The Qwillery

Happy Monday!

There are 2 debuts this week:

The Perfect Assassin (Chronicles of Ghadid 1) by K. A. Doore;

and

The Municipalists by Seth Fried.




From formerly featured DAC authors:

The Grey Bastards (The Lot Lands 1) by Jonathan French is out in Trade Paperback;

Rainbirds by Clarissa Goenawan out in Trade Paperback;

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley;

MEM by Bethany C. Morrow is out in Trade Paperback;

and

Boundary Broken (Boundary Magic 4) by Melissa F. Olson.

Debut novels are highlighted in blue. Novels, etc. by formerly featured DAC Authors are highlighted in green.

March 19, 2019

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Knights of the Empire	Dan Abnett	F - Warhammer Chronicles
Macragge's Honour	Dan Abnett	SF/SO - Horus Heresy
The Skinner (ri)	Neal Asher	SF - Spatterjay 1
Soulkeeper	David Dalglish	F/DF - Keepers 1
Tomorrow (h2tp)	Damian Dibben	Hist/HistF/MR
HALO: The Flood (ri)	William C. Dietz	SF - HALO
Radicalized	Cory Doctorow	SF/CyP - Collection
The Perfect Assassin (D)	K. A. Doore	F - Chronicles of Ghadid 1
The Deepest Blue	Sarah Beth Durst	F - Tales of Renthia
The Grey Bastards (h2tp)	Jonathan French	F/DF - The Lot Lands 1
The Municipalists (D)	Seth Fried	SF/TechTh
Rainbirds (h2tp)	Clarissa Goenawan	Psy/Cr/MR
Zero Bomb	M.T Hill	TechTh/SF
The Light Brigade	Kameron Hurley	SF/TT
The Man Who Walked Through Cracks: The Collected Short Fiction of R.A. Lafferty, volume 5	R. A. Lafferty	H/SS
Firefly - The Magnificent Nine (e)	James Lovegrove	MTI/SF/SO
Inspection	Josh Malerman	PsyTh/H/CoA
Luna: Moon Rising	Ian McDonald	SF/SE/HSF/SO - Luna 3
The Witch's Kind	Louisa Morgan	MR/Occ/Sup/HistF
MEM (h2tp)	Bethany C. Morrow	F/HistF
HALO: The Fall of Reach	Eric Nylund	SF - HALO
HALO: First Strike (ri)	Eric Nylund	SF - HALO
Boundary Broken	Melissa F. Olson	UF - Boundary Magic 4
Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea: Stories	Sarah Pinsker	CF/SF - Collection
Black Moon: The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, Volume Five	Seabury Quinn	SF - Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin 5
Permafrost	Alastair Reynolds	SF/TT/HSF/AP/PA
Shadespire: The Mirrored City	Josh Reynolds	F - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar
The Chaos Function	Jack Skillingstead	SF/AP/PA
War Criminals	Gavin G. Smith	SF/HSF/CyP/AC - Bastard Legion 3
Unfettered III	Shawn Speakman (Ed)	F/SF - Anthology

D - Debut
e - eBook
Ed - Editor
h2mm - Hardcover to Mass Market Paperback
h2tp - Hardcover to Trade Paperback
ri - reissue or reprint
tp2mm - Trade Paperback to Mass Market Paperback
Tr - Translator



AB - Absurdist
AC - Alien Contact
AH - Alternative History
AP - Apocalyptic
CF - Contemporary Fantasy
CoA - Coming of Age
Cr - Crime
CyP - Cyberpunk
DF - Dark Fantasy
Dys - Dystopian
F - Fantasy
FairyT - Fairy Tales
FolkT - Folk Tales
FR - Fantasy Romance
GenEng - Genetic Engineering
GH - Ghost(s)
H - Horror
Hist - Historical
HistF - Historical Fantasy
HSF - Hard Science Fiction
HU - Humor
LF - Literary Fiction
LM - Legend and Mythology
M - Mystery
MR - Magical Realism
MTI - Media Tie-In
Occ - Occult
P - Paranormal
PA - Post Apocalyptic
PCM - Parnormal Cozy Mystery
PerfArts - Performing Arts
PNR - Paranormal Romance
Psy - Psychological
PsyTh - Psychological Thriller
RF - Romantic Fantasy
SE - Space Exploration
SF - Science Fiction
SFR - Science Fiction Romance
SH - Superheroes
SO - Space Opera
SP - Steampunk
Spec - Speculative
SpecFic - Speculative Fiction
SS - Short Stories
Sup - Supernatural
SupTh - Supernatural Thriller
Sus - Suspense
TechTh - Technological Thriller
Th - Thriller
TT - Time Travel
UF - Urban Fantasy
VisM - Visionary and Metaphysical

