The Secret World of Briar Rose

Cindy Pham

A lush and immersive queer “Sleeping Beauty” retelling about escapism, grief, and dreaming of a better world, as imagined by YouTube star Cindy Pham100 years have passed since the last heir of Gyldan fell into eternal slumber and doomed the once-mighty kingdom into poverty and invasion. At least, that’s what the fairy tales claim. Corin is a jaded thief who doesn’t believe in fables, even when she searches Gyldan’s underground tunnels to find her younger sister, Elly, who ran away to find the sleeping princess in hopes of a better life. Corin's conviction is challenged when she discovers the ruins of the ancient castle, maintained by beings from the kingdom's golden age, who protect a hidden portal into princess Amelia's subconscious. Following Elly’s voice, Corin jumps in the portal and seals the entry behind her.Inside the lush world of Amelia's dreams, the sisters reunite for a new adventure as they meet Briar Rose, Amelia’s whimsical alter ego, and Malicine, a sharp-tongued demon with a gift for magic. But as they explore ice castles, sunflower mazes, and star-filled oceans, Corin suspects Briar Rose is hiding darker secrets behind her "perfect" paradise – and that there are some things their subconscious can’t bury forever.

set status

The Exorcism of Faeries (Morbid Realities, #1)

J L Vampa

From the #1 bestselling author of Autumn of the Grimoire, J.L. Vampa, comes a brand new dark academia romance in the vein of Ninth House meets If We Were Villains and Nocticadia. She is the daughter of morticians, studying Botany at Trinity College, Dublin. He is her Morbid Anatomy professor. And the Fae are possessing the good people of Dublin. Only Atta and Professor Murdoch can exorcize the fae, but can they fight their forbidden feelings for one another in the process? It is said they are but lore. It is said they are but demons. It is said this is but a plague. Wayward spirits. Ghosts. Spectres. Ghouls. The truth beckons Tick flick tick The clock keeps time with the candle Until they all get sick Wax slides down the gilded stick And the Fae invade with bramble --------------------------------- Trinity College, Dublin 5th November, 1993 He always reads standing in front of the shelf, one hand shoved in his pocket until it’s time to flip the page. It’s the first thing I noticed about him, while I was supposed to be studying. Instead, I watched him move from shelf to shelf and book to book. I had no idea at the time that I would one day meet him and he would change everything. We would change everything. -Excerpt from the diary of Ariatne Morrow, found in the wreckage at Ground Zero

set status

The Knave and the Moon

Rachel Gillig

Rachel Gillig, the queen of gothic romantasy, returns with higher stakes, darker mysteries, and deeper longings in this gorgeous sequel to the #1 New York Times bestselling sensation The Knight and the Moth. Aisling Cathedral is in ruins. Rodrick Myndacious, Bartholomew, and Maude Bauer are rumored to be dead—and the king has taken Sybil Delling as his bride. To show off their union and solidify his power over Traum, Benji proposes a series of tournaments throughout the hamlets. Captive and drugged, Sybil remains determined to vanquish him as she once did the Omens, even if she destroys the kingdom’s faith—and herself—in the process. But then a mysterious knave rises to the top of the tournament lists, a man with no name and no memory who may just be Sybil’s ticket to undoing Benji’s power. For in a land where stories repeat themselves, where a king can prove as cruel as a god, the only way to truly destroy the Stonewater Kingdom’s faith is to save it.

set status

The Vampire: A New History

Nick Groom

An authoritative new history of the vampire, two hundred years after it first appeared on the literary scene Published to mark the bicentenary of John Polidori’s publication of The Vampyre, Nick Groom’s detailed new account illuminates the complex history of the iconic creature. The vampire first came to public prominence in the early eighteenth century, when Enlightenment science collided with Eastern European folklore and apparently verified outbreaks of vampirism, capturing the attention of medical researchers, political commentators, social theorists, theologians, and philosophers. Groom accordingly traces the vampire from its role as a monster embodying humankind’s fears, to that of an unlikely hero for the marginalized and excluded in the twenty-first century. Drawing on literary and artistic representations, as well as medical, forensic, empirical, and sociopolitical perspectives, this rich and eerie history presents the vampire as a strikingly complex being that has been used to express the traumas and contradictions of the human condition.

set status

The Dog Stars

Peter Heller

Hig somehow survived the flu pandemic that killed everyone he knows. Now his wife is gone, his friends are dead, and he lives in the hangar of a small abandoned airport with his dog, Jasper, and a mercurial, gun-toting misanthrope named Bangley. But when a random transmission beams through the radio of his 1956 Cessna, the voice ignites a hope deep inside him that a better life exists outside their tightly controlled perimeter. Risking everything, he flies past his point of no return and follows its static-broken trail, only to find something that is both better and worse than anything he could ever hope for.

set status

Antenora

Dori Lumpkin

Antenora: Dante’s ninth circle of hell reserved for traitors to their country. What really happened to Nora Willet? The religious community of Bethel, Alabama can’t agree on the truth. They always said she was trouble. Later, they said she was possessed. Maybe she lost her mind, killing three people and injuring many others. In a part confessional, part plea for Nora to come home, Nora’s childhood friend Abigail Barnes tells of another girl’s gruesome eighteenth birthday, of the time Nora may have fully revived a snake, of the intimacy of their private encounters at the lakeside, of Nora’s deliverance ceremony. Where, Abigail wonders, is Nora now? In this tender and horrific debut, religious dogmatism sniffs out two girls whose innocent affections threaten an entire town and way of life, making one a traitor to a homeland in which only Abigail and Nora know the bittersweet truth. A homeland in which Nora can only say, “There’s a snake speaking to me, Abby-girl.”

set status

The Knave and the Moon

Rachel Gillig

Rachel Gillig, the queen of gothic romantasy, returns with higher stakes, darker mysteries, and deeper longings in this gorgeous sequel to the #1 New York Times bestselling sensation The Knight and the Moth. Aisling Cathedral is in ruins. Rodrick Myndacious, Bartholomew, and Maude Bauer are rumored to be dead—and the king has taken Sybil Delling as his bride. To show off their union and solidify his power over Traum, Benji proposes a series of tournaments throughout the hamlets. Captive and drugged, Sybil remains determined to vanquish him as she once did the Omens, even if she destroys the kingdom’s faith—and herself—in the process. But then a mysterious knave rises to the top of the tournament lists, a man with no name and no memory who may just be Sybil’s ticket to undoing Benji’s power. For in a land where stories repeat themselves, where a king can prove as cruel as a god, the only way to truly destroy the Stonewater Kingdom’s faith is to save it.

set status

The Hollow Crown of Heaven

Karen Osborne

set status

Bodies of Magic

Freya Marske

Grey’s Anatomy meets A Deadly Education in this dark academia fantasy from USA Today bestselling author Freya Marske. At the Academie of the Grand Duchy of Sieuxerr, every mage with the healer’s gift has five years to master their power and to prepare for the infamous Grand Exam—a five-day trial whose results will determine their entire future. The list of exam rules includes: • You will perform five practical cases. • Your exam group is chosen at random. • You pass together, or fail together. It does not include: • On the first day, your exam group will find a classmate's dead body in the exam hall. And as they will soon discover, this particular group all have something to hide... and all have a connection with the dead girl, a brilliant scholar who would have been first in their class. Five scholars. Five secrets. Five days in which to solve a murder, pass the most important exam of their lives, and uncover a secret larger than all of their own combined. One with the potential to change the world. Are you ready? Let’s begin.

set status