Category: New Books

I’m a big fan of Butler’s work, and this one continued to hold my admiration. I love his gritty midwest storylines. This one is about three down-on-their-luck carpenters who are offered a ridiculous amount of money to finish building a house in the mountains outside of Jackson, Wyoming. The catch? The project must be finished in an almost impossible amount of time. Despite their reservations—Why wasn’t the house completed by the original builders? Who is the mysterious owner?—the men decide to take on the project, but bad luck and tragic consequences follow. It’s a frantic, dark tale of friendship and greed. It’s perfect for fans of Daniel Woodrell, Michael Farris Smith, and David Joy.

Backlist bump: The Hearts of Men by Nickolas Butler

And for you fans of nonfiction that cover an aspect of the world you’ve never considered before, this is a fascinating, devastating book. The size of California’s wildfires and the number of days they burn grows each year. Roughly 30 percent of the on-the-ground crews fighting the fires in the state now are inmates. Lowe spent years interviewing dozens of women who risked their lives for the state, as well as captains, family and friends, correctional officers, and camp commanders. She discusses the dangers of the work, for which the inmates earn a dollar a day, and the politics involved in such a program.

Backlist bump: Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout by Philip Connors

And here is an easy, breezy romance novel for those of you looking for a lighter pick today. After a terrible breakup, Harper Ryland decides to swear off dating and focus on her career. So of course, that’s when a handsome doctor appears in her life. At first, everything about Manny Gomes rubs her the wrong way, but when he appears while she’s working out of the country and she gets to know him better, Harper decides her ban doesn’t apply to international travel. But can they make things work when she returns home? (Admittedly, Harper’s ‘man ban’ doesn’t last very long, so the title is kinda silly, but the book will take your mind off the outside world for a while.)

Backlist bump: The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez

If you’ve been reading this newsletter or listening to All the Books! for any amount of time, you know how I love a post-apocalyptic story or a great SFF novel involving religious orders. (Most recently Star Eater and We Shall Sing a Song Into the Deep.) So of course I was delighted to get my hands on this novel! It’s about a former holy man named Ven who worked with religious texts from the Burning Age, the apocalyptic climate disaster years of the planet that are kept a secret now to avoid a repeat of the events. Ven guards over this information, but when he is approached by a new order that wants him to interpret new texts that change the way he understands the world, his life is thrown into chaos. It’s the story of a man who must face the unknown and disregard his beliefs—and maybe give up his life—for the sake of the world.

Backlist bump: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

This is a freaking amazing queer reimagining of the rise of the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty. In 1345, China, the poor peasants of the Central Plains suffer under Mongol rule. Two children, a brother and a sister, are told their fortunes. For him, greatness. For her, nothingness. But when the family is attacked, the son dies, and his sister assumes his name—Zhu Chongba—and with it, his fortune. Zhu uses her brother’s identity to join a monastery as a young male novice, where she learns the skills to survive and pushes herself to live up to her brother’s foretold greatness. As Zhu grows stronger, she will fight battles, find love, and continue to strive for power and esteem. This book is so fun and action-packed! It’s definitely one of the best fantasy novels of 2021.

Backlist bump: The Black Tides of Heaven (The Tensorate Series) by Neon Yang

I will admit that as a vegan, I was not super-excited about the cover, lol. But luckily I spent 99.9% of the time with the inside of the book! This is a wild tale about a woman who thinks she is turning into a dog. The narrator gives up her career to stay at home when she has a baby, but it’s not the fulfilling experience she expected it to be. After two years, she has a husband who is largely absent for work, a toddler to chase around the house, and a large patch of hair growing on her neck. Wait—what? Alarmed, she starts to look for answers to her new features and senses, which grow to include sharp teeth and the start of a tail. As Nightbitch (as she refers to herself) tries to hide the fact that she’s turning into a dog from those around her, she struggles to decide which role is her preferred one—woman or canine. This is a weird, biting (ha) take on motherhood and the expectations placed on new moms.

Backlist bump: The Need by Helen Phillips

Several months ago I watched one of my favorite authors, Kelly Link, interview another of my favorite authors, Kevin Brockmeier, and he mentioned that this was one of the best books he had read this year. So of course I had to read it! It’s an unusual novel about an unnamed narrator (you know how I love one of those!) in the the fictional city of Yong’an, who is interested in finding the aforementioned strange beasts she has heard about. And I’m not talking bears and squid. I mean like wild cryptid things! It’s almost more a series of interconnected short stories, and as the book goes on, it tells a larger picture about the world, and the narrator herself, a one-time zoologist turned romance writer. It’s a dreamy novel and also an allegory about humanity.

