Here’s the full list of SFF crossover titles heading your way in January!
Keep track of all the new SFF releases here. All title summaries are taken and/or summarized from copy provided by the publisher. Release dates are subject to change.
January 6
Death and Other Occupational Hazards — Veronika Dapunt (Poisoned Pen Press)
Her job is to die for. Literally. When most people think of Death, they picture a skeleton in a black potato sack. Maybe with a scythe. Truth is, she’s just a woman doing a job, and she’s very good at it. Still, even Death needs a break. But when she finally takes some time off to live on earth, things start to go terribly wrong. Someone is killing people not on her list (well, not yet anyway) and it’s up to her to find the killer before it’s too late. To make matters worse, her sanctimonious sister Life—whom Death hasn’t gotten along with in millennia—won’t stop blaming her for the unplanned deaths… and then there’s the slight problem of the charming (and sexy) parasitologist she can’t quite trust. But she’ll be fine, right? After all, who better to investigate a murder than Death herself?
The Shop on Hidden Lane — Jayne Ann Krentz (Berkley)
The Harper and the Wells families have regarded each other with deep suspicion for four generations. The Harpers have been known to offer their psychic talents for less-than-legal purposes, and the powerful Wells clan has a reputation for playing both sides of the street. But for all the years of history and distrust between them, there is a mysterious pact binding the two. They share the responsibility for protecting a long-buried and very dangerous secret. Sophy Harper and Luke Wells are shocked to learn that her aunt and his uncle have been sleeping together—and now they are both missing. Not only that, but the last traces of them are at the scene of a murder soaked in negative paranormal energy. Clearly, someone is willing to kill to obtain the secret their families have been charged with protecting. Despite their mutual distrust, which, as far as Sophy is concerned extends to Luke’s hellhound of a dog, they both know that the terms of the pact must be honored. Their investigation uncovers a psychic trail leading to a bizarre desert art colony where nothing is as it seems. But Luke and Sophy are concealing a few secrets, too. By a strange twist of fate, a Harper and a Wells have no choice but to trust each other and the fierce attraction that is binding them as surely as the pact between the families.
January 13
The Luminous Fairies and Mothra — Takehiko Fukunaga, Yoshie Hotta, Shin’ichiro Nakamura, translated by Jeffrey Angles (University Of Minnesota Press)
Mystical and benevolent, the colossal lepidopteran Mothra has been one of the most beloved kaiju since 1961, when The Luminous Fairies and Mothra was originally published in Japanese. Commissioned by Tōhō Studios from three of Japan’s most prominent postwar literary writers (Shin’ichirō Nakamura, Takehiko Fukunaga, and Yoshie Hotta), the novella formed the basis for the now-classic monster film Mothra, with a protagonist second only to Godzilla in number of film appearances by a kaiju. Finally available in its first official English translation, The Luminous Fairies and Mothra will captivate ardent, longtime fans of the films as well as newcomers. Written just months after the largest political demonstrations Japan had ever seen, The Luminous Fairies and Mothra reflects the rebellious spirit of the time. In this original story, explorers visit a South Pacific island and capture a group of fairies, inciting the fury of the goddess Mothra, who sets out for Japan on a mission of rescue and revenge. Expressing a powerful social stance about Japan’s need to chart its own foreign policy during the Cold War, the novella’s political message was ultimately toned down in the Tōhō Studios film. Through this translation, Anglophone audiences will discover Mothra as a figure of protest fiction intricately reflecting the complex geopolitical situation in early 1960s Japan.
The Hitch — Sara Levine (Roxane Gay Books)
Rose Cutler defines herself by her exacting standards. As an anti-racist, Jewish secular feminist eco-warrior, she is convinced she knows the right way to do everything, including parent her six-year-old nephew Nathan. When Rose offers to look after him while his parents visit Mexico for a week, her brother and sister-in-law reluctantly agree, provided she understands the rules—routine, bedtime, homework—and doesn’t overstep. But when Rose’s Newfoundland attacks and kills a corgi at the park, Nathan starts acting strangely: barking, overeating, talking to himself. Rose mistakes this behavior as repressed grief over the corgi’s death, but Nathan insists he isn’t grieving, and the dog isn’t dead. Her soul leaped into his body, and now she’s living inside him. Now Rose must banish the corgi from her nephew before the week ends and his parents return to collect their child.
