A young woman unravels an ancient mystery in this spine-tingling dark fantasy from Brackston (City of Time and Magic). In Victorian England, Hecate Cavendish accepts a position as an assistant librarian at Hereford’s cathedral rather than consign herself to marriage. There, she discovers she has the ability to communicate with spirits. When bodies disappear from the tombs in the cathedral’s crypt, Hecate suspects something more sinister than simple grave robbery, perhaps related to the mysterious deaths that have been plaguing Hereford. With the help of her new ghost friends from the cathedral and her archeologist father, Hecate sets out to stop the evil lurking in Hereford before it’s too late. Brackston seamlessly blends horror, fantasy, and mystery as Hecate investigates who is pulling the strings to raise the dead. The answers, however, will have to wait, as a cliffhanger ending sets the stage for a sequel. This will frustrate some, but readers with a penchant for gothic fantasy won’t want to miss this. (July)

Reviewed on 05/24/2024 | Details & Permalink

Lyons’s addictive and intricately plotted quest story (after The Ruin of Kings) intertwines all the elements of a suspenseful heist—danger, high stakes, clever characters, secrets, and betrayal—in a sprawling fantasy world replete with pompous dragons. Teen Anahrod Amnead, who has the magical ability to control animals, is accused of stealing from a dragon, charged with treason, and sentenced to death. But 15 years later, the arrogant and powerful blue dragon Tiendremos suspects that the humans responsible did not carry through on the execution and demands they locate and return Anahrod to face her punishment. The bounty hunters sent to fetch her betray their assignment by making Anahrod an offer she can’t refuse: they won’t turn her in if she helps them steal the hoard of diamonds belonging to Neveranimas, the queen regent of dragons and Tiendremos’s boss, who stole the jewels from the comatose dragon king, Ivarion. Led by sultry dragon rider Ris, with whom Anahrod soon develops a sweet sapphic romance, the quirky group of adventurers includes knife-wielding warrior woman Claw, sorcerer Naeron, and elder poet Kaibren. Together they race against the clock to find the five swords that form the key to Neveranimas’s vault. If Ivarion wakes up before they succeed, the world as they know it could go up in flames. Fast-paced action, a smart and diverse cast, and fascinating dragon lore sustain this rip-roaring caper. Fantasy fans are sure to be sucked in. (July)

Reviewed on 05/24/2024 | Details & Permalink

Myers (A Dreadful Splendor) delivers a classic Regency gothic with all the trimmings. Beautiful Emeline, the orphaned ward of a Halifax, Nova Scotia, judge and his wife, is old enough to make some rich and powerful man a lovely bride. Her sights are set on the dashing Lieutenant Fletcher of the British Navy, but before she can escape with him to his house in Bermuda, their affair is discovered. Emeline is promptly promised to the suitor least likely to have heard about the scandal, Captain Graves, and shipped off to Faraday House, his run-down, isolated manor on a private island, to become his third wife. Except his second wife, Georgina, is not yet dead, only very seriously ill. Emeline hatches a plan to keep Georgina alive, and herself therefore unmarried, until Lieutenant Fletcher can arrive to rescue her. But the more she learns about the two young wives whose place she is fated to take, the more it becomes clear that something terrible lurks in Faraday House—and if Emeline can’t save Georgina, she herself will be the next victim. Rural Nova Scotia delivers all the requisite atmospheric grimness, and Myers ensures that absolutely nobody can be trusted. This pushes all the right buttons. Agent: Jill Marr, Sandra Dijkstra Literary. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/24/2024 | Details & Permalink

Liar debuts with an ambitious, genre-bending tale set on a perpetually dark postapocalyptic planet called the Wanderlands. As a child, Sophie Vesachai had a strange, prophetic dream that appeared to instruct her to retrieve ancient artifacts, free the imprisoned giant Kindaedystrin, and thus restore the realm’s light. As an adult, she discovers that others across the Wanderlands had the same exact dream and forms a ragtag group she calls the Killers, “a gang devoted to discovering the meaning and purpose behind the dream.” The only thing uniting these misfits is the visions, making for some shaky group dynamics as they set out to free Kindaedystrin from the Keep, a vast underground fortress. But Queen Jane Guin, the Keep’s leader, has her own plans for Kindaedystrin: she aims to kill the giant, believing that this alone will restore light to the Wanderlands. As Sophie and Jane clash, Liar digs deep into the characters’ psyches through fragmentary narration that toggles between the past and the present. This occasionally creates confusion, but Liar ties up the plot’s many threads by the end. The worldbuilding, meanwhile, offers a heady mix of magic and science. The result is a dense but worthwhile adventure. (July)

Reviewed on 05/17/2024 | Details & Permalink

Gaudet (Skyroom) offers an eerie glimpse into an all too believable near-future in this cyberpunk outing. Don Barton originally created the hit game Greenhouse, where players must save the environment, to inspire people to help make the world a better place. Instead, the game proves so addictive that it consumes players totally, drawing them into the virtual world. As its popularity grows and more people, including politicians and society’s elite, get hooked, the real world is left to the ravages of ongoing climate catastrophe. One of the most jacked in is Don’s own teenage son, Tony, who goes missing at the start of the book. His disappearance is linked to the hacker Eris and her team of ecoterrorists, who hope to dismantle the game from within, sending Don on a desperate quest through cyberspace to get his son back. The plot excites, but the pace is slowed by ever changing narrators pausing to infodump their backstories. Still, this virtual game of cat and mouse will appeal to fans of Ready Player One. Agent: Sam Hiyate, Rights Factory. (July)

