series is different, it changes you. Nona was her solarpunk installation that gave me so many painful, beautiful moments of seeing characters I loved overcome and endure for each other. It also made me mad at Jod.\ \ Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson\ \ I am a Malazan bro because of this book. MoI was the culmination of two books - 1800 pages - worth of trust in a process I was unsure could be trusted. Erikson delivered on every single front. He gave readers something incredible in this book and really proved to me how multifaceted and gifted he is at world building and writing. This was an incredible installment. \ \ Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang\ \ I am a different person because of this book. Because of Sciona, unlikable heroine and dogged in her pursuit of knowledge. Because of Thomil who understands the cost of power and pushes to make Scion see it, too. I adored this book and how it addressed the importance of intersectionality and listening to marginalized voices. It was so beautiful and fearless and Wang knows exactly how to break your heart to teach you something important. This book should be required reading.\ \ Headlights by C.J. Leede\ \ This was the first ARC I have ever given five stars to. I was a mess. A disaster. If you had told me a book about an unretired FBI agent investigating wild killings where victims are skinned and the perpetrators have no memory would change me, I would never have believed you. I adored every second of this. It was about wildness and fear and loss and love and so, so much more than I can articulate in a single post. If I had my Bindery a few months sooner, I would have written pages upon pages about this. Leede's writing is poetry, her symbolism is subtle and unique, her approach to loss and grief is spellbinding. \ \ The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes\ \ Ennes will go down as one of the most stunning writers in the modern era. They have a grasp of language that I can only hope to have a fraction of. This book was weird and stunning and unforgiving. It made me forget I was reading about bugs because I was constantly engrossed in the characters and the world and the slow collapse of this bizarre government. It accosted my senses in incredible ways and showed the costs of power without question. I adored the characters and I will forever be rooting for Guy and his love of the theater. Ennes made politics, art, and theater inextricable from each other. One begets the others, every time. I am so, so impressed at this book. \ \ The Soft Touch by Daniel Polansky\ \ How did one man pack so much into a novella? Really. I finished this, stared at the cover, and bought everything Polansky has ever written. I loved this world. I loved how stubbornly optimistic Wren was and how he refused to let pessimism win in a town where pessimism already believed it had won. He was clever and sharp, the writing was witty and dry, and everything was so alive in such a short time. I didn't want it to end, this wild blend of steampunk magic. This novella made me realize the draw of urban fantasy. \ \ The Butcher of Nazareth by David Scott Hay\ \ I have a whole post about this book and I can never stop saying wonderful things about it. Hay created a masterwork here, just an absolute class in how to leverage the physicality of writing to meet the story and create something beautiful and tragic. II was so sad and so hurt for the Butcher, but I was in his grief with him in ways I didn't think I could be in a book. I am deeply impressed by this story and how David crafted it. Everyone should read it, especially if you love religious horror. \ \ So this has been my year in favorites so far. I've read 100 books on the nose so far and this is the sliver of those who really changed something about me. Every five star I give out changes a piece of me - my perspective, my sense of self, my understanding of a genre, something. I walked away from each of these books with something new in my bones that wasn't there before. I love all our popular series just as much as the next person, but my heart will always be with books that dig deep and demand things of me nothing else does.

