Must-reads for May include the latest from bestselling historian David Grann and romance superstar Emily Henry, plus the long-awaited second novel from Abraham Verghese.
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Nonfiction
Our Migrant Souls is one of the most important pieces of Latino nonfiction in several decades. Turning the last page, you will feel the weight of history on your shoulders.
Abraham Verghese, probably the best doctor-writer since Anton Chekhov, upends all of our expectations again and again in his long awaited follow-up to Cutting for Stone.
David Grann’s narrative nonfiction masterpiece about an 18th-century man-of-war that ran aground in South America reveals humanity at its best and worst, from heroism to cannibalism.
Julia Lee’s piercing discussions of Asian American identity are likely to challenge readers across the ideological spectrum. In fact, she even challenges her own views.
Clarice Lam’s Breaking Bao is a striking collection of thoughtfully crafted baked goods that highlights the inventive pastry chef’s love of Asian flavors.
With remarkable insight and frankness, TV writer and librettist Sarah LaBrie mines her family history of mental illness in her ambitious debut memoir, No One Gets to Fall Apart.
In her new memoir, Lifeform, Jenny Slate beckons readers into her wonderfully idiosyncratic, colorfully kaleidoscopic mind as she recounts her latest adventures with signature whimsy.
Must-reads for May include the latest from bestselling historian David Grann and romance superstar Emily Henry, plus the long-awaited second novel from Abraham Verghese.
Centuries ago, the humans of Lumet banished dragons. But in a ritual gone wrong, shape-shifting thief Arcady accidentally lets the last male dragon back into the world. Trapped in human form while on this side of the Veil, Everen is intent on ripping apart the Veil between worlds so that his people can return, but the dragon finds himself forging a surprising bond with Arcady.
There is such a great balance between romance and fantasy in Dragonfall. How do you envision this evolving as you continue the trilogy? From the beginning, it was always meant to be a pretty equal balance. I absolutely love “romantasy,” as it’s been coined. I decided to try my hand at it because I thought it would be really fun to essentially smuggle a paranormal shifter romance into a fantasy setting with a lot of history and lore and see if I could get away with it. I really love playing with romance tropes, too, so I sprinkled in enemies-to-lovers and made it so the characters are in forced proximity but can’t really physically touch, which resulted in a lot of slow burn. I’m not opposed to it shifting more one direction or the other as I go on; it’ll end up being whatever best serves the story, I expect.
“I’m not good with binaries in general—shades of gray are far more interesting.”
When talking about this book, you’ve mentioned writers like Robin Hobb and Anne McCaffrey, both of whom have created iconic dragons. Were there any fictional dragons that were particularly inspirational to you? I have been wanting to write my own take on dragons for ages, but it took awhile to find my angle (which was apparently making them turn into quite hot not-quite-humanoids, giving them feathers like dinosaurs, and having them reproduce via parthenogenesis and be mostly female due to rising temperatures in a dying world). Dragons are, after all, the ultimate fantasy creature, but I always wanted to know more. In many stories and myths, dragons are the monsters to be slain, or creatures that were in some way fundamentally unknowable. I knew early on that I wanted to tell this story partly from a dragon’s point of view. What would a dragon society be like?
When I was younger, I was very into Patricia C. Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles. As you mentioned, Robin Hobb and Anne McCaffrey have some of my favorite dragons. There are also, of course, the dragons in “Game of Thrones” and “House of the Dragon.” Other big inspirations were Rachel Hartman’s Seraphina and Shadow Scale, which have dragons that turn into humans as well. More recently, I adored ThePriory of the Orange Tree by the incredibly talented Samantha Shannon. I enjoyed Julie Kagawa’s Talon series as well. I’m also inspired by film, and one of my comfort movies is the Russian film I Am Dragon, which has gorgeous fairy-tale aesthetics and a dragon learning how to be human who seemingly never learns to wear a shirt.
What were you reading while you were writing Dragonfall, and in general, how do you approach reading while writing? I see reading and writing as intrinsically linked and believe that part of my job is to read both the classics that came before and the work that’s coming out now. I feel like we’re in a new golden age of fantasy. While drafting Dragonfall, I reread some old favorites such as The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, some Mercedes Lackey and N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season (a big influence on me merrily using first-person direct address for Everen’s point of view). And I read new titles such as Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter, The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri, The Unbroken by C.L. Clark, The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart and more. I also read history, science fiction and nonfiction and listened to audiobooks and podcasts about all sorts of things—writers should always just be magpies and pick up anything shiny, in my opinion.
