After yesterday's post about the titles that fascinated us. Here's part deux and similar to yesterday, the titles within this post have caught our eye due to their blurbs, their covers, as well as potential subject matter. A few we have read, reviewed and hence are on this list.
We would like to state that this list is in no way an indicator of our choices going forward in the contest. But simply details titles that we WOULD like to read.
So onwards to part II of the noteworthy titles (in random order):
Never Die by Rob J. Hayes
Official Blurb: Ein is on a mission from God. A God of Death.
Time is up for the Emperor of Ten Kings and it falls to a murdered eight year old boy to render the judgement of a God. Ein knows he can't do it alone, but the empire is rife with heroes. The only problem; in order to serve, they must first die.
Ein has four legendary heroes in mind, names from story books read to him by his father. Now he must find them and kill them, so he can bring them back to fight the Reaper's war.
Sweetblade by Carol Park
Official Blurb: Every decision she had thought was right had led her astray..
Perhaps it was time to make the wrong decision..
LIVES ARE SHAPED BY DECISIONS, and Ivana's decisions have destroyed her life..
She finds herself on the streets of Carradon, broken, destitute, and utterly alone. But perhaps not entirely without hope. A man named Elidor comes to her rescue and welcomes her into his home. But Elidor holds secrets of his own..
Lives may turn upon a single moment, and Ivana's decision to accept the hospitality of this stranger will transform her in ways she never imagined...or feared..
The Fox And The Hunter by Linn Tesli
Official Blurb: Fate does not wait for you to be ready...
Elva lives a peaceful life with her tribe, practicing to one day become the noaidi—the shaman. Her peace is shattered when two viking earls arrive in the camp. Her grandmother, the current noaidi, is accused of witchcraft, and is taken away to stand trial before the tyrant king Olav. The punishment is death.
Elva is not ready to become the leader of her tribe, nor is she ready to let go of her grandmother. She is nowhere near strong enough to fight the vikings in Nidaros, but she has to try. She's an outcast in her own land, on a journey that will challenge her convictions, her faith and even her heart. Can Elva overcome the powerful enemy and rescue her grandmother?
Or will she add her name to the fallen?
From the Shadows of the Owl Queen's Court (Yarnsworld #4) by Benedict Patrick
Official Blurb: If you value your life, stay out of the forest.
As a captive of the Owl Queen’s Court, Nascha’s life has always been one knife’s edge away from disaster. But when she is threatened for nothing more than the colour of her hair, Nascha attempts the unthinkable: escape through the dreaded Magpie King’s forest. Hunted by sharp toothed and sharper witted foxfolk, and hated by all for being a witch, Nascha fears herself doomed until she joins forces with a mysterious young man. With him she finds a glimmer of hope, even as her own unpredictable powers flicker into existence.
But hope is fleeting.
The forces arrayed against her are insurmountable, and Nascha soon comes to realise that pursuit of her own freedom will come at a greater cost to the forest. As the darkness closes in around them, Nascha is forced to ask:
At what price is she willing to purchase her life?
How dearly is she willing to sell it?
Quill by AC Cobble
Official Blurb: The fate of empire is to crumble from within.
A heinous murder in a small village reveals a terrible truth. Sorcery, once thought dead in Enhover, is not. Evidence of an occult ritual and human sacrifice proves that dark power has been called upon again. Twisting threads of clues lead across the known world to the end of a vast empire, and then, the trail returns home.
Duke Oliver Wellesley, son of the king, cartographer, and adventurer, has better things to do than investigate a murder in a sleepy fishing hamlet. For Crown and Company, though, he goes where he’s told. As the investigation leads to deeper and darker places, he’ll be forced to confront the horrific spectres rising from the shadows of his past. When faced with the truth, will he sacrifice what is necessary to survive?
Samantha serves a Church that claims to no longer need her skills. She’s apprenticed to a priest-assassin that no one knows. Driven by a mad prophecy, her mentor has prepared her for a battle with ultimate darkness, except, sorcery is dead. When all is at stake, can she call upon an arcane craft the rest of the world has forgotten?
