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2022 New YA & Adult Book Releases (Part 3)

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Hello, hello, it’s time for Part 3 of my annual new young adult & adult book releases round up!

Wherein I just write these posts to pine over books now, but you know. What else is life for but to wistfully dream of books. As always everything is linked to Goodreads! And I’m doing a culmination of YA and Adult because these days I have my eyes on both. Like, as if my TBR pile didn’t have enough on it already.

See Part 1 and Part 2 of my 2022 releases lists!

Title: Direwood by Catherine Yu
Release Date: September 20th 2022
Genre: YA Horror
Goodreads
it said ’90s GOTHIC HORROR and I cried with want and need for it. That is all. Please give me.

In this velvet-clad 1990s gothic horror, Aja encounters a charming vampire who wants to lure her into the woods—just like her missing sister.
No one ever pays attention to sixteen-year-old Aja until her perfect older sister Fiona goes missing. In the days leading up to Fiona’s disappearance, Aja notices some extraordinary things: a strange fog rolling through their idyllic suburban town, a brief moment when the sky seems to rain blood, and a host of parasitic caterpillars burrowing their way through the trees. Aja’s father, the neighbors, and even her ex-friend Mary all play down this strange string of occurrences, claiming there must be some natural explanation. It seems everyone is willing to keep living in denial until other teens start to go missing too.
Aja is horrified when she meets Padraic, the vampire responsible for all the strange occurrences. His hypnotic voice lures her to the window and tells her everything she’s longed to hear—she’s beautiful and special, and he wants nothing more than for Aja to come with him. Aja knows she shouldn’t trust him, but she’s barely able to resist his enthrallment. And following him into the woods may be the only way to find Fiona, so she agrees on one condition: He must let her leave alive if she is not wooed after one week. Though Aja plans to kill him before the week is out, Padraic has his own secrets as well.
In the misty woods, Aja finds that Padraic has made his nest with another vampire in a dilapidated church infested by blood-sucking butterflies. Within its walls, the vampires are waited on and entertained by other children they’ve enthralled, but there is no sign of Fiona. Before her bargain is up, Aja must find a way to turn her classmates against their captors, find her sister, and save them all—or be forced to join the very monsters she wants to destroy.  
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Title: The Weight Of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson
Release Date: September 6th 2022
Genre: YA Horror
Goodreads
I’m such a huge fan of this author!! I think I’ve read all of her books so far too 👀👌🏻 And very pleased she’s headed from thriller into horror (though her thrillers are also my absolutely favourites.)

New York Times bestselling author Tiffany D. Jackson ramps up the horror and tackles America’s history and legacy of racism in this suspenseful YA novel following a biracial teenager as her Georgia high school hosts its first integrated prom.
When Springville residents—at least the ones still alive—are questioned about what happened on prom night, they all have the same explanation . . . Maddy did it.
An outcast at her small-town Georgia high school, Madison Washington has always been a teasing target for bullies. And she’s dealt with it because she has more pressing problems to manage. Until the morning a surprise rainstorm reveals her most closely kept secret: Maddy is biracial. She has been passing for white her entire life at the behest of her fanatical white father, Thomas Washington.
After a viral bullying video pulls back the curtain on Springville High’s racist roots, student leaders come up with a plan to change their image: host the school’s first integrated prom as a show of unity. The popular white class president convinces her Black superstar quarterback boyfriend to ask Maddy to be his date, leaving Maddy wondering if it’s possible to have a normal life.
But some of her classmates aren’t done with her just yet. And what they don’t know is that Maddy still has another secret . . . one that will cost them all their lives.  
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Title: Unraveller by Frances Hardinge
Release Date: September 1st 2022
Genre: YA Fantasy
Goodreads
I read Deeplight last year and it’s one of my new favourite books so I absolutely need the author’s latest!

