New Books, 13 August 2024
Ashby, Madeline: Glass Houses
(Tor 9780765382924, $27.99, 272pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 08/13/2024)
Near-future whodunit mystery novel. A group of employees and their CEO, celebrating the sale of their remarkable emotion-mapping-AI-algorithm, crash onto a not-quite-deserted tropical island. The survivors find a beautiful, fully-stocked private palace, with all the latest technological updates (though one without connection to the outside world). The house, however, has more secrets than anyone might have guessed, and a much darker reason for having been built and left behind.
Buchanan, Lynn: The Dollmakers
(Harper Voyager US 9780063308268, $19.99, 400pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 08/13/2024)
Cozy fantasy novel. In a world where magical dolls are designed to fight against demons, Apprentice Shean of Pearl is a brilliant doll maker. With her clever dolls, she intends to outsmart and destroy the Shod, once and for all. But when the time comes for her dolls to be licensed, she’s told her work is too beautiful and delicate to fight. Includes black and white illustrations. A first novel.
Chidgey, Catherine: The Axeman’s Carnival
(Europa Editions 9798889660224, $18, 336pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 08/13/2024)
Talking animal gothic fantasy novel narrated by Tama, a magpie rescued by a farmer’s wife, famous for being able to talk, though things said aloud to humans are mostly nonsensical (and often hilarious). Winner of the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the 2023 Ockham Book Awards in New Zealand. First US edition.
DeLuca, Jen: Haunted Ever After
(Penguin Random House/Berkley Romance 9780593641217, $18.99, 352pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 08/13/2024)
Fantasy mystery novel about the small Florida town of Boneyard Key, which counts on ghost tourism to keep the economy afloat, but the local coffee shop owner has a real ghost, and new resident Cassie Rutherford can’t help feeling there’s something wrong with her new cottage.
Divya, S.B.: Loka
(Amazon/47North 9781662505065, $16.99, 377pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 08/13/2024)
SF space opera novel, second in The Alloy Era series. Akshaya, genetically engineered posthuman, is the future of life on the planet Meru, but before she gets trapped in her destiny, she wants to circumnavigate the birthplace of humanity: Earth. But she must travel with no mechanical assistance, only her best friend Somya.
Enright, K.M.: Mistress of Lies
(Orbit US 9780316565356, $19.99, 464pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 08/13/2024)
Fantasy novel, first in the Age of Blood series. Shan, a Blood Worker and spymaster who assassinated her father to save her brother, teams up with a bastard with a terrible gift and a mysterious Royal Blood worker, to find a serial killer at the behest of the Vampire king. A first novel.
Garza, Michelle & Lason, Melissa: Hell’s Cargo
(Dead Sky/Death’s Head Press 9781639511709, $19.99, 284pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 08/13/2024)
Splatter Western horror novel. Eve wants to be a nun, and Peter a priest, but they find themselves attracted to each other. Then Eve becomes possessed by a demon, setting off on a trail of murder, sex, and fire across Texas and Arizona, as the couple heads to California for an exorcism. A first novel.
Gutierrez, Stephen D.: Captain Chicano Draws a Line in the American Sand
(University of Tampa Press 9781597322034, $16, 138pp, formats: trade paperback, hardcover, ebook, 08/15/2024)
Humorous superhero novella with fantasy elements. Captain Chicano fights the rise of White Supremacy with his secret weapon, love, and with the help of the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe.
Hawley, Sarah: A Werewolf’s Guide to Seducing a Vampire
(Penguin Random House/Berkley Romance 9780593547960, $19, 448pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 08/13/2024)
Paranormal romance novel, third in the Glimmer Falls series. Werewolf Ben Rosewood is happy living as a bachelor and running his plant shop, until one night he drunkenly bids on a supposedly-possessed crystal on eBay, and winds up face-to-face with a beautiful but angry vampire succubus, who is out for revenge against the witch who trapped her.
Hess, Al: Key Lime Sky
(Angry Robot UK 9781915998125, $18.99, 304pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 08/13/2024)
SF novel. Denver Bryant, a blogger roadtripping across Wyoming in search of the best pie, sees a UFO explode over his tiny town of Muddy Gap. But his neighbors act strangely and claim to have seen nothing. As he documents his investigation on his failing pie blog, his online popularity skyrockets.
Hough, Julianne & Goodlett, Ellen: Everything We Never Knew
(Sourcebooks Landmark 9781464235719, $23.99, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 08/13/2024)
Fantasy novel. Lexi discovers she can sense things that are wrong with people, and maybe help them, but first needs to face her own inner demons.
Ifueko, Jordan: The Maid and the Crocodile
(Abrams/Amulet 9781419764356, $19.99, 204pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 08/13/2024)
Young-adult fantasy novel inspired by West African lore, set in the same world as the Raybearer duology. While searching for a job as a maid, Small Sade accidentally binds herself to a powerful being known only as the Crocodile, a god rumored to devour pretty girls. Small Sade entrances the Crocodile with her secret: she is a Curse Eater, gifted with the ability to alter people’s fates by cleaning their houses.
