James Nicoll Reviews

The Bloody and the Damned by Becca Coffindaffer (April 2026)

An assassin with outlawed, magical abilities will do anything to get their kidnapped sisters back in this dystopic-fantasy standalone, perfect for fans of Iron Widow and Hell Followed With Us. 

Mercy has no place here. 

On Trinity, a metal world where the privileged live in the skies and the rest fight for water below, you do what you can to survive.18-year-old Val knows this better than anyone. They’ve sacrificed everything to provide for their younger sisters. Using their outlawed teleportation powers, they’ve become the most infamous assassin-for-hire on Trinity, known as the Butcher. 

No one should be able to trace the Butcher to Val. But when a gang retaliates against The Butcher by killing Dani, their only friend, and kidnapping Val’s sisters, it means that someone has to know the truth. 

Desperate and completely alone, Val has no one to turn to but their ex-childhood best friend turned vigilante thief. He broke their heart, but he owes them. 

But as Val fights for the return of their sisters, they start to realize there might be something much bigger at play… something that could upend everything they’ve ever known about Trinity. 

Val’s journey will take them from a maximum security prison transport to the headquarters of the most powerful gang on Trinity, and all the way to the Gate of Heaven. Each more heavily guarded than the last. 

Good thing the Butcher has never blinked at an extra casualty. 

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Sea Wardens of Cothique by Dave Allen, Dominic McDowall, Michael Duxbury, Jude Hornborg, Naomi Hunter, Steven Lewis, Simon Wileman, et al (4^th Quarter, 2025)

“A Guide to the inhabitants of the maritime kingdom of Cothique, and port of Tor Koruali.”

The lands of Cothique have a wildness to them. In comparison to many other kingdoms of Ulthuan, they are windswept and untamed. In ages past these lands were threatened by Norse raiders and Dark Elf corsairs, but the creation of the Shifting Isles prevents hostile fleets from navigating to Cothique’s shores. Freed from obvious dangers, the nobles of Cothique indulge in intrigues and temptations, allowing hidden threats to inveigle their way into the neglected corners of their orderly realm. Agents of Chaos and the Dread King of Naggaroth stir up trouble and pave the way for a future conquest of the Kingdom.

Boy, With Accidental Dinosaur by Ian McDonald (February 2026)

The story of an orphan in a fractured Southwest who just wants to ride a dinosaur under the lights. This is How to Train Your Dragon meets Mad Max. 

Come one, come all to the dinosaur rodeo!

Tif Tamim wants nothing more than to be a dinosaur buckaroo. An orphan in search of a place to rest his head and a job to weigh down his pockets, Tif has bounced from circus to circus, yearning for a chance to ride a prehistoric beauty under the sparkling lights of a big-top. 

To become a buckaroo, Tif needs to learn the tools of the trade, yet few dino maestros want to take a scrawny nobody from nowhere under their wing. But when Tif frees a dino from an abusive owner and braves the roving gangs of the formerly-American west to bring the dino to safety, he catches someone’s eye. And boy, how those eyes dazzle Tif from the back of a bucking carnotaur. 

Enola Holmes and the Clanging Coffin by Nancy Springer (February 2026)

Enola Holmes — international bestselling and Netflix streaming sensation — returns when rescuing a young woman pits her against her brother Sherlock’s most deadly enemy — Professor Moriarty.

In February 1891, London, Enola Holmes — the much younger sister of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes — is attending the burial of her former landlady when she hears the faint sound of a hand-bellim the graveyard. Investigating further, as is the Holmes’ family instinct, she discovers that the bell is attached to the temporary tombstone at a recent gravesite and someone, buried within, is pulling the string to ring the alarm.

Galvanized into action, Enola and her companions successfully unearth the coffin within, freeing a still-living young woman, Trevonia Trairom. Enola, by predilection and by trade a Scientific Perditorian, a finder of lost things, finds herself comforting and protecting this young girl, who remembers very little, including her own identity. While protecting this mysterious girl from an enigmatic enemy, she finds Sherlock engaged in a related mystery and joins him in his battle against the Napoleon of Crime, Professor Moriaty. As that epic conflict rushes towards it’s inevitable conclusion, Enola takes her place more fully than ever before as a proud member of the Holmes family.