This is a book that feels more in the genre of lit fic as opposed to romantic fantasy i.e. I would call it magical realism.

I was hooked very early on as it was established that AIDS and the grief associated with loving and losing people to it were going to be central to the story. You get a very clear picture of who Joe is and what he wants from his life whilst still deeply enveloped by grief over his lost love. I also really loved how vivid Howie and Lenny are and felt really invited into their world. The magic system is wholly unique which I appreciated greatly.

Where I struggled with this book were the pop culture references. There is a real sense of time and place however I unfortunately found myself feeling completely lost as quite frequently a place, musician, or other thing that would have been recognisable at the time was mentioned and I just felt completely at sea. Because the magic was rooted in disco and I didn't recognise most of the names associated with the music genre, I found myself pulled out of the story whenever the magical elements where mentioned and in particular "boogying".

I think that this book has a lot going for it but there were also areas that weren't quite to my tastes. This is a tender story where the good far outweighs the bad but it was a challenging read at times.

2.25

Right off the bat, I will say that the writing here is really voicey, so you should know pretty quickly if it's a for you book or not. Unfortunately, I don't think it was a for me book. I love the idea but execution fell short for me. I would have preferred a literary fiction about the AIDS crisis because the magic/fantastical elements weren't fleshed out enough so any time it started going down that route I found myself losing focus. I found the perspective shifts and time jumps a bit jarring and some of the writing felt at times very online in 2025 pretending to be 1980s.

All that to say, that just because this book wasn't for me doesn't mean it won't be for you, so if the idea of a light fantasy set on Fire Island in the 1980s is at all appealing I recommend giving it a shot.

Thank you to @netgalley and @alcovepress for the ARC!

Disco Witches of Fire Island
By @blair.fell
Releases May 6, 2025

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

“When the fire started, we rang the alarms, but no one listened. It wasn’t their fire, they said. They watched us burn and laughed.”—Disco Witch Manifesto #201

^ This should be enough to make you go read this book!

Blurb:
“Hit the dance floor with a coven of queer witches on 1980s Fire Island in this gay fantasy romance about finding magic, love, and family in the face of tragedy.”

My opinion:
Go read this book.
Go into it blind and enjoy the ride!

I love books that address our queer ancestors and this book does it beautifully. It addresses the AIDS crisis and also shows what the people who were left behind experienced.

This book wraps struggle, grief, hope, love and joy into the peak of the AIDS crisis.

And isn’t that the point of queer existence. Having to find the joy when everything feels so against us and our community.

This story is beautiful and I’m so thankful I got to read it!

Definitely buying a physical copy so I can annotate. I already have so many highlights in the ebook!

#bookstagrammer #bookaholic #bookrelease #maybookrelease #bookarc #arcreview #netgalley #alcovepress #queerbooks #discowitchesoffireisland #fyp #trending

I liked this quirky little book speckled with magical realism.

It’s 1989, and Joe Agabian and his best friend Ronnie set out to spend their first summer working in the hedonistic gay paradise of Fire Island Pines. Joe is desperate to let loose and finally move beyond the heartbreak of having lost his boyfriend to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The two friends are quickly taken in by a pair of quirky, older house cleaners. But something seems off, and Joe starts to suspect the two older men of being up to something otherworldly. In truth, Howie and Lenny are members of a secret disco witch coven tasked with protecting the island—and young men like Joe—from the relentless tragedies ravaging their community. The only problem is, having lost too many of their fellow witches to the epidemic, the coven’s protective powers have been seriously damaged.

Unaware of all the mystical shenanigans going on, Joe starts to fall for the super-cute bisexual ferryman who just happens to have webbed feet and an unusual ability to hold his breath underwater. But Joe’s longing to find love is tripped up by his own troublesome past as well as the lure of a mysterious hunk he keeps seeing around the island—a man Howie and Lenny warn may be a harbinger of impending doom.

The Disco Witches need to find help—fast—if they’re to save Joe and the island from the Great Darkness. But how? Fans of spicy queer romances with a dash of fantasy will fall in love with this stunning novel of community, love, sex, magic, and hope in desperate times.

It was fun and whimsical. I loved Joe's journey.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was initially attracted to this book by the comparison to Red, White & Royal Blue and I’m not really seeing it. Yes, Joe clashes with his ferryman, but the focus of the novel is not really the romance. There is so much more going on than Joe finding (and keeping) a boyfriend.

Joe has high hopes for his Fire Island summer after Ronnie hypes up how much fun they are going to have together. Needless to say, Ronnie’s promises don’t come to fruition, which is why Joe moves in with Howie and Lenny.

The summer unfolds mostly from Joe’s perspective, but there are a couple of other POVs as well. It’s certainly a wild summer, although it’s impossible to ignore the effects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. While Joe is a sweet protagonist who has been through a lot and is trying to move on with the rest of his life, his biggest opponent is clearly himself. He keeps gettin in his own way, and it became almost tiresome at times. The secondary characters are often much more interesting, and I personally had a soft spot in my heart for Ronnie, who was an eternal optimist, even when it was obvious that he was making bad decisions.

