The Qwillery

Happy 1st Monday in November!

There are 4 debuts this week:

This Book is Not For You by Daniel A. Hoyt;

The End We Start From by Megan Hunter;

Jade City (The Green Bone Saga 1) by Fonda Lee (Adult Debut);

and

The Ruined House by Ruby Namdar.




From formerly featured DAC Authors:

Black Goat Blues (The Mythos War 2) by Levi Black;

Skitter (The Hatching Series 2) by Ezekiel Boone is out in Trade Paperback;

The Operative (San Angeles 2) by Gerald Brandt is out in Mass Market Paperback;

Red Dust and Dancing Horses and Other Stories by Beth Cato;

The Rule of Luck (A Felicia Sevigny Novel 1) by Catherine Cerveny;

Highland Dragon Rebel (Dawn of the Highland Dragon 2) by Isabel Cooper;

The Ship by Antonia Honeywell is out in Trade Paperback;

The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley is out in Trade Paperback;

The Sisters of the Crescent Empress (The Waning Moon Duology 2) by Leena Likitalo;

The Realms of God (The Shards of Heaven 3) by Michael Livingston;

The Forbidden Heir (Four Arts 2) by M.J. Scott;

and

Communication Failure (Epic Failure Trilogy 2) by Joe Zieja.

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

November 5, 2017

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Romancing the Werewolf (e)	Gail Carriger	SP - Supernatural Society Novella 2

November 6, 2017

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Hitchhiker: Stories from the Kentucky Homefront	Bob Thompson	FairyT/FolkT/LM/Occ/Sup - Collection

November 7, 2017

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
The Red Men	Matthew de Abaitua	SF/CyP/AP/PA/Dys
Nanoshock	K C Alexander	SF/CyP/GenEng - SINless 2
Valiant Dust	Richard Baker	SF - Breaker of Empires 1
Black Goat Blues	Levi Black	F/DF/H - The Mythos War 2
Skitter (h2tp)	Ezekiel Boone	H - The Hatching Series 2
The Sorcerer's Appendix	P. J. Brackston	F/SupM - Brothers Grimm Mysteries 4
The Operative (h2mm)	Gerald Brandt	SF/CyP/AP/PA - San Angeles 2
Places in the Darkness	Chris Brookmyre	SF
Star Trek: The Book of Lists	Chip Carter	TV/SF - Star Trek
Steal the Stars	Nat Cassidy	SF/AC/MTI
Potions and Pastries	Bailey Cates	PCM - A Magical Bakery Mystery 7
Red Dust and Dancing Horses and Other Stories	Beth Cato	SF/F - Collection
The Rule of Luck	Catherine Cerveny	SF - A Felicia Sevigny Novel 1
More Human than Human: Stories of Androids, Robots, and Manufactured Humanity	Neil Clarke	SF/CyP/GenEng - Anthology
Numenera: The Night Clave	Monte Cook Shanna Germain	SF/GenEng - Numenera 2
Highland Dragon Rebel	Isabel Cooper	PHR - Dawn of the Highland Dragon 2
Vampire Undone	Shannon Curtis	PNR
Snow Magic (e)	Bianca D'Arc	PNR - A Were-Fey Love Story 2
Shadowborn	David Dalglish	F - Seraphim 3
Deja New	MaryJanice Davidson	PNR - An Insighter Novel 2
None But Man (ri)	Gordon R. Dickson	SF
The Spark	David Drake	SF
Nights of the Dark Moon: Gothic Folktales from Asia and Africa	Tutu Dutta	FairyT/FolkT/LM/F/P/H/Gothic
Strange Music	Alan Dean Foster	SF/AC - Adventures of Pip & Flinx 15
Dreamweaver (h2mm)	C.S. Friedman	UF/CF/F - Dreamwalker 3
All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault	James Alan Gardner	CF/SH
Wolf Hunter: A Shifter Romance (e)	Jane Godman	PNR - Arctic Brotherhood 5
Wolf Leader: A Shifter Romance (e)	Jane Godman	PNR - Arctic Brotherhood 6
Childgrave	Ken Greenhall	H
The Unreal and the Real: The Selected Short Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin (h2tp)	Ursula K. Le Guin	F - Collection
The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin (h2tp)	Ursula K. Le Guin	F - Collection
The Selected Short Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin Boxed Set: The Found and the Lost; The Unreal and the Real (h2tp)	Ursula K. Le Guin	F - Collection
The Witch and the Werewolf	Michele Hauf	PNR - Decadent Dames 3
Terminal Alliance	Jim C. Hines	SF/AP/PA - Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse 1
The Ship (h2tp)	Antonia Honeywell	F/CoA/PA
This Book Is Not for You (D)	Daniel A. Hoyt	LF/MU
The Stealers' War	Stephen Hunt	F
The End We Start From (D)	Megan Hunter	LF/Dys
The Stars Are Legion (h2tp)	Kameron Hurley	SF/SO
Wonders Will Never Cease	Robert Irwin	HistF
Perfect Gravity	Vivien Jackson	SFR - Wanted and Wired 2
Down to No Good	Earl Javorsky	M/Occ/Sup/Th/Noir - Charlie Miner 2
Imaginarium 5: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing	Sandra Kasturi (Ed) Samantha Beiko (Ed)	SpecFic - Anthology 5
Frostwing	Richard A. Knaak	SF/AP/PA - City of Shadows 2
Pavlov's Dog	David Kurman	HU/Satire/Absurdist
Supernatural Psychology: Roads Less Traveled	Travis Langley (Ed) Lynn S. Zubernis (Ed)	Psychology
The Jim Baen Memorial Award: The First Decade	William Ledbetter (Ed)	SF - Anthology
Jade City (D - Adult)	Fonda Lee	F - The Green Bone Saga 1
The Rise of Nagash	Mike Lee	F - Warhammer Chronicles Omnibus
The Sisters of the Crescent Empress	Leena Likitalo	HistF/DF - The Waning Moon Duology 2
The Realms of God	Michael Livingston	HistF/AH - The Shards of Heaven 3
The Ruined House (D)	Ruby Namdar Hillel Halkin (Tr)	LF
The Experience Arcade and Other Stories	James Van Pelt	SF - Collection
Down and Out in Purgatory: The Collected Stories of Tim Powers	Tim Powers	CF - Collection
The Wrong Stars	Tim Pratt	SF/SO
A Spoonful of Magic	Irene Radford	UF
Beyond Antares: Dimensional Gates	Brandon Rospond (Ed)	SF - Beyond Antares Anthology
The Forbidden Heir (e)	M.J. Scott	Gaslamp/HistF - Four Arts 2
Invaders From Beyond: First Wave	Colin Sinclair Tim Major Julian Benson	SF/AC
The Un-Discovered Islands: An Archipelago of Myths and Mysteries, Phantoms and Fakes	Malachy Tallack	History/Historical Geography
Ironclads	Adrian Tchaikovsky	SF
The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun	J.R.R. Tolkien	F
Gluttony Bay	Matt Wallace	UF/HU - A Sin du Jour Affair 6
Perfect Shadow	Brent Weeks	F - Night Angel
Cult of the Warmason	C L Werner	SF - Genestealer Cults 1
The Keep (e)(ri)	F. Paul Wilson	SupTh - Adversary Cycle 1
Communication Failure	Joe Zieja	SF - Epic Failure Trilogy 2

