Forthcoming Titles October: adult edition

The Dead Take the A Train by Richard Kadrey and Cassandra Khaw

release date: 10/03/2023

Julie is a coked-up, burnt-out thirty-year-old whose only retirement plan is dying early. She’s been trying to establish herself in the NYC magic scene, and she’ll work the most gruesome gigs, exorcize the nastiest demons, and make deals with the cruelest gods to claw her way to the top. But nothing can prepare her for the toughest job yet: when her best friend, Sarah, shows up at her door in need of help. Keeping Sarah safe becomes top priority.

Julie is desperate for a quick fix to break the dead-end grind and save her friend. But her power grab sets off a deadly chain of events that puts Sarah – and the entire world – directly in the path of annihilation.

Amber’s why: The main character has the same retirement plan I do! Seriously though, it’s hustle culture meets Cthulhu with a ride-or-die friendship thrown in for good measure. Also, Cassandra Khaw!

Sword Catcher by Cassandra Clare

release date: 10/10/2023

In the vibrant city-state of Castellane, the richest of nobles and the most debauched of criminals have one thing in common: the constant search for wealth, power, and the next hedonistic thrill.

Kel is an orphan, stolen from the life he knew to become the Sword Catcher–the body double of a royal heir, Prince Conor Aurelian. He has been raised alongside the prince, trained in every aspect of combat and statecraft. He and Conor are as close as brothers, but Kel knows that his destiny is to die for Conor. No other future is possible.

Lin Caster is one of the Ashkar, a small community whose members still possess magical abilities. By law, they must live behind walls within the city, but Lin, a physician, ventures out to tend to the sick and dying of Castellane. Despite her skills, she cannot heal her best friend without access to forbidden knowledge.

After a failed assassination attempt brings Lin and Kel together, they are drawn into the web of the mysterious Ragpicker King, the criminal ruler of Castellane’s underworld. He offers them each what they want most; but as they descend into his world of intrigue and shadow, they discover a conspiracy of corruption that reaches from the darkest gutters of Castellane to the highest tower of its palaces. As long-kept secrets begin to unravel, they must ask themselves: Is knowledge worth the price of betrayal? Can forbidden love bring down a kingdom? And will their discoveries plunge their nation into war–and the world into chaos?

Amber’s why: I’m always down for a bit of sword & sorcery, throw in some skullduggery and romance and I’m basically done for.

Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling

release date: 10/10/2023

The city of San Siroco is sinking. The basement of Dr. Tamsin Rivers, the arrogant, selfish head of the research team assigned to find the source of the subsidence, is sinking faster.

As Tamsin grows obsessed with the distorting dimensions of the room at the bottom of the stairs, she finds a door that didn’t exist before – and one night, it opens to reveal an exact physical copy of her. This doppelgänger is sweet and biddable where Tamsin is calculating and cruel. It appears fully, terribly human, passing every test Tamsin can devise. But the longer the double exists, the more Tamsin begins to forget pieces of her life, to lose track of time, to grow terrified of the outside world.

As her employer grows increasingly suspicious, Tamsin must try to hold herself together long enough to figure out what her double wants from her, and just where the mysterious door leads…

Amber’s why:  There’s a room of various dimensions that has a door that doesn’t always exist that opens to a mirror world that is full of doppelgangers with agendas of their own! Yeeesss

The Night House by Jo Nesbø

release date: 10/03/2023

In the wake of his parents’ tragic deaths in a house fire, fourteen-year-old Richard Elauved has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle in the remote, insular town of Ballantyne. Richard quickly earns a reputation as an outcast, and when a classmate named Tom goes missing, everyone suspects the new, angry boy is responsible for his disappearance. No one believes him when he says the telephone booth out by the edge of the woods sucked Tom into the receiver like something out of a horror movie. No one, that is, except Karen, a beguiling fellow outsider who encourages Richard to pursue clues the police refuse to investigate. He traces the number that Tom prank-called from the phone booth to an abandoned house in the Mirror Forest. There he catches a glimpse of a terrifying face in the window. And then the voices begin to whisper in his ear . . .

She’s going to burn. The girl you love is going to burn. There’s nothing you can do about it.

When another classmate disappears, Richard must find a way to prove his innocence–and preserve his sanity–as he grapples with the dark magic that is possessing Ballantyne and pursuing his destruction.

Then again, Richard may not be the most reliable narrator of his own story . . .

