The Lost War by Justin Lee Anderson
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This sensational epic fantasy follows an emissary for the king as he gathers a group of strangers and embarks on a dangerous quest across a war-torn land.​

Dragonfall by Laura Lam
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Long-banished dragons, revered as gods, return to the mortal realm in the first in this magical new epic fantasy trilogy from a bestselling author

Atalanta by Jennifer Saint
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From the beloved, bestselling author of Elektra and Ariadne, a reimagining of the myth of Atalanta, a fierce huntress raised by bears and the only woman in the world’s most famous band of heroes, the Argonauts

Scarlet by Genevieve Cogman
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Scarlet is the first book in a wildly engaging new series from Genevieve Cogman, which reinvents the beloved tale of the Scarlet Pimpernel.

The Enchanted Hacienda by J.C. Cervantes
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With unforeseen twists, romance, and a heavy sprinkle of magic, The Enchanted Hacienda  is a captivating coming-of-age debut exploring identity, unconditional family love, and uncovering the magic within us all.

The Shadow Cabinet by Juno Dawson
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In the second installment of Juno Dawson’s “irresistible” fantasy trilogy (Lana Harper), a group of childhood friends and witches must choose between what is right and what is easy if they have any hope of keeping their coven–and their world–from tearing apart forever.

The Will of the Many by James Islington
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At the elite Catenan Academy, a young fugitive uncovers layered mysteries and world-changing secrets in this new fantasy series by internationally bestselling author of The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington.

Loki by Melvin Burgess
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This is a retelling that is contemporary in tone, at once amusing and relatable. It is a heartfelt plea to overthrow the old gods of power and authority and instigate a new era ruled by love and intelligence.

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
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Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Yarros.

Savage Beasts by Rani Selvarajah
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Savage Beasts is a propulsive retelling of the Greek myth of Medea, reimagined as Meena the daughter of the powerful Nawab of Bengal, during the rise of the East India Company.

A Crown of Ivy and Glass by Claire Legrand
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New York Times bestselling author of Furyborn, Claire Legrand, makes her stunning adult debut with A Crown of Ivy and Glass, a lush, sweeping, steamy fantasy romance series starter that’s perfect for fans of Bridgerton and A Court of Thorns and Roses.

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
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The explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black, about two top women gladiators fighting for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America’s own.

What releases are you looking forward to? Tell us in the comments below!

The post May 2023 Fantasy & Sci-Fi Book Releases appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Finding myself in a reading slump lately and not being able to stay focused on a novel for long, I turned to one of the well-known cures for reading slumps and short attention span: short stories. I was glad to find a few good ones on my shelf already, but I wanted to read more of those written by POC authors. So, what better way to seek them than getting recommendations from reliable, trust-worthy bibliophiles. If you are, like me, hunting for some good short story collections written by POC authors, here are six that came highly recommended, some of which I have read and can attest to its rave reviews.

Land of Big Numbers is a collection of 10 short stories about the lives of the Chinese and Chinese American people. Many in the collection stood out, like ‘Lulu’, which is about twins who took different career paths to a professional gamer and a political activist with very surprising endings; ‘New Fruit’ features a fruit, its orange-red, flesh velvety and luxurious tasted so good the whole town fell in love with it, but one day when the fruit was no longer sold and nobody could consume it, it got everyone feeling on the edge; and ‘Gubeiko Spirit’, which I find, is the strongest in the collection and it reminded me of a Tom Hanks movie, The Terminal. In this story, a group of train passengers get stranded and stuck in a train station and were finding ways to survive and adapt to their new environment. The stories were altogether insightful, thought-provoking, and well-written. Te-Ping Chen is a fiction writer and journalist. Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, Granta and Tin House. She is a Wall Street Journal correspondent in Philadelphia who was previously based in Beijing and Hong Kong. 

Home Remedies by Xuan Juliana Wang

A collection of 12 stories, divided into subjects of family, love, and time and space. This collection is billed as centering on the Chinese millennial experience, and while I’m not, I was still able to relate to the stories and I thought they were very well-written. They all had a different tone, with distinctive voices and touched numerous themes. Like many short story collections, some were better than others. If you’re looking for short stories with satisfying endings, check this one out. It was really a joy to read, and I was surprised to know that this is the author’s debut. Xuan Juliana Wang was born in Heilongjiang, China, and moved to Los Angeles when she was seven years old. She was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and received her MFA from Columbia University.

Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

This has been in my TBR for quite some time and coincidentally, it came highly recommended by a bibliophile whose taste in books I share. She thought it was a very memorable and powerful collection of stories. I was further convinced after reading a review by Roxanne Gay, who described the book as “razor sharp, ready to cut deep”. This collection of 12 stories centers around the themes of violence, racism, police violence and injustice. Despite its serious themes, the collection was also described as funny and hopeful. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is from Spring Valley, New York. He graduated from SUNY Albany and went on to receive his MFA from Syracuse University.

What It Means When A Man Falls from The Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah

Another book that has garnered rave reviews. A debut collection of 12 stories with some magical realism sprinkled in them, they ‘explore the ties that bind parents and children, husbands and wives, lovers and friends to one another and to the places they call home.’ All stories are in relations to Nigeria. Its titular, judging from Goodreads, is a strong favourite. It’s about ‘a world ravaged by flood and riven by class, experts have discovered how to “fix the equation of a person” with rippling, unforeseen repercussions’. The author Lesley Nneka Arimah was born in the UK, and her work has received grants and awards from Commonwealth Writers, AWP, the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Jerome Foundation and others. She currently lives in Minneapolis.

If You See Me, Don’t Say Hi by Neel Patel

Another debut short story collection that consists of 11 stories, following characters of first-generation Indian Americans who are trying to find meaningful relationships. The stories ‘examine the collisions of old world and new world, small town and big city, traditional beliefs (like arranged marriage) and modern rituals (like Facebook stalking). There’s love and betrayal, passion and regret, and characters dealing with identity, racism and marital problems. I’ve just started reading the first two stories, and I loved ‘Hare Rama, Hare Krishna’, while ‘God of Destruction’ not so much because the woman’s voice I felt, was rather unconvincing. Since it’s only 224 pages, I’m looking forward to reading the rest. Neel Patel is a screenwriter and an author who grew up in Champaign, Illinois. His writing has appeared in Elle India, The Paris Review, on Buzzfeed.com, and more.

Sabrina & Corina: Stories by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

Looks like the gorgeous cover lived up to its expectations judging from its an average of close-to 5-star ratings on Goodreads. It was also named one of the Best Books of The Year by The New York Public Library. Set against the backdrop of Denver, Colorado, these 11 stories centered around the themes of motherhood, families, poverty, and violence. I love stories about feminine power and people from different cultures. And the fact that this book came highly recommended to me, by not one, but two readers, I’m going to give it a try. The author is from Denver, Colorado and received her MFA from University of Wyoming.

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

The post Six Must-Read Short Story Collections By POC Authors appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Read on to discover our picks and tell us in the comments below which one you are most excited for!

The Witch of Willow Hall by Hester Fox
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New Oldbury, 1821 In the wake of a scandal, the Montrose family and their three daughters—Catherine, Lydia, and Emeline—flee Boston for their new country home, Willow Hall. The estate seems sleepy and idyllic. But a subtle menace creeps into the atmosphere, remnants of a dark history that call to Lydia, and to the youngest, Emeline. All three daughters will be irrevocably changed by what follows, but none more than Lydia, who must draw on a power she never knew she possessed if she wants to protect those she loves. For Willow Hall’s secrets will rise, in the end…

A Well-Behaved Woman: A Novel of the Vanderbilts by Therese Anne Fowler
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The riveting novel of iron-willed Alva Vanderbilt and her illustrious family in as they rule Gilded-Age New York, from the New York Times bestselling author of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Winters by Lisa Gabriele
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After a whirlwind romance, a young woman returns to the opulent, secluded Long Island mansion of her new fiancé Max Winter—a wealthy politician and recent widower—and a life of luxury she’s never known. But all is not as it appears at the Asherley estate. The house is steeped in the memory of Max’s beautiful first wife Rebekah, who haunts the young woman’s imagination and feeds her uncertainties, while his very alive teenage daughter Dani makes her life a living hell.

Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
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The much-anticipated new novel from the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author of 1Q84 and Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, Killing Commendatore is an epic tour de force of love and loneliness, war and art–as well as a loving homage to The Great Gatsby–and a stunning work of imagination from one of our greatest writers.

The Kennedy Debutante by Kerri Maher
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A captivating novel following the exploits of Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy, the forgotten and rebellious daughter of one of America’s greatest political dynasties.

House of Gold by Natasha Solomons
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From the New York Times bestselling author of The House at Tyneford, an epic family saga about a headstrong Austrian heiress who will be forced to choose between the family she’s made and the family that made her at the outbreak of World War I.

