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✨ A Darker Shade of Magic — December Fantasy Book Club Summary

Parallel Londons, dangerous magic, interdimensional smuggling, and a thief who absolutely refuses to stay in her lane—welcome to December’s fantasy pick, where the stakes are high and the coats are exceptional.

Kell is one of the last Antari, rare magicians who can travel between worlds—four versions of London, each stitched together by history, hunger, and magic behaving very badly. There’s Grey London (no magic, lots of soot), Red London (vibes immaculate, magic thriving), White London (magic that bites back), and Black London… which everyone agrees we don’t talk about. Ever.

Officially, Kell is the royal ambassador of Red London. Unofficially, he’s running a side hustle smuggling magical trinkets between worlds, which is—shocker—extremely illegal and about to ruin his whole week.

Enter Delilah Bard, a knife-happy pickpocket with pirate ambitions and zero sense of self-preservation. She steals from Kell, then saves his life, then demands passage to another world because… well, same. When perilous magic slips loose and threatens to devour every London at once, Kell and Lila are the only chaotic duo standing between order and multiverse meltdown.

✨ For fans of…

Portal fantasy & parallel worlds 🌍

Big magic, bigger consequences ✨

Knife-wielding disaster protagonists

V.E. Schwab’s cinematic writing

High-stakes adventure with banter on top

⚠️ Topics Included:

Violence & magical injury

Possession / dark magic

Multiverse peril

Threats of citywide destruction

Moral ambiguity & trauma

✨ January Fantasy Book Club Pick — Colony-Core Weirdness Incoming

January is already a strange month in Wisconsin, so we’re leaning all the way in with a story that starts on a lonely highway and ends… somewhere not even Google Maps can cope with.

An ordinary family is carjacked on a desolate stretch of road—only to find themselves abducted into a bizarre new world taking shape in the California desert. What they’ve stumbled into isn’t a cult, or a compound, or a mirage. It’s something being built.

Earth has been quietly invaded by an alien microorganism—part virus, part parasite, part “no thank you”—and the infection changes everything. Those who survive the initial attack don’t just recover… they bond with it.
We’re talking enhanced abilities, near-immortality, amplified desires, and a new biological mandate: spread the contagion and grow the colony.

“Survival” stops meaning what it used to. Especially once the colony’s newborns arrive—because whatever they are, they’re definitely not human.

✨ For fans of…

Sci-fi horror & alien infection stories 👁️🦠

Annihilation, The Passage, or The Girl With All the Gifts

Body-horror-with-purpose

Survival fiction that flips the script

Stories about transformation—terrifying, wondrous, or both

⚠️ Topics Included:

Body horror & mutation

Abduction & captivity

Contagion / infection

Violence & psychological distress

Non-human birth imagery

✨ February Fantasy Book Club Pick — Carve the Mark

Winter is bleak, space is colder, and February feels like the perfect time to dive into a galaxy where destiny cuts deep and power comes with a price.

Cyra is the sister of the ruthless tyrant ruling the Shotet people. Her currentgift inflicts constant pain—pain her brother weaponizes, turning her into his personal instrument of torture. But Cyra is far more than her suffering. She’s sharp, resilient, and quietly plotting a life that isn’t defined by her brother’s cruelty.

Akos comes from Thuvhe, a frozen nation-planet where kindness still counts for something. His currentgift shields him in ways even he doesn’t fully understand. When Akos and his brother are captured by the Shotet, his mission becomes brutally simple: get his brother out alive, no matter the cost.

When fate (and a tyrant with terrible vibes) forces Akos into Cyra’s orbit, the bitterness between their people seems impossible to overcome. But survival has a way of reshaping loyalties—and in this fractured galaxy, two enemies may be the only hope each other has left.

Friendship, power, pain, love, and the blurry line between destiny and choice—Veronica Roth brings it all in this high-stakes, character-driven space fantasy.

✨ For fans of…

Galaxy-spanning fantasy with political intrigue 🌌

Powerful, morally complex protagonists

Enemies-to-allies tension with emotional depth

Red Rising, Shadow and Bone, or Legendborn

Stories where destiny isn’t a gift—it’s a challenge

⚠️ Topics Included:

Torture & chronic pain

Violence & captivity

War, political manipulation

Family trauma

Moral ambiguity