November 8, 2017

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Threshold of Eternity	John Brunner Broderick Damiem	SF/SO
The World is Full of Monsters: A Tor.com Original	Jeff VanderMeer	SF
Deep Magic - First Collection (Ke)	Deep Magic Magazine	F/SF - Anthology
Every Face a Forgery (e)	Paul Witcover Liz Duffy Adams	HistF - Tremontaine Season 3 #5

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



AC - Alien Contact
AH - Alternate History
AP - Apocalyptic
Bio - Biography
CF - Contemporary Fantasy
CoA - Coming of Age
CyP - CyberPunk
DF - Dark Fantasy
Dys - Dystopian
F - Fantasy
FairyT - Fairy Tales
Fict - Fiction
FM - Folklore and Mythology
FolkT - Folk Tales
FR - Fantasy Romance
GenEng - Genetic Engineering
GH - Ghost(s)
Gothic - Gothic
H - Horror
HC - History and Criticism
Hist - Historical
HistF - Historical Fantasy
HU - Humor
LC - Literary Criticism
LF - Literary Fiction
LM - Legends and Mythology
M - Mystery
MR - Magical Realism
MTI - Media Tie-In
MU - MashUp
Noir - Noir
Occ - Occult
P - Paranormal
PA - Post Apocalyptic
PCM - Paranormal Cozy Mystery
PHR- Paramormal Historical Romance
PM - Paranormal Mystery
PNR - Paranormal Romance
Psy - Psychological
PsySus - Psychological Suspense
PsyTh - Psychological Thriller
R - Romance
Ref - Reference
RP - Role Playing
Sc - Science
SH -Superheroes
SF - Science Fiction
SFR - Science Fiction Romance
SO - Space Opera
SP - SteamPunk
SpecFic - Speculative Fiction
Sup - Supernatural
SupM - Supernatural Mystery
SupTh - Supernatural Thriller
Th - Thriller
TT - Time Travel
UF - Urban Fantasy

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

Antonia Honeywell (2017)

The Ship
Orbit, November 7, 2017
Trade Paperback, 352 pages
Hardcover and eBook, April 25, 2017

London is burning and Lalla has one hope for survival, a ship--a new Noah's Ark--that can only save 500 people, in this "Powerful, haunting, and beautiful" (M. R. Carey) debut novel.

London burned for three weeks. And then it got worse...

Young, naive Lalla has grown up in near-isolation in her parents' apartment, sheltered from the chaos of their collapsed civilization. But things are getting more dangerous outside. People are killing each other for husks of bread, and the police are detaining anyone without an identification card. On her sixteenth birthday, Lalla's father decides it's time to use their escape route--a ship he's built that is only big enough to save five hundred people.

But the utopia her father has created isn't everything it appears. There's more food than anyone can eat, but nothing grows; more clothes than anyone can wear, but no way to mend them; and no-one can tell her where they are going.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2015)

The Beautiful Ones
Thomas Dunne Books, October 24, 2017
Hardcover and eBook, 336 pages

"Truly one of the most beautiful books I've read in a long time. This sweeping tale of love lost and found is told with old-world elegance and grace with just the right touch of magic." —M.J. Rose, New York Times bestselling author

In a world of etiquette and polite masks, no one is who they seem to be.

Antonina Beaulieu is in the glittering city of Loisail for her first Grand Season, where she will attend balls and mingle among high society. Under the tutelage of the beautiful but cold Valerie Beaulieu she hopes to find a suitable husband. However, the haphazard manifestations of Nina’s telekinetic powers make her the subject of malicious gossip.

Yet dazzling telekinetic performer and outsider Hector Auvray sees Nina’s powers as a gift, and he teaches her how to hone and control them. As they spend more and more time together, Nina falls in love and believes she’s found the great romance that she’s always dreamt of. But Hector’s courtship of Nina is deceptive.