A dark YA fantasy about learning to use your power and finding peace, from award-winning author Frances Hardinge.
In a world where anyone can create a life-destroying curse, only one person has the power to unravel them.
Kellen does not fully understand his talent, but helps those transformed maliciously—including Nettle. Recovered from entrapment in bird form, she is now his constant companion and closest ally.
But Kellen has also been cursed, and unless he and Nettle can remove his curse, Kellen is in danger of unravelling everything—and everyone—around him . . . 
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Title: Shades Of Rust And Ruin by A.G. Howard
Release Date: September 6th 2022
Genre: YA Fantasy
Goodreads
A Halloween steampunk book? Sign me up, quite frankly. Plus I always have fond memories of A.G. Howard’s Splintered series from back circa 2012.

Embrace the mysterious. Invoke the magical. Enter the Mystiquiel…
Phoenix “Nix” Loring knows her family is under a Halloween curse. When she was three, her parents tragically died on October 31st. Eleven years later, her twin sister Lark suffered a similar fate.
Ever since, Nix has battled survivor guilt. She can’t even find comfort in Clarey, Lark’s boyfriend and the one person who understands her pain, because Nix’s hidden feelings for him go far beyond friendship. All that remains are her sketches, where she finds solace among the goblins and faeries in her imaginary world of Mystiquel. When her depression starts affecting her ability to see color, Nix all but gives up on her art, until her uncle goes missing on Halloween day. Hot on his trail, Nix and Clarey step through a portal, becoming trapped inside a decaying version of their town filled with Nix’s own sketches come to life.
As Nix and Clarey search for her uncle within the sinister and dangerous world of Mystiquel, Nix discovers there’s more to her family curse and otherworldly artwork than she ever imagined—and unless she can solve the Goblin King’s maze before the clock strikes midnight, her life won’t be the only one the curse claims next.
Set in a gritty, steampunk-inspired fantasy world, New York Times bestselling author A.G. Howard launches a thrilling new duology full of romance, twists, and betrayals.  
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Title: Bone Weaver by Aden Polydoros
Release Date: September 20th 2022
Genre: YA Fantasy
Goodreads
The City Beautiful was such a favourite from last year that the author is currently an auto-buy decision for me. 😂

A haunting fantasy following Toma, adopted daughter of the benevolent undead, making her way across a civil war-torn continent to save her younger sister as she discovers she might possess magical powers herself.
The Kosa empire roils in tension, on the verge of being torn apart by a proletarian revolution between magic-endowed elites and the superstitious lower class, but seventeen-year-old Toma lives blissfully disconnected from the conflict in the empire with her adoptive family of benevolent undead.
When she meets Vanya, a charming commoner branded as a witch by his own neighbors, and the dethroned Tsar Mikhail himself, the unlikely trio bonds over trying to restore Mikhail’s magic and protect the empire from the revolutionary leader, Koschei, whose forces have stolen the castle. Vanya has his magic, and Mikhail has his title, but if Toma can’t dig deep and find her power in time, all of their lives will be at Koschei’s mercy. 
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Title: House Of Hunger by Alexis Henderson
Release Date: September 27th 2022
Genre: Adult Historical Fantasy
Goodreads
Gothic sapphic vampires, say no more, truly. I will just have it. (Actually have it preordered.)

WANTED – Bloodmaid of exceptional taste. Must have a keen proclivity for life’s finer pleasures. Girls of weak will need not apply.
A young woman is drawn into the upper echelons of a society where blood is power, in this dark and enthralling gothic novel from the author of The Year of the Witching.
Marion Shaw has been raised in the slums, where want and deprivation is all she knows. Despite longing to leave the city and its miseries, she has no real hope of escape until the day she spots a peculiar listing in the newspaper, seeking a bloodmaid.
Though she knows little about the far north—where wealthy nobles live in luxury and drink the blood of those in their service—Marion applies to the position. In a matter of days, she finds herself the newest bloodmaid at the notorious House of Hunger. There, Marion is swept into a world of dark debauchery—and at the center of it all is her.
Countess Lisavet, who presides over this hedonistic court, is loved and feared in equal measure. She takes a special interest in Marion. Lisavet is magnetic, and Marion is eager to please her new mistress. But when her fellow bloodmaids begin to go missing in the night, Marion is thrust into a vicious game of cat and mouse. She’ll need to learn the rules of her new home—and fast—or its halls will soon become her grave.  
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Title: Lark And Kasim Start A Revolution by Kacen Callender
Release Date: September 27th 2022
Genre: YA Contemporary
Goodreads
I’ve loved two books by this author! (King And The Dragonflies and Felix Ever After) So definitely want more from them, plus this one has neurodivergent main characters I’ve heard.

