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[Blog Tour] Flame & Crystal Thorns by Kay L. Moody – Author Q&A and a Tiktok!

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Welcome to my MTMC Tours stop for Flame & Crystal Thorns by Kay L. Moody!

It’s time to fall back into the world of Faerie with another book set in Kay L. Moody’s fantastical world. This is a companion to the Bitter Thorn series, but you can also start here and read it as a brand new series. It also brings a really whimsical and tricky Faerie world, which I absolutely loved. It gave me The Cruel Prince vibes. Bring in those tricky fae bargains with a side-dish of wickedness, and also the enchanting and clever magic that will leave you desperate to find your way into a fairytale yourself.

Chloe is our main character and she’s so easy to love. She’s an apothecary and healer, and her #1 aim in life is always to take care of others. This does come back to bite her oftentimes, though, as people use her and take advantage of her self-sacrificing nature. She deserves the world, truly 🥺💛 I also adored how bookish she is and knows life’s TOP priority is food.

Quintus shifted his legs until they were crisscrossed underneath him. “You wake up from near death, and the first thing you want to do is read?”

She also has no interest in returning to faerie and the world of tricks and mind-games and swords. I liked that she is a powerful and clever heroine but also…..does not want to stab things. She freezes up in battle and she has no interest in training with weapons, and I admired her for it.

Quintus was also fantastic — he is a little bit of a schemer, but still has a good heart. He’s so convinced that Chloe is the only one who can help save Faerie. He has a lot to learn about not being a manipulative little bug, so it was nice seeing him develop too. And as much as they both denied it, they had feeeeeelings the whole time.

With the fae under attack, people falling ill from mysterious magic and iron plagues, and the war escalating, Chloe is forced to face the darkness at the core of Faerie and she’ll stop at nothing until people are safe.

Be sure to see my Q&A with Kay below 😍💛✨ And the INTL giveaway over on my Instagram!

 

@cgdrews thanks @kaylmoody & @mtmctours 😍 Out in hardcover NOW + q&a with Kay on my blog!! #books #flameandcrystalthorns #mtmctours #bookish #coverlove #booklove #booktok #booktiktok #booktoker #faebooktok ♬ Villain x hero waltz – Tae

Title: Flame and Crystal Thorns (Fae and Crystal Thorns #1)
Author: Kay L. Moody
Publication Date: May 10, 2022
Genres: YA Epic Fantasy
Purchase a copy: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Blackwell’s
Add on Goodreads!
She vowed she’d never return to Faerie…But vows were made to be broken.
As a human girl, Chloe is perfectly happy being back in the mortal realm where she belongs. She’s even become the town apothecary. When a fae from her past shows up begging her to return to Faerie, she utterly refuses.
But then she finds out an angry group of mortals are using iron to hold an entire castle full of fae hostage. And of course, the hostages include Chloe’s older sister and her sister’s beloved. Reluctantly, Chloe packs a bag for what is supposed to be a short trip to Faerie.
But the mortals are more powerful than she expected. To fuel them, they have weapons, flames, and revenge. They won’t stop until they control every court in Faerie.
With the help of a new and mysterious magic and a too-handsome-for-his-own-good fae companion, Chloe has to save Faerie before her sister and the other fae are killed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kay L. Moody is the YA fantasy author of COURT OF BITTER THORN and THE ELEMENTS OF THE CROWN. Her books feature rich world building, slow burn romance, mythical creatures, and twisty plots. As a lover of strong female characters, books, and the color pink, she enjoys diving into magical worlds where characters can overcome even their darkest struggles. She lives in the western United States with her husband and four sons. Connect with Kay directly when you follow her on social media. Website | Twitter | Goodreads | Instagram

Hi Kay! Thanks for chatting with me today! When did you get the first ideas for Flame And Crystal Thorns and how long did it take you to write?

I first got the idea for Flame and Crystal Thorns when I was writing my original fae series, The Fae of Bitter Thorn. Sometimes side characters become more vivid and intriguing than intended. It was while writing the last book in my previous series that I realized Chloe needed a series of her own. This new series (Fae and Crystal Thorns) is a spin off of my previous series, but it can be read even without reading the previous series. It took me about nine months to write.

Since you’ve written several incredible fantasy novels now, has anything about your writing process changed since you started?

I feel like my writing process is never consistent. I do always start with a loose outline. Then with each chapter, I make some notes/plans before I start writing that chapter. But how much I plan and how far ahead I plan always changes with each book. I just try to go with the flow and let the book discover itself a little bit.

Going with the flow is the best 😌👌🏻 Sometimes we just have to follow the characters. What are some of your favourite tropes to write?

My very favorite trope ever is the lost princess trope. But it’s the sort of trope I can’t include in each book, since it’s usually a spoiler to know if there’s a lost princess or not. I do plan to write more lost princesses in the future though. I also love enemies to lovers, save-the-world type plots, and orphans.

LOVE a lost royal (or two). Tell us a little about your world of Faerie! What’s it like?

My Faerie has six distinct courts that all have unique and magical landscapes. In Flame and Crystal Thorns, Chloe spends most of her time in the Court of Crystal Thorn, which is a lush forest with moss, streams, and vibrant greenery. But it’s also as dangerous as it is beautiful. The fae are selfish, bargains and vows are impossible to break, and a group of bloodthirsty mortals are trying to take over. They don’t attack Chloe right away, but she gets on their bad side pretty quickly once they realize she’s trying to help the fae.

I love getting lost in your worlds; you write Faerie so vividly! If you could have tea with any one of your characters, who would you choose?

I would probably choose Talise from my Elements of Kamdaria series. She can control the elements of water, air, earth, and fire, which could certainly make tea time more interesting. I’d love to see the fire sculptures and ice creations she could make.

And lastly! What are some of the best author moments you’ve had?

I remember so vividly when a reader told me she was doing cosplay as Elora from my Fae of Bitter Thorn series. I don’t know if anything has ever made me feel more like a legitimate author than that. I love it so much when readers care about my characters enough to bring them “out” of the books and into their real lives.

Thanks so much for stopping by, Kay, and congrats on yet another gorgeous release!!

MTMC TOURS Schedule

May 11
The Reader and the Chef – Bookstagram & Book Blog
@bookworm_panda – Bookstagram

May 12
@a_bookish_dream – Bookstagram & Book Blog
@icinoamandahere – Bookstagram

May 13
@paperfury – Bookstagram & Book Blog
@moonlight_rendezvous – Bookstagram

May 14
@sophiesreadingcorner – Bookstagram & Book Blog
@brittyoreads – Bookstagram

May 15
@plotsandreviews – Bookstagram & Book Blog
@l.m.durand – Bookstagram

May 16
@bookish.heidi – Bookstagram & Book Blog
@bookish_meaghan – Bookstagram

May 17
@pavlinamich – Bookstagram & Book Blog
@asternyx – Bookstagram

May 18
@thedawnreader – Bookstagram & Book Blog
@linas.library – Bookstagram

May 19
@bewareofthereader – Bookstagram & Book Blog
@linathebookaddict – Bookstagram

May 20
@shaked_reads – Bookstagram & Book Blog
@bookishly_kenia – Bookstagram

2022 New YA & Adult Book Releases (Part 2)

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It’s that time again!! When I help overload your TBR pile.

Unapologetically as always, I must admit. Also the true issue here is that I overload my own tbr pile (I’m currently on a book ban but also 😩 I suffer time to treat myself). At least I’ve caught up on my reading goals this year and I’m currently 6 books ahead an on track for 200 reads for 2022.

You can catch part 1 of my list here, with releases from January to April. Now onwards to the books 👀👇🏻

This is a mix of Young Adult 2022 new upcoming releases with a few adult titles mixed in that I’m keen for!

 

Title: The Book of Night by Holly Black
Release Date: May 3rd 2022
Genre: Adult Fantasy
Goodreads
It’s HOLLY BLACK. I really love her work, and this one seems reminiscent of her YA Curseworker series which is maybe my favourite of her books. I’m excited to see what she’ll do with adult!

In Charlie Hall’s world, shadows can be altered, for entertainment and cosmetic preferences—but also to increase power and influence. You can alter someone’s feelings—and memories—but manipulating shadows has a cost, with the potential to take hours or days from your life. Your shadow holds all the parts of you that you want to keep hidden—a second self, standing just to your left, walking behind you into lit rooms. And sometimes, it has a life of its own.

Charlie is a low-level con artist, working as a bartender while trying to distance herself from the powerful and dangerous underground world of shadow trading. She gets by doing odd jobs for her patrons and the naive new money in her town at the edge of the Berkshires. But when a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie’s present life is thrown into chaos, and her future seems at best, unclear—and at worst, non-existent. Determined to survive, Charlie throws herself into a maelstrom of secrets and murder, setting her against a cast of doppelgangers, mercurial billionaires, shadow thieves, and her own sister—all desperate to control the magic of the shadows.

With sharp angles and prose, and a sinister bent, Holly Black is a master of shadow and story stitching. Remember while you read, light isn’t playing tricks in Book of Night, the people are.

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Title: The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah
Release Date: May 17th 2022
Genre: Adult Epic Fantasy
Goodreads
This sounds very fun with criminals and cowardly princes and a magic lamp so 👀 Would like to try.

Loulie al-Nazari is the Midnight Merchant: a criminal who, with the help of her jinn bodyguard, hunts and sells illegal magic. When she saves the life of a cowardly prince, she draws the attention of his powerful father, the sultan, who blackmails her into finding an ancient lamp that has the power to revive the barren land.

With no choice but to obey or be executed, Loulie journeys with the sultan’s oldest son to find the artifact. Aided by her bodyguard, who has secrets of his own, they must survive ghoul attacks, outwit a vengeful jinn queen, and confront a malicious killer from Loulie’s past. And, in a world where story is reality and illusion is truth, Loulie will discover that everything—her enemy, her magic, even her own past—is not what it seems.

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Title: Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak
Release Date: May 10th 2022
Genre: Adult Horror
Goodreads
So I love a good horror and this one the classic “woman with secrets nannies an odd paranormal little kids” which is just a good trope and I like.

