Our June Book of The Month is The Binding, By Bridget Collins. Published in 2019, it’s strikingly original tale will leave you spellbound until the very end.
Release date: 10 January 2019
Publisher: The Borough Press
Pages: 448
Imagine you could erase your grief.
Imagine you could forget your pain.
Imagine you could hide a secret.
Forever.
Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a letter arrives
summoning him to begin an apprenticeship. He will work for a Bookbinder, a
vocation that arouses fear, superstition and prejudice – but one neither he nor
his parents can afford to refuse.
He will learn to hand-craft beautiful volumes, and within
each he will capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. If there’s
something you want to forget, he can help. If there’s something you need to
erase, he can assist. Your past will be stored safely in a book and you will
never remember your secret, however terrible.
In a vault under his mentor’s workshop, row upon row of
books – and memories – are meticulously stored and recorded.
Then one day Emmett makes an astonishing discovery: one of
them has his name on it.
Here is a list of some of the nominees from the Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Fantasy and Best Science Fiction novels of 2018.
Winner of the Best Fantasy Novel 2018
Circe, By Madeline Miller
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. Circe is a strange child – not powerful and terrible, like her father, nor gorgeous and mercenary like her mother. Scorned and rejected, Circe grows up in the shadows, at home in neither the world of gods or mortals. But Circe has a dark power of her own: witchcraft. When her gift threatens the gods, she is banished to the island of Aiaia where she hones her occult craft, casting spells, gathering strange herbs and taming wild beasts. Yet a woman who stands alone will never be left in peace for long – and among her island’s guests is an unexpected visitor: the mortal Odysseus, for whom Circe will risk everything.
So Circe sets forth her tale, a vivid, mesmerizing epic of family rivalry, love and loss – the defiant, inextinguishable song of woman burning hot and bright through the darkness of a man’s world.
It is 1962, and
Elisa Esposito—mute her whole life, orphaned as a child—is struggling with her
humdrum existence as a janitor working the graveyard shift at Baltimore’s Occam
Aerospace Research Center. Were it not for Zelda, a protective coworker, and
Giles, her loving neighbor, she doesn’t know how she’d make it through the day.
Then, one fateful
night, she sees something she was never meant to see, the Center’s most
sensitive asset ever: an amphibious man, captured in the Amazon, to be studied
for Cold War advancements. The creature is terrifying but also magnificent,
capable of language and of understanding emotions…and Elisa can’t keep away.
Using sign language, the two learn to communicate. Soon, affection turns into
love, and the creature becomes Elisa’s sole reason to live.
But outside forces are pressing in. Richard Strickland, the obsessed soldier who tracked the asset through the Amazon, wants nothing more than to dissect it before the Russians get a chance to steal it. Elisa has no choice but to risk everything to save her beloved. With the help of Zelda and Giles, Elisa hatches a plan to break out the creature. But Strickland is on to them. And the Russians are, indeed, coming.
Miryem
is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father’s too kind-hearted
to collect his debts. They face poverty, until Miryem hardens her own heart and
takes up his work in their village. Her success creates rumours she can turn
silver into gold, which attract the fairy king of winter himself. He sets her
an impossible challenge – and if she fails, she’ll die. Yet if she triumphs, it
may mean a fate worse than death. And in her desperate efforts to succeed,
Miryem unwittingly spins a web which draws in the unhappy daughter of a lord.
Irina’s father schemes to wed her to the tsar – he will pay any price to achieve this goal. However, the dashing tsar is not what he seems. And the secret he hides threatens to consume the lands of mortals and winter alike. Torn between deadly choices, Miryem and Irina embark on a quest that will take them to the limits of sacrifice, power and love.
From number one New
York Times bestseller Nora Roberts – an epic, apocalyptic tale of good and
evil, love and loss.
With one drop of
blood, the old world is gone for ever. And in its place, something
extraordinary begins…
They call it The
Doom – a deadly pandemic that starts on a cold New Year’s Eve in the Scottish
countryside. There’s something mysterious about the virus and the way it
spreads. As billions fall sick and die, some survivors find themselves invested
with strange, unexpected abilities.
Lana, a New York chef, has the power to move things and people with her will. Fred can summon light in the darkness. Jonah, a paramedic, sees snatches of the future in those he touches. Katie gives birth to twins, and suspects that she has brought fresh magic into the world, along with new life. But The Doom affects people differently. Along with the light, a dark and terrifying magic will also rise. As the remaining authorities round up the immune and the ‘Uncannies’ for testing, Lana, Katie and others flee New York in search of a safe haven. The old world is over, and Year One has begun.
Hugh d’Ambray, Preceptor of the Iron Dogs, Warlord of the Builder of Towers, served only one man. Now his immortal, nearly omnipotent master has cast him aside. Hugh is a shadow of the warrior he was, but when he learns that the Iron Dogs, soldiers who would follow him anywhere, are being hunted down and murdered, he must make a choice: to fade away or to be the leader he was born to be. Hugh knows he must carve a new place for himself and his people, but they have no money, no shelter, and no food, and the necromancers are coming.
Fast.