Lark Winters wants to be a writer, and for now that means posting on their social media accounts––anything to build their platform. When former best friend Kasim accidentally posts a thread on Lark’s Twitter declaring his love for a secret, unrequited crush, Lark’s tweets are suddenly the talk of the school—and beyond. To protect Kasim, Lark decides to take the fall, pretending they accidentally posted the thread in reference to another classmate. It seems like a great idea: Lark gets closer to their crush, Kasim keeps his privacy, and Lark’s social media stats explode. But living a lie takes a toll—as does the judgment of thousands of Internet strangers. Lark tries their best to be perfect at all costs, but nothing seems good enough for the anonymous hordes––or for Kasim, who is growing closer to Lark, just like it used to be between them . . .
In the end, Lark must embrace their right to their messy emotions and learn how to be in love. 
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Title: Notorious Sorcerer by Davina Evans
Release Date: September 13th 2022
Genre: Adult Spec Fic
Goodreads
More queer specfic and the cover is giving me darker shade of magic vibes which sounds fun. Plus an Australian author!

Since the city of Bezim was shaken half into the sea by a magical earthquake, the Inquisitors have policed alchemy with brutal efficiency. Nothing too powerful, too complicated, too much like real magic is allowed–and the careful science that’s left is kept too expensive for any but the rich and indolent to tinker with. Siyon Velo, a glorified errand boy scraping together lesson money from a little inter-planar fetch and carry, doesn’t qualify.
But when Siyon accidentally commits a public act of impossible magic, he’s catapulted into the limelight. Except the limelight is a bad place to be when the planes themselves start lurching out of alignment, threatening to send the rest of the city into the sea.
Now Siyon, a dockside brat who clawed his way up and proved himself on rooftops with saber in hand, might be Bezim’s only hope. Because if they don’t fix the cascading failures of magic in their plane, the Powers and their armies in the other three will do it for them. 
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Honourable Mentions

Title: The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake
Release Date: October 25th 2022
Genre: Adult Fantasy
Goodreads
This is definitely one of my top anticipated releases for 2022 now, since I loved The Atlas Six so much. Plus it landed on a cliffhanger and sir, I am owed answers.

The Atlas Paradox is the long-awaited sequel to dark academic sensation The Atlas Six—guaranteed to have even more yearning, backstabbing, betrayal, and chaos.
Six magicians. Two rivalries. One researcher. And a man who can walk through dreams. All must pick a side: do they wish to preserve the world—or destroy it? In this electric sequel to the viral sensation, The Atlas Six, the society of Alexandrians is revealed for what it is: a secret society with raw, world-changing power, headed by a man whose plans to change life as we know it are already under way. But the cost of knowledge is steep, and as the price of power demands each character choose a side, which alliances will hold and which will see their enmity deepen?” 
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Title: The Wolves Are Watching by Natalie Lund
Release Date: October 4th 2022
Genre: YA Fantasy Mystery
Goodreads
It said “chilling mystery” and “forest” so I am here for it. Plus it sounds like it’ll have a touch of magical realism.

