What Our Community Writers Read In April 2025

Small Sade hasn't had an easy life, not with her injured foot and her unique looks. With her skill as a curse eater, she’d be a great addition to anyone’s household, if someone would just give her a chance. Eager to prove herself to her new wealthy mistress, she does her best to keep her head down and finish her tasks without complaint. When she finds herself accidentally bound to the Crocodile God, keeping her head down suddenly becomes much harder.

Taking place 10 years after the events of the Raybearer duology, I strongly recommend reading both Raybearer and Redemptor first. That said, it is a complete stand-alone story that can be enjoyed on its own, but it will spoil the ending of the duology.

I loved this book so much. The Raybearer duology is an absolute favorite of mine, and I was so happy to be back in this world. In addition to that, it’s a Beauty and the Beast retelling with Howl’s Moving Castle vibes, complete with found family and wonderful characters. The story covers tough topics in a good way and leaves you feeling a little bit hopeful that the world can change. I hope you’ll give it a shot!

This is an enemies-to-lovers reimagining of Persephone and Hades. But in this story, there is a Sun Elf king who steals away the human princess to become his bride because his kingdom is in need of her help. But she is an alchemist and is obsessed with rotting things. The elves hate alchemy, but what choice does the king have? He needs her to save his magic and people.

I loved this story! It’s a fast read with so much emotion and wit embedded the whole way through. Princess Hellebore is dry and cunning and refuses to believe she has a heart that does anything beyond pump blood. So it’s wonderful watching King Taiyo worm his way into that beating organ with his dry charm and relentless pursuit. The banter is fantastic, but the development of the relationship makes the swoon in the end so worth it!

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier feels like stepping into a house that doesn’t want you there, full of ghosts pressing their hands against the frosted windows of your bedroom. It tells the tale of an unnamed narrator who marries a wealthy widower and moves into his grand estate, Manderley. There, she finds herself trapped by the lingering presence of Maxim’s glamorous first wife, Rebecca.

This chilling, beautiful, and mesmerising tale captures the fragile tension between memory and reality, love and obsession. I was captivated by the shy new Mrs. de Winter’s journey from naïve bride to haunted woman and got lost in the maze of half-truths and darkness that cling to Manderley’s cold, crumbling walls. Then there’s the enigmatic Rebecca, who dominates every page, trapping our narrator in an echo of the past.

I loved how the novel explored identity, power, and the lies we build inside our minds. Every sentence simmered with unease, and I was completely hypnotised by this gothic masterpiece.

First Time Caller is the first book in the Heartstrings series by B.K. Borison. The story follows Lucie, a single mother looking for love, and Aiden, the cynical host of a romance radio show. Lucie goes on Aiden’s show to help boost ratings and ends up going on dates and talking about them on the show.

Through hosting the radio show, Lucie and Aiden will find out that all they needed was each other all along. Filled with a fun cast of supporting characters, First Time Caller is not only about finding love but also a story of family and the friends who feel like family.

First Time Caller was a six-star read for me and one of my favorite books of the year. Lucie and Aiden had a wonderful Grumpy x Sunshine dynamic that was fun to read about. A fun element to this story is reading the callers, along with Lucie and Aiden’s responses, between the chapters. There’s a nostalgic feel to this story, which I loved, and I loved how it incorporated 90’s rom-coms and late-night radio shows. First Time Caller is a fun read with charm and heart.

The best thing I read in April was What Abigail Did That Summer, a novella from Ben Aaronovitch's brilliant Rivers of London series. I always recommend this entire series to everyone, especially on audiobook (as I did this one), as the narrators are incredible.

There are 10+ full-length novels and several short stories in the series. It’s an urban fantasy set in England, with a branch of the Metropolitan Police Force made up of wizards that monitors and investigates paranormal happenings. 

I won’t say much about What Abigail Did in particular, as it might spoil the books that come before, and they’re definitely best experienced in order. But suffice to say, there’s magic, missing children, talking foxes, and our daring narrator Abigail, who pits her intelligence and determination against the classicism and racism she faces (as a Sierra Leonean teen living in a council flat in London) as much as the malevolent entities and nature spirits she encounters.

Once More Upon a Time by Roshani Chokshi is a fairy tale retelling about the youngest of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, the journey to discovering freedom, and her path to living happily ever after.

Imelda is married to a man she does not love; she married him for love, but they are no longer in love. A year and a day has passed since their marriage, a year and a day since Ambrose gave up the love he and Imelda shared to save her life. The witch who took their love as payment is back with another bargain: travel across the kingdom to retrieve a potion for her, and she will give them what they most desire. But as their quest comes to an end, Ambrose and Imelda must figure out what their hearts truly want or risk losing it all again.

Her Highness, Roshani Chokshi, did it again. I absolutely adored reading Once More Upon a Time; the banter, narration, and character development were all there, and everything was perfect. This book is short and sweet; it's about 100 pages long and really helped me pull myself together to stay out of a reading slump.

Ophelia Grimm takes over her family’s legacy of Necromancers after the untimely death of her mother. Little does she know that her mom left her and her sister, Genevieve, with a debt that cannot be paid.

When Phantasma appears, a haunted mansion that holds a game with nine levels of torture and the promise of a wish for one winner, Genevieve disappears. Ophelia fears her sister may have gone into Phantasma and enters the deadly game herself to find her before it’s too late.

In this dark romantasy that has strong elements of gothic horror, the reader will walk with Ophelia as she encounters multiple devils, terrifying hauntings, and a mysterious (yet handsome) phantom named Blackwell, who claims that he will help her on her journey through the ever-changing mansion.

Will she trust this cocky phantom to help her find her sister, or will the other contestants prove to be more of a challenge than Phantasma itself? Only time will tell.