The Qwillery

Happy Monday and the 1st Monday in astronomical Spring! There are 3 debuts this week: The Unbroken (Magic of the Lost 1) by C.L. Clark; Dark Lullaby by Polly Ho-Yen; and The Lost Village by Camilla Sten.

From formerly featured DAC Authors: The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida by Clarissa Goenawan is out in Trade Paperback; Floodpath (Outlaw Road 2) by Emily B. Martin; Brightfall by Jamie Lee Moyer is out in Trade Paperback; Steal the Sky (The Scorched Continent 1) by Megan E. O'Keefe is out in Trade Paperback;
Requiem Moon (Scarlet Odyssey 2) by C.T. Rwizi; and
The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers.

 

 

 

Debut novels are highlighted in blue. Novels, etc. by formerly featured DAC Authors are highlighted in green. March 23, 2021

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Stand on Zanzibar (ri)	John Brunner	SF/HSF/GenEng
The Fall of Koli	M. R. Carey	SF/AP/PA/Dys/LF - Rampart Trilogy 3
The Unbroken (D)	C. L. Clark	F - Magic of the Lost 1
The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida (h2tp)	Clarissa Goenawan	Psy/MR
Dark Lullaby (D - Adult)	Polly Ho-Yen	SF/Th/Dys
The Other Emily	Dean Koontz	Sus/PsyTh/Th
Elsewhere (h2tp)	Dean Koontz	TechTh/SF
The Two-Faced Queen	Nick Martell	F - The Legacy of the Mercenary King 2
Floodpath	Emily B. Martin	F - Outlaw Road 2
Brightfall (h2tp)	Jaime Lee Moyer	FairyT/FolkT/LM/HistF
Steal the Sky (ri)	Megan E. O'Keefe	SF/SP/F - The Scorched Continent 1
Requiem Moon	C. T. Rwizi	F/CoA/FairyT/FolkT/LM - Scarlet Odyssey 2
The Ladies of the Secret Circus	Constance Sayers	HistF/CW/Occ/Sup/HistR
The Lost Village (D)	Camilla Sten Alexandra Fleming (Tr)	Sus/H
The Glass Magician (h2tp)	Caroline Stevermer	HistF/RF
Your Turn to Suffer	Tim Waggoner	H - Fiction Without Frontiers

March 24, 2021

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Masquerade Season: A Tor.com Original (e)	'Pemi Aguda	F

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.

It is yet again Monday.

There is one debut this week:

The Vanished Queen by Lisbeth Campbell.




From formerly featured DAC Authors:

The Spin Trilogy: Creation Machine, Iron Gods, Stone Clock by Andrew Bannister (eBook Bundle);

The Titan’s Forest Trilogy: Crossroads of Canopy, Echoes of Understorey, Tides of the Titans by Thoraiya Dyer (eBook Bundle);

Noumenon Ultra (Noumenon 3) by Marina J. Lostetter;

and

A Witch in Time by Constance Sayers is out in Trade Paperback.

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

August 18, 2020

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
The Spin Trilogy: Creation Machine, Iron Gods, Stone Clock (e)	Andrew Bannister	SF/SO - Spin Trilogy
The Vanished Queen (D)	Lisbeth Campbell	EF
The Titan’s Forest Trilogy: Crossroads of Canopy, Echoes of Understorey, Tides of the Titans (e)	Thoraiya Dyer	EF - Titan's Forest
The Water Lily Warriors: A Novel of Senior Survival	D.A. Francis	Dys
The Quanderhorn Xperimentations (h2tp)	Rob Grant Andrew Marshall	FS/HU/Satire
Scions of the Emperor: An Anthology	David Guymer David Annandale Guy Haley Ian St. Martin Gav Thorpe Darius Hinks James Swallow Chris Wraight	SF/SO - The Horus Heresy: Primarchs Anthology
Avenging Son	Guy Haley	SF - Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of Fire 1
The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs (h2tp)	Katherine Howe	Occ/Sup/CW
New Spring (ri)	Robert Jordan	EF - Wheel of Time 15
Unwitting Street: Stories	Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky	SS/LF/Politcal
A Single Light (h2tp)	Tosca Lee	Sus - Line Between 2
The Haunted (ri)	Bentley Little	H/Sus/FL
Noumenon Ultra	Marina J. Lostetter	SF/SO - Noumenon 3
Electric Breakfast	Paul Meloy	H/F - Collection
Blood World	Chris Mooney	TechTh/SF/HSF/Dys
How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It	K. J. Parker	EF/HU
The Hex Is In: The Fast Life and Fantastic Times of Harry the Book	Mike Resnick	UF - Collection
Kal Jerico: Sinner's Bounty	Josh Reynolds	SF/AP/PA - Necromunda
The Foe of Barnabas Collins	Marylin Ross	Occ/Gothic - Dark Shadows the Complete Paperback Library Reprint Book 9
The Phantom and Barnabas Collins	Marylin Ross	Occ/Gothic - Dark Shadows the Complete Paperback Library Reprint Book 10
The Organs of Sense (h2tp)	Adam Ehrlich Sachs	LF/Hist
A Witch in Time (h2tp)	Constance Sayers	Occ/Sup/HistF/CW
Corpselight	Angela Slatter	UF/P/Cr - Verity Fassbinder 2
The Buried Dagger	James Swallow	SF/SO - Horus Heresy 54
The Doors of Eden (e)	Adrian Tchaikovsky	SF/GenEng
Drowned Country	Emily Tesh	Gaslamp/RF/Gay - The Greenhollow Duology 2
The First Wall	Gav Thorpe	SF/SO - The Horus Heresy: Siege of Terra 3
Final Fantasy I * II * III: Memory of Heroes	Takashi Umemura	SF
The Jackal	J.R. Ward	PNR - Black Dagger Brotherhood: Prison Camp 1
Bloodlines	Chris Wraight	Cr - Warhammer 40,000

