We’re between holidays, and you’re probably ready for relaxation. So today we offer a god-filled novel from a bestselling author plus a look back at some of the most intriguing Minnesota fiction we reviewed this year. Have a good New Year’s celebration and thanks for reading our coverage. We’re looking forward to a great year for books.

“The Reluctant Reaper:” by MaryJanice Davidson (Blackstone Publishing, ($16-$25)

(Courtesy of Blackstone Publishing)

There’s no better way to end the year than with a snarky, sort-of-tender rom-com, based on mythology and death gods, from the prolific St. Paul author of the wildly popular Undead series about Betsy the Vampire Queen as well as other series and stand-alone novels.

Amara Morrigan is living in a crummy Minneapolis apartment and working temp jobs. She spends her spare time with Gray, her loyal best friend who always has her back. One of her many secrets is that she intuits when people will die, including Gray. Nobody knows her dyed brown hair is really bright red and so are her eyes, which she hides behind colored contact lenses.

Then she gets an annoying message from the death god Baron La Croix, who’s come from New Orleans to tell her that her father, Death, seems to be dying in Minot, N.D., the center of the Midwest territory where he “reaps” souls to make the transition from life to death.

Amara knows she’s Death’s heir but she’s sure he isn’t dying. Besides, she’s never wanted his job. Until she figures out why her father is in a coma, she needs to fill in for him. So she heads to Minot with eager, intelligent Gray.

This opens the story to a zany cast of death gods including Hilly, Amara’s gentle mother, who is Freya/Brunhilde/Godul, goddess of fertility and the hearth; Penny and Hank, contemporary names for Persephone and Hades; Welsh warrior Arawan, whose Labrador Hellhounds died, replaced by three longhaired wiener dogs; Chernoberg, who only shows up at night, and Scottish warrior woman Scathach, guide to death on the Isle of Skye and Amara’s best friend.

These are not the “real” old gods but rather human avatars who preside over different territories to reap the dead.

While Death lies wasting away in the family’s vast mansion, Amara and Gray visit hospitals, nursing homes and private residences helping people die, guided by a list sent to their fax machine. Since Amara is a death god heir, she is seen by the dying. But why do they also speak to Gray, a mortal?

While Amara’s mother plies the gathered gods with lefse and mountains of other foods, Amara suspects someone is keeping her father sick so she will take on his job, but who’d want it?

The twisty plot, in which Amara finds herself attracted to Gray beyond friendship (much to their embarrassment and bewilderment), is both contemporary and in the mists of mythology. Amara is a smart mouth but she shows her powers when she threatens Gray’s mother, who tortured her son as a boy.

Will Death really … die? What about Amara and Gray’s relationship? How many lefse treats can the little Hellhounds eat?

Davidson gives us so much fun with this romp that we couldn’t ask for a better year-end laugh-and-uplift story.

Davidson is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author whose books also include the Fosterwere trilogy and “Road Queen,” a stand-alone novel.

Teaser quote: ” ‘I look so… frail,’ she said softly, gazing down at her wasted body, the puffy, waxy  face, the sunken eyes. ‘And a little gross, to be frank.’ She bent and sniffed. ‘And I do stink, apparently.’ Then, to Amara, ‘I know who you are now. I can’t think why I didn’t recognize you earlier.’

‘It happens that way sometimes,’ she replied.

‘I, ah, didn’t know you worked in pairs.’

‘She doesn’t. I’m just shadowing her this weekend,’ Gray said. ‘Part of the Death Lite Internship program.’ ”

A quick look back

There have been so many good books from Minnesota authors and publishers this year it’s impossible to do a Top Ten. Here are a few of the most intriguing.

“Apostle’s Cove”: by William Kent Krueger — Cork O’Connor confronts a complex case from his past that connects to mysterious deaths in the present.

“The Butcher and the Liar”: by S.L. Woeppel — A woman whose father is a serial killer and butcher keeps his secret and owns a butcher shop as an adult.

“Broken Fields”: by Marcie Rendon — In her fourth crime investigation, Ojibwe Cash Blackbear discovers two dead men and a frightened little girl in a farmhouse.

(Courtesy of the author)

“Escapes and Other Stories”: by Susan Koefod — The collection that introduces Arvo Thorson, a detective who later became the protagonist of the author’s mystery series.

“The Flip Side:” by Jason Walz — Graphic novel about a teen, grieving the death of his best friend, who flips into an alternate reality in an embodiment of his depression.

(Courtesy of the University of Minnesota Press)

“The House on Rondo”: by Debra J. Stone — A 13-year-old girl reckons with the demolition of homes and businesses in St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood to make way for the I-94 freeway.

“Last One Seen”: by Rebecca Kanner — A grad school student thinks she has a new friend until she finds herself in a car’s passenger seat, speeding away from the city, without knowing how she got there.

