Happy Tuesday, shipmates! It’s Alex, and I’ve got some new releases for you — and a couple of sequels you should check out. I’ve been listening to the audiobook of The Daughters of Izdihar, and it is excellent. I definitely recommend the book in whatever format you prefer. (Though I will also say that its plot that focuses on women trying to fight for rights in a country where they are second-class citizens feels…kind of stressful at the moment. It’s really well done.) What book’s been keeping you company this last week? Stay safe out there, space pirates, and I’ll see you on Friday!
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Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: NDN Collective and Jane’s Due Process.
Bookish Goods
Cooking With Magic Cutting Board by PrecisionLaserNC
Since there’s a book with a magical cookbook in it, how about a cutting board, engraved with a warning about the dangers of cooking with magic? It comes in bamboo or maple! $30
New Releases
Damsel by Evelyn Skye
Elodie is really a princess in name only, having grown up in the poor and famine-stricken realm of Inophe. But when she’s offered a chance to marry a prince — and get the wealth that comes with it to help her kingdom — she immediately accepts, even though it means being whisked away to a reclusive kingdom that is hiding dark secrets beneath its veneer of perfection. Then she finds out the true reason for her quick betrothal: every harvest season, the kingdom sacrifices its princess to a hungry dragon, and she’s been brought in to be the next on the great wyrm’s plate. Elodie has no intention of going quietly, however, and if no one in her new kingdom is willing to fight, she will do it herself.
The Thick and the Lean by Chana Porter
Beatrice Bolano lives in Seagate, a town run by a religion that believes abstaining from food brings a person closer to God, and regulates every calorie taken in by its citizens. As the requirements of Seagate become ever more stringent, she is faced with the choice to either give up her passion for cooking or leave the only home she’s known. Far from her, Reiko Rimando is a college student who has lost her funding despite her flawless grades, leaving her with the choice of returning home in shame or suffocating under a mountain of debt. A mysterious, centuries-old cookbook authored by a kitchen maid brings these two women together.
For a more comprehensive list, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
Sequels and later books in series often get passed over when we’re talking new releases, and I’m as guilty of that as the next person. So here are a couple of sequels coming out this week that I want you to know about — and if you haven’t read the first book in the series, maybe give it a go!
The Blood Gift by N.E. Davenport
Sequel to The Blood Trials.
Ikenna has become a fugitive, a massive bounty placed on her head that makes her target number one for bounty hunters. And yet she has even bigger problems than that, including the gift the Goddess of Blood Rites granted her, an enormous power she does not know how to control. Yet the personal struggle pales in comparison to the war crimes committed by the Blood Emperor as he wages a full-scale invasion. Perhaps the only hope is for Ikenna and her team to assassinate the Blood Emperor…but the consequences of doing so will be nothing short of planet-shattering.
Furious Heaven by Kate Elliott
Sequel to Unconquerable Sun.
Princess Sun and her mother, Queen-Marshal Eirene have defeated the Phene Empire’s invasion force, but not without heavy losses. They must rebuild their forces while Phene has become even more determined to crush them — and have allied themselves with a religious sect of assassins in an effort to destabilize Chaonia beneath them. But when an unexpected tragedy strikes Chaonia, Sun must take the throne or lose it — and then she must decide if she will follow her mother’s plan for the republic or go her own direction.
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.