August 19, 2020

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Flight: A Tor.com Original (e)	Claire Wrenwood	F/DF

August 20, 2020

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
World Engines: Creator (e)	Stephen Baxter	SF/HSF
The House of Styx (e)	Derek Künsken	SF - Venus Ascendant 1

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
CF - Contemporary Fantasy
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)
H - Horror
HC - History and Criticism
Hist - Historical
HistF - Historical Fantasy
HistTh - Historical Thriller
HSF - Hard Science Fiction
HU - Humorous
LC - Literary Criticism
LF - Literary Fiction
LM - Legend and Mythology
LMF - Legends, Myths, Fables
M - Mystery
MR - Magical Realism
MTI - Media Tie-In
Occ - Occult
P - Paranormal
PA - Post Apocalyptic
PCM - Paranormal Cozy Mystery
PNR - Paranormal Romance
PolTh - Political Thriller
PopCul - Popular Culture
Psy - Psychological
RF - Romantic Fantasy
ScF - Science Fantasy
SE - Space Exploration
SF - Science Fiction
SFR - Science Fiction Romance
SH - Superheroes
SO - Space Opera
SP - Steampunk
SpecFic - Speculative Fiction
STR - Small Town and Rural
Sup - Supernatural
SupM - Supernatural Mystery
SupTh - Supernatural Thriller
Sus - Suspense
TechTh - Technological Thriller
Th - Thriller
UF - Urban Fantasy
VM - Visionary and Metaphysical

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

Each month you will be able to vote for your favorite cover from that month's debut novels. At the end of the year the 12 monthly winners will be pitted against each other to choose the 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. 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 February 29, 2020, unless the vote is extended. If the vote is extended the ending date will be updated.

Vote for your favorite February 2020 Debut Cover!

The Baudelaire Fractal

Black Leviathan

The Goblets Immortal

The Golden Key

Gravity's Heir

The Last Day

The Last Smile in Sunder City

The Light Years

Master of Sorrows

Mazes of Power

Oona Out of Order

The Regrets

The Town

The Unspoken Name

The Unwilling

A Witch in Time

Witness X

The Wolf of Oren-Yaro

 

pollcode.com free polls

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

Constance:  This is embarrassing, but I wrote a soap opera treatment when I was twelve. (In my defense, it was the height of the General Hospital craze.) My sister gave me her old baby-blue Smith Corona typewriter and I sat for hours in my dad’s study and typing this story. I worked on it for years and in the end I think it was nearly two-hundred pages which is quite a lot of commitment at that age! Obviously, I really wanted to be a screenwriter at one point in my life. In undergrad, I took at least three semesters of screenwriting and playwriting.



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

Constance:  I’m a true hybrid. Being a full pantser hasn’t worked out for me very well because I tend to wander. Having to turn in fully-baked plots to the publisher has helped me make sure that I know where I’m going with the narrative. Often, I can see holes appearing right away in a 3-page synopsis and I know those are things I’m going to have to work out to find solutions for (plot holes, inconsistencies). I also get feedback from my editor on the outline where she can see any major structural problems and things I should steer clear of or places where I could get tripped up. I also try to put in some atmosphere in my synopsis, kind of like a movie treatment. I’ll often go back and consult them to see what type of mood or voice I was trying to create and if I pulled it off. Once I start to actually write, however, I allow the manuscript to surprise me. I will make drastic changes (adding characters, shifting the ending) if it feels right as I’m writing or revising on the fly so my detailed plot description never feels restricting.



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

Constance:  The first draft. It’s an ugly time for me when there is nothing yet on the page. When I’m in first draft mode, I write a thousand words a day, faithfully. Some days it’s excruciating and other days I’ll write five-thousand words…but I always make myself come back and do another thousand the next day. I don’t worry if the words are good, I never even look at them, I just keep going. This process is not unlike getting up at 5 am to work out (which I also do). In the moment, you hate it…you’ll try to talk yourself out of it, but after you’ve put in the time, you feel at peace. I adore the second and third drafts, so I’m just slogging through the first (very rough) draft.



