Must-Have Monday is a feature highlighting which of the coming week’s new releases I’m excited for. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all books being published that week; only those I’m interested in out of those I’m aware of! The focus is diverse SFF, but other genres sneak in occasionally too.
TWELVE books this week!
(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Published on: 10th July 2023
Goodreads
Passionate, idealistic Rose Tregarth may have been invited into her uncle's remote home in the heart of Wales as an act of kindness to a poor relation, but it doesn't take her long to realize that her newly-met family members are eccentric, creative, deeply lovable - and in need of all the help they can get. If the crumbling medieval walls of Gogodd Abbey aren't to collapse around their heads at any moment, someone will have to step up and take charge of the situation. Fortunately for all of them, Rose has never lacked in determination.
Add in more and more mysteriously appearing little dragons and a threatening new neighbor who could easily star as the villain in one of her aunt's Gothic novels, and Rose is soon up to her ears in plots and schemes to save all the people and beasts she's come to love...with the help of a sweet, baffled dragon scholar whom Rose has swept into a fake betrothal for purely temporary, practical purposes.
With her fierce, loyal heart, Rose is more than ready to take care of everyone around her, dragons and humans alike. However, it may take an act of true magic to clear her eyes to the future - and the gentleman - she desires for herself.
Burgis is one of my go-to authors for delightful escapism, and Claws and Contrivances is the second book in her Regency Dragons series! I’m pretty sure this works as a standalone though, so you can dive right in if you don’t want to read the first book first!
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Brown cast, bi/pansexual MC, M/M, minor nonbinary characters
Published on: 11th July 2023
Goodreads
Nestled at the head of a supercontinent, framed by sky and sea, lies Luriat, the city of bright doors. The doors are everywhere in the city, squatting in walls where they don’t belong, painted in vivid warning. They watch over a city of art and avarice, of plagues and pogroms, and silently refuse to open. No one knows what lies beyond them, but everyone has their own theory and their own relationship to the doors. Researchers perform tests and take samples, while supplicants offer fruit and flowers and hold prayer circles. Many fear the doors as the source of hauntings from unspeakable realms. To a rare unchosen few, though, the doors are both a calling and a bane. Fetter is one of those few.
When Fetter was born, his mother tore his shadow from him. She raised him as a weapon to kill his sainted father and destroy the religion rising up in his sacred footsteps. Now Fetter is unchosen, lapsed in his devotion to both his parents. He casts no shadow, is untethered by gravity, and sees devils and antigods everywhere he goes. With no path to follow, Fetter would like to be anything but himself. Does his answer wait on the other side of one of Luriat’s bright doors?
This is a wildly unique fantasy I couldn’t put down, a surprisingly easy read given how many layers there are to the story, and how heavy some of the themes are. Can’t recommend it enough!
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Asian-coded sapphic MC, F/F, nonbinary secondary character
Published on: 11th July 2023
Goodreads
The dust may have settled in the war of conquest between the Holy Vaalbaran Empire and the Ominirish Republic, but the Empire’s surrender means little. Especially to a lowly scribe like Enitan, given her country’s continuing status as a Vaalbaran province. All she wants is to quit her day job and expand her fledgling tea business. But when imperial agents assassinate her lover and abduct her sibling, Enitan abandons her idyllic plans and embarks on a rescue mission, weaving her tea tray up through the heart of the Vaalbaran capital.
Her enemies are countless, clever, and powerful beyond measure. There’s a new God-Emperor on the throne, and her reign promises to change the continent forever. And as Enitan sinks deeper into the Empire’s bloody conspiracies, she discovers just how far she’s willing to go to exact vengeance, save her sibling, and perhaps even restore her homeland’s freedom.
This one’s an entertaining read if you can suspend your disbelief enough to accept the heavy reliance on coincidences to move the story forward.
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Chinese MC
Published on: 11th July 2023
Goodreads
Julia Vee and Ken Bebelle's Ebony Gate is a female John Wick story with dragon magic set in contemporary San Francisco’s Chinatown.
Emiko Soong belongs to one of the eight premier magical families of the world. But Emiko never needed any magic. Because she is the Blade of the Soong Clan. Or was. Until she’s drenched in blood in the middle of a market in China, surrounded by bodies and the scent of blood and human waste as a lethal perfume.
The Butcher of Beijing now lives a quiet life in San Francisco, importing antiques. But when a shinigami, a god of death itself, calls in a family blood debt, Emiko must recover the Ebony Gate that holds back the hungry ghosts of the Yomi underworld. Or forfeit her soul as the anchor.
What's a retired assassin to do but save the City by the Bay from an army of the dead?
A female John Wick story with dragon magic??? You DEFINITELY have my attention!
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 11th July 2023
Goodreads
A stormsinger and pirate hunter join forces against a deathless pirate lord in this swashbuckling Jacobean adventure on the high-seas.
