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 The Mercy Makers by Tessa Gratton!

The Mercy Makers by Tessa Gratton
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, Epic Fantasy
Representation: Queer MC (and maybe polyamory?)
Published on: 17th June 2025
Goodreads

A talented heretic must decide between the pursuit of forbidden magic, or the ecstasy of forbidden love—either way, her choice will upend the world, in the start of a sweeping, romantic epic fantasy trilogy by New York Times bestselling author Tessa Gratton.

Can an empire trip and fall on a mere strand of silk?

Iriset is a prodigy and an outlaw. The daughter of a powerful criminal, she dons her alter ego Silk to create magical disguises for those in her father’s organization, but she longs to do more with her talent: to enhance what it means to be human by giving people wings, night-sight, and other abilities; to unlock the possibilities of gender and parenthood; to cure disease and even to end mortality itself.

Everything changes when her father is captured and sentenced to death. To save him, Iriset must infiltrate the palace and the empire’s fanatical ruling family. There, she realizes she has a chance—and an obligation—to bring down the entire corrupt system. She'll have to entangle herself in the lives of the emperor and his sister, getting them to trust and even to love her. But love is a two-way street, and Iriset’s own heart holds the most mysterious and impenetrable magic of all.

Lately I’ve been trying to use Can’t Wait Wednesdays to feature books that are soon-to-be-published – that are just a couple of weeks or months away.

BUT WE GOT THIS COVER YESTERDAY AND I COULD NOT RESIST!

Listen: it’s by Tessa Gratton. If you think I will not pounce on ANYTHING Gratton writes, you are simply Wrong.

The press release for the book deal mentioned ‘the magic of human architecture’, a deeply forbidden practice that can be used ‘to enhance what it means to be human by giving people wings, night-sight, and other abilities; to unlock the possibilities of gender and parenthood; to cure disease and even to end mortality itself.‘

YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW LOUD I SHRIEKED WHEN I FIRST READ THAT.

And especially, specifically, because it’s coming from Gratton. They have been playing with gender and what-counts-as-human for a while, in several of their books, but this makes it sound as though everything that’s come before has been building to Mercy Makers.

THAT IS EXTREMELY EXCITING!!!

The blurb from the press release does kind of hint that we might be getting poly – I hope so! Gratton has written it before, so it’s more likely than it could be. But I’m much more interested in what Gratton shared in her newsletter when they talked about the cover yesterday. Iriset being full of (the smug kind of) pride? Cathedrals? Sword-in-chalice vibes? All on top of the ‘human architecture’?

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

THIS IS GONNA BE SO FREAKING EPIC!

And you’d better believe I’m ordering a signed copy! (Link in the newsletter link!)

WHY IS IT NOT JUNE YET?!

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