TQ:  What has influenced / influences your writing?

Constance:  My father always wanted to be a professional musician, so growing up, our house was always filled with music. There was no choice in the matter that I would study piano and voice with an eye toward a career in an opera somewhere. I love music, but there is a math to it that didn’t come naturally to me. I’m a terrible piano player. That said, music is the single biggest influence in my writing. My characters are always musicians or frustrated musicians. I find musical instruments haunting and mysterious things. Often, I provide a soundtrack for the book. For nearly four years, I was an overnight DJ for a commercial radio station in rural Pennsylvania and the love of music and the search for new music is something that always present in me. I write with the Apple Music Chill station and for A Witch in Time, I was very influenced by music—particularly Eric Satie for Juliet and the Laurel Canyon sound for Sandra.



TQ:  Describe A Witch in Time using only 5 words.

Constance:  Curse Gone Wrong Through Time



TQ:  Tell us something about A Witch in Time that is not found in the book description.

Constance:  There is actually some family history in the book. There is a scene for Juliet that is something that came from my own grandmother’s history. In 1918, my grandmother was a young girl and was attacked by three men while walking home. In the 1980s, my father learned about this incident quite by accident and attempted to find out more details. I recall no one in the family wanting to discuss it, so we were forced to go to the city archives to find her police case files. Those files were tough for him to read. It’s a rather tragic story in that as a result of the attack, my grandmother had a child out of wedlock. It was 1918, so as you can imagine, she had very limited options, but she took her infant daughter and went to work as a housekeeper for an older widower. That widower would eventually become my grandfather Despite a rather large difference in their ages, they were married on Valentine’s Day and had three children of their own before she died at the age of 27. I like to think—hope—that she eventually found some happiness in her life. So much of her story was lost to history and memory, but the character of Juliet is definitely inspired by her. It’s a crazy story, but shows you that real life is sometimes much stranger than fiction.



TQ:  What inspired you to write A Witch in Time?

Constance:  My sister brought home a print of a well-known painting and she thought the subject looked exactly like me. I’ll admit, the likeness was pretty unsettling. This painting hung on her wall for years and I recall thinking: What if there was a story where a character discovered she was the person in the painting from another time? I love “what if” types of narratives. The book just came to shape rather quickly after that.



TQ:  Why do you think we are continually fascinated by witches?

Constance:  For years I wrote rural noir short stories and novels—those realist kind of close-up, gritty stories. I don’t think my writing really popped until I started looking at the fantastical. Witches are limitless creatures in a way…they can transcend the mundane and at least for me, I love the power and possibility of that.



TQ:  What sort of research did you do for A Witch in Time?

Constance:  I started with books, both non-fiction and fiction or films of the time. I have bookshelves filled with biographies of painters and Hollywood stars of the 1930s. One time period is difficult enough, but I was juggling three, so I just dove in, getting a sense of each time. With the exception of Challans, France, I also visited every location and worked with local historians who would take me to places representative of the time. I recall admiring David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas so much for his immersive time periods. I tried very hard to make the language of each section really feel like the time. I studied a lot of interviews and films from the 1930s to try and get Nora right. I also think those feel different than the groovy tone of Sandra in the 1970s or the more formal language of Juliet in Belle Epoque Paris.



TQ:  Please tell us about the cover for A Witch in Time.

Constance:  Lisa Pompilio of Orbit Books created the cover. I love how mysterious it is and how shadowy the woman on the cover is. I’m assuming she’s Juliet, but then Juliet is all of them so I love the choice Lisa made to shadow her face. I’d also never talked to the folks at Redhook/Orbit about my love (borderline obsession) of all things Rococo so to my amazement, Lisa included this Rococo flourishes on the cover that I adore. I’m also a sucker for typography, so I love a good serif font.



TQ:  In A Witch in Time who was the easiest character to write and why? The hardest and why?

Constance:  Sandra is hands-down my favorite character, yet she is no one else’s favorite. (In fact, she’s usually people’s least favorite). Without giving anything away, you don’t get to the ending without Sandra. She is the keystone and asks the difficult questions and matches Luke for the first time in the book, much to his surprise. I loved, loved writing for her and I think it shows. Also, I grew up in the 1970s, so for me it was the romanticized time of childhood. While my favorite, Sandra was the hardest to write. I ended up writing that section twice. By that I mean, I largely scrapped the first take on her and started over and rewrote the entire thing. Juliet was the easiest. Her story just came to me. I didn’t know if I could write a period section like that (I’d never done it before), so it was fun to see that it worked.



TQ:  Does A Witch in Time touch on any social issues?

