Most Anticipated Books of 2022!
Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about and have yet to read. Generally they're books that have yet to be released, but not necessarily. It's based on Waiting on Wednesday, which was originally hosted at Breaking the Spine.
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As we near the end of 2021, I want to take this week's post to showcase my top 12 most anticipated reads of 2022...
Author: G R Macallister
Publisher: Saga Press
Publication Date: Feb 22, 2022
Genres: Fantasy
A centuries-long peace is shattered in a matriarchal society when a decade passes without a single girl being born in this sweeping Epic Fantasy that's perfect for fans of Robin Hobb and Circe.
Five hundred years of peace between queendoms shatters when girls inexplicably stop being born. As the Drought of Girls stretches across a generation, it sets off a cascade of political and personal consequences across all five queendoms of the known world, throwing long-standing alliances into disarray as each queendom begins to turn on each other--and new threats to each nation rise from within.
Uniting the stories of women from across the queendoms, this propulsive, gripping Epic Fantasy follows a warrior queen who must rise from childbirth bed to fight for her life and her throne, a healer in hiding desperate to protect the secret of her daughter's explosive power, a queen whose desperation to retain control leads her to risk using the darkest magic, a near-immortal sorcerer demigod powerful enough to remake the world for her own ends--and the generation of lastborn girls, the ones born just before the Drought, who must bear the hopes and traditions of their nations if the queendoms are to survive.
Title: Pennyblade
Author: J.L. Worrad
Publisher: Titan Books Ltd.
Publication Date: March 15, 2022
Genres: Fantasy
A sharp-tongued disgraced-noble-turned-mercenary has to stop the world collapsing into chaos in this gripping, savagely funny epic fantasy packed with unforgettable characters, for fans of Joe Abercrombie.
Exile. Mercenary. Lover. Monster. Pennyblade.
Kyra Cal'Adra has spent the last four years on the Main, living in exile from her home, her people, her lover and her past. A highblood commrach - the ancient race of the Isle, dedicated to tradition and the perfection of the blood - she's welcome among the humans of the Main only for the skill of her rapier, her preternatural bladework. They don't care which of the gleaming towers she came from, nor that her grandmother is matriarch of one of Corso's most powerful families.
But on the main, women loving women is a sin punishable by death. Kyra is haunted by the ghost of Shen, the love of her life, a lowblood servant woman whom Kyra left behind as she fled the Isle.
When a simple contract goes awry, and her fellow pennyblades betray her, Kyra is set onto a collision course with her old life, and the age-old conflict between the Main and the Isle threatens to erupt once more.
Author: Kel Kade
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication Date: Mar 22, 2022
Genres: Fantasy
Destiny of the Dead is the second novel in a genre-bending series from New York Times bestselling author Kel Kade.
The God of Death is tired of dealing with the living, so he's decided everyone should die. And he's found allies. The Berru, an empire of dark mages, has unleashed a terrifying army of monstrous lyksvight upon everyone with a pulse.
While the wealthy and powerful, the kings and queens, abandon the dying world, one group of misfits says no more. Through dogged determination and the ability to bind souls to their dead bodies, Aaslo and his friends fight on.
In the mountains of the far north, another bastion of defense is opened. Cherrí, the avatar of a vengeful fire god, has united the survivors amongst her people and begun her own war on the invaders.
Now, Aaslo and Cherrí must find a way to unite their powers, one divine, the other profane, to throw back the monsters of the Berru, and challenge Death itself.
Title: The Discord of Gods
Author: Jenn Lyons
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication Date: April 26, 2022
Genres: Epic Fantasy
The Discord of Gods marks the epic conclusion to Jenn Lyons's Chorus of Dragon series, closing out the saga that began with The Ruin of Kings, for fans of Brandon Sanderson and Patrick Rothfuss.
The end times have come.
Relos Var's final plans to enslave the universe are on the cusp of fruition. He believes there's only one being in existence that might be able to stop him: the demon Xaltorath.
As these two masterminds circle each other, neither is paying attention to the third player on the board, Kihrin. Unfortunately, keeping himself classified in the "pawn" category means Kihrin must pretend to be everything the prophecies threatened he'd become: the destroyer of all, the sun eater, a mindless, remorseless plague upon the land. It also means finding an excuse to not destroy the people he loves (or any of the remaining Immortals) without arousing suspicion.