Note: Not all genres and formats are found in the books, etc. listed above.

TQ:  Welcome to The Qwillery. What is the first piece you remember writing?

Bethany:  The first thing I remember having written (versus literally remembering the writing of it) was what we'd call a piece of flash fiction in (I think) second grade, about a deer named Faline, which I thought was the most beautiful name ever and I have no memory of what the story was about but my teacher taped it to my desk for Back To School night, and I thought, "I've made it."



TQ:  Are you a plotter, a pantser or a hybrid?

Bethany:  I'm definitely a plotser. Typically I know the first line, the inciting incident, the first half of the first act, probably, and likely, the climax before I start writing. Once I get to the end of what I know - in a skeletal way, not a chapter-by-chapter plotted ahead of time way - then I stop, plot organically based on how the first act has developed, again in a skeletal way, and start from the beginning, reading and continuing drafting.



TQ:  What is the most challenging thing for you about writing?

Bethany:  Getting over the hump and actually writing, lol. It's so lovely to have just written or to be energized to write... and then you actually have to do it. Repeatedly. And in particular once the third act starts, it's very much a feeling of, "Get this out of me!" Like labor. I'm so done at that point. Just want it to be OUT.



TQ:  What has influenced / influences your writing?

Bethany:  Music, music, music. I write with music, I muse to music, it's everything. It's the way I establish the tone of the story I want to write. I have to find the sound that captures what I'm trying to portray. James Horner, Thomas Newman, Hans Zimmer, Koda, playlists of ambient post-rock, chill-step, etc.



TQ:  Describe MEM in 140 characters or less.

Bethany:  In an alternate 1920s Montreal, scientists can extract memories. Elsie is one such Mem, but the first sentient of her kind. (I think the conflict is inherent in that description, so I just made the cut!)



TQ:  What appeals to you about writing speculative fiction?

Bethany:  What I love about speculative fiction is how easily the truth about life comes through when you try to talk about worlds that aren't.



TQ:  What sort of research did you do for MEM?

Bethany:  I spent a lot of time reading online, finding resources like the Art Deco Society of Montreal or the Quebec Family History Society, and then cross-referencing, studying pictures in online collections through museums and universities, always looking for a source that went into slightly more detail than the last one. What is infinitely frustrating about historical research - at least in my experience - is how readily available information seems once you've located it once. Like suddenly, that information is everywhere, despite how long it took you to find it.



TQ:  Please tell us about the cover for MEM.

Bethany:  Jaya Nicely is responsible for the cover, and it is absolutely gorgeous. I didn't see multiple concepts and choose between them, I saw the vault door (which is something I had on my pinterest board for the project, but had never imagined as the cover) and immediately it was haunting, sad, beautiful, everything that I felt set the perfect tone for beginning the story. She nailed it.



TQ:  In MEM who was the easiest character to write and why? The hardest and why?

Bethany:  I think Elsie must've been the easiest character to write, because I was in her head. Nurse Ettie too, maybe, because she's almost like a non-Mem version of Elsie. The most difficult character to write was Dolores, firstly because I didn't originally know we'd spend time with her, and then because she wasn't ordinary, or the logical conclusion of everything we come to know about Sources, so it took a while to find her in a way that showed that individualness.



TQ:  Which question about MEM do you wish someone would ask? Ask it and answer it!

Bethany:  I wish people asked about the story of Dolores, the Source. But I won't answer it now.



TQ:  Give us one or two of your favorite non-spoilery quotes from MEM.

