Happy New Year, dear readers! 

Here are a couple of Cybils reviews that I had waiting and am sharing with you, while I go put together a list of the finalists and my favorites that didn’t make it for your perusal. Both of these books play with and against stereotypes of evil and good. 

The Demon Sword Asperides by Sarah Jean Horwitz. Read by Mark Sanderlin. Algonquin Young Readers, 2023. ASIN B0BLWJ7X4D. Listened to audiobook on Libby.

The Demon Sword Asperides has been peacefully hanging out in disreputable bars in the underworld since he made a deal to keep his last, extremely evil master, Amyral Venir, trapped between life and death – literally, with his sword body through the evil sorcerer.  Now, though, Asperides is hearing rumors of the third moon returning – which could both bring back his evil former master and unmake Asperides.  That means Asperides has to find a new master, and quickly – one who can help him stop both of these possibilities. 

That someone is young Nack Furnival, recently turned out of his clan of knights for letting a young enemy escape.  Nack is desperate to prove himself worthy of being a demon-hunting knight himself, the pinnacle of which is earning an angel blade with a spirit that will magically increase his strength and fighting prowess.  So when, following a very awesome pair of independent married knights, Sir Willa and Sir Barb, he finds Asperides, he’s ready to believe that Asperides is the angel blade he’s been hoping for – even if Asperides is rather more than he’d been expecting.  Eventually joining Nack and Asperides is twelve-year-old Therin, a novitiate of the Sisters of the Missing Moon who is in very high demand as she is the one who delivered the original prophecy.  

This story of found family and redemption is laugh-out-loud funny and at the same time unexpectedly moving.  Asperides is especially snarky, while Nack’s dream of once more being accepted by his family is one that’s easy to feel.  It has echoes of Horwitz’s earlier Dark Lord Clementine while broadening the focus and staying entirely its own. This is a delightful story I look forward to rereading.  

The Dark Lord’s Daughter by Patricia C. Wrede. Random House, 2023. ISBN 978-0553536201. Read from a library copy.

14-year-old Kayla and her (adoptive) mom and younger brother are out for a day at the state fair when they’re whisked away to an alternate dimension by a person telling them that Kayla is the daughter of the previous Dark Lord, whose final wish was that she be found and inherit his kingdom.  It’s startling for everyone when Kayla’s tablet turns into a talking gargoyle-type creature, though it does at least enhance her look as a possible Dark Lady.  But with minions afraid she’ll kill them and relatives scheming to take her place, life in a castle isn’t quite what Kayla was expecting.  There’s some hilarity as her aunt tries to dress her in black and acid green outfits with plunging necklines that her mother absolutely refuses to let her wear and her little brother insists on exploring everywhere – especially where he shouldn’t.  Kayla can see that the kingdom is struggling and needs leadership, so she isn’t willing to just try to go home as her mother wants.  She’ll have to find her own way to claim the castle without resorting to the evil deeds that neither she nor her mother want her to be involved in.  

This hearkens back a little bit to The Dark Lord Clementine, with the major difference that Kayla has been raised on Earth without magic, taught that kindness and equity are virtues.  And it’s a lost princess book, except that Kayla doesn’t want to be a princess, and has brought her mother and little brother along, neither of whom are willing to be left out, even if Kayla’s magical sense does mean that she knows more than her mother about what’s going on.  All in all, this is an entertaining romp of a book that pushes against the expected.