The Qwillery

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 2020 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. Coverartist/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 November 30, 2020, unless the vote is extended. If the vote is extended the ending date will be updated.

Vote for your favorite November 2020 Debut Cover!

Before the Coffee Gets Cold

The Book of Malachi

The Chimera Code

Eartheater

Night Call

Nophek Gloss

Nucleation

The Rush's Edge

XX

 

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Happy Monday!

Debut novels are highlighted inblue. Novels, etc. by formerly featured DAC Authors are highlighted ingreen. November 10, 2020

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Followers (h2tp)	Megan Angelo	LF/CW/Dys
Refuge	JJ Blacklocke	SF/SO - Tradepoint Sage 1
Second Chances	P.D. Cacek	SupTh - Fiction Without Frontiers
Night Call (D)	Brenden Carlson	SF/Cr/M/TechTh/AH - Walking Shadows 1
Judge Fear's Big Day Out and Other Stories	Michael Carroll (Ed)	SF/AP/AP - Anthology
Star Trek: The Wisdom of Picard	Chip Carter	PerfA/SF - Star Trek
One Night Two Souls Went Walking	Ellen Cooney	LF/CW/Med/VisM
A Contest of Principles	Greg Cox	SF - Star Trek: The Original Series
The Book of Malachi (D - US)	T.C. Farren	SF/GenEng/H
Leopard's Rage	Christine Feehan	PNR - Leopard 13
Spectrum 27: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art	John Fleskes (Ed)	Art
Toy Soldiers: The Complete Series (Ke)	Devon C. Ford	SF/Dys - Toy Soldiers
The Neil Gaiman Reader: Selected Fiction	Neil Gaiman	SS
Hex Life: Wicked New Tales of Witchery (h2tp)	Christopher Golden (Ed) Rachel Autumn Deering (Ed)	F/DF/P/H - Anthology
Sudden Traveler: Stories (h2tp)	Sarah Hall	SS
A Longer Fall (h2tp)	Charlaine Harris	F/P - Gunnie Rose 2
Refraction	Christopher Hinz	SF/GenEng
XX (D)	Rian Hughes	SF/AC/SE/Typography
Reconstruction: Stories	Alaya Dawn Johnson	F/SS
Warrior of the Altaii	Robert Jordan	F
The Arrest	Jonathan Lethem	SF/AP/PA
The Men Who Take Eyes	Justin Little	AH/Dys
Sherlock Holmes and the Beast of the Stapletons	James Lovegrove	HistM/Occ/Sup
Kraft	Jonas Lüscher Tess Lewis (Tr)	LF/Satire/Dys
Factory Witches of Lowell	C. S. Malerich	HistF/DF
The Dark Library	Cyrille Martinez Joseph Patrick Stancil (Tr)	AB/MR/LF
Harmada	João Gilberto Noll Edgar Garbelotto (Tr)	LF/Psy/AB
Queen of the North	Anne O'Brien	Hist/HistR/CoA/AH
At the Lucky Hand: aka The Sixty-Nine Drawers	Goran Petrović Peter Agnone (Tr)	MR/LF
Bloodquest	Gordon Rennie	SF/AC - Warhammer 40,000
The Auctioneer (ri)	Joan Samson	H
The Chimera Code (D)	Wayne Santos	SF
Secret Santa	Andrew Shaffer	H/HU/SupTh
The Darkest King: William's Story	Gena Showalter	PNR - Lords of the Underworld 15
On the Beach (ri)	Nevil Shute	AH/Hist
Living Forever and Other Terrible Ideas	Emily C Skaftun	SF/HU/SS
The Troll Guide	Anders Skoglind	F/HU/FairyT/FolkT/LM
The Rush's Edge (D)	Ginger Smith	SF/SO
Familiar Spirit	Lisa Tuttle	H - Paperbacks from Hell
From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back	Various	MTI/SF/SO - Star Wars
From a Certain Point of View: Star Wars (h2tp)	Various	MTI/SF/SO - Star Wars
The Fires of Vengeance	Evan Winter	F - The Burning 2
The Green and the Gray (e)(ri)	Timothy Zahn	SF
Manta's Gift (e)(ri)	Timothy Zahn	SF

November 11, 2020

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Judge Dee and the Limits of the Law: A Tor.com Original (e)	Lavie Tidhar	DF

November 13, 2020

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
The Bite of the Jackal (Ke)	Paolo Di Orazio	H
Nucleation (D)	Kimberly Unger	SF/HSF/AC

