Women in SF&F Month: Kamilah Cole
Apr
01
2025

Women in SF&F Month officially starts today with a guest post by Kamilah Cole! Her debut novel and the first book in her Divine Traitors trilogy, So Let Them Burn—which she described as being “about sisterhood, chosen ones, dragons, anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, and the aftermath of war” in a post on Goodreads—was a National Indie bestseller for multiple weeks and a nominee for the Goodreads Choice Awards for Young Adult Fantasy. It was recently joined by the conclusion to the series, This Ends in Embers. She also has a romantasy short story in The Secret Romantic’s Book of Magic, coming out this summer, and an adult dark academia novel, An Arcane Inheritance, coming early next year. I’m thrilled she’s here today sharing about her journey to publication with “Let Your Stories Age Like a Fine Wine, Ladies.”

Cover of So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole Cover of This Ends in Embers by Kamilah Cole
Cover Art by Carlos Quevedo
Cover Design by Jenny Kimura

About The Divine Traitors Duology:

Whip-smart and immersive, the bestselling Divine Traitors duology is a Jamaican-inspired fantasy that follows a gods-blessed heroine who’s forced to choose between saving her sister or protecting her homeland—perfect for fans of Iron Widow and The Priory of the Orange Tree. Pitched as a “Jamaican Joan of Arc with dragons,” the first book, So Let Them Burn, came out in January 2024, and the sequel and conclusion, This Ends in Embers, came out in February 2025.

Let Your Stories Age Like a Fine Wine, Ladies

This month, I turn 35.

Five years ago, in November 2020, I sent my first query for the book that would become So Let Them Burn.

Let me set the scene. I was not doing well. I had made that terrifying leap from my late 20s to my early 30s, and what did I have to show for it? I was two years into my dream job—Assistant Publicist at my favorite publisher—but I still lived at home with my parents and I hadn’t made any progress toward my real dream of becoming a published author. I spent the last two years of my 20s in therapy, week after week, lamenting to my therapist that my life had reached a stagnant point and I saw no way forward. It was cost-effective to live with my parents. I had no book I thought worthy of sending to agents. And I was about to age out of the decade of opportunity, where if you didn’t achieve your dreams, you probably never would. The horrors of not being in my 20s!

Suffice to say, that was nonsense.

I sent my first query in November 2020. I signed with my agent in May 2021. So Let Them Burn hit shelves in January 2024. The sequel and finale, This Ends in Embers, came out in February 2025. I moved out of my parents’ house and across the country with my sister. I moved up the ranks at my job, switched publishers, found a position even more suited to my skills. I have two Adult books—An Arcane Inheritance and Untitled Standalone #2—another Young Adult duology—starting with Wicked Endeavors—and a short story in an Adult romantasy anthology—The Secret Romantic’s Book of Magic—all coming up in the next few years.

Basically, my early 30s have been some of the best years of my life, and, based on the opinion of friends in their 40s and 50s, it only gets better from here. There’s a fear in the writing community that if you don’t break in young, if you’re not a “prodigy” or “youthful success story,” then publishing won’t wait for you. I’m here to tell you that’s absolute nonsense. So Let Them Burn is not a book I could have written when I was in my teens or in my twenties.

It’s the story of two teenage sisters who went to war far too young and came back broken in very different ways. It’s the story of what happens when the Chosen One has fulfilled their duty, at age twelve mind you, and is now all powered up with no world to save. It’s the story of living in the shadow of someone else’s brilliance and trying to carve out your own place in the world. It’s about love and resentment, about the arrogance of youth and the politics of adulthood. It’s about anti-colonialism and dragons and girls kissing. It celebrates my Jamaican heritage, something I spent most of my childhood trying to separate myself from in order to assimilate, and it features a demisexual heroine, a sexuality I have only just begun to claim.

