CHILDREN OF THE BLACK GLASS d’Anthony Peckham

Howl’s Moving Castle meets Neil Gaiman in this propulsive middle-grade trilogy, set in a world as mesmerizing as it is menacing, following children on a quest to save their father who get embroiled in the sinister agendas of rival sorcerers.

CHILDREN OF THE BLACK GLASS (Book 1)
by Anthony Peckham
Simon & Schuster, Mars 2023
(via Writers House)

In an unkind alternate past, somewhere between the Stone Age and a Metal Age, Tell and his sister Wren live in a small mountain village that makes its living off black glass mines and runs on brutal laws. When their father is blinded in a mining accident, the law dictates he has thirty days to regain his sight and be capable of working at the same level as before or be put to death.
Faced with this dire future, Tell and Wren make the forbidden treacherous journey to the legendary city of Halfway, halfway down the mountain, to trade their father’s haul of the valuable black glass for the medicine to cure him. The city, ruled by five powerful female sorcerers, at first dazzles the siblings. But beneath Halfway’s glittery surface seethes ambition, violence, prejudice, blackmail, and impending chaos.
Without knowing it, Tell and Wren have walked straight into a sorcerers’ coup. Over the next twelve days they must scramble first to save themselves, then their new friends, as allegiances shift and prejudices crack open to show who has true power.

Anthony Peckham is a highly acclaimed screenwriter whose work includes Sherlock Holmes and Clint Eastwood’s Invictus. He is a Writers Guild of America Award winner and an NAACP Image Award nominee. Children of the Black Glass is his novel-writing debut.

DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL de Matt Dinniman

The apocalypse will be televised! They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it’s anything but a game. This series is modern day Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy meets Ready Player One meets Hunger Games (with a dash of The Running Man to boot!)

DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL (Book 1)
by Matt Dinniman
Independently published, September 2020
(via The Gernert Company)

A man. His ex-girlfriend’s cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible.
In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth—from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds—collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground. The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe. Only a few dare venture inside. But once you’re in, you can’t get out. And what’s worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it’s game over.
In this game, it’s not about your strength or your dexterity. It’s about your followers, your views. Your clout. It’s about building an audience and killing those goblins with style. You can’t just survive here. You gotta survive big. You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that « it » factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That’s the only way to truly survive in this game—with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy.

Book 5 in the series was published in February 2022.

Matt Dinniman is a writer and artist from Gig Harbor, Washington. He is the author of the bestselling Dungeon Crawler Carl series along with ten other novels and dozens of works of short fiction. He lives with his wife, family, and menagerie of animals.

TOO EARLY de Nora Ericson & Elly MacKay

A gentle, cozy story following a family’s bleary-eyed wake-up routine, a little one who’s eager to start the day, and the quiet magic of early mornings.

TOO EARLY
written by Nora Ericson
illustrated by Elly MacKay
Arams Books for Young Readers, November 2022

I wake up very early.
Good morning, Sun, on your way at last. You don’t wake up nearly as early as I do.
Now the wind is waking.
Tickle tickle on my cheeks,
rustle rustle through the leaves.
Birds untuck and start to coo,
Whooo whooo, you wake up too early, yes you doooo . . .

In sweet, melodic verse written from the perspective of the earliest riser, TOO EARLY follows a family’s morning routine, exploring both the groggy haze and the everyday magic inherent in the predawn hours of a loving household.

“This winning title invites readers into the morning routine of its characters. Readers may notice warm colors beginning to hint at the culminating sunrise that will conclude the book; before that, however, the quiet yet potent text engages other senses by describing rustling leaves, cooing birds, and, finally, the baby crying. Cozy, sumptuous, and stirring—the perfect way to greet the dawn.”
– Kirkus, starred review ★

Nora Ericson studied painting at Yale University and writing for children at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Originally from central New York, she now lives in Portland, Oregon, with two kids, two dogs, and two cats. Besides reading and writing, she loves cooking, tromping in the woods, and whittling spoons while daydreaming of her future miniature donkey farm. She’s also the author of Dill & Bizzy: An Odd Duck and a Strange Bird and Dill & Bizzy: Opposite Day.
Elly MacKay is an internationally recognized paper artist and children’s book author and illustrator. She wrote and illustrated the picture books Red Sky at Night, If You Hold a Seed, and Butterfly Park, among others. The distinctive three-dimensional quality in her works is made by setting up layers of painted paper in a miniature theater. She lights the scene and photographs it to create her unique illustrations. MacKay lives in Owen Sound, Ontario, with her family.