Fresh out of rehab, Mallory Quinn takes a job in the affluent suburb of Spring Brook, New Jersey as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy.
Mallory immediately loves this new job. She lives in the Maxwell’s pool house, goes out for nightly runs, and has the stability she craves. And she sincerely bonds with Teddy, a sweet, shy boy who is never without his sketchbook and pencil. His drawings are the usual fare: trees, rabbits, balloons. But one day, he draws something different: a man in a forest, dragging a woman’s lifeless body.
As the days pass, Teddy’s artwork becomes more and more sinister, and his stick figures steadily evolve into more detailed, complex, and lifelike sketches well beyond the ability of any five-year-old. Mallory begins to suspect these are glimpses of an unsolved murder from long ago, perhaps relayed by a supernatural force lingering in the forest behind the Maxwell’s house.
With help from a handsome landscaper and an eccentric neighbor, Mallory sets out to decipher the images and save Teddy—while coming to terms with a tragedy in her own past—before it’s too late.
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Title: You, Me, And our Heartstrings by Melissa See
Release Date: May 31st 2022
Genre: YA Contemporary
Goodreads
Um disabled YA alert!! Disabled YA!! Celebral palsy and anxiety rep here. Plus music 😭 Feels like it was specifically designed for me.

A fresh and fun teen romance starring a girl with cerebral palsy, and a boy with severe anxiety.
Daisy and Noah have the same plan: use the holiday concert to land a Julliard audition. But when they’re chosen to play a duet for the concert, they worry that their differences will sink their chances.
Noah, a cello prodigy from a long line of musicians, wants to stick to tradition. Daisy, a fiercely independent disabled violinist, is used to fighting for what she wants and likes to take risks. But the two surprise each other when they play. They fall perfectly in tune.
After their performance goes viral, the rest of the country falls for them just as surely as they’re falling for each other. But viral fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. No one seems to care about their talent or their music at all. People have rewritten their love story into one where Daisy is an inspiration for overcoming her cerebral palsy and Noah is a saint for seeing past it.
Daisy is tired of her disability being the only thing people see about her, and all of the attention sends Noah’s anxiety disorder into high speed. They can see their dream coming closer than it’s ever been before. But is the cost suddenly too high? 
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Title: The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester by Maya MacGregor
Release Date: May 3rd 2022
Genre: YA mystery
Goodreads
The way this is an autism book from a big publisher made me preorder instnatly. It also is a murder-solving mystery and the MC is trans.

Sam Sylvester’s not overly optimistic about their recent move to the small town of Astoria, Oregon after a traumatic experience in their last home in the rural Midwest.
Yet Sam’s life seems to be on the upswing after meeting several new friends and a potential love interest in Shep, the pretty neighbour. However, Sam can’t seem to let go of what might have been, and is drawn to investigate the death of a teenage boy in 1980s Astoria. Sam’s convinced he was murdered–especially since Sam’s investigation seems to resurrect some ghosts in the town.
Threatening notes and figures hidden in shadows begin to disrupt Sam’s life. Yet Sam continues to search for the truth. When Sam discovers that they may be closer to a killer than previously known, Sam has a difficult decision to make. Would they risk their new life for a half-lived one?
In this queer contemporary YA mystery, a nonbinary teen with autism realizes they must not only solve a 30-year-old mystery but also face the demons lurking in their past in order to live a satisfying life.
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Title: Summer’s Edge by Dana Mele
Release Date: May 31st 2022
Genre: YA Horror
Goodreads
This is comped to The Haunting of Hill House which immediately has me like 👀 It sounds like a bit of a huanted house with teen group dynamics and a ghost, so I’m keen to read.

Emily Joiner was once part of an inseparable group—she was a sister, a best friend, a lover, and a rival. Summers without Emily were unthinkable. Until the fire burned the lake house to ashes with her inside.
A year later, it’s in Emily’s honour that Chelsea and her four friends decide to return. The house awaits them, meticulously rebuilt. Only, Chelsea is haunted by ghostly visions. Loner Ryan stirs up old hurts and forces golden boy Chase to play peacemaker. Which has perfect hostess Kennedy on edge as eerie events culminate in a stunning accusation: Emily’s death wasn’t an accident. And all the clues needed to find the person responsible are right here.
As old betrayals rise to the surface, Chelsea and her friends have one night to unravel a mystery spanning three summers before a killer among them exacts their revenge.
I Know What You Did Last Summer meets The Haunting of Hill House  in this atmospheric, eerie teen thriller following an estranged group of friends being haunted by their friend who died last summer.
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Honourable Mentions

 

 

Title: Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph white
Release Date: June 7th 2022
Genre: YA Fantasy
Goodreads
Another queer autistic book (ownvoices I believe) from a mainstream publisher and this sounds unapologetically wild and is also full of monsters. I like. Will take one now thanks and please.

Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him—the fundamentalist sect that unleashed Armageddon and decimated the world’s population. Desperately, he searches for a place where the cult can’t get their hands on him, or more importantly, on the bioweapon they infected him with.
But when cornered by monsters born from the destruction, Benji is rescued by a group of teens from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, affectionately known as the ALC. The ALC’s leader, Nick, is gorgeous, autistic, and a deadly shot, and he knows Benji’s darkest secret: the cult’s bioweapon is mutating him into a monster deadly enough to wipe humanity from the earth once and for all.
Still, Nick offers Benji shelter among his ragtag group of queer teens, as long as Benji can control the monster and use its power to defend the ALC. Eager to belong, Benji accepts Nick’s terms…until he discovers the ALC’s mysterious leader has a hidden agenda, and more than a few secrets of his own.
A furious, queer debut novel about embracing the monster within and unleashing its power against your oppressors. Perfect for fans of Gideon the Ninth and Annihilation. 
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Title: Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane
Release Date: June 7th 2022
Genre: Adult Fantasy Retelling
Goodreads
This is an Achilles retelling as a transwoman!! Absolutely so keen for it and have preordered this one too. Although I expect it to be super different from Song Of Achilles (no Patroclus romance).

Achilles has fled her home and her vicious Myrmidon clan to live as a woman with the kallai, the transgender priestesses of Great Mother Aphrodite. When Odysseus comes to recruit the “prince” Achilles for a war against the Hittites, she prepares to die rather than fight as a man. However, her divine mother, Athena, intervenes, transforming her body into the woman’s body she always longed for, and promises her everything: glory, power, fame, victory in war, and, most importantly, a child born of her own body. Reunited with her beloved cousin, Patroklos, and his brilliant wife, the sorceress Meryapi, Achilles sets out to war with a vengeance.
But the gods—a dysfunctional family of abusive immortals that have glutted on human sacrifices for centuries—have woven ancient schemes more blood-soaked and nightmarish than Achilles can imagine. At the center of it all is the cruel, immortal Helen, who sees Achilles as a worthy enemy after millennia of ennui and emptiness. In love with her newfound nemesis, Helen sets out to destroy everything and everyone Achilles cherishes, seeking a battle to the death.
An innovative spin on a familiar tale, this is the Trojan War unlike anything ever told, and an Achilles whose vulnerability is revealed by the people she chooses to fight…and chooses to trust.
Drawing on ancient texts and modern archeology to reveal the trans woman’s story hidden underneath the well-known myths of The Iliad, Maya Deane’s Wrath Goddess Sing weaves a compelling, pitilessly beautiful vision of Achilles’ vanished world, perfect for fans of Song of Achilles and the Inheritance trilogy. 
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Title: Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid
Release Date: June 21st 2022
Genre: Adult Fantasy
Goodreads
I’ve heard this one is very raw and powerful, and I also have the author’s debut (still need to read it oops) but this is pitched as a “gothic retelling of the Juniper tree” so YES.

A gruesome curse. A city in upheaval. A monster with unquenchable appetites.
Marlinchen and her two sisters live with their wizard father in a city shifting from magic to industry. As Oblya’s last true witches, she and her sisters are little more than a tourist trap as they treat their clients with archaic remedies and beguile them with nostalgic charm. Marlinchen spends her days divining secrets in exchange for rubles and trying to placate her tyrannical, xenophobic father, who keeps his daughters sequestered from the outside world. But at night, Marlinchen and her sisters sneak out to enjoy the city’s amenities and revel in its thrills, particularly the recently established ballet theater, where Marlinchen meets a dancer who quickly captures her heart.
As Marlinchen’s late-night trysts grow more fervent and frequent, so does the threat of her father’s rage and magic. And while Oblya flourishes with culture and bustles with enterprise, a monster lurks in its midst, borne of intolerance and resentment and suffused with old-world power. Caught between history and progress and blood and desire, Marlinchen must draw upon her own magic to keep her city safe and find her place within it.
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Title: Not Good For Maidens by Tori Bovalino
Release Date: June 14th 2022
Genre: YA Fantasy
Goodreads
A goblin market retelling, and I have to admit the cover is totally my bookstagram aesthetic so 🤣 I have my eye on this one.

Louisa doesn’t believe in magic, until her teenage aunt Neela is kidnapped to the goblin market.
The market is a place of magic, where twisting streets, succulent fruits, glimmering jewels, and death are on offer to the unwary human. An enticing place that her mother and aunt barely escaped seventeen years ago, paying a terrible price.
With only three days before the market disappears, Lou must navigate the treacherous market, controlled by bloodthirsty goblins who crave vengeance against her family. She must learn the songs and tricks of the goblins to save Neela, or the market might just end up claiming her too.
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Title: Katzenjammer by Francesca Zappia
Release Date: June 28th 2022
Genre: YA Horror, Thriller
Goodreads
You know I am on a horror kick lately!! I also really liked this author’s debut, Made You Up, so I’d love to read more (plus the author is illustrating this).

