Sponsored by TorDotComPublishing (@TorDotComPub).
Andrea Hairston’s award-winning alternate history adventure transports readers to turn-of-the-20th-century America, where diverse audiences hunker together in dark theatres to marvel at flickering images. Redwood, an African American woman, and Aidan, a Seminole Irish man, journey from haunted Georgia swampland to a “city-of-the-future” Chicago. They’re gifted performers and hoodoo conjurors, struggling to call up the wondrous world they imagine, on stage and screen, and in wounded hearts. The power of hoodoo is the power of the community that believes in its capacities to heal. Their search for a place to be who they want is an exhilarating, painful, magical adventure.
Happy Tuesday, shipmates! It’s Alex, and I’ve got some fresh new releases, coming in hot for this very first day of February. I hope you all had a lovely weekend–I spent an absolutely embarrassing amount of time playing video games while I listened to audiobooks, but dang it was some relaxation I needed. Stay safe out there, space pirates, and I’ll see you on Friday!
Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: NDN Collective and Jane’s Due Process
New Releases
Note: The new release lists I have access to weren’t as diverse as I would have liked this week.
This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi
Alizeh appears to be an unimportant and disposable servant–but she is the long-lost heir to a Jinn kingdom, hiding in plain sight for her own safety in the kingdom of a human. The crown prince, Kamran, already worries about the prophecies of his king’s death… but little does he suspect that a servant girl in his own house will be at the center of the coming storm.
The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson
Chelsea Martin is a housewife in an outwardly perfect marriage that is in fact a nightmare of domestic abuse perpetrated by her husband David. When a strange condition of unknown origin sweeps across the nation, causing anyone infected to explode into fits of animalistic rage and attack anyone nearby, Chelsea sees in it the opportunity to save herself and her daughter from the monster that’s been living with them all along.
Star Wars: The High Republic: Midnight Horizon by Daniel José Older
The Republic believes that it’s finally got the Nihil marauders beaten… until they seem to attack the Galactic Core itself, causing destruction on Corellia. Jedi Masters Cohmac Vitus and Kantam Sy and their Padawans are sent to investigate, though none of them are in the best mental place to be doing so, dealing with the after effect of months of danger and trauma. What they uncover shows the attack is not a lone incident, but part of a greater design aimed right at the Jedi.
Azura Ghost by Essa Hanson
Caiden has spent the last ten years constantly on the run, keeping his Graven ship, the Azura, out of the hands of Threi. His life has almost become a routine… until his childhood friend he’s long believed was dead reappears, and lures him into a far more deadly game of keep-away with Threi’s sister, Abriss. If he wants to survive and fly free, his will have to unlock the Azura’s full power… and confront his own origins.
Hunt the Stars by Jess Mihalik
Octavia “Tavi” Zarola is the dedicated leader of a crew of bounty hunters, a found family she’ll do anything to keep together. Strapped for cash and at the end of her rope, she’s forced to take a job from her sworn enemy, a ruthless former general named Torran Fletcher. But with the amount of money on offer, it comes with a big catch–Torran and his own crew are going to be joining up with Tavi. As sparks fly between Tavi and Torran, they also uncover a plot that threatens the delicate peace between the humans and the alien Valoffs.
Make sure to get your own Read Harder Book Journal from Book Riot to track your reading for the year!
News and Views
An uplifting pandemic drama? How Station Eleven pulled off the impossible
Can science fiction wake us up to our climate reality?
An official biography of Sir Terry Pratchett is coming
And so is season 2 of Good Omens
Cora Buhlert’s roundup of indie speculative fiction for January 2022
Eric Schwitzgebel recommend five sci fi books that go deep into philosophy
How LeVar Burton Landed Whoopi Goldberg Her Role on Star Trek
JMS did a commentary video on the Babylon 5 episode “The Coming of Shadows”
Dungeons & Dragons & Novels: Revisiting The Halfling’s Gem
Welsh town to retell tale of how it built Star Wars‘ Millennium Falcon
Doctor Who fans find hidden Scots “Easter egg” in released scripts from the latest series
On Book Riot
8 of the Best Queer Space Opera Books
Toil and Trouble: 8 Bewitching Books About Magic Schools
You can enter to win a copy of The Supervillain’s Guide to Being a Fat Kid by Matt Wallace
Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!
See you, space pirates. If you’d like to know more about my secret plans to dominate the seas and skies, you can catch me over at my personal site.