New Books, 17 September 2024
Brom: Evil in Me
(Tor/Nightfire 9781250622013, $31.99, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Horror novel. Ruby Tucker’s dreams of making it big in the Atlanta punk scene are gone — until she gets possessed through a cursed ring. The only way to exorcise it is to get hundreds of people to chant a spell, so she gets her band back together for one last song. Illustrated by the author in B&W and with an eight-page insert with full-page color art.
Brophy, Aislinn: Spells to Forget Us
(Penguin Random House/Putnam 9780593354551, $18.99, 432pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Young-adult fantasy romance novel. A witch and a non-magical girl are caught in a loop of meetings and break-ups and a spell to forget it all ever happened.
Czerneda, Julie E.: A Change of Place
(Astra House/DAW 9780756410698, $22, 496pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 09/17/2024)
Romantic fantasy, third book in the Night’s Edge series set in Marrowdell. Jenn and Bannan find themselves separated and caught up in plots they cannot understand. To reunite they will have to outsmart the queen herself. But even if they can foil her plan, Marrowdell may not be there when they return.
Dedroog, Lauren: A Curse of Crows
(Orion UK/Gollancz 9781399616126, $5.99, 456pp, formats: ebook, audio, 09/19/2024)
Fantasy novel, a female villain origin story. To escape a deadly sickness, Diana makes a desperate deal with the God of Malice.
Enriquez, Mariana: A Sunny Place for Shady People
(Penguin Random House/Hogarth US 9780593733257, $28, 272pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Collection of 12 stories of people dealing with the surreal and the supernatural. Translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell.
Giles, Lamar: Ruin Road
(Scholastic 9781338894134, $19.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Young-adult fantasy novel. Cade Webster, a Black teen football star wishes people would stop being afraid of him. After ducking into a thrift shop to avoid the police one night, he speaks his wish and it is granted. But instead of just being unafraid of Cade, people aren’t afraid of anything, leading to violence.
Greyling, Asha: The Vampire of Kings Street
(The Quick Brown Fox/Crooked Lane 9781639108671, $29.99, 272pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Historical paranormal mystery novel. Radhika Dhingra, a female lawyer just starting out in 19th-century New York, where the wealthy keep resident vampires as house servants, takes a vampire accused of murder as her first client. A first novel.
Hamilton, Peter F.: Exodus: The Archimedes Engine
(Penguin Random House/Random House Worlds 9780593357668, $36, 928pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Gaming tie-in novel based on the new far-future SF role playing game. Forty thousand years ago, humanity fled a dying Earth in massive arkships. One fleet arrived at Centauri Cluster and sent a signal back to Earth, telling everyone to follow. In the Centauri Cluster they have flourished, evolving into advanced beings known as Celestials divided into powerful Dominions, including the Crown Dominions which capture new arrivals and force them into servitude.
Hardy, Mina: Bitter is the Heart
(The Quick Brown Fox/Crooked Lane 9781639108633, $29.99, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Horror novel of generational trauma and Jewish folklore. Tamar fled her abusive mother and made herself a new life, but decades later takes in the now-elderly woman, only to find strange things happening in her home.
Henderson, Alexis: An Academy for Liars
(Ace 9780593638309, $29, 464pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Dark fantasy/horror novel. Lennon Carter receives a mysterious phone call inviting her to take the entrance exam for Drayton College, a school of magic hidden in a secret pocket of Savannah. There she will have the opportunity to train her gift of persuasion, where she can control others and in rare cases, matter itself.
Henning, Sarah: The Lies We Conjure
(Tor Teen 9781250841063, $19.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Young-adult supernatural thriller novel. Two sisters working at a Ren Faire accept an eccentric old lady’s money to impersonate her long-absent grandchildren at a fancy dinner party. But when they get there, the hostess is dead, the gates are locked, and a magical curse ensures nobody can leave until they solve both the murder and the riddles the hostess left behind. And while they are both imposters, everyone else there is a powerful witch.
Hiiragi, Sanaka: The Lantern of Lost Memories
(Grand Central 9781538757437, $22, 208pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Fantasy novel. Mr. Hirasaka, collector of antique cameras, owns a peculiar and magical photo studio that is actually a door to the afterlife, where those who have departed have a chance—one last time—to see their entire life flash before their eyes via Mr. Hirasaka’s spinning lantern of memories. Translated from the Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood.
Kois, Dan: Hampton Heights
(Harper Perennial 9780063358751, $16.99, 208pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Horror novel. A group of six middle-school paperboys fight monsters one winter night in 1987, in the most-haunted neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Levine, Jenna: My Vampire Plus One
(Penguin Random House/Berkley Romance 9780593548936, $19, 400pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Vampire romance novel, second in the My Vampires series. Trying to avoid her family hassling her about her dating life, Amelia asks a handsome centuries-old vampire to pose as her boyfriend for a wedding, but they start to fall for each other for real.
