Hello and welcome back!
There’s a great mix of fiction in this one: mystery, sci-fi romance, fantasy, and even a middle grade recommendation.
Want to recommend something? Let us know in the comments!
A Murder Most Camp
My friend texted me about this over the weekend. We were in a book club and read The Guncle. She said this reminded her a lot of that one, but definitely a little edgier and a lot of fun.
The Guncle meets Every Time I Go On Vacation Someone Dies in this fun, twisty mystery following a spoiled nepo baby forced to work at a struggling summer camp who stumbles into a real-life murder mystery he has no choice but to solve.
Rustic cabins. Lakefront bonfires. A painfully hot lifeguard. And a murder? Summer has never been this camp.
Mikey Hartford IV has coasted through his twenties in a distracted blur of yachts and sex and partying. But when his father discovers his latest million-dollar impulse buy and changes the terms of his trust, the party’s finally over. Now, unless Mikey can make a positive contribution to the world before his thirtieth birthday—one that doesn’t involve throwing cash at his problems—he’ll never see another yacht again. (Or even so much as a canoe.)
Camp Lore, a struggling summer camp in upstate New York where Mikey has to work as the oldest, least-qualified staffer to prove that he can “do good” alongside his twelve-year-old aunt. (Yes, aunt.) But Mikey isn’t sure he’ll be able to survive the camp’s ramshackle living conditions, let alone the gaggle of preteens who won’t leave his side. And when his campers become obsessed with a local legend set at an abandoned cabin on the grounds, Mikey’s chances of not making it through the summer become dangerously real—because it turns out there’s a murder hidden beneath Camp Lore. And someone there will stop at nothing to keep it that way.
Solving a decade-old cold case will surely be enough “good” for Mikey to earn his inheritance. He just has to stay alive long enough to do it…
Airrelle of the Maroon Witches
It’s been a hot minute since I recommended a middle grade book. The Studio Ghibli comparisons are pretty spot on.
Kiki’s Delivery Service meets Black Panther in this middle grade fantasy set in a richly imagined world where once-enslaved people have built an enchanted network of hidden witch communities.
Anyone can become a witch in Missen Dessalin. If you can find the Missen, that is. Some say the whole reason it was called a “Missen” is because it was a gathering place for those who wanted to stay missin’.
Twelve-year-old Airrelle Bookman, born and raised in Missen Dessalin by two witch parents, has been waiting for magic to call to her for years now. She just has to secure her four patron animals, complete four rites, master four skills, and pass the initiation ceremony. Then she’ll be a fully confirmed maroon witch, able to fly beyond the walls of the Missen as she pleases. Just like her parents, older siblings, and best friend Hosniya.
When the time for her trial finally seems to arrive, so do familial troubles and threats to the very safety and secrecy of Missen Dessalin itself. But an ordinary girl from beyond the protected walls of Missen, one who has grown up in our own tumultuous and unenchanted world, may just be the key to Airrelle’s troubles.
Informed by the history of maroon societies and inspired by the fantasy worlds of Studio Ghibli, Airrelle of the Maroon Witches is a beautiful coming of age story about a shy but resourceful girl discovering her own power.
Love Galaxy
So much catnip in this sci-fi romance! Class differences! A reality TV dating show! A royal love interest!
A romantic science fiction thriller in which a young woman from a dead-end planet gets cast on a reality TV show to compete for the hand of the prince—or princess. But not everyone is there for the right reasons…
Smart, sexy, compulsively readable and fun, this is for fans of Everina Maxwell’s Winter’s Orbit and Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire
Temmi, a young trash collector stuck in a dead-end job on a garbage planet, finds herself with a golden ticket she never the opportunity to be cast on an interstellar dating show starring the brother and sister heirs to the galactic empire. Through diplomatic challenges and dramatized dates, twenty-four women will compete to marry the prince and princess—and to win the dynasty’s favor for their home planet.
Temmi may have been hand-picked to date the quiet, bookish prince, who is immediately taken by her brash personality and their shared passion for the sciences. But she can’t seem to keep away from the princess—and even though she’s strictly off-limits, their chemistry is undeniable.
But when contestants start turning up dead, whispers begin to circulate that some competitors might be harboring anti-imperialist motivations—Temmi among them. And suddenly it’s clear that so much more than feelings are at stake.
In fact, very few of the participants of Love Galaxy have come on the show to find love.
Sexy, snarky, and revolutionary, this fast-paced thrill ride will hook lovers of reality TV, fans of thoughtful sci-fi, and anyone who lives for drama.
The Works of Vermin
I read Ennes’s debut and liked it; I gave it a 3/5 on Goodreads. Very atmospheric and twisty and all sorts of fucked up! This is their sophomore novel and there have been so many people I know who have read this and earned a membership to the Bad Decisions Book Club because of it.
He was sent to kill a pest. Instead, he found a monster.
Enter the decadent, deadly city of Tiliard, a metropolis carved into the stump of an ancient tree. In its canopy, the pampered elite warp minds with toxic perfume; in its roots, gangs of exterminators hunt a colossal worm with an appetite for beauty.
In this complex, chaotic city, Guy Moulène has a simple goal: keep his sister out of debt. For her sake, he’ll take on any job, no matter how vile.
As an exterminator, Guy hunts the uncanny creatures that crawl up from the river. These vermin are all strange, and often dangerous. His latest quarry is different: a centipede the size of a dragon with a deadly venom and a ravenous taste for artwork. As it digests Tiliard from the sewers to the opera houses, its toxin reshapes the future of the city. No sane person would hunt it, if they had the choice.
Guy doesn’t have a choice.