It’s the most me duology I’ve ever written, and it was only the start of what I hope will be a very long career across a very long life. This urgency that we, especially as women, feel to accomplish as much as we can as young as we can is a poison that affects us across all industries, reinforced by the ageism of society. Tina Fey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Patricia Arquette explored it in 2016 with the sketch “Last F*ckable Day,” where they noted that the media decided when actresses stopped being hot enough to play love interests and started being old enough to play mothers. Lady Gaga said the same on stage at the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Awards, noting, “The world might consider a woman in her late 30s old for a pop star, which is insane, but I promise you I’m just getting warmed up.”

When I look back at that woman crying in therapy five years ago, I want to reach back, place my hand on her shoulder, and tell her to give herself time to cook, to let her stories age like a fine wine. Half a decade later, with the Divine Traitors duology, she ate. And the best is yet to come.

Photo of Kamilah Cole by Lauren Banner
Photo by Lauren Banner		 Kamilah Cole is a national bestselling, Dragon Award-nominated Jamaican-American author. She worked as a writer and entertainment editor at Bustle for four years, and her nonfiction has appeared in Marie Claire and Seventeen. A graduate of New York University, Kamilah lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she’s usually playing Kingdom Hearts for the hundredth time, quoting early SpongeBob SquarePants episodes, or crying her way through Zuko’s redemption arc in Avatar: The Last Airbender. You can connect with her on social media at @wordsiren or on her website kamilah-cole.com.
Introducing Women in SF&F Month 2025
Mar
31
2025

Women in SF&F Month Banner

This April is the fourteenth annual Women in SF&F Month here at Fantasy Cafe, starting tomorrow! For the last several years, this month has been dedicated to highlighting some of the many women doing wonderful work in fantasy and science fiction, and the site will be featuring guest posts by some of these writers throughout April. There will be new posts appearing Monday–Thursday throughout most of the month, including a book giveaway this week.

As always, guests will be discussing a variety of topics—the inspirations and ideas behind their work, the ways they approach writing, their characters, their worlds, their thoughts on tropes, their experiences as writers, and more. I’m excited to share their essays with you this month!

The Women in SF&F Month Origin Story

In case you are unfamiliar with how April came to be Women in SF&F Month here: It started in 2012, following some discussions about review coverage of books by women and the lack of women blogging about books being suggested for Hugo Awards in fan categories that took place in March. Some of the responses to these—especially the claim that that women weren’t being reviewed and mentioned because there just weren’t that many women reading and writing SFF—made me want to spend a month highlighting women doing work in the genre to show that there are a lot of us, actually.

So I decided to see if I could pull together an April event focusing on women in science fiction and fantasy, and thanks to a great many authors and reviewers who wrote pieces for the event, it happened! I was—and continue to be—astounded by the fantastic guest posts that have been written for this series. And I am so incredibly grateful to everyone who has contributed to it.

If you’ve missed the series before and want to check out some of the previous posts, you can find some brief descriptions and links for the past few years on the following pages:

This Week’s Schedule

I’m looking forward to this year’s Women in SF&F series, which starts tomorrow! There will be guest posts on Tuesday and Wednesday and a science fiction book giveaway on Thursday. This week’s guests and feature are as follows:

Women in SF&F Month 2025 Schedule Graphic

April 1: Kamilah Cole (So Let Them Burn, This Ends in Embers)
April 2: M. H. Ayinde (A Song of Legends Lost, “The Walls of Benin City“)
April 3: Book Giveaway of One Level Down by Mary G. Thompson

The Leaning Pile of Books
Mar
16
2025

The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature in which I highlight books I got over the last week that sound interesting—old or new, bought or received in the mail for review consideration. Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book are included, along with series information and the publisher’s book description.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org, and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

One book showed up in the mail last week, and it looks delightful!

Cover of Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil by Oliver Darkshire

Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil by Oliver Darkshire

Bestselling memoirist Oliver Darkshire’s first novel will be released on May 13 (hardcover, ebook, audiobook).

