The Qwillery

The Qwillery is pleased to announce that Isabel Cooper has joined the 2011 Debut Author Challenge. Isabel's debut, No Proper Lady, will be published on September 1, 2011 by Sourcebooks.

It’s Terminator meets My Fair Lady in this fascinating debut of black magic and brilliant ball gowns, martial arts, and mysticism.

England, 1888. The trees are green, the birds are singing, and no one has any idea that in a few hundred years, demons will destroy it all. Joan plans to keep it that way. All she has to do is take out the dark magician responsible—before he summons the demons in the first place. But as a rough-around-the-edges assassin from that bleak future, she’ll have to learn how to fit into polite Victorian society to get close to her target.

Simon Grenville has his own reasons for wanting to destroy Alex Reynell. The man used to be his best friend—until his practice of the dark arts almost killed Simon’s sister. The beautiful half-naked stranger Simon meets in the woods may be the perfect instrument for his revenge. It will just take a little time to teach her the necessary etiquette and assemble a proper wardrobe. But as each day passes, Simon is less sure he wants Joan anywhere near Reynell. Because no spell in the world will save his future if she isn’t in it.

Look for an interview with Isabel in September.

You can keep up to date on 2011 Debut Author Challenge happenings on the 2011 DAC page.

The Qwillery is pleased to announce that Edward Lazellari will be participating in the 2011 Debut Author Challenge. Awakenings (Guardians of Aandor 1) will be published on August 30, 2011 by Tor Books.

Cal MacDonnell is a happily married New York City cop with a loving family. Seth Raincrest is a washed-up photographer who has alienated even his closest friends. The two have nothing in common—except that they both suffer from retrograde amnesia. It’s as if they just appeared out of thin air thirteen years ago, and nothing has been able to restore their memories. Now their forgotten past has caught up to them with a vengeance.

Cal's and Seth’s lives are turned upside down as they are stalked by otherworldly beings who know about the men's past lives. But these creatures aren't here to help; they're intent on killing anyone who gets in their way. In the balance hangs the life of a child who might someday restore a broken empire to peace and prosperity. With no clue why they're being hunted, Cal and Seth must accept the aid of a strange and beautiful woman who has promised to unlock their secrets. The two must stay alive long enough to protect their loved ones, recover their true selves—and save two worlds from tyranny and destruction.

Awakenings launches a captivating fantasy saga by an amazing and talented new storyteller.

The cover of Awakenings is by my favorite cover artist, Chris McGrath. Look for my review soon.

You can keep up to date on 2011 Debut Author Challenge happenings on the 2011 DAC page.  

I'm thrilled to share with you the cover and back cover copy for The Whitefire Crossing by debut author Courtney Schafer. The Whitefire Crossing will be published on August 9, 2011 by Night Shade Books.

Dev is a smuggler with the perfect cover. He's in high demand as a guide for the caravans that carry legitimate goods from the city of Ninavel into the country of Alathia. The route through the Whitefire Mountains is treacherous, and Dev is one of the few climbers who knows how to cross them safely. With his skill and connections, it's easy enough to slip contraband charms from Ninavel - where any magic is fair game, no matter how dark - into Alathia, where most magic is outlawed.

But smuggling a few charms is one thing; smuggling a person through the warded Alathian border is near suicidal. Having made a promise to a dying friend, Dev is forced to take on a singularly dangerous cargo: Kiran. A young apprentice on the run from one of the most powerful mages in Ninavel, Kiran is desperate enough to pay a fortune to sneak into a country where discovery means certain execution - and he'll do whatever it takes to prevent Dev from finding out the terrible truth behind his getaway.

Yet Kiran isn't the only one harboring a deadly secret. Caught up in a web of subterfuge and dark magic, Dev and Kiran must find a way to trust each other - or face not only their own destruction, but that of the entire city of Ninavel.

Looking for a Mash Up for the holidays? A Vampire Christmas Carol: Ebenezer Scrooge, Vampire Slayer may be just the thing.

Ebenezer Scrooge may be a miser, but he’s never actually sucked someone’s blood. But unbeknownst to Scrooge, vampires have dogged his footsteps since he was born, using him to prevent a prophecy that would create the greatest slayer the world has ever seen.

Now, on Christmas Eve, Scrooge’s old friend Jacob Marley rises from the grave to warn him about the gathering evil. With three spirits to guide him, he rediscovers his lost love, Belle seamstress by day and vampire hunter by night. He sees the secrets of his nephew Fred and his clerk, Bob Cratchit, Belle’s loyal soldiers. And he learns of the plot mounting to attack all of them, starting with the sacrifice of Bob’s son Tiny Tim…

A Vampire Christmas Carol is written by Sarah Gray (who also wrote Wuthering Bites). It will be available in October 2011.

