Preview: 2024 Fiction Highlights

Sugar, Baby by Celine Saintclare

Agnes is a mixed-race 21-year-old whose life seems to be heading nowhere. That is until she meets Emily, daughter of one of her cleaning clients. Emily lives in London and works as a model... and a sugar baby, dating rich older men for money.

Emily's life is the escape Agnes has been longing for—extravagant tasting menus, champagne on tap, glamorous hotels with unlimited room service, designer gifts from dates who call her beautiful. Kicked out of her religious family home, Agnes moves in with Emily and the other sugar babies in their fancy London flat and is drawn deeper and deeper into their world. But there's one thing they have that she does not: a safety net.

Senior Editor Amber Oliver writes, "I haven't stopped thinking about this sensuous, mesmerizing novel since I first read it. Debut author Celine Saintclare's intimate, wry voice shines as she offers social commentary on the glitzy, glamorous, troubling world of sugaring. And it's exciting to see the novel tackle pressing issues of consent and beauty, class, and control. I can't get enough of this page-turning tale and I'm so excited for readers to fall in love with it too."

 

The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft

Jennifer Croft is a miracle. She's an award-winning translator, a game-changing advocate for literary translators, and her own writing is just as extraordinary. In her debut novel, 12 translators gather at the forest-surrounded villa of their renowned, reclusive author Irena Rey to translate her magnum opus when, suddenly, she disappears. Left on their own over the next six weeks, they must work together—and more often against each other—to figure out where she may be and just simply survive in this creepy, madness-inducing primeval forest. It's a terrifically propulsive, immersive, intellectually stimulating read, one that somehow manages to merge the joy of a book world thriller with linguistic play.

Senior Editor Daniel Loedel writes, "I had long been a fan of Jenny's work when I received The Extinction of Irena Rey on submission so my hopes were high, but the read immediately surpassed them. Not only was the language at once brilliant and playful, but so was the story. It's an adventure truly like no other, full of twists and turns and everything from family secrets and affairs to psychedelic mushrooms to duels to climate protests and catastrophes. And hilarious and wild though it is, it still poses incredibly profound questions about creativity and the nature of individuality. I honestly still don't know how she pulled it off."

 

House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas

Bryce Quinlan never expected to see a world other than Midgard, but now that she has, all she wants is to get back. Everything she loves is in Midgard: her family, her friends, her mate. Stranded in a strange new world, she's going to need all her wits about her to get home again. In this sexy, breathtaking sequel to the #1 bestsellers House of Earth and Blood and House of Sky and Breath, Bryce's world is brought to the brink of collapse—with its future resting on hers and her mate Hunt's shoulders.

Executive Editor Noa Wheeler writes, "I can't wait for Sarah's fans to read this next installment in the Crescent City series. I expect they will be as blown away as I was with this epic page-turner. Sarah continues to reimagine a fantasy world with modern technology while maintaining her signature romance, heart-stopping action, and characters fans truly love. It's a stunner!"

 

Bright and Tender Dark by Joanna Pearson

Days after the dawn of Y2K, beautiful, charismatic 20-year-old Karlie Richards is found brutally murdered in her campus apartment. Two decades later, her freshman year roommate Joy stumbles upon a 20-year-old letter from Karlie that convinces her the man convicted of the crime is wrongfully imprisoned. Jumping between 2019 and 1999, Bright and Tender Dark is a compulsively readable, prismatic literary mystery that brilliantly mines the mythology of murder, the power of urban legend, and the psychological urge to both protect and exploit what you love but cannot have.

Senior Editor Daniel Loedel writes, "Joanna Pearson's debut Bright and Tender Dark is literary suspense of truly the highest order. It portrays our era of online obsession and late 90s campus culture with equal insight and exhilaration, and brilliantly unpacks the thrills and dangers of coming of age as a young woman. You will read it deep into the night."

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