State of the ARC is a meme hosted by Avalinah’s Books in which we round up our ARCs and attempt to wrangle them into something approaching order. Sometimes it’s like herding cats.

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What does one call a group of ARCs? A herd? A pack? A flock? I’m into crows at the moment, and you call a bunch of crows a murder of crows, so a murder of books it is.

September involved me dealing with a murder of books from NetGalley. Fortunately for me, one of them was delayed into October and I enjoyed the rest, so hooray! No complaints about bad books that I was too stubborn to set aside!

Recently Published:

• The Silvered Serpents (The Gilded Wolves #2) by Roshani Chokshi
  YA Fantasy
  Publication date September 22, 2020, by Wednesday Books

Severin and his friends have succeeded in thwarting the Fallen House, but the cost was higher than they could have imagined. Now they must pick up the pieces and push forward, for Severin has an agenda he is obsessed with and has set his sights on an artifact that grants its user god-like powers. The search takes them all to wintry Russia, where secrets come to light and force them to face themselves and discover new depths to themselves.

• The Haunting of H.G. Wells by Robert Masello
  Fantasy
  Publication date October 1, 2020 by 47North

In 1914, the world is gripped by the Great War. There’s a story from the Western Front that St. George and a band of angels have descended from Heaven to fight with the British troops. But how can this possibly be true? Writer H.G. Wells is dispatched to find out the truth of the matter and finds himself in the midst of an eerie wasteland inhabited by the living, the dead, and those somewhere between. The unhappy souls trail Wells home to London, where he discovers a plot that could turn the tide of the war. Along with the love of his life, journalist and suffragette Rebecca West, Wells must do battle against diabolical forces to save his sanity– and the world.

Coming Soon:

• Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky #1) by Rebecca Roanhorse
  Fantasy
  Expected publication date October 13, 2020 by Saga Press

In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time of celebration. But a rare solar eclipse is predicted to happen, and the Sun Priest predicts that it heralds a time of unbalance in the world. Meanwhile, Xiala, a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters is captaining a ship bound for Tova. Her only passenger is a young blind man who seems harmless, but Xiala knows her stories. Those who seem harmless often turn out to be villains, and her ship is due to arrive in Tova on the Winter Solstice.

• The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
  Fantasy
  Expected Publication date October 13, 2020 by Redhook Books

In 1893, there are no witches. But when the Eastwood sisters join the suffragist movement, they end up exploring strange words and ways that could change the women’s movement into something else entirely. Stalked by sickness and threatening strangers, the sisters must call upon ancient powers and stay united if they hope to survive.

• Machine (White Space #2) by Elizabeth Bear
  Science Fiction
  Expected publication date October 20, 2020 by Saga Press

Doctor Jens hasn’t had a decent cup of coffee in fifteen years, but she’s fine with that and with her job of jumping out of perfectly good space ships in order to develop new treatments for the alien species she encounters. But when she encounters two ships– one ancient, one new– locked together, with their crews suffering from some strange ailment, Dr. Jens can’t help but start digging into the mystery. She has no idea what sorts of horrifying truths she’ll find.

The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World
by Virginia Postrel
Nonfiction/History
Expected publication date: November 10, 2020 by Perseus Books

Though its importance is often overlooked by historians, fabric has been one of the most important commodities in human history. Economies were based upon it, extensive travel routes came about because of it, and it still fascinates us today. In her new book, Postrel delves into the history of fabric and shows just how integral it has been to human civilization.

The Women I Think About at Night: Traveling the Paths of My Heroes
by Mia Kankimäki
Memoir
Expected publication date: November 10, 2020, by Simon and Schuster

Forty-something, childless, and restless, Mia Kankimäki leaves her job, sells her apartment, and heads out into the world to follow the paths of the female artists and explorers who she has long admired. From Tanzania to Italy to Japan, she investigates the lives of her heroes to see just how they made it in a man’s world, and wonders why, if they could do it, why can’t she?

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I currently have three books I need to read before their publication dates– Machine, The Fabric of Civilization, and The Women I Think About at Night. I have a total of 49 approvals and 46 books I’ve provided feedback for, which gives me a feedback ration of 94%. Hooray! That’s the highest it’s ever been!

I currently have four books awaiting approval. Two of them are out in 2021, and the other two are coming up later this month and in November. I have a feeling my requests will be declined, but as I made the requests back in April and July, I honestly don’t care at this point. The other two requests haven’t been waiting as long.

If you request books through NetGalley, do you often have to wait for months to get an approval or not? It seems like some of my requests are answered within days, but others are left hanging for months– even if they’re from the same publisher.