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New Releases Tuesday: The Best Books Out This Week

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Erica Ezeifedi

Associate Editor

Erica Ezeifedi, Associate Editor, is a transplant from Nashville, TN that has settled in the North East. In addition to being a writer, she has worked as a victim advocate and in public libraries, where she has focused on creating safe spaces for queer teens, mentorship, and providing test prep instruction free to students. Outside of work, much of her free time is spent looking for her next great read and planning her next snack. Find her on Twitter at @Erica_Eze_.

It’s Tuesday, which means it’s time for new books! Here are a few of the books out today you should add to your TBR. This is a very small percentage of the new releases this week. Make sure to stick around until the end for some more Book Riot resources for keeping up with new books.

Yours Truly cover

Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez

To get a quick view of how life is going for Dr. Briana Ortiz, she has a sob closet, which is…both effective and sad. But it’s also because everything in her life is low key failing. Her brother doesn’t have much time left to find a kidney donor, her divorce just went through, and she’s pretty sure the promotion she’s been gunning for is going to the new male doctor, Dr. Maddox. She’s geared up to direct some of her discontent to the new doctor, but then he sends her a letter (!), proving he’s not the worst and may be actually kind of cool. Then she starts sending him letters, too, and he even gives her brother a kidney, setting the two of them — and readers! — up for a very sweet and gentle-hearted kind of romance.

cover of The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph

The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph

Charles Ignatius Sancho’s story starts on a slave ship with his parents, where his mother dies during childbirth and his father dies by suicide. Once he reaches England, he’s made to entertain for company and named after a character in Don Quixote. But through a sympathetic duke, he learns to read and even play music, which sets him on a course where, yes, he has to carefully navigate the world of Georgian London as a Black man, but he also meets the king, writes acclaimed music, votes as the first Black person in Britain, and fights to end slavery. Add this fictionalized account of a real Black British trailblazer to your pile of necessary historical fiction.

Chrysalis cover

Chrysalis by Anna Metcalfe

A young woman channels Gregor Samsa as she copes with trauma. The transformation of an unnamed protagonist is seen through the eyes of three people, each with very different relationships with her, as she shapes her body to be bigger and more in control of its surroundings. Her approach to fitness is both unorthodox and alluring, which gains her an internet following that admires her desire for aloneness. She mesmerizes Elliot, a loner at the gym, who is also a bit of a creeper. And, while Susie, an ex co-worker, offers her support, her mother begins to worry about the effect she’s having on people.

cover of Untethered Sky

Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee

World Fantasy Award-winning author Fonda Lee is serving up a novella full of legendary beasts. Here, young Esther’s life is forever altered by the manticore that killed her mother and baby brother. Now she’s dedicated her life to destroying the monsters by becoming a ruhker, a manticore hunter who flies with giant birds of prey called rocs. Esther gets paired with a young roc, Zahra, and, in learning to work with the fantastical beast, will sacrifice all she has.

cover of You Could Make This Place Beautiful

You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith

Here is a memoir that eschews a typical format in favor of vignettes, fourth wall breaks, and even a few poems. Poet Smith details the dissolution of her marriage and its effects on her children. First focusing on the personal, she eventually expands into tackling power dynamics and just how persistent gender roles are, even between seemingly progressive people.

Throwback cover

Throwback by Maurene Goo

Goo gets into the ever-complicated immigrant/child of immigrant dynamics with Throwback by literally throwing the main character, 16-year-old Samantha King, back in time. After a fight with her mother, Priscilla, Samantha finds herself in the ’90s when her mother was 17. Now she’s having to adjust to analog and a lot of casual discrimination. To add to the confusion of it all, she tries to make her mother homecoming queen, and realizes that they may have actually been friends back then.

Other Book Riot New Releases Resources

  • All the Books, our weekly new book releases podcast, where Liberty and a cast of co-hosts talk about eight books out that week that we’ve read and loved.
  • The New Books Newsletter, where we send you an email of the books out this week that are getting buzz.
  • Finally, if you want the real inside scoop on new releases, you have to check out Book Riot’s New Release Index! That’s where I find 90% of new releases, and you can filter by trending books, Rioters’ picks, and even LGBTQ new releases!