New Books: 3 October 2023
Baker, Kylie Lee: The Scarlet Alchemist
(Harlequin/Inkyard Press 9781335458018, $19.99, 432pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/03/2023)
Young-adult historical fantasy novel, the first in a duology set in an alternate Tang Dynasty China, where a poor biracial girl with the ability to raise the dead gets caught up in the dangerous political games of the royal family.
Basu, Samit: The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport
(Tordotcom 9781250827517, $28.99, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 10/03/2023)
SF adventure novel takes on tech, with a twist of magic. When Shantiport’s resident tech billionaire coerces Lina, daughter of failed revolutionaries, into retrieving a powerful artifact rumored to be able to reshape reality, forces from before their time begin coalescing around Lina & her brother Bador, a small monkey bot. Throw in a piece of sentient, off-world tech with the ability to grant three wishes into the mix… None of the city’s powers will know what hit them.
Behling, D.P.: Josh & Sen Save the Multiverse: The Path of One
(Cadence Group 9798988653509, $4.99, 276pp, formats: ebook, 10/03/2023)
Humorous science fantasy novel, the first in the Josh & Sen Save the Multiverse series. Josh is pulled into the multidimensional world of the Immortals and to return home must reach Transcendence with the help of Sen, who is seeking to regain his Immortality.
Emmerichs, Sharon: Shield Maiden
(Orbit US/Redhook 9780316566919, $18.99, 416pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 10/03/2023)
Debut fantasy novel, an epic & intimate narrative refocusing Beowulf on a fierce young woman reclaiming her power.
Garcia, Rebecca Hirsch: The Girl Who Cried Diamonds & Other Stories
(ECW Press 9781770417274, $18.95, 208pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 10/03/2023)
Debut collection of speculative stories that “flirt between the surreal and the mundane horror of the every day.”
Griffith, Nicola: Menewood
(Macmillan/Farrar, Straus, Giroux/MCD 9780374208080, $35, 720pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/03/2023)
Associational historical novel, sequel to Hild, about the life of St. Hilda of Whitby in seventh-century Britain, believed to have a seer’s powers.
Hand, Elizabeth: A Haunting on the Hill
(Little, Brown/Mulholland Books 9780316527323, $30, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/03/2023)
Horror novel, an authorized return to the world of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.
Harrow, Alix E.: Starling House
(Tor 9781250799050, $28.99, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/03/2023)
Haunted house horror novel about a house full of secrets, and a young woman determined to have a home. When Opal gets the chance to step inside Starling House―and make some extra cash for her brother’s escape fund―she can’t resist. But sinister forces are digging deeper into the buried secrets of Starling House; as the town of Eden, KY itself seems to be drowning in its own ghosts, Opal realizes that she might finally have found a reason to stick around.
Herbert, Brian & Anderson, Kevin J.: Princess of Dune
(Tor 9781250906212, $28.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/03/2023)
SF novel, extension of the Dune series started by Frank Herbert. Set two years before Dune, this looks at two key women in Paul Muad’Dib’s life: Princess Irulan and the Fremen Chani. Copyrighted by Herbert Properties.
Jackson, Kosoko: The Forest Demands Its Due
(HarperCollins/Quill Tree 9780063260795, $19.99, 432pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 10/03/2023)
Young-adult horror novel. Seventeen-year-old Douglas Jones wants nothing to do with Regent’s king-making; he’s just trying to survive. But then a student is murdered and, for some reason, by the next day no one remembers him having ever existed, except for Douglas and the groundskeeper’s son, Everett Everley. In his determination to uncover the truth, Douglas awakens a horror hidden within the forest, unearthing secrets that have been buried for centuries.
Jessup, Paul: Glass House
(Underland Press 9781630230753, $17.99, 226pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 10/03/2023)
Haunted house horror novel. The Glass family moves into the previous home of the Sunshine Family—a psychedelic rock band from another era that famously devolved into a suicide cult. Complete with a family crypt and dark mothers who live inside the walls, the Glass family is about to embark on a new stage in their life: one filled with blood and madness.
June, Jason: The Spells We Cast
(Disney/Melissa de la Cruz Studio 9781368089234, $17.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/03/2023)
Young-adult fantasy novel about spell-casting cowboys. Nigel Barrett has spent his whole life preparing for the Culling, a spell-casting competition that determines which of the world’s teenage magicians will be stripped of their powers to preserve magical balance. But nothing could have prepared him to face Ori Olson, a broody rival whose caustic wit cloaks a painful past.
From the moment Nigel and Ori meet, sparks fly. Their powers are stronger, more thrilling, the closer they get—not that they can risk becoming attached. Because as the field narrows and the Culling grows more dangerous, Nigel and Ori realize there’s more at stake than just their powers. The greatest threat to magic, their future, and all of humanity might be the connection growing between them.
Khaw, Cassandra & Kadrey, Richard: The Dead Take the A Train
(Tor/Nightfire 9781250867025, $28.99, 393pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/03/2023)
Supernatural serial killer novel, first in the Carrion City series. NYC Psychic Operative Julie Crews summons a guardian angel for a career boost, but instead sets off destruction.
