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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.

cover of Lone Women by Victor LaValle; illustration of a Black woman in a white blouse and blue skirt standing in a field of wheat

Lone Women by Victor LaValle  

In 1914, Adelaide is among those who make their way to Montana to become homesteaders who settle the land at the state’s request. But with Adelaide comes a terrible secret: she left her home in California on fire with her parents’ corpses inside. The secret is connected to a huge steamer trunk that travels with her wherever she goes, and is kept locked, lest more people disappear.

This is a genre-bent historical horror with the same inventive storytelling as LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom and The Changeling.

cover image of White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link

White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link

From MacArthur Genius Grant fellow Kelly Link comes this new collection of fairy tale retellings that combine French lore, Scottish ballads, and the Brothers Grimm. Link’s modern fairy tales blend the realistic with the fantastical, the cerebral with the compassionate, resulting in a collection that feels totally new. Here, questing brothers become enchanted by a weed-selling feline, futuristic Hansel and Gretel contend with a planet of vampires, and hell is a busy airport.

Above Ground cover

Above Ground by Clint Smith

In Above Ground, the award-winning author of How the Word is Passed contends with an ever-changing world through the lens of fatherhood. These poems explore how we become rooted in self through historical institutions and familial ties, but then how this same sense of self and perspective becomes disrupted — or refreshed — by having children and witnessing the world anew. The journey this collection takes readers on details parents’ growth just as much as their children’s.

Chlorine cover

Chlorine by Jade Song

Ren’s life is water and swimming, period. She starts her day in the pool, only hangs out with her swim teammates, looks up to her coach, and that’s it. Except her love for the life aquatic goes a little further past getting a scholarship. The pressure she faces from her parents and coach make her want to know what it feels like to actually live as one of the creatures she grew up hearing stories about. It doesn’t bother her that they, say, tempted sailors to their doom, or feasted on human flesh.

This is like reverse Ariel goals from The Little Mermaid, but make it sapphic with body horror.

saints of the household book cover

Saints of the Household by Ari Tison

In this YA novel, Tison combines vignettes and poems to tell the story of two Bribri brothers whose lives become upended once they protect another. One day, in the woods, they rush to the aid of their cousin, who they think is being hurt by a popular soccer player at their high school. After they brutally beat him, they are set on a path of counseling sessions and shunned at school. They also wonder themselves if they are destined to become like their abusive father, who can’t be trusted to be alone with their mother. As the narrative — told from differing points of view — unfolds, the boys come into their own, and realize how Bribri traditions can help them in their journey.

The Great Reclamation cover

The Great Reclamation by Rachel Heng

Ah Boon and the girl he comes to love, Siok Mei, spend their childhood in a fishing village in 1940s Singapore when it is still under British rule. Though Ah Boon doesn’t have much interest in fishing, he has a preternatural sense for discovering islands with hoards of fish for the taking. This ability ties him to his community and the land it inhabits for years to come. Once the Japanese invade, life changes for him and Siok Mei, and the two of them, now teens, have to decided where they fit into this newly changed world.

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!