THE NOWHERE BEAST

An elusive and all-devouring beast from Nowhere threatens not just Covenant Keep but the entire Waking World in this sequel to The Labyrinth of Souls (2025).

Returning to Candle Corps Academy as a second-year Spark, 13-year-old Ix Tatterfall still wrestles with feelings of inadequacy. She’s also sad to be separated from her parents, who are in the Labyrinth of Souls, a realm that’s largely off-limits to the living: Ix’s mother is Death, the Soul Reaper, and her father is a Lesser Sorrow, the Melancholy of Regret. But the twin menaces of a hungry, growing monster that’s “hiding in someone’s shadow” in between attacks and ominous signs that the school’s magical foundations are crumbling thrust her into the center of events that are dangerous enough to test even her closest relationships. Most of the cast falls into familiar types, but Vedder includes an abundance of Ding Bats, Bully Goats, and other creative Nightmares. She clearly aims to amuse as well as engage readers by sending her protagonist into realms that are normally considered metaphorical—notably Nowhere, which gathers up all the lost and forgotten things, from keys to wishes—on the way to a properly frightful All Hallows’ Eve and a resolution that’s founded more on compassionate understanding than flashy magic. Characters are diverse in skin tone. Final art not seen.

Will please fans of magic school stories, with enough tweaks to feel fresh.