This was just such a cute graphic novel and so well done for its age range. It addresses some serious and important things well and was just simply a delight to read.
Squire by Nadia Shammas, (List Price: $14.99, Quill Tree Books, 9780062945846, March 2022)
Reviewed by Hannah Rose Summers, Main Street Reads in Summerville, South Carolina
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This #ownvoices novel rips the reader out of their world into the Yoruba-Nigerian world of Sloane. A recently drafted child soldier of the Lucis, who destroyed and still destroy people like her, ones that have powers from the gods, a Scion. Sloane is put through brutal test after brutal test all while trying to find out what happened to her mother who disappeared two years before and survive the bloodbath that is basic training. While this novel isn’t for the weak of heart, it’s perfect for anyone who loved A Song of Wraiths and Shadows and Children of Blood and Bone. The debut novel is nonstop action and punch after punch, perfect for readers who don’t like any slow parts in their reads.
Blood Scion by Deborah Falaye, (List Price: $18.99, HarperTeen, 9780062954046, March 2022)
Reviewed by Katlin Kerrison, Story on the Square in McDonough, Georgia
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Olivia Prior has grown up in an orphanage, unable to speak, the only one able to see the ghouls around her. Her mother’s journal is her only link to her unknown past, until she gets a letter from an uncle she didn’t know she had, summoning her to her family home, Gallant — a place her mother had warned her against in her journal, even as her words spiraled into madness. But Olivia longs for a place to belong, and so she goes. It turns out, though, that Gallant is more than just a house. When Olivia crosses the crumbling garden wall, she finds herself in a shadow Gallant, ruled by death, and she has to decide which world she really belongs in. Schwab has a way of telling stories that really gets to the root of the story — yes, this is a story about family and loss, life and death, a doorway between them, and a girl who can live in both worlds, but Schwab makes it so much more, breathing life and meaning into everything Olivia is and does and wants to be. A beautiful book for fans of Holly Black and Neil Gaiman..
Gallant by V. E. Schwab, (List Price: $18.99, Greenwillow Books, 9780062835772, March 2022)
Reviewed by Melissa Oates, Fiction Addiction in Greenville, South Carolina
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Only A Monster uses my favorite type of time travel device (the fixed timeline) to craft an incredible tale spanning decades and centuries. I felt like I was right alongside Joan, trying to unravel the mysteries of the monster world. The idea of these sort of monsters moving throughout our world is a fascinating, if terrifying, one, and I was immediately intrigued. I wasn’t sold on the story right away, but the monster mystery was enough to keep me hooked until I really fell in love with the story itself. The world feels well-developed and larger than Joan and Aaron and our protagonists, and you get a distinct sense that a lot is going on in the “normal” world, while we see only a small fraction where we’ve chosen to focus our lens. Only A Monster is both heartbreaking and spellbinding, leaving you breathless for a happy ending. Will you get one? Only time will tell!
Only a Monster by Vanessa Len, (List Price: $18.99, HarperTeen, 9780063024649, February 2022)
Reviewed by Kate Wilder, Story on the Square in McDonough, Georgia
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"What I really like about SFF is how it can offer meaningful representation of marginalized identities in a gentler and more cathartic way than realistic contemporary fiction…SFF is really good at is creating types of otherness that don’t exist in the real world. Readers can project aspects of themselves into these characters without having to have the character accurately represent all of our real-life experiences. It helps sidestep that reaction of “oh, that isn’t my experience of my identity.” "–Shelley Parker-Chan (via Locus Magazine)
What booksellers are saying about She Who Became the Sun
About Shelley Parker-Chan
Shelley Parker-Chan is an Australian by way of Malaysia and New Zealand. A 2017 Tiptree Fellow, she is the author of the forthcoming historical fantasy novel She Who Became the Sun. Parker-Chan spent nearly a decade working as a diplomat and international development adviser in Southeast Asia, where she became addicted to epic East Asian historical TV dramas. After a failed search to find English-language book versions of these stories, she decided to write her own. Parker-Chan currently lives in Melbourne, Australia, where she is very grateful to never have to travel by leaky boat ever again.
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Reclaim the Stars is a knockout collection of young adult SFF short stories from voices of the Latin American diaspora. Each story feels personal, powerful & stands strong on its own, but I love the marvelous tapestry this book creates by binding them all up.
Reclaim the Stars by Zoraida Córdovas, (List Price: $19.99, Wednesday Books, 9781250790637, February 2022)
Reviewed by Cristina Russell, Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida
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Anatomy: A Love Story is a dark and deadly tale about just how far you’d go to achieve your dreams in a world designed for you to fail. I fell in love with Hazel and Jack. This was a gothic story of resurrection men and women surgeons in disguise that had me guessing until the last moment.
Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz, (List Price: $18.99, Wednesday Books, 9781250774156, January 2022)
Reviewed by Katlin Kerrison, Story on the Square in McDonough, Georgia
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“Unlike most of my work, Apples turned up in my head whole one day a few years back. I knew exactly where it was headed, how I’d get there, and how I’d wreck the neighborhood on the way there before I ever touched one letter on my keyboard.”–Cathrynne M. Valente (My Favorite Bit)
The newest book by the prolific and much-beloved Catherynne Valente is described as a thriller, a horror story, and a fairy tale. But more detailed descriptions are delibertately lacking. That was intentional: “It has such a massive twist that we’ve worked so hard not to spoil in the lead-up to its release (and reviewers have kindly helped out!)”
The story centers around Sophia, who is a happy housewife with the perfect husband living in a gated community she loves. Until one day she discovers what looks like the tip of a human finger when she is cleaning her house. Suddenly, Sophia’s perfect life seems not quite so perfect.