One of the central plot points in Dragonfall is the Strikes, a disease that gives people black markings on their skin and interferes with their ability to use magic. What were your inspirations for this disease and for how your society responded to it? I was inspired by the Black Death, which had several resurgences, and by how the radical reduction in population shifted medieval society. The peasant class changed, feudalism’s days were numbered and you had more people moving from the country to the cities, particularly London. I also really liked the idea of there being such a heavy cost to using too much magic. However, I wrote most of the book during the U.K.’s various COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, so that inevitably had an impact, intentionally or otherwise.
As a reader, rather than a writer, do you gravitate toward stories where who the “good guys” are depends on where you’re standing, or ones with a consistent villain? Why? As a reader, I’ve always found unambiguously good or evil characters a little boring, I have to say. I’m not good with binaries in general—shades of gray are far more interesting. I love antagonists who believe they are the hero or who are doing things that aren’t necessarily evil. I also love a good corruption or redemption arc. Antagonists in stories can exist to remind you that, under the right circumstances, you could very well turn into a villain yourself. Or other people might make you a villain in their minds, even if it’s not necessarily rooted in your actions, because it’s an easier narrative to tell themselves. In the right light, a hero could make a terrible decision in the name of “the greater good.” The greater good doesn’t mean much to the people who suffer the actual negative consequences of that decision. It’s rarely as simple as the Chosen One versus the Dark Lord or good always triumphing over evil.
“All art is political, even if it chooses to uphold the status quo.”
What appealed to you about creating a signed lingua franca like Trade? I always wondered why sign language isn’t taught by default in schools. It would make society a lot more accessible for deaf people, and it would have so many other useful applications. In a world where there was a more standardized sign language dialect, you could at least communicate basic things across language divides. Inevitably, things would be lost in translation or nuance would be lost, but you’d have an easier starting point. So I imagined that Trade arose as a result of needing to haggle at markets, though it can also be used for things as innocuous as telling your friend what drink to order from the other side of a crowded tavern or as important as clarifying your gender.
Your magic system is one where language can directly alter the world, and that idea harmonizes beautifully with the nuanced ways you handled gender and status. Is that a connection you see as well? What was important or meaningful to you about exploring the power of language? I had a reader message me asking if I was a linguist because of the choices I made in Dragonfall, which delighted me. I’m not, but I made a lot of deliberate decisions about how language functions in Lochian society, so this is a nice excuse to geek out about it a little. Humans recite spells, which are really mangled words of the dragons’ language, Celenian. (This greatly offends Everen the dragon.) I worked with a linguist, my friend Seumas MacDonald, who created Celenian as a working language, and we’ll keep developing it over the series. Language can be such a tool of power, as Babel by R.F. Kuang demonstrates so beautifully. Humans already stole dragons’ magic and their world. Stealing their language to wield that magic without even remembering what their ancestors did is salt in the wound.
In Loc, it’s considered rude to assume a stranger’s gender, no matter how they present. A percentage of society can shape-shift, and healing magic can change a fair amount about the body, so biology isn’t seen as something immutable and unchanging, and gender roles are likewise fluid. You therefore default to “they” until that person quickly flashes their gender in Trade, often not even breaking the conversation. It’s a sign of trust and familiarity, like when you switch from the formal to informal “you” in languages like French and Spanish.
Status is also important. If you really respect someone or they’re higher class than you, you capitalize They and there’s a certain inflection to spoken speech. So nobility, clergy, rich merchants or guilders, or those who teach at the university might all be referred to with that honorific. You see it playing out in characters’ attitudes as well: One of the characters, priest assassin Sorin, uses They for most people she meets because she sees everyone as higher status than her, whereas Arcady, a genderfluid thief who despises a lot of the nobility and rages against society’s unfairness, largely refuses to use that honorific for the rich.
If you had a choice of dropping into this world, would you choose to be a human or a dragon? Oh, dead easy. No contest. Why be human when you could be a dragon? And fly?
