New Books, 1 October 2024
Ajram, Sofia: Coup de Grâce
(Titan Books 9781803369624, $19.99, 144pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 10/01/2024)
Experimental horror novel in the form of a sort of CYOA novel. Vicken has a plan: throw himself into the Saint Lawrence River in Montreal and end it all for good, believing it to be the only way out for him after a lifetime of depression and pain. But, stepping off the subway, he finds himself in an endless, looping station.
Anderson, Lily: Killer House Party
(Macmillan/Holt 9781250909473, $19.99, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Young-adult darkly humorous horror novel. A teen desperate to raise money for college throws a huge graduation party in her parents’ newly acquired manor, but the manor is haunted and full of countless horrors that won’t allow anyone to leave.
Armstrong, Kelley: I’ll Be Waiting
(St. Martin’s 9781250284211, $29, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Supernatural horror novel. Someone overheard a dying husband say to his wife, “I’ll be waiting for you,” and embellished that story and took it to the press, leaving the grieving widow hounded by spiritualists. Instead, she finds a reputable medium and with her friends and family they rent the beach house that her husband’s family once owned. But as soon as the medium begins to work, strange things start happening.
Armstrong, Tammy: Pearly Everlasting
(Harper 9780063396142, $28.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Novel with elements of folklore. A teenage girl is raised in a lumber camp with a bear for a brother, and when a new boss sells the bear she sets out to rescue him, even if it means meeting the devilish beings her father warned her about her whole life.
Chronister, Kay: The Bog Wife
(Counterpoint 9781640096622, $28, 336pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Eco-gothic Appalachian folktale. A family in West Virginia has a long standing covenant with a cranberry bog. They tend it, it sustains them, and every generation their patriarch is sacrificed in return for a “bog-wife,” a woman meant to carry on the family line. Until one year the bog either fails or refuses to honor the bargain.
The Bog Wife openly questions its supernatural elements almost from the jump. The basics of the Haddesley magics are outlined shortly into the narrative: a centuries- old pact with the bog, which provides the family with natural bounty and, once a generation, a living embodiment to mother the next, the titular bog wife. But the Haddesley children, and we the readers, see little proof of this. The house is falling apart, the land is barely providing enough to keep them alive, and, until and unless the next bog wife emerges – something Charlie and Percy are particularly fixated on – they have only their own hazy memories of their vanished mother as evidence of the bog’s magic.
–Jake Casella Brookins, Locus, October 2024
Dara, Maxie: A Grim Reaper’s Guide to Catching a Killer
(Penguin Random House/Berkley 9780593815793, $19, 352pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Fantasy mystery novel. Kathy Valence is 42, mid-divorce, pregnant with her ex’s baby, and working as a modern-day grim reaper. When she goes to retrieve her next client, a teenage boy, his soul is missing. He insists that he was murdered, and he refuses to move on until she solves the mystery of who killed him. A first novel.
DiCamillo, Kate: The Hotel Balzaar
(Candlewick Press 9781536223316, $17.99, 160pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Middle-grade fairy tale novelette, the second in the Norendy Tales trilogy begun in The Puppets of Spelhorst. While her mother cleans hotel rooms, Marta explores quietly, but one day meets a mysterious countess with a parrot who tells stories, stories which might hold the secret to her missing father’s disappearance. Illustrated by Júlia Sardà.
Doyle, Catherine: The Dagger and the Flame
(Simon & Schuster/McElderry 9781665955119, $21.99, 512pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Young Adult fantasy novel, first in the series The City of Fantome. Two rival guilds, the Cloaks and the Daggers, grapple for control of Fantome’s underworld. Sera of the Cloaks has rare shade magic and is seeking revenge for the murder of her mother, while Ransom is heir to the Daggers, and they keep being pushed together.
El-Fassi, Nadia: Best Hex Ever
(Penguin Random House/Dell 9780593871799, $18, 320pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Spicy fantasy romance novel. Kitchen witch Dina Whitlock is happily single, selling magic-infused treats in her London café. Which is good, because she’s hexed to cause any partner she has is to have a string of bad luck. But then her best friend gets married, she’s serving as the maid of honor, and the best man is very charming. She must undo the hex before it’s too late. A first novel.
Ellison, Harlan & Straczynski, J. Michael, eds.: The Last Dangerous Visions
(Blackstone Publishing 9798212183796, $27.99, 450pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Original anthology, third and final in the Dangerous Visions series started by Ellison and after 50 years, finally finished, with 23 stories plus a series of eight pieces (short-shorts/prose poems by D.M. Rowles) sprinkled throughout. Final editor J. Michael Straczynski provides a general introduction, a lengthy discussion of his relationship with Harlan, story notes, and an afterword on the difficulties of compiling this volume. Authors include Mildred Downey Broxon, James S.A. Corey, Cory Doctorow, P.C. Hodgell, and A.E. Van Vogt. Includes one story introduction by Ellison. Illustrated by Tim Kirk.
