Can't-Wait Wednesday: Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett & Divine Might by Natalie Haynes

 

 Can't-Wait is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings that spotlights exciting upcoming releases that we can't wait to be released! This meme is based off of Jill @ Breaking the Spine's Waiting on Wednesday meme.

This week's upcoming book spotlights are:

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands (Emily Wilde #2) by Heather Fawcett
Publication: January 16th, 2024
Del Rey
Hardcover. 352 pages.
Pre-order: Amazon | Bookshop.org

From Goodreads:
"Emily Wilde is a genius scholar of faerie folklore—she just wrote the world’s first comprehensive of encylopaedia of faeries. She’s learned many of the secrets of the Hidden Folk on her adventures . . . and also from her fellow scholar and former rival, Wendell Bambleby.

Because Bambleby is more than infuriatingly charming. He’s an exiled faerie king on the run from his murderous mother, and in search of a door back to his realm. So despite Emily’s feelings for Bambleby, she’s not ready to accept his proposal of Loving one of the Fair Folk comes with secrets and danger.

And she also has a new project to focus a map of the realms of faerie. While she is preparing her research, Bambleby lands her in trouble yet again, when assassins sent by Bambleby’s mother invade Cambridge. Now Bambleby and Emily are on another adventure, this time to the picturesque Austrian Alps, where Emily believes they may find the door to Bambley’s realm, and the key to freeing him from his family’s dark plans.

But with new relationships for the prickly Emily to navigate and dangerous Folk lurking in every forest and hollow, Emily must unravel the mysterious workings of faerie doors, and of her own heart."

I, like many others, absolutely adored Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries and I have been waiting for the winter season to start reading this sequel. I can't wait!

Divine Might by Natalie Haynes
Publication: January 2nd, 2024
Harper
Hardcover. 288 pages.
Pre-order: Amazon | Bookshop.org

From Goodreads:

"Natalie Haynes, author of the bestselling Pandora’s Jar, returns to the world of Greek myth and this time she examines the role of the goddesses.

We meet Athene, who sprang fully formed from her father’s head: goddess of war and wisdom, guardian of Athens. We run with Artemis, goddess of hunting and protector of young girls (apart from those she decides she wants as a sacrifice). Here is Aphrodite, goddess of sex and desire – there is no deity more determined and able to make you miserable if you annoy her. And then there’s the queen of all the Olympian gods: Hera, Zeus’s long-suffering wife, whose jealousy of his dalliances with mortals, nymphs and goddesses lead her to wreak elaborate, vicious revenge on those who have wronged her.

We also meet Demeter, goddess of agriculture and mother of the kidnapped Persephone, we sing the immortal song of the Muses and we warm ourselves with Hestia, goddess of the hearth and sacrificial fire. The Furies carry flames of another kind – black fires of vengeance for those who incur their wrath.

These goddesses are as mighty, revered and destructive as their male counterparts. Isn’t it time we looked beyond the columns of a ruined temple to the awesome power within?"

I'm always going to be curious about any new tellings of mythological figures, and I'm really curious about how Haynes will tackle such weighty figures as the goddesses. 

Can't-Wait Wednesday: The Mask of Mirrors by M.A. Carrick & A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

Can't-Wait is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings that spotlights exciting upcoming releases that we can't wait to be released! This meme is based off of Jill @ Breaking the Spine's Waiting on Wednesday meme.

This week's upcoming book spotlights are: 

The Mask of Mirrors (Rook & Rose #1) by M.A. Carrick
Publication: January 21st, 2021

Orbit

Paperback. 672 pages.

Pre-order: Amazon | IndieBound

From Goodreads:

"Nightmares are creeping through the city of dreams...

 

Renata Viraudax is a con artist who has come to the sparkling city of Nadezra -- the city of dreams -- with one goal: to trick her way into a noble house and secure her fortune and her sister's future.

 

But as she's drawn into the elite world of House Traementis, she realizes her masquerade is just one of many surrounding her. And as corrupt magic begins to weave its way through Nadezra, the poisonous feuds of its aristocrats and the shadowy dangers of its impoverished underbelly become tangled -- with Ren at their heart."

Orbit recently sent me an unexpected ARC of this and I am so excited to start reading it! I love all of the trope-like elements included in this synopsis, and I think it sounds like its going to have some fun  new ideas mixed in.

and...

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

Publication: January 26th, 2021

Harper

Hardcover. 368 pages.

Pre-order: Amazon | IndieBound

From Goodreads:

"This is the women’s war, just as much as it is the men’s. They have waited long enough for their turn . . .

 

This was never the story of one woman, or two. It was the story of them all . . .

 

In the middle of the night, a woman wakes to find her beloved city engulfed in flames. Ten seemingly endless years of conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans are over. Troy has fallen.

 

From the Trojan women whose fates now lie in the hands of the Greeks, to the Amazon princess who fought Achilles on their behalf, to Penelope awaiting the return of Odysseus, to the three goddesses whose feud started it all, these are the stories of the women whose lives, loves, and rivalries were forever altered by this long and tragic war.

 

A woman’s epic, powerfully imbued with new life, A Thousand Ships puts the women, girls and goddesses at the center of the Western world’s great tale ever told. "

Of course I want to read a Classics-based book! I love the sound of what this is going to explore and it is right up my alley. :)

What do you think about these upcoming releases? What are your anticipated upcoming releases?