Excerpts Young Adult

Read an Excerpt From Ana Ellickson’s The Vanishing Station

A YA contemporary fantasy about an underground magic system in San Francisco—and the lengths one girl is willing to go to protect the ones she loves.

By Ana Ellickson

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Published on April 10, 2024

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We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Vanishing Station by Ana Ellickson, a young adult contemporary fantasy novel out from Amulet Books on April 30^th.

Balboa always sings a kundiman while he’s shaving, crooning to his own reflection in the mirror as he swipes a sharp blade across his chin—and I’m not talking Gillette razors, I’m talking a blade sharpened to perfection. A blade he keeps tucked away in his boot for emergencies. A similar blade lies hidden in my backpack, because there’s no way my father would let me wander San Francisco alone at night without a chaperone—even if that chaperone is a blade I’ve named Miss Marybeth.

I only know a miniscule fraction of Tagalog (yes, shame shame), but my dad has sung that kundiman love song enough times for me to know the lyrics backward and forward. It’s called “Dahil Sa Iyo,” and back in 1961, Nat King Cole came to Manila and sang it in Tagalog instead of English. It blew my dad away, hearing a Filipino ballad sung by the Nat King Cole. Like something in his own language was worth sharing with the whole wide world.

I wish he’d tell me more about his homeland.

Hell, I wish he’d tell me why we’re sinking further and further into debt.

With the secrets he spilled last night, I need more answers.

As the sun begins to peek through our slatted garage windows, I pretend to sleep. My dad sings to himself in the mirror, the usual kundiman. With all his rambling about deals with the devil and Six mentioning a debt, I refuse to blindly wait for him to tell me what’s wrong. What if he’s been gambling? He obviously already has trouble with addiction—what if he’s taken it one step further? What if I can stop him from making an even bigger mess? I need to know why we’re falling behind on my mom’s medical payments when he says that he’s working a full-time job. The rent payments are taking care of the property tax, house repairs, and funeral expenses. I’m taking on as many house-painting gigs as I can get, so I’m able to cover my own expenses and save a bit for when Stella breaks down. But somehow, we’re losing money. I’ve seen the overdue statements. It’s just not adding up.

The moment Balboa closes the garage door, I leap out of bed. I wrangle my arms into my backpack straps—all the extra clothes I’ll need for Chen’s Painting Service on this fine Saturday.

It’s not hard to follow him. I keep a block between us, ducking below trash bins when it seems like he’ll turn around. But he doesn’t turn back; he’s only ever trudging forward. At the station, my boots clamber down the stone steps until I’m deep below the earth, sucking in stale air and listening to the whirl of ticket turnstiles.

I pull a shimmering blue-and-white ticket from the machine. Dampened sunlight streams in at the far end of the platform where the concrete opens into air. Behind me, people speak in Spanish, Chinese, English, Hindi, and all sorts of languages mushed together. Balboa hovers a few yards away, far enough to not notice me with an inevitable hangover pulsing inside his head. My heart thuds when the sign flashes san francisco airport train: one minute. I stop listening to the cacophony of voices and the rustling of wings.

Instead, I’m listening for the train. I’m trying to feel its rumble in my bones.

When I was eight—before my dad came to live with my mom and me—I played this game where I tried to see how close I could get to the train as it ripped through the station. The conductors hated it. My mom freaked out on multiple occasions. But every time I was down here, I always ached to get as close as possible to that roaring wind.

Now, I feel that same urge thrilling through my veins. My eyes electric, my lungs savoring the intoxicating smell of metal burning bright. Wait—wait until the train comes howling into the station; wait, pressed up to that yellow warning line, until I’m only steps away from the roaring hot metal. I feel as if it’s a wild horse that I can snatch hold of and swing myself atop of in one daring leap. The train’s wake shoves me back, and I hold my ground against the wind, hold my eyes open to the silver rushing blur, hold on to the heartbeat hammering in my chest. I don’t even flinch.

And then, the doors open.

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The Vanishing Station

Ana Ellickson

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The Vanishing Station

Ana Ellickson

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Hot air blows out with a flurry of passengers going about their boring lives at Balboa Park station. Their hurried footsteps add more layers of grime and scuffs to the tile floors. I swallow down the pulse pounding in my throat. Every day these trains race below our city, nothing more than metal and electricity.

I hover on the platform and watch as soon-to-be travelers board the airport-bound train. They wedge themselves into the narrow blue vinyl seats, balancing suitcases and backpacks on their laps, cursing the fact that they brought too many pairs of shoes and books they’ll never actually read on their beachside adventure. A pang of envy rumbles deep inside my gut. What would it be like to have the freedom to go where I want, to follow my dreams?

A kid stares up at me when I stagger back from the yellow line. He saw, of course. In vain, I try to tamp down my wind-whipped hair. He tugs on my paint-splattered backpack, and his mother doesn’t notice.

“What did that feel like?” he says, little kid mouth agape.

“Like I was flying.”

He smiles.

“But don’t try it. It’s dangerous.” I wink. I really shouldn’t have winked. The last thing I need to do is encourage a seven-year-old to do harebrained stunts. But I can’t stop the adrenaline flooding into my chest. And I lied. It feels less like flying and more like I’ve jumped off a cliff into the roaring wind and I’m trusting that I’ll have wings.

It is dangerous. One wrong step and I’d be clobbered by 110 tons of metal.

Trust me, no one who knows me would ever call me a daredevil. I’m actually known as the Responsible One. The one who took care of her mother all through sophomore year of high school while she was battling breast cancer. The one who didn’t go away to college or travel abroad because too many people needed her here. I promise I’ll always keep those two steps between me and death. I swear it.

It’s just—I don’t know what makes me want to leap into that blur of blue and silver. It feels like I could leave this all behind and wake up somewhere else entirely. Somewhere brighter, bolder. It’s almost like there’s a wild heartbeat under the iron and steel, and all I need to do is reach out and grab the reins.

A horn blares.

I jump aboard before the doors slide shut, and the train shoots forward through the maze of tunnels twisting under San Francisco. I hide behind a thankfully large man and scan around his shoulder to see where my dad is sitting. Correction, standing. Leaning hard on his cane, but not wobbling an inch on this bumpy train. He stands beside the exit door on the opposite end of the car. The minutes tick by. Am I more nervous about him catching me on a BART train—or about finally finding out the truth? As we wait for the next station, my eyes roam across my fellow passengers. It calms my hammering heartbeat to imagine how I’d sketch their faces. Reality flips on full blast: the kid snoring beside me with a face like melting candle wax, the old man stuffing French fries in his mouth, making my stomach growl from no breakfast.

And a voice.

“Dahil sa iyo!” The Filipino words come swaggering down the aisle, an aisle so thick with passengers, I can barely see who’s singing.

But I don’t need to see.

I know his voice.

It’s the Sap Master himself.

My dad sings a wicked kundiman.

But why is he serenading an entire train car? I inch closer, still out of his range of sight among the crush of passengers. My legs wobble as the train curves underground, and I cling to a metal pole to keep from falling. Dried paint sticks under my nails. It’s been so long since I’ve walked on a train that my knees tremble with the effort.

Still, the song lures me across.

Dahil sa iyo…

Because of you…

His words come softly now, sweetly melancholy. His rich honey voice fades into the sound of brakes squealing against metal rails—dahil sa iyo, nais kong mabuhay. “Because of you, I want to live.” Something isn’t right— this isn’t the way he sings when he shaves in the mirror. His voice sounds mournful, broken at the edges.

A chill drips down my spine as I push faster through the crowd, the lonely words echoing in my ears. Is this really my father? It’s his voice, that much I know; but I’ve never heard this pain crackling down his throat. I shoulder through the crush of passengers blocking my way.

A flash of movement up ahead. His eagle cane, his shiny Elvis hair slipping away from the crowd toward the dark shadows. The train car’s connecting doors creak open. A blast of roaring wind pierces my ears. Am I the only one to hear it? None of the passengers flinch.

“Dad,” I say. “Dad, wait!”

The glass doors separating the two train cars begin to slide shut. I still can’t see with the last two passengers blocking my way. Through the crevice between their elbows, I catch my dad’s eagle cane as it disappears behind the doors. Fog swirls on the glass, and a spark of cobalt flashes across steel, rippling out like dewy spiderwebs.

“Hey, how about an ‘excuse me’?” a bald man grumbles as I shove past his shoulder.

I yank open the doors.

The heavy plexiglass slides open and leads into a space that reminds me of an old phone booth. An icy blast slaps my skin, as if the conductor has cranked the AC to max capacity. But that’s never the case on a BART train. It’s always too hot. Always too many people breathing in your ear, elbows out and sweat stains under armpits.

My breath leaves a mist on the glass, and I touch my fingers to the water droplets to make sure they’re real. A whiff of my dad’s coconut aftershave, his cracked leather jacket. He was here a moment ago. The two accordion walls crunch together as the train lurches to a full stop. It wouldn’t be able to turn inside the dark tunnels without these flimsy rubber walls bending with the curve. I don’t stay long. There’s nothing like imagining the train splitting into pieces while I’m standing on the bridge connecting the cars.

My eyes frantically scan the passengers’ faces before the doors open at Daly City station. Not-my-father, not-my-father. No! No slicked-back hair, no eagle cane, no leather jacket. Not on this train. It wouldn’t have been possible for him to push his way through all these passengers to the exit.

The conductor gives one final call.

Doors closing.

A warning beep blares into the tunnel.

“Dad?” I holler into the train.

Heads snap in my direction as if I’m a lost toddler. My cheeks redden at the sudden attention. I’m too old to be a little girl calling for her father. But I’m not worried about myself—I’m worried about him.

Before the doors slide shut, I gaze up at the ratty pigeons clinging to the ledges of the train station even though they’ve added spikes to scare them away. The train starts to speed down the tunnel in a blur of blue and silver. It scatters newspapers and feathers into the air.

In all the magic tricks, a dove always disappears and reappears.

We all know what really happens to the dove.

That will not be my father.

Adapted excerpt from the upcoming book The Vanishing Station by Ana Ellickson, published by Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams; © 2024.

The post Read an Excerpt From Ana Ellickson’s <i>The Vanishing Station</i> appeared first on Reactor.

News The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings Musical Sets Its U.S. Premiere

The musical will begins its US run at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater this summer

By Vanessa Armstrong

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Published on April 9, 2024

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A musical based on The Lord of the Rings has been running in the UK since last year, and the production will now journey across the Atlantic to make its U.S. premiere in Chicago this summer.

The Lord of the Rings: A Musical Tale will have its American debut on July 19 at The Yard at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. It will run there until September 1, 2024 and will then go on an international tour at locations to be announced in June.

The musical adaptation of the iconic books by J.R.R. Tolkien was originally co-created by Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical director Matthew Warchus and Shaun McKenna in 2006, with music by A.R. Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire), Finnish folk group Värttinä, and Christopher Nightingale (Matilda the Musical). This recent version ran at The Watermill Theatre in the open air and is directed by Paul Hart.

“I can’t wait for this next step in the epic journey of The Lord of the Rings as we craft this new staging for the U.S. premiere production with Chicago Shakespeare Theater for Chicago audiences,” Hart said in a statement. “We loved creating this version which was retold from the perspective of the Hobbits at The Watermill and will now be expanded far beyond those horizons. It will be thrilling to share with new audiences internationally as part of this next stage.”

This means that the musical has a different vantage point than Peter Jackson’s film trilogy (pictured above), and will offer audiences a fresh take on the beloved books.

Here’s the official synopsis for the play:

You can learn more about the musical, including buying tickets, by clicking the link here.

If you can’t make it to Chicago or don’t want to wait until this summer, you can check out a trailer for the production that Watermill Theatre put out below. [end-mark]

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News Game of Thrones

Say It Ain’t So: There Won’t Be More Jon Snow

The spinoff with Kit Harington’s sad-eyed Stark is no longer in the works

By Vanessa Armstrong

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Published on April 9, 2024

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There have been a slew of Game of Thrones spinoffs in the works since the original series had its finale in 2019. And while House of the Dragon is about to come out with a second season and The Hedge Knight just cast its Dunk and Egg, there have been other projects that have fallen to the wayside.

The most notable one was the Naomi Watts-starring series that took place ten thousand years before the original show, which shot an entire pilot before getting axed in 2019. And today, Jon Snow actor Kit Harington confirmed that the potential series centered around his character is no longer in development.

In an interview with Screen Rant, Harington had this to say about the project:

Say it ain’t so! That doesn’t mean, however, that we won’t see more Game of Thrones-related shows coming to a television near you. In addition to The Hedge Knight and House of the Dragon, a series centered on King Aegon is still in the works as is an animated show about the Sea Snake. [end-mark]

The post Say It Ain’t So: There Won’t Be More Jon Snow appeared first on Reactor.

Excerpts Fantasy

Read an Excerpt From Mai Corland’s Five Broken Blades

It’s the season for treason in this fantasy debut…

By Mai Corland

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Published on April 9, 2024

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We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Mai Corland’s Five Broken Blades, an epic fantasy debut publishing with Red Tower Books on May 7^th.

Chapter One

Royo
City of Umbria, Yusan

Gold for blood—that’s my advertisement and the words I live by.

The merchant slowly counts out gold mun, his gloved hands shaking as each coin lands in his palm. He’s a little taller than me, but my shoulders are twice as wide.

“Hurry it up. I don’t got all night,” I say.

My deep voice startles him, and two bronze mun clatter onto the ground. He lets the coins roll away but pauses to consider chasing them down. Ten Hells. This is gonna take two lifetimes.

Finally, he slips the money into my hand, paying for the broken nose and leg. Then he darts away, fur-lined cape flapping in the night breeze. It’s not a noble living, being muscle for hire, but the upper class ain’t great neither.

I count my gold as I lumber between the soot-covered buildings. All there. I put the money in my coin purse and tuck it into my inner jacket pocket. Behind me, my latest victim whimpers in the darkness of the alley. If he keeps up that noise, the hael birds will peck him clean before morning. And the rich merchant prick didn’t pay for a kill.

“Can you stop that racket?” I say.

The whimpering dies down.

“Thank you,” I say. He’s silent—shut up by my manners or his pain.

I think about going back to help. I always think about it. But it’s none of my business. It’s not my problem, what happens after my jobs are done. Or why the merchant wanted to send a message in the first place.

Those are roads that lead nowhere. And I’ve got somewhere to be.

I blow a warm breath in my gnarled hands. This fucking cold. Frost shines on the cobbled streets, and the runoff has already started to freeze. What trees there are in this cramped city are long bare. Winter comes quick in Umbria. But then, death always does.

I should probably buy some warm gloves, but my stomach tightens at the thought of parting with even one silver mun. Every coin counts, and I don’t really need posh shit anyhow.

When I get to Inch Street, two well-dressed couples split around me. They’re all fur muffs and expensive, feathered hats. Swells. They give me a wide berth, then scurry away like I’m contagious or something. I guess if my size don’t intimidate people, the scar dividing my face does the trick. People stay away.

Good.

With a grunt, I shoulder open the heavy wooden door of Butcher & Ale. I’ve been in cleaner, nicer places with better grub, but those pubs don’t fit me. The tavern is warm without being hot and noisy, without being loud, and that’s all I need. Butcher & Ale is home. It’s where I started doing business ten years ago. Right after I turned fifteen, I set up shop in the corner—forty pounds less muscle with no scar on my face. They know what I do here, but I keep the place safe, so they look the other way.

I sit on my usual stool at the end of the bar. Yuri sees me and pours me a pint. He could be forty; he could be sixty. Who knows with that bald head. But he’s not the chatty type, and I like that.

He slides a beer across the worn wood. The glass is mostly clean. “Someone’s been looking for you.”

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Five Broken Blades

Mai Corland

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Five Broken Blades

Mai Corland

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I raise my eyebrows and chug a gulp of ale. Somebody’s always looking for me—to fight, to hurt, to kill. This ain’t news. “Why should I care?”

Yuri puts the bar towel over his shoulder and leans forward. “It was a girl.”

I stop drinking. My heart thuds and then lodges in my throat. I will it back down and play it cool. “What’d she look like?”

“Pretty,” Yuri says. Not the most helpful description. I curl my hand into a fist and stare. His eyes widen, and he rubs his nose somebody else broke a while ago. Then he starts yammering. “About my height, big brown eyes, kinda short black hair. Around your age—like mid-twenties. Red velvet cloak.”

I swallow, digesting his words. A tall, twenty-something girl asking about me is unusual. And I guess “pretty” makes a difference—can’t remember the last time a pretty girl looked for me. Maybe she wants an old boyfriend taught a lesson or revenge on another girl. I don’t hurt girls, though.

“She’s staying at the Black Shoe Inn,” Yuri adds.

The nicest joint in maybe all of Umbria. So she has money and she’s not from here yet somehow knew to look for me. Here. This reeks of trouble.

“Not interested,” I say.

Yuri shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

He wanders down the bar to serve another customer. A guy looking old for his age sits on the stool four paces down from me. He only makes eye contact with Yuri, so he’s also here to drink alone. Sometimes it feels less lonely to drown your sorrows in a shared barrel of ale. To vanish in the pub crowd. Even if you don’t say a word to nobody. Most nights, that’s me.

But I can’t disappear tonight. I know in my guts it’s going to be one of those times when I can’t forget no matter how much I drink. So why give myself a headache that’ll hit behind my eyes tomorrow?

I down my beer, leaving the dregs. I push back from the bar, the legs of the stool scraping the sticky floor. “I’m outta here.”

Yuri’s bushy eyebrows rise. It’s like what he didn’t get on his head went to his face instead. “Already?”

He’s right to be surprised. I’m normally good for a few beers as I take up my corner and wait for my next job to come in. Trouble always has a way of finding me. Usually it’s quick, but sometimes it takes four beers. Tonight, it’s just the one.

“Headache.” I tap my temple like he don’t know where my head is. But it’s a lie. And from his beady eyes going side to side, Yuri doesn’t believe it for a second.

But he nods. “Night, Royo.”

I take a step to leave, and something strange happens. An off feeling hits me, like a heart skipping a beat. Out of the corner of my eye, I swear there’s a blur of red. I blink hard, look around, then glance into the bar mirror. Nothing. Just my scarred face and shorn head looking back at me. Nothing red in sight. I shake my head. I’m real off tonight. Best I leave now.

I trudge my way out of Butcher & Ale and back onto the frigid street. I’ll need to repair the laces of my boots soon, probably patch the leather again—they still got some wear left.

I swear it got colder when I was inside. My exhale now makes little fogs in the air. I blow a hot breath into my hands again as I walk.

Five blocks in the wrong direction later, I pass the Black Shoe Inn. I can’t help but slow down and stare at the lamps glowing in the windows. I wonder… then shake my head.

What am I doing? What am I even looking for?

I walk double time to get away. It’s too suspicious. Too off. My instincts are always right, and the scars I bear are reminders of the times I’ve ignored my gut. The last time cost me everything. I’m not doing it again.

It’s about a fifteen-minute walk along Avalon Road to my shack on the cheap end of town. The buildings get more run-down, smaller, as I leave the business district. Umbria’s been going downhill since King Joon rose to power back when I was a kid. The whole country has.

The road bends, and then I have the river on my left. You’d think being near the water would be nice, but not in Umbria. The only waterway we got is the dirty Sol River. People empty chamber pots and dump trash right into the thing. And it’s even colder, the bone-chilling kind, when you’re close enough to hear the water lick the filthy shore.

I try to stay aware of my steps, my surroundings. There are too many dangers in Umbria from gangs, from men like me, from the hael birds, to be caught sleepwalking. But I’m off my game. Distracted.

I blame Yuri. He’s a barkeep, not a messenger. He could’ve kept all that noise to himself.

But I’m not really mad at Yuri. Truth is, I’m thinking about her. When Yuri said it was a girl, I hoped. And hope is a jagged knife. Hope pieces together dreams out of broken glass only for reality to come and smash them all over again. Hope is the cruelest punishment of them all. Because without hope, I know: it’s not her, you fool. It can’t be. It can never be.

Because I killed her.

Excerpted from Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland. Reprinted with permission from Red Tower Books, an imprint of Entangled Publishing. All rights reserved.

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News A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: A Hedge Knight

Game of Thrones Prequel The Hedge Knight Casts Its Dunk and Egg

The casting would seem to indicate that production is moving forward of the Game of Thrones spinoff

By Vanessa Armstrong

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Published on April 5, 2024

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Almost a year to the day that we found out that the Game of Thrones prequel, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight, was moving forward at HBO, we have news on who will be taking on the roles of the series’ two main characters, known to those who know as Dunk and Egg.

The show is based on a series of novellas that George R.R. Martin put out in the universe of A Song of Ice and Fire (check out our readalong we did of it in 2013 here) and centers on Ser Duncan the Tall (a.k.a. Dunk) and his faithful squire who answers to the name Egg. Peter Claffey, whose credits include Bad Sisters and a part in the upcoming third season of Vikings: Valhalla, is taking on Dunk, while Dexter Sol Ansell, who recently played Young Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, will play Egg.

The two actors, based on their headshots above, also fit in well with the look of the characters we know from the books.

Here’s the official logline for the show:

The series is written and executive produced by Martin and Ira Parker. Other executive producers include Ryan Condal (co-showrunner of House of the Dragon), Vince Gerardis, Owen Harris, and Sarah Bradshaw.

No news yet on when the series will go into production or make its way onto HBO. [end-mark]

The post <i>Game of Thrones</i> Prequel <i>The Hedge Knight</i> Casts Its Dunk and Egg appeared first on Reactor.

Book Recommendations Nghi Vo

Announcing Nghi Vo’s Don’t Sleep With the Dead, a Gatsby Novella

A standalone novella following the Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby of Vo’s The Chosen and the Beautiful

By Reactor

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Published on April 8, 2024

Photo Credit: CJ Foeckler

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Photo Credit: CJ Foeckler

Tor Publishing Group is thrilled to announce that editor Ruoxi Chen has acquired Nghi Vo’s Don’t Sleep With the Dead, pitched as The Talented Mr. Ripley meets The Great Gatsby, a standalone novella following the Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby of Vo’s The Chosen and the Beautiful. The deal, for North American rights, was brokered by Diana Fox at Fox Literary. 

