Let's start, because today we have a lot of books to talk about.
They are the women of war.
In ancient Themiscyra, Hippolyte rules as Queen of the Amazons. Feared throughout Greece, their skills on the battlefield are unmatched. But when a ship lands on their shores, it brings something more dangerous than the threat of war. It brings a future Hippolyte could never have dreamed of.
Swept away to Athens, Hippolyte learns a love that transcends even the bond of the Amazon women. Can she forget her warrior past and forge a new life she had never dreamed of?
With her sister gone, Penthesilea is left with no choice but to rise as the new Queen of the Amazons. She does so with a ferocity that sparks terror throughout the Aegean. Replacing her sister’s compassion and wisdom, Penthesilea rules with impulsiveness and might.
So when Hippolyte’s world starts to crumble it is up to Penthesilea to decide how far she will go to defend their honour.
Genre: Mythology Retelling
Sequel to: Athena's Child
A Spartan's Sorrow
Publisher: Medusa Publishing
And now on May 3rd...
Book Of Night by Holly BlackΑ modern dark fantasy of shadowy thieves and secret societies in the vein of Ninth House and The Night Circus
In Charlie Hall’s world, shadows can be altered, for entertainment and cosmetic preferences—but also to increase power and influence. You can alter someone’s feelings—and memories—but manipulating shadows has a cost, with the potential to take hours or days from your life. Your shadow holds all the parts of you that you want to keep hidden—a second self, standing just to your left, walking behind you into lit rooms. And sometimes, it has a life of its own.
Charlie is a low-level con artist, working as a bartender while trying to distance herself from the powerful and dangerous underground world of shadow trading. She gets by doing odd jobs for her patrons and the naive new money in her town at the edge of the Berkshires. But when a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie’s present life is thrown into chaos, and her future seems at best, unclear—and at worst, non-existent. Determined to survive, Charlie throws herself into a maelstrom of secrets and murder, setting her against a cast of doppelgangers, mercurial billionaires, shadow thieves, and her own sister—all desperate to control the magic of the shadows.
With sharp angles and prose, and a sinister bent, Holly Black is a master of shadow and story stitching. Remember while you read, light isn’t playing tricks in Book of Night, the people are.
Genre: Adult fantasy
Publisher: Tor Books
The Marvellers by Dhoniele ClaytonAuthor Dhonielle Clayton makes her middle-grade debut with a fantasy adventure set in a global magic school in the sky.
Eleven-year-old Ella Durand is the first Conjuror to attend the Arcanum Training Institute, where Marvellers from all around the world come together to practice their cultural arts like brewing Indian spice elixirs, practicing Caribbean steel drum hypnosis, and bartering with fussy Irish faeries. Ella knows some people mistrust her Conjuror magic, often deemed "bad and unnatural," but she's eager to make a good impression—and, hopefully, some friends.
But Ella discovers that being the first isn't easy, and not all of the Marvellers are welcoming. Still, she connects with fellow misfits Brigit, a girl who hates magic, and Jason, who is never found without a magical creature or two. Just as Ella begins to find her way at the A.T.I., a notorious criminal escapes from prison, supposedly with Conjurors’ help. Worse, her favorite teacher Masterji Thakur never returns from a research trip, and only Ella seems concerned about his disappearance.
As tensions grow in the Marvellian world, Ella finds herself the target of vicious rumors and growing suspicions. With the help of her new friends, Ella must find a way to clear her family's name and track down her beloved mentor Masterji Thakur . . . before she loses her place at the A.T.I. forever.
Genre: Middle Grade fantasy
Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
Bravely by Maggie Stiefvater
Merida goes on an all-new, life-changing adventure in this original YA novel set several years after the close of Brave!
What if you had one year to save everything you loved?
ONE PRINCESS. Merida of DunBroch needs a change. She loves her family—jovial King Fergus, proper Queen Elinor, the mischievous triplets— and her peaceful kingdom. But she’s frustrated by its sluggishness; each day, the same. Merida longs for adventure, purpose, challenge – maybe even, someday, love.
TWO GODS. But the fiery Princess never expects her disquiet to manifest by way of Feradach, an uncanny supernatural being tasked with rooting out rot and stagnation, who appears in DunBroch on Christmas Eve with the intent to demolish the realm – and everyone within. Only the intervention of the Cailleach, an ancient entity of creation, gives Merida a shred of hope: convince her family to change within the year – or suffer the eternal consequences.
THREE VOYAGES. Under the watchful eyes of the gods, Merida leads a series of epic journeys to kingdoms near and far in an attempt to inspire revolution within her family. But in her efforts to save those she loves from ruin, has Merida lost sight of the Clan member grown most stagnant of all – herself?
FOUR SEASONS TO SAVE DUNBROCH – OR SEE IT DESTROYED, FOREVER.
