Just Beyond The Light
Making Peace with the Wars Inside Our Head
Hardcover | Kindle Edition | Audiobook
By D. Randall Blythe
Publisher: Da Capo
Release Date: February 18, 2025

A decade after D. Randall Blythe bared his soul in Dark Days, his gut-wrenching memoir detailing his time served in a Czech prison, the frontman of heavy metal group Lamb of God returns now with Just Beyond The Light, proving to be a modern-day philosopher for the common man. In this introspective work, he tackles subjects like maintaining sobriety, honing one’s craft, embracing positivity, and combatting Internet “armchair experts.”

Dungeons & Dragons: 2024 Monster Manual
Hardcover
D&D Accessory
Wizards Of The Coast
Release Date: February 18, 2025

Welcome, friends, to the third and final installment of the “Big 3” books for the 2024 refresh on your D&D books. The Dungeons & Dragons: 2024 Monster Manual is full of new and revitalized creatures. And, yes, I do think that it being referred to as a 2024 release is weird, but it will help to remind you that the original timeline had this and the other two books, the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide and the 2024 Player’s Handbook, slated for release last year, but unfortunately only two made it out in time. Side note: I linked my reviews for those two in that last sentence. All that said, I have a few things to mention about this release itself.

Dungeons & Dragons: Art & Arcana: A Visual History
50th Anniversary Edition
Hardcover | Kindle
By Michael Witwer, Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson, and Sam Witwer
Foreword by Joe Manganiello
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Release Date: November 5, 2024

I am late to this party, folks. No excuses, I just have not taken the time to write about the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons: Art & Arcana: A Visual History. Not because I didn’t enjoy it: quite the opposite is true there, actually. But as this book is a 50th anniversary edition, there is little more I can add that I did not speak to in 2018 with the original release. If you missed that, my review is located right here. I will speak to the few differences, but really, the best thing about this newer release is it gives more people a chance to lay their hands on it.

Stranger Things: The Dustin Experiment
Hardcover | Kindle Edition | Audiobook
By J.L. D’Amato
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Release Date: October 29, 2024

Geeky high school freshman Dustin Henderson finds an unlikely ally in metalhead Eddie Munson when they road trip outside of Hawkins to a science fair where they team up to uncover the competition’s saboteur in this latest installment in the Stranger Things book series, The Dustin Experiment.

Dustin Henderson has always trusted and relied on his friends Mike, Will, and Lucas, but lately they’ve all seemed preoccupied. The once-inseparable pals went from spending time reading comic books, watching movies, playing Dungeons & Dragons, to later battling monsters that invaded their once-quiet town of Hawkins, Indiana, to now barely seeing each other. Will is in California; Mike is distracted by his long-distance girlfriend El, who is living with Will’s family; and Lucas, whose relationship with Max is strained, is more interested in making the basketball team than hanging out with the “The Party” (the name of their old D&D group). So Dustin invites Mike and Lucas to build something with him for them to enter into an Indianapolis science fair, figuring the experience will help them reconnect. Unfortunately, it’s not to be, so the young teen decides to go it alone. Well, not quite alone, since he still needs a ride to the big city. For this, Dustin manages to enlist local teenage metalhead Eddie Munson, who not only introduces him to heavy metal during their road trip, but also contributes to the science project and helps solve a mystery at the competition.

Gate To Kagoshima
Book 1: Ancestor Memories Fantasy
Paperback | Kindle Edition | Audiobook
By Poppy Kuroki
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release Date: January 28, 2025

In Gate To Kagoshima, a new historical romance-fantasy that begins in early 21st century Japan, a Scottish women researching her Japanese ancestry experiences both love and war after she’s transported back in time during the Satsuma Rebellion, the bloody 19th century conflict which saw the samurai make their final stand.