Happy Tuesday!
Welcome to the September 10th release week. Not a bad crop of new books. Arya mentioned that Alice Coldbreath has a new book out, slated for Monday, but as of writing this there are no links up yet. If we can, we’ll include it next week!
Which books are you excited for? Let us know in the comments!
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Countess
Author: Suzan Palumbo
Released: September 10, 2024 by ECW Press
Genre: LGBTQIA, Novella, Science Fiction/FantasyA queer Caribbean anti-colonial Count of Monte Cristo set in space in which a betrayed captain seeks revenge on the interplanetary empire that subjugated her people for generations
Virika Sameroo lives in colonized space under the Æerbot Empire, much like her ancestors before her in the British West Indies. After years of working hard to rise through the ranks of the empire’s merchant marine, she’s finally become first lieutenant on an interstellar cargo vessel.
When her captain dies under suspicious circumstances, Virika is arrested for murder and charged with treason despite her lifelong loyalty to the empire. Her conviction and subsequent imprisonment set her on a path of revenge, determined to take down the evil empire that wronged her, all while the fate of her people hangs in the balance.
Amanda: A queer, diverse retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo! Dumas is one of the few classic authors I love.
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Lucy Undying
Author: Kiersten White
Released: September 10, 2024 by Del Rey
Genre: Gothic, Horror, LGBTQIA, Science Fiction/FantasyA vampire escapes the thrall of Dracula and embarks on her own search for self-discovery and true love in this epic and seductive gothic fantasy from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hide.
Her name was written in the pages of someone else’s Lucy Westenra was one of Dracula’s first victims.
But her death was only the beginning. Lucy rose from the grave a vampire and has spent her immortal life trying to escape from Dracula’s clutches—and trying to discover who she really is and what she truly wants.
Her undead life takes an unexpected turn in twenty-first-century London, when she meets another woman, Iris, who is also yearning to break free from her past. Iris’s family has built a health empire based on a sinister secret, and they’ll do anything to stay in power.
Lucy has long believed she would never love again. Yet she finds herself compelled by the charming Iris while Iris is equally mesmerized by the confident and glamorous Lucy. But their intense connection and blossoming love is threatened by outside forces. Iris’s mother won’t let go of her without a fight, and Lucy’s past still has Dracula is on the prowl once more.
Lucy Westenra has been a tragically murdered teen, a lonesome adventurer, and a fearsome hunter, but happiness has always eluded her. Can she find the strength to destroy Dracula once and for all, or will her heart once again be her undoing?
Elyse: Kiersten Whites take on Dracula? Take my money!
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The Scarlet Throne
Author: Amy Leow
Released: September 10, 2024 by Orbit
Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy
Series: The False Goddess #1A dark, heart-thumping political epic fantasy by debut author Amy Leow—full of scheming demons, morally grey heroines, talking cats, and cut-throat priests, this delicious tale of power and corruption will captivate from beginning to end.
Binsa is a “living goddess,” chosen by the gods to dispense both mercy and punishment from her place on the Scarlet Throne. But her reign hides a deadly secret. Rather than channeling the wisdom of an immortal deity, she harbors a demon.
But now her priests are growing suspicious. When a new girl, Medha, is selected to take over her position, Binsa and her demon strike a deal: To magnify his power and help her wrest control from the priests, she will sacrifice human lives. She’ll do anything not to end up back on the streets, forgotten and alone. But how much of her humanity is she willing to trade in her quest for power? Deals with demons are rarely so simple.
Amanda: Love a morally gray heroine!
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The Shadow Key
Author: Susan Stokes-Chapman
Released: September 10, 2024 by Harper Perennial
Genre: Gothic, Historical: European, Mystery/ThrillerThere’s something mysterious about the village of Penhelyg. Will unlocking its truth bring light or darkness?
Meirionydd, 1783. Henry Talbot has been dismissed from his post at a prestigious London hospital. The only job he can find is as a physician in the backwaters of Wales where he can’t speak the language, belief in myth and magic is rife, and the villagers treat him with bewildering suspicion. When Henry discovers his predecessor died under mysterious circumstances, he is determined to find answers.
