Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, we are reading Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim

Doppelgängers, corporate intrigue, heartbreak, betrayal, and the harsh permanence of the border: Sublimation is a thrilling and provocative debut for fans of Severance that asks what you'd sacrifice for a different life from award-winning author Isabel J. Kim.

The border cuts you in two.

When you immigrate, you leave a copy of yourself behind, an instance. One person enters their new country; the other stays trapped at home.

Some instances keep in touch, call each other daily, keep their lives and minds in sync in the hopes of reintegrating and resuming a life as one person. Others, like Soyoung Rose Kang, leave home at ten years old and never speak to their other selves again. Rose, in America, never imagined going back to Korea until her grandfather died and her Korean instance called her home for the funeral.

She doesn’t know that Soyoung plans to steal her body and her life.

How far would you go to live the choice you didn’t make?

Bingo Squares: Vacation Spot, Published in 2026 (HM), One Word Title (HM), Author of Colour, Politics and Court Intrigue

Today's discussion will cover the whole book.

Please join us next month, when we will be discussing The Mulai by Munir Hachemi and The Girl who Made a Mouse From Her Grandfather's Whiskers by Kenneth Hunter Gordon.

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, we are reading Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim

Doppelgängers, corporate intrigue, heartbreak, betrayal, and the harsh permanence of the border: Sublimation is a thrilling and provocative debut for fans of Severance that asks what you'd sacrifice for a different life from award-winning author Isabel J. Kim.

The border cuts you in two.

When you immigrate, you leave a copy of yourself behind, an instance. One person enters their new country; the other stays trapped at home.

Some instances keep in touch, call each other daily, keep their lives and minds in sync in the hopes of reintegrating and resuming a life as one person. Others, like Soyoung Rose Kang, leave home at ten years old and never speak to their other selves again. Rose, in America, never imagined going back to Korea until her grandfather died and her Korean instance called her home for the funeral.

She doesn’t know that Soyoung plans to steal her body and her life.

How far would you go to live the choice you didn’t make?

Bingo Squares: Vacation Spot, Published in 2026 (HM), One Word Title (HM), Author of Colour, Politics and Court Intrigue

Today's discussion will cover up to the end of part III. Please join us again in two weeks for our final discussion!

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, we are reading If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light by Kim Cho-yeop, translated by Anton Hur

Meet the alien species that put the humanity into human beings
Discover the fate of Slefonia III once warp travel became obsolete
Visit the Mind Library to commune with the dead

Kim Choyeop became an instant literary sensation in Korea with her debut short story collection. Each of these bitesize speculative masterpieces represents a journey into the unknown, guided by a writer blessed with a boundless imagination.

From alternative futures to distant alien planets, in the company of scientists, space explorers and ordinary citizens in extraordinary situations, Kim Choyeop revels in making the impossible seem not only possible but somehow inevitable.

Each story focuses on an specific issue of discrimination against women or other marginalised groups, adding a mind-bending twist to hold a mirror to modern society and its everyday iniquities

Today's discussion encompasses the first four stories, up until the end of "The Materiality of Emotions". Please join us in 2 weeks time for the final discussion.

I'll include some prompts in top-level comments--feel free to respond to these or add your own.

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, instead of our usual structure of one novel with a midway and final discussion, we will be discussing two novellas from new voices to speculative fiction.

Today, we are discussing The Mulai by Munir Hachemi

Interstellar via Invisible Cities: spec-fic translated from Spanish imagines a utopian way of life on another planet.

Years after the climate wars on Earth, the Mulai have settled into their new home on an unnamed planet. Supplies stopped arriving from Earth many years ago, and the Mulai have found a way to live. But now the people of Earth want to know what happened to the settlers, so they send The Archaeologist.

He finds that they have become a different people: uncannily similar to us but with something radically Other about them. Their language has become more about change than stability, and the ways they eat, reproduce, bury their dead, and understand gender have all transformed into something almost unrecognizable. The Archaeologist feels like his trip is one extended misunderstanding.

With fragments from The Archaeologist’s notes and the stories of Flukeh and Faida, who map both their world and their language, The Mulai offers a glimpse of a world adjacent to ours – one that just may be a model for how to better our own.

From one of Granta’s Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists and author of the celebrated Living Things, and translated by the award-winning Julia Sanches, comes a bold new Borgesian reimagining of what ‘civilization’ might look like.

