Wednesday – time for my usual new releases post! And it’s the third Wednesday of the month (already? wow, time flies!) so we’re looking at the newest fantasy releases. The covers look promising, though the second one feels a little old-timey – like a book that came out in the last century… We’ll find out what’s up! Other new releases of August 2017 can be found by genre right here on Goodreads.
- Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore
Publication date: August 22nd 2017
A magically inspiring tale of a man who is reincarnated through many lifetimes so that he can be with his one true love: Death herself. What if you could live forever—but without your one true love? Reincarnation Blues is the story of a man who has been reincarnated nearly 10,000 times, in search of the secret to immortality so that he can be with his beloved, the incarnation of Death. Neil Gaiman meets Kurt Vonnegut in this darkly whimsical, hilariously profound, and wildly imaginative comedy of the secrets of life and love. Transporting us from ancient India to outer space to Renaissance Italy to the present day, is a journey through time, space, and the human heart. - An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors by Curtis Craddock (The Risen Kingdoms #1)
Publication date: August 29th 2017
A polymath princess and her faithful musketeer must unravel the plot of a thousand-year-old madman in order to save a foreign kingdom from a disastrous civil war. Caelum is an uninhabitable gas giant like Jupiter. High above it are the Risen Kingdoms, occupying flying continents called cratons. Remnants of a shattered world, these vast disks of soaring stone may be a thousand miles across. Suspended by magic, they float in the upper layers of Caelum’s clouds. Born with a deformed hand and utter lack of the family’s blood magic, Isabelle is despised by her cruel father. She is happy to be neglected so she can secretly pursue her illicit passion for math and science. Then, a surprising offer of an arranged royal marriage blows her life wide open and launches her and Jeane-Claude on an adventure that will take them from the Isle des Zephyrs in l’Empire Céleste to the very different Kingdom of Aragoth, where magic deals not with blood, but with mirrors. - The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley
Publication date: August 1st 2017
In 1859, ex-East India Company smuggler Merrick Tremayne is trapped at home in Cornwall after sustaining an injury that almost cost him his leg and something is wrong; a statue moves, his grandfather’s pines explode, and his brother accuses him of madness. When the India Office recruits Merrick for an expedition to fetch quinine—essential for the treatment of malaria—from deep within Peru, he knows it’s a terrible idea. Nearly every able-bodied expeditionary who’s made the attempt has died, and he can barely walk. But Merrick is desperate to escape everything at home, so he sets off, against his better judgment, for a tiny mission colony on the edge of the Amazon where a salt line on the ground separates town from forest. Anyone who crosses is killed by something that watches from the trees, but somewhere beyond the salt are the quinine woods, and the way around is blocked. Surrounded by local stories of lost time, cursed woods, and living rock, Merrick must separate truth from fairytale and find out what befell the last expeditions; why the villagers are forbidden to go into the forest; and what is happening to Raphael, the young priest who seems to have known Merrick’s grandfather, who visited Peru many decades before. The Bedlam Stacks is the story of a profound friendship that grows in a place that seems just this side of magical. - Age of Assassins by R.J. Barker (The Wounded Kingdom #1)
Publication date: August 1st 2017
To catch an assassin, use an assassin… Girton Club-foot, apprentice to the land’s best assassin, still has much to learn about the art of taking lives. But his latest mission tasks him and his master with a far more difficult challenge: to save a life. Someone, or many someones, is trying to kill the heir to the throne, and it is up to Girton and his master to uncover the traitor and prevent the prince’s murder. In a kingdom on the brink of civil war and a castle thick with lies Girton finds friends he never expected, responsibilities he never wanted, and a conspiracy that could destroy an entire kingdom. - Vanity in Dust by Cheryl Low (Crown & Ash #1)
Publication date: August 8th 2017
In the Realm there are whispers. Whispers that the city used to be a different place. That before the Queen ruled there was a sky beyond the clouds and a world beyond their streets. Vaun Dray Fen never knew that world. Born a prince without a purpose in a Realm ruled by lavish indulgence, unrelenting greed, and vicious hierarchy, he never knew a time before the Queen’s dust drugged the city. Everything is poisoned to distract and dull the senses, even the tea and pastries. And yet, after more than a century, his own magic is beginning to wake. The beautiful veneer of the Realm is cracking. Those who would defy the Queen turn their eyes to Vaun, and the dust saturating the Realm. From the carnivorous pixies in the shadows to the wolves in the streets, Vaun thought he knew all the dangers of his city. But when whispers of treason bring down the fury of the Queen, he’ll have to race to save the lives and souls of those he loves.
Hmm, I don’t know about this month’s crop. I like Neil Gaiman and Kurt Vonnegut, but I don’t know about that first book. It sounds a little weird, I’ll wait for a few more reactions and reviews before chucking it onto the do-not-read pile permanently. The second one in the list sounds like it could be interesting, but, for me, the blurb doesn’t really give me a good idea about what the book will be about. I feel like they had so many things to put in there that it became a little unclear, which means it will either be a very big book or a normal book in a quite difficult and complicated setting. I’ll leave that one be for now. The third book doesn’t interest me at all, but the fourth one does sound promising. It sounds like a very male-oriented book, which could be interesting to read! Most fantasy I read is from a female point of view, which start to all look alike after a while. Also, I like that this story is more about friendship than love, because when I first read about the “heir to the throne” I was already rolling my eyes about the typical love story (if the heir had been a princess), but this sounds better! To-read list! As for the fifth book, I’ll wait for the rest of the books in the series to come out, and the general reaction to them.
What do you think of this month’s new fantasy crop?
Happy reading,
Loes M.