New Books, 23 July 2024
Aira, César: Festival and Game of the Worlds
(New Directions 9780811237307, $15.95, 192pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 07/23/2024)
Collection of two novellas, one about a director of SF films, the other a far-future SF story set in a regimented world where an immersive video game encourages players to exterminate the inhabitants of distant worlds. Translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver.
Anderson, Kevin J. & Longueira, Allyson, eds.: Feisty Felines and Other Fantastical Familiars
(WordFire Press 9781680576184, $16.99, 336pp, formats: trade paperback, hardcover, ebook, 07/23/2024)
Original anthology of 26 original fantasy stories and poems featuring magical companions, mostly cats. Compiled by Kevin J. Anderson, Allyson Longueira, and their publishing graduate students at Western Colorado University. Authors include Mercedes Lackey, Heather Graham, Jody Lynn Nye, John Hartness, Steve Rasnic Tem, and many others.
Baguchinsky, Jill: So Witches We Became
(Little, Brown 9780316568807, $18.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 07/23/2024)
Queer feminist YA horror novel. High school senior Nell and her friends rent a vacation house on a private Florida island for spring break, but Nell’s secrets fuse with the island’s tragic history, trapping them in with a curse that surrounds the island in a toxic vengeful mist, and an unseen beast in the waters.
Belardes, Nicholas: The Deading
(Kensington/Erewhon 9781645661290, $28, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 07/23/2024)
Dystopian eco-horror novel. In a small seaside town, a mysterious ocean-borne contagion begins to transform the wildlife, the seascapes, and finally the people. Infected victims collapse and die only to rise again as fanatics. The government quarantines the island, leaving them to try to survive on their own. A first novel.
Cox, James: Grand Theft AI
(Blackstone Publishing 9798200682133, $26.99, 378pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 07/23/2024)
Near-future cyberpunk SF caper novel set in 2051 San Francisco. A thief, an underworld fixer, and a crack team of cyber-misfits set out to steal from a psychotic kingpin’s high security vault, which holds a priceless “glass.”
Dane, Joel: The Ragpicker
(Meerkat Press 9781946154590, $17.95, 292pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 07/23/2024)
Post-apocalyptic novel about the Ragicker, who wanders the deserted Earth searching for traces of his long-dead husband, accompanied by a girl fleeing her remote village and searching for sanctuary, haunted by fragments and whispers of the past.
The Ragpicker reminds us that the most important relationships are the ones we have in the real world, not the virtual. One thing we discover about the world post the Bliss (aside from the near extinction of cockroaches) is that the survivors didn’t turn on each other but rather “formed packs, relentless roving packs who bonded together to scour the buildings and basements for people who needed help, needed food, needed company and caring.” It’s a clever subversion of the violent-gangs-roving-a-broken-world trope, reinforcing this idea of community and togetherness.
Dawson, Juno: Queen B
(Penguin Random House/Penguin 9780143138341, $18, 224pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 07/23/2024)
Standalone fantasy short novel in the HMRC trilogy about witches in the UK, telling the story of the origins of Her Majesty’s Royal Coven. In 1536 the Queen has been beheaded and Lady Grace Fairfax searches for the witch who betrayed her.
Finlayson, A.B.: The Sword and the Hounds
(Parliament House Press 9781956136753, $15.99, 312pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 07/23/2024)
Humorous fantasy novel, the second in the Arthur Crazy series. Arthur Crazy can see ghosts — and they all want help with unfinished business.
Finz, Stacy: Nothing Less than Magic
(Kensington 9781496747624, $17.95, 304pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 07/23/2024)
Fantasy romance novel. Marriage counselor Cheslea Knight can’t believe it when marriage falls apart, given her career. She uses her expertise to try to win her ex back, and it seems to be working until he announces his engagement. Chelsea retreats to an idyllic lakeside cabin, where she encounters a handsome roofer and a town with a magical secret.
Greenfield, Chatham: Time and Time Again
(Bloomsbury USA 9781547613908, $19.99, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 07/23/2024)
Queer YA time loop novel. Phoebe Mendel is stuck in a time loop, reliving the ordinary events of August 6 over and over, until a car crash traps her childhood crush in the time loop with her. They use the consequence-free days to have fun, but worry about how to escape.
Hall, Rachel Howzell: The Last One
(Entangled/Red Tower 9781649374400, $32.99, 496pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 07/23/2024)
Dark fantasy romance novel. Kai wakes in the woods, in a desolate land of sickness and unnatural beasts with no idea who she is or how she got there. All she knows is that if she cannot reach the Sea of Devour, even this hellscape will get worse. After the village blacksmith fights off invaders with unspeakable skill, she decides to accept his offer of help.
