Smack and Gabi go over their best (and not so best) recent reads, most of which will be coming or going from the Smack Shelf (a shelf in Gabi’s apartment that contains all the loans from Smack). The incomers are all surprisingly good YA reads while the outgoing books include three powerhouses - a perfect fairy-tale-esque novella, an incredible Malaysian-American ghost story, and a sci-fi novel with maybe the best multiverse worldbuilding we’ve ever seen. Other fun recent reads cover a paladin and necromancer begrudgingly becoming friends, a cat astronaut desperately trying to eat pizza, a Holmes-ian mystery with plenty of pining, and a Navy captain (who is definitely not a pirate) trying to deal with sea dragons (and pirates).
Book discussed in this episode include:
Blade of Secrets (Bladesmith #1) & Master of Iron (Bladesmith #2) by Tricia Levenseller
The Corpse Queen by Heather Herrman
Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves (Edge Worlds #1) by Meg Long
A Touch of Darkness (Hades x Persephone #1) by Scarlett St. Clair
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher
Black Water Sister by Zen Cho
The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
To Kill a Necromancer (Blackwing #1) & Hetgarib’s Curse (Blackwing #2) by C.M. Alongi
The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza (The First Cat in Space #1) by Mac Barnett and Shawn Harris (Illustrator)
Death by Silver (Julian Lynes and Ned Mathey #1) by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold
The Bright and Breaking Sea (Captain Kit Brightling #1) by Chloe Neill
