New Releases Tuesday: The Best Books Out This Week

Robin Blyth has more than enough bother in his life. He’s struggling to be a good older brother, a responsible employer, and the harried baronet of a seat gutted by his late parents’ excesses. When an administrative mistake sees him named the civil service liaison to a hidden magical society, he discovers what’s been operating beneath the unextraordinary reality he’s always known.

Now Robin must contend with the beauty and danger of magic, an excruciating deadly curse, and the alarming visions of the future that come with it — not to mention Edwin Courcey, his cold and prickly counterpart in the magical bureaucracy, who clearly wishes Robin were anyone and anywhere else.

Robin’s predecessor has disappeared, and the mystery of what happened to him reveals unsettling truths about the very oldest stories they’ve been told about the land they live on and what binds it. Thrown together and facing unexpected dangers, Robin and Edwin discover a plot that threatens every magician in the British Isles—and a secret that more than one person has already died to keep.

Reasons to read it: This is being pitched as Red White & Royal Blue meets Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. It’s set in Edwardian England and explores a hidden world of magic, but it also has a steamy hate-to-love romance between Robin and Edwin. This is the first book in a series.

In Tamil Nadu, India, lives a boy with blue skin. His father sets up an ashram, and the family makes a living off of the pilgrims who seek the child’s blessings and miracles, believing young Kalki to be the tenth human incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. In Kalki’s tenth year, he is confronted with three trials that will test his power and prove his divine status and, his father tells him, spread his fame worldwide. While he seems to pass them, Kalki begins to question his divinity.

Over the next decade, his family unravels, and every relationship he relied on — father, mother, aunt, uncle, cousin — starts falling apart. Traveling from India to the underground rock scene of New York City, Blue-Skinned Gods explores ethnic, gender, and sexual identities, and spans continents and faiths, in an expansive and heartfelt look at the need for belief in our globally interconnected world.

Reasons to read it: From the author of Marriage of a Thousand Lies, Blue-Skinned Gods is a story about family, identity, and finding your place in the world. Roxane Gay calls it “brilliant” and “beautifully written,” and says, “The richness of this story will take hold of you and never let go.”

In Ichulu, an Igbo village, the people’s worship of their gods is absolute. Their adherence to tradition has allowed them to evade the influences of colonialism and globalization. But the village is reckoning with changes, including a war between gods signaled by Ijeoma, a girl who can fly.

As tensions grow between Ichulu and its neighboring colonized villages, Ijeọma is forced into exile. Reckoning with her powers and exposed to the world beyond Ichulu, she is imprisoned by a Christian church under the accusation of being a witch. Suffering through isolation, she comes to understand the truth of merciful love.

Reimagining the nature of tradition and cultural heritage and establishing a folklore of the uncolonized, God of Mercy is a novel about wrestling with gods, confronting demons, and understanding one’s true purpose.

Reasons to read it: This debut novel is being described as Homegoing meets Black Leopard, Red Wolf. It explores colonization, family, religion, and forgiveness. It’s inspired by Igbo stories, and the unique writing style echoes the cadence of Igbo.

Jasmine Tran has landed herself behind bars — maple bars that is. With no boyfriend or job prospects, Jasmine returns home to work at her parents’ donut shop. Jasmine quickly loses herself in a cyclical routine of donuts, Netflix, and sleep. She wants to break free from her daily grind, but when a hike in rent threatens the survival of their shop, her parents rely on her more than ever.

Help comes in the form of an old college crush, Alex Lai. Not only is he successful and easy on the eyes, to her parents’ delight, he’s also Chinese. He’s everything she should wish for, until a disastrous dinner reveals Alex isn’t as perfect as she thinks. Worse, he doesn’t think she’s perfect either.

With both sets of parents against their relationship, a family legacy about to shut down, and the reappearance of an old high school flame, Jasmine must scheme to find a solution that satisfies her family’s expectations and can get her out of the donut trap once and for all.

Reasons to read it: Not to be confused with Donut Fall In Love by Jackie Lau, which came out last week, this romance debut is a mix of Kim’s Convenience and Frankly in Love by David Yoon. It’s equal parts about the romance as it is about Jasmine’s fraught relationship with her family, as well as her search for her own identity and independence after graduation.

Margot Mertz is a secret sleuth — okay, not really, but she does run an internet cleanup business helping students and teachers alike clear their internet presence of anything they don’t want anyone else to see. From secret embarrassing DM’s to viral videos and more, Margot cleans it all. After her parents foolishly lost her college fund, this is the only way she can make it to Stanford.

But when a fellow student comes to her asking her to take down a website that’s gathering nude pics of fellow Roosevelt High girls, things get personal. Margot must delve into the depths of her school to take down the culprit. The seedy underbelly of Roosevelt High is not unfamiliar to Margot — but somehow this case is stumping her at every turn — until she figures out that the only way to reach her suspects is to get close to perfect boy Avery Green. His access to every club, volunteer opportunity, sports team, and popular party is the key to solving her case.

When the case takes a shocking turn, Margot’s ready to burn the whole world down. No one targets the Roosevelt High girls on Margot’s watch. Mertz Clean Your Filth is on the case. 

Reasons to read it: This is a feminist YA novel for fans of Veronica Mars and Moxie. It’s a fast-paced mystery with big stakes as well as the snarky humor you’d expect from the Veronica Mars comparison, which comes out in frequent footnotes. Margot is a flawed, unique main character readers will either hate or love.

Lou, a young Black woman, wakes up in an alley in 1930s Los Angeles, nearly naked and with no memory of how she got there or where she’s from, only a fleeting sense that this isn’t the first time she’s found herself in similar circumstances. Taken in by a caring foster family, Lou dedicates herself to her education while trying to put her mysterious origins behind her. She’ll go on to become the first Black female journalist at the Los Angeles Times, but Lou’s extraordinary life is about to become even more remarkable. When she befriends a firefighter at a downtown boxing gym, Lou is shocked to realize that though she has no memory of ever meeting him she’s been drawing his face since her days in foster care.

Increasingly certain that their paths have previously crossed — perhaps even in a past life — and coupled with unexplainable flashes from different times that have been haunting her dreams, Lou begins to believe she may be an immortal sent to this place and time for a very important reason, one that only others like her will be able to explain. Relying on her journalistic training and with the help of her friends, Lou sets out to investigate the mystery of her existence and make sense of the jumble of lifetimes calling to her from throughout the ages before her time runs out for good.

Set against the rich historical landscape of Depression-era Los Angeles, The Perishing charts a course through a changing city confronting racism, poverty, and the drumbeat of a coming war for one miraculous woman whose fate is inextricably linked to the city she comes to call home.

Reasons to read it: From the author of Grace, a New York Times Best Book of the Year, The Perishing is set in Depression-era Los Angeles and explores racism, poverty, and impending war. This is an ambitious, philosophical story that brings life to the setting — more historical fiction than speculative fiction, despite the premise.