Can't-Wait Wednesday: Island Rule by Katie M. Flynn, Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon, and The Invisible Hotel by Yeji Y. Ham

   

 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.

Island Rule by Katie M. Flynn
Publication: March 5th, 2024
Gallery/Scout Press
Hardcover. 288 pages.
Pre-order: Amazon | Bookshop.org

From Goodreads:
"From the author of The Companions, a genre-bending collection of interconnected short stories in the tradition of Jennifer Egan and Karen Russell

An angry mother turns into a literal monster. A company in San Francisco can scrub your entire reputation and create a new one…for a price. A failed actor on a reality show turns into an unlikely world savior. And much more. Through twelve interconnected stories, Katie Flynn masterfully blends people, places, and even realities."

In recent years, I've discovered I really enjoy a weird short story collection, and this sounds perfect. I also really like that they are all interconnected, as that always adds some neat elements. 

Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
Publication: March 26th, 2024 (US)
Fig Tree (UK)/Henry Holt and Co. (US)
Hardcover. 304 pages.
Pre-order: Amazon | Bookshop.org

From Goodreads:
"An utterly original celebration of that which binds humanity across battle lines and history.

On the island of Sicily amid the Peloponnesian War, the Syracusans have figured out what to do with the surviving Athenians who had the gall to invade their city: they’ve herded the sorry prisoners of war into a rock quarry and left them to rot. Looking for a way to pass the time, Lampo and Gelon, two unemployed potters with a soft spot for poetry and drink, head down into the quarry to feed the Athenians if, and only if, they can manage a few choice lines from their great playwright Euripides. Before long, the two mates hatch a plan to direct a full-blown production of Medea. After all, you can hate the people but love their art. But as opening night approaches, what started as a lark quickly sets in motion a series of extraordinary events, and our wayward heroes begin to realize that staging a play can be as dangerous as fighting a war, with all sorts of risks to life, limb, and friendship.

Told in a contemporary Irish voice and as riotously funny as it is deeply moving, Glorious Exploits is an unforgettable ode to the power of art in a time of war, brotherhood in a time of enmity, and human will throughout the ages."

I think this sounds like it'll be a bit of a riot and right up my alley with the ancient Greek setting and focus, and I'm so excited to get a chance to dig in. Also, the cover in this post is the UK one, which I've included since it's actually the copy I currently have (though mine is yellow instead of red?). 

The Invisible Hotel by Yeji Y. Ham
Publication: March 5th, 2024
Zando
Hardcover. 320 pages.
Pre-order: Amazon | Bookshop.org

From Goodreads:
"A work of literary horror in the gothic tradition, The Invisible Hotel is a startling, speculative tale of a woman adrift and a country’s shifting identity in the long afterlife of the Korean War.

Yewon dreams of a hotel. In the hotel, there are infinite keys to infinite rooms―and a quiet terror she is desperate to escape. When Yewon wakes, she sees her a young woman, out of her job at a convenience store, trapped in the tiny South Korean village of her birth, watching her mother wash the bones of their ancestors in their decrepit bathtub. Every house has them, these rotting and fragmented bones, reminders of what they have all lost to a war that never seems to end. Yewon and her siblings were born in this bathtub―and every year women give birth to new babies in the bathtub.

Now, Yewon’s brother is stationed near the North Korean border, her sister has just undergone a life-changing tragedy, and her mother is constantly worried, her health declining. In crisis and in stasis, Yewon’s dreams of the decrepit hotel lead her to an unsettling truth about her country’s collective heritage.

Recalling international trailblazers like Han Kang’s The Vegetarian and Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police , The Invisible Hotel marks the arrival of a singular new voice with a sharp social acumen."

Everything about this just sounds perfect and I am ridiculously eager to have a chance to check it out!