New Books: 3 August 2021
Awad, Mona: All’s Well 
(Simon & Schuster 978-1-9821-6966-4, $27, 368 pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, August 3, 2021)
A theater professor dealing with chronic pain is given the ability to transfer her pain to others, and gets vindictive.
Azad, Nafiza: The Wild Ones 
(Simon & Schuster/McElderry 978-1-5344-8496-2, $18.99, 352 pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, August 3, 2021)
Young-adult fantasy novel. A group of women known as the Wild Ones use the magic of the stars in their palms to help those who suffer, but now must team up to save the Keeper of the Between who created the stars.
Brett, Peter V.: The Desert Prince 
(Penguin Random House/Del Rey 978-1984817082, $29.99, 656 pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, August 3, 2021)
Fantasy novel, the first in a new series, following after the Demon Saga series.
Fifteen years have passed since the end of the war with demons, but on the other side of the wards the demons are not all gone, and those that remain hunger for revenge.
Gable, Scott, Dombrowski, C., eds.: Cooties Shot Required: There Are Things You Must Know 
(Broken Eye Books 978-1-940372-60-0, 19.99, 185pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, August 3, 2021)
Original anthology of 14 weird stories about the secret lives of kids. Authors include Clinton J. Boomer, Ada Hoffman, Haralambi Markov, and Premee Mohamed. Introduction by Scott Gable. Illustrated in black and white by various artists.
Gould, Courtney: The Dead and the Dark 
(St. Martin’s/Wednesday Books 978-1-250-76201-6, $18.99, 384 pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, August 3, 2021)
Young-adult supernatural dark fantasy novel. Teens are disappearing or turning up dead in Snakebite OR, where suspicion focuses on a group of ghost hunters.
Jang, Jadie: Monkey Around 
(Rebellion/Solaris US 978-1-78108-920-0, $14.99, 405 pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, August 3, 2021)
Fantasy novel set in San Francisco about were-monkey barista activist Maya McQueen, facing social unrest, shapeshifter murders, and a city looking for its guardian.
Kleeman, Alexandra: Something New Under the Sun 
(Penguin Random House/Hogarth US 978-1-984826305, $28.00, 368 pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, August 3, 2021)
Near-future SF novel of climate change and synthetic water. Novelist goes to LA to see his novel adapted for film, but begins to think something strange is going on.
Kluger, Jeffrey: Holdout 
(Penguin Random House/Dutton 978-0-593-18469-1, $26, 352 pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, August 3, 2021)
Technothriller/SF novel about a female astronaut who seizes control of the International Space Station to protest/stop the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.
Kopacz, Anita: Shallow Waters 
(Simon & Schuster/Black Privilege 978-1-9821-7966-3, $26, 224 pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, August 3, 2021)
Fantasy novel inspired by Afro-Caribbean legend. Yemaya, a Yoruban mermaid deity, tries to save a young man taken as a slave in Africa and transported to the antebellum South, and her search involves her with the Underground Railroad.
Lee, Victoria: A Lesson in Vengeance 
(Penguin Random House/Delacorte 978-0593305829, $18.99, 384 pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, August 3, 2021)
Young-adult thriller/horror novel about a boarding school with a history of witchcraft.
Malan, Violette: The Godstone 
(DAW 978-0-7564-1627-0, $27, 304 pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, August 3, 2021)
Fantasy novel, the first in a series. Magic healer Fenra gets involved in intrigue involving an artifact that could destroy the world.
Oates, Joyce Carol: Breathe 
(HarperCollins/Ecco 978-0-06-308547-3, $28.99, 384 pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, August 3, 2021)
A woman, terrified of losing her dying husband, begins to lose touch with reality and obsesses over gods and myths.
Richmond, Caroline Tung: The Great Destroyers 
(Scholastic Press 978-1338266740, $18.99, 400 pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, August 3, 2021)
Young-adult alternate history SF novel about a 1960s Cold War fought with robots and cyborgs.
Rickert, M.: The Shipbuilder of Bellfairie 
(Undertow Publications 978-1-988964-32-4, $29.99, 248 pp, formats: hardcover, trade paperback, ebook, August 3, 2021)
Fantasy novel. Quark returns to Bellfairie, searching for his father and clues to his mother’s mysterious death. But no one goes to Bellfairie on purpose, it’s always a wrong turn in someone’s life, as Quark will soon learn.
“While Rickert’s skilled evocation of this myth-imbued reality lends otherworldly atmosphere to her setting (we don’t even know quite where Bellefairie is), she also introduces enough plot twists to keep the mystery compelling, and enough intriguing characters to convey the sense of a functioning, if oddball, community: the slightly dense sheriff Healy, the crusty restaurant owner Dora, the retired substitute teacher Mrs. Winter with her mythic tales, even the owner of the mortuary and the mysterious pregnant waitress, are all sketched with deft strokes. But the hapless but well-intentioned Quark remains at the center of the tale. We’re told at the outset that ‘‘His name was Quark, and the worst thing he ever did was nothing at all,’’ and while that cryptic comment doesn’t become entirely clear until the novel’s stunning ending, it sets the tone for this darkly magical tale.”
Rueckert, Laura: A Dragonbird in the Fern 
(North Star Editions/Flux 9781635830651, $9.99, 392 pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, August 3, 2021)
Young-adult fantasy novel. A dyslexic princess travels to a foreign land to marry the man her older sister was betrothed to, before she was assassinated. Agreeing offers an opportunity to find the truth and avenge her sister, but also leaves her alone in a foreign land, unable to learn the language, and targeted by that same assassin.
Salvatore, R.A.: Starlight Enclave 
(Harper Voyager US 978-0-06-302977-4, $27.99, 464 pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, August 3, 2021)
Gaming tie-in novel, the first in the Way of the Drow trilogy in the Drizzt series in the Forgotten Realms world.
Sanchez-Taylor, Joy: Diverse Futures: Science Fiction and Authors of Color 
(Ohio State University Press 978-0-8142-5797-5, $129.95, 188 pp, formats: hardcover, trade paperback, ebook, August 3, 2021)
Non-fiction, a critical exploration of late-20th- and 21st-century authors of multiple races and ethnicities, and ways they challenge or comment on issues of inclusiveness in Eurowestern cultures. Authors discussed include Octavia E. Butler, Ted Chiang, Sabrina Vourvoulias.
Tilahun, Na’amen Gobert: The Fruit 
(Skyhorse/Night Shade Books 978-1-949102-00-0, $14.99, 384 pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, August 3, 2021)
Urban fantasy novel set in San Francisco, the third book in the Wrath & Athenaeum trilogy.