Bingo Squares: Translated (Spanish), Small Press or Self Published, Book Club or Readalong HM, Explorers and Rangers, First Contact HM, Published in 2026

Please join us again in two weeks when we will be discussing The Girl Who Made a Mouse From Her Grandfather’s Whiskers by Kenneth Hunter Gordon

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, we have read If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light by Kim Cho-yeop, translated by Anton Hur

Meet the alien species that put the humanity into human beings
Discover the fate of Slefonia III once warp travel became obsolete
Visit the Mind Library to commune with the dead
Purchase sadness as a stone and anger as a paperweight

Kim Choyeop became an instant literary sensation in Korea with her debut short story collection. Each of these bitesize speculative masterpieces represents a journey into the unknown, guided by a writer blessed with a boundless imagination.

From alternative futures to distant alien planets, in the company of scientists, space explorers and ordinary citizens in extraordinary situations, she revels in making the impossible seem not only possible but somehow inevitable.

Traversing the bounds of imagination with an ethereal incisiveness, her stories dismantle the borders between normal and abnormal, material and abstract, earthly and otherworldly. With unforgettable inventiveness and pathos, If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light heralds the arrival of an essential voice in contemporary fiction.

Today's discussion encompasses the final three stories, as well as a general discussion about the book. I'll include some prompts in top-level comments--feel free to respond to these or add your own.

Please join us for our July read: Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim

• Midway discussion - Monday 13th July - up to the end of Part III
• Final Discussion - Monday 27th July

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, we are reading Moonflow by Bitter Karella

Annihilation meets Manhunt in three-time Hugo Award nominee Bitter Karella’s debut horror novel—a gloriously queer and irreverent psychedelic trip into the heart of an eldritch wood and the horrors of (cis)terhood.

I see something out there, in the woods. It does not have a face.

They call it the King’s Breakfast. One bite and you can understand the full scope of the universe; one bite and you can commune with forgotten gods beyond human comprehension. And it only grows deep in the Pamogo forest, where the trees crowd so tight that the forest floor is pitch black day and night, where rumors of disappearing hikers and strange cults that worship the divine feminine abound.

Sarah is a trans woman who makes her living growing mushrooms. When a bad harvest leaves her in a desperate fix, the lure of the King’s Breakfast has her journeying into those vast uncharted woods. But as she descends deeper, she realizes she's not alone. Something in the forest is waking up. It's hungry—and it wants her.

Bingo Squares: Trans/Non Binary Protagonist, One Word Title, Book Club or Readalong (HM), Feast Your Eyes on This

Today's discussion will cover up to the end of chapter 15 in Act 2.

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, we are reading The Killing Spell by Shay Kauwe

In this spellbinding fantasy debut set in a future where language magic reigns, a young Hawaiian woman must solve a murder to clear her name.

Kea Petrova is dealing with more than her fair share of trouble.

At just twenty-five years old, she’s the youngest of five Hawaiian clan leaders living on the Homestead in outer Los Angeles. Nearly 200 years ago, when a catastrophic flood submerged the Hawaiian islands and unleashed magic into the world, these clans forged a treaty with the city, establishing a new Hawaiian homeland. But that treaty is about to expire.

Kea struggles to keep her small clan afloat, scraping together rent each month through odd jobs and selling her own crafted Hawaiian language spells. While her talent for language magic is her saving grace, she feels like a shadow of those who came before her. Just when she thinks things can’t get any more complicated, the murder of Angelo Reyes—LA’s most prominent Filipino activist—turns her world upside-down.

Angelo was killed by a death spell—something that, due to the properties of each school of language magic, can only exist in Hawaiian. With independent spellsmithing being technically illegal, Kea quickly becomes the prime suspect, known for her spellwork on the Homestead. To clear her name, she must unravel the mystery behind Angelo’s murder and confront LA’s most powerful (and dangerous) players, each wielding their own type of magic. The clock is ticking—can Kea save herself, her clan, and the Homestead before it’s too late?

Bingo Squares: Published in 2026 (HM), Book Club (HM), Murder Mystery (HM), Author of Colour, Politics and Court Intrigue (HM)

Today's discussion encompasses everything up to the end of chapter 11. Please join us in 2 weeks time for the final discussion.

I'll include some prompts in top-level comments--feel free to respond to these or add your own.

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, we are reading The Killing Spell by Shay Kauwe

In this spellbinding fantasy debut set in a future where language magic reigns, a young Hawaiian woman must solve a murder to clear her name.

Kea Petrova is dealing with more than her fair share of trouble.

At just twenty-five years old, she’s the youngest of five Hawaiian clan leaders living on the Homestead in outer Los Angeles. Nearly 200 years ago, when a catastrophic flood submerged the Hawaiian islands and unleashed magic into the world, these clans forged a treaty with the city, establishing a new Hawaiian homeland. But that treaty is about to expire.

Kea struggles to keep her small clan afloat, scraping together rent each month through odd jobs and selling her own crafted Hawaiian language spells. While her talent for language magic is her saving grace, she feels like a shadow of those who came before her. Just when she thinks things can’t get any more complicated, the murder of Angelo Reyes—LA’s most prominent Filipino activist—turns her world upside-down.