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The Chosen and the Beautiful

Nghi Vo

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The Chosen and the Beautiful

Nghi Vo

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Nghi Vo is the author of the novels Siren Queen and The Chosen and the Beautiful, as well as the acclaimed novellas of the Singing Hills Cycle, which began with The Empress of Salt and Fortune. The series entries have been finalists for the Nebula Award, the Locus Award, and the Lambda Literary Award, and have won the Crawford Award, the Ignyte Award, and the Hugo Award. Born in Illinois, she now lives on the shores of Lake Michigan. She believes in the ritual of lipstick, the power of stories, and the right to change your mind.

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The Brides of High Hill

Nghi Vo

A novella of The Singing Hills Cycle

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The Brides of High Hill

Nghi Vo

A novella of The Singing Hills Cycle

A novella of The Singing Hills Cycle

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Buy the Book

The City in Glass

Nghi Vo

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The City in Glass

Nghi Vo

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Book Recommendations book review

H.A. Clarke’s The Feast Makers is Sharp as a Knife

A review of the final book in H.A. Clarke’s young adult fantasy series.

By Alex Brown

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Published on April 10, 2024

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It’s been a long four years since the first book in H.A. Clarke’s young adult fantasy series, The Scapegracers, and a year and a half since the sequel, The Scratch Daughters. Clarke closes out their trilogy with The Feast Makers. The real question is: Does the third book live up to the series hype? I think you already know the answer to that…

First, Sideways Pike was a loner lesbian with a sharp tongue and a bitter disposition. Then Sideways was a lost queer, missing their specter but surrounded by girls—Jing, Daisy, and Yates—who would kill for them. Now Sideways is the leader of a badass coven of ultra-cool high school seniors who hex bad dudes and party hard. The events of the previous two books come to a head here as all the local covens descend on the Delacroix House to sort out what to do with Madeline Kline and the recovered specter stones. Also piling into town are every witchfinder in the region, coming to bid farewell to a dead Chantry and get some witch hunting in for good measure. 

Sideways collides with one of the witchfinders, then collides with another. To save the girl they love, and protect their coven and the other witches, Sideways will have to take on the witchfinders one final time. The coven book devil, Mr. Scratch, is all too willing to help. The meaning behind the title sneaks up on you. It’s not what you think and it is so much worse, and I mean that in the best way possible. 

I could say a million things about how great this series is. Of The Scapegracers, I wrote that it “thrums with frenetic energy. Plots and subplots careen into each other like bumper cars at a carnival. Reading it felt like watching a primetime drama on The CW, all wild intensity and sizzling desire.” And of The Scratch Daughters I wrote that the “series has always been queer, but in this book queerness becomes a critical part of the plot. The ways these teens move through the branching paths of queerness directly impacts and is impacted by the main plot. Being queer isn’t a plot device—it is the plot.” The first point is less true in The Feast Makers, but the second Clarke doubles down on with a feverish intensity. 

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The Feast Makers

H.A. Clarke

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The Feast Makers

H.A. Clarke

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• IndieBound
• Target

Like the sequel, the third book meanders a bit in terms of plot. The main action is sparse. We don’t meet the secondary antagonist until a good chunk of the way in, then they vanish and don’t reappear until the mad dash to the finish line; the main antagonist we’ve met before but they only show up at the end and don’t stick around very long. Most of the book is dedicated to Sideways and their coven figuring out their romantic and sexual feelings for each other and what they each want to do after high school, the coven convention at the Delacroix house, and the drama that is What To Do About Madeline Kline. I’m not complaining—I love spending time with these chaotic bundles of hormones—but it also means that the baddies are barely more than cartoon villains, two-dimensional monsters cackling and twirling their mustaches. 

On the other hand, Clarke continues the trend of each book getting ever more queer. There are no new identity announcements here, but the coven meet a variety of queer elders that help shape and confound their ideas of what queerness can be. There are no neat and tidy labels here. No one cares about appeasing the cisallohets’ delicate sensibilities. People find the spaces they feel most comfortable in and occupy them without shame or apology. Sideways can be a masc-leaning they/them and a lesbian and whatever other labels they want to attach to themself. Who cares. Queerness isn’t about fitting into a box but about freeing yourself of the very idea of boxes at all. 

This series also pushes back against the idea of “good” representation. Back in ye olden days when us marginalized folks had almost no rep at all and what we had was usually written by majority people parachuting in as tourists or saviors, “good” and “bad” rep was a big concern. Mostly because most of the rep we had was offensive caricatures. We were sidekicks, tokens, and stereotypes. We needed “good” rep. Nowadays, we are still pretty underrepresented when it comes to the publishing world, but we’re not rarities either. Queer YA horror is practically its own subgenre at this point. We’ve moved past the need for “good” representation; now what we need is representation in all its glorious, messy, complicated variety. We need shitty queers doing horrible things to each other as much as we need caring, compassionate queers saving the world. Clarke’s series doesn’t bother with “good” or “bad” representation but instead shows us queer people being people, warts and all. Shiloh and Madeline have hurt a lot of people and have been hurt in turn by a lot of people, and they both process their traumas in different yet destructive ways. Elder queer witches made for bad role models but offer glimpses into futures Sideways never even dreamed of. 

Like its predecessors, The Feast Makers is vicious. Sharp as a knife, brutal as a bomb, and lyrical as a song. It crawls under your skin and burrows into your brain. This is the kind of series I want to literally throw at teenagers like that GIF of Melissa McCarthy. It’s the kind of series I wish I’d had when I was 16 because I would have made it my entire personality. I would have been utterly insufferable about Sideways Pike. I would have tattoos of the cover art and too many piercings and pretend to like heavy metal just to get a taste of Clarke’s coven. Everyone (including me) compares this series to The Craft, but that movie wishes it was this cool and queer. Wherever August Clarke takes readers next, I’ll be first in line for the ride. [end-mark]

The Feast Makers is published by Erewhon Books.

The post H.A. Clarke’s <i>The Feast Makers</i> is Sharp as a Knife appeared first on Reactor.

Book Recommendations book review

Love, Lust and Reincarnation: The Emperor and the Endless Palace

A review of Justinian Huang’s new queer romantic fantasy.

By Mahvesh Murad

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Published on April 9, 2024

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4 BCE China, the palace of the Emperor of the Han Dynasty. 

1740 China, a wayside inn by a forest. 

Modern day LA, glamorous, fabulous circuit parties.  

In each setting, two men impossibly drawn to each other, wondering why they feel so strongly, so surely about each other. 

What if what they are feeling, this inexplicable love and attraction, is a “feeling of metaphysical recognition, when your soul remembers someone from a previous life?” The Emperor and the Endless Palace asks the question, “how would that change the way you look at each stranger, knowing that they could be the epic romance across all of your lifetimes?”

Justinian Huang’s remarkably self-assured debut novel is a fantastic trip across centuries, a romp through grand palaces and lush forests and pulsating cities; the story of an everlasting connection between two souls bound to each other at every reincarnation, the story of obsession, betrayal and endless epic love. Two men are fated to be reborn into similar roles, destined to find one another, destined to always hunger and pine for one another, destined to always find each other, love each other, destroy each other; destined also make the same mistakes again and again and again. 

In 4 BCE China, we meet Dong Xian, a clerk in the imperial palace who is trying to navigate his way to a position of more importance, not knowing that the Emperor’s grandmother, the Machiavellian Grand Empress Dowager Fu has her sights set on him for her own schemes. In 18^th Century China, we meet Hi Shican, an innkeeper who is drawn to a nine tailed fox spirit under the guise of a mysterious young man named Jiulang, who needs help with something dangerous, help that Hi Shican cannot deny because of their immediate, inexplicable connection. In modern day Los Angeles, we meet River, a medical student who has only recently come out, and is experiencing L.A.’s gay party scene for the first time. He meets an artist from China who has somehow painted and sculpted River’s face dozens and dozens of times, though they have never met before. At least not in this lifetime. 

Buy the Book

The Emperor and the Endless Palace

Justinian Huang

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The Emperor and the Endless Palace

Justinian Huang

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• iBooks
• IndieBound
• Target

The novel presents these three distinct timelines, each with its own narrative arc, but with echoes between them. Each pair of characters has to traverse complications, treachery and dangers, but each pair also finds a true love and a deep understanding in each other.

Huang effortlessly moves between the timelines and narratives, creating a rich world for each set of characters with equal aplomb. The writing is cinematic (which would make sense given Huang’s background as a creative for Sony), extremely readable and often thrilling (thrills of all sorts—danger, sex, violence), though it would be safe to say that Huang is equally adept at turning poetic phrases when the need arises. A character “…stared straight ahead as he spoke quietly, each word like the first raindrops of an approaching storm”; another is a “beautiful mystery to the very end.”

There is plenty of sex, and most of it drives the plot along, rather than existing just for cheap thrills or titillation when the plot is flagging. Huang’s treatment of the sex scenes is clever and thoughtful, especially with regards to the language he uses to describe both body parts and action—characters in 4 BCE would not refer to their penises the same way as a young man in contemporary L.A. would, for example. Huang uses metaphors that were common place in China at the time (peach, plum, influence), and while that may come across as purple prose to some, it is all entirely relevant to the setting and is historically accurate. And as much as Huang is unabashed about graphic sex, there are some poignant moments in those scenes too, such as one character describing the experience “…[moving] to an ancient rhythm between men.”

A great deal of The Emperor and the Endless Palace stems from actual history. Dowager Fu, Emperor Ai and Dong Xian are all real historical figures from the Han Dynasty, with the Emperor and his lover’s story (called “the passion of the cut sleeve”) being known as an affair that brought down an entire Dynasty. Hi Shican and Jiulang’s relationship is known from a short story considered to be an early narrative on homosexuality in China, which refers to the “cut sleeve,” a phrase that echoes the story of Emperor Ai. River’s story is probably familiar to many young Asian gay men who, upon coming out, may have searched for a community within a culture that isn’t always ready to openly celebrate them. Queer awakening, heartbreak, heritage, joy and fear all feature in the rich emotional landscape of the novel, reminding us of how much is just sheer human experience, no matter when and where. 

The Emperor and the Endless Palace is a celebration of being queer, being Asian, being both. The novel honours Asian queerness through the ages and proclaims loudly, proudly that the stories of Asian gay men, and their queer spaces are relevant and important. Huang wants to remind people that queerness has always been a part of Asian culture, that (as he recently said in an interview) “queer Asian folk are the protagonists of our own epic stories.” [end-mark]

The post Love, Lust and Reincarnation: <i>The Emperor and the Endless Palace</i> appeared first on Reactor.

Book Recommendations book announcement

Announcing Anji Kills a King, a Fantasy Adventure From Evan Leikam

An unlikely assassin attempts to escape the clutches of a legendary bounty hunter, in a tale of grit, dark humor, inventive action, and surprising heart.

By Reactor

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Published on April 9, 2024

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Stephanie Stein at Tor Books has acquired Anji Kills a King by debut author Evan Leikam, co-host of the Book Reviews Kill podcast. This breakneck fantasy adventure for fans of Nicholas Eames and Christopher Buehlman follows the unlikely assassin of a king as she attempts to escape the clutches of a legendary bounty hunter, in a tale of grit, dark humor, inventive action, and surprising heart.

Publication is planned for Summer 2025; Seth Fishman at The Gernert Co. brokered the three-book deal. 

Evan Leikam is a co-host of the Book Reviews Kill podcast, and a book influencer on TikTok and Instagram. Prior to his career as a content creator, he toured the United States and Europe as a drummer in various rock bands, where he read the biggest fantasy books he could get his hands on to pass the time on the road. Anji Kills a King is his debut novel.

The post Announcing <i>Anji Kills a King</i>, a Fantasy Adventure From Evan Leikam appeared first on Reactor.

Book Recommendations new releases

All the New Fantasy Books Arriving in April!

Meet dead gods, eccentric aristocrats, vampire hunters, and more in this month’s new fantasy titles

By Reactor

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Published on April 1, 2024

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Here’s the full list of the fantasy titles heading your way in April!

Keep track of all the new SFF releases here. All title summaries are taken and/or summarized from copy provided by the publisher. Release dates are subject to change.

April 1

The Monstrous Misses Mai — Van Hoang (47North)
Los Angeles brims with opportunity in 1959—though not for aspiring fashion designer Cordelia Mai Yin, the first-generation child of Vietnamese immigrants, who finds the city unkind to outsiders and as dispirited as her own family. When Cordi rents a cheap loft in an old apartment building, she quickly warms to kindred souls Tessa, Audrey, and Silly. They also want better things and have pasts they’d rather forget. That they all share the same middle name makes their friendship seem like destiny. As supportive as they are of each other, it’s a struggle just to eke out a living, let alone hope to see their wishes for success come true. Until an ever-present and uncannily charming acquaintance of the landlord’s offers a solution to their problems. He promises to fulfill their every dream. All it takes is a little magic. And a small sacrifice. As one surprisingly effective spell leads to another, their wishes get bigger. But so does the price they must pay. Amid the damaged seams of her life so far, Cordi must realize her own power in order to rip free, without losing everything she’s worked so hard to achieve.

April 2

Play of Shadows — Sebastien de Castell (Mobius)
Damelas Chademantaigne picked a poor night to flee a judicial duel. He has precious little hope of escaping the wrath of the Vixen, the most feared duellist in the entire city, until he stumbles through the stage doors of the magnificent Operato Belleza and tricks his way into the company of actors. An archaic law provides a temporary respite from his troubles – until one night a ghostly voice in his head causes Damelas to fumble his lines, inadvertently blurting out a dreadful truth: the city’s most legendary hero may actually be a traitor and a brutal murderer. With only the help of his boisterous and lusty friend Bereto, a beautiful assassin whose target may well be Damelas himself, and a company of misfit actors who’d just as soon see him dead, this failed grandson of two Greatcoats must somehow find within himself the courage to dig up long-buried truths before a ruthless band of bravos known as the Iron Orchids come for his head. Oh, and there’s still that matter of the Vixen waiting to duel him.

Court of Wanderers (Silver Under Nightfall #2) — Rin Chupeco (Saga)
Remy Pendergast, vampire hunter, and his unexpected companions, royal vampires Lord Zidan Malekh and Lady Xiaodan Song, are on the road through the kingdom of Aluria again after a hard-won first battle against the formidable Night Empress, who threatens to undo a fragile peace between humans and vampires. Xiaodan, severely injured, has lost her powers to vanquish the enemy’s new superbreed of vampire, but if the trio can make it to Fata Morgana, the seat of Malehk’s court—dubbed “the Court of Wanderers”—there is hope of nursing her and bringing them back. En-route to the Third Court, Remy crosses paths with his father, the arrogant, oftentimes cruel Lord of Valenbonne. He also begins to suffer strange dreams of the Night Empress, whom he has long suspected to be Ligaya Pendergast, his own mother. As his family history unfolds during these episodes, which are too realistic to be coincidence, he realizes that she is no ordinary vampire—and that he may end up having to choose between the respective legacies of his parents. Posing as Malek and Xiaodan’s human familiar, Remy contends with Aluria’s intimidating vampire courts and a series of gruesome murders with their help—and more, as the three navigate their relationship. But those feelings and even their extraordinary collective strength will be put to the test as each of them unleashes new powers in combat at what may be prove to be the ultimate cost.

Dragon Rider — Taran Matharu (Harper Voyager)
Jai lives as a royal hostage in the Sabine Court—ever since his father Rohan, leader of the Steppefolk, led a failed rebellion and was executed by the very emperor Jai now serves. When the emperor’s son and heir is betrothed to Princess Erica of the neighboring Dansk Kingdom, she brings with her a dowry: dragons. Endemic to the northern nation, these powerful beasts come in several forms, but mystery surrounds them. Only Dansk royalty know the secret to soulbonding with these dangerous beasts to draw on their power and strength. This marriage—and the alliance that forms—will change that forever. But conspirators lurk in the shadows, and soon the Sabine Court is in chaos. With his life in danger, Jai uses the opportunity to escape with the Dansk handmaiden, Frida, and a stolen hatchling. Hunted at every turn, he must learn to cultivate magic and become a soulbound warrior if he has any chance of finding safety, seizing his destiny…and seeking his revenge.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In — John Wiswell (DAW)
Shesheshen has made a mistake fatal to all monsters: she’s fallen in love. Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body from the remains of past meals: a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth.   However, the hunters chase Shesheshen out of her home and off a cliff. Badly hurt, she’s found and nursed back to health by Homily, a warm-hearted human, who has mistaken Shesheshen as a fellow human. Homily is kind and nurturing and would make an excellent co-parent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen’s eggs so their young could devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, she realizes humans don’t think about love that way. Shesheshen hates keeping her identity secret from Homily, but just as she’s about to confess, Homily reveals why she’s in the area: she’s hunting a shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere? Eating her girlfriend isn’t an option. Shesheshen didn’t curse anyone, but to give herself and Homily a chance at happiness, she has to figure out why Homily’s twisted family thinks she did. As the hunt for the monster becomes increasingly deadly, Shesheshen must unearth the truth quickly, or soon both of their lives will be at risk. And the bigger challenge remains: surviving her toxic in-laws long enough to learn to build a life with, rather than in, the love of her life.

April 9

The Familiar — Leigh Bardugo (Flatiron)
In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to improve the family’s social position. What begins as simple amusement for the nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain’s king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England’s heretic queen―and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain the king’s favor. Determined to seize this one chance to better her fortunes, Luzia plunges into a world of seers and alchemists, holy men and hucksters, where the lines between magic, science, and fraud are never certain. But as her notoriety grows, so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisition’s wrath. She will have to use every bit of her wit and will to survive―even if that means enlisting the help of Guillén Santángel, an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both.

Lyorn (A Vlad Taltos Novel) — Steven Brust (Tor Books)
Vlad Taltos is on the run. Again. This time from one of the most powerful forces in his world, the Left Hand, who are intent on ending his very lucrative career. Permanently. He finds a hidey-hole in a theatre where the players are putting on a show that was banned centuries ago… and is trying to be shut down by the House that once literally killed to keep it from being played. Vlad will take on a number of roles to save his own skin. And the skins of those he loves. And along the way, he might find a part that was tailor-made for him. One that he might not want…but was always his destiny.

Forge of the High Mage (A Novel of the Malazan Empire) — Ian C. Esslemont (Tor Books)
After decades of warfare, Malazan forces are poised to consolidate the Quon Tali mainland. Yet it is at this moment that Emperor Kellanved orders a new, some believe foolhardy campaign: the invasion of Falar that lies far to the north… And to fight on this new front, a rag-tag army raised from orphaned units and broken squads is been brought together under Fist Dujek, and joined by a similarly motley fleet under the command of the Emperor himself. So the Malazans head north, only to encounter an unlooked-for and most unwelcome threat. Something unspeakable and born of legend has awoken and will destroy all who stand in its way. Most appalled by this is the Empire’s untested High Mage, Tayschrenn. All too aware of the true nature of this ancient horror, he fears his own inadequacies when the time comes to confront it. Yet confront it he must. Falar itself is far from defenseless. Its priests possess a weapon rumored to be a gift from the sea god, Mael—a weapon so terrifying it has not been unleashed for centuries. But two can play at that game, for the Emperor’s flagship is also believed to be not entirely of this world. These are turbulent, treacherous and bloody times for all caught up in the forging of an Empire and so, amongst the Ice Wastes and in the archipelago of Falar, the Malazans must face two seemingly insurmountable tests, each one potentially the origin of their destruction.

Wicked Problems (The Craft Wars #2) — Max Gladstone (Tordotcom Publishing)
A deadly force has been unleashed into the world. With apocalypse on the horizon, a girl and a god have joined in order to turn back the coming end. Young, brash, and desperate, they are willing to destroy anything and everything that stands between them and their goals. The structures of the Craft are theirs to overturn, with billions of lives in the balance. And it is all Tara Abernathy’s fault. The battle for the world of the Craft is heating up. A dead god will rise. A mountain will fall. Ancient fire will be stolen. And while Tara races to stop Dawn’s plans, the end draws ever closer, skittering across the stars to swallow the world. The Craft Wars enter their second stage in Wicked Problems.

The Last Phi Hunter — Salinee Goldenberg (Angry Robot)
Ex, the youngest member of the Phi Hunters Order, has spent his life slaying the ghosts and demons of Suyoram Kingdom. While he takes great pride in his mystical trade, collecting dwindling bounties and peddling butchered spirit organs lacks the glory he craves. He’s determined to hunt down Shar-Ala, a demon of nightmares, of madness—who has eluded even Ex’s masters. In a provincial village along the way, Arinya, a charming muay-boran champion, manages to save Ex him from a brutal ass-kicking, despite being nine months pregnant. In return, she asks him to escort her through the dangerous, spirit-filled forest, where ghosts salivate over the scent of the unborn. Feeling responsible for Arinya’s safety, Ex vows to help her return home. But as more of Arinya’s secrets emerge, and the elusive demon nears, Ex must face dangers from both men and monsters, or lose not only the respect and sanctuary of his guild, but also the woman he’s trying not to fall in love with.

The Book That Broke the World (The Library Trilogy #2) — Mark Lawrence (ACE)
The Library spans worlds and times. It touches and joins distant places. It is memory and future. And amid its vastness Evar Eventari both found, and lost, Livira Page. Evar has been forced to flee the library, driven before an implacable foe. Livira, trapped in a ghost world, has to recover the book she wrote—one which is the only true threat to the library’s existence—if she’s to return to her life. While Evar’s journey leads him outside into a world he’s never seen, Livira’s path will taker her deep inside her own writing, where she must wrestle with her stories in order to reclaim the volume in which they were written.  The secret war that defines the library has chosen its champions and set them on the board. The time has come when they must fight for what they believe, or lose everything.

The Hemlock Queen (The Nightshade Crown #2) — Hannah Whitten (Orbit)
The corrupt king August is dead. Prince Bastian has seized the throne and raised Lore—a necromancer and former smuggler—to his right-hand side. Together they plan to cut out the rot from the heart of the royal court and help the people of Dellaire. But not everyone is happy with the changes. The nobles are sowing dissent, the Kirythean Empire is beating down their door, and Lore’s old allies are pulling away. Even Prince Bastian has changed. No longer the hopeful, rakish, charismatic man Lore knows and loves, instead he’s become reckless, domineering, and cold. And something has been whispering in her ear. A voice, dark and haunting, that’s telling her there’s more to the story than she knows and more to her power than she can even imagine. A truth buried deep that could change everything. With Bastian’s coronation fast approaching and enemies whispering on all sides, Lore must figure out how to protect herself, her prince, and her country before they all come crumbling down and whatever dark power has been creeping through the catacombs is unleashed.

