Siavahda's Blog, page 32

Starlit Adventure: Tarashana by Rachel Neuemeier

Tarashana (Tuyo #3) by Rachel Neumeier
Genres: Fantasy, High Fantasy, Secondary World Fantasy
Representation: Major brown characters
PoV: 1st-person, past-tense
ISBN: B08YNY7NLZ
Goodreads

A year and a half ago, Ryo and Aras defeated their enemy, ending the conflict between the winter country and the summer lands. But with all his important secrets revealed in that struggle, Lord Aras now faces a new challenge in dealing with his own countrymen.

Then a message arrives from Ryo’s people: A woman of the Tarashana has come to them from the starlit lands beyond their northern border. Though she plainly needs their help, she is mute. She cannot explain what happened to her people or describe what enemy drove them from their lands. No Ugaro can speak to her — but Aras might. Will he come, and by his arts help Tarashana and Ugaro understand one another?

Intrigued by this problem, and with every reason to leave his own country for some time, Aras agrees. But the journey upon which he and Ryo embark will be far longer and far more challenging than either of them imagine …

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~when mercy is shown you, pass it on
~what lies beyond the stars?
~linear distance is for wimps
~beware invisible tigers
~and all other tigers, honestly

I THINK THIS IS KIND OF A MASTERPIECE??? ACTUALLY???

Look, I have a complicated relationship with Neuemeier’s writing, as I have mentioned before; I am either in the mood for Neuemeier And Nothing Else or I can’t read her stuff at all, and I get no warning before the switch is flipped in my brain. One day I’m not up to reading her books; the next I’m devouring them. I don’t get it either! It’s just a thing! My brain is weird, no one should be surprised by this at this point.

I really enjoyed the first book in this series, Tuyo, but did not have much to say about it other than how I really, really liked how the focus was the development of a very strong platonic relationship. We don’t get to see that in Fantasy nearly as often as I would like.

Then I skipped book two, because that is actually set before Tuyo (the publication order of this series and the internal chronology do not match up, please be aware of this before you dive in) and focused on a character I wasn’t so interested in. So I jumped right into Tarashana instead.

And OH MY FREAKING GODS.

Tarashana is a beast of a book; on my Kindle, it clocked in at just under 700 pages. (I assume the paperback must have very small font because otherwise surely no one could afford to print it, the economics of the paper market being what they are right now.) And a great deal of that page count is taken up by introspection; this is not a book for those who need action to be happening all the time. I mean, stuff is always happening, and Neuemeier is great at not dragging out the parts where characters are travelling from one place to another place (which, thank you, because I generally hate that), but it is not a fast-paced book.

It is an extremely high-ANXIETY book, especially in the second half – so much tension!!! such high stakes!!! so many people doing desperate things for good reasons but ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! – but it is not fast. Neuemeier has always shone in her characters and the relationships between them, and now that she is self-publishing she is absolutely indulgent re diving into all the nuances and growth and challenges and ethos’ and reasoning that goes on between and within all those characters. And I’m not using indulgent here as an insult; it is EXTREMELY GREAT. I am the one being indulged, here. I love it. It is spoiling me absolutely rotten. I will eat it up with a spoon and come back for seconds, every time. But yes, we must be honest that a lot of the pagecount goes towards not-action. Or, sometimes, a kind of dreamy, languid sort of action???

It’s very hard to explain.

BUT WHAT IS THE BOOK ACTUALLY ABOUT, SIA?! I hear you yelling. Which, fair.

The thing is, this is also really hard to explain! Because my jaw DROPPED when Ryo and Aras made it to the Tarashana woman mentioned in the blurb, and finally found out what was going on (this takes place maybe a third of the way through the book)! And I don’t really want to take that revelatory feeling away from anyone else by spoilering it for you!

Is it enough if I say that a real, properly magical quest is required? That Neuemeier’s worldbuilding once again knocks it out of the park, and she’s created some of the scariest bad guys I’ve ever seen for this book? Their GOAL, folx. The villains’ ENDGAME! It’s – look, Thanos has nothing on these assholes, okay??? They were legit terrifying, and I don’t know how Neuemeier dreamed them up, and their magic, and the things they were willing to do to win. The Tarashana woman herself – her mission, her magic, her people! All of it was so BEAUTIFUL, the kind of beautiful that sends shivers down your spine and makes the hairs on your arms stand up. I so hope we see more of the Tarashana in later books…

But this one. THIS ONE. Ryo and Aras go through so much in this book; their incredible friendship and loyalty to each other, established so well in Tuyo, is simultaneously one of their greatest strengths in the adventure they undertake in this book, but then – I audibly GASPED when A Thing happened, okay??? The last chunk of the book took my heart up like a towel and WRUNG IT; I ached for absolutely everyone, not just Ryo and Aras but the whole cast of amazing secondary characters.

Tarashana is about Big Magical Adventure Things – saving-the-world type things – but it’s also fundamentally a book about relationships, the different kinds of loyalties and friendships, mercy versus justice, how freaking IMPOSSIBLE it can be to tell what the right thing to do is sometimes (and how freaking clear it is, other times). Honour vs necessity vs love. And I think it’s the perfect book for anyone who wants to…to be drawn in and soothed by a book, anyone who wants a majorly character-driven story, but also anyone who wants magical adventures – even if the adventure, here, is (mostly) a quieter kind of adventure. The real action doesn’t come about until the climax of that adventure. (But when we do get it, it comes complete with shadow-warriors and shapeshifting servants of the gods and magic swords and THERE IS PLENTY TO GET YOUR ADRENALINE GOING, OKAY???)

Which is not the end of the novel, by the way. The adventure, I mean. THERE IS SO MUCH MORE CHARACTER-STUFF AFTER THE ADVENTURE IS OVER. Which might have been my favourite part of the book.

Argh. I can’t even. Go read Tuyo, if you haven’t, then check this one out, okay? Please? I am years late to it and I need more people to scream about this with!!!

The post Starlit Adventure: Tarashana by Rachel Neuemeier appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #174

Must-Have Monday is a feature highlighting which of the coming week’s new releases I’m excited for. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all books being published that week; only those I’m interested in out of those I’m aware of! The focus is diverse SFF, but other genres sneak in occasionally too.

SIX books this week!

(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)

Ours by Phillip B. Williams
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Black cast
Published on: 20th February 2024
Goodreads

An epic novel set in mid-nineteenth-century America about the spiritual costs of a freedom that demands fierce protection

In this ingenious, sweeping novel, Phillip B. Williams introduces us to an enigmatic woman named Saint, a fearsome conjuror who, in the 1830s, annihilates plantations all over Arkansas to rescue the people enslaved there. She brings those she has freed to a haven of her own a town just north of St. Louis, magically concealed from outsiders, named Ours.

It is in this miraculous place that Saint’s grand experiment—a truly secluded community where her people may flourish—takes root. But although Saint does her best to protect the inhabitants of Ours, over time, her conjuring and memories begin to betray her, leaving the town vulnerable to intrusions by newcomers with powers of their own. As the cracks in Saint’s creation are exposed, some begin to wonder whether the community’s safety might be yet another form of bondage.

Set over the course of four decades and steeped in a rich tradition of American literature informed by Black surrealism, mythology, and spirituality, Ours is a stunning exploration of the possibilities and limitations of love and freedom by a writer of capacious vision and talent.

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This one made it onto my Unmissable SFF of 2024 list – and are you really surprised? That blurb is INCREDIBLE, and I’m hopping up and down with excitement at the thought of finally getting to read this one!!!

River Mumma by Zalika Reid-Benta
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Black MC
Published on: 20th February 2024
Goodreads

Issa Rae’s Insecure with a magical realist spin: River Mumma is an exhilarating contemporary fantasy novel about a young Black woman who navigates her quarter-life-crisis while embarking on a mythical quest through the streets of Toronto.

Alicia has been out of grad school for months. She has no career prospects and lives with her mom, who won’t stop texting her macabre news stories and reminders to pick up items from the grocery store.

Then, one evening, the Jamaican water deity, River Mumma, appears to Alicia, telling her that she has twenty-four hours to scour the city for her missing comb.

Alicia doesn’t understand why River Mumma would choose her. She can’t remember all the legends her relatives told her, unlike her retail co-worker Heaven, who can reel off Jamaican folklore by heart. She doesn’t know if her childhood visions have returned, or why she feels a strange connection to her other co-worker Mars. But when the trio are chased down by malevolent spirits called duppies, they realize their tenuous bonds to each other may be their only lifelines. With the clock ticking, Alicia’s quest through the city broadens into a journey through time—to find herself and what the river carries.

Energetic and invigorating, River Mumma is a vibrant exploration of diasporic community and ancestral ties, and a homage to Jamaican storytelling by one of the most invigorating voices in today’s literature.

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I think this night have been out in the UK last year, but this week is the US release! This very much sounds like something I want to read (poor Alicia’s confusion at being chosen this way!) especially because I know nothing about Jamaican mythology! Which automatically makes it more interesting than mythos’ I know inside and out, you know?

Vangie's Ghosts by Paul Di Filippo
Genres: Sci Fi
Representation: Autistic or autistic-coded MC
Published on: 20th February 2024
Goodreads

Vangie's Ghosts blends science fiction, fantasy, a bit of horror, and stark, crisp contemporary naturalism and will appeal to fans of Lucius Shepard, Theodore Sturgeon, Mike Carey, Elizabeth Hand, and Paul Tremblay.

Evangeline, or "Vangie" for short, is under the cruel domination of uncaring step-parents. Suspected of being autistic, Vangie's lack of affect is actually a result of being able to see deep into the multiverse. She is bewildered by the sensory input from a plethora of alternate timestreams. Soon, she will exhibit a strange power, activated only under extreme shock conditions.

Vangie can project her consciousness, her self or soul, from one timeline to another, fleeing danger for safety. This power will soon be exploited by a number of shady characters, as guardianship of Vangie passes from one set of exploitive adults to another.

But as Vangie ages and lives through numerous trials and adventures, she becomes more and more self-assured and powerful--talents that will eventually bring her head-to-head against a rival of her own kind.

