The Other Side of Tomorrow, Graphic Novel

 

Stars: 5 for beautiful illustrations and a story that is not familiar to American YA and middle grade readers (yet). The last star for a 5 is in the ability to use this in your English or social studies classroom as a learning resource. 

My Thoughts:

The marketers say this book is similar to Illegal  and When Stars are Scattered which are both about harrowing immigration stories. Besides the topic of migration, these are all graphic novels told from the point of view of young people who are searching for families and/or searching for better lives. In addition, the three of these are atypical in that they are not coming from Central or South America.

In this case, the story is told by two narrators, Yunho, whose mother escaped to China and Myunghee. The two are seen separately at first as they care for an elder, but they soon start traveling together to escape from North Korea. 

Yunho does eventually find his mother, and the three of them stick together, but the ups and downs in this graphic novel are just stressful. Just when things seem to be looking up, and even when they are in other countries, horrible things happen. 

Like the other books, the historical (maybe contemporary) non fiction in this will help students get interested in researching more. The other aspect of this particular graphic novel is the striking artwork. Artwork is its own form of text. If teachers want to learn more about that, check my post on the picture book Where Butterflies Fill the Sky. There is a link to learn more about enhancing literary engagement though pictures and graphics using the peritextual literacy framework.

Finally, the graphics are so stunning because they are by Deb J.J. Lee. If you have not read Lee's graphic memoir, In Limbo, well you must. Their tone comes through in their use of light and dark shades, white and black spaces. All of that skill is brought to this graphic novel too which is why it is so stunning. I did not even realize that this is a graphic novel in verse because the pictures tell the story first and then I read the words.

From the Publisher:

Perfect for fans of Illegal and When Stars Are Scattered, this poignant and moving graphic novel in verse captures the dangers and hope that come with fleeing North Korea and reaching for a brighter future through the lives of Yunho and Myunghee.

From never knowing where they’ll find their next meal to avoiding soldiers lurking at every corner, many North Koreans have learned that sticking around can be just as deadly as attempting to flee . . . almost. 

Both shy, resourceful Yunho and fierce, vibrant Myunghee know this. So when they each resolve to run away from the bleak futures they face, it’s with the knowledge that they could be facing a fate worse than death.

While Yunho hopes to reunite with his omma, who snuck across the border years ago, Myunghee is reaching for dreams that are bigger than anything the regime would allow her to have. The two are strangers to each other until a chance encounter unwittingly intertwines their fates and Myunghee saves Yunho’s life.

Kept together by their dreams for a brighter future, they face a road plagued by poisonous jungle snakes, corrupt soldiers, and the daily fear of discovery and imprisonment. But with every step toward freedom, there is also hope. Will it be enough for both of them to make it to safety without losing each other along the way?

Publication Information:

Author: Tina Cho

Illustrator: Deb JJ Lee

Publisher: HarperAlley (November 12, 2024)

Paperback: 224 pages

Grades: 3-7

Otaku Vampire's Love Bit, Volume 1

 

Stars: 4 for cute factor plus a little bit of tension to make it interesting

My Thoughts:

Hina Alucard is a hermit of a vampiress in Romania who still lives with her dad. She has not been out of the house in 30 years and will only drink blood from blood bags. Despite her age, she eternally looks and acts like a very young, sheltered girl (mostly because she has not left her house/castle in 30 years). Her father is desperate. He gives her a BlueRay of an anime series Vampire Cross and Hina is instantly love struck by the Mao character.

She becomes so obsessed with Mao and collecting Mao merch that she moves to Japan so she can really focus on her obsession with Vampire Cross and anything Mao related. In Japanese terms, she becomes an otaku with a very singular obsession not just on anime, but for Mao. She hoards so much merchandise that her apartment becomes a dusty nest of boxes.

Being an otaku in Japan is not unusual so we are introduced to the idea of anime show cafes which cater to otaku like Hina by offering a special menu just for the day of anime inspired food or drink items. When customers purchase this, they get a souvenir coaster to take home. They also sell raffle tickets with prizes. The last ticket gets a special prize. Hina would love to go to these events, but as a vampire, she cannot eat human food. Instead, she needs to find a friend. That proves difficult because she is socially awkward, until she bumps into her neighbor Kyuta whose blood smells so sweet AND looks like Mao.

He reluctantly seems to go along with her schemes even if he is appalled at the dust in her apartment from the boxes and her hoarding habits of buying multiple items that look exactly the same and just leaving them in their boxes.  

