THE LABYRINTH OF WAKING DREAMS

Battling personal demons is bad enough without literal monsters also posing a significant threat.

At 18, Thea, who’s cued white, wants more for her life than customer service jobs and a GED, but she doesn’t have many options in her small West Virginia town of Barren’s Peak, especially since her mom died, and her dad hasn’t worked since he had a serious accident. One night, what begins as an ordinary barn party turns into a mini-massacre as small, fanged fairies attack. Thea falls in with bespectacled, white-presenting Oliver, who’s looking for evidence of a “tear between worlds,” and bronze-skinned, leather jacket–wearing Callum, who’s spent the past six months watching and reporting on Thea for the Council. Both boys are blood magicians, raised to be soldiers who protect the world, though Oliver was banished from their organization. Desperate to escape the fairies’ onslaught, Oliver sends all three of them into the Labyrinth, a plane of darkness that morphs to reflect the minds of its prisoners. The trio, who are all queer, must fight their way out before they’re consumed by monsters or succumb to exhaustion. This duology opener quickly dives into the action, which only lets up for emotionally driven scenes, so even with some persistent gaps in the backstory, readers will become invested. Oliver and Callum share a devastatingly dramatic history of loyalty, tension, and romance. The cliffhanger ending will leave readers anticipating more to come.

An engrossing dark fantasy.