The Qwillery is pleased to announce that Erin Morgenstern has joined the 2011 Debut Author Challenge. Her debut, The Night Circus, will be published in September. I love the book trailer! See it below.

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.

You can keep up to date on 2011 Debut Author Challenge happenings on the 2011 DAC page.

The Qwillery is happy to announce that Jonathan Wood is joining the 2011 Debut Author Challenge. Jonathan's debut novel, No Hero, will be released in early July.

"What would Kurt Russell do?"

Oxford police detective Arthur Wallace asks himself that question a lot. Because Arthur is no hero. He's a good cop, but prefers that action and heroics remain on the screen, safely performed by professionals.

But then, secretive government agency MI37 comes calling, hoping to recruit Arthur in their struggle against the tentacled horrors from another dimension known as the Progeny. But Arthur is NO HERO.

Can an everyman stand against sanity-ripping cosmic horrors?

Look for an interview with Jonathan on July 5, 2011.

You can keep up to date on 2011 Debut Author Challenge happenings on the 2011 DAC page.

Here is the latest addition to the 2011 Debut Author Challenge. K.M. Ruiz will be at The Qwillery for an interview during 2011.

K.M. Ruiz

Mind Storm
Thomas Dunne Books
May 2011

The first in an exciting new sci-fi seriesthat’s being described as Blade Runner meets X-Men

Two hundred and fifty years after the world was nearly wiped out by nuclear war, what’s left of society fights over the scraps of the Earth as the rich and powerful plan to ascend in secret to another planet. But the deadly new breed of humanity that the rulers have enslaved to protect their interests are about to change everything.

K.M. Ruiz’s Mind Storm is the rip-roaring tale of Threnody Corwin, a “psion” with the ability to channel electricity like lightning through anything she touches. As a solider-slave for the human government, Threnody is recruited by an unknown enemy: the scion of Earth’s most powerful (and supposedly human) family, the Serca Syndicate. But Lucas Serca is far from human and he intends to make Threnody and her fellow psions meet their destiny, no matter how many people he has to kill to do it.

Mind Storm is the first of two books chronicling the fight for survival by the psions and other “gene-trash” humans, before they’re killed by the racist world government, or left to die on a crumbling Earth.

You can keep up to date on the 2011 Debut Author Challenge happenings on the 2011 DAC page.

Here are the latest additions to the 2011 Debut Author Challenge. These authors will be stopping by The Qwillery for interviews and/or guest posts during 2011. (Authors listed in alphabetical order.)

Teresa Frohock

Miserere: An Autumn Tale
Night Shade Book
July 2011

Exiled exorcist Lucian Negru deserted his lover in Hell in exchange for saving his sister Catarina's soul, but Catarina doesn't want salvation. She wants Lucian to help her fulfill her dark covenant with the Fallen Angels by using his power to open the Hell Gates. Catarina intends to lead the Fallen's hordes out of Hell and into the parallel dimension of Woerld, Heaven's frontline of defense between Earth and Hell.

When Lucian refuses to help his sister, she imprisons and cripples him, but Lucian learns that Rachael, the lover he betrayed and abandoned in Hell, is dying from a demonic possession. Determined to rescue Rachael from the demon he unleashed on her soul, Lucian flees his sister, but Catarina's wrath isn't so easy to escape.

In the end, she will force him once more to choose between losing Rachael or opening the Hell Gates so the Fallen's hordes may overrun Earth, their last obstacle before reaching Heaven's Gates.

John Hornor Jacobs

Southern Gods
Night Shade Books
August 2011

Recent World War II veteran Bull Ingram is working as muscle when a Memphis DJ hires him to find Ramblin' John Hastur. The mysterious blues man's dark, driving music--broadcast at ever-shifting frequencies by a phantom radio station--is said to make living men insane and dead men rise.

Disturbed and enraged by the bootleg recording the DJ plays for him, Ingram follows Hastur's trail into the strange, uncivilized backwoods of Arkansas, where he hears rumors the musician has sold his soul to the Devil.

But as Ingram closes in on Hastur and those who have crossed his path, he'll learn there are forces much more malevolent than the Devil and reckonings more painful than Hell . . .

In a masterful debut of Lovecraftian horror and Southern gothic menace, John Hornor Jacobs reveals the fragility of free will, the dangerous power of sacrifice, and the insidious strength of blood.

You can keep up to date on the 2011 Debut Author Challenge happenings on the 2011 DAC page.

Just a couple of things so far for January 25, 2011 releases.

