Middle Grade
The Ghostwing’s Lie by Rebecca Mix
This is the sequel to The Mossheart’s Promise
Something rots within the wood…
Ary Mossheart has done the impossible: The terrarium is shattered, and her people are free. When the folk of Terra are welcomed in by the fairies of Siltshore, an abundant treetop village filled with light, food, and peace, Ary promises herself that her days of saving people are over. It’s time to be normal. Live the life her gran would have wanted; the one she never got back in Terra.
But when fairies begin to disappear one by one and it becomes clear that Siltshore is not as safe as it seems, Ary Owl, and Briar will be pulled down dangerous paths as they try to unravel the strange magics of their new world—and the truth about the one they left behind. To save her new home, Ary will have to step into the role of hero once more.
Except this time, if she fails, there will be no new world to escape to.
Young Adult
Legend of the White Snake by Sher Lee
When Prince Xian was a boy, a white snake bit his mother and condemned her to a slow, painful death. The only known cure is an elusive spirit pearl—or an antidote created from the rare white snake itself. Desperate and determined, Xian travels to the city of Changle, where an oracle predicted he would find and capture a white snake.
Seven years ago, Zhen, a white snake in the West Lake, consumed a coveted spirit pearl, which gave him special powers—including the ability to change into human form.
In Changle, Xian encounters an enigmatic but beautiful stable boy named Zhen. The two are immediately drawn to each other, but Zhen soon realizes that he is the white snake Xian is hunting. As their feelings grow deeper, will the truth about Zhen’s identity tear them apart?
Rest in Peaches by Alex Brown
Quinn Marcelo wouldn’t necessarily win the award for Most Popular Person at her school, but unbeknownst to her peers, Quinn entertains them at every football, basketball, and baseball game―as Peaches the Parrot, her high school’s God-like mascot.
When someone sabotages the legendary Peaches costume at the Homecoming Game, Quinn’s left unmasked and humiliated. After all, Peaches’ identity was a closely guarded secret and a point of pride for nearly everyone at Olivia Newton-John High. As if that wasn’t enough, Little Peaches, a new, real parrot that the PTA got to enhance the Peaches Experience, is kidnapped right after Quinn’s unmasking.
Determined to uncover the culprit, Quinn publicly unravels the lives of everyone in her path―including Tessa Banks, the most popular girl in school―in a no-holds-barred conspiracy-fueled investigation. But when a killer starts going after the people implicated in Quinn’s mascot disaster, she must race to uncover the truth behind her feathery faux-pas―before the truth kills her, too.
Blame My Virgo Moon by Freja Nicole Woolf
Life should be Gucci gooseberry gorgeous for Cat Phillips now that she’s got the girl: swoon-worthy, green-haired Morgan Delaney. Except Cat’s friends aren’t too keen on Morgan, and Morgan’s friends aren’t quite rolling out the welcome mat for Cat either. When Morgan takes on queen bee Siobhan for the highly contested spot of Head Girl, Cat would rather pluck out her eyelashes than pick a side, which is how she ends up accidentally auditioning for the school production of Romeo and Juliet . . . and landing the starring role opposite Morgan’s new no-good friend, Brooke the Crook. And as if things couldn’t be more of a Marie Antionette Baking Brownies level disaster, Cat’s Sagittarius bestie, Zanna, isn’t talking to her anymore. Merciful Sappho! As Cat trips over herself to keep her relationships intact (and learn her lines), she begins to realize that maybe not all of her problems can be blamed on her Virgo moon in this hilarious, heartfelt comedy of errors told in an uber-unique voice.
Prince of Fortune by Lisa Tirreno
Shy Prince Edmund will be a great king one day: it has been Seen again and again. With rare magic giving him dominion over the nation’s plants and weather, Edmund feels a great deal of pressure to live up to his nation’s many expectations, including making a perfect diplomatic alliance through marriage. That is, until he meets Lord Aubrey Ainsley.
Charming, romantic, and politically insignificant, Aubrey is a Seer, but not even he could have predicted catching the eye of Edmund, the Prince of Fortune—nor that the anxious prince who talks to plants more than people could feel so right for him. Aubrey’s dream-visions have been full of battle, not love, but to say that Prince Edmund has captured his fancy would be a grand understatement.
As the two become more and more intertwined, the nation of Saben falls under attack. War and dark sorcery loom on the horizon. To save their homeland, Edmund and Aubrey must resist the outside forces seeking to drive them apart and find the power within themselves to create a future for Saben—and each other—they never could have imagined.
Adult
Long Time Gone by Hannah Martian
In the small town of Wonderland, Wyoming, the truth is whatever the Coldwater family says it is. When their prodigal daughter Jessica was murdered forty years ago, their truth was that Holly Prine killed her–regardless of Holly’s innocence.
But the Coldwaters aren’t the only reason private investigator Quinn Cuthridge hasn’t set foot in the town in nearly a decade. After her aunt sent her away when she was a teen, Quinn swore she’d never return. When she gets an unexpected call from her aunt’s ranch hand, Hunter, Quinn learns that her aunt has gone missing. Reluctantly, she returns to Wyoming to investigate and soon realizes that her aunt was getting dangerously close to long-buried Wonderland secrets, including who really murdered Jessica Coldwater.
