ALSO OUT
As ever, there are a lot more books we couldn’t quite squeeze in. Laura Maylene Walter’s BODY OF STARS (out now, Hodder) is another female-focused dystopia. Allegorically exploring what happens when women are objectified and stripped of choice, it centres on Celeste, a girl going through puberty whose freckles, moles and birthmarks foretell her future and that of those around her. Clay McLeod Chapman’s psychological thriller WHISPER DOWN THE LANE (6 April, Quirk) riffs on the real-life “Satanic Panic” of the ’80s, with a five-year-old telling a lie that leads to wild accusations. Thirty years on, that boy (now a teacher) is haunted by memories of his past… and becomes the subject of an accusation himself. New anthology BLACK PANTHER: TALES OF WAKANDA (out now, Titan) features 18 new tales inspired by T’Challa’s homeland and its inhabitants, all penned by authors from across the African Diaspora, including Tananarive Due and Suyi Davies Okungbowa.