Happy Friday, shipmates! It’s Alex, and I have your regular new releases and a couple of indie new releases from this month. It’s been a pretty eventful week for me, so I’m hoping for a peaceful weekend that will involve a lot of reading time. May you find the same respite! Stay safe out there, space pirates, and I’ll see you on Tuesday.
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Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here are two places to start: Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, which provides medical and humanitarian relief to children in the Middle East regardless of nationality, religion, or political affiliation; and Ernesto’s Sanctuary, a cat sanctuary and animal rescue in Syria that is near and dear to my heart.
Bookish Goods
Wild Hunt Watercolor Print by Ameluria
This gorgeous watercolor print jumped out of me because of Song of the Huntress (see below). The artist has a lot of other really beautiful fantasy watercolors in their store, too! $18
New Releases
Song of the Huntress by Lucy Holland
In 60 CE, in a desperate attempt to save her land and her people from the Romans, Herla makes a pact with the King of the Otherworld. But time does not pass in that land like it does on Earth; when she returns, everyone she ever knew is long dead and she has been cursed to carry his blade and become Lord of the Hunt. She and the immortal warriors she leads reap the souls of wanderers for centuries…until one day, she meets a Saxon queen, bloody but unbowed, on a battlefield.
The Waves Take You Home by María Alejandra Barrios Vélez
To escape being a dutiful daughter and granddaughter, Violeta escaped to New York City to pursue her dreams of art. But after the sudden death of her grandmother, she finds herself accompanied by the woman’s spirit and compelled to go back to Columbia, where her family restaurant and her first love are waiting for her —and both of these are things her grandmother originally told her to run from.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
Here are a couple of indie/small press releases that have come out in the last month!
Way Far Away by Evelio Rosero, translated by Victor Meadowcroft and Anne McLean
An old man named Jeremías arrives at a town filled with mist and dead mice, hoping that he can find his missing granddaughter. As he wanders the town, he discovers a landscape of dreams and nightmares that slowly reveal a haunting truth — but also promise the possibility of a reunion in this strange, gaping abyss.
One Eye Opened in That Other Place by Christi Nogle
This collection of short stories focuses on the weird and fantastical, searching for the border between dream and reality.
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.