These are upcoming releases that I’m keeping my eye on for the first half of 2022. I would usually do separate posts on new books and sequels, but I haven’t found many releases that caught my attention.
**Now The Hourglass Throne doesn’t have a cover reveal yet so I can’t share it’s beautiful cover with you.
FEBRUARY
1st – The Weeping Tide by Amanda Foody
This is the second book in the Wilderlore series with the first book being The Accidental Apprentice. I received an ARC ages ago so I have no excuse as to why I didn’t pick up this book. A mix of danger, adventure, friendship, and fantasy in this middle grade series. With the new cover I can see that there is a new aspect of this fantastical world that is going to be explored.
8th – Rise of the Mages by Scott Drakeford
Scott Drakeford’s highly commercial, epic fantasy debut, Rise of the Mages blends the arcane abilities of the Jedi Order with the return of vengeful gods.
Emrael Ire wants nothing more than to test to be a weapons master. His final exam will be a bloody insurrection, staged by corrupt nobles and priests, that enslaves his brother.
With the aid of his War Master tutor, herself an undercover mage, Emrael discovers his own latent and powerful talents.
To rescue his brother, Emrael must embrace not only his abilities as a warrior but also his place as last of the ancient Mage Kings—for the Fallen God has returned.
And he is hungry.
MARCH
22nd – The City of Dusk by Tara Sim
The Four Realms—Life, Death, Light, and Darkness—all converge on the city of dusk. For each realm there is a god, and for each god there is an heir.
But the gods have withdrawn their favor from the once vibrant and thriving city. And without it, all the realms are dying.
Unwilling to stand by and watch the destruction, the four heirs—Risha, a necromancer struggling to keep the peace; Angelica, an elementalist with her eyes set on the throne; Taesia, a shadow-wielding rogue with rebellion in her heart; and Nik, a soldier who struggles to see the light—will sacrifice everything to save the city.
But their defiance will cost them dearly.
I want to to read this book because it’s Tara Sim. I’m hoping to enjoy another of her works.
APRIL
5th – Aru Shah and the Nectar of Immortality by Roshani Chokshi
This is the fifth book to the Pandava series. At this point I’m reading to find out how the story ends and how all the events in the prior book will affect the characters. It took me a while (book wise) to like Aru Shah because I really didn’t like her at first.
12th – God of Neverland: A Defenders of Lore by Gama Ray Martinez
Peter Pan is missing; Neverland is in trouble. For adults, that might not matter all that much, but for children—whose dreams and imagination draw strength from the wild god’s power—the magic we take for granted in the real world is in danger of being lost forever.
Such is the life of a now grown-up Michael Darling.
Michael returned from Neverland with the dream of continuing his adventuring ways by joining the Knights of the Round, an organization built to keep humanity safe from magical and mythological threats.. But after a mission gone terribly wrong, he vowed to leave behind the Knights and finally live as a “civilian,” finding order and simplicity as a train engineer, the tracks and schedule tables a far cry from the chaos of his youth.
He hasn’t entered the narrative in years. So what could they need from him now?
Maponos—or how he’s better known, Peter Pan—has gone missing, and Neverland is now on the edge of oblivion. Michael realizes he has no choice and agrees to one last mission. Alongside the young Knight Vanessa and some old friends, Michael embarks on the ultimate adventure: a journey to a fantasy world to save a god. Determined to stop evil, fight for Neverland, and find Maponos, will Michael be able to save the magical and physical world? Or will his biggest fear come true?
The clock is ticking, and in Neverland, that’s never a good sign.
It’s a Peter Pan retelling so I’m interested but I’m also a bit nervous. Peter Pan retellings (or the one’s I’ve read) often take out the whimsical out of it and take a brutally honest approach to the entire story.
26th – Osmo Unknown and the Eightpenny Woods by Catherynne M. Valente
From New York Times bestselling author Catherynne M. Valente comes an inventive new fantasy following a boy journeying away from the only home he’s ever known and into the magical realm of the dead in order to fulfill a bargain for his people.
Osmo Unknown hungers for the world beyond his small town. With the life that Littlebridge society has planned for him, the only taste Osmo will ever get are his visits to the edge of the Fourpenny Woods where his mother hunts. Until the unthinkable happens: his mother accidentally kills a Quidnunk, a fearsome and intelligent creature that lives deep in the forest.
None of this should have anything to do with poor Osmo, except that a strange treaty was once formed between the Quidnunx and the people of Littlebridge to ensure that neither group would harm the other. Now that a Quidnunk is dead, as the firstborn child of the hunter who killed her, Osmo must embark on a quest to find the Eightpenny Woods—the mysterious kingdom where all wild forest creatures go when they die—and make amends.
Accompanied by a very rude half-badger, half-wombat named Bonk and an antisocial pangolin girl called Never, it will take all of Osmo’s bravery and cleverness to survive the magic of the Eightpenny Woods to save his town…and make it out alive.