The night little Madison disappears from her crib, Luce sees a pair of eyes–two points of gold deep in the forest behind her house–and feels certain they belong to a wolf. Her town, Picnic, Illinois, is the kind of place where everyone knows one another and no one locks their doors. It’s not the kind of place where a toddler goes missing without a trace, where wolves lurk in the shadows.
In town, people are quick to blame Madison’s mom. But when Luce’s English teacher shares an original script about the disappearance of another little girl in Picnic back in 1870, Luce begins to notice similarities that she can’t ignore. Certain that something deeper is going on, Luce tracks the wolf she saw into the woods and uncovers the truth about her town: magical animal-women, who have remained hidden in shadows for centuries, have taken her cousin for their own purposes–and they have no intention of bringing her back.
A chilling mystery that weaves elements of magical realism, drama, and folklore into a story of one teen’s bravery as she confronts her town’s past and tries to save the future.
 
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Title: Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen
Release Date: October 18th 2022
Genre: Adult Historical Thriller
Goodreads
I’ve seen this comped as for fans of Knives Out, so that’s meeee. And I’ve enjoyed this author’s YA so am keen to see what they do for adult historical!

Lavender House, 1952: the family seat of recently deceased matriarch Irene Lamontaine, head of the famous Lamontaine soap empire. Irene’s recipes for her signature scents are a well guarded secret – but it’s not the only one behind these gates. This estate offers a unique freedom, where none of the residents or staff hide who they are. But to keep their secret, they’ve needed to keep others out. And now they’re worried they’re keeping a murderer in.
Irene’s widow hires Evander Mills to uncover the truth behind her mysterious death. Andy, recently fired from the San Francisco police after being caught in a raid on a gay bar, is happy to accept – his calendar is wide open. And his secret is the kind of secret the Lamontaines understand.
Andy had never imagined a world like Lavender House. He’s seduced by the safety and freedom found behind its gates, where a queer family lives honestly and openly. But that honesty doesn’t extend to everything, and he quickly finds himself a pawn in a family game of old money, subterfuge, and jealousy—and Irene’s death is only the beginning.
When your existence is a crime, everything you do is criminal, and the gates of Lavender House can’t lock out the real world forever. Running a soap empire can be a dirty business. 
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Title: The Whispering Dark by Kelly Andrew
Release Date: October 18th 2022
Genre: YA Paranormal
Goodreads
Not sure if this counts as dark academia exactly but it IS set in college and the protagonist is Deaf (plus it’s by a Deaf author!)

The Raven Boys meets Ninth House in the most exciting debut of 2022 — a dark, atmospheric fantasy about a Deaf college student with a peculiar connection to the afterlife.
Delaney Meyers-Petrov is tired of being seen as fragile just because she’s Deaf. So when she’s accepted into a prestigious program at Godbole University that trains students to slip between parallel worlds, she’s excited for the chance to prove herself. But her semester gets off to a rocky start as she faces professors who won’t accommodate her disability, and a pretentious upperclassman fascinated by Delaney’s unusual talents.
Colton Price died when he was nine years old. Quite impossibly, he woke several weeks later at the feet of a green-eyed little girl. Now, twelve years later, Delaney Meyers-Petrov has stumbled back into his orbit, but Colton’s been ordered to keep far away from the new girl… and the voices she hears calling to her from the shadows.
Delaney wants to keep her distance from Colton — she seems to be the only person on campus who finds him more arrogant than charming — yet after a Godbole student turns up dead, she and Colton are forced to form a tenuous alliance, plummeting down a rabbit-hole of deeply buried university secrets. But Delaney and Colton discover the cost of opening the doors between worlds when they find themselves up against something old and nameless, an enemy they need to destroy before it tears them — and their forbidden partnership — apart. 
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Title: Road Of The Lost by Nafiza Azad
Release Date: October 18th 2022
Genre: YA Fantasy
Goodreads
Anything that says “perfect for fans of the cruel prince” is clearly talking to me, so I cannot ignore. I also appreciate how it’s part of the Faces With Floral Covers trend.

