MOONBOUND de Robin Sloan

Robin Sloan expands the Penumbraverse to new reaches of time and space in a rollicking far-future adventure.

MOONBOUND
by Robin Sloan
MCD/FSG, June 2024
(via The Gernert Company)

In MOONBOUND, Robin Sloan has written a novel with the full scope and ambitious imagination of the very books that lit the engines of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore: an epic quest as only Sloan could conceive it, mixing science fiction, fantasy, good old-fashioned literary storytelling, and unrivaled enthusiasm for what’s next.

It is eleven thousand years from now . . . A lot has happened, and yet a lot is still very familiar. Ariel is a boy in a small town under a wizard’s rule. Like many adventurers before him, Ariel is called to explore a world full of unimaginable glories and challenges: unknown enemies, a mission to save the world, a girl. Here, as they say, be dragons. But none of this happens before Ariel comes across an artifact from an earlier civilization, a sentient, record-keeping artificial intelligence that carries with it the perspective of the whole of human history―and becomes both Ariel’s greatest ally and the narrator of our story.

MOONBOUND is an adventure into the richest depths of Story itself. It is a deeply satisfying epic of ancient scale, blasted through the imaginative prism one of our most forward-thinking writers. And this is only the beginning.

Robin Sloan grew up in Michigan and now splits his time between San Francisco and the internet. He is the author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore and Sourdough.

THE LOST BOY OF SANTA CHIONIA de Juliet Grames

One unidentified skeleton. Three missing men. A village full of secrets. The best-selling author of The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna brings us a sparkling—by turns funny and moving—novel about a young American woman turned amateur detective in a small village in Southern Italy.

THE LOST BOY OF SANTA CHIONIA
by Juliet Grames
Knopf, July 2024
(via The Gernert Company)

Calabria, 1960. Francesca Loftfield, a twenty-seven-year-old, starry-eyed American, arrives in the isolated mountain village of Santa Chionia tasked with opening a nursery school. There is no road, no doctor, no running water or electricity. And thanks to a recent flood that swept away the post office, there’s no mail, either.

Most troubling, though, is the human skeleton that surfaced after the flood waters receded. Who is it? And why don’t the police come and investigate? When an old woman begs Francesca to help determine if the remains are those of her long-missing son, Francesca begins to ask a lot of inconvenient questions. As an outsider, she might be the only person who can uncover the truth. Or she might be getting in over her head. As she attempts to juggle a nosy landlady, a suspiciously dashing shepherd, and a network of local families bound together by a code of silence, Francesca finds herself forced to choose between the charitable mission that brought her to Santa Chionia, and her future happiness, between truth and survival.

Set in the wild heart of Calabria, a land of sheer cliff faces, ancient tradition, dazzling sunlight—and one of the world’s most ruthless criminal syndicates—The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia is a suspenseful puzzle mystery, a captivating romance, and an affecting portrait of a young woman in search of a meaningful life.

Juliet Grames is the best-selling author of The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in Real Simple, Parade, and The Boston Globe, and she is the recipient of an Ellery Queen Award from the Mystery Writers of America. She is editorial director at Soho Press in New York.

DON’T TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS de Raphael Simon et Philip De Léon

Two queer love stories. Two time periods. One mystery.

DON’T TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS
by Raphael Simon and Philip De Léon
TBD
(via The Gernert Company)

Fifteen-year-old Noah lives with his father in New York but is spending the summer with his mother in Venice, CA. An indoor, city sort of person, a RuPaul fanatic, he’s miserable in the sun – until he meets Tomo, a surfer who works in his father’s vintage store. Tomo hands Noah an old composition-style notebook, filled with steamy diary entries by its teenaged owner, Diego, in addition to ephemera from the 1980s. Noah reads about Diego playing footsie in history class with closeted surfer (another surfer!) Casey until one day after school it becomes something more. Noah is enthralled. And there’s one more notebook at the store, but that’s it – Noah and Tomo have no idea what happened to Diego and Casey. And as they set off to find the much older surfer, the two boys find romance of their own…but can Noah keep from sabotaging the first good thing in his life?

Not quite a graphic novel, not quite a traditional prose novel, DON’T TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS is an enchanting story and story-within-a-story in the form of two sequential scrapbook-style diaries that include drawings, photos, concert tickets, flyers, and other memorabilia from the late 80s – a fantastically fulfilling romance, mystery, and coming-of-age novel.

