BP Note: Welcome to May! Hopefully as this is magically publishing, I am preparing to board for our rescheduled three times lunch cruise. If not I am certainly going to need to find solace in something on this list. The early tree blooms are mostly gone, bulb based flowers are starting to prepare to open their buds and the birds are ensuring everyone knows they are around. We have an interesting collection this month. Heavier on the science and much lighter on the contemporary. I always find it fascinating how each month varies in terms of which genres or subgenres are represented outside of the sometimes seasonal obvious ones. Hope you find something to enjoy and please share what you are looking forward to releasingg this month. Take care of yourself and others. And ensure those who matter to you, know they matter. Knowing that can make a significant difference in their lives and the choices they make.
Happy reading!
~E
- Fantasy
- Fantasy Romance
- Historical Fantasy
- Literary Fiction
- Paranormal Romance
- Science Fiction
- Urban Fantasy
Fantasy
A Long and Speaking Silence (Singing Hills Cycle #7) by Nghi Vo – 5 May (Tordotcom)
Every story begins somewhere.
On the banks of the Ya-lé River, the town of Luntien gathers to celebrate the start of the rainy season, but the celebration is marred by the arrival of refugees from the sea. Everyone has a story about the foreigners newly in their midst—lazy, violent, unwanted—while the refugees themselves grieve the loss of the home they loved.
Cleric Chih, very recently still Novice Chih, is also a stranger in Luntien. A moment of carelessness and bad luck leaves them waiting tables as they struggle to establish themself as a real cleric. A cleric’s job is to listen and record, but the stories emerging in Luntien are ugly and violent, as hard to predict as the river itself. With their hoopoe companion Almost Brilliant by their side, Chih must help the refugees while also unraveling a mystery that may have roots in their own faraway home in the abbey of Singing Hills.
In the seventh entry of the award-winning Singing Hills series, we meet Chih and Almost Brilliant just beginning their journey together as Chih assumes their place on the road and in the world.
The novellas of the Singing Hills series are standalone stories linked by the Cleric Chih, and may be read in any order.
Fantasy Romance
A Curse of Beasts and Magic (Beautiful and Beastly #1) by Jeaniene Frost – 26 May (Bramble Books)
Raine Stone was the sole survivor of a horrific creature while camping. Her account of the attack was attributed to shock, but Raine knows all too well that her story is true because now she carries that same Beast inside her!
She’s been restraining its violent urges by letting it ‘feed’ on the pain and chaos she’s exposed to as an ER nurse, and by playing vigilante against would-be muggers at night. But when Raine uses the Beast’s energy to heal a frail elderly gentleman from a seemingly random attack, she opens herself to a new world of danger—literally.
Remington “Remy” Byrne knows that the wall between a realm of deadly mythic creatures and our own world is very thin; he’s the Warden who guards the gateways between them. He also rules the supernatural creatures living in secret among us. Raine’s Beast makes her an intruder on Remy’s territory, but the elderly gentleman she saved is Remy’s grandfather, and her Beast contains power that could tip the scales in a sinister plot against Remy’s rule—if Raine allies with him.
Will they be friends or foes…or will the dangerous attraction between them turn into something else? And can our world be saved by their explosive alliance?
Historical Fantasy
Palaces of the Crow by Ray Nayler – 19 May (MCD)
Neriya, a young Jewish girl who dreams of becoming a biologist, has befriended a local flock of crows in her shtetl. Czeslaw is an underage Polish soldier who deserts the Red Army and runs into the freezing Lithuanian woods. Kezia is a Roma horse trader whose family is on the run from Soviet collectivization. As the German blitzkrieg crashes across the border in June 1941, all three are caught up in the onslaught. Along with Innokentiy, an abandoned boy who cannot speak, they are driven into the primeval forest, where they survive by forming an unbreakable bond with one another—and with Neriya’s intelligent crows, who for years have been bringing her intricate gifts suggesting they are no ordinary corvids.
As the war goes on, the crows warn the children of danger and help them hide from the human threats of the forest—not only the Germans but also Russian deserters, Polish partisans, fascist Lithuanian police, and the other bandits and outcasts wandering the benighted landscape.
Literary Fiction
The Pillagers’ Guide to Arctic Pianos by Kendra Langford Shaw – 12 May (Pantheon)
In the far reaches of the Territory of the Arctic, the Spahr family lives on a fjord accessible only by kayak and float plane, in a landscape rapidly changing as glaciers melt and sea levels rise. Their home is Jubilation House, aptly they are a family of free spirit and full-hearted love, descendants of the homesteaders who came to this place in a reckless scheme to civilize the Glacial Front. They live off the grid in a converted fisherman’s shack, selling pickled octopus and sea crops, barely scraping by. With every day, their livelihood seems ever more precarious.
