Bestseller Harris (Chocolat) delivers a sweetly upbeat urban fantasy in which—unbeknownst to humans or the supernatural Sightless Folk with whom they coexist—the Butterfly and Moth Kingdoms wage an ancient war. Tom Argent lives a quiet, solitary life in London, with a passion for photography and little else. This changes with two chance meetings, first with an unhoused man who calls himself Spider, then with a woman named Vanessa, whose beauty shines so brightly Tom can’t help falling deeply, foolishly, in love with her. Tom’s pursuit of Vanessa unexpectedly draws him into the conflict between the butterflies—vibrantly beautiful creatures of daytime—and the moths, somber and unassuming denizens of night. Tom is a cipher for much of the story, tossed between the two sides while his own goals are frustratingly limited to capturing stolen moments on film and declaring his love to Vanessa. The combination of epic story and fairy tale prose captivates, however, and Harris builds an enchanting world around Tom and his companions. Urban fantasy readers seeking a lighthearted treat will find plenty to enjoy. Agent: John Wood, RCW. (July)

Reviewed on 05/03/2024 | Details & Permalink

A small California town is cut off from the rest of the country by a catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions in Belardes’s uneven debut horror novel. Bayside oyster farmer Bernhard Vestinos first notices something amiss when a rampant snail infestation overruns his beds, forcing him to take deadly measures. What appears to be a manmade eco-disaster ultimately proves to have an otherworldly component as a contagion with an inexplicable side effect spreads through town: people begin “deading,” dropping to the ground in apparent death throes, only to revive minutes later and obliviously go about their business. That’s enough weirdness for a government drone squadron to enforce a protective perimeter around the town. Within that inescapably sealed environment, the social glue of Bayside quickly gives way to the ascent of the Risers, a quasireligious cult violently hostile to the non-deading minority. Belardes toggles between the perspectives of a variety of townspeople, including the Enriquez brothers—Chango and Blas—but his efforts to give the horrors a human dimension bog down in the minutiae of their lives (especially the details of Blas’s amateur birding). Still, this patchwork of familiar horror plot motifs offers some fun scares. (July)

Reviewed on 05/03/2024 | Details & Permalink

Ex-cop Daniel Carter and his partner-in-violence Valentina “Tina” Hyde return in this blood-soaked urban fantasy. Having slaughtered the monster clans who ruled the criminal underworld and dispatched their creator Edward Hyde in 2021’s Jekyll & Hyde, Inc., Daniel and Tina, made unstoppably strong and nigh-indestructible through a special elixir, discover that aliens have long coveted Earth. With the monster clans gone, only Daniel and Tina remain to foil the aliens’ insidious agendas. The duo must track down and destroy the Greys, the Reptiloids, the Martians, and the Bug-Eyed Monsters who labor in secret to exploit and conquer the world, a quest which sees them contacting old friends for information and making strange new allies along the way. This second installment has an episodic feel, but it’s just as brutal, visceral, and bloody as the first, with Green’s protagonists coming across as every bit as monstrous as their opponents and twice as violent. The result is a fast-paced, adrenaline-fueled tale that’s reminiscent of grindhouse cinema and sure to satisfy series fans. Agent: Joshua Bilmes, JABberwocky Literary. (May)

Reviewed on 05/03/2024 | Details & Permalink

Bacigalupi (The Tangled Lands) dazzles in this addictive account of the rivalries between powerful families in a brilliantly rendered fantastical world inspired by 15th-century Florence. Narrator Davico di Regulaif’s father, Devonaci, owns a rare dragon’s eye, still “burning with inner fire as if it retained life.” Davico’s obsession with the orb, which seems to trap a “flaming rage,” eventually has significant consequences. Father and son belong to one of the most influential banking families of Navola and Devonaci, who has many enemies and seeks every opportunity to “shape the politics of [the] city to his will,” hopes that Davico will succeed him as the family’s head. Unfortunately, that aspiration is imperiled by a betrayal that forces Davico to undertake a desperate flight to survive. Davico hints early on that he is not being entirely truthful with the reader, which only enhances the suspense. Admirers of Game of Thrones and Dorothy Dunnett’s House of Niccolò series will be riveted. (July)

Reviewed on 05/03/2024 | Details & Permalink

Nebula, Shirley Jackson, and World Fantasy Award finalist Allen (Aftermath of an Industrial Accident) presents a titillating collection of 14 horror stories and poems. Throughout, Allen takes the idea of nothing being as it seems to supernatural extremes. In “The Green Silence,” the narrator waits impatiently for some kind of succubus named Violet to come out of her periodic hibernation. (“Whenever Violet goes dormant, Gerry pines for her with a skin-peeling, meat-dissolving hunger he does not dare express.”) Allen’s lyricism works better in his prose than in his poetry, which can sometimes be too abstract to deliver real scares, as in the collection opener “The Windows Breathe,” a somewhat generic haunted house poem. On the other end of the spectrum is the blunt, bloody narrative poem “The Strip Search,” in which the speaker is disemboweled upon their entrance to hell in order to remove all hope from their body. Though readers hoping for straightforward chills may long for something more to hold onto, these slippery, surprising stories will appeal to horror fans seeking something fresh. (July)

