Blair Fell’s Disco Witches of Fire Island is a wild, glitter-filled ride that combines the magic of Fire Island, the unapologetic glamour of disco, and a coven of witches who dance between worlds both fantastical and heartfelt. With a story that pulses like a perfect beat, Fell blends humor, charm, and sharp wit, all while exploring themes of identity, love, and belonging. The vibrant island setting feels like its own character, alive with parties, secrets, and, of course, spells. The characters, who embrace their quirks and flaws with magnetic confidence, will have you cheering for them every step of the way. It’s a novel that sparkles with joy and heart, reminding us that even in the most fabulous worlds, we still need grounding. Disco Witches is a celebration of magic, life, and unapologetic self-expression, and once you dive in, you’ll never want to leave the dancefloor.

Blair Fell's Disco Witches of Fire Island is a tragic and powerful story that shares the fears and pain of the AIDS crisis while also showing that love, while imperfect, can bring light to a dark time.

Joe moves to Fire Island after suffering a tragedy and finds himself under threat from a powerful evil. As he searches for love and as he finds himself, his protectors, a group of elder queer witches, seek to keep him safe.

While I was far too young to have experienced the AIDS crisis during it's height, I felt that he captured the terror that swept through the LGBT community. He also seemed to capture the joy and lust of gay love. I was completely captivated by this book and cannot wait to share it with others.

Thank you Alcove Press and Net Galley for the advance copy.

There’s something undeniably special about the queer community’s ability to find whimsy in darkness. Set in the throes of the AIDS epidemic, Disco Witches of Fire Island follows Joe and a group of lovable, wacky queens through a summer on Fire Island where they must band together to combat trauma and embrace love as the ultimate healing power. Fell establishes deep emotional worlds in these lovable characters that would make the reader weep if it weren’t for the campy humor blazing its light through the novel. It would have been easy for this book to go either hyper-gay comedic or hopelessly sorrowful, but it’s a book about balances both in its themes and its construction.

Every character in this book feels incredibly real. Like, I could cast every character in this book as someone I know in my real life. While every character has something to love, I most adore Howie and Lenny because they remind me so much of my own guncles. Fell writes in his acknowledgements that he based Howie and Lenny off of two men who let him stay in their attic one summer. As a result, the pages are dripping with love and admiration for these two men so that the reader can’t help but love them too. They are the perfect guides through the summer for our main character Joe as he learns to release his trauma and accept love into his life again. Joe’s journey is particularly moving, especially for readers who have ever felt lost and undeserving of joy. Every turn in this story has the reader fully understanding Joe’s decisions, but desperately hoping he will open his eyes and see the bounty the universe has in store for him. Reading this book is like hanging out with a beautifully messy group of close friends, and the aura of love is palpable on every page.

It’s this positivity and joy that carries this heavy book as though it is weightless. These are tough topics- trauma, mortality, HIV/AIDS, capitalism- but there is humor around every corner here that lightens the load and offers endless hope to the reader even after the book is shut. It perfectly captures the queer instinct to smile through the darkness and help each other find the light. Part of this book is about the coven’s quest to restore the Great Balance between joy and sorrow and each character in the book has their own journey to reckon with the highs and lows of their lives. These themes are reflected in the tonal balance throughout the story that offers moments of grief and humor, tears and laughter in equal measure. Fell masterfully allows these opposing emotions to exist together without contradiction.

While I often recommend books from marginalized perspectives as windows for those outside the community, I think this book will land best with queer readers. I am not a gay man, but even as a bisexual woman who was not alive during the AIDS crisis, I saw so many elements of my queer experience in these pages. I will be giving this book to every queer person I can - it’s already listed as a future present for my guncles. As a community, I fear we are about to enter a very dark time politically and socially. I think this book offers us the hope that we will need to continue fighting oppression and spreading love.