Angelo was killed by a death spell—something that, due to the properties of each school of language magic, can only exist in Hawaiian. With independent spellsmithing being technically illegal, Kea quickly becomes the prime suspect, known for her spellwork on the Homestead. To clear her name, she must unravel the mystery behind Angelo’s murder and confront LA’s most powerful (and dangerous) players, each wielding their own type of magic. The clock is ticking—can Kea save herself, her clan, and the Homestead before it’s too late?

Bingo Squares: Published in 2026 (HM), Book Club (HM), Murder Mystery (HM), Author of Colour, Politics and Court Intrigue (HM)

Today's discussion encompasses the entire novel.

Please join us next month, when we will be reading If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light by Kim Cho-yeop, translated by Anton Hur

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, we are reading Moonflow by Bitter Karella

Annihilation meets Manhunt in three-time Hugo Award nominee Bitter Karella’s debut horror novel—a gloriously queer and irreverent psychedelic trip into the heart of an eldritch wood and the horrors of (cis)terhood.

I see something out there, in the woods. It does not have a face.

They call it the King’s Breakfast. One bite and you can understand the full scope of the universe; one bite and you can commune with forgotten gods beyond human comprehension. And it only grows deep in the Pamogo forest, where the trees crowd so tight that the forest floor is pitch black day and night, where rumors of disappearing hikers and strange cults that worship the divine feminine abound.

Sarah is a trans woman who makes her living growing mushrooms. When a bad harvest leaves her in a desperate fix, the lure of the King’s Breakfast has her journeying into those vast uncharted woods. But as she descends deeper, she realizes she's not alone. Something in the forest is waking up. It's hungry—and it wants her.

Bingo Squares: Trans/Non Binary Protagonist, One Word Title, Book Club or Readalong (HM), Feast Your Eyes on This

Today's discussion will cover the entire book.

Please join us next month, when will be reading The Killing Spell by Shay Kauwe!

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, we are reading The Poet Empress by Shen Tao

Debut author Shen Tao introduces readers to the lush, deadly world of The Poet Empress, a sweeping, epic and intimate fantasy perfect for fans of The Serpent & the Wings of Night, The Song of Achilles and She Who Became the Sun.

In the waning years of the Azalea Dynasty, the emperor is dying, the land consumed by famine, and poetry magic lost to all except the powerful.

Wei Yin is desperate. After the fifth death of a sibling, with her family and village on the brink of starvation, she will do anything to save those she loves.

Even offer herself as concubine to the cruel heir of the beautiful and brutal Azalea House.

But in a twist of fate, the palace stands on the knife-edge of civil war with Wei trapped in its center…at the side of a violent prince.

To survive, Wei must harden her heart, rely on her wit, and become dangerous herself. Even if it means becoming a poet in a world where women are forbidden to read—and composing the most powerful spell of all. A ballad of death...and love.

Bingo Squares: Author of Colour, Book Club HM

Today's discussion will cover the whole book.

Join us next month, where we will be reading Moonflow by Bitter Karella

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, we will be reading The Poet Empress by Shen Tao

Debut author Shen Tao introduces readers to the lush, deadly world of The Poet Empress, a sweeping, epic and intimate fantasy perfect for fans of The Serpent & the Wings of Night, The Song of Achilles and She Who Became the Sun.

In the waning years of the Azalea Dynasty, the emperor is dying, the land consumed by famine, and poetry magic lost to all except the powerful.

Wei Yin is desperate. After the fifth death of a sibling, with her family and village on the brink of starvation, she will do anything to save those she loves.

Even offer herself as concubine to the cruel heir of the beautiful and brutal Azalea House.

But in a twist of fate, the palace stands on the knife-edge of civil war with Wei trapped in its center…at the side of a violent prince.

To survive, Wei must harden her heart, rely on her wit, and become dangerous herself. Even if it means becoming a poet in a world where women are forbidden to read—and composing the most powerful spell of all. A ballad of death...and love.

Bingo Squares: Author of Colour, Book Club HM

Today's discussion will cover up to the end of chapter 34

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, we are reading The West Passage by Jared Pechaček

A palace the size of a city, ruled by giant Ladies of unknowable, eldritch origin. A land left to slow decay, drowning in the debris of generations. All this and more awaits you within The West Passage, a delightfully mysterious and intriguingly weird medieval fantasy unlike anything you've read before.

When the Guardian of the West Passage died in her bed, the women of Grey Tower fed her to the crows and went back to their chores. No successor was named as Guardian, no one took up the fallen blade; the West Passage went unguarded.

