Author: Liberty Hardy

Listen up, book nerds! This is a delightful dive into the section at the back of books where you can find things: the index! From the thirteenth century to present day, Duncan presents way more history about this unsung resource than you ever imagined possible. If you love books about books like I love books about books, then you’re going to love this. It’s an epic nerdpurr!

Backlist bump: The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time by Keith Houston

And this is a powerful YA novel about a young woman in Ghana who steps in to help her family when her mother has a miscarriage. Amerley sacrifices a lot to take a job working for one of her mother’s old school friends, a man whose status is much higher than that of Amerley’s family. When the man’s son rapes her, she must decide if she will speak up. It’s a hard novel to read at times, but it’s important for young people to know that they are not alone and that they have a voice. (CW for miscarriage, physical and sexual assault, and classism.)

Backlist bump: All the Rage by Courtney Summers

And last, but not least, the first entry in a new adult fantasy series! This is influenced by Scottish folktales, and is about two childhood enemies who band together to discover why young girls are going missing from their clan. Jack and Adaira are in their twenties now and willing to put their differences aside to solve the mystery. This book has magic, adventure, and some sexy times. I also really enjoyed the side characters Torin and Sidra. (CW for violence, physical harm, kidnapping, miscarriage, loss of child, and loss of parent.)

Backlist bump: The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec

Holy cats! Or more like unholy rabbits! This was not something I knew I needed until I found out it existed. I fell in love with the middle grade novel version of this by James and Deborah Howe when I was a kid, and have read it and the sequels a few times since. (If you’ve never read Bunnicula, you should do it right now. I’ll wait here.)

The illustrations in this book are so adorable, and this version adds a more playful feel to the story. It’s about the Monroe family and their pets, Harold the dog and Chester the cat. Harold and Chester are perfectly happy with the way things are, but then the Monroes bring home a toothy bunny and things start to get weird. Someone is draining the vegetables in the fridge, and Harold and Chester suspect Bunnicula, who sleeps all day, just like a vampire. The duo are determined to clue the Monroes in on their new furry fanged friend’s habits and restore order to the home—and the fridge.

It’s really fun to see all the characters as you read the story. I loved Bunnicula’s pointy Bela Lugosi hairstyle. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for anything Bunnicula. I bought the fuzzy 40th anniversary edition, and hope to one day see the television series. And I will forever be sad that Deborah Howe died just before Bunnicula was originally released, so she never got to see just how many millions of us love it to pieces. 💔

This is an excellent debut YA novel, and an important one. It’s about three young Black Muslim women who strike up a friendship after a terrorist attack causes more anti-Muslim sentiments. When one of them starts an online journal, You Truly Assumed, to voice her frustrations at the racism and violence directed at Muslims, she meets two more young Muslim women. Together they work to educate, to find a safe community, and to push back against the hate.

Backlist bump: A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi

And who doesn’t want an excellent, creepy, middle grade horror-mystery book??? (*Chandler Bing voice* Could I use any more adjectives?) I would have been first in line for this one when I was a kid. When James and his family move from Texas to Oregon, he has no idea what to expect. But receiving threatening letters from ‘The Keeper’ looking for ‘young blood’ was certainly not something he’d ever imagined. Now James must find out who is behind the scary letters before he becomes another of his neighborhood’s missing children. Sound creepy? Well, hold on to your butts, because it’s based on a TRUE STORY. 😳

Backlist bump: The Forgotten Girl by India Hill Brown

Kat Sanchez is living the perfect life on Instagram. She’s 21, beautiful, and has tons of friends. But it’s all a lie. Kat is actually a 17-year-old bisexual high school student living what she feels is an uneventful existence in California. She is using stolen photos to portray her fabulous online life. Then she meets Elena online, and their friendship turns into IRL texting. Kat doesn’t want to ruin what they have by telling Elena the truth about who she is. But it looks like she’ll have no choice when the actual person in her Instagram photos finds out Kat is impersonating her. This is a great YA novel about authenticity and the pressures of online life.

Backlist bump: Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado

Holy cats, I don’t even know where to start with this book. It’s set in two versions of New Orleans. One is a city where the dead walk the earth (and drive taxis), and ghosts appear out of thin air to serenade the citizens. There’s also graffiti that hangs in the air, trolleys that drive across the sky, and a young girl with superhuman strength. Basically, this version is full of magic and spirits.