Constance:  I really tried to illustrate how difficult it was to be a woman. I think it is still hard to be a woman, but certainly in 1895, Juliet is a teenager who is seduced by a much older man. She finds herself in a terrible situation that requires otherworldly intervention to get her out of. I wanted her time period and the choices available to her to feel as restrictive as a corset. Nora’s situation is a bit better, but not much. I wanted to focus on Hollywood at the very moment the idea of the ideal “woman” was created on screen. To me that was “the” moment in Hollywood and quite a moment in the public’s formation of an “ideal.” Norma is literally erased and re-created as a sex-symbol Nora, but it’s all an illusion. Next comes Sandra. The seventies were about choices, but still I think they weren’t always free.



TQ:  Which question about A Witch in Time do you wish someone would ask? Ask it and answer it!

Constance:  Who would you cast as Luke and Helen! It’s my favorite question. I was a big Battlestar Galactica fan and actor Callum Keith Rennie (Leoben) was always who I had in my mind when writing for Luke. For Helen, I always thought Genevieve Angelson from Good Girls Revolt was a great Helen. In my mind, the same actress would have to play all of the parts and I think she’d morph from Juliet to Helen well.



TQ:  Give us one or two of your favorite non-spoilery quotes from A Witch in Time.

Constance:

“People were meant to live in their small pockets of time with events proceeding in digestible intervals. To see so many lifetimes of progress unfurled before us is far too jarring and almost incomprehensible. It makes us doubt our significance in the world. And a feeling of significance is so important to our survival.”



TQ:  What's next?

Constance:  I’m working on a book about a circus with dark origins.



TQ:  Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery.

Constance:  You’re welcome!

A Witch in Time
Redhook, February 11, 2020
Hardcover and eBook, 448 pages

A young witch is cursed to relive a doomed love affair through many lifetimes, as both troubled muse and frustrated artist, in this haunting debut novel.

In 1895, sixteen-year-old Juliet LaCompte has a passionate, doomed romance with the married Parisian painter Auguste Marchant. When her mother — a witch — attempts to cast a curse on Marchant, she unwittingly summons a demon, binding her daughter to both Auguste and this supernatural being for all time.

Born and re-born, Juliet is fated to live her affair and die tragically young across continents and lifetimes.

But finally, in present-day Washington D.C., something shifts. In this life, Juliet starts to remember her tragic past. And this time, she begins to develop powers of her own that might finally break the spell…

A Witch in Time is perfect for fans of A Secret History of Witches, Outlander, and The Time Traveler’s Wife.

About Constance

Photo by Julie Ann Pixler

Constance Sayers received her MA in English from George Mason University and her BA in writing from the University of Pittsburgh. She is a media executive at Atlantic Media. She has been twice named to Folio’s list of “Top 100 Media People in America” and was included in their list of “Top Women in Media.” She is the co-founder of the Thoughtful Dog literary magazine and lives in Kensington, Maryland.

Website
Twitter @constancesayers
Facebook

Happy Monday!

There are 4 debuts this week!

The Unwilling by Kelly Braffet (Fantasy Debut);

The Light Years by R.W.W. Greene;

The Unspoken Name (The Serpent Gates 1) by A. K. Larkwood;

and

A Witch in Time by Constance Sayers.




From formerly featured DAC Authors:

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders is out in Trade Paperback;

Book of the Just (The Bohemian Trilogy 3) by Dana Chamblee Carpenter is out in Trade Paperback;

The Boatman's Daughter by Andy Davidson;

Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones by Micah Dean Hicks is out in Trade Paperback;

Blood Tally (Valkyrie Collections 2) by Brian McClellan;

and

Stormsong (The Kingston Cycle 2) by C. L. Polk.

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

February 11, 2020

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
The City in the Middle of the Night (h2tp)	Charlie Jane Anders	SF/AC
The Unwilling (D - Fantasy)	Kelly Braffet	F
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - The Martian Menace	Eric Brown	HistM - Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 30
Book of the Just (h2tp)	Dana Chamblee Carpenter	Fiction - The Bohemian Trilogy 3
The Chill	Scott Carson	SupTh
Wisteria Cottage	Robert M Coates	H/PsyTh - Valancourt 20th Century Classics
The Boatman's Daughter	Andy Davidson	Gothic
Daughter from the Dark	Sergey and Marina Dyachenko	DF
The Pandora Room (h2tp)	Christopher Golden	SupTh
The Light Years (D)	R.W.W. Greene	SF/SO
The Mercies	Kiran Millwood Hargrave	Hist
Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones (h2tp)	Micah Dean Hicks	CF
Tyll	Daniel Kehlmann Ross Benjamin (Tr)	LF
The Bear	Andrew Krivak	CoA/Dys
The Unspoken Name (D)	A. K. Larkwood	F - The Serpent Gates 1
In Accelerated Silence: Poems	Brooke Matson	Poetry - Jake Adam York Prize
Blood Tally (e)	Brian McClellan	UF - Valkyrie Collections 2
Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope	Una McCormack	SF - Star Trek: Picard
Stormsong	C. L. Polk	F/Gaslamp - The Kingston Cycle 2
A Dangerous Collaboration	Deanna Raybourn	HistM - Veronica Speedwell Series 4
A Witch in Time (D)	Constance Sayers	Occ/Sup
And I Do Not Forgive You: Stories and Other Revenges	Amber Sparks	SS
Age of Death	Michael J. Sullivan	F - Legends of the First Empire 5
The Siren Depths (ri)	Martha Wells	F - Books of the Raksura 3

