11 great fantasy & science fiction books to read that came out in April 2022
By Daniel Roman
We’re happy to announce our next debut box: The Blood Trials by N.E. Davenport (@Nia_Davenport)! We were blown away by this gritty, action-packed debut! Ikenna’s quest for vengeance whilst trying to survive the deadly trials makes for a thrilling ride that we could not put down. pic.twitter.com/5PAq8na9J3
— Illumicrate ✨ (@illumicrate) April 14, 2022
The Blood Trials by N.E. Davenport
Author N.E. Davenport’s debut novel The Blood Trials is the first part of The Blood Gift duology, a series that blends science fiction and fantasy against the backdrop of a brutal competition that could upend the Republic of Mareen.
Ikenna’s grandfather trained her in secret to harness the outlawed abilities of her bloodline and become a deadly warrior. When he’s murdered, Ikenna’s investigation leads her to the highest levels of Mareen’s political elite. To get revenge on those who took her family, she must enter the Praetorian Trials, a deadly competition where only a quarter of entrants survive. If she succeeds, she could change the racist and misogynistic hierarchy of her world for good.
The Blood Trials has been gaining a ton of hype since it released on April 5, making Davenport one of 2022’s debut authors to watch.
From number one best-selling author @BrandSanderson and @JanciPatterson comes a stunning collection of novellas in Skyward series: #Sunreach, #ReDawn and #Evershore, collected in print for the first time.
— Gollancz (@gollancz) April 5, 2022
Out today! Get your copy now: https://t.co/QzBZYgOOzP pic.twitter.com/4MuiCnScrA
Skyward Flight: The Collection by Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson
When Brandon Sanderson isn’t running record-breaking Kickstarters and working on monstrous tomes like The Stormlight Archive, he has plenty of other series in the hopper. One of those is the Skyward series of YA books. The first novel, also called Skyward, is Sanderson’s analog for How to Train Your Dragon, except it features a teenage girl as a protagonist and instead of discovering a dragon she finds a starship with advanced technology.
Fast-forward a few years, and the final Skyward book, Defiant, is due out in 2023. To fill out the story, Sanderson teamed up with writer Janci Patterson to create a series of novellas that follow some of the secondary characters from the books. Sunreach and ReDawn are meant to be read between the second and third novels of the main series, with the final novella Evershore set after the third.
For the first time, all three novellas have been released in a single binding. Skyward Flight: The Collection is a solid addition to any Sanderson fan’s shelf.