From acclaimed author Francesca Zappia, American Horror Story meets the dark comedy of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis as Cat searches for a way to escape her high school. Katzenjammer is a tale of family, love, tragedy, and masks—the ones others make for us, and the ones we make for ourselves. Eerie and thought-provoking, this novel will haunt fans of Chelsie Pitcher’s This Lie Will Kill You and E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars. Features illustrations by the author throughout.
Cat lives in her high school. She never leaves, and for a long time her school has provided her with everything she needs. But now things are changing. The hallways contract and expand along with the school’s breathing, and the showers in the bathroom run a bloody red. Cat’s best friend is slowly turning into cardboard, and instead of a face, Cat has a cat mask made of her own hardened flesh/
Cat doesn’t remember why she is trapped in her school or why half of them—Cat included—are slowly transforming. Escaping has always been the one impossibility in her school’s upside-down world. But to save herself from the eventual self-destruction all the students face, Cat must find the way out. And to do that, she’ll have to remember what put her there in the first place.
Told in chapters alternating between the past and the present, Francesca Zappia weaves a spine-tingling, suspenseful, and haunting story about tragedy and the power of memories. Much like the acclaimed Eliza and Her Monsters, Katzenjammer features black-and-white illustrations by the author throughout the novel. Fans of Marieke Nijkamp’s This Is Where It Ends and Karen McManus’s One of Us Is Lying will lose themselves in the pages of this novel—or maybe in the treacherous hallways of the school. 
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Title: Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert
Release Date: June 28th 2022
Genre: YA Paranormal
Goodreads
The author of the Hazelwood is writing something new! I have to admit I really don’t like the cover unfortunately 💀 So might do this one via audiobook. But I think it’s a mix of mystery x horror also which is great.

THE SUBURBS, RIGHT NOW
Seventeen-year-old Ivy’s summer break kicks off with an accident, a punishment, and a mystery: a stranger whose appearance in the middle of the road, in the middle of the night, heralds a string of increasingly unsettling events. As the days pass, Ivy grapples with eerie offerings, corroded memories, and a secret she’s always known—that there’s more to her mother than meets the eye.
THE CITY, BACK THEN . . .
Dana has always been perceptive. And the summer she turns sixteen, with the help of her best friend and an ambitious older girl, her gifts bloom into a heady fling with the supernatural, set in a city of magical possibilities and secret mystics. As the trio’s aspirations darken, they find themselves speeding toward a violent breaking point.
Years after it began, Ivy and Dana’s shared story will come down to a reckoning among a daughter, a mother, and the dark forces they never should’ve messed with.
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Honourable Mentions

Title: They Drown our Daughters by Katrina Monroe
Release Date: July 12th 2022
Genre: Adult horror
Goodreads
Atmospheric horror with a sea setting and an old lighthouse!! Say no more just hand it to me. I also believe it’s queer.

For fans of Jennifer McMahon and Silvia Moreno-Garcia comes a haunting and atmospheric new novel from debut author Katrina Monroe.
They say Cape Disappointment is haunted.
That if you can hear the call of the water
It’s already too late…
Tourists used to flock to Cape Disappointment in droves to visit the rocky shoreline and the creaky old lighthouse. But the tourists are gone now, and when Meredith Strand returns to her childhood home on the eve of her divorce, young daughter in tow, the Cape seems more haunted by regret than any malevolent force.
But her mother, suffering from Alzheimer’s, is convinced the stories are real. Not only is there something in the water, but it’s watching them. Waiting for them. Reaching out to Meredith’s daughter the way it has to every woman in their line for generations—ready to reclaim what once was stolen.
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Title: Wake the Bones by Elizabeth Kilcoyne
Release Date: July 12th 2022
Genre: YA Paranormal
Goodreads
More Ya paranormal with horror vibes just for me — also the cover is fantastic and I may have slipped and preordered this one too.

The sleepy little farm that Laurel Early grew up on has awakened. The woods are shifting, the soil is dead under her hands, and her bone pile just stood up and walked away.
After dropping out of college, all she wanted was to resume her life as a tobacco hand and taxidermist and try not to think about the boy she can’t help but love. Instead, a devil from her past has returned to court her, as he did her late mother years earlier. Now, Laurel must unravel her mother’s terrifying legacy and tap into her own innate magic before her future and the fate of everyone she loves is doomed.
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Title: Black Mouth by Ronald Malfi
Release Date: July 19th 2022
Genre: Adult Horror
Goodreads
This one is pitched as similar to the friend group in IT 👀🙌🏻 And confronting your childhood horrors … plus hopefully a haunted house considering the cover.

For nearly two decades, Jamie Warren has been running from darkness. He’s haunted by a traumatic childhood and the guilt at having disappeared from his disabled brother’s life. But then a series of unusual events reunites him with his estranged brother and their childhood friends, and none of them can deny the sense of fate that has seemingly drawn them back together.
Nor can they deny the memories of that summer, so long ago – the strange magic taught to them by an even stranger man, and the terrible act that has followed them all into adulthood. In the light of new danger, they must confront their past by facing their futures, and hunting down a man who may very well be a monster.
Perfect for fans of Stephen King’s IT, a group of friends return to their hometown to confront a nightmare they first stumbled on as teenagers in this mesmerizing odyssey of terror.
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Title: Her Dark Wings by Melinda Salisbury
Release Date: July 7th 2022
Genre: YA Fantasy
Goodreads
Modern Hades x Persephone retelling? 👀 Plus I have to say that cover is a feast for the eyes. I also really enjoyed the author’s historical horror Hold Back The Tide a few years ago (totally recommend it) so I’m sure I’ll enjoy this!

The great love of Corey’s life has always been her best friend, Bree: closer than sisters, their bond is unbreakable.
Or so Corey believes, until Bree betrays her, and Corey’s world is shattered.
Corey finds herself heartbroken, furious and alone…
Only to discover that the Underworld – and Hades, Lord of the Dead – is closer than she thinks…
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Title: A Darkness At The Door (#2) by Intisar Khanani
Release Date: July 21st 2022
Genre: YA Epic Fantasy
Goodreads
The Theft Of Sunlight (book 1) was my absolute favourite last year!! It was just such a refreshing and excellent YA fantasy, with thoughtful themes and deep world building. So I absolutely need the sequel 😩👌🏻💛 Hyped for this.

Only Rae knows the extent of the corruption at the heart of the kingdom of Menaiya, from the noble lord who betrayed her, to the Circle of Mages whose wards protect the slavers from discovery. Injured and imprisoned on a slave ship, Rae’s options are quickly running out. When a desperate escape attempt goes terribly wrong, she finds herself indebted to a terrifying Fae sorceress.
Now Rae will not rest until she has rescued her fellow prisoners and freed her land from the darkness that has taken hold. To succeed, she’ll need every ally she can find—including Bren, the thief who may have stolen her heart. But Bren is hiding his own bloody secrets, and the curses that encircle Rae have sunk their claws into her mind. With her debts coming due and time running short, all the truths in the world may not be enough to save her kingdom, or herself.
“I’ve been cursed, betrayed, and sold into slavery – but the truth I carry can’t be allowed to die.”
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Title: A Strange And Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows
Release Date: July 26th 2022
Genre: Adult Epic Fantasy
Goodreads
What I need in life is more queer epic fantasy and this one has political arranged marriages and I have to say the cover is Stunning.

Velasin vin Aaro never planned to marry at all, let alone a girl from neighboring Tithena. When an ugly confrontation reveals his preference for men, Vel fears he’s ruined the diplomatic union before it can even begin. But while his family is ready to disown him, the Tithenai envoy has a different solution: for Vel to marry his former intended’s brother instead.
Caethari Aeduria always knew he might end up in a political marriage, but his sudden betrothal to a man from Ralia, where such relationships are forbidden, comes as a shock.
With an unknown faction willing to kill to end their new alliance, Vel and Cae have no choice but to trust each other. Survival is one thing, but love—as both will learn—is quite another.
Byzantine politics, lush sexual energy, and a queer love story that is by turns sweet and sultry. A Strange and Stubborn Endurance is an exploration of gender, identity, and self-worth. It is a book that will live in your heart long after you turn the last page. (
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Title: The Book Of Gothel by Mary McMyne
Release Date: July 26th 2022
Genre: Adult Fairy Tale Retelling
Goodreads
A Rapunzel retelling (these feel so rare??) but by the witch’s perspective!! I absolutely love it when retellings come from another POV so this was slammed instantly on my wishlist.

Everyone knows the tale of Rapunzel in her tower, but do you know the story of the witch who put her there?
Haelewise has always lived under the shadow of her mother, Hedda—a woman who will do anything to keep her daughter protected. For with her strange black eyes and even stranger fainting spells, Haelewise is shunned by her medieval village, and her only solace lies in the stories her mother tells of child-stealing witches, of princes in wolf-skins, of an ancient tower cloaked in mist, where women will find shelter if they are brave enough to seek it.
Then, Hedda dies, and Haelewise is left unmoored. With nothing left for her in her village, she sets out to find the legendary tower her mother used to speak of—a place called Gothel, where Haelewise meets a wise woman willing to take her under her wing.
But Haelewise is not the only woman to seek refuge at Gothel. It’s also a haven for a girl named Rika, who carries with her a secret the Church strives to keep hidden. A secret that unlocks a dark world of ancient spells and murderous nobles behind the world Haelewise has always known…
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Honourable Mentions

Title: The Drowned Woods by Emily  Lloyd-Jones
Release Date: August 16th 2022
Genre: YA
Goodreads
Okay I’m genuinely so hyped for this because I LOVED Bone Houses, and this is set in the same world but following new characters. And it has curses and magic and alllll the good things. You know I preordered. 😪👌🏻

Once upon a time, the kingdoms of Wales were rife with magic and conflict, and eighteen-year-old Mererid “Mer” is well-acquainted with both. She is the last living water diviner and has spent years running from the prince who bound her into his service. Under the prince’s orders, she located the wells of his enemies, and he poisoned them without her knowledge, causing hundreds of deaths. After discovering what he had done, Mer went to great lengths to disappear from his reach. Then Mer’s old handler returns with a proposition: use her powers to bring down the very prince that abused them both.
The best way to do that is to destroy the magical well that keeps the prince’s lands safe. With a motley crew of allies, including a fae-cursed young man, the lady of thieves, and a corgi that may or may not be a spy, Mer may finally be able to steal precious freedom and peace for herself. After all, a person with a knife is one thing…but a person with a cause can topple kingdoms.
The Drowned Woods—set in the same world as The Bone Houses but with a whole new, unforgettable cast of characters—is part heist novel, part dark fairy tale. 
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Title: These Fleeting Shadows by Kate Alice Marshall
Release Date: August 9th 2022
Genre: YA Horror
Goodreads
This is the Haunting of Hill House MEETS KNIVES OUT. EXCUSE ME YES. Literally so excited for this I wheeze. 😂 I haven’t read the author’s previous book yet but I shall do that asap.

