Thé mystery and fantasy of this book was something out of my wheel house but I loved it. These characters were so vibrent I feel like I met them in real life.

The concept of this book was so interesting to me - gay witches on Fire Island amidst the AIDS epidemic. Overall I enjoyed this book. Although he annoyed me at times, I enjoyed the main character, Joe, as he attempts the best summer ever despite overcoming unimaginable grief. At times, I wished this book would be a little more fast paced. The chapters that felt more magical and whimsical were definitely my favorite. Overall, would recommend to those who are also curious and drawn in by the fun title and cover. Fans of similar stories (like the musical Rent) will appreciate the story of queer joy during this difficult time.

Thank you to NetGalley, Alcove Press and Blair Fell for the opportunity to read this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

So this book had so many things I love. Queer history and nostalgia, lots of very real and raw moments relating to the AIDS crisis (I just finished writing a book about this period of history myself so it's very much at the forefront of my mind) and a little bit of mystery and magic. However, I just didn't gel with the writing style which is a me problem but still a huge shame.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for access to this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

In Disco Witches of Fire Island, we follow Joe as he ventures to Fire Island, the queer haven of summer love and indulgence, in the summer of 1989. After suffering the tragic loss of his partner Elliot to AIDS, Joe is convinced by his best friend Ronnie to join him on the infamous island for a fresh start. Upon arrival, Joe meets Howie and Lenny, two welcoming (albeit somewhat mysterious) and fabulous old queens and he ends up renting a room at their home. Romance, new friendships, self-growth, rumors of witchcraft, and general chaos ensue.

WOW, I loved this! What a wholly original, fun, touching, heartbreaking, hilarious, and altogether wild ride this book is! Joe is grieving the death of his partner (at far too young an age, from a disease that has largely been neglected by the American medical community) and yes, he’s flawed, but damn he is also a survivor. Howie and Lenny are incredibly endearing and truly are the gay aunties I’ve always wanted. In the face of unimaginable grief, they are kind, generous, and the embodiment of hope. Dory, Ronnie, Vince, and Elena are all excellent, fully-formed supporting characters. This rag tag group is truly the definition of found family. I don’t want to give too much away in this review, but this is truly one of the most compelling stories I’ve ever read. It is a love letter to the queer community: to how we come together in times of crisis and grief, how we give the love we maybe did not get originally but wholly deserve, and how we feel and show our pride, through the good times and the tough times.

I highly recommend giving this beautiful book a read when it publishes in May!

Rating: ★★★½

This was such a cool concept—queer history, disco witches, and Fire Island in the ‘80s? I had to sign up right away!! The setting is vibrant, and I loved the found family vibes, especially Joe and Ronnie’s friendship. The mix of grief, magic, and community worked really well in some parts.

Other parts I didn’t love so much, the book does a lot, and not all of it lands. Some of the humor felt forced, and the pacing dragged here and there. Still, it was a fun, unique read, and if you’re into queer fantasy with some history woven in, it’s worth checking out!

Disco Witches of Fire Island was an interesting book, I really enjoyed the setting and it was very immersive and descriptive. It really took you back to Fire Island in the 80s. But like any books in the gay 80s, there is a lot of struggles with HIV/AIDS. I don’t want to say the whole book is about HIV, but it’s a large subplot of the 80s itself. That said, there is a bunch of mystical woo woo, it’s a bit tongue in cheek, and it is entertaining at times, especially at our MC‘s expense. Overall an entertaining read, who knew an island full of gay men would have so much drama? 😳😉

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I too was drawn in by the super fun title. It set expectations of hilarity a touch too high. This is a thoughtful and emotional book, although quirkily laugh out loud and outrage fun at many points, and Blair Fell succeeds spectacularly in the end. When I finally got there. I kept throwing it over for other books from Netgalley and my own TBR pile, so my recollection is a little bit disjointed. Once I felt the book got going (halfway?? two-thirds??? or so??), it did become an enjoyably strange and strangely enjoyable ride. I intend to re=read it all the way through.

I love the character growth of Howie and Lennie -- I can picture those two quite clearly that I can almost hear them. I was daunted by the description of the AIDS crisis. As a child during those times, I was scared to death for my uncles, both of whom survived the times, one with AIDS who made it to the point where there was treatment that keeps him alive and well today. I still loathe the president who callously shrugged at their suffering. This is such an important part of history that needs to be recognized today, and I know there is no chance for books like this to be required reading in an educational setting for the foreseeable future. I have a teenager and I realize this is part of our divide. He does find homophobia to be clearly bizarre and idiotic, but he also has no clue while it's insane he's older than legalized marriage.

