Here I am with the lovely books I read in August! I was on vacation the first half of the month, and so missing most of the normal audiobook listening I do – my total count is just nine books this month.

I’d set myself the goal of reading 20 books by Black authors this year, and I have now met that goal – though of course that won’t stop me from reading other good books by Black authors I come across. I still have quite a ways to go with my goal of reading 8 books by Indigenous authors – this month’s reading has brought me up to just 3. If you have any recommendations for any books, especially fantasy or science fiction books, by Indigenous authors, please let me know in the comments!

Middle Grade

• The Green Kingdom by Cornelia Funke. Read by Jessica DiCicco. DK Children, 2025 – Caspia, from rural Maine, is horrified when her parents announce that they’ll be spending the summer in Brooklyn, where she knows no one. The apartment they’re renting is still furnished and decorated in the heavily floral style of the previous owner – and in a jammed dresser drawer, Caspia finds a sheaf of letters from the deceased previous owner’s blind sister, who traveled around the world with their botanist father, and sent a riddle about a different plant, or member of the Green Kingdom, in each letter. Through tracing the riddles, Caspia meets and befriends lots of new people – the grandmotherly owner of the local spice store, the teen who helps run the flower and book store, the woman who runs the gate at the Botanic Garden, and a boy her own age who turns out to be the son of one of the gardeners at the Botanic Garden. She also feels like she might be friends with the unseen writer of the letters – and certainly no longer finds Brooklyn boring. I was a little surprised that this wasn’t fantasy, as I didn’t read the summary when I saw it was Cornelia Funke, but it was still a very enjoyable story of discovery. Caspia is described as white, while her new friends are many different ethnicities.

Teen

• Titan of the Stars by E.K. Johnston. Tundra, 2025 – Longtime personal favorite author Johnston returns with a story in which Canada (rather than Michigan) has been destroyed by natural disaster. Two white-cued teens whose paths split in childhood meet again. Celeste Sparrow was orphaned in the disaster that created the Rift and has worked as hard as she can for a position as a lowly engineer on the beautiful starship Titan, hoping that good work here will mean a better permanent position on Mars. Dominic, also orphaned, was rescued as a young child by wealthy and prominent parents, who now expect him to carry on their dreams. On the surface he has everything – but with a jerk of a boyfriend and parents who won’t let him make his art, it sure doesn’t feel like it. There are enough stressors on board the Titan already – but we know from the opening that things are about to get much, much worse. This starts a little slowly and ramps up quickly into a horrifying look at luxury gone wrong.
• Debts of Fire by Intisar Khanani. Snowy Wings Publishing, 2025 – This is the third book in the Sunbolt Chronicles, though not the last. I’m really going to try to write a longer review of the series so far and so won’t try to summarize here, other than to say I continue to be impressed by Khanani’s writing.

Adult

• Daindreth’s Outlaw by Elisabeth Wheatley. Book Goblin Books, 2022 – Exiled from their kingdom, the former assassin Amira, her beloved betrothed Daindreth, and his handsome best friend flee from his kingdom to try to find the witches who cursed him to be inhabited by a demon and undo the curse. There is a lot of action and a lot of unfulfilled longing that kept me reading, even as the whole book is essentially the journey to find the community of sorceresses.
• Ten Thousand Stitches by Olivia Atwater. Orbit, 2022 – The Regency Faerie Tales continue with this Cinderella twist that takes a look at who deserves a happily-ever-after. Effie is a housemaid who’s fallen quite unexpectedly in love with the handsome Benedict Ashbrooke, one of the Family she serves. When a faery lord with no understanding of human customs attempts to help her win him over, things definitely do not go as planned.
• She Who Knows by Nnedi Okorafor. DAW, 2024 – This is a first novella in a newer series exploring the history of the mother Onyesonwu, the main character of Who Fears Death. Najeeba is just 13 when we meet her, but experiencing the Call to journey on the Salt Road that only boys and men are supposed to hear. Najeeba fighting for what she knows is right for herself is the beginning of the ripple that will change her society. This Afrofuturistic science fantasy is utterly absorbing, and I went right on hold for the next book (see below.)

• Claws and Contrivances by Stephanie Burris. Read by Emma Newman – Hooray! There’s now an audio version of this! I already love the story, full of romance and small dragons, and especially loved hearing this read aloud, where I could hear the differences between the upper class British accents and the Welsh accents of the servants and townsfolk.
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Read by the author. Milkweed Editions, 2013 – This had been on my mental TBR for years without my realizing just how many years had passed since it came out. Seeing her new book, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, come out last fall triggered me to read this book. Braiding Sweetgrass wanders through seasons and the author’s life as she explores Native attitudes towards nature and contrasts them with the scientific and Western methods she learned in college. Her writing is beautiful and contemplative, reflecting on the beauty of strawberries, maple syrup, harvesting and gifting traditions, reciprocity and more. Her reading on audio is slow enough that if it had been fiction, I would have sped it up a little. However, given the nature of the narrative, I let myself be unhurried and just listen along. I’ll read The Serviceberry just as soon as I work through the half dozen books I have checked out right now.
• One Way Witch by Nnedi Okorafor. DAW, 2025 – You can read She Who Knows just fine without reading Who Fears Death first – but that’s not the case with the second book in this duology. Now, Najeeba’s daughter is a young adult, and we experience the very end of Onwesonyu’s story and then the aftermath through Najeeba’s eyes. As always, a complex world with deep thoughts in a story told in deceptively straightforward language. Okorafor is an author I keep returning to with good reason.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts – what have you been reading lately? Have you read any of these books yourself?