Helen Vaughan doesn’t know why she and her mother left their ancestral home at Harrowstone Hall, called Harrow, or why they haven’t spoken to their extended family since. So when her grandfather dies, she’s shocked to learn that he has left everything—the house, the grounds, and the money—to her. The inheritance comes with one condition: she must stay on the grounds of Harrow for one full year, or she’ll be left with nothing.
There is more at stake than money. For as long as she can remember, Harrow has haunted Helen’s dreams—and now those dreams have become a waking nightmare. Helen knows that if she is going to survive the year, she needs to uncover the secrets of Harrow. Why is the house built like a labyrinth? What is digging the holes that appear in the woods each night?And why does the house itself seem to be making her sick?

With each twisted revelation, Helen questions what she knows about Harrow, her family, and even herself. She no longer wonders if she wants to leave…but if she can.

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Title: The Monsters We Defy by Leslye Penelope
Release Date: August 9th 2022
Genre: Adult Fantasy
Goodreads
1920s Jazz age and magic and heists? Sign me up, quite frankly. The pitch also says it’s full of folklore so I’m keen about that as well.

Clara Johnson talks to spirits, a gift that saved her during her darkest moments in a Washington D. C. jail. Now a curse that’s left her indebted to the cunning spirit world. So, when the Empress, the powerful spirit who holds her debt, offers her an opportunity to gain her freedom, a desperate Clara seizes the chance. The task: steal a magical ring from the wealthiest woman in the District.
Clara can’t pull off this daring heist alone. She’ll need help from an unlikely team, from a jazz musician capable of hypnotizing with a melody to an aging vaudeville actor who can change his face, to pull off the impossible. But as they encounter increasingly difficult obstacles, a dangerous spirit interferes at every turn. Conflict in the spirit world is leaking into the human one and along D.C’.s legendary Black Broadway, a mystery unfolds—one that not only has repercussions for Clara but all of the city’s residents.
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Title: The Undead Truth of Us by Britney S. Lewis
Release Date: Jf
Genre: YA Fantasy
Goodreads
The cover fits into my aesthetic of: flowers and faces. Which I collect and am unashamed about it. but also zombies!! Also I think she has a romance with an undead boy so that seems cute.

Death was everywhere. They all stared at me, bumping into one another and slowly coming forward.
Sixteen-year-old Zharie Young is absolutely certain her mother morphed into a zombie before her untimely death, but she can’t seem to figure out why. Why her mother died, why her aunt doesn’t want her around, why all her dreams seem suddenly, hopelessly out of reach. And why, ever since that day, she’s been seeing zombies everywhere.
Then Bo moves into her apartment building―tall, skateboard in hand, freckles like stars, and an undeniable charm. Z wants nothing to do with him, but when he transforms into a half zombie right before her eyes, something feels different. He contradicts everything she thought she knew about monsters, and she can’t help but wonder if getting to know him might unlock the answers to her mother’s death.
As Zharie sifts through what’s real and what’s magic, she discovers a new truth about the world: Love can literally change you―for good or for dead.
In this surrealist journey of grief, fear, and hope, Britney S. Lewis’s debut novel explores love, zombies, and everything in between in an intoxicating amalgam of the real and the fantastic. 
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Title: Babel by R.F. Kuang
Release Date: August 23rd 2022
Genre: Adult Dark Academia
Goodreads
Like of course I’m SO curious for this one because dark academia is my thing (and the author has shot to staggering stardom so fast). I wasn’t the biggest fan of Poppy War but still liked reading it, so…👀👀

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation — also known as Babel.
Babel is the world’s center of translation and, more importantly, of silver-working: the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation through enchanted silver bars, to magical effect. Silver-working has made the British Empire unparalleled in power, and Babel’s research in foreign languages serves the Empire’s quest to colonize everything it encounters.
Oxford, the city of dreaming spires, is a fairytale for Robin; a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge serves power, and for Robin, a Chinese boy raised in Britain, serving Babel inevitably means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to sabotaging the silver-working that supports imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide: Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence? What is he willing to sacrifice to bring Babel down?
Babel — a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal response to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell — grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of translation as a tool of empire. 
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Title: A Taste of Iron And Gold by Alexandra Rowland
Release Date: August 30th 2022
Genre: Adult Epic Fantasy
Goodreads
So this is the royalty + the bodyguard romance trope, and make it queer, and I’ve heard (I believe) that the prince has severe anxiety?! All the good things.

Kadou, the shy prince of Arasht, finds himself at odds with one of the most powerful ambassadors at court—the body-father of the queen’s new child—in an altercation which results in his humiliation.
To prove his loyalty to the queen, his sister, Kadou takes responsibility for the investigation of a break-in at one of their guilds, with the help of his newly appointed bodyguard, the coldly handsome Evemer, who seems to tolerate him at best. In Arasht, where princes can touch-taste precious metals with their fingers and myth runs side by side with history, counterfeiting is heresy, and the conspiracy they discover could cripple the kingdom’s financial standing and bring about its ruin.
The Goblin Emperor meets “Magnificent Century” in Alexandra Rowland’s A Taste of Gold and Iron, where a queer central romance unfolds in a fantasy world reminiscent of the Ottoman Empire.
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Title: Belladonna by Adalyn Grace
Release Date: August 23rd 2022
Genre: YA Fantasy
Goodreads
Fantasy murder mystery with gothic vibes and mysterious wealthy estates? Yesss. Also I really love this UK cover. Everything about it is 😙👌🏻

For as long as Signa Farrow has been alive, the people in her life have fallen like stars . . .
Orphaned as a baby, nineteen-year-old Signa has been raised by a string of guardians, each more interested in her wealth than her well-being – and each has met an untimely end. Her remaining relatives are the elusive Hawthornes, an eccentric family living at Thorn Grove, an estate both glittering and gloomy.
Its patriarch mourns his late wife through wild parties, while his son grapples for control of the family’s waning reputation and his daughter suffers from a mysterious illness. But when their mother’s restless spirit appears claiming she was poisoned, Signa realizes that the family she depends on could be in grave danger, and enlists the help of a surly stable boy to hunt down the killer.
Signa’s best chance of uncovering the murderer, though, is an alliance with Death himself, a fascinating, dangerous shadow who has never been far from her side. Though he’s made her life a living hell, Death shows Signa that their growing connection may be more powerful – and more irresistible – than she ever dared imagine.
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Honourable Mentions

Let me know if any of these books caught your eye, or which ones you plan to read too!

 

2022 New Book Releases For Your TBR Pile (And Mine, Honestly)

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Not me adding to your TBR pile again!!

But you know the drill 😪🙌🏻 New year — new book lists. This year I’m mixing things up a little in that I’m sharing both YA and Adult releases I’m quite excited for. Basically this is a chance for us to pine over more books 😭  it will never end, not until we are broke!!! Good thing I am already broke so I’ll be just pining wistfully for most of these.

I’m always on the look out for more recommendations too, so feel free to tell me what books you are excited for.

Featuring January to April new Young Adult & Adult book releases!

Title: The Ivory Key by Akshaya Raman
Release Date: January 4th 2022
Genre: YA Fantasy
Goodreads
Look I’m particularly here for anything to do with reuniting royal siblings. Sounds exactly my thing!!

“Magic, a prized resource, is the only thing between peace and war. When magic runs out, four estranged royal siblings must find a new source before their country is swallowed by invading forces. The first in an Indian-inspired duology.
Vira is desperate to get out of her mother’s shadow and establish her legacy as a revered queen of Ashoka. But with the country’s only quarry running out of magic–a precious resource that has kept Ashoka safe from conflict–she can barely protect her citizens from the looming threat of war. And if her enemies discover this, they’ll stop at nothing to seize the last of the magic.
Vira’s only hope is to find a mysterious object of legend: the Ivory Key, rumored to unlock a new source of magic. But in order to infiltrate enemy territory and retrieve it, she must reunite with her siblings, torn apart by the different paths their lives have taken. Each of them has something to gain from finding the Ivory Key–and even more to lose if they fail. Ronak plans to sell it to the highest bidder in exchange for escape from his impending political marriage. Kaleb, falsely accused of assassinating the former maharani needs it to clear his name. And Riya, a runaway who cut all family ties, wants the Key to prove her loyalty to the rebels who want to strip the nobility of its power.  They must work together to survive the treacherous journey. But with each sibling harboring secrets and their own agendas, the very thing that brought them together could tear apart their family–and their world–for good. 
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Title: Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan
Release Date: January 11th 2022
Genre: Adult fantasy
Goodreads
I’ve had this preordered for so long, am literally pining for it. Gorgeous cover and legend-based fantasy is a yes please.

“A captivating debut fantasy inspired by the legend of Chang’e, the Chinese moon goddess, in which a young woman’s quest to free her mother pits her against the most powerful immortal in the realm.

Growing up on the moon, Xingyin is accustomed to solitude, unaware that she is being hidden from the feared Celestial Emperor who exiled her mother for stealing his elixir of immortality. But when Xingyin’s magic flares and her existence is discovered, she is forced to flee her home, leaving her mother behind.

Alone, powerless, and afraid, she makes her way to the Celestial Kingdom, a land of wonder and secrets. Disguising her identity, she seizes an opportunity to learn alongside the emperor’s son, mastering archery and magic, even as passion flames between her and the prince.

To save her mother, Xingyin embarks on a perilous quest, confronting legendary creatures and vicious enemies across the earth and skies. But when treachery looms and forbidden magic threatens the kingdom, she must challenge the ruthless Celestial Emperor for her dream—striking a dangerous bargain in which she is torn between losing all she loves or plunging the realm into chaos. 

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Title: Servant Mage by Kate Elliott
Release Date: January 18th 2022
Genre: Adult Fantasy Novella
Goodreads
I’ve been getting into novellas more lately and I just love the premise of this one (plus it is queer!!)

“Fellion is a Lamplighter, able to provide illumination through magic. A group of rebel Monarchists free her from indentured servitude and take her on a journey to rescue trapped compatriots from an underground complex of mines.
Along the way they get caught up in a conspiracy to kill the latest royal child and wipe out the Monarchist movement for good.
But Fellion has more than just her Lamplighting skills up her sleeve…
In Kate Elliott’s Servant Mage, a lowly fire mage finds herself entangled in an empire-spanning conspiracy on her way to discovering her true power. 
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Title: Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz
Release Date: January 18th 2022
Genre: YA Historical Fantasy
Goodreads
ngl I am obsessed with the angle of this cover! It’s so so clever. Also it promises gothic and resurrections so here for it.

