What Our Community Writers Read In June 2025

While the settlement and mine on Kereza IV weren’t exactly legal, they weren’t expecting a rival corporation to bomb their planet. To make sure their stories get told, the Illuminae group has compiled the extensive Illuminae Files. Full of debriefing interviews, video surveillance, IMs, emails, memos, Unipedia entries, medical reports, maps, charts, and ever-so-helpful briefing notes, the evidence is substantial.

The first installment of the story follows Kady Grant and Ezra Mason as they deal with breaking up, their planet being invaded, a potential plague, and a questionable AI.

This is one of my absolute favorite series, and I really enjoyed rereading it this month. I love the clever storytelling method, both with the text and format of the book but also with how the audiobook is created. 

This story has everything you could want from a space opera combined with a dystopian tale with a dash of robotic AI and lots of sarcasm. I cannot recommend this book and the whole series enough!

This book is a dark and luscious historical fantasy and a beautiful fairytale retelling of Cinderella and The Little Mermaid, featuring Lucinde Leon as the youngest daughter of a wealthy shipowner within the walls of Saint-Malo, Brittany.

While her sisters seek advantageous marriages, Luce wants nothing more than to sail upon the vast seas and discover adventure wherever they might take her. Her friend and English smuggler, Samuel, feels the same yearning and teaches her about sailing.

When a storm brings the dashing Morgan, Luce suddenly desires the charm of his glittering world of dances and riches. And yet the sea still calls to her heart and shines like the scales of a sea-maid’s tail. Will she find her place in the world?

This book is divine! I loved every moment of the story. It’s completely immersive in its historical setting, and it happens to be one of my favorites. I always love learning about more obscure tales. Extra praise for how Kell Woods weaves the fairy tales so seamlessly, not just into the setting but into each other.

This was a story I dove into and eagerly lived within, swimming alongside Luce as she seeks her power and freedom—and of course, I’m always a fan of a swoony romance. This book delivered!

In a sprawling, ancient library that stretches beyond what anyone could imagine, with room after room filled with all the treasures a book fanatic could only dream of, two very different lives intertwine.

Livira, a bold and curious girl from a war-torn settlement in the desert, dreams of more than the narrow path laid out for her and finds herself unexpectedly on a path that leads to the library’s impossible depths. Evar, who has lived for almost his whole life within the library’s walls, surrounded by books and secrets, begins to question everything he thought he knew.

As their stories slowly come together, they uncover hidden truths buried deep in the pages of the books they roam through. Truths powerful enough to reshape their world and challenge everything they’ve ever thought was true.

Full of mystery, fractured timelines, creativity, and the sheer magic of knowledge, The Book That Wouldn’t Burn is a story about stories and how they’re told. It’s basically what happens when you throw a bibliophile into a machine of prophecy, rebellion, and forgotten truths…and then set it all on fire.

Promise Me Sunshine by Cara Bastone follows Lenny and Miles, both of whom have faced hardships and need someone to help them move forward. When the two meet, they form a friendship that turns into something more when they realize they have feelings for each other.

Friends and family play a role in helping Lenny and Miles enjoy life again. With New York City adventures and quiet nights at home, the pair discover that what they were looking for was each other all along.

Lenny and Miles are grumpy x sunshine at its finest. I was in the mood for something fun after I finished an emotional contemporary romance, and what I got was a story brimming with emotional depth and characters who were relatable.

Lenny and Miles are excellent characters who balance each other out and remind each other that people care about them. The friends group and family members are wonderful side characters that offer a great element to the story.

Set at the luxury Avallon hotel in the Appalachian Mountains during WWII, General Manager June Hudson has been informed by the FBI that they will be receiving a whole load of Axis diplomats who were residing in the USA when it joined the war. They are ‘guests,’ not ‘hostages,’ and the hope is that if they are treated with dignity and respect, then the Allied diplomats in Axis countries might be shown the same. The hotel staff do just that, but not without their own complicated feelings on it.