I’ll admit it—the title is what pulled me in. I love disco and kind of wish I’d grown up in that era. Not that I’d actually go out and dance, ha. Witches have always fascinated me; they strike the perfect balance between reality and magic without veering too far into fantasy, which just isn’t my thing. Plus, I spent a few summers on Fire Island, so I get the culture, even if I was way too young in the ‘80s to experience it the way this book portrays.

I loved revisiting certain aspects of that world—the humor of older gay men looking out for the younger crowd, the wild and sometimes shocking moments, and the sheer energy of it all. There’s a great balance of comedy and tenderness that keeps the story grounded. That said, the magical elements didn’t quite land for me; instead of enhancing the themes of tolerance and imagination, they felt like a distraction.

This isn’t a book for the faint of heart when it comes to promiscuity, explicit scenes, or strong language, but it *is* a book that captures depth, personality, and the party scene with striking honesty. Well done, even if not entirely my thing.

In this refreshingly original novel, Blair Fell combines supernatural fantasy with historical authenticity in a story set during the AIDS crisis of 1989. When Joe Agabian reluctantly joins his friend Ronnie for a summer in Fire Island Pines, he finds himself living with two eccentric older men who are secretly disco-dancing witches protecting the gay community from dark forces.

Fell excels at capturing both the vibrant celebration and underlying tensions of Fire Island's gay scene. The characters are wonderfully drawn, particularly Howie and Lenny, whose flamboyant personas and magical practices form the heart of the story. As Joe develops feelings for a mysterious ferryman with webbed feet, the coven works to protect the island despite their powers being weakened by the epidemic.
The novel's greatest strength is its balance of campy supernatural elements with the very real complexities of gay life during this devastating period. While the romantic storyline occasionally feels at odds with the more compelling magical narrative, Fell ultimately succeeds in creating a world where whimsical fantasy and historical reality coexist.

"Disco Witches of Fire Island" delivers both an entertaining escape and a poignant reminder of a pivotal moment in LGBTQ+ history - a magical tale that doesn't shy away from acknowledging the shadows that loomed over the community it celebrates.

I really wanted to love Disco Witches of Fire Island. The premise is incredible - queer witches casting spells on a dance floor? Romance? More than a touch of spice? Unfortunately, while the vibe was immaculate, the execution didn't quite land for me.

The biggest issue I had was that the chapters and writing style felt imbalanced - the coven's POV chapters felt magical, whereas anyone else's felt dragging and airhead-y. There were moments of glittering magic and energy, and the fizzy magic of Fire Island was vibrant. I was just left feeling minimal chemistry between the pairings and was waiting for things to come together before the end of the summer.

That being said, I think this book will still find its audience. If you're here for the queer joy, disco aesthetic, and a fun, witchy coven, there's definitely enjoyment to be had. Personally I just wish it had been a little more polished so I could've fully lost myself in the fantasy magic.

This was a 3.5 read for me rounded up. I know there are going to be some that this will anger, especially the younger crowd. This plays in to hard the gay club scene in the 80s where some of the negative gay stereotypes come from (i.e. sleeping around with multiple partners.) I remember this. I was a doctor in NYC about 4 years after this novel is set. I saw the devastation of AIDS and had to give countless HIV diagnoses.

And make no mistake this is NOT a book of queer joy. Oh there's some of that there but it about their agony as HIV destroys their world. And one of the hardest hitting lines was about how the entire country came together to find out what happened to a few dozen people who died of Legionnaire's disease but the same could not be said when thousands of queer people were dying. I also remember doctors refusing to see HIV infected people. I had no respect for them. I was not one of them and yes I was exposed to HIV while in NYC (I got lucky)

Content warning. HIV infection/death, loss of loved ones, grief, drug use, casual sex, suicidal ideation

The main character is Joe, a young Armenian would-be doctor who lost his lover, Elliot to AIDS and his new friend, the Fabio-look alike, Ronnie who has the big idea of we're going to bartend on Fire Island and find us some rich boyfriends. All Joe really wants is to get away from himself and his pain and gets talked into it only to find out Ronnie didn't have all his ducks in a row.

Homeless and jobless, Joe is taken in by two year round residents, Howie, rather a hippie and Lenny, a bondage guy, both of whom are middle aged house cleaners and two of the titular Disco Witches. They give him a home and find him a job working with Vince, a truculent Irish bartender who works for an old woman who has this bar and her home open to dying AIDS patients with the help of her friend D'Norman, a nurse (both of them are also witches)

It follows Joe and Ronnie over the summer. We spend most of our time in Joe or Howie's heads with occasional journeys into Ronnie, Lenny and a few others. We have Scotty Black, the biggest club owner trying to destroy Joe's place of business. We have the Disco Witches who are as they sound, a group of queer folk who believe in the Great Mother Goddess who is good and needs to be in balance with the Great Darkness which is not. Their leader, Max, is dying of AIDS sequelae and their group of twirling disco queens is falling apart and Howie fears that the Egregore a mystical villain who will kill one of the holy lovers if he can is back on the island.