April 16

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods — Molly X. Chang (Del Rey)
Heroes die, cowards live. Daughter of a conquered world, Ruying hates the invaders who descended from the heavens long before she was born and defeated the magic of her people with technologies unlike anything her world had ever seen. Blessed by Death, born with the ability to pull the life right out of mortal bodies, Ruying shouldn’t have to fear these foreign invaders, but she does. Especially because she wants to keep herself and her family safe. When Ruying’s Gift is discovered by an enemy prince, he offers her an impossible deal: If she becomes his private assassin and eliminates his political rivals—whose deaths he swears would be for the good of both their worlds and would protect her people from further brutalization—her family will never starve or suffer harm again. But to accept this bargain, she must use the powers she has always feared, powers that will shave years off her own existence. Can Ruying trust this prince, whose promises of a better world make her heart ache and whose smiles make her pulse beat faster? Are the evils of this agreement really in the service of a much greater good? Or will she betray her entire nation by protecting those she loves the most?

The Jinn Daughter — Rania Hanna (Hoopoe)
Nadine is a jinn tasked with one job: telling the stories of the dead. She rises every morning to gather pomegranate seeds—the souls of the dead—that have fallen during the night. With her daughter Layala at her side, she eats the seeds and tells their stories. Only then can the departed pass through the final gate of death. But when the seeds stop falling, Nadine knows something is terribly wrong. All her worst fears are confirmed when she is visited by Kamuna, Death herself and ruler of the underworld, who reveals her desire for someone to replace her: it is Layala she wants. Nadine will do whatever it takes to keep her daughter safe, but Kamuna has little patience and a ruthless drive to get what she has come for. Layala’s fate, meanwhile, hangs in the balance. Rooted in Middle Eastern mythology, Rania Hanna deftly weaves subtle, yet breathtaking, magic through this vivid and compelling story that has at its heart the universal human desire to, somehow, outmaneuver death.

Pinquickle’s Folly (DemonWars: The Buccaneers) — R. A. Salvatore (Saga)
The first adventure in the Buccaneers trilogy begins in the free sea outside of the control of the usurping Xoconai empire, where the dwarven powrie pirates and merchants sail. But the golden-skinned Xoconai have begun to encroach upon these waters behind the rapacious attacks of the frigate Crocodile, helmed by Captain Aketz. But when forced to submit, these sailors choose to live, free to do as they please, without some fool or another pretending to hold power over them.

April 23

A Letter to the Luminous Deep — Sylvie Cathrall (Orbit)
A beautiful discovery outside the window of her underwater home prompts the reclusive E. to begin a correspondence with renowned scholar Henerey Clel. The letters they share are filled with passion, at first for their mutual interests, and then, inevitably, for each other. Together, they uncover a mystery from the unknown depths, destined to transform the underwater world they both equally fear and love. But by no mere coincidence, a seaquake destroys E.’s home, and she and Henerey vanish. A year later, E.’s sister Sophy, and Henerey’s brother Vyerin, are left to solve the mystery, piecing together the letters, sketches and field notes left behind—and learn what their siblings’ disappearance might mean for life as they know it. Inspired, immersive, and full of heart, this charming epistolary tale is an adventure into the depths of a magical sea and the limits of the imagination from a marvelous debut voice.

Grand Tour (The Brass Queen #2) — Elizabeth Chatsworth (CamCat)
In a fantastical steam-powered world, eccentric aristocrat and secret arms dealer, Miss Constance Haltwhistle, has been blackmailed into stealing alien artifacts from the crown heads of Europe. Only the shady but annoyingly handsome US spy, “Liberty” Trusdale, can help her execute her perfect palace heists. As Constance creates chaos and mayhem across the Continent, monstrous creatures are plotting an interdimensional invasion of Earth. Will Constance and Trusdale stop bickering long enough to end the war of the worlds before it starts?

Necrobane (The Warden Series #2) — Daniel M. Ford (Tor Books)
Aelis de Lenti, Lone Pine’s newly assigned Warden, is in deep trouble. She has just opened the crypts of Mahlgren, releasing an army of the undead into the unprotected backwoods of Ystain. To protect her village, she must unearth a source of immense Necromantic power at the heart of Mahlgren. The journey will wind through waves of undead, untamed wilderness, and curses far older than anything Aelis has ever encountered. But as strong as Aelis is, this is one quest she cannot face alone. Along with the brilliant mercenary she’s fallen for, her half-orc friend, and a dwarven merchant, Aelis must race the clock to unravel mysteries, slay dread creatures, and stop what she has set in motion before the flames of a bloody war are re-ignited.

April 30

Relics of Ruin (Books of the Usurper #2) — Erin M Evans (Orbit)
The conspiracy at the heart of the empire has been revealed. The Archivists played a key role in solving a brutal murder and uncovering one of the empire’s longest kept secrets. Now, what’s left in its wake are a series of unearthed artifacts, one shaken city, and the shocking truth not dared spoken aloud. Just as the empire has begun to regain normalcy, another mystery unveils itself when a stolen ancient relic is found. Only no one knew that it was missing from its sacred vault in the first place. And now that the real one has been recovered, who replaced it with a fake? With Quill and Amadea at the heart of another mystery, they will need to quickly follow the clues that all lead back to this new relic. Because all the while, an old enemy is gathering strength beyond the Salt Wall and the Archivists might come to find there’s nowhere left for them to go but over.

The post All the New Fantasy Books Arriving in April! appeared first on Reactor.

Book Recommendations book review

Above and Below: Two Communities Come to Blows in Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan

A review of Eliza Chan’s debut fantasy novel.

By Martin Cahill

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Published on March 28, 2024

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In the city of Tiankawi, the tide is an ever present threat, threatening to sweep all away. As such disaster looms, one would hope to see communities coming together, putting aside differences, and helping keep each other’s heads above water. However, in Eliza Chan’s debut novel, Fathomfolk, while those tides are indeed rising, no one can see them for the conflicts of the every day. Humanity is threatened by the rising numbers of those known as fathomfolk, doing their best to shove these beings of magic and myth back in the water. There are the fathomfolk, forced to breathe the toxic waters of a polluted sea and still forced behind human interest. And there are those in the middle, not wanting to pick, but to save as many people from either side as possible. This churn and these rising tides, both literal and metaphorical, are front and center in this energetic debut, as the city of Tiankawi and Chan’s multitude of voices each try to navigate political turmoil, social injustice, and two communities about to come to blows. 

From the start, we have a bevy of characters giving us insight into the various concerns afflicting Tiankawi. Mira, a half-siren woman, has been promoted to a position of leadership in the chinthe, the border guard of the city who help maintain safety—especially between humans and fathomfolk, a bountiful community of water-breathing peoples: mermaids, sirens, seawitches, kappas, redcaps, and many more. With her partner, Kai, a water dragon prince and the fathomfolk ambassador, she does her best to advocate for their peoples and keep the peace. Meanwhile, Kai’s sister Nami, a young water dragon of privilege who is exiled to Tiankawi after a busted heist, is soon attracted to the Drawbacks, a group of revolutionaries dedicated to tearing down the human world and bringing justice for the fathomfolk, who are treated like second-class citizens. And all the while Cordelia, a scheming seawitch, slithers and treads between characters and classes, using her shapeshifting and innate magical alchemy to her benefit, furthering her own personal agendas. All of these characters and their goals begin to mesh together and intertwine, putting not just the city of Tiankawi but all of its citizens, human and fathomfolk alike, in the gravest of danger. 

Buy the Book

Fathomfolk

Eliza Chan

Buy Book

Fathomfolk

Eliza Chan

Buy this book from:

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• Barnes and Noble
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You can feel the love author Eliza Chan poured into this book on every page. There’s a lot of great East Asian mythology at play in the various fathomfolk brought to life, and the city of Tiankawi feels inspired by a number of Asian cultures from food to fashion to transportation and more. Chan makes the city and the world itself a living and breathing entity, adding to works like The City and The City, The Lies of Locke Lamora, and A Study in Drowning, in which the location itself is a character for the reader to love, understand, and root for. As we come to know Mira, Kai, Nami, and Cordelia, we see the city through their eyes, and see the beauty and splendor of the fathomfolk as much as we see their suffering under the law of humanity, the gill-less too terrified of their magical abilities and mythic forms to see them as people worthy of respect and care. The focus on social issues, communal solidarity, and navigating two worlds, neither of which want you, is when Fathomfolk is at its strongest; the movement toward justice can be a thorny one, made more complicated by differing perspectives and violence as a means to an end. It’s when Chan balances myth and place with theme and character that Fathomfolk shines as bright as a pearl in the sun.

However, if you’ve been reading so far and are thinking this is all a lot to balance, you would be correct. There is a fine line, especially in epic fantasy, between worldbuilding and pacing, and unfortunately there are moments here when you can feel one beginning to tip over into the other, and while the writing can work, the flow as a whole slows down. On the other hand, there are moments where the story moves along at a quick clip, the pace beginning to smooth, but in doing so, there are bits of characterization or story revelation not quite given the heft and weight they deserve in order for the reader to really invest in either. It doesn’t take away from any of the excellent moments to be found within, but it is worth noting that as much as Chan sticks the landing in some places, there are others where there can be a bit of a stumble. 

But one must ask, does one expect perfection from a debut novel? No. In fact, expecting perfection from any art, in any medium, is going to make your life a lot less joyful. I’d argue that Fathomfolk has the heart, the beauty, and the creativity to make me invested in Chan as a writer, making me particularly excited to see what comes next in this series and in her career as a whole. After all, you can work on the technical bits and push yourself to continue to grow, but you can’t build a heart from nothing, or wring blood from a stone. For all that there were some slow moments or some muddy characterization, there is so much love, energy, and passion poured into Fathomfolk to make this a novel worthy of your time and attention. I’m excited to dive back into whatever waters Eliza Chan wades into next. [end-mark]

Fathomfolk is published by Orbit.

The post Above and Below: Two Communities Come to Blows in <em>Fathomfolk</em> by Eliza Chan appeared first on Reactor.

Book Recommendations book review

A Confusing Romantasy: Lore of the Wilds by Analeigh Sbrana

A review of Analeigh Sbrana’s debut romantasy novel.

By Vanessa Armstrong

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Published on March 25, 2024

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In Lore of the Wilds we follow Lore Alemeyu, a young woman who lives within the confines of Duskmere, a town that houses all the humans in the fae world of Alytheria. Humans historically aren’t allowed to leave Duskmere—its borders are guarded by fae soldiers intent on keeping the humans inside and without access to magic—but, after an unexpected disaster hits the people she loves, Lore finds herself forcefully escorted to Wyndlin Castle. There, Lord Syrelle wants her to work in a library that no fae has been able to enter in a thousand years due to an ancient curse. Lore, as a human not from this fae world (legend has it that her ancestors came from the sky a few hundred years ago), would be able to walk through its doors and, since she can read the Alytherian language, find certain texts that Syrelle wants.

From there, the story has Lore working in the library under the guard of a fae soldier named Asher. After several chapters focused on her time in the castle, the tale then jumps to her finding a grimoire that only responds to her—a shocking development as she is human, someone who isn’t supposed to be able to wield magic. She flees the castle with the book, with Asher coming with her, as the two have exchanged lustful glances while Lore was forced to work in the library. Without getting too much into spoilers, she miraculously gets help from some of her former guard’s old companions, including another fae male named Finn, who hates Asher but grudgingly grows a rapport with Lore. The plot skips and jumps along, slowing down at some points and then whizzing by so fast at others that I had to double-check to make sure I didn’t miss a chapter. The book ends on a major cliffhanger and a shocking reveal (to Lore, at least), making clear that this novel is just the first in a series. 

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Lore of the Wilds

Analeigh Sbrana

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Lore of the Wilds

Analeigh Sbrana

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The premise in Lore of the Wilds is a promising one, as are the hints of worldbuilding behind it—humans came from somewhere, for example, and I’d bet future books will expand on this. The descriptions of the library and the grimoire that Lore finds also spark interest. If you enjoy Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses series, this premise and promise of romance might pique your interest. (You’ll also be used to books ending on a surprise plot twist and cliffhanger.) Lore of the Wilds, however, struggles to deliver on its premise; the book’s character development, pacing, and plot detract from the story and might leave you more confused than eager to find out what happens next.

The pacing, for example, is scattershot, sometimes skipping over what one would think would be crucial moments and leapfrogging Lore from one location to another, as if the story is trying to figure out what it wants to be in real-time and all the wrong turns and dead ends remain captured on the page rather than tossed or rewritten. 

Some key characters also don’t feel fully developed, which makes connecting with them challenging. Lore is ostensibly in her early twenties but reads like a young teenager, making indecipherable decisions that leave the reader scratching their heads. Yes, lots of characters make bad choices, but when done well, we understand why they do what they do, even if it’s clearly not the right thing for them. Lore distrusts and then over-trusts, and some of those she confides in (just hours after meeting them!) also inexplicably risk everything to help her without further explanation. The dynamic between core characters is also lacking, something that’s crucial to have in a book that touts its romance elements. 

Speaking of romance, Lore of the Wilds is advertised as a steaming romantasy with a love triangle. To that end, there is one open door sex scene, but that sequence feels shoehorned in at an odd point in the story. The chemistry we’re supposed to feel between Lore and Asher is also tepid. Beyond Lore’s occasional thoughts about how handsome he is, there are no moments that make any sexual tension between them feel earned. “Lust at first sight” can work, but in this case, it falls flat. And while we get an answer at the end as to why that might be, that explanation only makes the whole relationship more confounding. 

Lore and Finn’s attraction works better but happens in the back half of the book when the plot starts getting disjointed, abruptly bringing back other characters through rushed side quests and adding in revelations of horrific acts that make any steamy moments between Lore and her two men feel jarring. 

Lore of the Wilds can’t seem to decide what it wants to be—a romantasy, a cozy fantasy, a fantasy-infused version of The Handmaid’sTale—and in so doing ends up leaving all these components of the book disconnected and incomplete. Perhaps another round of editing would have addressed these issues and made it more of a compelling read. As it stands, however, it felt like various subplots and worldbuilding points were crammed into the last third of the novel, potentially because those elements come up in later planned books. It’s likely future installments in this series will make all those disparate scenes and moments make sense. On its own, however, Lore of the Wilds makes for a fragmented, chaotic read, with the cliffhanger at the end just one more erratic twist in the tale rather than—for some readers—something that creates the desire to read more. [end-mark]

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Book Recommendations book review

Diary of a Dryadologist: Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett

A review of Heather Fawcett’s new fantasy novel.

By Vanessa Armstrong

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Published on March 26, 2024

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A year after Heather Fawcett’s first Emily Wilde book was published, we’re treated with a sequel, Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands. 

Like its predecessor, Otherlands is an epistolary novel set in the early twentieth century where faeries are commonplace but far from fully understood. Dryadologist Emily Wilde’s vocation is to learn as much as she can about the mysterious Folk, and we catch up with her once again via her journal, of which we are surreptitious readers. Her research has moved on from the now-published Encyclopaedia of Fairies (which is also, of course, the name of the first book in Fawcett’s series) and she is now ostensibly working on a map of the different faerie realms, or Otherlands (which is, you likely noticed, the source for the title of the sequel).

As her entries reveal, however, she’s really more intent on helping her colleague Wendell—a banished Fae monarch who is fronting as a human professor in the dryadology department—discover a back door into his land in South Ireland. Perhaps she’s more focused on that effort because she’s now tenured. Or perhaps it’s because Wendell proposed and professed his love to her in the first book, and she’s harboring feelings for him as well, as much as she tries to dismiss them.

Whatever the reason (it’s a question that Emily doesn’t even deign to explore, even in a footnote), she’s intent on helping Wendell get back home so he can overthrow his stepmother, who took the throne after she killed everyone else in Wendell’s family and exiled him to the dreary realm where humanity resides. To make matters even more dire for Wendell, his stepmother is also now apparently keen on killing him, something she didn’t pursue before because Folk custom dictates that one in power must leave one person alive who could theoretically overthrow them. 

Why the stepmother has decided to assassinate Wendell is one of the many mysteries that unfold in Map of the Otherlands, and a question that Emily does determinedly interrogate even as magical monsters hunt them down on campus and elsewhere. Another mystery includes the circumstances surrounding a dryadologist named Danielle de Grey who went missing over fifty years ago, and a man who keeps appearing in front of Emily covered in ribbons and spouting cryptic messages at her. 

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Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands

Heather Fawcett

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Heather Fawcett

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These mysteries are entwined with Emily’s quest to help Wendell find a way back to his home. And while Emily would prefer to set off on an expedition to do just that solely with Wendell and her beloved Hound of Death, Shadow, she finds two others joining her, much to her chagrin: her niece, Ariadne, who Emily begrudgingly writes is an apt student, and the Department Head, Dr. Farris Rose, a man who clashes with Emily but comes along once he uncovers that Wendell is, in fact, not human. The expansion of Emily’s circle is a welcome one (although she herself resolutely expounds in the pages of her journal how trying they both are). From a narrative perspective, both are also not additions without purpose; they not only serve as foils to show us different sides of Emily and the world the series is set in, but also have their own arcs that invite further exploration in subsequent novels.

And then of course, there’s the susurrus of romantic tension with Wendell that even Emily can’t keep out of her writing. She was quite taken aback by Wendell’s proposal in the first book (and here’s where I’ll that I strongly suggest you read Encyclopaedia of Fairies before picking a Map of the Otherlands up), and she has yet to give him an answer, not only because she doesn’t confront her own feelings about him, but because, in her own words, marriage is “a pointless business, at best a distraction from my work and at worst a very large distraction from my work coupled with a lifetime of tedious social obligations.”

If someone asked me to describe Emily Wilde’s personality, I would simply direct them to the line above. Emily is a scholar—as passionate, skilled, and dedicated to learning all she can about the Folk as she is uncomfortable and inept at navigating social situations. She is also unbending in the face of apparently insurmountable odds and not afraid to write a footnote or three as she describes events as they unfold in this tale. And while she is far from a romantic, as later scenes of déshabillé with Wendell make clear, its these traits of Emily’s that make the series such a joy for many reader (along with, of course, the magical faeries that she, as a dryadologist, vigorously researches via dangerous expeditions). 

Like all good second novels in a series, Map of the Otherlands expands on the world laid out in the first while also giving the characters we’ve come to know more depth and complexity. We learn more about Emily as she learns to let people into her life, albeit seemingly reluctantly. We also get to see the sides of other characters as well, no small feat given the constraints of having the story unfold solely through Emily writing the course of events down in her journal (although Wendell helps with this tremendously by jotting in his own entry at one point). And, without giving too much away, we also spend time with Folk, old and new, and have another perilous journey into Fae. It’s an adventurous tale, and—dare I say it—a cozy one, even though it contains a severed foot that serves as a compass and sculptures on a fireplace mantel made from human fingers and toes.

The end of the book resolves much of the mysteries outlined above, but it also tees up a healthy dose of intrigue for potential events in the planned third installment in the series, which Goodreads tells me is due to come out in 2025 and has the title, Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales. I, for one, will be waiting and ready for whenever another volume of Emily’s journals makes its way into my eager hands. [end-mark]

Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands is published by Del Rey.

The post Diary of a Dryadologist: <i>Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands</i> by Heather Fawcett appeared first on Reactor.

Book Recommendations book review

A Breathless Panther Chase: Mariely Lares’ Sun of Blood and Ruin

A review of Mariely Lares’ historical fantasy novel reimagining Zorro.

By Maura Krause

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Published on March 21, 2024

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I’ll admit it. I wanted to read Sun of Blood and Ruin because it’s marketed as a reimagining of Zorro featuring a swashbuckling sorceress. 1998’s Mask of Zorro was my first PG-13 movie and I loved it, despite being forever haunted by that head in a jar scene (iykyk). My inner adolescent’s attachment to that film may have brought me to Mariely Lares’ debut novel, but her story is so much more than a twist on the classic Zorro legend—though at times, almost too much more. 

Set in sixteenth century New Spain, which is present-day Mexico, Sun of Blood and Ruin is the first in a duology. It is narrated by eighteen-year-old Leonora, a noblewoman whose elegant façade hides her double identity as folk hero Pantera. The daughter of the first viceroy of New Spain and the Mexica woman he loved, Leonora is caught between worlds even when she isn’t wearing the panther’s mask. For while the book is speculative history, the horrors of colonialism remain central. The regime of New Spain seems determined to crush the indigenous people of the land—the Nahuas, a term encompassing the seven tribes of the area. As a member of the court led by her fourteen-year-old half-brother, Viceroy Jerónimo, and his scheming mother vice regent, Leonora is a political voice for the native residents. As Pantera, our heroine meets violence with violence, fighting in the streets against the cruel Captain Nabarres and his persecution of all who adhere to Nahua ways. 

Pantera’s power itself grows from the world depicted in indigenous lore. As a girl, Leonora wandered away from the palace and was lost in the forest for ten years. During this time she lived in Tamoanchan, a mythological paradise where she was trained as a Nagual—a shapeshifter. Though Pantera did not complete her training, she returned to the city able to wield her tonalli (life force) in battle, shift into a panther, and cross swords with the best of them. 

The novel begins with both Pantera and Leonora in crisis. As Pantera, our protagonist fails to save a beloved local wise man from Nabarres, and loses her magical Sword of Integrity. As Leonora, she faces an unwanted betrothal to the Crown Prince of Spain, which will take her away from her land and her calling. In both guises, our narrator was born during the cursed Nemontemi, the Dead Days at the end of the year, and is thus destined to die young in battle. As the prophesied collapse of the Fifth Sun approaches, Leonora-Pantera can feel her violent fate drawing nearer—not to mention the end of the world at the hands of demons and vengeful goddesses. Over the course of the following 350 pages, this multifaceted character navigates political intrigue, meets a roguish guardsman with tonalli too powerful to be what he seems, discovers the truth about her betrothed, goes in search of the indigenous resistance La Justicia, and negotiates with the gods themselves. 

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Sun of Blood and Ruin

Mariely Lares

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Sun of Blood and Ruin

Mariely Lares

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Lares’s intricate plot is a wonder, full of surprising connections and revelatory twists. She unfolds the sumptuous world of the book with care and patience, weaving new aspects of magic and startling creatures throughout the story. Her extensive research is brought to visceral life, and I felt she held my uninformed hand just enough. I appreciated that Lares guides this many-layered story to a satisfying conclusion, her only indication of a sequel being a rather filmic teaser scene at the very end. 