Meeting Up Halfway

11 books

Tattooed Bibliophiles\ \ Zee\ \ • Jul 1

Join for free

Officially, the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction is an annual $25,000 cash prize given to a writer for a single work of imaginative fiction. This award is intended to recognize those writers Ursula spoke of in her 2014 National Book Awards speech—realists of a larger reality, who can imagine real grounds for hope and see alternatives to how we live now.\ \ Practically, it's a TBR for those of us who read sci-fi with purpose, with intent, with a critical reading eye looking for "the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope." (-a quote from Ursula herself)\ \ So without further ado, here's the shortlist for this year.\ \ Audition by Pip Adam (Coffee House Press, June 10, 2025)\ \ Three rom-com quoting MCs travel from incarceration to exile to a place beyond punishment. Audition explores carceral politics and the psychology of violence, and what healing from the harm of those systems might require in a world where embodiment and identity have lost all familiar forms.\ \ Sunward by William Alexander (Saga Press. Sept 16, 2025)\ \ What if robots needed to be raised? Weaving comedy with a vision of parental care that encompasses beings built as well as born, Alexander considers caretaking and community alongside power and resistance. In his future, another way of living is possible—though getting to it is never easy.\ \ Call and Response by Christopher Caldwell(Neon Hemlock, Oct 14, 2025)\ \ Caldwell's speculative and fantastical stories are grounded in the realities, dreams, struggles, and relationships that animate queer lives. Each tale takes seriously the interconnections of class, race, geography, gender, and sexuality—while making striking imaginative leaps into history, the present, and the future.\ \ Midnight Timetable by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur (Algonquin, Sept 4, 2025)\ \ This novel in ghost stories, with its haunted shoes and sheep and cats, gently suggests the degree to which humanity’s efforts to control the world are themselves figments and fantasies. Chung’s deep understanding of haunting—and of hierarchies, class, and gender—reminds us that we are a society haunted by its own cruelty, and, crucially, that we have other options.\ \ The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes (Tor Books, Oct 14, 2025)\ \ This story of revolution takes place in a city riddled with strange vermin, their exterminators, and a wealthy ruling class who are all but inescapable. Ennes's novel explores resistance, repression, cycles of violence, and the way art and culture are the materials of social change—but can also be key to the consolidation of power.\ \ Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman (Tor Books, April 15, 2025)\ \ Notes from a Regicide is a multilayered, intimate history of two generations of trans characters in the distant (but strangely familiar) future. As Griffon Keming tries to understand his deceased and beloved second parents, Fellman’s narrative twines around art, revolution, disability, love, history, and the specific, often physical, cost of every kind of change.\ \ Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta (DAW Books, Sept 9, 2023)\ \ Using myth, fictional scholarship, alchemy, folktales, and animism, Mehta creates a quantum form of storytelling that follows the relationship between two sets of sisters, generations and worlds apart. Mad Sisters of Esi builds upon itself, layer by rich narrative layer, weaving together an all-encompassing saga of grief, love, legacy, and creation.\ \ One Message Remains by Premee Mohamed (Psychopomp, Feb 11, 2025)\ \ In four loosely connected tales, Mohamed explores the way people—soldiers and civilians, bureaucrats and gallows-builders—live during wartime, occupation, and colonization. In one story, ghostly soldiers fight the destruction of their traditions; in another, a young woman finds resistance in the practice of her craft. \ \ Slow Gods by Claire North (Orbit, Nov 18, 2025)\ \ Admittedly the only one I've even heard of and read, this galaxy-spanning space opera explores the fraught, connected roles of power and love as a series of worlds face destruction. Through the perspective of Maw, who was once human but is now something else, capitalism, collective choice, fascism, gender, freedom, the necessity of art collide with the question of how we decide what—and who—matters.

Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction Shortlist 2026

9 books

Sarah Does Bookish Stuff\ \ Sarah\ \ • Jun 21

Join for free

Everyone has books that live in their bones. Some sediment of emotion or change that has settled into their marrow and left them changed in a way they can't articulate. Over time, that sediment calcifies and those books become part of who we are. They shape our morality, our world views, our empathy... they become us.\ \ I have my five books that have historically settled and fossilized and are inextricably linked to me as a person. I also have the modern, recent reads that I just know are doing something to me. Taking my ligaments apart and putting them in new places. Making room in my muscles and viscera for something new to grow and change me.\ \ So... What are they?\ \ The Butcher of Nazareth by David Scott Hay\ \ This book was something entirely different. New. Hard to let go of. It touched on grief and faith and the importance of community in processing loss. Hay did something amazing with turning his lessons learned into a biblical cautionary tale to show his readers how unprocessed loss in isolation can turn you into someone you don't recognize. It can cost you everything.\ \ The care and love this was crafted with is incredible. Paper weights, font styles, later inclusions of page stamps, text coloring... everything about this book from the contents to the structure was deliberate. It delivers a brutal message made all the more impactful by the love with which it was sent.\ \ The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes\ \ Never have I seen more beautiful, mad prose in a book. Ennes writes with a paintbrush the likes of which I rarely see in books. I am treated like I'm smart, I'm respected by the material, and they take the opportunity to show me what I am capable of. The characters are never what you think and never who you believe them to be. Nobody is all one thing and the character who are suffer because of it. It talks about denial and loss and art and politics and what it means to let someone be who they are.\ \ The weirdness of this book never feels offputting or gross. It feels like texture and color and sound. Ennes proved that a book can live with me long after I finished it and make me rethink and turn over its lessons again and again without exhausting what I find in it. This was such a beautifully unexpected read that is feeding off of my attention.\ \ Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang\ \ I have never been forced to confront myself like I have in this book. Wang is fearless, direct, and wastes no time worrying about your feelings. She immediately makes you uncomfortable and forces you to look at horrible truths about yourself whether you like it or not. Some folks said this was too on the nose, but I disagree. I believe this book is exactly what it must be. Subtlety won't always get people to confront themselves and their biases. Wang found a way to dispense with the subtlety and not make it feel preaching or taunting. Instead, she takes you by the chin and asks, "Is this who you are deciding to be?"\ \ The themes of otherness, inclusivity, intersectionality, and whether or not a haven is truly a haven if it's paid for in blood? Stunning. Layered. I'm still thinking about it months later.\ \ Headlights by C. J. Leede\ \ This rocketed to the top of my list when it made me bawl my eyes out at 10pm on a Saturday. It reads like a procedural turned folkloric horror, but it's so much more than that. It sinks its teeth into the rose-colored glasses of childhood memory. What does it mean to love and lose? Where do we put our grief when it's too big to hold onto? How do the ghosts of our past become a part of us? Leede puts Danny through so much to learn how to love wild things and make peace with the people he loves no longer being there for him to lean on. She made me consider what it is to let someone in, the fear of leaving a part of yourself with someone and trusting them to care for it.\ \ This book told a wild story in such weird and wonderful ways that thinking about it still makes me tear up and wonder if I really saw everything she had to say or if there's more.\ \ Shark Heart by Emily Habeck\ \ How did a book about a man turning into a shark become a beautiful, bittersweet, hopeful story about how to love someone through chronic illness and the strain of love and resentment held by caretakers? I opened this book expecting a weird, wonderful story and instead I learned so much about the weight we carry when we have no power to help someone we love. Living through chronic illness and caring for someone through it are tragic, beautiful, complicated experiences Habeck articulated perfectly in this book. Habeck shows how different degrees of loss take a toll on people, they all add a new straw to the back of that camel that eventually breaks.\ \ But she also showed us how when its broken, there exists only one choice: stay broken or stand up and go on. At some point, optimism and hope and survival are a choice. We have to look grief and hardship in the face and decide not to let it drown us. Hope is a choice. Habeck illustrates that phenomenally.

