Siavahda's Blog, page 56

Must-Have Monday #106

EIGHT new books to be grabby-hands for this week!

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

Will Do Magic for Small Change by Andrea Hairston
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Black cast
Published on: 11th October 2022
Goodreads

“[A] beautifully multifaceted story... Highly recommended.” —The New York Times

Andrea Hairston's historical fantasy Will Do Magic for Small Change presents a tale of alien science and earthbound magic and the secrets families keep from each other.

Cinnamon Jones dreams of stepping on stage and acting her heart out like her famous grandparents, Redwood and Wildfire. But she’s always been theatrically challenged. That won’t necessarily stop her! But her family life is a tangle of mysteries and secrets, and nobody is telling her the whole truth.

Before her brother died, he gave Cinnamon The Chronicles of the Great Wanderer—a tale of a Dahomean warrior woman and an alien from another dimension who perform at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. They are a story of magic or alien science, but the connection to Cinnamon's past is unmistakable.

When an act of violence wounds her family, Cinnamon and her theatre squad determine to solve the mysteries and bring her worlds crashing together.

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I believe Will Do Magic For Small Change was published before through an indie press? But now it’s getting a trad-pub edition, and it’s gorgeous!

Plus, I absolutely adored her book Master of Poisons a few years back, so I’m very eager to read more of her work!

Catalyst by Brandon Crilly
Genres: Fantasy, Sci Fi, Science Fantasy
Published on: 11th October 2022
Goodreads

Street magician Mavrin Leed doesn’t believe in what he can’t see or prove. His performances are mere tricks; the only true magic in Aelda comes from the benevolent, god-like Aspects circling it. As long as They keep the Lifesphere intact, he stays out of Their way.

Labeled a heretic, Eyasu Temergon is convinced that Aelda’s true history was hidden, even from the Aspects. He scours forgotten shadows for proof of the Raw, creatures of energy tied to the fracturing of his world. When their sudden emergence leads to destruction and chaos, Eyasu puts aside his estrangement with his old friend, and hopes Mavrin can do the same.

Ex-soldier Deyeri Renn has a mystery of her own: why are her city’s leaders so interested in the Raw? She spent too long fighting in the Winds to let a myth harm her city, and too many years alone to accept the life-worn man who bumbles back into her home, with no right to ask for her help.

As Deyeri, Mavrin, and Eyasu unpack the secrets that once drove them apart, every seal in their relationship means one more crack that could unravel Aelda’s very existence.
Catalyst is the stunning debut by Ottawa author Brandon Crilly, a fantasy tale of magic, friendship, and holding a broken world together.

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Someone somewhere on one of my many feeds was very excited for Catalyst, and I don’t recall the exact reasons why, but I’m trusting in past!Sia’s judgement and including it here. Besides, the worldbuilding set-up definitely sounds interesting!

:edit: ahhhh, it was probably the genderfluidity and queernorm world that got me excited! Check out this interview with the author!

The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal
Genres: Sci Fi
Published on: 11th October 2022
Goodreads

Tesla Crane, a brilliant inventor and an heiress, is on her honeymoon on an interplanetary space liner, cruising between the Moon and Mars. She’s traveling incognito and is reveling in her anonymity. Then someone is murdered and the festering chowderheads who run security have the audacity to arrest her spouse. Armed with banter, martinis and her small service dog, Tesla is determined to solve the crime so that the newlyweds can get back to canoodling—and keep the real killer from striking again.

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I’m curious as to whether this is going to be a fairly light-hearted mystery, or if it’s going to go hard, like several of Kowal’s other books! Either way, I’m definitely going to be picking it up; it sounds weirdly delightful, and I love the idea of a wife having to rescue her husband.

The Dark Between The Trees by Fiona Barnett
Genres: Horror
Published on: 11th October 2022
Goodreads

An unforgettable, surrealist gothic folk-thriller with commercial crossover appeal from a brilliant new voice. 

1643: A small group of Parliamentarian soldiers are ambushed in an isolated part of Northern England. Their only hope for survival is to flee into the nearby Moresby Wood... unwise though that may seem. For Moresby Wood is known to be an unnatural place, the realm of witchcraft and shadows, where the devil is said to go walking by moonlight...

Seventeen men enter the wood. Only two are ever seen again, and the stories they tell of what happened make no sense. Stories of shifting landscapes, of trees that appear and disappear at will... and of something else. Something dark. Something hungry.

Today, five women are headed into Moresby Wood to discover, once and for all, what happened to that unfortunate group of soldiers. Led by Dr Alice Christopher, an historian who has devoted her entire academic career to uncovering the secrets of Moresby Wood. Armed with metal detectors, GPS units, mobile phones and the most recent map of the area (which is nearly 50 years old), Dr Christopher's group enters the wood ready for anything.

Or so they think.

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Yes, let’s go check out The Occult with Science! I tend to enjoy that trope, so I’m willing to give this a go, even though it’s horror. It’s the spooky season, horror is very much allowed!

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
Genres: Queer Protagonists
Published on: 11th October 2022
Goodreads

The special Collector's Edition of Casey McQuiston's beloved New York Times bestselling novel, featuring illustrated endpapers, an all new Henry-POV chapter, and more!

What happens when America's First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales?

When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There's only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.

Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations.

Casey McQuiston's Red, White & Royal Blue proves: true love isn't always diplomatic.

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Red, White & Royal Blue is one of my all-time faves, even if it isn’t SFF – so yes, I’m very excited for the collector’s edition! Especially because McQuiston promised us a WEDDING in the bonus content!

The Name-Bearer (Flowers of Prophecy #1) by Natalia Hernandez
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic Latina MC
Published on: 11th October 2022

For her entire life, the Name-Bearer’s sole purpose has been to receive and deliver the names of the future monarchy from the Flowers of Prophecy. But when the child is finally born and the Name-Bearer is sent to the Flowers, they refuse to name him. Instead they deliver a prophecy; another child was born who is more worthy of the Naming, and if they are found and brought before them it will usher in a reign of peace.

Having failed in her duties the Name-Bearer is considered a traitor to the crown, and must hide among an elite sect of warrior women where she experiences friendship, found family, and love. Her training as a warrior helps prepare her to embark on her quest to find the Unnamed Prince, clear her name, and bring peace to her realm.

A story of magia, warrior women, found family and love - and not accepting who you are told to be, but embracing who you are destined to become.

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Between the stunning cover and the really interesting premise – imagine your purpose being to name the next monarch, presumably through magical methods, and you get it wrong! – I’m really looking forward to this one. Does not hurt at all that it’s queer too!

The God Key by Simone King
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 13th October 2022
Goodreads

You have the power to make everyone in the world a good person. All it costs is the love of your life. Which do you choose?

At university they were best friends and boyfriends - Gabriel, a charming telepath obsessed with saving the world; Isaac, a lonely magnifier who quadruples the superpowers of anyone he touches.

It's happily ever after until Isaac fakes his death.

Five years later, a villain is bringing everyone's worst nightmares to life and Gabriel learns that Isaac is still alive. Isaac, who he never stopped loving. Isaac, with his secrets and strange connection with their dreamweaver enemy. Isaac, who might yet be the key to everything that Gabriel ever wanted...

Whether he wants to be or not.

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‘You have the power to make everyone in the world a good person’ is the kind of thing baby!Sia used to think about a lot, so of course this caught my attention! But wow, that is some serious relationship angst! I need to know more…

Sixteen Souls by Rosie Talbot
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Queer amputee MC
Published on: 13th October 2022
Goodreads

In haunted York, even the dead have something to fear.

Sixteen-year-old Charlie has problems. He’s a seer-of-spirits in York, the most haunted city in Europe, and all his friends are ghosts. His sisters have glittered his prosthesis, again, and his crush is dating someone new.

On top of that, famous spirits are mysteriously vanishing from York’s alleys and snickleways. Charlie is determined to stay out of it, but Sam, the irritating new seer in town, expects him to track down who – or what – is responsible and uncover the dark purpose behind the disappearances.

When a ghost Charlie is indebted to also vanishes, he has no choice but to face the shadows. And his growing feelings for Sam. The boys must be willing to risk it all to save York’s spirits, because their adversary will stop at nothing to complete their devastating plan. Afterlives are at stake, and Charlie is running out of time…

With echoes of Anna Dressed in Blood, The Fell of Dark and Cemetery Boys, Rosie Talbot’s debut is an irrefutable must-have for all YA bookshelves.

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You’ve got to pay attention when KD Edwards is championing a book, so obviously this went on my auto-buy list! Plus, we see amputee rep so rarely. And I’m obscurely pleased that this is set in the UK, too.