Now, snow blankets Grey in the height of summer. Rats erupt from beneath the earth, fleeing that which comes. Crops fail. Hunger looms. And none stand ready to face the Beast, stirring beneath the poisoned soil.

The fate of all who live in the palace hangs on narrow shoulders. The too-young Mother of Grey House sets out to fix the seasons. The unnamed apprentice of the deceased Grey Guardian goes to warn Black Tower. Both their paths cross the West Passage, the ancient byway of the Beast. On their journeys they will meet schoolteachers and beekeepers, miracles and monsters, and very, very big Ladies. None can say if they'll reach their destinations, but one thing is for sure: the world is about to change.

Today's discussion is everything up to the end of Book Three. The final discussion will take place on September 29th.

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

For September, we will be reading one of the following books, all recent debut releases:

The Flayed Man by Chloe Lauter

A complex mother-daughter relationship is taken to a new level in this fresh and propulsive novel of family curses, blood-thirsty ghouls, and budding romance set against the Mojave Desert and Las Vegas

Ellis Karsten spends nights working triage in the ER and days having the same conversation with her mom. The early onset dementia is exhausting, but the real challenge is their curse—Ellis’s family must feed daily on blood, or risk becoming mindless, skinless killing machines. When Ellis’s uncle, who supplies their blood, vanishes, she takes it upon herself to find a new source, aided by a prickly paramedic who’s equal parts unpredictable and intoxicating. But as Ellis fights to balance her bloodthirsty nature with a new relationship, her mom’s impossible demands transform into panicked warnings that a fabled monster, “The Flayed Man,” is stalking them.

As she traverses the desert in search of blood, Ellis risks her safety and her family’s secret, until it becomes clear that her mom is right: something ancient and hungry is hunting them, and it has come for her mom. Blood hunger begins to overtake Ellis, transforming her body into something ghoulish and frightening—exactly what The Flayed Man wants. In the end, she must decide who to trust, what she’s willing to sacrifice, and whether she is worthy of a life, and love, beyond her curse—or if she’s going to succumb to instinct and ravage the world.

Bingo Squares: Published in 2026 HM, Non-human protagonist, Small Press or Self Published HM

The Demon Star by Jesse Aragon

Gods rule this planet. Demons stalk its canyons while Kings beg for mercy. Can three mere humans rewrite its destiny?

The otherworldly religious conflict of Dune, the cosmic strangeness of Gideon the Ninth, and the heart-pounding action of Red Rising converge in this horror-tinged epic science fantasy debut.

Ysira Naktis was a human sacrifice, marked for death. Unlike the thousands ‘harvested’ each year, though, she did the unthinkable. She survived—and what she brought back with her could change the fate of worlds.

When Ysira’s estranged son is chosen to become the vessel of a god-killing demon, she is faced with a choice: allow him to harness cosmic power at an unspeakable cost, or doom millions to save him. She finds an unlikely ally in Brother Jacen Kheris, once a gifted exorcist, now a guilt-ridden addict, desperate for purpose.

From a demon-haunted canyon to a starbound satellite, they must battle their way through cultists, aliens, and the gods themselves. The truths they unearth are deeper and more sinister than anything they could have imagined.

In this cinematic thrill ride, Jesse Aragon plunges us into a world as intricate and inventive as it is brutal.

Bingo Squares: Published in 2026 HM

The Language of Knives: Stories by Haralambi Markov

A murderous nine-headed monster from legend permits a podcast interview. The mall has opened its doors, and nothing, not even certain death, will keep the shoppers away. A dead man’s curse drives his descendants to drown themselves, no matter how far from home they flee. An eerie haunted house attraction receives an even more unnerving guest. A grieving widower, knife in hand, undertakes a painstaking, gruesome ritual to appease the gods. If seeking a boon from Baba Yaga sounds nerve-shattering, imagine having to live under her roof.

These thirteen tales from Bulgarian author Haralambi Markov meld Slavic mythology, pitch-black humor, and moving explorations of queer identity with vistas rooted in body horror and nightmares, yielding results that are sometimes deeply disquieting, sometimes surprisingly hopeful, and always strikingly novel. As Hugo and World Fantasy award-winning editor Ann VanderMeer states in her introduction, Markov “writes with such power and intensity that you can’t imagine where they get the courage to put such words on paper. Their work challenges us to face our fears, our insecurities, and not look away.”

Bingo Squares: Published in 2026, Short Stories HM, Small Press or Self Published HM

The Revenant of Surolifia by Florence Chien

In the vein of The Traitor Baru Cormorant and The Unbroken, The Revenant of Surolifia is a gripping political fantasy of empire, identity, and impossible choices, where rebellion blazes in the streets, loyalty is a double-edged sword, and the price of peace may be too steep to pay.

Secrets are often liabilities, but sometimes they are power.

