The Best New Book Releases Out May 14, 2024

I love how June Hur sets her historical YA mysteries during the Joseon era — a period of Korean history that lasted from the 14th century to the 19th century. Here, 17-year-old Iseul and her sister have lived a sheltered life away from the tyranny of the current king. But then, her older sister Suyeon catches the king’s eye. Now, Iseul travels outside through the forbidden territory to get to the capital and save her sister. Then there’s Prince Daehyun, the half-brother of the king, who is trying to start a coup that will overthrow his awful brother. Iseul’s and Daehyun’s paths eventually collide, and, though they detest each other at first, they’re united in their hate for the king.

In this memoir, award-winning journalist Carvell Wallace peels back layers of pain, beauty, and survival that have encompassed his life as a Black queer person in America. He recounts his experiences with homelessness, living in a white Pennsylvania town, and raising kids, and the love he’s experienced through it all.

I’m adding this to the growing list of books about artists coming out lately. Here, Jay’s previously promising career as an artist fresh out of his London art school program has sputtered into an existence of working without documentation in the U.S. While living out of his car, he delivers groceries to people in a wealthy area in New York during the pandemic. It’s during one of these delivery runs that he runs into someone from his art school days. When he first sees Alice, a former boo thing, on the enormous estate, he hopes she doesn’t recognize him. But she does, despite the dirty mask he’s wearing and the 20 years since she left him for his best friend and fellow artist, Rob. She invites him to isolate and recover from his sickness in their barn, and the time Jay spends there turns to time spent revisiting the past, and reconsidering what being an artist means.

In these essays, award-winning poet Villarreal bends genres to look at her personal experiences — like a difficult childhood and divorce — colonial consequences, and migration, and analyzes them through a pop culture lens. In one piece, she’s looking at gender performativity through Nirvana and Selena, and in the next, the racial implications of Game of Thrones’ Jon Snow. She also looks at fantasy and considers collective imagination and how magic and ancestral teachings become invalidated through colonialism.

Roos Beckman has a companion who only she can see. Ruth is a spirit who has been dead for centuries, and she is the only good thing in Roos’ life. That is, until wealthy young widow Agness Knoop meets Roos, and the two women have undeniable chemistry. But when Roos goes to live with her at her crumbling estate, someone ends up dead. And, Roos is caught red-handed. But did she do it, or did her spirit companion, Ruth?

This novella is already gearing up to be a bit of a summer hit. In it, there’s a city where monsters feed on human emotions, and Dymitr sacrifices a little bit of himself every time he fights them. One night, Dymitr makes a bargain with Ala — a woman who’s inherited a curse from her mother. If she helps him find a legendary witch, she’ll get an enchanted flower that might cure her. But the flower will die in just one day, and Dymitr doesn’t fully even know who Ala really is.