Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from C.M. Waggoner’s The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society, which is out September 24th 2024.

Librarian Sherry Pinkwhistle keeps finding bodies—and solving murders. But she’s concerned by just how many killers she’s had to track down in her quaint village. None of her neighbors seem surprised by the rising body count…but Sherry is becoming convinced that whatever has been causing these deaths is unnatural. But when someone close to Sherry ends up dead, and her cat, Lord Thomas Crowell, becomes possessed by what seems to be an ancient demon, Sherry begins to think she’s going to need to become an exorcist as well as an amateur sleuth. With the help of her town’s new priest, and an assortment of friends who dub themselves the “Demon-Hunting Society,” Sherry will have to solve the murder and get rid of a demon. This riotous mix of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Murder, She Wrote is a lesson for demons and murderers.

Never mess with a librarian.

She was already well clear of the library when it occurred to Sherry that now she’d have to go back to her own demon-haunted house and spend the next however many hours completely alone.

She occupied herself for about half an hour with placing crystals in their designated spots around her house and pouring the special salt across the windows and doorways, which she immediately regretted. The salt might or might not repel demons, but either way it would get tracked all over her house and she’d have to spend an hour trying to vacuum it out of the rugs. Then she made herself a sandwich and started reading about hauntings and possessions. She’d never been extremely interested in horror stories—they gave her bad dreams—and their sudden relevance to her personal life didn’t make them into more enjoyable reading. By six o’clock it was getting dark in her living room, and she was rattled enough to shut all the books, turn on all the lights, switch on the usually neglected television for company, and pour herself a generous serving from her dusty old bottle of brandy.

At some point she must have fallen asleep, because she woke up to the sound of a man’s voice very close to her ear. “Woman!” the voice said. “This isn’t the time for you to sleep! It’s only just gone past six, woman, and I have yet to sup!”

Sherry kept her eyes closed. Whoever was speaking to her was a demon, presumably, and she didn’t want to look at it. It was probably hideous and would give her nightmares if she survived this encounter, and opening her eyes wasn’t very likely to improve her chances of making it out alive. She’d never been a fast sprinter or learned to do kung fu, and from her experience of reading Stephen King novels, she doubted that either of those skills would do much against an evil spirit, anyway. If she was going to die, she would die without having to look at some horrible monster’s disgusting drippy face first. “Woman!” said the voice again. It was coming from very close to her face. It was a deep voice, with a Masterpiece Theatre sort of English accent. Not a particularly frightening voice, really. Sort of . . . jolly. “Get up! Time is passing by apace!”

Sherry cracked one eye open. There was no demon. All she could see, a few inches from her nose, was the familiar furry little visage of her fat orange cat. He was sitting on the arm of the sofa where the fabric was already pretty well shredded.

“Lord Thomas Cromwell?” Sherry said, astonished. Then the penny dropped. “Oh, no.”

“If you hadn’t wanted me here,” Lord Thomas Cromwell said, “then you oughtn’t have given the beast my name.”

“You speak awfully modern English, for a Tudor politician,”

Sherry said. Her heart rate was starting to slow. She couldn’t feel that frightened of Lord Thomas. Once she’d had to rescue him after he’d gotten his head stuck in a soup can. “You talk like a Tudor whose dialogue is being written by a bad American screenwriter.” She was starting to suspect that, whatever sort of creature was responsible for the goings-on in Winesap, it definitely watched too much television.

“You’re pert above your station, woman,” the cat said. Then, more mulishly: “And I want my supper.”

“Are you actually the real Lord Thomas Cromwell?” Sherry asked. “What was being executed like?”

“Never you mind,” the cat said. He was speaking without his mouth moving, which was a relief. She didn’t want to see how the demon puppeteering her cat would attempt to adapt his lipless little mouth to accommodate human speech. “You ask questions above your station, too. Why are you talking when you could be preparing food or investigating murders?” “You’re a cat,” Sherry said. She was starting to feel less worried and more as if she was enjoying herself a little. “You don’t have a station. You can’t operate the can opener on your own. If you want to eat, you’ll have to behave yourself. Why would the tormented spirit of Lord Thomas Cromwell be interested in a murder investigation in Winesap, New York? Are you sure that you aren’t just the same . . . individual that I was speaking to earlier, in the sheriff’s office?”

