Happy Tuesday, shipmates! It’s Alex, and I’ve got new releases, new releases, and more new releases for you today. I’m a bit sleepy today because I made a rookie mistake: I started reading Cassiel’s Servant before bed last night and “just one more chapter”ed myself until 3 a.m. Whoops. That’s the price of reading a good book, I guess. Stay safe out there, space pirates, and try to have a reasonable bedtime! I’ll see you on Friday!
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Bookish Goods
Ghost Bookmark by LittleBlackBats
This thing is just cute. It’s a translucent bookmark of a classic “person with a sheet over their head” ghost. Perfect for any book that needs to be a bit more haunted, particularly urban fantasy that involves ghosts! $8
New Releases
Masters of Death by Olivie Blake
Viola Marek is a vampire…and a real estate agent. The biggest problem she currently has in her life is that she needs to sell a house that’s haunted, and the ghost haunting it refuses to move on until the mystery of his murder is solved. She seeks the help of a medium named Fox who just so happens to be Death’s godson, and then things just get more complicated from there…
Lessons in Birdwatching by Honey Watson
Apech is a planet overcome with an illness that distorts time; Wilhelmina Ming and four other students have been temporarily assigned there for research purposes, but this position has exposed them to such brutality that they’ve turned to drugs and group sex to make it through their posting. When the group finds a horribly impaled corpse left outside their residence as some kind of warning, they truly begin to investigate and turn up a conspiracy that soon puts them in the middle of a civil war.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
As is my wont, you get a double dose of new releases this week, since there is just SO MUCH coming out this summer.
Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi
Shigidi is one of the Orisha, but unlike his brethren, he’s disgruntled and grumpy; he only answers the prayers of his followers — not that he has many left — so he can continue to exist long enough to have another drink. But when he meets a succubus (well…kind of) named Nneoma, they decide to break him free of his obligations and godhood together. But the rest of the Orisha have other plans…and they’re not all good.
Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward
Wilder Harlow is writing a book, semi-autobiographical, about a killer that cut through the small vacation town he lived in as a youth. He and his friends discovered a terrible secret in a cove near the bay, and made a pact about it. Yet the more Wilder writes, the less he trusts himself…and the more he begins seeing things that can’t possibly be real.
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.