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

The post Must-Have Monday #106 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Sunday Souçons #17

soupçon/ˈsuːpsɒn,ˈsuːpsɒ̃/ noun
1. a very small quantity of something; a slight trace, as of a particular taste or flavor

Sunday Soupçons is where I scribble mini-reviews for books I don’t have the brainspace/eloquence/smarts to write about in depth – or if I just don’t have anything interesting to say beyond I LIKED IT AND YOU SHOULD READ IT TOO!

Two books, both ARCs this time!

The Bride Hunt of Elk Mountain by Lumen Reese
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Speculative Fiction
Representation: Indigenous American MC, Deaf MC, sapphic MC, secondary Black sapphic character
PoV: 3rd-person, past-tense, multiple PoVs
ISBN: B0B4BHXSD9
Goodreads

Every five years the girls of Elk Mountain wake up in the woods, where the simple farm boys they grew up with become predators and hunt them for brides.

Dan Lightman returns to the mountain to help the Marlow sisters. Lizzie is twenty, deaf since childhood and worried that she could end up married to a man who won't learn to communicate with her, that she won't have a voice in her own home. Beck is seventeen, exchanging secret letters with a girl from the other side of the mountain, and she'll kill or die before she'll marry anyone else. Nellie is only fourteen, and all she wants is a few more years, to grow up on her own terms.

All three girls live in the shadow of their beautiful eldest sister, Julia. Five years ago -at the last Bride Hunt- she refused the man who caught her, and she was killed for it. The barbaric ritual is a sacred rite of passage to a fringe sect of Catholicism in post-apocalyptic, small-town Appalachia. Dan is one of the hunt's only critics. He was once too afraid to fight for the girl he loved, but now he’s back with a hired cutthroat and a plan to save the remaining Marlow sisters from their gruesome fate...

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 Bride Hunt of Elk Mountain is compellingly written, but fails to completely stick the landing. Despite the majority of the book being introspective and thoughtful, delicately examining different aspects of the story, characters, and setting, the climax dissolved into quick and easy cliche; the Big Fix came together too quickly and perfectly, which undercut all the nuance that came before it. It’s not that I wanted anything less than a happy ending, but I didn’t want a magic wand happy ending, complete with a romance arc that lacked chemistry and seemed to exist just to neatly wrap up some loose threads.

Also, although Reese chose to tell a story about sexist fundamentalism though characters who don’t usually get to tell these stories – a Deaf young woman, a queer teen, and a young man of Indigenous descent – I don’t feel like Bride Hunt had anything new to say about any of the topics it addressed.

The writing was good – the prose isn’t lush but it is heartfelt, and it flows beautifully. I would have liked to see Bride Hunt go through one more round of editing – mostly to smooth out the seemingly random shifts between past- and present-tense – but it’s a solid book. It’s not amazing, but it’s definitely not bad, either.

Empire of the Feast by Bendi Barrett
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Science Fantasy
Representation: Black queer MC, M/M, nonbinary secondary character
PoV: 3rd-person, present-tense
Published on: 25th October 2022
Goodreads

In Empire of the Feast, we awaken with Riverson, 32nd ruler of the Stag Empire, as he attempts to govern without the memories of his previous lives. To survive the ever-sharpening gears of war, he will need to mend the political schisms threatening to tear his empire apart while maintaining the erotic rituals holding off the eldritch horror known only as the Rapacious.

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

Oh, how I wish this had been a full novel rather than a novella! Not because the story doesn’t fit its length – I’ve rarely seen a story that fit inside a novella so well. But damn, I want more of this world!

And the ending does leave room for sequels, so I’ll cross my fingers that we get some!

With one exception, nothing in Empire of the Feast goes as expected – Barrett very deliberately sets out to subvert the story beats we’re used to, so that the twists and reveals come as genuine surprises. (With, as I said, one singular exception that made my eyes roll, because X is always the traitor. But that can be at least partly forgiven, since X’s motivation is so interestingly weird.) This is on top of some of the oddest worldbuilding I’ve ever seen, which I have to admit I didn’t always understand (one reason I’d like more books in this setting!) But it’s fundamentally, objectively pretty damn cool: there’s a monster inside a sun, and the only thing keeping it from devouring the galaxy is…a never-ending orgy? Because sex magic? Which is controlled or focussed through the reigning Empress or Emperor? Who, by the way, is the same soul reincarnated over and over again, if I understood that correctly?

I’m not sure I did, but it was a lot of fun either way. I liked that the empire was called out on its flaws; I loved the dry, wry humour and the snark. I appreciated the ugly consequences of grand, dramatic gestures, and how every last one of the characters managed to surprise me; I lost count of how many times Barrett flipped the tables on me, how nothing at all went as l expected it to. And from a technical standpoint, I’m massively impressed with the pacing; I often complain that stories are moving too quickly, but the whole point of Empire of the Feast is that everything’s hitting the fan at once, so the speed of it all really worked. Besides, Barrett somehow managed to keep up the pace without sacrificing character development or wouldbuilding – how, I have no idea, but, just – WOW.

Barrett, I take my hat off to you, truly.

I think my only quibble is that it would have been nice to have more women in the cast – given that the empire has been ruled by a long line of Empresses up to this point, I would have expected there to be more women in positions of power, when in fact we didn’t see any. Why???

That aside, this is a brilliant, twisty, very weird little Science Fantasy novella that I enjoyed very much, and it has definitely catapulted Barret onto my list of authors to keep an eye on!

Do either of these catch your interest? Let me know!

The post Sunday Souçons #17 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

It’s Not You, It’s Me: Empire of Exiles by Erin M Evans

Empire of Exiles (Books of the Usurper, #1) by Erin M. Evans
Genres: Fantasy, Secondary World Fantasy
Representation: Minor M/M
PoV: 3rd-person, past-tense, multiple PoVs
Published on: 8th November 2022
ISBN: B09TZYZJQR
Goodreads

Twenty-seven years ago, a Duke with a grudge led a ruthless coup against the empire of Semilla, killing thousands. He failed. The Duke was executed, a terrifyingly powerful sorcerer was imprisoned, and an unwilling princess disappeared.

The empire moved on.

Now, when Quill, an apprentice scribe, arrives in the capital city, he believes he’s on a simple errand for another pompous noble: fetch ancient artifacts from the magical Imperial Archives. He’s always found his apprenticeship to be dull work. But these aren’t just any artifacts — these are the instruments of revolution, the banners under which the Duke lead his coup.

Just as the artifacts are unearthed, the city is shaken by a brutal murder that seems to have been caused by a weapon not seen since the days of rebellion.

Since Quill is the only reliable witness to the murder, and no one in power believes his story, he must join with a young mage, a seasoned archivist, and a disillusioned detective to find the truth of the attack. And what they uncover will be the key to saving the empire – or destroying it for good.

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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~opal mosaics
~sorcerers and saints
~if it can’t touch iron, kill it with salt
~how much do you trust your memories?
~a (maybe) mammoth

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Empire of Exiles. On a technical, objective level, it’s a very well-written piece of work; the use of language is good, the worldbuilding is detailed without being overwhelming, the cast is made up of an interestingly varied group of characters, the magic system is unique and fabulously interesting, and the stakes start high and just grow higher as puzzle pieces fall into place one by one, coming down like lightning strikes.

And yet.

It’s not that I found myself frustrated with it. I mean what I said: I can’t point to any flaws, give any concrete critique.

But I just didn’t care. I found Empire of Exiles to be missing some critical x factor; even as secret after world-shaking secret was revealed, I had to force myself to read through to the end. I think I really only did so for Yinii, who is perfect in every way and really the star of the entire novel; I’m very glad that her role grew as the book went on, so that she started out as a fairly minor character but was vitally important to events by the final pages.

It’s very possible that the problem with Empire of Exiles is not, in fact, with the book, but with me; I do kind of feel that I might have enjoyed it more if I’d read it at some other time, when I was in a better headspace. Because when I think about the book’s component parts, it seems like something I should have loved – the incredible setting of an empire surrounded and contained by a giant salt wall to keep out shapeshifting monsters; several non-human species living alongside humans; a magic system inspired by clinical anxiety; an imperial archive of ancient treasures and the archivists who care for them all. What’s not to like?

