Siavahda's Blog, page 46

I Can’t Wait For…Gods of the Wyrdwood by R.J. Barker

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 Gods of the Wyrdwood by R.J. Barker!

Gods of the Wyrdwood (Forsaken #1) by R.J. Barker
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 27th June 2023
Goodreads

In a world locked in eternal winter and haunted by prophecy, a young boy trains for years to become the Chosen One, only for another to rise and claim his place in the start of an unmissable epic from a rising star in fantasy. 

The northlands of Crua are locked in eternal winter, but prophecy tells of the chosen child – who will rule in the name of their God, and take warmth back from the South. Cahal du Nahere was raised to be this person: the Cowl-Rai, the saviour. Taken from his parents and prepared for his destiny.   

But his time never came.  

When he was fifteen he ceased to matter. Another Cowl-Rai had risen, another chosen one, raised in the name of a different God. The years of vicious physical and mental training he had endured, the sacrifice, all for nothing. He became nothing.   

Twenty years later, and Cahal lives a life of secrecy on the edges of Crua’s giant forests – hiding what he is, running from what he can do. But when he is forced to reveal his true nature, he sets off a sequence of events that will reveal secrets that will shake the bedrock of his entire world, and expose lies that have persisted for generations.

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Seeing as today’s Wyrd & Wonder prompt is Divination, it seemed appropriate to feature a book about prophecies today! (It even has part of Wyrd & Wonder in the title!!!)

For real, though: my introduction to R.J. Barker was the incredible Tide Child trilogy, which besides being packed full of all kinds of intrigue also featured some of the most unique and interesting worldbuilding I’ve ever seen. (A matriarchal world without wood!!! Seriously, if you haven’t given that series a try, you definitely should!)

So of course I was interested when I heard Barker was starting a new trilogy – and then we got the official blurb!!!

EEE!

I love stories that subvert the prophecies/Chosen One trope, and this is literally that!!! I already feel so sorry for Cahal – imagine being raised as the Chosen One, only to discover you’re not? How crushing would that be?

Or maybe it’s not, exactly, that he’s not a Chosen One. Because that bit at the end of the blurb – his true nature, what he can do. Presumably he’s not a normal human like the rest of us, then… Maybe it’s a case of, another Chosen One got there first, rather than Cahal himself not being Chosen?

Also, the idea of multiple Chosen Ones – people Chosen by different gods?! THAT IS SO COOL. How does that work – do their relationships to each other reflect the relationships of the gods that chose them, ie, if god A and god B are allies their Chosen Ones can be too, but if the gods’ relationship is antagonistic, presumably the Chosen Ones are going to be enemies as well??? Are the poor Chosen Ones just game pieces for the gods, a way for any given god to claim supremacy??? Are Chosen Ones like prophets or messiahs in our world, or paladins??? I have no idea, but thinking about it has me WILDLY excited for Gods of the Wyrdwood!

We have to wait until June for this one, but that gives you time to check out Tide Child if you haven’t yet!

The post I Can’t Wait For…Gods of the Wyrdwood by R.J. Barker appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Best Laid Plans: Wyrd & Wonder Is Back!

Magic portal artwork by Tithi Luadthong

The most magical month of the year is here, and that means: Wyrd & Wonder! Wherein a whole bunch of us blog about the fantastical (even more than we usually do!) Anyone and everyone is welcome to join in; just check out the link for the rundown on all you need to know!

This year’s theme is MAGIC, which means I am THE MOST EXCITED! Magic is at the heart of Fantasy, and the heart of magic, imo, is wonder – even terrifying, deadly magic still makes you catch your breath; even when it’s ugly, magic is the act of rewriting reality, and what can be more wondrous than that? I can’t wait to see what everyone does with this theme, and I hope I can do it justice myself.

I’m not promising to stick religiously to this year’s prompts, but I’m more than happy to dive into my tbr for prompt #1 – although who knows what I’ll actually end up reading???

ARCs

I have a number of ARCs to be reading, of course, but these are, I think, the ones that best fit Wyrd & Wonder’s theme this year! Plant magic, otherworlds, void-magic, and books of spells respectively – I don’t see how I can go wrong with these!

sit-down-and-read-’em,-Sia!

Aka, a small sampling of books I already own and really need to read – Wyrd & Wonder should be the perfect time for these!

Rereads

Exactly what it sounds like; books I’ve read before and want to read again! Particularly The Map and the Territory; I’ve been trying and failing to review it since DECEMBER, and I’m hoping a reread will help me put its amazingness into words! (Amazingness is totally a word, hush!)

New Releases

Books releasing this month that I cannot WAIT to get my hands on! (And I assure you, the only reason Martha Wells’ Witch King isn’t here is that I’m reading it now – and am just about to finish it!)

Have I bitten off more than I can chew??? Almost certainly! But isn’t that half the fun? And I’m sure at least a few of the things I’ll end up reading will be completely unexpected surprises…which is definitely the other half of the fun!

Check out the spreadsheet or the #wyrd&wonder hashtag on twitter to see what everyone else will be reading!

The post Best Laid Plans: Wyrd & Wonder Is Back! appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #135

THIRTEEN books this week!

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

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw
Genres: Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Pansexual MC, nonbinary partner
Published on: 2nd May 2023
Goodreads

From USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw comes The Salt Grows Heavy, a razor-sharp and bewitching fairytale of discovering the darkness in the world, and the darkness within oneself.

You may think you know how the fairytale goes: a mermaid comes to shore and weds the prince. But what the fables forget is that mermaids have teeth. And now, her daughters have devoured the kingdom and burned it to ashes.

On the run, the mermaid is joined by a mysterious plague doctor with a darkness of their own. Deep in the eerie, snow-crusted forest, the pair stumble upon a village of ageless children who thirst for blood, and the three 'saints' who control them.
The mermaid and her doctor must embrace the cruellest parts of their true nature if they hope to survive.

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I got to read this one early, and as usual, Khaw’s decadent prose had me utterly hypnotised – even when the horror aspects made me flinch! Strange and gorgeous.

My review!

By a Silver Thread (DFZ Changeling #1) by Rachel Aaron
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Published on: 2nd May 2023
Goodreads

A new DFZ series

In the world’s most magical metropolis where spirits run noodle shops and cash-strapped dragons stage photo-ops for tourists, people still think fairies are nothing but stories, and that’s exactly how the fairies like it. It’s a lot easier to feast on humanity’s dreams when no one believes you exist. But while this arrangement works splendidly for most fair folk, Lola isn’t one of the lucky ones.

She’s a changeling, a fairy monster made just human enough to dupe unsuspecting parents while fairies steal their real child. The magic that sustains her was never meant to last past the initial theft, leaving Lola without a future. But thanks to Victor Conrath, a very powerful--and very illegal--blood mage, she was given the means to cheat death.

For a price.

Now the only changeling ever to make it to adulthood, Lola has served the blood mage faithfully, if reluctantly, for twenty years. Her unique ability to slip through wards and change her shape to look like anyone has helped make Victor a legend in the DFZ’s illegal-magic underground. It’s not a great life, but at least the work is stable… until her master vanishes without a trace.

With only a handful left of the pills that keep her human, Lola must find Victor before she turns back into the fairy monster she was always meant to be. But with a whole SWAT team of federal paladins hunting her as a blood-mage accomplice, an Urban Legend on a silent black motorcycle who won’t leave her alone, and a mysterious fairy king with the power to make the entire city dream, Lola’s chances of getting out of this alive are as slender as a silver thread.

BY A SILVER THREAD is a fast-paced Urban Fantasy featuring cunning fae, a kind heroine, and a magic so destructive that using it even once will stain your soul forever. Buckle up for a wild ride through a near-future, magical Detroit where urban legends ride the streets, fairy queens have mansions uptown, and the City is an actual deity you don't want to cross. Welcome to the DFZ!

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I am a BIG FAN of Aaron’s Heartstriker series, and I had a ton of fun with the DFZ series. By a Silver Thread is set in the same world as them (although Aaron has made it clear that this new series reads perfectly well as a standalone, as do the others) and I’m SO HAPPY to be getting back to this setting! Especially since there’s been no hint, until now, that there are Fae in the DFZ world!

