H.P. Wood is a book packager with a theater arts degree. Magruder’s Curiosity Cabinet, available now, is her first novel.

Kitty Hayward arrives in New York from England with almost no money, and knowing no one but her mother. When her mother vanishes without a trace and the hotel employees claim to have never seen Kitty before, she is left penniless and homeless, surrounded by the freaks and other Unusuals of Dreamland, Coney Island’s newest amusement park.

Kitty finds help in the strangest of places:  Magruder’s Curiosity Cabinet, a dilapidated

museum of oddities and monstrosities. Soon Kitty’s new friends—from flea wranglers to lion tamers to mad scientists—vow to help find her mother. But they hadn’t counted on the mysterious illness spreading through Dreamland, or the panic that ensues, turning the amusement park to a madhouse.

Magruder’s Curiosity Cabinet is a book peopled by brilliant, larger-than-life characters that survive on the fringes of a society that despises the unusual or the different. These characters, and the world they inhabit, leap off the pages in glorious splendor, drawing the reader to dance in the light of their flames.

(Galley provided by Sourcebooks Landmark via NetGalley.)

Dan Vyleta is an award-winning author who has lived in several different countries, and has been compared to everyone from Kafka to Hitchcock. His newest novel is Smoke.

In an isolated England, people with wicked thoughts or deeds are marked by the Smoke that pours from their bodies. The upper class do not Smoke—they have the right to rule by this proof of their virtue. The lower classes are fallen, and their Smoke is proof of their sin. At least that’s what they say, and have said for years.

But at an elite boarding school for the upper class, where professors have ties to powerful warring political factions, a field trip to London teaches some of the students that things are not how they say they are. And this knowledge could cost Charlie and Thomas their lives, unless they can find a way to escape and unleash their knowledge.

Smoke is an England different from this one, but the setting still feels familiar, if slightly out-of-kilter. While the setting is gritty and dark, this novel raises—and strives to answer—questions about the nature of sin, as well as questions about a society that would struggle to keep something like Smoke in force.

(Galley provided by Doubleday via NetGalley.)

Grady Hendrix writes non-fiction by way of Variety, The New York Post, and The Village Voice. His first novel was Horrorstör. His second novel, My Best Friend’s Exorcism, was published on May 17^th.

Abby never really had friends at school until the fifth grade, when she and Gretchen bonded over roller-skating and E.T. From then on, they shared everything. But when they hit high school, Gretchen started acting weird. Really weird.

After one too many strange coincidences, Abby starts to wonder, and Gretchen’s bizarre behavior confirms it:  she has been possessed by a demon. An exorcism is the only solution. But Abby doesn’t know how to perform one, and the demon clearly doesn’t want her attempting it. She is desperate to save her best friend; but she will need to find at least one ally when everyone in the world seems to be turning against her.

My Best Friend’s Exorcism brings the 80’s back to vibrant, unforgettable life, exploring the friendship between two girls fighting against powers far beyond their control.

(Galley provided by Quirk Books via NetGalley.)

Jessica Spotswood is from Pennsylvania. She has a M.A. in Theatre History & Criticism, but decided she likes writing much better. She is the author of the Cahill Witch Chronicles, and her new novel, Wild Swans.

It’s going to be a great summer for Ivy Milbourn:  bonfires, barbeques, and best of all, no classes to fulfill her grandfather’s expectations. She is a Milbourn, after all, and that comes with some high expectations. For generations, the Milbourn women have been larger-than-life and extraordinary. They have also died young and tragically. Ivy has had enough. She’s not extraordinary, or her mother wouldn’t have left when she was a baby.

As Ivy tries to sort out what she is good at, her mother arrives out of nowhere, with two daughters in tow. Suddenly Ivy’s world is shaken as she realizes the truth about people she has trusted her entire life. Now she will find out the truth about the Milbourn legacy, and her place in it.

Wild Swans is a bittersweet coming-of-age story about a girl struggling to find herself amidst family secrets and her own personal tragedies. This tale is well-worth the read.

(Galley provided by Sourcebooks Fire via NetGalley.)