Check, Please! Book 1: #Hockey (2018) Ngozi Ukazu (Check, Please! #1)
Publisher: First Second
Rating: 8.5/10
In Defense of the Queen (2013) Michelle Diener (Susanna Horenbout and John Parker #3)
Set in London in 1525
Susanna’s brother has come to London, but something is wrong, and a crossbow bolt emphasizes that point.
As Henry plants to make his illegitimate son heir over his legitimate daughter, intrigue and plot swirls once more about Parker and Susanna.
“He has grown tired of me.” Susanna flicked her gaze to Elizabeth, standing with her eyes still on the king.
At last, she turned her head to Susanna. Her face was utterly beautiful, completely serene. “I am relieved, truth be told.”
(B)etween him and I, it is over. No doubt my husband will get a new landholding as a parting gift. For lending the king my services.”
She lived for the moment her charcoal or her brush touched the white of a blank surface. With infinite possibilities and endless ways to create beauty before her, she moved the charcoal just so to capture the joy she saw before her.
The houses on Lombard Street leant against each other like a crowd of drunks, propping each other up.
Characters: John Parker, Susanna Horenbout, Mistress Greene, Peter Jack, Eric, Harry, Simon Carter, Maggie, King Henry (VIII), Queen Katherine, Mistress Gladys Goodnight, Jean, Lucas Horenbout, Elizabeth Carew, Lady Alice, Jan Heyman, Clemence, Will Somers, Gertrude Courtenay, Cardinal Wolsey, Kilburne, Lewis, Merden, Francis Bryan, Renard, Jules, Henry Fitzroy, Richard Croke, Jehan de la Sauch, Norfolk, Thomas Wyatt, Maggie
Publisher: Gallery Books
Rating: 7/10
Blackwater (2022) Jeannette Arroyo, Ren Graham
Tony is a track star and popular.
His best friend is an asshole.
His dad doesn’t know–or seem to care–what’s happening in Tony’s life.
Eli is the weird kid, who often misses school.
And who sees ghosts.
Despite being warned, Tony goes into the woods, and ends up bitten by something.
The ghost Eli keeps seeing tries to help, but it’s hard to explain to someone they shouldn’t go into the woods because a ghost says it’s a bad idea.
This is very YA, and wasn’t for me, but you can find out for yourself and check out the comic online.
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co
Rating: NR
Dark Heir, Audio Book (2015) Faith Hunter narrated by Khristine Hvam (Jane Yellowrock #9)
“There is job-bound, there is emotion-bound, and there is blood-bound—all kinds of binding. Then there is stupid-bound. In this case, I think you’re stupid-bound.”
The vibes the place gave out said it had not been a happy place, while the décor suggested that if money could have bought happiness, the vamps and humans who had lived there would have experienced unrelieved joy.
“Where are we going?”
“Right now for coffee. Then to sub-four to check the safe Leo mentioned. Also, since this conspiracy to free Santana keeps widening, I want to take a look again at Adrianna’s room here, and again at her room at Mearkanis Clan Home. Maybe we missed something.”
“You’re going to drink coffee?”
“Odd how you picked that out of the really good stuff that I just said.”
“I heard it all. The only weird part was you drinking coffee.”
Characters: Jane Yellowrock, Beast, Eli Younger, Alex Younger, Leo Pellissier, Bruiser / George Dumas, Joses Santana/Yosace Bar-Ioudas, Sabina Delgado y Aguilera, Bethany Salazar y Medina, Adelaide Mooney, Edmund Hartley, Adrianna, Grégoire, Katie, Dominique, Mario Esposito, Brandon and Brian Robere, Wrassler, Gretchen, Ernestine, Pinkie, Brute, Aggie One Feather, Uni lisi, Daniel, Jodi Richoux, Sloan Rosen, Officer Herbert, Lachish Dutillet, Molly Megan Everhart Trueblood, Butterfly Lily, Feather Storm, Juwan, Zareb, Rick
Cover by Cliff Nielsen
Publisher: Audible Studios
Rating: 7.5/10
A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping (2025) Sangu Mandanna
Sera was fifteen when she lost most of her magic.
Choosing her love for Jasmine over her loyalty to the British Guild of Sorcery wasn’t exactly difficult for Sera. The Guild was strict, stuffy, and entirely too fond of looking down their noses at almost everybody.
Now, barred from magical society, she helps her aunt run the (semi) magical inn.
