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.
THIRTEEN books this week!
(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Secondary World No Magic
Published on: 1st September 2024
Goodreads
A magical con artist and an actor turned revolutionary fight for freedom in an atmospheric fantasy debut where layered secrets and daring love clash on a stage of war.
On the coal-choked island of Luisonn, the tyrannical Stav Regime breeds rebellion among the working class. Firin, a face-changing con artist trained by her domineering father, dances between fake lives to escape punishment for her crimes—until armed rebels topple the regime. With freedom finally within her grasp, she discovers one of the heroes is her former lover, Bregan, who introduced her to her second the theater.
As the flames of revolt settle, Firin joins Bregan on the stage. She’s determined to create a life with the honorable man she never forgot. But like the past, love and truth are hard to hide—especially when one of Firin’s victims, now president, chooses Bregan as his right-hand man. Haunted by the sacrifices of revolution and devoted to the new government’s success, Bregan quickly rises in its ranks…
In a web of war and false identities, Firin must choose a side. But is the price of freedom her heart?
This seems to be a love it or hate it book, with the most common critique being that the main characters are unlikeable. But unlikeable characters can be so interesting! Let’s see.
(And yep, this should have been in last week’s post, but I learned about it too late!)
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Black cast
Published on: 3rd September 2024
Goodreads
The Cruel Prince meets Ninth House in this dangerously romantic dark academia fantasy, where a lost heiress must infiltrate an arcane society and live with the vampire she suspects killed her family and kidnapped her sister.
It began long before my time, but something has always hunted our family.
Orphaned heiress Kidan Adane grew up far from the arcane society she was born into, where human bloodlines gain power through vampire companionship. When her sister, June, disappears, Kidan is convinced a vampire stole her—the very vampire bound to their family, the cruel yet captivating Susenyos Sagad.
To find June, Kidan must infiltrate the elite Uxlay University—where students study to ensure peaceful coexistence between humans and vampires and inherit their family legacies. Kidan must survive living with Susenyos—even as he does everything he can to drive her away. It doesn’t matter that Susenyos’s wickedness speaks to Kidan’s own violent nature and tempts her to surrender to a life of darkness. She must find her sister and kill Susenyos at all costs.
When a murder mirroring June’s disappearance shakes Uxlay, Kidan sinks further into the ruthless underworld of vampires, risking her very soul. There she discovers a centuries-old threat—and June could be at the center of it. To save her sister, Kidan must bring Uxlay to its knees and either break free from the horrors of her own actions or embrace the dark entanglements of love—and the blood it requires.
Probably the book I’m most excited for this week! The snippets Girma’s posted on her social media have had me looking forward to Immortal Dark ALL YEAR, and I am very here for vampires originating in Africa! *grabby hands*
Genres: Adult, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Black MC
Published on: 3rd September 2024
Goodreads
A wildly entertaining debut from Michelle McGill-Vargas, American Ghoul deftly combines horror and social commentary—with a dash of a buddy comedy—in an innovative twist on the vampire genre.
You can’t kill someone already dead.
That’s what Lavinia keeps telling her jailer after—allegedly—killing her mistress, Simone Arceaneau. But how could Simone be dead when she was taking callers just a few minutes before? And why was her house always so dark?
Lavinia, a recently freed slave, met Simone, a recently undead vampire, on a plantation in post-Civil War Georgia. With nothing remaining for either woman in the South, the two form a fast friendship and head north. However, Lavinia quickly learns that teaming up with this white woman may be more than she bargained for.
Simone is reckless and impulsive—which would’ve been bad enough on its own, but when combined with her particular diet Lavinia finds herself in way over her head. As she is forced to repeatedly compromise her morals and struggle to make lasting human connections, Lavinia begins to wonder if is she truly free or if has she merely exchanged one form of enslavement for another. As bodies pile up in the small Indiana town they’ve settled in, people start to take a second look at the two newcomers, and Simone and Lavinia’s relationship is stretched to its breaking point...
That premise doesn’t sound funny to me – even though the blurb promises us buddy-comedy – but it’s definitely INTERESTING, and I’m looking forward to pouncing on this one! $10 says Arceaneau was also a vampire…
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Science Fantasy
Representation: Nonbinary MC, MLM MC
Published on: 3rd September 2024
Goodreads
In the distant future, when mortals mingle with the gods in deep space, an out-of-date automaton, a recovering addict, and an angel race to solve the Pope’s murder in an abandoned corner of the galaxy.
