Two new fantasies dropping this week and both look so good. The decision now is which one to read first.
Wicked Endeavors by Kamilah Cole
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Caya was once the ward of Coventry’s royal family…until they were killed by the three witch Houses that now rule the peninsula.
Now eighteen, Caya plans to infiltrate the witches’ glittering world to enact justice. With the help of a mysterious benefactor, she adopts the persona of Marisol Vinyet, a disarmingly beautiful aristocrat. As Marisol, she’ll attend the annual Coronet, a cutthroat social season during which witches increase their power by binding new members to their Houses. The Coronet will draw even the prince of neighboring Domingo—Tomás Castellan—to the peninsula just in time for “Marisol” to kill him. After all, his family set the witches upon Coventry in the first place.
But Tomás is more charming than Caya ever anticipated. Worse, her estranged childhood friend, Bas Arroyo, is the prince’s protector, and she struggles to control her complicated feelings for him.
To take down the witches from within, Caya will have to keep both her identity and her desperate heart under wraps: Although she’s made herself a weapon, she might be the one to bleed.
A Thousand Nights, Edited by Nafiza Azad and Intisar Khanani
On her way across the desert, fleeing the soldiers who have destroyed all she knows, one refugee meets another. And another and another. As they travel together, on a journey in search of safety, they take turns telling one another stories—stories woven in the imagination; tales with echoes of the reality they face now. Tales of young people stolen away by jinn and tales of siblings rescuing one another; tales of lands encroached on by settlers and abandoned by rain; tales of magic found in caves, deserts, mountains, lakes, and, above all, in people, community, and faith. With a frame story written by Nafiza Azad and Intisar Khanani interwoven with stories from fifteen additional authors of various backgrounds, drawing on the mythologies and legends of their cultures, this extraordinary collection will appeal to lovers of fantasy and to those looking for books that center refugees and diverse narratives.
Stories contributed by:
Hanna Alkaf
Sara Sharaf Beg
Loretta Chefchaouni
Heba Helmy
Zeyneb Holdridge
Ausma Zehanat Khan
Diana Ma
Ardo Omer
Haneen Oriqat
Sarah Mughal Rana
Farah Naz Rishi
Laila Sabreen
Zeba Shahnaz
Ream Shukairy
Zaynah Qutubuddin