Hina is also not aware that Kyuta has his own vampire mistress in his apartment who is keeping him as a slave. Tension 1. Kyuta's mistress is none too happy about this outsider taking up Kyuta's time. She feels like she is a very high ranking vampire in Japan, so even if she finds out that Hina is also a vampire, she will destroy her.

Tension 2. Hina away from Kyuta is so awkward and naive that she gets herself lured into situations that she should not be in. With her frequent calls to her father in Romania, father vampire lord is sending a babysitter, bodyguard, party pooper to Japan just when Hina is starting to socially figure things out in her own way. 

Volume 1 ends on a cliff hanger with another obsession worthy character, so this is a definite series to grab a hold of.  The kawaii factor and the badass factor are both in this manga. No sex or violence, or nudity. It is middle school friendly.

From the Publisher:

Hina Alucard is a modern vampire who drinks blood from bags instead of from humans. But she’s also a complete shut-in who hasn’t left the house in 30 years. In an effort to reach her, Hina’s dad does something that changes her life—he gives her a DVD of the Vampire Cross anime! Hina is instantly obsessed, especially with the character Mao. But it’s difficult to fangirl as hard as she wants from her bedroom in Romania, so now Hina is out of the house and off to Japan to live her otaku dream!

Hina’s so busy collecting Mao merch that she almost doesn’t feel bad about missing out on the Vampire Cross cafes. If only she had a human friend who could eat all the themed food for her! But connecting with humans isn’t easy until Hina literally bumps into her neighbor Kyuta, a prickly boy who looks just like Mao. Having her best friend live next door will be so convenient! Now if she can just convince him to actually be her friend…

Publication information:

Author: Julietta Suzuki

Publisher: VIZ Media LLC (October 1, 2024)

Paperback: 176 pages

ISBN-13: 978-1974747283

Everything We Never Had

 Stars: 5 like his other YA book Patron Saints of Nothing, this one should be in the classrooms. 

My Thoughts:

Like Patron Saints, Ribay gives us another deeply complex look at family, toxic masculinity, and the Filipino iexperience in America through the Maghabol males. 

With multiple narrators, we see the four Maghabol males as young men and as fathers and grandfathers in each other's stories. As narrators to their own stories, they don't understand the motives and intention of their fathers, however, this was a satisfyingly sorrowful read for me. I found myself waking up to read more because I wanted Enzo to talk to his lolo Emil and share things that Enzo's dad Chris never knew/understood, or even wanted to hear. I wanted Francisco to find some kind of happiness and success that I knew must have happened through Emil's story, but we don't see the in between times. We just know from the other stories. I love that strategy. As a reader, it helps me to stay fully engaged, which is why there is so much to do with this book in the English classroom. 

From the Publisher: 

Watsonville, 1930. Francisco Maghabol barely ekes out a living in the fields of California. As he spends what little money he earns at dance halls and faces increasing violence from white men in town, Francisco wonders if he should’ve never left the Philippines.

Stockton, 1965. Between school days full of prejudice from white students and teachers and night shifts working at his aunt’s restaurant, Emil refuses to follow in the footsteps of his labor organizer father, Francisco. He’s going to make it in this country no matter what or who he has to leave behind.

Denver, 1983. Chris is determined to prove that his overbearing father, Emil, can’t control him. However, when a missed assignment on “ancestral history” sends Chris off the football team and into the library, he discovers a desire to know more about Filipino history―even if his father dismisses his interest as unamerican and unimportant.

Philadelphia, 2020. Enzo struggles to keep his anxiety in check as a global pandemic breaks out and his abrasive grandfather moves in. While tensions are high between his dad and his lolo, Enzo’s daily walks with Lolo Emil have him wondering if maybe he can help bridge their decades-long rift.

Told in multiple perspectives, Everything We Never Had unfolds like a beautifully crafted nesting doll, where each Maghabol boy forges his own path amid heavy family and societal expectations, passing down his flaws, values, and virtues to the next generation, until it’s up to Enzo to see how he can braid all these strands and men together.

Publication Information:

Author: Randy Ribay

Publisher: Kokila (August 27, 2024)

Hardcover: 288 pages

ISBN-13: 978-0593461419

Grade level: 7-9

The Importance of Diverse Books

 At the end of 2024, according to my Goodreads report, I read (and blogged) about 63 books or 19, 661 pages worth of text. Granted I borrowed a lot more audiobooks from my local library, but they all followed my parameters: YA, and mostly non-white authors. 