Kihrin's goals are complicated by the fact that not all of his "act" is one. His intentions may be sincere, but he's still being forced to grapple with the aftereffects of the corrupted magic ritual that twisted both him and the dragons. Worse, he's now tied to a body that is the literal avatar of a star - a form that is becoming increasingly, catastrophically unstable. All of which means he's running out of time.
After all, some stars fade - but others explode.
Author: Jonathan Maberry
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date: May 10, 2022
Genres: Epic Fantasy
The Witcher meets Game of Thrones in New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Maberry's brilliant new fantasy series, Kagen the Damned.
Sworn by Oath
Kagen Vale is the trusted and feared captain of the place guard, charged with protection the royal children of the Silver Empire. But one night, Kagen is drugged and the entire imperial family is killed, leaving the empire in ruins.
Abandoned by the Gods
Haunted and broken, Kagen is abandoned by his gods and damned forever. He becomes a wanderer, trying to take down as many of this enemies as possible while plotting to assassinate the usurper–the deadly Witch-king of Hakkia. While all around him magic–long banished from the world―returns in strange and terrifying ways.
Fueled by Rage
To find the royal children and exact his vengeance, Kagen must venture into strange lands, battle bizarre and terrifying creatures, and gather allies for a suicide mission into the heart of the Witch-king’s empire.
Kings and gods will fear him.
Kagen the Damned.
Author: Guy Gavriel Kay
Publisher: Penguin Canada
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
Genres: Fantasy
On a dark night, along a lonely stretch of coast, a small merchant ship sends two people ashore: their purpose is assassination. They have been hired by two of the most dangerous men alive to alter the balance of power in the world. The consequences of that act will affect the destinies of empires as well as lives both great and small.
One of those arriving on that stony strand is a young woman who had been abducted by corsairs as a child and sold into years of servitude far from her home. Having escaped, she is trying to chart her own course — and is bent upon revenge. The man who will bring the others out from the city on his ship — if they survive their mission — still remembers being exiled as a boy with his family, for their faith; it is a moment that never leaves him. In what follows, through a story both intimate and epic, unforgettable characters are immersed in the fierce and deadly struggles that define their time.
While it shares a vivid setting, timeless themes, and signature "quarter-turn to the fantastic" with his most recent novels, A Brightness Long Ago and Children of Earth and Sky, Guy Gavriel Kay's All the Seas of the World is a stand-alone page-turning drama that also offers moving reflections on memory, fate, and the random events that can shape our lives — in the past, and today.
Author: Maya Deane
Publisher: William Morrow
Publication Date: June 7th 2022
Genres: Fantasy
Drawing on ancient texts and modern archeology to reveal the trans woman’s story hidden underneath the well-known myths of The Iliad, Maya Deane’s Wrath Goddess Sing weaves a compelling, pitilessly beautiful vision of Achilles’ vanished world, perfect for fans of Song of Achilles and the Inheritance trilogy.
The gods wanted blood. She fought for love.
Achilles has fled her home and her vicious Myrmidon clan to live as a woman with the kallai, the transgender priestesses of Great Mother Aphrodite. When Odysseus comes to recruit the “prince” Achilles for a war against the Hittites, she prepares to die rather than fight as a man. However, her divine mother, Athena, intervenes, transforming her body into the woman’s body she always longed for, and promises her everything: glory, power, fame, victory in war, and, most importantly, a child born of her own body. Reunited with her beloved cousin, Patroklos, and his brilliant wife, the sorceress Meryapi, Achilles sets out to war with a vengeance.
But the gods—a dysfunctional family of abusive immortals that have glutted on human sacrifices for centuries—have woven ancient schemes more blood-soaked and nightmarish than Achilles can imagine. At the center of it all is the cruel, immortal Helen, who sees Achilles as a worthy enemy after millennia of ennui and emptiness. In love with her newfound nemesis, Helen sets out to destroy everything and everyone Achilles cherishes, seeking a battle to the death.
An innovative spin on a familiar tale, this is the Trojan War unlike anything ever told, and an Achilles whose vulnerability is revealed by the people she chooses to fight…and chooses to trust.
Author: Juno Dawson
Publisher: Penguin Books
Publication Date: June 14, 2022
Genres: Urban Fantasy
A Discovery of Witches meets The Craft in this the first installment of this epic fantasy trilogy about a group of childhood friends who are also witches.
If you look hard enough at old photographs, we’re there in the background: healers in the trenches; Suffragettes; Bletchley Park oracles; land girls and resistance fighters. Why is it we help in times of crisis? We have a gift. We are stronger than Mundanes, plain and simple.