Emerson, Ramona: Exposure
(Soho Crime 9781641294768, $29.95, 288pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Supernatural mystery novel, a sequel to Shutter. Navajo forensic photographer Rita Todacheene can see Native ghosts, meaning she’s the only one who can stop a serial killer operating in Gallup, New Mexico. The killer is seeing visions of glory and starting his own religion, while disguising his murders as indigents dying of exposure.
Flint, Eric & Nye, Jody Lynn: 1635: The Weaver’s Code
(Baen 9781982193669, $28, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 10/01/2024)
SF time-travel novel 37th in the series begun in 1632. A young lady in London seeks out the “uptimers” from West Virginia for help with her family’s struggling wool business, but they have been imprisoned in the Tower and need help to escape.
Hearne, Kevin: Candle & Crow
(Penguin Random House/Del Rey 9781984821317, $28.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Fantasy novel, third and final in the Ink & Sigil series about Glasgow detective Al MacBharrais. Al MacBharrais has a most unusual job: He’s a practitioner of ink-and-sigil magic, tasked with keeping order among the gods and monsters that dwell hidden in the human world. But there’s one supernatural mystery he’s never been able to solve: Years ago, someone cast twin curses on him that killed off his apprentices and drove away loved ones who heard him speak, leaving him bereft and isolated.
Heron, Farah: Remember Me Tomorrow
(Amazon/Skyscape 9781662520518, $16.99, 299pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Romantic mystery with SF elements. College students share a dorm room in two different timelines but somehow are able to communicate through texts. Aleeza a journalism student, and Jay a student who went missing five months ago try to figure out how to keep Jay from disappearing completely.
Holo, Jacob: Freelancers of Neptune
(Baen 9781982193683, $28, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 10/01/2024)
Far-future SF novel first in the Sol Blazers series set in a reshaped solar system. A spaceship captain struggles to make ends meet, until he gets involved with a beautiful cat girl with a lead on a treasure trove of lost technology.
Kelly, Michael & Mohamed, Premee, ed.: Northern Nights
(Undertow 9781988964478, $19.99, 298pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 10/01/2024)
Original anthology of 20 strange horror stories by Canadian authors. Authors include Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Premee Mohamed, David Nickle, Naben Ruthnum, and A.C. Wise.
Knausgaard, Karl Ove: The Third Realm
(Penguin Random House/Penguin Press 9780593655214, $32, 512pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Fabulist fantasy novel, third in the Morning Star series. A huge new star appears in the sky, and accompanying weirdness includes the inability of anyone, or anything, to die. Translated by Martin Aitken from the Norwegian.
Lamb, Sacha: The Forbidden Book
(Levine Querido 9781646144563, $19.99, 256pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Young-adult fantasy novel based on Jewish folklore. At 17, Sorel runs away from her wedding, and disguises herself as a man — but the name she picks belongs to a man a lot of people want dead, and draws her to a dark underworld where criminals and wicked angels fight to control the Jewish community.
Liang, Ann: A Song to Drown Rivers
(St. Martin’s 9781250289476, $32, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Fantasy novel retelling the story of Xishi, one of the famous Four Beauties of Ancient China. Xishi’s beauty seems destined to lead her to marry well and support her family, but when she draws the attention of a young military adviser, she has an opportunity to use her beauty for spycraft instead.
Much of the novel is concerned with a carefully planned sexpionage narrative, wherein Xishi, a village girl famous for her beauty, is recruited by Goujian, the king of Yue, trained in the art of flirtation and espionage by Fanli, his military strategist, to seduce and distract Fuchai, the king of Wu, the rival state that had conquered them – paving the way for revenge and reclamation. Despite their simmering attraction, both Xishi and Fanli set aside their romantic feelings for the greater good of the kingdom – but choosing duty and sacrifice over love doesn’t quite usher in the victorious outcome they had hoped for.
–Archita Mittra, Locus, August 2024
Luken, Erin: This Dark Paradise
(Bloomsbury USA 9781547613960, $20.99, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 10/01/2024)
Young-adult fantasy novel. A girl goes to an enchanted island in order to steal the source of its magic to save her brother, but she might not survive the island long enough to steal anything. A first novel.
Moning, Karen Marie: The House at Watch Hill
(HarperCollins/Morrow 9780063249219, $30, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Gothic romance novel, first in the Watch Hill trilogy. Zo Grey is reeling from the sudden death of her mother when she receives a surprising call from an attorney in Divinity, Louisiana, with the news she has been left an inheritance by a distant relative, the terms of which he will only discuss in person. Destitute and alone, with nothing left to lose, Zo heads to Divinity and discovers she is the sole beneficiary of a huge fortune and a monstrosity of a house that sits ominously at the peak of Watch Hill—but she must live in it, alone, for three years before the house, or the money, is hers.