Scribe IV is an obsolete automaton, peacefully whiling away his years on the Bastion, a secluded monastery in an abandoned corner of the galaxy. But when the visiting Pope is found murdered, Scribe IV knows he has very little time before the terrifying Sisters of the Drowned Deep rise up to punish the Bastion’s residents for their crime.
Quin, a recovering drug addict turned private investigator, picks up a scrambled signal from the Bastion and agrees to take the case. Traumatized by a bizarre experience in his childhood, Quin repeatedly feeds his memories to his lover, the angel Murmuration. But fragmented glimpses of an otherworldly horror he calls the crawling dark continue to haunt his dreams.
Meanwhile in Heaven, an angel named Angel hears Scribe IV’s prayer. Intrigued by the idea of solving a crime with mortals, xe descends to offer xer divine assistance (whether those mortals want it or not). With the Drowned Sisters closing in around the Bastion, Scribe IV, Quin, and Angel race to find out who really murdered the Pope, and why. Quin’s missing memories may hold the key to the case—but is remembering worth the price?
Haunting, dreamy and beautifully written, Out of the Drowning Deep is perfect for fans of Becky Chambers, Martha Wells, and This Is How You Lose the Time War.
I loved this one – it’s convinced me I need to go read everything else Wise has ever published! So many things going on that would turn into a mess in the hands of a lesser storyteller, but here they’re pretty perfect!
You can read an excerpt here, and my review here!
Genres: Adult, Science Fantasy
Published on: 3rd September 2024
Goodreads
Whoever rules the bees, rules the world. A dark fantasy adventure with a twist of Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
On a planet stripped of wind, entire ecosystems lie in ashes, leaving humans to the mercy of a sole surviving bee species on a remote isle. Whoever wins the Praxis to rule them as Keeper, rules the world.
When the next Keeper goes missing, her little sister must not only face her debilitating fear of bees, but compete in the Praxis to find her. As she braves the eerie fortress with sprawling wings of hives, murmuring murals, deceptive hedge mazes, and a host of leering gargoyles, she must also face the reigning Keeper, who’s guarding the darkest secret of all.
This one didn’t quite work for me, but I really do think a lot of other readers will love it! The set-up and world Fikes has created is really unique.
Genres: Adult, Science Fantasy
Representation: Brown MC, secondary queer character
Published on: 3rd September 2024
Goodreads
Invisible Cities meets sentient gargoyles
In the parched, post-apocalyptic Western U.S. of the 22nd Century, wolves float, bonfires sing, and devils gather to pray. Water and safety are elusive in this chaotic world of alchemical transformations, where history books bleed, dragons kiss, and gun-toting trees keep their own kind of peace.
Among this menagerie of strange beasts, two sentient stone gargoyles, known only as “E” and “M,” flee the rubble of their Southwestern church in search of water. Along the way, they meet climate refugees Rose Baker and her mother Dolores, who’ve escaped the ravaged West Coast in search of a safer home. This quartet forms an uneasy alliance when they hear of a new hope: a mysterious city of dancing gargoyles. Or is it something more sinister? In this strange, terrible new world, their arrival at this elusive city could spark the destruction of everything they know.
Tara Campbell summons fantastical magic in this kaleidoscopic new speculative climate fiction.
As you might guess from the blurb, this one is VERY weird, so if weird is your jam you might want to look this up!
Genres: Fantasy, YA
Published on: 3rd September 2024
Goodreads
An atmospheric, haunting, romantasy inspired by Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, set in a Regency England about two sisters fighting to hold on to their manor while deadly monsters prowl along its perimeters—perfect for fans of House of Salt and Sorrows and Anatomy: A Love Story.
Merrick Darling’s life as daughter of the Manor Lord of Sussex is better than most. Unlike the commoners, she is immune to the toxic fog that encroached on England generations earlier. She will never become a Phantom—one of the monstrous creatures that stalk her province’s borders—and as long as the fires burn to hold them back, her safety is ensured. She wants for nothing, yet she will never inherit her family’s Manor. She must marry smartly or live at the kindness of her elder sister, Essie.
Everything is turned on its head, though, when Merrick’s father dies suddenly. Torn from her New London society life of ball gowns and parties, Merrick must travel back to her childhood home, the Darling estate of Norland House, and what she finds there is bewildering. Once strong and capable, Essie is withdrawn and frightened—and with good cause. A recent string of attacks along the province’s borders has turned their formerly bucolic countryside into a terrifying and unpredictable landscape. The fog is closing in and the fires aren’t holding, which makes Merrick and Essie vulnerable in more ways than one. Because the Phantoms are far from the only monsters in Merrick’s world, and the other eleven Manor Lords are always watching for weakness.
