Can't-Wait Wednesday: Esperance by Adam Oyebanji & The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling

 

 Can't-Wait is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings that spotlights exciting upcoming releases that we can't wait to be released!

Esperance by Adam Oyebanji
Publication: May 20th, 2025
DAW
Hardcover. 432 pages.
Pre-order: Bookshop.org | Amazon

From Goodreads:
"The history-bending speculative fiction from Adam Oyebanji, award-winning author of BRAKING DAY.

An impossible Detective Ethan Krol has been called to the scene of a baffling a man and his son, who appear to have been drowned in sea-water. But the nearest ocean is a thousand miles away.

An improbable Hollie Rogers doesn't want to ask too many questions of her new friend, Abi Eniola. Abi claims to be an ordinary woman from Nigeria, but her high-tech gadgets and extraordinary physical abilities suggest she's not telling the whole truth.

An incredible As Ethan's investigation begins to point towards Abi, Hollie's fears mount. For Abi is very much not who she seems. And it won't be long before Ethan and Hollie find themselves playing a part in a story that spans cultures, continents... and centuries.

An extraordinary speculative thriller about the scars left by the Atlantic slave-trade, by a master of the genre."

I am unbelievably intrigued by this one and cannot wait to have a chance to check it out. "A speculative thriller about the scars left by the Atlantic slave-trade"? Uh yeah, I'm in!

The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
Publication: May 20th, 2025
Harper Voyager
Hardcover. 352 pages.
Pre-order: Bookshop.org | Amazon

From Goodreads:
"From the nationally bestselling author of The Luminous Dead and The Death of Jane Lawrence, a transfixing, intensely atmospheric fever dream of medieval horror.

Aymar Castle has been under siege for six months. Food is running low and there has been no sign of rescue. But just as the survivors consider deliberately thinning their number, the castle stores are replenished. The sick are healed. And the divine figures of the Constant Lady and her Saints have arrived, despite the barricaded gates, offering succor in return for adoration.

Soon, the entire castle is under the sway of their saviors, partaking in intoxicating feasts of terrible origin. The war hero Ser Voyne gives her allegiance to the Constant Lady. Phosyne, a disorganized, paranoid nun-turned-sorceress, races to unravel the mystery of these new visitors and exonerate her experiments as their source. And in the bowels of the castle, a serving girl, Treila, is torn between her thirst for a secret vengeance against Voyne and the desperate need to escape from the horrors that are unfolding within Aymar’s walls.

As the castle descends into bacchanalian madness—forgetting the massed army beyond its walls in favor of hedonistic ecstasy—these three women are the only ones to still see their situation for what it is. But they are not immune from the temptations of the castle’s new masters… or each other; and their shifting alliances and entangled pasts bring violence to the surface. To save the castle, and themselves, will take a reimagining of who they are, and a reorganization of the very world itself."

How insanely good does this sound? I'm always a bit of a sucker for books like these that play with a sort of breaking down of norms. Caitlin Starling is a little hit or miss for me these days, but because The Luminous Deep remains a book I absolutely loved, I am always eager to check out everything she writes!