There will be blood.

Ace of Spades meets House of Hollow in this villain origin story.

Laure Mesny is a perfectionist with an axe to grind. Despite being constantly overlooked in the elite and cutthroat world of the Parisian ballet, she will do anything to prove that a Black girl can take center stage. To level the playing field, Laure ventures deep into the depths of the Catacombs and strikes a deal with a pulsating river of blood.

The primordial power Laure gains promises influence and adoration, everything she’s dreamed of and worked toward. With retribution on her mind, she surpasses her bitter and privileged peers, leaving broken bodies behind her on her climb to stardom.

But Laure quickly learns she’s not the only monster around, and her vicious desires make her a perfect target for slaughter. As she descends into madness and the mystifying underworld beneath her, she is faced with the ultimate choice: continue to break herself for scraps of validation or succumb to the darkness that wants her exactly as she is—monstrous heart and all. That is, if the god-killer doesn’t catch her first.

From debut author Jamison Shea comes an edge-of-your-seat thriller that lifts a veil on the institutions that profit on exclusion and the toll of giving everything to a world that will never love you back.

Eleven-year-old Tony Weaver, Jr. loves comic books, anime, and video games, and idolizes the heroic, larger-than-life characters he finds there. But his new classmates all think he’s a weirdo. Bullied by his peers, Tony struggles with the hurt of not being accepted and tries to conform to other people's expectations. After a traumatic event shakes him to his core, he embarks on a journey of self love that will require him to become the hero of his own story.

Weirdo is a triumphant, witty, and comedic story for any kid who's ever felt awkward, left out, or like they don't belong. An adolescence survival guide that will give every reader the confidence to make it to the other side.

*ships/ready for pick-up in 7-10 business days*

World Fantasy Award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor weaves together a story of magic, mystery, and finding one’s place in the world—for fans of Ursula Le Guin and Diana Wynne Jones.

Twelve-year-old Sunny lives in Nigeria, but she was born American. Her features are African, but she’s albino. She’s a terrific athlete, but can’t go out into the sun to play soccer. There seems to be no place where she fits. And then she discovers something amazing-she is a “free agent,” with latent magical power. Soon she’s part of a quartet of magic students, studying the visible and invisible, learning to change reality. But will it be enough to help them when they are asked to catch a career criminal who knows magic too?

A stunning Romantasy debut about an enchanted library, two handsome Fae, and one human who brings them all together. 

A library with a deadly enchantment. 

A Fae lord who wants in.

A human woman willing to risk it all for a taste of power.

In a land ruled by ruthless Fae, twenty-one-year-old Lore Alemeyu’s village is trapped in a forested prison. Lore knows that any escape attempt is futile—her scars are a testament to her past failures. But when her village is threatened, Lore makes a desperate deal with a Fae lord. She will leave her home to catalog/organize an enchanted library that hasn’t been touched in a thousand years. No Fae may enter the library, but there is a chance a human might be able to breach the cursed doors.

She convinces him that she will risk her life for wealth, but really she’s after the one thing the Fae covet above all: magic of her own.

As Lore navigates the hostile world outside, she’s forced to rely on two Fae males to survive. Two very different, very dangerous, very attractive Fae males. When undeniable chemistry ignites, she’s not just in danger of losing her life, but her heart to the very creatures she can never trust.

From New York Times bestselling author J. Elle comes a modern-day YA romantic fantasy series opener about a glamorous magical world of social elites, forbidden love, and a dark magic that could destroy it all.

BURY YOUR SECRET OR DIE FOR IT.

17 year-old Quell has lived her entire life on the run. She and her mother have fled from city to city, in order to hide the deadly magic that flows through Quell’s veins. 

Until someone discovers her dark secret.

To hide from the assassin hunting her, and keep her mother out of harm’s way, Quell reluctantly inducts into a debutante society of magical social elites called the Order that she never knew existed. If she can pass their three rites of membership, mastering their proper form of magic, she’ll be able to secretly bury her forbidden magic forever. 

If caught, she will be killed.

But becoming the perfect debutante is a lot harder than Quell imagined, especially when there’s more than tutoring happening with Jordan, her brooding mentor and— assassin in training. 