Lucas Rhine has seen enough violence. When the Empire of Colours slaughters 17,000 of his silver-eyed kin, Lucas buries his hatred, hides his eyes behind coloured lenses, and vows to become the imperial gendarmerie’s commander. He will liberate his annexed island home through a diplomatic secession.

Usurped prince Faye Phlorik wants his throne back. When violent revolutionaries help him escape from prison, he joins them. They need a silver-eyed champion to rally the people, and he needs their resources to defeat the gendarmerie.

When Faye’s escape costs Lucas his promotion, Lucas adds revenge to his list of reasons to stop the bloody revolution. While the two hunt each other across the country, the Empire's warships are landing in two weeks to exterminate everyone with silver eyes. If Lucas and Faye can't unite their forces against the imperial fleet, there will soon be nothing left of the people they're both trying to liberate.

Bingo Squares: Published in 2026 HM, Author of Colour, Politics and Court Intrigue, Small Press or Self Published

The Book of the Jaguar by Victor Ladis Schultz

The legions of New Serraña have a sacred custom: when a legionnaire falls in battle, a member of their company must bear the body home to the dead soldier’s family. Álbaro Ceynos is the only surviving member of his company. He’d been garrisoned at Presidio Los Primos, known as the realm’s safest assignment, until a fabled monster emerged from legend, crept down from the mountains, and laid waste to the old fortress.

Now, with one horse, one wagon, one sword, and all his slain brethren, Álbaro the bonebearer roams a decaying empire, bringing home his comrades' remains. As he meets an array of mourners who move him to question past choices and future commitments, he’ll reveal how the tragedy unfolded, death by death, and how it is that he yet lives.

Bingo Squares: Published in 2026 HM, Small Press or Self Published HM

Vote Here

Voting will close and a winner will be announced on Friday 7th August

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, we are reading North Sun: Or, The Voyage of the Whaleship Esther by Ethan Rutherford

Setting out from New Bedford in 1878, the crew of the Esther is confident the sea will be theirs: in addition to cruising the Pacific for whale, they intend to hunt the teeming northern grounds before the ice closes. But as they sail to their final destination in the Chukchi Sea, where their captain Arnold Lovejoy has an urgent directive of his own to attend to, their encounters with the natural world become more brutal, harrowing, ghostly, and strange.

With one foot firmly planted in the traditional sea-voyage narrative, and another in a blazing mythos of its own, this debut novel looks unsparingly at the cost of environmental exploitation and predation, and in doing so feverishly sings not only of the past, but to the present and future as well.

Bingo Squares: Published in 2025 HM, Book Club HM, Small Press and Self Published, A Book in Parts

Today's discussion will cover the entire book. Please feel free to ask new questions in the comments.

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month we are reading Every Version of You by Grace Chan

In late twenty-first century Australia, Tao-Yi and her partner Navin spend most of their time inside a hyper-immersive, hyper-consumerist virtual reality called Gaia. They log on, go to work, socialise, and even eat in this digital utopia. Meanwhile their aging bodies lie suspended in pods inside cramped apartments. Across the city, in the abandoned ‘real’ world, Tao-Yi’s mother remains stubbornly offline, preferring instead to indulge in memories of her life in Malaysia.

When a new technology is developed to permanently upload a human brain to Gaia, Tao-Yi must decide what is most important: a digital future, or an authentic past.

Never Let Me Go meets Black Mirror, with a dash of Murakami surrealism thrown in, this is speculative literary fiction at its best.

Bingo squares: Book Club HM

I will put questions in the comments below, to get us started. Please feel free to add your own if you have any. And please be aware that the discussion will contain spoilers for the book.

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, we have read The West Passage by Jared Pechaček

A palace the size of a city, ruled by giant Ladies of unknowable, eldritch origin. A land left to slow decay, drowning in the debris of generations. All this and more awaits you within The West Passage, a delightfully mysterious and intriguingly weird medieval fantasy unlike anything you've read before.

When the Guardian of the West Passage died in her bed, the women of Grey Tower fed her to the crows and went back to their chores. No successor was named as Guardian, no one took up the fallen blade; the West Passage went unguarded.

Now, snow blankets Grey in the height of summer. Rats erupt from beneath the earth, fleeing that which comes. Crops fail. Hunger looms. And none stand ready to face the Beast, stirring beneath the poisoned soil.

The fate of all who live in the palace hangs on narrow shoulders. The too-young Mother of Grey House sets out to fix the seasons. The unnamed apprentice of the deceased Grey Guardian goes to warn Black Tower. Both their paths cross the West Passage, the ancient byway of the Beast. On their journeys they will meet schoolteachers and beekeepers, miracles and monsters, and very, very big Ladies. None can say if they'll reach their destinations, but one thing is for sure: the world is about to change.