Yet, this astonishing plot would be more suited to two or even three novels. The disguised folk hero and revolution narrative would be enough to fill the covers of a book, as would the saga of the gods’ cyclical struggles over the fate of humanity. With so much richness crammed into one book, every event is on the heels of the one before. I quickly became overwhelmed by revelations and lightning-quick action sequences, and couldn’t slow down to appreciate the characters’ arcs or the dazzling settings. At one point in the novel, a character seems to die, only to reappear five pages later; within those same five pages, a new character is introduced and the main character has a major revelation about her inner self. As this sequence might suggest, some character development is lost to the demands of this juggernaut of a plot, which is frustrating when the characters have been so well set up. 

I came away from all this hoping Lares’ duology gets optioned for TV someday, despite the fact that I’m not much of a TV person. If I got the conflicted Pantera and a universe shaped by Quetzalcoatzin instead of another medieval Europe-inspired fantasy epic, I would be glued to that screen. Lares’ ideas are magnificent, but I craved more immersiveness, which actors and production design could provide. Though my love of Zorro might seem to inform my desire for such an adaptation, by the final page of this gripping and original tale, I’d forgotten all about him. Sun of Blood and Ruin presented a world and characters I desperately wanted to get lost in, but its frenetic pace and overambitious scope wouldn’t quite let me. [end-mark]

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Book Recommendations

Exploring Nordic Speculative Fiction in Five Novels

These five memorable works encompass magical realism, futuristic dystopias, zombies, trolls, and sorcery, and quite a bit more.

By Rowdy Geirsson

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Published on March 20, 2024

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In the world of English-language books, the Nordic countries have a solid reputation for providing us with a steady stream of crime fiction (under the apt descriptor of “Nordic noir”) and children’s literature, including classics like Pippi Longstocking and the Moomins.

Fantasy, science fiction, supernatural horror, and other speculative fiction by Nordic authors haven’t hit the mainstream in quite the same way—but this is also true in the Nordic homelands of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden themselves. Despite all the fairy tales, folklore, and Norse/Finnish mythology abounding in these nations, the Nordic speculative fiction novel just hasn’t enjoyed the same robust tradition as its counterpart in native English.

But that’s been steadily changing. Nordic speculative fiction still isn’t being written or released at the same rate as Nordic noir, but there’s a growing scene. Nordic speculative fiction authors are often strikingly original—rather than bandwagoning onto a popular, prevailing theme or familiar premise with a slight twist or added extravagance, these writers frequently totally subvert or eschew expectations entirely. English-language translations aren’t hugely commonplace, and the novels that have found their way to the US, UK, and beyond most often tend to be set in our own world (typically in the author’s own Nordic homeland) rather than in alternate worlds. So this list doesn’t feature any examples of high fantasy or space opera, but if you’re a reader who enjoys monsters, alternate realities, magic realism, or dystopia, then one of these titles may be for you.

Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg

(Translated by Tiina Nunnally) A winner of multiple mystery novel awards when it was released, Smilla’s Sense of Snow is the least obvious book on this list and also the oldest, having first been published in Denmark in 1992. Despite the fact that it’s generally labeled as a mystery, Smilla’s Sense of Snow is more akin to a Michael Crichton-style sci-fi thriller heavily wrapped up in the trappings of Nordic noir.

The plot follows the actions of Smilla, a Greenlandic woman living in Denmark, who begins to investigate the mysterious death of young boy in her neighborhood. The deeper she digs, the stranger and more sinister things become as the setting gradually shifts from urban Copenhagen to the desolate, icy coast of Greenland. The narrative voice is hugely entertaining, provided you enjoy an abundance of highly cynical witticisms interspersed throughout the text, and while the speculative element is only revealed towards the very end, it remains the clear motivational force for all of the book’s main events. Smilla’s Sense of Snow was adapted into a movie in 1997 starring Julia Ormond and Gabriel Byrne. (Note: released in the UK as Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow)

Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta

(Translated by the author.) Set in a drought-ravaged distant (yet easy to envision) future, Memory of Water takes place in former Finnish territory that has come under the foreign rule of a draconian, new empire based in what is now China. The book focuses on the teenage protagonist, Noria, and her family of traditional tea masters—who by decree enjoy a more generous rationing of water than most citizens—in a secluded village near Kuusamo at the moment when a new military commander with a serious chip on his shoulder arrives in town.

Adding to the tension and suspense is the side-plot that occurs predominately in the second half of the book involving Noria and her best friend’s discovery of…something that shouldn’t be commented upon further for anyone who might want to read it. Full of lush prose about the tangible and ephemeral qualities of water, Memory of Water is more drama than action or thriller; it’s a very somber novel, but also very memorable. A film adaptation of the book premiered in Finland in 2022.

Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Lindqvist

(Translated by Ebba Segerberg.) A highly original twist on the zombie theme, Handling the Dead presents readers with the notion that the undead aren’t really evil, slavering fiends, but just sad, somewhat dim-witted people who simply want to go home upon awakening—it’s the living who are scary. The story follows three separate pairs of individuals in Stockholm who are confronted with the mysterious reanimation of a recently deceased loved one, and how each of these pairs independently handles the situation on a personal level while society at large spirals out of control around them. Also, there’s rabbit telepathy. The book is the second offering by Lindqvist, who is best known as the author of Let the Right One In (adapted in some versions as Let Me In). A new feature length film based on Handling the Undead was just released in February of 2024 in Norway.

Troll: A Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo

(Translated by Herbert Lomas.) A charming but twisted little book that posits the notion that trolls are very real—and have been  scientifically studied and classified as the incredibly rare species, Felipithecus trollius. Among regular interludes comprised of invented documentation about trolls as well as text from actual volumes of folklore, the plot follows the trials and tribulations of the main character, Angel, as he struggles to house-train and raise an abandoned baby troll that he happened to find by chance one day. Taking place in the interior Finnish city of Tampere, the journey is a bizarre ride through Angel’s private and personal world of ex-boyfriends, friends and lovers, and an abused mail-order bride that steadily builds up a thickening atmosphere of obsession, paranoia, and darkness. (Note: released in the UK as Not Before Sundown)

Shadows of the Short Days by Alexander Dan Vilhjálmsson

(Translated by the author.) Set in a present-day, alternate-reality version of Reykjavik, Shadows of the Short Days has the feel of a steampunk novel in terms of its attitude and general aesthetics, but built on concepts related to Old Norse sorcery rather than the technology of Victorian England. Many of the Icelandic locales referenced in the book actually exist, though not necessarily with the same functions or purposes as in real life—the city’s iconic, hilltop hot water tank construction known as Perlan is presented as a thaumaturgical power plant, for example. The story follows two main characters on separate paths that sometimes intersect as they struggle to achieve their goals: Sæmundur’s is to become the greatest practitioner of galdr (a specific form of Viking Age sorcery) the world has ever seen, and Garún’s is to overthrow the oppressive regime of the Kalmar Commonwealth (inspired by the actual Kalmar Union of the Middle Ages).

The book is a wild ride and should appeal to anyone who might like the idea of magical human skulls that operate as music/audio devices, highly restrictive schools of dark Norse sorcery, tribal human-bird warrior clans, exiled huldufólk (Icelandic fairy people) who feast on human memories, hostile scorn pole-based magical attacks, and clumsy golems made from unwashed laundry.

[end-mark]

The post Exploring Nordic Speculative Fiction in Five Novels appeared first on Reactor.

Excerpts art reveal

Revealing Art From Jared Pechaček’s The West Passage

Take a peek at The West Passage, a delightfully mysterious and intriguingly weird medieval fantasy unlike anything you’ve read before.

By Jared Pechaček

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Published on March 19, 2024

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We are thrilled to share an excerpt from Jared Pechaček’s The West Passage, along with some of Pechaček’s chapter art and notes. The West Passage will be available on July 16 2024 from Tordotcom Publishing.

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The West Passage

Jared Pechaček

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Jared Pechaček

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For all the illustrations, I asked myself: How would people in the world of The West Passage depict these events? This is a book where objective truth is hard to come by, so representing events realistically felt like an imposition of one view upon the narrative. (Yeah, I’m the author, but I’m not a dictator!) And so, as the story moves from area to area, or from character to character, the visuals shift with it through different periods of medieval art. Here, the first ever Lady of Grey battles the ancient enemy of the palace, known only as the Beast. In the world of The West Passage, the Ladies are the palace’s eldritch builders, rulers, and protectors, each responsible for her own domain. This battle belongs to a time so long ago it’s basically myth, so rather than medieval art, some of the masks are inspired by Bronze Age sculpture.

Our story starts in Grey House, the oldest and most secluded region of the palace. It resembles a monastic community: dedicated to ritual and supported by people within its demesne. For art related to Grey and its Mother, I turned to insular Celtic work from about 650-800 CE, like the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels, to associate these people with isolation, faith, and the periphery of empire.

The other major visual style of The West Passage comes from the Gothic period. Our second protagonist, Kew, apprentice to the Passage’s deceased Guardian, is much more book-learned than anyone else, so his chapters reflect the broader trends within Europe from 1200-1450 CE. As he goes along, the art shifts later and later within that time frame, but at this point in the story, we’re still at the start. This image is a direct reference to a page of the thirteenth century Aberdeen Bestiary—one of several similar books that Kew’s art hearkens back to. Bestiaries are, after all, part of his job.

The interlude chapters peek in on what’s happening in other areas that our heroes don’t see. Here, we’re visiting Blue Tower, the artistic and industrial center of the palace, where a certain manuscript is in production. Blue’s art pulls from Armenian illumination, particularly the work of Toros Roslin, which sits at a very beautiful intersection of European Christian and West Asian Islamic influences. I use it here partly because Blue is also an intersection for the palace, but mostly because I’m part Armenian. (One of our protagonists is visually based on my great-grandmother, actually!) 

The experience of revelation is very important to the story. So is the characters’ devotion to their godlike Ladies, which is strongest in the warlike region of Red. And so for art related to Red, I have turned to Beatus of Liébana’s Commentary on the Apocalypse, specifically the gorgeously weird Facundus manuscript from 1047. In this image, the first of the Red Ladies, surrounded by her dragonflies, fights against the Beast. The sinuous Beast itself here is inspired by Facundus’s take on the Great Red Dragon. As for why it has more heads than its first appearance, plus a lot of wings—well, I wouldn’t dream of revealing.

Chapter 1
The Mask Is Broken and the Women in Grey Say Very Little About It

With the guardian dead, the question remained: Who would do it? There was talk among the women of sending to Black Tower for someone, or of the old woman’s apprentice taking over, but he, a pale youth who looked more used to handling books than beasts, turned paler when it was mentioned to him, and they would not shame him, nor distress themselves, by speaking of it further. But in the meantime, the West Passage remained unguarded.

The women in grey took the body for washing and wrapping. Due to the importance of the deceased, Pell, who was their apprentice, was not permitted to touch, only to look, and as she looked she saw the pale youth slip something off the old woman’s corpse just as everyone entered the small dark room. A trinket of some sort, on a string, perhaps a keepsake promised to him by the old woman. Pell said nothing.

A strong smell of death had settled on the room. It had not been a dignified death, and the old woman was very dirty. There was a song to be sung during washing, but the women in grey could only hum it through closed mouths. They filled basket after basket with soiled linen before she was clean. Yarrow, the taller woman, directed Pell to take the baskets out to the burnyard reverently but quickly and set them afire as soon as possible.

“And for North’s sake,” said Yarrow, “don’t touch them, and wash your hands directly—seven times, remember, with some lavender oil to finish.”

Pell did not need to be told, but it suited Yarrow to order and be obeyed, and it suited Pell to please Yarrow. The Mother of Grey House was a tall, stern woman, and the backs of her strong hands were covered in spines; you didn’t want her boxing your ears. Pell did as she was told—burnt the baskets too, since they seemed fouled beyond repair—and as the linens and wicker settled into charred shreds in the furnace, she went to wash. Smelling of lavender, she returned to the old woman’s room, where the apprentice sat in the corridor next to Arnica’s wheelbarrow, his knees drawn up to his chest.

“Out of my way,” said Pell, an important person with important tasks. Someday she might take Yarrow’s place. Then people would stay out of her way and not just sit in it, staring.

The apprentice only moved a fingerwidth, as if his misery held his body full and taut and he couldn’t compress it anymore. He did not look at her.

“I’m needed inside,” said Pell, which was not strictly true. Yarrow and Arnica had only told her to keep out of the way and watch.

“What’s to become of me?” said the apprentice.

She could not remember his name, and did not have the patience to try. “I can’t speak for the future, but in the present, if you don’t let me past, I’ll box your ears.”

They were the same age, or nearly, but Pell could talk like Yarrow when needed. He moved.

“Thank you,” said Pell. To make up for her manner, she took a stick of angelica from her sleeve and offered it to him. He stared at it as if it were some unknown beast. “Take it,” she said. Then again, more loudly, and added, “It’s a gift.”

He obeyed. Pell left him and entered the room, which smelled much fresher now, in time to pick up the winding sheet and hand it to Arnica. Fitting so immediately into their rhythm kindled a spark of pleasure in her heart, and in its warmth she forgot the apprentice.

The women in grey wound up the old woman in the white cloth. Over her shrouded face they strapped a green stone mask with closed eyes. They could sing now, and Yarrow’s fine clear voice filled the room with the winding-song, while Arnica’s huskier one rumbled in the flagstones. Pell was not allowed to sing the songs yet, but she memorized the tune and the way Yarrow and Arnica would clap in unison at certain beats and words. In her mind, she built a room for the winding-song and hung each line as a picture on the walls.

The women in grey hoisted the corpse onto a stretcher—Pell could help here, as the women in grey were really not much younger than the old dead woman—and carried her out. Pell was left to clean up.

Any unused linens and herbs must be repacked in their chipped urns. The floor must be swept and mopped, and the sweepings put in a basket to burn.
The room was not much bigger than any others in the palace. It held a bed, a stool, a chamber pot, a large wooden table, and a wardrobe. One wall had three small windows, latticed with stone like the others in this old part of the palace. Nothing was very remarkable, except an open wooden chest at the bed’s foot, where three or four books lay.

Books. Women in grey were not supposed to meddle with personal property, but Pell was not one of them yet. She could still do some of the forbidden things, like eat meat or handle bread. So when the floor was swept, and she’d pulled herbs out of her sleeves to steep in the mopping water, she knelt by the chest and picked up the smallest book. To her disappointment, it was all words. None of the lovely pictures that she’d seen over in the Archives, with patterns winding over pages like vines. What use was a book that only had words?

“Put it back,” said a timid voice. The apprentice had entered the room.

“Out! Get out!” said Pell. “We aren’t done yet!” She scrambled to her feet, slamming the chest shut as she rose.

“But the books—” he said.

“Are safe here!” she said. “Women in grey don’t take. Get out! It’s not clean here!” She snatched up the broom and shoved it at his feet.

Even though he was two heads taller, he obeyed. Either she had absorbed some of Yarrow’s immense personal authority, or he was incapable of confronting anyone. Though Pell would like to believe the former, she knew it was probably the latter.

She slammed the door shut after him and set about mopping. The water was fragrant with lavender, thyme, and lemon, and it chased the last of the death-smells away. She stripped the bed and put the soiled clothes in the basket. Someone else would take the old woman’s belongings—probably the apprentice, but it wasn’t Pell’s concern either way. The women in grey only handled death and birth.

When she came out of the room, he was gone. Pell took the burn-basket to the furnace and tossed it in, then went back for the urns. She loaded them into the wheelbarrow and trundled back to Grey Tower. Its atrium was still dripping with the morning’s rain, and Yarrow and Arnica were struggling up the spiral ramp with the stretcher.

Pell took the things into the storeroom and put them on the shelves. When she emerged into the atrium again, the women in grey had not made much progress. Before she reached them, Arnica stumbled and the stretcher twisted, tumbling the old woman’s body off. Yarrow stopped it falling from the ramp, but the mask slipped and plummeted.

“Catch it, girl!” said Yarrow, unnecessarily and too late. The mask evaded Pell’s outstretched hand and hit the mossy flagstones with an ominous chnk. “Is it whole?” Yarrow added as she and Arnica maneuvered the corpse back into place.

Pell gathered up the mask. It was in two halves, and badly chipped and scratched. She took it up the ramp anyway.

“Ah, well,” said Yarrow.

“Some glue,” said Arnica vaguely.

Yarrow sighed. Arnica sighed.

Pell, remembering some of the long, long rhymes, asked, “Isn’t that a bad omen?”

“Oh, that’s what we always say,” said Arnica. “Truth is nobody knows.”

“The truth is,” said Yarrow, “that the masks are our responsibility. Shame it happened, but someone might fix it in time.” Someone was usually one of the girls. “Take Arnica’s place, girl; was her old foot that slipped and got us here. If you mayn’t sing, you may at least carry.”

Arnica took the mask and stood aside to let Pell pick up the end of the stretcher. This was a great honor, and Pell flushed with pride as she stepped forward. She found it difficult to maintain her pride, however: the ramp was slippery with moss and rainwater. Old age or not, anyone would be hard-pressed to walk it. And as it coiled around the atrium wall it seemed to grow steeper and steeper, so that the risk of falling made Pell’s head swim. You’d splatter on the uneven floor like an old peach.

“By rights someone should’ve been singing this whole time,” said Yarrow as they wrestled the corpse up and up. “But neither of us had the breath. Arnica, you might, now you’re unburdened.”

Arnica immediately began. Her deep voice echoed and re-echoed off the stone walls until the whole of Grey Tower seemed to be one droning throat. Pell’s very bones vibrated.

Pell had never been more than halfway up the ramp. It was forbidden for apprentices, but Yarrow, uncharacteristically, did not mention to Pell the immense distinction conferred on her. Maybe Pell had been chosen as her apprentice. The years of learning and training might finally go somewhere. A warm glow spread up her neck and across her face at the thought. To be the next Yarrow . . .

They passed many doors, some whole, others decayed so Pell could glimpse the rooms beyond. Full of urns some of them were, others of moldering chests or furniture or miracles. One seemed full of people, until she looked again and saw it was only dozens of statues with veiled eyes. Grey Tower had always been for the dead, but it seemed in earlier years it had been for other things, too.

They reached a landing and Yarrow stopped, pressing her spiny hand to her side.

“A moment,” she gasped. “North above, a moment.”

Pell took the opportunity to look around. There were only three levels more of Grey Tower, each lined with twelve great yawning arches. The arches rested on pillars carved like people with animal heads, no two alike. Each arch opened onto a dark space, like a huge niche, but with the sun now shining straight down into the atrium, Pell could not see what lay beyond. The ramp led up past the arches to the top of the tower, where a wide parapet lay open to the sky.

“Give us a share,” said Yarrow. Arnica had taken some nuts out of her pocket and was cracking and eating them with quiet pleasure. Pell’s face must have registered her shock, for Yarrow rolled her eyes. “We have an awesome duty in an awesome space, but a body does like something to crunch now and then.”

“She certainly did,” said Arnica, nudging the corpse with the tip of one dirty shoe. “All them offerings of ortolan and almond. Proper thing would’ve been to share it out again, but time after time you’d try to talk to her and hear naught but the crunch of little bird bones. She didn’t even share her name with that apprentice. Didn’t swear him in before the end. Couldn’t stand the thought of another Hawthorn while she lived, I suppose. And here we are.”

Yarrow chuckled, a sound like a pestle in a stone mortar. “All them West Passage guardians were always of a sort. Whoever’s next’ll eat a songbird banquet right down to the feathers and save you out just a talon or a half-gnawed beak.”

“Best get a new guardian soon,” said Arnica through a mouthful of half-chewed walnut. “Or Grey Tower’ll have more work than it wants, if the stories hold true.”

Both Yarrow and Arnica made a curious gesture of the left hand, common to the elders of the palace, that always accompanied mentions of the West Passage. Pell did not.

“Who’ll do it, I wonder,” said Yarrow. She tossed a shell out into the air. A moment later a distant click echoed from the floor of the atrium. “That boy of hers? I’ll give him the name of guardian if he asks, but we’d have as much luck with a statue of a Lady.”

“He might do,” said Arnica. “Not ’sif there’s other choices. If he knows his duty . . .”

The women sighed in unison. Duty. Everyone in Grey House knew theirs. The guardians, though, in their little court—who could say what they knew?

“What do the guardians do?” said Pell.

“Protect,” said Arnica, who was generally more disposed to answer that sort of question. “Ain’t you paid attention in lessons?”

Stung, Pell said, “But protect from what?”

“The evil.”

“What evil?”

Arnica spoke around a mouthful. “The one that comes through the Passage now and again. Ain’t no matter for us, though. It’s guardian business.”

“Then let them gossip about it,” said a bored Yarrow, standing and brushing nutshells off her grey gown. “Let’s be off.”

A nut fell from Arnica’s hand unnoticed. Out of habit, Pell scooped it up and stuffed it into her sleeve for later. You could hide a lot of things there, if the women came upon you suddenly.

The tower was now quite hot, and Pell and Yarrow were both dripping with sweat when they reached the top. The wide rampart shimmered under the sun, and the three took shelter in the shade of a turret to catch their breath again.

The five turrets of Grey Tower each had their own name and song, and each was meant for a different section of the palace’s people. The old woman needed to be taken to Tamarisk, whose floral moldings were worn away to nubs. Pell’s body, when her time came, would go to the Hand, in whose shade they nestled, with its tumbled parapet and meticulously maintained yellow chevrons.

Pell recovered faster than the women. Being so high up was a rare treat, and being atop Grey Tower had never happened to her before, so she would take advantage of it. She went over to the rough granite parapet and got up on her toes to peer over it. All the ruinous grandeur of the palace was at her feet.

The sun glinted on the South Passage hundreds of yards away and below, where water gurgled through the chasm beneath the palace. Bridges crisscrossed it, bulging with houses. A pigeon launched itself from a courtyard, drawing her eye up to faraway Red Tower, purpled with distance, its beacon dull in the light of day. If a wind came from there, you could get a whiff of the sea. In the windless noon, white smoke from that eternal fire drifted over all the southeastern district of the palace. Much closer was lapis-domed Blue Tower, rising from a sea of white plaster walls, swirling with pigeons and the bright flecks of hummingbirds who came to drink from the flowering vines that spilled down its sides. A woman in a near window was hanging laundry. She waved at Pell, who ducked beneath the parapet.

