All posts by Katie Jane Gallagher

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About Katie Jane Gallagher

Author of the Beauty and Her Alien series and Specter.

ARC: Serious Moonlight by Jenn Bennett

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Thank you to NetGalley and Simon Pulse/Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing for sending me a free advanced reader copy of this book for an honest review. Serious Moonlight debuts April 16th.

You know when you see a perfect cover, and you think to yourself, well, the book can’t possibly live up to THAT, could it? They’re compensating for something, right? Well, banish those fears—Serious Moonlight is a cozy contemporary that pairs an adorable romance with memorable characters and a Pacific Northwest setting. In my opinion, this book is exactly what new adult should be: kids post-high school taking their first steps into “adulting,” with sex present, but not in an erotic way. It has a YA contemporary voice, but the MCs are just a tad bit older. I also truly appreciated how Bennett placed her characters in a non-school setting. I’ve heard so many calls from people in publishing asking for manuscripts featuring MCs navigating college, and I’m just… not really interested in that?

The pitch is that the MC, Birdie, hooked up with a cute guy in his car, then totally freaked out and literally ran away from him. She’s doing her best to forget all this… but then said cute guy, Daniel, happens to work at her new job. Gotta be fate, right? But both Birdie and Daniel are going to have to work through a lot of things before they can get their happily ever after. Oh, and there’s a “mystery” in the book as well… I use quotes here because the mystery aspect really isn’t that big of a focus; we’re all just here for the developing romance between Birdie and Daniel. It’s cute, they’re cute, the setting’s cute, everything’s cute, cute, cute! Love it.

All this isn’t to say that the book is perfect. Daniel is a bit too much of a “nice guy” for my taste; he treats Birdie like gold at every opportunity, giving her all possible outs from their relationship. That didn’t come across as caring to me so much as unsexy; I was hoping he’d grow a spine. But Daniel did grow on me in time, especially as he plans one awesome date after the next. The one with a Clue focus? (Trying not to give anything away.) I was Googling if anything like that existed in my area. (Unfortunately looks like I’d have to travel to Boston, so… meh.) There was also some cringey, wooden dialogue—I could have done without the “skedaddling” scene. But these are just small quibbles; the setting, the characters, the “found family” aspect, the pitch-perfect new adult feel all added up to a thoroughly enjoyable read, so I will definitely be checking out Bennett’s other books.

The Stone’s Heart by Jessica Thorne (The Queen’s Wing #2)

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The first in this science-fantasy series, The Queen’s Wing, is the best book I’ve read this year hands down, so suffice it to say that I was beyond excited to read The Stone’s Heart and bought it the day of release. The Stone’s Heart picks up pretty much exactly after the last book ended and introduces Petra, Bel’s bodyguard, as a new POV; the book shifts between their POVs throughout. It took me a little while to feel fully immersed in the book, but that was really a me-thing instead of a book-thing—sometimes you’re just not in that SFF mood, you know? But things clicked for me about a quarter of the way in, and I was fully along for the ride.

Thorne crafts great characters and excellent plots, with world building that’s just the perfect ratio of science fiction to fantasy. As I think I said in my review of the first in the series, whoever is doing the marketing for this series is picking the wrong comps (Sarah J. Maas and The Selection). I think a wayyyyy better comparison is the Lunar Chronicles series if it were aimed at slightly older readers. And can we talk about that last bit? Because this series is not YA; I don’t care what the marketing and the cover indicate. Yeah, it’s written in a YA-ish voice that’s going to appeal to YA fans, but these characters are too old for that designation, sorry. I get it, that’s where the money’s at, but… can we try the New Adult thing again? Pretty please? Because a couple books I’ve read this year fit super well in that category, and I just wish traditional publishing and bookstores would acknowledge that we can make this a thing if we all just take a trust fall together.

I really enjoyed the new POV; these characters are full-fledged, with their own hopes, dreams, and back stories. If you are a fan of courtly (and interplanetary!) intrigue, definitely pick this series up, since there are a ton of twists, turns, and back stabbings. Thorne is really skilled at writing plot twists that truly come from left field but feel absolutely plausible. There’s no listed third book on Goodreads, but I’m praying that the author has one in the works, since I’m on board for this series for the long haul—hoping it’s not a trilogy, so we can get more, more, more! And in the meantime, I might take a look at her back list, since she also writes under Ruth Frances Long and R. F. Long.

Short Tuesday #7: “Blue Morphos in the Garden” by Lis Mitchell

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This week I returned to Tor.com for another look at their original fiction. Lis Mitchell’s “Blue Morphos in the Garden” was published just a few days ago, and the beautiful illustration and the promise of magical realism was enough to hook me. You can read the short story right here!