In Quill: The Cartographer Book 1, a pair of unlikely investigators walk a deadly path into the past, uncovering secrets best left alone.
The fate of empire is to crumble from within. Do not ask when, ask who.
Devil’s Cape by Rob Rogers
Official Blurb: Devil's Cape, Louisiana. Founded by pirates. Ruled by villains. Desperate for heroes.
In 1727, the masked pirate St. Diable created the city of Devil's Cape as a haven for his men and a place to begin his empire. Pirates gave way to outlaws, who gave way to gangsters, who gave way to gangs and organized crime. But the city has never escaped from its shroud of violence and corruption.
And now a stunning, murderous act has made Devil's Cape more dangerous than ever. Someone needs to protect the city.
Three people are willing to try. Jason Kale, part of a criminal family, who hides the abilities of Greek heroes. Cain Ducett, a psychiatrist and former gang member, who finds that he is turning into a monster. Kate Brauer, genius engineer, daughter of a slain superhero, who has lost more than most to the city and its criminals. But they're outnumbered and overpowered. Can they possibly make a difference?
Magpie's Song (The IronHeart Chronicles #1) by Allison Pang
Official Blurb: In the slums of BrightStone, Moon Children are worth less than the scrap they must collect to survive. It doesn’t matter that these abandoned half-breeds are part-Meridian with their ancestors hailing from the technologically advanced city that floats above the once-thriving, now plague-ridden BrightStone. Instead they are rejected by both their ancestral societies and forced to live on the outskirts of civilization, joining clans simply to stay alive. Not to mention their role as Tithe, leading the city’s infected citizens deep into the Pits where their disease can be controlled.
Nineteen-year-old Raggy Maggy is no different, despite the mysterious heart-shaped panel that covers her chest. Or at least she wasn’t… Not until her chance discovery of a Meridian-built clockwork dragon—and its murdered owner. When the Inquestors policing the city find Maggy at the scene of the crime, she quickly turns into their prime suspect. Now she’s all anyone can talk about. Even her clan leader turns his back on her, leading her to rely on an exiled doctor and a clanless Moon Child named Ghost to keep her hidden. In return, all she has to do is help them find a cure for the plague they believe was not exactly accidental. Yet doing so might mean risking more than just her life. It also might be the only key to uncovering the truth about the parents—and the past—she knows nothing about.
River of thieves by Clayton Snyder
Official Blurb: Cursed thief Cord relies on his partner, Nenn, to recover his body, stash the money, and convince the authorities that there are no leads left to follow. They spend their days hitting low-tier lenders and banks, but after a botched robbery, Cord begins to think they need something bigger, something that will set them up for life.
When that thing happens to be a heist no one else in the kingdom has the stones to pull off, he gathers a group of rogues with a particular set of talents—Nenn, handy with a knife and a cool head; Rek, cat-fancier and strongman; and Lux, undead wizard.
Together, they converge on the city of Midian to steal the heart of a saint and punish a tyrant. What comes out of the carnage is so much more—a conflict between gods that could decide the fate of every thief in the worlds.
Beggar’s rebellion by Levi Jacobs
Official Blurb: The Councilate controls everything except the truth. I have nothing save my discovery—but with this shall I destroy an empire.
Tai Kulga lost the rebellion and his best friend on the same day, stripping him of everything even as a strange power flooded his bones. When the friend returns as a spirit guide, it feels like a second chance—but his friend is not who he was, and the Councilate is not done oppressing his people. Trouble with lawkeepers lands Tai’s surviving friends in a prison camp, and he goes underground seeking the last of the rebels, to convince them to break his friends free.
Along the way he meets Ellumia Aygla, runaway Councilate daughter posing as an accountant to escape her family and the avarice of the capital. Curious about the link between spirit guides and magic, her insights earn her a place among the rebels, and along with Tai’s new power help turn the tide against the colonialists.
But as the rebels begin to repeat the Councilate’s mistakes, Tai and Ellumia must confront their own pasts and prejudices, before the brewing war turns them into the monsters they fight.
Chasing Graves by Ben Galley
Official Blurb: He's a master locksmith, a selfish bastard, and as of his first night in Araxes, stone cold dead.
