A few 2025 ARCs

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Nine ARCs from PRH

Got me some ARCs from work, which I was planning to read before handing them out to the bookstores, but my time has run out, so am probably just posting them here for posterity (or however long the internet stays up).

One thing I like keeping track of is Southeast Asian stories, being a Southeast Asian rep assigned to sell in Southeast Asia for a US publisher. Our team--the ones who sell to Asia--try our best (operative word: try) to keep an updated list of Asian creators and titles from our list. It's not as easy given the number of titles we deal with on a regular basis, especially as we do see more Asian representation from our lists. And this matters to us a lot, I think, to the booksellers we sell to, and to the readers.

This batch has four SEA stories: 2 from the Philippines and 2 from Vietnam--

  • HOUSE OF MONSTROUS WOMEN by Daphne Fama - a gothic, haunted house horror story set in the aftermath of the People Power revolution in the Philippines, though not in Metro Manila, but in Biliran, in the Visayas. Lots of creepiness, darkness, and perhaps an aswang. (Aug 2025)
  • DAYBREAKER: ILUSTRA BOOK 1 by Tori Tadiar - middle grade graphic novel about a young Filipina girl who accidentally binds her two friends to her with a curse, so now they're trying to find the counter-curses via ancient Filipino beliefs. Set also in the Philippines. (Sept 2025)
  • THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS by Ocean Vuong - I mean, it's Ocean Vuong. Need we say more? But in case we do, the book is about a young and depressed Vietnamese-American whose life is saved by an old woman with dementia. He ends up taking care of her as well and the two form a bond through their own pain and histories. (May 2025)
  • THE LOST QUEEN by Aimee Phan - a YA fantasy novel inspired by Vietnamese myth, with two young friends who discover they have "ties to the legendary queens and goddesses of ancient Vietnam." It also has dragons! (Trust me, if there are dragons in a book these days, it will definitely be mentioned. Thanks, Fourth Wing.) (My preferred dragons are the Game of Thrones kind. And Smaug. Ok, and Toothless.) (May 2025)

There is also a Japanese translated title, with cats on the cover! (Imagine that.)

And there's another cat book...
  • POETS SQUARE by Courtney Gustafson - the only nonfic title in this bunch. A memoir by Gustafson about the time she spent in a home called Poets Square where she took care of around 30 feral cats. If you're a cat person, you might already be following her on IG and Tiktok! (April 2025)
The rest of the titles are other stuff I've read or really want to read:
  • THE IRRESISTIBLE URGE TO FALL FOR YOUR ENEMY by Brigitte Knightley - I don't know if I can do justice to this book as I type this tonight, but here are the basics: last year, I was introduced to the magic that is Dramione fanfiction. I read two amazing fics, one of which was Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love (DMATMOOBIL, for short). I had never read fanfic before and I am not a Harry Potter fan, but the two fics have led me down a rabbit hole of Dramione fanfic. Also, DMATMOOBIL was amazing. And it was written by @isthisselfcare, whose real name happens to be Brigitte Knightley. So this book, which we will call TIUTFFYE for short, is not a rewriting of DMATMOOBIL, but has similar tropes and is very Dramione-coded. I've read it and loved it, and it does give similar vibes to DMATMOOBIL, but is a slower burn. It's the first in a duology. And if by this point, you haven't tired yet of the acronyms, I really, really urge you to read the fic and then watch out for this one! (July 2025)
  • THE NOTORIOUS VIRTUES by Alwyn Hamilton - I have been a fan of Alwyn Hamilton since her Rebel of the Sands series, and I still love this new YA of hers, which is like a melding of old Grimm's fairy tales with a succession contest among 4 cousins and a commentary on the ethics of the existence of billionaires (or what counts as billionaires in their world).
  • WINGS OF STARLIGHT by Allison Saft - a Disney YA novel about how the queen of Pixie Hollow (where the fairies in Neverland live) and the Lord of the Winter Woods fall in love. And written by Allison Saft, no less! So, yes. (Feb 2025)

Also a caveat that the buy links are what were available at the time of posting this. (These are not affiliate links, because that would be weird. For me.)

So, do any of these titles call out to you? I sincerely hope so! 



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