James Nicoll Reviews

Jealous of all the people who support Aurora-finalist James Nicoll Reviews? Want to join them? Here are your options:

Join my Patreon here. Rewards include your choice of which books I review.

Commission a review and get immediate gratification¹.

Spontaneous donations may be delivered via gold-ingot-filled airship, transport truck hauling cash, and trucks full of bearer-bond. That said, Paypal is probably the most practical option.

1: On a geological scale.

Read more ➤

I survived another dance season. Go me.

June 2025

21 works reviewed. 11 by women (52%), 9 by men (43%),1 by non-binary authors (5%), 0 by authors whose gender is unknown (0%), and 8 by POC (38%).

Read more ➤

Until the Clock Strikes Midnight by Alechia Dow (February 2026)

The Good Place meets the Brandy version of Cinderella in Until the Clock Strikes Midnight, a cozy, romantic fantasy from award-winning author Alechia Dow. 

Darling is the most talented — and unusual — Guardian to get a chance at winning the coveted once-in-a-generation Mortal Outcome Council mentorship. Getting the spot would mean having the opportunity to shape the future happiness of all mortal realms — if she succeeds at her first assignment, Lucy Addlesberg. Darling thinks it’ll be an easy razzle-dazzle job… until she actually meets Lucy. Her life is a complete mess, from her failing bookshop in her downtrodden village to her doomed flirtation with the princess of Lumina. But if there’s one thing Darling’s good at, it’s a makeover. 

Calamity is the most talented — and arrogant — Misfortune of his class. It’s his job to save mortals from their own terrible decisions made in the pursuit of the mythical ​“Happily Ever After. 

” When Calam is granted a shot at the Mortal Outcome Council mentorship, he thinks his dreams are finally coming true. But first, he must pass the test. It should be easy — Lucy Addlesberg has been unfortunate for years. All he has to do is continue her string of bad luck so she can finally come to terms with reality and settle for a safer, more logical path in life. Yet when he arrives, he finds that Lucy has a Guardian assigned to her too — a chipper overachiever who is as colorful as the magic pouring from her glittery wand. 

To thwart each other, Darling and Calam insert themselves into Lucy’s life posing as a betrothed couple. As they try to guide her down what they each see as the best path for her, they start questioning their roles and ultimately what they truly want for themselves… and if those feelings of loathing they have for each other might actually be something more like love. 

Read more ➤

99 Ways to Die: And How to Avoid Them by A. M. Alker, M. D. & Ashely Alker (January 2026)

An illuminating, hilarious, and practical guide to 99 of the most terrifying ways to die and how to avoid them from an emergency medicine doctor.

Dr. Ashely Alker is a self-described death-escapologist – or, in more familiar terms, an emergency medicine doctor. She has seen it all, from flesh-eating bacteria to the work of a serial killer to the more mundane but no less deadly, and her work keeping people from dying (or being unable to) has uniquely prepared her to write this book.

99 Ways to Die: And How to Avoid Them is an illuminating, darkly funny, and practical guide to 99 of the most terrifying ways to die and how to avoid them. Dr. Alker manages to scare readers while making them laugh, preparing them for a wide range of deadly situations and conditions. Each chapter includes stories of her patients pertaining to the chapter’s subject, as well as her related experiences in life and medicine. Sections include categories on sex, poison, drugs, biological warfare, disease, animals, crime, the elements and much more.

An Anthony Bourdain-style greatest hits tour of death, 99 Ways is entertaining while it informs. Quirky yet commercial, it will appeal to readers of everything from The Vagina Bible to Stiff to What If?, as well as the large audience of readers of bestselling medical books like How Not to Die. 

Read more ➤

This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews (March 2026)

When Maggie wakes up cold, filthy, and naked in a gutter, it doesn’t take her long to recognize Kair Toren, a city she knows intimately from the pages of the famously unfinished dark fantasy series she’s been obsessively reading and re-reading while waiting years for the final novel.

Her only tools for navigating this gritty world of rival warlords, magic, and mayhem? Her encyclopedic knowledge of the plot, the setting, and the characters’ ambitions and fates. But while she quickly discovers she cannot be killed (though many will try!), the same cannot be said for the living, breathing characters she’s coming to love — a motley band that includes a former lady’s maid, a deadly assassin, various outrageous magical creatures, and a dangerously appealing soldier. Soon, instead of trying to get home, she finds herself enmeshed in the schemes — and attentions — of dueling princes, dukes, and villains, all while trying to save them and the kingdom of Rellas from the way she knows their stories will end: in a cataclysmic war. 

Read more ➤

Would you like to support Aurora-finalist James Nicoll Reviews? Here are your options:

Do you want ongoing say in what I review? Join my Patreon here.

