The Qwillery

Kira Jane Buxton (2019) Feral Creatures
Grand Central Publishing, August 24, 2021
Hardcover and eBook, 368 pages

In this stunning follow-up to Hollow Kingdom, the animal kingdom's "favorite apocalyptic hero"is back with a renewed sense of hope for humanity, ready to take on a world ravaged by a viral pandemic (Helen Macdonald).

Once upon an apocalypse, there lived an obscenely handsome American crow named S.T. . . .

When the world last checked-in with its favorite Cheeto addict, the planet had been overrun by flesh-hungry beasts, and nature had started re-claiming her territory from humankind. S.T., the intrepid crow, alongside his bloodhound-bestie Dennis, had set about saving pets that had become trapped in their homes after humanity went the way of the dodo.

That is, dear reader, until S.T. stumbled upon something so rare—and so precious—that he vowed to do everything in his power to safeguard what could, quite literally, be humanity's last hope for survival. But in a wild world plagued by prejudiced animals, feather-raising environments, new threats so terrifying they make zombies look like baby bunnies, and a horrendous dearth of cheesy snacks, what's a crow to do?

Why, wing it on another big-hearted, death-defying adventure, that's what! Joined by a fabulous new cast of animal characters, S.T. faces many new challenges plus his biggest one yet: parenthood.

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Peter Newman (2015) The Boundless
The Deathless Trilogy 3
HarperVoyager, August 17, 2021
Trade Paperback, 448 pages
HarperVoyager, August 6, 2020
eBook, 448 pages

The thrilling conclusion to an epic trilogy of dynastic struggles in a world of crystal castles, winged knights, and savage wilderness.

THE BATTLE
House Sapphire has a new leader, but High Lord Vasinidra cannot stand still for a moment. The monsters of the Wild are hunting with a new intelligence and purpose, and one Deathless family is already on the brink of extinction.

THE BETRAYERS
In the forests of the Wild, Chandni faces a choice that will transform her or destroy her. Far above, her two sons are reunited at last and forced to confront their true origins.

AND THE BOUNDLESS
Pari Tanzanite has never stayed within the rules. On a desperate journey to the source of her world’s magic, Pari will discover secrets even she could never have imagined – secrets that will change the rules completely.

A NEW POWER IS APPROACHING

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Book One

Book Two

Matthew Ward (2020) Legacy of Light
The Legacy Trilogy 3
Orbit, August 17, 2021
Trade Paperback and eBook, 800 pages
Legacy of Light is the spectacular conclusion to Matthew Ward's acclaimed Legacy trilogy—an unmissable epic fantasy series of war and intrigue perfect for fans of George R. R. Martin, Brent Weeks, and Brandon Sanderson. For the first time in many years, the Tressian Republic and the Hadari Empire are at peace. But darkness never sleeps. In Tregard, Empress Melanna Saranal struggles to protect a throne won at great cost. In Tressia, Lord Protector Viktor Droshna seeks to restore all he's lost through forbidden means. And as the sins of the past are once more laid bare, every road will lead to war. The Legacy Trilogy
Legacy of Ash
Legacy of Steel
Legacy of Light
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Book One

Book Two

Ada Hoffmann (2019) The Fallen
Angry Robot, July 13, 2021
Trade Paperback and eBook, 400 pages

From the immersive and intoxicating world of The Outside, comes the exhilarating sequel from Philip K Dick and Compton Crook Award-nominated author, Ada Hoffmann.

The laws of physics acting on the planet of Jai have been forever upended; its surface completely altered, and its inhabitants permanently changed, causing chaos. Fearing heresy, the artificially intelligent Gods that once ruled the galaxy became the planet’s jailers.

Tiv Hunt, who once trusted these Gods completely, spends her days helping the last remaining survivors of Jai. Everyone is fighting for their freedom and they call out for drastic action from their saviour, Tiv’s girlfriend Yasira. But Yasira has become deeply ill, debilitated by her Outside exposure, and is barely able to breathe, let alone lead a revolution.

Hunted by the Gods and Akavi, the disgraced angel, Yasira and Tiv must delve further than ever before into the maddening mysteries of their fractured planet in order to save – or perhaps even destroy – their fading world.

File Under: Science Fiction [ More False Gods Inside Out Freedom Fighters Angels or Demons ]

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Anna Stephens (2017) The Stone Knife
The Songs of the Drowned 1
Harper Voyager, July 27, 2021
Trade Paperback and eBook, 608 pages

A fantasy epic of freedom and empire, gods and monsters, love, loyalty, honour, and betrayal, from the acclaimed author of GODBLIND.