The cat was silent for a moment. She couldn’t glean much from his expression, because he was a cat. It was possible that he was trying to scowl at her but failing due to a lack of eyebrows. Eventually he cleared his throat, which struck her as somehow an even stranger thing for a cat to do than speak English and demand murder investigations. The sound was definitely too deep to have come from his precious weensy little throat. “It’s a bit complicated,” he said. Then he stood up onto all four paws and said, “And what of my supper, woman?” “You won’t get any supper if you keep calling me woman,”

Sherry said. “It’s Miss Pinkwhistle to you.”

“Do you really see yourself as fit to make demands of me, woman?” the cat said.

“Yes,” Sherry said. “Don’t you test me, Lord Thomas. I might run the vacuum cleaner.”

As far as a cat could be said to ever look alarmed, Lord Thomas Cromwell did. “There’s no need to resort to violence!” he said. “I’m sure that we can come to some satisfaction, Miss Pinkwhistle. What do you want from me?”

“What do you want from me?” Sherry countered. “I’m not the one possessing your cat. You can’t just come into a woman’s home, possess her cat, demand supper, and then demand that she issue demands. Who are you, and what are you doing here? It’s complicated doesn’t count as an explanation.”

“Convincing you to investigate the murder,” Lord Thomas said. “Why won’t you just do as you’re told?”

“Because I don’t want to,” Sherry said. “Why do you care so much? What’s going on here? Who are you? Is it some kind of—human sacrifice cult? But why do you want me to find the murderer?” It sounded insane. It was insane. She was talking to a cat.

“I don’t care about your petty human murders,” said the cat.

Then he lowered his voice. “This is all at the behest of her.” “Her?” Sherry repeated. She found herself almost whispering, which would have probably felt less ridiculous if she hadn’t been whispering to her cat. “Who do you mean?”

“She doesn’t have a name,” Lord Thomas said. “To call her her is a mere convenience. Creatures like her don’t have a sex. When she takes a form, it’s often that of a beautiful young woman, but sometimes it’s an old man or a lost child. She’s an old thing, and a cruel one. She used to steal pretty children or handsome young men and take them as her playthings. Now she has found a new dollhouse to amuse herself with.”

“Winesap?”

“Winesap,” the cat agreed. “And you, Miss Pinkwhistle.”

Sherry resolutely didn’t allow herself to shiver. “And where do you come in?”

Lord Thomas shifted uncomfortably. It was adorable. Then he said, “She has conscripted me into her service after I, through no fault of my own, unwittingly earned her ire.”

Sherry raised her eyebrows. No one used that many words to say that something wasn’t their fault when they were completely innocent. “What did you actually do, Sir Thomas?”

He did more shifting back and forth between his sweet little orange paws. Then he muttered, “I tried to eat her.”

Sherry blinked. “What?”

“She had taken the form of a gleaming white moth,” Sir Thomas said with enormous dignity. “I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”

“Are you usually a cat?” Sherry asked, momentarily distracted from trying to find out more about the malevolent spirit who’d taken over the town. Cats did seem as if they struggled to resist trying to eat moths, gleaming white or otherwise.

“I am Lord Thomas Cromwell,” Lord Thomas Cromwell said grandly, then lowered his voice and said, “I am more frequently a Lord of Cats.”

“Oh,” Sherry said. She didn’t feel as if there was much else that she could say, really. The cat was looking at her expectantly, though, so she tried: “You must be very important.”

“I am, yes,” the cat said, and took a moment to polish his ears. Then he lowered his voice again and said, “Have you any more of that salt?”

Sherry started to say yes. The cat hissed at her. Sherry blinked. “What—”

The cat shook his head, then nodded, then, surreally, held his paw up to his lips.

