Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about but haven’t yet read. Most of the time they’re books that have yet to be released, but not always. It’s based on the Waiting on Wednesday meme, which was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.
You can find the releases I’m most anticipating this year over on my Unmissable list, but I use Can’t-Wait Wednesday to feature books I’m hopeful about but aren’t sure of.
This week my Can’t-Wait-For Book is A Fix of Light by Kel Menton!
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: Queer (trans?) MC, trans love interest
Published on: 6th May 2025
Goodreads
A trans love story with a dark magical twist, from an astonishing new Irish voice.
Be careful. The dark is listening.
Hanan is supposed to be dead.
The forest outside Skenashogue sent him home alive - but changed. A strange new magic makes every emotion a physical force he can't control.
Bright and gentle, fox-like Pax is everything Hanan is not. And when he touches Hanan he mutes his secret power, quiets the curse.
To survive their own darknesses they'll need to be honest with each other. But Hanan isn't sure Pax will like what he finds out...
Can their love help them find their way back to the light?
I haven’t been reading a whole lot of YA lately, but an Irish author writing a queer fantasy set in Ireland??? Oh hells yes, I’m interested!
(I miss Ireland so bad, folx. If you ever get the chance to visit, do it!)
Allegedly Fix of Light is much darker and heavier than the cover suggests; Pax experiences emotional abuse and transphobia from his family, and Hanan is dealing with serious mental health issues, including suicidal ideation. I don’t go out of my way to read things like that, but I’ve been promised that it’s all dealt with very well, and that the ending is ‘heart-mending’. And with YA, I’ll take heavier themes over fluff, please!
It’s bizarre to me how rarely we see fantasy books set in Ireland (do you have any idea how much of the foundational stuff of the Western fantasy genre comes out of Ireland??? so much!) and it always makes me really happy to find another one. From what I’ve seen of early reviews, the fantastical elements in Fix of Light draw from Irish mythology, which is extremely cool (and has me racking my brains to try and remember any legends about forests giving people magic). Even better: I’ve seen the magic described as ‘eldritch’. HI YES PLEASE! Eldritch is the best flavour of magic, and I will not be hearing any arguments on this!
And almost every review I’ve seen has praised the whole ‘magic manifesting Hanan’s mental health’ thing, which I am now extremely eager to see!
I think it’s been out in Ireland+UK for a while, but just a couple more weeks till the rest of us can check this one out!
Until then, you can read an excerpt here!
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