The Beautiful Ones is a sweeping fantasy of manners set in a world inspired by the belle époque.

Chuck Wendig (2012)

Damn Fine Story: Mastering the Tools of a Powerful Narrative
Writer's Digest Books, October 18, 2017
Trade Paperback and eBook, 232 pages

Hook Your Audience with Unforgettable Storytelling!

What do Luke Skywalker, John McClane, an da lonely dog on Ho'okipa Beach have in common?

Simply put, we care about them.

Great storytelling is making readers care about your characters, the choices they make, and what happens to them. It's making your audience feel the tension and emotion of a situation right alongside your protagonist. And to tell a damn fine story, you need to understand why and how that caring happens.

Using a mix of personal stories, pop fiction examples, and traditional storytelling terms, New York Times best-selling author Chuck Wendig will help you internalize the feel of powerful storytelling. In Damn Fine Story, you'll explore:

• Fretytag's Pyramid for visualizing story structure--and when to break away from traditional storytelling forms
• Character relationships and interactions as the basis of every strong plot—no matter the form or genre
• Rising and falling tension that pulls the audience through to the climax and conclusion of the story
• Developing themes as a way to craft characters with depth

Whether you're writing a novel, screenplay, video game, comic, or even if you just like to tell stories to your friends and family over dinner, this funny and informative guide is chock-full of examples about the art and craft of storytelling--and how to write a damn fine story of your own.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Adaption
     Chuck Wendig (Author)
     Luke Ross (Illustrator)
Marvel, November 21, 2017
Paperback, 144 pages

It's been three decades since the Rebel Alliance destroyed the Death Star and toppled the Galactic Empire...but now, on the remote planet of Jakku...there is a stirring in the Force. A young scavenger named Rey...a deserting storm trooper named Finn...an ace pilot name Poe...and a dark apprentice named Kylo Ren... Their lives are about to collide as the awakening begins. Writer Chuck Wendig (Star Wars: Aftermath) and artist Luke Ross (Hercules) take us back into the saga of a lifetime!

COLLECTING: STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS ADAPTATION 1-6

Thunderbird
Miriam Black 4
Saga Press, November 28, 2017
Trade Paperback, 352 pages
Hardcover, February 28, 2017

In the next installment of the suspenseful Miriam Black series, Miriam heads to the southwest in search of another psychic who may be able to help her understand her curse, but instead finds a cult of domestic terrorists and the worst vision of death she’s had yet.

Miriam is becoming addicted to seeing her death visions, but she is also trying out something new: Hope. She is in search of another psychic who can help her with her curse, but instead she experiences her deadliest vision to date in this latest “visceral and often brutal” (Publishers Weekly) series that is “wildly entertaining” (Kirkus Reviews).

The Raptor and the Wren
Miriam Black 5
Saga Press, January 23, 2018
Trade Paperback, Hardcover and eBook, 288 pages

In the fifth book of the “wildly entertaining” (Kirkus Reviews) Miriam Black series, Miriam continues her journey to find answers on how to change her fate and begin to make right some of what she’s done wrong.

Armed with new knowledge that suggests a great sacrifice must be made to change her fate, Miriam continues her quest and learns that she must undo the tragedies of her past to move forward.

One such tragedy is Wren, who is now a teen caught up in a bad relationship with the forces that haunt Miriam and has become a killer, just like Miriam. Black must try to save the girl, but what’s ahead is something she thought impossible…

Note: Cover revealed by author here.

TQ:  Welcome to The Qwillery. When and why did you start writing?

Antonia:  Hello! Thank you so much for inviting me.

I wrote my first novel when I was eight – it was a wet playtime at my primary school and we weren’t allowed to play outside. A group of classmates were playing snakes and ladders. I think I’d have liked to join in, but I didn’t make friends easily, and instead I found myself writing the story of a game of Snakes and Ladders from the point of view of one of the counters. I kept writing because, apart from reading, it was the thing I enjoyed doing most – I kept diaries, wrote long letters, and stories which I kept secret. I’m a teacher by training – the intention was to earn my living by teaching until I could earn it by writing. But I fell in love with teaching – I still think it’s one of the hardest and most valuable jobs anyone can do – and it took me over a decade to start working seriously on a novel, and another decade (and more novels) to get published.



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

Antonia:  I’m a panster first-drafter. It takes that roller-coaster ride of just letting the words come to work out what I’m writing about, where the focus of the story lies, what potential it has. It’s safe to say that my first drafts are largely unreadable! But they give me the material to begin crafting a working draft, and then the plotter in me takes over.



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

Antonia:  Finding the time. I was a full-time teacher when I began, running the English department of a huge comprehensive in Inner London. Then I married and began having children, which was just as time-consuming. There are always things that need doing more than my writing, and it’s not always easy to put my work first. But I’m well-organised and determined, which helps. I have writer friends who tell me that they have acres of time and still struggle, so I’m not sure there are any easy answers.



TQ:  What has influenced / influences your writing?

Antonia:  My reading, mostly. I’ve always read a lot – we had a village library close to my school, and as my parents both worked, I spent hours there, reading voraciously and indiscriminately. When they divorced, my life was torn apart, but the libraries in the different schools and towns gave me places I felt at home in. Opening the cover of a book is like unlocking an escape hatch into a new world. When I began to write, I realized how fine is the line between escape and self-discovery. No matter how unfamiliar or strange the fictional world, a reader is always searching for herself in it. I think that’s true of writers, too.



TQ:  Describe The Ship in 140 characters or less.

Antonia:  A father tries to save his child from a man-made apocalypse, and the child realizes that the truth is an ugly, complicated beast from which she must save herself.



