“The First Bright Thing is a fantasy novel about magical circuses and found family. It’s been compared with The Night Circus, and I can see why, but the vibes are different. It’s a historical fantasy set in America during the Roaring Twenties, with a time travel element. It’s about a circus in which everyone has a magical ability that’s called a spark. They use their powers to put on performances that can change a person’s life right at the moment they need it. One of the performers has the ability to see the future, and glimpses the Holocaust and World War Two looming ahead. They want to use their powers to prevent it from happening. They’re also on the run from the Circus King, who is obsessed with the Ringmaster and has his own terrible circus that goes around terrifying people. It’s a beautiful story about people using their abilities to work together to make a better world. I’m a sucker for that.” Read more...

The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Debuts of 2023

Yume Kitasei, Novelist

“This is a contemporary fantasy set in California, New York, France, and many other places. It’s a fun paranormal adventure story that contains a very sweet romance. The main character is a woman who has given up her powers and gone into hiding to take care of her elder brother and protect him from their younger brother. She’s been making herself smaller: she has extraordinary abilities but chooses to do something mundane for a living to preserve their cover identities. As the book unfolds, this all starts to unravel and she is forced to confront the past. It’s really fun. The magic system in the novel is based on Chinese calligraphy. Tsai has built a very rich world. She is multilingual and made a cool choice not to translate any of the other languages (Chinese and French) in this book – you can understand a lot through context, even though there’s no translation. It works really well.” Read more...

The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Debuts of 2023

Yume Kitasei, Novelist