“A Lesser Light”: by Peter Geye — The new wife of a lighthouse keeper on Lake Superior finds love outside her loveless marriage.

(Courtesy of the author)

“Lone Dog Road”: by Kent Nerburn — Two young Lakota boys journey from their reservation on the high plains to Pipestone, Minn., to get clay for their great-grandfather’s pipe, meeting Native Americas and non-Natives along the way.

‘The Probable Son”: by Cindy Jiban — A teacher believes one of her students is her son who was mixed up with another baby in the hospital 14 years earlier.

“Ring of Lions”: by Cass Daglish — Director of the Alhambra Moorish castle-fortress in Spain partners with a American former FBI agent to investigate murders connected to the famous Lion fountain and the treaty signed by the last emir before Christians displaced the Moors.

(Courtesy of the author)

“Scattergood”: by H.M. Bouwman — A girl in a small Iowa town discovers a new way of looking at the world beyond the farm when Jewish refugees arrive at a local hostel. Named one of the best books of the year by Kirkus Reviews.

“A Season on the Drink”: by Pat Harris — Fictionalized version of the true story about a team of alcoholics living in a St. Paul “wet house” who won a softball championship, to everyone’s astonishment.

Postscripts 2025

Exhibitors and attendees at the Twin Cities Book Festival were happy with the annual event’s new home at the St. Paul Union Depot after more than 30 years at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.

Kao Kalia Yang became the first writer in the 37-year history of the Minnesota Bool Awards to win in three categories at one time for her books in children’s literature, middle-grade literature and memoir.

Poet/bread maker Danny Klecko completed 100 hours of viewing a painting at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, celebrating with a visit from a New York Times reporter.

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Today is Saturday, Dec. 27, the 361st day of 2025. There are four days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Dec. 27, 1831, naturalist Charles Darwin set out on a round-the-world voyage from Plymouth, England, aboard the HMS Beagle.

Also on this date:

In 1904, James Barrie’s play “Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up” opened at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London.

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In 1932, New York City’s Radio City Music Hall opened to the public.

In 1945, the International Monetary Fund was formally established as its first 29 member countries ratified its Articles of Agreement; the IMF began operations in 1947.

In 1968, the Apollo 8 capsule splashed down safely in the Pacific, completing the first crewed mission to orbit the moon.

In 1979, Soviet forces seized control of Afghanistan. President Hafizullah Amin (hah-FEE’-zoo-lah ah-MEEN’) was overthrown and executed and was replaced by Babrak Karmal.

In 1985, American naturalist and conservationist Dian Fossey, 53, who had studied mountain gorillas in Africa for nearly 20 years, was found murdered in her cabin in Rwanda. No one was arrested for the crime.

In 2007, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a shooting and bomb attack that killed at least 20 people in the city of Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

In 2022, Adam Fox, co-leader of a plot to kidnap Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, was sentenced to 16 years in prison after being convicted of conspiracy charges. Barry Croft Jr. would be sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison in the plot.

In 2022, state and military police were sent to keep people off Buffalo’s snow-choked roads after western New York’s deadliest storm in at least two generations; more than 30 people were reported to have died in the region.

Today’s Birthdays:

Basketball Hall of Fame coach Nolan Richardson is 84.
Rock musician Mick Jones (Foreigner) is 81.
Actor Gérard Depardieu is 77.
Rock musician David Knopfler (Dire Straits) is 73.
Basketball Hall of Fame coach Bill Self is 63.
TV journalist Savannah Guthrie is 54.
Actor Masi Oka is 51.
Actor Aaron Stanford is 49.
Actor Jay Ellis is 44.
Olympic sprint gold medalist Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is 39.
Rock singer Hayley Williams (Paramore) is 37.
Country singer Shay Mooney (Dan + Shay) is 34.
Actor Timothée Chalamet is 30.
NFL quarterback Brock Purdy is 26.

When he arrived on campus at the University of Minnesota in the fall of 2024, Brodie Ziemer became the first Gopher in more than 100 years of hockey to wear number 74.

Serving as captain of Team USA in the World Juniors, which started on Friday in St. Paul and Minneapolis, Ziemer is wearing 74 in red, white and blue as well.

The source of those unique digits is a point of some debate at the Ziemer home in Carver. Brodie’s father Eric was born in 1974 and is convinced that it’s a paternal tribute. His mother Nicole thinks it comes from watching another Minnesotan – TJ Oshie – wear that number for Team USA in his famous one-man shootout show at the Winter Olympics in 2014.

The newest American 74 was on the ice of Grand Casino on Friday night, setting up a first-period goal and coming oh so close to a breakaway goal of his own in the second period. Team USA prevailed 6-3 over Germany in the opener — Ziemer’s first since being named the team’s captain following their pre-Christmas training camp in Duluth.

