Maxine Kaplan's Wench
This was a fun book full of magic and adventure, though it didn’t one hundred percent work for me. It starts off with almost an Ursula Vernon vibe, as a tavern owner dies, and the teenage girl who basically runs the place (the titular Wench) discovers it's been requisitioned by the Queen, and goes off on a quest to take ownership. Of course things go wrong pretty quickly, magical artifacts ensue, the friends we made along the way, etc. I actually really liked the very end of this, but the last third needed more character moments for me to totally buy into it (all of the romance is just like, there all of a sudden) and the climactic action stuff felt kind of rushed after all the buildup. Still, I am here for a practical heroine, and this book has a few of them! This seems ripe for a sequel but doesn’t /need/ one, which is always a nice feeling—I’d like to see where these goofs end up next. B+.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on January 19th.
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