A Magical Mid-Life Adventure
Golem for Broke: A Magical Midlife Urban Fantasy
Mad Queen Book One
Women's Fantasy Fiction, Women's Humorous Fiction, Humorous Fantasy
Te Da Media Inc.
October 12, 2026
Ebook, Audiobook
326
Surviving your forties requires coffee, good friends, and a morally flexible relationship with illegal magic.
Tovah Silver runs Mad Queens Inc., an unlicensed magical problem-solving agency with her three best friends. They've built their reputation on grit, loopholes, and unrepentant competence, ignoring those who think their perimenopausal magic tops out at party tricks.
They’re wrong but correcting them would be a felony. Every one of the Queens has a forbidden second magic buried deep—until an assassin golem forces Tovah to unleash hers.
She thinks she got away with it. Then Nikolai Azarov shows up.
Vancouver’s only golem maker would call her story creative if he wasn’t too busy calling BS. Worse, once he figures out what she actually did to that golem, he doesn’t turn her in. He names his price.
Now Tovah must honor a dangerous bargain with a man who’s already insufferable without leverage, outmaneuver the magic cops circling her agency, and hunt down whoever left a hand-delivered clay effigy on her bed.
Middle age isn't a crisis. It's a weapon.
Perfect for fans of paranormal women’s fiction, slow-burn romance with banter, and found family who’d help you hide a body.
What if hot flashes could be your greatest weapon?
Golem for Broke is my first book by Deborah Wilde, and I’m already a fan of this author’s energy and humor. This paranormal fantasy puts a hilarious, unexpected spin on perimenopause and midlife, blending hot flashes, brain fog, and emotional volatility with golems, vampires, gargoyles, and other paranormal characters. Wilde turns the oh-so-true challenges of “the change” into magical weapons that kick some serious butt. I couldn’t love this take on perimenopause more.
Even if you’re a reader who isn’t in midlife, I think there’s something for everyone in Golem for Broke:
- A unique cast of paranormal characters with an emphasis on Jewish myth (golems, ziz, etc.)
- Descriptive writing with great urban fantasy world-building
- A touch of enemies-to-lovers romance
- Found family and strong female friendships
- Laugh-out-loud witticisms
- An easy-to-read, fast-paced paranormal mystery
My one criticism is that this book read like it was a story already in progress rather than the first book in a new series. Comments sprinkled throughout the book suggested backstories that I really wanted to learn more about, but those histories were missing from the character development. The author may have done this in anticipation of future stories, but as written, it felt more like I was plopped in the middle of a book and was hurrying to catch up. More than once, I popped online to confirm that this was indeed book one and not the second or third book in the series.
Golem for Broke also ends with a mini cliffhanger. After confirming that the second book in the series, Shift Show, will be out in January, I’m definitely adding it to my TBR. It will be another fun read, I’m sure.
A four-out-of-five-star paranormal fantasy read!
Celeste is a woman who is unwavering about certain things in life; three of those being books, cats, and cold brew coffee. If she can enjoy all three at the same time, it’s going to be a good day. Her favorite genres are fantasy or sci-fi romance, historical romance, and historical fiction but every few books she likes to mix it up with contemporary fiction, a good psychological thriller, or an inspiring memoir. She has a busy schedule working full-time for an online university but she makes sure to unwind each day with stories, either by reading to her elementary school-aged daughter or tucking herself in bed with her Kindle or the latest book she picked up at a local book store.