February 12, 2020

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
The Snow Collectors	Tina May Hall	HistM/Gothic

February 14, 2020

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
The Loneliest Band in France: A Novella	Dylan Fisher	LF

February 15, 2020

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Neon Leviathan	T R Napper	SF/HSF - Collection

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



AC - Alien Contact
AP - Apocalyptic
CF - Contemporary Fantasy
CoA - Coming of Age
CW - Contemporary Women
CyP - Cyperpunk
DF - Dark Fantasy
Dys - Dystopian
F - Fantasy
FR- Fantasy Romance
GothicM - Gothic Mystery
H - Horror
Hist - Historical
HistF - Historical Fantasy
HistM - Historical Mystery
HSF - Hard Science Fiction
LC - Literary Criticism
LF - Literary Fiction
MTI - Media Tie-In
Occ - Occult
PA - Post Apocalyptic
PerfArts - Performing Arts
PM - Paranormal Mystery
PNR - Paranormal Romance
PsyTh - Psychological Thriller
SE - Space Exploration
SF - Science Fiction
SO - Space Opera
SP - Steampunk
SS - Short Stories
Sup - Supernatural
SupTh - Supernatural Thriller
TechTh - Technological Thriller
Th - Thriller
UF - Urban Fantasy
W - Western
WW - Weird Western

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

Luke Arnold

The Last Smile in Sunder City
The Fetch Phillips Archives 1
Orbit, February 25, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 368 pages

A former soldier turned PI tries to help the fantasy creatures whose lives he ruined in a world that’s lost its magic in a compelling debut fantasy by Black Sails actor Luke Arnold.

Welcome to Sunder City. The magic is gone but the monsters remain.

I’m Fetch Phillips, just like it says on the window. There are a few things you should know before you hire me:

1. Sobriety costs extra.
2. My services are confidential.
3. I don’t work for humans.

It’s nothing personal–I’m human myself. But after what happened, to the magic, it’s not the humans who need my help.

Walk the streets of Sunder City and meet Fetch, his magical clients, and a darkly imagined world perfect for readers of Ben Aaronovitch and Jim Butcher.

Sarah Bond

Gravity's Heir
Black Rose Writing, February 6, 2020
Trade Paperback, 320 pages

"Legacy is nothing but history, if it doesn't have a future.”

When her father threw her out, sacrificing his only living daughter for the good of his shipping conglomerate, Lena Lomasky swore she could make it on her own. But now she’s broke and desperate, and pride won’t fuel her spaceship. Her latest job is simple: carry a datastick of state secrets home to her father. The same man who cut her off without a cent. Whatever. She can do this. Pass the whiskey.

An ill-timed royal assassination ignites a war and Lena’s crew is blamed. When she thinks to use her cache of state secrets to save them, Lena discovers she’s actually smuggling the only known plans for her father’s invention: a gravity bomb that can vaporize entire cities.

Lena must decide: continue on and hope her father can design a defense to save millions of lives, or leverage the plans to save the only people who really matter.

Amy Bonnaffons

The Regrets
Little, Brown and Company, February 4, 2020
Hardcover and eBook, 304 pages

Reality and dream collide in Amy Bonnaffons’s dazzling, darkly playful debut novel about a love affair between the living and the dead.

For weeks, Rachel has been noticing the same golden-haired young man sitting at her Brooklyn bus stop, staring off with a melancholy air. When, one day, she finally musters the courage to introduce herself, the chemistry between them is undeniable: Thomas is wise, witty, handsome, mysterious, clearly a kindred spirit. There’s just one tiny problem: He’s dead.

Stuck in a surreal limbo governed by bureaucracy, Thomas is unable to “cross over” to the afterlife until he completes a 90-day stint on earth, during which time he is forbidden to get involved with a member of the living — lest he incur “regrets.” When Thomas and Rachel break this rule, they unleash a cascade of bizarre, troubling consequences.

Set in the hallucinatory borderland between life and death, The Regrets is a gloriously strange and breathtakingly sexy exploration of love, the cataclysmic power of fantasies, and the painful, exhilarating work of waking up to reality, told with uncommon grace and humor by a visionary artist at the height of her imaginative power.