But the Avallon has water flowing around, beneath, and through it. Water that may have healing properties. Water that may be more awake than normal water… water that listens.

Ultimately in this novel, Stiefvater shows every character as human, while never excusing the choices people have made, even under difficult circumstances. Good people do bad things, bad people do good things, but everyone is pictured as human—messy, flawed, but ultimately having made their own choices.

I would say it’s “magical realism meets historical fiction” because it never explicitly mentions magic in the book, and yet the whole thing feels magical, wondrous, and dangerous.

Fireheart Tiger by Aliette De Bodard is about overcoming trauma and learning how to navigate a life where it feels like you're an outcast in your own home.

Thanh’s mother sent her away when she was a child to play hostage with the enemy kingdom. Now that Thanh is back in her home kingdom, memories from her time with the kingdom of Ephteria haunt her… Just like the fire that keeps following her around.

As a diplomat to her kingdom, Thanh ends up face-to-face with her ex-lover, Eldris, who has schemes of her own. As Thanh falls back into the arms of Eldris, her heart becomes torn between her dreams and reality, for dreams can be nightmares in disguise.

This was such an intriguing novella. At 100 pages it shouldn't have taken me this long (almost a month) to get through, but this was a book that needed to be savored. I will admit that this was my first read exploring a main lesbian couple. I don't tend to gravitate towards LGBTQ+ reads, but I really enjoyed this one. I was pleasantly surprised when I found my middle name being used for a character; you’ll have to read it to find out, though. ;)

1532. 1827. 2019.

Across three timelines, three women become intertwined in a story of immortality, love, and hunger.

All they want is to be free from the destiny life has gifted them, but when they are presented with an offer they can’t refuse, they may be cursing themselves with a fate worse than death.

With a hunger that lasts for centuries, obsession takes root and blooms where their heart should be. Will they be able to outlast the growing rot in their bones, or will their humanity suffer at the hands of their own vicious hunger?

V.E. Schwab will haunt my beautiful dreams whenever I think about these women. The way she takes a spin on the regulated folklore of vampires is truly addicting.

Although I usually struggle with novels reflecting elements of historical fiction, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil completely transported me into their world with each split POV. No matter the time or the place, I was under the spells of Sabine’s hunger, Charlotte’s love, and Alice’s rage.

I may (or may not) have a favorite, but I can still see a piece of myself in all of them, and for that I will always be enchanted by this story.

The only thing Six needed to forget from her life before was the one thing she remembered: her name. Sybil Delling was one of six diviners headed by the abbess of Aisling Cathedral, a gothic sanctuary of stone and glass where the rich and poor alike flock to have their fortunes told. The diviners don’t read palms or tea leaves. They drown. And then they dream.

When the king comes to have a diviner dream for him, five of the six omens forewarn of bad things to come. When her diviner sisters begin to go missing, Six seeks out the assistance of the blasphemous and insolent knight, Rodrick Myndacious, and she begins to learn that everything she’s ever known is nothing at all like she was told.

If you think you know what this story is going to be about, no, you don't. The author of One Dark Window and Two Twisted Crowns brings readers on another dark adventure in a world of knights, magic, and trauma.

With a unique magic system around dreaming and magical items with dual purposes, a found family that includes a gargoyle, an adventure across the Stonewater Kingdom that reveals the dark truth of the world, and, to top it all off, a character arc of the power in self-discovery, this story will draw you in and kick you in the gut.

Retired soldier Alex Easton gets a telegram that a childhood friend, Madeline Usher, is dying. Kind soul that they are, Alex decides to go visit his friend and her elder brother. Upon arrival, nothing is as it seems. The house feels dark, the local rabbits are acting strange, and why does Madeline seem to sleepwalk all of the time?

T. Kingfisher weaves her horror with dry humor, which works beautifully. Her words, while causing the reader to hide under a blanket, can also be a reason for tears and laughing so hard more tears come out.

Alex is a no-nonsense protagonist who sees the world as it is and is never shy about sharing an opinion. This book is perfect for readers trying to get into horror or who loved The Fall of the House of Usher.