MAY
10th – Kagen the Damned by Jonathan Maberry
The first installment of an exciting new series of dark epic fantasy novels from bestselling author Jonathan Maberry.
Kagen Vale is the trusted and feared captain of the palace guard, specifically charged with protecting the royal children of Gessleyn, 89th queen of the unbroken line of the Silver Lands. But one night, while Kagen is drugged by a woman in a tavern, the Silver Lands are overrun, and the entire royal family is killed and burned as a sacrifice to the dark gods of the immortal Witch-King. The once-thriving kingdom is in ruins, and the people are enslaved.
Haunted and broken, Kagen becomes a wanderer, working odd jobs and trying to take down as many of his enemies as possible, when he hears a rumor that the royal twins are still alive, and possibly being raised for dark sacrificial purposes. Kagen makes it his mission to hunt for the royal children and fulfill his oath to protect them, and train them to begin a campaign to reclaim the throne. As he hunts for the children, Kagen’s quest takes him to strange lands where he encounters the supernatural in all its many bizarre and terrifying aspects.
17th – The Hourglass Throne by K.D. Edwards
As Rune Saint John grapples with the challenges of assuming the Sun Throne, a powerful barrier appears around New Atlantis’s famed rejuvenation center. But who could have created such formidable magic . . . what do they want from the immortality clinic . . . and what remains of the dozens trapped inside?
Though Rune and his lifelong bodyguard Brand are tasked with investigating the mysterious barrier, Rune is also busy settling into his new life at court. Claiming his father’s throne has irrevocably thrown him into the precarious world of political deception, and he must secure relationships with newfound allies in time to keep his growing found family safe. His relationship with his lover, Addam Saint Nicholas, raises additional political complications they must navigate. But he and Brand soon discover that the power behind the barrier holds a much more insidious, far-reaching threat to his family, to his people, and to the world.
Now, the rulers of New Atlantis must confront an enemy both new and ancient as the flow of time itself is drawn into the conflict. And as Rune finds himself inexorably drawn back to the fall of his father’s court and his own torture at the hands of masked conspirators, the secrets that he has long guarded will be dragged into the light—changing the Sun Throne, and New Atlantis, forever.
The climax of the first trilogy in the nine-book Tarot Sequence, The Hourglass Throne delivers epic urban fantasy that blends humor, fast-paced action, and political intrigue.
I was surprised that this was the end to the series as there are many questions and intrigues that I want to know about. After some quick research on the author’s Goodreads page I found out that while it’s a nine-book series, they all follow the main characters I’ve grown to love and want to see more of. *phew* I have to say that I was a bit worried there for a while. Now I can’t wait to see how the cover will look like.
17th – The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah
Inspired by stories from One Thousand and One Nights, The Stardust Thief weaves the gripping tale of a legendary smuggler, a cowardly prince, and a dangerous quest across the desert to find a legendary, magical lamp.
Neither here nor there, but long ago…
Loulie al-Nazari is the Midnight Merchant: a criminal who, with the help of her jinn bodyguard, hunts and sells illegal magic. When she saves the life of a cowardly prince, she draws the attention of his powerful father, the sultan, who blackmails her into finding an ancient lamp that has the power to revive the barren land—at the cost of sacrificing all jinn.
With no choice but to obey or be executed, Loulie journeys with the sultan’s oldest son to find the artifact. Aided by her bodyguard, who has secrets of his own, they must survive ghoul attacks, outwit a vengeful jinn queen, and confront a malicious killer from Loulie’s past. And, in a world where story is reality and illusion is truth, Loulie will discover that everything—her enemy, her magic, even her own past—is not what it seems, and she must decide who she will become in this new reality.
JUNE
7th – Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White
A furious, queer debut novel about embracing the monster within and unleashing its power against your oppressors. Perfect for fans of Gideon the Ninth and Annihilation.
Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him—the fundamentalist sect that unleashed Armageddon and decimated the world’s population. Desperately, he searches for a place where the cult can’t get their hands on him, or more importantly, on the bioweapon they infected him with.
But when cornered by monsters born from the destruction, Benji is rescued by a group of teens from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, affectionately known as the ALC. The ALC’s leader, Nick, is gorgeous, autistic, and a deadly shot, and he knows Benji’s darkest secret: the cult’s bioweapon is mutating him into a monster deadly enough to wipe humanity from the earth once and for all.
Still, Nick offers Benji shelter among his ragtag group of queer teens, as long as Benji can control the monster and use its power to defend the ALC. Eager to belong, Benji accepts Nick’s terms…until he discovers the ALC’s mysterious leader has a hidden agenda, and more than a few secrets of his own.
Merman In My Tub 
Dragon Goes House-Hunting
For the Kid I Saw in My Dreams
Handa-kun
![Socially Orcward (Adventures in Aguillon Book 3) by [Lisa Henry, Sarah Honey]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41zQu2gGZmL.jpg)
Imagine Afterwords 
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