This cozy fantasy novel complete with footnotes looks charming and fun, and I was rather intrigued by it after looking at the beginning.

 

A hilarious and surprisingly moving cozy fantasy novel from the best-selling author of Once Upon a Tome.

In a tiny farm on the edge of the miserable village of East Grasby, Isabella Nagg is trying to get on with her tiny, miserable existence. Dividing her time between tolerating her feckless husband, caring for the farm’s strange animals, cooking up “scrunge,” and crooning over her treasured pot of basil, Isabella can’t help but think that there might be something more to life. When Mr. Nagg returns home with a spell book purloined from the local wizard, she thinks: what harm could a little magic do?

This debut novel by beloved rare bookseller and memoirist Oliver Darkshire reimagines a heroine of Boccaccio’s Decameron in a delightfully deranged world of talking plants, walking corpses, sentient animals, and shape-shifting sorcerers. As Isabella and her grouchy, cat-like companion set off to save the village from an entrepreneurial villain running a goblin-fruit Ponzi scheme, Darkshire’s tale revels in the ancient books and arcane folklore of a new and original kind of enchantment.

A delightful and entertaining story of self-discovery—as well as fungus, capitalism, and sorcery—Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil is a story for those who can’t help but find magic even in the oddest and most baffling circumstances.

The Leaning Pile of Books
Mar
02
2025

The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature in which I highlight books I got over the last week that sound interesting—old or new, bought or received in the mail for review consideration. Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book are included, along with series information and the publisher’s book description.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org, and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

It’s been a while since one of these posts, both because I missed writing about books received as Christmas presents due to working on other posts and I hadn’t added anything to the TBR that wasn’t already covered in one of those posts until this past week.

But before I get to the new book, here’s what you might have missed since the last one of these posts:

  • Review of The Gods Below (The Hollow Covenant #1) by Andrea Stewart — This is set in a fascinating world that continues to pay the price of a bargain forged between a god and mortal to save their world long ago, but I had some issues with the pacing and the individual characters’ stories were not all that compelling.
  • Favorite Books/Media of 2024 & Year in Review — I shared some highlights from 2024: links to the Women in SF&F Month posts from April and discussion of my favorite books, both those released in 2024 and older books read during the year. (I also gushed a bit about Baldur’s Gate 3 because I still played it a lot in 2024 and just love it so much.)
  • Anticipated 2025 Speculative Fiction Releases — I highlighted some books coming out this year that sound fantastic, including some epic fantasy, fantasy inspired by history and mythology, and more.
  • Review of Mother of Rome by Lauren J. A. Bear — This is a standalone novel that reimagines the legend of Romulus and Remus by telling the story of their mother, Rhea Sylvia, and her cousin Antho. It’s mythical tale with gods and goddesses that’s about love and fighting for it, and it’s what I consider to be a good, solid book: one that I’m glad I read once but am unlikely to read again.

On to the new book arrival!

Cover of The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar

The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar

This novella will be released on March 4 (hardcover, ebook, audiobook read by Gem Carmella). Excerpts from The River Has Roots are available on the Macmillan website and Cosmopolitan.

This is Amal El-Mohtar’s solo novella debut after co-authoring the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award–winning novella This Is How You Lose the Time War with Max Gladstone. She has also won awards for her short fiction, including the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards.

The River Has Roots sounds rather intriguing: a murder ballad/love story featuring sisters and Faerie.

 

AN INDIE NEXT AND LIBRARYREADS PICK!
The River Has Roots is the hugely anticipated solo debut of the New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award winning author Amal El-Mohtar. Follow the river Liss to the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, and meet two sisters who cannot be separated, even in death.

The hardcover edition features beautiful interior illustrations and a foil case stamp.

“Half delicious murder ballad, half beguiling love story.” —Holly Black • “An absolute must-read.” —T. Kingfisher • “Every sentence sings!” —Sarah Beth Durst • “Utterly enchanting.” —Fonda Lee • “A story that outlasts itself.” —Alix E. Harrow • “Truly exquisite.” —Zoraida Córdova • “A beautiful, musical, and loving story.” —Emma Törzs

“Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.”