Revealing her and her sister’s current state to the rest of the Manors is out of the question, but when Essie goes missing, it’s clear that Merrick needs help. Only, who can she trust when everyone seems to be scheming, and when all she holds true feels like it’s slipping right out of her grasp?
Talk about a stunning cover! I wouldn’t mind having this one on my wall; WOW. I haven’t read Sense and Sensibility – I don’t usually get along with classics – so I won’t be catching easter eggs, but this sounds like it could be great even without them! Always excited to see sibling relationships featuring, instead of romances!
Genres: Fantasy, YA
Published on: 3rd September 2024
Goodreads
Star-crossed lovers, against-all-odds friendship, and a brutally unforgiving world make this first in a trilogy utterly unforgettable.
We’re two songs joined. And there’s a word for that. A harmony.
Elsa is used to hiding the most important parts of herself—her feelings for Rye, her distaste for a world ruled by men, and, most crucially, her gift of songlight. She buries that secret deep inside. In Brightland, those with songlight are called Unhumans and are abhorred. Rye is the only other person Elsa has known with songlight, and their shared bond has brought them together.
Elsa’s world begins to fall apart one desperate, heart-wrenching day and she doesn’t know where to turn until a girl appears before her. But the girl isn’t really there—her songlight has been drawn to Elsa’s frantic grief.
Elsa lives in a remote seaside village; Nightingale, her new friend, lives in a city hundreds of miles away with her father, a government official responsible for rooting out Unhumans. The two never expected to connect via songlight. But when they do, and when they realize the extent of their power, they’ll be thrust in the middle of a war that threatens their very existence.
From an award-winning screenwriter making her novel debut comes this powerful, page-turning trilogy perfect for fans of Sabaa Tahir and Adrienne Young.
I think this might have been released in the UK already, but the US gets it this week! I may be slightly hypnotised by that cover…
Genres: Horror, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: Autistic trans MC
Published on: 3rd September 2024
Goodreads
Bestselling and award-winning author Andrew Joseph White returns with a queer Appalachian thriller, that pulls no punches, for teens who see the failures in our world and are pushing for radical change.
A gut-wrenching story following a trans autistic teen who survives an attempted murder, only to be drawn into the generational struggle between the rural poor and those who exploit them.
On the night Miles Abernathy—sixteen-year-old socialist and proud West Virginian—comes out as trans to his parents, he sneaks off to a party, carrying evidence that may finally turn the tide of the blood feud plaguing Twist Creek: Photos that prove the county’s Sheriff Davies was responsible for the so-called “accident” that injured his dad, killed others, and crushed their grassroots efforts to unseat him.
The feud began a hundred years ago when Miles’s great-great-grandfather, Saint Abernathy, incited a miners’ rebellion that ended with a public execution at the hands of law enforcement. Now, Miles becomes the feud’s latest victim as the sheriff’s son and his friends sniff out the evidence, follow him through the woods, and beat him nearly to death.
In the hospital, the ghost of a soot-covered man hovers over Miles’s bedside while Sheriff Davies threatens Miles into silence. But when Miles accidently kills one of the boys who hurt him, he learns of other folks in Twist Creek who want out from under the sheriff’s heel. To free their families from this cycle of cruelty, they’re willing to put everything on the line—is Miles?
A visceral, unabashedly political page-turner that won’t let you go until you’ve reached the end, Compound Fracture is not for the faint of heart, but it is for every reader who is ready to fight for a better world.
New Andrew Joseph White book! I feel like we’re getting a lot more stories set in Appalachia lately, and I do not disapprove!
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Nonbinary MC
Published on: 5th September 2024
Goodreads
'Come for the space archaeologists and adorably violent Pumpkin the cat, but stay for a science fiction novel that will repair your soul.’ Nadia El-Fassi
‘Wistful, loving, and indescribably beautiful. I'd call it required reading for the end of the world… a poignant masterpiece that transcends the death of stars.’ Olivia Atwater
‘A quietly profound story about grief, purpose, and our place in the universe – told with a touch of humor, and a dash of adventure. Come for the cat, stay for the story.’ Sunyi Dean
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A dying universe. A search for answers. An adventure at the end of a trillion lifetimes.