Dragonfall (The Dragon Scales Trilogy, #1) by L.R. Lam
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bi/pansexual MC, nonbinary bi/pansexual MC, M/NB
Published on: 2nd May 2023
Goodreads

Long-banished dragons, revered as gods, return to the mortal realm in the first in this magical new epic fantasy trilogy from a bestselling author

Long ago, humans betrayed dragons, stealing their magic and banishing them to a dying world. Centuries later, their descendants worship dragons as gods. But the gods remember, and they do not forgive.

Thief Arcady scrapes a living on the streets of Vatra. Desperate, Arcady steals a powerful artifact from the bones of the Plaguebringer, the most hated person in Lumet history. Only Arcady knows the artifact's magic holds the key to a new life among the nobles at court and a chance for revenge.

The spell connects to Everen, the last male dragon foretold to save his kind, dragging him through the Veil. Disguised as a human, Everen soon learns that to regain his true power and form and fulfil his destiny, he only needs to convince one little thief to trust him enough to bond completely--body, mind, and soul--and then kill them.

Yet the closer the two become, the greater the risk both their worlds will shatter.

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Okay, this one ended up not being for me – I DNFed it, but in fairness, that was mostly because I was hoping it would be something it’s not. Dragonfall doesn’t have super lush prose or really intricate worldbuilding, but as long as you know that going in, I think anyone interested in the premise still has the potential to enjoy it massively!

Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1) by Rebecca Yarros
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: MC with chronic pain
Published on: 2nd May 2023
Goodreads

Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Yarros

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.
She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.

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The premise of Fourth Wing is undeniably awesome, and I’m even more interested since I learned that the MC has a chronic pain condition! You can read an excerpt over here.

Spring's Arcana (The Dead God's Heart #1) by Lilith Saintcrow
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 2nd May 2023
Goodreads

American Gods vs. Baba Yaga in this Russian-inspired contemporary fantasy Spring's Arcana, by New York Times bestseller Lilith Saintcrow.

Nat Drozdova is desperate to save a life. Doctors can do little for her cancer-ridden mother, who insists there is only one cure—and that Nat must visit a skyscraper in Manhattan to get it.

Amid a snow-locked city, inside a sleek glass-walled office, Nat makes her plea and is whisked into a terrifying new world. For the skyscraper holds a hungry winter goddess who has the power to cure her mother…if Nat finds a stolen object of great power.

Now Nat must travel with a razor-wielding assassin across an American continent brimming with terror, wonder, and hungry divinities with every reason to consume a young woman. For her ailing mother is indeed suffering no ordinary illness, and Nat Drozdova is no ordinary girl. Blood calls to blood, magic to magic, and a daughter may indeed save what she loves...

…if it doesn’t consume her first.

This is the way to the Dead God’s Heart.

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Saintcrow is an author I’ve loved for years who has never gotten the recognition she’s deserved, so I’m really happy to see that Spring’s Arcana has been getting more of a marketing push. I probably wouldn’t pick up a book with this blurb if it wasn’t Saintcrow, but her worldbuilding and take on magic are always enchanting and thrillingly unique, so I’ll be pouncing on it!

A Portrait in Shadow by Nicole Jarvis
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Published on: 2nd May 2023
Goodreads

Enter the sumptuous world of 17th century Florence, where art and magic are interwoven. Artemisia Gentileschi is a bright talent mired in shadows and will stop at nothing to make her mark, or exact her revenge – perfect for fans of Susanna Clarke.

When Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking a haven for her art, she faces instant opposition from the powerful Accademia, self-proclaimed guardians of the healing and necrotic magic that protect the city from plague and curses. The all-male Accademia jealously guards its power over art and architecture, and has no place for an ambitious young woman arriving from Rome under a cloud of scandal.

Alone and fighting for every commission, Artemisia begins winning allies among luminaries such Galileo and Michelangelo the Younger, as well as the wealthy and powerful Cristina de’ Medici. But when the shadow of her infamous rape trial in Rome turns her thoughts to vengeance, and an incendiary preacher turns his ire from Galileo to Florence's art world, Artemisia must choose between revenge and her dream of creating a legacy that will span the generations.

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This sounds like it features a really interesting magic system, and Jarvis demonstrated that she has a lovely writing style in her previous book, The Lights of Prague. I’m kind of TiredTM of stories where women fighting asshole misogynists is a major part of the plot, so I may not get to this one right away, but it’s definitely going on my tbr!

Loki: A Novel by Melvin Burgess
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Genderfluid MC
Published on: 2nd May 2023
Goodreads

Melvin Burgess revolutionised children's literature with the infamous cult novels Junk and Doing It. In his first adult novel, Loki, he breathes new life into Norse myths.Starting with the Norse creation myths, the trickster god Loki takes the reader on a wild ride through Norse mythology, from the time the gods - the founders of Asgard - defeated races of monsters, and hurtling through famous stories, including Odin hanging himself on the World Tree, the theft of the corrupting gold ring and the murder of Baldr, the god of love and the Sun. This narrative may seem familiar enough at first, but the reader should beware.

Born within the heart of a fire in the hollow of a tree-trunk, Loki arrives in Asgard as an outsider. He is a trickster, an unreliable narrator, the god of intelligence and politics. In spite of his cleverness and sparkling wit (or, perhaps, because of this...) Loki struggles to find his place among the old patriarchal gods of supernatural power and is constantly at odds with the god of thunder - Thor.

This retelling contemporary in tone, at once amusing and relatable. It is a heartfelt plea to overthrow the old gods of power and authority and instigate a new era ruled by love and intelligence. Alongside the politics of Asgard, it charts the course of Loki's many loves and families, from his mothering of Odin's famous horse to his intense, turbulent, and, eventually, fatal relationship with Baldr the Beautiful - a tender and moving story of love that goes wrong, jealousy and a transitioning that is forbidden by society.

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This was released in the UK last year, where it’s gathered quite a lot of love! It’s also apparently very ‘vulgar’, which makes me laugh; clearly the reviewers who said so weren’t familiar with Burgess as a writer. Being ShockingTM is kind of his thing. Consider yourself warned!

Magician and Fool: Book One, Arcana Oracle Series by Susan Wands
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Published on: 2nd May 2023
Goodreads

Pamela Colman Smith, newly arrived from New York to her birthplace of London, is received as an oddball in Victorian society. Her second sight helps her in her new job: illustrating tarot cards for the Golden Dawn, a newly formed occult group. But when Pamela refuses to share her creations with Aleister Crowley, a controversial magician, he issues a threat: give up the cards’ power, or he’ll harm her muses.

In the midst of this battle, two of Pamela’s idols, the actors Henry Irving and William Terriss, take her under their wing. Henry, who tutors her as the leader of the Lyceum Theatre, becomes the muse for her Magician card. William Terriss, teaching her by examples of instinct and courage, becomes the muse for her Fool card. As Pamela begins to create the tarot deck, she is almost overwhelmed by the race to possess the magical power of her cards. In order to defeat Aleister, Henry and William will have to transform into living incarnations of the Magician and the Fool—and Pamela will have to learn how to conjure her own magic.

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I love tarot, so a novel about Pamela Colman Smith, who illustrated the first tarot deck, definitely caught my attention! (As did the fact that the author’s name is Wands, when wands are one of the suits in tarot. Minor detail, but it delights me!)

The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure by Rick Riordan, Mark Oshiro
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 2nd May 2023
Goodreads

Demigods Nico di Angelo and Will Solace must endure the terrors of Tartarus to rescue an old friend in this thrilling adventure co-written by New York Times #1 best-selling author Rick Riordan and award-winning author Mark Oshiro.

As the son of Hades, Nico di Angelo has been through so much, from the premature deaths of his mother and sister, to being outed against his will, to losing his friend Jason during the trials of Apollo. But there is a ray of sunshine in his life–literally: his boyfriend, Will Solace, the son of Apollo. Together the two demigods can overcome any obstacle or foe. At least, that’s been the case so far...