For generations, the forests of Ixachipan have echoed with the clash of weapons, as nation after nation has fallen to the Empire of Songs – and to the unending, magical music that binds its people together. Now, only two free tribes remain.

The Empire is not their only enemy. Monstrous, scaled predators lurk in rivers and streams, with a deadly music of their own.

As battle looms, fighters on both sides must decide how far they will go for their beliefs and for the ones they love – a veteran general seeks peace through war, a warrior and a shaman set out to understand their enemies, and an ambitious noble tries to bend ancient magic to her will.

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K.B. Wagers (2016) Hold Fast Through the Fire
A NeoG Novel 2
Harper Voyager, July 27, 2021
Hardcover and eBook, 432 pages

The Near-Earth Orbital Guard (Neo-G)—inspired by the real-life mission of the Coast Guard—patrols and protects the solar system. Now the crew of Zuma’s Ghost must contend with personnel changes and a powerful cabal hellbent on dominating the trade lanes in this fast-paced, action-packed follow-up to A Pale Light in the Black.

Zuma’s Ghost has won the Boarding Games for the second straight year. The crew—led by the unparalleled ability of Jenks in the cage, the brilliant pairing of Ma and Max in the pilot seats, the technical savvy of Sapphi, and the sword skills of Tamago and Rosa—has all come together to form an unstoppable team. Until it all comes apart.

Their commander and Master Chief are both retiring. Which means Jenks is getting promoted, a new commander is joining them, and a fresh-faced spacer is arriving to shake up their perfect dynamics. And while not being able to threepeat is on their minds, the more important thing is how they’re going to fulfill their mission in the black.

After a plea deal transforms a twenty-year ore-mining sentence into NeoG service, Spacer Chae Ho-ki earns a spot on the team. But there’s more to Chae that the crew doesn’t know, and they must hide a secret that could endanger everyone they love—as well as their new teammates—if it got out. At the same time, a seemingly untouchable coalition is attempting to take over trade with the Trappist colonies and start a war with the NeoG. When the crew of Zuma’s Ghost gets involved, they end up as targets of this ruthless enemy.

With new members aboard, will the team grow stronger this time around? Will they be able to win the games? And, more important, will they be able to surmount threats from both without and within?

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Emily Croy Barker (2013) How to Talk to a Goddess and Other Lessons in Real Magic
The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic 2
Semrland Books, June 25, 2021
Trade Paperback and eBook, 438 pages

Clever, lush, and riveting, with the same wry humor and vivid characters that delighted fans of its prequel, The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic, Emily Croy Barker's new novel opens a portal into a brilliantly realized world of enchantment, love, and danger. Readers of Philip Pullman, Deborah Harkness, Catherynne Valente, and Susanna Clarke will relish this novel’s magic.

Nora knows she needs to move on, and forget about magic.

She’s back in graduate school, and her life is going surprisingly well. She doesn’t need to think about other worlds, about enchantments and demons, or about magicians—even though she once aspired to become one herself. Most of all, she really should forget the magician Aruendiel, who shared the secrets of magic with her but fiercely guarded the deepest secrets of his heart.

Then a chance encounter gives Nora the opportunity to slip between worlds again—and the next phase of her magical education begins.

Her reunion with Aruendiel, so eagerly sought, triggers catastrophe. Alone and injured in a hostile land, Nora finds a new ally and accepts her first real job as a magician. Just as she’s hitting her stride, however, Nora discovers that her intoxicating new power has a higher price than she anticipated.

Trying to distinguish between friend and enemy, truth and falsehood, Nora can take nothing for granted. It will take more than even the most powerful of discernment spells to help her and Aruendiel see clearly in a dark fog of illusions and lies. And finding her way to the truth could cost Nora her life....

Book One

H.G. Parry (2019) A Radical Act of Free Magic
The Shadow Histories 2
Redhook, July 20, 2021
Hardcover and eBook, 512 pages

"A rich, sprawling epic full of history and magic, Declaration is Jonathan Strange with international politics and vampires. I loved it."―Alix E. Harrow

A sweeping tale of revolution and wonder in a world not quite like our own, A Radical Act of Free Magic is the conclusion to this genre-defying series of magic, war, and the struggle for freedom in the early modern world.

The Concord has been broken, and a war of magic engulfs the world.

