New Books and Tamsyn Muir’s “The Unwanted Guest” Scene One!

To view this email as a webpage, go [here.]( [Tor.com Publishing]( [Forward to a Friend]( New Tordotcom Books Published This Month [Wild Spaces by S.L. Coney]( [Wild Spaces]( S.L. Coney Robert R. McCammon’s Boy’s Life meets Lovecraftian horror in this foreboding, sensual coming-of-age debut in which the corrosive nature of family secrets and toxic relatives assume eldritch proportions. An eleven-year-old boy lives an idyllic childhood exploring the remote coastal plains and wetlands of South Carolina alongside his parents and his dog Teach. But when the boy’s eerie and estranged grandfather shows up one day with no warning, cracks begin to form as hidden secrets resurface that his parents refuse to explain. The longer his grandfather outstays his welcome and the greater the tension between the adults grows, the more the boy feels something within him changing—physically—into something his grandfather welcomes and his mother fears. Something abyssal. Something monstrous. GET YOUR COPY TODAY [amazon.com]( [Barnes & Noble]( [Bookshop]( [Books-A-Million]( [Apple Books]( [The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang]( [The Water Outlaws]( S.L. Huang Inspired by a classic of martial arts literature, S. L. Huang’s The Water Outlaws are bandits of devastating ruthlessness, unseemly femininity, dangerous philosophies, and ungovernable gender who are ready to make history—or tear it apart. In the jianghu, you break the law to make it your own. Lin Chong is an expert arms instructor, training the Emperor's soldiers in sword and truncheon, battle axe and spear, lance and crossbow. Unlike bolder friends who flirt with challenging the unequal hierarchies and values of Imperial society, she believes in keeping her head down and doing her job. Until a powerful man with a vendetta rips that carefully-built life away. Disgraced, tattooed as a criminal, and on the run from an Imperial Marshall who will stop at nothing to see her dead, Lin Chong is recruited by the Bandits of Liangshan. Mountain outlaws on the margins of society, the Liangshan Bandits proclaim a belief in justice—for women, for the downtrodden, for progressive thinkers a corrupt Empire would imprison or destroy. They’re also murderers, thieves, smugglers, and cutthroats. Apart, they love like demons and fight like tigers. Together, they could bring down an empire. GET YOUR COPY TODAY [amazon.com]( [Barnes & Noble]( [Bookshop]( [Books-A-Million]( [Apple Books]( Now in Paperback! [Will Do Magic for Small Change by Andrea Hairston]( [Will Do Magic for Small Change]( Andrea Hairston Andrea Hairston’s historical fantasy Will Do Magic for Small Change presents a tale of alien science and earthbound magic and the secrets families keep from each other. Cinnamon Jones dreams of stepping on stage and acting her heart out like her famous grandparents, Redwood and Wildfire. But she’s always been theatrically challenged. That won’t necessarily stop her! But her family life is a tangle of mysteries and secrets, and nobody is telling her the whole truth. Before her brother died, he gave Cinnamon The Chronicles of the Great Wanderer—a tale of a Dahomean warrior woman and an alien from another dimension who perform at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. They are a story of magic or alien science, but the connection to Cinnamon's past is unmistakable. When an act of violence wounds her family, Cinnamon and her theatre squad determine to solve the mysteries and bring her worlds crashing together. GET YOUR COPY TODAY [amazon.com]( [Barnes & Noble]( [Bookshop]( [Books-A-Million]( [Leech by Hiron Ennes]( [Leech]( Hiron Ennes A surreal and horrifying debut, Hiron Ennes’s Leech defies our understanding of identity, heredity, and bodily autonomy. MEET THE CURE FOR THE HUMAN DISEASE In an isolated chateau, as far north as north goes, the baron’s doctor has died. The doctor’s replacement has a mystery to solve: discovering how the Institute lost track of one of its many bodies. For hundreds of years the Interprovincial Medical Institute has grown by taking root in young minds and shaping them into doctors, replacing every human practitioner of medicine. The Institute is here to help humanity, to cure and to cut, to cradle and protect the species from the apocalyptic horrors their ancestors unleashed. In the frozen north, the Institute’s body will discover a competitor for its rung at the top of the evolutionary ladder. A parasite is spreading through the baron’s castle, already a dark pit of secrets, lies, violence, and fear. The two will make war on the battlefield of the body. Whichever wins, humanity will lose again. GET YOUR COPY TODAY [amazon.com]( [Barnes & Noble]( [Bookshop]( [Books-A-Million]( [Self-Portrait