Now Nico is being plagued by a voice calling out to him from Tartarus, the lowest part of the Underworld. He thinks he knows who it is: a reformed Titan named Bob whom Percy and Annabeth had to leave behind when they escaped Hades’s realm. Nico’s dreams and Rachel Dare’s latest prophecy leave little doubt in Nico’s mind that Bob is in some kind of trouble. Nico has to go on this quest, whether Mr. D and Chiron like it or not. And of course Will insists on coming with. But can a being made of light survive in the darkest part of the world? and what does the prophecy mean that Nico will have to “leave something of equal value behind?”

Nico will have to face demons both internal and external as his relationship with Will is tested to the core in this standalone adventure featuring two of the most popular characters in the Percy Jackson saga.

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It’s been a while since I read the Percy Jackson books, and I never reached the ones where Nico appeared – but I know he’s a major fan-favourite, and that the fandom’s been waiting for him to get his own book for a LONG time!

Lion's Legacy (Tennessee Russo, #1) by Lev A.C. Rosen
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Gay MC
Published on: 2nd May 2023
Goodreads

Seventeen-year-old Tennessee Russo’s life is imploding. His boyfriend has been cheating on him, and all his friends know about it. Worse, they expect him to just accept his ex’s new relationship and make nice. So when his father, a famous archaeologist and reality show celebrity whom he hasn’t seen in two years, shows up unexpectedly and offers to take him on an adventure, Tennessee only has a few choices:  

1. Stay, mope, regret it forever.
2. Go, try to reconcile with Dad, become his sidekick again.
3. Go, but make it his adventure, and Dad will be the sidekick.

The object of his father’s latest quest, the Rings of the Sacred Band of Thebes, is too enticing to say no to. Finding artifacts related to the troop of ancient Greek soldiers, composed of one-hundred-and-fifty gay couples, means navigating ruins, deciphering ancient mysteries, and maybe meeting a cute boy.

But will his dad let Tennessee do the right thing with the rings if they find them? And what is the right thing? Who does queer history belong to?

Against the backdrop of a sunlit Greek landscape, author L. C. Rosen masterfully weaves together adventure, romance, and magic in a celebration of the power of claiming your queer legacy.

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I haven’t been able to find out what form the magical elements in this book take, but I’ve been assured there are some. Even if there weren’t, I’m definitely interested in the question who does queer history belong to? And let’s be honest, queer Indiana Jones is a premise that’s amazing all by itself!

Orphia and Eurydicius by Elyse John
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Genderqueer MCs
Published on: 3rd May 2023
Goodreads

A stunning, enthralling story about unconventional love, the power of creativity and the courage of women who struggle to make their voices heard - for fans of Jennifer Saint, Madeline Miller and Pat Barker.

Their love transcends every boundary. Can it cheat death?

Orphia dreams of something more than the warrior crafts she's been forced to learn. Hidden away on a far-flung island, her blood sings with poetry and her words can move flowers to bloom and forests to grow ... but her father, the sun god Apollo, has forbidden her this art.

A chance meeting with a young shield-maker, Eurydicius, gives her the courage to use her voice. After wielding all her gifts to defeat one final champion, Orphia draws the scrutiny of the gods. Performing her poetry, she wins the protection of the goddesses of the arts: the powerful Muses, who welcome her to their sanctuary on Mount Parnassus. Orphia learns to hone her talents, crafting words of magic infused with history, love and tragedy.

When Eurydicius joins her, Orphia struggles with her desire for fame and her budding love. As her bond with the gentle shield-maker grows, she joins the Argonauts on their quest for the Golden Fleece. Facing dragons, sirens and ruthless warriors on the voyage, Orphia earns unparalleled fame, but she longs to return to Eurydicius.
Yet she has a darker journey to make - one which will see her fight for her love with all the power of her poetry.

PRAISE
'Orphia and Eurydicius spins a bewitching tale of courage, love, and defiance, giving voice and agency to the women in Greek tales who are so often defined by the men they are associated with. Orphia's poetry may bring the gods to tears; John's words have the same effect on us mere mortals. Tragic and triumphant, a must-read!' Andrea Stewart, author of The Bone Shard Daughter

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Hands down the book I’m most excited for this week! Elyse John is the same author who wrote The Councillor, one of my all-time faves, and the snippets I’ve seen of Orphia and Eurydicius have me starry-eyed! Do NOT expect me to be taking any calls once this drops!!!

Bitterthorn by Kat Dunn
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F
Published on: 4th May 2023
Goodreads

Blumwald is a town overshadowed by an ancient curse: in a sinister castle in the depths of the wild wood lives a monstrous Witch. Once a generation, she comes to claim a companion to return with her – never to be seen again. Now that time is drawing near once more...

Mina, daughter of the duke, is grieving and lonely. She has lost all hope of any future for herself in Blumwald. So when the Witch demands her next companion, Mina offers herself up – though she has no idea what fate awaits her. Stranded with her darkly alluring captor, the mystery of what happened to the previous companions draws Mina into the heart of a terrifying secret that could save her life, or end it.

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As best I can tell, this is a UK-only release right now, but I think I’m going to need to jump through some hoops and get my hands on it, because it sounds darkly wonderful!

Stargun Messenger by Darby Harn
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Sapphic MC
Published on: 5th May 2023
Goodreads

Astra Idari is a mess.

She drinks too much, remembers too little, and barely pays for it all as a Stargun Messenger. She hunts down thieves who steal filamentium, the fuel that allows for faster-than-light travel. When Idari meets Gen Emera, she meets the girl of her dreams and the last living star. There’s just one problem.

Filamentium is only found in the blood of living stars.

Everyone wields knives and justifications for butchering the living stars to get around, but once Idari knows the truth, she faces a stark choice. Either she turns Emera over to her employers who control the filamentium monopoly, or risks everything to help Emera fulfill her quest to save her people.

The choice should be simple, but it’s not losing her life that terrifies Idari. It’s finally living. Idari knows she’s human despite outwardly appearing to be an android with a failing memory stitched together by her ship's irascible AI, CR-UX. She’s been just getting by for longer than she remembers, assured in her humanity, but not enough to risk it.

Idari has lived her entire life in darkness. The dark comforts and shields. The dark preserves in its cold, and Idari may not be able to keep her star out of her shadow.

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This sounds…strange but fascinating??? STARS ARE LIVING PEOPLE??? No idea how that’s going to work, but definitely invested in finding out!

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

The post Must-Have Monday #135 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

In Short: April

Depression, an ADHD diagnosis, and a new (and very promising!) CEO at work! It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, and I’ve had a lot of trouble concentrating on things…but I also wrote more this month than I have in a while, which makes me really happy. And I don’t think I did too badly blogging-wise either!

ARCs Received

I have been UNBELIEVABLY BLESSED with arcs this month!!! All books that are on my Unmissable SFF of 2023 list – I spent a lot of April SHRIEKING WITH DELIGHT as Netgalley approval notifs made it into my inbox. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Read

I didn’t get much read this month, but for the most part what I read was excellent! A Restless Truth, in particular, was amazing and left me with the biggest book hangover; and Between Two Fires, while very different, was strangely brilliant too. Rereading Empress of Timbra for the millionth time was a joy, and I did a lot of mood reading. TJ Land’s newest novella, To Add Drunkenness To Thirst, was a freaking BLAST, and The Warden surprised me by being super readable when I was struggling to concentrate on anything.

To the best of my knowledge, 31% of this month’s books had BIPOC authors. (I’m counting Transmogrify as one point, it seems like cheating so do otherwise.) Massively better than March!

Reviewed

A whole bunch of reviews!!! I wasn’t very happy with a few of them, though – especially Untethered Sky and The Salt Grows Heavy, I felt like the reviews came out very wishy-washy. But I FINALLY managed to review Rituals – after literal YEARS of trying to put its awesomeness into words! – so I’m taking that as a win!

DNF-ed

Alas, three DNFs this month. I really do think Venom & Vow and Mortal Follies are objectively good books, but I wasn’t clicking with them – and I do think it’s a it’s-me-not-you thing. I encourage other people to try them out if the blurbs appeal to you!

ARCs Outstanding

I have reviews-in-progress for a good number of these – but they’re such good books I’m really struggling to do them justice! Gah. The books I’ve started but not finished yet are all excellent, too, so far!