Launching the Winter Sea series, full of magic, betrayal, redemption and fearsome women, for readers of Adrienne Young, R. J. Barker and Naomi Novik.
Mary Firth is a Stormsinger: a woman whose voice can still hurricanes and shatter armadas. Faced with servitude to pirate lord Silvanus Lirr, Mary offers her skills to his arch-rival in exchange for protection - and, more importantly, his help sending Lirr to a watery grave. But her new ally has a vendetta of his own, and Mary's dreams are dark and full of ghistings, spectral creatures who inhabit the ancient forests of her homeland and the figureheads of ships.
Samuel Rosser is a disgraced naval officer serving aboard The Hart, an infamous privateer commissioned to bring Lirr to justice. He will stop at nothing to capture Lirr, restore his good name and reclaim the only thing that stands between himself and madness: a talisman stolen by Mary.
Finally, driven into the eternal ice at the limits of their world, Mary and Samuel must choose their loyalties and battle forces older and more powerful than the pirates who would make them slaves.
Come sail the Winter Sea, for action-packed, high-stakes adventures, rich characterisation and epic plots full of intrigue and betrayal.
I’ve heard very good things about Dark Water Daughter, and I love the sound of the stormsingers. A person who can take on an armada single-handedly??? I love big, powerful magics, so yes, I’m here for this!
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F
Published on: 11th July 2023
Goodreads
The lands of Jeenobi and Aelshia are separated by hundreds of miles of dangerous desert, and antithetical views on dragons. Now, under a tenuous new peace agreement, Jeenobi has agreed to ban dragon slaying within its borders.
As a visiting ambassador to Jeenobi and a rider to the dragon Loren, Litz expected to meet resistance to all she represents. She did not expect Kella, the kingdom’s most famous living dragon slayer, and she certainly didn’t expect to find her attractive.
When Litz is forced into extraditing Kella to Aelshia for trial, they’ll discover more monstrous things in the wilds of the desert than each other, and they’ll need to put aside their differences if they want to survive. The future of both nations may hang in the balance.
Dragons + politics sounds like an amazing combination, so I have high hopes for this one!
Genres: Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer Indian MC
Published on: 11th July 2023
Goodreads
For fans of Shuggie Bain and A Burning, a queer coming-of-age novel set in 1990s India, about a young man who joins a traveling theater troupe.
Shagun knows he will never be the kind of son his father demands. After the sudden deaths of his beloved twin sisters, Shagun flees his own guilt, his mother’s grief, and his father’s violent disapproval by enrolling at an all-boys boarding school. But he doesn’t find true belonging until he encounters a traveling theater troupe performing the Hindu myths of his childhood.
Welcomed by the other storytellers, Shagun thrives, easily embodying mortals and gods, men and women, and living on the road, where his father can’t catch him. When Shagun meets Marc, a charming photographer, he seems to have found the love he always longed for, too. But not even Marc can save him from his lingering shame, nor his father’s ever-present threat to send him to a conversion center. As Shagun’s past begins to engulf him once again, he must decide if he is strong enough to face what he fears most, and to boldly claim his own happiness.
Utterly immersive and spellbinding, The Sea Elephants is both dark and beautiful, harrowing and triumphant. An ode to the redemptive joys of art, Shastri Akella’s debut novel is a celebration of hard-won love—of others and for ourselves.
I don’t pick up literary fiction very often, but I’ve heard nothing but great things about Sea Elephants, so I’m quite tempted…
Genres: Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F
Published on: 11th July 2023
Goodreads
Next in the #1 Sunday Times bestselling series, New York Times bestselling author Kate Mosse returns with The Ghost Ship , a sweeping historical epic of adventure on the high seas.
The Barbary Coast, 1621. A mysterious vessel floats silently on the water. It is known only as the Ghost Ship . For months it has hunted pirates to liberate those enslaved by corsairs, manned by a courageous crew of mariners from Italy and France, Holland and the Canary Islands.
But the bravest men on board are not who they seem. And the stakes could not be higher. If arrested, they will be hanged for their crimes. Can they survive the journey and escape their fate?
A sweeping and epic love story, ranging from France in 1610 to Amsterdam and the Canary Islands in the 1620s, The Ghost Ship is a thrilling novel of adventure and buccaneering, love and revenge, stolen fortunes and hidden secrets on the high seas.
Officially Ghost Ship is the third book in a series, but I’ve been assured they all work as standalones – which is fortunate, because sapphic pirates are the ones I’m interested in, rather than the previous books!
Genres: Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F
Published on: 11th July 2023
Goodreads
15-year-old Corinth was just trying to clean up the beach; she never expected to meet a mermaid, let alone be nearly drowned by one. It was the start of a very strange friendship!
