Disco Witches of Fire Island is a story of love, grief, and hope set in the depths of the AIDS crisis. It's 1989, and Joe Agabian arrives on Fire Island to meet up with his new best friend, Ronnie, who says they can get jobs bartending in this gay paradise. When the promised gig falls through, Joe is take in by Howie and Lenny, older men who are long-time residents, house cleaners, and (possibly) witches.

Joe's trip to Fire Island is a desperate attempt to break out of his cycle of grief after losing his boyfriend to AIDS. But Fire Island, while decadent and wild on the surface, is awash in grief and loss. Howie and Lenny's tight-knit community has dwindled year by year as their friends and lovers succumb to the disease. They and the remaining Disco Witches, as they call themselves, are aging, and their leader is dying on the mainland.

Point of view in Disco Witches of Fire Island jumps around a bit. Howie and Joe are followed most closely, but short chapters from the viewpoints of Ronnie, Lenny, and other characters give us insight into their unfiltered thoughts and feelings. It may not be the most deft approach, but I liked being able to see Ronnie, in particular, without having Joe's perspective in the way. The cast of characters is enormous and colorful, with even small players vividly drawn. While there may be a few stereotypes sprinkled in, the novel never feels unkind or reductive. The reader is so immersed in the culture and people of Fire Island that it's impossible not to fall a little bit in love. And it is, indeed, magical.

This is yet another example of a book that is so weirdly pitched by the publisher that I feel like I read an entirely different novel. Fire Island is about a loving found family, a culture dealing with devastating loss and fear, and how to find courage and hope in a time of despair. It's both hilarious and gutting, which is a pretty difficult line to walk. I wouldn't really call this a romance, although it adheres to the genre requirements. It's more historical magical realism with a romantic subplot. It's also gorgeous, hopeful, and well worth a read. Highly recommended. (4.5 stars for a slow start, rounded up to 5.)

Blair Fell’s Disco Witches of Fire Island is a dazzling and heartfelt blend of magical realism, queer history, and the vibrant energy of the 1980s. Set against the iconic backdrop of Fire Island during the AIDS crisis, this novel beautifully balances joy, resilience, and the power of community. With a cast of unforgettable characters and an enchanting storyline, it’s a celebration of love, identity, and the magic of coming together. A must-read for fans of queer fiction with a touch of the extraordinary.

I'm sure it's gonna get a lot of love from the gay Wiccan crowd. For me, it was an odd mix of sad, hopeful, reflective, and mystical all rolled into one (joint) and then lit on fire. To be honest, it's hard to read/write about AIDS as history, and like most horrific things, putting faces to statistics, putting stories to generalities, is simultaneously wonderful and tragic. In many ways, Disco Witches nails that. Being gay is about community, and not all love/intimacy is about sex. Disco Witches nails that too.

What a wonderfully real, heartbreaking yet hopeful book.

I was not alive when the AIDs crisis began, so this book was eye opening for me. The despair and loss that these poor folks have had to deal with through the years is astounding and there were moments in this book that just made me feel hopeless, which I took to be the point.

Overall just an incredible tale of love, grief, and fighting the good fight. Thank you to Blair Fell and Alcove press for allowing me to read this ARC.

This was a fun book that could definitely become a great beach read or book club pick. It’s just heavy enough to be interesting with a lightheartedness that keeps it fun.

Admittedly the first few chapters were difficult for me to get through. It was a little magical with hints of romance tropes and the genre blending was a bit messy. The author really fleshed out the characters and gets into a flow right around the time the island kicks off their tourist season. It’s all set in the late 80s and there are some great nods to the shifts in Queer culture during the time. The author paints a picture of the impact of the AIDs epidemic with references to activism and social justice of the time. There are a few pop culture references that are off, including multiple mentions of ice blue Gatorade which didn’t exist in the 80s.

The characters are lovable and complex. Although it does seem as though we only get vignette backstories on some (Dory for example). We don’t get much aside from other characters descriptions of Max but he was a stand out character and I think the author did a great job really creating a mystic vibe around his persona. Our main character Joe has some great development throughout and his friendship with Ronnie is really well written, although some of Ronnie’s foreshadows are just too obvious.

It’s not something I’d read again and again but it is something I’d recommend to someone looking for a great Queer Romance or an interesting summer read with an LGBTQ cast of characters.

DNF at 15%

I was intrigued by the premise, but the pacing was too slow for me. I did like that it seemed to highlight how devastating the HIV/AIDS crisis was.

Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for the opportunity to read and review.

4.5 STARS

CW: death (including of loved ones), grief, drug abuse, sexual content, violence, suicidal ideation

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Even though I began this book with vastly inaccurate expectations, I was hooked from the very beginning and had a great time reading it which took me by surprise a little bit. This book with its setting and characters was simply so charming and gripping that I looked forward to continuing reading every single day and finished it fairly quickly. It was also the perfect book to read for me at this moment, something a little bit different that I may not have reached for at a different time but the cover and title called to me. And it was well worth it.