Moore, Alan: The Great When
(Bloomsbury USA 9781635578843, $29.99, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 10/01/2024)
Fantasy novel, the first in the Long London series about murder and magic in post-WWII London. Teenager Dennis, sent to retrieve some rare books, finds one is a fictitious book that should not exist outside a novel, but comes from a version of London beyond time.
Seitz, Crystal: Inheritance of Scars
(Simon & Schuster/McElderry 9781665959926, $19.99, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Young-adult fantasy horror novel based on Norse mythology. Astrid goes searching in a dangerous forest full of monsters to find her missing grandmother. But while searching, she uncovers greater mysteries including a conflict going back generations and an ancient blood oath, and she accidentally awakens an imprisoned draugr who may be her only hope of navigating the forest.
Sivinski, Stacy: The Crescent Moon Tearoom
(Simon & Schuster/Atria 9781668058398, $18.99, 336pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Cozy fantasy romance novel about three clairvoyant sisters who run a tearoom. Then the Council of Witches comes calling with news that the city Diviner has lost her powers, and the sisters suddenly find themselves being pulled in different directions in life as a result of a family curse. A first novel.
Solomon, Rivers: Model Home
(Macmillan/Farrar Straus Giroux/MCD 9780374607135, $28, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Haunted house horror novel. Black siblings raised in a spooky house in a white gated enclave in Texas have avoided it ever since. Together, they go back after their parents die unnatural deaths — but were their deaths supernatural?
In the case of Model Home, the haunting involves not only the house of the title, a McMansion in an upscale suburb of Dallas, but the challenges faced by the first Black family to move into the development, and in particular by the three grown siblings (sisters Emmanuelle and Eve and genderfluid narrator Ezri), who have long ago escaped the house – which they all are convinced is cursed and malignant. While Emmanuelle reflects the materialistic ambitions of the parents, Eve has become a rebellious artist who homeschools her kids and raises them without gender assignments, and Ezri has moved to England and converted to Judaism. Summoned home by their sisters after some disturbing texts from the mother, Ezri discovers both parents dead, in what the police regard as a murder-suicide.
–Gary K. Wolfe, Locus, September 2024
Stayman-London, Kate: Fang Fiction
(Penguin Random House/Dial 9780593729120, $19, 400pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Vampire fantasy romantic comedy novel. Tess, vampire fiction fan doesn’t believe vampires actually exist… until one walks through her door. Apparently the sexy villain of her favorite series is trapped and needs her help. Eager to escape her life she agrees and suddenly she’s on an island where the sun never shines, surrounded by deadly vampires.
Tahir, Sabaa: Heir
(Penguin Random House/Putnam 9780593616949, $21.99, 512pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Young adult fantasy novel, set 20 years after An Ember in the Ashes. Three young people grapple with power, treachery, love, and the devastating consequences of unchecked greed, on a journey that may cost them their lives — and their hearts.
Tawada, Yoko: Suggested in the Stars
(New Directions 9780811237932, $16.95, 224pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 10/01/2024)
Near-future dystopian SF novel, sequel to Scattered All Over the Earth. Climate change has left Hiruko both homeless and without anyone who speaks her language. She and her friends — one inexplicably mute — make their way to Copenhagen where they find a strange hospital with a scary speech-loss doctor, along with many other oddities. Translated from the Japanese by Margaret Mitsutani.
Vo, Nghi: The City in Glass
(Tordotcom 9781250348272, $24.99, 224pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Fantasy novel. The demon Vitrine loves the city of Azril, using it for her entertainment. Then the angels come and the city falls. She curses one angel in her mad grief, who now wanders the ruins of the city. Together, they unearth the past of the lost city and begin to shape its future. But when war threatens Azril and everything they have built, Vitrine and her angel must decide whether they will let the city fall again.
Vo’s displayed great range and depth in character in her other work, but Vitrine is the deepest study in anger I’ve seen in a long time. How that plays out in her relationship with the angel, over decades and centuries, is really satisfying. There are points here, I think, about how weapons and cities are fundamentally opposed, and about how – as some of her favorite humans gently remind Vitrine at points – cities, magical as they can be, are just places, and sometimes it’s time to leave.
–Jake Casella Brookins, Locus, September 2024
Yun, Jungyeun: The Marigold Mind Laundry
(Penguin Random House/Dial 9780593733936, $22, 256pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 10/01/2024)
Fantasy novel. Jieun is proprietor of the Marigold Mind Laundry. Its service: to remove the deepest pain from our hearts. Jieun listens while customers share their unhappy memories. As they speak, she transfers their sadness onto T-shirts as stains. After a spin in the washing machine, the stains become flower petals that soar into the air, and Jieun’s customers find solace. As Jieun listens to stories, she learns that the will to heal is not a rare gift, but a power we all possess — if only we are open to it. Translated from the Korean by Shanna Tan.