They call it the City of Countless Souls, the colossal jewel of the Arctian Empire, and all it takes to be its ruler is to own more ghosts than any other. For in Araxes, the dead do not rest in peace in the afterlife, but live on as slaves for the rich.
While Caltro struggles to survive, those around him strive for the emperor's throne in Araxes' cutthroat game of power. The dead gods whisper from corpses, a soulstealer seeks to make a name for himself with the help of an ancient cult, a princess plots to purge the emperor from his armoured Sanctuary, and a murderer drags a body across the desert, intent on reaching Araxes no matter the cost.
Only one thing is certain in Araxes: death is just the beginning.
Seraphina’s Lament by Sarah Chorn
Official Blurb: The world is dying.
The Sunset Lands are broken, torn apart by a war of ideology paid for with the lives of the peasants. Drought holds the east as famine ravages the farmlands. In the west, borders slam shut in the face of waves of refugees, dooming all of those trying to flee to slow starvation, or a future in forced labor camps. There is no salvation.
In the city of Lord’s Reach, Seraphina, a slave with unique talents, sets in motion a series of events that will change everything. In a fight for the soul of the nation, everyone is a player. But something ominous is calling people to Lord’s Reach and the very nature of magic itself is changing. Paths will converge, the battle for the Sunset Lands has shifted, and now humanity itself is at stake.
First, you must break before you can become.
Blood Of Heirs by Alicia Wanstall-Burke
Official Blurb: Lidan Tolak is the fiercest of her father’s daughters; more than capable of one day leading her clan. But caught between her warring parents, Lidan’s world begins to unravel when another of her father’s wives falls pregnant. Before she has time to consider the threat of a brother, a bloody swathe is cut through the heart of the clan and Lidan must fight, not only to prove her worth, but simply to survive.
Ranoth Olseta wants nothing more than to be a worthy successor to his father’s throne. When his home is threatened by the aggressive Woaden Empire, Ran becomes his city’s saviour, but powers within him are revealed by the enemy and he is condemned to death. Confused and betrayed, Ran is forced to flee his homeland, vowing to reclaim what he has lost, even if it kills him.
Facing an unknown future, and battling forces both familiar and foreign, can Lidan and Ran overcome the odds threatening to drag them into inescapable darkness?
The Blackbird and the Ghost (The Boiling Seas, #1) by Hûw Steer
Official Blurb: The Boiling Seas are the mariner’s bane – and the adventurer’s delight. The waters may be hot enough to warp wood and boil a hapless swimmer, but their scalding expanse is full of wonders. Strange islands lurk in the steamy mists, and stranger ruins hold ancient secrets, remnants of forgotten empires waiting for the bold… or lying in wait for the unwary.
On the Corpus Isles, gateway to the Boiling Seas, Tal Wenlock, the Blackbird, seeks a fortune of his own. The treasure he pursues could change the world – but he just wants to change a single life, and it’s not his own. To reach it, he’ll descend into the bowels of the earth and take ship on burning waters, brave dark streets and steal forbidden knowledge. He’ll lie, cheat, steal and fight – but he won’t get far alone. The ghosts of Tal’s past dog his every step – and one in particular keeps his knives sharp.
The Blackbird will need help to reach his goal… and he’ll need all his luck to get back home alive.
The Prince Of Cats by D. E. Olesen
Official Blurb: To stay alive, Jawad must succeed where all others have failed: he must catch the Prince of Cats. More legend than man, the Prince is draped in rumors. He can steal the silver teeth from your mouth in the blink of a smile. He is a ghost to walls and vaults, he laughs at locks, and Jawad must capture him before powerful people lose their patience and send the young rogue to the scaffold.
Ever the opportunist, Jawad begins his hunt while carrying out his own schemes. He pits the factions of the city against each other, lining his own pockets in the process and using the Prince as a scapegoat. This is made easy as nobody knows when or where the Prince will strike, or even why.
If suddenly collide, Jawad finds himself pressured from all sides. Aristocrats, cutthroats, and the Prince himself are breathing down his neck. Unless Jawad wants a knife in his back or an appointment with the executioner, he must answer three questions: Who is the Prince of Cats, what is his true purpose, and how can he be stopped?