Just weeks after she’d turned eighteen, her parents had decided she could now stand on her own two feet. They’d signed over the deed and the mortgage, kissed and congratulated her as if they hadn’t just plonked a crumbling colossus in her lap, and tootled off.
Luke is a magical historian who is struggling to manage his younger sister, because their parents find her too much to handle.
While it was tempting to lay the blame at Posy’s door for her obsession with leaves, or even at Mother Nature’s for having the temerity to invent leaves, Luke was only too aware that he was the one who had brought his small, impulsive, autistic sister to stay at the Guild’s estate, a place of rules, decorum, and one too many disapproving gargoyles roaming its hallowed halls.
Unbeknownst to either, there are magicians who would like to see Sera get her magic back.
“By the way, if you saw a fox in the library on your way out last night, you didn’t.”
“I didn’t,” Luke agreed.
“Very good, Luke. That’s very convincing.”
“No, I really didn’t. Should I have?”
“No,” said Verity at once.
This story is about living in a world that doesn’t accept you as you are by finding family that loves you just as you are.
“I don’t see why anyone needs to explain anything,” Matilda said reproachfully. “If I’ve gone two full years not seeing wildflowers bursting to life in teacups and not hearing foxes speak English and not noticing implausible skeletal chickens running around the place, I have no idea why anyone thinks a floating child will shake me out of my equilibrium.”
(S)he had realised that the thing he’d needed hadn’t been a toasty fireplace at all.
He’d needed someone to see him, armour and sword and all. To hear his ridiculous introduction and accept his courtly bow. And still say Come in.
Ah, Nicholas.
Nicholas, on the other hand, had the courage of a lion, the lovability of a puppy, and the common sense of a goldfish.
But really, almost everyone who lives at the inn is lovely and adorable.
Matilda said regretfully to Luke, and then, like she’d only just taken proper notice of him, did a comical double take. “Well. Well. Did it hurt? When you fell out of whichever Norse myth you came from?”
Except Clemmie, who is clearly untrustworthy, yet Sera trusts her anyway.
“That’s not fair,” said Clemmie, sounding genuinely wounded. “I would never have let anything happen to him.”
“You’re what happened to him!” Sera reminded her.
It’s just the warm hug I needed.
Characters: Sera Swan, Great-Auntie Jasmine Ponnappa, Clemmie / Clementine Bennet, Albert Grey, Francesca Grey, Roo-Roo, Nicholas, Matilda, Theo, Luke Larsen, Posy, Verity Walter, Bradford Bertram-Mogg, Howard Hawtrey, Alex, Malik, Elliot, Evie, Chancellor Bennet, Mrs. Cooper, Lionel Bennet, Zahra, Martin
Cover illustration by Lisa Perrin
Publisher: Berkley
Rating: 9/10
A Shore Thing (2024) Joanna Lowell
Set in Cornwall in 1888
Mrs. Muriel Pendrake has come to St Ives with her best friend James both to vacation and to find a painter for her botanical images for her upcoming presentation in New York.
“You have enough people to worry about in London. This is a holiday. No operating on the fishermen.”
“Your trunk is stuffed with microscopes, chisels, and pickle jars. And you’re sniping at me because I brought my surgical bag. The hypocrisy.”
Kit Griffith came to St Ives to make his way as a painter and to live on his own terms.
When he’d first slipped out of his parents’ house at fifteen, in clothing filched from his middle brother’s wardrobe, he’d anticipated ecstatic freedom from men’s gazes.
On the street, in the Burlington Arcade, everywhere, he was shocked to discover more clinging eyes. He soon learned that he was seen not as a boyish girl but as a girlish boy.
After a falling out with his best friend, he can no longer paint, so his life revolves around his bicycle shop.
An argument with another cyclist over the popularity of the new Safety Bicycles (which can be ridden by women) leads to a bet: Can Kit find a woman able to make the entire tour around Cornwall on a safety bicycle.
As the ferry churned out of the shipyard into open water, he and Deighton went tit for tat with bicycle specifications, listing increasingly technical details in increasingly loud voices to an increasingly bored crowd.
I particularly enjoyed the tour and various interactions with the Cycling Club–particularly Egg and Prescott.
When they overuse their brains, it depletes a certain other organ.”
“Hair?” guessed Egg.
“Hair isn’t an organ,” said Prescott.
“Then why does thinking too much make you bald?” asked Egg.
But what I liked best was the friendship between Muriel and James.
They’re extremely reliable. Also, they’re quick. Quick to grow, I mean. Relatively speaking.”