I would absolutely recommend Disco Witches of Fire Island. It’s a queer fantasy with elements of romance and memorable characters. I don’t want to diminish the power of the written word, but I would love to see this book turned into a movie or a limited series– the costumes, the MUSIC– it would be wild!




I received a digital ARC of this book from Alcove Press/NetGalley

Thank you to NetGalley, Blair Fell, and Alcove Press for the chance to review this book. The following is my honest opinion:

Sometimes a book transports you into the life of someone else in a way that is both entertaining and eye-opening. Having lived through the AIDS crisis of the 80's and 90's, it was hard at times to read, but so worth it. The lives of the characters were so well written and wove together in a way that made me enjoy the journey. A solid book I recommend for you when the mood strikes.

2.5 stars but I'll round up to 3.
I'm struggling a bit to review this one. I really liked the concept but didn't find I connected enough with any of the characters to really care. It took me a while to finish as I just kept getting distracted - one way I know the book isn't grabbing me.

Disco Witches of Fire Island seemed like it would be a campy good time but that was just a small slice. Set in the late 1980s it is a community besieged by the relentless spread of Aids.
Joe Agabian and his best friend Ronnie are two young men looking for employment and romance. What they find is much darker than a summer of partying and sex. There is an entire generation of young men at risk from the Great Darkness. Taken in by a decimated coven of elderly witches,trying to mend and channel Joes future , magic happens. After all this is a fantasy where there will be music and there will be dance
Thank you to Netgalley and Alcove Press for this read

I absolutely love the vivid setting of Fire Island, it really draws you into the book. The way it moved between grief, loss to magic felt beautiful.

A beautiful, mystical, silly, and sensitive book about love, friendship, community, and the knowledge that life can be hard but that's no reason to stop living.

We meet Joe when he's barely here, kept going each day by his best friend Ronnie. When Ronnie promises him a transformational summer working on the "gaytopia" of Fire Island, Joe goes. What Joe finds isn't what he expects...no job, staying with strangers, and the disco witches title is literal, not metaphorical. Joe's (and Ronnie's) summers are more transformational than they can possibly imagine.

Joe and Ronnie find belonging within their community again while they all continue to find ways to weather the storm of the 1980s HIV/AIDS epidemic, what it means to move on after loss, the endless value and delight of camp, hard work, and of course, magic.

I teared up at the end. This book isn't without sadness or darkness, the story is started with grief, but it ends in a way that feels so hopeful, and we need that right now.

Unfortunately I wasn't a big fan of this book. The writing didn't hook me and I didn't feel connected to the characters. This book just wasn't my cup of tea.

Thank you to Alcove Press and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts. I unfortunately DNFed this one. The concept was really cool, but the tone of the writing, especially the flippant way it talked about HIV, put me off at the beginning.

Disco Witches of Fire Island is a light fantasy with lots of drama. Blair Fell gives us lots of characters to like while dealing with everything from the HIV/AIDS crisis, addiction, grief, and bigotry.

I remember the height of fear when HIV/AIDS was taking so many lives. You didn’t know who you could trust to be intimate with or even whether asking someone to be safe would turn them off. Fell has Joe feel these feelings since he has experienced the loss of one lover already. Howie and Lenny are also getting ready to lose a close friend to the disease and they try to figure out how to move beyond. Though there is a little something more to this storyline.

The secondary cast is fun and brings drama (not to say Joe doesn’t create his own). The cast is diverse with the exception of being handicapped though I don’t know how many go to Fire Island.

It’s not really all that spicy. There is a lot of talk, but when it comes to full-on action it is very short on talk and fade to black.

I haven’t been to Fire Island so it was fun to see it through the eyes of first-timer Joe. I enjoyed the summer tale even with the drama.

Disco Witches of Fire Island by @blair.fell served looks in the three best ways possible: by discoing, drama, and witchcraft! 🕺

🌟🌟🌟🌟

Disco Witches of Fire Island was such a fun and snazzy, yet heartbreakingly realistic novel to read!!! 🪄🪩

Right off the bat, each chapter begins with a snippet of the “Disco Witches’ Manifesto”, which immediately made me hooked on the story! Loved the magical elements and the found family that Joe makes along the way is amazing. Lenny and Howie were THE BEST and I wanted even more of them by the end of the novel. I mean drag queens who are also witches and live on Fire island together?!?! This is where TF it’s at!!! I also enjoyed reading about Joe’s budding romance with the ferryman, they were absolutely adorable. 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨

Disco Witches also touches on the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and how much the loss/sickness devastated the LGBTQ+ community at that time. It was tastefully written in a way that made me feel emotional for these beautiful individuals who were fighting against and dying from this stigmatizing disease. We would not have had the groundbreaking treatments for AIDs today, if not for the brave activists who relentlessly advocated for the right to live. ❤️

All in all, Disco Witches is a complete slay and I cannot wait to read more books by Blair Fell in the future! Out May 6th. 🏳️‍🌈🔮✨

Thank you to @alcovepress for the opportunity to read/review this ARC! 🤩📚

🏷️: #discowitchesoffireisland #blairfell #review #bookrecommendation #bookstagram

The premise of Disco Witches of Fire Island is an interesting one, as both a fan of LGBTQ novels and fantasy. However, although I enjoyed the setting of Fire Island in the 1980s, the writing felt a bit clunky and I never connected with any of the characters. I DNF'd about halfway through as I just couldn't get into this novel personally - it's decent but not for me.