I liked this story quite a bit! It centers around death, tradition, and what it means to be part of a family—don’t want to give anything away, but the family members in the story have a particular heritage relating to death. Every sentence felt purposeful and necessary, and the language itself was beautiful and evocative.

The outer edge of the wing resembles split wood with whorled knots, but each butterfly unfolds itself into a slice of fluttering blue sky and dark stormshadow. Open—sky, closed—wood.

I will say that I liked the story from start to finish, but felt that the opening imagery was the most compelling, I think because after that readers basically have a sense of what’s going on. I don’t want to know all the ins-and-outs with magical realism—would rather preserve a hearty dose of ambiguity. I also thought that Dash, the MC’s partner, was a very weak character personality-wise, leaving me to wonder what the MC sees in him—they seemed very ill-matched, not just because they don’t see eye to eye on the one issue central to the story. I couldn’t help wondering if it weren’t for their child whether they would still be together.

So some interesting things to contemplate while reading this story, coupled with a lot of beautiful imagery and sentence-craft. If magical realism is your thing, definitely give this story a shot.

Chapter Six of The Gold in the Dark and a Writing Update!

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The sixth chapter of The Gold in the Dark drops today! I’m especially excited that this chapter is posting, since it’s the first POV switch of the book. Don’t worry if you need to catch up with past chapters, since you can do that right here. New chapters post every other Sunday at 11 AM EST, and each one is accompanied by a beautiful, custom illustration. Just look at this week’s illustration; isn’t it gorgeous? The care and thought my illustrator puts into these chapter illustrations steals my breath every time. It’s one thing to envision these scenes in your head, and another to see them pictured on a page. ❤ Really surreal.

In writing update news, this week brought a major victory for me: the formatting of Specter is finally finished. I thought I was done with it a week ago, then received my physical proof and realized I needed to make font size adjustments, as well as bring in the inner margin. And it’s not so simple as changing those things and then submitting the final manuscript, wham bam thank you ma’am, since any formatting change can have a huge cascading effect in terms of page length, paragraph widows and orphans, etc. Cue rushing to get these changes made in a span of three days so I could rush order another proof, so I could finally confirm my page count, so I could hire a cover artist. And let me tell you, the proof arrived yesterday and… the formatting is perfect, at last.

Which means that there will be a cover reveal soon. I don’t really know any other way to put this: I’M SO EXCITED!!!!!!! Everything is coming together, it’s going to look fantastic, and soon Specter will be a real thing, out in the world for others to read.

I can’t wait. I hope you guys can’t wait, too.

Anyway, hope everyone’s having a great weekend, and enjoy reading Chapter Six. ❤

ARC: The Dark Game by Jonathan Janz

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Thank you to NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for sending me a free advanced reader copy of this book for an honest review. The Dark Game debuts April 11th.

This may have been a poor choice for a first book to read by Jonathan Janz. I didn’t know much about Janz, though the name vaguely rang a bell. (More on that later.) The premise is a bunch of writers competing for mentorship and future literary prestige at a spooky retreat. Normally I’m not huge on stories where the MC is an author; the characters always read cringy to me, like an over-the-top author-insert. But the whole writer competition thing sounded fun, so I decided to request the book.

Yet it turns out that ten writer MCs read more cringy to me than one writer MC, by a factor of about ten-fold. (Whodathunkit.) Again, this is totally a personal preference thing; I just can’t get past all the talk about agents and advances and genre dissing, since I’m forever trying to suss out Janz the author’s actual thoughts.

He narrowed his eyes, appraising her. “You look like a YA writer. Am I right?”

She considered telling him of her early success, transforming his arrogant expression into a look of awe.

Take the above quote, for example—what do you mean by that exactly, Jonathan Janz? You wanna throw down? Huh? Huh? 😀

But then. Then. We get to the above and beyond part. Because Janz inserts multiple mentions of one of his own novels into the book and talks up how great it is. Read that again. One of the writers on the retreat is writing one of Janz’s books, The Siren and the Specter, and keeps saying how it’s amazing. It’s bookception, with a marketing twist. As my husband put it, “Wow, that takes a lotta balls.”

This is when I realized why Janz’s name seemed so familiar to me; I have The Siren and the Specter on my (lengthy) Goodreads TBR. Honestly I have no idea if there are other Easter eggs in The Dark Game, but I wouldn’t be surprised. My overall sense is that this book might be great for diehard Janz fans as a sort of fan service book, but it left me kind of feeling like I was missing a bunch of inside jokes, while also being served some sneaky advertisements. I also had a difficult time connecting with the characters since there were just so damn many of them. Some had interesting back stories, but most felt fairly interchangeable, and it was hard to keep everyone straight. (Save for Sherilyn; really enjoyed her brief POV sections.)

