Can't-Wait Wednesday: The Jaguar's Roar by Micheliny Verunschk & An Arcane Inheritance by Kamilah Cole

   

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

The Jaguar's Roar by Micheliny Verunschk, trans. Juliana Barbassa
Publication: December 2nd, 2025
Liveright
Hardcover. 192 pages.
Pre-order: Bookshop.org | Amazon

From Goodreads:
"The story of an Indigenous girl’s kidnapping during a colonial expedition intertwines with a young woman’s modern-day search for identity and ancestral truths.

In 1817, two German scientists traveled across Brazil and into the Amazon gathering flora and fauna to study and display in Europe. Among the collection they brought to the Bavarian court were two Indigenous children.

The children’s images became widespread, satisfying European curiosity about the distant land they came from. But little was known about the children themselves. Despite the scientists’ detailed records about many of the plant and animal specimens, they only noted the children’s tribes: the girl was a Miranha, and the boy, a Juri. After a few months, the children died in Germany, far from anyone who knew their names.

The Jaguar’s Roar, a spellbinding poetic novel told in many voices, imagines the children’s journey and a modern Brazilian woman’s effort to counter their disappearance from history.

In her award-winning fifth novel, Micheliny Verunschk inhabits the fictional perspective of the Miranha girl, of the jaguar she conjures for protection, of the German scientists who determine her fate, and of the two rivers that frame her life. Intertwined in this narrative is a story of Brazil’s suppression of its Indigenous history, and of a young woman named Josefa, a newcomer unmoored in the megacity of São Paulo, who identifies with the girl after seeing her image in an exhibit and tries to recover the child’s voice and story."

This sounds like it'll be an incredibly interesting and important read--I hope to have a chance to read it soon!

An Arcane Inheritance by Kamilah Cole
Publication: December 30th, 2025
Sourcebooks
Paperback. 432 pages.
Pre-order: Bookshop.org | Amazon

From Goodreads:
"Warren University has stood amongst the ivy elite for centuries, built on the bones―and forbidden magic―of its most prized BIPOC students…hiding the rot of a secret society that will do anything to keep their own powers burning bright. No matter who they must sacrifice along the way.

Ellory Morgan is determined to prove that she belongs at Warren University, an ivy league school whose history is deeply linked to occult rumors and dark secrets. But as she settles into her Freshman year, something about the ornate buildings and shadowy paths feels strangely…familiar. And, with every passing day, that sense of déjà vu grows increasingly sinister.

Despite all logic, despite all reason, despite all the rules of reality, Ellory knows one thing to be true: she has been here before. And if she can't convince brooding legacy student Hudson Graves to help her remember a past that seems determined to slip through her fingers as if by some insidious magic…this time, she may lose herself for good."

"Dark academia" is really overused these days, but I'm up for another chance so I'd definitely be curious to check this one out.