Then one of their few neighbors dredges up a centuries-old piano, a vestige from the original homesteading expedition, when every family was required to haul a six-hundred-pound instrument as a sign of mannerly society—almost none made it to their final destination. Now, this intricately carved beauty has emerged, perfectly preserved from the frigid Arctic waters, and the antique treasure becomes a priceless collectors’ item. A new economic boom seizes the territory—piano hunting—and the Spahrs throw themselves into the quest with full-throated aplomb. But the costs of their possible salvation soon begin to mount.
Paranormal Romance
Unknown Depths (Liminal Mysteries #3) by Celia Lake – 1 May (Celia Lake)
Rowena aspires to innovation.
As a portal keeper, she’s learned how to grow and shape doors that let the people of Albion step from one place to another. Now, she wants to do something that’s not been possible for centuries, crafting portals that cross open water. She has more than a few tricks up her sleeve that might make it possible.
Thom has a problem.
Something has gone wrong in the Orkney waters. The winter storms aren’t fading, the currents are stronger than ever, and his Gran’s had a vision. Following her instructions, he finds Rowena, a woman whose background utterly confuses him. He’s a selkie. He knows the water and its dangers. The land is another problem entirely.
Thom isn’t sure how Rowena can help him, even though she quickly forms a plan. Finding mysterious stones glinting like diamonds is only the first step. No plan ever lasts for long, and when they stumble across a house on the northern coast of Scotland with a tall yew hedge that absolutely shouldn’t be there, they have to investigate. It’s the only hope for figuring out what’s disturbing the waters of the Pentland Firth and all who live there.
Join Rowena and Thom for adventures all through the ocean! Unknown Depths is full of the magical ecology of Orkney, what happens when magic is bottled up for too long, and what freedom and hope feel like. Set in 1949, it explores the northern coast of Scotland and Orkney, along with the finfolk and several other legends.
The Werewolf’s Deputy (Charmed Away Temp Agency #7) by Amy Padilla – 5 May (Self)
Jonah spent his entire life raised in a human-only community with anti-supe family members trying to brainwash him, to no success. When his father demands he get off his computer and go get a job, he knows accepting a job at a supe-run temp agency is risky, but he’s determined to experience the world and finally see what he was missing. He didn’t expect his first assignment to be at the largest supe-run company in the world. Maybe he should have considered asking for a smaller assignment for his first supe experience. Werewolves don’t eat humans, right?
When Emmett notices a nervous human at Spellbound, it’s his job as a member of security to ensure he feels safe. It has nothing to do with thinking the easily startled human is adorable and smells delicious. Out of the kindness of his heart, he offers to be the human’s authority on all things supe, answering all his questions and giving Jonah a safe harbor while he learns. When the adorable human starts receiving some unwanted attention and mentions a fake relationship to give himself a buffer, Emmett is happy to play along. Fake dating should include actual dates, though. Right?
Archangel’s Eternity (Guild Hunter #18) by Nalini Singh – 5 May (Berkley)
A thousand years.
It’s been a millennium since Elena’s fateful first meeting with Archangel Raphael. She has survived war and loss, experienced beauty and cruelty. But no matter what, she has always held on to her mortal heart, as she and Raphael have held on to each other. Passionate and vibrant, they’ve built a life that has stood the test of time, growing ever stronger with each turn of the sun.
But change is coming—of a magnitude they could have never imagined—and it will forever alter the trajectory of their existence.
Even as they grapple with the cataclysmic shift in their personal lives, the Cadre of Ten, which has maintained a hard-won peace for centuries, begins to simmer with dangerous fault lines. The specter of madness looms in one archangel, the promise of war burns between two others, and in darkness far from mortal and immortal eyes stirs an ancient, slumbering power.
Suddenly, the future is terrifyingly uncertain . . . at the very moment that Elena and her archangel need to protect a treasure infinitely more precious than eternity.
Science Fiction
The Last Contract of Isako by Fonda Lee – 5 May (Orbit)
Isako is a legendary swordswoman, but every legend has to come to an end. When her long-time client unexpectedly retires, she plans to follow–to walk out into the frozen wasteland of their planet with her head held high and her family enriched by her legacy. But when a competitor offers her a final mission, it’s one she can’t refuse. Soon, she’s thrust deep into a world of corporate espionage, duty-bound duels, and shadowy secrets. What she uncovers will change humanity’s existence in the stars forever.
Platform Decay (Murderbot Diaries #8) by Martha Wells – 5 May (Tor Books)
Having someone else support your bad decision feels kind of good.
Having volunteered to run a rescue mission, Murderbot realises that it will have to spend significant time with a bunch of humans it doesn’t know.
Including human children. Ugh.
This may well call for… eye contact!
(Emotion check: Oh, for f—)
Radiant Star (Imperial Radch) by Ann Leckie – 12 May (Orbit)
Ann Leckie returns to the world of the Imperial Radch in this standalone.
The Temporal Location of the Radiant Star has always been a source of both conflict and hope for the people of Ooioiaa. However, the imperial Radch see it only as an inconvenience, an antiquated religious site soon to be absorbed into their own, superior culture. But local politics is complicated, and the Radch have made one last concession: One last man will be allowed to join the mummified bodies in the temporal location to become a “living saint”.
