by Kayla Williams

1 & 2.
I could not put down Fourth Wing by military spouse Rebecca Yarros – it was such a gripping and engaging read that I immediately pre-ordered the sequel, Iron Flame, and neglected my responsibilities to finish that one within days. Imagine an Air Force Academy with dragons, magic, fewer rules, and more gender equality; mix in some steamy scenes (that nonetheless model consent beautifully!); add politics and plot twists, and you get this fantastic fantasy series. My only complaint is that I have to wait for the third book to come out! 

3-5.Please don’t mind me leaning hard into my nerdy roots this year and recommend the sci-fi Silo Series (Wool, Shift, and Dust) by Hugh Howey – you may have seen the show based on it on AppleTV. I would try to claim it’s imperative that I disengage from our current reality, but the worlds I’m escaping too are pretty dystopian, too… But the writing is zippy and crisp, the world imaginative, and imaginary settings offer an unparalleled way to explore the deeper truths about what makes us human free from the superficial demands of what we currently know about how the universe functions. 

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Kayla Williams was an Arabic Linguist as well as a SIGINT operations specialist for 5 full years. This includes a full year of deployment (2003/2004) in SWA (Iraq & Kuwait) during the buildup to and during the invasion of Iraq. She continued to serve in Iraq until February 2004. She is the author of two memoirs, ‘Love My Rifle More Than You’ and ‘Plenty of Time When We Get Home: Love and Recovery in the Aftermath of War,’ has published numerous articles, and has been featured in anthologies such as ‘The Road Ahead: Fiction from the Forever War.’