New Books: 15 March 2022
Bacon, Eugen: Mage of Fools 
(Meerkat Press 978-1-946154-66-8, $15.95, 222pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, March 15, 2022)
Dystopian fantasy novel. Jasmin must contend with Mafinga’s tyrannical, book-hating king’s sorcerer to cleanse the socialist state of deadly pollution.
Banwo, Ayanna Lloyd: When We Were Birds 
(Penguin Random House/Doubleday 978-0-385-54726-0, $27.00, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, March 15, 2022)
Literary fantasy novel set in Trinidad. A woman with the power to help the dead pass on who becomes involved with a gravedigger whose family’s beliefs forbid interaction with death.
Beckerlegge, Tom: The Carnival of Ash 
(Rebellion/Solaris US 9781786185006, $24.99, 528pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, March 15, 2022)
Literary fantasy novel. A young wordsmith seeks success amid turmoil in a city filled with libraries and ruled by poets.
Capin, Hannah: I Am Margaret Moore 
(St. Martin’s/Wednesday Books 978-1-250-23957-0, $18.99, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, March 15, 2022)
Young-adult paranormal thriller/horror novel about girls at Marshall Naval School. The friends of Margaret Moore start disappearing as lies are revealed.
Coates, Darcy: The Ravenous Dead 
(Sourcebooks/Poisoned Pen Press 978-1-7282-3922-4, $14.99, 304pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, March 15, 2022)
Horror novel, second in the Gravekeeper series begun in The Whispering Dead. Keira, new groundskeeper at Blighty Graveyard, hears the dead and tries to help them move on, but one, a serial killer in life, has other plans.
Corey, James S.A.: Memory’s Legion 
(Orbit US 978-0-316-66919-1, $28.00, 432pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, March 15, 2022)
Collection of all the short fiction set in the Expanse series. Includes eight stories, one a new novella set after the events of Leviathan Falls. Includes author’s notes on each story.
Holton, India: The League of Gentlewoman Witches 
(Penguin Random House/Jove 978-0-593-20018-6, $16.00, 352pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, March 15, 2022)
Historical fantasy romantic comedy about a very proper witch determined to save her crime sisterhood from a pirate. The second book in the Dangerous Damsels series.
Hossain, Saad Z.: Kundo Wakes Up 
(Tordotcom 978-1-250-82392-2, $15.99, 208pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, March 15, 2022)
Science fantasy novella. Kundo goes searching for his missing wife and finds a string of inexplicable disappearances.
Saad Z. Hossain’s Kundo Wakes Up returns us to the uniquely original vision of a future South Asia plagued by environmental disaster, swarming with airborne nanotech, governed by mostly benevolent AIs, and occasionally plagued by rogue djinns, that we first encountered in The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday back in 2019.
Jones, Nick: The Observer Effect 
(Blackstone Publishing 978-1-66504-833-0, $28.99, 344pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, March 15, 2022)
Time travel fantasy novel, the third in the Joseph Bridgeman series. Bridgeman is just getting settled into life in the present, when The Continuum contacts him from the future, needing his help.
Lyons, Matthew: A Black and Endless Sky 
(Turner/Keylight 978-1-684427093, $17.99, 354pp, formats: trade paperback, hardcover, ebook, audio, March 13, 2022)
Horror novel. Estranged siblings reunite for a road trip to their hometown, but an accident in the Nevada desert leaves one of them with ghostly visions and other terrifying symptoms.
Meginnis, Mike: Drowning Practice 
(HarperCollins/Ecco 978-0-06-307614-3, $27.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, March 14, 2022)
Apocalyptic fantasy novel. Everyone on Earth has the same dream one night, of drowning on November 1. Most people believe the world will end then, but don’t agree on how to spend their last days.
Osunde, Eloghosa: Vagabonds 
(Penguin Random House/Riverhead 978-0-593-33002-9, $28.00, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, March 15, 2022)
Fantasy novel, a mosaic of life in Lagos, as witnessed by a supernatural spirit; many characters suffer because of homophobia and transphobia, and find magical help.
Prineas, Sarah: Asking for Trouble 
(Penguin Random House/Viking 978-0-593-20430-6, $17.99, 288pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, March 15, 2022)
Middle-grade SF novel, sequel to Trouble in the Stars. The shapeshifter Trouble has problems training the rescued baby shifter and helping Electra free other students from the StarLeague military academy.
Scalzi, John: The Kaiju Preservation Society 
(Tor 978-0-7653-8912-1, $25.99, 272pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, March 15, 2022)
SF novel. Jamie gets a job helping an “animal rights organization” — except the animals are massive dinosaur-like creatures, and they live in an alternate dimension.
Sheehan, Jason: Children of the Flying City 
(Penguin Random House/Dutton 978-0-593-10951-9, $17.99, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, March 15, 2022)
Young-adult SF novel about orphan Milo Quick’s final days in the doomed flying city of Highgate.
Shepherd, Peng: The Cartographers 
(HarperCollins/Morrow 978-0-06-291069-1, $29.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, March 15, 2022)
Fantasy novel about a magical map. Nell Young discovers her late father had a seemingly worthless map that someone will do anything to destroy.
The Cartographers explores and exploits the hypnotic sense of wonder of mapmaking itself, and how – in more than a merely metaphorical sense – our representations of the world can become the world itself. All in all, it’s a lot of fun, and at its best reads like a Borgesian conceit transformed into a conspiratorial thriller.
Solà, Irene: When I Sing, Mountains Dance 
(Graywolf Press 978-1-64445-080-2, $15.99, 208pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, March 15, 2022)
Literary fantasy novel about a family in the Pyrenees, their tragedies, ghosts, and the land around them. Translated from the Catalan by Mara Faye Lethem.
St. James, Simone: The Book of Cold Cases 
(Penguin Random House/Berkley 978-0-440-00021-1, $27.00, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, March 15, 2022)
Supernatural thriller novel/ghost story. A true-crime blogger interviews a suspect acquitted of two murders and gets more than she bargained for.
Tchaikovsky, Adrian: Ogres 
(Rebellion/Solaris US 978-1-78618-528-0, $30.00, 144pp, formats: hardcover, audio, March 15, 2022)
SF social satire novella, set in a world where the 1% have been genetically modified to tower over the rest of humanity. The hardcover is a special signed, limited edition.
Tinti, Hannah, ed.: Small Odysseys: Selected Shorts Presents 35 New Stories 
(Workman/Algonquin Books 978-1643751993, $19.95, 336pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, March 15, 2022)
Original anthology. Foreword by Neil Gaiman. Authors include Aimee Bender, Edwidge Danticat, Dave Eggers, Lauren Groff, Jac Jemc, Carmen Maria Machado, Ben Loory, Rivers Solomon.
Worrad, J.L.: Pennyblade 
(Titan Books US 978-1-789097610, $15.95, 416pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, March 15, 2022)
Fantasy novel about a disgraced noble turned mercenary.