A gothic tale full of mystery and romance about a willful female surgeon, a resurrection man who sells bodies for a living, and the buried secrets they must uncover together.
Edinburgh, 1817. Hazel Sinnett is a lady who wants to be a surgeon more than she wants to marry.
Jack Currer is a resurrection man who’s just trying to survive in a city where it’s too easy to die.
When the two of them have a chance encounter outside the Edinburgh Anatomist’s Society, Hazel thinks nothing of it at first. But after she gets kicked out of renowned surgeon Dr. Beecham’s lectures for being the wrong gender, she realizes that her new acquaintance might be more helpful than she first thought. Because Hazel has made a deal with Dr. Beecham: if she can pass the medical examination on her own, the university will allow her to enroll. Without official lessons, though, Hazel will need more than just her books – she’ll need bodies to study, corpses to dissect.
Lucky that she’s made the acquaintance of someone who digs them up for a living, then.
But Jack has his own problems: strange men have been seen skulking around cemeteries, his friends are disappearing off the streets. Hazel and Jack work together to uncover the secrets buried not just in unmarked graves, but in the very heart of Edinburgh society. 
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Title: Icebreaker by A.L. Graziadei
Release Date: January 18th 2022
Genre: YA Contemporary
Goodreads
All For The Game gave me a strange love for queer sports novels, which is incredible considering I do not sport 😭

“A. L. Graziadei’s Icebreaker is an irresistible YA debut about two hockey players fighting to be the best—and the romance that catches them by surprise along the way.
Seventeen-year-old Mickey James III is a college freshman, a brother to five sisters, and a hockey legacy. With a father and a grandfather who have gone down in NHL history, Mickey is almost guaranteed the league’s top draft spot.
The only person standing in his way is Jaysen Caulfield, a contender for the #1 spot and Mickey’s infuriating (and infuriatingly attractive) teammate. When rivalry turns to something more, Mickey will have to decide what he really wants, and what he’s willing to risk for it.
This is a story about falling in love, finding your team (on and off the ice), and choosing your own path. 
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Honourable Mentions

Title: This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi
Release Date: February 1st 2022
Genre: YA Fantasy
Goodreads
Very keen to see Mafi’s first (I think?) foray into epic fantasy!! Am definitely expecting lush writing and world building.

Clashing empires, forbidden romance, and a long-forgotten queen destined to save her people—bestselling author Tahereh Mafi’s first in an epic, romantic trilogy inspired by Persian mythology.
To all the world, Alizeh is a disposable servant, not the long-lost heir to an ancient Jinn kingdom forced to hide in plain sight.
The crown prince, Kamran, has heard the prophecies foretelling the death of his king. But he could never have imagined that the servant girl with the strange eyes, the girl he can’t put out of his mind, would one day soon uproot his kingdom—and the world.
Perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo, Tomi Adeyemi, and Sabaa Tahir, this is the explosive first book in a new fantasy trilogy from the New York Times bestselling and National Book Award-nominated author Tahereh Mafi. 
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Title: Fire Becomes Her by Rosiee Thor
Release Date: February 1st 2022
Genre: YA Historical Fantasy
Goodreads
I saw the author note that the book contains 3 characters on the aro/ace spectrum!! It also sounds very darkly magical so 👀

In Rosiee Thor’s lavish fantasy novel with a Jazz Age spark, a politically savvy teen must weigh her desire to climb the social ladder against her heart in a world where magic buys votes.
Flare is power.
With only a drop of flare, one can light the night sky with fireworks . . . or burn a building to the ground — and seventeen-year-old Ingrid Ellis wants her fair share.
Ingrid doesn’t have a family fortune, monetary or magical, but at least she has a plan: Rise to the top on the arm of Linden Holt, heir to a hefty political legacy and the largest fortune of flare in all of Candesce. Her only obstacle is Linden’s father who refuses to acknowledge her.
So when Senator Holt announces his run for president, Ingrid uses the situation to her advantage. She strikes a deal to spy on the senator’s opposition in exchange for his approval and the status she so desperately craves. But the longer Ingrid wears two masks, the more she questions where her true allegiances lie.
Will she stand with the Holts, or will she forge her own path? 
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Title: A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross
Release Date: February 3rd 2022
Genre: Adult Urban Fantasy
Goodreads
I’m partially lured by the cover, but also keen to get into more whimsical adult fantasy and this seems perfect.

Enchantments run deep on the magical Isle of Cadence: gossip is carried by the wind, plaid shawls can be as strong as armour, and the smallest cut of a knife can instil fathomless fear. The capricious spirits that live there find mirth in the lives of the humans who call the land home, but that mischief turns to malevolence as girls begin to go missing.
Adaira, heiress of the east, knows the spirits only answer to a bard’s music, enticing them to return the missing girls. But there’s only one bard capable of drawing the spirits forth by song: her childhood enemy Jack Tamerlaine.
He hasn’t stepped foot on Cadence in ten long years, content to study music at the mainland university, but as Jack and Adaira reluctantly work together it becomes apparent the trouble with the spirits is far more sinister than first thought and an older, darker secret lurks beneath the surface, threatening to undo them all.
Sarah J Maas’s Crescent City meets Uprooted in acclaimed YA author Rebecca Ross’s brilliant first adult fantasy. 
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Title: Tripping Arcadia by Kit Mayquist
Release Date: February 22nd 2022
Genre: Adult Gothic Literary
Goodreads
I’m honestly obsessed with how badly I want this book. Gothic literary thriller from a trans author with Great Gatsby vibes? Yes please.

From debut author Kit Mayquist, a propulsive and atmospheric modern Gothic with all the splendor of The Great Gatsby . . . and all the secrets, lies, and darkness that opulence can hide.
Med school dropout Lena is desperate for a job, any job, to help her parents, who are approaching bankruptcy after her father was injured and laid off nearly simultaneously. So when she is offered a position, against all odds, working for one of Boston’s most elite families, the illustrious and secretive Verdeaus, she knows she must accept it—no matter how bizarre the interview or how vague the job description.
By day, she is assistant to the family doctor and his charge, Jonathan, the sickly, poetic, drunken heir to the family empire, who is as difficult as his illness is mysterious. By night, Lena discovers the more sinister side of the family, as she works overtime at their lavish parties, helping to hide their self-destructive tendencies . . . and trying not to fall for Jonathan’s alluring sister, Audrey. But when she stumbles upon the knowledge that the Verdeau patriarch is the one responsible for the ruin of her own family, Lena vows to get revenge—a poison-filled quest that leads her further into this hedonistic world than she ever bargained for, forcing her to decide how much—and who—she’s willing to sacrifice for payback.
The perfect next read for fans of Mexican Gothic, Tripping Arcadia is a page-turning and shocking tale with an unforgettable protagonist that explores family legacy and inheritance, the sacrifices we must make to get by in today’s world, and the intoxicating, dangerous power of wealth.  
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Title: The Girl Beneath The Sea  by Axie Oh
Release Date: February 22nd 2022
Genre: YA Fantasy
Goodreads
I have this preordered and the cover is an absolute work of art. But it just sounds like the gorgeous style of fantasy I love.

Deadly storms have ravaged Mina’s homeland for generations. Floods sweep away entire villages, while bloody wars are waged over the few remaining resources. Her people believe the Sea God, once their protector, now curses them with death and despair. In an attempt to appease him, each year a beautiful maiden is thrown into the sea to serve as the Sea God’s bride, in the hopes that one day the “true bride” will be chosen and end the suffering.
Many believe that Shim Cheong, the most beautiful girl in the village—and the beloved of Mina’s older brother Joon—may be the legendary true bride. But on the night Cheong is to be sacrificed, Joon follows Cheong out to sea, even knowing that to interfere is a death sentence. To save her brother, Mina throws herself into the water in Cheong’s stead.
Swept away to the Spirit Realm, a magical city of lesser gods and mythical beasts, Mina seeks out the Sea God, only to find him caught in an enchanted sleep. With the help of a mysterious young man named Shin—as well as a motley crew of demons, gods and spirits—Mina sets out to wake the Sea God and bring an end to the killer storms once and for all.
But she doesn’t have much time: A human cannot live long in the land of the spirits. And there are those who would do anything to keep the Sea God from waking…  
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Title: Only A Monster by Vanessa Len
Release Date: February 22nd
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
Goodreads
I was super lucky to get a review copy of this one and I am ready for monster content. This is also by an Asian-Australian author!

It should have been the perfect summer. Sent to stay with her late mother’s eccentric family in London, sixteen-year-old Joan is determined to enjoy herself. She loves her nerdy job at the historic Holland House, and when her super cute co-worker Nick asks her on a date, it feels like everything is falling into place.
But she soon learns the truth. Her family aren’t just eccentric: they’re monsters, with terrifying, hidden powers. And Nick isn’t just a cute boy: he’s a legendary monster slayer, who will do anything to bring them down.
As she battles Nick, Joan is forced to work with the beautiful and ruthless Aaron Oliver, heir to a monster family that hates her own. She’ll have to embrace her own monstrousness if she is to save herself, and her family. Because in this story . . .
. . . she is not the hero. 
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Title: Mirror Girls by Kelly McWilliams
Release Date: February 8th 2022
Genre: YA Historical Fantasy
Goodreads
Beautiful cover and it’s a haunted gothic so what more can I say!!

As infants, twin sisters Charlie Yates and Magnolia Heathwood were secretly separated after the brutal lynching of their parents, who died for loving across the color line. Now, at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, Charlie is a young Black organizer in Harlem, while white-passing Magnolia is the heiress to a cotton plantation in rural Georgia.
Magnolia knows nothing of her racial heritage, but secrets are hard to keep in a town haunted by the ghosts of its slave-holding past. When Magnolia finally learns the truth, her reflection mysteriously disappears from mirrors—the sign of a terrible curse. Meanwhile, in Harlem, Charlie’s beloved grandmother falls ill. Her final wish is to be buried back home in Georgia—and, unbeknownst to Charlie, to see her long-lost granddaughter, Magnolia Heathwood, one last time. So Charlie travels into the Deep South, confronting the land of her worst nightmares—and Jim Crow segregation.
The sisters reunite as teenagers in the deeply haunted town of Eureka, Georgia, where ghosts linger centuries after their time and dangers lurk behind every mirror. They couldn’t be more different, but they will need each other to put the hauntings of the past to rest, to break the mirrors’ deadly curse—and to discover the meaning of sisterhood in a racially divided land. 
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Honourable Mentions

Title: Edgewood by Kristen Ciccarelli
Release Date: March 1st 2022
Genre: YA Fantasy
Goodreads
I am absolutely here for any and all foresty/floral covers, so this called to me. I also really enjoyed the author’s debut series, The Last Namsara!

