Happy Friday, shipmates! It’s Alex and…it sure is the last day of March, huh. The linear passage of time. It’ll get you every…time. Anyway, I have a couple of new releases for you, and some mermaid-related recommendations. Also, a gentle reminder if you’re in the U.S.: two weeks until tax day! I won adulting this week by getting mine done, and I wish you all a very May Your Return Be Bigger Than You Expect, with a side of May You Spend It All On Books You Love. Stay safe out there, space pirates, and I’ll see you on Tuesday!
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Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: NDN Collective and Jane’s Due Process.
Bookish Goods
Mermaid Tall Mug With Infuser by GreenlineGlassware
I’m calling this bookish because I don’t know about you, but I love having a cuppa while I read. And I’ve recently gotten a few mugs of this style — tall, with an infuser sized for them — and they are perfect. Also, we’re having a bit of a mermaid theme today anyway! $19
New Releases
Chlorine by Jade Song
Ren Yu lives and breathes swimming and spends all of her time training; if she’s good enough, she’ll get scouted, go to a good school, and finally have the love of her parents and the kindness of her coach. But in her heart of hearts, she dreams of being a mermaid, a beautiful monster that drags humans to their doom and drowns them. And she will do anything to gain that life of freedom, no matter how much blood will end up in the water at the end of it.
Loki’s Ring by Stina Leicht
Gita Chithra is the captain of The Tempest, an intergalactic ship that specializes in missions of retrieval and assistance. But when she gets a distress call from an AI trapped in an artificial, alien-made solar system known as Loki’s Ring, it becomes very personal and far more dangerous. Because that AI, Ri, is one that Gita trained from her inception — and is the closest Gita has to a daughter. With every organic person in Loki’s Ring dead due to a mysterious contagion, Gita needs all the help she can get, even if it means calling in a favor from an old friend.
For a more comprehensive list, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
With Chlorine coming at us, how about some more mermaid books?
Trouble the Waters: Tales From the Deep Blue edited by Sheree Renée Thomas, Pan Morrigan, and Troy L. Wiggins
This is an anthology of short stories connected to the water, its joy and terrors, its saints and beasts and sirens, brought to you by writers from Lagos to Northern Ireland to New Orleans. It includes work by Nalo Hopkinson, Andrea Hairston, Maurice Braoddus, and more!
All the Murmuring Bones by A.G. Slatter
Miren O’Malley’s family made a deal long ago with the mer: they’d give the undersea monsters one of their children each generation, in exchange for safe passage for their ships. But what happens when the family has no more children it’s willing to give? Or when there finally is a child — Miren — and her grandmother sees her as a chance to restore the family’s glory?
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.