TQ:  Tell us something about The Ship that is not found in the book description.

Antonia:  It’s a book about faith, and about belief. And about the stories we tell ourselves in order to justify the actions we’ve taken, or that we long to take.



TQ:  What inspired you to write The Ship? What appealed to you about writing a post-apocalyptic novel?

Antonia:  When we write about the future, we’re really writing about our fears for the present. That’s as true of George Orwell and Margaret Atwood as it is for me. For me, the fear for the future doesn’t lie in any one specific threat. Climate change, global warming, religious extremism – they’re all worrying, but hanging over these real and tangible concerns is a malaise that’s allowing a particular kind of political bullying to take the place of genuine debate. In the UK, for example, we currently have no effective opposition party. This means that initiatives are being implemented without being properly explored and examined. We need the friction of differing opinions to polish and refine our ideas, wherever we place ourselves on the political spectrum. But increasingly, I find people wanting to escape from the news, to create their own bubbles in which they interact only with people who agree with them and ignore, or dismiss, those who don’t. We’re beginning to write our own news, instead of studying the reality. The Ship is a fictional exploration of that tendency.



TQ:  What sort of research did you do for The Ship?

Antonia:  Oh, so much – everything from how much longer our oil supplies will hold out to the cubic footage of storage required for enough tinned tuna to keep five hundred people in protein for twenty years. I studied preppers and religious cults – opposite but strangely similar reactions to the prospect of the end of civilization. I studied the construction and maintenance of cruise ships. And I found a great deal of material by simply reading the papers. The interesting thing is how little of this concrete research made it into the final draft of the story. It forms a bedrock, but doesn’t appear on the surface.



TQ:  Please tell us about The Ship's cover.

Antonia:  I love the US cover. It’s mysterious and atmospheric, with that incredible flash of shocking pink. The hardback beneath the dustjacket is the same bright pink, which is a touch of genius – the very book design suggests hope in a seemingly hopeless universe.



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

Antonia:  Once I’d discovered Lalla, she became quite easy to write. At first, I wanted readers to love her as much as I do. But once I let go of that notion and allowed her to be what she is - a teenager who’s always had whatever she’s needed, and who has been the centre and sun of her parents’ existence since the day she was born – she lived and breathed quite naturally. Michael was harder. It would have been easy to write him as the tyrannical dictator he is, but I wanted to understand why people follow him and revere him as they do. Many speculative/futuristic novels take place in a society in which the good and bad are crystal clear – we know who are the terrorists and who the freedom fighters. And I love reading them. But I wanted Michael to exist in the muddier waters of intention and effect, and for Lalla to show the price that we pay for our confusion.



TQ:  Why have you chosen to include or not chosen to include social issues in The Ship?

Antonia:  We’re living in a world in which the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. Being rich is becoming confused with moral worth, and more and more doors are being closed to children whose parents can’t pay for them to be opened. And this worries me, because eventually choices will become the preserve of the wealthy, while the poor will do what they must to survive. This puts the future into the hands of the people who can pay for it, with no interrogation or exploration of what that future looks like. In The Ship, the collapse of society has made Michael Paul incredibly wealthy, and he is free to do exactly as he wants with that wealth. The only person free to question him and his motives is the reader.



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

Antonia:

Q: How can you love such an ungrateful little toad as Lalla Paul, for whom the entire world of The Ship was created?

A: How can you do anything but love someone who has the courage to speak up for the sun in a world illuminated only by electric light?



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

Antonia:  At the beginning, Lalla asks her parents, ‘If the ship is real, why don’t we just get on it?’ I think of this whenever someone presents a simple solution (“Build a wall!” “Finish the relationship!” “Play together nicely!”) to a complicated situation. Ideas are wonderful, and the start to everything, but every solution contains problems of its own. I also enjoy Lalla thinking of herself as ‘a bubbling stream, lost in a ocean of salt.’ So often, the quiet, fresh, life-sustaining voices are drowned out by the clamour and glitter of those who think they have all the answers. But no one has all the answers. That’s why we need to listen more than we talk.



TQ:  What's next?

Antonia:  The Ship was sold on a one-book deal, and my subsequent writing occupies a different universe, so the path ahead is neither clear nor smooth. But it’s a rare writer who knows exactly what’s coming next – all I can do is keep writing, and writing, and writing. That’s what makes a writer, whatever stage they are at in their career.



TQ:  Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery.

Antonia:  Thank you so very much for having me; it’s been a pleasure.

The Ship
Orbit, April 25, 2017
Hardcover and eBook, 336 pages

"Powerful, haunting, and beautiful," (M. R. Carey, author of The Girl With All the Gifts) The Ship is a luminous and genre-defying debut novel that follows a young woman's coming of age in a world where she has no future.

London burned for three weeks. And then it got worse...

Young, naive Lalla has grown up isolated in her parents' apartment, sheltered from the chaos amid the ruins of civilization. But things are getting more dangerous outside. People are killing each other for husks of bread, and the police are detaining anyone without an identification card. On her sixteenth birthday, Lalla's father decides it's time to use their escape route--a ship he's built that is only big enough to save five hundred people.

But the utopia her father has created isn't everything it appears. There's more food than anyone can eat, but nothing grows; more clothes than anyone can wear, but no way to mend them; and no-one can tell her where they are going.

About Antonia

Antonia Honeywell studied English at Manchester University and worked at the Natural History and Victoria and Albert Museums in London, running creative writing workshops and education programmes for children, before training as a teacher. During her ten years teaching English, drama and film studies, she wrote a musical, and a play which was performed at the Edinburgh Festival. She has four young children and lives in Buckinghamshire. The Ship is her first novel.