When Quell uncovers the deadly lengths the Order will go to defend its wealth and power, she’s forced to choose: embrace the dark magic she’s been running from her entire life or risk losing everything, and everyone, she’s grown to love.

Still, she fears the most formidable monster she’ll have to face is the one inside.

Brimming with ballgowns and betrayal, magic and mystery, decadence and darkness, House of Marionne is perfect for readers who crave morally gray characters, irresistible romance, dark academia, and a deeply intoxicating and original world.

*ships/ready for pick-up in 7-10 business days*

In the stunning first novel in Marlon James's Dark Star trilogy, myth, fantasy, and history come together to explore what happens when a mercenary is hired to find a missing child. 

Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: "He has a nose," people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard.

As Tracker follows the boy's scent--from one ancient city to another; into dense forests and across deep rivers--he and the band are set upon by creatures intent on destroying them. As he struggles to survive, Tracker starts to wonder: Who, really, is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep Tracker from finding him? And perhaps the most important questions of all: Who is telling the truth, and who is lying?

Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has written a novel unlike anything that's come before it: a saga of breathtaking adventure that's also an ambitious, involving read. Defying categorization and full of unforgettable characters, Black Leopard, Red Wolf is both surprising and profound as it explores the fundamentals of truth, the limits of power, and our need to understand them both.

A hilarious and sexy romance about a woman who gets dropped on a strange planet only to fall for not one, but two, aliens, from the author of I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf.

Dorothy Valentine is close to getting her PhD in wildlife biology when she’s attacked by a lion. On the bright side, she’s saved! On the not-so-bright side, it’s because they’re abducted by aliens. In her scramble to escape, Dory and the lion commandeer an escape pod and crash-land on an alien planet that has...dinosaurs?

Dory and her new lion bestie, Toto, are saved in the nick of time by a mysterious and sexy alien, Sol. On their new adventure, they team up with the equally hot, equally dangerous Lok, who may or may not be a war criminal. Whether it be trauma, fate, or intrigue, Dory can’t resist the attraction that’s developing in their trio....

As this ragtag group of misfits explore their new planet, Dory learns more about how and why they’ve all ended up together, battles more prehistoric creatures than she imagined (she imagined...zero), and questions if she even wants to go back home to Earth in this hilarious and steamy alien romance adventure comedy romp.

Celebrate the release of Forged by Blood, a Nigerian inspired fantasy novel with debut author, Ehigbor Okosun! 

ABOUT THE EVENT

When: Friday, August 11th at 7:30 PM

Where: Kindred Stories' Reading Garden

How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and our programming.

ABOUT THE BOOK

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Who needs a job when you just signed a new mortgage?

When Whitney Harris loses her dream job as an art broker, she drowns her sorrows in a few too many cocktails. But her night takes a turn for the bizarre when she accidentally hooks up with Domino, a drop-dead gorgeous vampire with a flair for the dramatic and a taste for trouble.

Now, instead of just worrying about her next paycheck, Whitney finds herself in a world where Domino's vampire affiliates have their sights set on her-because she's special. Duh!

As she navigates this unexpected romance, she discovers her friends have their own supernatural secrets: spells and daggers anyone?

With danger lurking in every shadow, Whitney must figure out how to survive this new chaotic reality. Can she embrace her wild side, save her heart (and neck), and turn the tables on fate before she becomes a vampire's main course?

Get ready for a laugh-out-loud adventure filled with love, friendship, and a whole lot of supernatural shenanigans!

“As you turn the pages of this novel and get lost in Dana’s story, allow yourself to relive the horrors of slavery....Allow yourself to know the pain of our nation’s past.”—Tomi Adeyemi, New York Times bestseller and Hugo and Nebula award-winning author, from the new foreword

This brand new package for young adults includes a redesigned interior for better readability, specially commissioned cover art by Carlos Fama, metallic stock cover, and spot gloss on cover elements

“I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.”

Dana’s torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner’s plantation. She soon realizes the purpose of her summons to the past: protect Rufus to ensure his assault of her Black ancestor so that she may one day be born. As she endures the traumas of slavery and the soul-crushing normalization of savagery, Dana fights to keep her autonomy and return to the present.

