Happy Friday, shipmates! It’s Alex, and today we’re going very fantasy with our new releases. They’re all good books, but I’ll also admit I’ve been tearing into The Emperor and the Endless Palace like a cat at a bag of catnip because — well, that’s pretty much a book aimed directly at my heart. I hope y’all have an absolutely wonderful weekend! Stay safe out there, space pirates, and I’ll see you on Tuesday…when it’s April? April, already. Linear time, it’s a heck of a thing.
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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
The Untamed Quote Sweatshirt by GusuDesigns
One of our books this week gave me some serious Mo Dao Zu Shi vibes, and that lead me to this delightful sweatshirt with a quote a think we could all use in our everyday lives. $44
New Releases
The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang
Across thousands of years of time and many lives, two men are born and reborn, always finding themselves in each other’s orbits, for good and for ill. They have unleashed terrors and manipulated nations and, most importantly, loved each other countless times. It is that undying love that is their power, which transcends life itself…but may well consume them.
Eilegate: A Novel of Faerie by Elizabeth Fields Perry
The borders between worlds are blurred in the woods around Eilegate House in Scotland, a place that has been a locus of bloodshed and upheaval and, even in the 1930s, retains echoes of dangerous, old magic. When a WWI veteran and his wife move into the home, they soon realize the house is not actually abandoned. And when the wife disappears without a trace, foul play is suspected by the police…but the truth is far more bizarre.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
Today, we’re looking at short story collections that lean far into dream-logic, and from whence comes their fantastic elements.
Half-Lives by Lynn Schmeidler
Lynn Schmeidler’s first short story collection is focused on the multi-faceted lives and concerns of women, examined through the lens of dreaming and surrealism so that norms, narratives, physics, and even gender may not apply.
All the Fabulous Beasts by Priya Sharma
Priya Sharma’s debut collection atmospherically focuses on the monstrous as it relates to love, nature, sexuality, and rebirth.
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.