In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family.

There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees.

But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favor of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters’ bond but also their lives will be at risk…

Review of Mother of Rome by Lauren J. A. Bear
Feb
27
2025
Mother of Rome
by Lauren J. A. Bear
400pp (Hardcover)
My Rating: 7/10
LibraryThing Rating: 4.5/5
Goodreads Rating: 4.39/5
 

As a Bookshop affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Book Description:

A powerful and fierce reimagining of the earliest Roman legend: the twins, Romulus and Remus, mythical founders of history’s greatest empire, and the woman whose sacrifice made it all possible.

The names Romulus and Remus may be immortalized in map and stone and chronicle, but their mother exists only as a preface to her sons’ journey, the princess turned oath-breaking priestess, condemned to death alongside her children.

But she did not die; she survived. And so does her story.

Beautiful, royal, rich: Rhea has it all—until her father loses his kingdom in a treacherous coup, and she is sent to the order of the Vestal Virgins to ensure she will never produce an heir.

Except when mortals scheme, gods laugh.

Rhea becomes pregnant, and human society turns against her. Abandoned, ostracized, and facing the gravest punishment, Rhea forges a dangerous deal with the divine, one that will forever change the trajectory of her life…and her beloved land.

To save her sons and reclaim their birthright, Rhea must summon nature’s mightiest force – a mother’s love – and fight.

All roads may lead to Rome, but they began with Rhea Silvia.

Mother of Rome is Lauren J. A. Bear’s second novel, following less than two years after her debut reimagining the Greek myth of the Gorgons, Medusa’s Sisters. In her sophomore work, the author turns to Roman mythology with a focus on Rhea Silvia’s story, starting before her sons Romulus and Remus were born and ending around the time their legend is just starting to take shape—but in this version, these earlier legendary events are largely set in motion through the combined efforts of Rhea and her cousin Antho, the other main character in this novel. (This is not to say the Roman twins are not legendary themselves: they are still the sons of a god, after all.)

The story’s main setup is familiar, although the author made some changes and added her own touches to further flesh out the characters and relationships. After a brief prologue set a little later, the novel opens shortly before the death of Rhea’s brother, which prompts her grieving father to abdicate the throne to her uncle. Not wanting any potential challenges to the new line of succession, Rhea’s uncle arranges for her to become a Vestal Virgin, and Rhea rebels by secretly losing her virginity to Mars the night before she joins the holy order (though some will later say she was raped, for surely the princess could not have been so wanton as to enter into such a dalliance willingly). Of course, Rhea becomes pregnant, but in this retelling, her story continues after the twins are born. When she is at death’s door, a goddess makes her an offer that would give her a chance to watch over her sons—if she’s willing to sacrifice a part of herself and live an entirely different type of life.

The novel is basically split into two parts with the first 60% focusing on the time between the change in kings and the birth of the twins and the rest covering the next 16 years or so. Although I enjoyed how the story unfolded and resolved, I did think the first part was stronger than the second: it was less rushed, and my favorite relationship in the novel was more prominent.

In addition to being a mythic story, Mother of Rome is a book about love and fighting for it. As indicated through the title and description, this includes motherhood and a woman fighting for her children, but it also includes platonic bonds and romances for both main characters (and Rhea’s is probably not with the character you think it is). But, for me, the best part was Rhea and Antho’s sisterly connection. Though they were separated for most of the book, Rhea would not have made it as far as she did without Antho’s care, support, and discretion.

I appreciated that both women’s viewpoints show how they fight for those they love and discreetly make space for their true selves in spite of the control the new king exercises over their lives, and how they both do this in similar but different ways based on their personalities and backgrounds. Having grown up as the daughter of a king and a woman who famously did not care for propriety and social rules, Rhea is rebellious and outspoken from the start. Patience and persistence do not come naturally to her, though she does learn they are necessary if she wants to survive.