Linette Tresilian, the unconventional mistress of Plas Helyg, lives a lonely life. Her father is long dead, her mother haunted by demons which keep her locked away in her room, and her cousin treats her with cool disdain – she has had no choice but to become fiercely self-reliant.
Linette has always suspected something is not quite right in the village, but it is only through Henry’s investigations that the truth about those closest to her will come to light…a truth that will bind hers and Henry’s destinies together in ways neither thought possible.
Elyse’s pick!
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So Thirsty
Author: Rachel Harrison
Released: September 10, 2024 by Berkley
Genre: HorrorA woman must learn to take life by the throat after a night out leads to irrevocable changes in this juicy, thrilling novel from the USA Today bestselling author of Such Sharp Teeth and Black Sheep.
Sloane Parker is dreading her birthday. She doesn’t need a reminder she’s getting older, or that she’s feeling indifferent about her own life.
Her husband surprises her with a birthday weekend getaway—not with him, but with Sloane’s longtime best friend, troublemaker extraordinaire Naomi.
Sloane anticipates a weekend of wine tastings and cozy robes and strategic avoidance of issues she’d rather not confront, like her husband’s repeated infidelity. But when they arrive at their rental cottage, it becomes clear Naomi has something else in mind. She wants Sloane to stop letting things happen to her, for Sloane to really live. So Naomi orchestrates a wild night out with a group of mysterious strangers, only for it to take a horrifying turn that changes Sloane’s and Naomi’s lives literally forever.
The friends are forced to come to terms with some pretty eternal consequences in this bloody, seductive novel about how it’s never too late to find satisfaction, even though it might taste different than expected.
Amanda: Rachel Harrison is an autobuy for me.
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Somewhere Beyond the Sea
Author: TJ Klune
Released: September 10, 2024 by Tor Books
Genre: LGBTQIA, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy
Series: Cerulean Chronicles #2Somewhere Beyond the Sea is the hugely anticipated sequel to TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea, one of the best-loved and best-selling fantasy novels of the past decade. Featuring gorgeous orange sprayed edges!
A magical house. A secret past. A summons that could change everything.
Arthur Parnassus lives a good life built on the ashes of a bad one.
He’s the master of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six dangerous and magical children who live there.
Arthur works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. He is not alone: joining him is the love of his life, Linus Baker, a former caseworker in the Department In Charge of Magical Youth. And there’s the island’s sprite, Zoe Chapelwhite, and her girlfriend, Mayor Helen Webb. Together, they will do anything to protect the children.
But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve.
And when a new magical child hopes to join them on their island home—one who finds power in calling himself monster, a name that Arthur worked so hard to protect his children from—Arthur knows they’re at a breaking point: their family will either grow stronger than ever or fall apart.
Welcome back to Marsyas Island. This is Arthur’s story.
Somewhere Beyond the Sea is a story of resistance, lovingly told, about the daunting experience of fighting for the life you want to live and doing the work to keep it.
Book two in the Cerulean Chronicles series.
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Tribute
Author: L.M. Rose
Released: September 10, 2024 by Bold Strokes Books
Genre: LGBTQIA, Romance, Science Fiction/FantasyIn the year 2597, Earth’s colony world of Mariposa is shared with an alien race, the Tipruii. When war breaks out between the human colony and the aliens, Fiona learns that her future will be the price of peace. To save her people, she will be the tribute in a treaty marriage to the Tipruii princess, Simaala, and spend the rest of her days on the other side of the wall between their races.
As peace hangs in the balance, Simaala and Fiona navigate the confusion of new cultures and new desires to find a love that will transcend their differences. But not everyone wants peace, and Fiona is in more danger than she knows, putting all their plans and the fate of the human race in jeopardy.
Tara: I haven’t read a good sci-fi in a while and this one sounds like it could be great.
