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 Dazzling by Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ!
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Nigerian cast + setting
Published on: 16th February 2023
Goodreads
Soon you will become the thing all other beasts fear.
Treasure and her mother lost everything when Treasure's daddy died. Haggling for scraps in the market, Treasure meets a spirit who promises to bring her father back - but she has to do something for him first.
Ozoemena has an itch in the middle of her back that can't be scratched. An itch that speaks to her patrilineal destiny, to defend her people by becoming a leopard. Her father impressed upon her what an honour this was before he vanished, but it's one she couldn't want less - she has enough to worry about as she tries to fit in at a new school.
But as the two girls reckon with their burgeoning wildness and the legacy of decisions made by their fathers, Ozoemena's fellow students start to vanish. Treasure and Ozoemena will face terrible choices as each must ask herself: in a world that always says 'no' to women, what must two young girls sacrifice to get what is theirs?
Dazzling is actually out TOMORROW (in the UK – the US has to wait until December!) and while I did include it in this week’s Must-Have Monday post, I’ve seen so little chatter about this book in my corner of SFF space that I decided to hype it up a wee bit more. I think it deserves it!
What made me sit up and pay attention, when Dazzling crossed my dash, was the reference to Leopard Men in the blurb (‘to defend her people by becoming a leopard’). I won’t pretend for a second that I’m especially knowledgeable about the myths of African countries, but I came across the Leopard Men while researching a project a few years ago and was fascinated. Actually, suggesting there was just one group of Leopard Men is inaccurate, because I’m pretty sure there were several leopard societies in different countries, but the one that’s probably the most well known (in white sources, anyway) is the Anyoto. Honestly, you have to properly dig to get trustworthy sources, because most of what’s written comes from white ‘anthropologists’ in the colonial period, and STRANGELY ENOUGH, it makes them out to be cannibals, savages, etc. Which less biased writings vehemently disagree with. There’s plenty of very cool speculation that Leopard Men might have at least partially inspired Marvel’s Black Panther.
Anyway, the point is: Leopard Men, or Leopard Men Societies, were (and are!) real groups, and the stories about them include the idea that they, you know, turn into leopards to protect their people. And so I’m a) really excited to see Emelụmadụ writing about them, because they’re really interesting and I massively appreciate fantasy that pulls from mythos’ I’m less familiar with (ENOUGH WITH THE GREEK MYTHS ALREADY) and b) even more excited by the idea of a girl finding or making her place in one of these societies, which, as far as I know and as is hinted at in the blurb, were men-only societies. I AM VERY HERE FOR GIRLS TAKING ON THE PATRIARCHY!
Which is clearly going to be a pretty big theme in the book, what with that last bit of the blurb: ‘in a world that always says ‘no’ to women, what must two young girls sacrifice to get what is theirs?’
The reviews have been GLOWING, and you can see what they’re talking about for yourself by reading the except of the book posted to Granta!
If you have access to the UK bookstores, you’ve still got time to preorder your copy; if you buy from the US, keep an eye out. I am VERY sure none of us want to miss this one!
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