James Nicoll Reviews

The White Guy Dies First: 13 Scary Stories of Fear and Power by Terry J. Benton-Walker (July 2024)

13 SCARY STORIES. 13 AUTHORS OF COLOR. 13 TIMES WE SURVIVED… THE FIRST KILL.The White Guy Dies First includes thirteen scary stories by all-star contributors and this time, the white guy dies first. Killer clowns, a hungry hedge maze, and rich kids who got bored. Friendly cannibals, impossible slashers, and the dead who don’t stay dead.…A museum curator who despises ​“diasporic inaccuracies.” A sweet girl and her diary of happy thoughts. An old house that just wants friends forever.… These stories are filled with ancient terrors and modern villains, but go ahead, go into the basement, step onto the old plantation, and open the magician’s mystery box because this time, the white guy dies first. 

Edited by Terry J. Benton-Walker, including stories from bestselling, award-winning, and up-and-coming contributors: Adiba Jaigirdar, Alexis Henderson, Chloe Gong, Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, H. E. Edgmon, Kalynn Bayron, Karen Strong, Kendare Blake, Lamar Giles, Mark Oshiro, Naseem Jamnia, Tiffany D. Jackson, and Terry J. Benton-Walker. 

A collection you’ll be dying to talk about… if you survive it.

The Ashes & the Star-Cursed King by Carissa Broadbent (June 2024)

Love is a sacrifice at the altar of power. 

In the wake of the Kejari, everything Oraya once thought to be true has been destroyed. A prisoner in her own kingdom, grieving the only family she ever had, and reeling from a gutting betrayal, she no longer even knows the truth of her own blood. She’s left only with one certainty: she cannot trust anyone, least of all Raihn. 

Raihn’s own nobles are none too eager to accept a Turned king, especially one who was once a slave. And the House of Blood digs their claws into the kingdom, threatening to tear it apart from the inside. 

When Raihn offers Oraya a secret alliance, taking the deal is her only chance at reclaiming her kingdom – and gaining her vengeance against the lover who betrayed her. But to do so, she’ll need to harness a devastating ancient power, intertwined with her father’s greatest secrets. 

But with enemies closing in on all sides, nothing is as it seems. As she unravels her past and faces her future, Oraya finds herself forced to choose between the bloody reality of seizing power — and the devastating love that could be her downfall. 

The Daughters’ War by Christopher Buehlman (June 2024) 

Enter the fray in this luminous new adventure from Christopher Buehlman, set during the war-torn, goblin-infested years just before The Blacktongue Thief. 

The goblins have killed all of our horses and most of our men. They have enslaved our cities, burned our fields, and still they wage war. 

Now, our daughters take up arms. 

Galva — Galvicha to her three brothers, two of whom the goblins will kill — has defied her family’s wishes and joined the army’s untested new unit, the Raven Knights. They march toward a once-beautiful city overrun by the goblin horde, accompanied by scores of giant war corvids. Made with the darkest magics, these fearsome black birds may hold the key to stopping the goblins in their war to make cattle of mankind. 

The road to victory is bloody, and goblins are clever and merciless. The Raven Knights can take nothing for granted — not the bonds of family, nor the wisdom of their leaders, nor their own safety against the dangerous war birds at their side. But some hopes are worth any risk. 

Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin (June 2024)

From Gretchen Felker-Martin, the acclaimed author of Manhunt, comes a vicious new novel about a group of teens who must stay true to themselves while in a conversion camp from hell. 

Something evil is buried deep in the desert. 

It wants your body. 

It wears your skin. 

In the summer of 1995, seven queer kids abandoned by their parents at a remote conversion camp came face to face with it. They survived — but at Camp Resolution, everybody leaves a different person. 

Sixteen years later, only the scarred and broken survivors of that terrible summer can put an end to the horror before it’s too late. 

The fate of the world depends on it.

Necrobane by Daniel M. Ford (April 2024)

Aelis de Lenti, Lone Pine’s newly assigned Warden, is in deep trouble. She has just opened the crypts of Mahlgren, releasing an army of the undead into the unprotected backwoods of Ystain. 

To protect her village, she must unearth a source of immense Necromantic power at the heart of Mahlgren. The journey will wind through waves of undead, untamed wilderness, and curses far older than anything Aelis has ever encountered. But as strong as Aelis is, this is one quest she cannot face alone. 

Along with the brilliant mercenary she’s fallen for, her half-orc friend, and a dwarven merchant, Aelis must race the clock to unravel mysteries, slay dread creatures, and stop what she has set in motion before the flames of a bloody war are re-ignited. 

Unexploded Remnants by Elaine Gallagher (June 2024)

An A.I. wages war on a future it doesn’t understand. 