Bethany:

"When I lost hope that she could live with the loss, I began to wonder whether she could forget, whether I could help her to."
   From there, I knew the rest. The wonderings of a brilliant man had already yielded so great a number of impossible feats, to the good of friends and strangers alike.



TQ:  What's next?

Bethany:  Next is a young adult contemporary fantasy novel about literally magical Black girls, and the beauty and strength of their sisterhood.



TQ:  Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery.

MEM
The Unnamed Press, May 22, 2018
Hardcover and eBook, 192 pages

MEM is a rare novel, a small book carrying very big ideas, the kind of story that stays with you long after you’ve finished reading it.

Set in the glittering art deco world of a century ago, MEM makes one slight alteration to history: a scientist in Montreal discovers a method allowing people to have their memories extracted from their minds, whole and complete.

The Mems exist as mirror-images of their source — zombie-like creatures destined to experience that singular memory over and over, until they expire in the cavernous Vault where they are kept. And then there is Dolores Extract #1, the first Mem capable of creating her own memories. An ageless beauty shrouded in mystery, she is allowed to live on her own, and create her own existence, until one day she is summoned back to the Vault.

What happens next is a gorgeously rendered, heart-breaking novel in the vein of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. Debut novelist Bethany Morrow has created an allegory for our own time, exploring profound questions of ownership, and how they relate to identity, memory and history, all in the shadows of Montreal’s now forgotten slave trade.

About Bethany

A California native, Bethany C. Morrow spent six years living in Montreal, Quebec. Her speculative literary fiction uses a focus on character and language to engage with, comment on and investigate worlds not unlike our own. MEM is her debut novel. She currently resides in upstate New York.










Website   ~  Facebook  ~  Twitter @BCMorrow

Happy Monday!

There are 4 debuts this week:

Armed in Her Fashion by Kate Heartfield;

MEM by Bethany C. Morrow;

Freyja's Daughter (Wild Women 1) by Rachel Pudelek;

and

All the Ever Afters by Danielle Teller.




And from formerly featured DAC Authors:

The God Peak (The God Wave Trilogy 2) by Patrick Hemstreet is out in Trade Paperback;

Originators (Netherspace 2) by Andrew Lane and Nigel Foster;

and

Hearts of Tabat (The Tabat Quartet 2) by Cat Rambo is out in eBook.

Debut novels are highlighted in blue. Novels, etc. by formerly featured DAC Authors are highlighted in green.

May 20, 2018

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Hearts of Tabat (e)	Cat Rambo	F - The Tabat Quartet 2

May 22, 2018

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Tiger Striped	Jennifer Ashley	PNR - Shifters Unbound
Dead Men's Boots (ri)	Mike Carey	SupTh - Felix Castor 3
The Strasbourg Legacy (ri)	William Craig	AH/Espionage
1984 and Philosophy: Is Resistance Futile?	Ezio Di Nucci (Ed) Stefan Storrie (Ed)	Politics/SF/F/ HC - Popular Culture and Philosophy 116
Walkaway (h2tp)	Cory Doctorow	SF/AP/PA/TechTh
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (ri)	Cory Doctorow	SF/CyP
Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (ri)	Cory Doctorow	SF/CyP
The Rapture of the Nerds (ri)	Cory Doctorow Charles Stross	SF/CyP
Makers (ri)	Cory Doctorow	SF/CyP
Eastern Standard Tribe (ri)	Cory Doctorow	SF/CyP
Still So Strange	Amanda Downum	F - Collection
American Hippo: River of Teeth, Taste of Marrow, and New Stories	Sarah Gailey	AH/W - River of Teeth
The Testament of Loki	Joanne M. Harris	FairyT/FolkT/LM
Armed in Her Fashion (D)	Kate Heartfield	DF/HistF/H
The God Peak (h2tp)	Patrick Hemstreet	TechTh - The God Wave Trilogy 2
The Immaculate Void	Brian Hodge	H - Collection
Aetherchrist	Kirk Jones	SF
In the Eye of Heaven	David Keck	F - The Tales of Durand 1
The Outsider (ri)	Stephen King	Th/Sus
Originators	Andrew Lane Nigel Foster	SF - Netherspace 2
MEM (D)	Bethany C. Morrow	LF/F/AfAm/HistF
84K	Claire North	LF/Dys
Deadpool: Paws (ri)	Stefan Petrucha	MTI/SH - Marvel Universe4
Freyja's Daughter (D)	Rachel Pudelek	FairyT/FolkT/LM - Wild Women 1
Topaz Dreams (e)	Patricia Rice	P/Sus - Crystal Magic 2
Season of Storms	Andrzej Sapkowski	F - The Witcher 6
Echo Moon	Laura Spinella	R - A Ghost Gifts Novel 3
All the Ever Afters (D)	Danielle Teller	FairyT/FolkT/LM

