El-Mohtar, Amal

El-Mohtar’s solo debut (after cowriting This Is How You Lose the Time War with Max Gladstone) is a heart-wrenching fairy tale about the bonds of love and family. It’s a murder ballad in book form that will linger long after the final page is turned.

This stunning, semi-epistolary tale by coauthors El-Mohtar (The Honey Month) and Gladstone (“Craft Sequence” series) is a seamless story of time travel, sparring opponents, and the revelations of serving a cause. To unlock the complexities of language and plot here, readers will want to return to this book, with each read revealing a little more of its near-limitless substance.