Misc

No rec lists or anything this month, but I’ve been trying to prepare for Wyrd & Wonder in May, especially re my now-annual rec lists of Magical Abilities and Magic Systems! It’s getting harder to find ones I haven’t featured before, but I’m pretty confident I’ll manage.

I’d like to write some kind of essay-thing for W&W, but I haven’t settled on a topic yet. Suggestions are welcome!

Tomorrow my interview as part of Ada Hoffman’s Autistic Reader Month series goes live! The link will be here – and you should definitely take the time to read through the earlier interviews, because they’ve all been amazing. The whole series has made me so happy, hearing other autistic readers and writers talking about their relationships with reading and writing. It’s been very…validating? And oddly comforting. I think those are the words I want.

Looking Forward

I’m reading Witch King at the moment, and working on a review for To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, but that doesn’t make me any less excited for their release days – I can’t WAIT for everyone else to be able to read them too! And I’m ridiculously to get my Illumicrate edition of Witch King in the mail – I still can’t believe I finally nabbed an Illumicrate subscription after all these years! And Elyse John and Felicia Davin are both on my favourite-authors list, and Orphia and Eurydicius and The Scandalous Letters of V and J both sound incredible – albeit very different!

Which wraps up April – now let May be marvellous for us all!

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

April DNFs

Three DNFs this month – not so bad, as these things go!

When the Stars Alight by Camilla Andrew
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Published on: 16th June 2023
ISBN: 9781739308902
Goodreads

A maiden of the stars. A monster from the shadows. A collision that rewrites their worlds.

Princess Laila Rose is a fallen star in human form. A beloved guardian to humanity. Yet in spite of these fantastical origins, she has never much believed in prophecies. That’s why when a demon of apocalyptic legend is presented to her in a block of ice, she feels fascination rather than fright.

Curiosity kindles into mutual desire once he breaks free of his captivity. Far from the rampaging beast of mass destruction everyone expects—he is monstrously handsome, deviously articulate and alluringly mysterious, a prince among his kind. Eager to discover his origins, Laila travels from her idyllic seaside realm into a land of unspeakable horrors, relying on her wits to survive her journey. She arrives aiming to establish peaceful contact with the aid of the besotted prince.

However, it becomes clear that the heartless demon king does not desire peace at all, only war and conquest. When diplomacy fails, Laila turns to the king’s suave and manipulative bastard son in the hopes that she can inspire both him and his trueborn brother to go against their father. But soon it is her heart she must keep from being torn between their centuries-old dangerous rivalry.

This gothic fantasy set in a vibrant gaslamp world is a must-read for fans of Catherynne Valente and Angela Carter. It’s written in lush, lyrical prose full of intricate worldbuilding, courtly intrigue, and magic that seeps through the pages. Beneath its light, romantic and whimsical veneer, you can expect darkness, brutality and passion.

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

I requested an arc of this directly from the author because of the Catherynne Valente comp (and after being assured that yes, there are actual unicorns in it – albeit extremely minor ones), but alas, the book didn’t live up to its beautiful cover.

I’m not sure I’ve ever come across this exact problem before, but When the Stars Alight gets moving far too quickly. We’re given no time to learn the characters, nevermind the world, before Things Start Happening, which means much of it has no real impact because the reader doesn’t know or understand what a big deal each Thing is – you have to know the status quo to appreciate the Things that wreck it. So the le gasp! aspect of each Thing has to be explained as it happens, which is pretty terrible for maintaining tension or excitement in any given scene.

And to be honest, the things that do happen…make very little sense, even with the explanations. For example, we’re quickly introduced to the cryptograph, a mysterious machine only one professor can operate, which allows her to communicate with…the forces of chaos? Which in this story are Very Evil. I don’t mind that part – but why is nobody concerned about the existence of this machine? Why are the answers it gives trusted? If the Forces of Ultimate Evil were talking to me, I certainly wouldn’t trust what they were saying! Wtf? And the description of how reading the cryptograph works seems lifted straight out of The Northern Lights/The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman;

The dial spun rapidly, needle scratching over several eldritch symbols in continuous sequence. Nobody knew how to interpret them besides Hariken herself, and to do so she had to train her mind to take on a certain concentration. She’d called it “dipping into the abyss”, for the sensation was akin to descending into oceanic depths until her skull almost cracked from the pressure of it.

Just like how Lyra in The Northern Lights has to focus just-so to make the alethiometer’s needle swing to the symbols that answer her question? Um. That’s a little too close to be coincidence. Best-case scenario, Andrew didn’t consciously copy the alethiometer, but it got into her subconscious somewhere and came out in her writing. I guess none of her beta readers had read Pullman’s trilogy?

The rest of the worldbuilding didn’t really click for me either: the dark god (dark lord?) especially seemed as if the story couldn’t make up its mind about his nature. Why does a god keep a grimoire? But then, he’s also communicating through the cryptograph? And provides a weird prophecy-thing to help guide them to wherever he’s been all this time;

Tread the course of ivory salt
’Til the dragon’s lungs exhale
Cross the wound of despair before I entered my lair
Within its innards you shall prevail

I don’t like Being Mysterious just for the sake of it – why not just tell them where he is, if he wants them to find him? – and I don’t like prophecies or prophecy-esque messages that conveniently rhyme when translated. But what I really don’t like is how there is literally no way for the reader to make any sense of this.

“They’re directions,” Dr Hariken explained, “to the Shadowlands.”

“How can you know?”

“It took me a moment to decipher, but the ‘course of ivory salt’ is the White Sea. And ‘the dragon’s lungs exhale’ refers to the Dragon’s Breath.

We just have to take her word for it, because we have no idea what the White Sea or the Dragon’s Breath is at this point in the story. This is kind of what I meant about the story moving too fast – the reader is just getting dragged along, with no time to absorb the world or gather enough info that we can actually understand what’s happening.

Moving away from the worldbuilding to the characters: the instalust made me incredibly uncomfortable, at least partly because we have this petite delicate heroine and a bulked-up 7-foot-tall ‘monster’ – and something about that contrast makes me feel ick. I’m not sure why, because similar pairings haven’t bothered me in the past – maybe it’s that this ‘monster’ is just a basic humanoid but big, but is being described in very animalistic, bestial terms that don’t seem warranted? So Laila’s lust comes across as really gross and creepy, like a white woman with a fetish for Black men? (As far as I can recall both characters involved are brown-skinned, for the record.) Like, for whatever reason, it was Laila’s lust that bothered me, not the love interest’s so much. I felt like the love interest was getting objectified in a really yuck way. I can’t put it any better than that.

And this is all aside from the fact that instalust is a trope I don’t like anyway.

Venom & Vow by Anna-Marie McLemore, Elliott McLemore
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Latine cast & setting, genderfluid MC, trans MC
Published on: 16th May 2023
ISBN: 125082222X
Goodreads

Two enemy kingdoms are forced to work together to break a curse in this lush YA fantasy, featuring a transgender prince and a bigender dama/assassin in the lead roles.

Keep your enemy closer.

Cade McKenna is a transgender prince who’s doubling for his brother.
Valencia Palafox is a young dama attending the future queen of Eliana.
Gael Palma is the infamous boy assassin Cade has vowed to protect.
Patrick McKenna is the reluctant heir to a kingdom, and the prince Gael has vowed to destroy.

Cade doesn’t know that Gael and Valencia are the same person.
Valencia doesn’t know that every time she thinks she’s fighting Patrick, she’s fighting Cade.
And when Cade and Valencia blame each other for a devastating enchantment that takes both their families, neither of them realizes that they have far more dangerous enemies.

Cowritten by married writing team Anna-Marie and Elliott McLemore, Venom & Vow is a lush and powerful YA novel about owning your power and becoming who you really are - no matter the cost.

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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I am so massively disappointed here, but I think I need to admit that I’m not enjoying this one and call it quits.

There’s a lot to love, including the use of dual perspective – something I don’t always enjoy, but which was used to great effect here, as we see the characters mislead and misunderstand each other in ways both believable and (at times) kind of hilarious. The setting is marvellous; I loved the castle that morphs and changes in response to the feelings of the monarch, and the ancestor-spirits that come out of the other kingdom’s tapestries in the forms of jungle birds and big cats. I loved the monastry. I loved having two very effective, badass characters who are both physically disabled.

