Hi there! It’s time for another Spell the Month in Books. This was originally created by Reviews from the Stacks, and the idea is to spell the month using the first letter of book titles. This month, I have some upcoming book releases I’m excited about. Let’s check them out!
O: Oath of the Chosen
Magic is murder.In the brutal kingdom of Averyth, where outlawed magic is passed through murder, the Chosen are trained from childhood to make sure it ends that way.
Auri is the best of them. An elite torturer with a flawless record, raised to hunt outlawed magic with blades and blood. Loyal. Lethal. Unquestioning.
Until Auri is thrust into a competition to crown the first Royal Chosen, and she realizes that winning could expose the secret she’s risked everything to keep hidden: Auri has magic of her own.
As the trials unfold, it becomes clear that Auri’s loyalty is what’s really being tested.
Then everything breaks. The competition is violently interrupted by a coordinated attack—one that fractures the illusion of control Averyth has relied on for generations.
In the chaos, Auri is forced to flee with the last person she should trust: a former Assignment she was trained to break. A man bound to her past, armed with dangerous truths and a dangerously disarming charm that’s becoming harder to resist.
Hunted by the very system she upheld, Auri must unravel betrayals, buried histories, and a prophecy whispered in the shadows.
Because some destinies don’t come quietly.
Some destinies scream.
LINKS: Goodreads | BookBub | Amazon | Bookshop.org
C: Chosen Son
The war is just beginning.
When the city fell, Maris lost everything—her freedom, her future, and the man she loved. Now, with Luca trapped behind the gates of Isara, she makes a choice that will change her life forever: to don the armor of the enemy and march back into the heart of the city she was forced to flee. Every step brings her closer to Luca, but also deeper into the blood-soaked machine of war.
Inside Isara’s walls, Luca wrestles with a truth more dangerous than any sword. Once the symbol of the Loyal Legion, he has lost the thing he was truly fighting for—Maris. The shift of the war has left him to question whether he has become a pawn of the gods, and with betrayal lurking in every shadow, Luca must decide who he is: the dutiful soldier forged by rebellion, or the man willing to risk everything for love.
Across battlefields and through broken temples, Maris and Luca’s treacherous paths through Isara are set to collide. And when the gods demand sacrifice, it comes in a form no one could have expected.
LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon | Bookshop.org
T: To Vex and To Hex
Lucy Ansari’s life revolves around Crawley Books. As a witch, Lucy finds that Charles, the magical old man who owns it, feels more like family than her actual family. And like Lucy, her magic seems to adore books–but she definitely doesn’t adore Charles’ useless grandson, Grayson, who suddenly arrived from Ireland to “help” when Charles breaks his hip.
Grayson has never shown any interest in his lonely grandfather or the store Charles (and Lucy!) have dedicated their lives to. Suspicious of Grayson’s motives, there’s no way Lucy will let him disappoint Charles yet again–she’ll just have to hex him into leaving. But the arrogant, prickly Grayson seems determined to stay, and to finally mend his relationship with Charles before it’s too late. Except, much to his chagrin (and Lucy’s delight), Lucy refuses to part with his grandfather or the store. So, nonmagical Grayson decides to use his own version of vexing Lucy until she gives up her self-anointed role as Charles’ one and only protector.
As shenanigans ensue and sparks fly, Lucy and Grayson realize they share more than just responsibilities at the bookstore–like budding feelings for one another they’re desperate to suppress. But if they can only stop vexing and hexing, it might just be time to take a chance on each other.
LINKS: Goodreads | BookBub | Amazon | Bookshop.org
O: Of Blades and Wings
If I am to survive Valkyrie training, I must earn my wings. If I am to survive Kain, I must make a choice that could burn our world to ash.
I’m broken. My fae magic doesn’t work and nobody knows I exist.
My sister, on the other hand, is bound for glory. She has been selected to train to be a Valkyrie at the mythical Featherblade Hall. I am destined to die alone, in my tower.
Only, when the Valkyrie come to collect my sister, they take me instead.
I’m not the only one who thinks they’ve made a terrible mistake. Every other fae here is waiting for me to die.
