The Memory Hunters

Inception meets Indiana Jones in this cinematic, slow burn, romantic, fantasy adventure following a headstrong academic and her equally stubborn bodyguard as they unearth an ancient secret that rocks the foundations of their society…and challenges their unspoken love for one another. A sapphic, dark academia-adjacent, climate dystopia -- with mushrooms -- for readers of Blood Over Bright Haven, A Memory Called Empire, and Ink Blood Sister Scribe.Kiana Strade can dive deeper into blood memories than anyone alive. But instead of devoting her talents to the temple she’s meant to lead, Key wants to do research for the Museum of Human Memory. . . and to avoid the public eye.Valerian IV's twin swords protect Key from murderous rivals and her own enthusiasm alike. Vale cares about Key as a friend—and maybe more—but most of all, she needs to keep her job so she can support her parents and siblings in the storm-torn south.

“A powerful meditation on the violence done through curation.” —Analog Magazine

“One of the stars of Mia Tsai’s The Memory Hunters is the setting itself; a future with discernable roots in our present, traceable through the threads of culture, geography, music and language that bind humanity as inextricably as the strands of mycelium make a forest into a family.” —Jacqueline Carey, New York Times bestselling author of Kushiel’s Dart

“The Memory Hunters is a gripping examination of who has the right to keep a culture’s history, set in an eerie dystopian future suffused with memories and fungal spores. The characters here jostle for power, for one another’s hearts, for control of key moments that will determine which direction the future takes. A lush and dynamic read!” —Andrea Stewart, bestselling author of The Drowning Empire series

"The Memory Hunters is a gorgeous, haunting dystopia that will infect your blood with its hyphae and fruit inside your heart. Tsai is a master at building romantic tension, even as revelations unfold in a cascade of "oh shit, OH SHIT, OH SHIT," amidst a plot as complex as the story's world. The story surfaces deep questions of culture and institutional preservation, and who has the right to remember things. The yearning of Tsai's characters is exquisite, and the worldbuilding rich with detail and meaning. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time." —Yume Kitasei, author of The Stardust Grail

“As a reader, I loved Tsai's rich character work, complicated relationships, and compelling exploration of a climate-haunted future — and as an archivist, I loved that The Memory Hunters grapples with the ethics of memory work and structural and institutional power imbalances, in the most interesting work of archival sff I've read this decade. I love to see lesbians pining, but I also love (and am much less likely!) to see a good in-universe literature review; I'll be recommending this one with both my professional hats on.” —Rebecca Fraimow, author of Lady Eve's Last Con

“The Memory Hunters is at once feral and tender, fierce and full of yearning. It’s a piercing examination of the ways museums uphold dominant narratives, of the violence of curation and the preciousness of land and lineage—all shot through with heart-pounding fight scenes and pure, undiluted sapphic angst. Absolutely devastating.” —P. H. Low, author of These Deathless Shores