Off the Beaten Path

“The Darkness Outside Us uses the space setting of a spaceship hurtling through space to explore humanity, love, and humanity's responsibility to a future. Ambrose wakes up in a spaceship on a mission to save his sister on Titan. She was on a mission to create a human settlement, but her settlement went dark too soon after she landed. As he explores the ship, completes maintenance tasks, and generally messes around, he realizes that there is another ship and person tied to his own. Kodiak is...”

Izzy • Off the Beaten Path

“Rage, love, and hope permeate every page of Dimaline’s newest epic novel. Witches rise from the ashes, forming covens to save the world from the patriarchal capitalist practices that left it in flames. A North American coven is gathering, picked by spoons blessed by an ancestor and maybe fate itself. VenCo is an excellent story with beautifully flawed characters and writing that draws readers in and will not let them go. This urban fantasy, taking place in cities and roadside motels,...”

Izzy • Off the Beaten Path

“In a Tokyo back alley, in a basement, there is a cafe where you can travel back to the past. There are rules that you need to follow through, and you need to come back to the present before your coffee gets cold. This book seems more like a series of vignettes following people's trips into the past. The question is, what really changes when you go back? Is it you or the future? This is a refreshing take on time travel, reminiscent of magical realism. It is a beautiful book and I highly...”

Izzy • Off the Beaten Path

“Rose Mortiz is coming into her powers, powers that are different from the ones she’s always thought she had. So, she’s dealing with that, the return of her long lost father, and all of her sister’s drama (as detailed in the first two Brooklyn Bruja books which are also excellent). During her death day celebration, she realizes her father’s amnesia is a lie, then gets ambushed then sucked into Adas, the fairy realm. She is forced to work for their king saving the realm from a malignant force...”

Izzy • Off the Beaten Path

“Lucy and Sam are alone in a land that challenges their very existence. The night took their Ma then their Ba 3 years later. Left to bury their Ba and survive in the barren hills spotted with gold rushers and coal mines, Lucy and Sam must face their legacy and futures in the west. Zhang’s storytelling is reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s. Her character work is bewitching. Heck, she makes the landscape itself a character to be loved and feared. If you are looking for an immersive, literary...”

Izzy • Off the Beaten Path

“This is a flippin’ gorgeous book. The writing is exquisite, the story is moving, and the characters are rendered with the skill of a true artist. Can you tell that I enjoyed this? Transcendent Kingdom is about Gifty, a young neuroscientist studying addiction. We come into her story just as she has taken her depressed mother into her care and is wrapping up an experiment. We see how her relationships with her mother, faith, and science have brought her to this point. If you need a book that is...”

Izzy • Off the Beaten Path