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Today, I’m coming at you with new releases and some self-indulgent recommendations. Which means I’m showing you cute Halloween things (it’s almost October!) and talking about books that I loved reading so far this year. Can you believe it’s already the last week of September? The linear passage of time continues to be an absolutely wild ride. I’d keep denying it, but the amount of hard squash we’re bringing home from the farmer’s market — and the proliferation of decorative gourds — makes it hard to deny. I hope it was a good month for you! Now, let’s get into the books.
Bookish Goods
Ghost Library Ornament by VHGCreative
Whether you’ve decided to have a Halloween tree and need to decorate it, or you’re looking to make Christmas a bit more ghostly (and cute), this is a really neat ornament for the ghost lover who is also a reader. $14
New SFF Releases Out This Week
Devils Kill Devils by Johnny Compton
Sarita has known Angelo her entire life; he’s not a trusted uncle of childhood her best friend, but rather her literal guardian angel. But when he murders someone she loves, Sarita is forced to realize that her guardian angel very likely comes from a place far, far lower than heaven — and that with the shadows that have gathered around her, she needs evil to fight evil.
The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy
Lorel’s first and greatest dream has always been to become a witch, a calling that would let her escape the small town she grew up in. Even though the witches are disfavored now, blamed for a tree-killing plague, her dream remains strong. But the witches will not take her for one reason: she was born a boy. When she learns that her best friend is to be claimed by the coven, Lorel takes her place and steps into a new world of magic, danger, and friendship that she fears she will lose if someone ever finds out her secret.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
My Favorite SFF Reads of the Year So Far
As promised, here’s a self-indulgent set of recommendations for you: two books that I absolutely devoured this year and want to personally recommend!
The Night Ends With Fire by K.X. Song
I honestly didn’t know what I expected when I picked up this book, sold to me as a retelling of Mulan. In a way, I feel calling it a “retelling” rather than a “repudiation” did the book a disservice. I haven’t read a book filled with this much righteous anger of a woman struggling against a deeply unfair system since I read Iron Widow. And Meilin, in this tale, is equally fallible, human, and absolutely determined to survive and claim her own life. I cannot wait for the sequel.
Paladin’s Hope by T. Kingfisher
This is actually the third book of this (thus far) four-book series, but it’s my favorite. (If you want to start at the beginning, grab Paladin’s Grace.) It sounds a bit silly to say this series is what finally made me understand and begin to enjoy paladins as a D&D class, but here we are. The author’s trademark tongue-in-cheek humor goes hand-in-hand with delightful and heartfelt romances in which extremely broken and guilt-ridden people figure out that even if they don’t feel worthy of love, they don’t get to martyr themselves into making everyone around them miserable. These are delightful, and the audiobook narrator for the series is excellent.
See you, space pirates. If you’d like to know more about my secret plans to dominate the seas and skies, you can catch me over at my personal site.
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