Erica Ezeifedi, Associate Editor, is a transplant from Nashville, TN that has settled in the North East. In addition to being a writer, she has worked as a victim advocate and in public libraries, where she has focused on creating safe spaces for queer teens, mentorship, and providing test prep instruction free to students. Outside of work, much of her free time is spent looking for her next great read and planning her next snack.
Find her on Twitter at @Erica_Eze_.
Erica Ezeifedi, Associate Editor, is a transplant from Nashville, TN that has settled in the North East. In addition to being a writer, she has worked as a victim advocate and in public libraries, where she has focused on creating safe spaces for queer teens, mentorship, and providing test prep instruction free to students. Outside of work, much of her free time is spent looking for her next great read and planning her next snack.
Find her on Twitter at @Erica_Eze_.
Book-wise, the year is off to a really interesting start. There are exciting releases coming out in just about every genre, and some very popular and acclaimed authors are finishing out trilogies or otherwise adding to their oeuvre.
This week’s new releases in particular include a new mystery/thriller from mega bestseller Rachel Hawkins (The Storm), and a mystery from debut author Kathleen Boland that has buried treasure and a cautious daughter/eccentric mother duo (Scavengers). For more literary releases, there’s Sara Levine’s unhinged and comedic The Hitch and the kaleidoscopic Brazilian novel There’s No Point in Dying by Francisco Maciel, translated by Bruna Dantas Lobato from the Portuguese.
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Switching gears a bit, Brenna Thummler’s new middle grade mystery, Gumshoe, is desert-set, while Sharon G. Flake’s latest middle grade novel takes place in an elite boarding school in Philly. For the romantasy and comic lovers, there’s the physical iteration of the YA Webtoon hit Love Me to Death: Volume One, and Roshani Chokshi’s novel The Swan’s Daughter: A Possibly Doomed Love Story. For an adult romantasy, there’s Raquel Vasquez Gilliland’s The Magic of Untamed Hearts, the third in her Wild Magic series.
And, just to mix things up a bit and dip out of all the fiction I’ve listed, there’s the nonfiction essay collection Someone Like Me: An Anthology of Non-Fiction by Autistic Writers, edited by Clem Bastow and Jo Case, which dispels stereotypes about Autistic people.
As for the books below, there’s a 17th-century Black queer pirate, forbidden magic, funky little speculative short stories, a South African freedom fighter’s unravelling, and more.
*All access members continue below for more of the best books out this week.*
Is This a Cry for Help? by Emily Austin
The author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, Interesting Facts About Space, and We Could Be Rats is back with another queer literary novel about a messy main character. Darcy is living the dream as a librarian married to her bookbinder wife, complete with an overflowing book collection and two cats. But when she learns about her ex-boyfriend’s death, she spirals. When she returns from medical leave, she is faced with growing anti-DEI protests and book bans. —Danika Ellis
Fire Sword and Sea by Vanessa Riley
From the author of Queen of Exiles and Sister Mother Warrior comes a new historical epic about a legendary seventeenth-century pirate, Jacquotte Delahaye, who made a name for herself before deciding to turn her back on the business when her fellow pirates began participating in the slave trade. —Rachel Brittain
Graceless Heart by Isabel Ibañez
Isabel Ibañez is making her adult debut with this fantasy romance about dangerous magic. In an attempt to save her brother, sculptress Ravenna Maffei enters a dangerous competition. But when her forbidden magic is revealed, she is taken captive by the city’s most powerful family, including its cruel, immortal heir. — Liberty Hardy
We Inherit the Fire by Kagiso Lesego Molope
Kelelo’s mother is a beloved freedom fighter. At least, that’s how she’s at the new school Kelelo starts going to that previously prohibited black students. It’s the late 1980s in South Africa, and apartheid has ravaged the country. It’s also ravaged Kelelo’s mother, Kewame “Dolly” Malaka, who Kelelo has a very different relationship with. At home, Dolly is distant—she struggles to maintain the lifestyle of being a wife to a wealthy businessman and mother to four daughters. No one else knows about the memories that seem to trap her in a loop—she keeps reliving her time in a women’s prison, and what she and her fellow prisoners had to endure. Then there are the more forbidden memories that are starting to resurface.
The Age of Calamities: Stories by Senaa Ahmad
*Mentioned in our best of the month round-up
This short story collection combines elements of speculative fiction, science fiction, fantasy, and horror. It’s perfect if you love the short stories of authors like Karen Russell and Carmen Maria Machado. What’s more, Senaa Ahmad adds historical fiction into the mix. For instance, there is a story about Henry VIII in here, but in this one, Anne Boleyn keeps coming back to life. If you ever imagined hosting a dinner party with Nefertiti, Queen Victoria, John Adams, and Marilyn Monroe, well, that’s in here, too. —Emily Martin
A Vow in Vengeance by Jaclyn Rodriguez
This romantasy debut has everything from deadly tarot to enemies-to-lovers to dangerous allegiances. We have Rune, who has lost everything because of the Immortals. This year, she’s determined to get her get back, so she makes certain she’s chosen to participate in the trek to the Immortal realm humans must make every year. But now she’s got to survive the Forge, the dastardly college for the Immortal druids’ tricky tarot magic. Thing is, our girl Rune has a rare form of magic that makes her both a precious commodity and a target to take out. The only other person with her kind of magic is Prince Draven, who she goes to live with. But the Prince isn’t trustworthy. And his tutelage comes at a cost…
Other Book Riot New Releases Resources:
- All the Books, our weekly new book releases podcast, where Liberty and a cast of co-hosts talk about eight books out that week that we’ve read and loved.
- The New Books Newsletter, where we send you an email of the books out this week that are getting buzz.
- Finally, if you want the real inside scoop on new releases, you have to check out Book Riot’s New Release Index! That’s where I find 90% of new releases, and you can filter by trending books, Rioters’ picks, and even LGBTQ new releases!
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