Kelly Braffet

The Unwilling
MIRA, February 11, 2020
Hardcover and eBook, 576 pages
(Fantasy Debut)

A penetrating tale of magic, faith and pride…The Unwilling is the story of Judah, a foundling born with a special gift and raised inside Highfall castle along with Gavin, the son and heir to Lord Elban’s vast empire. Judah and Gavin share an unnatural bond that is both the key to Judah’s survival—and possibly her undoing.

As Gavin is groomed for his future role, Judah comes to realize that she has no real position within the kingdom and, in fact, no hope at all of ever traveling beyond its castle walls. Elban—a lord as mighty as he is cruel—has his own plans for her, and for all of them. She is a mere pawn to him, and he will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

But outside the walls, in the starving, desperate city, a magus, a healer with his own secret power unlike anything Highfall has seen in years, is newly arrived from the provinces. He, too, has plans for the empire, and at the heart of those plans lies Judah. The girl who started life with no name and no history will soon uncover more to her story than she ever imagined.

An epic tale of greed and ambition, cruelty and love, this deeply immersive novel is about bowing to traditions and burning them down.

Justin T. Call

Master of Sorrows
Silent Gods 1
Blackstone Publishing, February 25, 2020
Hardcover and eBook, 577 pages

You've heard the story before: an orphaned boy, raised by a wise old man, comes to a fuller knowledge of his magic and uses it to fight the great evil threatening his world.

But what if that hero were destined to become the new dark lord?

The Academy of Chaenbalu has stood against magic for centuries. Hidden from the world, acting from the shadows, it trains its students to detect and retrieve magic artifacts, which it jealously guards from the misuse of others. Because magic is dangerous: something that heals can also harm, and a power that aids one person may destroy another.

Of the academy's many students, only the most skilled can become Avatars -- warrior thieves, capable of infiltrating the most heavily guarded vaults -- and only the most determined can be trusted to resist the lure of magic. More than anything, Annev de Breth wants to become one of them.

But Annev carries a secret. Unlike his classmates who were stolen as infants from the capital city, Annev was born in the village of Chaenbalu, was believed to be executed, and then unknowingly raised by his parents killers. Seventeen years later, he struggles with the burdens of a forbidden magic, a forgotten heritage, and a secret deformity. When Annev is subsequently caught between the warring ideologies of his priestly mentor and the Academy's masters, he must finally decide whether to accept the truth of who he really is ... or embrace the darker truth of what he may one day become.

R.W.W. Greene

The Light Years
Angry Robot Books, February 11, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 400 pages

The captain of a family-owned starship arranges a marriage for her son in hopes of achieving faster-than-light travel and maybe, just maybe, marital bliss.

Before Hisako Saski is even born, her parents make a deal on her behalf. In exchange for a first-class education and a boost out of poverty, Hisako will marry Adem Sadiq, a maintenance engineer and self-styled musician who works the trade lanes aboard his family’s sub-light starship, the Hajj.

Hisako is not happy when she finds out about the plan. She has little interest in the broken branch of physics the deal requires her to study, and is not keen on the idea of giving up her home and everything she knows to marry a stranger.

Sparks fly when Adem and Hisako meet, but their personal issues are overshadowed by the discovery of long-held secrets and a chance at faster-than-light travel.

File Under: Science Fiction[ E=mc² | Happy wife, Happy life | Marital Bliss | Light Years Away ]

A. K. Larkwood

The Unspoken Name
The Serpent Gates 1
Tor Books, February 11, 2020
Hardcover and eBook, 464 pages

A. K. Larkwood's The Unspoken Name is a stunning debut fantasy about an orc priestess turned wizard's assassin.

What if you knew how and when you will die?

Csorwe does—she will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice.

But on the day of her foretold death, a powerful mage offers her a new fate. Leave with him, and live. Turn away from her destiny and her god to become a thief, a spy, an assassin—the wizard's loyal sword. Topple an empire, and help him reclaim his seat of power.

But Csorwe will soon learn—gods remember, and if you live long enough, all debts come due.

“In the vein of Le Guin's magnificent Tombs of Atuan—if Arha the Eaten One got to grow up to be a swordswoman mercenary in thrall to her dubious wizard mentor. I love this book so much."—Arkady Martine, author of A Memory Called Empire

“Hooked me in from the first page and never let go. Fabulous, in every meaning of the word."—Jenn Lyons, author of Ruin of Kings

Margarita Montimore

Oona Out of Order
Flatiron Books, February 25, 2020
Hardover and eBook, 352 pages

Oona Out of Order is a remarkably inventive novel that explores what it means to live a life fully in the moment, even if those moments are out of sequence.

Just because life may be out of order, doesn’t mean it’s broken.