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I’m not sure whether this is YA or not, so I’m putting it at the end of the Adult books and the start of the YA ones. And I don’t love the whole ‘suspected of being autistic, Vangie is actually…’ thing. But then, several of the early reviews say she is autistic, not just possessed of powers that only make her present as autistic. So I really don’t know what to think. But the premise is interesting enough that I do want to check it out for myself.

The Diablo's Curse by Gabe Cole Novoa
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Brown nonbinary MC, brown love interest, major brown trans character
Published on: 20th February 2024
Goodreads

From the author of The Wicked Bargain comes a high-stakes race to defeat a curse designed to kill about a teen demon who wants to be human, a boy cursed to die young, and the murderous island destined to bury them both.

Dami is a demon determined to cancel every deal they've ever made in order to tether their soul to earth and become human again. There's just one person standing in their way: Silas. An irresistibly (and stubborn) cute boy cursed to die young, except for the deal with Dami that is keeping him alive. If they cancel the deal, Silas is dead. Unless... they can destroy the curse that has plagued Silas's family for generations. But to do so, Dami and Silas are going to have to work together. That is, if the curse doesn't kill them first. . . .

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Apparently this is a kind of spin-off from Novoa’s book The Wicked Bargain, which Dami also appears in. A bunch of reviewers have said Dami was their favourite character in Bargain, and I guess Novoa agreed, because now Dami is getting their own book! I have been assured that Diablo’s Curse is a standalone, though – there’s no need to have read Wicked Bargain first!

A Tempest of Tea (Blood and Tea, #1) by Hafsah Faizal
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Brown cast
Published on: 20th February 2024
Goodreads

From Hafsah Faizal, New York Times–bestselling author of We Hunt the Flame, comes the first book in a hotly-anticipated new fantasy duology about an orphan girl and her crew who get tangled in a heist with vampires, perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows.

On the streets of White Roaring, Arthie Casimir is a criminal mastermind and collector of secrets. Her prestigious tearoom transforms into an illegal bloodhouse by dark, catering to the vampires feared by society. But when her establishment is threatened, Arthie is forced to strike an unlikely deal with an alluring adversary to save it—and she can’t do the job alone.

Calling upon a band of misfits, Arthie formulates a plan to infiltrate the dark and glittering vampire society known as the Athereum. But not every member of her crew is on her side, and as the truth behind the heist unfolds, Arthie finds herself in the midst of a conspiracy that will threaten the world as she knows it. Dark, action-packed, and swoonworthy, this is Hafsah Faizal better than ever.

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I can’t stand drinking tea, despite spending a good chunk of my childhood in England, but I love to read about it, so Tempest of Tea has been on my anticipated shelf since the book deal was announced! I mean, teahouses and vampires??? YES PLEASE!

The Rain Artist by Claire Rudy Foster
Genres: Sci Fi
Representation: East Asian MC (maybe?)
Published on: 24th February 2024
Goodreads

In a future where rain is a luxury enjoyed exclusively by the ultra-rich, the world’s only umbrella-maker is framed for the high-profile murder of the quadrillionaire patriarch who controls the earth’s last natural resources. Beautiful and horrific, The Rain Artist is pitched as Succession meets The Fifth Element and asks the question of how art and artists can thrive under commercialized capitalism.

This is Book One in the Clepsydra Series.

The Rain Artist started as a short story published in O: The Oprah Magazine and was included as a notable story in the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022 anthology by editors Rebecca Roanhorse and John Joseph Adams. The novel is the first in a series set in the immediate future of our mutating planet.

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I am weirdly in love with this premise? There’s something so whimsical about the idea of the last umbrella-maker! But I admit to being confused; I’ve seen this one labelled horror as well as sci fi? So I’m not really sure what to expect, but I know I want to dive in!

Will you be reading any of these? Let me know!

The post Must-Have Monday #174 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Too Small, Too Quiet: The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed

Highlights

~don’t trust the apples
~homey magics bring you home again (maybe)
~don’t lie to yourself or you’ll lie to the monsters

I will be honest: I didn’t actually enjoy The Butcher of the Forest. But I still think it’s objectively pretty decent, and I found a fair bit to appreciate in it.

The novella starts out strong, quickly introducing the reader to Veris and the Tyrant she and her people live under. I liked Veris immediately, and the Tyrant turned my stomach; the nightmare he’s put the people he’s conquered through is gotten across very efficiently and effectively. The quick glimpse we get of him when he orders Veris dragged into his presence was more than enough to make me thoroughly despise the man – and absolutely believe he’d carry out his threats if Veris didn’t go into the woods, or failed to come out of them.

The woods – the Elmever – is really where my problems with this novella began. Although Mohamed really nails the sense of urgency powering Veris’ mission – she has from dawn to dusk to get in and out, or she’ll never get out at all – the woods themselves never felt that eerie, frightening, or otherworldly to me. I’m not sure if I was expecting something more dramatic, but birds that occasionally talk and trees that move when you’re not looking? I want a lot more out of my otherworlds; I want the plants and earth and air to be strange and unique, whether creepy or beautiful or both. The fact that you can slip from our world to the world-inside-the-Elmever without noticing is supposed to be one of the things that makes it terrifying, which I don’t object to – but once you’re there, I’d have liked it to be a lot more obvious that this is not our world, you know? Give me bleeding trees and silver bees, squirrels with bat wings hanging upside-down from branches, grass that bruises when you step on it. Streams of blood and honey. Etc.

I had the same issue with the various beings Veris encounters in the woods: they didn’t strike me as alien enough, strange enough. Mohamed disdained to rehash the elven-esque Fae for her Elmever, and she gets points from me for that, but I didn’t really feel anything for or about the creatures she created instead. The house, the guardians, the game she has to play to get the kids back – for me, it was all very meh.

Mohamed did a lot more with Veris wondering if the Tyrant’s children even deserve to be rescued, especially with pointed little details like how the older one, the Tyrant’s heir, just takes Veris’ care and sacrifices for granted, because to her that’s what other people/servants are for.

A lot of the smaller details really did charm me; the way Veris’ aunt does everything in threes to try and give her, Veris, good luck for her quest; the small, humble objects Veris has as talismans to help her. There was this really lovely sense of domestic magic, un-fancy magic, along with a very clear awareness of how outclassed those small magics are by the power of the woods. That gives the whole story a bit of an underdog feel; as with the best fairytales, Veris has to be small and careful and quiet, because if she tries going head-to-head with the monsters, she’d be squashed like a bug. She’s not a hero in the usual sense, because everything depends on her being meek and going as unnoticed as possible, rather than going in big and loud and swinging a sword. I really liked that!

The horror, for me, wasn’t in the monsters and all – though hey, the story did deliver on the cover’s promises; we do get a unicorn! – it was in the moments when the Rules tighten like a noose around Veris’ throat, when the tension is wound to the breaking point and someone missteps, or doesn’t think. There’s a very intense dread in those moments, and a reflexive anger, when you really want to shake whichever character’s fucked up for being so gods’ damned stupid.

And the actual semi-ending, [View post to see spoiler] is appropriately horrifying and wrenching and no no no!!!

But then that ending is undercut by the actual ending of the novella, which retroactively takes a lot of power out of those final moments in the forest. Which lost Butcher of the Forest quite a few stars from me.

I honestly don’t know who I’d recommend this to; it’s not scary enough for horror fans, not fantastical enough for fantasy, and I didn’t find the story itself a very satisfying one. Veris survives by being small and quiet (and clever), but Butcher of the Forest is too small, too quiet, and not clever enough for me.

A swing and (mostly) a miss, imo.

The post Too Small, Too Quiet: The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

I Can’t Wait For…Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about but haven’t yet read. Most of the time they’re books that have yet to be released, but not always. It’s based on the Waiting on Wednesday meme, which was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. 

This week my Can’t-Wait-For Book is Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis!

Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Queer MC
Published on: 19th March 2024
Goodreads

The Grand Budapest Hotel in space, Floating Hotel is a hopeful story of misfits, rebels and found family, perfect for fans of Becky Chambers, Martha Wells and Aliette de Bodard.

Welcome to the Grand Abeona Hotel: home of the finest food, the sweetest service, and the very best views the galaxy has to offer. Year round it moves from planet to planet, system to system, pampering guests across the furthest reaches of the milky way. The last word in sub-orbital luxury - and a magnet for intrigue. Intrigues such as:

Why are there love poems in the lobby intray?

How many Imperial spies are currently on board?

What is the true purpose of the Problem Solver's conference?

And perhaps most pertinently - who is driving the ship?

At the centre of these mysteries stands Carl, one time stowaway, longtime manager, devoted caretaker to the hotel. It's the love of his life and the only place he's ever called home. But as forces beyond Carl's comprehension converge on the Abeona, he has to face one final question: when is it time to let go?

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I was charmed by the premise of Floating Hotel when I first heard of it, and fell HARD for that cover when it was revealed! But I’m wary of debut or new-to-me authors, so I read Curtis’ previous book first, Frontier – and when I enjoyed the heck out of that, I gave myself all the permission to fall for Floating Hotel!

I’m a shallow, shallow reader, and I love getting to read about pretty things. So reading about a luxury hotel? A luxury hotel so luxurious it’s in SPACE? Insert heart-eyes here! Give me all the pretties, and just as importantly, let me see all the people who keep them pretty and make the pretties happen!

I saw a whisper that Floating Hotel is actually set in the same universe as Frontier (although you definitely don’t need to have read one to read the other) and written in the same style – meaning each chapter follows a different character, and all their stories weave into an over-arching, bigger story. That worked really well in Frontier, and with the promise of Becky Chamber!vibes in this book (Frontier is definitely not a Becky Chambers!vibes book) – I just feel like that’s going to be a really great combination.

I mean, ‘a hopeful story of misfits, rebels and found family’ is always going to be my jam. That it’s set in pretty!space just makes it so much better.

This one’s out next month, so you still have plenty of time to get your preorders in!

The post I Can’t Wait For…Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #173

Must-Have Monday is a feature highlighting which of the coming week’s new releases I’m excited for. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all books being published that week; only those I’m interested in out of those I’m aware of! The focus is diverse SFF, but other genres sneak in occasionally too.

TWELVE THIRTEEN books this week!