Lovise, Lindsay: Perfectly Wicked
(The Quick Brown Fox/Alcove Press 9781639109531, $29.99, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Paranormal romance novel. A failing apple orchard run by a family of witches might be saved when a charming paranormal investigator requests to film an episode of his popular TV show on their farm. They need the publicity, but they have to keep him from discovering any real magic.
Maberry, Jonathan: Midnight Lullabies: Unquiet Stories and Poems
(WordFire Press 9781680576962, $29.99, 330pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 09/17/2024)
Collection of horror short stories and poems — both old and new. Foreword by Joe R. Lansdale. Includes a list of Maberry’s published works.
Miro, J.M.: Bringer of Dust
(Macmillan/Flatiron 9781250833839, $29.99, 608pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Historical fantasy novel, the second book in The Talents trilogy begun in Ordinary Monsters. Marlowe has vanished and Charlie and the Talents search for a fabled second orsine which might help him be rescued. Instead they find a body in the shadow of Cairndale, wreathed in corrupted dust, and a new drughur has arisen.
Napper, T.R.: The Escher Man
(Titan Books 9781803368153, $17.99, 368pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Cyberpunk SF novel. Endel ‘Endgame’ Ebbinghaus is head of security for the boss of the Macau Syndicate, hoping to finally leave his violent job and return to his family, but first his memories must be wiped. And maybe they’re not going to let him go free at all.
Novik, Naomi: Buried Deep and Other Stories
(Penguin Random House/Del Rey 9780593600351, $30, 448pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Collection of 13 short stories, including ones set in the Temeraire series, the Scholomance trilogy, Spinning Silver, Uprooted, and a forthcoming epic fantasy series set in the world of Abandon.
Oyemakinde, Tomi: We Are Hunted
(Macmillan/Feiwel and Friends 9781250868169, $19.99, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Young-adult horror novel. 17-year-old Femi reluctantly accompanies his family to a luxurious island resort, shrouded in secrecy. When they arrive, he’s thrilled to find that the island is bursting with new and spectacular species of plants and animals. But then the animals turn feral.
Saft, Allison: A Dark and Drowning Tide
(Penguin Random House/Del Rey 9780593722343, $18.99, 384pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Sapphic fantasy romance novel. On an expedition with six eccentric nobles in search of a fabled spring, a folklorist teams up with her academic rival to solve their mentor’s murder.
Schlote-Bonne, Tatianne: Such Lovely Skin
(Page Street 9798890030764, $18.99, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Young-adult horror novel. Guilt-ridden gamer and chronic liar Viv tells her darkest secret to an NPC in an online game, and suddenly finds she has a demonic doppelgänger. But no one believes her.
Shea, Brian & Byrnes, Raquel: Retrograde Flaw
(Severn River 9781648756054, $18.99, 306pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Near-future techno-thriller, second in the Memory Bank series. Detective Morgan Reed is back on the force, working with Detective Natalie “Nat” De La Cruz on an investigation surrounding the enigmatic High Rock Holdings and Spectre Group. He discovers the Kraken — a next-gen tech weapon with chilling accuracy, and the stakes become personal when he finds ties to his own haunted past and a murdered friend.
Vishny, A.R.: The Night Owls
(HarperCollins/Tegen Books 9780063327306, $19.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Young-adult romantic fantasy novel. Bread-eating, owl-shifting female vampires from Jewish tradition brave the Manhattan underworld to save the girl one loves.
Walters, Jacquie: Dearest
(Little, Brown/Mulholland Books 9780316580298, $29, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 09/17/2024)
Horror novel. Raising her newborn baby girl alone, with her husband on deployment, Flora struggles to retain her grip on reality. Then her estranged mother shows up offering to help, but also hiding secrets about whatever led to their estrangement. A first novel.
Weird Walk, ed.: The Haunted Trail: Classic Tales of the Rambling Weird
(British Library 9780712355810, $16.84, 288pp, formats: trade paperback, 09/19/2024)
Anthology of 15 stories of haunted trails. Authors include Robert Aickman, Charlotte Riddell, M. R. James, and more. Number 54 in British Library Tales of the Weird series.
Wood, Lucy Jane: Rewitched
(Ace 9780593820070, $19, 384pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 09/17/2024)
Cozy fantasy novel. Burdened by work, Belladonna neglects her magic until the approach of her 30th birthday and a trial of her magic that could cause her to lose it forever.
