THIS DELICIOUS DEATH de Kayla Cottingham

From the New York Times bestselling author of My Dearest Darkest comes another incredible sapphic horror. When four best friends with a hunger for human flesh attend a music festival in the desert they discover a murderous plot to expose and vilify the girls and everyone like them. This summer is going to get gory.

THIS DELICIOUS DEATH
by Kayla Cottingham
Sourcebooks Fire, April 2023

Three years ago, the melting of arctic permafrost released a pathogen of unknown origin into the atmosphere, causing a small percentage of people to undergo a transformation that became known as the Hollowing. Those impacted slowly became intolerant to normal food and were only able to gain sustenance by consuming the flesh of other human beings. Those who went without flesh quickly became feral, turning on their friends and family. However, scientists were able to create a synthetic version of human meat that would satisfy the hunger of those impacted by the Hollowing. As a result, humanity slowly began to return to normal, albeit with lasting fear and distrust for the people they’d pejoratively dubbed ghouls.
Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine are all ghouls living in Southern California. As a last hurrah before their graduation they decided to attend a musical festival in the desert. They have a cooler filled with hard seltzers and SynFlesh and are ready to party.
But on the first night of the festival Val goes feral, and ends up killing and eating a boy. As other festival guests start disappearing around them the girls soon discover someone is drugging ghouls and making them feral. And if they can’t figure out how to stop it, and soon, no one at the festival is safe..

Kayla Cottingham is a YA author and librarian. Her first book, My Dearest Darkest, was a New York Times and Publisher’s Weekly bestseller. Originally from Salt Lake City, Utah, Kayla lives in Boston where she loves to go hiking in the woods, play RPGs, and snuggle on the couch with her ridiculously large black cat, Squid.

10 THINGS THAT NEVER HAPPENED d’Alexis Hall

From Alexis Hall’s breakout Boyfriend Material expanded universe comes a hilarious LGBTQIA+ rom-com about identity, mistaken first impressions, and a serious case of (faux) amnesia.

10 THINGS THAT NEVER HAPPENED
(London Calling, Book #3)
by Alexis Hall
Sourcebooks, October 2023

Sam Becker is the manager of the Leeds location of a bed and bath retailer. It’s a pretty great job, all told; management suits him, and his staff adore him, not least because he places a high value on making the store a humane place to work. Too bad, then, that the owner is a thoroughly intimidating jerk.
Jonathan Forest should never have hired Sam Becker in the first place. It was a sentimental decision—he saw something in the sunny young Northerner—and Jonathan did not get to where he is by following his heart. Trying to fix the situation, Jonathan orders Sam down to the Croydon branch for a difficult talk…only for Sam (panicked at the idea of a confrontation with the surly owner) to bump his head and, well, pretend he doesn’t remember anything?
Faking amnesia seemed like a good idea in the heat of the moment, but now Sam has to deal with the very real reality of Jonathan’s guilt—and the unexpected new sides of the surly man he never thought he’d see. There’s an unexpected freedom in getting a second shot at a first impression…but as Sam and Jonathan grow closer, can Sam really bring himself to tell the truth, or will their future be built entirely on one impulsive lie?

Previous books in the series:

Alexis Hall writes books in the southeast of England, where he lives entirely on a diet of tea and Jaffa Cakes. You can find him at http://www.quicunquevult.com, on Twitter @quicunquevult, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/quicunquevult.

THE ADVENTURES OF TOLETIS, AMENOPHIS AND FRIENDS de Rafa Ruiz & Elena Hormiga

Translated from Spanish, this is a beautiful story for our times about rewilding and treating our planet with the kindness and care it deserves.

THE ADVENTURES OF TOLETIS, AMENOPHIS AND FRIENDS
by Rafa Ruiz
illustrated by Elena Hormiga
Neem Tree Press, October 2017
(via Randle Editorial & Literary)

The trees and grass are disappearing to make way for a new section of road. Toletis, his dog Amenophis, friends Claudia and Tutan are on a mission to find ingenious ways of replacing them and turning their little valley town, set deep in the mountains, lusciously green again. The odds are stacked against them. Can they succeed… with some very unusual help?

Rafa Ruiz is journalist and author who has a staunch commitment to culture, art and the environment, and the majority of his career has been focused on these three topics. He spent 10 years at Spanish newspaper El Pais and 15 years at their weekly supplement. He has written numerous children’s books and he co-directs the Mad is Mad art gallery in Madrid which gives a space to up-and-coming artists. He is also one of the partner-founders of the Press Association for Environmental Information (APIA).
Elena Hormiga is an illustrator with a sense of humour. Her fun pictures are imbued with irony and metaphor. She studied and worked as an engineer and later turned to illustration. She currently works creating images for stories, articles and posters. She also enjoys writing, cooking and origami.

BOOM BOOM de Jude Idada

“Agony and its relief, anxiety and serenity, despair and hope pulsate on the pages and bring into very vivid relief the human capacity to bear pain and overcome it. BOOM BOOM gives Sickle Cell Anaemia immense clarity in an absorbing and engulfing style’ – Judges’ Report, Nigeria Prize for Literature

BOOM BOOM
by Jude Idada
Swift Press, June 2023
(via Randle Editorial & Literary)

Osaik is an eight-year-old boy. He is charming and has an unusual ability to hear things no one else hears. But his world is thrown into disarray when a debilitating disease takes his mother from him. Despite his grief, he has to find a way of saving his little sister, Eghe, from the same disease. Alongside his dad, and Kompa his dog, they begin a race to get her all the help she needs. In this dramatic, fast-paced story of loss, faith, and hope, the limits of love, sacrifice, friendship, loyalty, and family ties are tested as the struggle to save his sister’s life brings Osaik and those around him to a new knowledge of the world they can see, the world they cannot see, and the part of themselves they never knew existed.

Winner of the Nigeria Prize for Literature

Jude Idada is an award-winning screenwriter, actor, poet and playwright. BOOM BOOM is the first of his books to be published outside of Nigeria.

LASAGNA MEANS I LOVE YOU de Kate O’Shaughnessy

What are the essential ingredients that make a family? Eleven-year-old Mo is making up her own recipe in this unforgettable story that’s a little sweet, a little sour, and totally delicious.

LASAGNA MEANS I LOVE YOU
by Kate O’Shaughnessy
Knopf BYR, February 2023
(via Park & Fine Literary)

Nan was all the family Mo ever needed. But suddenly she’s gone, and Mo finds herself in foster care after her uncle decides she’s not worth sticking around for.
Nan left her a notebook and advised her to get a hobby, like ferret racing or palm reading. But how could a hobby fix anything in her newly topsy-turvy life?
Then Mo finds a handmade cookbook filled with someone else’s family recipes. Even though Nan never cooked, Mo can’t tear her eyes away. Not so much from the recipes, but the stories attached to them. Though, when she makes herself a pot of soup, it is every bit as comforting as the recipe notes said.
Soon Mo finds herself asking everyone she meets for their family recipes. Teaching herself to make them. Collecting the stories behind them. Building a website to share them. And, okay, secretly hoping that a long-lost relative will find her and give her a family recipe all her own.
But when everything starts to unravel again, Mo realizes that if she wants a family recipe—or a real family—she’s going to have to make it up herself.

Kate O’Shaughnessy is a book nerd, animal lover, former chef, and an outdoor enthusiast. When she’s not writing, you can find Kate pottering in her garden, eating good food, hiking with her dog, and chronically mispronouncing words she’s read but never heard said aloud. She lives in California with her family. Kate’s first book was The Lonely Heart of Maybelle Lane.