How do you balance aspiration and escapism with social critique in your work? When I’m teaching, I ask new writers to consider this, too. I sigh a bit when people complain about “politics in their fantasy” as if it’s something new. All art is political, even if it chooses to uphold the status quo. In epic fantasy, there’s often a strong pro-monarchy angle, for example, and gender roles can be regressive in the name of “historical accuracy” despite these medieval-inspired worlds having things like potatoes and, you know, magical creatures. Those are political decisions, technically. That said, you don’t want to have a diatribe, either. It can be a difficult balance, and no writer will get it right for every reader. Fantasy can defamiliarize elements of our world or society, but it does it at more of a distance than contemporary fiction. The mirror is distorted.
For Dragonfall, I tried to focus on story and character first. As I mentioned, in Loc there’s no judgment in regard to sexuality or gender, whereas another country, Jask, is patriarchal. I suppose it is still subversive to imagine a world that tolerant, even in fantasy. I wrote Dragonfall as an escape when I was stuck inside most of the time. We’re seeing rising threats to transgender and reproductive rights, and the rhetoric and vitriol is honestly quite frightening, both in my original home of the U.S. and my current home in the U.K. This book is launching when queer books are increasingly getting banned. Even saying this in this interview makes me a little anxious. Are people going to say I’m banging on about politics instead of just focusing on the book? But I can’t exactly separate them out.
I obviously hope readers enjoy meeting these characters and falling into the world of the Lumet, but perhaps the book will make them think, too.
The start of a new series, Dragonfall is an enemies-to-lovers romance between a sexy dragon and a clever thief.
Some fans of Martha Wells’ Murderbot series may not realize that long before she wrote of wormholes and space battles, Wells was already an established fantasy writer. The complex and thoughtful Witch King is her return to the genre, a product of a master world builder with a flair for creating sweeping stories and lush settings.
The demon prince Kai-Enna has been assassinated, his body imprisoned in a watery grave. His friend, the witch Ziede Daiayahah, has been put into an enchanted sleep nearby. Unfortunately for Kai’s assassins, however, demons are difficult to kill, and after Kai frees himself and Ziede, he is determined to uncover who was behind his attempted murder—and why they came after him in the first place.
To make matters more complicated, Ziede’s wife, Tahren Stargard, and Tahren’s brother, Dahin, have also gone missing. Tahren and Dahin are Blessed, a powerful race of beings that can often have magical powers and immortality. Tahren, one such Immortal Blessed, forsook her people’s alliance with the Hierarchs, an imperialist force that once almost conquered the world. Tahren is a key symbol for the continued cooperation among mortals, witches, demons and the Immortal Blessed; her disappearance could jeopardize the precarious peace established after the defeat of the Hierarchs. As Kai and his allies investigate, they are forced to revisit the wounds they incurred during the revolution, and they discover how their past deeds have impacted the present—and possibly the future—of their world.
Kai’s environment is brilliantly layered, not just full of the requisite political intrigue, well-choreographed battles and world-shattering magic that mark a good epic fantasy, but also stuffed with lore from multiple cultures. Within this framework, Wells asks readers to sit with something that is underrepresented in mainstream fantasy: the postcolonial period. Many fantasies feature or deconstruct colonialism, and while plenty of these stories depict revolutions to overthrow tyrannical regimes, they don’t often explore the instability and moral uncertainty of what comes next. The brilliance of Witch King is that it captures the feeling of this tentative peace with emotional depth but also has plenty of nail-biting moments of combat and dazzling magic, too.
While its memorable characters and clear stance against authoritarianism are similar, Witch King is no Murderbot. Its prose is more lyrical and complex, less full of punchy one-liners (though there are flashes of the sardonic humor that marks Wells’ other hallmark series). What the two do share, however, is a compelling story that understands humanity at its best and worst—despite being told from the perspective of a robot or a demon.
Martha Wells’ Witch King explores the instability of a post-revolution world, with plenty of nail-biting moments of combat and dazzling magic, too.
After spending several years as one of the reigning queens of science fiction, Martha Wells plunges into a high fantasy world of empires and body-hopping demons with Witch King. Centuries ago, someone killed the powerful demon Kai-Enna and trapped his consciousness in a magical prison. When a foolish mage tries to take his powers, Kai breaks out of his prison, takes over the mage’s body and sets out to get his revenge and see what has become of the world in his absence.