“Oh!” Sherry said, then winced, put a hand over her own mouth, and scurried to her bags of New Age supplies to get the special salt. She held it out to the cat, who narrowed his eyes and pawed at the air to remind her that he didn’t have hands to take it with. She blushed. He jumped off the arm of the sofa and began trotting around the coffee table counter-clockwise. Around and around. She stared. He stopped, gave a disgusted yowl, then stared pointedly at the salt. “Oh, right!” she said. He started trotting in his circle again. She followed him, pouring salt as she went, and thinking sadly about how she was going to have to move the coffee table if she wanted to drag the rug outside to really shake all the salt out. Once the circle was complete, the cat jumped onto the coffee table. Sherry eyed it, then very carefully sat, hoping that the legs would hold up.

The cat cleared its throat. “Now that we have blessed this altar,” he said, “we may speak more freely.”

“Oh, good,” said Sherry. She waited for a moment. The cat stared up at her with his lemon-lime eyes. She stared back at him. “Well?”

The cat hunkered in closer. “I would like to suggest that we strike a bargain.”

Sherry frowned. “What kind of bargain?”

“She has tasked me with making sure that you play your part in her game,” Lord Thomas Cromwell said. “She wants you to investigate her latest little killing.”

Excerpted from The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society by C. M. Waggoner Copyright © 2024 by C. M. Waggoner. Excerpted by permission of Ace. All rights reserved.

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We’re halfway done with 2021 and what another wild year it has been! But despite all that, we’ve had many positive things to love forward to, including more Sapphic representation in SFF Books, yes you read that correctly! Read on to discover 10 Sapphic SFF books that have released this year and you can’t get in your hands ASAP!

Persephone Station by Stina Leicht
A space opera that is very queer with a high-stakes adventure! Hugo Award Nominated author Stina Leicht creates a world full of POCs and Queer characters within the science fiction genre, friendships with representation, and exploration of gender.

The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry by C.M. Waggoner
From the author of Unnatural Magic comes a new historical sapphic bodyguard romance. Full of action, and Victorian feels, witches and necromancers, and a band of strong women to fight against the bad.

A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson
This is a reimagining of Dracula’s brides, in a lyrical and dreamy way. A story of desire, obsession, and anticipation. Sapphic yearning at opera with a gothic backdrop, a blood soaked tale where the heroine embraces monstrosity, kisses in Cathedrals, polyamorous relationships, and vengeance all await you.

A Dark and Hollow Star by Ashley Shuttleworth
A wholesome Queer found family within this Toronto based urban fantasy! This is a story of revenge, vengeance, love, and friendship. A Dark and Hollow Star follows four Queer teens as their paths and worlds collide. Full of mythology, it’s blended perfectly with the modern era, fae court politics, and fury revenge.

Sweet and Bitter Magic by Adrienne Tooley
This novel follows Tamsin, a witch who is cursed to never love, when she meets meets Wren who is willing to provide her all the love she needs if she can save their Queendom from the magical plague. Love bargains with life-or-death consequences!

The Unbroken by C.L. Clark
An incredible epic fantasy that is politically charged, about choosing sides, and loyalty. It follows Touraine, a soldier who is off to put down a rebellious colony, and in between assassinations and murders, war rooms and politics, two girls haggle over the price of the nation and what price everyone has to pay when their destinies entangle.

Malice by Heather Walter
A sapphic queer, dark, magical retelling of Sleeping Beauty, but this time the princess doesn’t fall for the Prince, but instead she falls in love with the evil sorceress. A tale of forbidden love, a darker side of a fairytale…

These Feathered Flames by Alexandra Overy
A sapphic retelling of the Russian folktale The Firebird with plenty of political intrigue, a Queendom without a queen, and the sisters left with the mystery of the dead queen. Destructive magical powers, richly detailed, court politics, and a bodyguard romance will cause you to devour this book whole!