It was the promise of excellent worldbuilding that led me to request an ARC of Empire of Exiles, and I think Evans both delivers and does not deliver on that promise. On the one hand, each of the cultures that make up the empire feel very distinct, with their own ideas about religion, social hierarchy, family models, magic, etc. On the other hand, I was baffled by how minimal the physical descriptions of the non-humans were; we’re told that Orozhandi like Yinii have horns, but until someone calls her ‘goat girl’ near the end of the book, I had no idea what those horns looked like – given that the Orozhandi hang special charms from their horns, at once point I wondered if they might even be more like antlers (since those would be much easier to hang charms on). Then there’s the Ashtabari, who are human from the waist up but have tentacles from the waist down, and again, despite the fact that we have a (delightfully snarky) Ashtabari character among the cast, I never even caught what colour his tentacles were, never mind how many a person has, or whether they have suckers like an octopus’s, or what walking upright with tentacles instead of legs is supposed to look like. Etc. These are pretty obvious details to overlook – I adored learning about the Orozhandi saints and how their views on magic differ from pretty much everyone else’s, but no matter how much cultural info you give me I’m going to struggle if I don’t know how to picture one.

If you can get past that, the story Evans has come up with is extremely twisty, with plenty of intrigue surrounding a bizarre murder – one that turns out to have jaw-dropping implications for the past civil war, and reveals a pretty incredible right-now threat against the empire. The ‘weapon not seen since the days of rebellion’ mentioned in the blurb is objectively cool and clever, and is utilised to great effect; I’m not going to tell you any more than that, because learning what it is and how it works should definitely be a part of the reading experience. Its use, or possible uses, affect every aspect of the book in ways I genuinely want to applaud.

Objectively, Empire of Exiles is pretty excellent. I can’t point to anything Evans did wrong (beyond the not-describing-your-non-humans thing). Maybe I was in the wrong headspace, or maybe Empire of Exiles simply wasn’t for me, but as much as I loved the worldbuilding (and I did love it a lot), I had next to no interest in the story itself, or most of the characters. I’ve already forgotten most of the cast’s names, which is never a good sign. Empire of Exiles and I just didn’t connect. I appreciated various parts of it, but I didn’t enjoy it – does that make sense? I would happily read an entire fictional encyclopedia on the world Evans has created here, and intellectually, I can acknowledge that she did a lot of great things with this book. I will tentatively check out her other books, and keep an eye on what she writes after the Books of the Usurper series is finished, because I think she’s a great writer. It’s just that this book didn’t work for me.

If I pick up the sequel, it will be solely to see what happens next to Yinii, because her storyline and character growth in Empire of Exiles is wonderful.

But I probably won’t pick it up.

The post It’s Not You, It’s Me: Empire of Exiles by Erin M Evans appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

I Can’t Wait For…Angels Before Man by rafael nicolás

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 Angels Before Man by rafael nicolás!

Angels Before Man by rafael nicolás
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC
Published on: 7th November 2022
Goodreads

A queer interpretation for Satan's fall that's part cozy coming of age and part fast-paced tragedy, with a little love story in between –

In an eternal paradise, the most beautiful angel, Lucifer, struggles with shame, identity, and timidity, with little more than the desire to worship his creator.

It isn't until the strongest angel, Michael, comes into his life that Lucifer learns to love himself. Along the way, their friendship begins to bloom into something else. Maybe the first romance in the history of everything.

But this God is a jealous one, and maybe paradise is not paradise.

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I freely admit it: I’m obsessed with angels. Not the sweet fluffy kind, or the humans-with-wings kind we tend to see in fiction, but angels that are alien, other, equal parts monstrous and beautiful. And between nicolás promising ‘horrors beyond human comprehension’ and Freydís Moon (who has written incredible angels and Fallen angels in their books Exodus 20:3 and With a Vengeance) saying this is the book they always dreamed of reading, I am supremely sure that this is everything I’ve ever wanted.

Lucifer in particular is an angel/being who’s incredibly important to me, whose story I will never get tired of exploring, of seeing reimagined and retold. So a queer take on Satan’s Fall? YES. Yes yes yes yes!

(And that title – does angels before man simply refer to the time when angels existed but before humans did? Or might it be a battle-cry, defiance and demand, the mantra of rebellion, angels > mankind?)

I am all but vibrating with excitement for this book, and you’d better believe I slammed the preorder button yesterday.

I am strongly advising you to do the same!

The post I Can’t Wait For…Angels Before Man by rafael nicolás appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #105

We have an incredible FIFTEEN books to feature this week! That might be a new record!

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

Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry by David Ly, Daniel Zomparelli, Kai Cheng Thom, Amber Dawn, Hiromi Goto, David Demchuk, jaye simpson, Eddy Boudel Tan, Anuja Varghese
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: 4th October 2022
Goodreads

The fiction and poetry of Queer Little Nightmares reimagines monsters old and new through a queer lens, subverting the horror gaze to celebrate ideas and identities canonically feared in monster lit. Throughout history, monsters have appeared in popular culture as stand-ins for the non-conforming, the marginalized of society. Pushed into the shadows as objects of fear, revulsion, and hostility, these characters have long conjured fascination and self-identification in the LGBTQ+ community, and over time, monsters have become queer icons.

In Queer Little Nightmares, creatures of myth and folklore seek belonging and intimate connection, cryptids challenge their outcast status, and classic movie monsters explore the experience of coming into queerness. The characters in these stories and poems - the Minotaur camouflaged in a crowd of cosplayers, a pubescent werewolf, a Hindu revenant waiting to reunite with her lover, a tender-hearted kaiju, a lagoon creature aching for the swimmers above him, a ghost of Pride past - relish their new sparkle in the spotlight. Pushing against tropes that have historically been used to demonize, the queer creators of this collection instead ask: What does it mean to be (and to love) a monster?

Contributors include Amber Dawn, David Demchuk, Hiromi Goto, jaye simpson, Eddy Boudel Tan, and Kai Cheng Thom.

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What better way to kick off Spooky Season then a collection of queer cryptids?! I’ve been so looking forward to this one and can’t wait to pounce on it!

A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bi/pansexual MC, polyamory, M/F/F/M, queer cast
Published on: 4th October 2022
Goodreads

S.T. Gibson's sensational novel is the darkly seductive tale of Dracula's first bride, Constanta. 

This is my last love letter to you, though some would call it a confession. . .

Saved from the brink of death by a mysterious stranger, Constanta is transformed from a medieval peasant into a bride fit for an undying king. But when Dracula draws a cunning aristocrat and a starving artist into his web of passion and deceit, Constanta realizes that her beloved is capable of terrible things.

Finding comfort in the arms of her rival consorts, she begins to unravel their husband's dark secrets. With the lives of everyone she loves on the line, Constanta will have to choose between her own freedom and her love for her husband. But bonds forged by blood can only be broken by death.

"A dizzying nightmare of a romance that will leave you aching, angry and ultimately hopeful." --Hannah Whitten, New York Times bestselling author of For the Wolf

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Dowry of Blood became an instant fave when it was first self-published, and now we’re getting the trad-pub edition! With a new bonus novella included, so even if you read the first edition, you should probably snatch up a new copy…

You can read my review here!

The Story of the Hundred Promises by Neil Cochrane
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Trans MC
Published on: 4th October 2022
Goodreads

A loose retelling of “Beauty and the Beast” that centers queer and trans characters
Trans sailor Darragh Thorn has made a comfortable life for himself among people who love and accept him. Ten years after his exile from home, though, his sister asks him to reconcile with their ailing father. Determined to resolve his feelings rather than just survive them, Darragh sets off on a quest to find the one person who can heal a half-dead man: the mysterious enchanter who once gave him the magic he needed to become his true self. But so far as anyone knows, no one but Darragh has seen the enchanter for a century, and the fairy tales that survive about em give more cause for fear than hope. In lush and evocative prose, and populated with magical trees and a wise fox, The Story of the Hundred Promises is a big-hearted fantasy suffused with queer optimism.

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Apparently this is really only vaguely inspired by Beauty and the Beast, but that’s fine; it sounds sweet and interesting on its own merits, regardless of being a retelling or not!

Reforged by Seth Haddon
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 4th October 2022
Goodreads

Since time immemorial the warriors of the Paladin Order have harnessed arcane powers to protect their rulers. For Balen, who has given up his chance at love and fought his way to the top of the Paladin Order, there can be no greater honor than to serve his king. But when assassins annihilate the royal family, Balen suddenly finds himself sworn to serve the very man he abandoned.

Now with their nation threatened by enemies both within and outside the kingdom, Balen must fight hidden traitors and unnatural assassins, while also contending with the biting wit and dangerous charm of young King Zavrius. To save themselves and their nation they will have to put aside their past and reforge that trust they lost so long ago.

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If you give me a Julie Dillon cover I’ll give you my attention; sorry, that’s just a rule.