As Hunter and Quinn dig into what lies in the Wyoming backcountry, attraction flares between the two women, complicating their investigation–and Quinn’s steadfast refusal to have any ties to Wonderland. With someone threatening Quinn and her own dark past echoing in the present, Quinn must struggle against her hometown and herself to find the truth.
Rogue Community College by David R. Slayton
Isaac Frost is an assassin. Raised in the Graveyard of the cruel and mysterious Undertaker, he has mastered the deadly art of the knife and the skill of survival, together with scores of others just like him—young men taken from their families to become the most infamous killers throughout the realms of elves and humans. But Isaac is unique: a single drop of another’s blood can confer upon him the knowledge and power of friend and foe alike.
After crossing paths with the elf queen Argent, Isaac is sent to a strange magical school for wayward practitioners in the hopes that he can learn where he—and his unusual talent—fit in the world. Isaac is charmed by the school’s chaotic nature and finds himself unexpectedly drawn to Vran, a Sea Elf haunted by secret knowledge.
But Vran isn’t the only one with secrets, and Isaac’s arrival is no accident. The Undertaker has charged him with infiltrating the school for the purpose of destroying it utterly, and his future rests on completing his mission—before the Undertaker takes matters into his own hands.
A new novel set in the world of the Adam Binder series!
Women’s Hotel by Daniel M. Lavery
The New York Times-bestselling author and advice columnist’s debut novel about the residents of a women’s hotel in 1960s New York City.
The Beidermeier might be several rungs lower on the ladder than the real-life Barbizon, but its residents manage to occupy one another nonetheless. There’s Katherine, the first-floor manager, lightly cynical and more than lightly suggestible. There’s Lucianne, a workshy party girl caught between the love of comfort and an instinctive bridling at convention, Kitty the sponger, Ruth the failed hairdresser, and Pauline the typesetter. And there’s Stephen, the daytime elevator operator and part-time Cooper Union student.
The residents give up breakfast, juggle competing jobs at rival presses, abandon their children, get laid off from the telephone company, attempt to retrain as stenographers, all with the shared awareness that their days as an institution are numbered, and they’d better make the most of it while it lasts.
If I Stopped Haunting You by Colby Wilkens
It’s been months since horror author Penelope Skinner threw a book at Neil Storm. But he was so infuriating, with his sparkling green eyes and his bestselling horror novels that claimed to break Native stereotypes. And now she’s a publishing pariah and hasn’t been able to write a word since. So when her friend invites her on a too-good-to-be-true writers retreat in a supposedly haunted Scottish castle, she seizes the opportunity. Of course, some things really are too good to be true.
Neil wants nothing less than to be trapped in a castle with the frustratingly adorable woman who threw a book at him. She drew blood! Worse still, she unleashed a serious case of self-doubt! Neil is terrified to write another bestselling “book without a soul,” as Pen called it. All Neil wants is to find inspiration, while completely avoiding her.
But as the retreat begins, Pen and Neil are stunned to find themselves trapped in a real-life ghost story. Even more horrifying, they’re stuck together and a truly shocking (extremely hot) almost-kiss has left them rethinking their feelings, and… maybe they shouldn’t have been enemies at all? But if they can’t stop the ghosts pursuing them, they may never have the chance to find out.
On Vicious Worlds by Bethany Jacobs
This is the sequel to These Burning Stars
The Jeveni have finally found freedom on the distant planet Capamame, delivered from Kindom oppression through their alliance with stoic Cleric Chono, intrepid caster Jun Ironway, and Six, the wildly unpredictable manipulator who has outwitted the Nightfoot family.
But when Six and Chono return to the Treble star systems, the dream of freedom meets a dangerous test. The Secretaries of the Kindom are intent on reclaiming power in the Treble, as well as control over the Jeveni. Meanwhile, Jun Ironway and Jeveni collector Masar Hawks struggle to protect Capamame from a population brimming with resentment, not to mention a faceless saboteur spreading mayhem and murder.
As the two groups struggle to outwit their enemies, divergent battles wend toward a climatic reunion that will spark a revolution. But over it all hangs the cruel legacy of Esek Nightfoot, whose rippling effects may prove impossible to survive.
Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy
Leovander Loveage is a master of small magics. He can summon butterflies with a song or turn someone’s hair pink by snapping his fingers. Though such minor charms don’t earn him much respect, anything more elaborate always blows up in his face, and so Leo vowed long ago never to use powerful magic again.
That is, until a mishap with a forbidden spell binds Leo to obey the commands of his longtime rival, Sebastian Grimm. Grimm is Leo’s complete opposite—respected, exceptionally talented, and absolutely insufferable. The only thing they can agree on is that revealing the curse between them would mean the end of their respective magical careers. They need a counterspell, and fast.
Chasing rumors of a powerful sorcerer with a knack for undoing curses, Leo and Grimm enter the Unquiet Wood, a forest infested with murderous monsters and dangerous outlaws alike. To break the curse, they will have to uncover the true depths of Leo’s magic, set aside their long-standing rivalry, and—much to their horror—work together.