In this version, young Perilous Graves and his sister, Brendy, discover only they can help save their city from a wraith who has stolen nine songs and loosed evil on the city. They will discover their own powers, passed down in their family, as they help the girl across the street save the day.

BUT WAIT. There’s more. There’s a whole other story involving a trans man named Casey, and his artist cousin Jaylon. They live in the version of New Orleans that we know, except some of the other New Orleans is starting to bleed through. And it’s up to Casey to figure it all out if he wants to see Jaylon again.

This book is chock full of music, mayhem, ghosts, and imagination! I thought it was fantastic. That said, I do feel like it’s wildly ambitious, almost to a fault. Readers are thrown into the “other” city with no explanation of the way things work, and it’s a bit disorienting at first. There is so much going on in this novel, and dozens of characters to keep track of, but if you put in the work, you’ll find it’s a rewarding ride. (CW for violence, death, and racism.)

Give yourself a thrill this week with this fun novel by veteran mystery author Lisa Lutz! (I can’t believe it has been 15 years since The Spellman Files came out.) This standalone stars BFFs Owen and Luna. For years, people have wondered if they were really just friends, even after Owen gets married. But there are secrets keeping them together. An unexplained death during college, and now the murder of Owen’s wife. Did one of them kill her? And who is going to spill their long-buried secrets first? (CW for violence and murder.)

Backlist bump: The Passenger by Lisa Lutz

And if you have heard us raving about June Hur here at Book Riot and still haven’t picked up one of her books, now is the time to fix that! She writes wildly compelling YA historical mysteries! This one is set in Joseon, Korea, in 1758. Eighteen-year-old Hyeon is a palace nurse working to make a name for herself to win her father’s approval. But when someone murders four women on palace grounds, and Hyeon’s mentor is suspected, she must work with a young police inspector to uncover the truth. (CW for sexism, violence, and murder.)

Backlist bump: Silence of Bones by June Hur

Who likes high fantasy??? *raises hands and feet* *falls down* Then you definitely need to add Braffet’s Barrier Lands series to your TBR! This is the sequel, so I won’t give anything away, but I will tell you that the first one is about an orphaned girl who discovers she has a hidden power. These have magic, they have danger, they have royalty! And if that doesn’t do it for you, I’ll tell you that it was Erin Morgenstern’s favorite book of 2020! Braffet’s novels before this are excellent, and I could not have been more excited when she turned her attention to fantasy.

Backlist bump: The Unwilling by Kelly Braffet

From the author of Rock, Paper, Scissors comes this wild homage to And Then There Were None! Daisy and her family have reunited for Nana’s 80th birthday party. It’s held at Nan’s secluded island estate, where the high tide cuts them off from the mainland for eight hours a day. Which is bad, because there’s also a murderer at the party…

Daisy and her family have not always gotten along, but they have put their differences aside for Nana. But unfortunately, Nana is found dead at the stroke of midnight. An hour later, another family member dies. And another, and another… Who is behind the killings and who will be left when the causeway is clear in the morning?

That’s all I can tell you about this book, because the less you know, the better. But I will just say “HOLY CATS, THIS WAS BANANAPANTS.” It’s super creepy and really fun, and also unpredictable, which is always something I appreciate in a thriller. So many of them are so easy to figure out. Pick Daisy Darker up in August and let the games begin! (CW for violence and murder.)

This is slice-of-life story about Joan, an Asian American doctor who thinks she has her life under control. She fulfilled her Chinese immigrant parents’ wishes and became a doctor, and she’s very successful. But when her father dies and her mother returns home, it unleashes feelings she’s been keeping inside about her family, her profession, and her place in the world. And then she must deal with the emergence of COVID-19 at the hospital. Joan is Okay is a funny, heartfelt novel about identity, work, and family. I am a big fan of Wang’s writing, it feels very personal, but also quite clinical. I mean that in a good way! It’s very sharp and precise and cold, like it cuts you and you don’t even know it until later. (CW for illness, death of a family member, sexism, and racism.)