Hamill, Shaun: The Dissonance
(Penguin Random House/Pantheon 9780593317259, $29, 496pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 07/23/2024)
Dark fantasy novel. In high school, four friends trained in a secret system of magic built around harnessing negative emotions, until something happened that scattered them across the country, back to their mundane lives. 20 years later, terrifying signs summon them back to their old school.
Holborn, Stark: Ninth Life
(Titan Books 9781803362984, $16.99, 416pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 07/23/2024)
SF novel, third in the Factus Sequence trilogy begun in Ten Low. After 40 years on the run, outlaw Nine Lives AKA Former General Gabriella Ortiz is finally shot down and captured by a Deputy Air Marshall, after the 20-million bounty. But others want the bounty too, and they’re both in danger. Ortiz offers to keep them both alive as long as the deputy listens to the stories of her lives.
Holton, India: The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love
(Penguin Random House/Berkley Romance 9780593547281, $19, 384pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 07/23/2024)
Historical fantasy romance novel, the first in a series. Two rival ornithologists trying to capture rare birds struggle to resist their attraction to each other, until they must team up to win the Birder of the Year competition.
Ivy, Alexandra: Ancient Magic
(Kensington/Lyrical Press 9781516111428, $18.99, 244pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 07/23/2024)
Paranormal romance novel, second in the Magic for Hire series. Skye Claremont, indentured to a demon gang to pay off her father’s gambling debts with her visions, is tasked with kidnapping the alluring leader of a vampire cabal.
Kennedy, Kara A.: I Will Never Leave You
(Penguin Random House/Delacorte 9780593707463, $19.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 07/23/2024)
Young-adult horror novel about a girl haunted by her toxic ex-girlfriend who gives her an ultimatum: help her possess another girl, or be framed for murder. A first novel.
Murashige, Kelly: The Lost Souls of Benzaiten
(Soho Teen 9781641295741, $19.99, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 07/23/2024)
Young-adult fantasy novel. Mute due to trauma, Machi prays to become a vacuum robot, but instead Benzaiten, the goddess of love, and the souls of the dead help Machi rediscover her place among the living.
Priest, Cherie: The Drowning House
(Sourcebooks/Poisoned Pen Press 9781728292823, $16.99, 432pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 07/24/2024)
Supernatural thriller/horror novel. A violent storm washes a mysterious house onto a rural Pacific Northwest beach, stopping the heart of the only woman who knows what it means. Her grandson, Simon Culpepper, vanishes in the aftermath. To find Simon, his old friends must work together to learn about the man who built the house and the evil he’s bringing to Marrowstone Island.
Reeves, Keanu & Miéville, China: The Book of Elsewhere
(Penguin Random House/Del Rey 9780593446591, $30, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 07/23/2024)
Genre-bending novel adapted by Miéville from Reeves’ comic BRZRKR. A warrior who can’t be killed and has seen a thousand civilizations rise and fall, wants to be able to die. He seeks help from a black ops group in the USA, but instead of finding out how he can die, they start bringing the dead back to life.
Sagas, L.M.: Gravity Lost
(Tor 9781250871282, $18.99, 400pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 07/23/2024)
SF novel, second in the Ambit’s Run series. The crew of the Ambit must jail-break the very man they helped capture and expose some of the secrets he’s been keeping, including ugly truths about their enemies, and even uglier truths about their friends.
Singh, Nalini: Primal Mirror
(Penguin Random House/Berkley 9780593440735, $30, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 07/23/2024)
Paranormal romance novel, the eighth in the Psy/Changeling series. Struggling with memory loss to a bain injury, failed telepath Auden Scott tries to protect the unborn baby she can’t remember conceiving, who is attracting an unnerving amount of attention from her dead mother’s associates. Then a leopard alpha moves in next door. He ought to be her enemy, but wants to help her instead.
Voss, Maressa: When Shadows Grow Tall
(Collective Ink UK/Roundfire Books 9781803415178, $18.95, 344pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 07/26/2024)
Fantasy novel. In the Grasp, a realm on the threshold of enlightenment, the dactyli guard the fading embers of their ancient brotherhood, dedicated to the pursuit of absolute truth. Lovelace and Gunnar, two of the order’s last rangers, find themselves on the precipice of a changing world. A first novel.
Webber, Heather: A Certain Kind of Starlight
(Tor/Forge 9781250867292, $28.99, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 07/23/2024)
Southern magical realism/mystery novel about two women who return to their hometown of Starlight Alabama to help an ailing aunt and run the family bakery, and discover a new kind of magic in trusting themselves.