Genre: YA Fantasy
Publisher: Disney Press
Eyes of the Void (The Final Architecture #2) by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Arthur C. Clarke award-winning author of Children of Time brings us the second novel in an extraordinary space opera trilogy about humanity on the brink of extinction, and how one man's discovery will save or destroy us all.
After eighty years of fragile peace, the Architects are back, wreaking havoc as they consume entire planets. In the past, Originator artefacts – vestiges of a long-vanished civilization – could save a world from annihilation. This time, the Architects have discovered a way to circumvent these protective relics. Suddenly, no planet is safe.
Facing impending extinction, the Human Colonies are in turmoil. While some believe a unified front is the only way to stop the Architects, others insist humanity should fight alone. And there are those who would seek to benefit from the fractured politics of war – even as the Architects loom ever closer.
Idris, who has spent decades running from the horrors of his past, finds himself thrust back onto the battlefront. As an Intermediary, he could be one of the few to turn the tide of war. With a handful of allies, he searches for a weapon that could push back the Architects and save the galaxy. But to do so, he must return to the nightmarish unspace, where his mind was broken and remade.
What Idris discovers there will change everything.
Genre: Science Fiction
Sequel to: Shards of Earth
Publisher: Orbit
By the Book (Meant to be #2) by Jasmine Guillory
A tale as old as time—for a new generation…
Isabelle is completely lost. When she first began her career in publishing right out of college, she did not expect to be twenty-five, living at home, still an editorial assistant, and the only Black employee at her publishing house. Overworked and underpaid, constantly torn between speaking up or stifling herself, Izzy thinks there must be more to this publishing life. So when she overhears her boss complaining about a beastly high-profile author who has failed to deliver his long-awaited manuscript, Isabelle sees an opportunity to finally get the promotion she deserves.
All she has to do is go to the author’s Santa Barbara mansion and give him a quick pep talk or three. How hard could it be?
But Izzy quickly finds out she is in over her head. Beau Towers is not some celebrity lightweight writing a tell-all memoir. He is jaded and withdrawn and—it turns out—just as lost as Izzy. But despite his standoffishness, Izzy needs Beau to deliver, and with her encouragement, his story begins to spill onto the page. They soon discover they have more in common than either of them expected, and as their deadline nears, Izzy and Beau begin to realize there may be something there that wasn't there before.
Best-selling author Jasmine Guillory’s reimagining of a beloved fairy tale is a romantic triumph of love and acceptance and learning that sometimes to truly know a person you have to read between the lines.
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Sequel to: If the shoe fits
Publisher: Hyperion Avenue
Skandar and the Unicorn Thief by A. F. Steadman
Soar into a breathtaking world of heroes and unicorns as you’ve never seen them before in this fantastical middle grade debut perfect for fans of the Percy Jackson and Eragon series!
Skandar Smith has always yearned to leave the Mainland and escape to the secretive Island, where wild unicorns roam free. He’s spent years studying for his Hatchery exam, the annual test that selects a handful of Mainlander thirteen-year-olds to train to become unicorn riders. But on the day of Skandar’s exam, things go horribly wrong, and his hopes are shattered…until a mysterious figure knocks on his door at midnight, bearing a message: the Island is in peril and Skandar must answer its call.
Skandar is thrust into a world of epic sky battles, dangerous clashes with wild unicorns, and rumors of a shadowy villain amassing a unicorn army. And the closer Skandar grows to his newfound friends and community of riders, the harder it becomes to keep his secrets—especially when he discovers their lives may all be in graver danger than he ever imagined.
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy
Publisher: Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers
Forging Silver into Stars (Forging Silver into Stars #1) by Brigid Kemmerer
When ancient magic tests a newfound love, a dark fate beckons . . .
Magic has been banished in the land of Syhl Shallow for as long as best friends Jax and Callyn can remember. They once loved the stories of the powerful magesmiths and mythical scravers who could conjure fire or control ice, but now they’ve learned that magic only leads to danger: magic is what killed Callyn’s parents, leaving her alone to raise her younger sister. Magic never helped Jax, whose leg was crushed in an accident that his father has been punishing him for ever since. Magic won’t save either of them when the tax collector comes calling, threatening to take their homes if they can't pay what they owe.
Meanwhile, Jax and Callyn are astonished to learn magic has returned to Syhl Shallow -- in the form of a magesmith who's now married to their queen. Now, the people of Syhl Shallow are expected to allow dangerous magic in their midst, and no one is happy about it.
When a stranger rides into town offering Jax and Callyn silver in exchange for holding secret messages for an anti-magic faction, the choice is obvious -- even if it means they may be aiding in a plot to destroy their new king. It’s a risk they’re both willing to take. That is, until another visitor arrives: handsome Lord Tycho, the King’s Courier, the man who’s been tasked with discovering who’s conspiring against the throne.