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark
A stunning fantasy story that is set in an alternate universe Cairo and comes from Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-Winner P. Djèlí Clark. The novel follows a lesbian detective amidst murder, chaos, and magic, whilst trying to restore the peace to the city from the imposter who is trying to create unrest.

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
A bold, lyrical, queer reimagining of the rise of the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty and can be described as Mulan meets Song of Achilles. This is powerful, brutal fantasy with war and an appealing anti-heroine who will do anything to achieve her goal. Emotionally charging, unforgiving, brutal, and blood soaked.

Do you have any other recommendations? Tell us in the comments below!

The post 10 Recent Sapphic SFF Book Releases You Will Love appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Read on to discover our picks and tell us in the comments below if you will be picking up any of these releases!

Persephone Station by Stina Leicht
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Hugo award-nominated author Stina Leicht has created a take on space opera for fans of The Mandalorian and Cowboy Bebop in this high-stakes adventure.

Crown of Bones by A.K. Wilder
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

For fans of epic fantasies and sweeping adventures, this ensemble cast will immerse you in a world of unique magic, breathtaking action and unforgettable characters.

Knight’s Ransom by Jeff Wheeler
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From Jeff Wheeler, the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Kingfountain novels, comes an epic new series of warring kingdoms, deadly family rivalries, and fearless loyalty.

The Charmed Wife by Olga Grushin
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From the award-winning author comes a sophisticated literary fairy tale for the twenty-first century, in which Cinderella, thirteen years after her marriage, is on the brink of leaving her supposedly perfect life behind.

The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry by C.M. Waggoner
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Sparks fly in this enchanting fantasy novel from the author of Unnatural Magic when a down-and-out fire witch and a young gentlewoman join forces against a deadly conspiracy.

We Could Be Heroes by Mike Chen
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

An extraordinary and emotional adventure about unlikely friends and the power of choosing who you want to be.

Hall of Smoke by H.M. Long
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Epic fantasy featuring warrior priestesses and fickle gods at war, for readers of Brian Staveley’s Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne.

The Forever Sea by Joshua Phillip Johnson
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

The first book in a new environmental epic fantasy series set in a world where ships kept afloat by magical hearthfires sail an endless grass sea.

The Stranger Times by C. K. McDonnell
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

There are Dark Forces at work in our world (and in Manchester in particular) and so thank God The Stranger Times is on hand to report them. 

Brother Red by Adrian Selby
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From one of the most exciting new voices in dark epic fantasy comes an intensely brutal and brilliantly cinematic novel: the story of a soldier torn between loyalty to her family and her quest to preserve a kingdom’s future.

The Mask Falling (The Bone Season #4) by Samantha Shannon
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Season and The Priory of the Orange Tree, the stunning fourth novel set in the world of Scion.

Wings of Ebony by J. Elle
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

In this riveting, keenly emotional debut fantasy, a Black teen from Houston has her world upended when she learns about her godly ancestry–and with evil sinking its claws into humans and gods alike, she’ll have to unearth the magic of her true identity to save both her worlds. 

What January fantasy and sci-fi books are you looking forward to? Tell us in the comments below!

The post January 2021 Fantasy & Sci-Fi Book Releases appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

While the author has previously published a novel Unnatural Magic which first establishes the world in which we meet our ruthless heroine Dellaria Wells, this book can easily be read as a standalone. Delly is a self-described gutterwitch who grew up in the poor part of town and was raised by a neglectful mother too focused on her drug addiction to worry about her daughter. The author adopts a unique writing style to match Delly’s crass street cadence and tendency to mash together words making up non-existent terms like ‘considerationary’ or ‘productivication’ which may be off-putting to some readers at first, but I quickly acclimatised and found it made the reading experience much more immersive.

Unfortunately but entirely understandably, Delly grows up into an irresponsible adult indulging in alcoholism and petty thievery with not much in the way to recommend her aside from a heart of gold buried under several layers of cunning, deceit and opportunism plus a handy talent for magically setting things on fire. When she hits rock bottom, the latter talent scores her a temporary bodyguard role that promises to pay off all her debts and settle her mother in a health retreat where she can recover from her addiction.