So I’m not ruling out reading another book by this author, but suffice it to say that The Dark Game was unfortunately a miss for me.

Just a real quick reminder to everyone that the next chapter of The Gold in the Dark will be releasing this Sunday at 11 AM EST! This is one not to miss, since there’s a new POV incoming. (Oooooh.) All right, that’s all, folks. ❤

Short Tuesday #6: “meat+drink” by Daniel Polansky

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This week I ventured onto Tor.com to take a look at some of their original short fiction, since the last couple short stories I read in the S.O.S. anthology haven’t been so impressive. I had no idea that Tor even offered original fiction on its website—thanks to the lovely people at Spells, Space & Screams for turning me onto that! I’d heard some positive mention of “meat+drink” previously, so that story jumped out at me immediately. Read it here for free if you’d like…

I really enjoyed this story!!! I mean, it’s vampires, so what’s new, right? 😛 But actually, everything feels new in this story. These are not your typical vampires, just close enough to the edge of humanity to make them sexy. They do not sparkle or glitter—they are instead predatory meat, the memories of their previous lives addled by the vampiric transition, on the hunt for flesh (that’s us humans). (Side note that I haven’t seen the word “flesh” dropped so many times since I read the Interface series by _9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9.)

It’s really the tone of the story that sets it apart from other vampire fiction, though. The MC has a matter-of-fact, this horror happened then that horror happened type of voice, leading us steadily through a few days in the life of these vampires. It’s sort of a paranormal slice of life, a window into what it’s like to be a monster living in the Baltimore slums.

Oh, and there’s no capitalization, because capitalization is a human construct, I suppose? Or something. I do think the stylistic choice aids in making the narration feel flatter—a good thing for this story. Everything’s a good thing when it comes to this story. Love it—so go read it!

The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson

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Okay, what do I even say about Maureen Johnson at this point? She’s awesome? I love her characters, her voice, her plotting? Does that about cover it?

Listen, Maureen Johnson has a certain style that you’ll either like or you won’t, and her books are all different versions of the same wonderful thing. Quirky and intelligent MC, no parents for miles, a way of inserting detail and humor into the text that keeps you just reading one page, no, two pages, no, twenty pages more… If this is the sort of thing you enjoy, then go read the first in the Shades of London series, or Truly Devious, or 13 Little Blue Envelopes. (And presumably anything else by Johnson, all of which I’m sure I’ll read eventually.) If you’re trying to decide between her series, here’s a cheat sheet:

  • Shades of London series for ghosts (this book, The Madness Underneath, is book two)
  • Truly Devious series for true crime and historical elements
  • 13 Little Blue Envelopes series for quirky road trips

It’s been a while since I read the first Shades of London book, so I got to rediscover the MC, Rory, in this second in the series. A Louisiana native transplanted to a London boarding school, Rory behaves in a way that feels authentic. There are more than a few points in the book where I was mentally screaming at her to do something, anything other than what she was doing, but even when Rory’s making bad choices, you can see why she’s making them. She’s flawed but relatable, and you can’t help but be on her side, even when she’s royally fucking up.

So what else do I have to say about this book? It had that classic “recovering from the first book” feel, especially given the emphasis on therapy. I can understand if a lot of readers feel this book lags in the first half, but again, I don’t care; something about Johnson’s writing just calls to me, and the rip-roaring ending made up for any slowness. Plus it’s totally allowable to slow things down temporarily after the frenetic ending of the previous book. Our MC is in high school and just went through some truly traumatic events—it would be unrealistic to push ahead with the story any faster.

As the book moves toward the finish line, there’s a plot twist that I’ll admit I saw coming, but the execution and details of the surprise were still exciting and unexpected. As can be expected from Johnson’s other books, there isn’t so much a resolution at the end of this book as a pause and shift in the action, compelling us to reach for the next in the series. Cliffhangers are just something you have to deal with if you’re a Maureen Johnson fan.

I did also feel that the plot held together more cohesively than the first in the series. Leaving aside the aforementioned cliffhangers, the ends of both books struck me as a little bit off, like the reader is being expected to take a too much of a leap of faith, all at a breakneck pace. You can definitely leave both of these books with a dazed, what even just happened feeling. Yet the second book is an improvement on the first—not quite so manic, not quite so out-of-the-blue.

So overall The Madness Underneath was a crazy fun read (I mean, it’s not Truly Devious, but whatever…) and I’m looking forward to picking up the third book in the series.

#TSOOSI (Two Series Out, One Series In)

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I’m sure we can all relate. You see that awesome review on Goodreads or a blog. Bookish intuitions aquiver, you know it’s a book you need to read right now. But then you see a #1 by the title, and with a sinking heart you realize that this is not a standalone, but the first of a series, which means commitment—commitment which, let’s get real, many of us don’t follow through on or push off for literally years.