Backlist bump: Descent of Monsters (The Tensorate Series 3) by Neon Ynag

One of my newish favorite storylines of the last decade are books that involve podcasts somehow. Another is books involving social media in some capacity. This darkly comedic and weird novel is one such book! Remy and Alicia are two people who don’t particularly like each other but they are both obsessed with Jen, Remy’s former coworker turned Instagram influencer. Jen seems to be living the perfect life of globetrotting and glamour, according to her Instagram account, and Remy and Alicia eat it up. So imagine their surprise when the run into Jen, and she invites them on a trip to the Hamptons. It’s one thing to watch behind the scenes, it’s another to try and hide who you are in front of someone you’re trying to impress. And weird things begin to happen, and the story and suspense escalates until it’s out of control. I can’t even tell you what happens, because you need to experience this for yourself. Just know that the book may have a sunny, bright cover, but the story definitely gets dark.

CW for mentions of extreme violence, terminal illness, death, and chemical use and dependency.

Backlist bump: Followers by Megan Angelo

This last pick is not something I have read yet, but I am unbelievably thrilled to get my hands on it. I realize that it has been many years since I read a Shirley Jackson book. (Also, I realize I am at an age where several years can pass since I have done something lolsob.) I discovered her in eighth grade, when I spied a copy of We Have Always Lived in the Castle in my teacher’s bag. WHAT A PLACE TO START. I have since read all her books several times, including The Haunting of Hill House and The Lottery and Other Stories. She was such a fascinating person and a freaking amazing writer. There is not as much Jackson nonfiction out there as fiction, and I don’t usually read the letters of writers, but you bet sweet Christopher Meloni’s forehead scar that I am going to read these.

Backlist bump: Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings by Shirley Jackson

This novel examines racism and police violence through the story of a Black author out on a book tour, who may also have an imaginary traveling companion, and Soot, a young Black boy who lived in a rural Southern town in the past. I watched an interview with Jason Mott a few weeks ago, where he talked about this book, and I was transfixed! It sounds excellent. He got the idea during a not-very-pleasant book tour he went on for one of his earlier books. Book tours can be difficult! Getting moved to a new city day after day and missing your home and family is hard.

Backlist bump: The Returned by Jason Mott

Several of my favorite books this year have been hard-hitting memoirs, and this one sounds like I’ll be adding it to the list. Powell recounts her young life, working as a sex worker at fifteen to support herself and her two babies, and the ensuing two decades she spent moving all over the country. This is her story of how she decided she wanted to change her life, and how she found self-love and acceptance. Powell now advocates for victims of sex trafficking, and is on the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking.

Add to your TBR: Taking Down Backpage: Fighting the World’s Largest Sex Trafficker by Maggy Krell

And finally, I am always up for an over-the-top thriller, and Riley Sager certainly writes them! This one is about a college student whose best friend has been murdered by the Campus Killer. Looking for a break, she shares a ride with a stranger, Josh, to help with the long drive back home to Ohio. But the longer she spends time in the car, the more holes she finds in Josh’s stories and she begins to suspect she’s just hitched a ride with a killer. This is like an isolated mystery on wheels! It also reminds me a little of No Exit, my favorite thriller of the last several years, so fingers crossed!

Backlist bump: No Exit by Taylor Adams

Okay, I have to say that I have not read this one yet, but its release is such a huge deal, that I had to mention it. The Goblin Emperor came out seven years ago, and has such a loyal fanbase. To finally get a new book set in that world is big, like Winds of Winter big! From what I’ve read about this book, it’s a stand-alone that involves a minor character from The Goblin Emperor, and is a murder mystery. I’ve seen several reviews calling it a Sherlock Holmes-worthy mystery, which is very exciting. And supposedly you can read this one without having read the first book, but I highly recommend you check that one out, too! It’s about the half-goblin son of the emperor, who lives outside the palace walls. But then he must take over his father’s throne, after his father and half-brothers all die mysteriously.

Backlist bump: The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

This is an excellent YA novel dealing with grief and loss. Dane Riley is a teenager whose father has recently died from cancer. As if that isn’t bad enough, Dane is distraught when his mother soon begins dating his father’s best friend, whose son is a classmate as well as Dane’s biggest antagonist. Dane struggles with depression and grief, and his feelings of betrayal on his mother’s part, while also pining away for Ophelia, the girl next door. Why do people tell him he needs to move on, is it possible to get over such a loss, and can Dane come to terms with his grief and the changes in his life?