It’s New Year’s Eve 1982, and Oona Lockhart has her whole life before her. At the stroke of midnight she will turn nineteen, and the year ahead promises to be one of consequence. Should she go to London to study economics, or remain at home in Brooklyn to pursue her passion for music and be with her boyfriend? As the countdown to the New Year begins, Oona faints and awakens thirty-two years in the future in her fifty-one-year-old body. Greeted by a friendly stranger in a beautiful house she’s told is her own, Oona learns that with each passing year she will leap to another age at random. And so begins Oona Out of Order...

Hopping through decades, pop culture fads, and much-needed stock tips, Oona is still a young woman on the inside but ever changing on the outside. Who will she be next year? Philanthropist? Club Kid? World traveler? Wife to a man she’s never met?

Surprising, magical, and heart-wrenching, Margarita Montimore has crafted an unforgettable story about the burdens of time, the endurance of love, and the power of family.

"Reminiscent of Liane Moriarty’s What Alice Forgot and Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, Oona Out of Order is a delightfully freewheeling romp.” —Booklist (starred review)

S E Moorhead

Witness X
Trapeze, February 6, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 304 pages

Andrew Hunter Murray

The Last Day
Dutton, February 4, 2020
Hardcover and eBook, 384 pages

A visionary and powerful debut thriller set in a terrifyingly plausible dystopian near-future—with clear parallels to today’s headlines—in which the future of humanity lies in the hands of one woman, a scientist who has stumbled upon a secret that the government will go to any lengths to keep hidden.

A world half in darkness. A secret she must bring to light.

It is 2059, and the world has crashed. Forty years ago, a solar catastrophe began to slow the planet’s rotation to a stop. Now, one half of the globe is permanently sunlit, the other half trapped in an endless night. The United States has colonized the southern half of Great Britain—lucky enough to find itself in the narrow habitable region left between frozen darkness and scorching sunlight—where both nations have managed to survive the ensuing chaos by isolating themselves from the rest of the world.

Ellen Hopper is a scientist living on a frostbitten rig in the cold Atlantic. She wants nothing more to do with her country after its slide into casual violence and brutal authoritarianism. Yet when two government officials arrive, demanding she return to London to see her dying college mentor, she accepts—and begins to unravel a secret that threatens not only the nation’s fragile balance, but the future of the whole human race.

Beth Overmyer

The Goblets Immortal
Flame Tree Press, February 20, 2020
Hardcover, Trade Paperback and eBook, 288 pages
(Fantasy Debut)

In a land where magic’s feared, a rare magical kind exists: the Blest, products of the Goblets Immortal. Aidan’s a Blest on the run, forced to return home. He made his family vanish decades ago, but believes there’s a way to bring them back.

Whispers of a new fear take shape in Meraude, a mage who hates all magic-kind. When she appears in Aidan’s dreams offering a bargain for the return of his family, Aidan’s desires battle with his self-preservation.

Is it wise for Aidan to seek the Goblets Immortal for Meraude’s unknown purposes? Friend and foe blur the magical lines, and Aidan must discern who will shake his hand or slit his throat.

FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launched in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.

Bernd Perplies

Black Leviathan
Tor Books, February 25, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 336 pages
(English Debut)

Melville’s Moby Dick unfolds in a world of dragon hunters in Black Leviathan, an epic revenge fantasy from German award-winning author Bernd Perplies.

Beware! A shadow will cover you, larger than that cast by any other dragon of this world. Black as the lightless chasm from whence it was born at the beginning of time.

In the coastal city Skargakar, residents make a living from hunting dragons and use them for everything from clothing to food, while airborne ships hunt them in the white expanse of a cloud sea, the Cloudmere.

Lian does his part carving the kyrillian crystals that power the ships through the Cloudmere, but when he makes an enemy of a dangerous man, Lian ships out on the next vessel available as a drachenjager, or dragon hunter.

He chooses the wrong ship. A fanatic captain, hunts more than just any dragon. His goal is the Firstborn Gargantuan—and Adaron is prepared to sacrifice everything for revenge.

Shaun Prescott

The Town
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, February 4,  2020
Hardcover and eBook, 256 pages
(US Debut)

"A powerfully doomy debut" (The Guardian), Shaun Prescott’s The Town is a novel of a rural Australian community besieged by modern day anxieties and threatened by a supernatural force seeking to consume the dying town.

This is Australia, an unnamed, dead-end town in the heart of the outback—a desolate place of gas stations, fast-food franchises, and labyrinthine streets: flat and nearly abandoned. When a young writer arrives to research just such depressing middles-of-nowhere as they are choked into oblivion, he finds something more sinister than economic depression: the ghost towns of Australia appear to be literally disappearing. An epidemic of mysterious holes is threatening his new home’s very existence, and this discovery plunges the researcher into an abyss of weirdness from which he may never escape.

Dark, slippery and unsettling, Shaun Prescott’s debut resurrects the existential novel for the age of sprawl and blight, excavates a nation’s buried history of colonial genocide, and tells a love story that asks if outsiders can ever truly belong anywhere. The result is a disquieting classic that vibrates with an occult power.

