Sponsored by STAR WARS: YODA ONE FOR ME published by Chronicle Books
This sweet and funny collection of Star Wars™ messages of love and friendship is a little hug in book form.
Happy Tuesday, shipmates! It’s the second Tuesday of this new year, and here comes Alex with the next round of new releases for your perusal. The last week has been a very snowy and chilly one where I’m at–and I know I’m not the only one–so I hope you all have been staying snug and warm and enjoying the hot beverage of your choice. (Hopefully with a good book at hand, too.) Stay safe out there, shipmates, and I’ll see you on Friday!
Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: NDN Collective and Jane’s Due Process
New Releases
The Amber Crown by Jacey Bedford
The kingdom of Zavonia is on the brink of war, held by a usurper king after the rightful king is assassinated and his queen goes missing. The man who set this political cataclysm off, an assassin named Lind, must right the wrong he did and turn on the one who hired him. He can’t do it alone, but he has help: the captain of the guard who was framed for the murder, and a healer witch charged with a task by the ghost of the murdered king himself.
Ashes of Gold by J. Elle
Rue finds herself locked in a basement prison with no memory of how she got there. Worse, she has no magic and her allies are nowhere to be found. But she’s a girl from the East Row, and that means she doesn’t give up–she breaks out. Once she finds her friends, she must return the magic the Chancellor stole from her father’s people–and figure out how to be the leader they deserve.
Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan
Xingyin has grown up in solitude on the moon, the daughter of the goddess who was exiled there after stealing the elixir of immortality from the Celestial Emperor. But when Xingyin’s magic manifests, she can no longer hide in peace; she’s forced to flee to the Celestial Kingdom in disguise. There, she learns how to use her magic alongside the crown prince, whom she falls in love with, before embarking on a dangerous quest to save her mother that will end in challenging the Celestial Emperor himself.
Battle of the Linguist Mages by Scotto Moore
Sparkle Dungeon is a VR game that combines medieval settings and raves, and Isobel is its queen by grace of her dance moves. Her skill and reputation earns her the opportunity to lean “power morphemes”–words that can warp reality, used by a powerful cabal to control California. But she’s also come to the attention of a resistance movement of magical anarchists. Isobel doesn’t have much time to choose a side, because far more alien threats are coming from other dimensions…
The Bone Spindle by Leslie Vedder
Fi and Shane are a treasure-hunting team of badass women, following a map to what they think will be riches. Then Fi pricks her finger on a bone spindle, which causes her to be hunted by the ghost of Briar Rose, a prince under a sleeping curse. Now it’s up to Shane and Fi to break the curse on his kingdom while a witch tries to steal Shane’s heart and Fi tries to avoid falling in love with the prince.
Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!
News and Views
In Case You Didn’t Notice, The Matrix Resurrections Is a Trans Love Story
Working toward legacy: A conversation with Ann & Jeff Vandermeer
Tolkien, the Mob, and the Demagogue
The Nature of Imagination in Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story
Batman rewatch: We will never see anything like Adam West’s Batman again, alas
To Boldly Explore the Jewish Roots of Star Trek
Solving the Mystery of Turkish Delight (and Other Fantasy Anomalies)
Mark Yon compares the novel Dune with the two film adaptations
APoD: Hubble’s Jupiter and the Shrinking Great Red Spot
On Book Riot
12 YA Fantasy Books to Eagerly Expect in 2022
15 YA Books Like From Blood and Ash
This month you can enter to win a $250 Barnes and Noble gift card and a Nook Glowlight Plus. Canadian Rioters can enter to win a waterproof Kobo.
See you, space pirates. If you’d like to know more about my secret plans to dominate the seas and skies, you can catch me over at my personal site.