But the story just didn’t hook me. The writing is perfectly nice, but whenever I put Venom & Vow aside, I don’t want to pick it up again. It’s not that it’s a hard book, exactly, but reading it gives me brain-fog – I desperately want a nap after making it through a few chapters. And for some reason I can’t put my finger on, I just…don’t care about the plot? I’m not curious or invested enough to want to know how it ends. And I don’t know why, which makes me suspect the issue is me more then the book. Because I really do think that, objectively, Venom & Vow is pretty awesome.

Maybe if I come back to it in the future I’ll click with it better.

Regardless, I don’t want anyone to take my DNF as a sign you shouldn’t try it yourself. It’s a really lovely book, and if the premise interests you I encourage you to pick it up. Pretty sure the problem is with me, because there’s nothing about Venom & Vow that I want to actually critique!

Mortal Follies by Alexis Hall
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F, secondary gay Black character
Published on: 11th July 2023
Goodreads

A young noblewoman must join forces with a rumoured witch to conquer an ancient curse in this devilishly funny and heartwarming sapphic Regency romantasy from TikTok titan and bestselling author of Boyfriend Material Alexis Hall.

It is the year 1814 and Miss Maelys Mitchelmore finds her entry into the highest society of Bath hindered by an irritating curse. It begins innocuously enough, with her dress slowly unmaking itself over the course of an evening at the ball of the season, a scandal she only narrowly manages to escape.

However, as the curse progresses to more fatal proportions, she realises she must seek out urgent assistance, even if that means mixing with the most undesirable company-and there are few less desirable allies than the brooding Lady Georgiana Landrake-who may or may not have murdered her own father and brothers to inherit their fortune.

If one is to believe the gossip, she might be some kind of malign enchantress.Then again, a malign enchantress might be exactly what Miss Mitchelmore needs.

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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I’m not really sure what happened, but somewhere along the way I seem to have stopped finding Alexis Hall very funny? I DNFed Husband Material and Paris Daillencourt Is About to Crumble, despite adoring their predecessors – and Mortal Follies fell flat for me in much the same way.

I think it’s objectively a lovely book, and I can see how it’s supposed to be charming and a little bit silly and heart-warming, and I was happy with the neat worldbuilding. Having Shakespeare’s Robin Goodfellow as the narrator is sheer brilliance, and his little asides to the reader are probably my favourite parts of the book. But I don’t feel any incentive to keep reading and find out how it all ends.

It is very possible that the problem is me, again – I got hit with depression hard this month, so maybe I just wasn’t able to appreciate Mortal Follies for what it is because of that. I have a small suspicion that if I come back to it later, I might enjoy it a lot more. But for now I’m putting it aside. I just don’t have the spoons to keep pushing through when I’m not enjoying myself.

Here’s hoping for fewer DNFs in May!

The post April DNFs appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

A Mixed Bag, But Worth It: Transmogrify ed by G. Haron Davis

Transmogrify!: 14 Fantastical Tales of Trans Magic by g. haron davis
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Trans and nonbinary MCs
Published on: 16th May 2023
ISBN: 0063218828
Goodreads

Perfect for fans of All Out and Cemetery Boys, this anthology claims a seat at the table of fantasy literature for trans and gender nonconforming stories.

Transness is as varied and colorful as magic can be. In Transmogrify!, you’ll embark on fourteen different adventures alongside unforgettable characters who embody many different genders and expressions and experiences—because magic is for everyone, and that is cause for celebration.

Featuring stories from:
AR Capetta and Cory McCarthy
g. haron davis
Mason Deaver
Jonathan Lenore Kastin
Emery Lee
Saundra Mitchell
Cam Montgomery
Ash Nouveau
Sonora Reyes
Renee Reynolds
Dove Salvatierra
Ayida Shonibar
Francesca Tacchi
Nik Traxler

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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Reviewing anthologies is hard; rating them, imo, even harder. So instead of giving this a rating, I’m going to write a little bit of my thoughts on each story in the book.

The Greats

Origin Story by Saundra Mitchell – this is hands-down the best story in the book, so I’m not surprised they decided to open with it! A ‘trailer trash’ enby kid has been kicked out of magic school, but their adventures aren’t over. Fierce, bold, bright, gorgeous. Daisy, the MC, is fucking epic, and the take on and description of magic was beautiful. I would happily devour a series of novels, or novellas, if Mitchell decided to expand Daisy’s story! 10/10

Bite the Hand by Nik Traxler–Pinar Ateş Sinopoulos-Lloyd – dreamy and surreal and gorgeous, like honey dripping from broken glass. It fit perfectly into its page count, but I would love to see it expanded a little into a novella. The way the blurred lines between gender echoed the blurry boundary between monster and not-monster??? *chef’s kiss* 10/10

If I can’t have love, I want power. by g. haron-davis – if this story were a person, I would dance with them and twirl them. I loved loved LOVED how haron-davis gave a middle finger to how magical-bargain stories usually go; I loved the healthy selfishness and the sharp edges and how much the MC deserves the magic they ask for. 10/10

Espjismos by Dove Salvatierra – slow and simmering, a tale of old fears and new loneliness and growing into hope. Also, very wonderful shapeshifters. 9/10

The Goods

High Tide by Francesca Tacchi – a very cool premise built around water magic in a kind of island nation, with a MC who has to get a goddess’ approval to be allowed to take part in their people’s strictly-gendered traditions. I think it would have done better as a novella, or ideally a full novel; it felt very rushed, and could have done with a bit more polishing, but I appreciated the unconventional love interest and an ending that went against expectations. 7/10

In a Name by Ayida Shonibar – another with an excellent premise, and possibly the best opening line in the book; On the eve of my seventeenth birthday, I prepare to earn the seventh–and final–letter of my name. Gender is determined by whether your chakras spin clockwise or counter-clockwise, and you earn a letter of your name for every chakra you learn to control. But what if you can’t, or don’t want to? 8/10

The Hallow King by Jonathan Lenore Kastin – a summon-a-monster revenge fantasy, wherein a young trans man sets the titular Hallow King on various transphobic assholes at his school. I liked it a lot, right up until the very wishy-washy ending. I felt particularly let down by the advice the MC’s witchy (and ghostly) ancestor had on dealing with transphobia. 7/10

Seagulls and Other Birds of Prey by Ash Nouveau – this was so cute!!! About a young witch whose passion is customising their broomstick, and just wants to be allowed to play in the local tournament. I’m a complete sucker for characters who have a hobby they’re passionate about, and I loved seeing them find a team of fellow misfits to play with. Absolutely nailed the tone it was going for. 8/10

The Okays

Halloween Love by Sonora Reyes – very basic, really dull. A lovely opening where the MC and their mom are brushing the MC’s hair, looking for the coloured hairs that will announce what kind of magic the MC will have, but it got boring very quickly. An attempt is made at humour – the MC initially thinks the girl they’d like to date is also a witch – but it fell very flat. Meh. 5/5

Dragons Name Themselves by R. Capetta and Cory McCarthy – amazing concept (a sentient magic school! Narrating the story! And also shipping the students and helping them get together!) that flopped. You’re setting your story in a magic school, but a big part of the story is them doing The Baby Assignment? (Two students sharing an egg that they need to take care of like it’s a baby.) That was a huge let-down. I wish this had been a novel instead, with a less cringey voice for the school (it’s clearly supposed to be funny, but again, I did not find it so). 6/10

Genderella by Mason Deaver – very obvious, very simple, the magic felt shoe-horned in. I guess not actively bad, but pretty boring. 5/10

Bend the Truth, Break It Too by Cam Montgomery – this was trying too hard to be beautiful, and it ended up becoming confusing instead. I think a good editor would have encouraged Montgomery to streamline the premise a bit – couldn’t the jinn have been a simple curse or something instead? – or alternatively, this was too big a story to fit into a short story. It might have done a lot better as a novella. 5.5/10

The Awfuls

Verity by Renée Reynolds – a magic mirror that shows the truth of the viewer is rediscovered after being cursed into darkness. Great concept, poor execution. Things happen randomly without explanation (how was the curse broken exactly??? Who knows) and I thought the pop-culture references felt very forced and out of place. Very lecture-y. Not impressed. 4/10

The Door to the Other Side by Emery Lee – a pretty interesting premise – a family that are the guardians of The Door, which is literally the door spirits pass through to reach wherever the door thinks they should go – that needed to be a novella or better yet, a full novel. That would have given all the elements space to breathe. As it was, there was too much info-dumping and hand-waving (it’s never a good sign when the narrator goes ‘oh, why is this makes-no-sense thing like this??? Just because!’ I paraphrase, but only a little.) The big reveal at the end made no sense and didn’t seem to actually mean anything – it wasn’t nearly as life-changing as it was trying to be. 4/10

A Note Overall

One thing that didn’t help was that by the end of the book, I’d been lectured on the same topics half a dozen times, which was both boring and frustrating. I think Davis should have decided which stories did the lecturing best, then edited it out of the others, because it made the later stories seem worse for ‘repeating’ the same lectures – except they weren’t repeating, because each story was written separately, in isolation from the rest, by different authors. And yet the effect on the reader is getting the same lecture over and over. And not particularly gracefully, in most instances.

