THE FICTIONFOX

Genre: magical realism Published: W. W. Norton & Company (print) & RB Media (audio) My Rating: 4.5/5 stars "This state of pregnancy is not so different from what we’re doing here. We’re gestating a city, Yosoye. Soon we will birth greatness. Isn’t it all creation? Isn’t it all holy work?" There’s an interesting microtrend of “women walking into bodies of water” going on among spring 2026 releases. In March, we had Westward Women by Alice Martin, in which women were drawn towa

Genre: horror, haunted-house Published: Tin House Publishing, March 2026 My Rating: 5/5 stars "What would Lele say? What would Lele do? She asked herself these questions all the time, her answers feeble and uncertain, never knowing if she was right. She’d made this ghost. It couldn’t tell her anything new." The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts is an incredibly effective ghost-story with themes of grief, trauma and social isolation. It drew me in with its atmosphere, but truly snuc

Genre: Literary Fiction Novella, Magical Realism, Post-apocalyptic. Published: New Directions (US)/ Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK) , March 2024 My Rating: 1/5 stars "That was the future. This is now. The end of the world looks exactly the way you remember. Don’t try to picture the apocalypse. Everything is the same." I wanted to love this novella so bad. A magical realism story of an undead woman, tracking across a desolate landscape with a crow living inside her chest, explori

Genre: Literary Fiction, Magical Realism Published: Grove Press, August 2025 My Rating: 5/5 stars ‘Sometimes,’ I said, ‘goodbye isn’t...

Genre: (cozy) horror Published: ECW Press, September 2025 My rating: 3.5/5 stars I was originally drawn to this novel based on both its...

Genre: Cozy Fiction, Magical Realism Published: Doubleday, September 2024, originally published March 2023 My Rating: 1/5 stars “The...

Genre : middle-grade, magical realism. Published: Feiwel & Friends, March 2025 My Rating: 4.5/5 stars "Surprisingly, it was the pigeons...

Genre: Eco-fiction, horror, novella Published: Stelliform Press, April 2025 My Rating: 3/5 stars "The fen belongs to itself. Like us, it...

Genre: Magical Realism Published: Stillhouse Press, March 2025 My Rating: 2.5/5 stars, rounded down "Jo moves through a world that is...

Genre: Literary fiction, magical realism Published: Tin House Books & Recorded Books Audio, July 2024 My Rating: 3.5 stars “(you are)...

Genre: Magical Realism, Mystery, Horror Published: Sourcebooks Landmark, June 2024 My Rating: 3/5 stars Last year around this time I...

Genre: Literary Fiction, Magical Realism Published: Fourth Estate, February 2024 My Rating: 4.5/5 stars "Everything that comes from the...

Genre: Magical Realism, middle-grade/young adult Published: Levine Querido, April 2024 My Rating: 5/5 stars with a warming ghostly...

Genre: Literary Fiction, Magical Realism Published: Algonquin Books/Recorded Books Audio, April 2024 My Rating: 3.5/5 stars “It’s a...

Genre: Magical realism, horror, classics-retold Published: Titan Books, March 2024 My Rating: 4/5 stars “A family! Simon, of course!...

Genre: Magical Realism/Fantasy Published: Harvill Secker, January 2023 My Rating: 4.5/5 stars “Perhaps coming so close to death, then...

Genre: Magical Realism Published: Harper Collins, August 2023 My rating: 4.5/5 stars "When you lose someone close, you travel to the...