May 23, 2018

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Spiraling (e)	Marie Brennan	F - Born to the Blade Season 1, Episode 6
The Guile: A Tor.com Original (e)	Ian McDonald	SF

D - Debut
e - eBook
Ed - Editor
h2mm - Hardcover to Mass Market Paperback
h2tp - Hardcover to Trade Paperback
ri - reissue or reprint
tp2mm - Trade Paperback to Mass Market Paperback
Tr - Translator



AC - Alien Contact
AH - Alternate History
AP - Apocalyptic
CF - Contemporary Fantasy
CoA - Coming of Age
Cr - Crime
CulH - Cultural Heritage
CW - Contemporary Woman
CyP - Cyberpunk
DF - Dark Fantasy
Dys - Dystopian
F - Fantasy
FairyT - Fairy Tales
Fict - Fiction
FL - Family Life
FolkT - Folk Tales
FR - Fantasy Romance
GenEng - Genetic Engineering
GH - Ghost(s)
GN - Graphic Novel
Gothic - Gothic
H - Horror
HC - History and Criticism
Hist - Historical
HistF - Historical Fantasy
HU - Humor
LC - Literary Criticism
LF - Literary Fiction
LM - Legend and Mythology
M - Mystery
MR - Magical Realism
MTI - Media Tie-In
Occ - Occult
P - Paranormal
PA - Post Apocalyptic
PCM - Paranormal Cozy Mystery
PNR - Paranormal Romance
PopCul - Popular Culture
Psy - Psychological
Psy Th - Psychological Thriller
SF - Science Fiction
SciFan - Science Fantasy
SH - Superheroes
SO - Space Opera
SP - Steampunk
Sup - Supernatural
SupTh - Supernatural Thriller
Sus - Suspense
TechTh - Technological Thriller
Th - Thriller
TT - Time Travel
UF - Urban Fantasy
VisM - Visionary and Metaphysical

Note: Not all genres and formats are found in the books, etc. listed above.

Each month you will be able to vote for your favorite cover from that month's debut novels. At the end of the year the 12 monthly winners will be pitted against each other to choose the 2018 Debut Novel Cover of the Year. Please note that a debut novel cover is eligible in the month in which the novel is published in the US. Cover artist/illustrator/designer information is provided when we have it.

I'm using PollCode for this vote. After you the check the circle next to your favorite, click "Vote" to record your vote. If you'd like to see the real-time results click "View". This will take you to the PollCode site where you may see the results. If you want to come back to The Qwillery click "Back" and you will return to this page. Voting will end sometime on June 8, 2018.

Vote for your favorite May 2018 Debut Cover!

All the Ever Afters

Armed In Her Fashion

The Dead House

Exit Strategy

Freyja's Daughter

The Honey Farm

Land Mammals and Sea Creatures

MEM

The Pisces

The Poppy War

The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn

What Should Be Wild

 

pollcode.com free polls

Melissa Broder

The Pisces
Hogarth, May 1, 2018
Hardcover and eBook, 288 pages

“Bold, virtuosic, addictive, erotic – there is nothing like The Pisces. I have no idea how Broder does it, but I loved every dark and sublime page of it.” —Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter 

Lucy has been writing her dissertation on Sappho for nine years when she and her boyfriend break up in a dramatic flameout. After she bottoms out in Phoenix, her sister in Los Angeles insists Lucy dog-sit for the summer. Annika’s home is a gorgeous glass cube on Venice Beach, but Lucy can find little relief from her anxiety — not in the Greek chorus of women in her love addiction therapy group, not in her frequent Tinder excursions, not even in Dominic the foxhound’s easy affection.

