New Books: 8 February 2022
Asher, April: Not the Witch You Wed 
(St. Martin’s Griffin 978-1-250-80799-1, $16.99, 352pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, February 8, 2022)
Humorous paranormal romance novel, the first in the Supernaturals Singles series. A magicless witch and a wolf shifter, ordered to find mates, fake a relationship only to find old secrets — and feelings — complicate things.
Barnes, S.A.: Dead Silence 
(Tor Nightfire 978-1-250-81999-4, $26.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, February 8, 2022)
SF horror novel. A decades-lost luxury star cruiser reappears, but the salvage crew finds horrors onboard.
Blake, Sara: Clean Air 
(Workman/Algonquin Books 978-1643751061, $25.95, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, February 8, 2022)
Near-future post-apocalyptic dystopian SF novel. Excess pollen production in trees in 2032 kills billions of humans, and ten years later Isabel must find a serial killer from clues her four-year-old daughter mutters in her sleep.
Coulter, Catherine: The Grayson Sherbrooke Otherworldly Adventures, Books 1-5 
(Blackstone Publishing 9798200757848, $19.95, 400pp, formats: trade paperback, hardcover, February 8, 2022)
Omnibus of five novellas in the historical fantasy series related to Coulter’s (non-fantasy) Bride series of Regency romances featuring the Sherbrooke family. Includes The Red Witch of Ravenstone Folly, The Starange Visitation at Wolffe Hall, The Resident Evil at Blackthorn Manor, The Ancient Spirits of Sedgwick House, and The Virgin Bride of Northcliffe hall.
Gran, Sara: The Book of the Most Precious Substance 
(Dreamland Books 978-0578947099, $18.95, 332pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, February 8, 2022)
Supernatural thriller/horror novel. Rare book dealer Lily Albrecht gets a lead on a rare 17th-century sex-magic manual.
McWilliams, Kelly: Mirror Girls 
(Little, Brown 978-0-316-48733-7, $17.99, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, February 8, 2022)
Young-adult Gothic horror novel. Biracial twins, separated after the lynching of their parents, re-unite at the dawn of the Civil Rights movement — but one is a Black activist, the other a white-passing heiress in a haunted town, and her mirror image disappears as soon as she learns the truth.
O’Leary, Patrick: 51 
(Tachyon Publications , $16.95, 296pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, February 8, 2022)
SF novel. Adam picks up a homeless man who turns out to be an old college friend who has been deeply involved at the conspiracy in Area 51, which involved faking UFOs and erasing hundreds of people’s memories.
What if the whole crashed-spaceship-and-hidden-aliens scenario was itself a cover story to divert attention from a far more disturbing and inexplicable discovery, which has unfolded over decades? (This is hardly a spoiler, since we learn it only a few chapters in.)
[. . .]
While some of O’Leary’s short chapters are filled with such snappy banter that they seem ready for the screen, there are also passages of truly lovely prose to remind us that this is much more than a conspiracy thriller. Koop’s enduring message to his IF friends, toward the end, is simply ‘‘You were loved.’’ It’s a message of self-discovery familiar from O’Leary’s other novels, but, as always, it’s a bit surprising to realize how skillfully and shrewdly he’s prepared us to believe it.
—Gary Wolfe, Locus, February 2022
Olde Heuvelt, Thomas: Echo 
(Tor Nightfire 978-1-250-75955-9, $29.99, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, February 8, 2022)
Supernatural thriller. A climber awakens in the hospital, badly injured and his partner missing, after encountering something ominous waiting for them in the Swiss Alps.
Pierlot, Ciel: Bluebird 
(Angry Robot US 978-0-85766-966-7, $14.99, 400pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, February 8, 2022)
SF novel. Three factions vie for control of the galaxy. Rig, a rebellious deserter doesn’t care about any of that, until she learns that her former faction has captured her twin, and will kill her if they don’t get back what Rig stole.
Willberg, T.A.: Marion Lane and the Deadly Rose 
(Park Row Books 978-0-7783-1194-2, $27.99, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, February 2, 2022)
Mystery novel with elements of fantasy, sequel to Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder. Scotland Yard needs Marion’s help in stopping the serial killer they call The Florist, but she’s already dealing with a dangerous infiltrator in her own school.