Blazing the trail for neo-slavery narratives like Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Water Dancer, Butler takes one of speculative fiction’s oldest tropes and infuses it with lasting depth and power. Dana not only experiences the cruelties of slavery on her skin but also grimly learns to accept it as a condition of her own existence in the present. “Where stories about American slavery are often gratuitous, reducing its horror to explicit violence and brutality, Kindred is controlled and precise” (New York Times).

“Reading Octavia Butler taught me to dream big, and I think it’s absolutely necessary that everybody have that freedom and that willingness to dream.” 
—N. K. Jemisin

In an alternate New Orleans caught in the tangle of the American Civil War, the wall-scaling girl named Creeper yearns to escape the streets for the air – in particular, by earning a spot on-board the airship Midnight Robber. Creeper plans to earn Captain Ann-Marie’s trust with information she discovers about a Haitian scientist and a mysterious weapon he calls The Black God’s Drums.

But Creeper also has a secret herself: Oya, the African orisha of the wind and storms, speaks inside her head, and may have her own ulterior motivations.

Soon, Creeper, Oya, and the crew of the Midnight Robber are pulled into a perilous mission aimed to stop the Black God’s Drums from being unleashed and wiping out the entirety of New Orleans.

*Ships in 7-10 business days*

In the future, nuclear war has destroyed nearly all humankind. An alien race intervenes, saving the small group of survivors from certain death. But their salvation comes at a cost.

The Oankali are able to read and mutate genetic code, and they use these skills for their own survival, interbreeding with new species to constantly adapt and evolve. They value the intelligence they see in humankind but also know that the species -- rigidly bound to destructive social hierarchies -- is destined for failure. They are determined that the only way forward is for the two races to produce a new hybrid species -- and they will not tolerate rebellion.

Akin looks like an ordinary human child. But as the first true human-alien hybrid, he is born understanding language, then starts to form sentences at two months old. He can see at a molecular level and kill with a touch. More powerful than any human or Oankali, he will be the architect of both races' future. But before he can carry this new species into the stars, Akin must reconcile with his own heritage in a world already torn in two.

Two elven sisters become imprisoned in the intoxicating world of the fae, where danger and love lie in wait. Faebound is the first book in an enchanting new trilogy from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Final Strife.

“A romantic fantasy of epic proportions, crackling with magic and passion.”—Samantha Shannon, bestselling author of The Priory of the Orange Tree

Yeeran was born on the battlefield, has lived on the battlefield, and one day, she knows, she’ll die on the battlefield.

As a warrior in the elven army, Yeeran has known nothing but violence her whole life. Her sister, Lettle, is trying to make a living as a diviner, seeking prophecies of a better future.

When a fatal mistake leads to Yeeran’s exile from the Elven Lands, both sisters are forced into the terrifying wilderness beyond their borders. 

There they encounter the impossible: the fae court. The fae haven’t been seen for a millennium. But now Yeeran and Lettle are thrust into their seductive world, torn among their loyalties to each other, their elven homeland, and their hearts.

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins are not cats. Nor do they have tails. But they are most assuredly dead. Nebula and Alex Award winner P. Djèlí Clark introduces a brand-new world and a fantastical city full of gods and assassins. Eveen the Eviscerator is skilled, discreet, professional, and here for your most pressing needs in the ancient city of Tal Abisi. Her guild is strong, her blades are sharp, and her rules are simple. Those sworn to the Matron of Assassins―resurrected, deadly, wiped of their memories―have only three unbreakable vows. First, the contract must be just. That’s above Eveen’s pay grade. Second, even the most powerful assassin may only kill the contracted. Eveen’s a professional. She’s never missed her mark. The third and the simplest: once you accept a job, you must carry it out. And if you stray? A final death would be a mercy. When the Festival of the Clockwork King turns the city upside down, Eveen’s newest mission brings her face-to-face with a past she isn’t supposed to remember and a vow she can’t forget.