The Midnight Carousel — Fiza Saeed McLynn (Park Row)
1920, Chicago: Maisie Marlowe has come to America for a fresh start. After discovering an antique fairground carousel, she is seized by the idea of running a glittering amusement park. But little does she know that the wondrous object has a sinister past of its own. Paris: A decade ago, fairgoers inexplicably vanished riding an extraordinary carousel, and Detective Laurent Bisset closed the case with a suspect behind bars. So when rumors of fresh disappearances in Chicago also linked to a carousel make their way across the Atlantic, Laurent sets out for new answers to an old mystery. Maisie and Laurent both hold clues to this dark puzzle. But can they piece it together before the carousel claims someone else?
A Midnight Pastry Shop Called Hwawoldang — Lee Onhwa (William Morrow)
Twenty-seven-year-old Yeon-hwa has inherited a neighborhood bakery from her grandmother. Curiously, her grandmother’s will spells out two conditions: Yeon-hwa must keep the shop going for at least another month and only open it to customers from 10 PM until midnight. Yeon-hwa is hesitant at first; her grandmother was always distant, raising Yeon-hwa after her parents died in a car accident. But she agrees to the terms, hoping that running the bakery will help her to finally understand her grandmother after all these years. Yeon-hwa soon learns that the Hwawoldang—the name means “flower moon temple”—is not an ordinary dessert shop. The customers who arrive late at night are spirits, there to attend to unfinished business before being reincarnated. The sweets they crave hold some deep significance in their earthly lives, and they expect Yeon-hwa to meet their requests, as her grandmother did. With each customer who arrives, Yeon-hwa learns which special desserts live in their memories and will help them on their way. Aided by the shop’s resident black cat, Yeon-hwa learns how to find closure for her customers—and begins to unravel her own family’s secrets as well.
Detour (Detour #1) — Jeff Rake, Rob Hart (Random House Worlds)
Ryan Crane wasn’t looking for trouble—just a cup of coffee. But when this cop spots a gunman emerging from an unmarked van, he leaps into action and unknowingly saves John Ward, a billionaire with presidential aspirations, from an assassination attempt. As thanks for Ryan’s quick thinking, Ward offers him the chance of a lifetime: to join a group of lucky civilians chosen to accompany three veteran astronauts on the first manned mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. A devoted family man, Ryan is reluctant to leave on this two-year expedition, yet with the encouragement of his loving wife—and an exorbitant paycheck guaranteeing lifetime care for their disabled son—he crews up and ventures into a new frontier. But as the ship is circling Titan, it is rocked by an unexplained series of explosions. The crew works together to get back on course, and they return to Earth as heroes. When the fanfare dies down, Ryan and his fellow astronauts notice that things are different. Some changes are good, such as lavish upgrades to their homes, but others are more disconcerting. Before the group can connect, mysterious figures start tailing them, and their communications are scrambled. Separated and suspicious, the crew must uncover the truth and decide how far they’re willing to go to return to their normal lives. Just when their space adventure seemingly ends, it shockingly begins.
Pedro the Vast — Simón Lopez Trujillo (Algonquin Books)
In the disorienting, devastatingly tense world of López Trujillo, a eucalyptus farm worker named Pedro starts coughing. Several of his coworkers die of a strange fungal disease, which has jumped to humans for the first time, but Pedro, miraculously, awakes. His survival fascinates a foreign mycologist, as well as a local priest, who dubs his mysterious mutterings to be the words of a prophet. Meanwhile Pedro’s kids are left to fend for themselves: the young Cata, whose creepy art projects are getting harder and harder to decipher, and Patricio, who wasn’t ready to be thrust into the role of father. Their competing efforts to reckon with Pedro’s condition eventually meet in a horrifying climax that readers will never forget.
January 20
George Falls Through Time — Ryan Collett (William Morrow)
Newly laid off George’s internet bill is in his ex-boyfriend’s name. He’s got a spider-infested apartment, and two of the six dogs he’s walking in London have just escaped. It’s pure undiluted stress that sends him into a spiral, all the way to the year 1300. When he comes to, George recognizes the same rolling hills of Greenwich Park. But the luxuries and phone service of modernity are nowhere. In their place are locals with a bizarre, slanted speech in awe of his foreign clothes, who swiftly toss him in a dungeon. Despite the barbarity of a medieval world, a servant named Simon helps George acclimate to a simpler, easier existence—until a summons from the King threatens to send his life up in flames.
Hemlock — Melissa Faliveno (Little, Brown and Company)
Sam, finally sober and stable with a cat and a long-term boyfriend in Brooklyn, returns alone to Hemlock, her family’s deteriorating cabin deep in the Wisconsin Northwoods. But a quick, practical trip takes a turn for the worse when the rot and creak of the forest starts to creep in around the edges of Sam’s mind. It starts, as it always does, with a beer. As Sam dips back into the murky waters of dependency, the inexplicable begins to arrive at her door and her body takes on a strange new shape. As the borders of reality begin to blur, she senses she is battling something sinister—whether nested in the woods or within herself.
