Christmas always has a home in my mind. Just a small, festive corner I can mentally retreat to when necessary. So, I felt thrilled when I learned about Sarah Kuhn‘s Holiday Heroine. The latest installment of the Heroine Complex series takes everyone to Maui to visit Bea for the holidays. Bea Tanaka is finally thriving and so happy to have her family in town. But then monsters rise out of the ocean. Monsters always ruin the mood, don’t they? Anyway, Nerdist gets to exclusively reveal the cover for Holiday Heroine. We also have other news: this release marks the final one in Kuhn’s Heroine Complex series.
Jason Chan returns to illustrate the gorgeous, vibrant cover. Our queens Bea Tanaka, Evie Tanaka, and Aveda Jupiter each show off their super powers. And yes, that’s a kaiju coming out of the freaking ocean. Look at this gloriousness.
The real trick, besides monsters appearing, is that Bea finds herself in Christmas back in San Francisco. You know, just a thing that happens in the middle of battle. As the synopsis says, “As she finds herself trapped in the bizarre holiday rom-com of her nightmares, Bea must unravel a treacherous demon plot, save the world from unspeakable evil, and resist the siren song of a supervillain destiny. And hey, maybe she’ll find time for a little holiday cheer after all…”
As for the series ending, well, it’s been a beautiful run with these incredible characters. Kuhn told us about her choice to wrap things up. She says, “After six years and six books of adventure, romance, friendship, demonic cupcakes, and endless spam musubi, I have decided to bring the Heroine Complex series to an epic conclusion. I came to this decision while writing Haunted Heroine, the first book in this second trilogy and the fourth book in the series overall—my characters felt like they were truly coming full circle in their journeys, I felt like I’d said everything I wanted to with this story, and I could envision Evie, Aveda, and Bea finally thriving off the page in their happily ever afters.”
Kuhn continues, “I am ridiculously proud of this series, and the complicated, messy, joyful Asian American heroines I’ve been able to bring into the world. And I am endlessly grateful to all the fans and readers who made this series into something beyond my wildest dreams—I love your fan art and your cosplays and your passionate support for my girls, and I cannot thank you enough. I’m leaving you with Holiday Heroine, wherein the ever-chaotic Bea Tanaka gets trapped in the Christmas rom-com of her dreams…or is it nightmares? Knowing Bea, it’s probably both. The stupendously talented Jason Chan dreamed up one of my favorite covers yet, especially since it references Bea’s most cherished holiday rom-com movie (which I totally made up), A Kaiju for Christmas.”
“And while I’ve made this book into the grand finale I envisioned, you never know—I may be inspired to return to the Heroine-verse one day,” Kuhn says. “From the bottom of my heart, thank you for letting me share these stories with you.”
We feel lucky that we got to read these stories.
Holiday Heroine will release on July 5, 2022. You can place a pre-order now!
Amy Ratcliffe is the Managing Editor for Nerdist and the author of A Kid’s Guide to Fandom, available now. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