After Skylla, the deadly fanged mermaid, mysteriously lets Corinth live, they grow closer through a cautious exchange of stories, gifts, jokes, and sign language. Mermaids, it turns out, eat people, but however terrifying Skylla may look, she’s a little younger, a little smaller, and perhaps a little too soft for all that. Bewitched by Corinth and their growing bond, she learns about all the best things in life on land: books, burgers, donuts, and this strange chattering human sound called laughter. But a storm is brewing – both at sea and in Corinth’s increasingly dangerous relationship with her obsessively jealous boyfriend – and a magical bargain may be the only thing that can save her, at a tremendous cost.
A whimsical dark fantasy retelling of “The Little Mermaid,” The Sea in You upends everything you thought you knew about magical creatures of the deep, on a whirlwind journey to a whole new world you’ve only dreamed of before!
There’s been a bit of confusion around the pub date for this – it might be out next week instead? – but I’m so excited for it I’m going ahead and featuring it anyway. Worst-case scenario, I feature it next week as well, no big deal!
After seeing some panels of Sea In You on social media, I literally cannot wait to dive in (hah!) to this one – it looks gorgeous and complex with some really interesting merpeople worldbuilding!
Genres: Sci Fi
Representation: Black MC
Published on: 11th July 2023
Goodreads
From the author of The Sound of Stars and The Kindred comes a YA space opera about a reincarnated god and a grumpy pilot on a mission to save a beloved space DJ and stop an intergalactic war.
Zaira Citlali is supposed to die. After all, she’s the god Indigo reborn. Indigo, whose song created the universe and unified people across galaxies to banish Ozvios, the god of destruction. Although Zaira has never been able to harness Indigo’s powers, the Ilori Emperor wants to sacrifice her in Ozvios’s honor. Unless she escapes and finds Wesley, the boy prophesized to help her defeat Ozvios and the Ilori, once and for all.
Wesley Daniels didn’t ask for this. He just wants to work as a smuggler so he can save enough money to explore the stars. Once he completes his biggest job yet—bringing wanted celebrity Rubin Rima to a strange planet called Earth—he’ll be set for life. But when his path crosses with Zaira, he soon finds himself in the middle of an intergalactic war with more responsibility than he bargained for.
Together, Zaira, Wesley, and Rubin must find their way to Earth and unlock Zaira’s powers if they’re going to have any hope of saving the universe from total destruction.
I’m always intrigued by stories about gods, or reincarnated gods, and Song of Salvation sounds like it promises a great deal of fun shenanigans!
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC, nonbinary Jewish secondary character
Published on: 11th July 2023
Goodreads
Swan Lake meets The Last Unicorn by way of the Brothers Grimm in a dreamy, original fairytale in verse which transports readers to the Bavarian Alps.
Bavaria. 1880. Hilde was dreamed into existence by the god Odin, and along with her five sisters, granted cloaks that transform them into swans. Each sister’s cloak is imbued with a unique gift, but Hilde rejects her gift which connects her to the souls of dying creatures and forces her to shepherd them into the afterlife—the “Other Wood.”
While guiding the soul of a hawk to the Other Wood, Hilde meets the handsome Baron Maximilian von Richter, whose father was once a favorite of the king and left him no inheritance. Hilde is intrigued by Richter’s longing for a greater life and strikes a deal with She will manifest his dreams of riches, and in return, he will take her to the human world, where she will never have to guide souls again.
But at the court of King Ludwig II in Munich, Hilde struggles to fit in. After learning that fashionable ladies are having themselves painted, she hires non-binary Jewish artist Franz Mendelson, and is stunned when Franz renders her with swan wings. The more time she spends with Franz, the more she feels drawn to the artist’s warm, understanding nature, and the more controlling Richter becomes. When Hilde’s swan cloak suddenly goes missing, only Franz’s ability to paint souls can help Hilde escape her newfound prison.
This is a novel-in-verse, which I don’t always enjoy, but A Warning About Swans sounds so lovely that I really want to give it a go!
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 15th July 2023
Goodreads
It's a long way from the northern mountains back to the summer lands—and all the challenges Aras left behind are waiting. Worse, no matter how Aras handles those problems, the summer king's judgment of his actions is certain to be harsh.
Released from every vow he ever swore to Aras, Ryo could remain among his own people. But he can't abandon Aras to confront his king alone—especially as the struggle they endured in the land of the shades still haunts them both.But, as they journey south, Ryo realizes that Aras may be losing control of his sorcery. Even if Ryo can persuade the summer king to judge Aras kindly, that may only be the beginning of the challenges they face. If Aras' strength of will fails, even Ugaro stubbornness may not be enough to prevent disaster…
I think this is the last (planned) book in Neumeier’s Tuyo series. I’m very late to these books, but I adore them and encourage you to give them a go!
Will you be reading any of these? Let me know!
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