Do you desire immediate gratification¹? Commission a review!

Do you languish under the burden of excess wealth? Spontaneous donations may be delivered via my Paypal. Trailer-trucks filled with precious metals are also acceptable².

1: As long as you don’t mind waiting.

2: James Nicoll Reviews no longer accepts copper ingots sourced from Ea-nāṣir.

Read more ➤

May 2025

22 works reviewed. 12 by women (55%), 9 by men (41%), 0 by non-binary authors (0%), 1 by authors whose gender is unknown (5%), and 9 by POC (41%).

Read more ➤

Midnight on the Celestial by Julia Alexandra (March 2026)

Roe Damarcus has never been afraid of the dead. Her power to summon spirits has awed the guests of her esteemed family’s galas for as long as she can remember. Her future is certain, and her gift will be another shining jewel in the Damarcus legacy. 

But when she fails her realm’s trial to keep her magic and is deemed too dangerous for society, she faces a harrowing choice: give up her gift or serve a punishment sentence aboard the Celestial, a luxurious magical cruise ship where staff members compete for guest votes to earn a coveted retrial. 

As a concierge, Roe juggles the demands of affluent guests, cruel bosses, and the suspicion that an infuriatingly handsome silks performer, Ivander, is determined to keep her from a retrial. 

But the true dangers surface after her shift ends when the Celestial transforms into halls of nightmares that kill staff members after dark. Faced with the reality of serving aboard, Roe begins to question the ship, trials, and the system that put her there. But the moment Roe sinks into the ship’s dark history, she’s wrongly framed for a guest’s murder. Vowing to conjure her own second chance, Roe will use whatever power she has to uncover the secrets of the ship, her family, and their entwined bloody past… before she becomes the Celestial’s next victim. 

Read more ➤

After the Fall by Edward Ashton (February 2026)

Part alien invasion story, part buddy comedy, and part workplace satire, After The Fall by Edward Ashton, author of Mickey7 (inspiration for the film Mickey 17), asks an important question: would humans really make great pets?Humans must be silent. Humans must be obedient. Humans must be good. 

All his life, John has tried to live by those rules. Most days, it’s not too difficult. A hundred and twenty years after The Fall, and a hundred years after the grays swept in to pick the last dregs of humanity out of the wreckage of a ruined world, John has found himself bonded to Martok Barden nee Black Hand, one of the ​“good” grays. Sure, Martok is broke, homeless, and borderline manic, but he’s always treated John like an actual person, and sometimes like a friend. It’s a better deal than most humans get. 

But when Martok puts John’s bond up as collateral against an abandoned house in the woods that he hopes to turn into a wilderness retreat for wealthy grays, John learns that there are limits to Martok’s friendship. Soon he finds himself caught between an underworld boss who thinks Martok is something that he very much is not, a girl who was raised by feral humans and has nothing but contempt for pets like John, and Martok himself, whose delusions of grandeur seem to be finally catching up with him. Also, not for nothing, something in the woods has been killing people. 

John has sixty days before Martok’s loan comes due to unravel the mystery of how humans wound up holding the wrong end of the domestication stick and find a way to turn Martok’s half-baked plans into profit enough to buy back his life, all while avoiding getting butchered by feral humans or having his head crushed by an angry gray. Easy peasy, right? 

Read more ➤

The Age of Calamities by Senaa Ahmad (January 2026)

For fans of Karen Russell and Carmen Maria Machado, The Age of Calamities is a genre-defying, mind-bending collection of absurdist, funny, and speculative short stories.

In this bold and enchanting collection Senaa Ahmad takes license with history and its players, sending the reader on a thrilling ride. In ​“Let’s Play Dead,” Henry VIII wants Anne Boleyn gone, but there’s a tiny problem — she keeps coming back to life no matter what he does. ​“Choose Your Own Apocalypse” hurls readers back to 1945, where they assume the role of a technician for the Manhattan Project, surrounded by labyrinthine paths and harrowing outcomes. And ​“Inside the House of the Historian” invites us to a dinner party turned murder mystery full of figures like Nefertiti, Queen Victoria, John Adams, and Marilyn Monroe. These stories and others entice readers to confront the past, the present, and themselves all at once. Zany and haunting, inviting and brilliant, each poignant tale delves into surreal nature of today through the lens of yesterday, charting the tragicomic yet hopeful act of living.

The Age of Calamities is an evocation of life and death on history’s unsteady margins, of how to reckon with the blunt-force trauma of ill-fated times. Fiercely clever and wildly inventive, this debut establishes Senaa Ahmad as a literary force. 

Read more ➤