Everything changes when Lucy becomes entranced by an eerily attractive swimmer while sitting alone on the beach rocks one night. But when Lucy learns the truth about his identity, their relationship, and Lucy’s understanding of what love should look like, take a very unexpected turn. A masterful blend of vivid realism and giddy fantasy, pairing hilarious frankness with pulse-racing eroticism, THE PISCES is a story about falling in obsessive love with a merman: a figure of Sirenic fantasy whose very existence pushes Lucy to question everything she thought she knew about love, lust, and meaning in the one life we have.

Julia Fine

What Should Be Wild
Harper, May 8, 2018
Hardcover and eBook, 368 pages

“Delightful and darkly magical. Julia Fine has written a beautiful modern myth, a coming-of-age story for a girl with a worrisome power over life and death. I loved it.”  —Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry

In this darkly funny, striking debut, a highly unusual young woman must venture into the woods at the edge of her home to remove a curse that has plagued the women in her family for millennia—an utterly original novel with all the mesmerizing power of The Tiger’s Wife, The Snow Child, and Swamplandia!

Cursed. Maisie Cothay has never known the feel of human flesh: born with the power to kill or resurrect at her slightest touch, she has spent her childhood sequestered in her family’s manor at the edge of a mysterious forest. Maisie’s father, an anthropologist who sees her as more experiment than daughter, has warned Maisie not to venture into the wood. Locals talk of men disappearing within, emerging with addled minds and strange stories. What he does not tell Maisie is that for over a millennium her female ancestors have also vanished into the wood, never to emerge—for she is descended from a long line of cursed women.

But one day Maisie’s father disappears, and Maisie must venture beyond the walls of her carefully constructed life to find him. Away from her home and the wood for the very first time, she encounters a strange world filled with wonder and deception. Yet the farther she strays, the more the wood calls her home. For only there can Maisie finally reckon with her power and come to understand the wildest parts of herself.

Kate Heartfield

Armed in Her Fashion
ChiZine Publications, May 22, 2018
Trade Paperback and eBook, 352 pages

In 1328, Bruges is under siege by the Chatelaine of Hell and her army of chimeras―humans mixed with animals or armour, forged in the deep fires of the Hellbeast. At night, revenants crawl over the walls and bring plague and grief to this city of widows.

Margriet de Vos learns she’s a widow herself when her good-for-nothing husband comes home dead from the war. He didn’t come back for her. The revenant who was her husband pulls a secret treasure of coins and weapons from under his floorboards and goes back through the mouth of the beast called Hell.

Margriet killed her first soldier when she was 11. She’s buried six of her seven children. She’ll do anything for her daughter, even if it means raiding Hell itself to get her inheritance back.

Margriet’s daughter is haunted by a dead husband of her own, and blessed, or cursed, with an enchanted distaff that allows her to control the revenants and see the future. Together with a transgender man-at-arms who has unfinished business with the Chatelaine, a traumatized widow with a giant waterpowered forgehammer at her disposal, and a wealthy alderman’s wife who escapes Bruges with her children, Margriet and Beatrix forge a raiding party like Hell has never seen.

R. F. Kuang

The Poppy War
Harper Voyager, May 1, 2018
Hardcover and eBook, 544 pages

“I have no doubt this will end up being the best fantasy debut of the year [...] I have absolutely no doubt that [Kuang’s] name will be up there with the likes of Robin Hobb and N.K. Jemisin.” -- Booknest

A brilliantly imaginative talent makes her exciting debut with this epic historical military fantasy, inspired by the bloody history of China’s twentieth century and filled with treachery and magic, in the tradition of Ken Liu’s Grace of Kings and N.K. Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy.

When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising.

But surprises aren’t always good.

Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Targeted from the outset by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school.

For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . .
.
Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. But as she finds out more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity . . . and that it may already be too late.

Harriet Alida Lye

The Honey Farm
Liveright, May 29, 2018
Hardcover snd eBook, 336 pages

Lily King meets Patricia Highsmith in this slyly seductive debut set on an eerily beautiful farm teeming with secrets.