Even as an odd spark of attraction flares between them.
Strange Beasts by Susan J. Morris
At the dawn of the twentieth century in Paris, Samantha Harker, daughter of Dracula’s killer, works as a researcher for the Royal Society for the Study of Abnormal Phenomena. But no one realizes how abnormal she is. Sam is a channel into the minds of monsters: a power that could help her solve the gruesome deaths plaguing turn-of-the-century Paris—or have her thrown into an asylum.
Sam finds herself assigned to a case with Dr. Helena Moriarty, daughter of the criminal mastermind and famed nemesis of Sherlock Holmes and a notorious detective whom no one wants to work with on account of her previous partners’ mysterious murders. Ranging from the elite clubs of Paris to the dark underbelly of the catacombs, their investigation sweeps them into a race to stop a Beast from its killing rampage, as Hel and Sam are pitted against men, monsters, and even each other. But beneath their tenuous trust, an unmistakable attraction brews. Is trusting Hel the key to solving the murder, or is Sam yet another pawn in Hel’s game?
The Hormone of Darkness by Tilsa Otta, translated from Spanish by Farid Matuk
We can go on like that foreverbuilding paradise from our urges
out of our fetishes our loves our vices
How lucky
We’ll wait for you then
Don’t be too long
Bookmark the page
We’ll be Here
—From “The New Heaven”
In Tilsa Otta’s The Hormone of Darkness, we find a queer, Latinx person who has lived through iterations of authoritarian rule, and who answers these conditions by creating poetry that doubles down on a life force that precedes and exceeds received notions of the poetic. Here poetry is bawdy, fabulist, and spiritual—in short, it is alive. Otta has created a heaven where readers can go after they die.
Drawing from four volumes spanning Otta’s career, translator-poet Farid Matuk has curated a playlist we can dance and dream to, one that honors Otta’s drive toward liberation through both perreo in the club and transdimensional wandering among the stars.
Getting my Goat by Jessica Olin
Getting your goat can sometimes lead to love.
Maya Applebaum is doing okay. Now. She got laid off from her job teaching software design at a community college, but she managed to find a role designing educational games at a company where she gets to work from home. She’s living like a nun—kind of funny, since she’s Jewish—but she has her job and her friends and Nimoy, her former alley-cat-turned-cosseted-house-pet. Everything is okay.
Okay, that is, until she lands in bed with her neighbor and landlord, Leander Costas, who turns out to be not so human after all. Leander also turns out to be the most amazing cook, friend, and lover Maya’s ever known. When Maya is put in danger because of someone from his past, Leander faces down the threats to her life. But only she can face down the threat of a broken heart.
Buy it: Amazon
Whispers Most Foul by Emma MacDonald
Be wary of dark magic and the evil it carries. For when the hand of death enters Dunhollow Academy, no one is safe.
Rose is a student at the prestigious and cutthroat institution of magical learning, Dunhollow Academy. The only problem is that she can’t cast a single spell––something her chancellor mother and pretentious peers won’t let her forget. Worst among them is Sylvie, the school’s top caster, and Rose’s academic rival.
At the start of her third year, Rose must deal with not only the Academy’s expectations of her, but the presence of a vicious ghost, Aveline—a first year student whose sudden and mysterious disappearance was covered up last term.
Rose is the only person who can see Aveline’s ghost, a secret she is keeping from everyone, even her best friend, Fen. When Sylvie’s ghost appears, Rose realizes that death is following the students at Dunhollow.
Forced to team up, Rose and Sylvie find themselves tangled up in a web of old, dark magic and a dangerous secret Order. The deeper Rose and Sylvie search for answers, the darker the lies become. The clock is ticking, and Rose and Sylvie need to act fast before another student is claimed.
Non-Fiction
MAMA by Nikkya Hargrove
In this searing and ultimately uplifting memoir, Lambda Literary Nonfiction Fellow Nikkya Hargrove describes how she—fresh out of college, Black, and queer—adopted her baby brother after their often incarcerated mother died, and how she determined to create the kind of family she never had.
Growing up, Nikkya Hargrove’s mother was in and out of prison. Hargrove, one of the 5 million children dealing with the effects of an incarcerated parent, spent a good portion of her childhood in prison visiting rooms but almost never actually living with her mother. In Hargrove’s case, though, life got even more complicated when her mother—addicted to cocaine and just out of prison—had a son. When that child was just months old, Hargrove’s mother died and Hargrove, who had just graduated from college, decided to fight for custody of her half brother.
And fight she does. We see how she is subjected to preconceived notions that she, a Black, queer, young woman, cannot be given such responsibility. She’s honest about the shame she feels accepting food stamps, about her family’s reaction to her coming out, and about the joy she experiences when she meets the woman who will become her wife. But whether she’s clashing with Jonathan’s biological father or battling for Jonathan’s education rights after he’s diagnosed with ADHD and autism, this is a woman who won’t give up.
Hargrove’s memoir picks up where Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy left off, exploring generational trauma and pulling back the curtain on family court and poverty in America. Moving and inspiring, Mama is an ode to motherhood and identity, to never giving up, and to finding strength in family and community
