New Books: 21 June 2022
Allocco, Benjamin: Mr. Ugly 
(Black Rose Writing 781684339655, $21.95, 325pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, June 16, 2022)
Horror novel. The psychic Gertie, a detective, and a teen fight a malicious entity that possesses people, forcing them to kill in sadistic ways.
Bayron, Kalynn: This Wicked Fate 
(Bloomsbury USA 978-1-5476-0920-8, $18.99, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, June 21, 2022)
Young-adult fantasy novel, sequel to This Poison Heart.
Like This Poison Heart, This Wicked Fate deals largely with family, the kind you’re born into, the kind you build along the way, and the kind you rediscover. Karter and Bri act as contrasts. Both have large families with roots extending into the Greek pantheon, but while Bri’s offers unconditional love and boundless support, Karter’s is determined largely by one’s worth and power.
—Alex Brown, Locus, June 2022
Connell, Brendan, ed.: The Zinzolin Book of Occult Fiction 
(Snuggly Books 978-1-64525098-2, $22.00, 334pp, formats: trade paperback, June 21, 2022)
Anthology of 22 occult stories from 1888-1911 during the occult revival of the British Isles. Authors include Arthur Conan Doyle and Aleister Crowley. This is the first book in a planned series on occult fiction.
Covert, K.S.: The Petting Zoos 
(Dundurn 978-1-45974880-4, $18.99, 368pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, June 21, 2022)
Near-future SF novel. Human touch is taboo, so some people turn to illegal human petting zoos.
El-Arifi, Saara: The Final Strife 
(Penguin Random House/Del Rey 978-0-593-35694-4, $28.99, 608pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, June 21, 2022)
Fantasy novel inspired by Ghanaian folklore and Aragian mythology. Three women must work together to fight a cruel empire.
Gomillion, Agnes: The Seed of Cain 
(Titan Books US 978-1789091182, $15.95, 416pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, June 21, 2022)
Dystopian Afrofuturist SF novel of race relations after WWIII leaves Earth in ruins, second in the Record Keeper series.
Harrow, Alix E.: A Mirror Mended 
(Tordotcom 978-1-250-76664-9, $18.99, 144pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, June 21, 2022)
Fairytale fantasy novella, a sequel to A Spindle Splintered. Zinnia Gray is getting tired of rescuing sleeping princesses when Snow White’s evil queen turns up, wanting a better ending for her story.
Jennings, Alex: The Ballad of Perilous Graves 
(Orbit US/Redhook 978-0-759-55719-2, $28.00, 464pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, June 21, 2022)
Urban fantasy novel set in a magical New Orleans, where nine songs of power have escaped, the Haint of all Haints is angry, and it’s up to three children to save the city they love.
Johnston, Bryan: Death Warrant 
(CamCat Books 978-0-7443-0508-1, $24.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, June 21, 2022)
SF novel about reality show where contestants are hunted and killed as public spectacle. Frankie agrees to be assassinated on a reality show to save her brother from financial ruin.
Liu, Ken: Speaking Bones 
(Simon & Schuster/Saga Press 978-1982148973, $29.99, 1072pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, June 21, 2022)
Fantasy novel, the fourth book in the Dandelion Dynasty series.
Matthews, John: The Great Book of King Arthur & His Knights of the Round Table 
(Harper Design 978-0-06-324312-5, $32.50, 512pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, June 21, 2022)
Retelling of the story of King Arthur, pulling together various original versions of Arthur and his knights, from Celtic stories to Malory’s Morte D’Arthur and tales from other lands. Foreword by Neil Gaiman. Illustrated by John Howe with 15 full-color paintings and 25 pencil drawings.
McClellan, Brian: In the Shadow of Lightning 
(Tor 978-1-250-75569-8, $28.99, 576pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, June 21, 2022)
Fantasy novel, the first book in the Glass Immortals trilogy. Exiled general Demir Grappo returns to take his seat as head of the family after his mother is killed over a secret: magic is running out, and no one knows how to stop it.
McIntosh, Will: The Classmate 
(Future House 978-1-950020-51-5, $15.95, 170pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, June 21, 2022)
Middle-grade SF novel. Benjamin, 13, is forced to attend a special boarding school where he takes etiquette classes with an angry spike-covered creature named Eve.
Moshfegh, Ottessa: Lapvona 
(Penguin Random House/Penguin Press 978-0593300268, $26.00, 314pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, June 21, 2022)
Medieval fantasy novel about a village with a cruel lord, a delusional motherless boy, and a woman who can communicate with the natural world.
Those who’ve read Moshfegh’s collection, Homesick for Another World, will know she has a predilection for rot and decay, for bodily fluids and physical disfigurement. While it’s a proclivity that’s less overt in her novels, the general misery and violence of the Middle Ages allows Moshfegh to indulge that aspect of her work.
Reid, Ava: Juniper & Thorn 
(Harper Voyager US 978-0-06-297316-0, $27.99, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, June 21, 2022)
Gothic horror retelling the Brothers Grimm fairytale “The Juniper Tree” in the same world as The Wolf and the Woodsman.
Schubach, Alanna: The Nobodies 
(Blackstone Publishing 9781665095778, $28.99, 300pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, June 21, 2022)
Body-swap novel. Two women can swap bodies, but their reliance on each other’s strengths becomes a problem when they deceive each other.
Vilhjálmsson, Alexander Dan: The Storm Beneath a Midnight Sun 
(Titan Books US 9781789095555, $15.95, 576pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, June 21, 2022)
Fantasy novel, standalone follow up to Shadows of the Short Days. Recovering addict Elka flees war in Reykjavík to find a new life on a remote fishing island that has peculiar magical properties.
Vogel, DW: Nightfell: The Risen 
(Outland Entertainment 978-1-947659193, $17.95, 272pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, June 21, 2022)
Ten out of every 100 years is “Nightfell” — a span of darkness when monsters destroy what civilization remains. In the last days of the latest Nightfell, Dolen goes in search of herbs to save his pregnant wife’s life.