Croi is a brownie, glamoured to be invisible to humans. Her life in the Wilde Forest is ordinary and her magic is weak—until the day that her guardian gives Croi a book about magick from the Otherworld, the world of the Higher Fae. Croi wakes the next morning with something pulling at her core, summoning her to the Otherworld. It’s a spell she cannot control or break.
Forced to leave her home, Croi begins a journey full of surprises…and dangers. For Croi is not a brownie at all but another creature entirely, enchanted to forget her true heritage. As Croi ventures beyond the forest, her brownie glamour begins to shift and change. Who is she really, who is summoning her, and what do they want? Croi will need every ounce of her newfound magic and her courage as she travels a treacherous path to find her true self and the place in the Otherworld where she belongs.
Perfect for fans of The Cruel Prince, this gorgeous young adult fantasy follows a girl who discovers she’s spent her life under an enchantment hiding her true identity on her quest into the magical Otherworld to unlock her powers and discover her destiny.  
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Title: The Restless Dark by Erica Waters
Release Date: October 4th 2022
Genre: YA Horror
Goodreads
Tf

People say Cloudkiss Canyon is cursed. It takes everything you’ll give it: murders, sins, secrets.
Two years ago, Lucy watched the Cloudkiss Killer leap into its depths, after he attempted to murder her. The canyon took his life, but no one ever found his body. Now, Lucy is back, competing in a macabre contest hosted by a true crime podcast to locate the killer’s remains. If she finds his bones, maybe his ghost will stop haunting her.
She’s not the only contestant hoping to leave something behind.
Sweet-faced Carolina has a rage that prowls beneath her skin.
Friendly, charismatic Maggie has a dark past she’d rather stay buried.
The canyon takes everything you give it, but evil is hard to let go of. As the three girls are drawn together, the hunt for the killer’s bones becomes something more.
The longer they stay in the canyon, the more it whispers to them of their dark impulses, their wicked hearts. The longer they stay in the canyon, the easier it is to believe the whispers, and the harder it is to leave.  
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Title: The Art Of insanity by Christine Webb
Release Date: October 11th 2022
Genre: YA Contemporary
Goodreads
I’m always interested in books with mental health rep, especially from ownvoices authors, and I believe this is! The MC has bipolar. Would definitely like to try  it.

High schooler Natalie Cordova has just been diagnosed with Bipolar disorder. Her mom insists she keep it secret.
Putting up a front and hiding her mental illness from her classmates is going to be the hardest thing Natalie’s ever done. It’s her senior year, and she’s just been selected to present her artwork at a prestigious show. With the stress of performing on her shoulders, it doesn’t help when Natalie notices a boy who makes her heart leap. And then there’s fellow student Ella, who confronts Natalie about her summer car “accident” and pressures her into caring for the world’s ugliest dog. Now Natalie finds herself juggling all kinds of feels and responsibilities. Surely her newly prescribed medication is to blame for the funk she finds herself in. But as Natalie’s plan to self-treat unravels, so does the perfect façade she’s been painting for everyone else.
Written from experience, this contemporary YA is a heartfelt and candid exploration into the shame surrounding mental illness and offers an uplifting narrative where the protagonist doesn’t die at the end. 
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Honourable Mentions

Title: Ocean’s Echo by Everina Maxwell
Release Date: November 1st 2022
Genre: Adult Sci-Fi
Goodreads
It’s set in the same world as Winter’s Orbit!! I am hoping for cameos from my faves. 😂👌🏻 Plus this is more gays in space with fake dating, so that’s what we’re here for.