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Whenever You’re Ready
Author: Rachel Runya Katz
Released: September 10, 2024 by St. Martin's Griffin
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance“Is it okay to say that Rachel Runya Katz’s characters are always so hot to me? The slow burn tension between Jade and Nia was off the charts.” – Alicia Thompson, USA Today bestselling author of Love in the Time of Serial Killers
After reconnecting on a road trip, two friends must decide if love is the ultimate risk worth taking in this funny, emotional sapphic romance.
Nia and Jade had been inseparable ever since their best friend, Michal, introduced them at her tenth birthday party. But now it’s been three years since Michal died of cancer— since the brutal fight Nia and Jade had in the weeks after— and they’re barely on speaking terms.Until Nia reads a letter Michal wrote for her 29th birthday, asking her and Jade to go on the southern Jewish history road trip they’d planned before she died. To add to the complications, Michal’s then-boyfriend and Jade’s twin brother, Jonah, joins the trip. Despite the years apart and Jade and Jonah’s strained relationship, any awkwardness quickly disappears as it becomes clear how much Nia and Jade have missed each other.
Unfortunately, old issues soon arise. Nia has been in love with Jade since they were teenagers, and Jade has been so committed to their friendship that she never let herself consider something more. As the stops pass, tensions mount, running high until Nia and Jade are forced to confront what happened three years ago, their feelings for one another, and even their respective relationships with Jonah.
Rachel Runya Katz’s Whenever You’re Ready is about family, friendship, and the kind of first love that could last a lifetime—if only you are willing to take a chance.
“Poignant, tender, and swoony, Whenever You’re Ready is an instant favorite from an auto-buy author.” – Alison Cochrun, Lambda award-winning author of Kiss Her Once for Me and Here We Go Again
Shana: So many people have recommended this author to me and I’m looking forward to reading it!
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The Ballad of Smallhope and Pennyroyal by Jodi Taylor. The origin story of the bounty hunters. If it’s like other Taylors, go in expecting to need all the trigger warnings.
Three books on my tbr this week, all three dropping on September 12:
POWER OF THE MIND (Shadowy Solutions/#2) by Nicky James. The next installment of the Domingo & Krause series with two men solving mysteries and navigating their fraught relationship. My most highly anticipated book of September.
TEMPTATION TRAILS (The Haven Brothers /#3) by Claire Kingsley. The next in Kingsley’s series of romantic-suspense stories featuring a family with six brothers. This one has a single-dad sheriff and the bakery owner he’s trying to protect.
DIVINE HEART (Rebel King/#8) by Garrett Leigh. Yes, we’re eight books into Leigh’s MC series where either the sex is easy, but the intimacy is hard, or the intimacy is easy, but the sex is hard. Not sure which side of the coin DIVINE HEART falls on, but I do know the MCs have been on the periphery of the prior Rebel Kings books, so I’m looking forward to their story.
The Masquerades of Spring, a prequel novella in Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series was released last a few days ago, so it was after last week’s 9/3 Hide Your Wallet, which means I can say on this HYW that I’m excited to read it! Out today is Janice Hallett’s latest mystery The Examiner is told in email, texts and essays.
Waitwaitwait the retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo is a *novella.*
I just.
But. How?? This is like 5 minute Shakespeare or something, I don’t see how you can do this without it being a joke, but the cover seems Serious. Must investigate further!
Interestingly, among the sections that tend to get cut from translations of the original (it is a very long book) is the part with the Lesbian character (I think we can all agree she’s not expurgated in the interest of brevity). I would adore a Eugenie retelling…
‘The Shadow Key’ looks like it would be my jam! 🙂
@kkw, I was surprised by that too but I saw a review of “Countess” today at Reactor Mag that says it’s still good read, even though it’s short. Review: It is best approached not as an adaptation but as something inspired by or a remix of Alexandre Dumas’ classic. Even at 168 pages, it’s full of adventure, romance, violence, and rebellion. It’s exactly as long as it needs to be.”
All are on my TBR!