(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)

Projections by S.E. Porter
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 13th February 2024
Goodreads

S.E. Porter, critically-acclaimed YA author of Vassa in the Night , bursts onto the adult fantasy scene with her adult novel that is sure to appeal to fans of Jeff Vandemeer and China Mieville

Love may last a lifetime, but in this dark historical fantasy, the bitterness of rejection endures for centuries.

As a young woman seeks vengeance on the obsessed sorcerer who murdered her because he could not have her, her murderer sends projections of himself out into the world to seek out and seduce women who will return the love she denied―or suffer mortal consequence. A lush, gothic journey across worlds full of strange characters and even stranger magic.

Sarah Porter’s adult debut explores misogyny and the soul-corrupting power of unrequited love through an enchanted lens of violence and revenge.

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Porter’s written some of my favourite YA – I cannot reccomend Never-Contented Things enough! – and I’m just itching to pounce on her Adult debut! I’ve heard so many amazing things about this one; I can’t wait!

The Briar Book of the Dead by A.G. Slatter
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 13th February 2024
Goodreads

Perfect for fans of Uprooted and For the Wolf, a dark and addictive tale of witches, ancient mysteries and sins that refuse to be buried from the award-winning author of All the Murmuring Bones.

To the outside world, Silverton appears not to matter much at all. It sits on a remote mountain pass, far from the great cathedral city of Lodellan. It’s run by witches who, in the usual scheme of things, would be burnt. Yet a dispensation keeps the Briars safe for one simple, dangerous they are the custodians of the threshold between the civilised world and the Darklands, where Leech Lords hold sway. Vampires are especially feared by the ecclesiastics, for leeches steal souls as well as bodies, and mortal souls are the Church’s most valuable currency.

However, things are changing in Silverton, with new forces coming into play and ancient mysteries and sins refusing to stay buried − and Anni Briar, the first non-witch born into the family for three hundred years, will find herself at the centre of the maelstrom.

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This is set in the same universe as Slatter’s All The Murmuring Bones, which I freaking ADORED, and I’m eager to get back to this strange, creepy, magical world! I already feel sorry for Anni…

An Education in Malice by S.T. Gibson
Genres: Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MCs, F/F
Published on: 13th February 2024
Goodreads

Sumptuous and addictive, An Education in Malice is a dark academia tale of blood, secrets and insatiable hungers from Sunday Times bestselling author S.T. Gibson, author of the cult hit A Dowry of Blood.

Deep in the forgotten hills of Massachusetts stands Saint Perpetua's College. Isolated and ancient, it is not a place for timid girls. Here, secrets are currency, ambition is lifeblood, and strange ceremonies welcome students into the fold.

On her first day of class, Laura Sheridan is thrust into an intense academic rivalry with the beautiful and enigmatic Carmilla. Together, they are drawn into the confidence of their demanding poetry professor, De Lafontaine, who holds her own dark obsession with Carmilla.

But as their rivalry blossoms into something far more delicious, Laura must confront her own strange hungers. Tangled in a sinister game of politics, bloodthirsty professors and dark magic, Laura and Carmilla must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice in their ruthless pursuit of knowledge.

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I absolutely adored Gibson’s Dowry of Blood, and this is a companion novel to that one – although by all accounts the two are wildly different books! Dowry was a Dracula reimagining; Education is apparently more in the line of Carmilla. There should still be vampires! And lots of tangled sapphic obsession, mixed in with the usual dark academia yumminess. So looking forward to this one!

The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Chinese cast and setting
Published on: 13th February 2024
Goodreads

Some people think foxes are similar to ghosts because we go around collecting qi , or life force, but nothing could be further than the truth. We are living creatures, just like you, only usually better looking . . .

Manchuria, 1908.
A young woman is found frozen in the snow. Her death is clouded by rumors of foxes involved, which are believed to lure people by transforming themselves into beautiful women and men. Bao, a detective with a reputation for sniffing out the truth, is hired to uncover the dead woman’s identity. Since childhood, Bao has been intrigued by the fox gods, yet they’ve remained tantalizingly out of reach. Until, perhaps, now.

Meanwhile, a family that owns a famous Chinese medicine shop can cure ailments, but not the curse that afflicts them―their eldest sons die before their twenty-fourth birthdays. Now the only grandson of the family is twenty-three. When a mysterious woman enters their household, their luck seems to change. Or does it? Is their new servant a simple young woman from the north or a fox spirit bent on her own revenge?

New York Times bestselling author Yangsze Choo brilliantly explores a world of mortals and spirits, humans and beasts, and their dazzling intersection. The Fox Wife is a stunning novel about a winter full of mysterious deaths, a mother seeking revenge, and old folktales that may very well be true.

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I am always up for spending time with magical foxes, and a pair of them are apparently a major part of this book! From the early reviews I’ve read, I think they’re giving commentary on what all the humans are up to? Which sounds like fun, even if the rest of the book sounds pretty serious.

Hex Magic: Hex'd Book One by Andrew Forrest Baker
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 13th February 2024
Goodreads

Darragh Cullen was not expecting to find love. He wasn't expecting to reveal true witchcraft to the entire world either, but here he flying over the moon for Cernun Murphy and under scrutiny from the Moral Authority of Witches.

Being the Guy Who Exposed Magic does have its advantages though. His shop, HEX, is busier than it's ever been; and life in his little corner of Atlanta is hot and sweaty--plus there's that southern, summer heat.

But when magical artifacts begin to go missing, Learco Clarke, the sexy new head of the southeastern division of the MAW, sets his sights on Darragh.

Darragh doesn't know if he can prove his innocence in time to save himself from being flamed at the stake. But, by the Fae, he's going to try.

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I’m actually really interested in a story set just after magic and witches and all have been revealed to the rest of the world! Especially since it seems like it wasn’t planned – I wonder how our MC managed it? And how everyone is dealing with it???

Arsalan the Magnificent by Jason Tolbert
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Ottoman/Turkish MC
PoV: 13th February 2024
Goodreads

Arsalan the Magnificent is a lighthearted but poignant novel of historical fantasy fiction. In Europe and the Ottoman Empire of the early 19th century, a profession of wizards known as magical architects have achieved wealth and fame as builders of fantastical structures. Facing disgrace after his newest and greatest work collapses, Arsalan Ozdikmen, a renowned Ottoman magical architect in the prime of his career, is exiled to the Balkans. There, he undergoes a journey of reckoning and recovery, and finally redemption, when he is called to the aid of a young Bavarian princess.

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This sounds like a pretty unique take on magic’s place in society – I don’t think I’ve read about magic primarily being for architecture and engineering before! That’s something I’d love to see explored, so I hope it’s a big part of the book.

Gogmagog by Jeff Noon
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 13th February 2024
Goodreads

In a distant, tattered future an old woman, a young girl and mechanical man embark on a slow voyage in the shadow of the great dragon Haakenur up the vast estuary towards the city of Ludwich…

Past plants on the mud-flats that send up brief, man-shaped clouds of seeds to lure you out, past shanty towns full of old sailors and pilots scraping a living from the dregs of the passenger trade, between the wicker effigies in the Wodwo graveyards this is a journey at once familiar from folk tales and country customs and utterly strange and alien.

Cady, back on her boat and feeling every day of her 1,600 years; the tight-lipped but beautiful little girl and her rubber-stitched-faced, mechanical companion are an odd but warmly imagined and compelling cast to accompany the reader on a quest into a world of mysteries and terrors that leave the reader with an inkling that this world is perhaps more familiar than it first appears.

Can Cady find her youth again?

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Quite a few people have been making a very big deal about this duology, and while the hype’s not interested me this time around, that blurb absolutely does. And I think there’s supposed to be something about a giant dragon’s corpse being why the world or river is so weird??? I’m on board! (…pun unintended, I swear.)

Call of the Sea by Emily B. Rose
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Fat demisexual MC with ADHD
Published on: 13th February 2024
Goodreads

Genderbent Little Mermaid retelling meets Brave in this debut NA Fantasy Romance about a fat human princess who dreams of a life of adventure on the ocean. Perfect for fans of Kerri Maniscalco and Lagends & Lattes.

Kenna has never wanted the life ahead of her; trapped in her castle and married to someone she does not love. She dreams of a life of adventure, exploring the ocean, searching for mermaids. Except mermaids don’t exist. At least, that’s what she has always been told. 

Unfortunately, her plans for exploration are thwarted. Every heir must wed, and with war on the horizon, her time is up. Five suitors are vying for her hand, but Kenna vowed never to marry someone only after her crown. Only, one of them doesn’t seem to care about her title, refusing to even use it. Just as she begins to consider opening up to him, he disappears.

Kenna chases after him and learns his secret, before a storm wrecks her boat. Finding herself stranded on an island with him, Kenna has no choice but to trust him to nurse her back to health. With the tension growing, and sparks she doesn’t trust flying between them, Kenna has to decide how to balance the desires of her heart and her duty to her people. And how far she’s willing to go to learn the whole truth.

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From the early reviews, this seems like a love-it-or-hate-it book. But I do adore that premise: genderbent Little Mermaid! I definitely want to check that out.

Neferura by Malayna Evans
Representation: Egyptian MC
Published on: 13th February 2024
Goodreads

For readers of The Wolf Den and Kaikeyi comes the thrilling tale of the forgotten daughter of a legendary Egyptian pharaoh and the path she must take to escape her own dangerous fate.

There are many paths to power. They all come with a price.

Neferura, princess and high priestess of Kemet, knows her duty is to her people. When your mother is the great Pharaoh, it is hard to forget. But Neferura's unique position at court comes with high stakes for her country, especially when she's forced to serve her vile half-brother, a man determined to stop Neferura's potential rise. Peace, it seems, never lasts for women who wield power in the open. Especially when they cross a vengeful man. When Neferura overhears Thutmose's plot to end her mother's rule, she knows he must be stopped, no matter the cost. The discovery of a mysterious tattooed wisewoman and her shadowy network of spies offers an uneasy alliance. But the wisewoman wields more power than Neferura knew possible -- power with the potential to rival her own. Neferura must decide where her loyalties lie and how much she's willing to sacrifice to protect the people she loves before everything crumbles at the hands of a tyrant.