In Conclusion

Ultimately, I do think the Greats are great enough to be worth the price of admission, and I suspect less obsessively picky readers than I will have a higher opinion than I did of some of the Okays. Plus, Transmogrify! makes no bones about being aimed at teenagers; it’s not intended for adult readers, and although we can enjoy it, I think a lot of what I didn’t enjoy is what will make sure this book does click with younger readers. Which I can’t fault it for.

I think Transmogrify! is what it wanted to be, succeeds at doing what it set out to do, and kudos to the editor and writers for that. Enthusiastically recommended for readers of fantastical YA!

The post A Mixed Bag, But Worth It: Transmogrify ed by G. Haron Davis appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

I Can’t Wait For…The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson

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 The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson!

The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 6th June 2023
Goodreads

A girl matches wits with a war god in this kaleidoscopic, epic tale of oppression and the cost of peace, where stories hide within other stories, and narrative has the power to heal… or to burn everything in its path.

In the winding underground tunnels of the Library, the great celestial peacekeeper of the three systems, a terrible secret lies buried.

As the daughter of a Library god, Freida has spent her whole life exploring the Library's ever-changing tunnels and communing with the gods. Her unparalleled access makes her unique – and dangerous.

When Freida meets Joshua, a mortal boy desperate to save his people, and Nergüi, a Disciple from a persecuted religious minority, Freida is compelled to break ranks with the gods and help them. But in order to do so, she will have to venture deeper into the Library than she has ever known. There she will discover the atrocities of the past, the truth of her origins, and the impossibility of her future…

With the world at the brink of war, Freida embarks on a journey to fulfill her destiny, one that pits her against an ancient war god. Her mission is straightforward: Destroy the god before he can rain hellfire upon thousands of innocent lives – if he doesn't destroy her first.

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I don’t think Johnson has EVER written a dud – every book of hers has knocked my socks off, even the ones whose premise didn’t initially interest me. And the premise of The Library of Broken Worlds DEFINITELY interests me!!!

Hells, who am I kidding – just the TITLE was enough to convince me that this is a book I DESPERATELY NEED. The library of broken worlds??? That sounds so fantastical and amazing that I cannot even.

A LIBRARY? Of WORLDS?

And then we get to the actual blurb and I just lose my damn mind. The daughter of a Library god! (Note the capital letter. I am sure that’s going to be VERY relevant.) (Also, note the a. That suggests Frieda’s parent is one of several Library gods. Are all the gods Library gods? Since one is described as a war god specifically, probably not?) The peacekeeper of three systems – is the Library itself the peacekeeper? What are the three systems – three galaxies, maybe? Or three probably-not-parallel dimensions? Three worlds? If the gods are real, how is there such a thing as a religious minority? Why is the war god out to rain hellfire?

So many delicious questions!

You can just feel how much worldbuilding has gone into this, just from the blurb. I am so, so excited to see the world (worlds?) Johnson has created here.

This sounds so…so rich and gorgeous and different from anything else I’ve ever heard of, and from an author whose writing I already know I adore! The Library of Broken Worlds is a book Johnson has apparently been writing for seven years, and speaking from experience…you don’t keep working on a story for that long unless you love it. And I really, really, really want to meet the story that this author I admire loves that much.

I have my copy preordered, and I cannot imagine why you might not!

The post I Can’t Wait For…The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #134

SEVEN marvellous new releases this week!

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

In the Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Asexual MC
Published on: 25th April 2023
Goodreads

New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune invites you deep into the heart of a peculiar forest and on the extraordinary journey of a family assembled from spare parts.

Most Anticipated from BookPage • Goodreads • The Nerd Daily • Paste Magazine • LitReactor • OverDrive • LGBTQ Reads • more

“An enchanting tale of Pinocchio in the end times.” —P. Djèlí Clark

In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees, live three robots—fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. They’re a family, hidden and safe.

The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled “HAP,” he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio–a past spent hunting humans.

When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio’s former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe. Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. So together, the rest of Vic’s assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.

Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for himself: Can he accept love with strings attached?

Inspired by Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio, and like Swiss Family Robinson meets Wall-E, In the Lives of Puppets is a masterful stand-alone fantasy adventure from the beloved author who brought you The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door.

★ “An epic quest of rescue and discovery [with] the author’s trademark charm, heart, and bittersweetness.” —Library Journal, starred review

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I never thought I’d care about a Pinocchio retelling, but here we are! And – is this Klune’s first sci fi? I think it might be? There may well be magic involved too, though – I guess we’ll find out tomorrow!

Silenced by Ann Claycomb
Genres: Speculative Fiction
Published on: 25th April 2023
Goodreads

A powerful feminist fairy tale of four women each cursed by the same abusive man. Gripping and essential, it will captivate readers of Jennifer Saint's Ariadne, Heather Walter's Malice and Menna van Praag's The Sisters Grimm.

Four women. Four enchantments. One man. But he is no handsome prince, and this is no sugar-sweet fairy tale. Jo, Abony, Ranjani, and Maia all have something in common: they have each been cursed by the CEO of their workplace after he abused his power to prey on them. He wants them silent and uses his sinister dark magic to keep them quiet about what he did. But Jo, Abony, Ranjani and Maia are not fairy-tale princesses waiting to be rescued. They are fierce, angry women with a bond forged in pain, and they’re about to discover that they have power of their own.

In this sharply written, bitingly relevant modern fable, the magic is dark and damaging, and the women are determined to rescue themselves.

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I’ve had a lot of trouble trying to find out exactly how speculative Silenced is, but I’m cautiously interested. Although given the subject matter I’m going to have to be in exactly the right headspace when I try reading it!

Red Team Blues (Martin Hench) by Cory Doctorow
Published on: 25th April 2023
Goodreads

New York Times bestseller Cory Doctorow's Red Team Blues is a grabby next-Tuesday thriller about cryptocurrency shenanigans that will awaken you to how the world really works.

Martin Hench is 67 years old, single, and successful in a career stretching back to the beginnings of Silicon Valley. He lives and roams California in a very comfortable fully-furnished touring bus, The Unsalted Hash, that he bought years ago from a fading rock star. He knows his way around good food and fine drink. He likes intelligent women, and they like him back often enough.

Martin is a―contain your excitement―self-employed forensic accountant, a veteran of the long guerilla war between people who want to hide money, and people who want to find it. He knows computer hardware and software alike, including the ins and outs of high-end databases and the kinds of spreadsheets that are designed to conceal rather than reveal. He’s as comfortable with social media as people a quarter his age, and he’s a world-level expert on the kind of international money-laundering and shell-company chicanery used by Fortune 500 companies, mid-divorce billionaires, and international drug gangs alike. He also knows the Valley like the back of his hand, all the secret histories of charismatic company founders and Sand Hill Road VCs. Because he was there at all the beginnings. He’s not famous, except to the people who matter. He’s made some pretty powerful people happy in his time, and he’s been paid pretty well. It’s been a good life.