James was nodding along. “Brilliant.” His lips twitched. “Now can I say upsy-daisy when you topple over?”
“I can’t see how you’ll refrain.”
The story is full of queer rep, from Kit and James to the Sapphic clubs Kit knows from him time in London.
It’s all full of reminders of the many limitations placed upon women and the dangerous of being queer.
“No,” she attempted. “I am more worried, and you are, therefore, less worried. It’s the rule.”
“A rule that depends on there being a fixed amount of worry. But worry isn’t six apples, where you take four, so I have two.”
“We are sharing the worry.” She spoke with firmness, rising and crossing to the chaise. “That’s what’s important. Move over.”
The author also notes she has tried to put as much of her and her husband’s lived experience into Kit and Muriel’s story as possible.
There was boinking in this story, but I had no trouble skimming those parts without feeling like I was missing important details or character development.
Characters: Kit Griffith, Mrs. Muriel Pendrake, James Raleigh, Thomas Everett Ponson, Mr. Trevaskis, Mr. Bamfylde, Colin Deighton, Lucy Coover, Gwen, Nelly, Johannes Bernhard, Arthur Hawkings, Shigeki Takada, Mrs. Glanvil, Grace Swanwick, Charlotte Tempest-Smythe, Miranda Ellis, Annie Groombridge, Octavia Jenkins, Amelia Clarkson, Mrs. Dorothea Yarrow, Lady Henrietta Chettam, Mrs. Oatridge, Eva Bamfylde, Wilmot Curnow, Johan Gustav Svensson, Mrs. Pengilly, Charles Heywood
Cover art by Katie Smith
Publisher: Berkley Romance
Rating: 8/10
The Skeleton Stuffs a Stocking (2019) Leigh Perry (The Family Skeleton #6)
This seems to be the last Skeleton mystery, although I did see a listing for an anthology of short stories.
Georgia is back living at home, and working as an adjunct at the other university in town (the one her parents do not teach at).
This time she is drawn into a mystery when Madison’s dog gets out of the house and is found wandering the neighborhood carrying a femur.
It was Friday night when we found the body, and I was so relieved about not being involved that I didn’t even think about it over the weekend other than to check the Pennycross news site repeatedly to see if there was any new information.
It turns out that her good friend (and fellow adjunct) Charles may have known the woman.
I said, “Charles, would you like a hug?”
“Yes, Georgia, I believe that I would.”
I like Charles quite a bit.
“One of the scabs slipped and fell. No doubt she’ll try to blame the union.”
I hadn’t realized I’d moved closer to the man than was polite until Charles gently pulled me back and in a crisp voice said, “That would be Dr. Hortiz, a single mother who was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s.”
The man turned toward us and stammered, “What? I didn’t realize…”
Also, there is a strike.
Madison asked, “What are they striking about? More money?”
“It’s more about healthcare and workload,” Mom said. “The administration is trying to cut costs.”
This places the adjuncts in an uncomfortable position, as they are temporary contract employees who are not seen by tenured faculty as “real” professors (and thus not part of the faculty union) but are at-will and can be summarily let go for any reason.
Also, Georgia starts seeing her ex again (who apparently appeared in a prior book) but still doesn’t know how to deal with the Sid Situation. (How do you tell the person you are dating that your best friend is an animated skeleton who shouldn’t exist?)
It’s another cute entry and a satisfactory ending to the series.
Characters: Sid, Georgia Thackery, Madison Thackery, Phil Thackery, Mrs. Dr. T, Deborah Thackery, Sergeant Louis Raymond, Oscar O’Leary, Charles Peyton, Dr. Brownlow “Brownie” Fenton Mannix, Dana Fenton, Treasure Hunt Mannix, Sue Weedon, Annabelle Mitchell, Lauri Biegler, Provost Kozlov, Professor Lefebre, Margo Nichols, Yolanda Jacobs, Edward Humphries, Mrs. Jetta Silva, Mr. Sebastian Silva, Professor Dallas Sieck, Mrs. Gleason, Mr. Gleason
Publisher: Diversion Books
Rating: 8/10
Dangerous Sanctuary (2012) Michelle Diener (Susanna Horenbout and John Parker #1.5)
Set in London in 1525
This is a novella set between In a Treacherous Court and Keeper of the King’s Secrets.
Today the King’s procession through London from Bridewell would end here, in a ceremony of thanks to God for the capture of the French king, Francis I, and the death of the Yorkist Pretender, Richard de la Pole.
