How to Be Eaten

Maria Adelmann

This darkly funny and provocative novel reimagines classic fairy tale characters as modern women in a support group for trauma. In present-day New York City, five women meet in a basement support group to process their traumas. Bernice grapples with the fallout of dating a psychopathic, blue-bearded billionaire. Ruby, once devoured by a wolf, now wears him as a coat. Gretel questions her memory of being held captive in a house made of candy. Ashlee, the winner of a Bachelor-esque dating show, wonders if she really got her promised fairy tale ending. And Raina's love story will shock them all. Though the women start out wary of one another, judging each other’s stories, gradually they begin to realize that they may have more in common than they supposed . . . What really brought them here? What secrets will they reveal? And is it too late for them to rescue each other? Dark, edgy, and wickedly funny, this debut for readers of Carmen Maria Machado, Kristen Arnett, and Kelly Link takes our coziest, most beloved childhood stories, exposes them as anti-feminist nightmares, and transforms them into a new kind of myth for grown-up women.

set status

Daggermouth

H.M. Wolfe

Set in a corrupt surveillance state ruled by the masked elite, this true enemies-to-lovers dystopian romance that’s Conform meets V For Vendetta follows a mercenary who botches the assassination of the president’s son and ends up forced to marry him. The first thing you’ll learn in New Found Haven is that mercy doesn’t exist. The second thing is that, from the highest glass atrium in the Heart to the windowless slums of the Boundary, the Veyra are always watching. The last lesson is the hardest, but you must remember it: Love outside of your ring is a death sentence. The city is carved into rings of privilege and poverty, ruled by the masked elite who will do whatever it takes to hold onto power. Obedience is demanded. Rebellion is crushed. Greyson Serel has spent his life caught between two worlds. Publicly, he’s the flawless heir to the presidency. Privately, he’s entangled in secrets that could topple the regime. But when he’s forced into a political marriage meant to bind him tighter to the government’s brutal laws, he finds himself shackled to a bride as lethal as she is unwilling. Shadera Kael is a mercenary raised to kill, not to wed. Yet when her bullet misses its mark, survival leaves her tied to the very man she was sent to eliminate. Trapped inside the corrupt heart of the city, she becomes both prisoner and wife, her every step watched, her every move tested. Their union is no love story—it’s a battlefield. As secrets come to light and betrayals fester within the walls of power, Greyson and Shadera must decide between annihilating each other or burning the city to the ground together. In a world where passion has consequences and loyalty is paid for in blood, their forced bond may be the spark that ignites a revolution. Or the fire that consumes them both.

set status

The Queen of Nothing

Holly Black

He will be the destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne. Power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold on to. Jude learned that lesson when she released her control over the wicked king, Cardan, in exchange for immeasurable power. Now, as the exiled mortal Queen of Faerie, Jude is left reeling from Cardan's betrayal. She bides her time, determined to reclaim everything he took from her. Opportunity arrives in the form of her deceptive twin sister, Taryn, whose mortal life is in peril. Jude must risk venturing back into the treacherous Faerie Court, and confront her lingering feelings for Cardan, if she wishes to save her sister. But Elfhame is not as she left it. War is brewing. As Jude slips deep within enemy lines, she becomes ensnared in the conflict's bloody politics. And when a terrible curse is unleashed, panic spreads throughout the land, forcing her to choose between her ambition and her humanity.... From #1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black comes the highly anticipated and jaw-dropping finale to the Folk of the Air series.

set status

Vengeful

Victoria Schwab

Magneto and Professor X. Superman and Lex Luthor. Victor Vale and Eli Ever. Sydney and Serena Clarke. Great partnerships, now soured on the vine. But Marcella Riggins needs no one. Flush from her brush with death, she’s finally gained the control she’s always sought—and will use her new-found power to bring the city of Merit to its knees. She’ll do whatever it takes, collecting her own sidekicks, and leveraging the two most infamous EOs, Victor Vale and Eli Ever, against each other. With Marcella's rise, new enmities create opportunity--and the stage of Merit City will once again be set for a final, terrible reckoning. A super-powered collision of extraordinary minds and vengeful intentions—#1 New York Times bestselling author V. E. Schwab returns with the thrilling follow-up to Vicious.

set status

The Raven Scholar

Antonia Hodgson

From an electrifying new voice in epic fantasy comes The Raven Scholar, a masterfully woven and playfully inventive tale of imperial intrigue, cutthroat competition, and one scholar’s quest to uncover the truth. Let us fly now to the empire of Orrun, where after twenty-four years of peace, Bersun the Brusque must end his reign. In the dizzying heat of mid-summer, seven contenders compete to replace him. They are exceptional warriors, thinkers, strategists—the best of the best. Then one of them is murdered. It falls to Neema Kraa, the emperor’s brilliant, idiosyncratic High Scholar, to find the killer before the trials end. To do so, she must untangle a web of deadly secrets that stretches back generations, all while competing against six warriors with their own dark histories and fierce ambitions. Neema believes she is alone. But we are here to help; all she has to do is let us in. If she succeeds, she will win the throne. If she fails, death awaits her. But we won’t let that happen. We are the Raven, and we are magnificent.

set status

Airplane Mode: An Irreverent History of Travel

Shahnaz Habib

A playful personal and cultural history of travel from a postcolonial, person-of-color perspective, Airplane Mode asks: what does it mean to be a joyous traveler when we live in the ruins of colonialism, capitalism and climate change? For Shahnaz Habib, an Indian Muslim woman, travel has always been a complicated pleasure. Yet, journeys at home and abroad have profoundly shaped her life. In this inquiring and surprising debut, Habib traces a history of travel from pilgrimages to empires to safaris, taking on colonialist modes of thinking about travel and asking who gets to travel and who gets to write about it. Threaded through the book are inviting and playful analyses of obvious and not-so-obvious travel artifacts: passports, carousels, bougainvilleas, guidebooks, expressways, the idea of wanderlust. Together, they tell a subversive history of travel as a Euro-American mode of consumerism—but as any traveler knows, travel is more than that. As an immigrant whose loved ones live across continents, Habib takes a deeply curious and joyful look at a troubled and beloved activity.