Lute by Jennifer Marie Thorne
Genres: Horror
Published on: 4th October 2022
Goodreads

The Wicker Man meets Final Destination in this atmospheric, unsettling folk horror novel about love, duty, and community.

On the idyllic island of Lute, every seventh summer, seven people die. No more, no less.
Lute and its inhabitants are blessed, year after year, with good weather, good health, and good fortune. They live a happy, superior life, untouched by the war that rages all around them. So it’s only fair that every seven years, on the day of the tithe, the island’s gift is honored.

Nina Treadway is new to The Day. A Florida girl by birth, she became a Lady through her marriage to Lord Treadway, whose family has long protected the island. Nina’s heard about The Day, of course. Heard about the horrific tragedies, the lives lost, but she doesn’t believe in it. It’s all superstitious nonsense. Stories told to keep newcomers at bay and youngsters in line.

But then The Day begins. And it’s a day of nightmares, of grief, of reckoning. But it is also a day of community. Of survival and strength. Of love, at its most pure and untamed. When The Day ends, Nina—and Lute—will never be the same.

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I think it’s the cover more then the blurb that’s drawing me to Lute, but I plan on giving it a go.

The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler
Genres: Sci Fi
Published on: 4th October 2022
Goodreads

Humankind discovers intelligent life in an octopus species with its own language and culture, and sets off a high-stakes global competition to dominate the future.

Rumors begin to spread of a species of hyperintelligent, dangerous octopus that may have developed its own language and culture. Marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen, who has spent her life researching cephalopod intelligence, will do anything for the chance to study them.

The transnational tech corporation DIANIMA has sealed the remote Con Dao Archipelago, where the octopuses were discovered, off from the world. Dr. Nguyen joins DIANIMA’s team on the islands: a battle-scarred security agent and the world’s first android.

The octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence. The stakes are high: there are vast fortunes to be made by whoever can take advantage of the octopuses’ advancements, and as Dr. Nguyen struggles to communicate with the newly discovered species, forces larger than DIANIMA close in to seize the octopuses for themselves.

But no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. And what they might do about it.

A near-future thriller about the nature of consciousness, Ray Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea is a dazzling literary debut and a mind-blowing dive into the treasure and wreckage of humankind’s legacy.

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I ADORE stories with non-human people and cultures, and I love everything about this premise! Can you even imagine the chaos if humans were forced to acknowledge that they’re not the only sapients on planet Earth…?

Saturnalia by Stephanie Feldman
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Speculative Fiction
Published on: 4th October 2022
Goodreads

“A heady mix of the most terrifying elements of our troubled past and inevitable future; an eerie, propulsive novel.” —Carmen Maria Machado

The Saturnalia carnival marks three years since Nina walked away from Philadelphia’s elite Saturn Club—with its genteel debauchery, arcane pecking order, and winking interest in alchemy and the occult. In doing so, she abandoned her closest friends and her chance to climb the social ladder. Since then, she’s eked out a living by telling fortunes with her Saturn Club tarot deck, a solemn initiation gift that Nina always considered a gag but has turned out to be more useful than she could have ever imagined.

For most, the Saturnalia carnival marks a brief winter reprieve for the beleaguered people of the historic city, which is being eroded by extreme weather, a collapsing economy, and feverish summers—whose disease carrying mosquitos are perhaps the only thing one can count on. Like Thanksgiving or Halloween, Saturnalia has become a purely American holiday despite its pagan roots; and nearly everyone, rich or poor, forgets their troubles for a moment.

For Nina, Saturnalia is simply a cruel reminder of the night that changed everything for her. But when she gets a chance call from Max, one of the Saturn Club’s best-connected members and her last remaining friend, the favor he asks will plunge her back into the Club’s wild solstice masquerade, on a mysterious errand she cannot say no to.

Tonight, Nina will put on a dress of blackest black, and attend the biggest party of the year. Before it’s over, she will discover secret societies battling for power in an increasingly precarious world and become custodian of a horrifying secret—and the target of a mysterious hunter. As Nina runs across an alternate Philadelphia balanced on a knife’s edge between celebration and catastrophe, through parades, worship houses, museums, hidden mansions, and the place she once called home, she’s forced to confront her past in order to take charge of her own—and perhaps everyone’s—future.

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I’m crossing my fingers for lush prose to go with this tale of occult secret societies!

The New Empire by Alison McBain
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Chinese MC
Published on: 4th October 2022
Goodreads

In the alternate history novel The New Empire, the world undergoes a drastic change in the 14th century when Chinese ships land on the west coast of what we know as the Bay Area of California. Fast forward four hundred years to a much different America than we’ve read about in the history books, a land dominated by a cross-continental tribal confederacy grown out of a strong alliance with Beijing. This new empire has been built on the backs of enslaved Chinese political prisoners and a profitable trading partnership overseas. Into the mix comes Jiangxi, youngest son of the last Chinese Emperor. When he arrives from across the ocean as a boy, he is purchased by Onas, a renowned tribal Elder of both the Haudenosaunee and Mutsun tribes. As Jiangxi grows up, he’s caught between the two worlds of his past and present, forced into choosing between opposing ideas of freedom. Told from the main perspective of a Chinese slave in a Native American world, The New Empire paints a vibrant picture that draws strongly on a non-Eurocentric worldview.

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Admittedly, this could be a trainwreck if the premise isn’t handled very carefully, but if it works it could be really interesting.

Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Published on: 4th October 2022
Goodreads

A young woman in need of a transformation finds herself in touch with the animal inside in this gripping, incisive novel from the author of Cackle and The Return.

Rory Morris isn't thrilled to be moving back to her hometown, even if it is temporary. There are bad memories there. But her twin sister, Scarlett, is pregnant, estranged from the baby's father, and needs support, so Rory returns to the place she thought she'd put in her rearview. After a night out at a bar where she runs into an old almost-flame, she hits a large animal with her car. And when she gets out to investigate, she's attacked.

Rory survives, miraculously, but life begins to look and feel different. She's unnaturally strong, with an aversion to silver--and suddenly the moon has her in its thrall. She's changing into someone else--something else, maybe even a monster. But does that mean she's putting those close to her in danger? Or is embracing the wildness inside of her the key to acceptance?

This darkly comedic love story is a brilliantly layered portrait of trauma, rage, and vulnerability.

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I’m not sure exactly what’s drawing me to Such Sharp Teeth, but something is, so I guess I’ll have to read it to find our what it is!

The Rising Tide by Amy Lane
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 4th October 2022
Goodreads

The tidal archipelago of Spinner’s Drift is a refuge for misfits. Can the island’s magic help a pie-in-the-sky dreamer and a wounded soul find a home in each other?

In a flash of light and a clap of thunder, Scout Quintero is banished from his home. Once he’s sneaked his sister out too, he’s happy, but their power-hungry father is after them, and they need a place to lie low. The thriving resort business on Spinner’s Drift provides the perfect way to blend in.

They aren’t the only ones who think so.

Six months ago Lucky left his life behind and went on the run from mobsters. Spinner’s Drift brings solace to his battered soul, but one look at Scout and he’s suddenly terrified of having one more thing to lose.

Lucky tries to keep his distance, but Scout is charming, and the island isn’t that big. When they finally connect, all kinds of things come to light, including supernatural mysteries that have been buried for years. But while Scout and Lucky grow closer working on the secret, pissed-off mobsters, supernatural entities, and Scout’s father are getting closer to them. Can they hold tight to each other and weather the rising tide together?  

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I’m not sure why, but I find the blurb for this confusing – I keep rereading it, and something’s not processing. But the early reviews have been positive, and the idea of luck mechanics delights me!

The Wolves Are Watching by Natalie Lund
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Published on: 4th October 2022
Goodreads

A fresh, compelling, and eerie exploration of small-town living, stolen children, and wolves that watch in the woods.

The night little Madison disappears from her crib, Luce sees a pair of eyes--two points of gold deep in the forest behind her house--and feels certain they belong to a wolf. Her town, Picnic, Illinois, is the kind of place where everyone knows one another and no one locks their doors. It's not the kind of place where a toddler goes missing without a trace, where wolves lurk in the shadows.

In town, people are quick to blame Madison's mom. But when Luce's English teacher shares an original script about the disappearance of another little girl in Picnic back in 1870, Luce begins to notice similarities that she can't ignore. Certain that something deeper is going on, Luce tracks the wolf she saw into the woods and uncovers the truth about her town: magical animal-women, who have remained hidden in shadows for centuries, have taken her cousin for their own purposes--and they have no intention of bringing her back.

A chilling mystery that weaves elements of magical realism, drama, and folklore into a story of one teen's bravery as she confronts her town's past and tries to save the future.