Lisa Robertson

The Baudelaire Fractal
Coach House Books, February 4, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 160 pages

A debut novel by acclaimed poet Lisa Robertson, in which a poet realizes she has written the works of Baudelaire. One morning, the poet Hazel Brown wakes up in a strange hotel room to find that she's written the complete works of Charles Baudelaire. Surprising as this may be, it's no more surprising to Brown than the impossible journey she's taken to become the writer that she is. Animated by the spirit of the poète maudit, she shuttles between London, Vancouver, Paris, and the French countryside, moving fluidly between the early 1980s and the present, from rented room to rented room, all the while considering such Baudelairian obsessions as modernity, poverty, and the perfect jacket. .. Part memoir, part magical realism, part hilarious trash-talking take on contemporary art and the poet's life, The Baudelaire Fractal is the long-awaited debut novel by the inimitable Lisa Robertson.

Constance Sayers

A Witch in Time
Redhook, February 11, 2020
Hardcover and eBook, 448 pages

A young witch is cursed to relive a doomed love affair through many lifetimes, as both troubled muse and frustrated artist, in this haunting debut novel.

In 1895, sixteen-year-old Juliet LaCompte has a passionate, doomed romance with the married Parisian painter Auguste Marchant. When her mother — a witch — attempts to cast a curse on Marchant, she unwittingly summons a demon, binding her daughter to both Auguste and this supernatural being for all time.

Born and re-born, Juliet is fated to live her affair and die tragically young across continents and lifetimes.

But finally, in present-day Washington D.C., something shifts. In this life, Juliet starts to remember her tragic past. And this time, she begins to develop powers of her own that might finally break the spell…

A Witch in Time is perfect for fans of A Secret History of Witches, Outlander, and The Time Traveler’s Wife.

K. S. Villoso

The Wolf of Oren-Yaro
Chronicles of the Bitch Queen 1
Orbit, February 18, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 496 pages

A queen of a divided land must unite her people, even if they hate her, even if it means stopping a ruin that she helped create. A debut epic fantasy from an exciting new voice.

“They called me the Bitch Queen, the she-wolf, because I murdered a man and exiled my king the night before they crowned me.”

Born under the crumbling towers of Oren-yaro, Queen Talyien was the shining jewel and legacy of the bloody War of the Wolves, which nearly tore her nation apart. But her arranged marriage with the son of a rival clan should herald peaceful days to come.

However, her husband’s sudden departure before their reign begins puts a quick end to those dreams, and the kingdom is fractured beyond repair.

Years later, Talyien receives a message, one that will send her across the sea. What’s meant to be an effort at reconciling the past becomes an assassination attempt. Stranded in a land she doesn’t know, with no idea whom she can trust, Talyien will have to embrace her namesake.

A wolf of Oren-yaro is not tamed.

Juliette Wade

Mazes of Power
The Broken Trust 1
DAW, February 4, 2020
Hardcover and eBook, 416 pages

This debut work of sociological science fiction follows a deadly battle for succession, where brother is pitted against brother in a singular chance to win power and influence for their family.

The cavern city of Pelismara has stood for a thousand years. The Great Families of the nobility cling to the myths of their golden age while the city’s technology wanes.

When a fever strikes, and the Eminence dies, seventeen-year-old Tagaret is pushed to represent his Family in the competition for Heir to the Throne. To win would give him the power to rescue his mother from his abusive father, and marry the girl he loves.

But the struggle for power distorts everything in this highly stratified society, and the fever is still loose among the inbred, susceptible nobles. Tagaret’s sociopathic younger brother, Nekantor, is obsessed with their family’s success. Nekantor is willing to exploit Tagaret, his mother, and her new servant Aloran to defeat their opponents.

Can he be stopped? Should he be stopped? And will they recognize themselves after the struggle has changed them?

Marian Womack

The Golden Key
Titan Books, February 18, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 336 pages

“A fantastic new talent” HELEN MARSHALL

An extraordinary, page-turning Gothic mystery set in the wilds of the Norfolk Fens from the BSFA-shortlisted author.

London, 1901. After the death of Queen Victoria the city heaves with the uncanny and the eerie. Séances are held and the dead are called upon from darker realms.

Samuel Moncrieff, recovering from a recent tragedy of his own, meets Helena Walton-Cisneros, one of London’s most reputed mediums. But Helena is not what she seems and she’s enlisted by the elusive Lady Matthews to solve a twenty-year-old mystery: the disappearance of her three stepdaughters who vanished without a trace on the Norfolk Fens.

But the Fens are a liminal land, where folk tales and dark magic still linger. With locals that speak of devilmen and catatonic children found on the Broads, Helena finds the answer to the mystery leads back to where it started: Samuel Moncrieff.