Website  ~  Facebook  ~  Twitter @antonia_writes

Happy Monday! Again!


There are 4 debuts this week:

Jericho's Razor (Jericho Sands 1) by Casey Doran;

The Ship by Antonia Honeywell;

The Shadow Crucible (The Blind God 1 ) by T. M. Lakomy;

and

The Gray House by Mariam Petrosyan, Yuri Machkasov (Translator).




From formerly featured DAC Authors:

Night of the Animals by Bill Broun is out in Trade Paperback;

The Mirror Cracked (The Witch Who Came in From the Cold, Season 2, Episode 10) by Cassandra Rose Clarke;

and

Skullsworn (Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne) by Brian Staveley.

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

April 25, 2017

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
A Fire in the Blood	Amanda Ashley	PNR
The Broken Hours: A Novel of H.P. Lovecraft (h2tp)	Jacqueline Baker	H/GH/Psy
Within the Sanctuary of Wings	Marie Brennan	F - The Lady Trent Memoirs 5
Buffalo Soldier	Maurice Broaddus	SP/F/HistF
Night of the Animals (h2tp)	Bill Broun	LF
HALO: Envoy	Tobias S. Buckell	SF - HALO
Shadow's Blade (h2mm)	David B. Coe	CF/P - Case Files of Justis Fearsson 3
Wicked Abyss	Kresley Cole	PNR - Immortals After Dark 17
The Librarians and the Mother Goose Chase	Greg Cox	CF - The Librarians 2
Second Variety and Other Classic Stories	Phillip K. Dick	SF - Collection
Walkaway	Cory Doctorow	SF
Jericho's Razor (D)	Casey Doran	H/Sus/PsyTh - Jericho Sands 1
Dark Mind	Ian Douglas	SF - Star Carrier 7
The Queen of Blood (h2mm)	Sarah Beth Durst	F - Queens of Renthia 1
Snared	Jennifer Estep	UF - Elemental Assassin 16
Killfile (h2mm)	Christopher Farnsworth	Th
Dark Screams: Volume Six (e)	Brian James Freeman (Ed) Richard Chizmar (Ed)	H - Anthology
Pharos (tp2mm)	Guy Haley	SF - The Horus Heresy 34
The Ship (D)	Antonia Honeywell	CoA/GB
Planet of the Apes Omnibus 2	John Jakes David Gerrold William T. Quick	SF
Eternal Reign	Melody Johnson	PNR - Night Blood 3
Four Past Midnight: Stories	Stephen King	Sus - Collection
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon	Stephen King	Sus
The Shadow Crucible (D)	T. M. Lakomy	DF - The Blind God 1
Dogs of War: A Joe Ledger Novel	Jonathan Maberry	Th/H - Joe Ledger 9
The Utopia Chronicles	Matthew Mather	TT/MetaVis/TechnoTh - Atopia 3
Blade Bound	Chloe Neill	UF/PNR - Chicagoland Vampires 13
Grunt Hero	Weston Ochse	SF - Task Force Ombra 3
The Gray House (D-US)	Mariam Petrosyan Yuri Machkasov (Tr)	CoA/F
Terry Pratchett's Discworld Coloring Book	Terry Pratchett	Coloring Book
Skullsworn	Brian Staveley	F - Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne
Unforgettable (tp2mm)	Eric James Stone	SF
Fur Fox's Sake	Milly Taiden	PNR - Shifters Undercover 2
Borne	Jeff VanderMeer	LF/Dys/F
The Edge of Worlds	Martha Wells	F/CF - Raksura 4
Imperative (tp2mm)	Steve White Charles E Gannon	SF - Starfire 7

April 26, 2017

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
The Mirror Cracked (e)	Cassandra Rose Clarke	HistF/Espionage - The Witch Who Came In From The Cold Season 2 #10
The Awakening of Insects: A Tor.com Original (e)	Bobby Sun	SF
The Dustpan Cometh (e)	Josh Vogt	UF - The Cleaners 3

April 28, 2017

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
The Ion Raider (e)	Ian Whates	SH/SF - The Dark Angels 2

April 30, 2017

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Final Girls	Mira Grant	H

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



AC - Alien Contact
AH - Alternate History
AP - Apocalyptic
CF - Contemporary Fantasy
CoA - Coming of Age
CulH - Cultural Heritage
CW - Contemporary Women
DF - Dark Fantasy
Dys - Dystopian
F - Fantasy
FairyT - Fairy Tales
FolkT - Folk Tales
FR - Fantasy Romance
GB - Genre Bender
GenEng - Genetic Engineering
GH - Ghost(s)
H - Horror
HistF - Historical Fantasy
HistM - Historical Mystery
HU - Humor
LF - Literary Fiction
LM - Legends and Mythology
M - Mystery
MR - Magical Realism
Occ - Occult
P - Paranormal
PA - Post Apocalyptic
PCM - Paranormal Cozy Mystery
PNR - Paranormal Romance
PolTh - Political Thriller
Psy - Psychological
PsyTh - Psychological Thriller
R - Romance
RP - Role Playing
RSus - Romantic Suspense
SF - Science Fiction
SH - Superheroes
SO - Space Opera
SP - Steampunk
Sup - Supernatural
SupTh - Supernatural Thriller
Sus - Suspense
TechTh - Technological Thriller
Th - Thriller
TT - Time Travel
TTR - Time Travel Romance
UF - Urban Fantasy
VisMeta - Visionary and Metaphysical
WM - War and Military

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 2017 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 April 30, 2017.

Vote for your favorite April 2017 Debut Cover!

