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The Crash of Worlds
The Crash of Worlds by Alisse Lee Goldenberg is a fantasy adventure about what happens when disaster, grief, politics, magic, and family loyalty all collide. The story opens with the destruction of Coralnoss after Marcus’s warnings are ignored, then follows Zayna as she tries to save what is left of her people, Lucas as he searches for a way to reach her, and Audrina as she faces hard questions about love, duty, and whether she truly wants the throne. It’s a deep fantasy novel, with kingdoms, spells, royal conflict, sea voyages, and magical communication, but its real weight comes from human problems: fear, prejudice, pride, loss, and the need to ask for help.
I like how grounded the book feels, even when the world is full of magic. Goldenberg does not treat the disaster as a quick plot device. Zayna’s chapters linger in the mud, hunger, ruined homes, and the awful silence after a community has been broken. It gives the fantasy stakes a physical heaviness. At the same time, the writing is direct and accessible, which makes the emotional turns easy to follow. Some moments are blunt, but that plainness also works in the book’s favor. Grief is not always elegant. Sometimes it’s just one foot in front of the other, carrying supplies, calming a baby, and trying not to fall apart.
I also found myself thinking a lot about the author’s choices around leadership. Audrina’s storyline is not just about being a princess in love with Gertrude. It’s about the cost of being visible in a world that may not accept you. Her conversations with Navor are some of the warmest parts of the book, and they give the story a tender center. Then there’s the contrast with Parven, whose cruelty shows how family and power can become dangerous when pride is mistaken for principle. The book is curious about what makes a ruler good, but it’s also candid about how institutions fail people. The council ignores Marcus. Coralnoss pays for it. Later, survivors still hesitate to accept help because old fears are hard to shake. That felt painfully believable.
I would recommend The Crash of Worlds most to readers who enjoy character-driven fantasy with royal drama, found family, queer representation, and emotional stakes that matter as much as the magical ones. Readers who like sincere storytelling, big feelings, and a fantasy world built around loyalty and survival will likely appreciate it. It’s best for fans of accessible YA-style fantasy who want adventure, heart, and a reminder that rebuilding after loss is rarely clean, but it’s still possible.
Pages: 282 | ASIN : B0GY65N8BK
Keeping Secrets
The Wizard’s Apprentice follows a sixteen-year-old prince training in magic who is haunted by visions of his kingdom burning, and must decide whether he is fated to destroy it or destined to save it. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The Children of Colonodona is at its core a sequel series to The Sitnalta Series. A lot has happened to Lucas’ parents, and in many ways, he is hampered by this notion that one day, he will have some massive shoes to fill. The adults around him, his mother, father, and his mentor Kralc, all have such high hopes for him. That’s a lot of pressure for a kid to deal with and to live up to. In truth, we as parents often set our own kids up for failure a lot of the time by expecting them to turn out a certain way. How can anyone find their own path or come into their own with that much pressure put upon them? Lucas is a way to answer that question. Will he rise to the occasion, or will he quite literally crash and burn?
How did you shape Lucas as a believable teenage lead, and what makes him different from typical fantasy heroes?
Lucas is full of flaws, but none of those flaws stop him from wanting to be good, to do good. For me, that was the starting point with him. I think of my own boys and what they love, and how much they love their family, their friends, and their hobbies. Teenage boys are so full of potential, energy, and passion. But sometimes (often, if you’ll ask their sister), teenagers are also frustrating and frustrated. They want to grow up so fast, and they also want to stay children. It’s a bit of a paradox. They are goofy and silly, and angry and in a rush to do so many things. That is Lucas. He is a boy who wants to be looked at with the respect due to someone many decades his senior. At the same time, add in magic powers.
What makes him different is that he is human first, wizard last. I wrote him primarily as a son and as a brother. Contrary to so many books out there, the parents and family are all very much in the picture from the first page to the last. There is no escaping them, and they are all essential to the story as opposed to where Lucas escapes to after his story is over.
What themes did you know you wanted to explore from the start?
I wanted to explore the ideas of love, both familial and romantic, grief, and the idea that keeping secrets can be what hurts those you love. Honesty is always key. It’s the secrets that have the potential to be really dangerous. This is a family haunted by grief and secrets. Both Lucas and his sister Audrina are coming of age in a home filled with ghosts, and this is what they must navigate to figure out who they’re growing into.
What will your next novel be about, and what will the whole series encompass?
The next novel in the series is called The Island of Mystics, and we will see a lot more of what lies beyond the border of their kingdom. Without giving too much away, both Lucas and Audrina are dealing with the fallout of what happens in The Wizard’s Apprentice, and Lucas in particular craves an escape. Where this escape takes him is far beyond where he ever imagined.
