New Books: 28 January 2025
Visit our bookshop.org page to purchase this week’s new books and support your local bookstore. And us!
Addison, Katherine: The Orb of Cairado (Subterranean Press 978-1645242130, $45.00, 120pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 01/31/2025)
Original fantasy novella, set in the award-winning world of The Goblin Emperor. Ulcetha is a disgraced scholar, framed and kicked out the University, and he makes a living crafting elven forgeries. But when his friend dies in a royal airship explosion, she leaves behind clues for him. This is a pen name for Sarah Monette. Illustrations by Tom Canty. Limited edition of 1000 signed copies.
Avery, Amy: The Longest Autumn (Flatiron 978-1250896490, $28.99, 320pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 01/16/2025)
Fantasy novel. Tirne is a mortal tasked with ferrying the god of autumn from the god’s world to our own. He’s supposed to return for the change of seasons, but when the portral breaks, the world is plunged into endless autumn, and the god starts to become mortal.
Campbell, Annabel: The Outcast Mage (Orbit US 978-0316580823, $19.99, 464pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 01/28/2025)
Epic fantasy novel, first in a series. Naila is an aspiring mage entering a magical academy in a glass city. She has to harness her powers or be cast out, and her powerful mentor has powerful enemies who will stop at nothing to sabotage her. A first novel.
Bruce, Camilla: At the Bottom of the Garden (Penguin Random House/Del Rey 978-0593724958, $19.00, 368pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 01/28/2025)
Gothic suspense novel with horror elements. Black widow Clara Woods is perfectly content to live in her big house with her murdered husband (and others) buried in the garden. But she’s entrusted with two orphaned nieces… one of whom can see the ghosts of Clara’s victims.
Correia, Larry & Ezell, Kacey, eds.: Down These Mean Streets (Baen 978-1982193126, $28.00, 400pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, 01/28/2025)
Original anthology of 14 science fiction and fantasy stories, all with a hardboiled, urban-noir twist. The stories promise action and crime, and “acknowledge that the city is a living, breathing entity . . . and it isn’t always on our side.”
Fears, Mina: The Scorpion Queen (Macmillan/Flatiron 978-1250852946, $21.99, 284pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 01/28/2025)
YA dark fantasy novel inspired by Malian fairy tale about a princess whose suitors face gruesome trials. Servant Amie forms a bond with Princess Mariama, and she attempts to escape Timbuktu and Mariama’s murder-happy father. A first novel.
Goldschmidt, Pippa: Schrödinger’s Wife (and Other Possiblities) (Goldsmiths Press UK/GoldSF 978-1915983183, $19.95, 248pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 08/27/2024)
Collection of speculative stories about the lives of real and imaginary female scientists. Stories range from the Antarctic to particle colliders, from different ages of discovery.
Kemmerer, Brigid: Carving Shadows Into Gold (Bloomsbury USA 978-1547610105, $20.99, 496pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, 01/28/2025)
Young adult fantasy romance, second and last in the Forging Silver into Stars duology. Three young people must harness magic to save their divided kingdom from an invasion of scravers.
Krow, Leyna: Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids (Penguin Random House/Penguin 978-0593299654, $19.00, 304pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 01/28/2025)
Collection of 16 “”darkly fabulist”” stories set in the Pacific Northwest, all about women dealing with uncertainty: doppelganger babies, time travelers, mysterious portals, and climate change.
LaRocca, Eric: At Dark, I Become Loathsome (Blackstone Publishing 979-8212179027, $25.99, 240pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 01/28/2025)
Horror novel that takes place in an eerie section of the internet. Ashley is a man who lost his wife and son, and now holds “”a peculiar ritual”” for those who are drawn to suicide. He forms a harrowing relationship with a potential candidate for the ritual.
Lostetter, Marina: The Teeth of Dawn (Tor 978-1250258786, $32.99, 496pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 01/28/2025)
Fantasy novel, third in The Five Penalties trilogy. Krona and the other rebels must free imprisoned gods to defeat the Savior, the all-powerful being who imprisoned them to create the world of Arkensyre.
Mahoney, Dennis: Our Winter Monster (Soho Press/Hell’s Hundred 978-1641296335, $26.95, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 01/28/2025)
Horror novel. There’s a pair in the woods… that is, a troubled couple lost in a snowstorm, with a monster (that eats couples!) on the loose. The local sheriff vows to save them.
