Review: Lumberjanes: Volume Three - Various Contributors - February 2026 Oh friends, gather round because I have the most wonderful thing to share with you today, and I am barely containing my excitement as I type this! When the postie knocked on my door with a review copy from the absolute legends over at Boom Studios, I may have done a little happy dance in my hallway. Boom Studios honestly publishes some of the most joyful, imaginative, and downright brilliant comics and graphic novels out there, and being trusted with one of their titles for review genuinely made my day. But here's the thing  this wasn't just any title. This was Lumberjanes. My Lumberjanes. I fell in love with April, Jo, Mal, Molly, and Ripley over ten years ago when this gorgeous series first burst onto the scene, and that love has never once wavered. They feel like old friends at this point, the kind you'd want sitting round your kitchen table with a mug of tea and a warm biscuit. Book Three collect...

Review: She's Going to Pay - Alexandra Ivy - October 2025 There are books you pick up expecting a pleasant evening, and books that take your evening hostage. She's Going to Pay by Alexandra Ivy is firmly the latter. I sat down with this one on a quiet weeknight with a cup of tea and the best of intentions and I was still reading at gone midnight, absolutely unwilling to leave Jesse Hudson's world behind until I knew how it all ended. It's that kind of book. Jesse Hudson didn't leave Canton, Missouri, so much as she escaped it. As a teenager she watched her stepmother and stepsister disappear under a cloud of suspicion, her father become a murder suspect, and then he vanishwed too  leaving her to wait, and wait, before finally walking away altogether. Years of bartending jobs and keeping moving followed. When she finally returns, it's meant to be quick and clean: sell her father's old bar, close the chapter, and leave for good. But Canton has other idea...

Review: Taming 7 - Book #5 Boys of Tommen Series - Chloe Walsh - April 2024 Right, settle in with your favourite cuppa, get cosy on the sofa, and let me tell you about the book that absolutely wrecked me in the best possible way. Taming 7 has been on my most-anticipated list for what feels like forever, because if you've been following along here at The Phantom Paragrapher, you'll know that Gerard "Gibsie" Gibson has had a very special place in my heart since the moment he first bounced onto the page. And let me tell you  Chloe Walsh delivered, and then some. OMFG, my heart was breaking from page one and it did not let up. Gibsie. Our lovable, chaotic, endlessly funny Tommen boy. The class clown. The lad who could make you snort-laugh in the middle of a tense scene and then leave you absolutely floored two pages later. From the very first chapter, Walsh strips back that cheeky, irreverent humour to reveal what so many of us suspected was lurking underneath , a deeply...

Review: Witches of Brooklyn - Curse and Reverse - Book #5 - Sophie Escabasse - September 2025 Right, so I'll be totally honest with you  I have been deep in a reading slump lately. You know the kind. The sort where you pick up a book, read two pages, and put it back down again in favour of staring blankly at the ceiling. Not fun. So when this gorgeous physical ARC from RH Kids Graphic landed on my doorstep, I knew exactly what I was doing with my afternoon. Sometimes you just need to go back to what you know, and for me, that's Effie. And oh my goodness, did Curse and Reverse deliver. If you haven't yet discovered Sophie Escabasse's Witches of Brooklyn series, first of all where have you been? and second, you genuinely don't need to feel overwhelmed catching up. These books have such a warm, welcoming energy that feels a little like settling into your favourite armchair with a mug of something hot. They're cosy and fun, but with real heart underneath. In t...

Review: Death of a Pop Star - Volume #1 - Violet Karim - September 2025 You know those seasons of life where work just swallows you whole? That was me these past few weeks , head down, to-do lists multiplying like gremlins, and by the time I'd finally collapse onto the sofa of an evening, I'd pick up a book and read the same paragraph four times without a single word landing. My concentration had practically packed its bags and left. So when this gorgeous physical ARC of Death of a Popstar Volume 1 arrived, I genuinely wasn't sure I'd be in the right headspace for it. Reader, it fixed me. The premise is wonderfully absurd in the best possible way. Sophie Lim is sitting pretty at number one on the pop charts ,  the whole world adores her  until she takes a tumble down the stairs which I believe she was pushed and, well, that's rather that. Except it isn't, because the Grim Reaper turns out to be her biggest fan. Eli strikes a deal with her: Sophie gets her life ...

Review: Ms Pennypickle's Puzzle Quest - Chris Grabenstein - October 2025 Oh, this one had me grinning from the first page. You know how some books just feel like summer? Like the literary equivalent of a road trip with the windows down and a cooler full of snacks? That's exactly what Chris Grabenstein has served up with Ms. Pennypickle's Puzzle Quest, and I am absolutely here for it. Think The Amazing Race but make it tween fiction, Route 66, and absolutely brimming with riddles. At the heart of this romp are brothers Ben and Ethan Broderick, who couldn't be more different if they tried. Twelve-year-old Ben is the kind of kid who'd rather spend a Saturday mastering a retro arcade game than breathe fresh air, while older brother Ethan is all sports, friends, and cool. The one thing they do share? An equal and very relatable resentment of being dragged on a family road trip. (Honestly, same.) But here...