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For the armchair sleuths, there’s the cozy drag queen (!!) murder mystery Murder in the Dressing Room by Holly Stars and the equally extra and fun New Jersey housewives reality show-centered The Really Dead Wives of New Jersey by Astrid Dahl.
I saw one of the first showings of the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon with my college roommate, and it was hilarious—side note: we sat behind Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo, and Nick did not laugh once (that has nothing to do with anything, but I’ve always remembered it). I mention this because one of the show’s stars, Josh Gad, has a memoir out today. The cleverly titled In Gad We Trust: A Tell-Some is a collection of funny essays from the actor, who also voiced Disney’s Olaf from Frozen.
Shifting gears a bit, there are also some great historical fiction novels coming out. Daniel Black’s Isaac’s Song follows a young queer Black man in 1980s Chicago, while Sarah Raughley’s The Queen’s Spade is a YA retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo that centers the very real Sarah Forbes Bonetta, who became Queen Victoria’s West African goddaughter.
Now for this week’s featured books. There are journeys to magical worlds, an isolated, wintery mystery-thriller, and a coming of age in Berlin’s underground party scene. A few of the books also seem to be in conversation with each other. Grady Hendrix’s witchy new release and Pagan Kennedy’s nonfiction on the history of the rape kit both focus on the ’70s and the childhood abuse many girls suffered, often at the hands of adults they should be able to trust; while Nnedi Okorafor’s near-future meta novel and Leah Konen mystery-thriller feature authors on the struggle bus. Finally, Samantha Sotto Yambao’s Tokyo-set story and Dani Diaz’s YA graphic novel have characters embarking on trippy, magical journeys.
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
The title is enough for me to add this to my TBR, but the blurb has me ready to shake something loose. That’s because it starts off with a specific piece of sexism that I noticed even as a child. The idea that girls—literal, actual children—could be promiscuous. In my Southern childhood, they were called “fast,” but in Hendrix’s world, they’re labelled as “loose” and get sent to Wellwood Home in St. Augustine, Florida. With them being there, their families are able to avoid the shame of their mostly underaged—but most importantly, unwed—pregnancies by having the girls have their babies in secret and give them up for adoption. There’s 15-year-old Fern, who arrives in the dead of summer in 1970, alone and scared, who meets many other girls just like her. Like Rose, who thinks she’s going to escape to a hippie commune with her baby, and musician Zinnia, who believes she’s going home to marry her baby’s father when everything’s all said and done. Then there’s poor Holly, who is 14, mute, and tiny. The identity of her father is, infuriatingly, unknown.
The girls’ stay is completely dictated by controlling adults until a librarian gives Fern a book on witchcraft one day, and things start to really turn up. For the first time ever, the girls have power—but it comes at a price.
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
If you love a book about a book, Okorafor’s latest also explores very current topics in mainstream conversation, like AI. In it, Zelu is a disabled Nigerian American writer who is attending her sister’s wedding when she finds out that she was let go from her university job and her novel was rejected. But, instead of drowning in her family’s judgment and the uncertainty of it all, she does something unlike herself. She writes a book that is totally out of her usual—a dystopian sci-fi novel replete with androids, AI, and human extinction. Then everything changes. Her book catapults her to international fame. It also mirrors Zelu’s real-life existence as she navigates shame, shaky family dynamics, and disability in a world that offers more support than our current one.
Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao
This dreamy, Tokyo-set fantasy is giving me Studio Ghibli, but for adults, teas. Hana Ishikawa is the new owner of a magical pawnshop that sits on a backstreet in Tokyo and is only seen by people who are lost in life and need to pawn their regrets. Her first morning opening the shop as its new proprietor, she finds it’s been worked over—its most precious item has been stolen, and worst yet, her father is missing. And then, a charming stranger appears, ready to help Hana instead of looking for help like most others who wander in. So, the two of them travel through a fantastical world to find her father. They come across a night market in the clouds and can travel through rain puddles and paper cranes. As they get closer to finding out what happened, Hana realizes that her journey comes with its own sacrifices that she won’t be able to undo.
Good Girl by Aria Aber
I really do love a messy story of a young woman discovering herself, and this debut follows the daughter of Afghan refugees as she bounces from nightclub to nightclub, bad romance to bad romance. Nila is 19 when she discovers Berlin’s artistic underground. She soon gets wrapped up in the pull of American writer Marlowe, whose life shows Nila new possibilities as an artist. But Marlowe is controlling—and perhaps more importantly, long-simmering racial tensions boil over Germany, spilling into Nila’s community. At one point, Nila realizes she has to stop running from real life and lay claim to who she is and how she fits into the world.
Also, this line from the blurb absolutely eats: “A story of love and family, raves and Kafka, staying up all night and surviving the mistakes of youth…”
Dreamover by Dani Diaz
Here’s another trippy story of two people traveling to another world. This time, in YA graphic novel form. Headstrong gamer girl Amber and shy emo boy Nico become boo’d up after their longtime friendship turns into something more one summer once Amber confesses her feelings. And things are good. Until high school starts, and suddenly, all the new pressures of classes, waking up super early, and maintaining new friendships become too much. The two find themselves retreating into each other, isolating themselves from everyone else. Then one day, as they’re playing a video game together, they both start lucid dreaming and find that they can create their own perfect world, free of real-life pressures. The question is, will they stay there or face reality?
The Last Room on the Left by Leah Konen
And here’s the other story about a writer going through it. The writer’s story here, though, has a few parallels with The Shining. Kerry’s husband has left, she has writer’s block despite a looming deadline for a big book deal, and she has a drinking problem. It’s because of all of this that she decides to switch it up by taking a caretaker position at a roadside motel in the Catskills. When she gets there, things are a little off—it looks like there was a recent party, and it seems like someone is still staying there, which she wasn’t told about. And then there’s the body. She finds it buried in the snow while looking for the person staying there. A blizzard means the power is out, and she’s stuck with a frozen dead body. Still, she tries to make do, but the people she meets are suspicious, evidence disappears, and, surprisingly, she finds out her estranged best friend used to be the motel’s caretaker a month ago. As the storm rages on, though, self-doubt makes it unclear if events are unfolding exactly as Kerry thinks she’s experiencing them.
The Secret History of the Rape Kit: A True Crime Story by Pagan Kennedy
This is one of those “micro” histories that cover something that has had such a huge impact, and it started hella late—it was only in 1972 that Marty Goddard was volunteering at a crisis hotline and realized that so many young girls had been assaulted by their fathers, teachers, and other important male adults in their lives. Her wondering how so many people were getting away with it led to her leading a campaign for hospitals and police to collect evidence while treating survivors with proper consideration.
Now, all of this alone is already super interesting, but get this—the book also looks into what happened to Marty, who basically dropped off the face of the earth at one point.
Other Book Riot New Releases Resources:
- All the Books, our weekly new book releases podcast, where Liberty and a cast of co-hosts talk about eight books out that week that we’ve read and loved.
- The New Books Newsletter, where we send you an email of the books out this week that are getting buzz.
- Finally, if you want the real inside scoop on new releases, you have to check out Book Riot’s New Release Index! That’s where we find 90% of new releases, and you can filter by trending books, Book Riot writers’ picks, and even LGBTQ new releases!