For the past few years, you’ve been working in the realm of sci-fi, giving readers the glorious Murderbot Diaries. What drew you back to fantasy, and especially fantasy of this scale?
I’ve always loved fantasy, and there have been a large number of original, innovative fantasy novels coming out in the last several years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I did a lot of reading and also started to watch a lot of international TV shows, such as Chinese and Korean fantasy dramas. This was all a big inspiration, and I started to play with fantasy ideas again. I had writer’s block for the first six months or so of the pandemic, and I realized I needed a change to shake me out of it, so I decided to run with some of those ideas. Witch King is my pandemic book, basically.
“SF and fantasy don’t have to stay within narrow boundaries or conform to past norms to find readers.”
Your take on demons is really unique. What drew you to telling a story with a demon as a main character, and why did you set them up as these body borrowers?
That was really the idea that first sparked the book. I wanted to write a non-human character again, in a fantasy context, someone who would be an outsider to the human cultures they interact with but who would be functionally immortal, and be able to observe and participate in a long swath of history. I wanted the demons to have powers that were potentially terrible to humans, and the idea of being able to take over a dead or living body worked with the idea of how the Saredi and the demons became allies through Kai’s grandmother. The first scene was something I had in mind for a long time but just never had a story to go with it.
The idea of the Saredi bargain—having a demon carry out the legacy of a dead human by taking over their body—is really beautiful. Can you talk a little about the evolution of this idea?
I wanted the Saredi clans and the demons to be closely related, to be old enemies who had come to an agreement that evolved into an almost symbiotic relationship. I also wanted that relationship to seem normal to the Saredi (and the reader) but strange and terrible to an outsider who had only heard rumors about it. I wanted it to be very much open to misinterpretation.
Witch King shows a revolution in flashbacks, but the main thrust of the story is set generations later. Did you always have these two storylines in mind, or did one inspire the other?
I don’t really think of it as a revolution; the characters are repelling a colonial invasion. Originally the flashbacks weren’t going to be as prominent, but once I started, I realized the story of meeting Bashasa and the escape and destruction of the Summer Halls was really important to understanding what was happening to Kai in the book’s present day. It was also a lot of fun to write.
Kai’s past relationships—with the members of the Saredi tribe; with Bashasa; and with Tahren, Ziede and Dahin—are important but also very clearly only seasons within a very long life. Were there any other significant moments or people from his past that ended up on the cutting room floor but that you wish you’d found a place for?
Not really. I did want to write more about Ziede and Tahren and Kai’s present-day family, how it evolved, and show the reader more of those characters, but it didn’t fit into the storyline. Hopefully I can have room for that in a future book.
Questions about the legacy of extractive colonization and imperialism are an undercurrent in your recent works. The Murderbot Diaries critique colonization, whereas Witch King goes one step further and asks us to think about the process of decolonization. What interests you about this topic, and why do you think you keep returning to it in your fiction?
I think the Murderbot Diaries focus more on corporate greed and control over the economy than colonization. But I think colonization is something I keep coming back to because I live in the United States; we’re surrounded by its legacies. The present is an overlay of the past, and all those conflicts and injustices are still very visible in everyday life.
You are very intentional when it comes to people’s clothing and the nuances of fashion. Where did the inspiration for the clothes in Witch King come from?
I looked at a lot of historical sources, especially ancient South Asia, ancient Egypt and ancient Syria, as well as fantasy versions of historical sources. I wanted the different cultures to have their own styles but also reflect how they had been trading and borrowing from one another for a long period of their history.
Is there a particular ensemble that’s a favorite of yours?
My favorite is probably the Arike coat; I’d really like to have one in real life.
How has the world of SFF changed since you published your first book?
It’s changed a lot. I think the publishing world has finally realized that diverse voices, international voices and different cultural or original ways of telling stories are what the reading audience wants. SF and fantasy don’t have to stay within narrow boundaries or conform to past norms to find readers. The books and authors showing up on the award lists every year are proof of that.
Photo of Martha Wells by Lisa Blaschke.
In Witch King, the beloved author of the Murderbot Diaries introduces another snarky hero for readers to adore.
