New Books 6 February 2024
Bennett, Robert Jackson: The Tainted Cup
(Penguin Random House/Del Rey 9781984820709, $28, 432pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 02/06/2024)
Fantasy mystery novel, first in the Shadow of the Leviathan series. A high Imperial officer dies when a tree erupts from his body, and the brilliant detective Ana Dolabra investigates with the help of her new magically altered assistant Dinios Kol.
Callender, Kacen: Infinity Alchemist
(Tor Teen 9781250890252, $19.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 02/06/2024)
Young-adult fantasy novel. Ash Woods studies alchemy in secret, illegally, while working as groundskeeper at Lancaster College of Alchemic Science — but a student catches him and promises to keep his secret if he helps her find a book that will give her great power.
Davenport, Nia: Out of Body
(HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray 9780063255715, $19.99, 272pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 02/06/2024)
Young-adult body-swap thriller. Seventeen-year-old Megan Allen meets adventurous, charismatic LC and finally feels like she’s becoming the person she’s meant to be: someone like LC. But on the night of their friendiversary, what was supposed to be a bonding experience ends in a waking nightmare. Suddenly, Megan is no longer herself. Betrayed by her best friend, thrust into another girl’s life, and targeted by LC’s enemies, she must claim what makes Megan Megan to get her life back . . . or die trying.
Flint, Eric & Huff, Gorg, et al.: An Angel Called Peterbilt
(Baen 9781982193195, $28, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 02/06/2024)
SF novel, fifth in the Assiti Shards series in Flint’s Ring of Time universe. A Peterbilt tanker truck full of oil is transported 1,000 years back in time, along with half a convenience store and a chemist.
Gomera-Tavarez, Camille: The Girl, the Ring, & the Baseball Bat
(Levine Querido 9781646142651, $19.99, 256pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 02/06/2024)
Young-adult fantasy novel about a trio of teens with magic talismans: a magical jacket that gets people to obey, a baseball bat that fixes whatever it breaks, and a manifestation stone that makes anyone fall in love with the holder.
Green, Simon R.: The Holy Terrors
(Canongate UK/Severn House 9781448311637, $29.99, 192pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 02/06/2024)
Mystery/horror novel in the eponymous series about a scripted TV ghost-hunting show that locks six semi-celebrities in a haunted hall and live streams the results as strange things happen, and then someone dies.
Hayes, Terry: The Year of the Locust
(Simon & Schuster/Atria 9781668055786, $32, 800pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 02/06/2024)
Post-apocalyptic SF spy thriller. Kane, spy for the CIA, travels to exfiltrate a man with vital information to the safety of the West, but instead meets an adversary that will take the world to the brink of extinction.
Hazelwood, Ali: Bride
(Penguin Random House/Berkley 9780593641033, $29, 416pp, formats: hardcover, trade paperback, ebook, audio, 02/06/2024)
Vampire/shifter romance. Vampyre Misery Lark submits to a marriage of convenience with the Alpha Werewolf in order to uphold a historic peacekeeping alliance between Vampyres and Weres.
Kutub, Naz: No Time Like Now
(Bloomsbury USA 9781547609284, $18.99, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 02/06/2024)
Young-adult fantasy romance novel. Teen Hazeem can grant any living thing extra time, but learns he’s given away more time than he has left to live and must take back some of the time he’s given, forcing him to revisit his past and realize quality matters more than quantity.
Livesey, Margot: The Road from Belhaven
(Penguin Random House/Knopf 9780593537046, $28, 256pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 02/06/2024)
Historical fantasy novel about a woman in 19th-century Scotland who as a girl sees calamities before they happen, but no one believes her, and her struggles to find her path in a time when women have few rights.
