Kirkus Debut Fiction 2023

Two Victorian marriages, two dangerous love affairs, one extraordinary partnership . . .London, 1894. After a lifetime spent navigating his desires, John Addington, married to Catherine, has met Frank, a working-class printer.Meanwhile Henry Ellis's wife Edith has fallen in love with Angelica — and Angelica wants Edith all to herself.When in 1894 John and Henry decide to write a revolutionary book together, intended to challenge convention and the law, they are both caught in relationships stalked by guilt and shame. Yet they share a vision of a better world, one that will expand possibilities for men and women everywhere.Their daring book threatens to throw John and Henry, and all those around them, into danger. How far should they go to win personal freedoms? And how high a price are they willing to pay for a new way of living?

Justin C. Key has long been obsessed with monsters. Reading R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps as a kid, he imagined himself battling monsters and mayhem to a triumphant end. But when watching Scream 2, in which the movie’s only Black couple is promptly killed off, he realized that the Black and Brown characters in his favorite genre were almost always the victim or villain—if they were portrayed at all.In The World Wasn’t Ready for You, Key expands and subverts the horror genre to expertly explore issues of race, class, prejudice, love, exclusion, loneliness, and what it means to be a person in the world, while revealing the horrifying nature inherent in all of us. In the opening story, “The Perfection of Theresa Watkins,” a sci-fi love story turned nightmare, a husband uses new technology to download the consciousness of his recently deceased Black wife into the body of a white woman. In “Spider King,” an inmate agrees to participate in an experimental medical study offered to Black prisoners in exchange for early release, only to find his body reacting with disturbing symptoms. And in the title story, a father tries to protect his son, teaching him how to navigate a prejudiced world that does not understand him and sees him as a threat.The World Wasn’t Ready for You is a gripping, provocative, and distinctly original collection that demonstrates Key’s remarkable literary gifts—a skill at crafting science fiction stories equaled by an ability to sculpt characters and narrative—as well as his utterly fresh take on how genre can be used to delight, awe, frighten, and ultimately challenge our perceptions.Black Mirror meets Get Out in this gripping story collection reminiscent of the work of Octavia E. Butler, which deftly blends science fiction, horror, and fantasy to examine issues of race, class, and prejudice—an electrifying, oftentimes heartbreaking debut from an extraordinary new voice. Wildly imaginative and powerfully resonant, it introduces an unforgettable new voice in fiction.

A multiracial Japanese and American woman's mission into deep space is thrown off course by a lethal explosion, leaving the survivors scrambling for answers about the culprit and the crew's loyalty.

Shubeik Lubeik — a fairytale rhyme meaning "Your Wish is My Command" in Arabic — is the story of three characters navigating a world where wishes are literally for sale; mired in bureaucracy and the familiar prejudices of our world, the more expensive the wish, the more powerful and therefore the more likely to work as intended. The novel's three distinct parts tell the story of three first-class wishes as used by Aziza, Nour, and Shokry, each grappling with the challenge inherent in trying to make their most deeply held desire come true.Deena's mix of calligraphy and contemporary styles brings to life a vibrant Cairene neighborhood and a cast of characters whose struggles and triumphs are deeply resonant.A brilliant and imaginative debut graphic novel that brings to life a fantastical Cairo where wishes are real. Author, illustrator, and translator Deena Mohamed presents a literary, feminist, Arab-centric graphic novel that marries magic and the socio-political realities of contemporary Egypt. Shubeik Lubeik heralds the arrival of a huge new talent and a brave, literary, political, and feminist new voice in comics.

In the summer of 1877, Bridget is orphaned when her unreliable father succumbs to a snakebite as they're crossing the Kansas prairie. Arriving in Dodge City as a penniless orphan, she's quickly recruited for work at the Buffalo Queen brothel and befriends her bookish mentor Constance, securing her home and employment as the favourite of Sheriff's Deputy Jim Bonnie. As winter creeps in from the plains, female gunfighter Spartan Lee rides into town, and Bridget falls in love with her the moment their paths cross.Their affair threatens the balance of power at the Queen, but is interrupted when an old flame returns to the brothel, setting off a series of double-crosses that result in the destruction of the Buffalo Queen and a searing heartbreak for Bridget. Their lives in ruins, Bridget, Constance and Lila resolve to take revenge on those who wronged them — but will they succeed in their mission? In a misogynistic world of outlaws and gunfights, nothing is certain.A sharply realised, caustically witty and often moving revisionist depiction of frontier life that explores, through its feminist heroine, queer love, female friendships, and the idea of a 'found' family. It is a page-turning female revenge thriller.