New Books: 22 March 2022

Blackmoore, Stephen: Suicide Kings

(DAW 978-0-7564-1763-5, $17.47, 224pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, March 22, 2022)

Urban fantasy/noir novel, seventh in the series about LA necromancer Eric Carter. Carter helps a friend with a deadly ritual in Los Angeles, while struggling to adjust to being brought back from the grave.

 

Butner, Richard: The Adventurists

(Small Beer Press 978-1618731944, $17.00, 320pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, March 22, 2022)

Collection of 16 short stories, 10 new.

It turns out that Butner’s stories are wonderfully insidious in a number of ways. He seldom works beyond traditional short story lengths, and the stories tend to be constructed in ways that first seem conventional, with conventional concerns: trying to recapture the past or reconnect with old friends, visiting sideshows and fairs, surviving in anonymous corporations, exploring a spooky old house. Butner also brings along some familiar furniture of fantastika, like magic portals, timeslips, and ghosts. But – more through the accumulation of sinister anomalies than through dramatic plot twists – we watch the world of the tale grow estranged around us. Even the order of the stories in the collection tends to do this, shifting gradually from the almost-mimetic into SF, fantasy, and surrealism.

—Gary K. Wolfe, Locus, February 2022

Cowie, Jayne: Curfew

(Penguin Random House/Berkley 978-0-593-33678-6, $17.00, 320pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, March 22, 2022)

Dystopian SF novel, like The Handmaid’s Tale with women in charge. All men are electronically tagged and placed under strict curfew, but a murder investigation threatens this new order.

 

Deeds, Marion: Comeuppance Served Cold

(Tordotcom 978-1-250-81107-3, $16.99, 192pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, March 22, 2022)

Hardboiled historical fantasy novella about Magi in 1929 Seattle after the stock market crash. Dolly White, hired to be a companion to Fiona, the Commissioner of Magi’s unruly daughter, gets involved with a woman seeking revenge against a volunteer police force run by Fiona’s brother.

 

Fraistat, Ann: What We Harvest

(Penguin Random House/Delacorte 978-0-593-38216-5, $18.99, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, March 15, 2022)

Young-adult horror novel. Wren tries to find a way to stop the strange blight taking the farms and people of Hollow’s End.

 

Gage, Brian James: The Sommelier

(KDK 12 Press 9798482759448, $1.99, 654pp, format: ebook March 20, 2022)

Dark fantasy historical thriller/horror novel set during WWI, second in the Nosferatu Conspiracy series. Kaiser Wilhelm starts WWI as part of a plot to gain immortality with the help of demi-demon Elizabeth Báthory.

 

Kade, Kel: Destiny of the Dead

(Tor 978-1-250-29382-4, $27.99, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, March 22, 2022)

Fantasy novel, the second in the Shroud of Prophecy series. The God of Death is tired of dealing with the living, so he’s decided everyone should die.

 

Laure, Estelle: Remember Me

(St. Martin’s/Wednesday Books 978-1-250-26193-9, $19.99, 272pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, March 22, 2022)

Young-adult SF novel about a teen who tries to recover memories she had erased to avoid heartbreak.

 

Lotz, Sarah: The Impossible Us

(Ace 978-0-593-43677-6, $17.00, 496pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, March 22, 2022)

Fantasy romance novel about love across the multiverse. Two strangers meet online and learn their soul mates are in a parallel world.

 

Mueller, Sara A.: The Bone Orchard

(Tor 978-250-77694-5, $26.99, 432pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, March 22, 2022)

Gothic fantasy mystery novel. A dying emperor orders his favorite concubine to solve his murder.

 

Ruocchio, Christopher: Kingdoms of Death

(DAW 978-0-7564-1309-5, $28.00, 544pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, March 22, 2022)

Epic SF novel, fourth in the Sun Eater series about Hadrian Marlow. Marlow must journey across the galaxy to convince the Lothrian Commonwealth to join the war.

 

Sim, Tara: The City of Dusk

(Orbit US 978-0-316-45889-4, $17.99, 576pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, March 22, 2022)

Fantasy novel, the first book in a trilogy of vengeful gods, defiant chosen ones, and bone and shadow magic. The heirs of the realms of Life, Death, Light, and Darkness fight to save the city that unites them all.

 

Singh, Vandana: Utopias of the Third Kind

(PM Press 978-1-62963-915-4, $14.00, 122pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, March 22, 2022)

Part of the Outspoken Authors series. Collection of 5 stories, plus an interview with Singh conducted by Terry Bisson, and a bibliography.

 

Stokes, Stacy: Remember Me Gone

(Penguin Random House/Viking 978-0-593327661, $17.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, March 22, 2022)

Young-adult speculative thriller novel about a teen whose family has the power to remove painful memories.

 

Winning, Josh: The Shadow Glass

(Titan Books US 978-1789098617, $15.95, 400pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, March 22, 2022)

Fantasy novel. Jack Corman returns to his deceased father’s flat and finds that the sinister puppets from his father’s failed children’s show have come to life.

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