The story, set in 1989, is about Joe who is struggling with the loss of his boyfriend Elliot who died of AIDS. Joe's best friend Ronnie convinces him to join him in a summer spent on Fire Island and the two men embark on a tumultuous summer on the island. The book was full of vibrant characters, Howie and Lenny, Dory and Elena, Vinnie and Fergal and quite a few more. I really enjoyed getting to know all of them as well as the island which definitely takes up a spot as another "personality" in this book. It's also immediately clear that there is something magical going on on the island (maybe not to everyone, but something is in the air) and the coven of disco witches slowly get introduced and, bit by bit, we find out more about what is going on and how everything is connected.

I must admit, if this book had caught me in a different mood, I think I might not have enjoyed the pacing as much, but as it stands I really loved it. It really was the perfect moment for me to read this! As it stands, something new and interesting that kept me wanting to continue reading kept happening and I just got lost in the pages.

One thing that bugged me a little bit was the very end of the book. I enjoyed the big showdown and how the story wraps up, but I wish we could have gotten a little bit more in the end, maybe one or two chapters more after everything had gone down. I was also very sad that it was over, despite really liking the ending and I really hope that the author will return to these characters someday.

Overall, this was charming and a perfect mix of hard-hitting, heart-wrenching and feel-good moments. When it comes out in May, I will definitely go out to pick a physical copy up and I can only recommend everyone to check it out and give it a read. A splendid book that caught me by surprise and leaves me wanting more.

I was provided with an advance copy by the publisher, and I don’t know how much time or room there is to edit before the final book comes out (complete, apparently, with “sprayed silver edges and foil on the cover!”) but I desperately hope there’s time for one last round of edits. Just one more pass–a handful of touch-ups, really–would make this novel shine.

It’s a page-turner; deeply unpredictable and bingeable and weird, that I found myself compelled to gulp down in a day and a half. The publisher’s description name-checks Red, White, and Royal Blue when it’s much closer to a loose continuation of Andrew Holleran’s post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS classic Dancer from the Dance with a tinge of Larry Kramer (Kramer is, I was happy to see, name-checked in the book).

As a former gay bar deejay, this might be a me problem, but I wish the disco music in the book had been a little less on-the-nose. We open with a Sylvester song, which is perfect considering the book is set the summer after his death from AIDS (and self-directed funeral, where he wore a bright red kimono in the open casket), but could we not have dug a little deeper in his back catalogue than “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)?” “Dance (Disco Heat)” charted higher when it came out, and it has Martha Wash on backing vocals.

Song selection aside, there were a few instances where I was taken out of the narrative by something that felt like it would have been fixed by one more pass from an editor. In one particularly striking example, a character reveals to the protagonist that she’s HIV-positive, and the most pivotal line of dialogue is just… missing. To roughly paraphrase:

“Hey, what’s going on?” asked Character A.
Character B was quiet. Then she told Character A that she was HIV positive. She’d gotten it from sharing needles. Character A was surprised.
“Anyways, I’m doing okay so far,” she added.

It felt like a mistake, not an artistic choice, and it took me out of a scene that I had been completely caught up in.

There are a lot of places where characters could have been pulled back about twenty percent for the sake of immersion. The best friend behaves so horribly, so many times, that his eventual redemption rings hollow. The love interest suffers from a too-long loathe-at-first-sight arc and not one but *multiple* sex scenes with the protagonist that start with the protagonist having just finished vomiting.

Right now, it’s a four-star book that I liked. It could so easily be a five-star book that I loved.

DNf at 26%

I wanted to love this so badly, but the writing is too clunky and it's just too slow for me. I love the characters and the setting, I'm just not excited to read it. I may come back to it again, but this isn't for me right now.

I want to make an opera--or maybe a musical--out of this wonderful, quirky, supremely queer, and beautiful book about found family, finding love, loving yourself, and witches. It's 1989, and two young gay men head to Fire Island for summer jobs--and sex. Despite the AIDS crisis, men (and women) are still managing to find love--or at least like and lust--over the course of the summer. When Joe ends up boarding with a pair of disco witches, his life goes spinning like a mad teacup--and his friends' lives are changed as well. I loved every moment of this novel: every meeting, every kiss, every ritual, every potion, every song, every person; that Fergal's dad is a selkie; that Joe's destiny might be to end AIDS. I cried, too, when Max, who has already made a shrine for himself with his friends, dies of AIDS; when Joe and his love finally, FINALLY get it together; for the real-world people I knew who died of AIDS. It's just a great book, and the Disco Witch Manifestos at the beginning of each chapter are affirming and campy and fun. I can't wait to give copies to friends!

TL;DR: fun, but clawless, so I was a bit disappoinment. Not my thing generally, but people for whom picking this up wouldn't lie outside their usual tastes would probably like it well.