The drought has discontented the bees. Soil dries into sand; honeycomb stiffens into wax. But Cynthia knows how to breathe life back into her farm: offer it as an artists’ colony with free room, board, and “life experience” in exchange for backbreaking labor. Silvia, a wide-eyed graduate and would-be poet, and Ibrahim, a painter distracted by constant inspiration, are drawn to Cynthia’s offer, and soon, to each other.

But something lies beneath the surface. The Edenic farm is plagued by events that strike Silvia as ominous: taps run red, scalps itch with lice, frogs swarm the pond. One by one, the other residents leave. As summer tenses into autumn, Cynthia’s shadowed past is revealed and Silvia becomes increasingly paralyzed by doubt. Building to a shocking conclusion, The Honey Farm announces the arrival of a bold new voice and offers a thrilling portrait of creation and possession in the natural world.

Bethany C. Morrow

MEM
The Unnamed Press, May 22, 2018
Hardcover and eBook, 192 pages

MEM is a rare novel, a small book carrying very big ideas, the kind of story that stays with you long after you’ve finished reading it.

Set in the glittering art deco world of a century ago, MEM makes one slight alteration to history: a scientist in Montreal discovers a method allowing people to have their memories extracted from their minds, whole and complete.

The Mems exist as mirror-images of their source — zombie-like creatures destined to experience that singular memory over and over, until they expire in the cavernous Vault where they are kept. And then there is Dolores Extract #1, the first Mem capable of creating her own memories. An ageless beauty shrouded in mystery, she is allowed to live on her own, and create her own existence, until one day she is summoned back to the Vault.

What happens next is a gorgeously rendered, heart-breaking novel in the vein of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. Debut novelist Bethany Morrow has created an allegory for our own time, exploring profound questions of ownership, and how they relate to identity, memory and history, all in the shadows of Montreal’s now forgotten slave trade.

Jen Neale

Land Mammals and Sea Creatures
ECW Press, May 8, 2018
Trade Paperback and eBook, 288 pates

A startling, moving magic realist debut

Almost immediately upon Julie Bird’s return to the small port town where she was raised, everyday life is turned upside down. Julie’s Gulf War vet father, Marty, has been on the losing side of a battle with PTSD for too long. A day of boating takes a dramatic turn when a majestic blue whale beaches itself and dies. A blond stranger sets up camp oceanside: she’s an agitator, musician-impersonator, and armchair philosopher named Jennie Lee Lewis — and Julie discovers she’s connected to her father’s mysterious trip to New Mexico 25 years earlier. As the blue whale decays on the beach, more wildlife turns up dead — apparently by suicide — echoing Marty’s deepest desire. But Julie isn’t ready for a world without her father.

A stunning exploration of love and grief, Land Mammals and Sea Creatures is magic realism on the seaside, a novel about living life to the fullest and coming to your own terms with its end.

Billy O'Callaghan

The Dead House
Arcade Publishing, May 1, 2018
Hardcover and eBook, 244 pages

Sometimes the past endures—and sometimes it never lets go.
 
This best-selling debut by an award-winning writer is both an eerie contemporary ghost story and a dread-inducing psychological thriller. Maggie is a successful young artist who has had bad luck with men. Her last put her in the hospital and, after she’s healed physically, left her needing to get out of London to heal mentally and find a place of quiet that will restore her creative spirit. On the rugged west coast of Ireland, perched on a wild cliff side, she spies the shell of a cottage that dates back to Great Famine and decides to buy it. When work on the house is done, she invites her dealer to come for the weekend to celebrate along with a couple of women friends, one of whom will become his wife. On the boozy last night, the other friend pulls out an Ouija board. What sinister thing they summon, once invited, will never go. 

Ireland is a country haunted by its past. In Billy O'Callaghan's hands, its terrible beauty becomes a force of inescapable horror that reaches far back in time, before the Famine, before Christianity, to a pagan place where nature and superstition are bound in an endless knot.