*Ships in 7-10 business days*

Game of Thrones meets Gladiator in this blockbuster debut epic fantasy about a world caught in an eternal war, and the young man who will become his people's only hope for survival.

ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S TOP 100 FANTASY BOOKS OF ALL TIME
Winner of the Reddit/Fantasy Award for Best Debut Fantasy Novel

The Omehi people have been fighting an unwinnable war for almost two hundred years. The lucky ones are born gifted. One in every two thousand women has the power to call down dragons. One in every hundred men is able to magically transform himself into a bigger, stronger, faster killing machine.

Everyone else is fodder, destined to fight and die in the endless war.

Young, gift-less Tau knows all this, but he has a plan of escape. He's going to get himself injured, get out early, and settle down to marriage, children, and land. Only, he doesn't get the chance.

Those closest to him are brutally murdered, and his grief swiftly turns to anger. Fixated on revenge, Tau dedicates himself to an unthinkable path. He'll become the greatest swordsman to ever live, a man willing to die a hundred thousand times for the chance to kill the three who betrayed him.

The Rage of Dragons launches a stunning and powerful debut epic fantasy series that readers are already calling "the best fantasy book in years."

Celebrate the release of Love Spells Trouble with Nia Davenport!

EVENT DEETS

When: Tuesday, July 8th @ 7PM

Where: Kindred Stories (2310 Elgin St Unit #2 Houston, TX 77004).

How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and our store programming

ABOUT THE BOOK

You Should See Me in a Crown meets Black girl magic in an enchanting romcom about a reluctant witch caught up in a fake dating scheme.

Witches and humans have always had issues. Cayden is well aware of that: Her witch mom was shunned by her high-society family when she fell in love with a Cayden’s human dad, and now her family bakery is in trouble due to wealthy witches gentrifying their neighborhood. So when Cayden realizes she unknowingly went on a date with witch it-boy Khy Carter, it feels like things can’t get any worse. But then her father’s bakery has an influx of new customers hoping to get a glimpse of Khy’s new girl, and a solution to her family’s problems appears: Cayden absolutely cannot be with a Coven boy, but that doesn’t mean she can’t pretend to. The two start fake dating to save her family’s business, but even though she’s doing this for her family, Cayden knows she’s also betraying them. Her parents may have put love before everything else, but is Cayden willing to do the same?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nia Davenport attended the University of Southern California and studied Biological Sciences and Theatre. She has an M.A. in Secondary Education, and she teaches English and Biology. She is also the author of Out of Body and the adult sci-fi novel The Blood Trials and The Blood Gift. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys vacationing with her family, skiing, and is a huge foodie. She lives in Texas with her husband and kids. You can find her online at www.nedavenport.com, on Twitter @nia_davenport, or on Instagram @nia.davenport.

ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

Jenna is a long-time reader, who has now been a book content creator for five years. You can find her on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Goodreads, Threads, all the places under @JennasLitPicks. Her content varies from book reviews, skits, educational content, vlogs and book mail un-boxings.  When she’s not bopping around her local library or scrolling Libby for her next read, you’ll find her at various Texas-based book events as an attendee and occasionally, as a moderator. You may also see her frequent book conventions as an attendee, panelist, or volunteer. 

Deluxe, expanded edition of an out-of-print early novel from Africanfuturist luminary Nnedi Okorafor, with a brand-new introduction from the author

Niger, West Africa, 2074

It is an era of tainted technology and mysterious mysticism. A great change has happened all over the planet, and the laws of physics aren’t what they used to be.

Within all this, I introduce you to Ejii Ugabe, a child of the worst type of politician. Back when she was nine years old, she was there as her father met his end. Don’t waste your tears on him: this girl’s father would throw anyone under a bus to gain power. He was a cruel, cruel man, but even so, Ejii did not rejoice at his departure from the world. Children are still learning that some people don’t deserve their love.  

Now 15 years old and manifesting the abilities given to her by the strange Earth, Ejii decides to go after the killer of her father. Is it for revenge or something else? You will have to find out by reading this book.

I am the Desert Magician, and this is a novel I have conjured for you, so I’m certainly not going to just tell you here.