I’m not sure how it would stand on it’s own, but it’s a glimpse at the history happening at the time.
Characters: John Parker, Susanna Horenbout, Cardinal Wolsey, Halliwell, Geoffrey Pole, John Rightwise
Publisher: Gallery Books
Rating: 7/10
Washington’s Gay General: The Legends and Loves of Baron von Steuben (2023) Josh Trujillo, Levi Hastings
This is a graphic novel biography of Baron von Steuben, the Prussian who became Inspector General for the Continental/American Army and wrote the “Blue Book” that changed the army into a force that was able to defeat the British.
He was also openly gay in a time when homosexuality was a punishable crime in many European states.
This book provides an accessible overview of one of the forgotten military men of the Revolution, and looks at the bad as well as the good, including the ownership of at least one enslaved man, his relentless self-promotion, and his preference for younger men.
But importantly it gives us a look at a man who was central to the success of what would become the American army, and how his sexuality was known by those around him–including George Washington.
The author and illustrator are open about not being historians, which means they have unfortunately failed to give a bibliography, sharing their sources.
This seems like a small thing, but in this day and age sources materials are important not just for sharing where their information came from, but also for allowing people to learn more on their own.
But what they have given us is a glimpse at a man who created the tactics that shaped the American Army, and changed that force from a bunch of rag-tag yokels who almost froze to death due to a unit that was eventually able to defeat one of the strongest military forces in the world at that time.
Publisher: Abrams
Rating: 7.5/10
Keeper of the King’s Secrets (2012) Michelle Diener (Susanna Horenbout and John Parker, #2)
Set in London in 1525
“Foreigners live there.” The boy pulled himself taller. “Rich ’n’ all.” He eyed the money.
“Where’re they from?” Parker did not loosen his hold.
The boy tried to yank his arm away but gave up when he realized there was no give. “Foreigners is foreigners. I don’t know.”
“The King was nearly killed.” Simon’s voice rose. “He fell into a ditch while hawking. His pole snapped as he was vaulting over it. He was stuck, headfirst, in the mud. A groom saved his life.”
She began to read. “What are you doing?” Wolsey’s shout made her jerk.
She stared at him. “Reading the first paragraph.”
His eyes widened, surprised, no doubt, that she could read. “For what reason?”
Susanna frowned. “So I have a sense of the contents. The painting needs to reflect the document.”
Characters: John Parker, Susanna Horenbout, Mistress Greene, Peter Jack, Eric, Harry, Simon Carter, Maggie, King Henry (VIII), Queen Katherine, Master Jens of Antwerp / Pieter Diamantaire, Cardinal Wolsey, Jean, The Comte, Dr. Pettigrew, Alfred, Isaac Gittens, Edward Malory, Will Somers / Fool, Thomas Wyatt, Charles Brandon, Mary, Thomas Boleyn, Elizabeth Carew, Francis Bryan, Gertrude Courtenay, Jane Stafford, Father Haden
Publisher: Gallery Books
Rating: 8/10
The Skeleton Makes a Friend (2018) Leigh Perry (Family Skeleton Mystery #5)
Another semester, another college, but this time Georgia is teaching at a summer program for high school students.
If I’d been able to afford it, I would have tried to talk Madison into signing up for the program. She’d just finished her sophomore year, which meant it was past time to start planning for college. Unfortunately, the program cost more than what I was making for teaching.
This time the murder turns out to be someone Sid knows–a friend he made online, and another player for the game wants Sid to help her find.
“I made up a game name and everything. Skalle is Swedish for skull, and Beinagrind is Icelandic for skeleton. Nobody would ever get my real name out of that. And even if they did, it wouldn’t matter. Sid Thackery doesn’t show up on any census, phone listings, utility bills, car titles, nothing. And sure, I do use a picture of a skeleton as my character’s sigil, but it’s not an actual picture of me.”
“Sid, would it have made a difference if you had used an actual picture of yourself?”
Although the term is never used (and it doesn’t have to be) the teen girl who wants Sid’s help is pretty clearly autistic.
I looked at her, but she was completely serious. “You’re unusually conscientious.”
“People tell me that, but I don’t understand what they mean. My not understanding people happens a lot. That’s probably why I don’t make friends easily. Some people say I’m a nerd.”
But Georgia’s daughter ends up becoming friendly with her, as they both game (and there is a discussion about how females are treated in gaming culture–primarily because two of the gamers are teen girls).
