New Books, 10 September 2024

Allen, Samantha: Roland Rogers Isn’t Dead Yet
(Zando 9781638931539, $18, 288pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 09/10/2024)

Ghost romance novel. An actor’s ghost with just enough energy to communicate via kitchen speaker wants Adam Gallagher to help write his autobiography before his body is found crushed by an avalanche. They have to get it done within one month, and ghost and ghostwriter don’t entirely agree on their visions for the book.

 

Asher, Neal: World Walkers
(Start/Pyr 9781645060888, $24.95, 656pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 09/10/2024)

SF novel, a standalone in the world of the Owner trilogy. Ottanger, a rebel and mutant on earth, experimented on by the Inspectorate led by the ruthless Committee, discovers that he has the power to reach alternate worlds and flees. He meets a traveler from the future, the one who engineered Ottanger’s world-walking mutation, but it only helped a few people and millions continue to suffer under tyranny. Worse, the ability has attracted hostile attention to earth.

 

Ashing-Giwa, Kemi: This World Is Not Yours
(Tor/Nightfire 9781250901866, $19.99, 176pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 09/10/2024)

SF horror novella. Amara embarks on a colonization project, New Belaforme, a beautiful and lethal planet that produces the Gray, a “self-cleaning” mechanism that New Belaforme’s scientists are certain only attacks invasive organisms, consuming them. Humans have been careful to do nothing to call attention to themselves, until a rival colony wakes the Gray.

 

Barker, RJ: Warlords of Wyrdwood
(Orbit US 9780316401883, $19.99, 592pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 09/10/2024)

Fantasy novel, the second in The Forsaken trilogy. After their victory against the oppressive forces of the Rai, Forester Cahan must lead the people of the village of Harn into the Wyrdwood. Without him the people will be helpless against the terrors of the forest. But at the same time, a dark god is rising in power, and it has its claws in Cahan.

 

Blackburry, Sabrina: Dirty Lying Wolves
(Wattpad/W by Wattpad 9781990778322, $27.99, 464pp, formats: hardcover, 09/10/2024)

Paranormal romance novel, the third in the Enchanted Fates series. When Juniper stumbles across a small group of strangers during her morning power walk, she jumps in to help an injured member of the party. However, her act of kindness backfires when she’s bitten by what turns out to be a very ill werewolf. The pack’s leader gives June a choice: she can return to the human world post-transformation or she can join the pack.

 

Clarke, Neil, ed.: The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 8
(Start/Night Shade 9781949102703, $19.99, 624pp, formats: trade paperback, hardcover, ebook, 09/10/2024)

Year’s-best anthology, eighth in the series with stories from 2022 by authors including Tobias S. Buckell, Ray Nayler, Zen Cho, Annalee Newitz, Greg Egan, Suzanne Palmer, S.L. Huang, Alastair Reynolds, Naomi Kritzer, Tade Thompson, and Yoon Ha Lee. Clarke discusses the state of short SF in his introduction.

 

Datlow, Ellen, ed.: Fears
(Tachyon Publications 9781616964221, $18.95, 336pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 09/10/2024)

Anthology of 21 stories of psychological horror. Authors include Simon Bestwick, Stephen Graham Jones, Margo Lanagan, Josh Malerman, Joyce Carol Oates, Priya Sharma, and more.

 

Dawson, Delilah S.: Guillotine
(Titan Books UK 9781803368337, $24.99, 208pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/10/2024)

Thriller/horror novel. A thrift fashionista gets into a relationship with the son of the editor-in-chief of a top fashion magazine in order to meet his mother and ask her for an internship. When they finally visit his family’s island mansion, she’s floored at the opulence, but as soon as the ferry departs, the servants who have been essentially enslaved decide to get rid of their enslavers for good.

 

Dent, Helen: The Burning Tree
(Enclave Escape 9798886051506, $24.99, 256pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/10/2024)

Young-adult fantasy novel. In the town of Bishop’s Gap, two feuding families dominate. But both fear the curse of the Burning Tree. When the mark of the curse appears, a girl falls into a coma and her sister goes into the forest to confront the tree, igniting a chain of unintended consequences, and forcing the rival families to work together to uncover the ancient secret of Bishop’s Gap and end the curse before time runs out.

