Happy Friday, shipmates! It’s Alex, and I’ve got two more new releases for you and a couple of portal fantasy recommendations, just because that’s the kind of mood I’m in as we head into the weekend. I’ll be traveling for a bit (though I will still be writing the newsletters, you won’t be rid of me that easily!) and boy, that makes me grateful that I can carry around a lot of my library on my phone or my iPad. Though one of my big airport traditions is to hit the little Tattered Cover at DIA and grab an actual paper book to start reading on the airplane. I’m excited to see what will call to me from the shelves. Stay safe out there, space pirates, and I will see you on Tuesday!
BookRiot.com co-founder Jeff O’Neal explores the wide bookish world. Interviews, lists, rankings, retrospectives, recommendations, and much more, featuring people who know and love books. Subscribe to First Edition on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your podcatcher of choice.
Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: NDN Collective and Jane’s Due Process.
Bookish Goods
Keyhole 3D Wall Decal by DecalBaby
Maybe it’s just me, but I think this would be a hecka cool decoration for a library that’s already filled with SFF. The seller’s got a lot of options to go in these decal frames, all of them magical and whimsical. (Also, grade school age me would have killed for this.) $20
New Releases
If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come by Jen St. Jude
(TW: suicidal ideation)
Avery is a woman burdened with being secretly in love with her best friend Cass. She also has undiagnosed clinical depression, which has led her to plan to drown herself in the river near her college campus. But that morning, news breaks that an asteroid is going to collide with Earth and everyone only has nine days left to live. Not wanting to cause her nearest and dearest extra grief, Avery shelves her plan and tries to make it through the next nine days. As doom approaches, Avery finds something unexpected in the impending disaster: hope.
A Shadow Crown by Melissa Blair
In this sequel to A Broken Blade, Keera the king’s Blade, a spy and assassin. But in secret, she’s plotting to kill a tyrant king with Prince Killian and Riven, his shadow. However good her intentions may be now, Keera cannot escape the crimes of her past, and she becomes suspect number one when it’s revealed there is a tratior in their midst.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
For no reason whatsoever (truly, no reason, I just feel like it!) here’s a couple of portal fantasy books that cannot be recommended enough. Because who doesn’t love a bit of portal fantasy?
Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones
Liesl grew up on stories of the dangerous — and beautiful — Goblin King. At 18, it’s time for her to help run her family’s inn and give up her dreams of composing music and her childhood fantasies…until the Goblin King takes her own sister. Liesl has no choice but to journey to his kingdom in the Underground on a rescue mission, where she must find her sister — and herself.
Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley
Aza has suffered from a mysterious lung disease since her infancy, which makes it increasingly difficult for her to speak and breathe, until now she feels like she’s drowning in air. One day, she spots a ship in the sky; her family dismisses it as a side effect of her medication, but she heard someone on the ship call her name. But when she falls through a portal into the world of these magical trading ships, Magonia, she discovers a place where she is no longer dying, where she can breathe and actually has immense power. But there is a war coming between Magonia and Earth, and she will have to decide which world will have her loyalty.
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.