Interestingly, although it’s clear that the state of continually being an adjunct professor is lousy, most of the academics Georgia has worked with in these two books have been lovely.
He leaned forward. “You and I haven’t spoken much, but given past events, I did want to make sure that this incident hasn’t triggered any disturbing memories for you.”
I hadn’t expected that, and I was touched. “I’m fine.”
“I know you’re only in Overfeld temporarily, so I was worried you might not have an adequate support system.”
It’s also clear the Georgia enjoys teaching, even if the adjunct system is lousy.
And there were some interesting elements–apparently this is the first time Sid has known the murder victim, so it’s his first death (he has led a sheltered life for obvious reasons).
Also, there were fun little peeks at academia.
It was an interoffice envelope, the resealable kind with a button and string closure and rows of lines so you could reuse it repeatedly, though my name was the only one written on this one. In the age of emails and texts, I rarely saw them anymore.
I might have one of those floating around my office.
So another enjoyable mystery, and I’m glad I’m mixing things up and alternating series. Hopefully that will keep me from getting burned out.
Characters: Sid / Skalle Beinagrind, Georgia Thackery, Madison Thackery, Jen Cater-Brame, Judy Cater, Mo Heedles, Neil Farmer / Erik Bloodaxe, Valentin Fernandez, Heath Ridley, Charles Peyton, Treva Youngblood, Paul, Zach, Heath Ridley, Lisa Quinn, Chief Bezzat, Walker Schild, Bakshi
Publisher: Diversion Books
Rating: 8/10
In a Treacherous Court (2011) Michelle Diener (Susanna Horenbout and John Parker #1)
Set in London in 1525
Although the main characters are based upon real people, almost nothing is known about Susanna Horenbout and John Parker except for their court positions and that they were married to each other.
Additionally part of the story hinges upon a possible reason for why Henry VII all but locked up his son for a year, even forbidding him to speak to anyone.
Susanna has come to the court of the young Henry VII to be his court illustrator. She is met at the docks by John Parker, Keeper of the Palace of Westminster and Henry’s Yeoman of the Crossbows (and later promoted to Keeper of the King’s Robes) where she attended the death of Master Harvey, and someone believes he told her a secret–and seems to want her dead before she can betray that secret.
The story doesn’t pull any punches about the kind of place the courts were at the time.
Parker wondered for the hundredth time how Henry and Nicholas Carew broke bread together, joked and tourneyed together, with Elizabeth between them. William Carey had received an estate, payment for services rendered by his wife, now that those services were no longer required.
And John Parker is contrasted with one of the lords who holds him in contempt.
Henry prized grace and elegance, courtly manners, romance. Norfolk was a boor whose only accomplishment was hunting deer and whose idea of courtly romance was to beat his wife when she complained about his mistress being given quarters in her home.
And the painting bits are lovely.
But there was no fun for her in producing a faithful rendition of the scene. She slipped in a tiny mouse, peeping from behind a guard’s shoe. A cat—plenty of those had slunk past her as she waited—crouched under a heavy chair, shoulders hunched, weight forward, its eyes steady in readiness to pounce. From the patterned silk paneling, a small songbird broke free of the fabric and fluttered up to perch on a wooden window frame.
It’s been ages since I read this series, and I’m glad I picked it up again.
Characters: John Parker, Mistress Susanna Horenbout, Mistress Greene, Peter Jack, Eric, Harry, Simon, Master Harvey, Mistress Harvey, Dr. Pettigrew, King Henry (VIII), Queen Katherine, Father Haden, Master Selby, Gripper, Gladys Goodnight, Rhys, Maggie, Marcus, Charles Brandon the Duke of Suffolk, Will, Francis Bryan, George Boleyn, Tom Fielder, Edward Neville, William Carey, Henry Courtenay, Henry Guildford, Elizabeth Carew, Nicholas Carew, Denny, John Rightwise, Norris, Lady Mary Browne, Margaret, Lady Guildford
Publisher: Gallery Books
Rating: 8/10
The Skeleton Paints a Picture (2017) Leigh Perry (Family Skeleton Mystery #4)
This premise of this series is a little silly–one of the two main characters is an animated skeleton. But once you accept that, it’s a fun cozy mystery.
Georgia Thackery is an adjunct professor, seeking the magical grail of a tenured position.
“Why don’t colleges hire all permanent professors?”
“Using adjuncts is cheaper. Colleges pay us per course taught and don’t have to pony up for insurance and vacation and all that.”