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It was the cover reveal of The Wolves Are Watching that caught my attention, but then the synopsis completely hooked me. I am very much here for magical animal-women, please and thank you!

The Restless Dark by Erica Waters
Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MCs, queer MC with PTSD
Published on: 4th October 2022
Goodreads

Enter Cloudkiss Canyon at your own risk.

The Cloudkiss Killer is dead. Now a true-crime podcast is hosting a contest to find his bones.

Lucy was almost the serial killer’s final victim. Carolina is a true-crime fan who fears her own rage. Maggie is a psychology student with a little too much to hide.

All of them are looking for answers, for a new identity, for a place to bury their secrets.
But there are more than bones hiding in the shadows…sometimes the darkness inside is more frightening than anything the dead leave behind.

Perfect for fans of Sadie and Wilder Girls, this newest novel from Erica Waters follows three girls at a true-crime contest to find the bones of a lost killer—even as a mysterious force pulls at the contestants’ darkest desires.

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Listen, when the tagline of your book is The only thing to fear is yourself, I’m gonna be picking it up for sure!

How to Heal a Gryphon by Meg Cannistra
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 4th October 2022
Goodreads

To save her family, she’ll have to make a dangerous bargain and tip the scales off balance.

With her thirteenth birthday just around the corner, Giada Bellantuono has to make a big decision: Will she join the family business and become a healer or follow her dreams? But even though she knows her calling is to heal vulnerable animals, using her powers to treat magical creatures is decidedly not allowed.

When a group of witches kidnaps her beloved older brother, Rocco, and her parents are away, Giada is the only person left who can rescue him. Swept into the magical underground city of Malavita, Giada will need the help of her new companions to save her brother—or risk losing him forever.

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I CRAVE magical-beasties-vet stories, and this sounds right on theme! Plus, who could resist that beautiful cover?

Barnum's Angel (The Pale Chronicles) by Len Boswell
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Albino MC
Published on: 6th October 2022
Goodreads

FINALIST AWARD, 2022 American Fiction Awards (historical fantasy)

To some, Lily was just a beautiful little girl. To others, she was a freakish albino who ate live chickens in a freak show. Charles Darwin called her his impossible girl and tried in vain to classify her. P. T. Barnum called her his angel and tried to take advantage of her.

But the creature Barnum thought to turn into a money-making feature attraction is neither girl nor angel. She is something other, a species of unimaginable abilities, with the power to destroy—or save —our world. The power is hers alone, but only the strange blood coursing through her veins will decide when and how to unleash a power she struggles every day to control.

From the cold, barren shores of Tierra del Fuego and the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle to the bustling crowds of Victorian London, Lily's story—and her quest—unfolds in a thrilling historical fantasy for all ages from award-winning author Len Boswell.

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I’m leaving the cover full-sized here because if it’s any smaller, you can’t make out the dragons in the four corners! Which is why I had no idea this included dragon shapeshifters until I came across an early review mentioning it. But now I know, I’m definitely going to be checking it out!

Whisper of Shadows and Snakes by J.S. Burns
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: Queer MC
Published on: 6th October 2022
Goodreads

A Shadow in the night,
A Secret so lonely,
A Cruel twist of fate...

Deep within a mystical land, a thief with the ability to shift into the animals inked upon his skin has stolen an ancient weapon, plunging the world into chaos. Whisked away to a hidden school high in the mountains, Alek and his friends must overcome heartache and betrayal as they learn to master the magic that burns in their veins. With danger closing in and bloodthirsty monsters emerging from the shadows, loyalties will be tested as Alek is inexplicably drawn to a mysterious boy. Who is he? What is he hiding? And most importantly, why can’t Alek get him out of his head? Struggling under the weight of the destiny that’s been thrust upon him, Alek must learn that the key to unlocking his powers lies in embracing who he truly is.

Before it's too late...

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I’ve been promised tattoo and elemental magic, and I’m excited to see how Whisper delivers!

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

The post Must-Have Monday #105 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

In Short: September

September’s been pretty miserable – I was put on extremely strong antibiotics that made me incredibly ill, and have spent most of the month stuck in a depression fog, which meant struggling to concentrate enough to read. Yay!

But there were amazing books, and I’m taking solace in that.

ARCs Received

Just three this month – and Empire of the Feast was actually unsolicited! I only contacted the publisher (Neon Hemlock) to confirm some pub dates, and they sent me back the ARC. Woo!

I loved Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliot, so I’m excited for Furious Heaven, which is the sequel. But the star has to be To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, which, as I explained previously, I am mega hyped for!

Read

18 books this month, two less than in August. Given that I spent most of September feeling miserable, I spent a lot of time rereading old faves rather than tackling new reads; The Masters and Mages trilogy by Miles Cameron and Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series were especial delights.

And I swear that I love the Locked Tomb books more every time I read them!

Which brings me to the new reads: Nona the Ninth was beyond awesome, as expected (despite being absolutely nothing like what I expected, because who was expecting that?!), and Notorious Sorcerer was rich and delicious and everything I wanted. Leech surprised me by completely seducing me; I’m now officially a fan of Gothic Scifi.

To the best of my knowledge, 18.75% of this month’s authors were BIPOC (3 of 16, including the author duos writing under a shared, single penname.) A fair bit lower than last month’s 28.57%. Sigh.

Reviewed

I really, really wanted to write more reviews this month – non-ARC ones! – but an average of one a week is acceptable, I guess.

DNF-ed

Last month I only DNF-ed one book – but this month I DNF-ed none. None! Zero! What even?!

That’s the first month since I started keeping track – 21 months! – that I’ve not DNF-ed a single book.

WOAH.

ARCs Outstanding

10’s not so bad, and I have a bit of breathing room on most of these. Although Bride Hunt is now officially overdue. Insert wince here.

Misc

I’ve started working on my Best of the Year list, and my Unmissable list for 2023. (Which is surprisingly short at the moment – maybe 2023 will be a quality over quantity year. Or maybe there’s just a lot of great books coming that I haven’t head of yet!) Having great fun with both, although it’s slow going, with my fibro. But that’s why I’m starting early!

Looking Forward

I thought Scratch Daughters wasn’t out until November?! YAY FOR GETTING MY FAVOURITE WITCHES EARLIER THAN EXPECTED! And I’m ridiculously excited for When the Angels Left the Old Country and Queer Little Nightmares! As for The Heretic’s Guide to Homecoming Part 2, I’m reading it now and it is every bit as beautiful as the first book!

Now, onwards to Spooky Season!

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

I Can’t Wait For…VenCo by Cheri Dimaline

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 VenCo by Cheri Dimaline!

VenCo by Cherie Dimaline
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Métis MC
Published on: 7th February 2023
Goodreads

An incredibly inventive, highly anticipated second adult novel—with witches, magic, and a road trip through America—from Cherie Dimaline, the critically acclaimed author of Empire of Wild.

Métis millennial Lucky St. James is barely hanging on when she learns she’ll be evicted from the tiny Toronto apartment she shares with her cantankerous but loving grandmother Stella. But then one night, something strange and irresistible calls out to Lucky. She burrows through a wall to find a tarnished silver spoon, humming with otherworldly energy, etched with a crooked-nosed witch and the word SALEM.

Lucky is familiar with the magic of her indigenous ancestors, but she has no idea that the spoon connects her to a teeming network of witches across North America who have anxiously awaited her discovery.

Enter VenCo, a front company fueled by vast resources of dark money (its name is an anagram of “coven.”) VenCo’s witches hide in plain sight wherever women gather: Tupperware parties, Mommy & Me classes, suburban book clubs. Since colonial times, they have awaited the moment the seven spoons will come together and ignite a new era, returning women to their rightful power.

But as reckoning approaches, a very powerful adversary is stalking their every move. He’s Jay Christos, a roguish and deadly witch-hunter as old as witchcraft itself.

To find the last spoon, Lucky and Stella embark on a rollicking and dangerous road trip to the darkly magical city of New Orleans, where the final showdown will determine whether VenCo will usher in a new beginning…or remain underground forever.

A wildly imaginative and compulsively readable fantasia of adventure, history, Americana, feminism, and magic, VenCo is a novel only the supremely gifted Cherie Dimaline could write.

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Cherie Dimaline has been on my radar for a while – I have a copy of Empire of Wild waiting to be read, and I’m pretty sure I have Marrow Thieves around here somewhere too – so my ears perked up when I heard she’d written a new book.

And it sounds so fabulous and weird! SPOONS! I love it!!! Plus, it sounds like we might get to see or hear about Métis traditions as well as Salem-esque witchcraft? Which would be incredibly cool, to see those contrasted or combined or working together!