The conspiracy of silence around the plot and its twists has not prevented a rising chorus of surprised delight from Valente’s readers. Valente has written across multiple genres and formats, including the recently released speculative climate-change graphic novel The Past is Red, which was a recent Read This Next! selection by Southern booksellers. Her work, as an interviewer for Gridmark Magazine notes, includes stories of myth and superheroes, science fiction and fantasy, comedy and horror, and both middle-grade and adult.
“It’s very important to me to always be trying something new,” says Valente, “pushing the edges of my skill level”
What booksellers are saying about Comfort Me With Apples
About Catherynne M. Valente
Catherynne M. Valente is the New York Times bestselling author of over two dozen works of fiction and poetry, including Palimpsest, the Orphan’s Tales series, Deathless, Radiance, and the crowdfunded phenomenon The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (and the four books that followed it). She is the winner of the Andre Norton, Tiptree, Sturgeon, Eugie Foster Memorial, Mythopoeic, Rhysling, Lambda, Locus, and Hugo awards, as well as the Prix Imaginales. Valente has also been a finalist for the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. She lives on an island off the coast of Maine with a small but growing menagerie of beasts, some of which are human.
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Families are hard to live with, even more so when it seems like everything you do tears you apart further. The Ivory Key opens with a family torn asunder, tossed to four separate lives, yet they’re still as connected as ever, and they need each other, even though they refuse to admit it. I loved every single second of this book, but mostly, I loved the realistic nature of every relationship. I loved that the true backbone of this story was a family, that even though the plot was something much greater than them, they were the most important thing. Raman has a gift for storytelling, and it shines brightly from within the pages of The Ivory Key.
The Ivory Key by Akshaya Raman, (List Price: 18.99, Clarion Books, 9780358468332, January 2022
Reviewed by Caitlyn Vanorder, Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, North Carolina
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In this seventh volume in the Wayward Children series, Cora, the resident mermaid of Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, flees the reach of the Drowned Gods of the Moors by transferring to the anti-magical Whitethorn Institute. Seanan McGuire and her Wayward Children can literally take me anywhere; I will gladly open the door and step through every time! I loved learning more about Cora, was as intrigued as always with the new characters introduced and their doors, and I literally gasped at the return of a character. What more can you ask for?
Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire, (List Price: $19.99, Tordotcom, 9781250213624, January 2022)
Reviewed by Megan Bell, Underground Books in Carrollton, Georgia
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Definitely one of the most lyrical stories I’ve read in a while. The base of Chinese mythology provides a rich world full of color and hidden gems of dragons, demons, and powerful immortals, and the author uses all of them with so much fun and grace. I’m surprised to see this is a debut novel with just how much is here, and with how well developed the protagonist–Xingyin–is. Her journey is handled with care and her growth feels natural and genuine, and I appreciate the fact that she never puts down others to make herself feel better, even when it comes to her romantic interest. I’m absolutely hooked on this story and world, and I’m thrilled to see this is the first book in a duology. I’m definitely keeping my eyes open for the sequel!
Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan, (List Price: $27.99, Harper Voyager, 9780063031302, January 2022)
Reviewed by Lia Moore, E. Shaver bookseller in Savannah, Georgia
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This book is exactly everything I’ve been craving from a vampire book. Been starving for, even, because I’ve been digging for at least a year now for a vampire book that scratches every itch the vampire academy series gave me many years ago as a young teen, but one that I can really appreciate as an adult. Isolde and Adrian are the most perfect, incredibly vicious pairing of human and vampire, and those twists and turns of the plot just set them up so well. I love that Isolde is heavyset and muscular and confident in her body and sexuality, while Adrian is just so very aware of the monstrosity of his nature, and does not care that people are scared of him. And the fact that Scarlett does queernorm society so well is just, chefs kiss. I felt so utterly comfortable while reading this book. It might sound strange, but reading King of Battle and Blood felt like coming home. A very bloody, very sexy home, but a home nonetheless.
King of Battle and Blood by Scarlett St. Clair, (List Price: $16.99, Bloom Books, 9781728258416, November 2021)
Reviewed by Caitlyn Vanorder, Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, North Carolina
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Clementine is a dream warden apprentice to her father until two usurpers show up one day and tear her dreams apart. Now her only concern is getting revenge. But when she finds that the men who stole her role have deeper motives that entangle her father and family, she has to tread more carefully than she ever expected. I absolutely loved Dreams Lie Beneath! This is one of those books that even the minor characters are lively, so much so that I found myself more fascinated with them than the main characters! All in all, this will be perfect for any YA fans of magical mystery.
Dreams Lie Beneath by Rebecca Ross, (List Price: Greystone Kids, 9780063015920, November 2021)
Reviewed by Katlin Kerrison, Story on the Square in McDonough, Georgia
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This book is all the things I love about Weymouth’s writing: atmospheric, complex characters, compelling narrative, quietly philosophical. Rowenna is a force and I loved her!
A Rush of Wings by Laura E. Weymouth, (List Price: 18.99, Margaret K. McElderry Books, 9781534493087, November 2021)
Reviewed by Lauren Brown, The Story Shop in Monroe, Georgia
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Briseis is out of the school for the summer. Her moms want her to have fun, but all she wants to do is work with the plants at their family flower shop in Brooklyn. See, Briseis has the ability to make things grow rapidly and from the smallest of plant parts. But when they get word that her biological aunt has died (Briseis is adopted) and has left her a vast estate, they head up to check it out. But not everything is as it seems. This quirky story has a little bit of everything: a secret garden, magic, immortality, Greek mythology… And that’s barely scratching the surface!
This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron, (List Price: 18.99, Bloomsbury YA, 9781547603909, 2021-06-29)
Reviewed by Jennifer Jones, Bookmiser in Marietta, Georgia
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