If you want to know what kind of book Liz Kerin’s Night’s Edge is, look no further than the first paragraph: “It’s two in the morning. The fridge is empty. And Mom is dead on the couch.” How much terror would that provoke in a 10-year-old girl? Especially when she subsequently sees her mom’s eyes shoot open? Vampire tales often center on passed-down trauma, and Liz Kerin’s gruesome, tense and heartfelt novel takes this concept to its very limit.
After her mother’s resurrection, Mia’s life takes a very dramatic turn. Izzy has been infected with Saratov’s syndrome, which makes her stronger than a normal human, sensitive to light and reliant on human blood. The world has only recently discovered the existence of Saras, as they’re known, and it isn’t friendly to people like Izzy. She and Mia eventually settle in Tucson, Arizona, where Izzy runs a bar (she only goes in at night) and drinks only the now 20-something Mia’s blood. But Mia worries that Izzy has gotten back in touch with Devon, the underground activist for Sara rights who turned Izzy. When Mia meets a girl she really likes, she finds herself at a crossroads. Can she leave Izzy behind? Would Izzy let her leave? And if she wouldn’t . . . what would she do to keep Mia at home?
Kerin’s skill cannot be overemphasized: The physical and psychological pain that Mia and Izzy experience would be nearly unreadable in lesser hands, but Night’s Edge is engrossing throughout. Of course, there is physical pain; blood flows through the pages of this book, as expected of a vampire novel. But the psychological pain hits even harder. Mia’s mental health has been significantly impacted by the things she’s seen her mother do in the name of keeping their family safe. As Izzy and Mia’s relationship fractures, they constantly find new ways to hurt each other—when they aren’t ripping open old wounds. It’s heartbreaking but believable.
A playwright and screenwriter, Kerin knows exactly when to start a chapter, when to pick up the pace and when to give the reader a break. Her precise pacing switches from slow and intimate to tense and frenetic without being jarring. Kerin is a master at building memorable moments, and whenever she gets a chance, she cranks up the excitement: Several sequences in which Izzy shows off her Sara powers are downright thrilling, and a particularly tense scene in a hospital is a showstopper. The perpetual dread and clear-eyed insight of Night’s Edge will be haunting readers for years to come.
Liz Kerin’s engrossing and haunting Night’s Edge is a masterful new take on vampire mythology.
Does it matter that your happily ever after is built on a lie? D.L. Soria’s Thief Liar Lady has a clear answer: of course not, especially if the lie will protect the ones you love. According to the stories, Ash Vincent—Lady Aislinn to her husband-to-be, Prince Everett of Solis—defied her stepmother, went to a ball, lost her shoe and snagged the prince. But the stories are to reality as a kitten is to a lion. The complete opposite of a damsel in distress, Ash orchestrated her meet cute with the help of her supposedly dastardly stepmother and a healthy dose of illegal magic. If she can marry Everett, she can use her new position as his wife to improve the lot of her family and to help free the people of the conquered nation of Eloria.
There’s only one problem: Prince Verance, aka Rance, the hostage prince of Eloria and Everett’s best friend. Rance is arrogant, lazy and nosy, a combination that both attracts and distracts Ash even as it threatens her mission. To save her family, Eloria and her own hide, Ash must stay the course, even if it brings her closer to Rance than is strictly comfortable.
Some reimaginings of Cinderella critique the titular character’s meekness and seeming lack of agency. But Thief Liar Lady takes a different tack, portraying femininity and its perceived weaknesses as weapons sharper than steel and just as deadly. Soria’s cunning protagonist wields her fake backstory to affect political change and personal gain, all while appearing wholly unthreatening. This combination of savvy and dedication makes Ash easy to love, even when her methods are neither pure nor kind.
Thief Liar Lady has a compelling plot, but its real beauty is the depth of its characters. Everett is both an idealist and a colonizer whose biases often stand in the way of justice. Rance is neither as lazy nor as heartless as he seems, and members of the Elorian resistance can’t always be trusted to do the right thing.
Soria’s snappy prose and Ash’s quick wit lighten what could have been, in other hands, a rather dark tale. Less “Game of Thrones” and more Throne of Glass, Thief Liar Lady is comforting in its familiarity even as it adds new dimensions to an old tale. Instead of surprising the reader or subverting tropes, Soria instead relies on flawless execution, timing each turn of her tale to perfectly capture the tensions—romantic and otherwise—of Ash’s journey.