In France, the brilliant tactician Napoléon Bonaparte has risen to power, and under his command, the army of the dead has all but conquered Europe. Britain fights back, but Wilberforce’s own battle to bring about free magic and abolition has met a dead end in the face of an increasingly repressive government. In Saint-Domingue, Fina aids Toussaint Louverture as he navigates these opposing forces to liberate the country.

But there is another, even darker war being fought beneath the surface: the first vampire war in hundreds of years. The enemy blood magician who orchestrated Robespierre’s downfall is using the French Revolutionary Wars to bring about a return to dark magic. Across the world, only a few know of his existence, and the choices they make will shape the new age of magic.

Book One

Chuck Wendig (2012) The Book of Accidents
Del Rey, July 20, 2021
Hardcover and eBook, 544 pages

A family returns to their hometown—and to the dark past that haunts them still—in this masterpiece of literary horror by the New York Times bestselling author of Wanderers

“The dread, the scope, the pacing, the turns—I haven’t felt all this so intensely since The Shining.”—Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians

Long ago, Nathan lived in a house in the country with his abusive father—and has never told his family what happened there.

Long ago, Maddie was a little girl making dolls in her bedroom when she saw something she shouldn’t have—and is trying to remember that lost trauma by making haunting sculptures.

Long ago, something sinister, something hungry, walked in the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of their hometown in rural Pennsylvania.

Now, Nate and Maddie Graves are married, and they have moved back to their hometown with their son, Oliver.

And now what happened long ago is happening again . . . and it is happening to Oliver. He meets a strange boy who becomes his best friend, a boy with secrets of his own and a taste for dark magic.

This dark magic puts them at the heart of a battle of good versus evil and a fight for the soul of the family—and perhaps for all of the world. But the Graves family has a secret weapon in this battle: their love for one another.

Christopher Buehlman (2011) The Blacktongue Thief
Blacktongue 1
Tor Books, May 25, 2021
Hardcover and eBook, 416 pages

Set in a world of goblin wars, stag-sized battle ravens, and assassins who kill with deadly tattoos, Christopher Buehlman's The Blacktongue Thief begins a 'dazzling' (Robin Hobb) fantasy adventure unlike any other.

Kinch Na Shannack owes the Takers Guild a small fortune for his education as a thief, which includes (but is not limited to) lock-picking, knife-fighting, wall-scaling, fall-breaking, lie-weaving, trap-making, plus a few small magics. His debt has driven him to lie in wait by the old forest road, planning to rob the next traveler that crosses his path.

But today, Kinch Na Shannack has picked the wrong mark.

Galva is a knight, a survivor of the brutal goblin wars, and handmaiden of the goddess of death. She is searching for her queen, missing since a distant northern city fell to giants.

Unsuccessful in his robbery and lucky to escape with his life, Kinch now finds his fate entangled with Galva's. Common enemies and uncommon dangers force thief and knight on an epic journey where goblins hunger for human flesh, krakens hunt in dark waters, and honor is a luxury few can afford.

“The Blacktongue Thief is fast and fun and filled with crazy magic. I can't wait to see what Christopher Buehlman does next." - Brent Weeks, New York Times bestselling author of the Lightbringer series

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Nigel Foster (2017) Revelations
The Netherspace Trilogy 3
Titan Books, May 25, 2021
Trade Paperback and eBook, 400 pages

It wasn’t much of an army to save Earth from alien, pre-cog domination. Only three people: an heiress, a sociopathic artist and their leader, a female licensed assassin. But time has run out. The artificial intelligences – alien artefacts – that run Earth and its colonies are going mad. Long held human grudges, suspicions and fears have erupted in violence throughout the world.

Earth’s own pre-cogs have seen the trio victorious. . . maybe. For Kara Jones, the assassin, it is a time of chaos made worse by the absence of Tatia Nerein, the heiress now warrior who is following her own dangerous path across alien worlds, and Marc Keislack, who stepped into netherspace, the dimension that allows star travel. Kara searches for a way to snatch her people back from a hostile galaxy even as she is assailed by doubts. But loyalty is everything and she will sacrifice anything to find her comrades and complete a mission she barely understands.

And ultimately discover the truth about the aliens. . . a revelation no greater than the truth she learns about herself.

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Book 1

Book 2

Gareth Hanrahan (2019) The Broken God
The Black Iron Legacy 3
Orbit, May 18, 2021
Trade Paperback and eBook, 624 pages

Dark gods and dangerous magic clash in this third book of Gareth Hanrahan's acclaimed epic fantasy series, The Black Iron Legacy. "This is genre-defying fantasy at its very best . . . Insanely inventive and deeply twisted" (Michael R. Fletcher).

