Where I live is currently enjoying gorgeous fall foliage, so in a leaf-peeping season frame of mind, I bring you this latest batch of books: colorful, expansive, and falling at your feet to read. Imagine your TBR stack as a leaf pile including snarky spy thrillers in space, queered fairytales, and shivery horror. These books span from a far-future with flicker ghosts to the present transformed by a magical RPG to a medieval realm where a scholar/harlot/healer rides for women’s rights.
I’m grateful for all of these books, and for the opportunity to share them with you readers every month. And may the extra hour afforded by the time change encourage all of us to curl up under a blanket with some tea, and replace our doomscrolling with reading. Chen, Kangaroo Forth (Curtis C.
Chen, November 3) Perhaps appropriately, there isn’t much information about the latest installment of Curtis C. Chen’s interstellar spy series—secret agent Kangaroo’s latest adventures must still be classified. But what we can tell you is that Kangaroo Forth will likely transport us to futuristic planets (Mars, the Moon, and Venus have shown up in past volumes), with Kangaroo using his trusty pocket universe that only he can control, and plenty of wit to balance out the spy thriller intrigue.
Ry Herman, This Knight Topples Empires (Dial Press Trade Paperback, November 3) With The Minor Character Chronicles, Ry Herman queers familiar fairytales, starting with This Princess Kills Monsters, which casts an archetypal damsel in a new light. Follow-up This Knight Topples Empires draws from the Romanian fairytale “The Girl Who Became a Boy,” as Jules searches for a way to prove themself beyond their random magical power of making flowers bloom. Like the first book, there are magically-inclined sisters, genderbending quests, and characters carving out new spaces for themselves within the fairytale canon.
Caitriona Moran, The Trial of Magdalena Overmorrow (Putnam, November 10) Scholar, healer, harlot—midwife Magdalena Overmorrow stands accused of aiding Astoleyn’s women with obtaining magical abortions, but unlike her accusers, she does not consider it a crime. Forced to stand trial in 11 months’ time, Magda is sent not to the dungeon but to a remote northern city, where she will be closely observed by the dour Lord Proctor of Cair Gramora. Except that when she arrives, she discovers that the Lord Proctor is young and handsome, a fellow scholar and perhaps more.
Magda must protect herself from accusations of witchcraft, from him or the cair’s residents; but when local women begin coming to her with familiar desperate requests, she must decide how much she is willing to risk her safety and freedom. Caitlin Starling, Milkteeth (St. Martin’s Press, November 10) Breastfeeding vampires—that’s it, that’s the tweet.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
