Must-Have Monday #219

Posted 13th January 2025 by Sia in Must-Have Mondays / 0 Comments

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.

EIGHT books this week!

(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)

Lupus in Fabula by Briar Ripley Page
Genres: Adult, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: 13th January 2025
Goodreads

Lupus In Fabula collects thirteen stories about the interplay of lust, violence, yearning, and grief; about becoming a monster and loving monsters; about transformation; about strange occurrences in sad, mundane lives. Whether you prefer witches and werewolves, grisly body horror, or surreal scenes of small town decay, this collection offers something to sink your fangs into.

Not sure how this one ended up on my radar and pretty sure it’ll give me nightmares, but I do not disapprove!

Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Hawaiian nonbinary lesbian MC
Published on: 14th January 2025
Goodreads

HAMMAJANG | adjective. Definition: In a disorderly or chaotic state; messed up. Chiefly in predicative use, esp. in all hammajang. Etymology: A borrowing from Hawaiian Pidgin. Source: Oxford English Dictionary.

Edie is done with crime. Eight years behind bars changes a person - costs them too much time with too many of the people who need them most.

And it's all Angel's fault. She sold Edie out in what should have been the greatest moment of their lives. Instead, Edie was shipped off to the icy prison planet spinning far below the soaring skybridges and neon catacombs of Kepler space station - of home - to spend the best part of a decade alone.

But then a chance for early parole appears out of nowhere and Edie steps into the pallid sunlight to find none other than Angel waiting - and she has an offer.

One last job. One last deal. One last target. The trillionaire tech god they failed to bring down last time. There's just one thing Edie needs to do - trust Angel again - which also happens to be the last thing Edie wants to do. What could possibly go all hammajang about this plan?

Ocean's 8 meets Blade Runner in this trail-blazing debut science fiction novel and swashbuckling love letter to Hawai'i about being forced to find a new home and striving to build a better one - unmissable for fans of Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir and Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo.

A must for fans of sci fi heists! Which I am not, alas, but I’ve still liked excerpts from this one and I have massively enjoyed the author talking about the Hawaiian rep!

Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
Genres: Adult, Sci Fi
Representation: Disabled Nigerian MC
Published on: 14th January 2025
Goodreads

The future of storytelling is here.

Life has thrown Zelu some curveballs over the years, but when she's suddenly dropped from her university job and her latest novel is rejected, all in the middle of her sister's wedding, her life is upended. Disabled, unemployed and from a nosy, high-achieving, judgmental family, she's not sure what comes next.

In her hotel room that night, she takes the risk that will define her life - she decides to write a book VERY unlike her others. A science fiction drama about androids and AI after the extinction of humanity. And everything changes.

What follows is a tale of love and loss, fame and infamy, of extraordinary events in one world, and another. And as Zelu's life evolves, the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur.

Because sometimes a story really does have the power to reshape the world.

From most authors I’d dismiss ‘the future of storytelling is here’ as grandstanding, but from Okorafor, I’m hopeful it might actually be true!

We Lived on the Horizon by Erika Swyler
Genres: Adult, Sci Fi
Published on: 14th January 2025
Goodreads

A novel about a bio-prosthetic surgeon and her personal AI as they are drawn into a catastrophic war.

The city of Bulwark is aptly a walled city built to protect and preserve the people who managed to survive a series of great cataclysms, Bulwark was founded on a system where sacrifice is rewarded by the AI that runs the city. Over generations, an elite class has evolved from the descendants of those who gave up the most to found mankind’s last stronghold, called the Sainted.

Saint Enita Malovis, long accustomed to luxury, feels the end of her life and decades of work as a bio-prosthetist approaching. The lone practitioner of her art, Enita is determined to preserve her legacy and decides to create a physical being, called Nix, filled with her knowledge and experience. In the midst of her project, a fellow Sainted is brutally murdered and the city AI inexplicably erases the event from its data. Soon, Enita and Nix are drawn into the growing war that could change everything between Bulwark’s hidden underclass and the programs that impose and maintain order.

A complex, imaginative, and unforgettable novel, We Lived on the Horizon grapples with concepts as varied as the human desire for utopia, body horror, and what the future holds for humanity and machine alike.

I’ve not read Book of Speculation, but this premise has had its hooks in me since I first came across it. I’m not sure why! Just. Kinda obsessed with the idea of descendants of a meritocracy based on virtue???

The In-Between Bookstore by Edward Underhill
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Speculative Fiction
Representation: Trans MC
Published on: 14th January 2025
Goodreads

A poignant and enchanting novel about a magical bookstore that transports a trans man through time and brings him face-to-face with his teenage self, offering him the chance of a lifetime to examine his life and identity to find a new beginning.

