Sometimes, dear readers, I review only the first books in series and hope that you will read them and then proceed onwards to subsequent books. Sometimes I myself lose track of sequels – as I did to two of the three books here for several years. So today, I’m sharing these sequels with you to save you from losing track of excellent books.

A Waltz of Sinister Import. The Supernatural Adventures of Lady and Lord Riven Book 3 by Stephanie Burgis. Five Fathoms Press, 2026. ISBN 979-8177913797. Review copy kindly sent by the author.

Lady and Lord Riven return for their third and possibly final cozy-spooky adventure. Margaret and her handsome vampire husband were enjoying the haven for supernatural creatures they helped to secure in A Honeymoon of Grave Consequence when they are called to Vienna by their monarch, King Thomas III. He’s there for a diplomatic meeting of many countries and wants Lady Margaret to use her supernatural scholarly skills to investigate the mysterious and distressing happenings at the balls that each kingdom is hosting in turn – ones where a magical wood fills the ballroom and all the attendees can’t help dancing until the tunes end. While of course Lady Margaret’s insatiable curiousity is piqued, crowded ballrooms are a challenge to her limited people skills. Meanwhile, in the heart of Empire, magical beings are only nominally accepted – leading Margarent to an early faux paux as she unwittingly outs King Thomas’s opera singer mistress, Amalie, as a Lorelei.

Lord Riven also plans to use his time in Vienna to find more supernatural beings who would benefit from their safe house in the Black Forest, but finds his path is less than smooth when his upper class status puts him out of reach of those forced to live on the edges of society. Amalie is instrumental in Lady Margaret noticing, probably for the first time, the privileges she’s had as a member of the upper class in a society openly accepting of vampires. The delights of Vienna include really good cake (if not tea) and coffeehouses with thick velvet curtains for privacy surrounding the booths, a large and forbidden library, a delightful stationery shop, and a new friend for Lady Margaret. She also needs to consider whether a single human lifetime will be enough time with her husband and the love of her life. And though the author has said that no sequels are planned now, there is a hint of a future travel destination if we’re able to join them for another adventure.

Stormsong. Kingston Cycle Book 2 by C.L. Polk. Read by Moira Quirk. Tordotcom, 2020. ISBN 9780765398994. Listened to audiobook on Hoopla.

In the first book of the series, Witchmark, Miles Singer had been hiding from his family to escape his fate as an upper class person gifted with magic that isn’t related to controlling the weather. Much as he loved his sister Grace, living as her living magical battery was simply unacceptable. Now, having learned some hard lessons about the system she was raised to continue and following her traitorous father as Chancellor, she’s in a new position to make changes to how the system works. If, that is, she can convince the rest of the recalcitrent council to work with her, pacify the people who are understandably upset that power has been cut across the country, and figure out how to get her father’s influence out of the city politics. Meanwhile, enormous blizzards are threating the country, and with the Council’s most experience stormsingers locked up for treason, Grace has to find the magical power she needs to control them – both her position and the lives of the people of the kingdom are at stake. Grace definitely doesn’t have time for romance and shouldn’t be trusting anyone – but she can’t seem to keep away from Avia Jessop, the sharp and stylish journalist whom we met in book 1 as the friend of the murder victim.

I really enjoyed watching Grace blossom over the course of the book, developing both her skills and her values. Though there definitely is a romantic storyline here, much more of the story is taken up with the complicated magical and political dealings. Moira Quirk, of course, does a wonderful job narrating the story with distinct voices and accents for the different characters. Grace isn’t a terribly likeable character in the first book, but she really comes into her own here, and the worldbuilding is fantastic. I went straight on to book three of the cycle.

Soulstar. Kingston Cycle Book 3 by C.L. Polk. Read by Robin Miles. Tordotcom, 2021. ISBN 978125020357. Listened to audiobook on Hoopla.

I was really curious about who the hero of book 3 would be, Miles and Grace not having any other siblings. I was delighted when it turned out to be Miles’s best friend Robin Thorpe, the lead nurse from the hospital where Miles worked. She’s a member of a minority Black community with their own culture and traditions, and a witch who kept her magic hidden so that she wouldn’t be taken away to the witch asylums which claimed grandmother and the love of her life 20 years earlier. Now, from her point of view, we get to explore this culture and learn about the organizing work she does with her Riverside community. She’s been trying to work with Grace and the Amaranthines to help guide improved policy going forward, but when a leader of her movement is assassinated, things take an unexpected turn. Meanwhile, when freeing witches from an asylum, Robin finds the spouse she married 20 years earlier and had believed to be dead. Zelind (khe/kher pronouns) and Robin have stayed faithful to each other – but can they overcome the 20 years of trauma and separation between them?

There are still not enough books with nonbinary love interests, and I really appreciate that this isn’t a story of nonbinary acceptance. Zelind is just Zelind, and while kher family might not find Robin an appropriate spouse, no one questions kher identity. Still, romance can’t take center stage as there is so much going on with everything else, including children born in the witch asylums now trying to find their place in the larger world. This book is an appropriate end to the trilogy, navigating through even more difficulties in the struggle to make Aelund a place that has a chance of prosperity and happiness for more than just its elite. Robin Miles reads Robin Thorpe beautifully, with an accent that sounded somewhere between African and British. It is beautiful, and also grimly appropriate for the present time.