Antho, on the other hand, had parents who sought perfection and always found her lacking even though she was a dutiful, obedient daughter. However, when her father began threatening those she loved—starting with Rhea, who was like a sister to her—she found her inner fierceness and became more willful. She did not abandon all caution and understood the value of patience and planning, but she also took more risks and came to see how she could use assumptions about her goodness and piety to cover her indiscretions. Antho was my favorite of the two characters, and I also appreciated that she and Rhea waited but seized opportunity when it arrived, making them stronger together.

Although I definitely missed the interplay between Rhea and Antho after Rhea’s “death,” I don’t think that is the entire reason I found the last 40% less compelling. The story was never one to delve deeply into detail, but this part not only covered a lengthy time span in fewer pages but also added a few additional viewpoints. I was also a little disappointed that it felt like their relationship was overlooked in the end, but I later realized that it wasn’t in comparison to everything else that happened: it was just that there was a lot to wrap up with a lot of different people, and there wasn’t a lot of time spent on any single interaction.

Mother of Rome is what I consider to be a good, solid book: one that I’m happy to have read once even if it didn’t have the type of depth or beautiful prose that would make it linger in memory. However, I enjoyed the reworking of the legend of Romulus and Remus from the perspectives of two women who preceded them and appreciated how Rhea and Antho handled their struggles and supported one another, even if the pacing was a bit too quick to thoroughly explore the later parts of their stories.

My Rating: 7/10

Where I got my reading copy: ARC from the publisher.

Read an Excerpt from Mother of Rome

Anticipated 2025 Speculative Fiction Releases
Jan
29
2025

Once again, I have scoured the internet for speculative fiction books coming out this year and compiled a list of works I wanted to highlight. After looking through book descriptions, early reviews, and any available excerpts, I’ve put together a list of 17 fantasy and science fiction books coming out in 2025 that sound particularly compelling to me. (Of course, some of these are mainly here due to my having enjoyed other work by the same author!)

As always, this is not a comprehensive list of speculative fiction books being released this year. It’s not even all the books I’m curious about that are scheduled for release in 2025, but it is those that sound most intriguing to me personally. Almost all of these are fantasy since I didn’t find that many science fiction books coming this year that sounded as interesting to me as upcoming releases in that genre (other than the hardcover re-release of Arkady Martine’s Rose/House in March). Given my interests, this list includes epic fantasy, fantasy inspired by history and mythology, dark academia, and fantasy romance, as well as some works promising morally gray characters and political intrigue. I hope that those of you with similar taste find something here that appeals to you as well.

There are other books I’m hoping might end up being 2025 releases, like Laini Taylor’s first novel for adults, the next book in the False Goddess trilogy by Amy Leow, and The Road to Emberlain novellas by Scott Lynch (and, of course, I continue to hope for Winds of Winter, although I think that one’s a lot less likely!). Also, there are a couple of books that are supposed to be released this fall that I’m keeping an eye out for based on what little I know about them so far:

  • The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri, a “standalone novel about a knight and a witch who must change the fate of magic and the world by altering the end of their story, pitched as Green Knight meets THE STARLESS SEA with reincarnation.”
  • An Arcane Inheritance by Kamilah Cole, “a modern-day dark academia speculative fantasy with a twist, perfect for fans of Babel and A Deadly Education.” The rest of the description so far says “Warren University has long stood amongst the ivy elite, built on the bones―and forbidden magic―of its most prized BIPOC students…hiding the rot of a secret society that will do anything to keep their own powers burning bright, no matter the cost to those lost along the way.”

The books I’m excited for that have 2025 release dates and book descriptions are listed below. They are ordered by scheduled publication date, and these are US release dates unless otherwise stated.

Due to the length of this blog post, I’m only showing the first 6 books on the main page. You can click the title of the post or the ‘more…’ link after the sixth book to read the entire article.

