Release Week: 29 April 2025
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Release Week: 29 April 2025
Posted on 2025-04-29 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn
FEATURED PICK:
- One Way Witch: She Who Knows, Book 2 by Nnedi Okorafor, read by Yetide Badaki for Brilliance -- At long last, a sequel to Who Fears Death: "As a teen, Najeeba learned to become the beast of wind, fire and dust: the kponyungo. When that took too much from her, including the life of her father, she let it all go, and for a time, she was happy—until only a few years later, when the small, normal life she’d built was violently destroyed. Now in her forties and years beyond the death of her second husband, Najeeba has just lost her beloved daughter. Onyesonwu saved the world. Najeeba knows this well, but the world does not. This is how the juju her daughter evoked works. One other person who remembers is Onyesonwu’s teacher Aro, a harsh and hard-headed sorcerer. Najeeba has decided to ask him to teach her the Mystic Points, the powerful heart of sorcery. There is something awful Najeeba needs to kill and the Mystic Points are the only way. Najeeba is truly her daughter’s mother. When Aro agrees to help, Najeeba is at last ready to forge her future. But first, she must confront her past—for certain memories cannot lie in unmarked graves."
PICKS:
Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker, read by Natalie Naudus for Harlequin -- " In this explosive horror novel, a woman is haunted by inner trauma, hungry ghosts, and a serial killer as she confronts the brutal violence experienced by East Asians during the pandemic."
The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig, read by Jay Myers, Amber Benson, and Xe Sands for Random House -- "Five high school friends are bonded by an oath to protect one another no matter what. Then, on a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something extraordinary: a mysterious staircase to nowhere. One friend walks up—and never comes back down. Then the staircase disappears. Twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared."
Polybius by Collin Armstrong, read by Rachanee Lumayno for Simon and Schuster -- "Stranger Things meets The Walking Dead in this chilling novel based on the terrifying urban legend about a video game created by the government for psychological warfare."
Awakened by A.E. Osworth, read by the author for Grand Central -- "A coven of trans witches battles an evil AI in the magical coming-of-middle-age romp about love, loss, drag shows, and late capitalism."
The Sea Gives Up the Dead by Molly Olguín, read by Heather Kay Ling for HighBridge -- "a collection of stories sprinkled into the soil of fairy tales, left to take root and grow wild there. A lovesick nanny slays a dragon. The devil tries to save her mother. A girl drowns and becomes a saint. Three kids plot to blow up their dad, a grieving mother sails the sea to find her son's grave, a scientist brings a voice to life, and a mermaid falls into the power of a witch."
The Accidentals: Stories by Guadalupe Nettel, translated by Rosalind Harvey, read by Grecia Almada, Julian Franco, and Silvana Kane for Bloomsbury -- "A powerful collection of stories about characters coping with estrangement, isolation, and the unknown."
The Ephemera Collector: A Novel by Stacy Nathaniel Jackson, read by Bianca Drew for Highbridge -- "The year is 2035, and Los Angeles County is awash in a tangelo haze of wildfire smoke. Xandria Anastasia Brown spends her days deep in the archives of the Huntington Library as the curator of African American Ephemera and associate curator of American Historical Manuscripts, supported by an array of AI personal assistants and health bots. Although Xandria's work may preserve collective memory, she is losing a grasp on her own."
(in progress)
4/23 Landfall by James Bradley (Penguin Australia)
4/25 Reaping By Numbers by Nicole Givens Kurtz
4/29 Whisper in the Wind By: Luke Arnold Series: The Fetch Phillips Novels, Book 4
4/29 The Edge of Yesterday By: Rita Woods
4/29 The Thermopylae Protocol The Gordian Division, Book 6 By: Jacob Holo, David Weber Narrated by: Gabriel Vaughan
4/29 The Traitor of Sherwood Forest A Novel By: Amy S. Kaufman