Reviewed on 05/03/2024 | Details & Permalink

This seething, sweltering postapocalyptic novel from Volodine (Black Village) follows the eponymous character as he navigates life as a double agent for both the corrupt state apparatus and the denizens of Henhouse Four, an underclass ghetto monitored by the government for possible revolutionary activity. Still mourning the death of his wife, Verena, 20 years prior, Mevlido stumbles upon a young woman who looks exactly like her—only to watch the doppelgänger, a possible terrorist, get her head crushed beneath the wheels of a tram. As he struggles to make sense of what he saw, Mevlido must hide his investigation from his autocratic superiors, and reality itself unravels as he attempts to reconcile the past, the future, and the completely impossible present. Translator Stamm does an admirable job of rendering Volodine’s serpentine prose in English, and the noirish, surrealist story turns into an unlikely romp as it riffs on the absurdity of 20th-century political institutions and pop culture. The cumulative effect is frequently baffling but never dull. (June)

Reviewed on 04/26/2024 | Details & Permalink

Stred (The Father of Lies) delivers some graphic chills in this bite-sized work of psychological and supernatural horror. David Stewart, who claims to be 400 years old and possessed by an ancient evil, is the new patient of the acclaimed Dr. Rachel Hoggendorf in an unnamed institute. When her treatment of what she believes to be David’s multiple personality disorder results in bouts of violence, she calls in both a trusted colleague and a priest for help. David tells cryptic tales, most eerily the story of Rachel’s own rape and abortion, a well-kept secret he would have no reason to know. The longer Rachel works with David, the more she too begins to act strangely, leading her coworkers to wonder if David’s demon is real—and spreading. Uncanny rituals, corrupted religion, and erratic psychiatric patients are all time-honored horror staples, and while there’s nothing particularly fresh here, Stred plays the hits with gusto. Though some of the expository dialogue feels stilted, the scenes of bloody violence are lush and cinematic. Readers in the mood for some old-school jump scares will be satisfied. (June)

Reviewed on 04/26/2024 | Details & Permalink

The Enemy continues to pursue Solveig and her companions in Saintcrow’s well-constructed second Black Land’s Bane fantasy. After the events of A Flame in the North, Solveig has found a measure of safety in the Elder city of Waterstone, home of the ancient weapon that Elder Aeredh believes only Solveig can wield. She, however, is wary of the toll the weapon will take on her magic. It soon becomes clear that she has other motives for coming to the city—and that Aeredh hasn’t been honest about his intentions in bringing her there. With her faith in her friends and her own powers shaken, Solveig finds Waterstone to be a gilded cage. Meanwhile, though the Enemy cannot reach her within the city’s walls, their dark forces continue to grow within the Black Land. The Norse mythology–inspired worldbuilding remains fascinating, and Saintcrow keeps the pages turning by weaving together danger and magic. This sets things up nicely for the epic conclusion. Agent: Lucienne Diver, Knight Agency. (June)

Reviewed on 04/26/2024 | Details & Permalink

Wolf (Send Me Their Souls) launches a new trilogy with this breathtaking epic, masterfully weaving threads of science fiction, fantasy, horror, romance, and mystery into a propulsive coming-of-age story. Six hellish months after the noble father that Synali Woster never met murdered her mother, she finally gets her revenge. It takes a lot of maneuvering for Synali, the child of the squalid Low Ward section of a massive, stratified space station, to get at her father, the Duke of Hauteclare, and she flees the crime scene via one of the giant mech suits that the station’s knights ride into jousting tournaments in space, prepared to go out in a blaze of glory surrounded by rabid fans of the sport. But then something odd happens: she doesn’t lose her match. Her unexpected skills as a mech driver catch the eye of a nobleman from a different house who claims to know of seven other coconspirators who were involved in her mother’s death and offers her a deal: for each joust she wins in his family’s name, he’ll take one of them out. Swept into a whirlwind of intrigue and reluctantly drawn into the elite world of riders, Synali must decide who she can trust. Wolf balances the unflinching action with evocative worldbuilding, considerate characterization, and a thoughtful exploration of the hope found in quiet places. This astonishes. Agent: Caitlin Blasdell, Liza Dawson Assoc. (May)

Reviewed on 04/26/2024 | Details & Permalink

Gallagher (Flotation Device) serves up a short but explosive novella about the last human remaining in the galaxy. In 1967, trans woman Alice stumbled upon the stargate network and fell “through the rabbit hole” into outer space. She watched from afar as her home planet died from climate change and war, but was able to extend her life by transporting through galaxies, making a living as a scavenger. Now, while combing through a market that serves countless species of aliens a unique variety of goods to trade, she comes across an item she doesn’t quite understand. Possession of it, however, gets her chased through the market by a pack of Delosi, militaristic extraterrestrials who resemble elves, so she knows she has something valuable on her hands. After narrowly evading capture, Alice makes it to a safe house and works out what she’s found: it’s a weapon controlled by a human consciousness that has been trapped in its data core for thousands of years and harbors a grudge against the society it left. Alice names the data core Gunn. As she’s pursued by parties that want to use Gunn for evil, she searches for a means to set the consciousness free. The impressive worldbuilding, replete with myriad references to Alice in Wonderland, could easily sustain a much longer adventure. Readers are sure to be sucked in. (June)

Reviewed on 04/26/2024 | Details & Permalink