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As far as I’m aware, this doesn’t have any fantastical elements, it’s straight-up historical fiction – but a) I was an Ancient Egypt kid, and that has never gone away, and b) the reviews I’ve read are extremely promising!

The Fox Maidens by Robin Ha
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Korean cast and setting, queer MC
Published on: 13th February 2024
Goodreads

An epic new graphic novel fantasy—a queer, feminist reimagining of the Fox Maiden legend from Korean mythology.

Kai Song dreams of being a warrior. She wants to follow in the footsteps of her beloved father, the commander of the Royal Legion. But while her father believes in Kai and trains her in martial arts, their society isn’t ready for a girl warrior.

Still, Kai is determined. But she is plagued by rumors that she is the granddaughter of Gumiho, the infamous nine-tailed fox demon who was killed by her father years before.
Everything comes crashing down the day Kai learns the deadly secret about her mother’s past. Now she must come to terms with the truth about her identity and take her destiny into her own hands. As Kai desperately searches for a way to escape her fate, she comes to find compassion, and even love, in the most unexpected places.

Set in 16th century Korea and richly infused with Korean folklore, The Fox Maidens is a timeless and powerful story about fighting for your place in the world, even when it seems impossible.

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I don’t usually let myself get invested in graphic novels – I can’t hold paper books, and graphic novels are no good on my kindle – but this one seems especially awesome, and I just can’t resist. I’ll figure out how to read it somehow!

Next of Kin by Elton Skelter
Genres: Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 14th February 2024
Goodreads

Even the worst of us need someone to come home to. And Jacob Mallory is the worst of all. Jake, a thrill-seeking psychopathic serial killer, has lived under the radar for years, operating within the city of New York, making kill after kill and emboldened by his lack of capture. But Jake has one big surprise coming his way. When he gets a call from the hospital to pick up a vulnerable patient, one who claims that Jake is his emergency contact, he feels like he's won the lottery. But is there more to Nathan McGuire than meets the eye? And will this supposedly vulnerable young man make or break the city's most notorious uncaught killer?

American Psycho meets Romeo and Juliet, and this satirical horrormance will have you rooting for the bad guy as he makes space in his heart for something more. Even if that something proves to be his undoing. Everybody needs someone to come home to, and what is life without family? The family you choose is the one you deserve.

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A Valentine’s Day release about a serial killer probably falling in love? Hopefully with someone just as messed-up as he is? Yeah, okay, that’s definitely my thing. Can’t wait to see how this one turns out!

99 Fleeting Fantasies: A Fantasy Anthology by Jennifer Brozek, Crystal Frasier, Jonathan Maberry, Seanan McGuire, Premee Mohamed, Jody Lynn Nye, Cat Rambo, Charles Stross, Wole Talabi, Tyler Hayes
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 15th February 2024
Goodreads

EVEN A DREAM CAN BE CAUGHT IN PROSE…

There’s nothing better than a moment of whimsy and a dash of the fantastical to get the mind wandering. 99 Fleeting Fantasies is a flash fiction anthology readers can tiptoe through for a bit of wonder or while away an afternoon as they meander from old-time tales to far-flung fables to serious snippets of legend and lore that come from all over the world, including Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, and the United States.

Featuring stories from the imaginative minds of Cat Rambo, Charles Stross, Crystal Frasier, Jody Lynn Nye, Jonathan Maberry, Premee Mohamed, Seanan McGuire, Wole Talabi, and many more!

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I discovered micro- or flash-fiction via Yoon Ha Lee’s The Fox’s Tower, a collection I recommend every chance I get – so when I saw this anthology, packed full of some of my favourite authors? COUNT ME IN. The paperback is apparently just over 400 pages, which means either they’re using a ginormous font or we’re getting a LOT of microfictions! Fingers crossed for the latter!

(If you’re not sure what flash fiction/micro-fiction is – think short stories, but even shorter. Like, sometimes just a page long, or even a couple of paragraphs. They make for very quick and easy reading!)

Sunbringer (Fallen Gods, #2) by Hannah Kaner
Genres: Fantasy, High Fantasy
Representation: Brown MC, queernorm setting
Published on: 15th February 2024
Goodreads

“An epic fantasy odyssey.” — Entertainment Weekly

"A richly rendered world . . . Kaner writes action that's both fun and intelligible.” — The Washington Post

Return to the world of Godkiller in this thrilling sequel to the #1 internationally bestselling fantasy debut

When Middren falls to the gods, your kind will be the first to die.

Gods are forbidden in the kingdom of Middren—but now they are stirring, whispering of war. Godkiller Kissen sacrificed herself to vanquish the fire god Hseth, who murdered her family and endangered her friends. But gods cannot be destroyed so easily, and Hseth’s power threatens to reform with even greater strength and a thirst for vengeance. As tensions rise throughout the land, the kingdom needs its Godkiller more than ever.

Still reeling from the loss of Kissen, young noble Inara and her little god of white lies, Skedi, have set out to discover more about the true nature of their bond. As the divide between gods and humans widens, Inara and Skedi will uncover secrets that could determine the fate of the war to come.

Meanwhile, Elogast, no longer a loyal knight of King Arren, has been tasked with killing the man he once called friend. The king vowed to eradicate all gods throughout the land, but has now entered into an unholy pact with the most dangerous of them all. And where his heart once beat, a god now burns. . .

“Will have you in its grasp from the first pages . . . An extraordinary journey.” — Samantha Shannon, New York Times bestselling author of Priory of the Orange Tree, on Godkiller

“A triumph of storytelling.” — Hannah Whitten, New York Times bestselling author of For the Wolf, on Godkiller

“A bone-rattling fantasy thriller that flies by in a breathtaking rush.” — Joe Hill, #1 New York Times bestselling author, on Godkiller

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The US has to wait till next week, but the UK gets the next Fallen Gods book this Thursday! I loved the first book, Godkiller, and after how it ended?! I am FERAL to find out what comes next!!!

Will you be reading any of these? Let me know!

The post Must-Have Monday #173 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

I Can’t Wait For…Cursed Under London by Gabby Hutchinson Crouch

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about but haven’t yet read. Most of the time they’re books that have yet to be released, but not always. It’s based on the Waiting on Wednesday meme, which was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. 

This week my Can’t-Wait-For Book is Cursed Under London by Gabby Hutchinson Crouch!

Cursed Under London by Gabby Hutchinson Crouch
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer Chinese MC, M/M
Published on: 4th July 2024
Goodreads

The hilarious first novel in a cosy and inclusive historical romantasy series by the writer of Horrible Histories

The Year is 1599. Fang, a grumpy, heartbroken traveller from the Ming Empire, awakes from death to discover he's not quite human any more. Nor is he a zombie, vampire, werewolf or any of the other supernatural beings who roam the segregated cities of Upper London and its dragon-ruled underground counterpart, Deep London.

He stumbles upon Lazare de Quitte-Beuffe, a people-pleasing popinjay of an actor afflicted with the same mysterious curse, which means neither of them can die. Thrown together by immortality, the two strangers set out to reverse the spell, traversing the dangers of Deep London and encountering vampires, ghouls, ogres, poets, púca, magical talking swans and the zombie of Christopher Marlowe, all while trying to ignore the intense connection between then.

As they are drawn further into the shadowy world of Deep London, they unearth a dangerous plot which they appear to be right in the middle of. Needing to reverse the spell and get on with being dead, the worst they could do, right now, would be to fall in love...

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Hi, I’m absolutely in love with this cover??? THIS COVER, MY GODS!!! The designer is Michelle Brackenborough, and I think we can all agree she did a PHENOMENAL job, yes???

For real, this is honestly my favourite cover in ages. I love how the black on pink engraving style makes it look so simple at first glance, but then you have a city nestled into an anatomical heart, with DRAGONS flying about and one perched on what I think is supposed to be the superior vena cava! And then over on what is possibly the pulmonary artery – our main characters! Probably!

Also the dagger/hairpin on the left? The swirly stuff that might be hair, or water, dissolving into droplets of what’s probably meant to be blood?

C’est magnifique!

(Crouch has said here is a THEME to the cover colours of this trilogy… And we might start working out what it is with book two. I am Intrigued!)

Cover aside, this sounds like great fun, and the excerpt over on SciFiNow bears that out. Adorable dragons! Trying-to-be-supportive vampires! Waking up after dying – with wings??? I need to know more about the wings, okay?

Definitely checking this out come July!

The post I Can’t Wait For…Cursed Under London by Gabby Hutchinson Crouch appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

10 Short Reads Sure To Delight

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Check out upcoming Top Ten themes on Jana’s blog!

This week’s prompt is all about short books, quick reads; the prompt came from Jennifer @ FunkNFiction.com and Angela over @ Reading Frenzy!

I have not included Nghi Vo’s Singing Hills series of novellas, because hopefully it does not need saying at this point that you should absolutely read those. Nor did I feature the Penric and Desdemona series from Lois McMaster Bujold, for the same reason – it’s a Hugo-nominated series, so you’re more likely to know it already, and you definitely need to read it!

Instead, I’ve gathered together a few other novellas etc that are a bit less well-known, but deserve just as much love!

In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Nonbinary MCs, East Asian-coded cast, sapphic MCs
Goodreads

In the Watchful City explores borders, power, diaspora, and transformation in an Asian-inspired mosaic novella that melds the futurism of Lavie Tidhar’s Central Station with the magical wonder of Catherynne M. Valente’s Palimpsest.

The city of Ora uses a complex living network called the Gleaming to surveil its inhabitants and maintain harmony. Anima is one of the cloistered extrasensory humans tasked with watching over Ora's citizens. Although ær world is restricted to what æ can see and experience through the Gleaming, Anima takes pride and comfort in keeping Ora safe from all harm.

All that changes when a mysterious visitor enters the city carrying a cabinet of curiosities from around the world, with a story attached to each item. As Anima’s world expands beyond the borders of Ora to places—and possibilities—æ never before imagined to exist, æ finds ærself asking a question that throws into doubt ær entire purpose: What good is a city if it can’t protect its people?