We the reader know things Howie doesn't (such as Joe has been lying and he fits the holy lover rubric and he's been seeing the Egregore) We can also guess who is going to fulfill the role left when Max dies. I loved Howie and Lenny. Joe I wanted to slap half the book.

This is a pile of angst with a happy ending. I won't ruin it but I will say it doesn't end badly. The Disco Witches will dance another day.

Now for the problems because yes there are some beyond the above mentioned casual sex. But honestly that IS the biggest problem for me because it goes on and on and on. The author thanks his editor for helping carve this down to something readable. Yeah, it needed carved down more. It's overly long and it began getting repetitive with Joe constantly beating himself up over Elliot and then Fergal, someone he met on the Island. Some of the metaphors were pretty tortured and this is the horniest bunch of people gay or straight I've ever seen. It did get to be a bit much. Still, I am glad I read it though it brought me back to those times and the people I lost in the late 80s and early 90s to AIDS, to exposure fears and just how easy it is to victimize an entire group of people unjustly.

A secret coven of gay witches can fight off evil spirits through the magic of disco dancing. That’s a literary premise I may have been waiting for my entire life, and for the most part, the author delivers with wit and campy fun. Set in the late 1980s, the story also captures a complex time to be gay, witch or not. In his author’s note, Fell explains that he drew on his lived experience from that era, and it shows in his evocative storytelling.

The book actually centers on an ‘ordinary guy’: twenty-nine-year-old Joe Agabian, who is a somewhat reluctant accomplice to his best friend Ronnie’s scheme to spend the summer chasing fabulousness and debauchery in the Fire Island Pines. They’re two young men from Philadelphia with nothing tying them down, and one could say their whole lives ahead of them, though it’s the height of the AIDS crisis, accompanied by Christian bigotry festering in national politics, which are ever-lurking terrors. Joe recently lost his ex, Elliot, to AIDS and carries guilt for not fighting harder for their relationship when Elliot defensively pushed him away. Still, he’s hopeful that immersing himself in gay partyland might help to break out of his funk, and when the summer’s over, he’ll be reenergized to pursue his dream of going to medical school.

The plan goes sideways as soon as they step off the ferry, and Ronnie confesses that his promise of bartending jobs for the two of them was a tad overstated. He’s got a housekeeping gig with board at the island’s hotel that will certainly turn into something more glamorous when the hotel owner recognizes the hot commodity he is, and as for Joe, he just needs to find work and a place to stay. Joe is livid, but stuck. He manages to find a room with a pair of older men, Howie and Lenny, who have space in their modest house while the third in their share is getting treatment for AIDS at a New York City hospital.

It’s not much of a spoiler to say that Howie and Lenny are two of the book’s titular disco witches. They have a pantry full of foraged herbs and medicines, and their personal stylings are a combination of Mrs. Roper from Three’s Company and Rip Taylor. Joe suspects there’s something odd going on with the two guys, which makes him a bit uneasy, but meanwhile he lands a job at a low key bar that suits him better than the flashy clubs in town. He’s also distracted by a handsome ferry worker, Fergal, who either hates his guts or wants to get down his pants. The vibes he’s picking up are confusing.

We learn more about the coven through Howie and Lenny’s point-of-view scenes. In addition to their ailing friend, Max, their quintet (a requisite number to channel their elemental power) includes an aging Earth Mama, Dory, and their equally flamboyant contemporary, Saint D’Norman. They’ve been working together since the late 60s and (vaguely) protecting lost young gays from murderous ‘egregores’ escaped from the Great Darkness. Howie and Lenny sense that another egregore is near, with maximal possibility of bridging worlds on the upcoming blood moon, and that Joe may be pivotal to averting disaster, unbeknownst to Joe himself.

There’s a ton to like about the book. The characters are well-drawn and appealing, the fantasy elements are fresh and delightfully ridiculous, and perhaps most of all, Fell captures the Pines scene with the perfect balance of over-the-top queer merriment and the gay beach town’s uglier strains of ageism and class snobbery. One feels though that the story tries too hard to be everything to everyone, beginning with the publisher’s claim that it’s “perfect for fans of The House on the Cerulean Sea, the Tales of the City series, and Red, White, and Royal Blue.”

Huh? Someone on the marketing team sure likes hedging their bets. And unfortunately, bowing to market trends, one supposes, the things the author does so well, like embracing the paradox and nuances of the time period, are interrupted by emphatic romance conventions that are probably too few and far between to satisfy mm rom-com fans anyway. Meanwhile, those expecting Armistead Maupin will skim over the heavy-handed love scenes, wondering when they’ll get back to Howie and Lenny, who have the more interesting stories to tell.