Mangum, Lisa, ed.: A Bit of Luck: Alternate Histories in Honor of Eric Flint
(WordFire Press 9781680576122, $16.99, 322pp, formats: trade paperback, hardcover, ebook, audio, 02/09/2024)
Original anthology of 20 stories in honor of Eric Flint. Authors include Kevin J. Anderson, Carrie Callahan, Charles E. Gannon, Mary Pletsch, and Jennifer Roberts.
Martin, George R.R. & Snodgrass, Melinda M., eds.: George R.R. Martin Presents Wild Cards: Sleeper Straddle
(Penguin Random House/Bantam 9780593357835, $28, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 02/06/2024)
Anthology/mosaic novel in Martin’s Wild Cards universe, written by authors including Cherie Priest, Carrie Vaughn, Walter Jon Williams, and William F. Wu.
McCarthy, Wil: Beggar’s Sky
(Baen 9781982193188, $28, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 02/06/2024)
Near-future SF novel, third in the Rich Man’s Sky series. Trillionaire Igbal Renz has constructed a starship capable of making the twenty-year journey to Alpha Centauri. So why is he stopping at barely one-tenth that distance, with a cargo of a hundred frozen scientists and diplomats? Rumors abound that Renz Ventures, Inc., has made contact with . . . something.
Moraine, Sunny: Your Shadow Half Remains
(Tor/Nightfire 9781250892201, $16.99, 176pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 02/06/2024)
Horror novella, an expansion of story “If Living Is Seeing I’m Holding My Breath”. In a post-apocalyptic world where eye contact causes people to spiral into a deadly, violent rage, Riley just wants to look at the new neighbor down the road.
Nethercott, Gennarose: Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories
(Penguin Random House/Vintage 9780593314180, $17, 272pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 02/06/2024)
Collection of dark fairytales and fractured folklore.
Pacton, Jamie: The Absinthe Underground
(Peachtree Teen 9781682634929, $18.99, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 02/06/2024)
Young-adult fantasy romance novel about Sybil Clarion, a teen thief caught stealing and asked to sneak into the Fae realm and steal the crown jewels from Queen Mab.
Rue, Gretchen: A Pie to Die For
(The Quick Brown Fox/Crooked Lane 9781639106257, $29.99, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 02/06/2024)
Fantasy mystery novel, the first in the Lucky Pie series about Este March, who runs the family diner with magical pies that grants certain customers their greatest dreams. A rude vendor turns up dead on his boat, casting suspicion on Este who was last seen arguing with him.
Swan, Richard: The Trials of Empire
(Orbit US 9780316361989, $30, 554pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 02/06/2024)
Fantasy novel, the third in the Empire of the Wolf trilogy. To save the Empire of the Wolf, Sir Konrad Vonvalt and Helena must look beyond its borders for allies – to the wolfmen of the southern plains, and the pagan clans in the north. But old grievances run deep, and both factions would benefit from the fall of Sova.
Tan, Sue Lynn: Tales of the Celestial Kingdom
(Harper Voyager US 9780063326699, $24.99, 176pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 02/06/2024)
Original collection of nine fantasy stories (two reprints) from the world of the Celestial Kingdom duology inspired by Chinese mythology. Illustrated by Kelly Chong.
Wolf, Marisa: Beyond Enemies
(Baen 9781982193218, $17.99, 416pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 02/06/2024)
Military SF novel. Talinn Reaze and Bee serve as “Breezy,” one of the United Colonial Force’s elite Artificial Intelligence Troops premier heavy tanks, leading assaults on several fronts of the long war against the Interstellar Defense Corps. When they’re thrown to a backwater base without cause, boredom becomes their main enemy — until the world falls out from under their treads and they begin to question everything they’ve ever known.
Zinos-Amaro, Alvaro: Equimedian
(Hex Publishers 9798986219486, $31.99, 326pp, formats: trade paperback, hardcover, ebook, 02/06/2024)
SF novel. Jason Velez, who scrapes by installing virtual reality machines and maintaining his SF collection, decides he needs to change his life, but the world around him starts changing first. A first novel.