The rest of the series investigates Audrina’s choices in love and Lucas coming into his own. We also meet a couple of new characters that I dearly love writing, and I can’t wait for you to meet them!
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When a young woman enters the lives of the royal family begging for help, she quickly becomes Prince Lucas’ unexpected confidant. Meanwhile, Princess Audrina gravitates towards her in ways that place her in a difficult situation for an heir to a throne. As an investigation unfolds for the truth, the prince’s nightmares become increasingly horrifying, the princess’ feelings grow more complicated, and the newcomer’s intentions are cast into doubt. The royal family must discover the stranger’s secrets before hearts are broken and events reveal whether or not Prince Lucas’ dreams are leading to a deadly future in The Wizard’s Apprentice.
The Island of Mystics
The Island of Mystics is a young adult fantasy that leans hard into emotion, family tension, and the ache of feeling out of place. It picks up with characters already carrying real damage, and that matters. The book opens with grief, moves into separation and escape, and then widens into a story about love, duty, guilt, and belonging. What stood out to me most is that it isn’t built around a single quest so much as a web of relationships under strain. That gives it a more intimate feel, even when the setting gets larger and stranger.
What really gives the book its shape is the way the author lets emotional pain drive the plot. Lucas is crushed by guilt and convinced the people around him would be better off without him. Audrina is trying to hold onto love while living under royal expectations. Gertrude gets pulled between devotion and self-erasure in a way that feels painfully sincere. None of that reads like background decoration. It’s the engine of the story. Even a line as simple as “Nothing lasted” carries weight because that fear keeps echoing through the book in different forms.
I also liked how the fantasy world is presented. The island setting, the mermaids, the unusual birds, the castle details, and the sense of hidden history give the novel a colorful, storybook surface. The book keeps bringing things back to character. It’s less interested in showing off lore for its own sake than in asking what a magical world feels like when you’re scared, heartsick, or trying to choose between love and responsibility. The setting feels vivid, but it never pushes the people out of the center.
The writing has a sincere, openhearted quality that fits the material. Sometimes it’s earnest to a fault, but more often that directness helps. The book is at its best when it lets characters say exactly what they fear, want, or regret. One of my favorite lines comes near the end: “This is not goodbye. This is only until we meet again.” It’s romantic, a little defiant, and very much in tune with the novel’s belief that separation doesn’t have to mean erasure. That same spirit runs through the whole book.
The Island of Mystics is a heartfelt fantasy that cares deeply about its characters and takes their feelings seriously. It’s a book about wounded people trying to find one another, trying to forgive themselves, and trying to imagine a future that isn’t already chosen for them. I came away thinking of it less as an adventure story with emotional stakes and more as an emotional story told through fantasy. That ends up being its real strength. It knows what it wants to be, and it commits to it.
Pages: 236 | ASIN : B0GT26F94N
The Bath Salts Journals, Volume One
The Bath Salts Journals, Volume One drops readers into a zombie apocalypse through dated entries rather than panoramic spectacle, and that choice gives the book its pulse. Alexis, a Toronto mother of triplets, notices early signs that the so-called “bath salts” attacks are really the beginning of the undead, then drags her skeptical family and a fiercely funny friend, Xuân, into a survival plan that leads north to a fenced compound in Nunavut. What begins as domestic paranoia hardens into a trek through wreckage, then into a rough new life built from hydroponics, fishing, grief, and vigilance. The book’s premise is familiar; its texture is not. It keeps returning the apocalypse to the scale of diapers, canned food, improvised childcare, and whether there will be enough light, warmth, and patience to get through one more day.
What I enjoyed most was the doubleness of the narration. Alexis writes with earnest resolve and maternal terror, while Xuân’s entries slash across the page with profanity, gallows humor, and a kind of anti-sentimental clarity. That contrast keeps the novel from going slack. Alexis can verge on idealized competence, but the book is sharper when it lets exhaustion, pettiness, boredom, and small comforts sit beside the horror. I believed this world most when the characters were arguing over what to pack, improvising meals, hauling children through danger, or trying to preserve scraps of normal life with movies, karaoke, and make-do celebrations. The apocalypse here is not sleek; it’s cramped, messy, and often absurd, which makes it feel oddly convincing.
I also appreciated that the novel is less interested in zombie mythology than in endurance and social reassembly. Even after the gore and flight, the story keeps asking what survival is for. The answer is not heroics alone, but routine, community, and the stubborn decision to remain human. The prose is sometimes blunt, and the emotional beats land a little squarely, yet the journal format forgives some of that by making immediacy more important than polish. I came away feeling that the book’s real engine is not fear but tenacity. It has an unvarnished, handmade quality that suits the material: less a polished studio production than a barricade built overnight that somehow holds.
