New Books: 14 March 2023

Ashton, Edward: Antimatter Blues (St. Martin’s 978-1-250-27505-9, $26.99, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 3/14/2023)

Bakewell, Catherine: Flowerheart (HarperTeen 978-0-06-321459-0, $17.19, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 3/14/2023)

Young-adult fantasy novel. Perfect for fans of Margaret Rogerson and Tamora Pierce, this standalone YA debut is a stunning cottagecore fantasy romance about a girl with powerful and violent magic which she must learn to control—or lose everything she loves. Clara’s out-of-control magic causes plants to grow wildly but seems harmless until she accidentally curses her father, and to save him must control her magic and perform a spell she’s never learned.

Barrett, Redfern Jon: Proud Pink Sky (Bywater Books/Amble 978-1612942537, $20.95, 275pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 3/14/2023)

Benn, James R.: The Refusal Camp (Soho Crime 978-1-64129-451-5, $26.95, 264pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 3/14/2023)

Collection of nine crime stories, three new; two stories have genre elements, one SF (“Glass”) and another (“The Secret of Hemlock Hill”) involving ghosts. These dazzling stories show a crime fiction veteran at the height of his career. In his first-ever collection, the award-winning author of the Billy Boyle World War II mysteries presents an eclectic mix of new and previously published mystery stories rife with historical detail and riveting wartime storytelling.

Cheon, Myeong-Kwan: The Whale (Archipelago Books 978-1953861146, $22, 372pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 3/14/2023)

The Whale is the English-language debut of a beloved and bestselling South Korean author, a born storyteller with a cinematic, darkly humorous, and thoroughly original perspective. This is a satirical adventure novel about three women: an ambitious thrill-chaser who once saw a whale crest, her mute daughter who communicates with elephants, and a one-eyed woman who controls honeybees with a whistle. Translated from the Korean by Chi-Young Kim.

Coatsworth, J. Scott: The Dragon Eater (Water Dragon Publishing 978-1-959804-27-7, $26.99, 308pp, formats: hardcover, trade paperback, ebook, 3/16/2023)

Raven’s a thief who just swallowed a dragon. A small one, sure, but now his arms are growing scales, the local wildlife is acting up, and his snarky AI familiar is no help whatsoever.

 

Dyachenko, Marina & Sergey Dyachenko: Assassin of Reality (Harper Voyager US 978-0-06-322542-8, $28.99, 256pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 3/14/2023)

The eagerly anticipated sequel to the highly acclaimed Vita Nostra takes readers to the next stage in Sasha Samokhina’s journey in a richly imagined world of dark academia in which grammar is magic—and not all magic is good.

 

Fay, Cayla: Ravensong (Simon & Schuster 978-1665905299, $19.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook,
audio, 3/14/2023)

Young-adult fantasy novel, A demi-god who refuses to cohabitate with humans accidentally falls in love with one in the first book of a pulse-pounding teen duology that’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Celtic mythology.

 

Gout, Leopoldo: Piñata (Tor/Nightfire 978-1-250-78117-8, $24.06, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio,
3/14/2023)

Horror novel of possession. The restoration of an ancient Mexican abbey releases something malevolent.

 

Katsu, Alma: Red London (Penguin Random House/Putnam 978-0-593-42195-6, $27, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 3/14/2023)

Near-future spy thriller, a sequel to Red Widow set in post-Putin Europe after “the Ukraine fiasco.” CIA agent Lyndsey Duncan is sent to London, where she goes undercover to investigate a Russian oligarch by befriending his wife.

 

Mandelo, Lee: Feed Them Silence (Tordotcom 978-1-250-82450-9, $19.99, 112pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 3/14/2023)

Near-future SF novella. A researcher in 2031 links her brain to that of a wolf in a shrinking habitat, but her wife questions her motives.

 

McCullough, Joy: Enter the Body (Penguin Random House/Dutton 978-0-5934-0675-5, $18.99, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 3/14/2023)

Young-adult novel in verse about the ghosts of girls who die in Shakespeare’s plays: Juliet, Ophelia, Cordelia, and more, in a room beneath a stage’s trapdoor where they compare and retell the stories of their lives.

 

Salman, Naomi: Nothing but the Rain (Tordotcom 978-1-250-84980-9, $16.99, 96pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 3/14/2023)

Apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic SF novella. The rain in Aloisville never stops, and each drop that hits a resident’s skin takes away a bit of memory.

 

Shahnaz, Zeba: Midnight Strikes (Penguin Random House/Delacorte 978-0-593-56755-5, $19.99, 448pp, formats: hardcover, ebook,
audio, 3/14/2023)

Young-adult fantasy time loop novel. Anaîs, killed at a ball, wakes up the previous day and
tries to stop the disaster — over and over. A first novel.

 

Topping, John: Legacy of Atlantis (Gramarye Media 978-1611883480, $26.95, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 3/14/2023)

Science fantasy novel. Charlie moves to the moon to live with his uncle, who turns out to be Merlin, and Charlie an heir to Atlantis — and then Charlie and some friends uncover the body of an ancient Atlantean astronaut on the lunar surface.

 

Tsai, Mia: Bitter Medicine (Tachyon Publications 978-1-61696-384-2, $18.95, 272pp, formats: hardcover, trade paperback, ebook, audio, 3/14/2023)

Modern fantasy novel inspired by xianxia (Chinese martial arts fantasy). A first novel.

 

Underwood, Sarah: Lies We Sing to the Sea (HarperCollins UK/Farshore/Electric Monkey 978-0-00-855853-6, $15.97, 432pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 3/16/2023)

Young-adult fantasy, a sapphic, feminist retelling of the story of the hanged maids in The Odyssey. Each spring, Ithaca condemns twelve maidens to the noose. This is the price vengeful Poseidon demands for the lives of Queen Penelope’s twelve maids, hanged and cast into the depths centuries ago.

 

Varghese, Anuja: Chrysalis (House of Anansi 978-1-4870-1166-6, 17.99, 208pp, formats: trade paperback,
ebook, 3/14/2023)

Genre-blending stories of transformation and belonging that center women of color and explore queerness, family, and community.