Robot

Daryl M.

Librarian


Posts by Daryl M.

  • C.L. Polk and their book Even Though I Knew the End

    Interview With an Author: C.L. Polk

    C.L. Polk (they/them) wrote the Hugo-nominated series The Kingston Cycle, including the WFA winning Witchmark. The Midnight Bargain was a Canada Reads, Nebula, Locus, Ignyte, and WFA finalist. They…

  • Author Leigh Bardugo and her latest novel, Hell Bent

    Interview With an Author: Leigh Bardugo

    Leigh Bardugo is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and the creator of the Grishaverse (now a Netflix original series) which spans the Shadow and Bone trilogy, the Six of Crows duology, The…

  • Author Ryan North and his latest book, How to Take Over the World

    Interview With an Author: Ryan North

    Ryan North is a New York Times—bestselling author whose books include How to Invent Everything, Romeo and/or Juliet, and To Be or Not To Be. He’s the creator of Dinosaur Comics and the Eisner Award…

  • Author Natalie Haynes and her latest novel, Stone Blind

    Interview With an Author: Natalie Haynes

    Natalie Haynes is the author of seven books, including A Thousand Ships, which was a national bestseller and was shortlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction, and the nonfiction Pandora's Jar…

  • Author Jacqueline Holland and her first novel, The God of Endings

    Interview With an Author: Jacqueline Holland

    Jacqueline Holland holds an MFA from the University of Kansas. Her work has appeared in Hotel Amerika and Big Fiction magazine, among others. She lives in the Twin Cities with her husband and two sons…

  • Author Jane Yolen and her latest novel, The Scarlet Circus

    Interview With an Author: Jane Yolen

    Jane Yolen is the author of more than four hundred books, including children's fiction, poetry, short stories, graphic novels, nonfiction, fantasy, and science fiction. Her publications include Owl…

  • Author Matt Ruff and his latest book, The Destroyer of Worlds: A Return to Lovecraft Country

    Interview With an Author: Matt Ruff

    Matt Ruff is the author of the novels 88 Names, Lovecraft Country, Bad Monkeys, The Mirage, Set This House in Order, Fool on the Hill, and Sewer, Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy. He lives in…

  • Author Victor LaValle and his latest book, The Ballad of Black Tom

    Interview With an Author: Victor LaValle

    Victor LaValle is the author of seven works of fiction and three graphic novels. His books have won the World Fantasy Award, British Fantasy Award, Bram Stoker Award, Dragon Award, and the Shirley…

  • Author Dahlia Adler and her latest book, At Midnight: 15 Beloved Fairy Tales Reimagined

    Interview With an Author: Dahlia Adler

    Dahlia Adler is an editor of mathematics by day, a book blogger by night, and an author at every spare moment in between. She is the editor of the anthologies His Hideous Heart and That Way Madness…

  • Author James Ramos and his latest book, The Wrong Kind of Weird

    Interview With an Author: James Ramos

    James Ramos (he/they) is a nonbinary, unapologetically dorky Minnesota native who now calls Arizona home. Weaned on a steady diet of science-fiction, comic books, and classic literature, James wrote…


Reviews by Daryl M.

  • Cover image for The Picture Bride

    The Picture Bride

    The year is 1917 and a seventeen-year-old girl named Willow, who lives with her widowed mother and two younger brothers in a small, rural village in southeastern Korea, is asked by a traveling matchmaker if she wants to get married. The older woman shows Willow a photo of a young...
  • Cover image for Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan

    Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan

    • By: Michalski, Liz
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    We all know the story of Peter Pan, the boy who refuses to grow up. J.M. Barrie wrote and published a play and two books about Peter and his adventures in the early 20th century, recounting how Peter visited the Darling children: Wendy, John, and Michael, and spirited them away...
  • Cover image for Acts of Violet

    Acts of Violet

    • By: Montimore, Margarita
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    In early 2020, Margarita Montimore published her debut novel, Oona Out of Order. It followed a woman who awakes every January 1st at a different point in her life. She lives in that year, and in that body, until December 31st, only to awaken the following morning beginning a different...
  • Cover image for Hawk Mountain

    Hawk Mountain

    • By: Habib, Conner
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    In the late afternoon, Todd sits on the beach watching 6-year-old Anthony, his son, play in the surf. A man approaches Todd, and, after a minute, he recognizes him. It is Jack, who bullied Todd relentlessly during their senior year in high school. In spite of their shared history, Jack...
  • Cover image for The Kaiju Preservation Society

    The Kaiju Preservation Society

    • By: Scalzi, John
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    In early March of 2020, Jamie Gray is unceremoniously demoted from marketing executive to “deliverator” at füdmüd, an internet startup company in New York City. As the COVID pandemic worsens, Jamie struggles to get by until a chance delivery happens to be to Tom Stevens. Tom tells Jamie that he...
  • Cover image for A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

    A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

    • By: Chambers, Becky
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    In 2021, Becky Chambers introduced readers to the moon of Panga, where, centuries ago, the civilization’s robots gained consciousness and, en masse, walked off into the surrounding wilderness and were never heard from again. Until the day a robot named Splendid Speckled Mosscap walked up to Sibling Dex, a tea...
  • Cover image for Remarkably Bright Creatures

    Remarkably Bright Creatures

    • By: Van Pelt, Shelby
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    After her husband’s death, Tova Sullivan took a job cleaning the Sowell Bay Aquarium. She works evenings after the aquarium has closed to the public, mopping the floors, clearing the trash cans, and cleaning the glass walls of the exhibition tanks until they shine. As she works her way around...
  • Cover image for The Children on the Hill

    The Children on the Hill

    • By: McMahon, Jennifer
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    Monster. The word brings to mind ugly, misshapen creatures wreaking havoc wherever they go. Perhaps the most famous monster is Frankenstein’s monster from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It’s been over 200 years since the teenaged Shelley created one of the most enduring tales of all time. And over the last two...
  • Cover image for Siren Queen

    Siren Queen

    On a whim, a young Chinese-American girl pays with an inch of her hair so that she and he sister can see Romeo and Juliet at the new nickelodeon in their neighborhood. From that moment on, she has a single desire: to be a motion picture star. Not simply an...
  • Cover image for Never Been Kissed

    Never Been Kissed

    • By: Janovsky, Timothy
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    As Wren Roland celebrates his 22nd birthday with his best friends and roommates, Mateo and Avery, he begins to lament the fact that he has never been kissed. He’s been close, but has yet to experience what his degree in film studies has convinced him will be a life-altering and...