Now he’s been roped into a job that’s more dangerous than anything he’s ever agreed to before―and it will take every ounce of his skill to get out alive.

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Doctorow’s books are always worth taking a look at – and I’m massively excited for his other book coming this year, Lost Cause. This one sounds quite different, but I’m still intrigued; Martin Hench sounds like a really fun character to me. And Doctorow is kind of the best at explaining Weird Tech Things in ways I can understand; it’s worth reading for that alone!

That Self-Same Metal (Forge & Fracture Saga, #1) by Brittany N. Williams
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Black MC
Published on: 25th April 2023
Goodreads

A stunning YA fantasy debut, perfect for fans of Holly Black and Justina Ireland, about a Black girl (and sword expert) fighting a Fae uprising in Shakespearean London

Sixteen-year-old Joan Sands is a gifted craftswoman who creates and upkeeps the stage blades for William Shakespeare’s acting company, The King’s Men. Joan’s skill with her blades comes from a magical ability to control metal—an ability gifted by her Head Orisha, Ogun. Because her whole family is Orisha-blessed, the Sands family have always kept tabs on the Fae presence in London. Usually that doesn’t involve much except noting the faint glow around a Fae’s body as they try to blend in with London society, but lately, there has been an uptick in brutal Fae attacks. After Joan wounds a powerful Fae and saves the son of a cruel Lord, she is drawn into political intrigue in the human and Fae worlds.

Swashbuckling, romantic, and full of the sights and sounds of Shakespeare’s London, this series starter delivers an unforgettable story—and a heroine unlike any other.

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Is there anything about Self-Same Metal that does not sound amazing??? No, no there is not! I will definitely be picking this one up!

This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham
Genres: Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC
Published on: 25th April 2023
Goodreads

Four best friends, one music festival, and a cooler filled with human organs: this summer is about to get gory. ​​​

Jennifer’s Body fans will clamor for this new sapphic horror standalone from New York Times bestselling author Kayla Cottingham.

Three years ago, the melting of arctic permafrost released a pathogen of unknown origin into the atmosphere, causing a small percentage of people to undergo a transformation that became known as the Hollowing. Those impacted slowly became intolerant to normal food and were only able to gain sustenance by consuming the flesh of other human beings. Those who went without flesh quickly became feral, turning on their friends and family. However, scientists were able to create a synthetic version of human meat that would satisfy the hunger of those impacted by the Hollowing. As a result, humanity slowly began to return to normal, albeit with lasting fear and distrust for the people they'd pejoratively dubbed ghouls.

Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine are all ghouls living in Southern California. As a last hurrah before their graduation they decided to attend a musical festival in the desert. They have a cooler filled with hard seltzers and SynFlesh and are ready to party.

But on the first night of the festival Val goes feral, and ends up killing and eating a boy. As other festival guests start disappearing around them the girls soon discover someone is drugging ghouls and making them feral. And if they can't figure out how to stop it, and soon, no one at the festival is safe.

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All right, this sounds pretty weird, but, as they used to say, I kind of dig it??? Why do I keep running into books about cannibals lately, I’m beginning to suspect a conspiracy.

The Best of Catherynne M. Valente, Volume One by Catherynne M. Valente, Alyssa Winans
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Published on: 29th April 2023
Goodreads

The celebrated author of Fairyland, Space Opera, and much more, Catherynne M. Valente is also known for her stunning prose and captivating worldbuilding. From life on Mars to the zombified streets of Augusta, Maine, she has taken readers on unforgettable journeys for two decades.

Subterranean Press is proud to present: The Best of Catherynne M. Valente, Volume One, the first comprehensive collection of Valente’s short fiction, soaring through eighteen years of pushing the edges of storytelling.

Among her award-winning stories, you’ll find everything from melancholy robot girls to Eurydice and Orpheus; from detectives in Purgatory to time-traveling squirrels to a very different Santa Claus; from the grey coast of Washington to Alice’s Wonderland.
Valente’s work is an open, beating heart, ready to welcome you in to its darkness and its light.

Table of Contents:
Left Ventricle
The Consultant The Difference Between Love and Time A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica White Lines on a Green Field The Wolves of Brooklyn Reading Borges in Buenos Aires Days of Flaming Motorcycles One Breath, One Stroke Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time Mouse Koan

Right Atrium
The Melancholy of Mechagirl The Future Is Blue The Sin-Eater The Sun in Exile Color, Heat, and the Wreck of the Argo The Perfect Host How to Become a Mars Overlord Fade to White Secretario Twenty-Five Facts About Santa Claus In the Future When All’s Well Planet Lion

Left Atrium
A Great Clerk of Necromancy Urchins, While Swimming L’Espirit D’Escalier The Lily and the Horn The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild Palimpsest The Red Girl The Flame After the Candle The Wedding The Bread We Eat in Dreams The Secret of Being a Cowboy

Right Ventricle
Aquaman and the Duality of Self/Other, America, 1985 A Fall Counts Anywhere A Delicate Architecture Golubash, or Wine-Blood-War-Elegy Badgirl, the Deadman, and the Wheel of Fortune Down and Out in R’lyeh The Shoot-Out at Burnt Corn Ranch Over the Bride of the World No One Dies in Nowhere The Limitless Perspective of Master Peek, Or, the Luminescence of Debauchery Daisy Green Says I Love You Silently and Very Fast What the Dragon Said: A Love Story

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HI, YES, THOSE ARE MY SHRIEKS OF DELIGHT YOU HEAR! Catherynne M. Valente is easily my (joint-)favourite storyteller in the world, and you’d better believe I pounced when Sub Press announced this Volume One of her best short stories (and poetry)! I even managed to snag the limited edition (the left-hand cover)! (Although I think the trade hardcover – right-hand image – might be prettier. Here’s hoping the limited edition somehow has both???)

Since it will take a while for my copy to get to me, I’m hoping Sub Press release an ebook copy this week too, so I can dive into it while waiting for my hardcover to arrive. Have I read many of the short stories listed in the contents??? Obviously. Am I eager to read them all again??? Le duh. Am I losing my gods’-damn MIND over the inclusion of out-of-print and never-before-published stories??? What kind of foolish question is that?!

The Blood-Born Dragon (The Everlands Cycle, #1) by J.C. Rycroft
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Lesbian MC
Published on: 30th April 2023
Goodreads

A bond she didn’t choose.
A love she can’t escape.
A creature so powerful it bends the limits of time…

Smart, sassy, and sanguine, Des Mildue is a traveling sellsword in Rescalin, a dry and dusty kingdom full of rogues, opportunists, and thieves. She keeps her nose clean, brazens it out with a blade when she can’t, and keeps others at arm’s length where they can’t mess up her plans.

That is, until a sword fight gone wrong leaves her tied by blood to the first dragon hatched in centuries. Suddenly, Des has to contend with a new voice in her head: haughty, willful Esquidamelion. Des wants to leave Squid by the roadside, but the blood bond has other ideas.

With half the world on their tail - including Liv, her beautiful, faithless ex who Des is definitely over - Des must search for answers for why so many are willing to kill, maim and torture to get their hands on Squid. But she’s beginning to suspect her blood bond has tied her not only to a dragon, but to a fight for Rescalin’s future…

…and no one else even knows it’s at risk.

If you like the kind of story that grabs you by the shirtfront and hauls you through mystery, magic, adventure and betrayal, with a side of sapphic romance, pick up The Blood-Born Dragon, first in a new trilogy from debut author J.C. Rycroft.

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This one caught my eye because apparently the setting is inspired by Australia? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before! Also, is the blurb implying that the dragon can affect the flow of time somehow??? I am intensely curious!

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

The post Must-Have Monday #134 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Darkly Decadent: The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw
Genres: Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Pansexual MC, nonbinary partner
PoV: First-person, present-tense
Published on: 2nd May 2023
ISBN: B0B9KV4Y19
Goodreads

From USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw comes The Salt Grows Heavy, a razor-sharp and bewitching fairytale of discovering the darkness in the world, and the darkness within oneself.

You may think you know how the fairytale goes: a mermaid comes to shore and weds the prince. But what the fables forget is that mermaids have teeth. And now, her daughters have devoured the kingdom and burned it to ashes.