Backlist bump: The Names They Gave Us by Emery Lord

History nerds, rejoice! This is a riveting look at codebreaking with Alan Turing and the other geniuses of Bletchley Park, and how the race to crack the most difficult code of World War II led to the invention of what would be the first digital electronic computer. Price tells the fascinating story behind Colossus, the aforementioned computer, using recently declassified information about the project.

Backlist bump: The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer by Sydney Padua

Jonathan Lee’s last novel was a look at the true story of a bombing at a hotel in 1984, and now he has once again written a fantastic novel based on true events. This is an account of the life and death of Andrew Haswell Green. Green was a New York City lawyer and civic planner, who is considered to have been integral to the founding of Central Park, the New York Public Library, the Bronx Zoo, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Lee has artfully written a compelling story of the man’s life in two parts: the story of a poor, quiet young man who grows into a quiet, esteemed gentleman; and the story of a man whose death made him more famous in his time than any of his works while he was alive, and the case to solve his murder.

Backlist bump: High Dive by Jonathan Lee

Books that take a deep dive into words and language are always such an epic nerdpurr and this one is no exception! Montell is a writer and host of The Dirty Word, a web series about language, gender, and pop culture. Cultish is her examination of language used by and about cultish organizations, and how that language commands power. Montell researched such notorious cults and cult leaders as Heaven’s Gate and Jonestown, and also investigated how the words and language often used by cults, what people sometimes think is “brainwashing”, is also used in organizations such as tech start-ups and SoulCycle. Why do these words make people more susceptible to outside influence? Who is more susceptible to cultish language? Get ready to stay up all night reading because this book is FASCINATING.

Backlist bump: Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell

And last, but not least, a fun debut YA fantasy in with a sort of magical Prince and the Pauper storyline about twin sisters—written by twin sisters! Princess Rani wants nothing more than to get away from her life at the palace. Ria is a street urchin who must break the law just to stay alive. When the two meet by chance, they immediately recognize that they are identical, and decide to swap places. But each sister’s dwelling comes with dangers, and as they both realize what it is they want for their futures, they will have to battle for their lives to achieve it. This is the first in a trilogy, and I can’t wait for the second one!

Backlist bump: Hunted by the Sky (The Wrath of Ambar) by Tanaz Bhathena

John Paul “JP” Brammer is a popular LGBTQ advice columnist and writer, called the “Chicano Carrie Bradshaw” of his generation. This is his hilarious, heartfelt essay collection about his experiences growing up a queer, mixed-race kid in America’s heartland. He began writing about his experiences with love and sex after spending time on the hookup app Grindr, after he realized he had a lot to say about how he was raised, who he was, and who he wanted to be. It’s not only a wonderful memoir, it’s an advice book told through Brammer’s own life lessons, such as hooking up with your grade school bully now that he’s out of the closet. It’s a great book for everyone.

Backlist bump: We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.: Essays by Samantha Irby

And this is a fabulous epic fantasy inspired by the history and stories of India. Malini is a princess held captive in a decaying temple by her dictator brother. Priya is a maidservant with a secret, who tries to keep a low profile while hiding her true nature. When Malani becomes privy to Priya’s true self, it sets them off on a journey to take down her brother and save the empire, while dealing with their feelings for each other along the way. Priya and Malani have an electric connection and it’s fun to watch them go after the patriarchy. This is a fantastic entry into a new trilogy and I can’t wait to read more!

Backlist bump: Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri

So, you know how sometimes I mention reading a book that didn’t quite make sense to me but loving it anyway? This is such a book. It might have to do with the fact that I haven’t listened to the podcast this is based on, but no matter, because I thought it was great fun.

It’s about a game called Rabbits. It was started in 1959 and has ten iterations with nine anonymous winners so far. K is a Rabbits obsessive, determined to be the tenth winner. And he thinks he has the tools to do it, now that a billionaire (and rumored sixth winner of the game) is backing him. But it’s hard to win a game that no one really understands, or can fully explain—and let’s not forget the people who have died trying to play it. Oh, and it also seems to be altering reality, so there’s that. Is K going to be able to win Rabbits, or will he be lost to the world? Whatever Rabbits may or may not be, I thoroughly enjoyed the book!

Backlist bump: The Vorrh by B. Catling (I don’t really understand this one either but I LOVED it.)