LONG COVID de Martin Korte

Covid’s serious neurological after-effects: causes, treatments, and your chance of recovery, by one of Germany’s best-known brain researchers, specializing in how inflammatory processes influence brain performance. Based on the latest research findings

LONG COVID
by Prof. Dr. Martin Korte
DVA, October 2022

Exhaustion, breathlessness, loss of taste, brain fog, problems concentrating: about ten percent of Covid patients report these and other similar symptoms, months after first catching the virus. It doesn’t matter if their original symptoms were mild, and even the young and usually fit and healthy are affected. Not only that, but the latest studies show that Covid can accelerate brain ageing, meaning that the number of people suffering from dementia could rise sharply in the next few years. This alarming discovery suggests that long Covid really is the new endemic disease, and doctors and scientists have issued warnings about the long-term consequences for both individual patients and society at large.
In his new book, Martin Korte, who is researching long Covid at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research and Braunschweig Technical University, reveals how viral infections can damage our brains and cause lifelong conditions affecting people of all ages. He also explains how we can minimise the risk of long Covid, what treatments are available, and what we can do to regain our physical and mental fitness.

Martin Korte is one of Germany’s foremost neuroscientists. He is Professor of Neurobiology at Braunschweig Technical University and head of the Neuroinflammation and Neurodegeneration research group at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig. He specialises in the cellular basis of learning and memory, and the interaction between the immune and nervous systems in the context of Alzheimer’s. He and his research group were among the first to show that viral respiratory diseases can cause the immune system to overreact, causing long-term damage to the brain. He is currently involved in research into long Covid. Korte is a much sought-after expert, and will be familiar to many from his frequent talks and TV appearances.

OUT OF BREATH d’Anna Snoekstra

A compulsive, nail-bitingly tense psychological thriller that takes its readers deep into the heart of a seemingly idyllic intentional community – that proves to be anything but…For readers of Anna Downes’ The Safe Place and Sarah Bailey’s The Housemate.

OUT OF BREATH
by Anna Snoekstra
HarperCollins Australia, July 2022
(via Levine Greenberg Rostan)

Jo Ainsley has been running for a long time. From her childhood in small town England to art school in London to the messy end of a relationship in Sydney, Jo has chosen to run again and again, each time moving further from where her troubles began.
This time, her escape will bring her to the remote northwest region of Western Australia, where she must work for 88 days on a farm in order to extend her visa. There she meets an American, Gabe, with whom she has an immediate connection. He tells her of an idyllic off-grid community which seems like a refuge to her. Miserable, desperate and traumatised by a brutal event at the farm, Jo decides to run.
But the paradisal free-diving haven that embraces her without judgement is not all it seems. It harbours some sinister secrets – and so does Gabe. Jo searches for answers, but is she prepared for what she uncovers? She must decide where her loyalties lie and if she is really ready to confront the darkness of her past…

“OUT OF BREATH is a dream of a novel: intelligent, captivating, deeply-felt and thrilling, with a setting to lose yourself in. I both tore through the pages, desperate to find out what happens, and languished in the story, never wanting it to end. Wonderful.” – Anna Downes, author of The Safe Place

“OUT OF BREATH is impossible to put down. Electrifying, atmospheric and thrilling with characters that will stay with you. It raises so many questions about belonging, the nature of trauma and the power of community to both heal and destroy.” – Eliza Henry-Jones, author of Ache

Anna Snoekstra is the author of Only Daughter, Little Secrets and The Spite Game. Her novels have been published in over twenty countries and sixteen languages. She has written for The Guardian, Meanjin, Griffith Review, Lindsay,LitHub and The Saturday Paper. Her first audio drama, This Isn’t Happening, is out with Audible in late 2022.