Except one.
Kain, the disgraced fire-fae combat trainer. The gods took his wings away, he can’t leave Featherblade, and he makes no secret of his blazing desire for revenge.
And somehow, he knows I’m the only one who can help him. He doesn’t know my secret, thank the fates, but his burning gaze never leaves me.
I know I should avoid him. I can’t think straight when he’s near me, and he’s as lethal as Featherblade is.
But, the only thing harder than earning my wings and becoming a Valkyrie?
Conquering my searing obsession with the unhinged fire-fae, before it gets everyone killed.
Fae Vikings meet romantasy in this enemies to lovers series in an academy/war college setting. If you love villain gets the girl stories and obsessive burn-the-world-down-for-her MMCs then this is for you.
The spice is deliciously slow-burn and builds with each book.
LINKS: Goodreads | BookBub | Amazon | Bookshop.org
B: Broken Rival
Magnolia Brown loves Friday night football games, volunteering, and dominating at high school swim meets. Just your average everyday eighteen-year-old. Except for one thing:
She’s from fifty years in the future.
Magnolia’s parents, two brilliant scientists, are the inventors of time travel, but due to widespread destruction and rampant abuse of the technology from a corrupt few, time travel is outlawed and punishable by death. When Magnolia’s parents are seized and executed for illegally traveling to the past, they leave Magnolia stranded in 2026 without a way to get home.
Now Magnolia has nowhere to turn but a complicated Kansas family with two sons—Fallon, her high school sweetheart with secrets of his own, and Ramsey, the brooding militia commander who hunts and kills criminals like her. Magnolia knows Ramsey resents and hates her, but how can he be her true enemy when he looks at her with such hunger, despite his callousness, and guards her with his very life? Which brother can she trust and is the real danger coming from inside the house?
LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon | BookBub | Bookshop.org
E: Emily Wilde’s History of Dark Faerie
Curmudgeonly scholar Emily Wilde must brave the beautiful but haunted Black Forest and open a portal to a long-lost, eldritch realm dreaded by the Folk, in this fourth installment of the New York Times bestselling series.
Driven by an insatiable scientific curiosity, Emily Wilde has made a name for herself as the world’s foremost scholar of faeries. Along the way, she’s rescued a faerie kingdom and helped her now-husband—fellow professor Wendell Bambleby, dashing and infuriating in equal measure—regain his throne. And while understanding her fellow mortals has never been her strong suit, she’s also made a small number of friends.
But two years later, one of those friends goes missing in the beautiful but faerie-haunted Black Forest in Germany, a region of picturesque villages and sinister Folk. And if she’s to save him, Emily will have to reckon with the darker side of her own nature, and how ruthless she’s prepared to be to solve the most tantalizing of scholarly mysteries: the history of the ancient and long-lost realm she’s named Dark Faerie, the only place the Folk fear.
But Emily is not alone—she has her beloved Wendell, and her niece Ariadne, who hopes to follow in her footsteps. Told from the perspective of all three characters, this installment of the Emily Wilde series opens a magical portal to the most wondrous and dread faerie realm of all.
LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon | BookBub | Bookshop.org
R: Roses & Stone
Riela’s life changes forever when she breaks an enchanted seal, unleashing magic that irrevocably binds her to the lethal politics of the Blood Court. Forced to confront her heritage and the court’s deadly, manipulative Blood King, Riela must outmaneuver rivals and survive assassination attempts—all while learning to wield the power she never wanted.
Garrick, the Silver King and her temporary betrothed, is her only ally in a court where trust is a dangerous gamble. Together, they face forbidden love, ancient magic, and a tyrant’s vicious schemes. But as secrets unravel and loyalties are tested, Riela learns that power always comes with a price.
As Riela slowly unearths her ancestry and fights to control her newfound magic, she must decide: will she rise to claim her place in the Blood Court, even if it means sacrificing everything she loves, or will she fall to the plots of those who seek to destroy her?
Because in a world where roses conceal thorns and secrets lurk beneath stone, Riela’s choice will shape the fate of kingdoms.
LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon | BookBub | Bookshop.org