What my data did not show was that 84% of the 63 books I read were written by non-white authors. It is not as important to me if the non-white authors are black, asian, indigenous, hispanic, or middle eastern. They just need to be not white.

Why?

In 1992, I was a 24 year old first year high school English teacher. I was given  two textbooks. A Warner's grammar book and a thick American literature textbook that started chronologically with the puritans. Think Anne Bradstreet and Rev. Jonathan Edwardsʻ "Sinners in the hands of an angry God." Besides a brand new teacher, I was a mother of 2 and a published poet writing mostly in Hawaiian creole, or what we called pidgin English. These textbooks were not interesting to me. I felt like I too was American. I was searching for my students mirrored in the literature that I was offering to them.

Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop of The Ohio State University wrote her essay on "mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors," in 1990, but I would not know about her work for another twenty years. On a little island in the middle of the Pacific, I just had my gut instinct to know that literature, chosen correctly, could uplift my students by showing them their gifts, their identity and their power. They would get the white authors with the other English teachers. But when they had me, for American literature, we read Cisneros, Morrison, Baldwin, Hughes, Hong Kingston, Walter Dean Myers, Lois Ann Yamanaka, Eric Chock, Juliet Kono, Wing Tek Lum, Joe Balaz. 

I sometimes worried that when my AP summer reading list went out, I would get a call from an irate parent, or an irate principal regarding some of my choices. I never did. But one alum, a brilliant future lawyer, came back after high school and told me that what she appreciated was the very interesting literature that I had them read. For her year, it was Bluest Eye and Their Eyes Were Watching God. She said she did not read that kind of literature again until college. 

What I learned from that encounter was to stick to my instincts. It was to use literature as weapons and journey markers and safe havens. For me that can only happen with diverse books. As much as I loved fantasy books with Tolkien as my north star, fantasy as a genre was so white, until recently. Thank you authors and thank you Rick Riordan for opening the door for non white authors who have changed the fantasy genre by using cultural folk tales as the foundation for new literature. 

My proudest moment  this year as a mama of English teachers was when I accompanied some of my alum to the ALAN workshop and got to see their joy as they opened up their box of books. But the true moment of pride came when I realized that these teachers, all non white, all working in native Hawaiian communities, were really listening to my stories about diverse books and not standing in line for free books from white authors. Ang, in his first year of teaching, figured out the padlet trading app and traded his non white authors for diverse authors. He got the message and he is passing it on in his classroom. 

So this year, my aim is to continue to read, blog, and pass on the books to my English teachers. That is not different. But my aim is also to up my % of non white books to 90%. 

Cheers to diverse books!

Icon and Inferno (Stars and Smoke #2)

 

Stars: 4 Unexpectedly good action and chemistry in this second novel

My Thoughts:

The first book, Stars and Smoke , is actually a good stand alone, but like Ms. Lu’s second Warcross book, Wildcard, this second book surprised me in how much more the author could add to this story. The additional characters made this more believable. In addition, the shocking loss put this out of the realm of YA bubblegum romance and into the realm of spy intrigue and loss. I actually liked this more than the first book, even if you need to read the first book to get a feel for the characters. 

From the Publisher:

A year has passed since superstar Winter Young last saw secret agent Sydney Cossette. After barely surviving their first assignment together in London -- and their intense chemistry – the two haven’t spoken at all. Though they’re never far from the other’s thoughts, or fantasies.

So when Syndey shows up at Winter’s studio one day with a new mission from Panacea, he has no choice but to accept. With the clock ticking, the duo prepares to head to Singapore to rescue an operative in danger -- only to learn he’s none other than Sydney's ex, a rogue agent known as the Arsonist.

Of course, nothing is ever simple when it comes to Winter and Sydney. Especially not with the glamorous Gavi Ginsburg, a globe-trotting socialite and Winter’s one-time girlfriend, in the mix. Is she back for Winter’s heart – or does she have her eye on another prize?

The smoldering sequel to New York Times-bestselling Stars and Smoke follows Winter and Sydney on yet another treacherous mission that grows more sinister with each twist and turn. To make it out alive, they'll have to figure out how to be partners again -- and if they can resist the burn of something more.

Publication Information:

Author: Marie Lu

Publisher: Roaring Books Press (June 11, 2024)

Hardcover: 320 pages

Grade level: 10-12

House of Salt and Sorrows

 

Stars: 3. I am not a gothic, horror fan, but this was still a good read, so three stars. I don’t need to read it again, but it was worth the time. 