Looking a bit relieved and winded after Game 1, Ziemer confirmed — sorry dad — that Oshie was the inspiration for his unique digits, and talked about the honor and pressure that comes from wearing the C on his sweater.

“I’m so honored. Like, I’m feeling super blessed,” he said. “Such a good group of dudes to be able to be captain for, getting to do it on such a big stage in my home state. Just super blessed, super lucky.”

If there was grumbling among the Gopher haters out there when one of the top players in maroon and gold was named captain on an American team led by U head man Bob Motzko, the coach made it clear that the players, not the staff, always pick the captains on his teams.

“Obviously these guys are tight. We had nine returning players … and we spoke with all of those guys individually,” Motzko said following the Germany game. “You’ve got to know, this wasn’t a Bob Motzko thing with one of his players.”

Ziemer, 19, was named the Gophers’ top rookie last season, which would be the highlight of any player’s winter. But the gold medal he won with Team USA in Ottawa at the 2025 World Juniors was clearly the high point in a career, so far.

Motzko noted that in talking with those returnees from the 2025 gold medal team, almost to a man they chose number 74 to be the 2026 team captain.

“The leadership group is great, but if there’s one guy they leaned on, it’s Brodie,” Motzko said.

As his parents took a breather after the first period on Friday, they reflected on the youngest of their three children and how Brodie was the classic little brother, determined to outwork his siblings in everything.

“He was always trying to keep up, absolutely. His older brother never gave him an inch of leeway, and his sister was just as tough,” Eric Ziemer said. Their oldest, Brady, played college hockey at St. Cloud State and Augustana. Their daughter Brier was a college volleyball player.

“His sister took care of him really well, but it was competitive,” Eric said.

One of the earliest indicators that a young Brodie was into hockey would become obvious whenever it snowed.

“I gave him a hard time, because we had a rink in our backyard, and it would snow,” Nicole Ziemer said. “He would shovel the rink, but he wouldn’t shovel the driveway. The rink is clear, but I can’t get out of my driveway.”

The Ziemers made the tough decision to have Brodie move away when he was 14, first to Faribault where he won a 14U national title at Shattuck-St. Mary’s, then to Michigan where he skated for USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program for two years.

It was there that the Ziemer parents made friends with the families of other players who today are college rivals, but teammates on Team USA once again.

“We have a group of the Hagens, the Eisermans, the Stigas and the Plantes, and it’s a great group,” Nicole said.

That friendship and growing team chemistry was on display early on Friday, as Ziemer’s set-up pass to Will Horcoff produced a 3-0 U.S. lead.

“He’s one of the hardest workers I’ve ever met, just seeing his habits on and off the ice,” Horcoff said, praising the decision to bestow the C on Ziemer. “It makes you want to do the same.”

As the old friends from the parent group gather in Minnesota this year to pursue another gold medal, the local families are playing host and hoping to treat their friends from Illinois, Massachusetts and New York to a taste of winter fun around these parts.

Eric has an ice fishing outing planned, but the weather is causing problems.

“It’s getting warm, but hopefully at the end of the week we’ll go back out,” he said. “But they aren’t dressed for that when they come to watch hockey, and I don’t have enough gear for everyone. We’ll see.”

At least, if the forecast is correct, there will be no need to shovel the Ziemer family driveway.

Will Zellers scored twice and added an assist as the United States beat Germany 6-3 in both team’s opening game of the World Junior Championships on Friday at Grand Casino Arena.

Zellers scored twice in the second period, picking up assists from Anthony Spellacy on both goals.

Max Plante opened the scoring for the back-to-back defending champions, finishing a rebound from a Teddy Stiga shot 5:34 into the first period.

Zellers and Brandon McMorrow assisted Chase Reid on a second goal midway through the first period before Will Horcoff netted a third with 4:05 remaining in the period.

Germany cut a three-goal deficit to two when Timo Kose scored with 2:21 left in the first period.

They cut that two-goal deficit to one on two occasions in the second period. Simon Seidl and Lenny Boos both scored in the second period, with Dustin Willhoft assisting on both efforts. Zellers’ goals created a two-goal cushion for the US each time.

Cole Eiserman’s goal with 1:53 left in the second period re-established the three-goal lead.

The US has now outscored Germany 44-12 in the last six meetings. They are seeking to become first team to win three consecutive world junior titles since Canada won five straight from 2005 to 2009.

Both teams will continue Group A play on Saturday. Germany faces Slovakia and the US faces Switzerland.

United States forward Max Plante celebrates his goal with teammates during the first period of an IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship game against Germany, Friday, Dec. 26, 2025, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Matt Krohn)
Germany forward Dustin Willhoft, right, shoots the puck as United States forward Ryker Lee (17) defends during the first period of an IIHF World Junior Championship game, Friday, Dec. 26, 2025, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Matt Krohn)

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