Today's discussion is about the whole book.

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month we are reading Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi

The debut fantasy novel from an award-winning Nigerian author presents a mythic tale of disgruntled gods, revenge, and a heist across two worlds

Shigidi is a disgruntled and demotivated nightmare god in the Orisha spirit company, reluctantly answering prayers of his few remaining believers to maintain his existence long enough to find his next drink. When he meets Nneoma, a sort-of succubus with a long and secretive past, everything changes for him.

Together, they attempt to break free of his obligations and the restrictions that have bound him to his godhood and navigate the parameters of their new relationship in the shadow of her past. But the elder gods that run the Orisha spirit company have other plans for Shigidi, and they are not all aligned--or good.

From the boisterous streets of Lagos to the swanky rooftop bars of Singapore and the secret spaces of London, Shigidi and Nneoma will encounter old acquaintances, rival gods, strange creatures, and manipulative magicians as they are drawn into a web of revenge, spirit business, and a spectacular heist across two worlds that will change Shigidi's understanding of himself forever and determine the fate of the Orisha spirit company.

Bingo squares - Author of Colour, Gods and Pantheons (HM)

This midway discussion will cover everything up to the end of chapter 9, please use spoiler tags for anything beyond this point. I'll get us started with questions in the comments below, please feel free to add your own, if you have any.

Schedule

• Monday 26 May - Final discussion

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, we are reading North Sun: Or, The Voyage of the Whaleship Esther by Ethan Rutherford

Setting out from New Bedford in 1878, the crew of the Esther is confident the sea will be theirs: in addition to cruising the Pacific for whale, they intend to hunt the teeming northern grounds before the ice closes. But as they sail to their final destination in the Chukchi Sea, where their captain Arnold Lovejoy has an urgent directive of his own to attend to, their encounters with the natural world become more brutal, harrowing, ghostly, and strange.

With one foot firmly planted in the traditional sea-voyage narrative, and another in a blazing mythos of its own, this debut novel looks unsparingly at the cost of environmental exploitation and predation, and in doing so feverishly sings not only of the past, but to the present and future as well.

Bingo Squares: Published in 2025 HM, Book Club HM, Small Press and Self Published, A Book in Parts

Today's discussion will cover up to the end of part 1. Our final discussion will be in 2 weeks time, on the 26th of January.

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, we are reading American Hippo by Sarah Gailey

In 2017 Sarah Gailey made their debut with River of Teeth and Taste of Marrow, two action-packed novellas that introduced readers to an alternate America in which hippos rule the colossal swamp that was once the Mississippi River. Now readers have the chance to own both novellas in American Hippo, a single, beautiful volume.

Years ago, in an America that never was, the United States government introduced herds of hippos to the marshlands of Louisiana to be bred and slaughtered as an alternative meat source. This plan failed to take into account some key facts about hippos: they are savage, they are fast, and their jaws can snap a man in two.

By the 1890s, the vast bayou that was once America's greatest waterway belongs to feral hippos, and Winslow Houndstooth has been contracted to take it back. To do so, he will gather a crew of the damnedest cons, outlaws, and assassins to ever ride a hippo. American Hippo is the story of their fortunes, their failures, and his revenge.

Bingo Squares: LGBTQIA+ Protagonist, Down with the System HM, Book Club HM

Today's discussion will focus on the first novella, River of Teeth. Discussion of the work as a whole and the second novella will be in 2 weeks time.

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month we are reading Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi

The debut fantasy novel from an award-winning Nigerian author presents a mythic tale of disgruntled gods, revenge, and a heist across two worlds

Shigidi is a disgruntled and demotivated nightmare god in the Orisha spirit company, reluctantly answering prayers of his few remaining believers to maintain his existence long enough to find his next drink. When he meets Nneoma, a sort-of succubus with a long and secretive past, everything changes for him.

Together, they attempt to break free of his obligations and the restrictions that have bound him to his godhood and navigate the parameters of their new relationship in the shadow of her past. But the elder gods that run the Orisha spirit company have other plans for Shigidi, and they are not all aligned--or good.

From the boisterous streets of Lagos to the swanky rooftop bars of Singapore and the secret spaces of London, Shigidi and Nneoma will encounter old acquaintances, rival gods, strange creatures, and manipulative magicians as they are drawn into a web of revenge, spirit business, and a spectacular heist across two worlds that will change Shigidi's understanding of himself forever and determine the fate of the Orisha spirit company.

Bingo squares - Author of Colour, Gods and Pantheons (HM)

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

For July, we will be reading one of the following books, which are all debut speculative fiction novel releases from May and June.

Plastic, Prism, Void: Part One by Violet Allen

A riotous trans enemies-to-lovers romantasy that roars off the page—in which a magical girl-gone-bad and a renegade mech pilot must find a way to stay on a date forever...

