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New Books

Hooray, It’s Time for New Books!

Happy Tuesday to all the book lovers out there! Who is excited for A Day of Fallen Night, the prequel to The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon? *RAISES HANDS AND FEET* *FALLS OVER* Well, get ready, because it’s out today! This one is just as big, if not bigger, than the first one, and I can’t wait to read it. (You know, along with the other eleventy million books I want to read.)

But first, we must discuss more of today’s books! At the top of my list to acquire (besides the Shannon) are Finally Seen by Kelly Yang, Immortality: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz (so in love with this cover—braaaaaaains) and The Magician’s Daughter by H.G. Parry. You can hear about more of the fabulous books coming out today on this week’s episode of All the Books! Kelly and I talked about some of the books we’re excited about this week, including The Crane Husband, Chaos Theory, and The Neighbor Favor.

And now, it’s time for everyone’s favorite game show: AHHH MY TBR! Here are today’s contestants.

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cover of The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty; illustration of many tentacled thing grabbing a pirate ship

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

From the author of the excellent Daevabad Trilogy comes a pirate fantasy-slash-getting the band back together adventure! That’s right: PIRATE FANTASY ADVENTURE. Amina al-Sirafi was a fantastic pirate, but she’s retired now, and the exciting days of swashbuckling and looting are behind her. She plans to live out the rest of her life in peace. But then the mother of a former crew member offers her an obscene amount of money to find a missing girl. It’s too much money to refuse, so Amina reassembles her old crew. But it’s going to turn out that it isn’t as simple as finding a missing girl, and Amina and her awesome ragtag crew are going to go up against many dangers of the real and fantastical variety. It’s tons of fun! (CW for substance use, violence, injury, and death.)

Backlist bump: The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

cover of She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran; illustration of an Asian woman with flowers growing out of the corners of her mouth and a tear running down her cheek

She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran

Do you love the “don’t go in that house” horror subgenre? Then this is perfect for you! This is a seriously awesome and disturbing YA horror debut. It’s about a young woman named Jade who is spening five weeks in Vietnam with her father while he restores their dream house. She is worried about how she and her father will get along, since their relationship has been strained as of late. But it turns out, it’s the house she needs to fear. Soon after arriving, terrible things start happening. There are bugs, so many bugs. And ghosts. And paralyzing fear. Being terrified in your own house is not exactly a relaxing time. Can Jade figure out what is going on in the house, what it wants, and how to stop it before it destroys her family? (CW for racism, body horror, violence, injury, and death.)

Backlist bump: White Smoke by Tiffany D. Jackson

cover of Your Driver Is Waiting by Priya Guns; illustration of South Asian person looking in car rear view mirror with a pine tree air freshener hanging from the mirror on fire

Your Driver Is Waiting by Priya Guns

And this last one is a dark satire debut, and I am only about a third of the way through, but I am enjoying it! I picked it up because it has a blurb from Kristen Arnett, and ever since she recommended Our Wives Under the Sea, I’ll read anything she blurbs! It’s about a young woman named Damani, who is living in a basement in a hostile city, and driving a car for a rideshare company to try and scrape by. Then she picks up Jade, and they hit it off. Jade appears to be unlike anyone she’s ever been with before: white, socially conscientious, and extremely wealthy. Like I said, I haven’t finished it, but according to the description, things between Damani and Jade take a bad turn, and it’s going to have an explosive ending. I can’t wait!

Backlist bump: Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour

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two orange cats lying on a bed; close-up on their heads; photo by Liberty Hardy

This week, I am reading The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue and King of the Armadillos by Wendy Chin-Tanner. Outside of books, I have been watching tons of NBA games, and started watching episodes of the original Perry Mason show from the 1950s. They’re interesting! Very formulaic and overacted, but I find them relaxing to have on in the background while I do data entry work. Raymond Burr had a great voice. Moving on, the song stuck in my head is “Lonely People” by America, ever since I watched the new episode of Poker Face on Thursday. Plus, here is your weekly cat picture: Farrokh and Zevon have been spending a lot of time near each other without fighting lately. It’s highly suspicious. I can only assume they are plotting something.


That’s it for me this week, friends. I am sending you love and good wishes for whatever is happening in your life right now. Thank you, as always, for joining me each week as I rave about books! See you next week. – XO, Liberty