Marks, Arlene F.: The Stragori Deception (Brain Lag 978-1998795208, $19.99, 422pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 01/31/2025)
SF novel. Terran immigrants on Stragon are being blamed for increasing political and street violence, and defusing the situation will require exposing an influential fraud. Different factions fight and vie for power.
Mendoza, Josh: Shadow of the Eternal Watcher (Inkshares 978-1950301775, $18.99, 325pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 01/28/2025)
SF novel. Struggling LA PI Raines is haunted by his own demons at PTSD, but lately he’s been seeing visions of an alternate reality where he’s rich and powerful. When he’s suddenly framed for crimes and hunted down, he has to figure out what’s going on…across spacetime.
Newman, Nick: The Garden (Putnam 978-0593717738, $29.00, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 01/18/2025)
Literary fable/horror novel. Two elderly sisters livealone in an isolated garden, away from the outside world, and not knowing anything about themselves except an almanac left by their mother. But the discovery of a boy in the garden disrupts everything. Newman is a pen name for Nicholas Bowling.
Peñaranda, Chloe C.: The Night Is Defying (Tor/Bramble 978-1250355508, $32.99, 448pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 01/28/2025)
Dark fantasy romance novel, the second in the Nytefall trilogy. Star-maiden Astraea is a quest to regain her memory, and Nyte is threatened by plots from his own brother.
Peterson, B.F.: The Land Beyond the Waste (Collective Ink UK/Roundfire Books 978-1803416458, $18.95, 320pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 01/28/2025)
Fantasy novel. Rydara, the daughter of a tribal king, is banished after raising an alarm about her father’s new alliance. She sets off to find dragon magic strong enough to stop her father’s new allies from murdering tribespeople in dark rituals.
Ogundiran, Tobi: At the Fount of Creation (Tordotcom 978-1250908032, $21.99, 224pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 01/28/2025)
Fantasy novella, second in the Guardians of the Gods duology. Ashâke carries the spirits of the surviving Orisha, who have been hunted for hundreds of years. Now she needs to defeat the army of Godkillers and their leader, known as the Teacher.
Rose, Lucy: The Lamb (Harper 978-0063374607, $27.99, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 01/30/2025)
Gothic coming-of-age folk horror novel. Margot lives in the woods with Mama, who is fond of taking in “stray” people who wander to the cabin. Then she butchers them. When Margot becomes fond of a “stray” named Eden, she has to figure out what to do. A first novel.
Scheuerer, Helen: Iron & Embers (Alchemy Books 978-1922903228, $27.99, 614pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 01/28/2025)
Dark fantasy romance novel, first in the Ashes of Thezmarr series. Wren Embervale, an alchemist cum assassin, has to survive a gauntlet of death matches if she wants to enter her kingdom’s elite academy; not to mention an attraction to a surly guardian who wants her dead.
Shiveley, Jordan: Hot Singles in Your Area (Unbound UK 978-1800183414, $18.00, 208pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 02/01/2025)
Humorous/bizarro horror novel with elements of noir and SF. Noah takes a new job at a sinister media company and runs into a woman named Malachia, the last person in the City of Silence. Ebook also available.
Su, Maggie: Blob: A Love Story (Harper 978-0063358645, $26.99, 256pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 01/28/2025)
speculative novel with science fiction elements. College dropout Vi Liu is drifting through life when she discovers a blob on a night out. She takes the creature home, and as it grows, she realizes that she can influence it to become her ideal (white) boyfriend…but of course, things don’t go as planned.
Worthington, Jones: Omniviolence (Vesuvian Books 978-1645480655, $17.95, 320pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 01/28/2025)
Near-future thriller/horror novel. Fifteen-year-old Jackson Cross is an assassin who kills with drones from his mother’s basement. But when a bounty is placed on him, he has to go on his run. But the disgruntled veteran hot on his trail finds himself having second thoughts about killing the kid.
While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, and would like to keep the site paywall free, but WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT to continue quality coverage of the science fiction and fantasy field.
©Locus Magazine. Copyrighted material may not be republished without permission of LSFF.