I’d hand The Bath Salts Journals to readers who enjoy zombie horror, survival fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction, diary novels, and character-driven speculative fiction, especially those who want domestic detail and dark comedy mixed into the bloodshed. It reminded me less of World War Z’s global architecture than of The Walking Dead filtered through a colder, more intimate, more homespun lens, with a streak of irreverence that feels closer to Mira Grant at her loosest. This is a good fit for readers who like their end-of-the-world stories scrappy, human, and a little feral. The end of the world is still, maddeningly, a matter of keeping the house together.
Pages: 216 | ISBN : 978-1945502521
The Wizard’s Apprentice
The Wizard’s Apprentice follows sixteen-year-old Prince Lucas of Colonodona as he studies magic with the sharp-tongued wizard Kralc and tries to live up to a heavy family legacy. Night after night, he relives a vision of his kingdom burning, a dream that feels far too real, while a mysterious girl named Lettie walks into the royal orchard claiming to search for her missing father and quickly wins the trust of Princess Audrina and Lucas himself. As the bond between this royal family and their guest deepens, secrets from past generations come to the surface, Kralc’s own hidden history matters more than anyone expected, and Lucas has to face the question that sits under every lesson and every nightmare. Is he the cause of the disaster he sees, or the one person who can stop it.
As a reading experience, I had a good time with this book. I liked the way the story keeps circling back to small, domestic moments in the castle, like breakfasts, walks in the orchard, and quiet scenes in Sitnalta’s salon, then lets those moments crack open into bigger tensions. The character work is the biggest strength for me. Lucas reads like a very believable teen boy, hungry for praise, prickly about being treated like a child, heart first and brain later. Kralc is gruff and very funny in that “I hate feelings, now drink this potion” way, and I enjoyed every scene where his care slips through his bad attitude. Audrina’s mix of entitlement, kindness, and cluelessness feels honest, and her attraction to Lettie has a real spark to it without ever being turned into a joke. The writing itself is clean and very readable. The author likes straightforward descriptions and clear dialogue, and that kept the pages moving. I felt the middle of the book slow a little because Lucas repeats the same pattern of doubt and defensiveness, and Lettie’s coyness about the truth goes on a bit long, yet I still turned the pages because I wanted to see this family finally sit down and tell each other everything.
The nightmare that opens the book is not just a spooky hook, it turns into a question about fate and choice, about what it means to see a terrible future and then decide how you will live with that knowledge. Lucas’ fear that he will be the one who burns his own home felt very raw to me, especially in a world where he has real power and no full control over it. The book also plays with class in a simple, clear way. Lettie carries the anger and shame of growing up poor and illegitimate, and when she walks into this kind, shining royal family it’s easy to see why she wants both love and payback. The story is also about legacy. Kralc’s bond with the dead Learsi and the magic coin that holds pieces of all three of them gives the ending a quiet, emotional punch. Their little conversation in the green field, and her message to Sitnalta, gave me that warm ache you get when a fantasy story lets its ghosts speak with love instead of just horror.
I would recommend The Wizard’s Apprentice to readers who enjoy classic, character-driven fantasy with a strong family focus and a light, hopeful tone. It feels right for teen readers who are ready for themes of grief, guilt, and complicated loyalty, and also for adults who grew up on older school series and want something familiar yet emotionally honest. The Wizard’s Apprentice reads a bit like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, with a young hero learning magic and facing a dark destiny, but it trades the bustling school setting for a more intimate focus on royal family drama and personal legacy. If you like training sequences, prickly mentors, messy siblings, and magic that always has a cost, this is a solid pick.
Pages: 290 | ASIN : B0GMK611PR
The Song of War
The Song of War brings the Dybbuk Scrolls Trilogy to a breathless finale. The story opens with Asmodeus rallying his monstrous army and stepping out of the shadows to wage open war. Carrie, Mikhail, Lindsay, Rebecca, Emilia, and Ferne are pulled straight into danger as the conflict breaks across their worlds like a storm tide. Weddings, dreams of the Angel of Death, burning theatres, massed armies at the palace gates, and the chaos of a full-scale magical invasion all collide in a story that moves fast and hits hard. The book pushes every character to their breaking point, and it never stops reminding you that the cost of this war will be steep.
Reading this one felt different from the first two. I felt that there was a heaviness hanging over everything, and it’s hard not to feel that weight with Carrie. Her fear, her guilt, her frantic hope that she can keep the people she loves alive made me tense in a way I didn’t expect. The writing leans into emotion without getting flowery. Scenes swing from warm and funny to terrifying in a heartbeat. The wedding was especially emotional for me. It was sweet and soft and full of love. Then the dread crept in. Then the drums started. Then the world fell apart. I felt that shift in my gut.