Enter a city of dragons and darkness . . .

The Godswar has come to Guerdon, dividing the city between three occupying powers. A fragile armistice holds back the gods, but other dangerous forces seek to exert their influence. Spar Idgeson, once heir to the brotherhood of thieves has been transformed into the living stone of the new city. But his powers are failing and the criminal dragons of the Ghierdana are circling.

Meanwhile, far across the sea, Carillon Thay—once a thief, a saint, a god killer; now alone and powerless—seeks the mysterious land of Khebesh, desperate to find a cure for Spar. But what hope does she have when even the gods seek vengeance against her?

"A groundbreaking and extraordinary novel . . . Hanrahan has an astonishing imagination" (Peter McLean).

Also by Gareth Hanrahan:

The Black Iron Legacy
The Gutter Prayer
The Shadow Saint
The Broken God

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Book 1

Book 2

Zen Cho (2015) Black Water Sister
Ace, May 11, 2021
Trade Paperback and eBook, 384 pages

“A sharp and bittersweet story of past and future, ghosts and gods and family, that kept me turning pages into the dark hours of the night.”—Naomi Novik, New York Times bestselling author of A Deadly Education

“Ghosts, gods, and supernatural vengeance collide in vividly-depicted modern day Malaysia to create a contemporary fantasy story that’s full of voice and heart.”–Fonda Lee, author of The Green Bone Saga

A reluctant medium discovers the ties that bind can unleash a dangerous power in this compelling Malaysian-set contemporary fantasy.

When Jessamyn Teoh starts hearing a voice in her head, she chalks it up to stress. Closeted, broke and jobless, she’s moving back to Malaysia with her parents – a country she last saw when she was a toddler.

She soon learns the new voice isn’t even hers, it’s the ghost of her estranged grandmother. In life, Ah Ma was a spirit medium, avatar of a mysterious deity called the Black Water Sister. Now she’s determined to settle a score against a business magnate who has offended the god—and she’s decided Jess is going to help her do it, whether Jess wants to or not.

Drawn into a world of gods, ghosts, and family secrets, Jess finds that making deals with capricious spirits is a dangerous business, but dealing with her grandmother is just as complicated. Especially when Ah Ma tries to spy on her personal life, threatens to spill her secrets to her family and uses her body to commit felonies. As Jess fights for retribution for Ah Ma, she’ll also need to regain control of her body and destiny – or the Black Water Sister may finish her off for good.

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Sarah Pinsker (2019) We Are Satellites
Berkley, May 11, 2021
Trade Paperback and eBook, 400 pages

ONE OF BUZZFEED’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION BOOKS OF SPRING

From award-winning author Sarah Pinsker comes a novel about one family and the technology that divides them.

Everybody’s getting one.

Val and Julie just want what’s best for their kids, David and Sophie. So when teenage son David comes home one day asking for a Pilot, a new brain implant to help with school, they reluctantly agree. This is the future, after all.

Soon, Julie feels mounting pressure at work to get a Pilot to keep pace with her colleagues, leaving Val and Sophie part of the shrinking minority of people without the device.

Before long, the implications are clear, for the family and society: get a Pilot or get left behind. With government subsidies and no downside, why would anyone refuse? And how do you stop a technology once it’s everywhere? Those are the questions Sophie and her anti-Pilot movement rise up to answer, even if it puts them up against the Pilot’s powerful manufacturer and pits Sophie against the people she loves most.

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Cat Rambo (2015) Exiles of Tabat
The Tabat Quartet 3
Wordfire Press , May 12, 2021
Hardcover, Trade Paperback, and eBook, 324 pages

Return to a beautifully wrought and immersive world where intelligent magical creatures fight for their right to be free.

Revolution.

Riot.

Enslaved magical creatures and an exiled, reluctant hero.

Bella Kanto finds herself aboard a hostile ship bound for a frontier town. When she encounters an old lover along the way, she has a chance to escape-but does she really want to take it?

Meanwhile apprentice Lucy and her friend Maz have been kidnapped from Tabat and taken to the Southern Isles in search of ancient magic. They fear what will happen when they get there, particularly when their kidnapper realizes he's wrong about Lucy's identity.

Return to a world where magical creatures fight for their right to be free in a system that makes use of their work and sometimes their very bodies in a city full of revolution and riot, ready for the return of its lost champion: the reluctant Bella Kanto.

