Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Books Releasing During the Second Half of 2024

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

For this, I’m sticking to books I have on NetGalley, as this tends to be where I find out about future releases. These all look really good, and I’m very much looking forward to reading these! You can read my anticipated books for the first half of 2024 here.

Top Ten Most Anticipated Books
Releasing in the Second Half of 2024

The Night Ends with Fire by K. X. Song

Genre: Fantasy
Age: Adult
Expected Publication: July 2nd, 2024

The Three Kingdoms are at war, but Meilin’s father refuses to answer the imperial draft. Trapped by his opium addiction, he plans to sell Meilin for her dowry. But when Meilin discovers her husband-to-be is another violent, ill-tempered man, she realizes that nothing will change for her unless she takes matters into her own hands.

The very next day, she disguises herself as a boy and enlists in her father’s place.

In the army, Meilin’s relentless hard work brings her recognition, friendship—and a growing closeness with Sky, a prince turned training partner. But has she simply exchanged one prison for another? As her kingdom barrels toward destruction, Meilin begins to have visions of a sea dragon spirit that offers her true power and freedom, but with a deadly price.

With the future of the Three Kingdoms hanging in the balance, Meilin will need to decide whom to trust—Sky, who inspires her loyalty and love; the sea dragon spirit, who has his own murky agenda; or an infuriating enemy prince who makes her question everything she once knew—about her kingdom and about her own heart.

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Cursed Under London by Gabby Hutchinson Crouch

Genre: Fantasy
Age: Adult
Expected Publication: July 11th, 2024

In an alternative Elizabethan London, Upper London residents Fang and Lazare awake from their deaths to discover they are not quite human anymore. In fact, despite having acquired the power of immortality, they’re also not quite vampire, zombie, werewolf or any of the other supernatural beings that reside in the underground city of Deep London. Thrown together by the curse they share, the two strangers set out to reverse the spell, all the while trying to ignore the intense connection between them. As they are drawn further into the shadowy world of Deep London, they unearth a dangerous plot which they appear to be right in the middle of…

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The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst

Genre: Fantasy – Romance
Age: Adult
Expected Publication: July 9th, 2024

Every home needs a little magic . . .

Kiela has always had trouble dealing with people, and as librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, she hasn’t had to.

She and her assistant, Caz, a sentient spider plant, have spent most of the last eleven years sequestered among the empire’s precious spellbooks, protecting the magic for the city’s elite. But a revolution is brewing and when the library goes up in flames, Kiela and Caz steal whatever books they can and flee to the faraway island where she grew up. But to her dismay, in addition to a nosy – and very handsome – neighbour, she finds the town in disarray.

The empire has slowly been draining power from the island, and now Kiela is determined to make things right. But opening up her own spellshop comes with its own risks – the consequence of sharing magic with commoners is death. And as Kiela starts to make a place for herself among the townspeople, she realizes she must break down the walls she has kept so high . . .

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I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones

Genre: Horror
Age: Adult
Expected Publication: July 16th, 2024

1989, Lamesa, Texas. A community driven by oil and cotton – a town where everyone knows everyone else’s business.

Tolly Driver, seventeen, a good kid with more potential than application, exists on the outskirts with his best friend, Amber. They navigate the hellscape of the teenage social scene, sticking together in a place that doesn’t know how to be different.

But when they go to a fateful party at Deek Masterton’s house – a party that ends in a series of gruesome, brutal and extravagant murders – Tolly’s world gets flipped upside-down. Because some slashers are born in violence and retribution, some were born that way – and some were just in the wrong place, at the wrong time…

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The End Crowns All by Bea Fitzgerald

Genre: Fantasy
Age: YA
Expected Publication: July 18th, 2024

Princess. Priestess. The most beautiful girl in Troy. Cassandra is used to being adored – and when her patron god, Apollo, offers her the power of prophecy, she sees an opportunity to rise even higher. But when she fails to uphold her end of the agreement, she discovers just how very far she has to fall. No one believes her visions. And they all seem to be of one girl – and the war she’s going to bring to Troy’s shores.

Helen fled Sparta in pursuit of love, but it’s soon clear Troy is a court like any other, with all its politics and backstabbing. And one princess seems particularly intent on driving her from the city before disaster can strike…

But when war finally comes, it’s more than the army at their walls they must contend with. Cassandra and Helen might hold the key to reweaving fate itself – especially with the prophetic strands drawing them ever closer together. But how do you change your future when the gods themselves are dictating your demise?

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A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher

Genre: Fantasy – Horror
Age: Adult
Expected Publication: August 6th, 2024

Cordelia knows her mother is unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms, and her mother doesn’t allow Cordelia to have a single friend—unless you count Falada, her mother’s beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t sorcerers.