Happily ever after is no more than a grift in D.L. Soria’s highly entertaining Thief Liar Lady, which transforms Cinderella into a cunning political operator.
In Lauren J. A. Bear’s take on Greek mythology, the Olympian deities are abusive, banal and acrimonious while mortals, usually women, suffer the consequences for their deadly chicanery. Medusa’s Sisters, Bear’s retelling of the tale of the immortal Stheno and Euryale and their very famous mortal sister, focuses mainly on their youth, spent exploring the contradictions of humankind, and their lives after Medusa’s decapitation.
Three beautiful children of the monstrous gods of the deep sea, Stheno, Euryale and Medusa are fascinated by the mortal world from an early age. During their travels in the human realm, they encounter famed figures such as Semele, the mother of Dionysus, who in Bear’s hands is a Roman candle of a princess, plunging incandescently towards tragedy. Bear also introduces original characters, such as Erastus, a talented singer but poor songwriter, and Ligeia, his wife and creative partner. An instinctive musical genius, Ligeia is trapped by the sexism of her time, which prohibits talented women from publicly upstaging their male peers. In Medusa’s Sisters, men both mortal and divine, laden with fetishes and presumptions, run the table while everyone else saves who and what they can. And through it all, Stheno, Euryale and Medusa try, and fail, to hold true to one another.
Many works, from Dan Simmons’ Ilium to Madeline Miller’s Circe to William Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, have depicted the gods of Homer and Hesiod as pompous assholes. But Bear throws a few wrenches in the gears. Her novel is not as bleak as those aforementioned works; rather, it is a celebration of love in all its complex, contradictory guises. The affection among sisters bound by blood, choice or circumstance often takes center stage, as does maternal compassion, whether embodied by the gracious Leto, mother of twin gods Apollo and Artemis, or the monstrous sea-dragon Echidna. Erastus and Ligeia’s mutual adoration makes his helpless inability to win her the celebration he fervently believes she deserves beautiful instead of just heartbreaking. Despite the brutal tragedy at its heart, Medusa’s Sisters is a tapestry woven of fondnesses, relentlessly seeking the beauty and laughter along the road to the inevitable statuary.
Medusa’s Sisters, like the eponymous immortals themselves, is many things. It is a retelling of an old, old story, but one that conjures an unexpected ending from its familiar source materials. It is gorgeously crafted, with an uncommon lyricism and attention to detail. But most of all, it is simply an exceptional story of the many faces love can wear.
A gorgeously crafted retelling of Greek mythology, Medusa’s Sisters is a celebration of the many faces love can wear.
In their youth, sisters Signy and Oddny and their friend Gunnhild were linked by a prophecy portending great sacrifice and sorrow—but also the potential for great power. The three girls swore themselves to one another after hearing the prophecy, promising to always be there for one another. But their paths diverged after the seer ferried Gunnhild away to train as a witch, allowing her to escape her mother’s constant abuse. Years later, Signy and Oddny’s homestead is attacked and Signy is stolen away by raiders led by a mysterious and vindictive witch, forcing Gunnhild to return to the home she fled so many years ago. From the future king of Norway to one of the very raiders who stole Signy away, Gunnhild and Oddny must befriend unlikely allies in their quest to save their bonded sister and, in the process, confront the prophecy that linked them all those years ago.
Gornichec’s debut novel, The Witch’s Heart, was lyrical and dreamlike, but The Weaver and the Witch Queen is as precise as a needle, threading together a vivid tapestry of the joys and terrors of 10th-century Viking life under the reign of King Harald Fairhair. Gornichec obviously revels in historical accuracy, and never sugarcoats what it meant to live in medieval Northern Europe. From frank depictions of the lot of Viking thralls (people enslaved during raids) to the threat of being married off for political alliances, she doesn’t shy away from the ugly parts of the society that she’s recreated. But despite the less than savory parts of this world, Gornichec’s joy in being able to share it is palpable, suffusing her prose with a wonder befitting a story dripping in ancient magic.
