Out This Week! 19th February 2024
20th February 2024 – The Oracle – Ari Juels
Fears of a weaponized blockchain become reality when a software developer races to deactivate the rogue smart contract targeting him for assassination.
Life is comfortable for a prominent, if schlubby, developer at a New York City blockchain company. That is, until FBI Special Agent Diane Duménil seeks his help against a bewildering threat: The Delphians, worshippers of the god Apollo, have launched a rogue program on a blockchain. It’s offering a crypto bounty to assassinate a European archaeology professor.
The developer brushes off the danger until he learns the next target: Himself.
Mythical antiquity collides with a near-future cyberworld as The Oracle’s unassuming hero and his FBI partner race against time to dismantle the Delphians’ murderous blockchain software. Theirs is a whirlwind tale of oracles ancient and modern, vanished antiquities and conjured crypto billions, cybercriminals and digital idealists–narrated by a cynical hero normally more concerned with dark chocolate than the consequences of the technologies he’s pioneering. What happens when the crypto ideals of privacy and truth might cost human lives–especially your own?
20th February 2024 – Island Witch – Amanda Jayatissa
Inspired by Sri Lankan folklore, award-winning author Amanda Jayatissa turns her feverish, Gothic-tinged talents to late 19th century Sri Lanka where the daughter of a traditional demon-priest—relentlessly bullied by peers and accused of witchcraft herself—tries to solve the mysterious attacks that have been terrorizing her coastal village.
Being the daughter of the village Capuwa, or demon-priest, Amara is used to keeping mostly to herself. Influenced by the new religious practices brought in by the British Colonizers, the villagers who once respected her father’s craft have turned on the family. Yet, they all still seem to call on him whenever supernatural disturbances arise.
Now someone—or something —is viciously seizing upon men in the jungle. But instead of enlisting Amara’s father’s help, the villages have accused him of carrying out the attacks himself.
As she tries to clear her father’s name, Amara finds herself haunted by dreams that eerily predict the dark forces on her island. And she can’t shake the feeling that it’s all connected to the night she was recovering from a strange illness, and woke up, scared and confused, to hear her mother’s frantic No one can find out what happened .
Lush, otherworldly, and recalling horror classics like Carrie and The Exorcist , Island Witch is a deliciously creepy and darkly feminist tale about the horrors of moral panic, the violent space between girlhood and adulthood, and what happens when female rage is finally unleashed.
22nd February 2024 – A Tempest of Tea – Hafsah Faizal
From Hafsah Faizal, New York Times-bestselling author of We Hunt the Flame, comes A Tempest of Tea, the first book in a hotly-anticipated new fantasy duology about an orphan girl and her crew who get tangled in a heist with vampires, perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows.
On the streets of White Roaring, Arthie Casimir is a criminal mastermind and collector of secrets. Her prestigious tearoom transforms into an illegal bloodhouse by dark, catering to the vampires feared by society. But when her establishment is threatened, Arthie is forced to strike an unlikely deal with an alluring adversary to save it-and she can’t do the job alone.
Calling on some of the city’s most skilled outcasts, Arthie hatches a plan to infiltrate the dark and glittering vampire society known as the Athereum. But not everyone in her ragtag crew is on her side, and as the truth behind the heist unfolds, Arthie finds herself in the midst of a conspiracy that will threaten the world as she knows it.
Dark, action-packed, and swoonworthy, this is Hafsah Faizal better than ever.
If you’re an author, agent or publisher (or just a fan) that would like to add an upcoming release to our Out This Week feature then get in touch with our editor on Pete@ZealotScript.co.uk with the details.
All links to Blackwells are affiliate links and Zealot Script earn a small commission for any purchase made via the links. This helps support the running of the site and our continued production of content.
Zealot Script 