Disco Witches of Fire Island by Blair Fell will be published in May of 2025 by Alcove Press.

fun, campy, weird, and heartfelt tale. very cool fantasy aspects too. would recommend it. 4 stars. tysm for the arc.

God what a fun romp this book was! Pure camp and actually pretty well-written! With a title like Disco Witches of Fire Island, I knew it was going to be fun, but I really devoured this book and cant wait to recommend it to all of my gay friends. As someone who grew up spending Summers on Fire Island, there was a lot of nostalgia for me. It's a love letter, in may ways, and I hope gets in as many hands as possible.

this is a piece of media that convinces me life is worth living. it is messy and weird, yet beautiful and super heartfelt.

I love Howie and Lenny with my whole heart, and even came to care deeply for Joe even with all the mistakes he makes.

this book has a little bit of everything and I think it accomplishes all it set out to do, which seems rare based on other books I have been reading recently, especially those with so many moving parts.

the only critique I really have is I don't feel like I got a great grasp on the Disco Witch magic and how it works, but I am also thinking that was part of the point. I ended up feeling more confused than comfortable with the ambiguity though.

I definitely would recommend if the description seems interesting to you and I was at the edge of my seat through the whole story.

Thank you to the publishing team and NetGalley for sending me a free and advanced ecopy in return for an honest review.

This book is so good. You should read it.

This is historical fiction with some magical realism thrown in. The setting is Fire Island in the 1980s, during the AIDS pandemic (we can call it that, right? Or do we need to keep referring to it as a crisis, as if it only affects certain types of people?). A pair of young men go to the island for the summer, hoping to find jobs and make steps toward their future lives. They meet a foursome of older characters that have the potential to change their lives. And I'm going to stop there with the summary because you should just read the book and see what happens.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone that is currently reading this review. Everyone.

I really, really wanted to like this book. I mean gay disco witches during the 80s? Count me in! However, I don't think this was the book for me. I did not enjoy the writing style (too crude, clumsy and direct), the characters (seriously annoying and sadly not intriguing enough to make up for their unlikeability) or the plot (a directionless mess). This had the potential to be a deep-cutting exploration of what the AIDS crisis meant to gay men in the 80s and instead, I wanted to yell at everyone in this book. Joe specifically is an asshole whose tragic backstory did not make me pity him enough to make up for his pathetic and nonsensical actions. His mood swings are so random and frequent that I was left with vertigo. The relationships are underexplored and come out of nowhere. I can enjoy extensive horniness (see: The Pairing by Casey McQuiston) but I tend to prefer sensual prose over... whatever this is: "They closed their eyes while their tongues grappled like two Turkish oil wrestlers who had fallen in love."

I think this book really did a great job capturing the heartbreaking feelings of the 1980's and the AIDS crisis. The emotions these characters were going through was devastating and Blair Fell did a great job writing that. His writing style was well suited to the story he was trying to tell. I was particulary fond of Howie and Lenny as they were entertaining characters. Each of the characters in this book felt very unique and realistic.
The magic part of this book felt a little flat for me, and slightly confusing. I was never quite sure what was going on with that aspect of the book and think some of the world building could have been expanded on/explained. Overall, I really enjoyed reading Disco Witches of Fire Island.

“Disco Witches of Fire Island” totally took me by surprise in the best way. I thought it would be a fun, magical adventure, but it turned out to be an emotional ride full of heartache, hope, and just the right touch of magic. It’s one of those books that hits you in all the feels—laughing and tearing up at the same time. And the disco witches? They were the best part. Their wild magic, charm, and fabulousness stole the show, and I couldn’t help but wish for a whole book about their crazy antics.

If you’re looking for a story that’s sweet, funny, unexpectedly deep, and a little magical, this is the one. It’ll leave you thinking, “What did I just read?”—in the best way. I recommend it if you want something with humor, heart, and a bit of magic.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for providing me with an advance copy to read!