While The Weaver and the Witch Queen includes legendary male figures from Norwegian history such as Harald Fairhair and Eirik Bloodaxe, it focuses on the struggles of women. Eirik and his ilk are certainly interesting characters, but theirs are stories that have largely been told. Gornichec’s novel, rather, is about women in conflict, whether that conflict is with their own mothers, with rival witches or between two best friends. Gornichec exults the cleverness of these women and their power to thrive through their communities and their own strength of will. It’s a saga of blood and magic and hardship that explores what we owe to those we love—and what it costs to actually pay that debt.
Genevieve Gornichec’s sophomore novel, The Weaver and the Witch Queen, is a vivid tapestry of the struggles and triumphs of Viking women, including the legendary Queen Gunnhild.
Our top 10 books for August 2023 include Colson Whitehead's riotous sequel to Harlem Shuffle, Silvia Moreno-Garcia's latest horror novel and an engrossing look at race in Shakespeare’s works.
Remy Lai juxtaposes serious topics with charming humor in Ghost Book, a lushly illustrated folkloric contemporary fantasy that will inspire readers to learn more about
Crook Manifesto more than matches the finely hewn psychological tensions that haunted Colson Whitehead’s main character in Harlem Shuffle. The interplay between context and character
Nicola Dinan’s debut is a vulnerable, moving, riotously funny and deeply honest story about trans life, first love, art-making, friendship, grief and the hard, slow
In Karla’s Choice, author Nick Harkaway ably updates his father’s iconic George Smiley novels while lovingly preserving the tone and mood of the original novels.
Every Last Bite is an accessible, practical cookbook that will be welcomed by anyone looking to rein in their food budget and avoid excess waste and energy usage.
Justene Hill Edwards’ incisive Savings and Trust chronicles the formation and failure of the Freedman’s Bank, and reveals the deep history of the racial wealth gap.
Our top 10 books for August 2023 include Colson Whitehead's riotous sequel to Harlem Shuffle, Silvia Moreno-Garcia's latest horror novel and an engrossing look at race in Shakespeare’s works.
Kissen is a veiga, or godkiller, sanctioned by the Middren government to kill nascent minor deities when they become troublesome. She holds a deep hatred of gods, given that her family, who was favored by the sea god Osidisen, was sacrificed to the rising fire god Hseth. So she’s deeply uneasy when she encounters Inara Craier, a recently orphaned noble girl who is somehow bonded to Skediceth, a minor god of white lies. Inara and Skediceth’s connection is an abomination in a land like Middren, which recently fought a war against and killed most of the gods. Soon, the three are traveling to the city of Blenraden, the only place with shrines powerful enough to potentially break the bond between Inara and Skediceth. Joining them on their quest is Elogast, a baker on a secret mission for the king himself.
In Hannah Kaner’s Godkiller, gods are creatures who feed on human devotion, much like Stephen Eriksen’s fading deities or C.S. Friedman’s symbiotic, emotion-eating Iezu. This symbiosis turns, all too easily, to predation and, eventually, bitter generational enmities between gods and their subjects. Unlike the dizzying political intrigue of Eriksen’s Malazan Book of the Fallen or Friedman’s character-driven Coldfire trilogy, Kaner’s work centers on her divine magic system. Godkiller is not a commentary on religion or free will; rather, it is about what happens when power lies in the hands of entities who simply do not care about the consequences of its use.
By far, the best characters are the gods themselves. Humans in Godkiller tend to be defined by single traits, whether Elogast’s honor, Kissen’s anger or Inara’s resilience. The gods are similarly one-note, but because they are all so deeply focused on their own self-preservation, they possess an amoral selfishness that is consistently interesting. Osidisen’s fury at Hseth seems largely motivated by how she stole his worshippers; Hseth herself simply requires an ever-growing coterie of human thralls to survive, like a fire needs a constant supply of fuel. Even Skediceth, despite his friendship and bond with Inara, views acting in his own best interest as the ultimate moral good.
But archetypes are common in fantasy for a reason: They’re compelling and fun. And there are few things more enjoyable than watching a bruised yet honorable man and a vengeance-seeking assassin escort a young girl and her manipulative, telepathic divinity of a familiar to the forbidden city of the gods. Especially when the world they’re traipsing through is so rich and laden with narrative potential.
In Hannah Kaner’s Godkiller, the world is filled with gods both major and minor, all of whom are as powerful as they are monstrously selfish.
