How do you feel about novellas? They’re my go-to when I find myself in a reading slump, especially if they are of the fantasy or sci-fi variety. If you’re looking for some to add to your to-be-read list, Danika Ellis has rounded up some great ones in
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
This follow up to Orange’s breakout hit There There is part prequel and sequel. Going all the way back to Colorado in 1864, it shows the legacy of the United States’ routine destruction of Indigenous lives and culture. Star, a survivor of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre, has his history forced out of him by evangelical prison guard Richard Henry Pratt, who later founded the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Later, Star’s son Charles is sent to this Indian school where he is tortured by Pratt. It’s also where he meets fellow student Opal Viola, with whom he shares a bright vision of the future. Fast forward to Oakland, California in 2018, and Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield is trying her best to keep her family together after the tragedy that happened in There There.
Brooklyn by Tracy BrownBrooklyn James has lived a life that’s left many with a chip on their shoulders. From a young age, she learned to use others for her own gain, rizzing her way into the underground world of hustlers and drug dealers. Traveling from D.C. to Maryland to New York City, she continues on this path until she meets someone willing to end her forever. Now that someone has killed her, it’s not so much a question of who did it as it is who wouldn’t. |
Grief Is for People by Sloane CrosleyThe author of Cult Classic is back with a meditation on grief. After losing her best friend to suicide, she turns to other friends, art, and philosophy for other ways to package her grief. Even in her unmooring, she looks at her friend, a publishing executive, and the industry with clear eyes. |
The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos RuffinAdy is reared with love by stories of fierce ancestors and loving walks along the river with her mother, Sanite. Though both are enslaved by a Frenchman, they manage to find their own joy. Until Sanite and Ady are separated. Suddenly without her mother’s presence to ground her, Ady is lost. But then she happens upon the Mockingbird Inn, where she finds a new friend in a free Black woman, Lenore. Through Lenore, Ady joins The Daughters, a secret spy society that fights against the Confederacy. Acting through the missions of The Daughters and fortified by Sanite’s ancestral stories, Ady paves a new way forward for herself and others. |
The Butcher of the Forest by Premee MohamedNebula Award-winning Mohamed’s latest novella is a fantastical horror tale of missing children and wrathful tyrants. The wild forest Elmever is so formidable, even the tyrannical ruler of the land just outside of it fears it. That’s why, when his children go missing in the forest, he commands Veris Thorn to retrieve them. She’s the only person to have ever rescued a child from the forest, and if she doesn’t repeat her former success, the tyrant will kill her if the forest doesn’t first. |
The Moorings of Mackerel Sky by MZThree-hundred years ago, Captain Burrbank became enraptured by the mermaid Nimuë. So, he anchored his ship and made camp to gaze upon her in perpetuity. This camp became a settlement, and that settlement was the town Mackerel Sky. Now, in the modern day, the inhabitants of the lobstering Maine town of Mackerel Sky still live out the blessing and the curse of the mermaid’s and captain’s affair — Leo Beale takes to drinking to free himself of his mother’s opiate addiction and her boyfriends, Derrick Stowe dreams of coming out to his father in between writing poems to his secret boyfriend, and Manon Perle claims to have given her only child to the mermaids. |
Other Book Riot New Releases Resources:
- All the Books, our weekly new book releases podcast, where Liberty and a cast of co-hosts talk about eight books out that week that we’ve read and loved.
- The New Books Newsletter, where we send you an email of the books out this week that are getting buzz.
- Finally, if you want the real inside scoop on new releases, you have to check out Book Riot’s New Release Index! That’s where I find 90% of new releases, and you can filter by trending books, Rioters’ picks, and even LGBTQ new releases!