“And they can get away with working you full time without giving you benefits?”
“The thing is, I only teach three classes at FAD, which puts me under the legal limit for full-time work.”
And her best friend just happens to be a skeleton.
“I’ve got nothing to hide, Sid, other than you.” And technically, I didn’t even have to hide him—it was completely legal to have a human skeleton.
Her current position is at an art school, where she isn’t teaching literature, as much as making sure the students can write clearly about their art.
And even in art schools there are still snobs.
She didn’t know comics, and we got together so I could explain enough of the common tropes for her to work with my students. I recommended some stuff for her to read, but though she didn’t come out and say so, I could tell she thought sequential art was a waste of time and talent.
When a car ends up off the road and embedded in an embankment near her house, Georgia discovers it was her coworker–the woman in charge of the writing lab–and the death seems a little suspicious.
In addition to snobbery about comics and other “non-serious” forms of art, the faculty members end up discussing the grammar of queerness.
“If they were to become singular, what would we use for plural?” Dahna said with a tinge of horror in her voice.
I hoped that meant she was really expressing an opinion as opposed to echoing Professor Waldron’s thoughts to get ahead in the tenure race. “You is both plural and singular,” I pointed out.
“Except when y’all are in my part of the country,” Caroline said with a grin.
And one of the students has the WORSE roommate ever.
“Okay, Marissa, you’ve been rooming with her. Do you think she’d steal from other artists?”
“In a heartbeat. She stole my pads!” Then she colored and looked away from Indigo. “You know, my sanitary pads. She never even told me, so when I needed some, there were none left.”
What I particularly liked is these points were part of the story: anyone with a uterus knows how vile stealing someone’s sanitary supplies and not replacing them is, so that tells you not just how terrible Bad Bobbie is, but also the misery of menstrual supplies being an additional expense women have to bear.
And the skeleton was entertaining–especially his excitement about snow blowers and snow plows.
This is the fourth book in the series, and I didn’t feel I was missing anything by jumping in here (which is one of the nice things about cozy mysteries), so another sign of good story-telling.
Characters: Sid, Ms. Georgia Thackery, Mr. Perkins, Professor Martha Waldron, Caroline Craig, Owen Deen, Renee Turner, Dahna Kaleka, Officer Ginny Buchanan, Kelly Griffith, Indigo Williamson, Marissa Esqueleto, Bobbie Fitzpatrick/Bad Bobbie, Lucas Silva, Ashwin Inamdar, Jacqueline Lewis, Greg Azzopardi, Jeremy Nolan
Publisher: Diversion Books
Rating: 8/10
Baba Yaga’s Assistant: A Graphic Novel (2015) Marika McCoola and Emily Carroll
Everyone knows about Baba Yaga.
She flies with a mortal and pestle.
She eats misbehaving children.
She has the best house.
After Masha’s mother died, he grandmother baked cookies and loved her.
And told her stories about Baba Yaga.
But then her grandmother died, and Masha felt alone.
And when her father decided to remarry, Masha decide she’d apply for the job of Baba Yaga’s Assistant (as advertised in the newspaper).
The story is of Masha’s trials in her quest to become Baba Yaga’s assistant, calling on the memories of the stories her grandmother told her of the Russian witch.
It’s lovely.
Characters: Masha Martin, Baba Yaga, Irina Otelsberg, Danielle Morgan
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Rating: 8.5/10
Sleepless, Vol. 1 (2018) Sarah Vaughn, Leila del Duca, Alissa Sallah
Lady “Poppy” Pyppenia’s father, the king has died. Her uncle now rules in his stead, and intrigue swirls around her.
But for protection she has her Sleepless guard, Sir Cyrenic.
Sir Cyrenic has protected Poppy since she was young, coming to the notice of the king in battle.
But Poppy is not the daughter of the queen, so she is not heir, and there are those who see her as a threat.
It was a relief to pick up something I enjoyed, since the last two comics I read didn’t work for me.
The worldbuilding–who are the Sleepless and how did they become so? What is the intrigue going on with Edtland? What is wrong with Princess Rellen?
Some of these questions were answered, others not, so I’ll have to get Vol 2 to learn more.
Characters: Lady “Poppy” Pyppenia, Sleepless Knight Sir Cyrenic, King Surno, Dowager Leotta, Sir Gert, Lord Otranto, Princess Rellen, Lord Helder, Bini, Sir Alfani, Lady Nnende
Publisher: Image Comics
Rating: 7.5/10