January 27
Monster in the Moonlight (Monster Hunter #4) — Annelise Ryan (Berkley)
When a dead body turns up along a lonely country byway in rural Wisconsin, rumors of The Beast of Bray Road, a werewolf-like creature that is said to inhabit the area are reinvigorated. For years locals have reported sightings of the terrifying creature, but this would be its first verified attack. Marks on the dead woman’s body indicate a mauling by some kind of large animal. The wounds plus deep scratches on the victim’s car convince the community that the legendary beast is not only real but responsible for this brutal killing. If the police have any hope of solving this crime, they’re going to need an expert—enter cryptozoologist Morgan Carter. She’s investigated sightings of eerie creatures throughout the upper Midwest. If anyone is going to track down the killer, it’s Morgan, but she may find that the Beast is not the worst thing lurking on Bray Road.
Vigil — George Saunders (Random House)
Not for the first time, Jill “Doll” Blaine finds herself hurtling toward earth, reconstituting as she falls, right down to her favorite black pumps. She plummets towards her newest charge, yet another soul she must usher into the afterlife, and lands headfirst in the circular drive of his ornate mansion. She has performed this sacred duty 343 times since her own death. Her charges, as a rule, have been greatly comforted in their final moments. But this charge, she soon discovers, isn’t like the others. The powerful K. J. Boone will not be consoled, because he has nothing to regret. He lived a big, bold, epic life, and the world is better for it. Isn’t it? Vigil transports us, careening, through the wild final evening of a complicated man. Visitors begin to arrive (worldly and otherworldly, alive and dead), clamoring for a reckoning. Birds swarm the dying man’s room; a black calf grazes on the love seat; a man from a distant, drought-ravaged village materializes; two oil-business cronies from decades past show up with chilling plans for Boone’s postdeath future. With the wisdom, playfulness, and explosive imagination we’ve come to expect, George Saunders takes on the gravest issues of our time—the menace of corporate greed, the toll of capitalism, the environmental perils of progress—and, in the process, spins a tale that encompasses life and death, good and evil, and the thorny question of absolution.
The Regicide Report (Laundry Files #14) — Charles Stross (Tor Books)
After 60-plus years in power in the U.K., Queen Elizabeth II has gathered a surplus of mana from believers spread across the British Commonwealth. That makes her a threat to the Elder God recently installed as Prime Minister—and a target to a shadowy faction within the Laundry looking to depose the Black Pharaoh. An assassin is dispatched to take out Queen Elizabeth and neutralize the threat of the Black Pharaoh. Bob Howard and Dominique “Mo” O’Brien return for the last time, reluctantly pressed into service protecting the queen. Plus, Mhari Murphy and her team, many of whom are now infected with vampirism, are back from their mission to Washington D.C. with mixed success. God save the Queen—someone has to.
When the Museum Is Closed — Emi Yagi, translated by Yuki Tejima (Soft Skull)
Rika Horauchi’s new part-time job is to converse with a statue of Venus—in Latin—every Monday, when the museum is closed. Initially reluctant, Rika starts to enjoy her strange new job. Recommended by her old university professor for her exemplary language skills, Rika leads an otherwise unassuming life, working the rest of the week in a frozen-food warehouse. As Venus comes to life in the quiet of the museum, they talk about everything. Venus opens up new worlds for Rika, both intellectually and emotionally. They soon fall in love. But when the museum’s curator, Hashibami, makes it clear he wants to keep Venus for himself, what will Rika do?
A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing — Alice Evelyn Yang (William Morrow)
Qianze has not seen her father in eleven years, since he walked out of her life the night of her fourteenth birthday and disappeared without a trace. But then she gets a call—there is a man on the porch of her childhood home, and he’s asking for her. This man isn’t the Ba Qianze remembers: he is much older, more fragile, and worst of all, haunted by a half-forgotten prophecy. While Qianze wrestles with what she owes this near-stranger, Ba begins telling stories of his past. From his bloody days as a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution to his mother’s youth under Japanese occupation, he circles around the prophecy he came to deliver. Qianze has always longed to know more about her family history, but as Ba reveals a past far darker than she could have imagined, she finds herself plagued by strange visions—fox spirits trail her on her evening commute, a terrifying jackalope stalks her nightmares, and the looming prophecy slinks ever closer.