My Thoughts:

What grabbed me was the title and the quote “In a manor by the sea, twelve sisters are cursed.” I also realize that as an island person myself, I like to read novels where the sea is a prominent character. This did not really pan out to be the case, however, the mystery and horror was pretty intriguing. 

This is a first person narration story from the point of view of one of the older sisters, Annaleigh. There is a little bit of discombobulation as a reader because of the first person POV, but that makes for a good read to not always know as a reader what is real and what is imagined. 

I believe there is another book with younger sisters Verity, but I am ok leaving this book as a stand alone. I think the dead should stay dead. 

From the Publisher:

Annaleigh lives a sheltered life at Highmoor, a manor by the sea, with her sisters, their father, and stepmother. Once they were twelve, but loneliness fills the grand halls now that four of the girls' lives have been cut short. Each death was more tragic than the last—the plague, a plummeting fall, a drowning, a slippery plunge—and there are whispers throughout the surrounding villages that the family is cursed by the gods.

Disturbed by a series of ghostly visions, Annaleigh becomes increasingly suspicious that the deaths were no accidents. Her sisters have been sneaking out every night to attend glittering balls, dancing until dawn in silk gowns and shimmering slippers, and Annaleigh isn't sure whether to try to stop them or to join their forbidden trysts. Because who—or what—are they really dancing with?

When Annaleigh's involvement with a mysterious stranger who has secrets of his own intensifies, it's a race to unravel the darkness that has fallen over her family—before it claims her next.

This Time Will Be Different

 

Stars: 4 Family, history, racism, conforming versus fighting

My Thoughts:

This female centered book is a coming of awareness story with CJ who is a generation below the model minority generation of her nisei mother. Readers can look at this story through different lenses. There is the racial lens around CJ's issue with her mother working for the same family that stole many of the properties and businesses from Japanese during the WWII internment. To CJ, her mother is a sell out. 

There is also the lens of the daughter who does not feel she can live up to her mother's ambitions and expectations. In Joy Luck Club style, CJ is never good enough.

Then there is the family business and friend to lover lens going on in the failing floral shop. 

Whichever lens readers use, CJ comes out with a different awareness of herself, her family, and her world. The bottom line is, it's complicated. 

From the Publisher:

The author of the Asian Pacific American Award-winning It’s Not Like It’s a Secret is back with another smartly drawn coming-of-age novel that weaves riveting family drama, surprising humor, and delightful romance into a story that will draw you in from the very first page.

Katsuyamas never quit—but seventeen-year-old CJ doesn’t even know where to start. She’s never lived up to her mom’s type A ambition, and she’s perfectly happy just helping her aunt, Hannah, at their family’s flower shop.

She doesn’t buy into Hannah’s romantic ideas about flowers and their hidden meanings, but when it comes to arranging the perfect bouquet, CJ discovers a knack she never knew she had. A skill she might even be proud of.

Then her mom decides to sell the shop—to the family who swindled CJ’s grandparents when thousands of Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps during WWII. Soon a rift threatens to splinter CJ’s family, friends, and their entire Northern California community; and for the first time, CJ has found something she wants to fight for.

Publication Information:

Author: Misa Sugiura

Publisher: Harper Teen (June 9, 2020)

ISBN-13: 978-0062473455

Paperback: 416 pages

Grade level: 8-12

Anna K: A Love Story

 

Stars: 5 Use this as comparative literature to examine shifting values and stable values through time, cultures, nations, families, economic classes.

From the Publisher:

At seventeen, Anna K is at the top of Manhattan and Greenwich society (even if she prefers the company of her horses and dogs); she has the perfect (if perfectly boring) boyfriend, Alexander W.; and she has always made her Korean-American father proud (even if he can be a little controlling). Meanwhile, Anna's brother, Steven, and his girlfriend, Lolly, are trying to weather a sexting scandal; Lolly’s little sister, Kimmie, is struggling to recalibrate to normal life after an injury derails her ice dancing career; and Steven’s best friend, Dustin, is madly (and one-sidedly) in love with Kimmie.

As her friends struggle with the pitfalls of ordinary teenage life, Anna always seems to be able to sail gracefully above it all. That is…until the night she meets Alexia “Count” Vronsky at Grand Central. A notorious playboy who has bounced around boarding schools and who lives for his own pleasure, Alexia is everything Anna is not. But he has never been in love until he meets Anna, and maybe she hasn’t, either. As Alexia and Anna are pulled irresistibly together, she has to decide how much of her life she is willing to let go for the chance to be with him. And when a shocking revelation threatens to shatter their relationship, she is forced to question if she has ever known herself at all.

