To wrap up Wyrd & Wonder this year, let’s do a few mini reviews of some more watery books I read.

Wyrd & Wonder Mini Reviews

The Golden City

by J. Kathleen Cheney
Setting: Portugal
Genres: Fiction / Romance / Fantasy
Published on June 3, 2014
Pages: 400
Format: Paperback Source: Library

For two years, Oriana Paredes has been a spy among the social elite of the Golden City, reporting back to her people, the sereia, sea folk banned from the city’s shores....

When her employer and only confidante decides to elope, Oriana agrees to accompany her to Paris. But before they can depart, the two women are abducted and left to drown. Trapped beneath the waves, Oriana survives because of her heritage, but she is forced to watch her only friend die.

Vowing vengeance, Oriana crosses paths with Duilio Ferreira—a police consultant who has been investigating the disappearance of a string of servants from the city’s wealthiest homes. Duilio also has a secret: He is a seer and his gifts have led him to Oriana.

Bound by their secrets, not trusting each other completely yet having no choice but to work together, Oriana and Duilio must expose a twisted plot of magic so dark that it could cause the very fabric of history to come undone....


I picked this one up because of selkies. Also, how many books do you see set in a fantasy version of Portugal?

It combined a mystery with a historical fiction feel with the fantasy aspect mixed in. The world building was interesting but I don’t know that I would continue the series.


The Maid and the Crocodile

by Jordan Ifueko
Genres: Young Adult Fiction / People & Places / Africa
Published on August 13, 2024
Pages: 368

A romantic standalone fantasy set in the world of Raybearer, from New York Times bestselling author Jordan Ifueko

THE SMALLEST SPARK CAN BIND TWO HEARTS . . . OR START A REVOLUTION.

In the magic-soaked capital city of Oluwan, Small Sade needs a job - preferably as a maid, with employers who don't mind her unique appearance and unlucky foot. But before she can be hired, she accidentally binds herself to a powerful being known only as the Crocodile, a god rumoured to devour pretty girls. Small Sade entrances the Crocodile with her secret: she is a Curse Eater, gifted with the ability to alter people's fates by cleaning their houses.

The handsome god warns that their fates are bound, but Small Sade evades him, launching herself into a new career as the Curse Eater of a swanky inn. She is determined to impress the wealthy inhabitants and earn her place in Oluwan City . . . assuming her secret-filled past - and the revolutionary ambitions of the Crocodile - don't catch up with her.

But maybe there is more to Small Sade. And maybe everyone in Oluwan City deserves more too - from the maids all the way to the Anointed Ones.


I didn’t read the series that this book is an offshoot of. I really liked this book but I don’t think I want to read the rest of that series. I like the main character here. She is a poor orphan who was just turned out from foster care. She needs to find a job as soon as possible. She doesn’t have time to be harassed by any gods right now.

I loved the commentary that this book had on social classes.

“Books were for people with soft minds and full bellies.”

“She always tells me I ‘whine entirely too much for a girl with seasonal outfits.'”

“But this girl had been both beautiful and poor, an unwise combination in any town. Her neighbors called her an angel. Then she refused to be wooed, marry, or have children, and so they called her a witch.”

“It’s only… some people are like cats. The ones allowed outside instead of kept indoors will kill birds and small-small animals by the hundreds. Even when they are not hungry. It is as though the very existence of of creatures weaker than themselves makes them restless. I have gotten good at spotting them — Outside – Cat People. Those who see smallness and poverty as a crime to punish.”

Small Sade sees most things other than basic survival as nonsense.

“I had found it best to treat attraction like a head cold: coddled for a day or two, then washed away with a bath and a sensible cup of tea.”


Wyrd & Wonder Mini Reviews

Ballad & Dagger

Setting: New York
Genres: Young Adult Fiction / Action & Adventure / General
Published on May 3, 2022
Pages: 440
Format: Paperback Source: Owned

Almost sixteen years ago, Mateo Matisse's island homeland disappeared into the sea. Weary and hopeless, the survivors of San Madrigal's sinking escaped to New York.

While the rest of his tight-knit Brooklyn diaspora community dreams of someday finding a way back home, Mateo--now a high school junior and piano prodigy living with his two aunts (one who's alive, the other not so much)--is focused on one thing: getting the attention of locally-grown musical legend Gerval. Mateo finally gets his chance on the night of the Grand Fete, an annual party celebrating the blended culture of pirates, Cuban Santeros, and Sephardic Jews that created San Madrigal all those centuries ago.

But the evil that sank their island has finally caught up with them, and on the night of the celebration, Mateo's life is forever changed when he witnesses a brutal murder by a person he thought he knew.

Suddenly Mateo is thrust into an ancient battle that spans years and oceans. Deadly secrets are unraveled and Mateo awakens a power within himself--a power that not only links him to the killer but could also hold the key to unlocking the dark mystery behind his lost homeland.


I had this on my list of 10 Books of Summer but I read it early. It takes place in New York and there are pirates. The pirates aren’t actually on the water because they are refugees from an island that disappeared fifteen years ago but I’m counting it as a pirate book. They are still doing all kinds of illegal pirate things.

This wasn’t my favorite D.J. Older book but it was ok. I think it could have been about half as long and still gotten the point across. It also was very much a YA book in that the teens were all SO MUCH SMARTER than any adult anywhere at any time. That makes me crazy. There was also a lot of people saying, “I can’t tell you this information that you really need for your own good.” If you just took all that out people would have known what was going on sooner and the book would have been half as long like I wanted.