 

El-Arifi, Saara: The Ending Fire
(Del Rey 9780593357002, $30, 512pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 09/10/2024)

Fantasy novel, third in The Ending Fire trilogy begun in The Final Strife. Sylah and Hassa must navigate the politics of their new world, while searching for Anoor. At the same time, a vigilante known as the Truthsayer raises an army against the wardens. Meanwhile, across the sea, Jond serves as major general, training soldiers for combat, but matters of the heart will prove to be the hardest battlefield.

 

Evenson, Brian: Good Night, Sleep Tight
(Coffee House Press 9781566897099, $19, 256pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 09/10/2024)

Collection of 19 stories (two appearing in the US for the first time) mixing horror and SF as they explore possible consequences of artificial intelligence and post-human life.

 

Fleischer, Jeff: Animal Husbandry: And Other Fictions
(Running Wild 9781960018069, $19.99, 196pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 09/10/2024)

Collection of 16 stories involving mythology, fables, and the myths people tell themselves.

 

Gong, Chloe: Vilest Things
(Simon & Schuster/Saga Press 9781668000267, $28.99, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/10/2024)

Epic fantasy novel, second in the Flesh & False Gods series. Calla has won the bloody games, eliminated her tyrant uncle, and now serves as advisor to the throne. But the king isn’t who he appears to be and she’s the only one who knows that. Then someone awakens from a years-long coma with a secret that threatens the monarchy.

 

Hardy, Aimee: Pocket Full of Teeth
(Running Wild 9781960018533, $19.99, 314pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 09/13/2024)

Supernatural horror novel. After a body is found at the bottom of a well, Eddy Sparrow has to answer some questions for the police. As she talks to them, she mentions a mysterious manuscript that she found in her recently-deceased mother’s desk drawer. A book that seems to be haunted, since she has been experiencing strange phenomena after reading it.

 

Harrison, Rachel: So Thirsty
(Penguin Random House/Berkley 9780593642542, $27, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/10/2024)

Horror novel. Dreading her birthday, Sloane is pleased when her husband surprises her with a weekend-getaway hosted by her best friend Naomi. Hoping for a cozy, relaxing time, where she can forget about her indifferent life and her husband’s infidelity, Sloane instead has a wild night out with a group of mysterious (vampiric) strangers who change her life forever.

 

Hewlett, Rosie: The Witch of Colchis
(Sourcebooks Landmark 9781728299013, $16.99, 464pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 09/10/2024)

Fantasy novel, a retelling of the dark story of the princess/witch Medea from Greek myth. Since childhood Medea, princess of Colchis, has been shunned from her family, tormented by her people, and treated with shame because of her witchcraft. But when a dashing young hero, Jason, arrives to claim the famed Golden Fleece, Medea sees her opportunity for escape.

 

Kisner, Logan-Ashley: Old Wounds
(Penguin Random House/Delacorte 9780593814741, $19.99, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/10/2024)

Young-adult fantasy novel. Two transgender teens trying to escape to California end up in a small, isolated town, where they must escape the locals who plan to sacrifice one of them to an ancient monster that only eats girls. A first novel.

 

Klune, TJ: Somewhere Beyond the Sea
(Tor 9781250881205, $28.99, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/10/2024)

Fantasy novel, sequel to The House in the Cerulean Sea. Arthur Parnassus is the headmaster of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six magical and so-called dangerous children who live there. But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve.

 

Lawless, Shauna: The Land of the Living and the Dead
(Bloomsbury UK/Head of Zeus/Ad Astra 9781803282725, $29.99, 576pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/12/2024)

Fantasy novel, third in the Gael Song series set in Ireland in 1011 AD. High King Brian Boru must defend his crown from the mortal kingdoms rising up against him, while at the same time the two magical races of Ireland, the Fomorians and the Descendants, eternal enemies, both now seek dominion over the mortal world. And King Brian’s queen is a secret Fomorian.

 

Leow, Amy: The Scarlet Throne
(Orbit US 9780316562485, $19.99, 432pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 09/10/2024)

Political epic fantasy novel, first in the False Goddess Trilogy. Binsa is a “living goddess” chosen by the gods to rule and dispense justice from the Scarlet Throne. But rather than channeling the wisdom of an immortal deity, she harbors a demon. And when it comes time for a new girl to replace her, Binsa makes a deal with her demon to sacrifice her people’s lives in order to magnify his power, if he will help her seize permanent control. A first novel.

