It's May! The lusty month of May! (you have one of my friends to thank for the song lyric) I know, I know, I'm technically late (it's only May 2) for posting about upcoming releases. It's been a busy past few weeks, but better late than never.
Below are the upcoming Sci-fi and Fantasy releases for May, with the dates of when they are being published. Some of these sound pretty great and are gonna find their way on my TBR.
May 6:
Sci-fi:
This is just a story. It can't hurt you anymore.
Since she was three years old, Anastasia Miller has been telling anyone who would listen that she's an alien disguised as a human being, and that the armada that left her on Earth is coming for her. Since she was three years old, no one has believed her.
Now, with an alien signal from the stars being broadcast around the world, humanity is finally starting to realize that it's already been warned, and it may be too late. The invasion is coming, Stasia's biological family is on the way to bring her home, and very few family reunions are willing to cross the gulf of space for just one misplaced child.
What happens when you know what’s coming, and just refuse to listen?
Star Wars: The Acolyte: Wayseeker by Justina Ireland
Decades before Star Wars: The Acolyte, Vernestra Rwoh must rediscover her place within the Jedi Order.
Jedi Master Vernestra Rwoh has spent years exploring the Outer Rim as a Wayseeker, answering to no authority but the Force itself. When the Jedi Council orders her to return to Coruscant, Vernestra ignores the summons, feeling that her priority is the beings she’s already serving.
So the Council dispatches Jedi Knight Indara to track down Vernestra to deliver the urgent message that a Republic senator has formally requested Jedi assistance, asking for Vernestra’s aid by name. Intrigued, Vernestra quickly finds herself pulled back into Coruscant’s complicated world of Republic politics and underworld crime.
The two could not be more different: Vernestra, a Jedi Master who has known conflict and loss during her decades in the Order, and Indara, a young Knight just coming into her own as a Jedi in a galaxy at peace. Trust is slow to develop as they clash over their views on serving the Jedi Order, the galaxy, and the Force.
But they must work together to decipher the connection between the senator and a trail of dangerous weapons threatening to wreak havoc on the Republic. As the two delve further into their investigation, the lines between Jedi and Republic business blur, and Vernestra must rediscover what it means to serve for Light and Life.
May 13:
Fantasy:
The Devils by Joe Abercrombie
Holy work sometimes requires unholy deeds.
Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters. The mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends.
Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it's a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side.
Vienna, 1911. Gustav Klimt, the most famous painter in the Austrian Empire, the darling of Viennese society, spots a woman’s nude body in the Danube canal. He knows he should summon a policeman, but he can’t resist stopping to make a sketch first. And as he draws, the woman coughs. She’s alive!
Back at his studio, Klimt and his model-turned-muse Wally tend to the formerly-drowned girl. She’s nearly feral and doesn’t remember who she is, or how she came to be floating in the canal. Klimt names her Judith, after one of his most famous paintings, and resolves to help her find her memory.
With a little help from Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, Judith recalls being stranded in the arctic one hundred years ago, locked in a crate by a man named Victor Frankenstein, and visiting the Underworld.
So how did she get here? And why are so many people chasing her, including Geoff, the giant croissant-eating devil dog of the North?
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
"Look at you, eating magic like you're one of us."
Doctor Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood School and one of the most powerful magicians in England. Her days consist of meetings, teaching A-Level Invocation to four talented, chaotic sixth formers, more meetings, and securing the school's boundaries from demonic incursions.
Walden is good at her job—no, Walden is great at her job. But demons are masters of manipulation. It’s her responsibility to keep her school with its six hundred students and centuries-old legacy safe. And it’s possible the entity Walden most needs to keep her school safe from—is herself.
A party of adventurers must brave the horrors of Ravenloft in this official Dungeons & Dragons novel!
Five strangers armed with steel and magic awaken in a mist-shrouded land, with no memory of how they arrived: Rotrog, a prideful orcish wizard; Chivarion, a sardonic drow barbarian; Alishai, an embittered tiefling paladin; Kah, a skittish kenku cleric; and Fielle, a sunny human artificer.
After they barely survive a nightmarish welcome to the realm of Barovia, a carriage arrives bearing an invitation:
Fairest Friends,
I pray you accept my humble Hospitality and dine with me tonight at Castle Ravenloft. It is rare we receive Visitors, and I do so Endeavor to Make your Acquaintance. The Carriage shall bear you to the Castle safely, and I await your Arrival with Pleasure.
Your host,
Strahd von Zarovich
With no alternative, and determined to find their way home, the strangers accept the summons and travel to the forbidding manor of the mysterious count. But all is not well at Castle Ravenloft. To survive the twisted enigmas of Strahd and his haunted home, the adventurers must confront the dark secrets in their own hearts and find a way to shift from strangers to comrades—before the mists of Barovia claim them forever.
A Curse Carved in Bone by Danielle L. Jensen
The secret of her divine heritage revealed, Freya finds herself on a path that will see thousands of lives lost to the magic in her blood. Desperate to avoid this dark fate, she risks an alliance with Skaland’s greatest enemy to seek answers from the seer who foretold her future—the same seer who sent Bjorn to kill her.
While Freya still seethes with rage over Bjorn’s betrayal, the blood oaths that bind her demand that she keep him close as she hunts for a way to avert the looming war. Her magic draws her to the front lines of an old enmity, embroiling her with Nordeland’s Unfated—children of the gods who serve the king she was raised to fear. The same king who, unlike Bjorn, is now willing to fight at her back. For despite the desire that burns hot between Bjorn and Freya, his growing distrust of her chosen path threatens to drag them further apart.
