It’s a new year and you know what that means—new books! With 2019 over, it’s time to start planning out my fresh reads for 2020. There are so many great books releasing this year that I had a hard time narrowing it down to a simple list. But here are a few of the books that I’m most excited about adding to my TBR pile:
- Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire (set to be released January 7)
This is the fifth book in Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series, but it mainly picks up the threads left dangling in Books 1 and 2. With Come Tumbling Down, we return to my favorite character Jack, who was last seen carrying her twin sister’s body through a portal to their Gothic fantasy world of the Moors with a plan to bring her back to life. But it sounds like things don’t exactly go according to plan, Jack will need the help of her friends at Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children to set things right. I never did get around to reading Book 4, In an Absent Dream, last year so it may take me a while to get to this one, but I know I’ll enjoy it when I do.
- Burn the Dark by S. A. Hunt (set to be released January 14)
This will be my first read of the new year, and in fact I’ve already started on it. Burn the Dark is the first book in S. A. Hunt’s Malus Domestica series, which features a punk witch-hunter named Robin, whose recorded exploits have brought her Youtube fame under the guise of fiction. In this book, Robin returns to her hometown to pursue vengeance for her mother’s death. From what I can tell, this book was originally self-published on Amazon, where it reached the Top 10 for the horror category, and is now being re-released through the traditional publisher Tor Books. This seems to be the first in a wave of fantasy books by trans authors coming out this year, and I’m so glad that it wound up on my radar!
- Blood Countess by Lana Popović (set to be released January 28)
But if fantasy isn’t your thing, there’s plenty of real-world horror to be found in historical fiction. Blood Countess is a young-adult horror novel inspired by the life of Elizabeth Bathory the Hungarian countess known for bathing in the blood of virgins. The story focuses on the perspective of one of Elizabeth’s chambermaids, Anna Darvulia, whose adoration of the countess leads her down a dark and terrifying path. I’m excited to see what this book makes of one of the darkest figures in history!
- Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland (set to be released February 4)
Back in 2018, I reviewed Justina Ireland’s amazing Civil War zombie novel Dread Nation. Now, a year and a half later, that book finally has a sequel! Deathless Divide picks up after Jane McKeene has taken down the corrupted utopia town of Summerland and set out west to find her mother in California. But just as the dead come back to life as flesh-eating shamblers in this terrifying new world, deep-seated racism and white supremacy are not so easily killed. In her travels, Jane encounters all sorts of demons from her past, but luckily she has her arch-enemy-turned-best-friend Katherine with her to fight by her side. I can’t wait to return to Justina Ireland’s stunning alternate-history world!
- The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller (set to be released February 25)
This YA fantasy novel has been described by the author as her “Slytherin romance” book, and that is all I needed to hear! Alessandra, the book’s morally gray protagonist has a ruthless plan for power: she’s going to woo the Shadow King, marry him, and then kill him for his kingdom. But things get complicated when she realizes she’s going to have to protect him from other power-grabbers long enough to kill him herself. Can she fulfill her mission without losing her heart? After finishing Holly Black’s Folk of Air series last year, I’m hungry for some more vicous, ambitious, and morally complicated ladies on a quest for love and power.
- The Ancestor by Danielle Trussoni (set to be released April 7)
The author of the popular Angelology series tackles classic Gothic tropes in her new book, The Ancestor. Alberta Monte receives an unexpected letter that addresses her as “Countess” and informs her that she’s inherited a title, a fortune, and a castle in Italy. When she flies out to her new luxurious home, it seems like Alberta is living a dream. But as she learns more about her ancestry and its legacy, not all of the surprises are pleasant ones. With its focus on both figurative concepts of inheritance and on literal genetics, The Ancestor blends the Gothic with the scientific. With so much to explore within those genres, I’m interested to see where this goes!
- Devolution by Max Brooks (set to be released May 12)
The author of seminal zombie novel World War Z is turning his meticulous attention to … Sasquatch! I’m not normally much of a Bigfoot fan, but if any author could take this quaint urban legend and make it into something believably scary, it’s Max Brooks. In Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre, Brooks presents the annotated journal entries of Kate Holland, a Washington resident who witnesses the bloody wreckage caused by creatures that blur the boundary between man and beast.
- Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas (set to be released June 9)
This book has been on my radar for so long, I can’t wait for it to finally come out! Yadriel is a transgender teenager struggling to navigate the expectations of his traditional Latinx family and the strictly gendered aspects of their ancestral magic. In an attempt to prove himself a real brujo, Yadriel summons the ghost of his dead classmate Julian. As Yadriel helps Julian learn more about the circumstances of his death, and Julian helps Yadriel with his explorations of magic, the connection between them deepens. I’m so here for some ghost boy romance and trans #ownvoices rep!
- Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (set to be released June 30)
Here’s another modern take on the classic Gothic suspense novel, this time set in the Mexican countryside in the 1950s. Noemí Taboada sets out on a rescue mission after receiving cryptic letter from her newly wed cousin begging for help. When she arrives at her cousin’s isolated mansion, High Place, she unearths dark family secrets of violence and madness. The house itself seems to wield a sinister power as it invades Noemí’s dreams with visions of blood and doom. Noemí, a fashionable socialite-turned-sleuth, is a particularly interesting choice for the protagonist of a Gothic thriller.
- Women’s Weird 2: More Strange Stories by Women, 1890–1940 edited by Melissa Edmundson (set to be released in October)
The anthology Women’s Weird: Strange Stories by Women, 1890–1940 was one on of my favorite books that I read and reviewed last year. It collected stories from women who were writing in the same genre as authors like Lovecraft at the turn of the twentieth century, but are in danger of being forgotten. The small publisher, Handheld Press, recently announced they will be publishing a follow-up volume with even more stories in October. Not much other information is available yet, but if it’s anything like the first volume, I’m sure it will be great!
What’s on your reading list for 2020? Any other new releases I should know about? Let me know in the comments!
wow i started jotting down the titles that sounded interesting so i wouldn’t forget to check them out and i ended up listing all of them
I am excited for all of them, especially Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno and Blood Countess by Lana Popović.
Mexican Gothic is kind a new trend, we feel it at our shop aswell.