My Thoughts:

Anna K is a modern take on Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Rather than the cheating wife trope and the warning about swift change between traditional and progressive Russian lifestyles, though, this modern take is more like a Gossip Girls story played out in Manhattan and Greenwich. Ms. Lee uses very similar names for the characters, except these are teenagers and young adults and everyone is wealthy (except for Dustin). 

Although the story starts with older brother and black sheep Steven, Korean-American Anna K is the protagonist. She is steady, lives away from home, has been in a long relationship with the OG of Greenwich and is the family mediator and star. On a train (another homage to Anna Karenina), she befriends a woman who is meeting her son at Grand Central, Alexia "Count" Vronsky. Steven also knows Count so they are talking at the station in the same way that Anna K and Count's mother are talking in the train. This is the start of both the intense love affair and the intense tragedy to come. 

There is a follow up book, but I am all for good romantic tragedy  (like These Violent Delights and Anatomy), so I think I am good with just reading this one book. I feel like the protagonist has the rest of her life to figure out how she finds herself again. The end.

Product Information:

Author: Jenny Lee

Publisher: Flatiron Books (March 23, 2021)

Paperback: 400 pages

ISBN-13: 978-1250236449

Grade level: 10-12

Home (Picture Book)

 

Stars: 4 This picture book is both beautiful, buyable and easily used in the middle school classroom as a mentor text.

My Thoughts: 

This is an extended metaphor poem by one of my favorite YA authors, Matt De La Peña, on the different manifestations of home. Of course it is not a place. Of course it includes vital people and times and memories. However, what I also loved is that it also includes school and a teacher at the door of a classroom as home. I have met many students over my years who feel like school is their safe place and their home. I continue to remind my teacher candidates that this is a fact, not something made up to explain why it is so important to create a safe, loving space for learning and healing within the classroom, even in secondary. Even in college.  The author and illustrator do a superb job of bringing that home for readers.

In the middle school classroom, use this as a mentor text for an extended metaphor writing assignment. Better yet, use this as a skills lesson for essays to show how to continue to roll out an argument.

From the Publishers:

Home is a tired lullaby
and a late-night traffic that mumbles in
through a crack in your curtains.

Home is the faint trumpet of a distant barge
as your grandfather casts his line
from the edge of his houseboat.

With lyrical text and expressive artwork, Matt de la Peña and Loren Long celebrate the beauty and love found in every home, no matter its size. They show how a home is more than just a place . . . People can be a kind of home—a family and a community that cares for one another. And the natural world is another kind of home, a refuge we share with every living thing on Earth.

This deeply moving ode to the universal pull of home, whatever its form, is destined to become a new classic that will be cherished by readers of every age.

Publication Information:

Author: Matt De La Peña

Illustrator: Loren Long

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers (March 11, 2025)

Hardcover: 48 pages

Stars and Smoke (Novel 1)

 

Stars: 3 It's a good escape. As far as enemies-to-lovers novels goes, it is a solid 3 because it does not give in to the happily ever after tropes, which means it's great for YA.

My Thoughts:

You have a teenage super spy and a teenage pop idol. You also have an elite covert ops group called Panacea who sits above any government agency. Again, go back to the teenage super spy for Panacea being a female, and suspend any kind of questions you may have. Once you do that, this is a fun read. It has danger and travel. It has beautiful people and killers. Really, it is a good way to spend a weekend. 

From the Publishers:

Meet Winter Young―A global pop sensation, with a voice like velvet and looks that could kill.

Meet Sydney Cossette―An agent in an elite covert ops group, and an ice queen whose moves are as dangerous as her comebacks.

When a major crime boss gifts his daughter a private Winter Young concert for her birthday, Sydney’s and Winter’s lives suddenly collide. To stop an international disaster, the two must infiltrate the organization’s inner
circle, with Sydney posing as Winter’s bodyguard and Winter tapped to join her as a new spy recruit. Sydney may be the only person impervious to Winter’s charms, but as their mission brings them closer, she’s forced to
admit that there’s more to Winter Young than just a handsome face . . .