Better known as Pseudonymous Bosch, Raphael Simon is the not-so-secret author of two bestselling middle-grade series, the Secret Series and the Bad Books, as well as the ALA Rainbow-Listed Unbelievable Oliver chapter-book mysteries. Most recently, Raphael published The Anti-Book, the first novel to appear under his own name (“a surprisingly powerful, formula-breaking coming of age story” per the New York Times).

Prior to writing books, Raphael wrote screenplays for film, television, and video games, and was a staff writer on Nickelodeon’s Rocket Power. In recent years, he has contributed essays and reviews to the New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Harper’s Bazaar.

As a visiting author, Raphael has shared his work with students at schools all across the country, as well as at bookstores and book festivals, theaters and museums, universities, summer camps, and once, memorably, trapped in a cage. More formally, he has taught creative writing at Occidental College and a queer mystery class (“Closet Cases”) at CalArts.

A graduate of Yale, Raphael holds an MA in Comparative Literature from UC Irvine. An LA native, he lives in Pasadena with his husband, two daughters, and two dogs.

Textile designer and illustrator Phillip De León began drawing as soon as he could hold a pencil.

First working as a creative in the advertising world, Phillip joined forces with his design partner and sister Nicole and their father Marcus to form the De León Design Group, and to direct the Los Angeles-based textile house, Alexander Henry Fabrics, Inc. A queer artist who spent his childhood dancing to disco and foraging the pages of GQ, Phillip has long incorporated a gay sensibility into his artwork.

A native Los Angeleno, Phillip De León grew up in the San Fernando Valley, earning his BA degree in Comparative Literature from UCLA. Designer and illustrator by day and jazz singer by night, Phillip now lives with his husband and their twin daughters in Pasadena.

HOW TO HEAL THE SUCCESS WOUND de Brooke Taylor

From renowned career coach Brooke Taylor, a guidebook for high-achieving women to break the link between success and self-worth, helping them to achieve success in their careers and improve their relationships with themselves.

HOW TO HEAL THE SUCCESS WOUND
The Overachiever’s Guide from Breakdown to Breakthrough
by Brooke Taylor
Hachette Books, Fall 2025
(via Park & Fine Literary and Media)

Too many women depend on external approval to define their self worth. While that desire might initially drive people to high-performing jobs, it secretly sabotages their chances of the fulfilling life and career they desire. Brooke Taylor has transformed the lives of more than 5,000 high-achieving women in business by healing what she calls “the success wound” – the pain that comes from a person’s mistaking success for her self-worth.

Working with high-level executives at companies like Uber, Microsoft, and Google, Brooke’s advice has helped clients land promotions, advance into leadership roles, negotiate raises, and start businesses with millions of dollars in funding.

But Brooke’s process doesn’t just lead to career success. By helping women find self-worth outside of their career, she also helps to heal crippling burnout, alleviate chronic anxiety, increase confidence and self-assurance, and create healthy new habits that clients actually stick to.

Brooke’s five-step process to help women succeed in their careers and in their relationships with themselves is proven. Now, in her first book, she’ll share that process with women around the globe – showing them how to separate self-worth from success, without having to sacrifice.

Brooke Taylor is a Career Coach, speaker, workshop facilitator, and former Marketing Lead at Google. In the crowded space of career coaching, she has distinguished herself as an expert in helping transform the lives and careers of over 5,000 high-achieving female leaders at companies like Google, Uber, Coinbase, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, and Salesforce through healing their success wound. She has been featured across global media like Forbes, Entrepreneur, Women’s Health, and Marie Claire, and she frequently speaks at events for Fortune 500 companies.

HOUSE OF DEVILS de Kayla Edwards

From the author of Dreams of Ice and Iron comes a new fantasy romance perfect for fans of Sarah J Maas, Ilona Andrews, and Cassandra Clare.

HOUSE OF DEVILS
by Kayla Edwards
Self-published, 2022 – 2026
(via The Whalen Agency)

Book #1: CITY OF GODS AND MONSTERS (January 2022)

Welcome to the city of Angelthene. We hope you survive.

Loren Calla has only ever been ordinary. As a human struggling to survive in a city that caters to the needs of vampires, werewolves, witches, and other supernatural creatures, she always assumed her life would remain simple, predictable, and as safe as her world would allow.

