Most Anticipated Books Releasing During the Second Half of 2024
I love a themed blogging event and I love a reason to put together a list, so I'm going to start taking part in That Artsy Reader Girl's Top Ten Tuesday (TTT) for as long as I remember to do it. The theme this week is "most anticipated books releasing during the second half of 2024", which seems like a good excuse to add even more books to my 2024 Reading List.
These aren't in any particular order other than "the order in which I thought about them". It also happens to be my birthday tomorrow, so if for some reason anybody fancies pre-ordering any of these books as a gift to me I wouldn't say no.
The Daughter's War by Christopher Buehlman
Released June 25th, Gollancz.
Galva - Galvicha to her three brothers, two of whom the goblins will kill - has defied her family's wishes and joined the army's untested new unit, the Raven Knights. They march toward a once-beautiful city overrun by the goblin horde, accompanied by scores of giant war corvids. Made with the darkest magics, these fearsome black birds may hold the key to stopping the goblins in their war to make cattle of mankind.
The road to victory is bloody, and goblins are clever and merciless. The Raven Knights can take nothing for granted - not the bonds of family, nor the wisdom of their leaders, nor their own safety against the dangerous war birds at their side.
But some hopes are worth any risk.
A fraught, shattering fantasy adventure, this standalone novel is set during the war-torn, goblin-infested years just before The Blacktongue Thief.
Slightly cheating with this one, since it actually comes out today rather than in the back end of the year, but I'm not going to get a chance to read it for a while and I've been looking forward to it for ages. I haven't been able to stop thinking about The Blacktongue Thief since I read it, and I'm eager to step back into that world.
COUP DE GRÂCE by Sofia Ajram
Released October 1st, Titan Books.
Vicken has a plan: throw himself into the Saint Lawrence River in Montreal and end it all for good, believing it to be the only way out for him after a lifetime of depression and pain. But, stepping off the subway, he finds himself in an endless, looping station.
Determined to find a way out again, he starts to explore the rooms and corridors ahead of him. But no matter how many claustrophobic hallways or vast cathedral-esque rooms he passes through, the exit is nowhere in sight.
The more he explores his strange new prison, the more he becomes convinced that he hasn’t been trapped there accidentally, and amongst the shadows and concrete, he comes to realize that he almost certainly is not alone.
A terrifying psychological nightmare from a powerful new voice in horror.
This sounds somewhere between House of Leaves and Piranesi and it's 100% my shit. I really like a lot of the books Titan have been putting out over the last couple of years and I'm hopeful that this novella will live up to their high standards.
The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville
Released July 23rd, Penguin.
She said, We needed a tool. So I asked the gods.
There have always been whispers. Legends. The warrior who cannot be killed. Who’s seen a thousand civilizations rise and fall. He has had many names: Unute, Child of Lightning, Death himself. These days, he’s known simply as “B.”
And he wants to be able to die.
In the present day, a U.S. black-ops group has promised him they can help with that. And all he needs to do is help them in return. But when an all-too-mortal soldier comes back to life, the impossible event ultimately points toward a force even more mysterious than B himself. One at least as strong. And one with a plan all its own.
In a collaboration that combines Miéville’s singular style and creativity with Reeves’s haunting and soul-stirring narrative, these two inimitable artists have created something utterly unique, sure to delight existing fans and to create scores of new ones.
I've been a fan of Miéville's writing for a long time and this is one of the most unlikely collaborations I've ever heard of. It's inspired by Keanu's comic book BRZRKR, which I know nothing about, but I'm not going to let that stop me picking this up.
Graveyard Shift by M. L. Rio
Released September 24th, Wildfire.
Every night, in the college's ancient cemetery, five people cross paths as they work the late shift: a bartender, a rideshare driver, a hotel receptionist, the steward of the derelict church that looms over them, and the editor-in-chief of the college paper, always in search of a story.
One dark October evening in the defunct churchyard, they find a hole that wasn't there before. A fresh, open grave where no grave should be. But who dug it, and for whom?
Before they go their separate ways, the gravedigger returns. As they trail him through the night, they realize he may be the key to a string of strange happenings around town that have made headlines for the last few weeks--and that they may be closer to the mystery than they thought.
I read Rio's If We Were Villains when it became popular on BookTok and absolutely loved it, so I'm excited to see what she does next. This sounds very different to the 'dark academia' of IWWV and frankly I'm happy about that. This is one of my most-anticipated books this year.
Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson
Released August 22nd, Transworld Digital.
Welcome to Rook Hall.
The stage is set. The players are ready. By night’s end, a murderer will be revealed.
Ex-detective Jackson Brodie is staving off a bad case of midlife malaise when he is called to a sleepy Yorkshire town, and the seemingly tedious matter of a stolen painting. But one theft leads to another, including the disappearance of a valuable Turner from Burton Makepeace, home to Lady Milton and her family. Once a magnificent country house, Burton Makepeace has now partially been converted into a hotel, hosting Murder Mystery weekends.
As paying guests, a vicar, an ex-army officer, impecunious aristocrats, and old friends converge, we are treated a fiendishly clever mystery; one that pays homage to the masters of the genre—from Agatha Christie to Dorothy Sayers.
I haven't read any of Atkinson's work before and probably should start the Jackson Brodie series from the beginning, but I'm reliably informed that they're all standalone books and that they can be read in any order. I read a few Agatha Christie novels at the end of last year and have been craving those sorts of mysteries ever since (as well as intending to read even more Christie), and I'm hoping that this will scratch that itch.
Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle
Released July 16th, Titan Books.
Misha is a jaded scriptwriter working in Hollywood, and he's seen it all. All the toxic personalities and coverups, the structural obstructions to reform, even dead actors brought back to screen by CGI – and finally, maybe, the hint of change.
But having just been nominated for his first Oscar, Misha is pressured by his producers to kill off a gay character in the upcoming season finale—"for the algorithm"—on the same day he witnesses to gruesome death-by-piano of treasured animator (and notorious creep) Raymond Nelson.
Success, it seems, isn't the answer to everything.
With the help of his best friend and paranoid database queen, Tara, and his boyfriend, Zeke, Misha has face down his traumatic childhood and past mistakes. But in a paranoid industry that thinks nothing of killing off talent, it's not so simple to find a way to do what's right.
I've somehow never read a Chuck Tingle novel, but I intend to fix that with his new one. I've already requested this on NetGalley, so I guess I'll see if I've made Titan's list yet!
What The Woods Took by Courtney Gould
Released December 10th, Wednesday Books.
Yellowjackets meets Girl, Interrupted when a group of troubled teens in a wilderness therapy program find themselves stranded in a forest full of monsters eager to take their place.
Devin Green wakes in the middle of the night to find two men in her bedroom. No stranger to a fight, she calls to her foster parents for help, but it soon becomes clear this is a planned abduction—one everyone but Devin signed up for. She’s shoved in a van and driven deep into the Idaho woods, where she’s dropped off with a cohort of equally confused teens. Finally, two camp counselors inform them that they've all been enrolled in an experimental therapy program. If the campers can learn to change their self-destructive ways—and survive a fifty-days hike through the wilderness—they’ll come out the other side as better versions of themselves. Or so the counselors say.
Devin is immediately determined to escape. She’s also determined to ignore Sheridan, the cruel-mouthed, lavender-haired bully who mocks every group exercise. But there’s something strange about these woods—inhuman faces appearing between the trees, visions of people who shouldn't be there flashing in the leaves—and when the campers wake up to find both counselors missing, therapy becomes the least of their problems. Stranded and left to fend for themselves, the teens quickly realize they’ll have to trust each other if they want to survive. But what lies in the woods may not be as dangerous as what the campers are hiding from each other—and if the monsters have their way, no one will leave the woods alive.
Atmospheric and sharp, What the Woods Took is a poignant story of transformation that explores the price of becoming someone—or something—new.
I don't really have anything to say about this other than that it sounds great and I want to read it.
The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami
Released November 19th, Vintage Digital.
When a young man’s girlfriend mysteriously vanishes, he sets his heart on finding the imaginary city where her true self lives. His search will lead him to take a job in a remote library with mysteries of its own.
When he finally makes it to the walled city, a shadowless place of horned beasts and willow trees, he finds his beloved working in a different library – a dream library. But she has no memory of their life together in the other world and, as the lines between reality and fantasy start to blur, he must decide what he’s willing to lose.
A love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a parable for these strange times.
I keep telling myself that I'm done with Murakami, that I don't want to put myself through reading his weird attitudes towards women anymore. And this new novel sounds like it's going to be absolutely packed with his signature creepiness. Yet despite that, the blurb really appeals to me and I'm absolutely going to give this a chance. I hate myself for being so weak.
The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Released August 6th, Arcadia.
Golden Age Hollywood - a city overflowing with gossip, scandal, and intrigue. Every actress wants to play Salome, the star-making role in a big-budget movie about the legendary temptress.
So when the film's mercurial director casts Vera Larios, an unknown Mexican ingenue, in the lead role, she quickly becomes the talk of the town. Vera also becomes an object of envy for Nancy Hartley, a bit player whose career has stalled and who will do anything to win the fame she believes she richly deserves.
As Vera navigates the glitz and the gilded glamour of her new city, Nancy follows silently behind, trying to take everything she believes Vera has been unfairly handed.
But this is the tale of three women, for it is also the story of the princess Salome herself. Consumed with desire for the fiery prophet who foretells the doom of her stepfather, Salome is a woman torn between the decree of duty and the yearning of her heart.
And tragedy is waiting in the wings . . . for all three women.
After adoring both Silver Nitrate and Mexican Gothic I'm basically going to read anything Moreno-Garcia releases. Golden Age Hollywood is a setting that I'm really drawn to, and "people are making a film when shit starts to go wrong" is one of my favourite types of story, so I'll be lining up for this.
Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst
Released October 3rd, Picador.
"Did I have a grievance? Most of us, without looking far, could find something that had harmed us, and oppressed us, and unfairly held us back. I tried not to dwell on it, thought it healthier not to, though I’d lived my short life so far in a chaos of privilege and prejudice."
Dave Win is thirteen years old when he first goes to stay with the sponsors of his scholarship at a local boarding school. This weekend, with its games and challenges and surprising encounters, will open up heady new possibilities, even as it exposes him to their son Giles’ envy and violence.
As their lives unfold over the next half a century, the two boys’ careers will diverge dramatically: Dave, a gifted actor struggling with convention and discrimination, Giles an increasingly powerful and dangerous politician.
Our Evenings is Dave Win’s own account of his life as a schoolboy and student, his first love affairs, in London, and on the road with an experimental theatre company, and of a late-life affair, which transforms his sixties with a new sense of happiness and a perilous security.
Stories that span decades just do it for me, frankly.