The Killing Moon

Jemisin’s gripping series launch immerses readers in an unfamiliar but enthralling world as well as a rousing political and supernatural adventure. In Gujaareh, a city-state reminiscent of ancient Egypt (though the differences far outnumber the similarities), dreams are the source of magic, and it is Gatherer Ehiru’s job to collect the mystical life-giving dreamblood from the dying—and those deemed too “corrupt” to live. Devout and loyal, Ehiru is slow to accept that heretical evil lurks behind Gujaareh’s unblemished facade; only after encountering Sunandi, a foreign spy who is far less naïve about Gujaareh’s “mad bitch” goddess and her unscrupulous worshippers, does Ehiru begin to glimpse the rot that extends up to the pinnacle of Gujaareh’s social pyramid. As a hideous monster preys on the innocent, Ehiru’s faith is tested in a crisis of world-shaking proportions. Rather than merely appropriating various details from Earth’s past and present, Jemisin (the Inheritance Trilogy) has created a fully developed secondary world that is an organic whole. Agent: Lucienne Diver, the Knight Agency. (May)