Once a prisoner to Fedu, the god of death, Koffi is on a mission to find powerful allies. Alone, she cannot stop Fedu from destroying the mortal world. Fortunately, she has Ekon. The warrior is determined to stay ahead of his demons long enough to save Kofi from the fate that awaits her.
While the cover art is lacking, early Goodreads reviews have assigned Beasts of War 4.50 stars, praising the author for the engaging African mythology that drives the plot. Sarah J. Mass is the biggest YA novelist in the world right now, so naturally, House of Flame And Shadow (January 30) is generating a lot of buzz.
The third book in the ‘Crescent City’ series, House of Flame and Shadow finds Hunt Athalar in Asteri’s dungeons, desperate to find Bryce. For her part, Bryce Quinlan has had her fill of adventure. She wants to return to her friends and family in Midgard. But she’s stranded in an unfamiliar realm with no clear path home.
This book has 4.66 stars on Goodreads. The nearly 450 reviews have among other things, commended the gorgeous cover. The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers (January 30) is not a sequel, so you don’t have any catching up to do. The protagonist, Violet Everly, has
a problem.
A woman called Penelope, who never ages and refuses to forgive the debts owed to her, has taken the best and brightest among the Everlys for centuries, tormenting them for a crime no one remembers.
Violet’s mother was next, but she disappeared when Violet was a child. Now, Penelope expects the daughter to find the mother. Otherwise, she will take her place. To succeed, Violet will descend into the underworld and contend with Gods, Monsters, and Penelope’s untrustworthy assistant.
Early reviews have praised the novel for Georgia’s excellent prose, beautiful setting, and scintillating plot. Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase (January 23) is a dystopian sci-fi horror. Set in a future Botswana, the novel follows Nelah, a privileged woman with all the fame and fortune one could ask for.
But Nelah is stuck in a loveless marriage. Her child is being grown in a government lab somewhere, and her policeman husband uses a microchip to watch her. Nelah’s gloomy existence takes a turn for the worst when she takes a life during a drug-fueled evening.
The woman thought burying the body was enough to hide her desperate crime. But now, the victim’s ghost has returned to exact vengeance on Nelah’s loved ones. It won’t stop until Nelah unravels the political conspiracy her victim was about to expose.
One reviewer complained that Tlotlo’s extensive worldbuilding kills the novel’s momentum. However, they also called the author’s writing ‘poetic’ and ‘lyrical.’ Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett (January 16) is the second installment in the Emily Wilde series.
Emily, a curmudgeonly professor, just wrote a comprehensive encyclopedia on faeries. Emily is better equipped than most to write about faeries because her source is Wendell Bambleby, a fellow scholar and an exiled faerie King who went on the run to escape his mother’s murderous clutches.
While Emily finds him charming, she knows that Bambleby is actively searching for a door back to his world. Therefore, she has chosen to reject his marriage proposal. When his mother’s assassins attack Bambleby at Cambridge, he and Emily flee to the Austrian Alps, where a new adventure awaits.
After nearly 2000 ratings on Goodreads thus far, Heather Fawcett’s book has earned an impressive 4.52 stars. Reviewers have called the story ‘delightful’ and ‘wonderful.’ Apparently, it has the feel of a cozy mystery novel with historical fantasy elements.
That should do it for January.
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