Backlist bump: Chemistry by Weike Wang

This is the second book in the Seven Devils duology! I loved the first one. It’s about Eris, the heir to an empire, who fakes her death to escape her family’s legacy. But then she’s recruited to an organization opposed to the empire, the Novantaen Resistance. Her first assignment? Infiltrate a spaceship full of dangerous cargo and report back. But Eris is met with resistance from her own team, as well as faces danger around every corner. Can she manage to complete her mission and deliver the important information before the new heir to the empire destroys the existing one? Secret royalty + badass rebels + space = F-U-N.

Backlist bump: Seven Devils by Laura Lam and Elizabeth May

And this is the final book in Okorafor’s highly acclaimed Nsibidi Scripts YA trilogy. The first book Akata Witch introduces us to Sunny. Sunny is a 12-year-old American girl living in Nigeria. She never feels like she fits in, because she is not from Nigeria and because she has to stay out of the sun, because she has albinism. But things change when Sunny discovers she has magical powers. Suddenly, people are very interested in her. But can she help the other magical students in her area capture the magical criminal plaguing their town? This is an inventive, fun series, which continues with Akata Warrior, which I also loved. I hope to read this last one very soon!

Backlist bump: Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

Nell Young is a cartographer (someone who makes maps) just like her father. They used to work together at a museum until they had a falling out over a map Nell discovered in her father’s office. She thought it was a rare map of great significance, her father said it was nothing. When she continued to pursue her interest in the map, they had a huge fight and she got fired. So Nell has been estranged for years from her father, who raised her after her mother died when she was a baby.

Then she gets the call that her father has died. Shocked, she visits his office and discovers he still has that map hanging around, Without her father around to stop her, Nell digs deeper into the map. What she finds changes everything she knows about her father, and herself. The map leads her to a group of cartographers from decades ago, and a dangerous villain who has been hunting down every copy of the strange map and destroying them—even if it means leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. Determined to discover the map’s origin and find out just where it leads, Nell sets out on an adventure that just might be her last!

I loved this delightful speculative mystery! I think it’s a good comp for people who love the mystery of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. The Cartographers has murder and violence, sure, but it somehow still gives off this wholesome vibe. I was left feeling that the book was really nice, and I was utterly charmed. And the reveals are so fun! (I also recommend reading The Book of M by Peng Shepherd while you wait for this one.) (CW for infidelity, violence, murder, and death of a loved one.)

Get your tissues ready: This is a gorgeous, heart-squeezing story of motherhood, family, and faith, When Harris’s son Tophs starts exhibiting symptoms that alarm her, she takes him to the doctor. This begins a long, anxious journey of tests, and waiting, and more questions than answers. Harris describes what it’s like to be a Black woman trying to get help from the medical field, which is historically more difficult for marginalized communities, as well as her strong faith that helped her as she worried through the unknown. It’s a beautiful story of a mother’s love for her son, and how the ordeal changed her. (CW for child illness and peril, and racism.)

Backlist bump: All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung

Okay, all my little story fans, get excited! Because these are fun, feminist stories of women who have had it. From Cassandra and the Trojans to present day, these brilliant and acerbic tales will have you pumping your first in the air. Kirby has created a blazingly original collection that you will be thinking about long after you turned the final page. It’s wacky and wonderful. (CW for mentions of sexism, violence, and assault.)

Backlist bump: Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado

Obviously, you can already tell from the title that this is a very difficult subject to read about. But it’s also an amazing Erin Brockovich-ish story about criminals of means, the world’s largest sex traffickers, who avoided getting caught for years, and how one prosecutor worked tirelessly with a team to finally bring them to justice. Krell does a great job presenting the facts, the setbacks, and the small victories that led to the final triumphs. It’s a fascinating glimpse into people fighting the good fight. If you like reading about real cases involving lawyers and courtrooms, or like hearing about good defeating evil, this is an engrossing read. (CW for sexual assault and exploitation of children and adults.)

Backlist bump: Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow

And I predict this novel is going to be one of the big sci-fi books of 2022. It’s perfect for fans of The Martian. It’s set in the future and is the story of Mickey, an “expendable”. So here’s the set up: The Earth is coming apart, and now that space travel is possible, humans are seeking new planets to inhabit. But there are always a variety of unknown dangers, so expendables are used as test subjects to make sure the water is drinkable, the air is breathable, etc. And because scientists have figured out a way to duplicate human consciousness, when an expendable dies, a new version of their body is printed and their consciousness is uploaded to the new version.