Amber’s why: This sounds deliciously creepy. I mean, to be suspected of killing someone you saw a phonebooth eat…

The Pale House Devil by Richard Kadrey

release date: 10/10/2023

Ford and Neuland are paranormal mercenaries–one living, one undead; one of them kills the undead, the other kills the living. When a job goes bad in New York, they head west to wait for the heat to cool down.

There, a young woman named Tilda Rosenbloom hires them on behalf of wealthy landowner, Shepherd Mansfield, to track and kill a demon haunting a mansion in remote northern California.

As Ford and Neuland investigate the creature they uncover a legacy of blood, sacrifice and slavery in the house. Forced to confront a powerful creature unlike anything they’ve faced before, they come to learn that the most frightening monster might not be the one they’re hunting…

Amber’s why: There’s just something appealing about buddy adventures. This one has monsters!

America Fantastica by Tim O’Brien

release date: 10/24/2023

At 11:34 a.m. one Saturday in August 2019, Boyd Halverson strode into Community National Bank in northern California.

“How much is on hand, would you say?” he asked the teller. “I’ll want it all.”

“You’re robbing me?”

“Not you, ” Boyd replied, revealing a Temptation .38 Special.

Angie Bing, the teller, scraped together $81,000.

Boyd stuffed the cash into a paper grocery bag. “I’m sorry about this,” he said, “but I’ll have to ask you to take a ride with me. …”

So begins the adventure of Boyd Halverson–star journalist turned notorious online disinformation troll turned JC Penny manager–and his irrepressible hostage, Angie Bing. Haunted by his past and weary of his present, Boyd has one goal before the authorities catch up with him: settle a score with the man who destroyed his life. By Monday Boyd and Angie reach Mexico; by winter, they are in a lakefront mansion in Minnesota. On their trail are hitmen, jealous lovers, ex-cons, an heiress, a billionaire shipping tycoon, a three-tour veteran of Iraq, and the ghosts of Boyd’s past. Everyone, it seems, except the police.

Amber’s why: He’s a bank robbing kidnapper (or a kidnapping bank robber) and she’s his kidnappee. Everyone is looking for them. Everyone, that is, except the cops. There were a surprising number of movies in the 90s with similar plots.

The Vanishing by Bentley Little 

release date: 10/03/2023

In Beverly Hills, a wealthy CEO goes on a bloody rampage and videotapes the slaughter. He leaves behind a chilling cryptic message…” This is where it begins.“

Miles away, an alarmed mother receives an unsettling letter from her estranged husband, stained with bloody fingerprints.

And all across California, children are becoming affected by a monstrous change–and their parents, by a mounting fear.

Social worker Carrie Daniels and reporter Brian Howells are determined to find the link between these baffling crimes. But they shouldn’t look too deeply into the lives of the victims. It’s quite dark there. And God help them, they won’t like what they find.

Amber’s why: Are the children becoming monsters or are the parents? What’s going on? What’s going on?!

The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch by Melinda Taub

release date: 10/03/2023

In this exuberant retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Lydia Bennet puts pen to paper to relate the real events and aftermath of the classic story. Some facts are well known: Mrs. Bennet suffers from her nerves, Mr. Bennet suffers from Mrs. Bennet, and all five daughters suffer from an estate that is entailed only to male heirs.

But Lydia also suffers from entirely different concerns: her best-loved sister Kitty is really a barn cat; Wickham is every bit as wicked as the world believes him to be, but what else would one expect from a demon? And if Mr. Darcy is uptight about etiquette, that’s nothing compared to his feelings about magic. Most of all, Lydia has yet to learn that for a witch, promises have power . . .

Full of enchantment, intrigue, and boundless magic, The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch, has all the irreverent wit, strength, and romance of Pride and Prejudice–while offering a highly unexpected redemption for the wildest Bennet sister.

Amber’s why: EEEEeeeeeeeEEEEEeeeeeEEeeeeEEEEeeeeeeee! Lydia. Bennet. Is. A. Witch!

After the Forest by Kell Woods

release date: 10/03/2023

Ginger. Honey. Cinnamon. Flour.

Twenty years after the witch in the gingerbread house, Greta and Hans are struggling to get by. Their mother and stepmother are long dead, Hans is deeply in debt from gambling, and the countryside lies in ruin, its people starving in the aftermath of a brutal war.

Greta has a secret, though: the witch’s grimoire, hidden away and whispering in Greta’s ear for the past two decades, and the recipe inside that makes the best gingerbread you’ve ever tasted. As long as she can bake, Greta can keep her small family afloat.

But in a village full of superstition, Greta and her mysteriously addictive gingerbread, not to mention the rumors about her childhood misadventures, is a source of gossip and suspicion.