*Ships/ready for pick-up in 7-10 business days*

A fiery spirit dances from the pages of the Great Book. She brings the aroma of scorched sand and ozone. She has a story to tell....

The Book of Phoenix is a unique work of magical futurism. A prequel to the highly acclaimed, World Fantasy Award-winning novel, Who Fears Death, it features the rise of another of Nnedi Okorafor’s powerful, memorable, superhuman women.

Phoenix was grown and raised among other genetic experiments in New York’s Tower 7. She is an “accelerated woman”—only two years old but with the body and mind of an adult, Phoenix’s abilities far exceed those of a normal human. Still innocent and inexperienced in the ways of the world, she is content living in her room speed reading e-books, running on her treadmill, and basking in the love of Saeed, another biologically altered human of Tower 7.

Then one evening, Saeed witnesses something so terrible that he takes his own life. Devastated by his death and Tower 7’s refusal to answer her questions, Phoenix finally begins to realize that her home is really her prison, and she becomes desperate to escape.

But Phoenix’s escape, and her destruction of Tower 7, is just the beginning of her story. Before her story ends, Phoenix will travel from the United States to Africa and back, changing the entire course of humanity’s future.

A cutting-edge collection of the best short stories in contemporary Afrofuturist fiction—from Hugo, Nebula, and Stoker award-winning Black authors

20 mind-blowing, horror-strewn, weird, and woke tales celebrate Black identity, community, and imagination

Black speculative fiction has never been better than it is here and now. On the shoulders of Afrofuturist masters like Octavia E. Butler and Samuel R. Delany and pioneering visionaries before them, a new, abundant, and brilliant generation of contemporary Black authors, some of them just beginning their careers, is conjuring up a very real renaissance.

Edited by SF-expert andré carrington, and including Hugo, Nebula, and Locus award winners alongside emerging and experimental voices, The Black Fantastic showcases the artistry of these breakout literary stars and celebrates the diversity of their talents.

Including Afrofuturist science fiction, weird and fantastic tales, horror and the paranormal, apocalyptic lyricism, time travel, superheroes, and more, here are twenty mindblowing, horror-strewn, weird, woke, nerdy, terrifying, liberating, fantastic, utopian, surreal, genre-defying and empowering short stories, all of them worth reading and rereading now and far into futurity.

Reclaiming histories of racism and oppression and seizing the day, these writers are forging kaleidoscopic new senses of Black identity, community, and imaginative freedom.

A student will find that the hardest lessons sometimes come from outside the classroom in this stunning dark academia novel from the acclaimed author of The Year of the Witching and House of Hunger.

Lennon Carter’s life is falling apart.   

Then she gets a mysterious phone call inviting her to take the entrance exam for Drayton College, a school of magic hidden in a secret pocket of Savannah. Lennon has been chosen because—like everyone else at the school—she has the innate gift of persuasion, the ability to wield her will like a weapon, using it to control others and, in rare cases, matter itself.  

After passing the test, Lennon begins to learn how to master her devastating and unsettling power. But despite persuasion’s heavy toll on her body and mind, she is wholly captivated by her studies, by Drayton’s lush, moss-draped campus, and by her brilliant classmates. But even more captivating is her charismatic adviser, Dante, who both intimidates and enthralls her. 

As Lennon continues in her studies, her control grows, and she starts to uncover more about the secret world she has entered into, including the disquieting history of Drayton College. She is increasingly disturbed by what she learns, for it seems that the ultimate test is to embrace absolute power without succumbing to corruption...and it’s a test she’s terrified she’s going to fail.

The acclaimed graphic novel adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s groundbreaking dystopian novel, Parable of the Sower, is a don't-miss classic that resonates today more than ever. As The Washington Post noted: "A 1993 dystopian novel imagined the world in 2024. It’s eerily accurate."

This Hugo Award Winner for Best Graphic Story or Comic is the follow-up to Kindred, a #1 New York Times bestseller.

In this graphic-novel adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower by Damian Duffy and John Jennings, the award-winning team behind Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, the author portrays a searing vision of America’s future.