Elara Harper is a creature who should not exist. Her enemies call her Abomination; her people call her White Lady. Tasked with their protection, she’s trapped between the magical heavyweights about to collide and plunge the state of Kentucky into a war that humans have no power to stop. Desperate to shield her people and their simple way of life, she would accept help from the devil himself—and Hugh d’Ambray might qualify.
Hugh needs a base, Elara needs soldiers. Both are infamous for betraying their allies, so how can they create a believable alliance to meet the challenge of their enemies?
As the prophet says: “It is better to marry than to burn.”
A brilliantly
imaginative epic fantasy debut, inspired by the bloody history of China’s
twentieth century and filled with treachery and magic.
When Rin aced the
Keju – the test to find the most talented students in the Empire – it was a
shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan
from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who had
hoped to get rich by marrying her off; and to Rin herself, who realized she was
finally free from a life of servitude. That she got into Sinegard – the most
elite military school in Nikan – was even more surprising.
But surprises
aren’t always good.
Because being a
dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard.
Fighting the prejudice of rival classmates, Rin discovers that she possesses a
lethal, unearthly power – an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism.
Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of psychoactive substances and a
seemingly insane teacher, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much
alive – and that mastering these powers could mean more than just surviving
school.
For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most people calmly go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away…
Sydney Clarke once had Serena―beloved sister, betrayed enemy, powerful ally. But now she’s alone, except for her thrice-dead dog, Dol. And then there’s Victor, who thinks Sydney doesn’t know about his most recent act of vengeance. Victor himself is under the radar these days―being buried and re-animated can strike concern even if one has superhuman powers. And Eli Ever still has yet to pay for the evil he has done.
He ended centuries
of Gold rule, broke the chains of an empire, and now he’s the hero of a brave
new republic. But at terrible cost.
At the edge of the
solar system, the grandson of the emperor he murdered dreams of revenge.
In his hidden
fortress in the oceans of Venus, the Ash Lord lies in wait, plotting to crush
the newborn democracy.
And, at home, a
young Red girl who’s lost everything to the Rising questions whether freedom
was just another Gold lie.
In a fearsome new world where Obsidian pirates roam the Belt, famine and genocide ravage Mars, and crime lords terrorise Luna, it’s time for Darrow and a cast of new characters from across the solar system to face down the chaos that revolution has unleashed.
Jean McClellan spends her time in almost complete silence,
limited to just one hundred words a day. Any more, and a thousand volts of
electricity will course through her veins.
Now the government is in power, everything has changed. But only
if you’re a woman.
Almost overnight, bank accounts are frozen, passports are
taken away and seventy million women lose their jobs. Even more terrifyingly,
young girls are no longer taught to read or write.
For herself, her daughter, and for every woman silenced,
Jean will reclaim her voice. This is only the beginning…
In this ferociously
imaginative novel, abortion is once again illegal in America, in-vitro
fertilization is banned, and the Personhood Amendment grants rights of life,
liberty, and property to every embryo. In a small Oregon fishing town, five
very different women navigate these new barriers.
Ro, a single
high-school teacher, is trying to have a baby on her own, while also writing a
biography of Eivør, a little-known 19th-century female polar explorer. Susan is
a frustrated mother of two, trapped in a crumbling marriage. Mattie is the adopted
daughter of doting parents and one of Ro’s best students, who finds herself
pregnant with nowhere to turn. And Gin is the gifted, forest-dwelling
homeopath, or “mender,” who brings all their fates together when
she’s arrested and put on trial in a frenzied modern-day witch hunt.
RED CLOCKS is at once a riveting drama whose mysteries unfold with magnetic energy, and a shattering novel of ideas. With the verve of Naomi Alderman’s THE POWER and the prescient brilliance of THE HANDMAID’S TALE, Leni Zumas’ incredible new novel is fierce, fearless and frighteningly plausible.
Binti has returned
to her home planet, believing that the violence of the Meduse has been left
behind. Unfortunately, although her people are peaceful on the whole, the same
cannot be said for the Khoush, who fan the flames of their ancient rivalry with
the Meduse.
Far from her
village when the conflicts start, Binti hurries home, but anger and resentment
has already claimed the lives of many close to her.
Once again it is up to Binti, and her intriguing new friend Mwinyi, to intervene–though the elders of her people do not entirely trust her motives–and try to prevent a war that could wipe out her people, once and for all.
In the thousand-sun
network of humanity’s expansion, new colony worlds are struggling to find their
way. Every new planet lives on a knife-edge between collapse and wonder, and
the crew of the ageing gunship Rocinante have their hands more than full
keeping the fragile peace.
In the vast space
between Earth and Jupiter, the inner planets and the Belt have formed a
tentative and uncertain alliance, still haunted by a history of wars and
prejudices. On the lost colony world of Laconia, a hidden enemy has a new
vision for all of humanity – and the power to enforce it.
New technologies clash with old, as the history of human conflict returns to its ancient pattern of war and subjugation. But human nature is not the only enemy, and the forces being unleashed have their own price. A price that will change the shape of humanity – and of the Rocinante – unexpectedly and for ever . . .
The Adventurer 