As war approaches, gods and mortals must choose their weapons. Yet the fiercest battle will be the one Freya wages within herself. With the magic of two goddesses burning in her veins, she must weave the threads of destiny to decide her own fate: Will she be the shield that protects her people or the curse that destroys them?
Anji Kills a King by Evan Leikam
She killed for a cause. Will she die for it too?
Anji works as a castle servant, cleaning laundry for a king she hates. So when a rare opportunity presents itself, she seizes the chance to cut his throat. Then she runs for her life. In her wake, the kingdom is thrown into disarray, while a bounty bigger than anyone could imagine lands on her head.
On her heels are the fabled mercenaries of the Menagerie, whose animal-shaped masks are magical relics rumored to give them superhuman powers. It’s the Hawk who finds Anji first: a surly, aging swordswoman who has her own reasons for keeping Anji alive and out of the hands of her fellow bounty hunters, if only long enough to collect the reward herself.
With the rest of the Menagerie on their trail, so begins an alliance as tenuous as it is temporary—and a race against death that will decide Anji’s fate, and may change the course of a kingdom.
May 20:
Fantasy:
The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig
Sybil Delling has spent nine years dreaming of having no dreams at all. Like the other foundling girls who traded a decade of service for a home in the great cathedral, Sybil is a Diviner. In her dreams she receives visions from six unearthly figures known as Omens. From them, she can predict terrible things before they occur, and lords and common folk alike travel across the kingdom of Traum’s windswept moors to learn their futures by her dreams.
Just as she and her sister Diviners near the end of their service, a mysterious knight arrives at the cathedral. Rude, heretical, and devilishly handsome, the knight Rodrick has no respect for Sybil's visions. But when Sybil's fellow Diviners begin to vanish one by one, she has no choice but to seek his help in finding them. For the world outside the cathedral’s cloister is wrought with peril. Only the gods have the answers she is seeking, and as much as she'd rather avoid Rodrick's dark eyes and sharp tongue, only a heretic can defeat a god.
Aftertaste by Daria Lavelle
A food story to binge.
A ghost story to devour.
A love story to savor.
Konstantin Duhovny is a haunted man. His father died when he was ten, and ghosts have been hovering around him ever since. Kostya can’t exactly see the ghosts, but he can taste their favorite foods. Flavors of meals he’s never eaten will flood his mouth, a sign that a spirit is present. Kostya has kept these aftertastes a secret for most of his life, but one night, he decides to act on what he’s tasting. And everything changes.
Kostya discovers that he can reunite people with their deceased loved ones—at least for the length of time it takes them to eat a dish that he’s prepared. He thinks his life’s purpose might be to offer closure to grieving strangers, and sets out to learn all he can by entering a particularly fiery ring of Hell: the New York culinary scene. But as his kitchen skills catch up with his ambitions, Kostya is too blind to see the catastrophe looming in the Afterlife. And the one person who knows Kostya must be stopped also happens to be falling in love with him.
Set in the bustling world of New York restaurants and teeming with mouthwatering food writing, Aftertaste is a whirlwind romance, a heart-wrenching look at love and loss, and a ghost story about all the ways we hunger—and how far we’d go to find satisfaction.
May 27:
Fantasy:
The South Wind by Alexandria Warwick
Princess Sarai of Ammara is cursed: on her twenty-fifth birthday
she will fall into an endless, deadly sleep, plunging the kingdom into
chaos and ruin. In a last-ditch attempt to save Sarai and their people,
her father arranges her marriage to Prince Balior, a handsome young
noble from a neighbouring kingdom. But then the South Wind, Notus—the
immortal who once had her heart—returns into her life.
Sarai is
determined to ignore Notus and follow her father’s plan. But Prince
Balior has dark secrets, and as Sarai learns more about her betrothed,
she realizes he may be her kingdom’s downfall. She pulls Notus into a
fake engagement, buying the pair time to investigate what Balior is
really planning. And why he’s so obsessed with the menacing labyrinth on
the palace grounds.
Despite her distrust of her ex-lover, old
feelings resurface while they team up to stop the scheming prince. As
the deadly curse looms closer, Sarai must remain steadfast against the
temptation of her desires. Any distraction could cost her life…and
destroy her entire kingdom.
Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me by Django Wexler
After countless failures (let’s not dwell on it), Davi has finally saved the kingdom from evil–by becoming the Dark Lord herself. But now, the hordes of wilders are at her command, and they still want blood. Human blood. And Davi’s not sure she can commit to the total extermination of humanity.
With restless armies at her doorstep, a treasonous duke scheming for power, and the legend of an ancient magician looming over her shoulder, Davi must find a way towards peace and uncover the truth behind her time loop if she is to bring harmony to the kingdom. Also, her girlfriend is mad at her. So, there’s that too.
Two parents and their recently-bitten-werewolf daughter try to fit into a privileged New England society of magic aristocracy. But deadly terrors await them – ancient prophecies, remorseless magical trials, hidden conspiracies and the PTA bake sale.
When Vivian’s kindergartner, Aria, gets bitten by a werewolf, she is rapidly inducted into the hidden community of magical schools. Reeling from their sudden move, Vivian finds herself having to pick the right sacrificial dagger for Aria, keep stocked up on chew toys, and play PTA politics with sirens and chthonic nymphs and people who literally can set her hair on fire.
As Vivian careens from hellhounds in the school corridors to demons at the talent show, she races to keep up with all the arcane secrets of her new society—shops only accessible by magic portal, the brutal Trials to enter high school, and the eternal inferno that is the parents’ WhatsApp group.
And looming over everything is a prophecy of doom that sounds suspiciously like it’s about Aria. Vivian might be facing the end of days, just as soon as she can get her daughter dressed and out of the door…
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