Hype!

April Hype Post

We’re running late this month, but better late than not at all. As always, do have a look at our 2022 overview post for inspiration HERE as we’re trying not to repeat titles. One that nonetheless deserves pointing out again is Spear by Nicola Griffith, which was one of my (Fab’s) absolute favourite reads of 2021 and is finally out on April 19. You can read my review of it over on Grimdark Magazine HERE.

Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li is out on April 5th and surprisingly for us not a SFF novel! It is a heist novel set around a Chinese American student sick of Western museums being full of looted and stolen artifacts – so he plans to steal them back. Will Chen is a senior at Harvard when he is approached with a job offer: to steal back five Chinese sculptures, looted from Beijing. The prize: fifty million dollars. The risk: their futures, and yet another thwarted attempt to get back what colonialism has stolen. And so Will puts together a crew of Chinese Americans to fill the roles needed for his heist. And all of them have just as complicated a relationship to their identity as he does. This book sounds brilliant in so many ways – a fun heist, AND a clever exploration of identity and the way in which the aftereffects of colonialism still impact society? Yes please! I’m a sucker for commercial books with deeper themes, toeing that line between entertainment and making the reader think, so this is a dream book for me and I can’t wait to get my hands on it. Pre-order a copy via Bookshop here (affiliate link).

Kaikeyi by Vishnavi Patel is out on April 26 and seems to be one that has received little attention from the blogging community – at least from what I’ve seen – but huge hype from fellow authors. Inspired by Indian mythology, this is a story about cosmic evil, gods and a princess trying to change the world for the better. Kaikeyi is the only daughter of the Kingdom of Kekaya, raised on stories about the power of the gods – something which she doesn’t see or experience in her own life. Desperate, she turns to these stories and uncovers a magic that is hers alone, transforming her into a warrior and diplomat, set on improving the world for herself and the women around her. But these stories don’t bring only good and so evil threatens the cosmic order… I have heard so many good things about this and it sounds like something I will love! Pre-order a copy via Bookshop here (affiliate link).

Sofi and the Bone Song by Adrienne Tooley is released on April 19 and is this month’s YA contender. And tbh, I was sold on the pretty cover before even reading the blurb (though to be fair, I read and liked Adrienne Tooley’s debut, so it had that going for it). Sofi lives in a world where only five musicians in the kingdom are allowed to compose and perform original music – the Musik. And her father is one of those – which means Sofi has been training her whole life to step into his shoes. Except, on the day of auditions, she suddenly loses to a girl called Lara who has never played the lute before. Which is odd, given that magic is strictly forbidden to be used on music. As her father dies on the same day, Sofi becomes obsessed with proving that Lara used magic to cheat her way to becoming a Musik… until she realises that there is more to Lara than she thought and Sofi has to work hard not to fall for the girl who stole her future… Pre-order a copy via Bookshop here (affiliate link).

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