Happy December! Here are some mostly quick takes on the books I read in November – so many good books! I hope your winter season is filled with lots of cozy reading.

Middle Grade

• Splinter & Ash 2: City of Secrets by Marieke Nijkamp. Read by Vico Ortiz. Greenwillow Books, 2025 – Trouble comes to the city as Splinter and Ash continue to chase down the secret faction trying to overthrow Ash’s mother, the Queen. As Splinter meets another person who doesn’t identify as male or female, and they both struggle with class issues as Ash try to befriend people on the poor side of town in an effort to really know her city. Despite these issues, this is an engaging and action-filled book, and a series I’ll keep following.
• Berry Parker Doesn’t Catch Crushes by Tanita S. Davis. HarperCollins, 2025 – Berry’s mother, whom she calls by her first name, has lived in a different state almost as long as she can remember, coming back on for “August Invasions” to help Berry get ready for the next school year. Berry still dreams of her parents getting back together, but now her mother is talking more and more about a “friend” from work and moving to London with him. Meanwhile, Berry’s best friend has a crush and can’t seem to think or talk about anything but him and occasionally, who Berry might be crushing on. Berry just wishes the crushes and the pressure to have them herself would go away. This is a realistic and sympathetic portrayal, the kind that keeps me coming back to read Tanita’s books.
• The Star That Always Stays by Anna Rose Johnson. Read by Elise Randall Modica. Holiday House, 2022 – In this book based on on the author’s great-grandmother’s life, Norvia spent the first years of her life on beautiful Beaver Island in northern Michigan. Then, her parents get divorced and the rest of the family moves to Boyne City. When her mother decides to remarry, Norvia is not happy – the social consequences in the 1910s are real, plus her mother doesn’t want them to tell their white stepfather about their Ojibwe heritage. With help from girls’ books like Anne of Green Gables and Pollyanna and Bible verses, Norvia works to find a way to be happy in her new life. It bothered me that Norvia’s older brother gets completely over his fear of being drafted for World War I because of his Bible verses, but the book still has the feel of early classics. I think it would be an especially good choice for families looking for books that address real-world topics like prejudice and divorce from a Christian framework. I’d also suggest print over audiobook here, as the narrator doesn’t distinguish between character voices and the print includes notes and photos of the real-life characters in the book.

• The Misewa Saga: the Great Bear by David A. Robertson. Read by Brefny Caribou. Puffin Canada, 2021 – I read the second book in this Cree portal fantasy series, thinking that perhaps I’d remembered wrong about not being impressed by the first book. Friends, I so want to love this series! Somehow, though, the writing feels like it’s telling more than showing and I never connected to the characters as much as I wanted to. This book and others in the series are well-reviewed, though, so perhaps you’ll like it better than I.

Teen

• Fireblooms by Alexandra Villasante. Nancy Paulsen Books, 2025 – Two wounded teens connect in this beautiful, lightly speculative look at the way we can hurt each other and what price we’re willing to pay for safety. Sebas has moved to New Gault only briefly to help his estranged mother with her cancer treatment; she sends him to the shiny, happy TECH high school. There, Lu (they/them) is charged with signing them on to the TECH suite of tools – high-powered, ultramodern tech in exchange for constant monitoring, including a monthly word budget. I loved these characters so, so much.
• Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe by C.B. Lee. Feiwel & Friends, 2025 – Another book that won my heart! Brend Nguyen is an ambitious and organized Vietnamese-American teen with a detailed plan to get to her goal of saving the world. Kat Woo, in contrast, deliberately underperforms in school, refusing to cooperate with the prophecy that says she’s needed to save the world from magical disaster.

Adult

• Lady Like by Mackenzi Lee. Dial Press, 2025 – A first adult book from Lee, author of The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, continuing on with the theme of historical gay romance. Here, we have two women in Regency England – Harry, daughter of a whore and now almost earning a living acting in notorious sapphice theatre in London, and Emily, a minor noblewoman. Harry learns who her father is and is told she must marry to earn an estate. Emily’s parents, meanwhile, due to an unfortunate incident in the past, have decided that their only option for respectability is to betroth her to a horribly cruel man old enough to be her grandfather. They find themselves at the same ball, both trying to win the hand of the same eligible duke, only to be more charmed (at least eventually) by each other. I learned reading this that I don’t like when one of my romantic leads has meaningless sex on page – but your tastes may differ, and the rest of it was charming. I also really enjoyed the backmatter, complete with information about lesbians and other norm-smashing women of the era.
• Blackmail and Bibingka by Mia P. Manansala. Read by Danice Cabanela. Berkley, 2022 – Book three in the Tita Rosie’s Kitchen cozy mystery series! This is set at Christmas, and involves Lila’s long-lost black sheep of a cousin, Ronnie, coming back and asking for help starting a business – only to bring trouble with him. There’s also a bit of development in Lila’s romantic relationship. I’m finding the series entertaining, while my love waits eagerly for each new installment.
• Snowspelled by Stephanie Burgis. Seven Fathoms Press, 2017 – There’s a new “boxed” set of the ebooks for the Harwood Spellbook series, and I had to reread the first one on a late and stressful evening. So worth it!

• Daindreth’s Sorceress by Elisabeth Wheatley. Book Goblin Books, 2023 – Book 3! There’s not a lot to say without spoilers, so I’ll just say that I very much enjoyed the story from the point of views of our main heroes, and am less fond of things from the villain’s POV. I’ll still finish out the series, though!
• The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater. Read by Erin Bennett.Viking, 2025 – I’d been waiting for a while for Steifvater’s latest book, her first foray into adult fiction. Many of my coworkers were not excited by the idea of spending time with the general manager of a luxury hotel forced to house Axis diplomats during World War II. I wasn’t necessarily thrilled with the premise – but, oh! It’s still Stiefvater, a hotel in the mountains of West Virginia built over a spring of “sweet water” – magical water – and the few people, including that general manager, who can listen to what the water needs. It is beautifully done. Kudos to narrator Erin Bennett, too, who did admirably reading with a wide variety of accents.
• Can’t Spell Treason without Tea by Rebecca Thorne. Bramble, 2024 – Have I ever mentioned that I love tea? I do, and you’ll probably have noticed by now that I am really fond of cozy fantasy, so this story of an archmage and a former Queen’s guard running away from their respectve stressful lives and trying to build a book- and tea shop in a remote border town really was my cup of tea (sorry, I couldn’t resist.) Of course things aren’t as peaceful as Kianthe and Reyna would want – but there are bandits, dragons, griffins, and rival town officials fight-flirting with each other. So much fun I had to check out book two immediately, even though I already have half a dozen library books on my TBR.

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