The Bruising of Qilwa

Naseem Jamnia

“I loved this gorgeous book about blood magic, chosen family and refugees in a hostile city. Naseem Jamnia has created a rich, complex world.”—Charlie Jane Anders, author of All the Birds in the Sky[STARRED REVIEW] “A delight to read. Highly recommended.”—Library JournalIn this intricate debut fantasy introducing a queernormative Persian-inspired world, a nonbinary refugee practitioner of blood magic discovers a strange disease that causes political rifts in their new homeland. Persian-American author Naseem Jamnia has crafted a gripping narrative with a moving, nuanced exploration of immigration, gender, healing, and family. Powerful and fascinating, The Bruising of Qilwa is the newest arrival in the era of fantasy classics such as the Broken Earth Trilogy, The Four Profound Weaves, and Who Fears Death.Firuz-e Jafari is fortunate enough to have immigrated to the Free Democratic City-State of Qilwa, fleeing the slaughter of other traditional Sassanian blood magic practitioners in their homeland. Despite the status of refugees in their new home, Firuz has a good job at a free healing clinic in Qilwa, working with Kofi, a kindly new employer, and mentoring Afsoneh, a troubled orphan refugee with powerful magic.But Firuz and Kofi have discovered a terrible new disease which leaves mysterious bruises on its victims. The illness is spreading quickly through Qilwa, and there are dangerous accusations of ineptly performed blood magic. In order to survive, Firuz must break a deadly cycle of prejudice, untangle sociopolitical constraints, and find a fresh start for their both their blood and found family.

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The Twenty Days of Turin

Giorgio De Maria

In the spare wing of a church-run sanatorium, some zealous youths create "the Library," a space where lonely citizens can read one another’s personal diaries and connect with like-minded souls in "dialogues across the ether." But when their scribblings devolve into the ugliest confessions of the macabre, the Library’s users learn too late that a malicious force has consumed their privacy and their sanity. As the city of Turin suffers a twenty-day "phenomenon of collective psychosis" culminating in nightly massacres that hundreds of witnesses cannot explain, the Library is shut down and erased from history. That is, until a lonely salaryman decides to investigate these mysterious events, which the citizenry of Turin fear to mention. Inevitably drawn into the city’s occult netherworld, he unearths the stuff of modern nightmares: what’s shared can never be unshared. An allegory inspired by the grisly neo-fascist campaigns of its day, The Twenty Days of Turin has enjoyed a fervent cult following in Italy for forty years. Now, in a fretful new age of "lone-wolf" terrorism fueled by social media, we can find uncanny resonances in Giorgio De Maria’s vision of mass fear: a mute, palpitating dread that seeps into every moment of daily existence. With its stunning anticipation of the Internet—and the apocalyptic repercussions of oversharing—this bleak, prescient story is more disturbingly pertinent than ever. Brilliantly translated into English for the first time by Ramon Glazov, The Twenty Days of Turin establishes De Maria’s place among the literary ranks of Italo Calvino and beside classic horror masters such as Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. Hauntingly imaginative, with visceral prose that chills to the marrow, the novel is an eerily clairvoyant magnum opus, long overdue but ever timely.

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The Last Witch on the Knock

Aimee MacDonald

'Mesmeric from the first page. A twisting, haunting tale.' Lucy Steeds, author of THE ARTIST 'A searing debut' Sunday Times *THE POP CULTURE MOMENTS EVERYONE WILL BE TALKING ABOUT IN 2026* The Knock hill is a carcass unintelligible as any dream. Wouldn't you rather be a witch than a victim? I didn't realise those were my only options. In need of a fresh start, Thomasin leaves her toxic boyfriend, absent father and empty friendships to spend the summer in the Scottish Highlands with her eccentric Aunt Agnes and stern little cousin, Nina. But amidst the sprawling fields and ragged hills thrums a secret that has cursed the land for generations. 300 years earlier, Kate McNiven labours in The Big House by the Knock hill, wishing for a brighter future far away from the lecherous clutches of her master, the Laird. When she is exiled as a witch for refusing to succumb to his advances, Kate finds the escape she so desperately seeks in Thomasin, whose vulnerable body becomes her unwilling host. In the thin place between centuries, through a pulsing wound that bleeds out history, the truth of the past is finally ready to be revealed . . .

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My Name Isn't Paul

Drew Huff

He pretended to be human for seven years. Until he couldn't. He's a traveling salesman named Paul Cattaneo, except he isn't. He's a Mirror Person--a hyper-empathetic eldritch abomination. He found the human Paul Cattaneo's mangled corpse seven years ago and decided to mimic it. It's just what Mirror People do. Mimic. Absorb. Control. But breeding season for Mirror People comes around every seven years, inducing a sociopathic state... and Paul's time is up. Unable to avoid the reality of what he truly is, Paul has a mental breakdown, goes on a cross-country road trip...and runs afoul of something far, far more inhuman and dangerous than himself.A cosmic horror tale like nothing you've ever read before.

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The Summer Hikaru Died, Vol. 7

Mokumokuren

Yoshiki and “Hikaru” learn from Tanaka that the only way to stop impurities from flooding the villages is to close the “holes” letting them through. The catch? Holes can only be closed from the other side―and once a living human crosses over, there’s no way back. With that in mind, “Hikaru” makes a daring proposition: seeing as he isn’t human, he can patch the hole and return using his connection with Yoshiki. Meanwhile, Asako and Tanaka try an entirely different tactic―convincing an impurity to do the job for them!

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