The Books That Change Us

5 books

1

Sarah Does Bookish Stuff\ \ Sarah\ \ • Jun 1

Join for free

[Dang, May was a decent month for reading. I ended up at 16 total books and I want to write a little bit about them! 16 is a lot so I won't go into too much detail. In the future, I'll be sharing longer-form reviews that give a lot more of my takeaways so be on the lookout for those!\ \ Toothsucker by Kaden Love\ \ I was fortunate to listen to the audiobook of this and I enjoyed it a lot. The narrator had the perfect cadence for the book. It surprised me! It wasn't what I expected and significantly more cyberpunk than I realized. The world is fun, weird, gross, and weaves in a lot of political themes. Kaden is clearly just having a blast writing this and I feel like authors who have fun always make something incredible.\ \ Headlights by C.J. Leede\ \ I could write a dissertation on the beauty of this book. Truly. I read the ARC, cried my eyes out, and preordered a signed copy. This book lives in me. It did something to my brain. Leede has a magnetic writing style I couldn't stop devouring. How she threaded in folk horror to her work was creative and considerate. Her characters and how they're connected, their pasts, and the way they find meaning in each other, however, was so beautiful. Also, I am having a hard time explaining why a woman eating a man's finger during sex is heart-achingly romantic.\ \ The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang\ \ I don't understand why people didn't adore this book. I mean, I do, but I don't. Kuang is incredibly good at making it less clear what it means to be a hero. This book showed the horror of genocide and the aftermath of Rin's destructive meltdown at the end of The Poppy War, plus the lingering ghost of Altan coloring her view of the world. Kuang is fantastic at showing Rin's imperfections and giving us depth and color to Nezah that made me fall in love with him - yes, even in the ending. Every character is their own ecosystem of motivation and an exploration of nature versus nurture. I LOVE her character work. \ \ The Burning God by R.F. Kuang\ \ This was my favorite in the series, just fantastic. It's bleak, but its raw and visceral and real. Rin isn't a moral paragon and I think people disliked that, but I absolutely loved it. Rin begins to realize she has no foresight and no plan, she struggles in the way a young person with too much power and no guidance would struggle. She has nobody left to turn to and has to figure it out, which makes her struggle and suffer in personal ways. It turns the war from abstract to overt and she has to contend with the different facets of having power. The power of a god, an army, a country... and she does not handle it well. I thought the ending was deft, Kuang tells you how it has to end the entire time and people just weren't paying attention. \ \ A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab\ \ Holland mt love. My absolute perfect book husband. This book was an extraordinary sequel and gave us such a fun experience. Schwab is a master of character work, it's impossible not to fall in love with all of them. I really enjoyed how she showed Holland's history and why he is the way he is. I think he is one of the most complex, beautiful characters I've read in a long time. I could write a treatise in his defense. He didn't have what Kell had and if he did, he would have been extremely similar. Holland knew only suffering in his world and still he only ever sought to change it for the better. \ \ A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab\ \ A phenomenal final entry into the first era. Just amazing. Deep characters, meaningful arcs, all knots tied with enough left to come back. I love how fantastical and whimsical this world is while feeling threatening and deep. I stand by all my previously sung praises for Holland, they could never make me hate him. It could only ever end one way, even if it broke my heart. Still, no matter what, I will always be delusionally hopeful Era 2 might change something about it.\ \ Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne\ \ This was a significant bar-raise from Malice and Valor. I know The Faithful and the Fallen is a crowd favorite, but I'm only finding it alright. Nothing about it sticks to me. I liked Shadow of the Gods, but I don't get the cinematic click everyone else seems to. It's fun, predictable, with distinct characters, but nothing about it really blew me away. I like Orka, but she isn't a favorite in my house. I'm not sure if Gwynne's writing style is just not for me? \ \ Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao\ \ I wanted to love this. I did. I loved Iron Widow so much, it was a neck-breaking fever dream that played out like a dramatic anime in my mind. Zhao just bogged this down in so much theory and interjected way too much modernism that it drowned the story for me. Eventually, hearing the fifth iterative explanation of communism versus socialism just turns to white noise in my head. Plus, the introduction of the Emperor and the disappearance of Yizhi and Shimin for most of the story made my interest in the three of them fade. \ \ The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling\ \ Okay this was exactly the kind of weird medieval cannibal lesbian nun book I was hoping for. Starling makes you work for it. People described it as "slow", but I disagree completely. Starling makes every sentence matter, she forces you to focus and pay attention to what she is saying. Her commentary on weak leadership, the fallibility of man, isolation, duty, honor, disconnection, community... all of it was perfectly captured in this claustrophobic horror novel. Plus, I would let Ser Voyne do unspeakable things to me, but she would never. Too much honor. \ \ The Starless Crown by James Rollins\ \ This book is AMAZING. Sci-fantasy peak. I can't believe more people aren't reading and loving it. This trilogy is incredibly inventive and creative, the world is realistic and strange. Rollins built characters who are insightful and a villain that truly shocked me to my core. I didn't expect a surprise villain because who does that?! Rollins is known for his sci-fi thrillers, so I think people expect this to be the same, but I assure you it's anything but. I can't wait to continue this series!