Usually I’d be concerned about this whole ‘new age of women’ thing – worried that the story might ignore gender being a spectrum – but I’m pretty hopeful that VenCo will be inclusive. Dimaline is Métis herself, and I know at least some Métis communities recognise nonbinary genders, so my fingers are crossed.

I’m very curious about whether the eponymous, in-book VenCo will be inclusive, though, or whether they might even turn out to be some kind of villain. Who ever heard of a wholly good corporation? And that mention of ‘since colonial times’ in the blurb… Makes them sound likely to be a White WomenTM thing to me. Not necessarily aligned with Indigenous interests. I’m suspicious!

Obviously I’ve already preordered my copy – any book that has me obsessing like this, analysing individual lines of the blurb, is one I’m going to have to read! I can’t stop thinking about it, and that’s usually an excellent sign. (Plus, kudos to whoever wrote the description!)

What do you think – are you going to be waiting for it too?

The post I Can’t Wait For…VenCo by Cheri Dimaline appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #104

This week is PACKED with some seriously exciting new releases, including several I’ve been waiting all year for!

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

The Golden Enclaves (The Scholomance, #3) by Naomi Novik
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Biracial Desi MC
Published on: 27th September 2022
Goodreads

Saving the world is a test no school of magic can prepare you for in the triumphant conclusion to the New York Times bestselling trilogy that began with A Deadly Education and The Last Graduate.

Almost singlehandedly--although backed by an increasingly large cadre of genuine friends--El has changed the nature of the Scholomance forever. But now that she is back in the real world, how will the lessons she learned inside the school apply? Will her grandmother's prophecy come true? Will she really spell the doom of all the enclaves forever?

As the quest to save her one true love ramps up, however, El is about to learn the most significant lesson of all--the dire truth on which the enclaves and the whole stability of the magical world are founded. And being El, she is not likely to let it lie....

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The previous book ended with SUCH a cliffhanger that it’s making me actually jittery to know book three is out tomorrow! Plus, I can’t WAIT to see El take on the enclaves – BURN ‘EM DOWN, GIRL!

Leech by Hiron Ennes
Genres: Horror, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Agender MC, minor F/F
Published on: 27th September 2022
Goodreads

In an isolated chateau, as far north as north goes, the baron’s doctor has died. The doctor’s replacement has a mystery to solve: discovering how the Institute lost track of one of its many bodies.

For hundreds of years the Interprovincial Medical Institute has grown by taking root in young minds and shaping them into doctors, replacing every human practitioner of medicine. The Institute is here to help humanity, to cure and to cut, to cradle and protect the species from the apocalyptic horrors their ancestors unleashed.

In the frozen north, the Institute's body will discover a competitor for its rung at the top of the evolutionary ladder. A parasite is spreading through the baron's castle, already a dark pit of secrets, lies, violence, and fear. The two will make war on the battlefield of the body. Whichever wins, humanity will lose again.

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I picked this up for its promises of gender-fuckery and hiveminds, and stayed for the lovely prose, unique setting, and alllll the creepy, body-horror Gothic SciFi you could ask for!

You can read my review here!

House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson
Genres: Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC
Published on: 27th September 2022
Goodreads

WANTED - Bloodmaid of exceptional taste. Must have a keen proclivity for life's finer pleasures. Girls of weak will need not apply. A young woman is drawn into the upper echelons of a society where blood is power, in this dark and enthralling gothic novel from the author of The Year of the Witching. Marion Shaw has been raised in the slums, where want and deprivation is all she knows. Despite longing to leave the city and its miseries, she has no real hope of escape until the day she spots a peculiar listing in the newspaper, seeking a bloodmaid.

Though she knows little about the far north--where wealthy nobles live in luxury and drink the blood of those in their service--Marion applies to the position. In a matter of days, she finds herself the newest bloodmaid at the notorious House of Hunger. There, Marion is swept into a world of dark debauchery--and at the center of it all is her.
Countess Lisavet, who presides over this hedonistic court, is loved and feared in equal measure. She takes a special interest in Marion. Lisavet is magnetic, and Marion is eager to please her new mistress. But when her fellow bloodmaids begin to go missing in the night, Marion is thrust into a vicious game of cat and mouse. She'll need to learn the rules of her new home--and fast--or its halls will soon become her grave.

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This sounds sinfully delicious, and I am so very here for it! Might save it to start reading it in October…if I can make myself wait that long!

Black Dove by Colin McAdam
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Sci Fi
Published on: 27th September 2022
Goodreads

"I have long been convinced that Colin McAdam is a literary genius. What's extraordinary is that each of the books he writes is a totally distinct type of genius. Every time. He's in a league of his own." --Max Porter, author of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers

From Giller Prize finalist Colin McAdam, a chilling tale of a grieving novelist and his son who fall sway to a twilit world of desperate wanderers, mad geneticists, and noble, dangerous beasts.

In a tall and narrow house, on a stained and busy street, live twelve-year-old Oliver and his father, a story-loving writer. Haunted by the ghost of his alcoholic mother, Oliver finds comfort in his father's impromptu tales: the Black Dove, an elusive flower that gives strength; the girl who consumes it as she battles attackers and yearns for happier realms. Stories where lonely souls keep searching despite their losses and grief.

Running from a bully one night, Oliver finds refuge in a junk shop owned by an enigmatic man. Soon, instead of hiding in the janitor's closet after school, Oliver spends afternoons in the shop, a cavernous place full of storied oddities and grubby wonders where creatures rise up from the basement. A snake in the shape of a boy. A hunter named Night, part panther, part hound, who proves to Oliver that the world holds invisible wonder.

Wanting to forget his mother, afraid of his own genes, constantly harassed by bullies, Oliver decides to follow the shop-owner down the path of genetic editing. As he begins his transformation he meets the girl from across the street, and their friendship grows in a neighbourhood where magic is real, where murderers gather, and where the darker consequences of fantasies play out.

A twisting story of grief and revenge, Black Dove is a thrilling read with its own kind of magic. In rich but tightly reined prose, McAdam celebrates the value and shortfalls of storytelling, finding a light in all the darkness to conjure a tender portrait of childhood's end.

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Despite the age of the protagonist, I’m quite sure this is Adult, not MG or even YA. I don’t know much about it, though – I haven’t found many early reviews. But I’m intrigued by the ‘monsters’ described in the blurb, and the idea of magic and gene-editing coexisting!

The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Nonbinary MC, nonbinary secondary characters, NB/F, NB/M
Published on: 27th September 2022
Goodreads

An immersive, electrifying space-fantasy from Neon Yang, author of The Black Tides of Heaven, full of high-tech space battles and political machinations, starring a queer and diverse array of pilots, princesses, and prophetic heirs.

This is the story of Misery Nomaki (she/they) – a nobody from a nowhere mining planet who possesses the rare stone-working powers of a saint. Unfortunately, these saint-like abilities also manifest in those succumbing to voidmadness, like that which killed Misery’s mother. Knowing they aren’t a saint but praying they aren’t voidmad, Misery keeps quiet about their power for years, while dreaming and scheming up ways off their Forge-forsaken planet.

But when the voice of an angel, or a very convincing delusion, leads Misery to the center of the Empire, they find themself trapped between two powerful and dangerous factions, each hoping to use Misery to win a terrible war.

Still waiting to be convinced of their own divinity and secretly training with a crew of outlaws and outcasts, Misery grows close to a rebel royal, Lady Alodia Lightning, who may know something of saints and prophecy herself. The voice that guides Misery grows bolder by the day, and it seems the madness is catching…

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This was pitched as ‘nonbinary Joan of Arc in space’, and yep, that’s pretty accurate – if Joan of Arc was convinced her visions were hallucinations and was out to trick the Pope. Also, angelic mechas!

We're Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2021 by L.D. Lewis, Charles Payseur
Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: 27th September 2022
Goodreads

This second volume in Neon Hemlock's yearly series celebrating the wonder and breadth of queer speculative fiction contains stories of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and many spaces in between. Edited by LD Lewis and series editor Charles Payseur.

Enjoy stories from C.L. Clark, H. Pueyo, Aliette de Bodard, Watson Neith, Sam J. Miller, Laurel Beckley, Alexandra Seidel, LA Knight, Bogi Takács, Fargo Tbakhi, Ann LeBlanc, Cheri Kamei, Sharang Biswas, Jen Brown & Shingai Njeri Kagunda.

