Every month, we’re profiling new-ish releases that are getting critical and commercial buzz. For January, we’re looking at a mystery series set on the Navajo reservation with a supernatural twist, a YA fantasy that’s been described as The Hunger Games with magic, an anthology of Western short stories, a highly entertaining fictional series about the lead-up to the Hundred Years’ War, a nonfiction audiobook about when the Victorians met dinosaur bones for the first time, and a unique commemorative on the fall of the Berlin Wall.
If you enjoy mysteries:
Ramona Emerson’s Rita Todacheene series (2022-2024)*
Rita Todacheene works as a forensic photographer for the Albuquerque Police and has a special knack for seeing details others at the crime scene overlook. What she doesn’t share with her coworkers is a secret that has long haunted her and even drove her out of the Navajo Reservation–she can see ghosts and they help direct her attention at the crime scenes. The author shares a lot of background with Rita; Emerson is also Navajo and worked as a forensic photographer for years.
Recommended for those who enjoy the work of Tony Hillerman.
*First book also available as an ebook on Hoopla.
If you want a YA fantasy:
Amanda Foody and C.L. Herman’s All of Us Villains (2021)**
This series has been pitched as The Hunger Games from the villains’ point of view with magic. Every generation in Ilvernath, the coming of the Blood Moon means a tournament to the death, starring a representative from each of seven families. Winner takes all, meaning control over the city’s mysterious source of magic. Losers get got. But this year, the Blood Moon Tournament takes place after a tell-all book reveals far more about what’s going on behind-the-scenes than was previously known. . . .
Recommended for those who enjoy Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games series, Gretchen McNeil’s #murdertrending, and Alex Aster’s Lightlark.
**Ebook and audiobook also available on Libby and audiobook only on Hoopla.
If you prefer Westerns:
Richard Prosch’s Through Western Storms (2024)***
We’ve profiled other Richard Prosch-edited Western anthologies before. In this latest one, 13 different acclaimed authors have stories featured. The settings and stories cover everything from the introduction of camels to the American West to the bringing of a printing press to a small town and range in tone from the tragic to the bittersweet to the hilarious.
Recommended for those who enjoy Western anthologies.
***Ebook also available on Hoopla.
If you love historical fiction, particularly palace intrigue:
Maurice Druon’s The Accursed Kings series (1955-1977)****
This is one of my all-time favorite series, but we don’t have it in the collection, so I hadn’t been able to write about it. That is, until we got Hoopla, and it is on Hoopla, which is just the excuse I needed to profile it. 🙂
This series is legendary in France, where it spawned multiple TV adaptations–including one currently in the works–but is usually billed in the US as “the original Game of Thrones” because that’s what George R.R. Martin himself calls it. It strongly inspired his own series, and if you’re familiar with that series, book or TV, you can definitely see the influence.
However, I feel like it is a disservice to The Accursed Kings to chalk it up to just the original Game of Thrones. The series takes what is pretty obscure history to most Americans–the lead-up to the Hundred Years’ War–and makes it both accessible and relentlessly entertaining.
If you’re looking for books starring good people, seek that entertainment elsewhere because these characters are a rogues’ gallery of schemers, plotters, poisoners, and murderers. It would be appalling if it weren’t so compelling and, well, weirdly hilarious most of the time . . . until it isn’t. Dynasties and kings are brought down, lives are lost, and kingdoms are shattered, all because of a bitter inheritance dispute between two of the most stubborn and creatively malevolent French nobles for control of a small county nobody else cares about. Complications of royal proportions ensue.
Recommended for those who enjoy George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (particularly the plotting and scheming) and Ken Follett’s Kingsbridge series.
*****Only available on Hoopla (or via ILL request if you prefer physical copies.) Hoopla has the whole series on ebook and the first 4 books as audiobooks.
Note: I highly recommend just reading the first 6 books. The 7th book was written long after the others were finished and is very different in tone, focus, and structure.
If you like nonfiction (audiobook or print):
Edward Dolnick’s Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party: How an Eccentric Group of Victorians Discovered Prehistoric Creatures and Accidentally Upended the World (2024)
This audiobook profiles when Victorians first stumbled across dinosaur bones. Author Edward Dolnick chronicles the initial discoveries in both England and America, with a particular focus on the quirky early paleontologists, as well as the general societal reaction because finding the dinosaur bones both fascinated and unnerved the Victorians.
Recommended for those who enjoy David K. Randall’s The Monster’s Bones: The Discovery of T. Rex and How It Shook Our World.
Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH’s Hold Freedom Up High: 35 Jahre Mauerfall (2024)
This book is a special commemorative celebration of the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, straight from Germany. It is published by Kulturprojekte Berlin and was handed out last November at an open-air art installation in the city. It records memories and essays about the Berlin Wall, as well as the posters from the installation.
There’s a great story behind how this book ended up in the library. One of our librarians, Kelli, was in Germany last November and was given this book by a German who accidentally grabbed an English language version of it. Kelli then donated it to the library!
Recommended for those interested in the Berlin Wall, modern European history, and/or the Cold War.
What’s your favorite new-ish books? What books are you buzzing about for 2025? Have you read any of these books? Tell us in the comments! As always, please follow this link to our online library catalog for more information on any of these items or to place them on hold.
Berryville Book Buzz 