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Probably the strangest entry on this list, but also one of the most unique and beautiful. In the Watchful City is a golden casket full of jewels – not a short story collection in the usual sense, but a collection of stories being told to a nonbinary city-guardian, who looks after ae’s city, in part, by possessing the birds and animals in it as needed. And the stories? Describing them at all would be spoiling them, but I do want to give a head’s up that they deal with some dark topics – one includes what’s basically Chinese foot-binding, for example. But that doesn’t make it any less a masterpiece. Seriously, I need more people to know about this book!!!

My review!

Desdemona and the Deep by C.S.E. Cooney
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: Secondary trans character, minor nonbinary character
Goodreads

In Desdemona and the Deep, the spoiled daughter of a rich mining family must retrieve the tithe of men her father promised to the world below. On the surface, her world is rife with industrial pollution that ruins the health of poor factory workers while the idle rich indulge themselves in unheard-of luxury. Below are goblins, mysterious kingdoms, and an entirely different hierarchy.

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Another breathtakingly beautiful novella, and one which makes an excellent introduction to Cooney’s work if you haven’t encountered it before! Desdemona herself is an amazing main character (‘heroine’ may be pushing it), arch and proud and the kind of glamorous that only comes from being born with a golden spoon in your mouth. She’s a glorious gilded brat, in other words… But proves herself to be significantly more than that by going down to the world of the fae to rescue…well, you’ll see! Cooney’s prose is utterly decadent, with so much incredible imagery, and characters you’ll find yourself in love with. Plus, it has one of my favourite endings ever!

To Add Drunkenness To Thirst by T.J. Land
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Goodreads

Father Bryson has been trying to drive a stake through Anstice’s vampiric heart for ten wonderfully entertaining years.

Never before has a slayer pursued him with such passion and fervor; it’s enough to make any undead dandy swoon.

But lately, Anstice has noticed that his nemesis is behaving… strangely.

M/M, PARANORMAL ROMANCE, NOVELLA

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How about anime-levels of ridiculous-but-epic fights, cults, and legit enemies-to-lovers, with the best vampire/vampire-hunter combo I’ve ever read??? This is hilarious, badass, and surprisingly cute at times; the characters manage to be delightfully over-the-top and yet, very genuine at the same time. A SUPER fun, fast read!

Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Biracial Native-American MC
Goodreads

From New York Times bestselling author Catherynne M. Valente comes a brilliant reinvention of one the best known fairy tales of all time. In the novella Six-Gun Snow White, Valente transports the title’s heroine to a masterfully evoked Old West where Coyote is just as likely to be found as the seven dwarves.

A plain-spoken, appealing narrator relates the history of her parents—a Nevada silver baron who forced the Crow people to give up one of their most beautiful daughters, Gun That Sings, in marriage to him. With her mother’s death in childbirth, so begins a heroine’s tale equal parts heartbreak and strength. This girl has been born into a world with no place for a half-native, half-white child. After being hidden for years, a very wicked stepmother finally gifts her with the name Snow White, referring to the pale skin she will never have. Filled with fascinating glimpses through the fabled looking glass and a close-up look at hard living in the gritty gun-slinging West, readers will be enchanted by this story at once familiar and entirely new.

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Anything by Catherynne Valente is guaranteed gold, but this is probably my favourite of her novellas – you’ve definitely not seen Snow White like this before! Just – everything about this is impossible to predict and subversive and twisty, the ways Valente transforms and reinvents the familiar beats of the fairytale into something entirely her own – it’s the embodiment of *chef’s kiss*!

Exodus 20:3 by Freydís Moon
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer trans Latine/Latinx MC
Goodreads

Religious eroticism and queer emancipation meet in a claustrophobic monster-romance about divinity, sexuality, and freedom.

When Diego López is guilted by his mother into taking a low-key construction job in New Mexico, he doesn’t expect to be the only helping hand at Catedral de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. But the church is abandoned, decrepit, and off the beaten path, and the only other person for miles is its handsome caretaker, Ariel Azevedo.

Together, Diego and Ariel refurbish the old church, sharing stories of their heritage, experiences, and desires. But as the long days turn into longer nights, Diego begins to see past Ariel’s human mirage and finds himself falling into lust—and maybe something else—with one of God’s first creations.

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In the mood for something as steamy as it is gorgeous? Exodus 20:3 is a romance like nothing else I’ve ever seen, between a brown trans sex worker and the #biblicallyaccurate angel who shows him he’s still full of grace. It’s sexy, it’s beautiful, it’s anti-ICE, and Moon’s take on angels here is sublime. A++!

Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night by Katherine Fabian, Iona Datt Sharma
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Polyamory
Goodreads

The world you know is underneath the substance of another, with cracks in the firmament that let the light of its magic in...

Layla and Nat have nothing in common but their boyfriend – enigmatic, brilliant Meraud – and their deep mutual dislike. But when Meraud disappears after an ambitious magical experiment goes wrong, they may be the only ones who can follow the trail of cryptic clues that will bring him safely home.

To return Meraud to this world, the two of them will confront every obstacle: the magic of the wild unknowable, a friendly vicar who's only concerned for their spiritual wellbeing, and even the Thames Water helpline. All of which would be doable, if only they didn’t have to do it together.

But the winter solstice is fast approaching – and once the year turns, Meraud will be lost forever. In this joyously queer novella, Nat and Layla must find a way to overcome their differences before it’s too late.

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What’s better than a throuple? Two metamours who don’t especially get along having to team up to rescue their boyfriend from magical shenanigans! It’s been a while since I read this one, but despite my calling the events ‘shenanigans’, I don’t remember it as silly and giggly – the magic is the real, deep deal, and the stakes are very high. It went straight onto my favourites shelf when I first read it, and I’ve adored it on every reread. I still pounce on everything either of these authors publish!

If Found, Return to Hell by Em X. Liu
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Nonbinary Chinese MC
Goodreads

Being an intern at One Wizard sounds magical on the page, but in practice mostly means getting yelled at by senior mages and angry clients alike. And so, after receiving a frantic call from a young man who’s awoken to a talisman on his bedroom wall—and no memory of how it got there—Journeyman Wen jumps at the chance to escape call-center duty and actually help someone for once.

But the case ends up being more complicated than Wen could ever have anticipated. The client has been possessed by a demon prince from Hell, and he’s not interested in leaving.

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The title of this one’s a bit of a joke, since this novella features demons from the traditional Chinese hells – and a main character who works in Customer Support, which is definitely hellish, as anyone who’s ever worked it knows full well! This is a lot of fun and surprisingly sweet, with some seriously adorable moments (THE SCENE WITH THE VACUUM CLEANER, OMG). It’s also a great example of second-person perspective being used REALLY WELL, so if you’ve never tried anything written in second-person before, now’s your chance!

Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison
Genres: Fantasy
Goodreads

From the dark ages to modern times, from the dragons of medieval forests to Constantinople, this is a fantastic and philosophical fairy-tale journey that will appeal to fans of Harry Potter, Diana Wynne Jones, and T. H. White’s The Sword in the Stone.

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Strictly speaking, this might be a short novel rather than a novella? I’m never sure when a book’s too long to be a novelIa…either way, Travel Light is a very quick read, with a really wonderful fairytale-feel, and a story that wanders wide and deep without ever feeling either too heavy or too shallow. Our MC is raised first by bears, then by dragons! Don’t tell me you don’t want to read a story like that!

The Fox's Tower and Other Tales: A Collection of Magical Short Stories by Yoon Ha Lee
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Queer MCs
Goodreads

Science-minded fox spirits, tiger wives, books that can be read by anyone but their owner—these and more appear in Yoon Ha Lee's flash fairy tales. Previously available online, they have now been collected in this volume along with four new stories and an introduction by the author.

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I have recced this before and I’ll rec it again: Lee writes the most exquisite micro-fiction, magical in theme and trope and prose. Foxes falling in love with astrologers; carousel-horse foals; twin witches, mechanical dragons, and Empty Books (note the capitals)! Micro-fiction means each story takes, at most, a few minutes to read, and each one of the stories in this collection is enchanting. So this is the perfect book for when you only have a few moments!

So You Want to be a Robot and Other Stories by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Queer MCs
Goodreads

Step one: forget the convention and disregard the binary. Gender? Sexuality? Old words unsuited for new consciousness. The twenty-one stories in this book challenge the imagination as only acclaimed author A. Merc Rustad can. Pages of robots and AIs constructing lives and exploring "humanity"; wasted worlds with monstrous cityhearts; assassins and the perils of enchanted labyrinths; and always the raw truths of love, loss, and devotion.

Step two: read these science-fiction and fantasy tales as if they are the only stories you will discover on your bookshelf this day.

Step three: dare to feel.

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This is another utterly magical collection of short stories – and the ones in So You Want To Be a Robot are short stories, not micro-fictions. They will take longer to read than the stories in Fox’s Tower! But they are very, very worth it – every single story in this book took my breath away, made my heart ache, hurt with how perfect they are. The very first story is about a young person who travels through their wardrobe to another world…and what happens when the portal stops working. I sobbed the first time I read it, okay? Happy tears! But it’s such a balm to everyone who’s still soul-bruised by the Narnia series. And every story hits that hard, all while being so unspeakably beautiful. Wolfmoor’s MIND, my gods, I am in awe of their imagination. Just. So much yes!

Share your own favourite short reads in the comments!

The post 10 Short Reads Sure To Delight appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #172

Must-Have Monday is a feature highlighting which of the coming week’s new releases I’m excited for. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all books being published that week; only those I’m interested in out of those I’m aware of! The focus is diverse SFF, but other genres sneak in occasionally too.

ELEVEN books this week!

(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)

The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1) by Robert Jackson Bennett
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Gay MC
Published on: 6th February 2024
Goodreads

A Holmes and Watson-style detective duo take the stage in this fantasy with a mystery twist, from the Edgar-winning, multiple Hugo-nominated Robert Jackson Bennett

In Daretana’s greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree erupted from his body. Even here at the Empire’s borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death both terrifying and impossible.

Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all times, and that she can solve impossible cases without even stepping outside the walls of her home.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, magically altered in ways that make him the perfect aide to Ana’s brilliance. Din is at turns scandalized, perplexed, and utterly infuriated by his new superior—but as the case unfolds and he watches Ana’s mind leap from one startling deduction to the next, he must admit that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

By an “endlessly inventive” (Vulture) author with a “wicked sense of humor” (NPR), The Tainted Cup mixes the charms of detective fiction with brilliant world-building to deliver a fiendishly clever mystery that’s at once instantly recognizable and thrillingly new.

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If you don’t know Bennett, this is the perfect book to start with; if you do know Bennett, then I probably don’t need to tell you that what we have here are an amazing cast, an incredibly weird, unique world, and super compelling writing. Hands-down, this is one of the best books of the year, and even if you don’t think it sounds like your thing, I strongly encourage you to give it a go!

My review!

Red Side Story (Shades of Grey, #2) by Jasper Fforde
Genres: Sci Fi
Published on: 6th February 2024
Goodreads

Imagine a world where your position in society depended on what bit of the colour spectrum you could see. This is the world inhabited by Eddie Russett (red, middle-level) and Jane Grey (monochromatic, lowest in society). Eddie and Jane must negotiate the delicate Chromatic politics of society to find out what the 'Something that Happened' actually was, how society got to be this way, and crucially, is there Somewhere Else beyond their borders - and if there is, could there be Someone Else, too, someone whose unseen hand has been guiding the fortunes and misfortunes of the nation for the past 500 years?

It's a tale of a young couple's thirst for justice and answers in an implacably rigid society, where the prisoners are also the guards, and cages of convention bind the citizens to only one way of thinking - or suffer the consequences. . ..

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IT’S ALMOST HERE!!! If you haven’t read the first book in this series, Shades of Grey, then you are seriously missing out on one of the most brilliant, bizarre, BODACIOUS books to ever book, and should get in on this series immediately!

And if you have read it…THEN YOU ARE LIKELY SHRIEKING WITH EXCITEMENT AS LOUDLY AS I AM BECAUSE AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Do NOT try and talk to me tomorrow, I will be BURIED in this book!!!

Power to Yield and Other Stories by Bogi Takács, Ada Hoffmann
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi, Science Fantasy
Representation: Queer, nonbinary, and nuerodivergent MCs
Published on: 6th February 2024
Goodreads

COMPLEX COMMUNITY

Power to Yield is a collection of speculative tales exploring gender identity, neurodivergence, and religion from author Bogi Takács, who deftly blends sci-fi, fantasy, and weird fiction.

An AI child discovers Jewish mysticism. A student can give no more blood to their semi-sentient apartment and plans their escape. A candidate is rigorously evaluated for their ability to be a liaison to alien newcomers. A young magician gains perspective from her time as a plant. A neurodivergent woman tries to survive on a planetoid where thoughts shape reality . . .

​These are stories about the depth and breadth of the human condition—and beyond—identifying future possibilities of conflict and cooperation, identity and community.

PRAISE FOR THE AUTHOR
“A seamless juxtaposition of intricate truths and bold fictions, these stories mesmerize.” (Nicky Drayden, author of Escaping Exodus and The Prey of Gods)

“It’s rare to find an author that truly deepens the speculative genre and human experience simultaneously but Takács is clearly one of them. E deftly unravels our preconceived notions of the self, society, culture, desire, power and the other and re-braids them in new insightful ways in each story. As you move through each richly-crafted story, you are challenged and transformed whether you realize it or not. This intimate yet expansive collection is not one to miss.” (Sloane Leong, author of Prism Stalker, Graveneye, and A Map to the Sun)

“Bogi Takács’s stories never fail to awe with their breadth and depth of thought, precise prose, and fascinating characters. In Power to Yield and Other Stories, Takács reveals emself to be a masterful gardener, cultivating these tales of science and magic, of immigrants and exiles, of deep loss and abiding hope. Whether you’re new to eir work or know it well, this collection will welcome you, for it is expertly tended and blooming with glorious sights, its roots stretching across cultures, bodies, worlds, and ages.” (Izzy Wasserstein, author of All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From)

“[“Power to Yield”] is a fascinating take on aspects of power, history, personal obsession, and sadism, the latter all taking place within an asexual framework that removes those questions from their normal sexual-overtone-laden context.” (Karen Burnham, Locus Magazine)

“[“Power to Yield”] is laced with pain and with the fractured lines of a people stitched together from trauma and systemic abuse, who come together out of necessity and the need for freedom to make something powerful and beautiful. [...] And it’s a lovely, rending read that I definitely recommend people check out immediately!” (Charles Payseur, Quick Sip Reviews)

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I included this in a previous Must-Have Monday, but hopefully I have it right this time and it really is out this week! Because I really want to read it! PLEASE LET ME READ THIS ALREADY!

Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories by GennaRose Nethercott
Genres: Fantasy, Horror
Published on: 6th February 2024
Goodreads

From the author of the breakout fantasy novel Thistlefoot: a collection of dark fairytales and fractured folklore exploring all the ways love can save us—or go monstrously wrong.

The stories in Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart are about the abomination that resides within us all. That churning, clawing, hungry the desire to be loved, and seen, and known. And the terror of those things to be loved too well, or not enough, or for long enough. To be laid bare before your sweetheart, to their horror. To be known and recognized as the monstrous thing you are. 

Two young women working at a sinister roadside attraction called the Eternal Staircase explore its secrets—and their own doomed summer love. A group of witchy teens concoct the perfect plan to induce the hated new girl into their ranks. A woman moves into a new house with her acclaimed artist boyfriend and finds her body slowly shifting into something specially constructed to accommodate his needs and whims. And two outcasts, a vampire and a goat woman, find solace in each other, even as the world's lack of understanding might bring about its own end.

In these lush, beautifully written stories, GennaRose Nethercott explores love in all its diamond-dark facets to create a collection that will redefine what you see as a beast, and make you beg to have your heart broken.

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I really enjoyed Thistlefoot, so naturally I’m curious to check out Nethercott’s short stories. They miiiiiight be too creepy for me? But I really want to give them a try – Nethercott’s prose is just so beautiful!

Maiden of Artemis (Legend of the Amazons Book 1) by Eloise Bahr
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Representation: 6th February 2024
Goodreads

Before the men of myth and legend, there was Otrera, first Queen of the Amazons.

It wasn’t until the prince’s blood coated Otrera’s hands that she realized she’d sentenced herself to death. In her darkest hour, Artemis offers her a second chance at life and freedom. But in return the goddess commands unwavering loyalty and sends her on a formidable quest.

Joined by women who swiftly become sisters along the way, Otrera’s journey is tangled by prophecy and unexpected discoveries, and she is faced with a decision that will alter her life forever.

Fleeing from men and monsters alike, Otrera and her companions travel across Ancient Greece in search of what was promised. Each day she learns more about herself and the dangers of her world. Yet the closer she gets to fulfilling her quest, the further Otrera drifts from her pledge to Artemis.

Pursued by a vengeful king and his relentless champion, Otrera discovers how far she’ll go to keep her sisters safe. But nothing, not even a divine weapon, can protect her from the wrath of the gods.

So begins the story of the tribe feared by heroes and kings alike.

This adult historical fantasy series is intended for a mature audience due to trigger warnings for language, violence and death, and sexual situations.

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Given what I know about the myths of the Amazons (and baby!Sia was into them BIG TIME) I’m very curious to know if Ares will show up in this story (or maybe later in the series?) and how that will affect the relationship between Otrera and Artemis. HMM. Either way, the fact that it’s very clear on being Adult, not YA, has me hopeful (there are some very epic YA books about the Amazons, but I’d rather have an Adult one just now). Definitely going to be taking a peek at it!

Why We Play With Fire by Giselle Vriesen
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Biracial MC
Published on: 6th February 2024
Goodreads

"Full of action, godly hijinks, and magical artifacts, Giselle Vriesen's WHY WE PLAY WITH FIRE is an adventure from the very first page." — Kendare Blake, #1 NYT Bestselling author of Champion of Fate

In a thrilling journey of self-discovery and magical intrigue, Thea finds herself transported to a house for the children of gods, where she must retrieve lost keys while navigating secrets, rival schools, and her own doubts, all before the shadow creatures catch up to her.

Embark on a spellbinding odyssey of self-discovery, where Thea's extraordinary journey unfolds within a realm of enchantment and peril. Desperate to escape encroaching darkness, Thea is propelled through a mystical well by her mother and grandmother, left only with a cryptic mission to "retrieve the keys."

However, her destination defies all expectations as she arrives at an extraordinary haven—a house known as Malachite. Within the hallowed halls of Malachite, Thea unveils a world far beyond her wildest imagination. Amidst an intricate tapestry of training and elusive artifacts, she discovers a mysterious box safeguarded by the students' within the home.

But when the three keys that allow access to the box disappear, Thea's mixed-race ancestry and connection to two gods launch her on an all-consuming quest that awakens her to her divine lineage and an awe-inspiring destiny.

Thea becomes determined to reclaim the keys before the approaching Winter Solstice, navigating treacherous rivalries and evading the clutches of the morally ambiguous Arcana—a competing school with nefarious intentions.

When her comrades fall into captivity, and two keys remain lost, Thea must gain confidence in her new abilities and leadership role to see this through. Amidst the crumbling facade of deceit and the allure of Zero, the enigmatic Arcana prodigy, she must maintain focus, for time is dwindling, and the shadow creatures draw ever closer.

As her parentage unravels and her nascent abilities blossom, Thea grapples with inner doubt and anxieties that threaten to shackle her potential. Will she rally her friends and harness her newfound powers to secure the keys' safe return? Or will her wavering confidence consign her to failure, succumbing to the clutches of the encroaching shadows?

Join Thea on an electrifying adventure where the boundaries of magic and self-belief intertwine, and the fate of worlds rests upon her resilient shoulders.

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I can’t believe I didn’t hear about this sooner! A magic school/haven for the children of gods?! AND the worldbuilding includes multiple pantheons?! I love it when we get stories where different mythologies coexist! And I’m already Very Invested in Thea’s wellbeing!

Also, I think this book contains black and white illustrations??? You can see some of them on the book’s Big River site; they’re gorgeous!

