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.