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Book 1

Book 2

Alina Boydon (2020) Gifting Fire
Stealing Thunder 2
Ace, April 13, 2021
Trade Paperback and eBook, 400 pages

The battle has been won, but the war is just beginning.

Although at long last Razia Khan has found peace with herself and love with her prince, Arjun, her trials are far from over. In order to save her prince and his city from certain destruction, Razia made a deal with the devil–her father, the Sultan of Nizam. Now the bill has come due.

Razia must secure the province of Zindh, a land surrounded by enemies, and loyal to a rebel queen who has survived her father’s purge. But when her old tormentor Prince Karim invades her new home and forces her into a marriage alliance, Razia finds herself trapped in the women’s quarters of a foreign palace, with her beloved Prince Arjun exiled from her side.

Now, in order to free herself, and her province, from Karim’s clutches, she must call upon all of her training as a royal princess, a cunning courtesan, and a daring thief to summon new allies and old friends for a battle that will decide her fate, and the fate of an empire.

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Book 1 (5/12/2020)

Dan Stout (2019) Titan Song
The Carter Archives 3
DAW, April 6, 2021
Hardcover and eBook, 384 pages

The third book in the acclaimed Carter Archives noir fantasy series returns to the gritty town of Titanshade, where danger lurks around every corner.

Forbidden magic, murder… and disco. Carter’s day keeps getting worse.

With the return of spring, new life floods into Titanshade. The sun climbs higher and stays longer, the economy is ascendant, and ever more newcomers arrive to be part of the city’s rebirth. Even pop culture has taken notice, with a high-profile concert only days away. When a band member’s murder threatens to delay the show, the diva star performer demands that the famous Detective Carter work the case. But Carter has secrets of his own, and his investigation unearths more victims and dark secrets, triggering a spiral of deceit, paranoia, and nightmarish magical transformations.

As conspiracies are exposed, Carter is sucked even deeper into the machinations of the rich, the powerful, and the venerated. Soon the very foundations of the city threaten to collapse and Carter’s own freedom is on the line as he navigates between old enemies and fragile new alliances while racing to learn the true cause of this horrific series of deaths.

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Book 1 (1/28/2020)

Book 2 (4/6/2021)

Jamie Yourdon (2016) The Space Between Two Deaths
Genz Publishing, April 6, 2021
Trade Paperback and eBook, 276 pages

In ancient Sumeria, only a thin veil separates the living from the dead.

The lives of Ziz, her mother, Meshara, and her father, Temen, are disrupted when a mysterious crevasse rends the earth. Temen becomes obsessed with the mystery and, capturing a crow to guide him, he follows a path to the netherworld where he hopes to gain wisdom from his dead father. Yet he soon finds that ancestors don't always provide the answers we need.

In his absence, a grisly accident occurs on their farm -- Meshara and Ziz are forced to flee. Friendless and alone, they must find a way to survive despite the brutalities of their landlord and devotees of the religious nation-state. Will the women revel in their new companionship or seek to find freedom elsewhere?

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Sarah Gailey (2019) The Echo Wife
Tor Books, February 16, 2021
Hardcover and eBook, 256 pages

“A trippy domestic thriller which takes the extramarital affair trope in some intriguingly weird new directions.” - Entertainment Weekly

I’m embarrassed, still, by how long it took me to notice. Everything was right there in the open, right there in front of me, but it still took me so long to see the person I had married.

It took me so long to hate him.

Martine is a genetically cloned replica made from Evelyn Caldwell’s award- winning research. She’s patient and gentle and obedient. She’s everything Evelyn swore she’d never be.

And she’s having an affair with Evelyn’s husband.

Now, the cheating bastard is dead, and both Caldwell wives have a mess to clean up.

Good thing Evelyn Caldwell is used to getting her hands dirty.

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Michael Johnston (2017) Silence of the Soleri
The Amber Throne 2
Tor Books, February x, 2021
Hardcover and eBook, 384 pages

Silence of the Soleri is the action-packed sequel to the epic fantasy novel Lev Grossman calls "bloody and utterly epic."

Solus celebrates the Opening of the Mundus, a two-day holiday for the dead, but the city of the Soleri is hardly in need of diversion. A legion of traitors, led by a former captain of the Soleri military, rallies at the capital’s ancient walls. And inside those fortifications, trapped by circumstance, a second army fights for its very existence.

In a world inspired by ancient Egyptian history and King Lear, this follow-up to Michael Johnston's Soleri, finds Solus besieged from within as well as without and the Hark-Wadi family is stuck at the heart of the conflict.

