Shapeshifting Spies, Witch Academies, and Other New Releases

The city of Ora is a place surveilled by Anima, an extrasensory human who monitors everything that happens in its streets and buildings via a living network. This network is Anima’s entire world, but æ take comfort in keeping ær city safe. One day, a stranger comes to Ora, one who brings knowledge of many other cities throughout the world, and Anima begins to wonder at ær purpose… and if æ can keep the city truly safe.

At the age of eleven, Mel and Sarah became best friends. Ten years later, Sarah’s sudden death leaves Mel unmoored. She heads to Morgan’s Gap, a small town in the Appalachian Mountains, to fulfill one last promise. There, in the deep story of Sarah’s family, Mel finds mystery, magic, and healing for herself… but whatever caused Sarah’s death might be coming for her now.

Rora uses her shapeshifting magic to act as a spy for the king, hiding her nature and magic as much as she can. But when a magical plague begins to burn through the kingdom, she discovers her best friend Prince Finley is one of its victims, and if she wants to save his life, she must travel back to the wilderness where she was born in search of stardust.

Frances is a seamstress in turn of the century New York City. Still reeling from the recent death of her brother, her life takes a dramatic turn for the worst when a man attacks her… and ends up dead at her feet with her scissors in his neck. But before she can be condemned, she’s spirited away to Haxahaven Sanitarium under the claim she is deathly ill… and discovers it is, in fact, a school for witches. But Frances has no interest in the small, safe magics of Haxahaven, and the power in her is great enough to attract the attention of those who would perhaps use her… or perhaps help her find justice.

Jade Daniels is a half-Indian outcast in the town of Proofrock who finds solace in the face of an absent mother and an abusive father in horror movies. She narrates her own life and that of the town like they’re the protagonists in those films… until the blood begins to spill in reality and she has to use her genre savvy and knowledge to survive. (Yes, this novel is technically horror, but let me tell you how freaking amazing The Only Good Indians is, too.)