Rich socialite, inveterate flirt, and walking disaster Tennalhin Halkana can read minds. Tennal, like all neuromodified “readers,” is a security threat on his own. But when controlled, readers are a rare asset. Not only can they read minds, but they can navigate chaotic space, the maelstroms surrounding the gateway to the wider universe.
Conscripted into the military under dubious circumstances, Tennal is placed into the care of Lieutenant Surit Yeni, a duty-bound soldier, principled leader, and the son of a notorious traitor general. Whereas Tennal can read minds, Surit can influence them. Like all other neuromodified “architects,” he can impose his will onto others, and he’s under orders to control Tennal by merging their minds.
Surit accepted a suspicious promotion-track request out of desperation, but he refuses to go through with his illegal orders to sync and control an unconsenting Tennal. So they lie: They fake a sync bond and plan Tennal’s escape.
Their best chance arrives with a salvage-retrieval mission into chaotic space—to the very neuromodifcation lab that Surit’s traitor mother destroyed twenty years ago. And among the rubble is a treasure both terrible and unimaginably powerful, one that upends a decades-old power struggle, and begins a war.
Tennal and Surit can no longer abandon their unit or their world. The only way to avoid life under full military control is to complete the very sync they’ve been faking.
Can two unwilling weapons of war bring about peace?  
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Title: Even Though I Knew The End by C.L. Polk
Release Date: November 8th 2022
Genre: Adult Fantasy
Goodreads
I’ve not read anything by this author yet, but I keep meaning to as they come highly recommended! This is also queer and has vampires so. 😌🙌🏻

C. L. Polk turns their considerable powers to a fantastical noir. A magical detective dives into the affairs of Chicago’s divine monsters to secure a future with the love of her life. This sapphic period piece will dazzle anyone looking for mystery, intrigue, romance, magic, or all of the above.
An exiled augur who sold her soul to save her brother’s life is offered one last job before serving an eternity in hell. When she turns it down, her client sweetens the pot by offering up the one payment she can’t resist — the chance to have a future where she grows old with the woman she loves. To succeed, she is given three days to track down the White City Vampire, Chicago’s most notorious serial killer. If she fails, only hell and heartbreak await. 
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Title: We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds
Release Date: November 29th 2022
Genre: YA Contemporary
Goodreads
Okay this just sounds amazing (PLUS the cover is beautiful) and seems like it will be an emotional and complex family saga. Also queer!

Seventeen-year-old Avery Anderson is convinced her senior year is ruined when she’s uprooted from her life in DC and forced into the hostile home of her terminally ill grandmother, Mama Letty. The tension between Avery’s mom and Mama Letty makes for a frosty arrival and unearths past drama they refuse to talk about. Every time Avery tries to look deeper, she’s turned away, leaving her desperate to learn the secrets that split her family in two.
While tempers flare in her avoidant family, Avery finds friendship in unexpected places: in Simone Cole, her captivating next-door neighbor, and Jade Oliver, daughter of the town’s most prominent family—whose mother’s murder remains unsolved.
As the three girls grow closer—Avery and Simone’s friendship blossoming into romance—the sharp-edged opinions of their small southern town begin to hint at something insidious underneath. The racist history of Bardell, Georgia is rooted in Avery’s family in ways she can’t even imagine. With Mama Letty’s health dwindling every day, Avery must decide if digging for the truth is worth toppling the delicate relationships she’s built in Bardell—or if some things are better left buried.
Family secrets, a swoon-worthy romance, and a slow-burn mystery collide in We Deserve Monuments, a YA debut from Jas Hammonds that explores how racial violence can ripple down through generations. 
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Title: Cruel Illusions by Margie Fuston
Release Date: November 1st 2022
Genre: YA Fantasy
Goodreads
I mean vampires and secret societies and it is queer…sounds like I need to try it. Also the pitch of Caraval meets Buffy does have me intrigued. 😂

Ever since a vampire murdered her mother, Ava has been determined to get revenge. This all-encompassing drive has given her the fuel she needed to survive foster home after foster home.
But it’s been ten years since anyone’s seen a vampire, and Ava has lost hope that she’ll ever find one…until she stumbles across a hidden magic show where she witnesses impossible illusions. The magicians may not be the bloodsuckers she’s hunting, but Ava is convinced something supernatural is at play, so she sneaks backstage and catches them in acts they can’t explain.
But they’ve been waiting for her.
The magicians reveal they’re part of an ancient secret society with true magic, and Ava has the same power in her blood that they do. If she joins them, they promise to teach her the skills she needs to hunt vampires and avenge her mother. But there’s a catch: if she wants to keep the power they offer, she needs to prove she’s worthy of it. And to do so, she must put on the performance of her life in a sinister and dangerous competition where illusion and reality blur, and the stakes are deadly.
Caraval meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer in this deliciously dark young adult fantasy about a girl who makes a deal with a magical secret society to enter a potentially deadly competition for the chance to avenge her mother’s death.
 