set status

Airplane Mode: An Irreverent History of Travel

Shahnaz Habib

A playful personal and cultural history of travel from a postcolonial, person-of-color perspective, Airplane Mode asks: what does it mean to be a joyous traveler when we live in the ruins of colonialism, capitalism and climate change? For Shahnaz Habib, an Indian Muslim woman, travel has always been a complicated pleasure. Yet, journeys at home and abroad have profoundly shaped her life. In this inquiring and surprising debut, Habib traces a history of travel from pilgrimages to empires to safaris, taking on colonialist modes of thinking about travel and asking who gets to travel and who gets to write about it. Threaded through the book are inviting and playful analyses of obvious and not-so-obvious travel artifacts: passports, carousels, bougainvilleas, guidebooks, expressways, the idea of wanderlust. Together, they tell a subversive history of travel as a Euro-American mode of consumerism—but as any traveler knows, travel is more than that. As an immigrant whose loved ones live across continents, Habib takes a deeply curious and joyful look at a troubled and beloved activity.

set status

Dragon Prince

Melanie Rawn

When Rohan became the new prince of the Desert, ruler of the kingdom granted to his family for as long as the Long Sands spewed fire, he took the crown with two goals in mind. First and foremost, he sought to bring permanent peace to his world of divided princedoms. And, in a land where dragon-slaying was a proof of manhood, Rohan was the sole champion of the dragons, fighting desperately to preserve the last remaining lords of the sky and with them a secret which might be the salvation of his people.... Sioned, the Sunrunner witch who was fated by Fire to be Rohan’s bride, had mastered the magic of sunlight and moonglow, catching hints of a yet to be formed pattern which could irrevocably affect the destinies of Sunrunners and ordinary mortals alike. Yet caught in the machinations of the Lady of Goddess Keep, and of Prince Rohan and his sworn enemy, the treacherously cunning High Prince, could Sioned alter this crucial pattern to protect her lord from the menace of a war that threatened to set the land ablaze?

set status

Dragonflight (Dragonriders of Pern, #1)

Anne McCaffrey

How can one girls save an entire world? To the nobles who live in Benden Weyr, Lessa is nothing but a ragged kitchen girl. For most of her life she has survived by serving those who betrayed her father and took over his lands. Now the time has come for Lessa to shed her disguise-and take back her stolen birthright. But everything changes when she meets a Queen dragon. The bond they share will be deep and last forever. It will protect them when, for the first time in centuries, Lessa's world is threatened by Thread, an evil substance that falls like rain and destroys everything it touches. Dragons and their Riders once protected the planet from Thread and the blood-red star, but there are very few of them left these days. Only the gigantic, golden Queen can breed new dragons. And the Queen is fading... dying... Now brave Lessa must risk her life, and the life of her beloved dragon, to save her beautiful world...

set status

Arrows of the Queen (Heralds of Valdemar, #1)

Mercedes Lackey

Follows the adventures of Talia as she trains to become a Herald of Valdemar in the first book in the classic epic fantasy Arrows trilogy Chosen by the Companion Rolan, a mystical horse-like being with powers beyond imagining, Talia, once a runaway, has now become a trainee Herald, destined to become one of the Queen's own elite guard. For Talia has certain awakening talents of the mind that only a Companion like Rolan can truly sense. But as Talia struggles to master her unique abilities, time is running out. For conspiracy is brewing in Valdemar, a deadly treason that could destroy Queen and kingdom. Opposed by unknown enemies capable of both diabolical magic and treacherous assassination, the Queen must turn to Talia and the Heralds for aid in protecting the realm and insuring the future of the Queen's heir, a child already in danger of becoming bespelled by the Queen's own foes.

set status

The Land Where Lemons Grow

Helena Attlee

The Land Where Lemons Grow uses the colourful past of six different kinds of Italian citrus to tell an unexpected history of Italy, from the arrival of citrons in 2nd century Calabria, through Arab domination of Sicily in the 9th century, to slow food and cutting-edge genetic research in the 21st. Along the way Helena Attlee traces the uses of citrus essential oils in the perfume industry and describes the extraction of precious bergamot oil; the history of marmalade and its production in Sicily; the extraordinary harvest of 'Diamante' citrons by Jewish citron merchants in Calabria; the primitive violence of the Battle of Oranges, when the streets in Ivrea run with juice. She reveals the earliest manifestations of the Mafia among the lemon gardens outside Palermo, and traces the ongoing links between organised crime and the citrus industry. By combining insight into the country's cultural, political and economic history with travel writing, horticulture and art, Helena Atlee gives the reader a unique view of Italy.Helena Attlee is the author of four books about Italian gardens, and others on the cultural history of gardens around the world. Helena is a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund and has worked in Italy for nearly 30 years.

set status

The Familiar

Leigh Bardugo

A historical fantasy set during the Spanish Golden Age In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to better the family's social position. What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain's king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England's heretic queen—and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain the king's favor. Determined to seize this one chance to better her fortunes, Luzia plunges into a world of seers and alchemists, holy men and hucksters, where the line between magic, science, and fraud is never certain. But as her notoriety grows, so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisition's wrath. She will have to use every bit of her wit and will to survive—even if that means enlisting the help of Guillén Santangel, an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both.

set status