The Reckoning by John Grisham
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Pete Banning was Clanton’s favourite son, a returning war hero, the patriarch of a prominent family, a farmer, father, neighbour, and a faithful member of the Methodist church. Then one cool October morning in 1946. he rose early, drove into town, walked into the Church, and calmly shot and killed the Reverend Dexter Bell. As if the murder wasn’t shocking enough, it was even more baffling that Pete’s only statement about it—to the sheriff, to his defense attorney, to the judge, to his family and friends, and to the people of Clanton—was “I have nothing to say.” And so the murder of the esteemed Reverend Bell became the most mysterious and unforgettable crime Ford County had ever known.

Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
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In the stories of Adjei-Brenyah’s debut, an amusement park lets players enter augmented reality to hunt terrorists or shoot intruders played by minority actors, a school shooting results in both the victim and gunman stuck in a shared purgatory, and an author sells his soul to a many-tongued god.

You Were Always Mine by Nicole Baart
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A harrowing story of tenacious love and heartbreaking betrayal, You Were Always Mine is about the wars we wage to keep the ones we love close, perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty and Jodi Picoult.

What Have You Done by Matthew Farrell
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When a mutilated body is found hanging in a seedy motel in Philadelphia, forensics specialist Liam Dwyer assumes the crime scene will be business as usual. Instead, the victim turns out to be a woman he’d had an affair with before breaking it off to save his marriage. But there’s a bigger problem: Liam has no memory of where he was or what he did on the night of the murder.

We Were Mothers by Katie Sise
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A scandalous revelation is about to devastate a picturesque town where the houses are immaculate and the neighborhoods are tightly knit. Devoted mother Cora O’Connell has found the journal of her friend Laurel’s daughter—a beautiful college student who lives next door—revealing an illicit encounter. Hours later, Laurel makes a shattering discovery of her own: her daughter has vanished without a trace. Over the course of one weekend, the crises of two close families are about to trigger a chain reaction that will expose a far more disturbing web of secrets. Now everything is at stake as they’re forced to confront the lies they have told in order to survive.

Winter In Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand
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Irene Steele’s idyllic life-house, husband, family is shattered when she is woken up by a late-night phone call. Her beloved husband has been found dead, but before Irene can process this tragic news, she must confront the perplexing details of her husband’s death. He was found on St. John island, a tropical paradise far removed from their suburban life. Leaving the cold winter behind, Irene flies down to the beautiful Caribbean beaches of St. John only to make another shocking discovery: her husband had a secret second family. As Irene investigates the mysterious circumstances of her husband’s death, she is plunged into a web of intrigue and deceit belied by the pristine white sand beaches of St. John’s.

A Cloud In The Shape of A Girl by Jean Thompson
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In A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl we see these women and their trials, small and large: social slights and heartbreaks; marital disappointments and infidelities; familial dysfunction; mortality. Spanning from World War II to the present, Thompson reveals a matrilineal love story that is so perfectly grounded in our time—a story of three women regressing, stalling, and yes, evolving, over decades. One of the burning questions she asks is: by serving her family, is a woman destined to repeat the mistakes of previous generations, or can she transcend the expectations of a place, and a time? Can she truly be free?

Little by Edward Carey
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The wry, macabre, unforgettable tale of an ambitious orphan in Revolutionary Paris, befriended by royalty and radicals, who transforms herself into the legendary Madame Tussaud.  In the tradition of Gregory Maguire’s Wicked and Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, Edward Carey’s Little is a darkly endearing cavalcade of a novel–a story of art, class, determination, and how we hold on to what we love.

Alice Isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink
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From the New York Times bestselling co-author of It Devours! and Welcome to Night Vale comes a fast-paced thriller about a truck driver searching across America for the wife she had long assumed to be dead.

The Rain Watcher by Tatiana de Rosnay
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The Rain Watcher is a powerful family drama set in Paris as the Malegarde family gathers to celebrate the father’s 70th birthday. Their hidden fears and secrets are slowly unraveled as the City of Light undergoes a stunning natural disaster. Seen through the eyes of charismatic photographer Linden Malegarde, the youngest son, all members of the family will have to fight to keep their unity against tragic circumstances.

Check out what else is coming out this month on our Goodreads list!

What book are you most excited for? Tell us in the comments below!

The post October Book Releases: Fiction appeared first on The Nerd Daily.