12 new SFF books to help beat back the January blues

Nameless Queen – Rebecca McLaughlin

Rebecca McLaughlin’s Nameless Queen will feel familiar to those who loved Victoria Aveyard’s Red Queen series. The novel follows similar themes: A society with a highly segregated hierarchical system of classes, a nobody girl attaining power that same society has decreed she shouldn’t have access to, and questions about how that girl will choose to wield that power.

Nameless Queen’s kingdom of Seriden is broken down into Royals, Legals and Nameless, and the divides between these two groups are simple and finite. SO much so that even wearing the clothes that beyond to another caste carries a potential penalty of death. And as a Nameless, a young girl known as Coin doesn’t even have the right to a name of her own.

But when the King of Seriden dies, Coin finds a tattoo on her arm, marking her as the next queen. Of course this shouldn’t be technically possible, given that the King is said to whisper the name of his successor on his deathbed, and Coin doesn’t have one.

But will she get the chance to rule? Or will the forces of the other classes unite against her?

The official synopsis reads as follows.

"Everyone expected the king’s daughter would inherit the throne. No one expected me. It shouldn’t even be possible. I’m Nameless, a class of citizens so disrespected, we don’t even get names. Heck, dozens of us have been going missing for months and no one seems to care. But there’s no denying the tattoo emblazoned on my arm. I am queen. In a palace where the corridors are more dangerous the streets, though, how could I possibly rule? And what will become of the Nameless if I don’t?"

Nameless Queen is available on January 7.