For queer teens looking for the vicious and the morally ambiguous, H.E. Edgmon's ferocious Godly Heathens delivers a pantheon of villainous gods wreaking havoc on a small Southern town.
Gem Echols has no desire to stay in Gracie, Ga. As long as the biracial, Seminole teen keeps their grades up, takes their medication, and ignores the haunting dreams of otherworldly murder that plague their sleep, they can survive until graduation and join their long-distance "friend" in Brooklyn. But when strangers roll into town and attempt to kill them, Gem learns the truth: they are the Magician, a reincarnation of the strongest deity in a pantheon of gods from an alternate Earth. It was the Magician's actions that led to the gods being trapped on Gem's Earth, and many of the pantheon want Gem dead.
Edgmon (The Witch King duology) crafts a brutal homage to queer perseverance in this bloody young adult fantasy. The author fills the pages with queer teenagers doing understandably terrible things with their unfathomably powerful magic as they campaign for prom queen or try to keep up with their Discord chats. Readers who self-describe as "unhinged" or "feral" will happily latch onto the litany of morally ambiguous deities, even if the character design of said deities is somewhat deficient. But what Godly Heathens lacks in worldbuilding, it makes up for with escapist fury and visceral joy that will please fans of Amanda Foody and C.L. Herman's All of Us Villains and Andrew Joseph White's Hell Followed with Us. --Nicole Brinkley, bookseller and writer