After a suspicious death in their small town, Cordelia’s mother insists they leave in the middle of the night, riding away on Falada’s sturdy back, leaving behind all Cordelia has ever known. They arrive at the remote country manor of a wealthy older man, the Squire, and his unwed sister, Hester. Cordelia’s mother intends to lure the Squire into marriage, and Cordelia knows this can only be bad news for the bumbling gentleman and his kind, intelligent sister.

Hester sees the way Cordelia shrinks away from her mother, how the young girl sits eerily still at dinner every night. Hester knows that to save her brother from bewitchment and to rescue the terrified Cordelia, she will have to face down a wicked witch of the worst kind.

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Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid

Genre: Fantasy – Historical
Age: Adult
Expected Publication: August 6th, 2024

A reimagining of Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare’s most famous villainess, giving her a voice, a past, and a power that transforms the story men have written for her.

The Lady knows the stories: how her eyes induce madness in men.

The Lady knows she will be wed to the Scottish brute, who does not leave his warrior ways behind when he comes to the marriage bed.

The Lady knows his hostile, suspicious court will be a game of strategy, requiring all of her wiles and hidden witchcraft to survive.

But the Lady does not know her husband has occult secrets of his own. She does not know that prophecy girds him like armor. She does not know that her magic is greater and more dangerous, and that it will threaten the order of the world.

She does not know this yet. But she will.

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The Royal Rebel by Elizabeth Chadwick

Genre: Historical
Age: Adult
Expected Publication: September 5th, 2024

1338: England has declared war on France, and Jeanette of Kent, cousin to King Edward III, says goodbye to her family and travels overseas with the royal court for the first time. Once in Antwerp, she is captivated by talented household knight, Thomas Holland, just as he in turn is powerfully drawn to her. Although both know their romance is forbidden, their love for each other grows stronger than the danger they face, and they marry in secret. But before they can make their tryst known, Thomas has to leave for war, and in his absence, Jeanette is forced into a second marriage and locked away from the world. Then Thomas returns, and the real fight begins. As hostile family members battle to keep Jeanette and Thomas apart, the defiant lovers vow to be reunited – whatever the cost…

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Guillotine by Delilah S. Dawson

Genre: Horror
Age: Adult
Expected Publication: September 10th, 2024

The Menu meets Ready of Not in this dark tale of opulent luxury and shocking violence from the New York Times bestselling author of Bloom.

Thrift fashionista Dez Lane doesn’t want to date Patrick Ruskin; she just wants to meet his mother, the editor-in-chief of Nouveau magazine. When he invites her to his family’s big Easter reunion at their lake retreat, she’s certain she can put up with his arrogance and fend off his advances long enough to ask Marie Caulfield-Ruskin for an internship someone with her pedigree could never nab through the regular submission route.

When they arrive at the enormous mansion on an island in the center of a Georgia lake, Dez is floored―she’s never witnessed how the 1% lives before in all their ridiculous, unnecessary luxury. But once all the family members are on the island and the ferry has departed, shit gets real. For decades, the Ruskins have made their servants sign contracts that are basically indentured servitude, and with nothing to lose, the servants have decided their only route to freedom is to get rid of the Ruskins for good…

Dez and Patrick are on the run, but the more Ruskins she sees die and the more servants who tell their stories, the more Dez realizes that she wants nothing to do with Marie and her magazine.

In fact, by the end, Dez might be the one strangling Marie to death with her trademark chunky pearls…

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Queer as Folklore by Sacha Coward

Genre: Non-Fiction
Age: Adult
Expected Publication: November 5th, 2024

Queer as Folklore takes readers across centuries and continents to reveal the unsung heroes and villains of storytelling, magic and fantasy. Featuring images from archives, galleries and museums around the world, each chapter investigates the queer history of different mythic and folkloric characters, both old and new.

Leaving no headstone unturned, Sacha Coward will take you on a wild ride through the night from ancient Greece to the main stage of RuPaul’s Drag Race, visiting cross-dressing pirates, radical fairies and the graves of the ‘queerly departed’ along the way. Queer communities have often sought refuge in the shadows, found kinship in the in-between and created safe spaces in underworlds; but these forgotten narratives tell stories of remarkable resilience that deserve to be heard.

Join any Pride march and you are likely to see a glorious display of papier-mâché unicorn heads trailing sequins, drag queens wearing mermaid tails and more fairy wings than you can shake a trident at. But these are not just they are queer symbols with historic roots.

To truly understand who queer people are today, we must confront the twisted tales of the past and Queer as Folklore is a celebration of queer history like you’ve never seen it before.

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Let me know if you’ve read any of these yet, and what’s top for your anticipated books for the second half of this year – anything in particular you can’t wait to get your hands on?