Book Reviews

By Natasha Pulley
8/18/26
464 pages
$29.99
Bloomsbury Publishing

‘The Salt King’

Look, I’m all for breezy, simple reads that whisk me away and rest my weary brain. There are times, however, in which my brain needs to be pulled out of its malaise and shaken up, like a good margarita. Thankfully, Natasha Pulley has the magical ability to write books that are dense and lyrical and positively brimming with the perfect amount of weird.

A Jesuit priest puts both his faith and heart to the test when miraculous healings begin to happen in a small town. Sent to investigate the matter, and with the help of the local doctor, Avelyn begins to uncover a wide series of salt-based strangeness that soon spreads. This book is about love, community and how faith can be both healing and destructive — especially in dire circumstances.

If you have never read any of Pulley’s previous works, oh, my friend, you are in for a treat. Her writing is never boring and never simple. She has written far beyond genre so many times, and she is at the top of her game with this book. It is both romantic and apocalyptic in equal measure, exactly the kind of book to kick-start a melancholy brain. ♦

— Review by Julie Goodrich

By Robert Jackson Bennett
8/4/26
400 pages
$32
Del Ray Books

‘A Trade of Blood’

I will admit, I quavered a bit about writing this review. I try not to review sequels too often for fear of scaring people away from a series that will take up too much of their time. Here’s the thing, though; this series is absolutely worth your time. 

A pair of the Empire’s most powerful families stand on the precipice of war, ready to risk the entire realm’s food supply on a matter of honor — all because of a locked room mystery that turns out to be so much more. Ana and Din, with their unique gifts and timely connections, are in a race to stop an ancient power that wants chaos above all else.

Whether you start here or go back to the first installment, “The Tainted Cup,” I cannot recommend Ana and Din’s adventures enough. The mysteries are delicious, and the world-building even more so. The prose is measured and always moving but never lazy or bland. Ana’s painfully sharp wit is often brutally funny, while Din has my whole heart, as one of the most gorgeously miserable bisexual disasters in fantasy. If you are looking for a mystery that is both familiar and utterly, completely new, I cannot recommend this book — this whole series —  highly enough. ♦ 

— Review by Julie Goodrich