Praise for the previous volume, We're Here 2020: "This promising start to a new anthology series will appeal to any reader of contemporary short SFF, queer or otherwise, and reinforces Neon Hemlock's spot at the apex of queer speculative fiction publishing." ―Publishers Weekly

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Obviously I am here for the second instalment of Neon Hemlock’s We’re Here series! The 2020 edition was a great way to discover new authors I need to check out, and I’m hoping this one will be the same!

My Name Is Magic by Xan van Rooyen
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Nonbinary MC
Published on: 27th September 2022

Taika Turunen has no magic.

Despite coming from a long line of powerful Finnish mages, and their name literally meaning magic, Taika can’t perform the simplest of spells.

Forced to attend Myrskyjärvi International School for the Magically Gifted on account of their mom being principal, Taika has a hard time fitting in. Sometimes, they wonder if not having magic has something to do with the fact they’re neither a girl nor a boy and if they’re fated to be Taika the Talentless forever.

Life goes from bad to worse when Taika sees a liekkiö and recognizes the spirit's voice begging for help as that of their former BFF and major crush, Natalie Khumalo, whose recent absence from class hadn’t gone unnoticed. When more students go missing, Taika must take the lead in a race against time to save friends old and new before a powerful group of chaos mages can unleash the legendary Sampo, an artifact capable of either renewing the world’s waning magic or destroying everything Taika holds dear.

To rescue Natalie, Taika will have to journey to the liminal space between worlds where they’ll be forced to battle mythical monsters and their own flagging self-esteem. In doing so, Taika might just discover that magic—and love—comes in many different forms.

For fans of witchcraft and wizardry looking for a new, inclusive story, My Name Is Magic, is a story about finding strength from within and potential where you least expected it.

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I have been waiting for My Name Is Magic for what feels like FOREVER, and I’m so excited to finally be getting my grubby paws on it! There is literally nothing about this premise that doesn’t make me go starry-eyed!

Soul of the Deep (Skin of the Sea, #2) by Natasha Bowen
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: Black MC
Published on: 27th September 2022
Goodreads

The highly anticipated sequel to the New York Times bestseller Skin of the Sea, in which the world must pay the price for one mermaid's choice, and a dark force reverberates across realms. Perfect for fans of Children of Blood and Bone and those eagerly anticipating the live-action film adaptation of The Little Mermaid.

One life.
One choice.
One sacrifice.

To save those closest to her, Simi traded away everything: her freedom, her family, and the boy she loves. Now she is sworn to serve a new god, watching over the Land of the Dead at the bottom of the ocean.

But when signs of demons begin to appear, it's clear there are deeper consequences of Simi's trade. These demons spell the world's ruin . . . and because of Simi, they now have a way into the human realm.

With the fate of the world at stake, Simi must break her promise and team up with a scheming trickster of a god. And if they succeed, perhaps Simi can also unbreak her heart along the way, and find herself again.

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I doubt anyone deliberately timed Soul of the Deep‘s release to come so close on the heels of our first look at the new Little Mermaid film – how could they? – but still, great timing!

Take note: this is a sequel, so make sure you’ve read the first book first!

How to Succeed in Witchcraft by Aislinn Brophy
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: QTBIPOC cast
Published on: 27th September 2022
Goodreads

An overachieving teen witch vies for a prestigious scholarship at her elite high school in this contemporary YA fantasy for fans of Never Have I Ever and Sabrina the Teen Witch!

Magically brilliant, academically perfect, chronically overcommitted...
Shay Johnson has all the makings of a successful witch. Now that she's a junior at T.K. Anderson Magical Magnet School, she's one step closer to winning the full-ride Brockton Scholarship--her ticket into the university of her dreams. Her main competition? Ana freaking Álvarez. The key to victory? Impressing Mr. B, drama teacher and head of the scholarship committee.

When Mr. B persuades Shay to star in this year's aggressively inclusive, racially diverse musical--at their not-quite-diverse school--she agrees, wearily, even though she'll have to put up with Ana playing the other lead. But with rehearsals underway, Shay realizes Ana is...not the despicable witch she'd thought. Perhaps she could even be a friend--or more. And Shay could use someone in her corner once she finds herself on the receiving end of Mr. B's unpleasant and unwanted attention. When Shay learns she's not the first witch to experience his inappropriate behavior, she must decide if she'll come forward. But how can she speak out when the scholarship--and her future--are on the line?

An unforgettable debut, How to Succeed in Witchcraft conjures up searing social commentary, delightfully awkward high school theater, and magical proclamations of love.

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More mermaids! I adore these ‘field guide’ type books about magical creatures, and I’m looking forward to seeing Martin’s take on the trope, and on mermaids in general!

A Field Guide to Mermaids by Emily B. Martin
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 27th September 2022
Goodreads

A magical and lushly illustrated field guide to the mermaids that inhabit our ponds, streams and oceans, based on real ecological details—with a strong environmental focus—perfect for fans of The Magical Unicorn Society series.

A glimmer of fish scales.A splash from a colorful fin.The echo of a mysterious song across the water. . .

Few mythical creatures are more instantly recognizable or more mysterious than mermaids. Whether seen perched on a rock at the water’s edge or spied only as a dim outline beneath the waves, mermaids have long fascinated sailors, scientists, storytellers, and surprised onlookers alike.

Now, for the first time, thanks to dedicated research and a hint of magic, comes A Field Guide to Mermaids, introducing the many species of mermaids native to the United States. With an eye toward the preservation of our natural habitats, Emily B. Martin shares the never-before-told stories of the mermaids who share our waters in this enchanting and beautifully illustrated guidebook.

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ANOTHER magic school book this week! We’re being SPOILED and I love it!

Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes: The Official Biography by Rob Wilkins
Published on: 29th September 2022
Goodreads

'PEOPLE THINK THAT STORIES ARE SHAPED BY PEOPLE. IN FACT, IT'S THE OTHER WAY AROUND.'

At the time of his death in 2015, award-winning and bestselling author Sir Terry Pratchett was working on his finest story yet - his own.

At six years old, Terry was told by his headteacher that he would never amount to anything.

He spent the rest of his life proving that teacher wrong. At sixty-six, Terry had lived a life full of achievements: becoming one of the UK's bestselling writers, winning the Carnegie Medal and being awarded a knighthood for services to literature.

Following his untimely death from Alzheimer's disease, the mantle of completing Terry's memoir was passed to Rob Wilkins, his former assistant, friend and now head of the author's literary estate.

Drawing on his own extensive memories, along with those of Terry's family, friends, fans and colleagues, Rob recounts Terry's extraordinary story - from his early childhood to the literary phenomenon that his Discworld series became; and how he met and coped with the challenges that 'The Embuggerance' of Alzheimer's brought with it.
'Of all the dead authors in the world, Terry Pratchett is the most alive.' - John Lloyd

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I tend to focus on SFF here on this blog, but like hell I’m not going to feature Pratchett’s biography! I’m really looking forward to it, although I expect it will break my heart all over again. GNU, Terry.

The Bride Hunt of Elk Mountain by Lumen Reese
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Deaf MC, sapphic MC
Published on: 30th September 2022
Goodreads

Every five years the girls of Elk Mountain wake up in the woods, where the simple farm boys they grew up with become predators and hunt them for brides.

Dan Lightman returns to the mountain to help the Marlow sisters. Lizzie is twenty, deaf since childhood and worried that she could end up married to a man who won't learn to communicate with her, that she won't have a voice in her own home. Beck is seventeen, exchanging secret letters with a girl from the other side of the mountain, and she'll kill or die before she'll marry anyone else. Nellie is only fourteen, and all she wants is a few more years, to grow up on her own terms.

All three girls live in the shadow of their beautiful eldest sister, Julia. Five years ago -at the last Bride Hunt- she refused the man who caught her, and she was killed for it. The barbaric ritual is a sacred rite of passage to a fringe sect of Catholicism in post-apocalyptic, small-town Appalachia. Dan is one of the hunt's only critics. He was once too afraid to fight for the girl he loved, but now he’s back with a hired cutthroat and a plan to save the remaining Marlow sisters from their gruesome fate...

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Right at the end of the week we get Bride Hunt, which I am reading at the moment and am struggling with (not because it’s bad, but because I’d like to burn institutions like the one in this book to the ground). So far it’s pretty good, and I’m loving the Deaf and queer rep.

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

The post Must-Have Monday #104 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Elegantly Monstrous: Leech by Hiron Ennes

Leech by Hiron Ennes
Genres: Horror, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Nonbinary MC, minor F/F
PoV: 1st-person, present-tense
Published on: 27th September 2022
ISBN: B09NK8C9N1
Goodreads

In an isolated chateau, as far north as north goes, the baron’s doctor has died. The doctor’s replacement has a mystery to solve: discovering how the Institute lost track of one of its many bodies.