Suddenly, Jax and Callyn find themselves embroiled in a world of shifting alliances, dangerous flirtations, and ancient magic . . . where even the deepest loyalties will be tested.
Genre: YA Fantasy
Publisher: Bloomsbury YA
Book Lovers by Emily Henry
One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn’t see coming…
Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.
Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.
If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Berkley
An Unreliable Magic ( A Hundred Names for Magic #2) by Rin Chupeco
he second book in the A Hundred Names for Magic trilogy, an unforgettable alternative history fairy-tale series from the author of The Bone Witch about found family, modern day magic, and finding the place you belong.
Tala, Alex, and the rest of their friends are safe for now, but know the Snow Queen is still out there. They have to be prepared for when she eventually attacks—and all decide to do so in their own way.
When Ryker comes out of the woodwork, showing himself when he starts attacking American detention facilities and freeing refugees. And the Nameless Sword, a legendary weapon that according to Avalon legend, will make its wielder the most powerful warrior of their time turns up with her name on it, Tala's life gets messier...But when the Snow Queen arrives with an unlikely ally, the group will have to work together.
Genre: YA Fantasy
Sequel to: Wicked as you wish
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Charm (Crave #5) by Tracy Wolf
Unravel the mystery of the missing four months between Grace and Hudson—when she finds herself trapped with the last boy she ever expected, and certainly the most obnoxious one she's ever met. If he doesn't shut up, she just might kill him...if she doesn't end up kissing him first.
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Sequel to: Crave
Crush
Covet
Court
Publisher: Entangled Teen
On May 4th...
A Throne of Shadow by Tessonja Odette
A feisty outlaw.
A conniving prince.
A war of magic and shadows.
Wanted by the crown for a murder she didn’t commit, Cora dreams of getting revenge on the mage who framed her. In the meantime, she hides in the forest and hones her magic. But when she discovers her enemy’s violent hunt for faerie creatures, she forms a plan for vengeance.
Prince Teryn, heir to a bankrupt throne, will do anything to keep his country from sinking into ruin. When he meets a feisty outlaw wanted by a neighboring kingdom, he gets his chance. The woman has an impressive bounty on her head, one that could pay off his kingdom’s debts.
If Teryn can help Cora save a few magical creatures, he can gain her trust, hand her over to her king, and collect the bounty. But Cora has plans of her own, and none of them include being betrayed by her handsome new traveling companion.
The closer Cora and Teryn get to their desires, the harder their tasks become. And it isn’t just their budding attraction that’s the problem. A secret war is coming, one stemming from ancient feuds and forgotten fae magic. They must work together to stop it, or else both their kingdoms will crumble to ash.
A Throne of Shadows is the first book in the Prophecy of the Forgotten Fae trilogy. Perfect for fans of Throne of Glass, Air Awakens, and Shadow and Bone. If you like breathtaking magic, fierce heroines, and enemies-to-lovers romance, then you’ll love this epic fantasy tale.
Genre: YA Fantasy
The Omen of Crows Nest by Cathrina Contantine
No blood. No body. No murder.
That’s what the police found after Penelope spun her bizarre tale. In a hysterical state, she said her father was butchered and eaten by a mob of birds ~ in her bedroom.
They claim she’s crazy.
That she suffers from delusions.
Penelope is dead set on proving them wrong.
After being institutionalized for eight months, Penelope is out and more determined than ever to find answers to her so-called hallucinations. With her father’s untimely disappearance, she’s convinced her family is hiding something sinister.
Genre: Fantasy
And on May 5th...
Prisoner of the Elements (War of the elements #1) by Zian Schafer
They said it would be a great war to end all wars. To create peace between the Elemental Empires: Fire, Water and Earth. As one war ended, another started. The gods came back with a vengeance because peace was never meant to be an option.
Now, the lands of Zephryine are cracking, the ocean is a living plague, and crops have become nothing more than skeletons.
To Althea Viteri, the destruction of the realm is the only way to set her family free from the clutches of Audor, the Empire of Fire. Her family has nowhere to run. Not with the bands marking their wrists as the chattel of the Empire.
But she harbors a secret written on her skin — a power that she’s successfully hidden for twenty-three years, until one day it unleashes itself, catching the eye of King Cyrus.
Taken prisoner in the palace and with the constant threat that the people she loves will be slaughtered, her only option is to escape.
Yet the longer she’s a prisoner the more she realizes there may be more to her untamed power than she initially thought. Something that makes her a danger not only to herself, but to the world.
Genre: Fantasy
These are some of the new releases of this week.
Are you excited about them?
Do you have other ones on your radar that I should know of?
See you in the next post and don't forget to keep reading!!!
Athina