\ \ The Nightshade God by Hannah Whitten\ \ How I wanted to love this, but I only felt okay about it. I loved The Foxglove King and enjoyed The Hemlock Queen, but this one felt a bit messy and crowded. The added perspective for Alie was great, I wish it had been included starting in Book 2. I didn't love the ending, but I loved that we got to see so much change and see how Lore's enduring love for her men carried her through the worst losses of her life. I wish we had more explanation about why Lore's arc ended the way it did, the Fount's motivations felt dubious to me. However, I still read it in two days and Whitten has a beautifully addictive style of writing no matter what. \ \ The Daughters' War by Christopher Buehlman\ \ Galva dom Braga is my book wife and I will follow her to the ends of the earth. Buehlman wrote something so special that this book is basically family now. The tone is completely different from The Blacktongue Thief, first in the series, but it should be and it works wonders for this story. His world is so gritty and intense, it's creative and sharp and still funny in a different way. Galva's story is a harrowing, tragic explanation about who she is and how she came to be the Ispanthian warrior we know and love. I adored this book. This book was magical. It feels like listening to a story at a campfire and I urge people to try this series. \ \ The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo\ \ What a unique read this was! I love foxes and all the mythology around them, but Choo did something fantastical with it. This story was not just about Snow overcoming her grief and her thirst for revenge, it was about the subtle differences in fox mythology around East Asia and how the British occupation was slowly erasing the cultural identity of so many countries. Bao's tale wasn't just solving the crime of a peculiar death, it was teaching readers about cultural practices and regional differences and how women were oppressed in more ways than just foot binding in China. \ \ The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes\ \ This book was a miraculous work of weird fiction. I am so emotional about it it's bizarre. What masterful storytelling and unbelievable prose! Ennes is a stunning writer that manages to make stab wounds into poetry. This world wove art and politics together until they were not separate from one another. They showed you how tyrants are born in a slow drip, not a flood. So much more went into this. The ease around trans identity, control versus love, how sociopolitical rot destroys a society, our unresolved mistakes always come back to us, and so much more. I can't even speak about the characters because to do so is to reveal the story, which I would never want to do. I didn't expect a story about extermination to move me like this. \ \ House of Chains by Steven Erikson\ \ Erikson really flexed on his readers with this one. He proved he can hold a single character POV in his hands and simply chooses not to because that's not what the story demands. This book was a real open-faucet torrent of his background in archaeology and anthropology. He has so many poignant things to say about cultures formed on the bones of each other, changing worlds and ever-changing societies, etc. Plus he managed to pull off one of the greatest redemption arcs I've ever read. Lookin' at you, Karsa. \ \ A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett\ \ Convinced RJB isn't capable of writing anything short of fantastic. This mystery was wild and the world is so bizarre and fun, I never want to leave it. I love how Bennett's goal isn't to solve this world's ills or take out its Empire or change the leviathans, it's just to show you a glimpse of the bigger way the machine of it functions. We learn a bit more about Ana and who she is every book through these mysteries that feel like a fever dream. Dinios Kol remains my disaster bisexual son who misses the love of his life and just won't admit it to himself. The problem is that if he won't, Ana will. \ \ This was an amazing month for reading! I got through a lot of books and only didn't squeeze ONE from my original TBR into the mix. I am so fortunate to have walked away loving so many of them this month, too. I actually changed The Works of Vermin from a 4.5 to a 5 because it sat with me that much. I had TWO 5-star reads this month:\ \

May Reading Recap!

15 books

1

The Inkborne Society\ \ Azhangia\ \ • Oct 3 2025

\ \ Join for free or login](https://azhangia.binderybooks.com/item/7yIVUIbPELjhWaR02aGj/)

October 2025 Book Releases (Fantasy & Sci-Fi)

14 books

9

2

The Inkborne Society\ \ Azhangia\ \ • Aug 31 2025

August Reading Wrap-Up (Ratings & Reviews)

8 books

2