With Nothing by Aimee Pokwatka]( [Self-Portrait With Nothing]( Aimee Pokwatka Orphan Black meets Fringe in a story that reminds us that living our best life sometimes means embracing the imperfect one we already have. If a picture paints a thousand worlds . . . Abandoned as an infant on the local veterinarian’s front porch, Pepper Rafferty was raised by two loving mothers, and now, at thirty-six is married to the stable, supportive Ike. She’s never told anyone that at fifteen she discovered the identity of her biological mother. That’s because her birth mother is Ula Frost, a reclusive painter famous for the outrageous claims that her portraits summon their subjects’ doppelgängers from parallel universes. Researching the rumors, Pepper couldn’t help but wonder: Is there a parallel universe in which she is more confident, more accomplished, better able to accept love? A universe in which Ula decided she was worth keeping? A universe in which Ula’s rejection didn’t still hurt too much to share? Combining a thrilling pan-continental race against time with an authentic and touching personal drama, Self-Portrait with Nothing is an unforgettable debut that explores what it means to be part of a family. GET YOUR COPY TODAY [amazon.com]( [Barnes & Noble]( [Bookshop]( [Books-A-Million]( Cover Reveal [THE WEST PASSAGE by Jared Pechaček]( We are thrilled to share the cover for [THE WEST PASSAGE by Jared Pechaček]( A palace the size of a city, ruled by giant Ladies of unknowable, eldritch origin. A land left to slow decay, drowning in the debris of generations. All this and more awaits you within The West Passage, a delightfully mysterious and intriguingly weird medieval fantasy unlike anything you've read before. When the Guardian of the West Passage died in her bed, the women of Grey Tower fed her to the crows and went back to their chores. No successor was named as Guardian, no one took up the fallen blade; the West Passage went unguarded. Now, snow blankets Grey in the height of summer. Rats erupt from beneath the earth, fleeing that which comes. Crops fail. Hunger looms. And none stand ready to face the Beast, stirring beneath the poisoned soil. The fate of all who live in the palace hangs on narrow shoulders. The too-young Mother of Grey House sets out to fix the seasons. The unnamed apprentice of the deceased Grey Guardian goes to warn Black Tower. Both their paths cross the West Passage, the ancient byway of the Beast. On their journeys they will meet schoolteachers and beekeepers, miracles and monsters, and very, very big Ladies. None can say if they'll reach their destinations, but one thing is for sure: the world is about to change. Scene 1 from Tamsyn Muir’s “The Unwanted Guest,” bonus Locked Tomb content soon to be released in the [Nona the Ninth]( paperback edition! SCENE ONE A funeral in an empty room. There’s a closed door at the back, but unobtrusive, set away from notice. There are seven wooden coffins, exactly alike, set in a row of six, with one at the forefront. The front coffin is distinguished from its fellows by its gorgeous arrangement of flowers and wreaths. The flowers are all in hues of gold or violet, and are fake. The coffin is hinged open at the front, with its contents hidden from view by the flowers. A tray of meat is rested on the closed bottom half of the coffin. A queue of gaudily masked mourners process past the coffin, slowly, each one taking a strip of meat, then stopping by the head to lean within — kissing or feeding; we can’t be sure. The last queuing mourner stands a step behind the rest. This is PALAMEDES SEXTUS, whose mask is distinguished by being plain, of shattered wood clumsily taped or glued back together. He’s trying his damndest to look as though he belongs and nearly succeeding. He waits his turn politely until the others leave. Alone, he considers the meat, then thinks better of it. He looks around: the coast is clear. Palamedes reaches past the flowers, into the head of the coffin. A hand grabs his arm and the corpse sits upright. It’s IANTHE TRIDENTARIUS. Her face is covered in bloody kisses. Ianthe You’re fucked, my lad. [Nona the Ninth]( Available in Paperback 9.12.2023 [amazon.com]( [Barnes & Noble]( [Bookshop]( [Books-A-Million]( Follow Tor.com Publishing [f]( [t]( [g]( [t]( This email was sent by: Macmillan 120 Broadway New York, NY, 10271, US We respect your right to privacy - [view our policy]( Macmillan believes piracy hurts writers, readers and everyone who loves books. Learn more and report suspicious activity [here.]( To subscribe to this or other email communications from Macmillan, please click [here](. Visit our [profile center]( to update your email address and/or other information. If you no longer wish to receive this email communication, click [here]( to unsubscribe.