Happy Friday, shipmates! It’s Alex, and I’ve got some new releases for you, and as definitely goes with the American Independence Day Holiday, uh…recent gothic novels. It made sense in my head, I promise, and now I’ve committed so it’s too late to go back. Plus, the books are really good! Beat the heat with the unnatural chill of a haunted house. 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
She Herself Is a Haunted House Plaque by ATSCustomOddities
I went looking for gothic, and I found this wonderful plaque of a quote from The Lady of the House of Love (found in The Bloody Chamber) by Angela Carter. Perfect with black curtains or diaphanous white shrouds. $18
New Releases
Still the Sun by Charlie N. Holmberg
Tampere is a planet of mysteries, seeded with buried artifacts of strange technology once used by the Ancients. Pell, an engineer, has an affinity for that old technology and spends her time digging for more. Her affinity causes her to be called to a forbidding tower near the village of Embarden, which houses the remnants of Ancient machines more complex than Pell has ever seen — and the keepers of the tower wish her to put the machines back together and get them running. But what she finds is more than technology in need of repair; she begins to have visions, ones that may reveal the origins of the technology’s keepers.
Masquerade by O.O. Sangoyomi
Òdòdó is already something of a pariah in Timbuktu, as a woman who is a blacksmith. But when her hometown is conquered by Yorùbáland, things grow even worse…and then she’s abducted by a vagrant. Though after the vagrant takes her across the Sahara to Șàngótè, to her shock she discovers he is a king, and he wants her as his wife. Soon, Òdòdó is at the height of society, able to wield power she never could have imagined, gained through the cruel man she was forced to wed. And what she can do with that power is reforge a kingdom and save her own life — if she is strong and clever enough.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
I am delighted by the diversity in takes on the gothic novel we’ve been seeing lately. (See also: Song of the Six Realms and Mexican Gothic.) Here are two more recent releases in that subgenre!
Midnight Rooms by Donyae Coles
As a bi-racial woman in 1840s England, Orabella Mumthrope never expected to marry — and then a scruffy man who claims to be the scion of an extremely wealthy family shows up on her uncle-guardian’s doorstep. Thanks to her uncle’s large debts, that impossibility quickly becomes reality, but her new husband’s manor is rundown, and soon she begins to awaken to mysterious screaming in the night.
Linghun by Ai Jiang
The mysterious town of HOME is a place where the dead come to live as spirits, called by a population who refuses to let go of their grief. Into that milieu comes Wenqi, Liam, and Mrs., and they will somehow have to find their way out again…
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.