Charlton Pettus

Exit Strategy
Hanover Square Press, May 1, 2018
Hardcover and eBook, 400 pages

Sometimes you just need to escape. For crooked politicians, military brass from third-world nations, and white-collar criminals looking to avoid either prison or a deadlier form of payback, there’s Exit Strategy. With just one call, Exit Strategy helps these wealthy-but-wanted types disappear completely. They can fake your death, give you a new name and face, and launder whatever ill-gotten funds you need to establish a new life on the other side of the world.

When Jordan Parrish, the brilliant founder of a medical technology start-up, made the call, he thought he had no other way out. With his marriage in shambles and his company on the brink of financial ruin, it seemed the only way to make things right. But after his exit, he began to wonder about the circumstances that led him to make that momentous decision: was someone, in fact, working against him? To find out, Jordan will have to break the cardinal rule of Exit Strategy: you can never, ever go back.

Charlton Pettus’s Exit Strategy is a cutting-edge, globe-trotting thriller about the type of shadowy organization that most of us have long suspected exists behind the scenes.

Rachel Pudelek

Freyja's Daughter
Wild Women 1
City Owl Press, May 22, 2018
eBook, 328 pages

Meet Faline. Bounty-Hunter. Huldra. Wild Woman.

Well behaved women seldom make history, but they still end up as the monsters of folklore.

Faline Frey is a bounty-hunter, more comfortable relying on perp files and handcuffs than using her huldra powers to take down a suspect. No sense in catching the unwanted attention of her local Hunter authority, a group of holy soldiers born to police the supernatural and keep Wild Women--huldras, mermaids, succubae, rusalki and harpies--in check.

All that changes the night she heads out for a date, hoping to get lucky. Instead, she gets screwed.

Now her sister is missing, along with Wild Women from all over the country. The Hunters are on her tail and the one person offering to help is her ex-lover, Officer David Garcia, who has just enough ties to the supernatural world. To unite her enemies against their common foe, Faline will need to convince the Wild Women to do the one thing she fears most--exhume their power buried deep beneath centuries of oppression. That is, if she can keep them from killing each other.

Danielle Teller

All the Ever Afters
  The Untold Story of Cinderella's Steppmother
William Morrow, May 22, 2018
Hardcover and eBook, 384 pages

Wicked, The Woodcutter, and Boy, Snow, Bird, a luminous reimagining of a classic tale, told from the perspective of Agnes, Cinderella’s "evil" stepmother.
We all know the story of Cinderella. Or do we?
As rumors about the cruel upbringing of beautiful newlywed Princess Cinderella roil the kingdom, her stepmother, Agnes, who knows all too well about hardship, privately records the true story. . . .

A peasant born into serfdom, Agnes is separated from her family and forced into servitude as a laundress’s apprentice when she is only ten years old. Using her wits and ingenuity, she escapes her tyrannical matron and makes her way toward a hopeful future. When teenaged Agnes is seduced by an older man and becomes pregnant, she is transformed by love for her child. Once again left penniless, Agnes has no choice but to return to servitude at the manor she thought she had left behind. Her new position is nursemaid to Ella, an otherworldly infant. She struggles to love the child who in time becomes her stepdaughter and, eventually, the celebrated princess who embodies everyone’s unattainable fantasies. The story of their relationship reveals that nothing is what it seems, that beauty is not always desirable, and that love can take on many guises.

Lyrically told, emotionally evocative, and brilliantly perceptive, All the Ever Afters explores the hidden complexities that lie beneath classic tales of good and evil, all the while showing us that how we confront adversity reveals a more profound, and ultimately more important, truth than the ideal of "happily ever after."

Tyler Whitesides

The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn
Kingdom of Grit 1
Orbit, May 15, 2018
Trade Paperback and eBook, 784 pages
(Adult Debut)

The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn is the first in an action-packed epic fantasy series featuring master con artist Ardor Benn.

Ardor Benn is no ordinary thief. Rakish, ambitious, and master of wildly complex heists, he styles himself a Ruse Artist Extraordinaire.

When a priest hires him for the most daring ruse yet, Ardor knows he’ll need more than quick wit and sleight of hand. Assembling a dream team of forgers, disguisers, schemers, and thieves, he sets out to steal from the most powerful king the realm has ever known.

But it soon becomes clear there’s more at stake than fame and glory – Ard and his team might just be the last hope for human civilization.