Alice is the last human. Street-smart and bad-ass. After discovering what appears to be an A.I. personality in an antique data core, Alice decides to locate its home somewhere in the stargate network. At the very least she wants to lay him to rest because, as it turns out, she’s stumbled upon the sentient control unit of a deadly ancient weapon system. Convincing the ghost of a raging warrior that the war is over is about as hard as it sounds, which is to say, it’s near-impossible. But, if Alice fails and the control unit falls into the wrong hands, the balance of power her side of the Milky Way could fall apart. As Alice ports throughout the known universe seeking answers and aid she will be faced with impossible choice after impossible choice, and the growing might of an unstoppable foe. 

Yoke of Stars by R. B. Lemberg (July 2024)

In the School of Assassins, Stone Orphan waits for a first assignment. After their first kill, they will graduate and attain the coveted cloth of bone. But instead of a commission, Stone Orphan gets an inquisitive linguist, Ulín. Ulín has heard the Orphan Star’s song of despair, mirroring her own, and drawing her to the School of Assassins. But Ulín is far more interested in learning Stone Orphan’s language than deciding whom she wishes to kill. 

Unable to contain their curiosity, Stone Orphan offers to exchange stories with Ulín to help her decide the fate of three men. By turns, Stone Orphan and Ulín narrate tales of love, suffering, exile, and self-determination, and two hurt souls find hope in each other through the radical act of listening. 

The Garden of Delights by Amal Singh (May 2024)

In the city of Sirvassa, where petals are currency and flowers are magic, the Caretaker tends to the Garden of Delights. He imparts temporary magical abilities to the citizens of Sirvassa, while battling a curse of eternal old age. No Delight could uplift his curse, and so he must seek out a mythical figure. A god. 

When a Delight allows a young girl an ability to change reality, the Caretaker believes he’s at the end of his search. But soon a magical rot takes root in his Garden, and the Caretaker must join forces with the girl and stop it from spreading. Even as he battles a different rot that plagues Sirvassa, he learns that Delights are always a precursor to Sorrows. 

Blood Jade by Julia Vee & Ken Bebelle (July 2024) 

The follow-up to Ebony Gate, the critically acclaimed debut of Vee and Bebelle’s Phoenix Hoard series. 

IT TAKES A KILLER TO CATCH A KILLEREmiko Soong, newly minted Sentinel of San Francisco, just can’t catch a break. Just after she becomes the guardian for a sentient city, a murder strikes close to home. Called by the city and one of the most powerful clans to investigate, she traces the killer whose scent signature bears a haunting similarity to her mother’s talent. 

The trail will lead her back to Tokyo where the thread she pulls threatens to unravel her whole world and bring dark family secrets to light. 

Meanwhile, the General rises in the East and Emiko must fight the hidden enemies of his growing army who are amped up on Blood Jade, while keeping her promises to her brother Tatsuya as he prepares for his tourney. 

Her duties as Sentinel and her loyalties collide when she must choose between hiding her deepest shame or stopping the General’s relentless march. 

A Certain Kind of Starlight by Heather Webber (July 2024) 

n the face of hardship, two women learn how to rise up again under the bright side of the stars in A Certain Kind of Starlight, the next book from USA Today bestselling author Heather Webber, ​“the queen of magical small-town charm” (Amy E. Reichert)Everyone knows that Addie Fullbright can’t keep a secret. Yet, twelve years ago, as her best friend lay dying, she entrusted Addie with the biggest secret of all. One so shattering that Addie felt she had to leave her hometown of Starlight, Alabama, to keep from revealing a devastating truth to someone she cares for deeply. Now she’s living a lonely life, keeping everyone at a distance, not only to protect the secret but also her heart from the pain of losing someone else. But when her beloved aunt, the woman who helped raise her, gets a shocking diagnosis and asks her to come back to Starlight to help run the family bakery, Addie knows it’s finally time to go home again. Tessa Jane Wingrove-Fullbright feels like she’s failing. She’s always been able to see the lighter side of life but lately darkness has descended. Her world is suddenly in shambles after a painful breakup, her favorite aunt’s unexpected health troubles, and because crushing expectations from the Wingrove side of her family are forcing her to keep secrets and make painful choices. When she’s called back to Starlight to help her aunt, she’s barely holding herself together and fears she’ll never find her way back to who she used to be. Under the bright side of the stars, Addie and Tessa Jane come to see that magic can be found in trusting yourself, that falling apart is simply a chance to rise up again, stronger than ever, and that the heart usually knows the best path through the darkness. 

Loving Safoa by Liza Wemakor (February 2024) 

When schoolteacher Cynthia gets a tattoo at a block party in 1991 Flatbush, she doesn’t realize she’s embarking on a life-changing romance with an immortal Ghanaian vampire. Cynthia’s affair with Safoa weaves together stories from nineteenth century Ghana, late twentieth century New York and a near future reality in Maryland that defies the utopian/dystopian binary