Well, it's a strange time we live in. I caught a social media thread about the book proclaiming Fell as “an Armistead Maupin for the new millennium.” Nevermind that Fell has been writing for decades, and he and Maupin are from the same generation and take inspiration from gay life in the twentieth century. Everything old is new again, I guess, but one wishes that a story about being queer in the 1980s didn’t have to struggle with the notion of widening access points.

Reviewed for Out in Print, to be published in May 2025

Disco Witches of Fire Island is incredibly fun and unapologetically gay. I immediately was hooked by the quick-witted writing style and the queer joy seeping from every page. For a book that takes place in and consistently discusses the AIDs crisis, it felt surprisingly light– emphasizing the joy in finding a like-minded community and the love that can come from being surrounded by those who understand and support you. The magic in this book is simply the magic of belonging, of a support system for even the most lost gays. I really enjoyed this.

Handling the AIDs crisis with an adept pen, Blair Fell paints the picture of a world where queer joy and even queerer magic can resist even the harshest of realities.

This is an incredible read. Gripped me from the get go and held on tight as I read it in basically one sitting. Tough in parts, but it should be when dealing with the AIDs pandemic and fallout for the queer community. The whole book reads like a fever dream in the best way.

A fun romp to Fire Island (LOVED the setting!) with a colourful cast of characters, each struggling with their own issues that come to a head over the course of a summer. There was a lot of care and respect put into the focus of the AIDS crisis and how it affected multiple characters, overall striking a balance between serious and sad moments while also keeping it lighthearted with lots of witty quips and fun dialogue. However, I was disappointed in the fantasy aspect- we really only get a taste towards the end, and it was more magical realism. The writing style and pacing was a bit jarring at times and didn’t always flow, but I found it really shined during emotional moments between characters. I very much felt for each one struggling with their personal hardships, and I appreciate the care the author put into showing their growth or resolutions.

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the ARC!

I was really hoping for a campy good time but I got t a lot of weird phrases and cringey jokes. Joe could have been a great character but he wasn’t.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, it was different than many of the others things I've read recently and made a nice change. I appreciated the harsh look at the AIDs epidemic and the how traumatizing and heartbreaking it was. Ronnie's growth, from looking for a rich sugar daddy to being happy on the island with Vince, and Joe's acceptance of things he cannot change while trying to look for the happier times, even in all the darkness made for a great arc. I loved that Ronnie overcame it all and became a Disco Witch in order to save his best friend. I loved the Disco Witches, and how much Lenny and Howie took care of Joe throughout the summer was adorable. I wish I could see their house in real life because the way it was described sounded amazing.

However, in everything going on, I felt like there may have been TOO much going on. Ronnie, Joe, Elena, Howie, Lenny, Fergal, Saint, Dory, the Gladiator Man.... all had their own stories in a relatively short time span. There was mythology, magical realism, romance, historical, and political aspects, and while they mostly came together well, it felt a little overwhelming at times. I don't think that Fergal needed to have a mythological parent, nor did it really add much to the story... sorry. And, personally, the sentence structure seemed short and choppy at times, feeling more juvenile in a very non juvenile book. But that is just a personal issue that I notice, and is something I think is happening more and more. No more lengthy, complex structures for us, just tell and not a lot of show in the publishing industry.

3.75 stars rounded to 4.

This is the story of Joe and his summer in the late eighties on Fire Island. Joe along with his best friend Ronnie decide to leave Philadelphia and take summer jobs on Fire Island. Ronnie was "promised" bartending jobs and rooms to stay at one of the most popular gay clubs on the island.  Joe arrives a few days after Ronnie. Both with the hopes of finding true love. Joe finds Ronnie working as a hotel porter / maid and living in a tiny room. Joe does land in the attic of a couple of friends and workingbas a bartender in a small club. The story is a dive into the gay community in the eighties when AIDS was a ruthless killer. The search for love and acceptance. Follow Joe and Ronnie's summer on Fire Island. A rollercoaster of emotions, highs and lows, love and loss. The true bond of friends.

I don't know what I was expecting, but this was not it. While I was intrigued by the whole premise of the book, I ended enjoying it way more than I thought I would! There were moments that were gut-wrenching, but also heartfelt moments. You root for Joe's healing and wish for friends like Howie and Lenny. I love a good fantasy read, but I feel like with such important topics like LGBTQIA+ representation and history and the AIDS crisis, too much fantasy would have been a bad thing. Disco Witches of Fire Island had just enough sparkle to make it magical, but not so much that the importance of preserving LGBTQIA+ history and spaces was lost. Hopefully one day we will see more of what came next in a second book!

I love the 80s so was delighted to read this book. Really enjoyed the description of Fire Island and the love and bravery of the gay community on the island through the HIV/AIDS epidemic. A romantic story but thought there would be more of an fantasy aspect. Thank you to Netgalley and Alcove press for ARC.