Yarrow and Arnica permitted her to look from here, close to the corpse that was their duty, but if she went around to the other side of the rampart to see Black and Yellow Towers, that would be leisure. Suddenly Pell would be shirking. Anyway, Yellow Tower was plainly visible, slashing into the sky like a knife into flesh. That way lay the West Passage. Black Tower was more to the north, hidden behind the turret where its people went after death: Varlan’s Love.

Grey was the living heart of the palace, built of the grey bedrock under everything; Grey was the oldest; Grey was the center. Grey was death.

Yarrow’s whistle startled Pell. Five notes, starting high, and descending down minor thirds: a call Pell had heard from the foot of the tower many times, but never so close. It pierced the eardrums and reverberated through the hollow center of the tower as if it were a resonating chamber.

“All right, girl,” said Yarrow. “Let’s get her over to Tamarisk quick, before they arrive.”

Arnica resumed her song as Yarrow and Pell trotted the stretcher along the parapet. In the heat, the old woman was beginning to smell. She’d had a horrible death to begin with, but how much more horrible to die in high summer and make every bit of your passing a burden to others.

Tamarisk, like all the turrets, was open and hollow on its inner face. A spiral staircase wound up through three platforms to the open roof; you could watch anyone climbing it as if looking at the open side of a dollhouse. The stretcher stopped at its foot, jarring Pell’s stomach.

“No, girl,” said Yarrow. “Arnica helps for the last bit. You’re not yet a woman.”

Not yet. Pell handed the stretcher off to Arnica, and the two women started up the stairs. She watched their laborious progress, and wondered whether Arnica would make it. Twenty steps to the top, nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, and then Arnica stumbled on the fifteenth. They nearly lost the body, and the mask almost fell once more. But Yarrow was determined, and they pushed on.

A murmur filled the air. It rose in volume, came nearer, turned into a rustling and a cawing. Pell looked over her shoulder.

Streaming past the bright face of Yellow were hundreds of crows. They knew the whistle and what it meant, and by ancient treaty they had arrived. Yarrow and Arnica set down the body and reached the safety of the stairs just in time. In a moment, Tamarisk was covered in a shivering blanket of black. Scratching, rasping, tearing, squelching: the noise was horrible.

The old woman did not take them long. The crows even carried away the bones, and for a moment their neatness was exhilarating, until Pell saw the bones dropped into the Passage, and she remembered: to get at the marrow, the crows had learned to break bones on the canyon rocks, and there were red-daubed vultures who fed on them as well. Everyone who had ever died in the palace lay splintered along the banks of the river.

All that remained atop Tamarisk was a bloody shroud and the damaged mask. Yarrow and Arnica stood watching it, as if something might move. Pell stood with them. As the afternoon wore on, Pell’s headscarf soaked up the heat. A trickle of sweat ran down her back. The two women must have been miserable in their wimples, long gowns, and leather aprons.

“Oughtn’t we clean up, Mothers?” said Pell.

“A moment,” said Arnica. “A bleedin’ moment.”

“Hush, girl,” said Yarrow.

An iridescent butterfly fluttered past Pell’s nose. Its wings flickered like flame. She put out her hand to tempt it into landing there, but Yarrow slapped her.

“Don’t interfere,” said Yarrow, as Pell rubbed the back of her hand.

The butterfly made its way to the top of Tamarisk and landed on the shroud. Another followed. Then another. Soon the shroud shimmered with their wings.

“They like to sip us up,” Arnica whispered. “Anyway it’s less to mop.”

When the last of the old woman had been drunk down hundreds of tiny throats, Yarrow solemnly mounted the stairs once more. She wrapped the mask in the shroud and carried it back down.

“To the glory of the Lady,” she said.

Pell followed her and Arnica onto the ramp. The sun had moved and the atrium was beautifully cool. Down they went, singing another song, to place the mask on its plinth, where it would wait for the next guardian to die.

The two green halves looked balefully at Pell. While Yarrow and Arnica took care of some other business, she ran some rough twine through the eyeholes and tied it together. Would there be consequences? It was only a mask, after all. And the women didn’t seem worried.

Pell put the issue out of her mind. It should not concern her in the slightest. The palace took care of such matters, and she had a tale to tell the other girls.

Excerpted from The West Passage, copyright 2024 by Jared Pechaček

The post Revealing Art From Jared Pechaček’s <i>The West Passage</i> appeared first on Reactor.

Excerpts Fairy Tales

Read an Excerpt From Markelle Grabo’s Call Forth a Fox

A sapphic twist on the classic fairy tale “Snow White and Rose Red.”

By Markelle Grabo

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Published on March 21, 2024

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We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Call Forth a Fox by Markelle Grabo, a YA fantasy twist on a classic fairy tale—out from Page Street Publishing on April 2^nd.

I hop off my tree stump to study the line of fox tracks leading deeper into the wood. My neighbor might’ve scared her away, but the fox could be waiting for me somewhere among these trees. Perhaps she wants me to follow her tracks, find her like she found me.

I’m tempted to do just that, yet night draws near. While Ma encourages independence in her daughters, her one rule is to never be alone in the forest when it’s dark, and it’s a rule Eirwyn’s enforced since she left. Besides, my sister’s likely returned from Maple Square by now. She’ll be waiting for me, on the bench reading or hopelessly attempting to rebuild the fire. My sister can no more successfully kindle a flame than I can prepare a decent meal.

I find the will to turn away from the tracks before the temptation to follow seizes me completely, but I drag my feet toward the cottage, thoughts of the fox wrapping around me like rose vines. My boots clomp through the snow and I imagine them as nimble fox feet prowling past the trees. I shift my head right and left, wrinkling my nose as if scenting the air for signs of prey. I imagine the glowing moon illuminating my coppery coat, turning its fire into faerie light.

If only I were a fox. No one would take me to Poppy, then.

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Call Forth a Fox

Markelle Grabo

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Call Forth a Fox

Markelle Grabo

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I lift my eyes to the dark opening ahead, the one that leads to the clearing before the cottage. I squint, and through the dim-ness, I can make out the square windows glowing faintly. Either Eirwyn figured out the fire, or she’s lit every lamp we own. 

Icy unease pricks my skin. Now that I’m closer, I’m not sure I’m ready to go home, ready to face Eirwyn so soon after our quarrel. I still feel awful for invoking Pa’s name the way I did. I linger in the developing night, breathing in the cold until it nips at my chest. All around me, snow glistens like the stars slowly appearing overhead. Shadowy trees bend and creak in the wind. A few stray leaves—left over from fall—flutter quietly to the forest floor.

Then, a streak of copper leaps across my path, mere inches from the tips of my boots. 

I jump back, but I can’t find my footing. I fall to the ground, and the sudden drop is so jarring that I wince. I press a cold palm to my forehead, blinking away the haze in my eyes in time to see the red fox bounding in the direction of the cottage, paws kicking up snow like a small windstorm.

An ache spreads down my neck as I rise to my feet, and my backside is covered with snow, but neither matters with the fox running ahead. I’m about to chase after her when I hear a deep huff.

I breathe in sharply through my nose. Slowly, I turn.

A bear, its massive form crowding the forest, lumbers toward me.

Muscles ripple beneath dark brown fur. Ears stand straight up. Each puff of breath is a steamy cloud beneath the moon-light.

I try to swallow my rising terror but it’s so thick in my throat that I choke. I cover my mouth, fingers trembling. My chest plummets to my gut, over and over.

A bear in the wood. A creature much larger than a fox.  Fur bristling. Eyes gleaming. Mouth hungry. Cold fear drenches me, seeps past layers of clothes to soak my skin.

My teeth chatter. I know I should do something, but I can’t remember what. Ma’s voice is insistent in my ears, but I can’t comprehend the words. I’m caught. Gasping. Trembling. Prey.

The bear huffs again. I can’t breathe.

Then something inside me snaps and Ma’s lesson slams into me like a gale of frozen wind. I don’t wait. I lift my arms, wave them slowly. “Hey! I’m backing away, I’m backing away.”

I step backward as he trudges forward. Enormous paws make deep grooves in the snow. I veer to the left, straying from his path. Dread grips my gut like bear claws. The itch to flee has never been stronger, but I keep my pace. Never try to outrun a bear.

I bump into something solid. Only a tree, but a yelp escapes my lips before I can stop it. The bear groans low.

I shudder against the bark. “I’m backing away,” I repeat. “Please, I’m backing away.”

Moving around the tree, I lose sight of the bear for a few precious moments. But my knees weaken in relief as soon as I regain my view. Despite my yelp, the bear isn’t following me. Ma’s lesson worked.

I wait until I can no longer hear the bear’s heavy tread, then collapse against a tree, my forehead pressed hard against the bark. I release a rush of breath, lips pulling upward in a cautious smile. No longer caught. No longer prey. No need to tremble.

But a sharp wail pierces the night. The fox.

I imagine the scene clearly: Teeth clamping. A coppery coat drenched in red. A broken body in the snow. A triumphant roar. 

A swell of rage much stronger than my fear burns its way down my throat.

I dash after the lumbering bear, my satchel thumping against my side. My clothes are damp with snow and sweat. When I reach the edge of the forest, my breaths have turned hoarse and painful.

The bear has the fox cornered, pressed up against a thick oak tree. My ears ring, the sound overcoming all whispers of Ma’s lesson. I must save her. I must stop him.

With fumbling hands, I remove my boot. I blink hard, find my aim, and hurl my boot at the bear. It spirals chaotically until it hits the top of his back. He grunts and turns his head.

“Hey!” I scream, clenching my fists. “Hey!”

It’s not enough. The bear’s head swings back toward the fox. The cornered animal wails again—sharp, insistent, and loud.

I yank off my other boot and throw. “Leave her alone! Get away from her!”

The second boot hits the bear’s side. This time the beast turns fully in my direction. Gleaming eyes latch onto me. He huffs, lifts one large paw, takes one step forward. His ears flatten against his head.

It seems I’ve become the fox.

The bear charges. I spin on my heels and sprint toward the cottage. A mere hundred feet away, but I fear I won’t make it. My chest is tight; I can’t get enough air. I can’t move fast enough. My sock feet slip and slide. Above the ringing in my ears is the sound of the bear’s heavy tread. At such a speed, not even a fox body could save me now.

With a grunt, the bear’s head rams into my back and I’m thrown forward. My body smacks against the ground and my face meets the snow. Crystals of ice sting my cheeks. Unlike the fox, my resulting wail is low and quiet.

A fleeting hope flares in my chest at the thought of the fox leaping onto the bear’s back, nipping at his ear to save her new ally. But of course, foxes don’t think like foolish girls. Foxes don’t provoke a bear; they run from one. I hope the red fox is running now.

A massive paw batters my side. The assault turns my scream into a whimper. I bring my knees to my chest and cover my head with my arms. I wait for another swipe; I know it will come.

Until it doesn’t.

Instead, the bear emits a low groan, and my eyes flutter open. There’s an arrow embedded in the beast’s right shoulder. He stumbles. I uncoil and drag myself across the snow. He drops to the ground like an overturned boulder, huffing and making clicking sounds with his tongue.

In the open doorway of the cottage stands Eirwyn, bow in hand. Her slender frame is illuminated by the light from within.

“Ro,” she calls, starting forward. 

I stagger to my feet and run to my sister. We collide and Eirwyn’s bow smacks my back, but I barely register the discom-fort. I bury my face in my sister’s neck, smell her rose perfume. Eirwyn grips me tight and murmurs calming words into my ear, stroking my snow-drenched hair. 

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I didn’t mean to be out so late. I’m so sorry.”

“You’re all right,” Eirwyn says, breathless and trembling. “I’m here.”

Thank goodness for that. After years of neglect, she took up her bow to save me. I’m relieved she never threw it away.

“Did you kill it?” I ask. “Is it dead?”

“I don’t know, I—”

I feel Eirwyn’s body stiffen, then she shrugs herself out of my embrace. Her eyes are wide, her lips parted. She stares past me as if I’m no longer here.

I tug on her sleeve. “Eirwyn, what is it?” 

“Ro,” she breathes. 

She lifts an arm and points. My eyes follow.

Lying in the snow is a boy. A boy where there should be a bear. A bleeding, naked boy.

He groans, and he sounds like a bear. But he isn’t one. He’s not massive and he doesn’t have fur or sharp claws. He’s pale with messy brown hair and long limbs. He’s human.

But he’s lying in the snow where a bear was, with the arrow Eirwyn shot protruding from his shoulder.

Numbed by the sight, I reach for my sister’s hand, grip her fingers as if touch will rouse me from this strange, terrible dream.

The not-a-bear boy lifts his head. “Help,” he moans. “Please.”

Eirwyn drops her bow. “What have I done?”

Excerpted from Call Forth a Fox, copyright © 2024 by Markelle Grabo.

The post Read an Excerpt From Markelle Grabo’s <i>Call Forth a Fox</i> appeared first on Reactor.

Excerpts Young Adult

Read an Excerpt From Joan He’s Sound the Gong

The sweeping conclusion to The Kingdom of Three duology.

By Joan He

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Published on March 20, 2024

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We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Sound the Gong, the conclusion of Joan He’s YA fantasy duology The Kingdom of Three—publishing with Roaring Brook Press on April 30^th.

“Hello, Lotus. We meet again.”

I saw him from above, as a spirit, but it’s different, so different, confronting him in the flesh. Firelight from the braziers falls over us both. His face is underlit, the planes of his cheeks and forehead shadowed. If only I could clear the shadows like I would a mask. I’m suddenly seized with the urge to do just that—to draw him into the light, out of these pretenses, and put my lips to his ear. Yes and no, Crow.

We meet again, but not as Crow and Lotus.

But I don’t act on whims, and neither does Crow. “Any particular reason for sending this?” He holds up the letter, and though I’ve been waiting for him to ask, I’m caught off guard. It’s his manner. His tone, so blasé, as if the letter is just a piece of paper. I expected… more.

Fool of me to. He’s a strategist, like myself. Emotions are a liability. Of course he’d hide them. I should look to his actions. They speak more than his words. I’m in his tent.

I have his attention.

“I wanted to meet with you,” I say, lightening my own tone. “I seem to have succeeded.”

Crow regards me carefully. It’s nothing like the last time we met face-to-face, by the lake. Why would it be? Crow’s forces are here to break the siege. This can only end with one victor, one loser.

“Indeed you have,” he at last grants. “Did Zephyr give this letter to you too?”

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Sound the Gong

Joan He

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Joan He

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Too. What else did I, as Zephyr, supposedly give to Lotus? Then I remember another time I felt this pinned. In the dark of the stables, cornered by Crow, I’d claimed that Zephyr had told me his name. He doubted me then—still doubts me, by the lilt of his voice—and I untense. He cares, enough to have an opinion on what Zephyr would or would not share.

I have more than an opinion. “No. She didn’t.”

“I didn’t think so,” Crow murmurs.

“We found it with her body.” The head of which Miasma collected first. Surely Crow knew of her revolting actions. He is her strategist. An enemy who holds a secret pertinent to this siege. Ask him—

“Tell me, then.” Crow speaks before I can. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

“I challenge you to a duet.”

“Still two on one zither?”

Mmm, Dewdrop thinks, as if the prospect is delicious.

I’ll squash her right after I squash my rival. “One zither each,” I say to Crow, willing my face to cool.

“A proper duet.” Crow lets the words hang for an uncomfortably long second. “If my memory isn’t failing me, you weren’t eager to play during our last encounter.”

“I’ve been practicing since. I liked it.”

His stare is cryptic.

I was cryptic too, the night I sat at his zither as Lotus. I left him wanting, left him wondering how a warrior like myself could unlock the instrument’s qì with just one note.

Now’s your chance to find out, I think to Crow. Can you resist it?

I know I wouldn’t.

“Bring them,” he finally says, eyes never leaving mine as the guards depart, carrying out his order. They return with two zithers. I recognize the first as Crow’s. Midnight wood. Strings white as snow. He takes it to a table at one end of the tent. I take the second zither to the opposite.

We sit.

Since we last played, I’ve been thinking over a dilemma. Zithers are a conduit for the truth in one’s heart. Why would a strategist agree to a duet if they’re at risk of leaking secrets that could end wars or incite them?

The answer I arrived at solidifies when I meet the challenge in Crow’s gaze. We each have secrets, and he’s betting on his skill that he can access mine first. A strategist’s duet is no different from a warrior’s duel in this respect. Both parties stand to injure themselves.

Neither backs down.

Crow raises his arms, black sleeves cascading. “What topic shall we play about?”

“This siege.”

“Hmm.” My heart tremors at the syllable. “I’d like to play about you,” Crow says, and plucks. The open note travels through me, and I with it. Back in time and place. My hands—Lotus’s— are under Crow’s.

We played this very note, by the lake.

Focus. This scene is safe. I play as well, and the space between us swirls, air gone to water. Mist curls—fronds of qì, taking on color. The night appears. The two of us, bent over the same zither. The lake shines behind us, liquid moonlight, as the music rises.

An image within an image.

It changes as we play on. Crow and Lotus disappear, replaced by a hut. My breath stops. Thistlegate?

It’s not. The image clarifies, and I see the pig carcasses, strung from the thatched roof. What—?

Lotus. She’s from a family of butchers, Cloud once told me. Relief—I haven’t leaked my identity—turns into bewilderment. I shouldn’t have these memories. I don’t remember these memories.

How, then, can my music be conveying my thoughts?

Something’s wrong, Dewdrop thinks. Stop playing. This—

Crow plucks another note—two. They vibrate, like rubbed stones. A question sings in the resulting harmonic.

Zephyr—

I can’t leave empty-handed.

I play my response, throwing my notes. The image ripples. Changes. I see Lotus and myself—as Zephyr, in Qilin’s body— crossing a river together. Cloud is up ahead. Tourmaline brings up the rear, and Ren—she’s beside me, between Lotus and Zephyr, just like the old times—

Before my eyes, Zephyr starts to fade.

Quickly I play louder, faster. The image changes to the siege. I strike the zither and Bikong ignites. Arrows soar and our soldiers rush the walls. Smoke blooms and blood spills—enemy blood.

Fight back, my music says, or we will slaughter you.

Excerpted from Sound the Gong, copyright © 2024 by Joan He.

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Book Recommendations romantasy

Five Works of Old-School Romantasy

Plus a reminder that women have been writing fantasy for a very, very long time.

By James Davis Nicoll

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Published on March 19, 2024

Photo: Lucas George Wendt [via Unsplash]

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Photo: Lucas George Wendt [via Unsplash]

Nature’s cycles proceed inevitably. The sun will set, then rise. The Earth will orbit the sun. The populations of rabbits and lynxes will rise and fall. About once a decade, someone will assert that women are writing fantasy for the very first time in human history.

The latest assertion was penned by a Guardian writer who I am sure can boast of fields in which they are quite well-informed, although apparently none of them involve the long and storied history of women writing fantasy novels. I for one applaud the courage of a person writing outside their field of expertise. One’s reach should always exceed one’s grasp.

Romantasy is, of course, a useful marketing term designed to guide readers to works exhibiting the qualities for which they are looking. The idea is that if people can find the sort of thing for which they are looking, they are more likely to buy it. However, like every other genre, there are works that predate romantasy that would have been classified as romantasy had that term existed.

Consider these five works.

Jirel of Joiry by C. L. Moore (1969)

Jirel is ruler of a small French fiefdom. Overconfident usurpers, evil sorceresses, or besotted gods who mistake Jirel for some fragile flower to be plucked at whim inevitably discover that Jirel protects her prerogatives ruthlessly. Often this is the final discovery her foes make. Should violence fail Jirel—a rare thing—Jirel will resort to even darker measures. And if she sometimes realizes too late that perhaps she was fonder of her foe than she realized before dispatching them? That will not slow her hand when the next vainglorious fool challenges Jirel.

The date above the refers to the collection Jirel of Joiry. The six stories contained within date from the 1930s. Readers seeking more recent work may wish to investigate New Edge Sword & Sorcery, which will feature Molly Tanzer’s authorized Jirel Joiry story, the first new Jirel story in almost eighty-five years.

Sorceress of the Witch World by Andre Norton (1968)

Kaththea’s lamentable propensity for calamity and kidnapping strikes again. Swept away by an avalanche, Kaththea is captured by Vupsall nomads. Their Wise Woman Utta has need of one such as Kaththea. Old Utta will soon die. Kaththea’s magic potential make her a suitable Wise Women candidate. Kaththea yearns to escape. There is an obvious ally to help her flee. Alas, Kaththea is painfully aware that her primary talent may be trusting the wrong men…

In Kaththea’s defense, the bad decisions she makes in this book pale against the ones she made in the previous book, Warlock of the Witch World. At least in this one, she has not fallen for a hunky Lord of Pure Evil. She does learn!¹ And the fact that her magic was temporarily locked away due to the events in the previous book facilitates many exciting adventures in this volume.

The Castle of Dark by Tanith Lee (1978)

Raised in the Castle of Dark by two ancient hags, Lilune sleeps by day and wakes at night. Her meals are a mysterious dark liquid. These facts are peculiar… but to Lilune they are just same old, same old. Boring. So she casts a simple spell that will enchant traveling harpist Lir into rescuing her from the Castle of Dark.

There are many heedless fantasy protagonists I could mention who would rescue a woman without paying much attention to such peculiar qualities as aversion to sunlight, death-like daytime sleep, or odd dietary needs—protagonists such as Northwest Smith—but Lir at least has an excuse, having been bewitched by Lilune.

The Northern Girl by Elizabeth A. Lynn (1980)

Bondservant to powerful Arre Med, seventeen-year-old Sorren might well have spent her entire life in contented servitude to her comparatively benign mistress. Fate (and the schemes of Arre’s younger brother²) dictate otherwise. Sorren will leave her familiar world behind to find her proper role far from the only city she knows.

The Northern Girl has a number of stock plot elements, such as an orphan girl with special powers, political machinations, and so on, none of which head in the direction readers may expect. Lynn had a very clear idea where she wanted this coming-of-age story to end and she did not let herself get distracted from her goal.