“No matter how far she runs, the forest of Edgewood always comes for Emeline Lark. The scent of damp earth curls into her nose when she sings and moss creeps across the stage. It’s as if the woods of her childhood, shrouded in folklore and tall tales, are trying to reclaim her. But Emeline has no patience for silly superstitions.
When her grandfather disappears, leaving only a mysterious orb in his wake, the stories Emeline has always scoffed at suddenly seem less foolish. She enters the forest she has spent years trying to escape, only to have Hawthorne Fell, a handsome and brooding tithe collector, try to dissuade her from searching.
Refusing to be deterred, Emeline finds herself drawn to the court of the fabled Wood King himself. She makes a deal—her voice for her grandfather’s freedom. Little does she know, she’s stumbled into the middle of a curse much bigger than herself, one that threatens the existence of this eerie world she’s trapped in, along with the devastating boy who feels so familiar.
With the help of Hawthorne—an enemy turned reluctant ally who she grows closer to each day—Emeline sets out to not only save her grandfather’s life, but to right past wrongs, and in the process, discover her true voice.
Haunting and romantic, Kristen Ciccarelli’s Edgewood is an exciting novel from a bold, unforgettable voice in fantasy. 
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Title: Sundial by Catriona Ward
Release Date: March 1st 2022
Genre: Adult Horror
Goodreads
I badly want to read more horror and this already promises two unreliable narrators worried about each other…!? Sounds MESSY. I’m in.

“You can’t escape what’s in your blood…
All Rob wanted was a normal life. She almost got it, too: a husband, two kids, a nice house in the suburbs. But Rob fears for her oldest daughter, Callie, who collects tiny bones and whispers to imaginary friends. Rob sees a darkness in Callie, one that reminds her too much of the family she left behind.
She decides to take Callie back to her childhood home, to Sundial, deep in the Mojave Desert. And there she will have to make a terrible choice.
Callie is worried about her mother. Rob has begun to look at her strangely, and speaks of past secrets. And Callie fears that only one of them will leave Sundial alive…
The mother and daughter embark on a dark, desert journey to the past in the hopes of redeeming their future.
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Title: The Book of Living Secrets by Madeleine Roux
Release Date: March 1st
Genre: YA Gothic Fantasy
Goodreads
How about falling into your favourite novel!! 10/10 need this 😂

“This story follows two girls who transport themselves into the world of their favorite book only to encounter the sinister alternate reality that awaits them.
No matter how different best friends Adelle and Connie are, one thing they’ve always had in common is their love of a little-known gothic romance novel called Moira. So when the girls are tempted by a mysterious stranger to enter the world of the book, they hardly suspect it will work. But suddenly they are in the world of Moira, living among characters they’ve obsessed about for years.
Except…all is not how they remembered it. The world has been turned upside down: The lavish balls and star-crossed love affairs are now interlaced with unspeakable horrors. The girls realize that something dark is lurking behind their foray into fiction—and they will have to rewrite their own arcs if they hope to escape this nightmare with their lives. 
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Title: One For All by Lillie Lainoff
Release Date: March 8th 2022
Genre: YA Epic Fantasy Retelling
Goodreads
Ownvoices fantasy with chronic illness/disability rep!! Unheard of!! I’m so excited for this, and hope it’s the beginning of more.

“An OwnVoices, gender-bent retelling of The Three Musketeers, in which a girl with a chronic illness trains as a Musketeer and uncovers secrets, sisterhood, and self-love.
Tania de Batz is most herself with a sword in her hand. Everyone in town thinks her near-constant dizziness makes her weak, nothing but “a sick girl”; even her mother is desperate to marry her off for security. But Tania wants to be strong, independent, a fencer like her father—a former Musketeer and her greatest champion.
Then Papa is brutally, mysteriously murdered. His dying wish? For Tania to attend finishing school. But L’Académie des Mariées, Tania realizes, is no finishing school. It’s a secret training ground for a new kind of Musketeer: women who are socialites on the surface, but strap daggers under their skirts, seduce men into giving up dangerous secrets, and protect France from downfall. And they don’t shy away from a swordfight.
With her newfound sisters at her side, Tania feels for the first time like she has a purpose, like she belongs. But then she meets Étienne, her first target in uncovering a potential assassination plot. He’s kind, charming, and breathlessly attractive—and he might have information about what really happened to her father. Torn between duty and dizzying emotion, Tania will have to lean on her friends, listen to her own body, and decide where her loyalties lie…or risk losing everything she’s ever wanted.
This debut novel is a fierce, whirlwind adventure about the depth of found family, the strength that goes beyond the body, and the determination it takes to fight for what you love.  
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Title: The Circus Infinite by Khan Wong
Release Date: March 8th 2022
Genre: Adult Sci Fi
Goodreads
Queer Adult Scifi here with espionage and cons 👀👌🏻 This one definitely has me intrigued, especially with the outer-space setting.

“Hunted by those who want to study his gravity powers, Jes makes his way to the best place for a mixed-species fugitive to blend in: the pleasure moon. Here, everyone just wants to be lost in the party. It doesn’t take long for him to catch the attention of the crime boss who owns the resort-casino where he lands a circus job. When the boss gets wind of the bounty on Jes’ head, he makes an offer: do anything and everything asked of him, or face vivisection.
With no other options, Jes fulfills the requests: espionage, torture, demolition. But when the boss sets the circus up to take the fall for his about-to-get-busted narcotics operation, Jes and his friends decide to bring the mobster down together. And if Jes can also avoid going back to being the prize subject of a scientist who can’t wait to dissect him? Even better. 
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Title: The Bone Orchard by Sara A. Mueller
Release Date: March 22nd 2022
Genre: Adult Epic Fantasy
Goodreads
Leave me alone with my obsession for creepy skeletons and floral covers 😩👌🏻 also murder mystery epic fantasy with witches, so yes.

“Charm is a witch, and she is alone. The last of a line of conquered necromantic workers, now confined within the yard of regrown bone trees at Orchard House, and the secrets of their marrow.
Charm is a prisoner, and a survivor. Charm tends the trees and their clattering fruit for the sake of her children, painstakingly grown and regrown with its fruit: Shame, Justice, Desire, Pride, and Pain.
Charm is a whore, and a madam. The wealthy and powerful of Borenguard come to her house to buy time with the girls who aren’t real.
Except on Tuesdays, which is when the Emperor himself lays claim to his mistress, Charm herself.
But now–Charm is also the only person who can keep an empire together, as the Emperor summons her to his deathbed, and charges her with choosing which of his awful, faithless sons will carry on the empire—by discovering which one is responsible for his own murder.
If she does this last thing, she will finally have what has been denied her since the fall of Inshil — her freedom. But if she does, she will also be betraying the ghosts past and present that live on within her heart.
Charm must choose. Her dead Emperor’s will or the whispers of her own ghosts. Justice for the empire or her own revenge.  
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Title: A Magic Steeped in Poison by Judy I. Lin
Release Date: March 29th 2022
Genre: YA Fantasy
Goodreads
Magic tea!! Also intense cover love. I am 😍 this was a fast preorder decision for me for sure.

“I used to look at my hands with pride. Now all I can think is, “These are the hands that buried my mother.”
For Ning, the only thing worse than losing her mother is knowing that it’s her own fault. She was the one who unknowingly brewed the poison tea that killed her—the poison tea that now threatens to also take her sister, Shu.
When Ning hears of a competition to find the kingdom’s greatest shennong-shi—masters of the ancient and magical art of tea-making—she travels to the imperial city to compete. The winner will receive a favor from the princess, which may be Ning’s only chance to save her sister’s life.
But between the backstabbing competitors, bloody court politics, and a mysterious (and handsome) boy with a shocking secret, Ning might actually be the one in more danger.  
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Title: Wild and Wicked Things by Francesca May
Release Date: March 29th 2022
Genre: Adult Historical Fantasy
Goodreads
Witches in a glittering and extravagant 1930s settings that is also queer!!

“In the aftermath of World War I, a naive woman is swept into a glittering world filled with dark magic, romance, and murder in this lush and decadent debut.
On Crow Island, people whisper, real magic lurks just below the surface.
Neither real magic nor faux magic interests Annie Mason. Not after it stole her future. She’s only on the island to settle her late father’s estate and, hopefully, reconnect with her long-absent best friend, Beatrice, who fled their dreary lives for a more glamorous one.
Yet Crow Island is brimming with temptation, and the biggest one may be her enigmatic new neighbor.
Mysterious and alluring, Emmeline Delacroix is a figure shadowed by rumors of witchcraft. And when Annie witnesses a confrontation between Bea and Emmeline at one of the island’s extravagant parties, she is drawn into a glittering, haunted world. A world where the boundaries of wickedness are tested, and the cost of illicit magic might be death. 
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Title: What We Harvest by Ann Fraistat
Release Date: March 22nd 2022
Genre: YA Thriller / Horror
Goodreads
I have a  huge love for environmental horror so this fell on my TBR list instantly.

“For fans of Wilder Girls comes a nightmarish debut guaranteed to keep you up through the night, about an idyllic small town poisoned by its past, and one girl who must fight the strange disease that’s slowly claiming everyone she loves.
Wren owes everything she has to her home, Hollow’s End, a centuries-old, picture perfect American town. Tourists travel miles to marvel at its miracle crops, including the shimmering, iridescent wheat of Wren’s family farm. Until five months ago.

That’s when the quicksilver mercury blight first surfaced, poisoning the farms of Hollow’s End one by one. It began by consuming the crops–thick, silver sludge bleeding from the earth. Next were the animals. Infected livestock and wild creatures alike staggered off into the woods by day—only to return at night, their eyes, fogged white, leering from the trees.