Cover images link to Bookshop. As a Bookshop affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Cover of The Desert Talon by Karin Lowachee
The Desert Talon (The Crowns of Ishia #2) by Karin Lowachee
Release Date: February 11

The Mountain Crown, the first book in The Crowns of Ishia trilogy, was one of my favorite 2024 book releases. Though very different from Karin Lowachee’s Warchild Mosaic (my favorite science fiction series), this novella shows the same thought and care that make her such an excellent writer. With its wonderful storytelling and characters that seemed alive, I felt like I was accompanying the latter on their journey, and I’m excited to actually meet Janan in the second book in this trilogy. And, of course, I’m looking forward to more dragons!

 

The exciting sequel to the gunslinging, dragon-riding world of The Mountain Crown

Sephihalé ele Janan sits in a prison cell in the southern island of Mazemoor, dreaming of escape. After months in a provisional prison for fighting for the imperial Kattakans, Janan is sponsored by another refugee who was once a part of his scattered family. Yearning to build a life on his sister’s land with the dragons their people revere, the peace Janan seeks is threatened by a ruthless dragon baron who covets both Janan’s connection to the earth and the battle dragon to which he is covenanted.

The conflict may drive Janan to acts of violence he hoped to leave behind in the war, and bring more death to the land Janan now calls home.

The Desert Talon is a story of two groups of people who, despite a common ancestry, have diverged so far in their beliefs that there appears to be little mutual ground—and the conflict may well start to unravel the burgeoning hopes of a country, and a man, still recovering from the ravages of war.


Cover of The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
Release Date: March 4

This upcoming novel by Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Laila Lalami sounds both deeply disturbing and fascinating in its exploration of technology and surveillance. Set in the near future, it’s about a woman with young children who uses some new technology that is supposed to aid with sleep, resulting in her being detained for a crime she might commit based on an algorithm’s assessment of her dream data.

I’ve had a hard time finding 2025 science fiction releases that really pique my interest, but I’m eagerly anticipating The Dream Hotel after reading some early reviews.

 

From Laila Lalami—the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist and a “maestra of literary fiction” (NPR)—comes a riveting and utterly original novel about one woman’s fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.

Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days.

The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.

Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.


Cover of A Song of Legends Lost by M. H. Ayinde
A Song of Legends Lost (Invoker Trilogy #1) by M. H. Ayinde
Release Date: April 8 (UK); June 3 (US/Canada)

This epic fantasy debut novel by M. H. Ayinde, winner of the 2021 Future Worlds Prize, sounds fantastic in every way. Set in a world inspired by Yoruba, Filipino, and other non-Western cultures, it features a commoner who may have accidentally discovered how to end a thousand-year war when she summons a spirit, an ability that was thought to be limited to the elites who could call forth their ancestors to fight for them.

 

An unforgettable tale of revenge and rebellion unfolds when an inexperienced king implements a doomed plan to end a thousand-year war in this relentlessly gripping epic fantasy debut from a “master storyteller” (Andrea Stewart, author of The Bone Shard Daughter).

“The exhilarating must-read fantasy debut of 2025.” —Tasha Suri, author of The Jasmine Throne

A SONG OF REBELLION. A SONG OF WAR. A SONG OF LEGENDS LOST.

In the Nine Lands, only those of noble blood can summon the spirits of their ancestors to fight in battle. But when Temi, a commoner from the slums, accidentally invokes a powerful spirit, she finds it could hold the key to ending a centuries-long war.

But not everything that can be invoked is an ancestor. And some of the spirits that can be drawn from the ancestral realm are more dangerous than anyone can imagine.

Drawing on multiple pre-colonial cultures, including Yoruba and Filipino, and set in a non-Western-inspired world, A Song of Legends Lost is not just a tale of vengeance but a stunning debut novel of identity and heritage.