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The Amber Throne 1

C. L. Polk (2018) Soulstar
The Kingston Cycle 3
Tor.com, February 16, 2021
Trade Paperback and eBook, 304 pages

With Soulstar, C. L. Polk concludes her riveting Kingston Cycle, a whirlwind of magic, politics, romance, and intrigue that began with the World Fantasy Award-winning Witchmark. Assassinations, deadly storms, and long-lost love haunt the pages of this thrilling final volume.

For years, Robin Thorpe has kept her head down, staying among her people in the Riverside neighborhood and hiding the magic that would have her imprisoned by the state. But when Grace Hensley comes knocking on Clan Thorpe’s door, Robin’s days of hiding are at an end. As freed witches flood the streets of Kingston, scrambling to reintegrate with a kingdom that destroyed their lives, Robin begins to plot a course that will ensure a freer, juster Aeland. At the same time, she has to face her long-bottled feelings for the childhood love that vanished into an asylum twenty years ago.

Can Robin find happiness among the rising tides of revolution? Can Kingston survive the blizzards that threaten, the desperate monarchy, and the birth throes of democracy? Find out as the Kingston Cycle comes to an end.

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The Kingston Cycle 1

The Kingston Cycle 2

Mike Chen (2019) We Could Be Heroes
MIRA, January 26, 2021
Hardcover and eBook, 336 pages

An extraordinary and emotional adventure about unlikely friends and the power of choosing who you want to be.

Jamie woke up in an empty apartment with no memory and only a few clues to his identity, but with the ability to read and erase other people’s memories—a power he uses to hold up banks to buy coffee, cat food and books.

Zoe is also searching for her past, and using her abilities of speed and strength…to deliver fast food. And she’ll occasionally put on a cool suit and beat up bad guys, if she feels like it.

When the archrivals meet in a memory-loss support group, they realize the only way to reveal their hidden pasts might be through each other. As they uncover an ongoing threat, suddenly much more is at stake than their fragile friendship. With countless people at risk, Zoe and Jamie will have to recognize that sometimes being a hero starts with trusting someone else—and yourself.

Adrian Selby (2016) Brother Red
Orbit, January 26, 2021
Trade Paperback and eBook, 512 pages

From one of the most exciting new voices in dark epic fantasy comes an intensely brutal and brilliantly cinematic novel: the story of a soldier torn between loyalty to her family and her quest to preserve a kingdom's future.

She was their hope, their martyr, their brother . . .

Driwna Marghoster, a soldier for the powerful merchant guild known as The Post, is defending her trade caravan from a vicious bandit attack when she discovers a dead body hidden in one of her wagons.

Born of the elusive Oskoro people, the body is a rare and priceless find, the center of a tragic tale and the key to a larger mystery.

But as Driwna investigates who the body was meant for, she finds herself on a trail of deceit and corruption . . . a trail that will lead her to an evil more powerful than she can possibly imagine.

Also by Adrian Selby:
Snakewood
The Winter Road

C. M. Waggoner (2019) The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry
Ace, January 12, 2021
Trade Paperback and eBook, 384 pages

Sparks fly in this enchanting fantasy novel from the author of Unnatural Magic when a down-and-out fire witch and a young gentlewoman join forces against a deadly conspiracy.

Dellaria Wells, petty con artist, occasional thief, and partly educated fire witch, is behind on her rent in the city of Leiscourt—again. Then she sees the “wanted” sign, seeking Female Persons, of Martial or Magical ability, to guard a Lady of some Importance, prior to the celebration of her Marriage. Delly fast-talks her way into the job and joins a team of highly peculiar women tasked with protecting their wealthy charge from unknown assassins.

Delly quickly sets her sights on one of her companions, the confident and well-bred Winn Cynallum. The job looks like nothing but romance and easy money until things take a deadly (and undead) turn. With the help of a bird-loving necromancer, a shapeshifting schoolgirl, and an ill-tempered reanimated mouse named Buttons, Delly and Winn are determined to get the best of an adversary who wields a twisted magic and has friends in the highest of places.

Eugen Bacon (2019) The Road to Woop Woop and Other Stories
Meerkat Press, December 1, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 202 pages

Eugen Bacon’s work is deemed cheeky with a fierce intelligence in text that’s resplendent, delicious, dark and evocative. NPR called her novel Claiming T-Mo ‘a confounding mysterious tour de force’. The Road to Woop Woop and Other Stories imbues the same lushness in a writerly language that is Bacon’s own. This peculiar hybrid of the untraditional, the extraordinary within, without and along the borders of normalcy will hypnotise and absorb the reader with tales that refuse to be labelled. The stories in this collection are dirges that cross genres in astounding ways. Over 20 provocative tales, with seven original to this collection, by an award-winning African Australian author.