Dragon Sword and Wind Child by Noriko Ogiwara, translated by Cathy Hirano (1988)

Demigod Prince Tsukishiro resolves that orphan Saya, whom he has just met and about whom he knows nothing, must be his handmaiden. It’s a fairytale romance…a very dark one. In every one of Saya’s incarnations, she has met the Prince. In all of Saya’s incarnations, she perished almost immediately. Nevertheless, the former Water Maiden Sayura (of whom Saya is just the latest version) has a grand plan in which the current incarnation must play a role… even if reincarnation-induced amnesia means that Saya has no idea what the plan was, or what her role was to be.

Dragon Sword and Wind Child is part of a trilogy, Tales of the Magatama. Dragon Sword and Wind Child functions as a standalone fantasy novel. This is fortunate for Anglophone readers because while the second volume, Mirror Sword and Shadow Prince, has been translated into English, as far as I know the third one was not.

These are merely the first five works that came to mind. No doubt there are hundreds that I could have mentioned. Feel free to correct my lapses in the comment section below.[end-mark]

1. More than one can say of Jane Gaskell’s Cija. ︎
2. How significant is the younger brother to the main plotlines in The Northern Girl? You will notice I never mention his name… ︎

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Excerpts Young Adult

Read an Excerpt From Nevin Holness’ King of Dead Things

This YA urban fantasy steeped in Afro-Carribbean folklore follows two Black teens searching for a powerful artifact in the hidden magical side of London.

By Nevin Holness

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Published on March 18, 2024

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We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from King of Dead Things by Nevin Holness, a young adult urban fantasy novel publishing with Atheneum Books for Young Readers on April 16^th.

Chapter One

Eli

The soul slipped from the boy as easily as removing a sheet from a bed.

It felt a little like that, Eli thought as he took it in his hand; thin, weightless, like releasing a kite in the wind. He got a sense of the life as it passed through him. He had read before in one of Max’s old books that the magic in each soul had its own individuality; this one felt like motor grease on fingers and grass stains on knees, the smell of petrol, the hum of an engine. He was a mechanic, Eli realized belatedly. He had spent a lifetime working with his hands.

In theory, it was simple. The boy’s soul was battered and broken; Eli was just stitching the fragments back together one at a time, like patchwork. It was a complicated magic, healing; one wrong stitch and it wouldn’t stick. Plus, it took from him as much as he gave. Afterward, Eli would feel worn out, nauseous, and it usually took a few days for his own magic to return.

He didn’t have the luxury of going a few days without magic, not when he had bills to pay, so it had become habit for him to take a piece for himself in the form of payment—a single thread of magic, small enough not to be missed. Most people were oblivious to magic, even when it was right under their noses, and the ones who weren’t existed the same way as Eli, in hushed voices and behind closed doors. It was easy for Eli to go unnoticed. The only real risk of failure lay in human error, but Eli had practiced incessantly, ghosting the movements over and over with his fingers, like surgeons’ sutures into oranges.

There was an art to it. The first time he’d tried taking magic that wasn’t his, it had wrapped around his palms like razor wire, tight enough that he’d needed stitches. Since then, Eli had bled magic from a soul enough times that he knew the rhythm of it. He knew what kinds of magic to stay away from and what kinds he could upsell, which would get stuck beneath his fingernails and which would crumble and turn to ash if he held on too tightly. He had strict rules. He only took magic that had been corrupted or warped into something wicked. Magic that had soured and rotted from wrongdoing. Magic like this, that smelled like… death.

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King of Dead Things

Nevin Holness

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King of Dead Things

Nevin Holness

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It didn’t take long before he was finished. The soul slotted back together with a click that reminded Eli of clockwork. When he stepped back, the boy let out a deep exhale. He wore a thin golden chain around his neck, a pendant of a snake wrapped around a dagger. Eli watched it rise and fall against his chest until he was sure that he was okay. The magic was weak with fatigue and confused, probably, at having been tampered with, but it had listened to him.

“You’re getting good at that,” said a voice behind him, and Eli turned to see that he had an audience.

Sunny leant against the doorframe, a cigarette between her lips despite the very clear, capitalized sign on the wall behind her indicating that it was prohibited to smoke. At some point during the short twenty minutes since Eli had last seen her, she had gotten into a fight, because she now sported a bloody nose, a swollen eye, and a crooked grin.

“Who’d you piss off this time?” Eli asked, entirely unsurprised.

Sunny smiled. There was blood on her chin. “Why do you assume it was me doing the pissing off?”

“I’ve spent more than fifteen seconds in your vicinity,” Eli answered, and Sunny gave an unladylike snort.

They were standing in the back alley of some Camden pub, one of those nameless ones that seemed as old as it did new. The asphalt gleamed in sleek pinks and purples from last night’s rain. Across the street, a tattooed guy was fruitlessly flogging his mixtape. A few drunk people hovered outside the kebab place, and if Eli craned his neck, he could just about make out the last of the tourists leaving the Lock with dusk. It should have been unnerving, probably, that it was only the cover of the night that kept them shrouded from onlookers, but Eli had always liked busy places. There was something in the comfort of not being alone.

“That’s not our guy,” Sunny said, peering down at the unconscious boy.

“Nope,” Eli said, and it most certainly wasn’t. Eli pushed his glasses further up his nose to get a better look. Their contact was supposed to be a gray-haired seer man. Instead, they’d found a boy around the same age as them. When they’d first found him, he’d been moments away from death. He might have been mistaken for sleeping if it hadn’t been for the small, bleeding puncture at the base of his stomach, slowly oozing magic. Now, his chest rose and fell in even breaths. He would be fine when he woke up. Something would be missing, maybe. A memory. A friend’s face. A favorite song. Eli tried to avoid thinking about it too hard. He had saved a life, after all.

“Shit,” Sunny said. “Pam’s gonna be vex.”

“When isn’t she?” Eli said, and Sunny snorted in agreement. “At least we’ve got something else for her.”

The sliver of magic Eli had taken from the boy was no bigger than a ten-pence coin, probably only slightly larger than his thumbnail, but weighed heavy in the palm of his hand. Most magic Eli had encountered was tinted with color, a reflection of the soul it had come from. Eli’s own magic, for instance, had the habit of staining his fingers moss-green. This magic, however, was completely clear and white. It cut through the darkness of the alleyway like moonlight, bright enough to leave spots behind Eli’s eyelids. Eli wondered what it might feel like to use that sort of magic but quickly cast the thought aside. Thinking like that only led to trouble.

The boy most likely wouldn’t notice the magic was gone, but for Eli magic meant survival: from just this fragment, he would be able to cover at least a month’s rent, maybe a couple of weeks of credit on his Oyster card, and at least a momentary reprieve from the sinking sand of financial instability that he was constantly up to his neck in.

“We should probably get out of here, then,” said Sunny, yawning. “There are some drunk guys inside who are going to be realizing any second now that they no longer have their wallets.”

Eli rolled his eyes, but it wasn’t like he could comment. He was just as much a thief as she was.

Eli had always thought of London as two halves. There was the tedium of everyday London that most people existed in, full of commuters, coffee shops, and tourist traps. Then there was the secret side of the city, full of winding, serpentine streets and back-alley bargains. This was a London you only knew if it ran in your blood.

Pam’s West Indian Takeaway was one of those places. Far enough off Camden High Street that it was easy to miss, it was nestled between a vegan sandwich shop–cum–tattoo parlor and a record store that, as far as Eli could tell, only sold obscure Serbian jazz on vinyl.

In truth, this was the side of London that he loved. Not the sleek gray industrialism of Zone One, full of overpaid suits and twenty-something upstart gentrifiers. For Eli, this was home. Corner shops next to kebab shops next to unisex barbers. Nail shops next to chicken shops next to funeral homes. It was the outer crust. He liked that everyone here knew what it was to be on the outside.

Pam’s, in particular, was a place of in-betweens. The magic of the restaurant, like a lot of places in London, lay in the fact that it existed just outside linear time. Eli didn’t understand the technicalities of it, honestly. Sunny had attempted to explain it once, but since she had the unfortunate habit of lying compulsively for the fun of it, Eli wasn’t sure how far he could believe her.

Still, he’d figured out the basics. Pam’s was a sanctuary. If you knew the right spells and which doors to use them on, you could even enter at any time of the day, stay for as long as you liked.

For Eli, it was home. The top two floors had been converted into flats, and Eli and Sunny each rented a room from Pam for half the market price, under the condition that they spend their free time downstairs washing dishes and folding pastries. It was, objectively, a bit of a fixer-upper—there was water damage in almost every room, the smell of food permeated the walls, and it was somehow both freezing in the winters yet suffocatingly hot in the summer—but Eli had grown fond of it. It was a place that was theirs.

Max, the final piece of their trio, was behind the counter flipping through a comic book when they entered.

“Hey,” she said at their arrival, “what kind of West Indian time do you call this? I was just about to close up.” She took in Sunny’s bruised and bloody face, then turned to Eli with a resigned yet wholly unsurprised sigh. “Do I even want to know?”

Max, like Pam, was a girl of in-betweens. She was close to Sunny and Eli in age, but nobody this side of London knew more about magic. The daughter of an imam and a retired activist, Max was a healer some days, a thief the others, but a cashier on most.

“Probably not,” Sunny said, closing the door behind her and flipping the open for business sign hanging out front to soon come. “Anyway, you worry too much. Probably only, like, forty percent of the blood is mine.”

Eli tried not to roll his eyes. Sunny’s judgment about whether something was worth worrying over seemed to exist on a scale from one to a-human-being’s-death-has-transpired.

“Besides,” Sunny continued, flinging herself onto her usual stool by the counter. “You won’t be mad when you see what we’ve got.”

He wasn’t sure how it had happened, but in the short time they had known one another, this act of exchanging gifts after every job had become something of a tradition among the three of them. Of course, the big things they found, things with actual worth, Max would pass on to Pam. Magic that was owed. Debts that were overdue. It was how he and Sunny stayed afloat. Well—that, and a hellish amount of monotony; weekend retail work in between shifts at Pam’s, part-time waiting tables, freelance call center temping. Eli was just nearing the end of his teen years, yet he’d had more jobs in the first two decades of his life than most people had in whole lifetimes.

Their smaller finds, the peculiar magical tidbits that didn’t have any worth outside of their strangeness factor, those Max kept for herself. She wasn’t a collector, necessarily, but she liked deconstructing things, stripping them down and seeing what they were made of.

It was the same reason that Max had first decided to help Eli with his own business. Okay, Max had said after she’d heard his story. Well, you’re definitely a mystery. And that was all it had taken. A boy who plucked the magic from a soul like petals, who had no memory of who he was before three years ago? She had peeked once at the hollowness inside him, the crack right through his center, and decided instantly that it was something of interest to her.

In return, it had become a fun little game for Eli and Sunny while they were on their adventures: Who could bring Max back the weirdest find? Scales from a water spirit, hair of a lagahoo, cursed knives, phoenix ashes; somewhere along the road, the two of them had inadvertently become a pair of proprietary house cats, filling their jaws with feathered gifts.

It was Max who had dropped Pam’s request in their group chat a week prior, between links to personality quizzes and twelve-minute-long YouTube videos dissecting pop star feuds. Pam looking for ancient fang, she’d texted, says it nyams magic. Allegedly stolen by Anansi himself from Osebo, leopard god. Last heard whispers that it’s with some seer man looking to sell to the highest bidder. Pam says if you find, DO NOT TOUCH (obvs). (It eats magic.)

pass, Sunny had replied, sounds like some old-time bush fable. But then a week later she’d come back with the lead on a Camden pub and a simple follow-up question:

how much?

“Pam’s not going to like this,” Max said, after suffering through their lengthy explanation of how they’d searched for the seer man and instead stumbled on the boy in the alleyway, a hole pierced through his gut, half dead, and no sign of the fang.

Sunny and Eli exchanged a look. Pam sent them on a lot of errands. Some of the things they were sent to retrieve were hefty enough to keep their stomachs full for whole months. Other times it was just the matter of passing on a message. Pam never gave any indication of the significance of her requests, and Eli and Sunny never asked. This felt different.

“What’s so special about this fang?” Sunny asked. It came out, as did most of Sunny’s words, dripping with derision, but Max’s response was sincere.

“At the moment it’s just rumors. You know people like to run their mouths. But you should have seen the way Pam spoke about it. She told me she needed it. She seemed, I don’t know. Spooked.”

Truthfully, he hadn’t even known Pam was capable of fear. One time a group of guys had tried to break into their cash register and Pam had dispensed with them using only the blunt end of a broom. Another time, a kitchen fire had started out back and the whole building had been flooded with thick, blinding smoke. Pam had casually waded through the flames, wafting the smoke from her face like it was a fruit fly. She hadn’t left until everyone was safe, and only then did she leisurely amble outside, a handbag nestled in the crook of one arm and a wad of cash in the other, looking less like she was escaping a burning building and more like she was on her way to the bank.

Max gnawed at her lip, and Eli could tell that she was debating how much to reveal. “Mrs. Taylor came in the other week. She told me her son—you know the tall one, plays the clarinet?—well, he was missing.”

Excerpted from King of Dead Things, copyright © 2024 by Nevin Holness.

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Book Recommendations cover reveal

Revealing The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong

Check out the cover and an excerpt from Julie Leong’s debut fantasy!

By Reactor

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Published on March 18, 2024

Photo credit: Drew Regitsky

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Photo credit: Drew Regitsky

A wandering fortune teller finds an unexpected family in Julie Leong’s debut fantasy. We’re thrilled to share the cover and preview an excerpt from The Teller of Small Fortunes—forthcoming on November 5, 2024 from Ace, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Julie Leong is a twenty-nine-year-old Chinese-Malaysian-American fantasy author. She grew up in Old Bridge, New Jersey, and lived in Beijing, China, for several years as a teenager. Her experiences of feeling too Asian for suburban America, and too American for China color her stories of identity and belonging. She studied economics and political science at Yale and now works at a startup, but she has always nurtured a deep love for sci-fi/fantasy beneath her corporate exterior. Julie lives in San Francisco, California, with her husband and their spoiled rescue pup, Kaya. When she’s not writing, she enjoys making unnecessary spreadsheets and flambéing things.

CHAPTER ONE

On the day the Teller of Small Fortunes came to Necker, the village was in an uproar because the candlemaker’s would-be apprentice had lost all the goats.

Laohu plodded to a stop in the town square and Tao patted his rump. It had been a long day’s travel for them, through forest and field. The mule stamped his hooves and snorted relief to be done with it, his breath rising in steamy tendrils through the early-evening chill. It was Tao’s first time coming through Necker. She’d made good speed in anticipation of a hot meal and soft bed when they arrived, but the scene around her wagon gave her doubt she’d find much welcome at the moment. She sighed.

Wrapping the reins loosely over a wagon shaft, Tao swung gracefully to the ground, looking around at the activity. They’d come to a stop just in front of a tavern—a handsome one, two full stories and larger than a village like Necker rightly needed.

But where there should have been a crowd of well-fed villagers drinking ale, there was instead a strange assembly line, with rather a lot of yelling and chaotic banging of metal.

“One bucket o’ grain and a bell to each! Hurry up now, take a bucket, there’s a good lad.”

“And who’s to pay for all this grain, I’d like to know!”

“Oh, stuff it, Mallack, we can sort payment later; the headman’ll pay you fair for the grain and you know that’s true.”

“Yes, well, I’d like to be sure of the price afore all the grain is spilled through the woods halfway to the sea and none to account for it! There ought to be a premium for interrupting a man’s supper and raiding his stores without so much as a—”

“You scoundrel! If we don’t find them, Necker’ll be a ruin and your mill with it, for who’ll buy your grain when there’s no goats to feed and no coin to pay with?”

A teenage boy, gangly and flop-haired, sat on a stump some distance away, watching the commotion with a desolate expression. As he seemed to be the only one not rushing about, Tao chose to approach him first.

“Hello,” she said, walking up to him. “Can you tell me what’s happened, please?”

The boy startled out of his misery to goggle at her. “You’re Shinn!”

“I am,” said Tao patiently. “Can you tell me what’s happened here?”

“But you speak Eshteran!” said the boy. He squinted up at Tao with suspicion, as if expecting her foreign features—dark, hooded eyes; tawny skin; and black hair twisted up into a loose bun—to change before his eyes and better suit her speech.

Tao sighed internally and tried a different tack. She flourished her cloak with one hand and bowed.

“Greetings, young sir, from this humble traveler. I am a teller of fortunes from the faraway empire of Shinara, and have come to these lands to seek wisdom and learning.”

“…in Necker?” said the boy, doubtful.

“Wisdom can be found in all places,” said Tao. She pressed her hands together with what she hoped was solemnity. “Wheresoever river inscribes rock with truth, and men fan flames of creation.”

“Ah,” said the boy, suitably impressed. “You’ll want old Derry the blacksmith and his forge, then? He’s holding a pail on the left, there.”

They both looked over again at the assembly line, which had now been more or less equipped with buckets of grain and various noisemaking implements. The boy drooped further, all elbows and knees and teenage despair.

“What are they doing with all that grain?” Tao asked.

“They’re sending out search parties. I lost the goats, you see,” the boy said miserably. “Arty had me watching the herd today, out in the west pasture, and I fell asleep after lunch, and when I woke, the goats were all gone.

“And now the village’ll be ruined, and it’s all my fault, although how was I to know that the goats would rather climb down all those rocks than stay in a nice sunny pasture full of grass? I was to be the candlemaker’s apprentice, not a goatherd, and now who knows if Bern’ll still have me! I’m good with his bees; bees don’t make a fuss—they stay put where you want them, unless you fumble the hives—but Arty’s bad leg was twinging again, and I didn’t mind helping just for the day, and now look what’s happened. Stupid goats!”

The words burst out of him all at once, a hot concoction of youthful indignation and shame.

“Hm,” said Tao. “Perhaps I can be of some assistance.”

She strode to her wagon and leapt back up onto her driving perch, Laohu shuffling impatiently in his traces. But rather than pick up the reins again, Tao ducked beneath the glowing lanterns, swinging gently where they hung from the jutting ridge beam, and into the small wooden traveling wagon that served as home.

A hanging curtain of embroidered canvas hid the interior from both rough weather and curious eyes; behind it was everything Tao owned, tucked away as neatly as could be managed in what might generously be called a storage chest on wheels. Pots and pans of various sizes hung on one wall from a crooked nail. Opposing them was what Tao thought of as her pantry: a small bag of winter apples; jars of grain and tea leaves strapped into place on their makeshift shelf; mint and nettle, hung in bunches to dry. Here, also, was her bedding: a few sacks of hay (which conveniently also served as Laohu’s feed—though it meant that when they went too long between resupplies, her sleep inevitably suffered for it) swaddled in thick woolen blankets. In all, it made for a cozy—if humble—nest

But all this Tao took in with only a quick glance. Everything was where it should be. Which meant that what she needed would be in the back, where she kept the things most precious to her.

Moving through the cramped space with the ease of familiarity, Tao sorted through the carefully wrapped bundles in the very rear of the wagon, behind the small stools and folding-table. From these bundles, she extracted a disc of hammered bronze, hung on a ribbon, and a small cloth-wrapped mallet.

Grasping the ribbon and mallet in each hand, she ducked back out through the curtain, blinking in the warm glow of the swaying lantern light. Tao stood tall on the perch of her wagon (or as tall as her slight frame allowed), made sure her hooded cloak was billowing impressively so that its blue velvet lining could be seen, lifted her chin, and—with ponderous ceremony—struck the disc.

A low note tolled out, brassy and deep and authoritative, and a hush rolled out over the crowd of villagers as they finally noticed the young Shinn woman perched upon a traveling wagon in the middle of their square. Tao struck the gong once more, and the sound reverberated as all eyes fixed on her.

“Greetings to the people of Necker!” she cried out into the general bafflement. “I am Tao, Teller of Small Fortunes.”

She gestured grandly with the mallet toward the side of her wooden traveling wagon, where, indeed, TELLER OF SMALL FORTUNES was painted in neat black letters, along with the addendum, in much smaller lettering beneath: (no spells, potions, or ancient prophecies).

“But tonight, I shall give you the gift, free of charge, of a Moderately Sized Fortune! You there, mistress.” Tao pointed at a harried-looking woman in an apron holding several buckets by the tavern door. “Tell me—is there a small stream, flowing through a grove of pines, just to the east?”

“Aye, so there is,” said the woman, narrowing her eyes.

“And you, Master Arty,” Tao pointed now at a rangy older man leaning heavily on his walking stick. “Tell me—are there plentiful berry brambles along that stream?”

“Here now, how did you know my name?” Arty said in confusion, rubbing at his leg.

“Yes, there are,” cut in the aproned woman. “And so?”

Tao spread her arms dramatically wide, closing her eyes and tilting her head back, as if listening to voices only she could hear. “People of Necker . . .” she intoned. “I have seen your goats! Look to the east where blackberries and cold mountain water meet, for there you shall find your herd!”

The villagers burst into buzzing cacophony.

As a teller of small fortunes, Tao didn’t often have a chance to play the showman, for she’d feel rather silly making such a fuss about announcing whether or not it’d rain next Scholarsday, or when the carpenter’s daughter’s warts would go away. But she had to admit—she rather enjoyed it when she could.

“She’s Shinn, she is,” cried the gangly boy, who had jumped up from his stump at her proclamation. “She sees things in rocks!”

“And what’s a Shinn woman doing all the way out here in Necker, I’d like to know,” said a woman with a pinched mouth and holding a broom.

“How’d she know my name? I’ve never once been to Shinara in my life,” shouted Arty over the din.

“Enough, enough!” shouted the woman in the apron, banging a bucket with a wooden spoon to regain the crowd’s attention. “We’re losing the light if we mean to be finding these goats afore dark. Well now, this fortune teller says to look along the stream to the east, so someone may as well look there—we meant to search in all directions anyways.”

A chorus of ayes met this decisiveness, and the villagers began pairing off and setting out in multiple directions, some glancing back at Tao and her wagon. The gangly boy dashed off to the east, having grabbed his own bucket of grain and yelling over his shoulder, “I’ll check the stream!” His hopes of redeeming himself had clearly been renewed by faith in Tao’s prophetic abilities.

Tao bit back a smile, stowed the gong and mallet back inside her wagon, and climbed down to unhitch Laohu and await the outcome. The stream with the blackberry brambles wasn’t far—perhaps half an hour’s light run for a motivated youth with long legs. She had crossed it not long before she arrived in Necker, her wagon wheels rattling over the stones and Laohu laying his ears back at the cold water as he daintily lifted hooves high. Tao remembered leaning down from her wagon to grab a handful of the ripe blackberries, savoring each bright burst of sweetness as she ate them one at a time.

