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.
SEVEN 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, Horror, Sci Fi, Speculative Fiction
Representation: Black MCs
Published on: 4th February 2025
Goodreads
An unprecedented collection of the best of contemporary Black speculative fiction, featuring 20 mindblowing, horror-strewn, weird, woke, award-winning tales
Black speculative fiction has never been better than it is here and now. On the shoulders of Afrofuturist masters like Octavia E. Butler and Samuel R. Delany and pioneering visionaries before them, a new, abundant, and brilliant generation of contemporary writers, some of them just beginning their careers, is conjuring up a very real renaissance.
Edited by SF-expert andré carrington, and including Hugo, Nebula, and Locus award winners alongside emerging and experimental voices, The Black Fantastic showcases the artistry of these breakout literary stars and celebrates the diversity of their talents.
Here are twenty mindblowing, horror-strewn, weird, woke, nerdy, terrifying, liberating, fantastic, utopian, surreal, genre-defying and empowering short stories, all of them worth reading and rereading now and far into futurity. Reclaiming histories of racism and oppression and seizing the day, these writers are forging kaleidoscopic new senses of Black identity, community, and imaginative freedom.
This sounds like an amazing collection! And a good chance to find more brilliant BIPOC authors to be following!
Genres: Adult, Horror
Representation: Black MC
Published on: 4th February 2025
Goodreads
A young girl must face a life-altering decision after awakening her sister’s ghost, navigating truths about love, friendship, and power as the Civil War looms.
Sixteen years old and enslaved since she was born, Junie has spent her life on Bellereine Plantation in Alabama, cooking and cleaning alongside her family, and tending to the white master’s daughter, Violet. Her daydreams are filled with poetry and faraway worlds, while she spends her nights secretly roaming through the forest, consumed with grief over the sudden death of her older sister, Minnie.
When wealthy guests arrive from New Orleans, hinting at marriage for Violet and upending Junie’s life, she commits a desperate act—one that rouses Minnie’s spirit from the grave, tethered to this world unless Junie can free her. She enlists the aid of Caleb, the guests’ coachman, and their friendship soon becomes something more. Yet as long-held truths begin to crumble, she realizes Bellereine is harboring dark and horrifying secrets that can no longer be ignored.
With time ticking down, Junie begins to push against the harsh current that has controlled her entire life. As she grapples with an increasingly unfamiliar world in which she has little control, she is forced to ask herself: When we choose love and liberation, what must we leave behind?
I don’t generally read books featuring slavery, and I’m not sure I want to read this one – but I have been hearing amazing things about it. So maybe?
Genres: Adult, Horror
Published on: 4th February 2025
Goodreads
For fans of Jordan Peele’s films, Stranger Things, and The Other Black Girl, Listen To Your Sister is a laugh-out-loud, deeply terrifying, and big-hearted speculative horror novel from electrifying debut talent Neena Viel.
Twenty-five year old Calla Williams is struggling since becoming guardian to her brother, Jamie. Calla is overwhelmed and tired of being the one who makes sacrifices to keep the family together. Jamie, full of good-natured sixteen-year-old recklessness, is usually off fighting for what matters to him or getting into mischief, often at the same time. Dre, their brother, promised he would help raise Jamie–but now the ink is dry on the paperwork and in classic middle-child fashion, he’s off doing his own thing. And through it all, The Nightmare never stops haunting Calla: recurring images of her brothers dying that she is powerless to stop.
When Jamie’s actions at a protest spiral out of control, the siblings must go on the run. Taking refuge in a remote cabin that looks like it belongs on a slasher movie poster rather than an AirBNB, the siblings now face a new threat where their lives–and reality–hang in the balance. Their sister always warned them about her nightmares. They really should have listened.
Another Horror that’s been getting lots of praise! I don’t have any idea what form the Horror elements are going to take, though…
Genres: Queer Protagonists
Representation: Lesbian MC, gay MCs
Published on: 4th February 2025
Goodreads
A classic in the making: a mesmerizing novel about marriage and ambition, sexuality and secrecy, and the true costs of building an empire.
At the turn of the 20th century, Vivian Lesperance is determined to flee her origins in Utica, New York, and avoid repeating her parents' dull, limited life. When she meets Oscar Schmidt, a middle manager at a soap company, Vivian finds a partner she can guide to build the life she wants-not least because, more interested in men himself, Oscar will leave Vivian to tend to her own romances with women.
But Vivian's plans require capital, so the two pair up with Squire Clancey, scion of an old American fortune. Together they found Clancey & Schmidt, a preeminent manufacturer of soap, perfume, and candles. When Oscar and Squire fall in love, the trio form a new kind of partnership.