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Black Moon: Graphic Speculative Flash Fiction
IFWG Publishing International
Trade Paperback, 72 pages
Elena Betti, Illustrator

Black Moon is an illustrated collection of speculative flash fiction interspersed with prose poetry. It carries themes of love and war, life and the afterlife, hope and despair. It is a philosophical assortment that questions normalcy, embraces opposition, and takes a keen interest on peculiarity. It will appeal to curious lovers of literary dark fantasy and all places in between.

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Ivory's Story
Newcon Press, December 8, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 154 pages

Long ago, a good man transgressed and was brutally punished, his physical form killed and his soul split asunder. Now, one half of his ancient soul seeks to reunite with its lost twin, a search that leaves murder in its wake…

In the streets of modern day Sydney a killer stalks the night, slaughtering innocents, leaving bodies mutilated. The victims seem unconnected, yet Investigating Officer Ivory Tembo is convinced the killings are anything but random. The case soon leads Ivory into places she never imagined. In order to stop the killings and save the life of the man she loves, she must reach deep into her past, uncover secrets of her heritage, break a demon’s curse, and somehow unify two worlds.

Ivory's Story deftly combines the contemporary thriller with darker, older traditions, and marks the arrival of an exciting new voice on the genre fiction scene.

“Bacon masterfully blends myth, heritage, and self-discovery in this impressive, genre-defying work of speculative fiction... Writing with sharp, insightful prose, Bacon delivers a taut thriller that dives deep into its distinctive protagonist’s internal life and family history. Seasoned speculative fiction readers will be wowed by Bacon’s careful, layered worldbuilding, well-developed characters, and otherworldly atmosphere. This deserves a wide audience.” – Publisher’s Weekly [Starred Review]

“Eugen Bacon’s latest novel has a lot going for it. A lot… if the reader is adventurous enough, Ivory’s Story will both startle and seduce.” – Locus

“Not a word is wasted. This isn’t writing by rote, not a book surfing the expectancies of fantasy fiction, but one which brims with descriptive prose, where the movement of the words form the story, similar to the physical brushstrokes of a painting carrying the eye. Ivory’s Story is a fast-paced organic fantasy shone through a poet’s timbre and I loved it.” – Black Static

“A new star is born in the emerald skies of Fantasy, and its name is Eugen Bacon.” – Nuzo Onoh, author of The Reluctant Dead

“Bacon expertly weaves a speculative world with harsh and mundane realities to form a lush and magical tale about the importance of love and the courage needed to face the demons of this world and the next. Highly recommended.” – Nick Wood, author of Azanian Bridges

“Transformation and identity are the themes connecting chapters that dance and shift in each other’s light. The book’s final third revels in imaginative potential, where Bacon shows us sumptuous glens and hidden courts. She also reminds that nature and time live within us, and are capable of healing anything.” – Andromeda Spaceways Magazine

“If you're looking out for an epic tale that will certainly stand apart from your usual fare, that is written with great passion and feeling, this one may well hit the mark.” – Nerine Dorman Reviews

“Ivory's Story speaks of places and moments that bind us. The myths and mysteries that draw us in. A powerful blend of African and Australian speculative fiction.” – Dominique Hecq, award-winning poet, novelist, short story writer

“Eugen Bacon is a vital, vibrant voice.” – Lucy Sussex, author of The Scarlet Rider

"Twin-lore, bewitching entities, psychic investigation and urban murder mystery, juxtaposed against wilderness visions. Ivory’s Story is a savoury bouquet of wilderness flavours flash-fried in an offworld skin. An aromatic sense-delight. – Nikhil Singh, author of Club Ded

“A murder mystery, an adventure story and a spiritual journey all rolled up into one, which not only entertains but also leaves us pondering the deeper questions.” – Denise O'Hagan, author of The Beating Heart

Ivory's Story is available as a special edition hardback, signed by the author and limited to just 50 numbered copies, as well as in paperback and ebook editions.

Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Bookshop : Books-A-Million : IndieBound

Marko Kloos (2014) Orders of Battle
Frontlines 7
47North, December 8, 2020
Trade Paperback and Kindle eBook, 271 pages

The battle against the Lankies has been won. Earth seems safe. Peacetime military? Not on your life.