What Tao also remembered was the sound of leafy chomping, the distinctive scent of livestock, and the even more distinctive caprine chorus of maas coming from behind the brambles as her wagon rolled on by.

Excerpted from The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong Copyright © 2024 by Julie Leong. Excerpted by permission of Ace. All rights reserved.

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Excerpts The Library Trilogy

Read an Excerpt From Mark Lawrence’s The Book That Broke the World

Two people living in a world connected by an immense and mysterious library must fight for those they love…

By Mark Lawrence

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Published on March 13, 2024

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We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Book That Broke the World, the second installment of Mark Lawrence’s Library trilogy—publishing with Ace on April 9^th.

“Speak!”

Kerrol twisted free and raised his hands apologetically. None of his unparalleled skills at reading people were required to understand how close to the edge Evar stood. “I’m sorry for your loss, brother.”

“You said you could find her!” Evar snapped, unwilling to let go of the offered hope but also unwilling to believe it.

“I needed you to come with us.” Kerrol lowered his gaze. “Couldn’t leave you there for the next skeer that happened by.”

Evar wasn’t aware he’d swung for Kerrol until Clovis caught his wrist and pulled the blow aside. “Enough!” She pushed between them. Kerrol stepped back, unruffled, as if he’d anticipated both the attack and their sister coming to his aid.

“You don’t even know!” Evar shouted at both of them. “You don’t even know…” He jerked his arm free of Clovis’s grip. “Livira was the Assistant!” He tried to stop shouting, tried to steady his voice, but it kept breaking around surfacing emotion. “Her spirit. Her ghost. It entered the Assistant centuries ago. She was trapped in there ever since. The other one, Malar, was trapped in the Soldier. Until…”

Clovis stepped back, frowning, minute shakes of her head to express her disbelief. “No.”

“He certainly thinks it’s true,” Kerrol observed.

“IT IS TRUE!” With effort, Evar reeled in his anger. “It’s true. They raised us. Two humans trapped in assistants raised you, Clovis.”

Buy the Book

The Book That Broke the World

Mark Lawrence

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The Book That Broke the World

Mark Lawrence

Buy this book from:

• Amazon
• Barnes and Noble
• iBooks
• IndieBound
• Target

Clovis shook her head more fiercely, but when she opened her mouth to deny it, no words came.

“I wasn’t lying.” Kerrol drew Evar’s attention to himself. “Misleading perhaps. I know your human’s in that book. Take it to the Mechanism and you’ll be together again, in a manner of speaking. It will help.”

“I don’t have the book,” Evar growled. He wasn’t even sure if there was a book anymore.

“So, what we need is an assistant to tell us where it is,” Kerrol said. “And whilst I don’t know where to find one of those with any great precision, I do know that it will be out here and not back in there.” He waved a hand at the corridor leading back to their chamber. “Plus, if that skeer decides to move, any of us still in there may well be trapped for another two hundred years.”

Evar’s shoulders slumped, his anger diffused. He couldn’t feel aggrieved against Kerrol, even though he was sure he’d been expertly manipulated.

Clovis shook her head a final time. “Come on.” She led off along the wall. “And quietly. This is skeer territory. There’ll be more of the bastards coming. Lots more.”

Evar refused to be led away. “Where’s Starval?” He looked back at the corridor. He wasn’t leaving Starval behind.

“With Mayland,” Kerrol said. “I saw them both go into a different pool.”

“Mayland…” Evar still hadn’t come to terms with the idea that Mayland hadn’t died, he’d just left, and had been in and out of the Exchange all this time they’d been mourning him. “Why did Starval—”

“I don’t know.” The pain of the admission ran through Kerrol’s words.

“Enough!” Clovis said. “Come on!”

“Where are we going?” Evar finally allowed himself to be led, and fell in behind her.

“Outside. I can’t fight them all by myself. I’m good… but not that good. We need warriors.”

If it wasn’t for needing to find Livira’s book Evar would have asked why they should fight the skeer at all. He wouldn’t have cared if they claimed the library while there was a whole world out there to explore with Livira. Instead, he asked, “And you know the way, do you?”

“I know that staying still is not the way to the outside,” Clovis said, “and that if we walk in a straight line for long enough, we’re bound to reach the edge at some point.”

“At some point.” Evar nodded. Clovis didn’t yet understand quite how large the library was. If they chose the wrong direction, they might walk until they got old and still not find the other side.

Evar trudged behind Kerrol, who in turn followed Clovis. They had no food, no water, and doubtless they would find—or be found by—more skeer long before they met an assistant. Bound tightly in thoughts of Livira, Evar couldn’t find the space to care about his own prospects. He’d spent a lifetime trapped with the one he had come to need most, and hadn’t known it. Instead, he’d bent his whole being towards escape. And here he was, trailing through the great beyond, discovering it to be no different to the place he’d come to despise. No different, except that it lacked her. How many people, Evar wondered, had spent their youth, their whole lives, battering at locked doors, only to find—if they ever managed to open them—that there was nothing on the other side they couldn’t have found on their own side? When they were children, the Assistant had often told them a tale that seemed to capture this “wisdom” in a handful of lines, a tale about three goats wanting to cross a bridge. The lesson had sailed above Evar’s head. Mayland had noted that the same mythology pierced a thousand cultures like a spear driven through sentience of every kind, perhaps even that of goats. And still, despite it all, Evar had pounded on his door.

And that was where, in the end, he’d found her. That was where his extravagant race to “save” her had ended. Before his precious door. She’d even been the one to open it for him. When he’d finally understood the riddle of the book, understood that Livira had been locked away in the Assistant’s flesh for all these lifetimes, and started to run back to find her… what had he expected? He’d been so focused on getting there in time that he’d given no thought to what would happen next. Had he believed he could haul the girl bodily from the Assistant’s flesh? It hadn’t been her body that had gone into the Assistant, it had been her ghost. But the blood and bone of her, where had that gone? Those had vanished when she went from the now into the past through that portal in the wood between. The whole thing made his head hurt, even without considering the book—Livira’s book—which had somehow eaten its own tail and existed looping around two centuries in the past, like an infinity sign burned through the years. None of it—

“Evar!”

Evar startled out of his thoughts. “What?”

“This.” Clovis held up a plate of skeer armour, almost large enough to cover her chest. It looked strangely weathered, like the wooden doors in the city’s poorest quarter, porous and weakened by age. “They shed them from time to time.”

Looking around, Evar saw that the shelving had driven them from following the chamber wall and that they were in a long aisle that vanished into the distance in both directions, shelves rising above them for several times his height. A ladder on broken wheels leaned across the gap ahead of them.

“They’re close.” Clovis sniffed the air.

Evar pushed his selfishness aside. He might not be overly bothered right now if his misery saw him sleepwalking into a fatal encounter, but his siblings would share that fate. In the absence of Starval he was the expert on concealment and evasion. Clovis would come into her own if they came face to face with the skeer, but it would be better if that didn’t happen.

“They can probably scent us too.” Evar scanned the shelves. He pulled a couple of books from shoulder level, opened them both, then discarded them. “Keep your eyes open for anything written in Carcasan. The more substantial tomes. They’ll be written on tweel vellum.” Evar didn’t know what tweels smelled like in life; however, their cured skins carried a gentle but penetrating reek. Wrapping a person’s feet in a few pages and secreting loose leaves around their body would confuse the nose of even the best hunting dog.

Evar took hold of the ladder. “I’ll go up and have a scout around.”

Clovis caught his arm. “Keep your mind on what you’re doing. Daydreaming about your sabber-girl will get us all k—”

“I’m focused.” Evar pulled free and began to climb.

From on high the chamber presented itself very differently. The shelf tops resembled banding across rolling hills or the swells of some alien ocean. In places they were completely level with each other; elsewhere their heights jiggled around some common mean, but generally they grew or shrank gradually, creating slopes. Where the height changed dramatically from one aisle to the next a cliff face formed. These were rare but drew the eye.

Evar stayed on the ladder for a long time, raising his head above the shelf top just enough to see. At last, convinced that no skeer had dared the heights, he moved from the ladder to the top boards in one fluid motion, keeping low. Something towards the middle of the chamber had caught his eye but he’d needed more elevation to understand it. Even now he lacked the required height. He stood up tall, ignoring his sister’s hiss of caution.

In a great bowl formed by the increasing shortness of the shelves sat something much larger than any living creature Evar had seen. Not that it was alive—but it appeared to have been modelled on a beast that struck a chord in Evar’s memory. Crouched as it was, knees to chest, head down, thick overlong arms wrapping its legs, the thing was almost spherical. It seemed to be fashioned from metal plates, steel, bronze, and brass, and decorating every limb was long golden fur, so cunningly cast into the metal that it truly looked like a shaggy pelt.

To Evar, the strangest thing about it was not its size or the manner of its construction but the fact that he recognised the creature on which the titan had been modelled. He had seen its much smaller cousins when he had tried his first and only off-world portal. It had taken him to a library where the air itself had been poison, driving Livira back immediately. Only the fact that he’d been a ghost there had allowed him time to look around. But those creatures had been half his height.

“What is it?” Clovis’s hiss came from ankle level. “What do you see?”

Evar motioned her to silence. Unnervingly, despite being at least a quarter of a mile away, the mechanical being raised its head and looked in their direction. It unclasped the hands around its knees, each sporting a blade-like claw that jutted from the back. The great blunt head tilted left, then right. The faint popping sounds reaching Evar must have been loud retorts as ancient joints unlocked. He could see that, inexplicably, the golem bore a single dull iron manacle around its left wrist. A band of metal that would have encircled Evar, Clovis, and Kerrol if they stood close together.

“Oh crap.” Evar didn’t know how he knew the thing wanted him dead. But he did know it.

The roar lagged behind the opening of the golem’s tooth-lined mouth, but when it arrived it shook the air. Evar was already sliding down the ladder with Clovis barely keeping ahead of him.

Kerrol looked at the pair of them expectantly.

“We need to run,” Evar said. “Now!”

Excerpted from The Book That Broke the World, copyright © 2024 by Mark Lawrence.

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Book Recommendations Fran Wilde

Erewhon Announces A Philosophy of Thieves by Fran Wilde— Read an Exclusive Excerpt Here!

A gender-and-class flipped Leverage meets Parasite meets Six of Crows…

By Reactor

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Published on March 29, 2024

Photo credit: Brian Djerballa

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Photo credit: Brian Djerballa

Erewhon Books announces Fran Wilde’s A Philosophy of Thieves—a thrilling, high-tech heist wrapped around a Gaslamp fantasy.

In a desperately unequal future where the wealthy live in exclusive, climate-controlled enclaves, the latest trend in entertainment is burglary—the more preposterous, the better. The most fashionable and lavish parties feature entertainer-thieves, who are allowed to keep their winnings if they make it out of the house. If they don’t, they risk imprisonment, or worse. 

Roosa and Dax Carnavier are part one of the best and most sought-after troupes of performance thieves—whose glittering success masks deep desperation. Called back from school to work one of the most exclusive parties of the year, Roosa and her brother must give the performance of their lives, or their father will be shipped off to die. But as the heist begins, they don’t know that their host, his girlfriend, his security chief and his business competitors are each playing a game of their own. And if Roosa wants to keep her family together, she and Dax must win the evening, the weeks ahead, and a game bigger than any heist they’ve ever done.

The Cocktail Job

At exactly half past five on a Wednesday evening, the Canarvier family announced they were robbing Dutton Change Corporation’s office party. Chaos followed.

Because Jayson Dutton was midway through his Founder’s Award acceptance when it happened, few guests noticed the thieves’ calling card at his feet. If they had, they would have seen Canarvier appear in elegant gold lettering on thick cream-colored fabricant.

The name of the most infamous thieves in New Washington glittered momentarily before the card dissolved into a yellow puff of dust.

“Dutton Change Corporation and the Dutton family have much to celebrate this quarter. We’ve been recognized by the offshore Enclaves for having — as you’ve seen on our feed broadcasts — a valuable impact on global disasters. I’d like to thank our investors — gathered among you tonight — for their support of our work as we celebrate our first Founders’ Award.” Jayson Dutton coughed as the dust cloud rose and expanded beside him. It obscured Jayson’s latest invention — a sturdier air purifier for New Washington’s citizens. It dimmed the shine on the founder’s medallion draped over the shoulders of Jayson’s quilted bamboo silk suit. 

“Welcome, everyone! Enjoy!” The host’s last words were muffled by his guests’ gasps.

Dutton’s investors — wearing cocktail silks and suits — and Dutton’s engineers in their dress whites took cautious steps backwards.

“Is there a problem with the vents?”

“An attack? In New Washington? Hasn’t been one for almost a year.”

They were here to celebrate Dutton’s medal for service to the city. They — especially those who’d flown in from the Enclaves for the event — had dressed for pleasure, not danger.

To their relief, Jayson’s new air purifier silently sucked the dust away admirably, as the host had requested. But the gold cloud lingered long enough for hidden lasers to write “Beware the Thieves” in the marred air.

At that, guests shrieked and patted their pockets. It was already too late.

* * *

At twenty-eight minutes to six, Dax Canarvier slid behind an overstuffed coat rack to cram himself and a bundled tablecloth into the antique air vent. No one was chasing him yet, but the trick, as King Canarvier had always taught his kids, was to get ahead of the crowd.

The vent traverse was a long, patient crawl, and Dax had promised King he’d go slow, be careful, and stay quiet. Noise from the party obscured the metal grill’s slight rattle when Dax slid it back into place.

At first it had been the noise of success — congratulations, murmured gratitude. Success was important in New Washington. Success signified emergence from the Mess — or, depending on who was describing the past thirty years, the turbulence. It meant power and security, both of which the Duttons had. A Dutton now sat on the Recovery Court alongside a number of illustrious families like the Lius, Morenos, and Benfords. So when Jayson Dutton’s personal assistant had offered King the job, King had laughed and accepted. “No better way to celebrate this kind of success than with thieves.”

Now Dax listened to partygoers shriek with delight at being part of a robbery while he hauled their watches and jewelry deeper into the air vents.

  He crawled the guts of the building’s fifth floor, feeling the party pulse against his palms and knees. Everyone’s always glad to celebrate that they’ve kept things from getting worse. As long as they don’t fix things too much.

The vents were a good example, filled with sharp, uneven seams and an industrial cleaning scent that didn’t quite eliminate the acridity of the dust. The white catering tablecloth Dax pushed in front of him held trendy vintage wallets and the kind of recovered and validated jewelry that New Washington’s citizens loved these days. It grew gray and greasy in the metal crawlspace.

Dax’s borrowed sommelier uniform became equally fouled. He wanted to sneeze, but it wasn’t time for that yet.

When the calling card dropped, according to the contract with the Duttons, the Canarviers had twenty minutes to grab everything they could, without getting caught. Dax stifled his sneeze with pride.

He’d scored the beats for this heist — card drop, vent traverse, guest chase, shaft jump — himself, under King’s watchful eye. The closer the clock ticked to five-fifty, the more Dax looked forward to his father clapping him on the back for a job well done. True, King would probably also hand him the laundry to soak overnight in the tub. The vent grime was going to be terrible to get out.

No private laundress service for the Canarviers, no sir. Not when we can spend all our winnings on improving our art. Dax grumbled, but in reality, he didn’t mind. The artistry was part of the family’s mystique.  

A gust of vent air agitated the city grime in his cheap service mask, tickling his nose and throat. Dax bit down hard on the sneeze. Just a few more minutes.

“When does Roo come home? It’s her turn for the laundry.” It was a small complaint. He missed his big sister. They were a team, even if she’d lucked her way into a fancy Enclave school with teachers, not recordings. They were a family.

“Quiet when performing this close to guests.” King’s voice buzzed in Dax’s ear.

Sorry, Dad. Dax hoped his silence would be interpreted as contrition.

Dax knew what King was training him for: if he could lead a successful heist — even a small one like this — the Canarviers could survive with or without Roosa to help run the big jobs. Dax would get to direct the entertainments more often, with the bigger share that went with the responsibility.  Dax loved performing, but he adored the payoff even more.

I wasn’t that loud. Besides, most guests are hunting thieves all the way across the building. Just as I planned.

Dax closed his eyes for a second, imagining what he would be able to afford when the job was done. Once they sold their take back — with a thieves’ markup — to the investors gathered in Dutton’s office. He’d get his own, loaded, uptown wristband for a whole month. He’d hit the clubs in the entertainment district, on the right side of the vents for once. Maybe he’d even have a real bath at a hotel with a working desalinator, rather than his bi-weekly sand scrub. Decadent.

He smiled and relaxed his jaw. The sneeze erupted. His loud ah-CHOO pushed its way down the vent and out the grill.

Perfection. Even King had no criticism to share over the comms.

The party’s noise changed tenor. “Did you hear that?” “Over here!” The searching guests shifted directions. Dax’s eyes slowly opened, and he smiled in anticipation. The reality before him — another stretch of dusty vent barely wide enough for his shoulders, one filled with air that tasted like stale metal —  could be dealt with. Profit awaited.

Four minutes left in the game. The guests were yanking at the grill, trying to cram their way into the air vent. This was their chance to catch a thief and get their things back for free.

Let the real games begin.

Excerpted from A Philosophy of Thieves, copyright © 2024 by Fran Wilde.

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Book Recommendations publishing news

Erewhon Announces The Changeling Queen by Kimberly Bea

A lush, feminist retelling of “The Ballad of Tam Lin”

By Reactor

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Published on March 25, 2024

Photo credit: Hagops Photography

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Photo credit: Hagops Photography

Erewhon Books announces The Changeling Queen, the debut novel author Kimberly Bea. A lush, feminist retelling of the Scottish “Ballad of Tam Lin”, The Changeling Queen is forthcoming in Fall 2025.

Born with Fae and mortal blood, changeling Bess Grieve fears there’s no true place for her on any side of the veil. Disowned by her adoptive family after the death of the woman who raised her, Bess builds herself a life with the help of her medical skills—and the handsome Thomas Shepherd. But the people of Selkirkshire see her as a scandal, and Thomas’s noble father bends his power to drive them apart. As Bess uses her Fae gifts to fight for Thomas’s heart, she’s drawn into a world of intrigue, sensuality, and luxury, where the laws of mortals can’t constrain her, and her own power runs deeper than she’s ever dreamed. The crown of Faerie might be hers—if she pays the price in Thomas’s blood.

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Book Recommendations book review

A Young Man Perched at the Edge of Fate: The Truth of the Aleke

A review of Moses Ose Utomi’s new fantasy novella.

By Alex Brown

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Published on March 13, 2024

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With The Truth of the Aleke, Moses Ose Utomi jumps ahead half a millennium after the events of the first novella, The Lies of the Ajungo. Once more we see a young man perched at the edge of fate, a corrupt empire lying to its people, and friends turned enemies in a striking betrayal. Once more, the truth is a lie and lies become truth.

In the City of Truth, Osi is a Junior Peacekeeper. He dreams of becoming a Truthseeker and a hero to his people. For generations, they have battled the Cult of Tutu and their cruel leader the Aleke. Peacekeepers defend the city while Truthkeepers battle the enemy. During an attack on his city, Osi makes a dangerous choice he will eventually regret. He and the other Truthseekers are sent into the Forever Desert to retrieve the God’s Eyes—magical stones that give people immense powers—stolen by the Aleke. If the heroes succeed, they will be able to finally destroy the cultists. If they fail, the Aleke will sack their city and slaughter everyone. What Osi finds out, there in the desert made of powdered bone, will call into question everything he was taught about the world and his place in it.

The experience of reading The Truth of the Aleke mirrors Osi’s journey to the truth. I thought I knew what to expect, after the first novella. I knew to be suspicious and to expect a twist. I waited for the surprise to jump out of the shadows. Instead, the truth snuck up on me. Nothing was what it seemed, not even Osi. 

Buy the Book

The Truth of the Aleke

Moses Ose Utomi

Buy Book

The Truth of the Aleke

Moses Ose Utomi

Buy this book from:

• Amazon
• Barnes and Noble
• iBooks
• IndieBound
• Target

The Truth of the Aleke is a story about violent empires, the weaponization of hope, and the manipulation of truth into propaganda and lies. When Osi fights the cultists, he sees them as closer to animals or monsters than people. As he first enters the city of the cultists, he pities them. It’s a squalid, fetid city of dying children and starving adults. How can anyone choose to live like that? The longer he stays in their city, the more he asks himself what the cost is of dehumanizing your enemy. Osi sees but he does not understand; he thinks but does not critique. He is told he is a hero but he is nothing more than a pawn, a thing to be used and sacrificed at the whim of the person in charge. Osi is told that “History is only a story, told by those with power to justify why they have it.” This is a truth he will learn over and over again, each time the hard way. 

As much as the story is about power, it is also about hope. But not in the way you might think. Hope can be used to motivate and inspire or to invoke and enrage. Rebellions are built on hope that things can be better, but that same hope can fester in the hearts of the oppressors into the belief that they’re right and everyone else is wrong. Osi, Obasa, the Truthseekers, the Speaker, and the denizens of the City of Truth and the city of cultists are all hopeful, but their goals and desires could not be more different. Some use hope to throw bricks at their oppressors, some use hope to carry on in the face of overwhelming and impossible odds, some use hope as a temptation to string along the vulnerable, and some use it as a weapon to obliterate challengers and enforce their version of peace. Hope can be misplaced; it can be given to the undeserving. We must understand the price for achieving what we hope for and acknowledge who will be forced to pay for it.

While the ending of The Truth of the Aleke is bleaker than The Lies of the Ajungo, Moses Ose Utomi still threads in some seeds of hope. The story is not over; the history is not set. The truth waits to be told. One boy cannot take down an empire anymore than one boy can save it. All we can do is hope that Tutu and Osi’s stories will light a spark for someone else down the line. [end-mark]

The Truth of the Aleke is available from Tordotcom Publishing.

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News Avatar: The Last Airbender

Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender Renewed for Two More Seasons

See the cast’s reaction to the renewal on video – it’s incredibly cute.

By Vanessa Armstrong

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Published on March 6, 2024

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The first season of Netflix’s live-action adaptation of the children’s animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender will be sticking around for at least two more seasons.

