Three Books I'm Reading Now, 9/15/25 Edition

The Books I'm Reading Now

I'm reading a favorite author's upcoming novella, The Summer War by Naomi Novik; I'm listening to my first T. Kingfisher novel, the fantasy story and retelling of the Grimm Brothers' Goose Girl, A Sorceress Comes to Call; and I'm reading a reimagined, empathy-inspiring story of Dickensian villain Jacob Fagin from Oliver Twist, Fagin the Thief.

What are you reading, bookworms?

---

01 The Summer War by Naomi Novik

Naomi Novik is one of my very favorite authors, and I'm excited to read her upcoming novella The Summer War, to be published September 16.

The day Celia's brother Argent left the house in their war-torn homeland, she was furious. But she didn't know that her enraged curses, uttered in the heat of the moment, carried immense weight. Celia didn't understand until that moment that she held magical powers, nor that in spouting off angry words, she would dooming her brother to a life spent seeking fame and without the possibility of love.

Now she must try everything she can to undo the hex she placed on her beloved Argent. The key might lie within the centuries-old war her people have waged against the summerlings--and the grudges those creatures have nurtured against the humans.

Naomi Novik is the author of richly wrought fantasy novels featuring main protagonists I love: Uprooted and Spinning Silver as well as the story collection Buried Deep and the Scholomance trilogy: A Deadly Education, The Last Graduate, and The Golden Enclaves.

Novik has also written the Temeraire series of nine fantastic books about dragons, their riders, their friendships, and their wryly funny interactions.

I received a prepublication edition of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Del Rey.

---

02 A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher

For some reason this is my first T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon's pen name) read, and so far, I love this retelling of the Grimm Brothers' story Goose Girl.

Cordelia is careful not to upset her mother. She isn't allowed to close a door between them, nor to disagree with her, nor to have a secret or even a friend of her own. The only creature she trusts is her mother's white horse Falada, to whom she tells all of her private thoughts and darkest feelings. But, she finds, even Falada is under her mother's ultimate control.

When a neighbor dies mysteriously, Cordelia's mother insists they leave town in the middle of the night, and she sets her devious sights on bewitching a wealthy squire and sinking her claws into his fortune.

But the squire's sharp-eyed spinster sister Hester sees how Cordelia shrinks away from her mother and the intense power she seems to wield. Hester and her friends--with Cordelia's help--set out to fend off the woman's murderous intentions.

I'm listening to this novel as an audiobook.

Kingfisher/Vernon is a prolific author who has published many standalone novels as well as multiple series.

---

03 Fagin the Thief by Allison Epstein

In a reimagined nineteenth-century Dickensian London, young Jacob Fagin has been scrabbling for existence since he was a young boy. When his father was murdered as a thief in the Jewish quarter, the family's situation became increasingly desperate. His beloved mother Leah kept Fagin in books and did what she could to keep them afloat--until her own untimely demise.

Now Jacob's options for survival are limited, and he begins to train as a pickpocket, soon eclipsing his teacher and the other thieves in the area--and taking in young people who are also fighting for a chance in a tough world.

In Fagin the Thief, Oliver Twist is a minor character, and Fagin's motivations and character development inspire reader empathy for this traditionally wily, cutthroat, notorious villain.