Vivian reaches the pinnacle of her power building Clancey & Schmidt into an empire of personal care products while operating behind the image of both men. But exposure threatens, and all three partners are made aware of how much they have to lose.
For readers of Hernan Diaz's Trust and Colm Tóibín's The Magician, with echoes of Gustave Flaubert and E.M. Forster, Mutual Interest is a beguiling story of queer romance, empire, and power.
Occasionally I read something that’s not SFF, and Mutual Interests sounds like something that could turn my brain off for a while (complimentary).
Genres: Fantasy, Secondary World Fantasy, YA
Published on: 4th February 2025
Goodreads
Ren’s quest to dismantle Kathor’s corrupt system comes to a head as political machinations and a mysterious disease take hold of the city in this edge-of-your-seat conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Waxways series.
After taking control of House Brood, Ren and Theo dreamed of using their newfound influence to change the rest of Kathor, but now they find their efforts being countered by the other great houses, who have no interest in a world where they enjoy less power.
No one understands that better than the Tin’Vori siblings. The return of their ancestral home was a decade in the making, but they’re eager to keep rising from the ashes. Nevelyn begins researching House Brood—and ends up face-to-face with an enemy that’s already slouching toward the gates of the city. The one enemy no one can avoid: a plague.
The victims experience strange bruising, an unquenchable thirst, and a temporary disruption in magic. When doctors trace the illness to its source, they find another mystery: corpses placed in strategic locations around the city. As Ren leads the hunt for the culprits, she’ll find herself two steps behind a devious enemy whose sights are set on an unexpected prize: the city’s magic.
Survival will require every ounce of their skill, every bond old and new, or else the future Ren and Theo have worked to build will burn down with the rest of the world.
WAXWAYS FINALE WAXWAYS FINALE AHHHHHHHHH!
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, MG
Representation: Iranian-American MC
Published on: 4th February 2025
Goodreads
In this transporting and suspenseful companion to the New York Times bestselling Once There Was, Marjan travels around the globe in search of a mythical bird in terrible danger, whose fate could determine the future of the world.
Marjan Dastani is successfully leading a double life. Only a few people know that when she’s not in school, she travels the world taking care of mythical beasts, sent on missions by a shadowy organization known as The Fells.
In an adventure that takes her across continents and connects her with the wildest of mythic beasts around the globe, Marjan must track down the fabled Bird of a Thousand Stories before someone with more nefarious plans finds it. But the more closely she connects with the world’s mythical creatures, the more danger she’s in of losing her friendships—and all that tethers her to the life she’s known.
A sequel to Once There Was! I’m constantly coveting stories about magical-creature vets, and this series could have been written for me!
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, MG, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Trans Jewish MC
Published on: 4th February 2025
Goodreads
A groundbreaking, action-packed, and ultimately uplifting adventure that intertwines elements of Jewish mythology with an unflinching examination of the impacts of transphobia, from Newbery Honor-winner Kyle Lukoff
“Kyle Lukoff has given us something rare and beautiful — a novel that combines wondrous fantasy, searing real-world relevance, and a frank empathetic understanding of the adolescent experience that hits so viscerally I can only compare it to the way my generation experienced Judy Blume. The way Lukoff combines these elements in a page-turning adventure is nothing short of magic!” –Rick Riordan, author of Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Covid lockdown is over, but A’s world feels smaller than ever. Coming out as trans didn’t exactly go well, and most days, he barely leaves his bedroom, let alone the house. But the low point of A’s life isn’t online school, missing his bar mitzvah, or the fact that his parents monitor his phone like hawks—it’s the weekly Save Our Sons and Daughters meetings his parents all but drag him to.
At SOSAD, A and his friends Sal and Yarrow sit by while their parents deadname them and wring their hands over a nonexistent “transgender craze.” After all, sitting in suffocating silence has to be better than getting sent away for “advanced treatment,” never to be heard from again.
When Yarrow vanishes after a particularly confrontational meeting, A discovers that SOSAD doesn’t just feel soul-sucking . . . it’s run by an actual demon who feeds off the pain and misery of kids like him. And it’s not just SOSAD—the entire world is beset by demons dining on what seems like an endless buffet of pain and bigotry.
But how is one trans kid who hasn’t even chosen a name supposed to save his friend, let alone the world? And is a world that seems hellbent on rejecting him even worth saving at all?
Not timely at all, or anything! Meep. Really looking forward to checking this are out; I’ve been hearing great things about this one too.
Will you be reading any of these? Did I miss any releases you think I should know about? Let me know!
Adding LISTEN TO YOUR SISTER and MUTUAL INTEREST to my TBR!
I’m reading Mutual Interests at the moment and really enjoying it (although it’s nothing like my usual reads!)