And now, dark magic is returning to the woods and Greta’s magic–magic she is still trying to understand–may be the only thing that can save her. If it doesn’t kill her first.

Amber’s why: Hansel and Gretel 20 years on. Hans is a degenerate gambler and Greta’s taken to making a mysteriously addictive gingerbread—the recipe for which she found in a book she took from the witch, a book that’s been whispering to her since she was a child… And I love continuations of fairytales!

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

release date: 10/03/2023

I dream sometimes about a house I’ve never seen….

Opal is a lot of things–orphan, high school dropout, full-time cynic and part-time cashier–but above all, she’s determined to find a better life for her younger brother Jasper. One that gets them out of Eden, Kentucky, a town remarkable for only two things: bad luck and E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth century author of The Underland, who disappeared over a hundred years ago.

All she left behind were dark rumors–and her home. Everyone agrees that it’s best to ignore the uncanny mansion and its misanthropic heir, Arthur. Almost everyone, anyway.

I should be scared, but in the dream I don’t hesitate.

Opal has been obsessed with The Underland since she was a child. When she gets the chance to step inside Starling House–and make some extra cash for her brother’s escape fund–she can’t resist.

But sinister forces are digging deeper into the buried secrets of Starling House, and Arthur’s own nightmares have become far too real. As Eden itself seems to be drowning in its own ghosts, Opal realizes that she might finally have found a reason to stick around.

In my dream, I’m home.

And now she’ll have to fight.

Welcome to Starling House: enter, if you dare.

Amber’s why: This is a gothic, haunted house, fantasy featuring a mystery a reclusive 19^th Century author. Of course I want to read it.

Red River Seven by A J Ryan

release date: 10/10/2023

Seven strangers. One mission. Infinite horror.

A man awakes on a boat at sea with no memory of who or where he is. He’s not alone – there are six others, each with a unique set of skills. None of them can remember their names. All of them possess a gun.

When a message appears on the onboard computer – Proceeding to Point A – the group agrees to work together to survive whatever is coming.

But as the boat moves through the mist-shrouded waters, divisions begin to form. Who is directing them and to what purpose? Why can’t they remember anything?

And what are the screams they can hear beyond the mist?

Amber’s why: This sounds like a really, really intense float trip and I’m here for it.

The Queen of Days by Greta Kelly 

release date: 10/24/2023 

For Balthazar and his family of thieves, stealing a statue during the annual celebration of the god Karanis was just a good bit of fun…or a way to stick it to the governor who murdered his parents. And yeah, the small fortune in reward doesn’t hurt–even if his boss also hired the mysterious Queen of Days to join the crew as “the weapon of last resort…”

Whatever that means.

But Bal doesn’t know the ceremony isn’t simply empty words and dusty tradition; it’s true magic. The kind of magic that rips open a portal for the god himself. Only the idol that Karanis planned on using for a body now lies broken at the Queen of Days’ feet. And half of it is missing.

With the aid of a lovable brawler, a society lady turned bomb maker, a disgraced soldier, and a time-eating demon, Bal must hunt down the missing half of the statue if he has any hope of earning his money, keeping his crew alive…and perhaps even saving all of humanity. But as his journey sends him racing through the city–and across realities–he discovers that doing all this might just doom the city.

The city be damned. It’s time to kill a god.

Amber’s why: There are heists in this book! Heists in a magical world! There’s a family of thieves and a ragtag group of mismatched allies! The main character’s name is Balthazar! Balthazar does heists! With his family! Possibly with his friends! Heists!

Phantom by Helen Power

release date: 10/10/2023

Would you sell your hand for a million dollars?

Regan “Roz” Osbourne is broke. Her ex-boyfriend won’t take no for an answer, and no one is taking her art work seriously. So when a mysterious stranger offers her a million dollars and safety from her unstable ex in exchange for her left hand, she can’t afford to refuse.

Immediately following the amputation, she’s racked with insufferable phantom limb pain. Desperate for relief, she enrolls in an experimental drug trial. But this drug has a peculiar side effect–she develops a psychic connection to her missing limb. She soon discovers that Chicago’s long-dormant Phantom Strangler is now wearing her hand and is using it . . . to kill.

Amber’s why: When I was in college I told a professor, in all sincerity, that I would cut off my own hand in order to avoid retaking his class, Symbolic Logic, which I was very close to failing at the time. Now I would want more than not having to retake that awful class, and a million dollars is technically more, and I have debts… Just saying, I get it. I get it.

1. Woohoo! ↩︎