Portal Fantasies and New Books: Swords and Spaceships, August 2, 2024

As always, I am weak to an enamel pin, and I like the design of these firebirds. The traditional fire colors can be seen on this picture, but you get to pick a set of two, and there’s also green, blue, and some nice multicolor versions. $12.

Estela has nothing left to her name but survivor’s guilt after her parents are killed in a mysterious attack. Feeling she’s beginning to lose her grip on reality, she accepts her estranged aunt’s invitation to come live at their ancestral home in Spain—a castle called la Sombra. As one might think, the castle’s halls are filled with family secrets, and Estela soon begins to think that the answer to her parents’ death lies close to this home…perhaps because the perpetrator has followed her here.

Devon is used to being constantly surpassed by her twin, who is a certified genius, and she has accepted that Drew is going to go off to college a year early without her. Devon tries to celebrate that departure with a summer of fun plans with her sister and friends. But an unfortunate incident with a Ouija board leads to a demon emerging whose methods are surprisingly trope-y as it chases the crew down. That means Devon knows she’s first on the chopping block, since she’s blonde.

But Devon will not be going quietly.

Twenty years ago, three children mysteriously vanished, leaving their families stunned. Years later, the three are returned just as mysteriously, but now they’re grown up, naked, and claiming that they were in the Garden of Eden.

Eden has simple rules: no speech, no clothes, no possessions, do no harm. But these lessons are not just for the animalistic state of those who live in Eden. They are crucial to surviving in the so-called civilized world as well.

The magical kingdom of Avalon was once great but it is now a giant ice cube under the thumb of the evil Snow Queen. Its former citizens are refugees in a crappy world where magic doesn’t work, and the last surviving scion of the ruling family, Prince Alexei, is in hiding in a town in Arizona. He and his best friend Tala have all but given up hope when the Firebird, Avalon’s most powerful weapon, appears to them.