In the year 2024, the country is marred by unattended environmental and economic crises that lead to social chaos. Lauren Olamina, a preacher’s daughter living in Los Angeles, is protected from danger by the walls of her gated community.

In a night of fire and death, what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: a startling vision of human destiny . . . and the birth of a new faith.

“Alarmingly prescient and relevant. This accessible adaptation is poised to introduce Butler’s dystopian tale to a new generation of readers.” —Publishers Weekly

“The graphic novel is faithful to Butler, yet still fresh in its world building.” —USA Today

Includes an introduction by SFWA Grand Master Nalo Hopkinson

An all-powerful ruler's son vies for control over the human race in this brilliant conclusion to the Patternist saga, from the critically acclaimed author of Parable of the Sower.

For readers of Victor LaValle, Tananarive Due, and Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, this ingenious reimagining of the vampire origin story set during the early days of American slavery blends alternate history with supernatural horror, as the last surviving member of an ancient African vampire tribe meets a slave desperate for freedom, and together, they lead an army of enslaved people in a cinematically blood-soaked battle for freedom and revenge.

What if nobody ever freed the slaves…because they freed themselves – 150 years before the Civil War?

In the Province of Carolina, 1710, freedom seems unattainable for Willie, for his beloved Gertie, and for their unborn child. They live, suffer, and toil under their brutal master, James “Big Jim” Barrow, whose grand plantation was built by the blood, sweat, and tears of the enslaved. To flee this hell on earth is be hunted and killed. Until one strange night Willie is offered a dark hope by Rafazi, an enigmatic slave with an irresistible and blood-chilling path to liberation.

Hailing from the Kingdom of Ghana, Rafazi is the lone survivor of the Ramanga, an African vampire tribe rendered nearly extinct by plague. Rafazi has roamed the world for centuries with an undying desire to replenish the power that once defined his heritage. In Willie, Rafazi has found his first biddable subject to be turned and to help in a hungry revolt. And Willie desires nothing more than to free his people from malicious bondage. Whatever it takes.

One by one, as an army of blood slaves thirsting for revenge is gathered, the headstrong Gertie fears that no good can come from the vampiric legacy that courses through Rafazi’s veins. Willie knows that only evil can fight evil. And when the woman he loves stands between the reemergence of the Ramanga and the justified slaughter of the oppressors, Willie must make an irreversible decision. Only one thing is certain: on the Barrow plantation, and beyond, blood will spill.

Part historical drama, part supernatural horror, and part alternate history, Blood Slaves is an ingenuous and defiant new creation myth of the vampire, one rooted in both justice and the sometimes-violent means necessary to achieve it.

In the gripping conclusion to the Warring Gods duology, two women find themselves caught in an ancient feud between ruthless entities, and embark on an epic quest for power and liberation.
 
Reina is full of hope.
 
At long last, Reina has the peace she’s been searching for on the idyllic islands of Tierra’e Sol with the lover she's always wanted and in service to the god of the sun. But she can’t quite trust how long this will last. When monstrous creatures of the Void appear on the isle’s shores, she is certain she knows who is behind the attacks. Reina will stop at nothing to protect the woman she loves, but it could cost her everything she’s fought so hard for.
 
Eva is cherished.
 
Finally reunited with her father, the Liberator, Eva struggles to prove herself worthy of being his heir while keeping secret her alliance with the god of the Void. As destruction, both human and magical, tears across the lands, Eva is thrust into a power struggle she’s ill-prepared for. Confronted with the limits of her own ambition, Eva must fight to save herself from the powerful corruption of the Void before she loses the family she holds dear.
 
The warring gods are returning and the only thing between them and absolute power are two young women. But for the first time in their lives, Reina and Eva have something to fight for. And they won’t back down.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel and Yellowface comes an all-new, fully illustrated, collector’s edition of R. F. Kuang’s debut novel, The Poppy War. Considered one of Time Magazine’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time, the story of orphaned Rin’s rise to power gets a fresh look with a full-wrap illustrated jacket and black-and-white interior art by JungShan Chang throughout, plus embossed case, designed end papers, and sprayed edges.

When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising.

But surprises aren’t always good.

Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Targeted from the outset by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school.

For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . .

Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. But as she finds out more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity . . . and that it may already be too late.

The highly anticipated third book in the #1 New York Times bestselling Supernatural Investigations series that began with Amari and the Night Brothers! 

Perfect for fans of Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and Nevermoor.

War has come to the supernatural world, and Amari’s two worst enemies are leading the charge.

Elaine Harlowe has manipulated her way into becoming prime minister, using her mind control ability to force the Bureau to take up her vicious grudge against magiciankind. Meanwhile, Dylan Van Helsing, the newly crowned leader of the League of Magicians—and Amari’s former partner—is after a destructive new power that would not only ensure the magicians’ victory . . . it would make him invincible.

With neither the Bureau nor the League safe for Amari, and her newly returned brother, Quinton, determined to keep her out of the fray, she and her friends decide to find a way to end the war on their own.

So when they learn that the only way to stop Dylan is to find powerful magical inventions known as Wonders, they go after them. But wielding these items comes at a terrible cost, and Amari will have to decide just how much she’s willing to sacrifice . . . because the Despicable Wonders will demand everything.

Indiana Jones meets Hidden Figures in this brand-new stand-alone historical fantasy set in the world of The Conductors, in which the space race of the mid-20th century will be determined by magic...if not murder.

In the 1960s, the world was caught up in reaching beyond our planet and into the cosmos. It felt impossible--but there was nothing science, math...and magic couldn't make possible. The race to space was on, and the Moon was what everyone had their eyes on.

Including Cynthia Rhodes, a brilliant arcane engineer at NASA's Ainsworth Research Labs. Talented in math and magic, she hosts a magical educational show... a job she took mostly for a chance to regularly see the dashing Theodore Danner, a professor of arcane archeology.

She is also an amateur sleuth--something that has run in her family for generations.

When a cursed museum curator nearly interrupts a broadcast of their show, Cynthia finds an eager sleuthing partner in Theo. Pairing up, they begin investigating the strange behavior of the curator and a mysterious theft at the arcane history museum--until one of Cynthia's own coworkers perishes right in front of her in a major lab accident that endangers Ainsworth's role in the space race.

Certain it was murder instead of an accident, Cynthia sees this as a separate case at first. However the more she and Theo investigate, Cynthia uncovers a surprising link between the two incidents. The museum theft and murder are part of a larger equation--one that includes deadly enchantments, rumored pirate treasure, a peculiar plant, and a dire threat to the space program as well as everything she holds dear.

The Starseekers is another rip-roaring adventure for the Rhodes family, who have been using magic to aid their community and solve mysteries since before the Civil War. The times may have changed, but a Rhodes once again finds themselves thrust into a world of murders, theft, sabotage, and curses, and this time the stakes extend to the stars themselves.

Open a book. Read a spell. Whoop, there he is... a demon.

The last single friend in her group and tired of being stood up by her girls, a drunken Rayna turns to her first love, a book. After jokingly casting a spell her favorite character used to conjure a loving boyfriend, the results aren't nearly as funny.

Because the damn spell worked, just not in the way she thought it would!

Now she has a brooding demon who she needs to sever the magical bond with if she ever wants to live a normal life again.

Lovers of monster romance will enjoy this new book from USA Today Bestselling Author, Jessica Cage!

Order your copy today!

Celebrate the release of Masquerade with O.O. Sangoyomi!

EVENT DEETS

When: Wednesday, July 10 @ 7:30 PM 

Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)

How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your spot or RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and our programming. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

O. O. SANGOYOMI is a Nigerian American author with a penchant for African mythology and history. During a childhood of constantly moving around within the U.S., she found an anchored home in the fictional worlds of books. Sangoyomi is a graduate of Princeton University, where she studied English and African American Studies. Masquerade is her debut novel

ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

Vaishnavi Patel is the author of Goddess of the River and the instant New York Times bestseller Kaikeyi. A lawyer specializing in civil rights, she likes to write at the intersection of Indian myth, feminism, and anticolonialism. She grew up in and around Chicago and, in her spare time, enjoys activities that are almost stereotypically Midwestern: knitting, ice skating, drinking hot chocolate, and making hotdish.