Publication Information:

Author: Marie Lu

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press (March 28, 2023)

Hardcover: 336 pages

ISBN-13: 978-1250852816

Grade level: 7-9

Our Violent Ends (These Violent Delights Duet, book 2)

 

Stars: 5 Yes, use this as an alternative to R&J in your classroom. If you really must talk about iambic pentameter and rhyme scheme, use several of Shakespeare's sonnets and leave the action/drama/romance of R&J to Ms. Gong. 

My Thoughts:

   DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE FIRST BOOK!!!

Wicked Fox Audiobook

 

Stars: 3 In my quest for non white fantasy, this one should be added for YA

My Thoughts:

I am sure if I read this again, I will rate it higher, but I don't have time to reread right now. I am desperately trying to get through my TBR list. I think my confusion is that I did not look at the cover on my phone. If I had looked at the cover, I would know that this is in modern Seoul, Korea, and not a historical fiction fantasy. That would have saved me time as I was listening to the audiobook from my library.  By the time Gu Miyoung saves Jihoon from a goblin in the forest, I was so confused and made the scenery fit my mind when it really did not.

Once I got over my mistake, then it read like a K-drama, but with magic. This is a very different take on fantasy, magic and Cho offers up a different take on Asian fantasy.

From the Publisher:

Eighteen-year-old Gu Miyoung has a secret--she's a gumiho, a nine-tailed fox who must devour the energy of men in order to survive. Because so few believe in the old tales anymore, and with so many evil men no one will miss, the modern city of Seoul is the perfect place to hide and hunt.

But after feeding one full moon, Miyoung crosses paths with Jihoon, a human boy, being attacked by a goblin deep in the forest. Against her better judgment, she violates the rules of survival to rescue the boy, losing her fox bead--her gumiho soul--in the process.

Jihoon knows Miyoung is more than just a beautiful girl--he saw her nine tails the night she saved his life. His grandmother used to tell him stories of the gumiho, of their power and the danger they pose to men. He's drawn to her anyway. 

With murderous forces lurking in the background, Miyoung and Jihoon develop a tenuous friendship that blossoms into something more. But when a young shaman tries to reunite Miyoung with her bead, the consequences are disastrous and reignite a generations-old feud . . . forcing Miyoung to choose between her immortal life and Jihoon's.

Publication Information:

Author: Kat Cho

Narrator: Emily Woo Zeller

Publisher: Listening Library (June 25, 2019)

Length: 11. hours 47 minutes

Immortality: A Love Story (Anatomy Duology, Book 2)

4 stars: This is a high 4 for me as a science nerd. If you like historical science fantasy, this will grab you.

My Thoughts:

My secret dream job when I was in college was to cut things up. Not things. That is not fair. I did not want to be a chef. I really wanted to cut up bodies, but not to heal or anything. More to just see how things worked. I spent so much time in the lab that my body exuded formaldehyde and riding the bus home in the evenings, people tended to move away from me when I sat down. 

Immortality is the second story following Anatomy: A Love Story. Hazel Sinnett has lost Jack. She is not sure if he took the vial for immortality or even if the vial for immortality is just a scam. Either way, Jack is gone and she needs to find her way in this world alone.  Although she has not been able to go to school, she continues to treat patients, especially women at her home, Hawthornden Castle. She does an abortion and is turned in by the woman and scheduled to die until the court notifies her that they want her to be the personal physician of Princess Charlotte.

This story continues to be a feminist drama, a medical mystery, as well as a romance gone wrong. This second one was a fast read, or listen in this case. I don't think I slept much. 

From the Publisher:

Hazel Sinnett is alone and half-convinced the events of the year before—the immortality, Beecham’s vial—were a figment of her imagination. She doesn’t even know if Jack is alive or dead. All she can really do now is treat patients and maintain Hawthornden Castle as it starts to decay around her.

When saving a life leads to her arrest, Hazel seems doomed to rot in prison until a message intervenes: Hazel has been specifically requested to be the personal physician of Princess Charlotte, the sickly granddaughter of King George III. Soon Hazel is dragged into the glamor and romance of a court where everyone has something to hide, especially the enigmatic, brilliant members of a social club known as the Companions to the Death.

As Hazel’s work entangles her more and more with the British court, she realizes that her own future as a surgeon isn't the only thing at stake for her. Malicious forces are at work in the monarchy, and Hazel may be the only one capable of setting things right.

Publication Information:

Author: Dana Schwartz

Narrator: Mhairi Morrison, Tim Campbell

Publisher: MacMillan Audio (February 28, 2023)

Length: 12 hours, 2 minutes