“A whirlwind debut of ferocious talent and compulsive storytelling that lifts you up from the first page and never lets go.” —Lavie Tidhar, World Fantasy Award–winning author


Cover of The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
The Raven Scholar (Eternal Path Trilogy #1) by Antonia Hodgson
Release Date: April 15

I love epic fantasy with some good politics and scheming, and the description of The Raven Scholar had me at “imperial intrigue, cutthroat competition, and one scholar’s quest to uncover the truth.” Between hearing this is excellent and reading a bit of the beginning for myself, I’m not even daunted by the size of this chunky novel—just excited to dive into its pages!

 

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.


 

Review of The Floating World by Axie Oh
The Floating World (The Floating World #1) by Axie Oh
Release Date: April 29

I was utterly charmed by The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, Axie Oh’s retelling of the Korean folktale “The Tale of Shim Cheong,” which was one of my favorite books of 2022. I was delighted to discover she has a new young adult fantasy novel that reimagines another Korean legend coming out this year.

The Floating World, which draws some inspiration from the myths of Celestial Maidens as in the folktale “The Woodcutter and the Heavenly Maiden,” will be followed by The Demon and the Light on October 21. Axie Oh described this duology as “if a Final Fantasy boy met a Ghibli heroine” in a post on Instagram.

 

From Axie Oh, the New York Times-bestselling author of The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, Final Fantasy meets Shadow and Bone in this lighthearted romantic fantasy reimagining the Korean legend of Celestial Maidens.

Sunho lives in the Under World, a land of perpetual darkness. An ex-soldier, he can remember little of his life from before two years ago, when he woke up alone with only his name and his sword. Now he does odd-jobs to scrape by, until he comes across the score of a lifetime—a chest of coins for any mercenary who can hunt down a girl who wields silver light.

Meanwhile, far to the east, Ren is a cheerful and spirited acrobat traveling with her adoptive family and performing at villages. But everything changes during one of their festival performances when the village is attacked by a horrific humanlike demon. In a moment of fear and rage, Ren releases a blast of silver light—a power she has kept hidden since childhood—and kills the monster. But her efforts are not in time to prevent her adoptive family from suffering a devastating loss, or to save her beloved uncle from being grievously wounded.

Determined to save him from succumbing to the poisoned wound, Ren sets off over the mountains, where the creature came from—and from where Ren herself fled ten years ago. Her path sets her on a collision course with Sunho, but he doesn’t realize she’s the girl that he—and a hundred other swords-for-hire—is looking for. As the two grow closer through their travels, they come to realize that their pasts—and destinies—are far more entwined than either of them could have imagined…


Cover of The Sun Blessed Prince by Lindsey Byrd
The Sun Blessed Prince (A Tale of Two Crowns Duology #1) by Lindsey Byrd
Release Date: April 29 (US); May 1 (UK/Canada)

This epic fantasy romance novel sounds like it contains some good drama: two men with opposing types of magic are thrown together when one of them fails to assassinate the other, all amidst plotting and war.

 

A battle-weary prince meets a reluctant assassin. But could their bond end their war?

SEPARATED BY WAR, UNITED BY FATE…

Prince Elician is a Giver. He can heal any wound and bring the dead back to life. He also can’t be killed, so is cursed to watch his country wage an endless war.

Reapers can kill with a single touch. And when one attacks Prince Elician by a hotly-contested battlefield, but fails, the Reaper expects a terrible punishment. Instead, Elician offers him a chance at a new life and a new name on enemy territory. The Reaper hadn’t realized he could ever find something, or someone, to make life worth living—until Elician. Yet the prince is unaware that his kindness is part of his enemy’s plan, until danger engulfs in turn.

As the pieces of a deadly plot come together, featuring abduction, treachery and forbidden magic, tensions escalate at court and on the battlefield. The fires of conflict burst into new flame—but can those who wield the powers of life and death find peace?

A POWERFUL AND RICHLY-IMAGINED TALE OF LOVE, WAR, MAGIC AND YEARNING.



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