New Books: 13 September 2022

Amor, Gemma: Full Immersion

(Angry Robot UK 978-0-85766-981-0, $15.99, 352pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, September 13, 2022)

SF horror. A traumatized woman with amnesia finds her own dead body and sets out to uncover the truth of her demise.

 

Bacon, Eugen: Chasing Whispers

(Raw Dog Screaming/Anti-Oedipus 978-1-947879-44-7, $15.95, 198pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, September 8, 2022)

Original collection of 13 stories (two reprints) of transformative Afro-irrealist Black speculative fiction. Introduction by D. Harlan Wilson.

 

Campbell, Ramsey: Fellstones

(Flame Tree Press UK 978178758-757-1, $24.95, 320pp, formats: hardcover, trade paperback, ebook, September 13, 2022)

Horror novel. Paul Dunstan changed his name and left his childhood village, with its mysterious fellstones on the village green, and the strange, controlling family that adopted him. But his estranged step-sister has found him, bringing dark secrets from his childhood.

 

Cavendish, Catherine: Dark Observation

(Flame Tree Press 978-1-78758-683-3, $26.95, 288pp, formats: hardcover, trade paperback, ebook, September 13, 2022)

Gothic horror novel set in 1941 London, where Violet works in subterranean War Rooms. Something is wrong with her memories, and there’s a room only she can see.

 

Chupeco, Rin: Silver Under Nightfall

(Simon & Schuster/Saga Press 978-1982195717, $28.99, 512pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, September 13, 2022)

Queer gothic fantasy novel. A noble-but-outcast vampire hunter considers whether he should be on the vampires’ side.

 

Craig, Kevin: Book of Dreams

(Chicago Review 978-1-951954-19-2, $12.99, 284pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, September 13, 2022)

Young-adult fantasy novel. A boy becomes trapped in an enchanted book.

 

Eshun, Ekow: In the Black Fantastic

(MIT Press 978-0262047258, $39.95, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, September 13, 2022)

Art book, an illustrated exploration of Black culture collecting imagery from the African diaspora that embraces the mythic and speculative and Afrofuturism. Essays by Michelle D. Commander, Eshun, and Kameelah L. Martin.

 

Evans, Davinia: Notorious Sorcerer

(Orbit US 978-0-316-39803-9, $17.99, 448pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, September 13, 2022)

Fantasy adventure novel. Inter-planal errand boy Siyon Velo accidentally performs a public act of impossible magic in a city where inquisitors have clamped down on such acts.

 

Gumá, Mariana Osorio: When You Get to the Other Side

(Cinco Puntos 9788-1-947627-61-1, $20.95, 300pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, September 11, 2022)

Young-adult fantasy novel about teen siblings journeying from Mexico to the US with help from their supernatural abilities, honed with help from their grandmother. Translated by Cecilia Weddell.

 

Johnson, Crystal J., Vaughn, Felicity: Spellbound

(Wattpad/W by Wattpad 978-1990259401, $16.99, 320pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, September 13, 2022)

Paranormal romance novel about a love triangle in a strange hotel with ghost-like residents.

 

Kelly, Sofie: Whiskers and Lies

(Penguin Random House/Berkley Prime Crime 978-0-593-19998-5, $27.00, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, September 13, 2022)

Fantasy mystery novel, the 14th book in the Magical Cats series. A local baker is wrongly accused of a contentious in-law’s death.

 

Lesperance, Nicole: The Depths

(Penguin Random House/Razorbill 9780593465363, $16.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, September 13, 2022)

Young-adult Gothic horror novel. Tagging along with her mother’s honeymoon, Addie gets stuck on a haunted tropical island and must unravel its secrets to escape.

 

Ma, Ling: Bliss Montage

(Macmillan/Farrar, Straus, Giroux 978-0-374-29351-2, $26.00, 240pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, September 13, 2022)

Collection of eight stories, each surreal, or magical realism, or with speculative elements.

McEwan, Stacey: Ledge

(Angry Robot UK 9781915202161, $22.99, 288pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, September 13, 2022)

Gritty fantasy novel. First book in the Glacian Trilogy. A human village is controlled by winged Glacians, who steal souls to make their herd docile—or hunt them for sport.

 

Mesa, Desideria: Bindle Punk Bruja

(Harper Voyager US 978-0-06-305608-4, $17.99, 400pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, September 13, 2022)

Historical fantasy novel of a white-passing bruja and illegal jazz club owner in the 1920s who deals with the crooks running the city while hiding her identity and magical abilities.

 

Muir, Tamsyn: Nona the Ninth

(Tordotcom 978-1-250-85411-7, $28.99, 480pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, September 13, 2022)

Epic science-fantasy novel, third in the Locked Tomb series. Nona woke up in a stranger’s body, and she’s afraid she might have to give it back.

If you loved Gideon and Harrow, will you love Nona? And: obvs. You already know.

Nona the Ninth is very on brand in that it completely scraps the previous book. That’s right: all that painstaking lore and the complex relationships and shifting webs of allegiances you spent hundreds of pages learning? Right out the window.

And – still on brand – it works, somehow.

—Sam Miller, Locus, August 2022

Preus, Margi: Windswept

(Abrams/Amulet 978-1-4197-5824-9, $17.99, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, September 13, 2022)

Upper middle-grade fantasy novel. Kids join forces to rescue siblings who have been “windswept” away. Illustrated by Armando Veve.

 

Rickert, M.: Lucky Girl

(Tordotcom 978-1-250-81733-4, $15.99, 110pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, September 13, 2022)

Horror novella.  Struggling writer Ro invites four lonely strangers over for Christmas dinner, where they share ghost stories—seasonally appropriate ones—of Krampus.

 

Russell, R.B.: Fifty Forgotten Books

(And Other Stories UK 978-1-913505-50-9, $19.95, 224pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, September 13, 2022)

Non-fiction, a combination of literary musings and memoir offering a tour of often-overlooked books (fiction and non-fiction) that influenced Russell, himself a booklover, author, and co-publisher of supernatural fiction at Tartarus Press.

 

Stein, Scott: The Great American Betrayal

(Tiny Fox Press 978-1-946501-45-5, $15.95, 220pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, September 13, 2022)

Humorous SF mystery novel, sequel to The Great American Deception. PI Frank Harken and his coffeebot/partner follow clues, searching for whoever is trying to blackmail one of the Great American Mall’s biggest infleucecelebs.

 

Stufflebeam, Bonnie Jo: Glorious Fiends

(Underland Press 978-1-63023-066-1, $14.99, 128pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, September 13, 2022)

Humorous horror novella about a vampire determined to resurrect her deceased friends.

 

Trent, Brian: Redspace Rising

(Flame Tree Press UK 978-1-78758-658-1, $26.95, 288pp, formats: hardcover, trade paperback, ebook, September 13, 2022)

Far-future SF novel. Harris Alexander Pope, veteran of the Partisan War on Mars, hunts war criminals hiding in other bodies.