Infinity Alchemist by Kacen Callender
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Black trans MC, genderfluid love interest, polyamory
Published on: 6th February 2024
Goodreads

Infinity Alchemist is a spellbinding novel about a quest that leads three young alchemists toward unexpected love and unimaginable power.

With their signature "prowess" (FIYAH) and "unbridled creativity" (New York Times Book Review), acclaimed author Kacen Callender turns their formidable skill to young adult fantasy for the first time.

For Ash Woods, practicing alchemy is a crime.

Only an elite few are legally permitted to study the science of magic—so when Ash is rejected by Lancaster College of Alchemic Science, he takes a job as the school’s groundskeeper instead, forced to learn alchemy in secret.

When he’s discovered by the condescending and brilliant apprentice Ramsay Thorne, Ash is sure he's about to be arrested—but instead of calling the reds, Ramsay surprises Ash by making him an offer: Ramsay will keep Ash's secret if he helps her find the legendary Book of Source, a sacred text that gives its reader extraordinary power.

As Ash and Ramsay work together and their feelings for each other grow, Ash discovers their mission is more dangerous than he imagined, pitting them against influential and powerful alchemists—Ash’s estranged father included. Ash’s journey takes him through the cities and wilds across New Anglia, forcing him to discover his own definition of true power and how far he and other alchemists will go to seize it.

Featuring trans, queer, and polyamorous characters of color, Infinity Alchemist is the hugely anticipated young adult fantasy debut from the extraordinary author of Felix Ever After, King and the Dragonflies, Queen of the Conquered and more.

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I’m reading this at the moment, and while the first few pages were a bit bumpy, I love it more and more with every chapter. Obviously I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s looking Most Excellent so far!

The Absinthe Underground by Jamie Pacton
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F
Published on: 6th February 2024
Goodreads

Moulin Rouge meets Holly Black in a thrilling sapphic friends-to-lovers romantasy!

For Sybil Clarion, the Belle Époque city of Severon is a wild, romantic dream, filled with cafés, cabarets, and glittering nightclubs. Eager to embrace the city’s freedom after running away from home, she’s traded high-society soirées for empty pockets and barren cabinets. At least she has Esme, the girl who offered Sybil a home, and maybe—if either of them dared—something more.

Ever since Esme Rimbaud brought Sybil back to her flat, the girls have been everything to each other—best friends, found family, and secret crushes. While Esme would rather spend the night tinkering with her clocks and snuggling her cats, Sybil craves excitement and needs money. She plans to get both by stealing the rare posters that crop up around town and selling them to collectors. With rent due, Esme agrees to accompany—and more importantly protect —Sybil, who means more to her than even a comfortable night in.

When they’re caught selling a poster by none other than its glamorous subject, Maeve, she doesn’t press charges. Rather, she invites Sybil and Esme to The Absinthe Underground, the exclusive club she co-owns, and reveals herself to be a Green Faerie, trapped in this world. She wants to hire thieves for a daring heist in Fae that would set her free, and is willing to pay enough that Sybil and Esme never have to worry about rent again. It’s too good of an offer to pass up, even if Maeve’s tragic story doesn’t quite add up, and even if Sybil’s personal ties to Fae could jeopardize everything she and Esme have so carefully built.

Jamie Pacton, author of The Vermilion Emporium , dazzles in this lavish and decedent LGBTQ+ fantasy romance that will leave readers utterly enchanted!

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There is nothing about this premise that I do not adore!!! I’ve been looking forward to this one for AGES, and I’m so excited to finally be able to read it!!!

Relit: 16 Latinx Remixes of Classic Stories by Sandra Proudman, Olivia Abtahi, David Bowles, Zoraida Córdova, Saraciea J. Fennell, Raquel Vasquez Gilliland, Torrey Maldonado, Jasminne Mendez, Anna Meriano, Amparo Ortiz, Laura Pohl, NoNieqa Ramos, Monica Sanz, Eric Smith, Ari Tison, Alexandra Villasante
Genres: Fantasy, Sci Fi
Representation: Latine/Latinx MCs
Published on: 6th February 2024
Goodreads

These sixteen stories by award-winning and bestselling YA authors center a Latinx point of view in an empowering anthology that reimagines classics through fantasy, science fiction, and with a dash of magic, for fans of A PHOENIX FIRST MUST BURN and RECLAIM THE STARS

In classic stories remixed, Latinx characters take center stage

Pride and Prejudice is launched into outer space, Frankenstein is plunged into the depths of the ocean, and The Great Gatsby floats to an island off the coast of Costa Rica.

A shape-shifter gives up her life to save the boy she loves from an evil bruja. La Ciguapa covets a little mermaid’s heart of gold. Two star-crossed teens fall in love while the planet burns around them.

Whether characters fall in love, battle foes, or grow through grief, each story will empower readers to see themselves as the heroes of the stories that make our world.

Featuring original stories from:
Olivia Abtahi
David Bowles
Zoraida Córdova
Saraciea J. Fennell
Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
Torrey Maldonado
Jasminne Mendez
Anna Meriano
Amparo Ortiz
Laura Pohl
Sandra Proudman
NoNieqa Ramos
Monica Sanz
Eric Smith
Ari Tison
Alexandra Villasante

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Is that not the most incredible cover??? And – classic stories, but turned Latinx AND SFF? I AM BEING SPOILED! This sounds freaking fantastic, and I can’t wait to dive in! *grabby hands!*

Clarion Call by Cayla Fay
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F
Published on: 6th February 2024
Goodreads

Neve faces her vengeful cousin, the leader of the legions of hell, forcing her to decide where her loyalties truly lie in this thrilling sequel to Ravensong that’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Celtic mythology.

Neve and her sisters failed in protecting the mortal world against the legions of hell when the Veil they had spent their lives guarding split and the vengeful cousin they forgot ever existed, Aodh, managed to slip through. Dangerous and bitter, Aodh is on a mission to free the rest of their family still trapped behind the veil and set them loose on the mortal world.

Still injured from her last battle, Neve is not only working to track Aodh, but also trying to navigate painful memories that keep rising to the surface. Memories of her past lifetimes protecting the Gate…and of her first life, before she and her sisters scrubbed it from their minds. More questions arise when a new family member reveals themself, someone Neve and her sisters have been missing. Someone who might just be able to save them all.

Neve must face the sins of her past while navigating the dangers of the present. The more she remembers, the more it seems like everything she was raised to believe was a lie, and the fallout might decimate everything she has worked so hard to build in the present, including her relationship with Alexandria.

Caught between humanity and divinity, the past and the present, Neve must try to strike a balance between the warring forces both within and without, because if she doesn’t, it might not just be her relationship at stake, but the whole world.

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The sequel to Ravensong! Which is all I know about it because I am not reading the blurb in case of spoilers!!!

No Time Like Now by Naz Kutub
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Gay brown Muslim MC
Published on: 6th February 2024
Goodreads

A teen finds himself in a race against time when he learns he's given away more years than he has left to live in this thought-provoking speculative romp.

It's been one year since Hazeem's father passed away unexpectedly, and one year since Hazeem got his special ability: He can grant any living thing extra time. Since then, he's been randomly granting people more years to live: his old friend Holly, his study buddy Yamany, his crush Jack. . . . The only problem is, none of them wanted to spend any of that time with Hazeem.

Now, Hazeem spends most of his days with his grandmother. When she experiences a heart attack, Hazeem is quick to use his power to save her--until Time themself appears and tells Hazeem he has accrued a time debt, having given away more life than he has left to live and putting the entire timeline in serious danger of collapse. In order to save the timeline and himself, Hazeem must take back some of the life he has granted other people. Suddenly, Hazeem is on a journey through and against time, but as he confronts the events of the past, he must confront the mistakes he made along the way. Hazeem will come to realize that when it comes to time, quality is more important to quantity--but is it too late to reclaim the life he's given away so he can really start living?

No Time Like Now is a timely twist on A Christmas Carol that takes readers on a thought-provoking adventure, asking what matters most in life.

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This author is clearly into Time – I’m pretty sure his debut was about time-travel? – but that’s no bad thing! Early reviews say this one has a lot of heart, and I can believe it – I’m already feeling heartbroken for poor Hazeem!

Will you be reading any of these? Let me know!

The post Must-Have Monday #172 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

These Shrooms Are The Best Shrooms: The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1) by Robert Jackson Bennett
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: MLM MC
PoV: 1st-person,
Published on: 6th February 2024
ISBN: 1984820729
Goodreads

A Holmes and Watson-style detective duo take the stage in this fantasy with a mystery twist, from the Edgar-winning, multiple Hugo-nominated Robert Jackson Bennett
'
In Daretana’s greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree erupted from his body. Even here at the Empire’s borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death both terrifying and impossible.

Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all times, and that she can solve impossible cases without even stepping outside the walls of her home.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, magically altered in ways that make him the perfect aide to Ana’s brilliance. Din is at turns scandalized, perplexed, and utterly infuriated by his new superior—but as the case unfolds and he watches Ana’s mind leap from one startling deduction to the next, he must admit that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

By an “endlessly inventive” (Vulture) author with a “wicked sense of humor” (NPR), The Tainted Cup mixes the charms of detective fiction with brilliant world-building to deliver a fiendishly clever mystery that’s at once instantly recognizable and thrillingly new.

I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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~magic mushrooms!
~which are magic because MONSTER BLOOD
~the murder weapon…is a tree
~the greatest detective!…who never leaves her room
~how much would you give to keep your world going?

I don’t know how to tell you how much sheer FUN this was!

Any story with a genius detective + sidekick combo is inevitably going to get Sherlock Holmes comparisons, but every aspect of The Tainted Cup is wildly original. This is not Katherine Addison’s Angel of the Crows or even Alexis Hall’s The Affair of the Mysterious Letter, both of which are deliberate Sherlock retellings that draw significantly from the source material (the Watson character in both is an ex-military man with a limp and cane, for example, and Angel in particular recreates a number of the cases Sherlock and Watson investigate in Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels).

THIS IS NOT THAT.

AT ALL.

AND I AM SO GLAD.

