New months bring new books! I’ve scoured the catalogs to bring you a selection of upcoming releases. As the publishing industry can be chaotic, these dates are subject to change. Unless indicated, I have not had a chance to read or review any of these books. I just want to share my excitement. Click any links provided to pre-order and support your favorite (or new) authors!
September 8
Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston
The world is changing. Poison desert eats good farmland. Once-sweet water turns foul. The wind blows sand and sadness across the Empire. To get caught in a storm is death. To live and do nothing is death. There is magic in the world, but good conjure is hard to find.
Djola, righthand man and spymaster of the lord of the Arkhysian Empire, is desperately trying to save his adopted homeland, even in exile.
Awa, a young woman training to be a powerful griot, tests the limits of her knowledge and comes into her own in a world of sorcery, floating cities, kindly beasts, and uncertain men.
Awash in the rhythms of folklore and storytelling and rich with Hairston’s characteristic lush prose, Master of Poisons is epic fantasy that will bleed your mind with its turns of phrase and leave you aching for the world it burns into being.
The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart
Apocalypse Yesterday by Brock Adams
The zombie apocalypse is over. The humans have won. Life is back to normal. And Rip is bored as hell. It’s not much of a life sitting in a call center in the poor town of Spanish Shanty, Florida, answering emails like a drone and listening to customer complaints.
Rip was ruler of a tiny kingdom in the Lazy River waterpark, killing zombies by day and making passionate love at night. He misses the danger, the camaraderie, and the blistering love he once knew. He longs to feel Santana—his trusty machete—in his hand, and Davia—the fiercest woman alive—in his arms once again. He can still picture it—life on the razor’s edge—and he would do anything to get that feeling back.
But what if Rip could get it back? He’s totally desperate. Not normal desperate—more like ready-to-restart-the-apocalypse desperate. Condemning humanity to a repeat merely for an adrenaline rush is probably not a good idea. But life at the call center is nothing more than a slow death, and Rip might not be able to go on without trying to find out.
September 15
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini
During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she’s delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move.
As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn’t at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human.
While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity’s greatest and final hope . . .
Sequels:
- The Trouble with Peace (The Age of Madness #2) by Joe Abercrombie
September 22
The Seventh Perfection by Daniel Polansky
When a woman with perfect memory sets out to solve a riddle, the threads she tugs on could bring a whole city crashing down. The God-King who made her is at risk, and his other servants will do anything to stop her.
To become the God-King’s Amanuensis, Manet had to master all seven perfections, developing her body and mind to the peak of human performance. She remembers everything that has happened to her, in absolute clarity, a gift that will surely drive her mad. But before she goes, Manet must unravel a secret which threatens not only the carefully prepared myths of the God-King’s ascent, but her own identity and the nature of truth itself.
September 29
The Gossamer Mage by Julie E. Czerneda
Only in Tananen do people worship a single deity: the Deathless Goddess. Only in this small, forbidden realm are there those haunted by words of no language known to woman or man. The words are Her Gift, and they summon magic.
Mage scribes learn to write Her words as intentions: spells to make beasts or plants, designed to any purpose. If an intention is flawed, what the mage creates is a gossamer: a magical creature as wild and free as it is costly for the mage.
For Her Gift comes at a steep price. Each successful intention ages a mage until they dare no more. But Her magic demands to be used; the Deathless Goddess will take Her fee, and mages will die.
To end this terrible toll, the greatest mage in Tananen vows to find and destroy Her. He has yet to learn She is all that protects Tananen from what waits outside. And all that keeps magic alive.
Burning Roses by S.L. Huang
Rosa, also known as Red Riding Hood, is done with wolves and woods.
Hou Yi the Archer is tired, and knows she’s past her prime.
They would both rather just be retired, but that’s not what the world has ready for them.
When deadly sunbirds begin to ravage the countryside, threatening everything they’ve both grown to love, the two must join forces. Now blessed and burdened with the hindsight of middle age, they begin a quest that’s a reckoning of sacrifices made and mistakes mourned, of choices and family and the quest for immortality.
The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde
England, 2022. There are 1.2 million human-size rabbits living in the UK. They can walk, talk, drive cars, and they like to read Voltaire, the result of an Inexplicable Anthropomorphizing Event fifty-five years before.
A family of rabbits is about to move into Much Hemlock, a cozy little village in Middle England where life revolves around summer fetes, jam making, gossipy corner stores, and the oh-so-important Best Kept Village awards.
No sooner have the rabbits arrived than the villagers decide they must depart, citing their propensity to burrow and breed, and their shameless levels of veganism. But Mrs Constance Rabbit is made of sterner stuff, and her and her family decide they are to stay. Unusually, their neighbors—longtime resident Peter Knox and his daughter, Pippa—decide to stand with them…and soon discover that you can be a friend to rabbits or humans, but not both.
With a blossoming romance, acute cultural differences, enforced rehoming to a MegaWarren in Wales, and the full power of the ruling United Kingdom Anti-Rabbit Party against them, Peter and Pippa are about to question everything they had ever thought about their friends, their nation, and their species.
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
Every sorcerer has a gift: a talent for transformation, a taste for combat magic. And mastering their gifts in a unique magical academy means a chance of being invited into the enclaves, the world’s magical elite.
El Higgins’ talent is for mass destruction: Someday, she could level mountains or destroy untold millions with her power, and this dark talent has alienated her from others.
She protects herself from the scorn of the other magicians with her mordant wit and defiant spirit. But she also hopes that one day she will join a prestigious enclave, and that means ingratiating herself with the powerful and the privileged.
That includes Orion Lake: rich, beloved, and the most celebrated magician of his generation. But what she comes to learn about Orion opens her eyes to some shocking truths about both herself, the school, and their world.
It’s always been El against the world—but now she may be the only one who can save it.
There are so many big releases this season, and I am a bit worried at the size of my TBR after this.