Then, the blight came for the neighbors.

Wren is among the last locals standing. And the blight has finally come for her, too. Now, the only one she can turn to is the last person she wants to call: her ex, Derek. They haven’t spoken in months, but Wren and Derek still have one thing in common—Hollow’s End means everything to them. Only there’s much they don’t know about their hometown and its renowned miracle crops. And they’re about to discover that miracles aren’t free.

Their ancestors have an awful lot to pay for, and Wren and Derek are the only ones left to settle old debts.  

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Title: My  Dearest Darkest by Kayla Cottingham
Release Date: March 29th 2022
Genre: YA Thriller / Horror
Goodreads
Sapphic!! Horror!! I also believe this is a dark academia, so basically written for me.

“Finch Chamberlin is the newest transfer student to the ultra-competitive Ulalume Academy… but she’s also not what she seems. Months before school started, Finch and her parents got into an accident that should have left her dead at the bottom of a river. But something monstrous, and ancient, and terrifying, wouldn’t let her drown. Finch doesn’t know why she woke up after her heart stopped, but since dying she’s felt a constant pull from the school and the surrounding town of Rainwater, like something on the island is calling to her.
Selena St. Clair sees right through Finch, and she knows something is seriously wrong with her. But despite Selena’s suspicion, she feels drawn to Finch and has a sinking feeling that from now on the two will be inexplicably linked to one another.
One night Finch, Selena, and her friends accidentally summon a carnivorous creature of immense power in the depths of the school. It promises to grant every desire the girls have kept locked away in their insecure hearts―beauty, power, adoration―in exchange for a price: human body parts. But as the cost of their wanting becomes more deadly, Finch and Selena must learn to work together to stop the horror they unleashed, before it consumes the entire island. 
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Title: A Far Wilder Magic by Allison Saft
Release Date: March 8th 2022
Genre: YA Epic Fantasy
Goodreads
It is pitched as “tenderly aching” and I would like soft magic girls and boys making unlikely teams.

“When Margaret Welty spots the legendary hala, the last living mythical creature, she knows the Halfmoon Hunt will soon follow. Whoever is able to kill the hala will earn fame and riches, and unlock an ancient magical secret. If Margaret wins the hunt, it may finally bring her mother home. While Margaret is the best sharpshooter in town, only teams of two can register, and she needs an alchemist.
Weston Winters isn’t an alchemist–yet. Fired from every apprenticeship he’s landed, his last chance hinges on Master Welty taking him in. But when Wes arrives at Welty Manor, he finds only Margaret and her bloodhound Trouble. Margaret begrudgingly allows him to stay, but on one condition: he must join the hunt with her.
Although they make an unlikely team, Wes is in awe of the girl who has endured alone on the outskirts of a town that doesn’t want her, in this creaking house of ghosts and sorrow. And even though Wes disrupts every aspect of her life, Margaret is drawn to him. He, too, knows what it’s like to be an outsider. As the hunt looms closer and tensions rise, Margaret and Wes uncover dark magic that could be the key to winning the hunt – if they survive that long.
In A Far Wilder Magic, Allison Saft has written an achingly tender love story set against a deadly hunt in an atmospheric, rich fantasy world that will sweep you away.  
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Honourable Mentions

 

Title: Discord of Gods #5 by Jenn Lyons
Release Date: April 26th 2022
Genre: Adult Epic Fantasy
Goodreads
MY #1 MOST HIGHLY ANTICIPATED SERIES FINALE FOR THE YEAR. Be right back am sobbing.

The Discord of Gods marks the epic conclusion to Jenn Lyons’s Chorus of Dragon series, closing out the saga that began with The Ruin of Kings, for fans of Brandon Sanderson and Patrick Rothfuss.
The end times have come.
Relos Var’s final plans to enslave the universe are on the cusp of fruition. He believes there’s only one being in existence that might be able to stop him: the demon Xaltorath.
As these two masterminds circle each other, neither is paying attention to the third player on the board, Kihrin. Unfortunately, keeping himself classified in the “pawn” category means Kihrin must pretend to be everything the prophecies threatened he’d become: the destroyer of all, the sun eater, a mindless, remorseless plague upon the land. It also means finding an excuse to not destroy the people he loves (or any of the remaining Immortals) without arousing suspicion.
Kihrin’s goals are complicated by the fact that not all of his “act” is one. His intentions may be sincere, but he’s still being forced to grapple with the aftereffects of the corrupted magic ritual that twisted both him and the dragons. Worse, he’s now tied to a body that is the literal avatar of a star – a form that is becoming increasingly, catastrophically unstable. All of which means he’s running out of time.
After all, some stars fade – but others explode. 
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Title: Portrait Of A Thief by Grace D. Li
Release Date: April 5th 2022
Genre: Adult Thriller
Goodreads
I just sign up for anything with a heist in it like [SNAP’S FINGERS] this. No hesitation.

“Ocean’s Eleven meets The Farewell in Portrait of a Thief, a lush, lyrical heist novel inspired by the true story of Chinese art vanishing from Western museums, about diaspora, the colonization of art, and the complexity of the Chinese American identity.
History is told by the conquerors. Across the Western world, museums display the spoils of war, of conquest, of colonialism: priceless pieces of art looted from other countries, kept even now.
Will Chen plans to steal them back.
A senior at Harvard, Will fits comfortably in his carefully curated roles: a perfect student, an art history major and sometimes artist, the eldest son that has always been his parents’ American Dream. But when a shadowy Chinese corporation reaches out with an impossible—and illegal—job offer, Will finds himself something else as well: the leader of a heist to steal back five priceless Chinese sculptures, looted from Beijing centuries ago.
His crew is every heist archetype one can imagine—or at least, the closest he can get. A conman: Irene Chen, Will’s sister and a public policy major at Duke, who can talk her way out of anything. A thief: Daniel Liang, a premed student with steady hands just as capable of lockpicking as suturing. A getaway driver: Lily Wu, an engineering student who races cars in her free time. A hacker: Alex Huang, an MIT dropout turned Silicon Valley software engineer. Each member of his crew has their own complicated relationship with China and the identity they’ve cultivated as Chinese Americans, but when Will asks, none of them can turn him down.
Because if they succeed? They earn fifty million dollars—and a chance to make history. But if they fail, it will mean not just the loss of everything they’ve dreamed for themselves but yet another thwarted attempt to take back what colonialism has stolen.
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Title: In A Garden Burning Gold by Rory Power
Release Date: April 5th 2022
Genre: Adult Epic Fantasy
Goodreads
Epic fantasy with royal family drama 👀👌🏻 I also suspect this will be queer!

“Twins imbued with incredible magic and near-immortality will do anything to keep their family safe—even if it tears the siblings apart—in the first book of a mythic epic fantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of Wilder Girls.
Rhea and her twin brother, Lexos, have spent an eternity helping their father rule their small, unstable country, using their control over the seasons, tides, and stars to keep the people in line. For a hundred years, they’ve been each other’s only ally, defending each other and their younger siblings against their father’s increasingly unpredictable anger.
Now, with an independence movement gaining ground and their father’s rule weakening, the twins must take matters into their own hands to keep their family—and their entire world—from crashing down around them. But other nations are jockeying for power, ready to cross and double cross, and if Rhea and Lexos aren’t careful, they’ll end up facing each other across the battlefield.  
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Title: And Then I Woke Up by Malcolm Devlin
Release Date: April 12th 2022
Genre: Adult Horror
Goodreads
Horror novella about monsters from tordotcom which I just am, quite frankly, a fan of.

In a world reeling from an unusual plague, monsters lurk in the streets while terrified survivors arm themselves and roam the countryside in packs. Or perhaps something very different is happening. When a disease affects how reality is perceived, it’s hard to be certain of anything…
Spence is one of the “cured” living at the Ironside rehabilitation facility. Haunted by guilt, he refuses to face the changed world until a new inmate challenges him to help her find her old crew. But if he can’t tell the truth from the lies, how will he know if he has earned the redemption he dreams of? How will he know he hasn’t just made things worse?
In the tradition of Mira Grant and Stephen Graham Jones, Malcolm Devlin’s And Then I Woke Up is a creepy, layered, literary story about false narratives and their ability to divide us.
“A scathing portrait of the world we live in and a running commentary on what’s story, what’s truth, and what’s not.”—Stephen Graham Jones 
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Title: An Arrow To The Moon by Emily X.R. Pan
Release Date:  April 12th 2022
Genre: YA Contemporary Fantasy
Goodreads
This is Romeo x Juliet meets Chinese Mythology and I really adored the author’s magical realism debut, The Astonishing Colour of After!

Hunter Yee has perfect aim with a bow and arrow, but all else in his life veers wrong. He’s sick of being haunted by his family’s past mistakes. The only things keeping him from running away are his little brother, a supernatural wind, and the bewitching girl at his new high school.
Luna Chang dreads the future. Graduation looms ahead, and her parents’ expectations are stifling. When she begins to break the rules, she finds her life upended by the strange new boy in her class, the arrival of unearthly fireflies, and an ominous crack spreading across the town of Fairbridge.
As Hunter and Luna navigate their families’ enmity and secrets, everything around them begins to fall apart. All they can depend on is their love…but time is running out, and fate will have its way. 
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Title: Nettle And Bone by T. Kingfisher
Release Date: April 26th 2022
Genre: Adult Epic Fantasy
Goodreads
Dark adult fairy tales though on quests!!

