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Yours Celestially by Al Hess

After divorce, death, and having his reformatted soul uploaded into a new body, Sasha expected resurrection to be a fresh start. His time spent in digital Limbo with the program's cheeky AI guardian angel, Metatron, was cathartic, but what good is a second life when he only sees his daughter on the weekends, he has all the same problems he had before he died, and he can't seem to shake the ache for the married life he lost? If that weren't frustrating enough, a glitch in the program has given Sasha the ability to sense Metatron even outside of Limbo. And Metatron is in love. The angel's sickly-sweet yearning for one of the souls still in Limbo has turned Sasha's stomach into caramelized lead. It's hard enough to move on without someone else's feelings making the emptiness in his own life even more acute. He didn't have playing wingman to an actual winged being on his bingo card, but he's determined to help Metatron make a move on their crush so he ca...
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In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children, #4)

There's a strange calm in already knowing how a story ends. In An Absent Dream is filled with sadness and wonder, too-clever bargains and barely-survived scrapes. Lessons of friendship, loss, fair value, and the weight of promises. Welcome to the Goblin Market. 

This focuses on someone whom we met earlier in the series as far as the reader is concerned, but in her own timeline she is barely getting started. This creates a sense of tragedy and wonder all tangled together as we slowly learn the reason for the bargain waiting in the end of the story. The pacing is very well handled, skipping what would only bog the story down, lingering on her indecision just enough to make the reader understand what would drive here to her eventual choice. I love Moon's wildness contrasting Lundy's steady attention and determination. 

The story is great, I like this version of the Goblin Market and it has the nebulous mix of rules and capriciousness that makes the setting feel otherworldly, which is perfect for this series. There was a moment partway through where I was torn between rooting for success and failure because both options seemed to have a terrible cost. The slow unfolding of rules helped convey how much Lundy was growing up, it helps to keep the reader from getting an info-dump while still making sure the character knows what she ought.

CW for body horror, child death (not depicted), pregnancy (brief mention).

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A broad-trunked tree with many branches stands in a forest at night, a glowing, partially open door visible in its middle.

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