Locus: Kerstin Hall writes sharp, fierce stories with precise and visceral prose, and with worldbuilding that possesses a keen sense for the weird, the haunting, the marvellous, and the twistedly strange. Asunder is only her fourth long-form work, her second novel (after 2021’s Star Eater and the novella duo The Border Keeper and Second Spear) and it is every bit as vividly compelling as I’ve come to expect from Hall – indeed, even more so. Karys Eska is an independent […]
New York Times: Rakesfall is Vajra Chandrasekera’s second book after last year’s magnificent “The Saint of Bright Doors,” and is fully as exciting though nowhere near as straightforward. A book in 10 parts, “Rakesfall” shifts wildly in structure and narration. Sometimes an audience watches a television show that is perhaps reality or perhaps a window to something beyond it. Other times different omniscient narrators cede to a play featuring beings who reincarnate over thousands of years. Or a cybernetically enhanced […]
Library Journal: Luka is a bodyguard in the matriarchal, magical Gailand, named after goddess-founder Gaiea. His charge is nine-year-old Viella, princess and heir to Gaiea’s abilities and memories. When the queen is killed and the capital is raided by shadow mages, Luka flees with Viella across the allied queendoms to keep her safe. But why can’t Viella use her Gaiea powers yet, and who within the capital let the magicians in? This novel from Garcia (Lex Talionis), the first in […]
Library Journal: Velma Frye, aviator and magical investigator, finds herself in a deeply personal and intricate magical crime conspiracy. After picking up an enchanted pocket watch that initiated a heated brawl at one of her flying shows, she heads home for some advice. To her surprise, other magically tainted objects have been stolen from her family’s inn and are causing havoc and death throughout the United States. These objects are associated with a mysterious and deadly incident that happened at […]
Booklist: In a spiraling saga of obituaries, sixty deaths slowly unravel the fate of Poppy and her AI mother, Peregrine. It is no surprise, then, that this grand scheme begins with grief: when “Computer Doctor” Matth Fletcher’s old friend dies, he decides to create a program with their messages. This leads to creating a humanoid body for the messages, crafted with the help of his sculptor husband, whom he eventually divorces to marry the AI. Even after Matth dies, the […]
Publishers Weekly: Raines debuts with an unexpectedly charming dark fantasy set in the fictional small town of Thistle, Wash. High school student Miles Warren is part of a psychic family capable of banishing evil spirits. It’s unusual that he would receive a death premonition for a stranger, but his latest vision is just that: a strange boy pleading for his help. During a party at the home of his family’s long-standing rivals, the Hawthornes, Miles is surprised to recognize the […]
Bram Stoker Award winner, Shirley Jackson Award finalist, and USA Today bestselling author of NOTHING BUT BLACKENED TEETH Cassandra Khaw’s HELLEBORE, a deeply dark academia novel set at a brutal institute for the dangerously powerful, where a group of graduating students must survive one last diabolical test, and three more standalone books, to Kristin Temple at Nightfire, with Ellen Datlow editing two novellas, for publication in summer 2025, by Michael Curry (world English).
Booklist: Ten years ago, Galwell, his younger sister Elowen, Beatrice, and Clare saved the realm of Mythria from dark magic. But after Galwell sacrificed himself to ensure the success of their mission, the three friends went their separate ways. However, Beatrice, Clare, and Elowen now face a reunion when Queen Thessia, who was once engaged to Galwell, invites them to her upcoming wedding. Given their still unresolved romantic feelings for each other, the last thing Beatrice and Clare want to […]
Booklist: Marino is mostly known for his books for young readers (the Plot to Kill Hitler trilogy, for example), but he’s written a few solid novels for adults, the most recent being It Rides a Pale Horse (2022). His new novel is creepily good, a story of an apocalypse triggered by an unexpected swarm of insects. Why have they suddenly appeared, in the millions, without warning? Why are they behaving in such an uncharacteristic—even murderous—way? Who’s controlling them, and why? Marino juggles a great […]
Audio rights to Christopher Rowe’s THE NAVIGATING FOX, a fantastical fable of “knowledgeable creatures,” to Kim Budnick at Tantor Media, by Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson. Audio rights to J. Alexander Cohen’s TALIO CODEX, an epic fantasy and legal thriller in a city of canals and holy magic, where a secret relationship between a disgraced legal advocate and a member of an ostracized religious group may shake the foundations of the city, to Kim Budnick at Tantor Media by Katie Shea Boutillier. […]