Abigale Hall

American War

Celestial Mechanics

The Dragon's Legacy

Foxlowe

The Gray House

Jericho's Razor

Muddy Waters

My Cat Yugoslavia

The Seventh Sun

The Shadow Crucible

The Ship

Sputnik's Children

Wanted & Wired

Winter Tide

 

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Omar El Akkad

American War
Knopf, April 4, 2017
Hardcover and eBook, 352 pages
Literary Fiction

An audacious and powerful debut novel: a second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle—a story that asks what might happen if America were to turn its most devastating policies and deadly weapons upon itself.

Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, and that unmanned drones fill the sky. When her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she begins to grow up shaped by her particular time and place. But not everyone at Camp Patience is who they claim to be. Eventually Sarat is befriended by a mysterious functionary, under whose influence she is turned into a deadly instrument of war. The decisions that she makes will have tremendous consequences not just for Sarat but for her family and her country, rippling through generations of strangers and kin alike.

Casey Doran

Jericho's Razor
Jericho Sands 1
Polis Books, April 25, 2017
Trade Paperback and eBook, 272 pages
Horror, Thriller

Horror writer Jericho Sands has had a hell of a month. He's endured a bitter break up with his punk rocker girlfriend, learned that his lungs are blacker than a coal mine, and served time in county jail for throwing a United States Congressman in a dumpster. He's heartbroken, sleep deprived and suffering from a debilitating case of writer's block

Life is about to get much worse.

Somebody from Jericho's past has left a decapitated body on his doorstep. The similarity to methods used in his books, his lack of an alibi and his proximity to the victim all lead the detectives handling the case to quickly identify Jericho as the primary suspect.

But being framed for murder is the least of Jericho's problems, because this killer is only getting started. The mysterious executioner known as 'The River City Slasher' has made it clear that more innocent people will be killed before Jericho himself is the final victim. Unable to trust the cops, Jericho is forced to examine the darkest parts of his own psyche to catch a killer, save innocent lives, and free himself from his own guilt. When Jericho finally learns the identity of the killer terrorizing the city, it shocks him in ways he was unprepared for, causing him to doubt all he holds to be true, including his own judgment and motivations.

The first book in the Jericho Sands series, Jericho's Razor heralds the debut of a phenomenal new thriller writer in Casey Doran.

Ruthanna Emrys

Winter Tide
The Innsmouth Legacy 1
Tor.com, April 4, 2017
Hardcover and eBook, 368 pages
Historical Fantasy, Dark Fantasy

"Winter Tide is a weird, lyrical mystery — truly strange and compellingly grim. It's an innovative gem that turns Lovecraft on his head with cleverness and heart" —Cherie Priest

After attacking Devil’s Reef in 1928, the U.S. government rounded up the people of Innsmouth and took them to the desert, far from their ocean, their Deep One ancestors, and their sleeping god Cthulhu. Only Aphra and Caleb Marsh survived the camps, and they emerged without a past or a future.

The government that stole Aphra's life now needs her help. FBI agent Ron Spector believes that Communist spies have stolen dangerous magical secrets from Miskatonic University, secrets that could turn the Cold War hot in an instant, and hasten the end of the human race.

Aphra must return to the ruins of her home, gather scraps of her stolen history, and assemble a new family to face the darkness of human nature.

Winter Tide is the debut novel from Ruthanna Emrys, author of the Aphra Marsh story, "The Litany of Earth"--included here as a bonus.

Terri Favro

Sputnik's Children
ECW Press, April 11, 2017
Trade Paperback and eBook, 360 pages
Literary Fiction

A literary, genre-bending novel full of heart

Cult comic book creator Debbie Reynolds Biondi has been riding the success of her Cold War era–inspired superhero series, Sputnik Chick: Girl with No Past, for more than 25 years. But with the comic book losing fans and Debbie struggling to come up with new plotlines for her badass, mutant-killing heroine, she decides to finally tell Sputnik Chick’s origin story.

Debbie’s never had to make anything up before and she isn’t starting now. Sputnik Chick is based on Debbie’s own life in an alternate timeline called Atomic Mean Time. As a teenager growing up in Shipman’s Corners — a Rust Belt town voted by Popular Science magazine as “most likely to be nuked” — she was recruited by a self-proclaimed time traveller to collapse Atomic Mean Time before an all-out nuclear war grotesquely altered humanity. In trying to save the world, Debbie risked obliterating everyone she’d ever loved — as well as her own past — in the process.

Or so she believes . . . Present-day Debbie is addicted to lorazepam and dirty, wet martinis, making her an unreliable narrator, at best. A time-bending novel that delves into the origin story of the Girl with No Past, Sputnik’s Children explores what it was like to come of age in the Atomic Age.

Lauren A. Forry

Abigale Hall
Skyhorse Publishing, April 11, 2017
Hardcover and eBook, 376 pages
Psychological Thriller

Amid the terror of the Second World War, seventeen-year-old Eliza and her troubled little sister Rebecca have had their share of tragedy, having lost their mother to the Blitz and their father to suicide. Forced to leave London to work for the mysterious Mr. Brownwell at Abigale Hall, they soon learn that the worst is yet to come. The vicious housekeeper, Mrs. Pollard, seems hell-bent on keeping the ghostly secrets of the house away from the sisters and forbids them from entering the surrounding town—and from the rumors that circulate about Abigale Hall. When Eliza uncovers some blood-splattered books, ominous photographs, and portraits of a mysterious woman, she begins to unravel the mysteries of the house, but with Rebecca falling under Mrs. Pollard’s spell, she must act quickly to save her sister, and herself, from certain doom.

