New and upcoming books by authors we love!

The Inevitable Undoing of Zahara Douglass, by Leslye Penelope, is out today! This August and September are both terrific months for hotly anticipated authors, with Daggerbound, T. Kingfisher’s sequel to Swordheart, coming out on August 25; Wickhills by Premee Mohamed coming out on September 8; and Velvet Knife continuing the Stevie Bell series by Maureen Johnson on September 29. Slide on into Fall with some fast-paced good times!

I got excited about The Inevitable Undoing of Zahara Douglass just from the premise: a teenager sees her brilliant twin disappear into an unmarked car, and after that, no one in the world except her seems to remember her twin existed at all. Yes! That’s my jam.

It is late December in 1999 and people are worried about the Y2K bug. We follow scenes of Zahara, a professional ballet dancer now in her twenties, investigating her sister Annica’s disappearance; and those scenes are interspersed with transcripts of recorded messages from their dad who died when they were kids, computer journal and text game creations from Annica, email and forum posts, and recordings of security footage. These pieces of evidence all inform our read of what Zahara learns as she uncovers more of her family’s history. It’s a wild ride!

After reading and loving the book, I was thrilled to learn the author, Leslye Penelope has written a bunch of other stuff I now look forward to reading as well. She hadn’t been on my “hotly anticipated releases from authors we love” radar before, but she sure is now!

Here at Frumious Consortium, our love of T Kingfisher’s books is already well documented, so of course my enjoyment of Daggerbound wasn’t a particular surprise. It was however, welcome, since Swordheart was her first grown-up fantasy I ever read, way back in 2021 when I thought, “gee, Kingfisher’s young adult books and horror novels are really fun! Maybe she has written other things, too?” Reader: she had.

In anticipation of reading Daggerbound, I reread Swordheart, and I am glad I did. The refresher on how and why some people are trapped in swords and how that works, was all very welcome. And when some key characters from Swordheart show up in Daggerbound, it was exciting to see them again.

The romantic leads in Daggerbound have different personalities from those in Swordheart, but the plot is again structured around a rollicking journey through the world of the White Rat. I will add that I DID get a bingo on my T. Kingfisher Bingo card, but to keep things spoiler-free, I will not tell you which of these three cards I used. Take your chances!

Premee Mohamed refers to Wickhills as her “fantaspionage weird city novel” on BlueSky, and reader, she’s right. Wickhills is full of various kinds of spycraft and shadowy organizations that may or may not be influencing each other, in a city known for its non-human denizens.

The city itself, Wickhills, fits into a genre of fantasy cities. It kind of reminded me of the setting of The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennis in its biological manipulation, but it also kind of reminded me of Ankh-Morpork in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books. Both of which I like a lot.

The plot of Wickhills presents a scientist who has defected from a rival city where only humans live, and where the “Leader” is always watching. If this makes you think of Cold War narratives, well, me, too. With a focus on the city walls and the dangers outside the cities, it also made me think about urban and suburban sprawl and the nature of cities as polities.

This is an issue with books by Premee Mohamed. No matter how much the plot twists and the characters are a ragtag band of misfits who just might pull it off, there are layers of meaning that evoke deeper thoughts. The writing style itself is light, with interludes when characters tell their stories in their voices and dialogue including a demon using “my dense and reflective liquid” as a term of endearment. It’s a good time, it will just also make you think about maybe municipal borders and/or the nature of freedom. Be forewarned.

The Velvet Knife by Maureen Johnson is the sixth Stevie Bell book: The first three books in the series form the Truly Devious trilogy, and then the fourth, fifth, and sixth book each solve a stand-alone mystery while also advancing Stevie’s ongoing plotline with her friends, her fraught love life, and her right-wing parents.

The Velvet Knife picks up right where the fifth book left off, with Stevie reeling from her breakup with her rich boy boyfriend in England. In a bid for a fresh start, she spends Christmas break with her friend Nate in New York City. Nate is a teen-prodigy author, and his book is overdue, so he is holing up in an unused apartment to finish his book away from distractions.

Since Johnson herself is an author in New York City, the absurd writing advice Nate receives, the “influencer” neighbor, and the various NYC details are all delightful. And of course since Stevie is there, it turns out there is a cold case to solve, leaking hotly into the present. A lot of the people who live on the same floor as Nate’s temporary apartment have some designs on Stevie or Nate’s time and cache as famous teens. One of them, it turns out, also has unfinished business connected to deaths at a shady upstate commune  in the 1970s.

Johnson has announced in her newsletter (which you can sign up for here) that there will be ONE MORE Stevie Bell mystery after The Velvet Knife! It is almost time to gear up for the finale.