At the dawn of their adolescence, on the eve of the summer solstice, four young girls--Helena, Leonie, Niamh and Elle--took the oath to join Her Majesty's Royal Coven, established by Queen Elizabeth I as a covert government department. Now, decades later, the witch community is still reeling from a civil war and Helena is now the reigning High Priestess of the organization. Yet Helena is the only one of her friend group still enmeshed in the stale bureaucracy of HMRC. Elle is trying to pretend she's a normal housewife, and Niamh has become a country vet, using her powers to heal sick animals. In what Helena perceives as the deepest betrayal, Leonie has defected to start her own more inclusive and intersectional coven, Diaspora. And now Helena has a bigger problem. A young warlock of extraordinary capabilities has been captured by authorities and seems to threaten the very existence of HMRC. With conflicting beliefs over the best course of action, the four friends must decide where their loyalties lie: with preserving tradition, or doing what is right.
Juno Dawson explores gender and the corrupting nature of power in a delightful and provocative story of magic and matriarchy, friendship and feminism. Dealing with all the aspects of contemporary womanhood, as well as being phenomenally powerful witches, Niamh, Helena, Leonie and Elle may have grown apart but they will always be bound by the sisterhood of the coven.
Author: Ken Liu
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication Date: June 21, 2022
Genres: Epic Fantasy
The battle continues in this silkpunk fantasy as science and destiny collide against the will of the gods in this final installment in the epic Dandelion Dynasty series from Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award-winning author Ken Liu.
The concluding book of The Dandelion Dynasty begins immediately after the events of The Veiled Throne, in the middle of two wars on two lands among three people separated by an ocean yet held together by the invisible strands of love.
Harried by Lyucu pursuers, Princess Théra and Pékyu Takval try to reestablish an ancestral dream even as their hearts grow in doubt. The people of Dara continue to struggle against the genocidal Lyucu as both nations vacillate between starkly contrasting visions for their futures. Even the gods cannot see through the Wall of Storms, for only mortal hearts can decide mortal fates.
Award-winning author Ken Liu fulfills the covenants first laid out a decade ago in a series delving deep into the connection between national myths and national constitutions in this ambitious, "magnificent fantasy epic" (NPR).
Author: K S Covert
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Publication Date: June 21st 2022
Genres: Scifi
In a virus-fearing world, skin hunger can drive you crazy -- and human petting zoos can return you to yourself.
Ten years after the deadly virus nicknamed Henny Penny, the world has largely recovered -- there's an interim government as well as law and order, and life is returning to normal for its greatly reduced population. But despite effective vaccines, the law still requires people to wear protective masks and gloves at all times in public, and many still fear a resurgence of the virus. On top of this, people who haven't been touched in years are going crazy from skin hunger.
Lily has lived in isolation for ten years, afraid to rejoin the world. But a return-to-work order and an invitation to go to a petting zoo -- a highly illegal club where people go to touch and be touched -- start to bring her back to life.
A post-apocalyptic sex adventure and a woman's journey of self-discovery, The Petting Zoos is an erotic love story for an age of extreme caution, in which the value of safety itself is questioned.
Author: Zabé Ellor
Publisher: Solaris
Publication Date: July 5, 2022
Genres: Epic Fantasy
Kore knew that meddling in politics could end badly, particularly when trying to sabotage his aristocratic father's campaign before it destroys the city he has come to love.
And when a chance encounter with a dying god imbues him with magic-breathing powers, it gets worse: he suddenly becomes a commodity - and a political player.
But the corruption in his city runs deeper than just one man, and an ally's betrayal unleashes an army of the dead on his home street.
Kore must trust the world with his deepest secret to stand beside the woman and man he's finally let himself love, as only the bright truth of dragon's fire can break the iron fist of a necromancer's hold..
Author: Tanya Huff
Publisher: Daw Books
Publication Date: August 2, 2022
Genres: Epic Fantasy
From sci-fi and fantasy master Tanya Huff comes a new epic fantasy saga set in a land of dangers and mysteries
Shattered by mage wars, the Broken Lands will test the bonds of family and friendship, strength and sanity.
To save their people, the Heirs of Marsan have no choice but to enter, trusting their lives and the lives of everyone they Protect, to someone who shouldn't exist, who can't be controlled, and who will challenge everything they believe about themselves.