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Title: The Vermilion Emporium by Jamie Pacton
Release Date: November 1st 2022
Genre: YA Fantasy
Goodreads
A Howl’s Moving Castle comp!! And it just sounds utterly fairy-tale-esque and enchanting with sewing dresses out of starlight and it seems like it’ll be a quiet fantasy!

The heart-wrenching story of The Radium Girls meets the enchanting world of Howl’s Moving Castle. Jamie Pacton’s fantasy debut is a story of timeless love and deadly consequences.
It was a day for finding things . . .
On the morning Twain, a lonely boy with a knack for danger, discovers a strand of starlight on the cliffs outside Severon, a mysterious curiosity shop appears in town. Meanwhile, Quinta, the ordinary daughter of an extraordinary circus performer, chases rumors of the shop, The Vermilion Emporium, desperate for a way to live up to her mother’s magical legacy.
When Quinta meets Twain outside the Emporium, two things happen: One, Quinta starts to fall for this starlight boy, who uses his charm to hide his scars. Two, they enter the store and discover a book that teaches them how to weave starlight into lace.
Soon, their lace catches the eye of the Casorina, the ruler of Severon. She commissions Quinta and Twain to make her a starlight dress and will reward them handsomely enough to make their dreams come true. However, they can’t sew a dress without more material, and the secret to starlight’s origins has been lost for centuries. As Quinta and Twain search the Emporium for answers, though, they discover the secret might not have been lost—but destroyed. And likely, for good reason. 
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Title: The Luminaries by Susan Dennard
Release Date: November 1st 2022
Genre: YA Fantasy
Goodreads
Creepy FORESTSSSSSS. Aka one of my top weaknesses in all books. I got approved for an eARC of this, so will be reading soon!

Hemlock Falls isn’t like other towns. You won’t find it on a map, your phone won’t work here, and the forest outside town might just kill you.
Winnie Wednesday wants nothing more than to join the Luminaries, the ancient order that protects Winnie’s town—and the rest of humanity—from the monsters and nightmares that rise in the forest of Hemlock Falls every night.
Ever since her father was exposed as a witch and a traitor, Winnie and her family have been shunned. But on her sixteenth birthday, she can take the deadly Luminary hunter trials and prove herself true and loyal—and restore her family’s good name. Or die trying.
But in order to survive, Winnie enlists the help of the one person who can help her train: Jay Friday, resident bad boy and Winnie’s ex-best friend. While Jay might be the most promising new hunter in Hemlock Falls, he also seems to know more about the nightmares of the forest than he should. Together, he and Winnie will discover a danger lurking in the forest no one in Hemlock Falls is prepared for.
Not all monsters can be slain, and not all nightmares are confined to the dark.
From Susan Dennard, the New York Times bestselling author of the Witchlands series, comes a haunting and high-octane contemporary fantasy, about the magic it takes to face your fears in a nightmare-filled forest, and the mettle required to face the secrets hiding in the dark corners of your own family.
 
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Title: Lady Night by Rita A. Rubin
Release Date: November 1st 2022
Genre: YA  Fantasy
Goodreads
I read the first book in the series (Amulet of Wishes) earlier this year and it was really lovely, so keen for the sequel!

Derek Draco is finally learning to put the past behind him and enjoy life with his friends and as a Guardian. But when news of a string of recent murders reaches them, Derek finds himself having to return to the place he had hoped to never set foot in again—Windfell. The town where his parents died.
Meanwhile, Jared, the Prince of Aloseria and Derek’s best friend, finds himself helping to uncover a sinister plot brewing in the shadows. It soon becomes clear that not only could the fate of their world be under threat, but that dark plans may lie in wait for his friend.
Lady Night will be the second installment in the Chronicles of the Guardians series.  
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Honourable Mentions

Title: The Poison Season by Mara Rutherford
Release Date: December 6th 2022
Genre: YA Fantasy
Goodreads
This gets 10/10 for the cover for being, again, my fave trend of faces and florals. It also seems like it might be a sibling story? Which I always want more of.