But this one decision will ripple out to affect every part of the city. Amidst a slowly worsening food shortage, riots, and a communication blackout from the rest of the Radch Empire, a religious savant will entertain visions of his own sainthood, a socialite will discover zer comfortable life upended, and a young man sold into servitude will find unlikely escape.
Villian (Hench #2) by Natalie Zina Walschots – 19 May (William Morrow)
Anna, better known to superheroes as the Auditor, has carved out a name for herself. Any hero unlucky enough to cross her path knows her potential and powers. Surely, success should taste she has an incredible job with lots of perks, and her boss will literally annihilate anyone who crosses her, and her greatest enemy, the former hero Supercollider, has been utterly defeated and literally ground to a pulp.
But Anna still has her sights set on a greater destroying the Draft, the organization that makes, trains, and manages the world’s most powerful superheroes. These “heroes” have shown time and time again that they do more harm than good, and now is the time to stop the damage at its source.
Yet all is not well for the Auditor and her fellow evildoers. Her employer, Leviathan—the world’s most feared supervillain—is not coping well with Supercollider’s defeat at someone else’s hands. Moreover, her unlikely ally and unexpected friend, Quantum Entanglement, has vanished without a trace, leaving Anna to examine all the ways they deceived each other. Tension and uncertainty fill the air, and fear that this moment of triumph is about to crumble looms over all of them.
Anna soon finds herself facing down an opponent unlike any she’s taken on before—not another superhero, but someone like her…someone much more the Draft’s Chief Marketing Officer. This isn’t a test of physical prowess, but ideas, and as the fight spirals deeper and deeper, with new foes popping up every day—she’ll need more than just her superpower—data research—to keep ascending through the supervillain ranks.
It’s guerrilla ad warfare, and the Auditor might have finally met her match.
Cash and Gravity (Chevy Cole #1) by Perrin Pring – 26 May (Diversion Books)
A high-stakes chase across the American West. A device that could change the world. Three unlikely allies thrown together by fate.
In the not so distant future, six mega corporations and their privatized armies have supplanted the American government. They compete for resources, market position, and the ultimate long game prize of colonizing the stars.
Chevy Cole left her conservative family behind for life as a Launch Tech marine and never looked back, proud of her role as a first-into-the-fire grunt, even if she were well below the revered female super soldiers known as Aces. When rumors spread that one of the Big Six has created a fusion device that would put the stars within reach, all-out war looms.
After the catastrophic failed siege of a Nevada mine leaves most of her comrades dead, Chevy encounters a dying Ace in possession of a mysterious package and a this Ace is a man. Joined by Dolon, an aging mercenary “phantom” sent by Launch Tech to transport the package to an Idaho safehouse, the three form an uneasy alliance.
As they try to outrun a rival corporation’s ruthless agents across the desert in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse, Chevy realizes that their survival may also determine who control
Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer – 26 May (DAW)
Forty years ago, the world nearly ended.
Be is an old robot who was there, and doesn’t want to think about what happened, or what role they played in that conflict. They have settled into a life of isolation in the abandoned ruins of an old mill in the former New York Botanical Gardens, disinterested in what has happened in the outside world since they stepped away from the war. Someone out there, though, has not forgotten about them, and when they are attacked, their person vandalized, and one of their leg stolen, they set out to find the thief accompanied by a cyborg dog and a human mechanic.
The world has changed, but the recovery from the war is uneven and faltering, and Be begins to suspect a malicious hand trying to rekindle the old conflict and finish what was started. In order to stop them, Be needs to come to terms with both their own past and who they have become, and how everything and everyone else they knew has changed in their absence. Being left alone is no longer an option, and peace may be impossible.
Urban Fantasy
Stir Crazy (Maya’s Blogs #6) by Lara Mackenzie – 19 May (Self)
Maya’s built her life in the Umbrafore world – her blog, her marriage, and her found family. But the rift between Scorpion and Dax is the one crack she can’t seem to fill, no matter how many times she stirs the pot.
Meanwhile, Genevieve is armed with a business plan, zero experience, and entirely too much confidence; she plans to open the Umbrafore’s first ghostly detective agency.
What could possibly go wrong?
Apparently everything.
Night Maze (Cat Lady Chronicles #4) by Helen Harper – 26 May (Self)
It’s one thing to be dealing death. It’s quite another to deal with the undead.
Kit McCafferty has never been fond of vampires but she can’t refuse the opportunity to learn more about their kind. When she is invited into the clandestine underground world of the Understream to investigate the mysterious disappearance of some giant worms, she soon discovers there is far more to the fanged creatures than she’d ever realised.
Danger, secrets and mysteries abound in every dark, twisting tunnel. Is there anyone in the depths who Kit can trust? Or will she have to rely on her wits – and her cats – alone?
The monthly Must Have list is a compilation of the upcoming release titles that we, The Book Pushers, just can’t wait to get our hands on. Don’t see a title you’re excited about listed here? Add it to the comments section below. Let us know what you’re looking forward to!