Until she barely escapes abduction at the hands of Darkslayers—supernatural bounty hunters that possess the Sight, a magical tracking ability that allows them to see a person’s aura—and one of her friends is taken in her place. The abductors are demanding a ransom: Loren’s life in exchange for her friend’s safe return. Loren will do whatever it takes to get her friend back—even if it means accepting help from Darien Cassel, the leader of the Seven Devils, the most feared Darkslaying circle in the city.

Darien specializes in tracking down demons and criminals that are better off dead than alive, so when he takes a job to track down Loren and finds out she is human—and couldn’t hurt a fly if her life depended on it—he decides to protect her instead of turn her in for a reward. As much as Loren doesn’t want to admit it, Darien is her best and only chance at finding her friend alive, if she can somehow manage to get along with him—and not fall head-over-heels in love with him in the process, which is far easier said than done.

When more women start disappearing, and some of them slowly turn up dead, Loren and Darien’s search for answers takes them deep into Angelthene’s corrupt underbelly, where they discover a dark secret that threatens to unravel their world. And when tragedy strikes, Loren learns that love can make an ordinary person do extraordinary things.

Book #2: CITY OF SOULS AND SINNERS (February 2023)

Something wicked is coming…

In the sequel to CITY OF GODS AND MONSTERS, Loren Calla and Darien Cassel have settled back into their old routines, grateful that the whirlwind of dangers they’d faced on Kalendae and the weeks leading up to it are now behind them—or so they think.

But Loren soon finds herself caught in a new storm of trouble when the Terran Imperator blackmails her into working for him. There’s only one problem: he expects her to use her magic, and she doesn’t seem to have any of it left. To keep Darien and the other Devils safe, she agrees to everything the imperator asks of her. But the secrets she is forced to keep from Darien, and her involvement with the imperator’s son, threaten to drive her away from Darien in ways she might never recover from…

As Randal Slade’s successor, Darien wants nothing to do with the throne his father once sat in, but the city of Angelthene has other plans. The Magical Protections Unit asks for his help in taking down the illegal arms trade his father once dabbled in, and to do that Darien must claim his place at the top of the tiers of Darkslayers—a crown the other circles are willing to kill to possess. As he spirals deeper into the secrets his father kept, he makes enemies of friends and friends of enemies—and finds himself buried so deep in Angelthene’s underbelly that he is uncertain he’ll ever get out of it. And if that wasn’t enough, Darien fears he is going crazy when he starts to see creatures that only he can see…

Return to Angelthene in City of Souls and Sinners, a gripping, action-packed tale that tackles themes of love and loss, light and darkness, and the battle between good and evil—and what happens when you can’t tell which is which.

Book #3: CITY OF LIES AND LEGENDS (March 2024)

When Darkslayer Darien Cassel first took human Loren Calla under his wing, he’d made a promise to protect her from anything. And now that she has fallen into a coma, every day a losing battle to return to life, he is determined to save her.

When he hears rumors of the one place in Terra that houses a secret that just might bring her back to him, he drops everything to try it, leaving behind the city he grew up in and the people he calls family. His decision sets his best friend Maximus Reacher onto a road of his own—one no less dangerous than Darien’s as he unearths the secrets of his past, uncovering a multitude of lies and legends better left buried.

Meanwhile, in the historic city of Yveswich, Roman Devlin of the House of Black gets tangled up with a shapeshifting Selkie of the Riptide, a member of a rival Darkslaying house and a thorn in his side. Shay Cousens is a pickpocket with endless tricks up her sleeve—and if Roman isn’t careful, she might succeed at stealing both his wallet and his heart as they work together to find her missing sister. Their path will lead them not just to Angelthene, but also into the dark secrets of the Phoenix Head Society—and the restorative body of water that has the power to cleave their world in two.

Loyalties are tested, and worlds collide in CITY OF LIES AND LEGENDS, the third installment in the HOUSE OF DEVILS series.

Kayla Edwards is the author of the HOUSE OF DEVILS series— CITY OF GODS AND MONSTERS, CITY OF SOULS AND SINNERS, and CITY OF LIES AND LEGENDS. She is also the author of the upper-YA romantasy novel, Dreams of Ice and Iron. She started writing CITY OF GODS AND MONSTERS when she was in high school, so the characters and the world they live in are very close to her heart. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys traveling, spending time in nature, and binge-watching her favorite television shows with her husband.