Happy New Year, Friday Fiction Fans! I’m so glad you stopped by at the beginning of the New Year. I think 2026 could be our best year ever, with book reviews by the Crew and two new contributors, and so many books to read. For our new friends, we share reviews of new and classic books in these genres:
- Fantasy
- Science Fiction
- Space Opera
- Supernatural
- Horror
- Magic Realism
- Slipstream
- Steampunk
- Dystopian
- Utopian
- Mysteries (not cozy)
- Classic Speculative (think Jules Verne, Ray Bradbury, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien)
The team and I love wild, weird, wonderful books. Meet the Crew.
Cammi Woodall: Cammi’s our resident reader of horror and fantasy. Stephen King holds a warm (or should I say icy) place in her heart, and she shares books you’ll want to read with your back against a wall and the lights on.
A.S. Hardin: A.S. loves fantasy, science fiction, D&D, and stories with ships. She shares both classic and new stories. You’ll love checking out the novels that touch her heart.
Melissa Troutman: Melissa loves fantasy and magic. She reviews many Christian fantasies and loves stories with strong characters. Her tagline is Fantasy Lands/ Real Journeys.
K.A. Ramstad: K.A. reviews children’s books and delights in finding books that any child would enjoy. She loves books with animals and shares her home with a Corgi and a Cockapoo.
Arthur: Arthur loves science fiction, classic mostly, but also shares some newer stories. He’s also written and published several books of his own.
Grace MacPherson: Grace MacPherson is a Christian fantasy author who writes about sacrifice, redemption, and the triumph of good over evil.
J.R. Brady: J.R. Brady lives in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains with her husband, kids, and critters. A published author of poems and short stories, her first full-length speculative novel is coming soon.
Jennifer Hallmark: I love to read and review middle-grade and YA books, especially supernatural, fantasy, and my favorite–time travel. I can’t wait to find new books this year!
So, join us every Friday as we dive into the wonder of books: the weird, the unusual, and sometimes the bizarre.
Onto my first book review of 2026:
My first review is of a middle-grade book, “Biggest Fake in the Universe,” by an author I’ve come to love:
Movits, or Mo for short, is an accidental hero. One crazy skateboard run in an abandoned parking deck goes viral, and suddenly he is called upon to do the impossible: Ride his skateboard down a massive ramp while being filmed for television. What’s a thirteen-year-old boy to do? Especially with the girl of his dreams watching. This fun read theme is to just be yourself, even under pressure from others, and I think it would be inspiring to any younger reader.
More about the story:
The bluff of a lifetime…
It started off innocently enough. Mo just wanted to catch a girl’s eye. She was this super-talented and mysterious skater girl who looked like she had the universe all figured out. So Mo did what any self-respecting nerd would do: He put aside his chess pieces, his guinea pig, and his books on astronomy and transformed himself into a skater guy, in the hopes that she might notice him.
He never expected to catch the attention of his entire town, practically all of Sweden, and the internet. But that’s exactly what happens when Mo―by a stroke of total luck―pulls off the skateboarding trick of a lifetime: He goes viral.
What’s a guy to do when the whole universe is expecting him to be something he’s not? Find out in this charming and hilarious story as Mo learns the meaning of being true to yourself…the hard way.
Check out all of Rundberg’s books if you like a good middle-grade story. And enjoy our reviews in 2026. We can’t wait to share…