So Mickey is aboard a space craft that has reached a new planet far in the galaxy. He volunteered to be an expendable to get off Earth for…reasons. When the book opens, he’s the seventh version of himself, and he’s just had a terrible accident away from base. Assumed dead, his coworkers create a new version when they return from their mission. But Mickey7 isn’t dead, and when he gets back to his room, he discovers Mickey8. Ruh roh.

The immediate problem is that the base is run by a man who thinks the expendables go against nature, so they can’t let him know two exist at once, because he’s looking for any reason to cancel the expendable program. If he finds out about them, he’ll destroy them both and delete Mickey’s consciousness for good. But with only 200 people around, as the Mickeys are existing on half rations and trying to hide, plus a potential new threat creeping up on the base, how long can the two Mickeys keep their existence a secret?

This is a fun and funny story about friendship, human existence, and consciousness. Mickey is very snarky and quite clever, and it was a lot of fun to read this Multiplicity-like adventure story in space.

(CW for violence, prolonged death, suicide)

When cartographer Nell Young’s father is murdered, she discovers that an old map he said was worthless, and was the source of their estrangement, is actually something of great importance. Her investigation into the map’s origins leads her on a wild, dangerous adventure. This is perfect for fans of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore!

Natural-born healer Emma Starling returns to her small New Hampshire hometown when her father becomes sick with a mystery illness. There she contends with a missing childhood friend, her brother’s recovery from substance addiction, her parents’ fractured marriage, her father’s ghosts, and so much more. Yes, I know, I talk about this book a lot, but it’s because it’s SO GOOD. This is the new John Irving novel you’ve been waiting for.

Do you like stunning dystopian novels with lots of secrets, continuation of family legacies, science, Arctic settings, plagues, spaceships, love and loss, and talking pigs? Then look no further, because this gorgeous gut-punch of a book will floor you. Seriously, I may never get over reading this book.

And this is one of the most perfect, gorgeous novels I’ve ever read. Leah is on a routine submarine expedition, but when her sub doesn’t resurface, her wife Miri is adrift. But then Leah’s sub finally returns many weeks later without explanation, and the two will never be the same.

And this is for fans of fantastic fantasy! (Say that three times fast.) Inspired by the legend of the Chinese moon goddess, a young girl who grows up on the moon goes on a quest to save her mother from the ruthless Celestial Emperor.

This is a great read for fans of Andy Weir. It’s a darkly humorous story about Mickey, an expendable aboard a spaceship. As an expendable, when there’s a dangerous task to be done, he has to do it. And he dies. A lot. And then a new version of Mickey is created. Unfortunately, due to an error, there are now two of him at once, and it might cost him everything, for good, forever.

It’s about Elizabeth Zott, a young woman working to become a scientist in the sexist world of academia in 1960s California. Eventually, she finds herself a reluctant television star, where she tries to teach other women to become self-reliant and stick it to the patriarchy. (I really loved this book, but I have to admit that I disagree with the light tone of the publisher description. It is dazzling, and funny in places, but there is a lot of trauma in this one.)

And as much as I have enjoyed the novels of Emily St. John Mandel, I think this one might be my favorite! It takes place one hundred years in the past to three hundred years in the future. There’s a young man in the Canadian wilderness, an author on a book tour at the end of the world, a moon colony, and more. It’s so, so amazing. (Heads up that there are minor spoilery characters from The Glass Hotel, but you don’t have to have read it to enjoy this one.)

And true crime fans, mark this one down now! When Rachel Rear was young, her mother remarried. Her stepfather had had a daughter who had gone missing and was presumed dead before he met Rear’s mother, so she only knew her stepsister Stephanie through stories. This is a heart-punching investigation by Rear years later into the mystery of the sister she never knew, and a decades-long unsolved crime.

Do you like beautifully-written novels where you can’t quite figure out what is happening but you are happy to have read them? Then look no further! This is about the interviews with the crew aboard the Six-Thousand Ship. They take on a shipment of unusual cargo and document their feelings about it. I didn’t really understand this book, but by gum, I freaking loved it!