Perfect for readers who hunger for the strange, Abigale Hall is an atmospheric debut novel where the threat of death looms just beyond the edge of every page. Lauren A. Forry has created a historical ghost story where the setting is as alive as the characters who inhabit it and a resonant family drama of trust, loyalty, and salvation.

William Least Heat-Moon

Celestial Mechanics: A Tale for a Mid-Winter Night
Three Rooms Press, April 11, 2017
Hardcover and eBook, 400 pages

In this emotional tale of haunted love, CELESTIAL MECHANICS’s Silas Fortunato finds himself locked in a marriage descending toward darkness until the arrival of his sister-in-law and soon thereafter the appearance of a witching neighbor who may or may not be alive. In ways enigmatic, ghostly, and funny, the three women draw him into the equivocal nature of dreams and reality, their influences leading Silas on a journey toward what may be light and a new belonging to something vastly beyond him.

The debut novel of famed Blue Highways author William Least Heat-Moon, CELESTIAL MECHANICS embarks on a journey through the mind and wrestles with life’s major questions, like the nature of the Cosmos, the value of knowledge, and the essence of truly being alive. Heat-Moon has already proven he is a master at taking readers on powerful journeys as shown in his initial release Blue Highways, which spent 42 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list. CELESTIAL MECHANICS is a Blue Highways of the mind, in which the author leads readers on a path unlike any other, offering new insight into finding one’s place in this universe we struggle to understand.

Just as Heat-Moon’s nonfiction employs many fictional narrative techniques, CELESTIAL MECHANICS draws upon nonfictional devices to build a story that crosses traditional boundaries between the two. It is the clarion call of a generation that believes rationality and spirituality can—and should—coexist, a generation defined by globalization, where the only things left unknown are what is within and beyond us, those cosmic realms revealed by the telescope and the quantum world suggested by the microscope. This book is for readers steeped in a hustle-and-bustle world that seems impossible to escape; for those who believe that practices like mindfulness and rational deduction and childlike wonder are the keys to the kind of fulfillment commercial aspects of life can never hope to address.

Antonia Honeywell

The Ship
Orbit, April 25, 2017
Hardcover and eBook, 336 pages
Coming Of Age, Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic

"Powerful, haunting, and beautiful," (M. R. Carey, author of The Girl With All the Gifts) The Ship is a luminous and genre-defying debut novel that follows a young woman's coming of age in a world where she has no future.

London burned for three weeks. And then it got worse...

Young, naive Lalla has grown up isolated in her parents' apartment, sheltered from the chaos amid the ruins of civilization. But things are getting more dangerous outside. People are killing each other for husks of bread, and the police are detaining anyone without an identification card. On her sixteenth birthday, Lalla's father decides it's time to use their escape route--a ship he's built that is only big enough to save five hundred people.

But the utopia her father has created isn't everything it appears. There's more food than anyone can eat, but nothing grows; more clothes than anyone can wear, but no way to mend them; and no-one can tell her where they are going.

Vivien Jackson

Wanted and Wired
Tether 1
Sourcebooks Casablanca, April 4, 2017
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 384 pages
SF Romance

“Raw. Smart. Quick-witted. Mouthwatering. Just a few adjectives that describe this exquisite tale. Do not let this unforgettable story, or its incredible cast of characters, slip by you.” —DARYNDA JONES, New York Times bestselling author

A rip-roarin’ new snarky, sexy sci-fi paranormal romance series with the perfect balance of humor, heat, and heart. Now that Texas has seceded and the world is spiraling into chaos, good guys come in unlikely packages and love sprouts in the most inconvenient places…

Rogue scientist • technologically enhanced • deliciously attractive
Heron Farad should be dead. But technology has made him the man he is today. Now he heads a crew of uniquely skilled outsiders who fight to salvage what’s left of humanity: art, artifacts, books, ideas—sometimes even people. People like Mari Vallejo.

Gun for hire • Texan rebel • always hits her mark
Mari has been lusting after her mysterious handler for months. But when a by-the-book hit goes horribly sideways, she and Heron land on the universal most wanted list. Someone set them up. Desperate and on the run, they must trust each other to survive, while hiding devastating secrets. As their explosive chemistry heats up, it’s the perfect storm…

T. M. Lakomy

The Shadow Crucible: The Blind God
SelectBooks, April 25, 2017
Trade Paperback, 400 pages

In a world where angels, demons, and gods fight over the possession of mortal souls, two conflicted pawns are ensnared in a cruel game. The enigmatic seer Estella finds herself thrown together with Count Mikhail, a dogmatic Templar dedicated to subjugating her kind. But when a corrupted cardinal and puppet king begin a systematic genocide of her people, the two become unlikely allies.

Taking humanity back to their primordial beliefs and fears, Estella confronts Mikhail’s faith by revealing the true horror of the lucrative trade in human souls. All organized religions are shops orchestrated to consume mankind. Every deity, religion, and spiritual guide has been corrupted, and each claims to have the monopoly on truth and salvation.

In a perilous game where the truth is distorted and meddling ancient deities converge to partake of the unseen battle, Estella unwittingly finds herself hunted by Lucifer. Traversing the edge of hell’s precipice, Estella and Mikhail are reduced to mere instruments. Their only means to overcome is through courting the Threefold Death, the ancient ritual of apotheosis—of man becoming God.

The Shadow Crucible is a gripping epic set in medieval England where the struggle for redemption is crushed by the powers of evil. Tamara Lakomy is a new and compelling voice in the world of dark fantasy.

