Hellooo!!

Tidy the TBR Update

So as I suspected this week was ARC heavy with ARCs for the next two weeks to sort through. Next week little easier

Books read so far - 19

ARCS - 11 (NB quite a few novellas a coming!)

TBR - 8

I’ll start my #12in 2022 challenge next week with The House of Leaves. I have three short books I’d like to get read by 31st - Elevation, Thin Air and Even Dogs in The Wild but also need to do some exam revision so fingers crossed!

Booktempting to the Future.

So what new books to look out for in the next two weeks?

Goliath by Tochi Onyebuchi (25/1) from Tor dot com £9.47 Kindle eBook

In the 2050s, Earth has begun to empty. Those with the means and the privilege have departed the great cities of the United States for the more comfortable confines of space colonies. Those left behind salvage what they can from the collapsing infrastructure. As they eke out an existence, their neighborhoods are being cannibalized. Brick by brick, their houses are sent to the colonies, what was once a home now a quaint reminder for the colonists of the world that they wrecked.

A primal biblical epic flung into the future, Goliathweaves together disparate narratives—a space-dweller looking at New Haven, Connecticut as a chance to reconnect with his spiraling lover; a group of laborers attempting to renew the promises of Earth’s crumbling cities; a journalist attempting to capture the violence of the streets; a marshal trying to solve a kidnapping—into a richly urgent mosaic about race, class, gentrification, and who is allowed to be the hero of any history.

Last year I loved Onyebuchi’s Riot Baby and have been also impressed with their short fiction so this novel is pre-ordered and I wants to read it soon

All The White Spaces by Ally Wilkes (25/1) from Titan Books £8.99 paperback £6.64 Kindle eBook

In the wake of the First World War, Jonathan Morgan stows away on an Antarctic expedition, determined to find his rightful place in the world of men. Aboard the expeditionary ship of his hero, the world-famous explorer James “Australis” Randall, Jonathan may live as his true self―and true gender―and have the adventures he has always been denied. But not all is smooth sailing: the war casts its long shadow over them all, and grief, guilt, and mistrust skulk among the explorers.

When disaster strikes in Antarctica’s frozen Weddell Sea, the men must take to the land and overwinter somewhere which immediately seems both eerie and wrong; a place not marked on any of their part-drawn maps of the vast white continent. Now completely isolated, Randall’s expedition has no ability to contact the outside world. And no one is coming to rescue them.

In the freezing darkness of the Polar night, where the aurora creeps across the sky, something terrible has been waiting to lure them out into its deadly landscape…

As the harsh Antarctic winter descends, this supernatural force will prey on their deepest desires and deepest fears to pick them off one by one. It is up to Jonathan to overcome his own ghosts before he and the expedition are utterly destroyed.

For me horror best suits the cold months and a tale of terror in isolated places sounds up my street

The Wakening by JG Flaherty (25/1) from Flame Tree Press £12.95 paperback £4.95 kindle eBook

Fifty years ago, Father Leo Bonaventura, a young exorcist, cast a demon out from a young boy in Central America. The demon, Asmodeus, vowed revenge. Now the demon has returned, in the same town where Bonaventura is a retired priest nearing the end of his life. In a series of not-so-coincidental events, the possession of a young girl brings together an unlikely group of people, all of whom are linked in their pasts in some way: A group of paranormal investigators, including twin psychics. Robert Lockhart, a defrocked priest with a dark secret that only the twins know. A father whose dead wife was a college girlfriend of Robert’s and once conjured an evil spirit with him through a Ouiji board. Now they must all join forces and help Father Bonaventura rid the town not only of Asmodeus, but also the plague of poltergeists that have followed the demon into our world.

I’m intrigued by this one it uses a lot of familiar horror tropes but Flame Tree have tended to surprise me with their choices

Hold My Place by Cassondra Windwalker (25/1) from Black Spot Books £11.73 paperback £3.32 Kindle eBook

Obsession never dies.

When librarian Sigrun falls head-over-heels for the sophisticated and very married Edgar Leyward, she never expects to find herself in his bed--or his heart. Nevertheless, when his enigmatic wife Octavia dies from a sudden illness, Sigrun finds herself caught up in a whirlwind romance worthy of the most lurid novels on her bookshelves.

Sigrun soon discovers Octavia wasn't Edgar's first lost love, or even his second. Three women Edgar has loved met early deaths. As she delves into her beloved's past through a trove of discovered letters, the edges of Sigrun identity begin to disappear, fading into the women of the past. Sigrun tells herself it's impossible for any dark magic to be at play--that the dead can't possibly inhabit the bodies of the living--but something shadowy stalks the halls of the Leyward house and the lines between the love of the present and the obsessions of the past become increasingly blurred--and bloody.

I am on the blog tour for this novel on 4/2 but I was hugely impressed by the writing, the use of the pandemic and the story that is a modern gothic horror tale. Well worth your time!

The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne (27/1) from orbit £8.99 paperback £4.99 Kindle eBook

A century has passed since the gods fought and drove themselves to extinction. Now only their bones remain, promising great power to those brave enough to seek them out.

As whispers of war echo across the land of Vigrið, fate follows in the footsteps of three warriors: a huntress on a dangerous quest, a noblewoman pursuing battle fame, and a thrall seeking vengeance among the mercenaries known as the Bloodsworn.

All three will shape the fate of the world as it once more falls under the shadow of the gods.

My first Gwynne and I look forward to the experience

Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (3/2) from Hodder & Stoughton £16.99 hardback £6.99 Kindle eBook

It's One Thing to Lose Your Life
It's Another to Lose Your Soul

When climber Nick Grevers is brought down from the mountains after a terrible accident he has lost his looks, his hopes and his climbing companion. His account of what happened on the forbidden peak of the Maudit is garbled, almost hallucinogenic. Soon it becomes apparent more than his shattered body has returned: those that treat his disfigured face begin experiencing extraordinary and disturbing psychic events that suggest that Nick has unleashed some ancient and primal menace on his ill-fated expedition.

Nick's partner Sam Avery has a terrible choice to make. He fell in love with Nick's youth, vitality and beauty. Now these are gone and all that is left is a haunted mummy-worse, a glimpse beneath the bandages can literally send a person insane.

Sam must decide: either to flee to America, or to take Nick on a journey back to the mountains, the very source of the curse, the little Alpine Village of Grimnetz, its soul-possesed Birds of Death and it legends of human sacrifice and, ultimately, its haunted mountain, the Maudit.

One of my first ever reviews (even before this site)was the author’s Hex which i enjoyed and another tale in cold spaces too makes this a great sounding read

Luna Novellas - 8/1

Luna had a great year with novellas last year and another six are launched 8/2. Expect a review of all but a special launch event is on their youtube channel 27/1