There are many reasons one might miss books when they are first released. Perhaps the books were poorly distributed, the warehouse in which the print run was stored flooded, the cover art misled purchasers1, you weren’t in the mood for that book at that particular time, you couldn’t afford it, you had to detour to the emergency room before reaching the bookstore, you had yet to be born when they were released2, and so on. Given how short the shelf life of a book can be3, it’s not uncommon for readers to discover that they missed their window of opportunity.
Such readers need not despair and hurl themselves into the Seine4—there is such a thing as reprints. New editions provide readers with that rare thing, the second chance. You might want to consider these five recently (or soon to be) re-released books and series.
Dominion of the Fallen by Aliette de Bodard
For the last eight centuries, fallen angels have found refuge in Paris, the City of Lights. This has not always worked out to Paris’ benefit, as the Fallen’s Great Houses are as keen on competition as they are indifferent to collateral damage. Since the 1914 unpleasantness, Paris has become a desolation.
House Silverspires survived the conflict. It survived the loss of its founder, Morningstar. Can it survive what is to come?
Dominion of the Fallen includes three novels, The House of Shattered Wings (2015), The House of Binding Thorns (2017), and The House of Sundering Flames (2019). All are slated for re-release with brand-new covers.
Community Witch by Ash Kreider
Aspen Fahey is a non-binary aspiring community witch and failed witchfluencer living in downtown Toronto. When their aunt dies and bequeaths them a witching practice on Vancouver Island, their life unexpectedly turns into a Lifetime movie: early thirties enby leaves the big city to move to a beautiful small town, has meet-cute with beautiful stranger before running into The One That Got Away.
Community Witch is kind of an odd duck for this essay. Unlike the other examples, Community Witch is a recent release. But it began as a self-published work. A publishing deal with Varus Publishing offers a more prominent profile5. Accordingly, the book has been unpublished in its original form, and will be re-released in February of 2026 as Parksville Community Witch.
Arabella of Mars by David D. Levine
Raised on the frontier world of Mars, Arabella Ashby was dragged back to Earth by her very proper mother. Arabella will be groomed into a suitable young woman for the very best sort of husband. But Arabella prefers less ladylike pursuits. Confounding the homicidal machinations of her malevolent cousin will be only the first of her adventures.
The Arabella of Mars series is a steampunk—remember steampunk?—planetary romance series consisting of Arabella of Mars (2016), Arabella and the Battle of Venus (2017), and Arabella the Traitor of Mars (2018), all of which have since fallen out of print, as books do. However, they’ve just been reprinted, so you need not miss them6.
Sarah Tolerance by Madeleine E. Robins
Sarah Tolerance’s Regency England is a different regency than the one we know. For one thing, the Prince of Wales married Catholic Maria Fitzherbert, which is why the Regent is the Queen Regent. Other details are quite familiar. Poor George III is still quite mad and the roles open to fallen women such as Sarah are still limited, unpleasant, and designed to encourage prudent women to conform. Sarah rejects the role of cautionary tale in favour of becoming quite possibly England’s first woman consulting detective.
The Sarah Tolerance series of old consisted of Point of Honour (2003), Petty Treason (2004) (both from Forge) and The Sleeping Partner (2011) (from Plus One Press). However, the relaunch of the series isn’t confined to a reprise of old material. The reprints are companied by a brand-new fourth volume, The Doxies Penalty (2025).
Letters to the Pumpkin King by Seanan McGuire
Originally published in 2014, Letters was billed as the first collection of Seanan McGuire’s non-fiction works7. It offers a diverse assortment of short pieces, non-fiction as well as poetry, that might otherwise be difficult to obtain. It did so in one of NESFA’s nicely-bound hardcovers that last forever. The combination of “works by an author whose awards are so numerous word count limits preclude listing them,” and “durable, well-made artifact” was enticing enough that readers purchased the whole print run. Which is good! Much better than not selling the entire print run. But a disappointment for anyone who missed the initial release8.
Or it was a disappointment! Now you can purchase the second edition.
(McGuire fans may also be interested to know there’s a new Velveteen, Velveteen vs. the Consequences of Her Actions, available for preorder.)
Books are always being reprinted, and thank goodness for that. Did I miss some notable recent or upcoming examples? Please mention them in comments below.
- I know, I know. That seems terribly unlikely. There’s even a saying about judging books by covers that I someday plan to read… ↩︎
- Not being born yet is my excuse for not picking up Curme Gray’s 1951 Murder in Millennium VI. ↩︎
- It is not practical to keep books on shelves indefinitely, because that would take up valuable shelf space needed for more editions of The Lord of the Rings and various Stephen King novels. ↩︎
- Which would do no good, as the Seine is already full of despairing operatic police officers. ↩︎
- Hmmm. I could write an essay on self-published works that found their way into trad publishing. There are certainly enough examples. ↩︎
- I assume that ebook issue counts as a re-release. ↩︎
- Awkward phrasing for two reasons, one reasonable and one not. The reasonable one is that first implies there might be a second, and I am not sure there were more McGuire non-fiction books. My sources failed me. The unreasonable one is that the collection includes the complete texts of two poetry collections. If poetry counts as non-fiction or at least didn’t disqualify collections containing it as non-fiction, then the two poetry collections might count as non-fiction? Fun fact: I once joked to my boss I had a 128-step system to avoid overthinking and she thought I was serious. ↩︎
- Especially readers who have never heard of NESFA. ↩︎
I adore the Sarah Tolerance stories!
I’m now rereading the first novel. It’s pretty noir: some rich or powerful people act cruelly or compassionlessly, & a lot of the action deals with prostitutes (you see little of the acts, but there’s interviewing them & dealing with interactions).
It occurs to me, all too belatedly, that I should explain why I adore the Sarah Tolerance stories.
I find the characters to be unusually engaging: distinct personalities and (where it comes up) reasonable flaws. Sarah herself is competent in a number of areas and she is clever, but she’s not Superwoman, and I like that sort of protagonist. I don’t mind the Regency period or similar costume dramas, and the differences from our Regency (as mentioned in James’s review) are a piquant spice. They don’t seem to be idiot plots, though I’m not so reflective a reader, and the amount of luck seems plausible.
FWIW, the Velveteen vs. the Early Adventures reissue has been out a while now, it’s the second collection (in which she finally finishes the plot left dangling back in the day) that is up for pre-order. Last I checked, only the fancy limited edition hardcover was actually up for pre-order, if you want the ebook you’ll need to wait until it goes on regular sale.
The post has been updated. Thanks!
Crap, I thought I fixed that.
Please note that a better link for Letters to the Pumpkin King is https://www.nesfa.org/book/letters-to-the-pumpkin-king-3/. That points to the newly printed paperback edition. (The -2 link given in the post points to the out-of-print hardcover edition.)