The battles are messy and personal and frightening. Characters panic, stumble, run, freeze, and sometimes find a burst of courage they didn’t know they had. The story doesn’t pretend everyone suddenly becomes a warrior. It shows fear for what it is. It also shows love and loyalty in a raw way. Emilia’s struggle to reconcile her lineage with her future, Mikhail’s desperation to save his father, Lindsay’s reckless bravery, and Carrie’s mix of fear, anger, and determination gave the whole book a steady emotional heartbeat.
By the time I reached the end, I felt wrung out but satisfied. This book doesn’t hold back. It gives the trilogy a strong, emotional finish that feels earned. If you like fantasy stories where magic mixes with real-world problems, or if you enjoy character-driven adventures filled with danger, heartbreak, and stubborn hope, this is a series worth picking up. The Song of War is especially fitting for readers who love finales that swing big and don’t shy away from loss or triumph.
Pages: 217 | ASIN : B0FR2RBDDS
The Song of Vengeance
The Song of Vengeance picks up right where the first Dybbuk Scrolls adventure left off and wastes no time throwing Carrie back into danger. The book follows her struggle with loneliness at university, the eerie disappearance of her two closest friends, and the creeping feeling that something magical and malicious is once again closing in. When the dybbuks return with a new plan for revenge, Carrie is pushed back into Hadariah and into another fight she never asked for. The story blends modern life and fantasy in a way that feels quick and tense, and the mystery of what happened to her friends drives the plot with a steady pull.
I was rooting for Carrie in a very personal way. Her stress, her self-doubt, her frustration when no one believes her, all of it hit with surprising force. The writing is clean, direct, and often emotional in a quiet way. There were moments when I felt that knot of worry she carries, especially when the people around her begin forgetting Lindsay and Rebecca as if they never existed. That idea is simple, but it’s creepy, and the book leans into it with confidence. The dialogue feels natural, and the scenes that shift from the normal world into the magical one have a dreamy snap to them that I really enjoyed.
I also liked how the book digs into friendship. The bond between Carrie and her friends is the heart of the story, and even when the plot slows down, that emotional thread pulls everything forward. I do think some moments move a little quickly, especially when new characters show up or when the story jumps between worlds, but the emotional beats are strong enough that I didn’t mind much. The fantasy elements feel familiar, yet the author gives them a warm, human frame. Carrie is not a hero because she’s chosen, she’s a hero because she’s stubborn and loyal and scared, but moving anyway. That made the story feel real to me, even when magic was swirling everywhere.
If you’re a fan of series like Percy Jackson, The Mortal Instruments, or The School for Good and Evil, The Song of Vengeance will feel like a fresh but familiar ride. It blends ordinary life with creeping magic in a way that scratches the same itch as those stories, and it leans hard into friendship and courage just like they do. The world of Hadariah has its own rhythm, its own rules, and its own emotional pull, and readers who enjoy character-driven fantasy with real heart will settle into it easily. If you like your adventures tense but personal and your heroes a little messy and human, this is a great next read.
Pages: 271 | ASIN : B0FR2QTN4C
Consistency is Key
The City of Arches follows a princess who discovers a letter containing the key to her mother’s hidden past and her connection to a powerful wizard. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I love the idea of family secrets being uncovered. For me, I loved going through boxes of old pictures that my grandparents kept and hearing about all the old stories. The real treasure for a family is always hidden in old documents and old photographs. From the beginning, I have had Learsi’s story mapped out in my mind, and to have her daughter discover it in her own words was a temptation too big to ignore.
How did you balance magic and its use throughout the story to keep it believable?
I think of it almost as a muscle. Like any talent or ability, it needs to be used, trained, and practised. And just like a physical ability, it can be strained, and it can be draining. Like anything, magic needs its limitations to be believable, and once I figured out how it worked in my world, consistency is key.
Which character in the novel do you feel you relate to more and why?
That’s a hard question. I wish I could say that I relate to the hero, but in reality, I’m probably more like Aud. She’s just this normal person who cares about her family. She’s thrust into this world of magic and mess and has to make the best of it. She’s at heart just a mom, and I guess that’s what I relate to.
Can you give us a glimpse inside Book 4 of The Sitnalta Series? Where will it take readers?
Book 4 is called The Hedgewitch’s Charm. It shows us a Colonodona that’s put at risk by a plague. A young hedgewitch named Gwendolyn thinks there’s more to it and fights to save the people alongside Ipsinki. I loved writing her, and her and Ipsinki’s dynamic, and I hope readers love it too.
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In the buried past, Kralc finds a ragged Learsi living on the streets after her home kingdom’s destruction and presents an offer: help him set things right with the mysterious City of Arches and he will give her back her family and birthright. With her parents murdered and her kingdom in ruins, she doesn’t know how he can achieve such a thing. All she knows is that she has nothing to lose.
