Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore by Emily Krempholtz
Even secrets told at a whisper grow wings.
The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson
“You can’t go home.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. Because it’s gone.” Aminata frowned, finished her drink, and nodded, “You can’t find it again. Even if you go back, it’s not there anymore. That’s history, that’s how it works! Someone’s always changing someone else.”
The terror that took Baru came from the deepest part of her soul. it was a terror particular to her, a fundamental concern—the apocalyptic possibility that the world simply did not permit plans, that it worked in chaotic and unmasterable ways, that one single stroke of fortune, one well-aimed bowshot by a man she had never met, could bring total disaster. The fear that the basic logic she used to negotiate the world was a lie.
Soul Fraud by Andrew Givler
…the entire building burst into flames. It was not a gradual combustion. One second, the building was a normal not-on-fire warehouse. Then it was all fire, as if it were the head of a match that had been struck.
Cooking has always seemed so magical to me. Two things can be made from the same five basic ingredients yet taste wildly different. It may only have been a day since I learned magic was real, but part of me always thought cooks were secretly wizards.
When you’re a kid, your mother tells you not to let your friends peer-pressure you into drinking, doing drugs, and other stuff. But she never covered what do if an acquaintance offered to help you summon a demon. Or at least mine didn’t. She completely skipped that chapter.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I gasped as I was pulled from sleep’s dark, peaceful embrace. The process of waking up is a surprisingly accurate measure of how close your life is to rock bottom. For some people, the ones with everything clicking exactly as it should be, waking up is the worst thing that happens to them in a day. Because sleep is amazing. It’s mornings that are evil. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, fat or Mr. Universe. Sleep is the lesser equalizer after death. We all get to enjoy it, and it eventually finds us all. Waking up is a shared pain for all of us. Even those freakish morning people.
“What is it you mortals say? Ah, yes, time flies when you’re having fun,” he said with a twitch of his lips. “I’ve always liked that mental picture, time flying, when obviously it actually swims.”
Guns of Brixton by Paul D. Brazill
‘How is he?” said Kenneth to the fresh faced young policeman who’d been sat outside Bernie’s private room reading the Guardian.
‘Well, he’s been in and out of consciousness for most of the day. It was touch and go at one time,’ said the uniformed plod, ‘and he’s not out of the woods yet.’
He’ll go far with that degree in clichés, thought Kenneth. Officer material, no doubt about it.
Frog and Toad are Doing Their Best by Jennie Egerdie, illustrated by Ellie Hajdu
“Friends do not let friends dress like internet trolls,”
“Toad,” said Frog, “the older I get, the less I understand time.”
“Time means nothing,” said Toad. “Time is just the thing that happens between snacks.”
Moving the Millers’ Minnie Moore Mine Mansion by Dave Eggers, illustrated by Júlia Sardà
Like all of the best stories, this takes place in Idaho.
While Annie was gallivanting about Europe—which is what you do in Europe, by the way, you gallivant; it is a kind of traipsing—Henry was determined to build his new wife a lavish new house.
This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page
Getting back into reading feels like stepping back into the house of a beloved friend she hasn’t seen in a long time. It feels like coming home.
Tilly wasn’t sure she was expecting the trip to be fun. She was going because Joe had asked her to and it turnsed out that it’s very difficult to say no to the dead love of your life.
The right book in the hands of the right person at exactly the right moment can change their life forever.
Book shops aren’t just book shops, they’re places fo rbook lovers to come together, like-minded souls meeting among the stacks. They’re the hubs of community, the arena for heated conversations about the latest must-read series. They’re safe spaces to step in out of the rain, no matter who you are. They need our support now more than ever.
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
The problem with sending messages was that people responded to them, which meant one had to write more messages in reply.
She hadn’t lied once. And yet they were trusting her.
Poetry is for the desperate, and for people who have grown old enough to have something to say.
Grown old enough, or lived through enough incomprehensible experiences.
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie
There is always more after the ending. Always the next morning, and the next. Always changes, losses and gains. Always one step after the other. Until the one true ending that none of us can escape. But even that ending is only a small one, larges as it looms for us. There is still the next morning for everyone else. For the vast majority of the rest of the universe that ending might as well not ever have happened. Every ending is an arbitrary one. Everything ending is from another angle, not really an ending.
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
I lost my notes to this, so started flipping through the book to find things to include…and realized that I was going to be flipping for hours if I didn’t stop. So, I’ll just go with these samples:
Smart cookie. I am smart, but I am not a snack object dispensed from a packaged food machine. What a preposterous thing to say.
Some trees aren’t meant to sprout tender new branches, but to stand stoically on the forest floor, silently decaying.
There is one topic of conversation humans never exhaust, it is the status of their outdoor environment. And for as much as they discuss it, their incredulity is . . . well, incredible. That preposterous phrase: Can you believe this weather we’re having? How many times have I heard it? One thousand, nine hundred and ten, to be exact. One and a half times a day, on average. Tell me again about the intelligence of humans. They cannot even manage to comprehend predictable meteorological events.
(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)