I found Disco Witches pf Fire Island trashy (disappointing) whereas I expected it to be trashy (angry),
so now I am angry and disappointed.
(This is, admittedly, not within my usual genre. It is, all in all, a tender, fun read: campy summer romance with the usual twisty melodramatic angst and a dash of glitzy opulance where all things end well.)
I picked this out expecting (perhaps projecting onto Blair Fell a scale of ambition unjustified) the disco witchcraft to be something transgressive and narratively challenging and ungovernabley beautiful in the way street art and upturned police cars are. Ore at least something... dirty. More Divine and less RuPaul. Something that turns the cheap and trashy into something subversive, (at least a little bit) revolutionary. Unassimilable. A disco dance with the murder of respectability.

I love witchcraft and I love Fire Island, so reading this was a no-brainer. I had so much fun reading this novel. It was equal parts poignant and wild, something that made me hope that my personal hero John Waters, would at some point read. I thought it captured the era beautifully, and was a loving tribute to 80’s gay culture. Even Broadway composer Jerry Herman makes a cameo in this story.

I also felt that the incredible loss that the AIDS crisis brought during the time period that this book takes place was handled very eloquently and respectfully. I can absolutely see this book taking its rightful place as a great queer novel.

Okay so, if you read the synopsis of this book and thought “that sounds interesting, I’m down!” then this book is definitely for you!!

I found myself annoyed with Joe for a majority of the story, but isn’t that kind of the point? The found family and relatability of characters and queer story telling truly made this book what it was. Friendship, bravery, love, and the daringness of queer people to simply want to live…that’s what this book is about.

Many thanks to the author and publisher for this ARC!

“When stuck in her blues, a Disco Witch can always boogie to another part of the dance floor.” —Disco Witch Manifesto #23

Only a little under 2 weeks into the beginning of a new year and I’ve already found one of my favorite reads of 2025.

Such lovable characters set against a heavy backdrop. Campy, dance-y, witchy, and SPICY.
(Also can Howie & Lenny please adopt me?)

Disco Witches of Fire Island is a wild, heartwarming ride through 1989 Fire Island, mixing steamy romance with magical realism. Joe Agabian heads to the island with his best friend Ronnie, hoping to escape heartbreak and heal after losing his boyfriend to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. But Fire Island holds more than just a party scene—Joe soon discovers that his quirky housekeepers, Howie and Lenny, are part of a secret coven of disco witches trying to protect the island from dark forces.

As Joe starts falling for a mysterious ferryman with a magical secret, he’s caught between love, danger, and a looming threat to the island. Disco Witches is a perfect blend of LGBTQ+ romance, fantasy, and the search for healing in the face of tragedy. It’s magic, love, and community wrapped in a fun, steamy package.

The AIDS crisis is a sobering backdrop to this gorgeous novel that’s a little spicy, a little campy, and a whole lot of fun.

“Disco Witches of Fire Island" is a fresh and enchanting addition to the historical fantasy genre. The queer representation shines throughout, offering both moments of pure joy and thoughtful reflection. While incorporating elements of fantasy and historical fiction, the story remains grounded in its exploration of community and resilience. For readers seeking a unique blend of genres with heart, this novel delivers.

This was an interesting book with some great banter and stories about adventure. It was hilarious with many laugh out loud moments. Thank youa

I was gifted this ARC by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I was thrilled to stumble upon this book and fell in love with the description and its comparison to Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea, and while wasn’t looking for an exact replica, this was nowhere in the same realm or universe at all for me. The pace was incredibly SLOW. I kept looking and looking for the “Magic” and wondering if it was real or symbolic and when it would seep in watching the percentages in the corner tick up and up, almost waiting for the beat to drop in a way that was more frustrating than enthralling.

I do love the light this shed on the gay community and those we lost along the way to HIV/AIDS and what it means to lose family and find family and I do want to really credit those themes throughout the story as well as some solid allusions to disco music and queer laughs and probably my favorite, the chapter starter quotes that I will keep secret for any readers but that mainly brought a smile to my face and I pocketed many for rainy days.

5 stars and one of the best books I've ever read. This story has so much imagination and heart. It doesn't take much to be captivated by the Disco Witches and their charming world, and to root for them and their cause.

The story follows Joe and his best friend Ronnie as they take a chance spending a summer on Fire Island in 1989. In his effort to find a job and someplace to live for the summer, Joe stumbles upon Howie and Lenny - two older men who take him under their wing. Joe takes up residence in their attic room and begins working at a local bar on its last legs. Things begin to happen to Joe on the island that he can't explain. What he doesn't know is that Howie and Lenny are part of a secret coven of witches who derive their magic from the dance floors of clubs. The coven is struggling to maintain their magic through the loss and tragedy of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Joe is also no stranger to this kind of loss which Howie can sense. There is doom on the horizon on Fire Island - the question is, can the Disco Witches find the source and regain the strength of their coven before it is too late?

The story is filled with endearing characters, heartbreak, love, and friendship. I absolutely adored this book!