Kent Lester

The Seventh Sun
Forge Books, April 18, 2017
Hardcover and eBook, 416 pages
Technological Thriller, Political Thriller

In a breathtaking debut, Kent Lester has married fast-paced narrative and cutting-edge, reality-based science to produce an edge-of-the-seat thriller in The Seventh Sun.

A seemingly random murder alerts scientist Dan Clifford to a global conspiracy that stretches from the halls of Washington to the Honduran coast. Illegal, undersea activities have unwittingly uncovered a primordial secret that is wreaking havoc on aquatic life and the local human population.

When the CDC and the full resources of a U.S. “threat interdiction” team fails to uncover the source of the devastation, Dan and a brilliant marine biologist, Rachel Sullivan, must race to unravel an unimaginable, ancient mystery in the murky depths. It's up to them to stop this terror before a determined multi-national corporation triggers a worldwide extinction event, the Seventh Sun of ancient myth.

Mariam Petrosyan

The Gray House
Yuri Machkasov (Translator)
AmazonCrossing, April 25, 2017
Trade Paperback and eBook, 734 pages
Coming of Age, Fantasy

Pajtim Statovci

My Cat Yugoslavia
David Hackston (Translator)
Pantheon, April 18, 2017
Hardcover and eBook, 272 pages
Literary Fiction

A love story set in two countries and in two radically different moments in time, bringing together a young man, his mother, a boa constrictor, and one capricious cat

In 1980s Yugoslavia, a young Muslim girl is married off to a man she hardly knows, and what was meant to be a happy match quickly goes wrong. Shortly thereafter, the country is torn apart by war and she and her family flee to Finland, where her son Bekim grows up to become a social outcast—not just an immigrant in a country suspicious of foreigners but also a gay man in an unaccepting society. Aside from casual hookups, his only companion is a boa constrictor that, improbably (he is terrified of snakes), he lets roam around his apartment.

Then one night, at a gay bar, Bekim meets a talking cat, who also moves in with him. It is this witty, charming, manipulative creature who starts Bekim on a journey back to Kosovo to confront his demons and make sense of the magical, cruel, incredible history of his family. And this, in turn, enables Bekim finally to open himself to true love—which he will find in the most unexpected place.

Sara O. Thompson

Muddy Waters
Otherwhere 1
Curiosity Quills Press, April 4, 2017
Trade Paperback and eBook
Occult & Supernatural, Paranormal, Urban Fantasy

Twenty years ago, the boundary between worlds dropped. It will be a while before the political, social, and religious upheaval settles down but the good news is: now you can book a vacation to Valhalla as easily as you can go to Las Vegas. Your real estate agent might be a Wood Sprite. Your mechanic might be a Minotaur. For better or for worse, Supernormals are part of Earth life.

Five years ago, Tessa Reddick was convicted of killing her entire family: 37 Witches from one of the most powerful covens in history. She’s been locked up at Lakeland Psychiatric hospital, still grieving but mad as hell at whoever-or whatever-put her there.

Half an hour ago, a handsome FBI agent showed up to spring Tessa from the joint
-but there’s a price. A series of murders is picking off Supernormals and the feds need the help of the last known Reddick Witch.

Determined to learn who set her up for the fall, help solve the FBI crimes, and maybe get closer to her mysterious (and seriously hot) Dark Elf partner, Tessa is more than willing to play Witchy Nancy Drew.

But Tessa has few friends left and something is coming for her, too - maybe it’s the one who framed her and killed her coven, or perhaps a new foe with a taste for Witch’s blood.

Solving crimes, doing magic, drinking bourbon. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it.

Eleanor Wasserberg

Foxlowe
Penguin Books, April 4, 2017
Trade Paperback and eBook, 320 pages
Literary Fiction

An astonishing literary debut about a young girl’s coming of age in the haunting, enchanting world of an English commune—a modern gothic novel with echoes of Room and Never Let Me Go

Foxlowe is a crumbling old house in the moors—a wild, secluded, and magical place. For Green, it is not just home, but everything she knows.

Outside, people live in little square houses, with unhappy families and tedious jobs. At Foxlowe, Green runs free through the hallways and orchards, in the fields and among the Standing Stones. Outside, people are corrupted by money. At Foxlowe, the Family shares everything. Outside, the Bad is everywhere. At Foxlowe, everyone in the Family is safe—as long as they follow Freya’s rules and perform her rituals. But as Green’s little sister, Blue, grows up, she shows more and more interest in the Outside. Before long she starts to talk about becoming a Leaver. . . .

Building inexorably to its terrifying climax, Foxlowe tells a chilling, irresistible story of superstition and survival, betrayal and redemption, and a utopia gone badly wrong.

Deborah A. Wolf

The Dragon's Legacy
The Dragon's Legacy Book 1
Titan Books, April 18, 2017
Hardcover and eBook, 320 pages
Epic Fantasy

In the heart of the singing desert, the people are fading from the world. Mothers bear few live children, the warriors and wardens are hard-pressed to protect those who remain, and the vash’ai—the great cats who have called the people kithren for as long as there have been stories— bond with fewer humans each year.

High above, the Sun Dragon sings a song of life and love, while far below, the Earth Dragon slumbers as she has since the beginning of time. Her sleep is fitful, and from the darkness of her dreams come whispers of war… and death.

Sulema is a newly minted warrior of the people and a true Ja’Akari—a daughter of the unforgiving desert. When a mysterious young man appears in her home of Aish Kalumm, she learns that the Dragon King is dying in distant Atualon. As the king fades, so does the magic that sings the Earth Dragon to sleep.

There are those who wish to keep the dragon trapped in endless slumber. Others would tap her power to claim it for their own. And there are those who would have her wake, so they might laugh as the world burns.