I realize I run the risk of sounding cliche here, but I can’t believe it is May already. It feels like both 2020 and 2021 have so far been years that simultaneously have dragged on for an eternity and have gone by in a flash.

At least here in the UK we can start to look forward to life returning back to some semblance of normal, hopefully. Though I tend to be a bit of a hermit at the best of times. So instead of reading books in my comfy chair, I guess I’ll be reading books at the beach or in the park. That is if the British weather is to be trusted, and if this week is anything to go by - it won’t.

Normally my partner and I would try to escape it, visit my family in the Netherlands (not for the weather), go on city trips (partly for the weather), but that might still be one bridge too far. Or not. If you have managed to bag yourself a nice holiday abroad - please tell me how!? I can’t wait to go explore some new places again, there’s only so much to see in Liverpool after all.

Oh well - for now I’ll just re-direct all of that wanderlust. Focus on the fabulous stories making an appearance in June.

Bacchanal by Veronica Henry

Release date: 1st of June 2021
Publisher: 47North

Synopsis:

‘Abandoned by her family, alone on the wrong side of the colour line with little to call her own, Eliza Meeks is coming to terms with what she does have. It’s a gift for communicating with animals. To some, she’s a magical tender. To others, a she-devil. To a talent prospector, she’s a crowd-drawing oddity. And the Bacchanal Carnival is Eliza’s ticket out of the swamp trap of Baton Rouge.

Among fortune-tellers, carnies, barkers, and folks even stranger than herself, Eliza finds a new home. But the Bacchanal is no ordinary carnival. An ancient demon has a home there too. She hides behind an iridescent disguise. She feeds on innocent souls. And she’s met her match in Eliza, who’s only beginning to understand the purpose of her own burgeoning powers.

Only then can Eliza save her friends, find her family, and fight the sway of a primordial demon preying upon the human world. Rolling across a consuming dustbowl landscape, Eliza may have found her destiny.’

My thoughts:

This debut novel is not exactly making waves yet in the literary community, but I think it should. This perfectly gloomy, or I suppose muggy is more apt in the Baton Rouge area, setting with some old world magic seems incredibly exciting to me. I honestly cannot wait to learn more about this eccentric group of carnies roaming the Great-depression era south!

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

Release date: 1st of June 2021
Publisher: Tordotcom

Synopsis:

‘Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society—she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She’s also queer, Asian, adopted, and treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her.

But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions, lost ghosts and elemental mysteries. In all paper is fire, and Jordan can burn the cut paper heart out of a man. She just has to learn how.

Nghi Vo’s debut novel The Chosen and the Beautiful reinvents this classic of the American canon as a coming-of-age story full of magic, mystery, and glittering excess, and introduces a major new literary voice.’

My thoughts:

I don’t think I need to sell a book that has been touted as a Great Gatsby retelling with a Queer Asian American lead. Supposedly sweltering, sexy, subversive and smart, I honestly cannot wait to get my hands on it. Yes- I realize that I have stated on occasion that I am not one for historical fiction and yet the first two books on this list are exactly that. Can you really blame me though?

The Library of the Dead by T.L. Huchu

Release date: 1st of June 2021
Publisher: Tor Books

Synopsis:

‘When a child goes missing in Edinburgh's darkest streets, young Ropa investigates. She'll need to call on Zimbabwean magic as well as her Scottish pragmatism to hunt down clues. But as shadows lengthen, will the hunter become the hunted?

When ghosts talk, she will listen...

Ropa dropped out of school to become a ghostalker. Now she speaks to Edinburgh's dead, carrying messages to the living. A girl's gotta earn a living, and it seems harmless enough. Until, that is, the dead whisper that someone's bewitching children--leaving them husks, empty of joy and life. It's on Ropa's patch, so she feels honour-bound to investigate. But what she learns will change her world.

She'll dice with death (not part of her life plan...), discovering an occult library and a taste for hidden magic. She'll also experience dark times. For Edinburgh hides a wealth of secrets, and Ropa's gonna hunt them all down.’

My Thoughts:

With this one, I have been anxiously awaiting its release from the moment it started doing the rounds in the literary universe. I couldn’t even tell you 100% why. There is just something exciting about the premise that has me hooked. I guess the global pandemic has made me more susceptible to ‘moody’ more ‘gothic style’ fantasy. Maybe that can be one of the very very very few good things to come out of this situation.

The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

Release date: 10th of June 2021
Publisher: Orbit

Synopsis:

‘Imprisoned by her dictator brother, Malini spends her days in isolation in the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once the source of the powerful, magical deathless waters — but is now little more than a decaying ruin.

Priya is a maidservant, one among several who make the treacherous journey to the top of the Hirana every night to clean Malini’s chambers. She is happy to be an anonymous drudge, so long as it keeps anyone from guessing the dangerous secret she hides.

But when Malini accidentally bears witness to Priya’s true nature, their destinies become irrevocably tangled. One is a vengeful princess seeking to depose her brother from his throne. The other is a priestess seeking to find her family. Together, they will change the fate of an empire.’

My thoughts:

I am getting some serious Alladin vibes from this one. In a good way! Yes, I know - different cultural background but just stick with me for a minute. This could be the one to do right, what Disney so miserably failed at. To give us this incredible, three-dimensional kick-ass female heroine. Plus it may or may not also remind me a little of the City of Brass trilogy, which I absolutely adored.

The Ice Lion by Kathleen O'Neal Gear

Release date: 15th of June 2021
Publisher: Daw Books

Synopsis:

‘One thousand years in the future, the zyme, a thick blanket of luminous green slime, covers the oceans. Glaciers three-miles-high rise over the continents. The old stories say that when the Jemen, godlike beings from the past, realized their efforts to halt global warming had gone terribly wrong, they made a desperate gamble to save life on earth and recreated species that had survived the worst of the earth's Ice Ages.

Sixteen-summer-old Lynx and his best friend Quiller are members of the Sealion People--archaic humans known as Denisovans. They live in a world growing colder, a world filled with monstrous predators that hunt them for food. When they flee to a new land, they meet a strange old man who impossibly seems to be the last of the Jemen. He tells Lynx the only way he can save his world is by sacrificing himself to the last true god, a quantum computer named Quancee.’

My thoughts:

Ok, I can’t seriously be the only one who hasn’t heard of the Cli-fi genre, right? Apparently, it stands for Climate Fiction. I honestly hadn’t come across it, until now, but I have to say it does sound tantalizing. Although it may hit a little bit too close to home considering the absolute state our world is in right now. Guess there is only one way of finding that one out.

What are your thoughts? Are you on your way to pre-order any of these right now? Are any of these the breath of fresh air you have so desperately been waiting for? Let me know if the comment section below and, until then - just one more page!