Lee, Wen-Yi: The Dark We Know
(Zando/Gillian Flynn 9781638930587, $19.99, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 08/13/2024)
Young-adult horror novel. After her father dies, Isadora Change returns to the former mining town she hated. There, an old childhood friend says he believes their friends were killed by a supernatural evil, and he needs her help to stop it.
Mac, Carrie: Zombie Apocalypse Running Club
(Penguin Random House/Crown 9781524771041, $19.99, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 08/13/2024)
Young-adult LGBTQ+ horror novel. Queer twins leave the bunker where they have been sheltering with their parents from a zombie apocalypse. Outside they meet their friend Racer, a Special Olympics champion, who puts them on a training regimen so they can outrun the zombies.
MacLean, S.A.: The Phoenix Keeper
(Orbit US 9780316573092, $19.99, 496pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 08/13/2024)
Queer romantic fantasy novel. Alia, head phoenix keeper at a world renowned zoo for magical creatures helps a neighboring zoo with their breeding program for critically endangered firebirds, but must deal with her arch-rival from college. A first novel.
MacLeod, Ken: A Jura for Julia
(NewCon Press UK 9781914953835, $16.99, 224pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 08/15/2024)
Collection of 13 short stories, the first in 18 years, including one story written especially for this collection. Illustrated by Fangorn.
Monroe, Katrina: Through the Midnight Door
(Sourcebooks/Poisoned Pen Press 9781728248264, $16.99, 368pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 08/13/2024)
Horror novel. Three sisters exploring their dying town find a house with an endless hall of doors, and three keys. Curious and fearless, they each choose a room and step through, and experience horrors they never speak of again. Nine years later the youngest is found dead in the house. Includes a reading group guide.
Pau Preto, Nicki: Ghostsmith
(Simon & Schuster/McElderry 9781665910620, $21.99, 488pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 08/13/2024)
Fantasy novel, second in the House of the Dead duology. Wren, Leo, and Julian find themselves once more in the Breach, this time on the run from Wren’s father, who is determined to secure more power for himself and the House of Bone, as Wren is plagued by powerful new abilities.
Peynado, Brenda: Time’s Agent
(Tordotcom 9781250854315, $16.99, 208pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 08/13/2024)
SF time-travel/multiverse novel. Archeologist Raquel and her wife, Marlena, once dreamed the pocket worlds held the key to solving the universe’s mysteries. But forty years later, pocket worlds are now controlled by corporations squeezing every penny out of all colonizable space and time, Raquel herself is in disgrace, and Marlena lives in her own pocket universe (that Raquel wears around her neck) and refuses to speak to her.
Reid, Ava: Lady Macbeth
(Penguin Random House/Del Rey 9780593722565, $28.99, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 08/13/2024)
Gothic horror retelling of Shakespeare’s play from Lady Macbeth’s POV. The Lady prepares to wed the Scottish brute, knowing that it will require all her wiles and hidden witchcraft to survive, but she is unaware that her husband has occult secrets of his own.
Rivera, K. Arsenault: Oath of Fire
(Grand Central/Forever 9781538756720, $17.99, 352pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 08/13/2024)
Fantasy romance novel, sapphic retelling of the Psyche and Eros legend. Psyche, therapist and online influencer, receives a mysterious invitation to a world full of Courts, debauchery, and treachery, where she swears a strange oath to a mysterious masked woman named Eros.
Saint, Jennifer: Hera
(Macmillan/Flatiron 9781250855602, $28.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 08/13/2024)
Fantasy novel based on Greek myth. Hera, queen of the gods, struggles to step out of Zeus’s shadow and create a better world.
Stage, Zoje: Dear Hanna
(Amazon/Thomas & Mercer 9781662521003, $16.99, 331pp, formats: hardcover, trade paperback, ebook, audio, 08/13/2024)
Horror novel. Sociopath Hanna has gone through therapy and arranged her life to cope with her dark tendencies, but when her teenage step-daughter begins to change in unsuitable ways, Hanna reverts to old habits and begins to manipulate people and events around her.
Strahan, Jonathan, ed.: New Adventures in Space Opera
(Tachyon Publications 9781616964207, $18.95, 336pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 08/13/2024)
Original anthology of 15 SF space opera stories. Authors include Tobias S. Buckell, T. Kingfisher, Ann Leckie, Sam J. Miller, Alastair Reynolds, Karin Tidbeck, Lavie Tidhar and more.
Strahan has rejoined the discussion with New Adventures in Space Opera, including fourteen stories originally published between 2012 and 2023. [. . .] The fact that it’s a reprint anthology may be significant. Original theme anthologies can be terrific, because they offer stories no one has seen before – but which are submitted, usually, as the result of a prompt or suggestion on the part of the editor. They’re stories which have been nudged. Reprint anthologies, however, show us how authors keep returning to the theme entirely unprompted, a point that Strahan makes in his quite useful introduction.
–Gary K. Wolfe, Locus, August 2024
Virdi, R.R.: The Doors of Midnight
(Tor 9781250796189, $34.99, 832pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 08/13/2024)
Fantasy novel, second in the Tales of Tremaine series. The legend of Ari the Binder spans continents and eras. Now the storyteller himself awaits judgment for the murder of a prince, and the stories say he has killed more than one.