Of course, when something seems too good to be true, it invariably proves to be just so. Rather than a cushy gig looking after a rich young woman with an overprotective family and imaginary threats, it turns out that Delly’s client is the target of very real, very dangerous assassination attempts using twisted necromantic magic and as her bodyguard, Delly is square in the middle of the action. However it’s not all bad news as one of her fellow bodyguards, Winn Cynallum, turns out to be as rich and privileged as their mutual client and also demonstrates an attraction to Delly that she is eager to capitalise on in the hopes of elevating herself out of the gutters and into a life of luxury.

The romance between Delly and Winn is too adorable for words and a definite highlight of the story. Both ladies are instantly taken with each other and even while Delly is telling herself she’s pursuing Winn with an agenda, it’s plain to see that she genuinely enjoys her company and is drawn to the other woman’s kindness, strength and unaffected decency. It’s perhaps a bit unbelievable that Winn is so invested in Delly as she is from early in the book, but their courtship is so sweet and endearing that it’s easy to be swept away in how charming the pair are together. I thoroughly enjoyed how low-maintenance this romantic relationship was with any potential angle for contrived drama being smoothed away and the main focus simply on how good the ladies were for each other.

Whether or not the main characters win over the reader will be a major factor in how successful the plot is at drawing them in; the bodyguard premise would seem to be the main plot judging from the blurb, yet the identity of the assassin is discerned at 20% of the way into the story and the author makes the interesting choice of dispensing with the bodyguard angle altogether shortly after that point. The assassination attempts were simply window dressing to move the pieces into position after which it is summarily abandoned in favour of a bounty hunter storyline as Delly, Winn and the other ladies pursue the guilty party and become embroiled in the most improbably convoluted heist plot imaginable whereupon the plot grinds to a halt and never fully recovers.

On the one hand, this provides an excellent opportunity for character growth from Delly as she takes charge of their rag-tag group of misfits in a rare show of leadership and responsibility; on the other, it’s difficult to see how their plan is the most efficient way of locating their target and even if it were, it’s not very engaging to the reader to see the heroines locked in an endless loop of what is effectively the planning stage of a heist for the majority of the book. The ladies spend so much time preparing their ingredients for their master plan, which feels rather tangential to their ultimate goal and appears a lot higher on the cost side of the cost-benefit analysis, only for it to result in the shortest, least satisfying pay-off that many readers will find woefully anticlimactic after all that planning and waiting and preparation.

However Delly proves to be a charismatic protagonist with a shifty charm that creeps up on you and wins you over regardless of her initial poor impression, Delly and Winn are fantastically soft witch girlfriends and the secondary cast of characters are intriguing and fun to read about with wonderful female friendships developing in the background. The strength of characterisation and interpersonal dynamics between the varied female characters is what carries this novel, and readers who are invested in the quirky, feisty ladies will be more forgiving of a slow-moving plot as it’s so entertaining to spend time with this unlikely assembly of misfits. A healthy heaping of snark and banter makes even the simplest of scenes a delight to read along with the pure absurdity of a reanimated mouse named Buttons who steals the show.

An outrageously original and marvellously diverting feminist fantasy romp with standout characters and a delightful sapphic romance.

The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of January 12th 2021.

Will you be picking up The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis | Goodreads

A charming historical fantasy with a tender love story at its core, from the author of Unnatural Magic.

Hard-drinking petty thief Dellaria Wells is down on her luck in the city of Leiscourt—again. Then she sees a want ad for a female bodyguard, and she fast-talks her way into the high-paying job. Along with a team of other women, she’s meant to protect a rich young lady from mysterious assassins.

At first Delly thinks the danger is exaggerated, but a series of attacks shows there’s much to fear. Then she begins to fall for Winn, one of the other bodyguards, and the women team up against a mysterious, magical foe who seems to have allies everywhere.

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