Leelo has spent her whole life on Endla, coexisting with the bloodthirsty forest and respecting the poisonous lake that protects her island from outsiders who seek to destroy it. But as much as Leelo cares for her community, she struggles with the knowledge that her brother will be exiled and forced to live with the outsiders unless he gains enchantment powers before his next birthday.
Then comes the day that Leelo sees a young outsider on the verge of drowning in the lake. She knows she is supposed to leave him to his fate, but, instead, she betrays her family, her best friend, and her whole community by helping nurse the young man, Jaren, back to health, understanding that discovery could lead to unthinkable consequences for both of them.
As they grow closer, Leelo and Jaren discover that not all danger comes from beyond the lake—and they can only survive if Leelo is willing to question the very fabric of her society, her people, and herself.  
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Title: A History Of Fear by Luke Dumas
Release Date: December 6th 2022
Genre: Adult Thriller
Goodreads
When the pitch is “harrowing downfall of a tortured graduate student” I know I am wanting it.

Grayson Hale, the most infamous murderer in Scotland, is better known by a different name: the Devil’s Advocate. The twenty-five-year-old American grad student rose to instant notoriety when he confessed to the slaughter of his classmate Liam Stewart, claiming the Devil made him do it.
When Hale is found hanged in his prison cell, officers uncover a handwritten manuscript that promises to answer the question that’s haunted the nation for years: was Hale a lunatic, or had he been telling the truth all along?
Unnervingly, Hale doesn’t fit the bill of a killer. The first-person narrative that centers this novel reveals an acerbic young atheist, newly enrolled at the University of Edinburgh to carry on the legacy of his recently deceased father. In need of cash, he takes a job ghostwriting a mysterious book for a dark stranger, but has misgivings when the project begins to reawaken his satanophobia, a rare condition that causes him to live in terror that the Devil is after him. As he struggles to disentangle fact from fear, Grayson’s world is turned upside-down after events force him to confront his growing suspicion that he’s working for the one he has feared all this time—and that the book is only the beginning of their partnership.​​
A History of Fear is a propulsive foray into the darkness of the human psyche, marrying dread-inducing atmosphere and heart-palpitating storytelling.
An eerie literary suspense debut following the harrowing downfall of a tortured graduate student who’s been nicknamed the Devil’s Advocate for his sensational crime: murdering a classmate, then claiming the Devil made him do it.  
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Title: A Million To One by Adiba Jaigirdar
Release Date: December 13th 2022
Genre: YA Historical Fiction
Goodreads
Heist book!! Heist book!! I’ve only read contemporaries by Adiba Jaigirdar before so am keen to try her historical fiction!

Adiba Jaigirdar, author of one of Time‘s Best YA books of all time, gives Titanic an Ocean’s 8 makeover in a heist for a treasure aboard the infamous ship that sank in the Atlantic many years ago.
A thief. An artist. A acrobat. An actress. While Josefa, Emilie, Hinnah, and Violet seemingly don’t have anything in common, they’re united in one goal: stealing the Rubaiyat, a jewel-encrusted book aboard the RMS Titanic that just might be the golden ticket to solving their problems.
But careless mistakes, old grudges, and new romance threaten to jeopardize everything they’ve worked for and put them in incredible danger when tragedy strikes. While the odds of pulling off the heist are slim, the odds of survival are even slimmer . . .
Perfect for fans of Stalking Jack the Ripper and Girl in the Blue Coat, this high-seas heist from the author of The Henna Wars is an immersive story that makes readers forget one important detail— the ship sinks. 
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Let me know if any of these are on your TBR, or what upcoming releases you’re excited for?

 

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