When I reviewed Shelley Parker-Chan’s She Who Became The Sun in 2021, I had no doubt it would top all the best books lists of that year. Some books just have a gravitational pull, each sentence drawing you closer to their core. Parker-Chan’s sequel, He Who Drowned the World, matches and at times exceeds its predecessor; its darker tone, deeper intrigue and visceral set pieces more than live up to the promise of book one. Be warned: No one will be left unscarred in the war for supremacy in northern China, even the reader.
Despite her victories over the Mongol legions, Zhu Chongba, now called the Radiant King, knows the work has only just begun. Though her forces control the southernmost part of the Mongolian territory, she and her people are not safe as long as the Mongolian khan and his armies still threaten from the north. Meanwhile, the traitorous General Ouyang also seeks vengeance against the khan. Can Zhu and Ouyang, two mortal enemies, realize their shared ambitions and work together for a common victory? Perhaps, but unbeknownst to both, a cunning member of the Mongol court is secretly spinning a treacherous web.
She Who Became the Sun had to build up to the multifaceted, continent-crossing thrill ride it became, but He Who Drowned the World starts as a beautiful, brutal ride and never lets up. Military and political intrigue drive the plot forward as characters whiz across the map fighting battles, sneaking into hidden bases, charming pirate kings and so on. A helpful refresher opens the book, and Parker-Chan’s organization and clarity ensures that readers won’t ever lose track of the multiple opposing factions.
The sharpness of each character’s ambitions, the depth of their emotion and the sheer beauty of the writing will grab hold of readers from the very first page. Sentence by sentence, Parker-Chan’s prose is unrivaled in modern fantasy. It’s so consistent in its richness, so precise in its sequencing that even the grimmest of moments become enthralling and vital. Several scenes between Zhu and Ouyang positively crackle with energy, supercharged by Parker-Chan’s writing as these two titans finally see each other for the first time.
The fearless Parker-Chan pulls no punches, repeatedly pushing characters to their limits and beyond. Their motives range from murky to outright despicable as Parker-Chan examines how identity and personal trauma drive ambition. Like flint against steel, characters spark against one another, often producing flames both literal and figurative. This may be the strongest lasting impression He WhoDrowned the World leaves behind: The pain we carry reacts to another’s, and those who master their pain will rule.
He Who Drowned the World, Shelley Parker-Chan’s sequel to She Who Became the Sun, is the most finely crafted fantasy novel of the year.
Inspired in equal parts by action-packed wuxia films (a Chinese genre focused on martial artists) and the classic Chinese novel Water Margin, S.L. Huang’s The Water Outlaws follows a group of heroes struggling to build a place for themselves in an alternative imperial China. Lin Chong, a former arms master who lost her position thanks to a petty and vengeful member of the royal court, is nearly killed en route to a prison camp. She joins forces with a group of outlaws known as the Liangshan Bandits, who have created a refuge for those who are on the wrong side of the law—and the wrong side of gender and power hierarchies. Lin Chong begins to redefine her life alongside poets, progressive thinkers and others rejected by the empire. But their refuge isn’t guaranteed to last forever, and Lin Chong and her new companions must fight in order to preserve their community.
With The Water Outlaws, Huang explores the space between what is good and what is lawful. Despite often claiming to work for the good of the emperor and the empire, Lin Chong and her compatriots do not always (or even usually) stay within the confines of the law. They lie, cheat and even kill to maintain the peace that they have carved out for themselves within a society they see as corrupt. Their cause is just, Lin Chong reminds herself, even if their methods are not always lawful.
The Water Outlaws is above all else a story of femme and queer resistance. In Liangshan, Huang creates an accepting alternative society that celebrates marginalized gender identities, a mirror of the communities that exist in our own world to protect the most vulnerable. That isn’t to say that The Water Outlaws is a gentle story: Its pages are filled with violence against the Liangshan Bandits and also against women like the noble Lu Junyi, one of Lin Chong’s former students who is trying to work within the confines of the empire to enact change. But amid the darkness its characters face, The Water Outlaws captures the wonder and fun of wuxia, complete with epic fight scenes, death-defying feats of martial arts and the occasional bit of actual magic. Huang champions the underdogs, even in the face of the impossible.
S.L. Huang’s The Water Outlaws is a glorious, wuxia-inspired saga of femme and queer resistance in the face of oppression.
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