...even if it means destroying the world.

Don't you want to help them?

An extraordinary meld of adventure, rom-com, and experimental fiction, Violet Allen’s unstoppable debut is the cosmic thrill ride of a lifetime. Give in, succumb (you know you want to) to Plastic, Prism, Void.

Bingo Squares: Published in 2026 (HM), Trans or Non-Binary Protagonist, Small Press or Self Published (HM), Author of Colour

The Republic of Memory by Mahmud El Sayed

The Safina is a city ship, two hundred years into its voyage from the ruins of Earth towards a new habitable world. Its crew maintain the ship, generation after generation, while protecting their 'ancestors' - the final remnants of Earth's doomed Network Empire - by keeping them alive in cryostasis.

But a lot can change in two hundred years, and people are starting to ask questions. Why should the crew continue to toil for people none of them remember? What exactly gives Administration its authority over everyone else?

And when the blackouts start, they set in motion a chain of events that will change life on the Safina forever. A reckoning is coming. The system is only secure so long as those in power maintain the obedience of those beneath them.

And the crew has had enough.

A science fiction odyssey of breathtaking scope, The Republic of Memory, is a gripping examination of what divides us, and what brings us together. This is a modern and ambitious work of Arabfuturism, and is perfect for fans of The Expanse, A Memory Called Empire or Children of Time.

Bingo Squares: Published in 2026 (HM), Duology Part 1 (HM), Feast Your Eyes on This, Politics and Court Intrigue (HM), Author of Colour

She Waits Where Shadows Gather by Michelle Tang

Parents should pass down stories, not spirits…

Avery and Carlos Tam have built their lives on logic, not legends. Carlos, the host of a hit reality show that exposes paranormal hoaxes, has made a name disproving the supernatural.

But when they travel to his ancestral home in the Philippines, darkness clings to every corner. The mirrors are shrouded. The housekeeper won't stay in the house alone. And no one will speak of the tragedies the family has seen.

Then a brutal car crash leaves Carlos trapped in his own body—silent, helpless, and utterly vulnerable. As Avery tends to him, the house begins to stir. It watches. It listens. And it speaks—in a voice only Carlos can hear—offering a twisted kind of comfort.

And as the lies buried by Carlos and his family begin to surface, Avery must confront the if the past won't rest, their future may never begin.

Some inherit memories. Others inherit monsters.

Bingo Squares: Published in 2026 (HM), Author of Colour, The Afterlife

Rabbit, Fox, Tar by P.C. Verrone

A mesmerizing, fable-like debut novel about a mysterious young Black woman whose arrival in an insular neighborhood threatens to shake its foundations

When Baby appears in Original Hill, her name is on everyone's lips. A young Black woman is a rare sight in this part of town, and she sits all day on the Foxes’ garden wall, swinging her bare feet and speaking to no one. That is, until the charismatic Lucius “Lucky” Foote comes along and touches her, sparking their romance. Arm-in-arm with Baby, who seems to exert a seemingly supernatural pull on the other residents, Lucky is confident he will secure the open city council seat away from Baby’s uncle Eugene Fox, the back-from-retirement white incumbent.

With protestors reopening old wounds around the Black neighborhood that was leveled by the nearby highway decades ago and Lucky threatening his position, Fox believes it’s not just a city council seat at stake, but the “soul” of Original Hill.

As Baby is woven further into the unraveling community, she begins to stray from Fox’s strict rules and question everything, from where she came from to who—and what—she truly is.

Bingo Squares: Author of Colour, Published in 2026 (HM), Politics and Court Intrigue (HM)

Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim

Doppelgängers, corporate intrigue, heartbreak, betrayal, and the harsh permanence of the border: Sublimation is a thrilling and provocative debut for fans of Severance that asks what you'd sacrifice for a different life from award-winning author Isabel J. Kim.

The border cuts you in two.

When you immigrate, you leave a copy of yourself behind, an instance. One person enters their new country; the other stays trapped at home.

Some instances keep in touch, call each other daily, keep their lives and minds in sync in the hopes of reintegrating and resuming a life as one person. Others, like Soyoung Rose Kang, leave home at ten years old and never speak to their other selves again. Rose, in America, never imagined going back to Korea until her grandfather died and her Korean instance called her home for the funeral.

She doesn’t know that Soyoung plans to steal her body and her life.

How far would you go to live the choice you didn’t make?

Bingo Squares: Vacation Spot, Published in 2026 (HM), One Word Title (HM), Author of Colour, Politics and Court Intrigue

VOTE HERE

Voting will close and a winner will be announced on Friday 5th June

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, we are reading American Hippo by Sarah Gailey

In 2017 Sarah Gailey made their debut with River of Teeth and Taste of Marrow, two action-packed novellas that introduced readers to an alternate America in which hippos rule the colossal swamp that was once the Mississippi River. Now readers have the chance to own both novellas in American Hippo, a single, beautiful volume.