“A dark and compelling fantasy about sisterhood, impossible tasks and the price of power, from award-winning author T. Kingfisher
After years of seeing her sisters suffer at the hands of an abusive prince, Marra―the shy, convent-raised, third-born daughter―has finally realized that no one is coming to their rescue. No one, except for Marra herself.
Seeking help from a powerful gravewitch, Marra is offered the tools to kill a prince―if she can complete three impossible tasks. But, as is the way in tales of princes, witches, and daughters, the impossible is only the beginning.
On her quest, Marra is joined by the gravewitch, a reluctant fairy godmother, a strapping former knight, and a chicken possessed by a demon. Together, the five of them intend to be the hand that closes around the throat of the prince and frees Marra’s family and their kingdom from its tyrannous ruler at last. 
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Title: Every Word You’ve Never Said by Jordan Greene
Release Date: April 26th 2022
Genre:  YA Contemporary
Goodreads
Soft contemporary with neurodiverse nonverbal queer kids? Yes please. 🥺

“Skylar Gray is adopted, nonverbal, and he feels most comfortable wearing skirts. Life has never been easy, but with a fresh start at a brand-new school, with new parents and in a new state, he just might finally make some friends. Maybe. Honestly it’s hard to focus on anything when gorgeous rocker boy Jacob is around. But it’s hard for Skylar to trust anyone when people have always been quick to ditch him at the first inconvenience; they always seem more than ready to judge him as defective. And the bullies love to confirm it. Skylar has only ever had himself, so why would anything be different this time? Especially for an anxious boy with literally no voice.
Jacob doesn’t give a damn, especially not since he came out over the summer. He expected the hate he got from his father, who mostly acts as if it never happened, but he refuses to let it hold him back. It doesn’t matter, Jacob’s over it. He’s going to paint his nails, dye his hair, and strike a heavy rift on his guitar if he wants to, even if it means being grounded most of senior year. But when the cute nonverbal transfer student, Skylar, wears a skirt to school, prompting a sexist new dress code proposal, Jacob decides it’s time to take a stand, no matter the risk to himself.
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Title: I Am the Ghost In Your House by Maria Romasco-Moore
Release Date: April 19th 2022
Genre: YA Horror / Mystery
Goodreads
Haunted house YA book with queer representation!!

“From the author of Some Kind of Animal comes a wildly unique story about an invisible girl struggling to see herself in a world obsessed with appearances.
Pie is the ghost in your house.
She is not dead, she is invisible.
The way she looks changes depending on what is behind her. A girl of glass. A girl who is a window. If she stands in front of floral wallpaper she is full of roses.
For Pie’s entire life it’s been Pie and her mother. Just the two of them, traveling across America. They have slept in trains, in mattress stores, and on the bare ground. They have probably slept in your house.
But Pie is lonely. And now, at seventeen, her mother’s given her a gift. The choice of the next city they will go to. And Pie knows exactly where she wants to go. Pittsburgh—where she fell in love with a girl who she plans to find once again. And this time she will reveal herself.
Only how can anyone love an invisible girl?
A magnificent story of love, and friendship, and learning to see yourself in a world based on appearances, I Am the Ghost in Your House is a brilliant reflection on the importance of how much more there is to our world than what meets the eye. 
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Honourable Mentions

Let me know if any of these books caught your eye, or which ones you plan to read too!

 

What Did I Read in 2021? End of Year Recap + Stats (My Actual Love)

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2021 went by really fast (which is a thing old people say, I am aware).

Actually it went fast AND slow, and I’m somehow absolutely exhausted despite having not done much of anything. Every year I look forward to doing these recaps because it’s fun to nerdily make pie charts and write lists of favourites and just admire rows of books. Clinging to the small joys here. 😩🙌🏻

Overall it really wasn’t my best reading year, with 5-stars being scarce and a lot of the books I’d highly anticipated falling flat. But on the flip side — I discovered I really like reading horror (and wrote my first horror book) and I’ve explored more adult literary which I occasionally very much like. 2021 has been about noticing reading tastes changing and tentatively exploring new things, and I’m okay with that.

…some highlights of the year

  • super pleased to have read 200 books (something I regularly do but it just wasn’t stressful this year!)
  • The Boy Who Steals Houses earned out its advance and I got my first ever royalties 😭
  • tagged in posts where TBWSH was in schools and book clubs and, I swear, that will always feel like the biggest honour and utterly surreal
  • got rid of my wardrobe and put a bookshelf there (this is a huge life achievement)
  • went viral on instagram for a post that has 500,000 views 💀 cannot fathom that amount of people to be quite honest
  • super proud of my photography! my instagram account grew 20,000 followers this  year and I just hit 90,000! (I also started a TikTok and that is not an achievement it is a means of procrastination 😪🙌🏻 but it is at 5,000 followers which is neat).
  • I rewrote a whole book in a month into a horror + rewrote #babykrakenWIP + wrote half a book for NaNoWriMo.
  • I launched my Patreon account where I’ll be sharing the sequels for The Boy Who Steals Houses!! This starts in 2022 and I seriously can’t wait to be back with the De Laineys again 🥺💛. More info on the sequels here.

But I’ll admit, when it comes to writing, I end this year pretty crushed. I worked really really hard, and have nothing but 5 years of rejections to show for it. I have written so, so many books since ATPN and TBWSH and they just sit here, unread and unsold. After 5 years of this consistently you start to question what you’re doing!! I always feel like complaining is pretty taboo for authors. You’re only supposed to say things were rough after they’ve gotten better and you have the shiny success story to show for it. But you’ve been here for my journey since before I even queried my first little novel back in like 2013 — so we’ve been in this together for a while. I always appreciate everyone’s support. 🥺 Here’s to, perhaps, 2022 being kinder or new directions being found.

and you can catch my old yearly recaps here → 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015.

I was challenging myself to read “more books on my shelves” and, well, I failed!!! But next year I will. I promise this to myself 🤨 However I read a ton of underrated books and random library books, and so many books for MTMC Tours (which was great), and overall am happy with what I achieved.

As always, reading isn’t about how much we do — but just rather finding good books and enjoying them. I love talking stats, and I do this for me mostly. 😂👌🏻 

Star Ratings

So I had seventeen 5-star reads but only nine NEW 5-stars (the rest were rereads of old favourites). 9 of 200 this is a worry  😂 So hoping to fix that next year and read more books I’m really excited for (instead of procrastinating them!!)

2-stars went from 16% last year to 22% this year so like I said. We have a problem sir, just slightly.

 

Genres Read

If I combine all the sub-genres of fantasy…then it wins this year!!! Usually contemporary wins, so this new 👀 Sci-fi and historical are always my lowest genres, but horror is growing and hopefully this will double in 2022. I have PLANS. (The library doesn’t endorse my plans by buying new horrors though so will have to work on them.)

 

Reading format

I listened to 49 audiobooks this year!! And overall it’s 110 physical books and the rest are ebooks/audios. Last year I was at 17% for audiobooks and this year it’s 24% and let me just say — I am more likely to love a book if I listen to it. Why? We do not know, we also do not question.

 

Where Did I get my books?

As always, the library wins!! The irony is I save very scrupulously so that I can buy beautiful hardcovers and then…I do not read them 😂 (I think partially this is because I want to love them, so I wait for the right “time”, and then instead read library books where it doesn’t matter how I feel about them. Do not ask for logic here!!)

I read so many MTMC Tour books too. We were so busy this year which is endlessly nice.

What I didn’t read? ARCs. I barely touched eARCs and also didn’t request them. I’m so behind now I just–

Age Category

Adult bumped up from 17% last year to 27% this year! But if you think I’m leaving YA…solid no. This is my place. I’m just enjoying exploring more and also researching for future adult wips I want to try. I also appreciate some adult themes that are resonating with me more (as I grow old and, quite literally, my hair goes white — would like that to stop though, thanks).

Country & Pub Year

I’m actually surprised by this! I felt I read more backlist books? Because I swear all the hyped releases this year are still on my TBR and I’m a bit ashamed. Look, I read 200 books and yet I swear “read nothing” 😂 (But I did read well over 100 new releases last year — so this year was more about backlist.) And as usual I read mostly American books. My bad.

Diversity

I don’t know if this is publishing at the moment or just me not finding the books I want, but I struggle to pick up mental health/disability books?? It truly feels like they’re not “trendy” enough to feature anymore. I read a wide range too — but also I didn’t read as many new and hyped YA releases as I’d hoped. 😩

I also need to read more books featuring diverse protagonists because this is a lot lower than I’d like. (Although only 108 of the books I read were for reviews/tours so, I take that into consideration.)

Alright time to show you my featured favourites of the year!! 😭 I truly found some absolutely gems in 2021 and several books that absolutely, deeply changed me (looking at you These Violent Delights and A Little Life). When you find those heart books? THAT is what I’m here for. Also The City Beautiful came out of nowhere and I totally adore it.

(Side note, I listened to 7 of these on audio. Proof I end up liking audios better 😂)

I only read 19 sequels this year oops (for comparison, I read over 120+ standalones). These were my highlights!

   

I say “surprise favourites” not meaning I assumed they’d be bad, but I just read them with not pre-judgments or preconceived notions and I just loved them.

Adding these authors to my “auto-buy” list basically!!! Their work is absolutely incredible.

 

Shout out to some books I should’ve read ages ago, but at least!! I’m finally reading them now. (And they are so so good.) Howl’s Moving Castle was so good though?! 😂 I had so much fun.

I really liked a LOT of the horror books I tried. I am disturbed and enjoying it, apparently!! I’m still thinking about The Only Good Indians also. Also I really like utterly unhinged queer horror and if anyone has recs, I need more.

 

For once I barely did any rereads — who am I, sir. There are only 12!! I did my annual Foxhole Court reread though, which is basically my highlight for Januaries.

Also…I read These Violent Delights TWICE this year so. Not sure if I should be proud of that or if it’s a worry. (Don’t answer this question 😪)

Black Water Sister was an absolute hilarious delight, and Bloody Spade was a ton of fun 😍 Cinders & Sparrows renewed my life long goal of: owning a castle.

Contemporaries that made me laugh OR cry 😩👌🏻 We love to see it. I seriously cannot recommend them all enough, these are absolute gold. (Baby & Solo made me cry though.)

So far my goals for next year are going to be working on The Boy Who Steals Houses sequels and upkeeping my Patreon, plus writing an adult wip. And I want to read 200 books again with a big focus on my backlist. I think it’ll be a reading year instead of a writing year too. Bit more lowkey.

Looking back at my list from last year, and I actually read 7 of 12!! Which seems pretty bad for books I am so hyped for 😂 but still!! I try!!! And I need to prioritise THESE in 2022 for sure…

I haven’t had a chance yet to go through all the upcoming releases lists so 👀👌🏻 I’ve got a lot to discover still. But these are ones I am so keen for and I have preordered a few too. There are also are more autistic books coming out next year from traditional pubs and I have to say!!! I am so ready for this. (There’s also a lot of queer fantasy I’m dying for.)