When Darby finds himself unemployed and in need of a fresh start, he moves back to the small Illinois town he left behind. But Oak Falls has changed almost as much as he has since he left.

One thing is familiar: In Between Books, Darby’s refuge growing up and eventual high school job. When he walks into the bookstore now, Darby feels an eerie sense of déjà vu—everything is exactly the same. Even the newspapers are dated 2009. And behind the register is a teen who looks a lot like Darby did at sixteen. . . who just might give Darby the opportunity to change his own present for the better—if he can figure out how before his connection to the past vanishes forever.

The In-Between Bookstore is a stunning novel of love, self-discovery, and the choices that come with both, for anyone who has ever wondered what their life might be like if they had the chance to go back and take a bigger, braver risk.

I have only heard good things about this one; it promises many Feels!

Lightfall (The Everlands Trilogy, #1) by Ed Crocker
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC/s
Published on: 14th January 2025
Goodreads

An epic fantasy of vampires, werewolves and sorcerers, Lightfall is the debut novel of Ed Crocker, for fans of Jay Kristoff’s Empire of the Vampire and Richard Swan’s The Justice of Kings.

No humans here. Just immortals: their politics, their feuds—and their long buried secrets.

For centuries, vampires freely roamed the land until the Grays came out of nowhere, wiping out half the population in a night. The survivors fled to the last vampire city of First Light, where the rules are simple. If you’re poor, you drink weak blood. If you’re nobility, you get the good stuff. And you can never, ever leave.

Palace maid Sam has had enough of these rules, and she’s definitely had enough of cleaning the bedpans of the lords who enforce them. When the son of the city’s ruler is murdered and she finds the only clue to his death, she seizes the chance to blackmail her way into a better class and better blood. She falls in with the Leeches, a group of rebel maids who rein in the worst of the Lords. Soon she’s in league with a sorcerer whose deductive skills make up for his lack of magic, a deadly werewolf assassin and a countess who knows a city’s worth of secrets.

There’s just one problem. What began as a murder investigation has uncovered a vast conspiracy by the ruling elite, and now Sam must find the truth before she becomes another victim. If she can avoid getting murdered, she might just live forever.

Here for a world without humans, please and thank you!

How To Survive This Fairytale by S. M. Hallow
Genres: Adult, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC
Published on: 16th January 2025
Goodreads

You are not a hero.
You don't get your True Love.
This is the part where you lose everything.
This is the part where you rewrite your story.

After losing everything in service to the Evil Queen, and driven to the edge of sanity by a cruel narrator who won't let him die, Hansel must bring himself to do the forge his own destiny or give up on his Happily Ever After.

For fans of T. Kingfisher's THORNHEDGE and Tamsyn Muir's HARROW THE NINTH, comes a story crafted by S. M. Hallow. Twining together a dark fairy tale retelling with mental health and disability representation plus queer normative world-building splashed with a cozy horror game vibe, HOW TO SURVIVE THIS FAIRYTALE is rewriting Happily Ever Afters.

…I am very intrigued. That blurb is so mysterious, and I need answers. I am also wary, because I have been promised tragedy…but answers, I need them!!!

The Baby Dragon Café (The Baby Dragon, #1) by Aamna Qureshi
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Published on: 16th January 2025
Goodreads

The perfect read for fans of Pumpkin Spice Café and Legends and Lattes!

When Saphira opened up her café for baby dragons and their humans, she wasn’t expecting it to be so difficult to keep the fires burning. It turns out, young dragons are not the best magical animals to keep in a café, and replacing all that burnt furniture is costing Saphira more than she can afford from selling dragon-roasted coffee.

Aiden is a local gardener, and local heart-throb, more interested in his plants than actually spending time with his disobedient baby dragon. When Aiden walks into Saphira’s café, he has a genius idea – he'll ask Saphira to train his baby dragon, and he'll pay her enough to keep the café afloat.

Saphira’s happy-go-lucky attitude doesn’t seem to do anything but irritate the grumpy-but-gorgeous Aiden, except that everywhere she goes, she finds him there. But can this dragon café owner turn her fortunes around, and maybe find love along the way?

It’ll be a while longer before we get the paper edition, but the ebook is out this week! And I will be pouncing on it, obviously, because BABY DRAGONS! That’s genuinely all I need to be sold on a book, please and thank you!

Will you be reading any of these? Did I miss any releases you think I should know about? Let me know!

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