 

Lewis, Erika: Kelcie Murphy and the Race for the Reaper’s Key
(Tor/Starscape 9781250208378, $19.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/10/2024)

Middle-grade magic-school fantasy novel, the third book, concluding the Academy for the Unbreakable Arts series drawing on Celtic myth. As monsters attack the Lands of Summer and Winter, an ancient evil stirs in the Abyss, and only Kelcie, his heir, can stop him.

 

Mains, Johnny, ed.: Bound in Blood
(Titan Books 9781803367491, $27.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 09/10/2024)

Horror anthology of 19 stories about cursed books, damned libraries, and the weird. Authors include Adam Cesare, Eric LaRocca, Elizabeth Hand, Charlie Higson, Kim Newman, Priya Sharma, and A. G. Slatter.

 

Markert, J.H.: Sleep Tight
(The Quick Brown Fox/Crooked Lane 9781639108732, $29.99, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/10/2024)

Serial killer horror novel. When serial killer “Father Silence” is executed, the next morning the detective who made the original arrest is found dead. A new serial killer, calling himself the Outcast takes credit for the murder. Tess, the detective’s daughter, finds her own daughter kidnapped by the Outcast, and Tess must visit the boy who survived Father Silence and has been living in an insane asylum for 20 years, to find what secrets his broken mind might hold.

 

McEwan, Stacey: Valley
(Angry Robot 9781915202413, $27.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/10/2024)

Fantasy novel, the third book in the Glacian trilogy. At the bottom of the Chasm, Dawsyn and her followers traipse through the darkness to find their long-awaited home. But there are whispers all around them and safety is never guaranteed. With her powers much depleted, and food supplies running low, they may not survive the journey.

 

Menzel, Emilie: The Girl Who Became a Rabbit
(Hub City 9798885740371, $16, 73pp, formats: chapbook, kindle, 09/10/2024)

Chapbook novelette in prose poem form about fable and trauma, femininity and creatureliness, which imagines the transformation of the body into language.

 

Palumbo, Suzan: Countess
(ECW Press 9781770417571, $16.95, 168pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 09/10/2024)

SF space opera novella, a queer Caribbean Count of Monte Cristo. After serving as a loyal first lieutenant in the colonial empire’s interstellar army, Vikira Sameroo is falsely accused of murder and treason. Her conviction and prison sentence set her on a path of revenge determined to take down the empire and free her people.

 

Rosson, Keith: The Devil by Name
(Penguin Random House/Random House 9780593595787, $30, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/10/2024)

Horror novel, sequel to Fever House. Five years after the event that drove most of the global population to madness, the world is overrun with the “fevered”—once-human, zombielike creatures drawn indiscriminately to violence and murder. In a campaign to stabilize the country, the massive corporation known as Terradyne Industries has merged with the U.S. government in a partnership of dubious motives, quarantining major American cities behind towering walls and corralling the afflicted there with the hope, they say, of developing a vaccine.

 

Rundell, Katherine: Impossible Creatures
(Penguin Random House/Knopf 9780593809860, $19.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/10/2024)

Middle-grade fantasy novel. Illustrated by Ashley Mackenzie. After Christopher saves a drowning baby griffin, he learns about the Archipelago, a cluster of unmapped magical islands, and he meets Mal, a girl on the run. Together they race from island to island trying to learn why the magic is fading and magical creatures are dying. Winner of the British Book Award for Children’s Fiction and Waterstones Book of the Year.

 

Verso, Francesco: No/Mad/Land
(Flame Tree Press 9781787589261, $16.95, 384pp, formats: trade paperback, hardcover, ebook, 09/10/2024)

Near-future SF solarpunk novel, sequel to The Roamers in the Walkers (I Camminatori) series. The Pulldogs leave Rome to wander the world as nomads to spread their solarpunk way of living, but dissension causes a split in the group. Part goes north to live in the beautiful wilderness of Siberia, the others go to Central Africa to try to save the Dogon tribe from extinction. Translated by Sally McCorry from the Italian.

 

White, Kiersten: Lucy Undying
(Penguin Random House/Del Rey 9780593724408, $28.99, 464pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/10/2024)

Horror novel, retelling the story of Stoker’s Dracula from the viewpoint of Lucy Westenra. One of Dracula’s first victims, Lucy tries to escape his clutches and discover herself. Her undead life takes an unexpected turn in 21st century London, where she meets the charming Iris, whose family has built a health empire on a sinister secret.