Reviewed on 05/17/2024 | Details & Permalink

Lord’s byzantine standalone second Redemption fantasy (after Redemption in Indigo) follows forensic therapist Miranda Ecouvo, whose work with traumatized witnesses to a series of murders led to the conviction of Walther Gray. While walking home from work one day, Miranda is struck by a bus. Though she narrowly avoids death, the accident plunges her into a realm between worlds, where she meets partly human spirit brothers Chance and Trickster. The brothers reveal that Walther Gray was not responsible for the murder spree—and the real killer is still out there. Aided by otherworldly powers, the killer now seeks immortality. To stop him, Miranda must traverse the labyrinthine spirit realm. As she delves into her investigation, Chance and Trickster embark on their own journey of self-discovery, seeking to understand their role in humanity and perhaps their own connection to the murders. The stakes are high and the suspense is palpable, but the complexity of both the plot and the worldbuilding make it arduous to keep the whimsical whodunit narrative straight. For readers willing to put in the work, however, this is an impressive feat. (July)

Reviewed on 05/17/2024 | Details & Permalink

Holmberg (The Hanging City) sets this gripping science fantasy romp on the planet Tampere, which sits on the edge of the universe. Pelnophe, aka Pell, enjoys tinkering with machines but doesn’t think of herself as particularly gifted. So when a stranger named Moseus knocks on her door soliciting her help in repairing machines inside a nearby tower that locals have always regarded as empty and impenetrable, she finds the whole thing bizarre. Still, Pell takes the job, only to discover that tinkering with the devices gives her intense flashbacks of the planet’s past. This mystery is compounded by the presence of Heartwood, Moseus’s enigmatic companion whom Pell can’t help but feel drawn to. As Pell learns more about her new employers and Tampere, she discovers the dark truth of what the tower is and why the machines within it broke in the first place. Holmberg fans who know her for her romantic fantasy may be surprised there’s only a touch of magic in this heavily sci-fi outing. The worldbuilding occasionally confounds, especially when it comes to the specifics of the technology in the tower. Still, the suspense surrounding Pell’s flashbacks and her slow-burn romance with Heartwood propel the plot forward at a steady clip. This is a fascinating new direction for Holmberg. (July)

Reviewed on 05/17/2024 | Details & Permalink

With this riff on the Brothers Grimm’s “The Goose Girl,” set in a fantasy world inspired by Regency romances, Hugo Award winner Kingfisher (Nettle & Bone) continues her hot streak of deeply compassionate, thrilling, and often laugh-out-loud fairy tale retellings. Cordelia, 14, grows up in a house without closed doors. Her mother, Evangeline, is a dangerous enchantress who regularly compels her into total obedience. The first time Cordelia’s allowed some privacy is when Evangeline moves them into the home of her suitor, Squire Samuel Chatham—a home Evangeline means to seize and remake to her specifications by whatever means necessary. The Squire’s sister, Lady Hester, feels an awful presentiment of doom and is on the defensive around Evangeline, but only Cordelia knows the true, murderous extent of her mother’s powers. Can Cordelia speak up against a mother who controls her so completely? Would Hester even believe her if she did? The dual narrators—terrified fish-out-of-water Cordelia and tenaciously sensible Hester—are nuanced, distinctive, and frequently funny. Kingfisher’s remarkable skill for crafting scene-stealing secondary characters is also on full display in ruthless cardsharp Imogen Strauss, über-competent butler Willard, merry widow Penelope Green, and the mysteriously magical horse Falada. Expertly blending humor with folkloric horror, this incredibly satisfying fantasy will delight Kingfisher’s fans and newcomers alike. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/17/2024 | Details & Permalink

The latest horror novella from Sfetsos (Through the Blur) underdelivers on a promising concept. Newlyweds Thera and Hector arrive for a week of sorting and clearing out Thera’s recently deceased aunt’s house only for things to immediately become strange and worrisome. They encounter locked doors with deep scratches gouged into them, paintings that move, and huge numbers of crows and ravens gathering around the property. As the couple uncovers a generational curse that effects the women in Thera’s family, the plot reads like a classic haunted house novel crossed with Hitchcock’s The Birds. It’s a cool combination of tropes, but Sfetsos’s lackluster prose fails to provide the scares and atmospherics necessary to suck readers in. The question of whether Thera and Hector’s true love can break the curse feels well-worn, and attempted feminist commentary about the matrilineal curse, while admirable, never goes particularly deep. This is best suited for Sfetsos’s existing fans. (July)

Reviewed on 05/17/2024 | Details & Permalink

Bestseller Jones (the Indian Lake trilogy) again riffs on 1980s slasher movies in this indulgent bloodbath. Tolly Driver witnesses a massacre at a high school party at the hands of Justin Jones, an undead classmate who died during a vicious prank gone awry. Having gotten infected with a couple drops of Justin’s blood, and reeling from a near-death experience stemming from his peanut allergy, Tolly finds himself driven by the urge to go on a murder spree of his own. He dons a mask and slashes his way through his small Texas town. Only his childhood friend, final girl Amber Dennison, serves as a tether to the scared and fragile kid he was before the killing began. Will she be able to stop the slaughter once and for all? The story has a clear love for the splashy slasher films that inspired it, and Jones does a great job of landing the plot’s gorier excesses as the bodies pile up. Unfortunately, chaotic plotting undercuts the story’s tension and narrator Tolly’s many tangents make the pacing somewhat start-and-stop. Still, fans of meta horror will find a lot to love as Jones remixes well-worn tropes with glee. Agent: BJ Robbins, BJ Robbins Literary. (July)

Reviewed on 05/17/2024 | Details & Permalink