Bennett has, AGAIN, created a ridiculously interesting world like none I’ve ever seen before – I’m willing to argue it’s his most unique one to date. Here, we have an Empire where life revolves around plants – specifically, magically mutated ones. Houses are built out of fernpaper, while enormous mushrooms keep rooms cool and pillows are stuffed with moss, and potted plants detect whether any guests have been exposed to contagions before they enter the property. More radically, we have hundreds of forms of human augmentation – people who can see in the dark or whose sense of smell is incredibly heightened; people who grow to enormous size and strength; and even people who are functionally immortal. All of these abilities and transformations come from plants and fungi, a little like how we get a lot of our medicine from plants – but much more extreme! Everyone seems to have some kind of augmentation, especially those who work in one of the all-important government branches, and Bennett has made sure all of this is reflected in how people act and even speak; the Empire, for example, has ‘rings’ like a tree, with the inner rings being safer and richer, and the outer rings being in far more danger from the annual attack of leviathans…

Lashes as thick as a stonetree’s trunk

This is the kind of worldbuilding I live for, and the attention to detail made me so happy. Rings! Rings like a tree!! YES THANK YOU MORE PLEASE!!!

The world is fascinating and so well thought-out, but it’s the characters who stole my heart. Kol is our first-person narrator, altered so that he remembers perfectly everything he sees – making him the perfect assistant for a detective who wears a blindfold and rarely leaves her bedroom. Theirs is such an odd set-up that I can’t help but love it; Kol goes to the crime scene, memorises it, then comes back to tell Ana all about it, and Ana then puts the pieces together. Hi, I adore this utterly. And while it’s obvious from the beginning that Ana is a(n extremely eccentric) genius, if you’re paying attention it becomes quite clear that Kol is no slouch either. I don’t think he would recognise it as such, but he does investigate – if he didn’t, he’d be much less use to Ana. He doesn’t just walk through the rooms and take note of all he sees; he puts together what he sees to uncover clues that aren’t immediately apparent, and brings those back to Ana too.

That’s very, very important.

But even the most minor of characters is fully realised; and not just fully realised, but interesting, packed full of quirks and secrets. Possibly (probably) I am far too trusting, but even when Ana swiftly realises that someone on the investigation is, at best, compromised… I couldn’t suspect a single one of the cast. I liked them all so much! Even the ones who are not likeable make for brilliant characters (the best characters are often the ones you wouldn’t want to be friends with in real life, am I right?) Which is not weird, because at this point, I think Bennett’s known for his compelling characters as much as he is his very unique worldbuilding. I just feel like it needs emphasising: the characters here? All of them? Are SO GREAT.

As for the plot – as a general rule of thumb, I don’t care about murder mysteries/investigative type stories, but Bennett held me glued to the pages. Kol’s slightly dry, very ProperTM voice is wonderful, and as he’s from the backwater, we get to discover more about how the Empire works and what kind of people live in it right alongside him when he and Ana move to a more urbanised area. He doesn’t even know the nobility are a thing! And that’s the least of all we get to learn and explore.

I thought Bennett did an excellent job of balancing the investigation (and why we should care about it) with…all the other things going on; the more we uncover, the more complex and Big Picture the case becomes, until we reached a point where, personally, I was firmly on the side of the murderer. (Not that I had a clue who it was. I never do, unless a story is predictable to the point of pain.) Bennett engages our emotions when it comes to the case, to its complexities and the motivations behind it, and that’s something I don’t think I’ve ever seen a murder investigation plot do before. More often, an investigation feels like an excuse for the author to do or show the reader something else – and there was definitely more going on, a lot more, than ‘just’ figuring out a murder! But at the same time – I am immensely impressed with how much Bennett made me care, maybe not about the victim, but about the crime itself and how it was accomplished and what led to it.

Bravo, sir.

“Civilization is often a task that is only barely managed … The towers of justice are built one brick at a time. We have more to build yet.”

It’s a little funny, and a lot impressive, that when you take a step back and look at this world Bennett’s come up with…it’s pretty bleak. Every Wet Season – so, every year – impossibly immense sea-creatures called leviathans do their best to…enter the empire. I don’t want to say they attack it, because that implies a level of aggression and/or maliciousness that doesn’t seem to be present, but they do an enormous amount of damage. Even when successfully repelled by the defenders of the enormous sea walls, dead leviathans leave their mark, with their strange blood wreaking untold havoc. And when they do make it past the walls, you can add devastating levels of destruction and death to the unpredictably mutating magic of their blood. Why do the leviathans do this? Where are they trying to go, when they breech the walls and head inland? No one seems to know, and in the outer rings especially, people live knowing that the leviathans are coming every year – never knowing if this is the year, the day, the hour that one gets through.

Bleak, right?

But what’s so impressive is that very little of Tainted Cup feels bleak. Instead, it’s so much fun, and I’m really struggling to understand or pinpoint how on earth Bennett manages such a juxtaposition between world and tone. We’re talking about a world where humans have to give up their humanity – with the magical plant augmentations – just to hold their society together–

“That’s the nature of Khanum, eh? Safety and security for strangeness.

–and yet…things don’t feel hopeless. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say Tainted Cup feels optimistic, as such, but…there’s definitely something being said about the resilience of humanity; about how we find ways to adapt to just about anything; about our ability to build civilisation in circumstances and places that, if we thought about it logically, ought to be impossible. No one plans to build an empire that is annually raided by giant sea monsters, and if you asked people beforehand, I’m sure they’d prefer to build somewhere else. But finding themselves in the situation of having to deal with leviathans? They deal. And you cannot say that’s not impressive. You can’t not feel…proud? Almost? Respect. You can’t help but respect that.

You can’t not feel impressed, and proud, and respect the fact that, leviathans or no, they’re still here. There is a lot to be said for that.

For my money, we’ll eventually find out what’s going on with the leviathans – the trilogy is called Shadow of the Leviathan, after all – and I’m sure it will turn everything upside-down. But even without giving us those answers yet, Tainted Cup is an amazing series-opener – if you haven’t read anything of Bennett’s before, I think this is the perfect book of his to start with – and I can already say, with great confidence, that this is going to be all over the Best of 2024 lists come December.

Put simply, this book rocks, and I loved it, and I’m pretty damn sure you’ll love it too!

The post These Shrooms Are The Best Shrooms: The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

In Short: January

It doesn’t feel like it, but looking at the numbers, I’m clearly doing better: reading plenty, and writing a whole bunch of reviews! Plus I managed to work a little on my fiction writing too, which is a BIG DEAL for me. Much yay!

And now, the books!

ARCs Received

Um, THIS IS A LOT! But a good, very exciting lot!!! At a quick guesstimation, I usually receive 3-5 arcs a month, so I am SLIGHTLY SURPRISED to have been approved for all these! But I’m not complaining – nearly all of these are on my Unmissable SFF of 2024 list, and the ones that aren’t, I’m deeply interested in. AND THE REST I’M EXTREMELY EXCITED ABOUT!

Read

20 books read; fewer than December, but only by a little! And this was a pretty excellent reading month; the latest Wayward Children book made me EXTREMELY happy; the upcoming Tainted Cup absolutely rocked, as did Exordia (although they’re wildly different books!) The Fall That Saved Us enchanted me with tropes I usually don’t like, but enjoyed the hell out of (pun totally intended) in Jerée’s hands; and Gilded Crown was a really gorgeous, thoughtful fantasy with religious and political intrigue. (I don’t know why they’ve given it a very Romantasy/Paranormal Romance cover; I’m ignoring it and using the original US cover because it’s much more accurate to the vibe of the book.)

And of course there were some beloved rereads, like Book of Firsts, Midnight Lie and Taste of Gold and Iron!

To the best of my knowledge, 10% of this month’s books had BIPOC authors.

Reviewed

These, plus my DNF reviews (which I am absolutely counting, because I wrote a lot for most of them) add up to SIXTEEN reviews this month!!! Insert le gasp!emoji here. Granted, most of these were mini-reviews, and I wasn’t super proud of any of them, particularly…but still! I’m counting it a major milestone/success!!!

(Although the Tainted Cup review goes live tomorrow – so, posted in February. But I wrote it in January!)

DNF-ed

The Poisons We Drink and No Gods For Drowning are not bad books; I just couldn’t handle the triggers in the former, and was distracted away from the latter and didn’t want to pick it up again. No harm, no foul.

The rest, though? I would argue, absolutely sucked. Faebound in particular is one of the worst things I’ve read in a LONG time; I do not understand the hype. You can read all my thoughts about this lot here.

ARCs OutstandingUS Cover

Down to 17! A distinct improvement from last month’s 23. I still have absolutely no idea how to review Menewood…words can’t do it justice. SOMEHOW I MUST FIND A WAY.

Unmissable SFF Updates

Unsurprisingly, I already got to add some new books and covers to my Unmissable SFF of 2024 list! (Seriously, how did I forget to put Deep Black on there?! I’ve only been pining for it since 2021!) This brings us to a total of 87 Unmissable books!

Including, alas, four books that have already been struck from the list. I thought it would take longer to be proven wrong about any of my anticipated reads, but I guess not!

Speaking of, how did my predictions/anticipated reads for January go? Well, of the seven books I declared Unmissable for the first month of 2024;

Four were five-star reads (Mislaid in Paths Half-Known; Tadek and the Princess; Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands; and Exordia)One I am currently reading and enjoying very much (The Principles of Moments)One was a complete disappointment (City of Stardust)One proved kind of meh and I’ll give it another go later (Beautyland)

Four-and-a-half (counting Principles as a half) out of seven isn’t bad at all! I wonder if February will turn out as well, worse, or better???

Misc

This month I hit 3000 books read on Goodreads!

It’s a nice big round number, so I figured it was worth marking the occasion.

I also updated my About and Review Policy pages, mostly to make for easier reading, and to make absolutely clear I will have no AI garbage anywhere near me, thank you.

Looking Forward

February is packed full of exciting releases! I’m rereading Shades of Grey right now to prepare for Red Side Story, Premee Mohamed is guaranteed to knock it out of the park, and there’s a bunch of books from authors I haven’t read before; Absinthe Underground, about a literal green fairy; Ours, which sounds like it’s going to be something really special; and Roxy and Coco, which is out tomorrow and promises some very wacky fun!

Wishing us all a fabulous February!

The post In Short: January appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.