1)  I've added Joss Ware's Night Betrayed, Envy Chronicles 4.  The omission was brought to my attention by glitter. Thank you!

2) Cherie Priest's Bloodshot, Cheshire Red Reports 1, was mislabeled as YA. It's "very, very adult" per Ms. Priest. I appreciate that Ms. Priest cleared that up. So kids this book is not for you! The publisher lists it as: "Fiction - Fantasy; Fiction - Fantasy - Urban Life" so I'm going with UF for Bloodshot.


Here are the covers and descriptions of both books.

Night Betrayed
(Envy Chronicles 4)
by Joss Ware
The world they knew is ashes.

The world that remains is in peril.

And five extraordinary survivors are humankind's last, best hope.

The Change that devastated the earth did not destroy Theo Waxnicki. It made him something more than human—eternally young, eternally beautiful . . . but not immortal. When he dies on a mission against the Strangers, he is lost to the darkness . . . until a miracle lady brings him back.

Born during the apocalyptic storms and earthquakes that left the world in ruins, Selena has dedicated her life to easing the pain of others. But Theo is the first in her care to survive. Responding to Selena's tender touch, Theo starts to live again, to feel and desire again. But joined in a world of terrors, the secrets they can never share make them targets. And love could be the ultimate betrayal.


Bloodshot
(Cheshire Red Reports 1)
by Cherie Priest
Raylene Pendle (AKA Cheshire Red), a vampire and world-renowned thief, doesn’t usually hang with her own kind. She’s too busy stealing priceless art and rare jewels. But when the infuriatingly charming Ian Stott asks for help, Raylene finds him impossible to resist—even though Ian doesn’t want precious artifacts. He wants her to retrieve missing government files—documents that deal with the secret biological experiments that left Ian blind. What Raylene doesn’t bargain for is a case that takes her from the wilds of Minneapolis to the mean streets of Atlanta. And with a psychotic, power-hungry scientist on her trail, a kick-ass drag queen on her side, and Men in Black popping up at the most inconvenient moments, the case proves to be one hell of a ride.



Dear Readers,

As you know I only started adding genre the last couple of monthly lists. They are based on the information my database collects from many different sources. Sometimes both the database and I get it wrong. The genre classifications are sometimes the best pick out of the many genre and subgenres a book fits. Sometimes a genre classification will be incorrect if the database pulls incorrect information from the interwebs and I don't recheck. If you spot any additional mislabeling or if I've missed a book please let me know because I would like the release lists to be as accurate as possible. I sincerely appreciate it when a correction/addition is brought to my attention. Thank you!

Comments on the January 2011 release list can he left here.

The ongoing Mash Ups and More page has been updated:

De Bello Lemures, Or The Roman War Against the Zombies of Armorica by Lucius Artorius Castus has been added to Twisted Histories:

A recovered Latin text tells the story of a struggle between Roman legionaries and the undead in 185 AD.

Lucius Artorius Castus leads an expedition to Gaul to defeat a rebellion against the rule of the Emperor Commodus - and gets more than he bargained for when his enemies rise from the dead to fight again. The power of the zombie horde is amplified by the Babel of Ancient Rome's religions and superstitions, and the terror the undead bring in their wake foreshadows the incipient medieval darkness already creeping into the world at the end of Rome's Antonine age. Richly annotated, this mashup of survival horror and alternate history takes the reader on a bracing journey into one of ancient Rome's dark corners.

De Bello Lemures is structured as a work of nonfiction, with a foreword describing the history of the Latin document and its solecistic title, a "translation" of the text itself, and extensive footnotes. It is a loving homage to the paperback nonfiction products of university presses - a classics text reimagined as a postmodern horror tale. (edited by author)  [from Amazon.com]


I Am Scrooge: A Zombie Story for Chirstmas by Adam Roberts has been added to Continuations and Alternates.

Marley was dead. Again.

The legendary Ebenezeer Scrooge sits in his house counting money. The boards that he has nailed up over the doors and the windows shudder and shake under the blows from the endless zombie hordes that crowd the streets hungering for his flesh and his miserly braaaaiiiiiinns!

Just how did the happiest day of the year slip into a welter of blood, innards and shambling, ravenous undead on the snowy streets of old London town?

Will the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future be able to stop the world from drowning under a top-hatted and crinolined zombie horde?

Was Tiny Tim's illness something infinitely more sinister than mere rickets and consumption? Can Scrooge be persuaded to go back to his evil ways, travel back to Christmas past and destroy the brain stem of the tiny, irritatingly cheery Patient Zero?

It's the Dickensian Zombie Apocalypse - God Bless us, one and all!

A Christmas Carol with added festive zombie gore.