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



AB - Absurdist
AC - Alien Contact
AH - Alternative History
AP - Apocalyptic
BHU - Black Humor
CF - Contemporary Fantasy
CM - Crime & Mystery
CoA - Coming of Age
Cr - Crime
CW - Contemporary Women
CyP - CyberPunk
DF - Dark Fantasy
Dys - Dystopian
F - Fantasy
FairyT - Fairy Tales
FL - Family Life
FolkT - Folk Tales
FR - Fantasy Romance
GenEng - Genetic Engineering
GH - Ghost(s)
GothicR - Gothic Romance
GW&CC - Global Warming and Climate Change
H - Horror
HC - History and Criticism
Hist - Historical
HistF - Historical Fantasy
HistM - Historical Mystery
HistR - Historical Romance
HistTh - Historical Thriller
HSF - Hard Science Fiction
HU - Humorous
LC - Literary Criticism
LF - Literary Fiction
LM - Legend and Mythology
M - Mystery
Med - Medical
MR - Magical Realism
MTI - Media Tie-In
MU - Mash-Up
NF - Near Future
Occ - Occult
P - Paranormal
PA - Post Apocalyptic
PCM - Paranormal Cozy Mystery
PF - Paranormal Fantasy
PNR - Paranormal Romance
Pol - Political
PolTh - Political Thriller
PopCul - Popular Culture
PP - Police Porcedural
Psy - Psychological
R - Romance
RF - Romantic Fantasy
ScF - Science Fantasy
SE - Space Exploration
SF - Science Fiction
SFR - Science Fiction Romance
SFTh - Science Fiction Thriller
SH - Superheroes
SO - Space Opera
SP - Steampunk
SpecFic - Speculative Fiction
SS - Short Stories
STR - Small Town and Rural
Sup - Supernatural
SupM - Supernatural Mystery
SupTh - Supernatural Thriller
Sus - Suspense
TechTh - Technological Thriller
Th - Thriller
TT - Time Travel
TTR - Time Travel Romance
UF - Urban Fantasy
VM - Visionary and Metaphysical
WS - Women Sleuths

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

Brenden Carlson  Night Call
The Walking Shadows 1
Dundum, November 10, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 336 pages

A rogue robot is terrorizing the dark underbelly of 1930s Manhattan. Can detective Elias Roche and his new Automatic partner track it down?

The year is 1933. Even in a world with free energy, robot labour, and megacorporations, nothing could stop the collapse of the American Dream. As the world-spanning Great Depression rages on, the remaining New York–based mafias clash with police for control of the broken city. Elias Roche, former police officer turned Mafia enforcer, works to maintain a tenuous peace between the two parties.

Accustomed to settling disputes with the business end of a gun, Roche must expand his repertoire after a violent murder is covered up by the FBI. With the Mafia insisting they’re innocent of the crime and the police powerless to help, Roche and his new Automatic partner, Allen, must root out those responsible before the situation sparks a war in the city streets.

Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Bookshop : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
Google Play : iBooks : Kobo

Essa HansenNophek Gloss
The Graven 1
Orbit, November 17, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 448 pages

"A sucker punch to the senses...a killer story with real heart and soul."-Alastair Reynolds

When a young man's planet is destroyed, he sets out on a single-minded quest for revenge across the galaxy in Nophek Gloss, the first book in this epic space opera trilogy debut -- perfect for fans of Revenger and Children of Time.

Caiden's planet is destroyed. His family gone. And, his only hope for survival is a crew of misfit aliens and a mysterious ship that seems to have a soul and a universe of its own. Together they will show him that the universe is much bigger, much more advanced, and much more mysterious than Caiden had ever imagined. But the universe hides dangers as well, and soon Caiden has his own plans.

He vows to do anything it takes to get revenge on the slavers who murdered his people and took away his home. To destroy their regime, he must infiltrate and dismantle them from the inside, or die trying.

Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Bookshop : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
Google Play : iBooks : Kobo

Rian HughesXX
The Overlook Press, November 10, 2020
Hardcover and eBook, 992 pages

The battle for your mind has already begun.

At Jodrell Band in England Observatory in England, a radio telescope has detected a mysterious signal of extraterrestrial origin—a message that may be the first communication from an interstellar civilization. Has humanity made first contact? Is the signal itself a form of alien life? Could it be a threat? If so, how will the people of Earth respond?

Jack Fenwick, artificial intelligence expert, believes that he and his associates at tech startup Intelligencia can interpret the message a find a way to step into the realm the signal encodes. What they find is a complex alien network beyond anything mankind has imagined.

Drawing on Dada, punk and the modernist movements of the twentieth century, XX is assembled from redacted NASA reports, artwork, magazine articles, secret transcripts and a novel within a novel. Deconstructing layout and language in order to explore how idea propagate, acclaimed designer and artist Rian Hughes's debut novel presents a compelling vision of humanity's unique place in the universe, and a realistic depiction of what might happen in the wake of the biggest scientific discovery in human history.

Propulsive and boldly designed, XX is a gripping, wildly imaginative, utterly original work.

Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Bookshop : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
Google Play : iBooks : Kobo

Toshikazu KawaguchiBefore the Coffee Gets Cold
Hanover Square Press, November 17, 2020
Hardcover and eBook, 272 pages

What would you change if you could travel back in time?

Down a small alleyway in the heart of Tokyo, there’s an underground café that’s been serving carefully brewed coffee for over a hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers its customers something else besides coffee—the chance to travel back in time.

The rules, however, are far from simple: you must sit in one particular seat, and you can’t venture outside the café, nor can you change the present. And, most important, you only have the time it takes to drink a hot cup of coffee—or risk getting stuck forever.

Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of traveling to another time: a heartbroken lover looking for closure, a nurse with a mysterious letter from her husband, a waitress hoping to say one last goodbye and a mother whose child she may never get the chance to know.

Heartwarming, wistful and delightfully quirky, Before the Coffee Gets Cold explores the intersecting lives of four women who come together in one extraordinary café, where the service may not be quick, but the opportunities are endless.

Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Bookshop : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
Google Play : iBooks : Kobo

Dolores Reyes
Julia Sanches (Translator) Eartheater
HarperVia, November 17, 2020
Hardcover and eBook, 224 pages

NAMED A "FALL 2020 MUST-READ" AND ONE OF THE "BEST BOOKS OF FALL 2020" BY TIME, VULTURE, THE BOSTON GLOBE, WIRED, COSMOPOLITAN AND MORE

Electrifying and provocative, visceral and profound, a powerful literary debut novel about a young woman whose compulsion to eat earth gives her visions of murdered and missing people—an imaginative synthesis of mystery and magical realism that explores the dark tragedies of ordinary lives.

Set in an unnamed slum in contemporary Argentina, Eartheater is the story of a young woman who finds herself drawn to eating the earth—a compulsion that gives her visions of broken and lost lives. With her first taste of dirt, she learns the horrifying truth of her mother’s death. Disturbed by what she witnesses, the woman keeps her visions to herself. But when Eartheater begins an unlikely relationship with a withdrawn police officer, word of her ability begins to spread, and soon desperate members of her community beg for her help, anxious to uncover the truth about their own loved ones.

Surreal and haunting, spare yet complex, Eartheater is a dark, emotionally resonant tale told from a feminist perspective that brilliantly explores the stories of those left behind—the women enduring the pain of uncertainty, whose lives have been shaped by violence and loss.

Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Bookshop : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
Google Play : iBooks : Kobo

Wayne SantosThe Chimera Code
Solaris, November 10, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 500 pages

Neuromancer for a non-binary age: an action-packed techno-thriller with a side of magical realism.

"Fun, fresh cyberpunk!" - Publisher's Weekly

Everything’s for hire – even magic.

If you need something done, they’re the best: a tough, resourceful mage, a lab-created genderless hacker and a cyborg with a big gun.

But when they’re hired by a virtual construct to destroy the other copies of himself, and the down payment is a new magical skill, Cloke knows this job is going to be a league harder than anything they’ve ever done. "A full-throttle, magical cyberpunk superhero thriller!" - Peter McLean

Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Bookshop : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
Google Play : iBooks : Kobo

Ginger SmithThe Rush's Edge
Angry Robot, November 10, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 328 pages

With the help of his commanding officer, a genetically engineered ex-soldier fights back against the government that created him and others like him to be expendable slaves…

Halvor Cullen, a genetically-engineered and technology implanted ex-soldier, doesn’t see himself as a hero. After getting out of the service, all he’s interested in is chasing the adrenaline rush his body was designed to crave. Hal knows he won’t live long anyway; vat soldiers like him are designed to die early or will be burnt out from relentlessly seeking the rush. His best friend and former CO, Tyce, is determined not to let that happen and distracts him by work salvaging crashed ships in the Edge.

Then Hal’s ship gets a new crewmember - a hacker-turned-tecker named Vivi. As they become friends, Hal wonders if he’s got a chance with a natural-born like her. Then on a job, the crew finds a sphere that downloads an alien presence into their ship…

Multiple clashes with the military force Hal and his crew to choose sides. The battle they fight will determine the fate of vats and natural-borns throughout the galaxy. Will they join the movement against the Coalition? What has invaded their ship’s computer? And can there be a real future for a vat with an expiration date?

File Under: Science Fiction [ Toy Soldier | On the Brink | Against the Odds | Stars are Crossed ]

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

Kimberly UngerNucleation
Tachyon Publications, November 13, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 288 pages

“Recommended for fans of Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon and Martha Wells’ Murderbot series.”
—Booklist

“A superb, smart debut!”
—Lissa Price, bestselling author of the Starters series

In this riveting debut science-fiction technothriller, a top-notch VR pilot encounters a disaster during the highest profile space-faring project of her career. Now she must unearth a critical truth: was her discovery due to a betrayal, a business rival, or a threat to humanity itself?

We are live, we are live, we are live. . .

Helen Vectorvich just botched first contact. And she did it in both virtual reality and outer space.

Only the most elite Far Reaches deep-space pilots get to run waldos: robots controlled from thousands of lightyears away via neural integration and quantum entanglement. Helen and her navigator were heading the construction of a wormhole gate that would connect Earth to the stars . . . until a routine system check turned deadly.

As nasty rumors swarm around her, and overeager junior pilots jockey to take her place, Helen makes a startling discovery: microscopic alien life is devouring their corporate equipment. Is the Scale just mindless, extra-terrestrial bacteria? Or is it working—and killing—with a purpose?

While Helen struggles to get back into the pilot’s chair, and to communicate with the Scale, someone—or something—is trying to sabotage the Far Reaches project once and for all. They’ll have to get through Helen first.

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