On the run, the mermaid is joined by a mysterious plague doctor with a darkness of their own. Deep in the eerie, snow-crusted forest, the pair stumble upon a village of ageless children who thirst for blood, and the three 'saints' who control them.

The mermaid and her doctor must embrace the cruellest parts of their true nature if they hope to survive.

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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~the eyeballs of saints taste delicious
~be very suspicious of immortality
~do not fuck with mermaids

In 2021, I discovered Khaw via their novel The All-Consuming World – and fell head-over-heels in love with their incredibly decadent, luscious, shameless prose. I vowed then to read everything of theirs…even though they usually write hardcore horror, and as we know, I’m a horror wimp.

But with writing this beautiful, I am helpless to resist.

This is an odd little novella, which readers paying close attention will realise is set in the same world as Khaw’s short story These Deathless Bones – I can only hope this means Khaw plans to return to this world periodically, because I love it, but the Witch Bride does not herself appear in The Salt Grows Heavy, even though she’s refenced. (Alas. I suspect she’d have been an excellent ally to our main characters!) Regardless, in this book, a man-eating mermaid decides to wander the world for a time with a nonbinary plague doctor, whose admittedly mysterious origins still don’t come close to the darkly thrilling wonders of her own.

They encounter a cult whose practices the doctor does not approve of…and the two of them decide to intervene. For the doctor, it’s a Big Deal; for the mermaid, it’s a whim. Regardless, there are Consequences for everyone involved.

The stakes are life and death – and some kind of in-between immortality – but in this context those are still low stakes. The Salt Grows Heavy is not concerned with the fate of kingdoms; the story feels small – not petty or meaningless, but self-contained, isolated. Unlikely to affect anyone not present in its pages. I haven’t encountered books that feel like this very often, but it’s not unpleasant, just unfamiliar.

As for the story itself… A lot of it felt a little random, but I’m not sure if Things actually came out of nowhere, or if I just missed the set-up for them during one of those moments when I had to skim or skip ahead to avoid the worst of the body-horror elements. I had to do that quite a bit! Because as usual, Khaw holds nothing back in tenderly, lovingly describing the look of a person’s insides or the sensation (and taste) of an eyeball popping between one’s teeth.

I’LL PUT UP WITH A LOT FOR GORGEOUS PROSE, OKAY?

Names are like selkie-skins, often carelessly attended, left in view of those who would misuse them. Utilized correctly, though, they can kill a man, can turn a girl to a thing of teeth and dead eyes, an appetite to devour worlds; can make infernos of maidens, phoenixes of bones who have been asleep for so long they’ve forgotten the shape of rage.

Names have so much power.

And the prose is gorgeous – lush and rich and decadent, and wiser people than me should put together an essay on how much more viscerally horrifying horror becomes when it’s made beautiful; the dissonance of it, the way it seduces the reader, slyly transforming them from passive onlooker to almost-active participant. When you make horror beautiful, you make the reader want the horror – and that in itself is far more horrifying than anything that can happen on page. It moves the horror from the book into the reader. It turns the reader into a monster too, for the length of the story.

I am pretty sure Khaw knows this, and revels in it. They’re certainly a master at it!

Surprising no one, I’m sure, my favourite parts of The Salt Grow Heavy were the moments when we got mermaid lore. Khaw gives us just enough to establish how very un- and inhuman their mermaids are; enough to make me long for more. I would have been so happy to read the mermaid’s backstory; her life in the ocean, her leaving the water, burning down the kingdom that tried to cage her. We get very brief not-quite-flashbacks to her life with the king who made her tongueless, but the focus is very much post-fairytale, not the retelling that came before.

I allow myself, for the gash of a moment, to remember what I once possessed: the abyssal ocean the song in those depths like swimming down the black throat of a god; the searing colors moting my sisters’ coils, sapphire and quartz crushed into constellations, patterns prisms of incandescence spiraling through the dark, our tails in endless, restless motion; our mother’s eyes, colossal, phosphorescent; our father’s ribs, still studded with our egg sacs, his heartbeat in our veins. I’d been happy there. I could have been happy there forever.

In the Acknowledgements (in the arc, anyway – it’s perfectly possible they might change in the final copy) Khaw describes The Salt Grows Heavy as ‘about people who won’t give up on each other, who stay even when the world crumbles to ash, who hold on even when there’s nothing but hope.’ I admit, this puzzled me a little, because the love story that develops here seemed very sudden to me, not something that was central to the book.

But again, who knows what I missed all those times I flinched from the horror? And I’m not the best at understanding romance anyway.

In short…this is an odd little book. I think it’s one I need to reread, maybe several times, before I understand it fully – but it’s such a darkly beautiful read that I really don’t mind at all.

Take my thoughts with – ahem – a pinch of salt, since I fully acknowledge I probably missed things. But I did love this, and I’m glad I read it, and I’ll be happy to reread it. It’s definitely, easily my second-favourite book of Khaw’s (it’s going to be tough to beat All-Consuming World) and I strongly recommend it to anyone looking for a short but breathtaking read that might just tear your heart out of your chest.

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I Can’t Wait For…The Scandalous Letters of V and J by Felicia Davin

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 The Scandalous Letters of V and J by Felicia Davin!

The Scandalous Letters of V and J by Felicia Davin
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Nonbinary MCs, NB/NB
Published on: 16th May 2023
Goodreads

Paris, 1823. Victor Beauchêne has led a stifling existence, unrecognized for both his cleverness and his gender, except in the pages of his meticulous diary. Abruptly cut off from his family’s fortune, he takes the opportunity to start a new life in a shabby boarding house with his beloved spinster aunt Sophie. There, he stumbles upon two kinds of magic: a pen with eerie powers of persuasion and a reserved, alluring art student named Julien.

Brilliant, unconventional Julien is also Julie, a person whose magical paintings can transform their body or enchant viewers. Haunted by a terrible episode in their past, they’ve come to Paris for artistic success—the ordinary, non-magical kind. Victor, too handsome and far too inquisitive, is a dangerous distraction from their ambitions.

Drawn to each other, Victor and Julie strike up a cautious correspondence of notes slid under doors. It soon unfolds into a passionate romance. Outside the bedroom, their desires clash: Julie wants to distance herself from the world of magic and Victor wants to delve deeper. When the ruthless abuser from Julie’s past resurfaces, he aims to take control of her powers and ruin more lives. Victor and Julie are the only ones who can stop him. Do they trust each other enough to survive the threat to their love and their lives?

The Scandalous Letters of V and J is a historical fantasy romance with two nonbinary main characters, told primarily in letters and diary entries. It is approximately 100,000 words long and sexually explicit.

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I have consistently been blown away by every book of Davin’s, and I have no reason to think The Scandalous Letters of V and J is going to be the exception! Which is why I preordered it before even reading the blurb – there are some authors you can trust that much, you know?

But the blurb delights me – I love epistolary books, and I can’t stop grinning at the idea of letters slipped under doors rather than being posted. There’s just something sweet and fun about it, like passing notes in class – sneaky and cute at the same time. And then the magic! Surely storytellers and story-lovers alike must sit up and pay attention to the thought of a magic pen? What kind of stories might you tell with that? And paintings that let an enby shapeshift as they please? HI, I COVET THAT SUPERPOWER, PLEASE AND THANK YOU!

I admit I can’t imagine wanting to walk away from magic, but I’m sure Julie and Victor will figure out a compromise eventually! And defeat whatever asshole crawls out of poor Julie’s past.

If The Scandalous Letters of V and J interests you at all, you can actually check it out for free immediately! Davin is sending out the whole novel, piece by piece, to subscribers, so you don’t have to wait for pub day to read it. (Although it’s not all out yet – I think it’s being timed so the last bit goes out just before release day.) If you scroll to the bottom of the book’s page on Davin’s website, you can sign up right away, and catch up on the earlier parts you’ve missed!

I’m holding off – I know better than to think I could survive not having the entirety of the book at once, to devour all in one go! – but it’s a brilliant way to try it out before ordering a copy to keep!

Give it a go, or make like me and wait impatiently for May!

The post I Can’t Wait For…The Scandalous Letters of V and J by Felicia Davin appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.