When the Home worlds finally achieved the technology to venture out into the stars, they found a graveyard of dead civilisations. What befell them is unknown. All Home knows is that they are the last ones left – and whatever came for the others will one day come for them.Scout is an Archivist who scours the dead worlds of the cosmos for their last gifts: interesting technology, cultural rituals – anything left behind that might be useful to Home and their survival. During an excavation on a lifeless planet, Scout unearths something unbelievable: a surviving message from an alien who witnessed the world-ending entity thousands of years ago.
Now Scout, their brother and their sometimes-fearless, space-faring cat, Pumpkin, must race to save what matters most.
I think this was initially self-pubbed, but now it’s getting a gorgeous trad edition! I love that cover! And everything I hear about this one just makes me more determined to get my mitts on it! ‘Come for the cat, stay for the story’ in particular sounds VERY propmising!
Genres: Adult, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Trans MC
Published on: 6th September 2024
Goodreads
THE CHURCH OF THE MOUNTAIN OF FLESH is a cosmic horror novel about mad artists, bodies spiralling out of control, and a trans man's merciless desperation.
Sole De Gasinis drowns his grief in wine and buries his hatred of his body in twisted sculptures. When, one drunken night on the beach, God orders him to rebuild his village's church, he knows he wasn't chosen for his piety.
Instead, he and God make a deal. If Sole rebuilds the church, God will give him the body of a man.
As Sole works in a frenzy for salvation, lifelong friendships decay, a village united to tear down its church fractures into pariahs and zealots, and power and grief reshape the prophet into a tyrant. Grief for a boy he fell in love with ten years ago, who claimed to be a virgin birth, who died in agony in the church crypt when the God inside him wanted out -- and whose monstrous remnant Sole must commune with for every piece of his prize.
This sounds SO fucked up, and I am hyped for it! Will it be too much for me to handle??? GUESS WE’LL FIND OUT!
You can read an excerpt of the first chapter here!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Horror
Representation: Queer MC
Published on: 6th September 2024
Goodreads
Sin is hot but purity is blistering.
Hordes of cannibalistic sun-vampires rule the daylight hours, forcing the remaining humans to adapt to a grubby, nocturnal existence. When she sacrifices everything to become a Sunbather, queer Soph discovers that the heterosexual commune is not the glowing paradise she'd hoped for, and her new immortal body still yearns for womanflesh. After discovering that the Sunbathers are building a solar lamp that will enable them to walk in permanent light, Soph must decide if she's willing to doom what's left of humanity just to finally fit in.
So many vampires this week! (I am not complaining at ALL.) These ones are – they don’t sound like simple daywalkers, it kinda sounds like they NEED sunlight??? Unsure, but I’ve loved what I’ve seen of the author’s social media, and I’ve been looking forward to this one since I heard about it!
Genres: Fantasy, YA
Published on: 7th September 2024
Goodreads
Secrets of Stone is an exciting new fantasy adventure novel from debut author Coltrane Seesequasis!
Centuries have passed since the forces of nature won the war against humanity. Sentient animals now rule a healing world, and as the stain of mankind continues to dwindle, a young wolf called Silversong is determined to rise in the hierarchy of his pack. Strong at manipulating wind and air, all he needs is a way to prove himself to his Chief.
Before he can gain the respect he deserves, however, Silversong’s aspirations are cut short by the Heretic and his outcast wolves. Against all odds, the Heretic and his band of exiles escape their imprisonment far to the west and wreak havoc on Silversong’s pack. The exiles pose a threat unlike any other, and their enigmatic leader won’t stop his brutal conquest until all wolfkind submits to him.
Silversong can’t let a monstrous wolf like the Heretic roam free. With the wind at his back, he pursues the leader of the exiles into forests of shadow and into ancient places better left forgotten. But the further he strays from home, the more he comes to realize that maybe his enemies aren’t so evil after all. Maybe there’s a reason for the destruction they seek… and maybe there’s a far greater danger lying in wait.
Secrets of Stone is Book One of a four-part Young Adult fantasy series called A Wolf in the Sun!
This one came to my attention because the author is Willow Cree, and I have a vague memory of someone somewhere saying that he drew on Cree inspiration for the story? I can’t find a source for that now, though, so I may have dreamed it up. Either way, worlds without humans in them often work well for me we’re not going to talk about what that says about me, thanks so I may try this out!
Will you be reading any of these? Did I miss any releases you think I should know about? Let me know!
Reverse vampires? Sunbathers sounds like an interesting read. :)
Right?!
I’m very excited to read, “Immortal Dark”!!!
I got my copy today and had to dnf :/ But it was my weird issue with prose, so it might not bother you! (Most people have no clue what I’m on about when I talk about it, which is probably a good thing!)