Friends, I am here to say that my name is Katie, and I have a problem: I start series and never finish them, despite the very best intentions. Case in point, last year I read Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson, which I adored and is the first in a series. I knew the second book was coming out in 2019, so to tide me over until release day, I picked up 13 Little Blue Envelopes, also by Maureen Johnson. Once I’d devoured that, did I finish the Blue Envelope series like a responsible human? Of course not—instead I decided it was much more important for me to start another series by Maureen Johnson. So if you’re keeping score, that’s three series I started by Maureen Johnson within a span of approximately six months, and I am only now trying to rectify this mess.

This has to stop. It stresses me out to look at my TBR shelf, knowing that there are sequels up there that I have been pushing off for years, the details of the first in the series fading fast from my memory. So I’ve decided to institute a personal rule, which I invite anyone else suffering from this problem to adopt. I’m calling it Two Series Out, One Series In, or in abbreviated form, #TSOOSI. Slightly inane-sounding, I know, but that’s what we’re going with. Essentially, I’m making sure to finish or get up to date on two series before I can start another series. Hopefully this will whittle away at the problem until my TBR is cured of unfinished-series-itis.

Here are the series I can think of off the top of my head that I need to finish or get up to date on; I am sure there are more than this, though. Revealing all these is… a little embarrassing, I’ll be honest.

Right now I’m in the middle of The Stone’s Heart, which is the sequel to The Queen’s Wing (and there is no prospective third book listed on Goodreads) and I’ve just gotten up-to-date on the Truly Devious series, so after I’m done with The Stone’s Heart I can introduce another series—I’m thinking The Call by Peadar O’Guilin. I know getting “up to date” doesn’t exactly solve the problem, but it’s definitely better than nothing, so that’s what I’m going with for right now.

What do you think about TSOOSI? Have you tried something similar to wrangle a stress-inducing TBR? I’d love to hear how you balance the excitement of starting new series with the need to finish series, so drop a comment down below!

Short Tuesday #5: “Death in the Moonlight” by Archibald Rutledge

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This is the third work I’ve read from the short story anthology S.O.S.: Chilling Tales of Adventure on the High Seas. The text can be found here if you want to read it. Just so you know, I found a couple typos in the Field and Stream edition (pretty sure “goulash” is meant to read “ghoulish” lol) but it’s all comprehensible. FYI that there are spoilers down below…

This was another short story that I was just so-so about. I’m not sure exactly when this was first published, but it reads old. I noticed the author relying a ton on adjectives, as if with just one more word the readers will at last fully comprehend how scary this shark was. But I almost always find that heaping on the adjectives ends up taking away from the writing. Give us some run-ons or fragments instead, or maybe a cool simile. We all like a cool simile, right? But instead we just got a ton of vocab. Goulash, indeed.

Speaking of sharks, that’s all the plot was: we were fishing, and there was a shark. A different author could make that amazing, but given that the writing itself wasn’t wowing me, I had a hard time getting swept up in this scene piece. “Death in the Moonlight” sounds cool, but as far as making sharks scary (you know, sharks—those primitive blood-loving death machines with sharp teeth), this didn’t do it for me.

Chapter Five of The Gold in the Dark and a Writing Update!

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The fifth chapter of The Gold in the Dark drops today! If you need to catch up with the last few chapters, you can do that right here. New chapters post every other Sunday at 11 AM EST, and each one is accompanied by a beautiful, custom illustration drawn by a mysterious illustrator. I promise you’ll get to meet her soon enough—exciting stuff is in the works!

The new book I’m working on is on hold again, shelved in favor of putting the final touches on Specter. I know, I know, it feels like I say that same thing every week, and it’s getting frustrating to me. Do all the little formatting details really make a difference? I definitely feel guilty about not drafting for so long, but I try to keep reminding myself that I am working on writing, just the more editing/business side of things. Fortunately, I happen to really enjoy the entrepreneurial side of self-publishing, so it’s not like this is a slog. Well, maybe it is a slog, but a strangely enjoyable one. :/ I’m actually putting together a blog post all about the formatting and typesetting choices I made for Specter—it’s already loooong and getting longer. Maybe no one wants a post like that except for me, but at least it will be a reminder of all the steps I took for Specter so that when I have to do all this again for the next book it won’t be quite so labor-intensive.

There will be some fun reviews coming up in these next few weeks, as well as the introduction of #TSOOSI. I’m having fun with Short Tuesday, too, so expect more of those. (Though here’s hoping the next short story is a little bit more satisfying than the Edgar Allan Poe one!)

Anyway, let’s keep it short and sweet for this week. Have a great rest of your weekend, and enjoy Chapter Five! ❤