The Void Ascendant

Mohamed’s stunning finale to her Beneath the Rising cosmic-horror trilogy (after A Broken Darkness) reunites readers with Nick Prasad following the implosion of his former friend Joanna “Johnny” Chambers’s last-ditch plan to save the Earth from the Ancient Ones. Thrown through dimensions, Nick lands on a faraway planet that did not resist the Ancient Ones’ dominion, where he’s treated as a divinely ordained prophet. Then the planet’s royals capture a strange chimeric creature trying to steal information from their archives—and it turns out to be Johnny, or most of her. She abducts Nick to help her execute her most ambitious plan yet: to release the Elder Gods that the Ancient Ones overthrew and imprisoned in hopes these old enemies will destroy each other. Can Nick trust Johnny’s unparalleled genius and magic to defeat the Ancient Ones at last, while knowing that in the wrong hands, she’s a weapon powerful enough to cause the destruction of every dimension left? Mohamed sends her characters careening through a multiverse of astonishing worlds, all lushly described and often unforgettably creepy, and holds them together with an intricate plot and gripping emotional tension. It’s a mind-bending and thoroughly satisfying conclusion to a truly singular series. Agent: Michael Curry, Donald Maass Literary. (May)