For hundreds of years the Interprovincial Medical Institute has grown by taking root in young minds and shaping them into doctors, replacing every human practitioner of medicine. The Institute is here to help humanity, to cure and to cut, to cradle and protect the species from the apocalyptic horrors their ancestors unleashed.

In the frozen north, the Institute’s body will discover a competitor for its rung at the top of the evolutionary ladder. A parasite is spreading through the baron’s castle, already a dark pit of secrets, lies, violence, and fear. The two will make war on the battlefield of the body. Whichever wins, humanity will lose again.'

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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~don’t go out after dark
~the twins are Not Okay
~medical mindfuckery
~parasitic possession
~seriously, eat the rich

Before we get started, can we take a moment to acknowledge how ridiculously beautiful that cover is??? Because it’s absolutely stunning and I have spent far too much time just staring at it.

Ahem.

*

Delicate is the word that comes to mind when I think of Leech; not fragile but fine, elegant, like an exquisite piece of jewelry or a spider’s web shining silver in the twilight. It’s something about Ennes’ prose, like the words are being spun out of silk as you read; it’s something about the subtle, careful, precise way the worldbuilding unfolds; it’s something about how the progression of the plot is like walking on a frozen lake as spring arrives, the sensation and knowledge that the ice is thinning under your feet with every step you take.

It would have been so easy for this story to be a hammer, for this premise to be executed as blunt and brutal. Ennes could have written Leech that way, and it would still have been horrifying! But instead of a hammer, Leech is a scalpel; instead of being beaten over the head with how scared you should be, the horror is an infection slowly spreading through your tissues…until before you know it, you’re in real trouble.

A parasite that infects humans to take them over has set itself up as the Institute – the storehouse of all medical knowledge in a far-future post-apocalyptic world. It uses its many bodies – each of which is best thought of as a limb of a single hivemind, albeit limbs with their own psychological and cerebral quirks – to minister to the medical needs of humanity. It only makes sense – without healthy human bodies to possess, our narrator would be nothing much at all. But the revelation that another, possibly competing parasite has come into play threatens, not just the carefully calibrated existence of the Institute, but the survival of humanity – because its presence may make it necessary to destroy one of the most vital resources this broken world has.

In many ways, Leech is very squarely Gothic Horror; we even have an enormous old house inhabited by a toxic family, complete with despotic patriarch and eerie twins. But I’ve never seen Gothic Horror in a post-apocalyptic setting before, and it’s one of those things where, if you’d asked me, I’d have guessed they wouldn’t mix well – and yet now that Ennes has gone and done it, I’m craving more of this combination. Writers, please take note: I want to see so much more of this! (And readers, if it already exists: let me know!)

I simply loved how the setting – and worldlbuilding – was slowly revealed, like uncovering a winter corpse in spring thaw. When I started reading, I actually didn’t know we were getting a post-apocalyptic story at all, and piecing that together – recognising bits of our present through the funhouse-mirrors that are the cast’s grasp of their past – was so much fun. But I wouldn’t have enjoyed it nearly as much – maybe at all – if Ennes’ world had fit the post-apocalyptic stereotype of burning earth and charred remains, which is pretty boring to me at this point. Leech takes place in snow and ice instead, in a North populated by unkillable monsters and people with vestigial tails, and there is something shivery about the soft, precise poetry Ennes uses to paint it for us.

Particularly because of whose mouth Ennes has put those words in: Leech is written in first-person, and our narrator is none other than the parasite/symbiote that is the Institute. Who is, perhaps surprisingly, not very alien – but then, how could it be? It’s been living in human bodies for a very long time, and since things like emotion are a lot more biological than we usually like to think about, the Institute has inevitably been experiencing most of the things humans experience for quite a while now. Which is not to say that it’s human – it very much isn’t, and I was positively gleeful at the glimpses we got of how it’s hivemind works; conversations between multiple bodies, dealing with the different wiring of individual brains, was just *chef’s kiss*. But the Institute never felt very Other to me, and there were times when I was pretty sympathetic to it and very much on its side!

But then, I am very weird when it comes to monsters. Your mileage may vary.

Honestly, there’s so much I want to say about that first-person narration, because it’s absolutely fundamental to the story in a way that only becomes clear towards the climax of the novel. Ennes has been incredibly clever with it – I am still both delighted and in awe of what they pulled off and how they pulled it off, and I regret that I can’t give you any details at all because Huge Spoilers. You’ll just have to trust me when I say that I can’t believe this is Ennes’ debut; it’s a perfectly crafted masterpiece of mindfuckery.

How’s the horror? There were definitely some moments that made me squeamish – in the first few pages of the book, the Institute removes the eye from a corpse, and that’s far from the only moment of – is it correct to call that body-horror? I think so? And I mean, this is intrinsically a body-horror story; we’re literally being narrated to by a Thing which has taken possession of a (live!) human body and person. Which has in fact taken possession of MANY human bodies and people! This is body-horror from the perspective of the horror-thing, which is audacious and brilliant and completely fucked-up – and the worst part is that the Institute is so smooth, so sympathetic, so reasonable, that the fucked-up-edness of it all doesn’t even really occur to you until near the end of the book. Ennes, like so many of the best horror writers, makes the reader complicit in the horror being perpetuated, and I simply Cannot Even.

Which all means that Leech is at least equal parts psychological horror as body-horror – if not more so.

I approve.

Readers will need a reasonably strong stomach for body-horror, and there’s one thing in particular that deserves a trigger warning, although I’ll put it under a spoiler-tag because it is plot-relevant: [View post to see spoiler]. But – despite occasionally needing to put the book down for a few minutes after a body-horror moment! – I loved this book. Leech is quietly, terrifyingly brilliant, tapping into the node of morbid fascination in all of us to all but seduce us to the final pages. It’s a beautiful, elegant sickness without a cure – just as it should be.

The monster comes out of the bottle this Tuesday. Don’t miss it!

The post Elegantly Monstrous: Leech by Hiron Ennes appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

I Can’t Wait For…Witch King by Martha Wells

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 Witch King by Martha Wells!

Witch King by Martha Wells
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 30th May 2023
Goodreads

Martha Wells, the New York Times bestselling author of the Murderbot series, pens a major fantasy novel in Witch King.

Kai-Enna is the Witch King, though he hasn’t always been, and he hasn’t even always been Kai-Enna!

After being murdered, his consciousness dormant and unaware of the passing of time while confined in an elaborate water trap, Kai wakes to find a lesser mage attempting to harness Kai’s magic to his own advantage. That was never going to go well.

But why was Kai imprisoned in the first place? What has changed in the world since his assassination? And why does the Rising World Coalition appear to be growing in influence?

Kai will need to pull his allies close and draw on all his pain magic if he is to answer even the least of these questions.

He’s not going to like the answers.

Witch King is a rousing tale of power and friendship, of trust and betrayal, and of the families we choose.

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The (gorgeous!) cover was just revealed today, so I’m sure absolutely everyone is featuring it for today’s Can’t Wait Wednesday… But #sorrynotsorry, Wells is one of my favourite authors and I’ve been pining for Witch King since the publishing deal was announced, so hells yes, I’m featuring it!

Murderbot is marvellous – let no one suggest otherwise – but I fell in love with Wells’ fantasy long before Murderbot was on the scene (if you haven’t read the Raksura series, it’s about matriarchal dragon-shifter bee-people in a world with no humans and YOU SHOULD READ IT) so I was BEYOND excited when it was announced that she was writing a new fantasy novel after so many years of sci-fi! FANTASY FTW, PLEASE AND THANK YOU!

But for the longest time, we didn’t know anything about it!!! Every month, I came back and scoured the internet, hoping for some kind of announcement, for Wells to have said something in an interview, maybe – but nope. Nada. Nothing. No idea what the book was going to be about. Except, presumably, some kind of Witch King???

I spotted a blurb on the publisher’s website just a few weeks ago – not the one we have now, the first one was much shorter! – and then the ebook was available for preorder – and now a cover! With a proper blurb! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Wells’ imagination is incredible, so I’m not surprised Witch King sounds completely different from anything I daydreamed it might be. I mean – our MC is deceased! Tied to a water-trap! A disembodied consciousness! WHAT??? How does a disembodied consciousness gather his allies??? Or use pain magic, for that matter??? WHAT IS THE RISING WORLD COALITION AND WHY IS IT A PROBLEM??? And how on Earth am I supposed to wait so long to find out?!

May can’t get here soon enough!

The post I Can’t Wait For…Witch King by Martha Wells appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.