The streaming platform announced the news today, and shared a video of the cast finding out the news via Zoom call. The call, frankly, was rough: Daniel Dae Kim, who plays Fire Lord Ozai on the show, channeled his character’s villainous tendencies and first made it sound like the show was canceled.

Ultimately, however, Kim came clean (though just after Aang actor Gordon Cormier started tearing up), and the cast—which also included Matthew Yang King, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, Kiawentiio, Elizabeth Yu, Dallas Liu, and Ian Ousley—cheered with joy.

While the first season of the series didn’t fare as well critically as I’m sure Netflix would have preferred, the streaming platform has reported that it has remained the No. 1 English-language show since its premiere on February 22, 2024. That translates into 41.1 million views, according to Netflix, though what a “view” entails isn’t clear.

Whatever a “view” is, 41.1 million was apparently enough for the streaming platform to commit to the series for another two seasons. No news yet on when we’ll see any future episodes, but in the meantime, we can watch the video below, where the young actors in the series go through some real-life emotional turmoil. [end-mark]

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Rereads and Rewatches Brandon Sanderson

Elantris Reread: “The Hope of Elantris” and Closing Thoughts

Lyndsey and Paige discuss the short story “The Hope of Elantris” and wrap up the reread.

By Lyndsey Luther, Paige Vest

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Published on March 7, 2024

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If you have no idea what we’re talking about when we say “The Hope of Elantris,” you can read the entire short story for free on Brandon’s website here. In the annotations, he mentions that he wrote this story as a gift/thank you for a young fan who did an amazing book report on Elantris. It fills in one of the “loose threads” of the novel—specifically, the question of how the children of Elantris survive. Once we’re done chatting about the short story, Paige and I will share our closing thoughts on the book and the reread as a whole.

(Non-)Spoiler warning: This week’s article has no spoilers from other Cosmere works. Read on fearlessly, chickens!

Chapter Essentials

POV Character(s): Raoden, Matisse.

Discussion

P: Ah, a bit of time has passed since the nuptials we witnessed last week. And baby makes three! Or, umm, five, if we’re counting Seons, too.

L: Exciting! I always like seeing “the next generation” show up in fantasy novels. For whatever reason, it just makes things feel more…real, for some reason.

P: Story time! And it’s not that long… We’ll cover it as succinctly as possible. ::ahem::

L: Ah, so we’re about to go back in time, as it were. And it’s quite a nice way of doing so, if I might say so myself. Rather than just throw us into the thick of things, Brandon’s set us up a handy framing device.

P: I love this. Raoden gave everyone “jobs” to keep their minds off the pain and the hunger.

L: Ah yes. It’s been awhile since we were at that stage of the book, so it’s nice to have a little reminder of that.

P: It’s sweet that this girl, and she is but a slip of a girl, takes such pride in having a job to do in New Elantris.

L: It is really sweet.

P: This, of course, is how the newly shiny Elantrians were able to access the power to fight the monks after they all transported to Teod. Galladon held an impromptu lesson.

L: That clears up that little hanging thread from the book. I was wondering how they had all managed all that, when we hadn’t been told that they’d all been practicing all this time!

P: What a lot for children to deal with: suddenly changed and exiled from their families—in the case of those who had families, which, of course, Matisse didn’t have—and the world they had known. They’ve only just found a comfortable home in New Elantris, found places for themselves in this new society, and suddenly there’s foreboding and fear because all of the storming adults are acting strangely.

L: Even for the adults it was a lot to handle. I wonder if, in a way, the kids might not have had an easier time of it. The adults had set routines, whole lives that were uprooted. Children, often, are a little more flexible to major life changes. (Does this mean that they weren’t traumatized? Obviously not. But they might, all things considered, have handled things a bit better than the adults.)

P: Of course, she’s an unfinished Elantrian and doesn’t heal. This cut will come into play later.

L: I really wish it wouldn’t.

P: This is heartbreakingly sweet. Matisse had been an orphan begging in the streets before the Shaod had taken her. And in exile, in this filthy city, she’s found a father. ::feels::

L: ::lower lip tremble:: Even in the darkest of times, there is light to be found, and humanity lives on.

P: Like how it feels to become Hoed? Heh… I jest. Though being Hoed was quite important to the plot, as we learn that the pool only takes those who want to be taken. Raoden changed his mind at the last and he didn’t dissolve.

L: True. I also appreciate that Matisse is the more mature of the two in this instance, making reasoned arguments while her father is making more emotional ones.

P: If you recall, Aon Daa was what the finished Elantrians used to great effect in Teod, while fighting the monks. They basically just drew this Aon over and over.

L: Nothing wrong with throwing dynamite sticks! Why bother getting fancy and adding in other things when dynamite does the job just fine?

P: Of course, no scholars missed a line, there was just an earthquake that created a big enough chasm that the Dor needed a line to represent said chasm added to the Aons in order to make them work again. And right about now, Raoden is going to fix all the things with a line!

L: Atta boy, Raoden!

P: And finally Ashe shows up. Not sure how he knew all that had transpired before he arrived…though I suppose he could have learned it all later, once things had died down.

P: Remember that Raoden and the others had told precious few people about the existence of the library. So Matisse had never heard of it before this moment.

L: Probably for the best. Imagine a whole hoard of kids sneaking in there, disorganizing all the books, carrying them off… Would have put a damper on Raoden’s studies to go hunting them all down.

P: These are the weapons Sarene sent to Elantris in case the city was attacked by regular soldiers. Nobody was expecting Fjordell soldiers to show up!

L: Nobody expects the Fjordell Inquisition!

P: I believe we need an Aon alert!

L: Oh, it’s pretty! It looks kind of like a plant, like a leaf or a tree…

P: Galladon had, of course, gone into Kae to look for Raoden, and found him a Hoed, run through with a sword and repeating, “Failed… failed my love…” Ugh, I’m over here getting choked up at something we already covered. Moving on, this is the perfect time for the screaming to begin. Things are weird, what with the adults drawing Aons late into the night, but it’s at least peaceful. Until it’s not.

L: I guess, if there’s ever a “perfect time” for screaming to begin outside of a horror movie or a haunted attraction…

P: How timely was Sarene’s shipment of weapons, huh?

L: One might almost say… convenient.

P: Kiddos need to beat feet and get outta Dodge! Erm, outta New Elantris!

L: This is a huge relief, honestly, knowing what’s coming. Those stacks of bodies the Dakhor monks make… ready to be made into pyres…

P: ::shudders::

P: ::urgency intensifies:: Fly, you fools!

L: If I may insert a reference from a wildly different genre…

P: This child’s sense of duty is simply moving. What a lovely little character Brandon has created for this short story.

L: He’s always been good at writing children. Not as good as, say, Stephen King, but in my opinion King is the master at writing kids, so that’s an awfully high bar to reach.

P: Which is how Dashe finds her in the nick of time. Oh, wait, we’re not there yet. Carry on.

L: Oi. Spoilers, Paige.

P: This cracked me up. She’s only an older child but she’s not above acting like an adult to the younger children.

L: You see this with kids all the time, though. Give them an ounce of responsibility and suddenly they’re acting like the President of the US.

P: But how feasible is running when you have a bunch of young children who have just been dragged from their beds? Sure, maybe they were scared awake, but it’s no small feat to move fifty children anywhere quickly.

L: Herding cats, for sure. Especially when a bunch of them are probably suffering from un-healed injuries and aren’t going to be moving terribly quickly.

P: As the soldiers advance, Matisse realized that yes, they will definitely kill Elantrian children. Just a bunch of monsters, really.

L: Makes me so indignant. What terrible monsters these men are.

P: Dashe came to distract the soldiers so the children could get away, but what does Matisse do? She watches. Of course.

L: Frozen in horror, like watching a car accident or a train wreck. Sadly, it’s human nature.

P: How agonizing for young Matisse to see this happen to her adopted father. She screams here, as Dashe becomes Hoed. ::sad face::

L: If characters we love could stop turning Hoed, that would be great. (I know it all turns out okay in the end, but still.)

P: At least, Matisse thinks they’re there. They are currently taking Raoden to the blue pool.

L: Still, good thinking on her part to bring the kids there. If it was hidden enough that she didn’t know where it was, chances are good that the soldiers won’t be able to find it either.

P: Her Aon worked! How exciting that must have been for her. Or would have been had she not been terrified, I suppose.

L: I can only imagine. It must be something like suddenly getting the powers of a superhero; like Superman. In their society, the Elantrians were looked up to in a similar way. So for her to be able to use those powers suddenly…boy, what a rush that must have been.

P: Ugh, the poor Hoed make me so sad every time I hear one of their mantras.

L: They’re heartbreaking. I’ve been rewatching the 2009 Doctor Who series from the start with my son lately, and it reminds me a lot of the “Silence in the Library” episode, with the Vashta Nerada. The last echoes of the soul, echoing as they cycle down…only in this case, those echoes would be eternal, which makes it so, so much worse.

P: This just gives me goosebumps! To see how she felt when her transformation was finally completed!

L: I can only imagine it looked something like this.

P: Of course, this soldier had seen the cut on her cheek, the one mentioned up above when Matisse is ruminating on being an Elantrian. Only now she’s really an Elantrian and all of her hurts are healed!

L: I’m surprised that he noticed something so subtle, to be honest. These guys didn’t seem like the brightest Seons in the Cosmere.

P: How very odd it would be to not have a heartbeat for however long this child had been an Elantrian, and then suddenly you have a heartbeat again. I love her reactions to becoming a full Elantrian!

L: That must have been incredibly surreal.

P: I don’t listen to the Graphic Audio versions of the books, the music and the different voices actually distract me. But I imagine a swell of awesome music playing during this scene.

L: Yesssssss! This is so so cool!

P: And so ends Ashe’s story. And what a lovely little story it was.

L: This really is beautiful. I love it, and I’m so glad Brandon gave it to us.

P: Very fitting for that child and the bravery she displayed that night. I have many feels.

Final Thoughts

P: This book had a profound impact on me. As a reader and a fan of the fantasy genre. I first picked it up after it was announced that Brandon would finish The Wheel of Time, and it was like no fantasy I’d ever read. I loved Sarene, who was strong and snarky, just the kind of person I wanted so badly to emulate. She spoke to me. And not only her… As a sufferer of bipolar disorder, the Hoed spoke to me, too. Over the many years since I first read Elantris, I’ve picked it up again numerous times. Many details fade in between rereads, but one thing that has never faded is how the Hoed become weighed down by their pain; the way the hurts pile up and pile up until they just can’t bear it anymore. I wrote an article with a friend a few years ago called “The Pain of Elantris” about how I relate so strongly to these Hoed. If you haven’t seen it and you’ve come this far in our reread, maybe give it a look-see.

L: I have a similar story as to how I found the book, though I believe I read The Way of Kings first (clearly, I dove in at the deep end). I want to say it was around 2010 or so that I read Elantris, and at the time, I really related a lot to Sarene and her trials with love. At the time, like her, I never thought I’d ever find anyone, and Raoden was like a dream come true. (To this day I still adore him, and think he’s a great romantic lead. Not quite as good as Jamie Fraser, but that’s an incredibly high bar.)

Interestingly, I didn’t relate as strongly to the Hoed on my first read-through as Paige did, because at the time I hadn’t experienced any chronic pain or mental health issues. After the birth of my son, however, I began to suffer from a plethora of issues (the details of which I won’t bore you with here) and I’ve found that this book resonates with me a lot more strongly now on that count.

P: We hope to be back with you soon before Wind and Truth is released, and as always, watch this space for upcoming Sanderson discussion. Thanks for joining us on this latest reread! [end-mark]

The post <i>Elantris</i> Reread: “The Hope of Elantris” and Closing Thoughts appeared first on Reactor.

Book Recommendations

Revealing The Hollow and the Haunted by Camilla Raines

A closeted teenage psychic foresees the death of his sworn enemy in the fantasy debut from Camilla Raines.

By Reactor

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Published on March 13, 2024

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We’re thrilled to share the cover and preview an excerpt from Camilla Raines’ darkly magical fantasy debut The Hollow and the Haunted—available October 22nd from Titan Books.

Camilla Raines is the author of several published short stories and was born and raised in a small town in Northern Washington with lots of Evergreen trees, fog, and rain. Her writing career began in elementary school, where she spent years writing fantasy stories for friends that were usually just knock-offs of whatever book she was devouring at the time. As a proud member of the LGBTQIA+ community and someone who openly struggles with chronic anxiety, representation, diversity, identity, and acceptance are all important to her as a writer. Camilla can be found @camillaraine

Digging up a grave in a foggy, freezing cemetery at one in the morning was not how Miles wanted to spend his Thursday night.

Well, technically, it was Friday morning now, but technicalities had a way of falling between the cracks when he’d been awake for almost twenty-four hours straight. There was something completely mind-numbing about the repetitive motions of gravedigging—the crunch of his blade in the ground, the swoosh of the shovel, and the quiet thud of dirt that followed.

He’d already been here for several hours. His shirt was stuck to his back with sweat, and the newly formed blisters on his hands refused to be ignored. He shivered, having shrugged off his jacket and tossed it out of the steadily deepening hole, but hating the way the night air chilled his damp skin.

He hoped his mom would be awake and have food ready when he managed to stagger home. It was too late for dinner, too early for breakfast, but she’d promised him a several-hours-past-midnight snack when he’d offered to finish this job for his dad tonight.

The thought of fluffy pancakes and a mug of hot Earl Grey had him digging with renewed determination. At least the ground was still soft, the weather not quite chilly enough that the ground had frozen yet.

Bushes rustled nearby. Miles froze, shovel hovering in mid-air. After years of dealing with hauntings, he would love to say he had nerves of steel, but he’d long since learned one of the few consistent rules of the universe: cemeteries at night were creepy.

Everything about them was flawlessly designed to give you the heebie-jeebies. Gravestones and obelisks looming in the darkness? Creepy. Faint light from the crappy camping lantern Miles’s dad had gotten at a yard sale? Creepy. Being mostly submerged in a hole with only his head poking out to check if anyone was sneaking up on him? Super creepy.

He listened carefully, trying to peer through the gloom, but all he could make out were vague shadows and the few headstones within range of his lantern. No one would be working here this late—the caretaker left at six and the morning shift wasn’t due for hours.

It was probably a bird or a rabbit. Definitely not a zombie hauling itself from a nearby coffin to shamble over and eat his brains.

Miles firmly reminded himself that zombies didn’t exist. Ghosts, sure. Zombies, however, had never been proven. He knew that for a fact—he’d done a very thorough amount of research. A big part of the family business involved spending late nights all alone in cemeteries.

He made himself get back to digging. If anything came at him, it was going to get a shovel to the face.

Not many people realized caskets weren’t buried six feet down—at least, not more recent ones. It was usually closer to four, and while a couple feet less might not seem like much, it made a big difference when you were digging by yourself in the middle of the night. It also meant if a hypothetical zombie came lurching towards Miles, he could climb out of the hole fairly easily and run for his life. 

At times like this, he really had to appreciate the little things.

His shovel thudded against something solid. 

“Finally,” he muttered, reaching over to grab the lantern perched precariously on the lip of the open grave. As it swung, it sent shadows dancing across the dirt walls, swirling in a hellish kaleidoscope.   

Miles dropped to his knees, digging with his bare hands to reveal the once-polished lid of the casket. He scraped and brushed debris away until the seam was visible, then grabbed his crowbar.

This was always the worst part: the stench that poured out when he first cracked a casket open.

Shuddering, Miles swallowed. Mrs. Mendoza had been buried for long enough now that she didn’t smell rotten, but an unmistakably sour, musty scent coated his mouth and tongue. Sure enough, when he managed to leverage the lid fully back, what was left of her body was leathery and withered, her lank hair spread across the silk pillow. Yellowed bone peeked out where her skin had stretched too tight and split, her hands clasped over the breast of the faded blue jacket she’d been buried in.

“Forgive me,” he told her quietly, “I’m just returning something that belongs to you.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the heavy golden locket, polished metal glinting in the weak light. It hummed against his skin, sparking with electricity from the vicious aura it gave off. Miles ground his teeth against the flood of rage and pain that washed over him. Poor Mrs. Mendoza.

In the casket, she sat up.

Miles’s brain screamed at him—a panicked jumble along the lines of holy shit, zombie, zombie, I knew it—before it caught up with what he was seeing.

Mrs. Mendoza wasn’t undead. Her spirit had decided to make an appearance. It was harder than usual to see the blurry edges of her form in the dim light, but if he focused through it, he could make out her corpse still lying prone and lifeless in her casket. Similar to peering through a film of condensation over a window.

“Ah, sorry.” He wasn’t sure if she could hear him, or how coherent she was, but saying nothing seemed impolite. “This is a little awkward, I’m here to—”

Mrs. Mendoza lunged forward and grabbed him by the throat. Instead of passing through him—which usually gave Miles the sensation of icy water dripping down his spine, raising goosebumps across every inch of his skin—an unmistakable pressure squeezed around his neck.

  A black hole gaped as her mouth opened, letting out a low groan that sent hairs standing up all over Miles’s body as it echoed through the open grave. Overhead, trees shuddered in the wind.

Sometimes, getting the job done was as easy as a quick ritual to release a spirit or cleanse a possessed object. Sometimes, it required midnight gravedigging in a cemetery. And sometimes, Miles was unlucky enough that an angry spirit showed up to make things difficult when all he wanted was to go home, eat a mountain of pancakes, and go to sleep.

And Mrs. Mendoza was angry. She’d moved past the whole rattling dishes and slamming doors phase and moved straight into physical manifestation, a skill that required a lot of energy or a real rage high. And she’d decided that with great power, it was her great responsibility to strangle the life out of Miles.

“Come on… give me a break,” he ground out, sucking in ragged breaths around her relentless, ghostly grip. It wasn’t unbearably tight—despite being pissed off, she wasn’t quite that strong—but it was making things uncomfortable.

He reached down to grab the wrist of her corpse, gagging as the dried flesh gave way under his grip. No matter how many times he did it, he was never going to be okay with wrestling dusty old corpses—and those were the good jobs, where the bodies weren’t in the early stages of decomposition.

He should be used to it at this point. But reminding himself that this was just how his life was didn’t make him any less bitter when he was knee-deep in a casket, inhaling musty dead person air and trying not to get strangled by the ghost of a sixty-year-old woman with a murderous passion for gaudy jewelry.

The locket was still in his other hand, a living heart pulsing in response to Mrs. Mendoza’s presence. 

“Thief,” she rasped, her voice a frigid wind that whipped around the hole. “Give it back.”

“Yeah, I’m trying.” The protection charms around Miles’s neck grew warm as they worked to repel Mrs. Mendoza’s aura. A maelstrom of negative emotions whirled around her, threatening to overtake him.

Miles pulled her corpse up by one skeletal wrist, far enough to slip the chain of the locket over her head.

A sound like dry leaves skittering across pavement blew around him. With a groan that Miles wanted to think sounded relieved, Mrs. Mendoza’s spirit fell back towards her corpse and vanished.

Coughing and shielding his face from the rising cloud of dust, Miles carefully adjusted the locket so it lay in the middle of her chest, nestled in the folds of her blue jacket. The evil aura that had saturated the cramped space slowly dissipated, fading away into the night air.  

“Rest easy now,” he murmured, closing the casket gently. “Be at peace.”

Excerpted from The Hollow and the Haunted, copyright 2024 by Camilla Raines

The post Revealing <i>The Hollow and the Haunted</i> by Camilla Raines appeared first on Reactor.

Book Recommendations new releases

All the New Fantasy Books Arriving in March!

Changeling spies, cursed blades, forbidden Gods, and more in this month’s fantasy titles

By Reactor

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Published on March 5, 2024

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Here’s the full list of fantasy titles heading your way in March!

Keep track of all the new SFF releases here. All title summaries are taken and/or summarized from copy provided by the publisher. Release dates are subject to change.

March 5

The Hidden Queen (Nightfall #2) – Peter V. Brett (Del Rey)

Dungeons & Dragons: The Fallbacks: Bound for Ruin — Jaleigh Johnson (Random House Worlds)

House of Open Wounds (Tyrant Philosophers #2) — Adrian Tchaikovsky (Head of Zeus)

The Truth of the Aleke (Forever Desert #2) — Moses Ose Utomi (Tordotcom Publishing)

March 12

Sunbringer (Fallen Gods #2) — Hannah Kaner (Harper Voyager)

Empire of the Damned (Empire of the Vampire #2) — Jay Kristoff (St. Martin’s)

A Feather So Black — Lyra Selene (Orbit)

March 19

The Weavers of Alamaxa (Alamaxa #2) — Hadeer Elsbai (Harper Voyager)

Song of the Huntress — Lucy Holland (Redhook)

March 26

The Emperor and the Endless Palace — Justinian Huang (MIRA Books)

The post All the New Fantasy Books Arriving in March! appeared first on Reactor.

Book Recommendations book announcement

A Devouring Fascination: Announcing Nghi Vo’s The City in Glass

A demon. An angel. A city that burns at the heart of the world.

By Reactor

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Published on March 6, 2024

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Tor Publishing Group is thrilled to announce that editor Ruoxi Chen has acquired World English rights to Hugo Award-winning author Nghi Vo’s next novella, The City in Glass, pitched as This Is How You Lose the Time War meets Good Omens. The deal, for World English rights, was brokered by Diana Fox at Fox Literary. 

In this new standalone, Hugo Award-winning author Nghi Vo introduces a beguiling fantasy city in the tradition of Calvino, Mieville, and Le Guin.

Nghi Vo is the author of the novels Siren Queen and The Chosen and the Beautiful, as well as the acclaimed novellas of the Singing Hills Cycle, which began with The Empress of Salt and Fortune. The series entries have been finalists for the Locus Award and the Lambda Literary Award, and have won the Crawford Award, the Ignyte Award, and the Hugo Award. Born in Illinois, she now lives on the shores of Lake Michigan. She believes in the ritual of lipstick, the power of stories, and the right to change your mind.

Buy the Book

The Brides of High Hill

Nghi Vo

A Book of The Singing Hills Cycle

Buy Book

The Brides of High Hill

Nghi Vo

A Book of The Singing Hills Cycle

A Book of The Singing Hills Cycle

Buy this book from:

• Amazon
• Barnes and Noble
• iBooks
• IndieBound
• Target

The post A Devouring Fascination: Announcing Nghi Vo’s The City in Glass appeared first on Reactor.