If you knew that detectives would verify what you write in your online dating profile, would it change your mind about what you wrote? Would you be less likely to use the service? That’s a question I pondered as I enjoyed this excellent novel. Claudia Lin is an amateur sleuth for an online dating agency. When one of her clients goes missing, she disobeys protocol to investigate on her own. But what she discovers is a lot more sinister than she expected.

An incredibly moving dystopian middle grade novel about a future where a select group of humans are sent into space to start over. A young girl whose family is aboard the ship is the only one who remembers the past, and must fight a sinister faction who hijacks the ship with their own plans.

This is a complex, fantastic story about historic injustices, racism, the horrors of slavery, and accountability. A young Black woman travels home to the South to attend the wedding of her former best friend. But the event is held on a renovated plantation, and the horrors of its past come back to get justice.

And if you want to read what was probably the most messed up, yet compelling, book I read this year—this is it! A family moves into a seemingly perfect neighborhood on a cul-de-sac, but small misunderstandings, societal assumptions, and past wrongs will expose the rot of the neighborhood, until incidents lead to a violent conclusion.

If you like spy stories and well-written characters, then pick this one up! It’s about a hesitant Russian operative who has become a leader of a Google-like company in Silicon Valley, and an IT worker who stumbles upon her secret and grapples with using the information for her own agenda.

And this is an excellent (and probably not too unrealistic) story of wearable technology. In the near future, a device called a Pilot is implanted in people’s heads to help them multitask. People who get the tech gain status and have advantages, but not everyone can get it, and the controversial device divides the family at the center of the novel.

This is a wildly fun speculative historical novel. It’s a Western, with a bit of magic, about a Chinese American who is conscripted into service for the Central Pacific Railroad after his wife is kidnapped. He travels across the country, meeting an unusual troupe of circus folks along the way, as he blazes a trail of vengeance and bloodshed in his quest to get her back.

In this Highsmith-like mystery, a young woman who works in publishing gets the opportunity to be the assistant to famous author with a secret identity. (Think Elena Ferrante.) When Florence takes the job with the real “Maud Dixon”, their travels lead to disaster and unearthed secrets, giving Florence the chance to become someone else.

And this is a fantastic story collection, full of eerie and riveting supernatural stories about fairy tales, urban legends, and scary happenings. If you like Carmen Maria Machado, this should be at the top of your TBR!

A powerful, heart-squeezing story of family and loss, told in two parts: a family’s time in Thailand, where the son goes missing; and four decades later, when a man claiming to be the missing son reaches out to the family.

A fantastic fantasy novel in which a young girl steals her brother’s prophecy for herself after he dies, and becomes a powerful warrior and leader. This is epic fun!

This was one of the funniest books I read this year and also one of the most heartbreaking. It’s about a young queer woman trying to find her way in life, who lies her way into a job as a receptionist at a Catholic church.

A psychiatrist aboard a space vessel has trouble connecting with the crew, preferring the company of the ship’s AI. But a storm traps the vessel and soon they will all have to confront their problems and something sinister aboard the ship.

And this is like Firefly meets Mad Max! A reclusive veteran from the losing side of an intergalactic battle agrees to help an insolent teenager, who is also a trained weapon, reach her destination when her ship crashes in the desert.

And this is the story of a detective searching for a serial killer who murders fallen angels. I still don’t think I can do any better than my original take, so here it is again: If you ever wondered what it would be like if Good Omens was mashed up with The Black Stallion, with a dash of Loki, then this is the book for you!

And speaking of Loki: Fans of Circe—and everyone else—will enjoy this retelling of Angrboda of Norse mythology, the powerful witch, mother of monsters, and lover of Loki. Why isn’t this book on every end of the year list? Everyone I know who has read it has loved it!

This is another of my favorite short story collections of the year. These are gritty gut punches about criminal elements, with sharp humor throughout, set in the West. I love books that feel like they’re ruining my life when I read them, and this is one I find myself thinking about again and again.

And last, but not least, this fun, heartwarming story about a young boy who is worried about his family’s future when his father’s dreams of owning a successful food truck fail. When he and his friends make a remarkable discovery under the bridges of Pittsburgh, it just might change his luck.