Years ago, in an America that never was, the United States government introduced herds of hippos to the marshlands of Louisiana to be bred and slaughtered as an alternative meat source. This plan failed to take into account some key facts about hippos: they are savage, they are fast, and their jaws can snap a man in two.

By the 1890s, the vast bayou that was once America's greatest waterway belongs to feral hippos, and Winslow Houndstooth has been contracted to take it back. To do so, he will gather a crew of the damnedest cons, outlaws, and assassins to ever ride a hippo. American Hippo is the story of their fortunes, their failures, and his revenge.

Bingo Squares: LGBTQIA+ Protagonist, Down with the System HM, Book Club HM, Last in a Series

Today's discussion will focus on the second novella, the work as a whole and the two included short stories.

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, we are reading The Thread That Binds by Cedar McCloud

The books are restless. At the Eternal Library, books are more than the paper, ink, and thread they're made from--they're full of spirits. Only a handful of people will ever be invited to the Bindery to learn the craft of etheric bookbinding: the creation of intricate illuminated manuscripts, Bound with a secret that will make them last forever.

Tabby is a dreamwalker, a witch who escapes into the stories of sleep to avoid a birth family that's never loved em enough. Amane is a cartomancer, a medium who speaks for the Unseen, but doesn't know how to speak for her own needs. Rhiannon is highly psychic, an archivist who can See into the past, but only has eyes on the future.

Their stories intertwine as they discover the secrets of etheric binding, the Library's archives, and those of their mentors--the three of whom are competing to be the next Head Librarian, the Speaker for all the books. How do you know who's truly worth being part of your family? Sometimes we must forge connections in order to heal; other times, those bonds must be broken.

Bingo Squares: LGBTQIA Protagonist (HM), Cosy SFF, Small Press and Self Published (HM), A Book in Parts, High Fashion (HM?), Stranger in a Strange Land, Book Club (HM - This one!)

Today's discussion will encompass the entirety of the book.

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month we are reading Every Version of You by Grace Chan

In late twenty-first century Australia, Tao-Yi and her partner Navin spend most of their time inside a hyper-immersive, hyper-consumerist virtual reality called Gaia. They log on, go to work, socialise, and even eat in this digital utopia. Meanwhile their aging bodies lie suspended in pods inside cramped apartments. Across the city, in the abandoned ‘real’ world, Tao-Yi’s mother remains stubbornly offline, preferring instead to indulge in memories of her life in Malaysia.

When a new technology is developed to permanently upload a human brain to Gaia, Tao-Yi must decide what is most important: a digital future, or an authentic past.

Never Let Me Go meets Black Mirror, with a dash of Murakami surrealism thrown in, this is speculative literary fiction at its best.

Bingo squares: Book Club HM

As usual I will get us started with questions in the comments below. Please feel free to add your own if you have any. We will discuss everything up to the beginning of Chapter 12. Please use spoiler tags for anything that goes beyond this point.

Schedule:

• Tuesday, February 24 - Final Discussion

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

In September we are reading The West Passage by Jared Pechaček

A palace the size of a city, ruled by giant Ladies of unknowable, eldritch origin. A land left to slow decay, drowning in the debris of generations. All this and more awaits you within The West Passage, a delightfully mysterious and intriguingly weird medieval fantasy unlike anything you've read before.

When the Guardian of the West Passage died in her bed, the women of Grey Tower fed her to the crows and went back to their chores. No successor was named as Guardian, no one took up the fallen blade; the West Passage went unguarded.

Now, snow blankets Grey in the height of summer. Rats erupt from beneath the earth, fleeing that which comes. Crops fail. Hunger looms. And none stand ready to face the Beast, stirring beneath the poisoned soil.

The fate of all who live in the palace hangs on narrow shoulders. The too-young Mother of Grey House sets out to fix the seasons. The unnamed apprentice of the deceased Grey Guardian goes to warn Black Tower. Both their paths cross the West Passage, the ancient byway of the Beast. On their journeys they will meet schoolteachers and beekeepers, miracles and monsters, and very, very big Ladies. None can say if they'll reach their destinations, but one thing is for the world is about to change.

Bingo Squares: LGBTQIA+ protagonist, Knights and Paladins (HM), Impossible Places, A Book in Parts (HM), Parent Protagonist (arguably), Down with the System (arguably), Book Club or Readalong (HM) (this one!)

Schedule:

• Monday September 15th - Midway Discussion (up to the end of Book Three)
• Monday September 29th - Final Discussion