Lacelle, Pascale: Curious Tides
(Simon & Schuster/McElderry 9781665939270, $21.99, 544pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/03/2023)
Young-adult fantasy novel about a teen mage in a school where a secret society my have caused student deaths. The first book in the Drowned Gods Duology.
La Sala, Ryan: The Honeys
(Scholastic/PUSH 9781338745313, $18.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 10/03/2023)
Young-adult horror novel about art, obsession, and self-image. Athan is the only survivor of a party for New York City’s artistic elite, and while trying to prove his innocence stumbles on occult societies, eldritch horrors, and an evil bound to him by a mysterious hereditary power.
Maniscalco, Kerri: Throne of the Fallen
(Little, Brown 9780316557290, $29, 576pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/03/2023)
Fantasy novel set in Maniscalco’s Kingdom of the Wicked world. Miss Camilla Antonius enters into a devil’s bargain with The Prince of Envy, traveling together through Underworld realms while avoiding the most dangerous trap of all: falling in love.
Mersault, Michael: The Silent Hand
(Baen 9781982192952, $18, 416pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 10/03/2023)
Military SF space opera novel, the second in a series about Saef Sinclair-Maru, commander of a fleet ship of the decadent Galactic Imperium. With Marines plummeting into surface combat, an orbital space battle raging, and assassins swarming within Hightower, the stakes could scarcely be greater, but in the midst of this tumult, treacherous revelations continue to unfold. A mysterious enemy emplacement, a vanished civilian population, the inexplicable powers suddenly unleashed: Each new facet of discovery creates a deadly path leading from Delta Three to the heart of the Imperium and the emperor himself.
Miles, Terry: The Quiet Room
(Penguin Random House/Del Rey 9780593496404, $30, 432pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/03/2023)
SF techno-thriller novel, sequel to Rabbits, based on the author’s podcast about a deadly alternate-reality game that might be changing reality itself.
Parker, K.J.: Saevus Corax Deals With the Dead
(Orbit US 9780316668903, $18.99, 400pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 10/03/2023)
Fantasy novel, the first book in series about battlefield scavenger Saevus Corax.
Peele, Jordan & Adams, John Joseph, eds.: Out There Screaming: New Black Horror
(Penguin Random House/Random House 9780593243794, $30, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/03/2023)
Black horror anthology. To include P. Djeli Clark, Tananarive Due, Nalo Hopkinson, N.K. Jemisin, Rebecca Roanhorse, Cadwell Turnbull. Introduction by Peele. Also edited by John Joseph Adams.
Rebelein, Sam: Edenville
(HarperCollins/Morrow 9780063252240, $30, 331pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/03/2023)
Debut horror novel exploring genre tropes and urban legends with humor, various flavors of horror, and cosmic gonzo grotesquerie. A writer looking for inspiration joins Edenville College as a writer-in-residence, only to find his girlfriend is right about the small town’s dark history.
Sergi, Zachary: This Pact Is Not Ours
(Tiny Ghost 9781915585097, $12.99, 346pp, formats: trade paperback, hardcover, ebook, 10/03/2023)
Debut young-adult horror novel. Teens in their last summer before college return to a favorite campsite, but love, anxiety, and a old pact made by their four families interfere.
Sharpson, Neil: Knock Knock, Open Wide
(Tor/Nightfire 9781250785428, $29.99, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 10/03/2023)
Horror novel drawing on Irish folklore. An Irish woman seems surrounded by disturbing deaths and disappearances; years later her daughter investigates her twisted memories from childhood, trying to understand what really happened — and did it really involve a children’s TV show?
Wagner, Phoebe: A Shot of Gin
(Parliament House Press 9781956136647, $16.99, 274pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 10/03/2023)
Debut solarpunk, urban fantasy novel about Las Vegas vampires. Juniper “Gin” Cain works security for the vampire-owned All Saints Casino because vampires, conveniently, can’t drink her blood. When her unique blood traits rise to warn her that something terrible approaches from the south, Gin doesn’t take the instinct seriously. That is, until a radiated zombie staggers into the casino’s club, threatening Gin’s security and home. She realizes then that the warning she felt was far more serious than she had anticipated.
Weymouth, Laura E.: The Voice Upstairs
(Simon & Schuster/McElderry 9781534493094, $19.99, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 10/03/2023)
Young-adult historical fantasy mystery novel about a working-class girl in 1920s England who can see spirits and works with a lord’s son to solve mysterious deaths at a local manor house.
Winstead, Ashley: Midnight Is the Darkest Hour
(Sourcebooks Landmark 9781728269962, $27.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/03/2023)
Gothic Southern horror novel. Two outcasts investigate murders in a small southern Louisiana town that has a legend of the Low Man, a vampiric killer of sinners.
Woods, Kell: After the Forest
(Tor 9781250852489, $28.99, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/03/2023)
Fairytale fantasy novel. Greta and Hans (Hansel & Gretel) are grown and struggling to get by — but Greta has secretly kept the witch’s grimoire, with its addictive recipe for gingerbread.