It’s been four years since Earth threw its full military prowess against the Lanky incursion. Humanity has been yanked back from the abyss of extinction. The solar system is at peace. For now.

The future for Major Andrew Grayson of the Commonwealth Defense Corps and his wife, Halley? Flying desk duty on the front. No more nightmares of monstrous things. No more traumas to the mind and body. But when an offer comes down from above, Andrew has to make a choice: continue pushing papers into retirement, or jump right back into the fight? What’s a podhead to do?

The remaining Lankies may have retreated in fear, but the threat isn’t over. They need to be wiped out for good before they strike again. That’ll take a new offensive deployment. Aboard an Avenger warship, Andrew and the special tactics team under his command embark on the ultimate search-and-destroy mission. This time, it’ll be on Lanky turf.

No big heroics. No unnecessary risks. Just a swift hit-and-run raid in the hostile Capella system. Blow the alien seed ships into oblivion and get the hell back to Earth. At least, that’s the objective. But when does anything in war go according to plan?

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Michael Mammay (2018) Colonyside
Planetside 3
Harper Voyager, December 29, 2020
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 384 pages

A missing scientist and deep pockets pull Colonel Carl Butler out of retirement, investigating another mystery that puts him and his team--and the future of relations with alien species--in danger in COLONYSIDE, the exciting follow-up to Planetside and Spaceside.

A military hero is coming out of disgrace—straight into the line of fire…

Carl Butler was once a decorated colonel. Now he’s a disgraced recluse, hoping to live out the rest of his life on a backwater planet where no one cares about his “crimes” and everyone leaves him alone.

It’s never that easy.

A CEO’s daughter has gone missing and he thinks Butler is the only one who can find her. The government is only too happy to appease him. Butler isn’t so sure, but he knows the pain of losing a daughter, so he reluctantly signs on. Soon he’s on a military ship heading for a newly-formed colony where the dangerous jungle lurks just outside the domes where settlers live.

Paired with Mac, Ganos, and a government-assigned aide named Fader, Butler dives head-first into what should be an open and shut case. Then someone tries to blow him up. Faced with an incompetent local governor, a hamstrung military, and corporations playing fast and loose with the laws, Butler finds himself in familiar territory. He’s got nobody to trust but himself, but that’s where he works best. He’ll fight to get to the bottom of the mystery, but this time, he might not live to solve it.

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Kacen Callender (2019) King of the Rising
Islands of Blood and Storm 2
Orbit, December 1, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 384 pages

King of the Rising is the searing conclusion to an unflinching and powerful Caribbean-inspired fantasy series about colonialism, resilience and defiance.

A revolution has swept through the islands of Hans Lollik and former slave Loren Jannik has been chosen to lead the survivors in a bid to free the islands forever.

But the rebels are running out of food, weapons and options. And as the Fjern inch closer to reclaiming Hans Lollik with every battle, Loren is faced with a choice that could shift the course of the revolution in their favor -- or doom it to failure.

Islands of Blood and Storm
Queen of the Conquered
King of the Rising

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Sam Hawke (2018) Hollow Empire
A Poison War Novel 2
Tor Books, December 1, 2020
Hardcover, Trade Paperback and eBook, 560 pages

Moving from poison and treachery to war and witchcraft, Sam Hawke's Poison Wars continue with Hollow Empire, a fabulous epic fantasy adventure perfect for fans of Robin Hobb, Naomi Novik, and Scott Lynch.

Poison was only the beginning.... The deadly siege of Silasta woke the ancient spirits, and now the city-state must find its place in this new world of magic. But people and politics are always treacherous, and it will take all of Jovan and Kalina’s skills as proofer and spy to save their country when witches and assassins turn their sights to domination.

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Benedict Jacka (2012) Forged
Alex Verus 11
Ace, November 24, 2020
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 304 pages

Alex Verus faces his dark side in this return to the bestselling urban fantasy series about a London-based mage.

To protect his friends, Mage Alex Verus has had to change–and embrace his dark side. But the life mage Anne has changed too, and made a bond with a dangerous power. She’s going after everyone she’s got a grudge against–and it’s a long list.

In the meantime, Alex has to deal with his arch-enemy, Levistus. The Council’s death squads are hunting Alex as well as Anne, and the only way for Alex to stop them is to end his long war with Levistus and the Council, by whatever means necessary. It will take everything Alex has to stay a step ahead of the Council and stop Anne from letting the world burn.

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