I was really excited about the premise of this novel, but after giving it a shot for a few chapters I realized the writing style is just not working for me. I do think it will find its audience and lots of folks who will love it, though, because the characters are charming and easy to root for. I just wasn't personally engaged by the prose or pacing.

What it is is a snapshot of Fire Island and the gay community in 1989, reeling from HIV and AIDS and still trying to figure out what the next steps need to be, and the shift in generations and expectations as gay rights become more of a public issue.

I wish the fantasy aspect was either not mentioned in the blurb at all, or played up more in the text. What we get for most of the book is a lot of "is it really magic, or wishful coincidences", which fits well with Elena's line of calling Fire Island its own sort of magic, particularly in figuring oneself out and being what you need at the time. And that works really well! Howie and Lenny and Dory truly represent the magic of finding and having community and people who look out for one another and how powerful that can be. In the end, there wasn't enough /actual/ magic response to the disco witches' actions to be satisfying - we needed more to really play up their magic and efforts, or just to lean back and have it be the magic of community and belief and a wink-nudge of "well, maybe it's actual magic". What we get isn't really either, feeling disingenuous to call it fantasy, but enough textual that the element is there.

The undercurrent dealing with HIV and AIDS is the strongest - the disco witches are struggling because their community (and of course, the entire community) has been devastated, and the only way they can continue to help at a time when disco is out is to find someone both with the powers and brave enough to not assimilate into the "correct" way of being gay at that time (there's some great commentary of the different subtypes and their "uniforms" and lack of individuality) to love fiercely out loud. It carries to the rest of the cast, who in the face of the disease, love all the harder for their rage and despair at losing so many people. Love is messy and imperfect, but always falls back on showing up and connecting, because that's how they got through then, and that's how we get through now.

This was a beautiful, emotional, fun, dazzling story. Centered around the Fire Island gay community in the 1980s, with the AIDS crisis and homophobia so prevalent, this was an emotional story that tackled some heavy topics — topics that were handled honestly and thoughtfully. Joe was a wonderfully real main character, and so many of the side characters stood out positively. It was a story of found family, love, and community.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy

Disco Witches of Fire Island by Blair Fell is a third person multi-POV historical fantasy set in the summer of 1989 on Fire Island. Joe and Ronnie are two friends on their way to Fire Island after Joe’s boyfriend dies from AIDS. Joe meets Lenny, Matt, and Howie, three older gay men who have been part of the Fire Island community for years and are what is left of a coven of disco witches.

Each chapter opens with an epigraph from the Disco Witch Manifesto and they not only set the tone for the chapter, but add a strong disco element that really helps build on the time period. The cover is also very 70s and feels like it could be a disco album cover. I love disco music so much so when I saw the cover, I immediately grabbed this book and was delighted at the references to disco music, the drag scene, and how disco was created in Black and Latine Queer clubs. The vibes were immaculate for me.

As one might expect about a novel set in 1989 on Fire Island, the AIDS epidemic plays a large part in the characters’ backstories and their present. Joe is still deep in grief at the loss of Elliot and is struggling with what happened in their relationship before Elliot’s death. This stops Joe from allowing himself to find love with anyone else and does involve him needing to go on a journey where he stops focusing on the disease and focuses more on the person. It’s very hard for him to move past his feelings and I think a lot of readers will at least understand where he’s coming from if they know people who have had a serious illness even if you want to slap him.

One thing I really appreciated was that Blair Fell was not afraid to call out the bigotry that does exist in the Queer community. Ronnie starts off very much ‘not like those other gays’ and buys into respectability politics while Dory, the owner of the bar Joe works at, has been dealing with anti-Black racism from one of the most influential members of the Fire Island community for years. We do need to keep discussing the ways in which our community is not safe for the members of our community who are the most vulnerable, even when we’re in a crisis. Perhaps when we’re in a crisis is when we need to discuss this the most.

Content warning for mentions of the AIDS crisis

I would recommend this to fans of Queer literature that frankly discusses the worst parts of our history and community and readers looking for a light fantasy element in their historical fiction

DNF. Nothing wrong with this one whatsoever, I’m just not the intended audience. I think the right reader will find this hysterical and poignant; for me it was the wrong flavour of silly, the prose is too simple, and I found the characters pretty one-note and uninteresting. And while it’s possible it becomes more Urban Fantasy later, what I read (the first 20%) was closer to magical realism, which doesn’t interest me at all.

Readers who already have an interest in the queer culture of the time period – and especially in Fire Island – should have much more fun than I did, especially if you appreciate the sort of tongue-in-cheek humour Fell’s going for here. (I have a vague suspicion that there’s something like satire going on – *not* satire, but *like* satire, playing around with stereotypes and such very deliberately – that I’m not smart enough to understand or appreciate.)