Disco Witches of Fire Island had its moments. I came into it thinking it would be a campy, silly story, but it was surprisingly pretty serious, understandable for a book set in 1989 with queer characters. The older characters were the stand outs and kept the plot moving. I’d take a book about their hijinks in their prime! Overall, the book fell a little flat for me, not quite as special as I hoped. Thanks to Alcove Press for the ARC through NetGallery.

Disco Witches of Fire Island by Blair Fell is a fun, glittery, flamboyant, and fruity LGBTQIA+ fantasy that's perfect for fans of TJ Klune and Casey McQuiston. This delightful romp will rival all of the fantasy escapades that are likely to occupy your shelves at this very moment! It's a perfectly brewed concoction of humour, heart, and (disco 🪩) magic. It's guaranteed to leave you snorting with laughter and shedding a tear or two. With Fell's archetypal witty and riotous humour interwoven with heartbreak, mayhem, and revitalised fantasy tropes, Disco Witches of Fire Island is wonderfully idiosyncratic. It was the balm my jaded soul needed. Thank you, NetGalley and Alcove Press, for providing this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sounded great -1980s Fire Isand, gay guys having fun. It didn’t quite click for me. Thank you to the author. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

Wow, this was one of the most beautiful, heartbreaking novels I've read in some time. In the book we follow Joe, who is grieving the loss of his boyfriend who died of aids. A tough subject to read about but the author writes about this dark time in history with such respect and consideration. At no point did I feel like it was exploitative or distastefully done. Joe and his friend spend the summer on Fire island and come across witches, which of course opens up an entire new world of magic and power.
This is a must read even if you're not a big fan of witches and fantasy elements because it's still easy to follow along and the characters are so complex and fascinating!

I received a free copy of, Disco Witches of Fire Island, by Blair Fell, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Fire Island is known to be a haven for gay people. Joe and his best friend Ronnie spend the summer at Fire Island. Joe recently lost his boyfriend to AIDS. Joe meets a lot of interesting people on Fire Island. Im not a fan of fantasy books or witches, so this was only an ok read for me.

I really need this read after the last week. Blair Fell is doing the lords work with this story. Overwhelmingly enjoyed!

Thank you to Alcove Press and Netgalley for providing an eARC for a honest review.

The plot of this book is clever, and it gets better as it goes on. Lots of almost, maybe magic that pays off at the end. Pretty good take on Fire Island and its micro-cultures.

The BEST book I read in 2023 was The Sign for Home, by Blair Fell, and I recommend it to everyone. So I was thrilled to receive an advanced copy of this author’s newest book.

Disco Witches of Fire lsland takes place in America during the 1980’s AIDS crisis, a topic I wanted to learn more about. I cared about the emotional journey of main character Joe and I wanted a happy ending for him. There are many heavy moments in the story, and also plenty of lightness and whimsy. I’m sure it’s a huge challenge to successfully balance heavy and light in a novel. I think it was done to perfection in The Sign for Home. It didn’t hit as successfully in Disco Witches of Fire Island; I kept feeling like it was GOOD but could have been GREAT. I will look forward to reading more from Blair Fell!

Sincere thanks to Alcove press, Net Galley and Blair Fell for an advanced copy of this book.

This book was pretty good. I definitely like the spotlight on the LGBTQ plus community, and the issues that they face. I did like the Author’s writing style, and this book had a good pacing to it. I thought it was thoroughly entertaining


Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complementary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

This was an incredibly charming book to read. The writing was fresh and fun, as were the majority of its characters. Especially the aging witches.

This story is a wonderful representation of queer love and queer history. It is about the bravery it takes to be thoroughly yourself in a society that would deny you, that would tell you your existence and your love are wrong. It is a celebration of queer life and the beauty the queer community brings to the world and the immense amount of love they have to share.

My only disconnect to the story was that the writing was almost too full of whimsy at times for me to full form a bond with the characters, especially Joe as an MC. BUT I do understand his fear and the choices he made were all part of his growth for the story's sake.