Up To The Throne by Toby Frost
Official Blurb: Revenge is never simple...
Giulia Degarno returns to the city-state of Pagalia with one intention: to kill the man who scarred her and left her for dead. But Publius Severra is no longer a mere criminal, and has risen to become a powerful politician - and perhaps the only man who can save Pagalia from anarchy. Now, as Severra stands poised to seize the throne. Giulia must choose between taking her revenge, and saving her home.
Up To The Throne is a dark fantasy novel set in a magically-enhanced Renaissance: a dangerous world of assassins, alchemists and flying machines. It is a world where artists and scholars cross paths with feuding nobles and clockwork monsters - and death is never far away.
The City Screams by Phil Williams
Official Blurb: Tova's getting her hearing back.
She's going to wish she wasn't.
Alone in Tokyo for experimental ear surgery, Tova Nokes is finally shaking up her life. But when she starts to hear things she shouldn't, all she wants is to make it home alive.
There's a voice saying it's where she comes from that makes her special. If she can only survive violent stalkers, and the terrible screams, she might figure out why...
Experience the world through the eyes of a unique hero in this standalone fantasy thriller from the Ordshaw universe.
The Queen’s Executioner by Christopher Mitchell
Official Blurb: Would you kill for your sister?
High Mage Shella has a choice to make. When her sister decides she wants to be Queen at any cost, should she help her?
Or stop her?
Feeling restless in the claustrophobic and over-crowded metropolis of her birth, Shella is drawn to the power of her sister’s voice as she assembles thousands of their people, calling upon them to gather their possessions and follow her in a Great Migration. Her sister plans to lead them over the border into the Rahain Republic, whose unconquered army has just returned from victorious campaigns abroad. There, she intends to settle and crown herself Queen.
Shella’s mage powers have only ever been used for the good of her homeland. Now, in the service of her sister, is she prepared to use their darker side?
For Shella knows that if she cannot control her powers…
…they will consume all that she loves.
The Sword of Kaigen: A Theonite War Story by M. L. Wang
Official Blurb: On a mountainside at the edge of the Kaigenese Empire live the most powerful warriors in the world, superhumans capable of raising the sea and wielding blades of ice. For hundreds of years, the fighters of the Kusanagi Peninsula have held the Empire's enemies at bay, earning their frozen spit of land the name 'The Sword of Kaigen.'
Born into Kusanagi's legendary Matsuda family, fourteen-year-old Mamoru has always known his purpose: to master his family's fighting techniques and defend his homeland. But when an outsider arrives and pulls back the curtain on Kaigen's alleged age of peace, Mamoru realizes that he might not have much time to become the fighter he was bred to be. Worse, the empire he was bred to defend may stand on a foundation of lies.
Misaki told herself that she left the passions of her youth behind when she married into the Matsuda house. Determined to be a good housewife and mother, she hid away her sword, along with everything from her days as a fighter in a faraway country. But with her growing son asking questions about the outside world, the threat of an impending invasion looming across the sea, and her frigid husband grating on her nerves, Misaki finds the fighter in her clawing its way back to the surface.
When the winds of war reach their peninsula, will the Matsuda family have the strength to defend their empire? Or will they tear each other apart before the true enemies even reach their shores?
The Lore of Prometheus by Graham Austin-King
Official Blurb: John Carver has three rules: Don't drink in the daytime, don't gamble when the luck has gone, and don't talk to the dead people who come to visit.
It has been almost five years since the incident in Kabul. Since the magic stirred within him and the stories began. Fleeing the army, running from the whispers, the guilt, and the fear he was losing his mind, Carver fell into addiction, dragging himself through life one day at a time.
Desperation has pulled him back to Afghanistan, back to the heat, the dust, and the truth he worked so hard to avoid. But there are others, obsessed with power and forbidden magics, who will stop at nothing to learn the truth of his gifts. Abducted and chained, Carver must break more than his own rules if he is to harness this power and survive.
The Steel Discord by Ryan Howse
Official Blurb: Zarachius Skie is presumed dead.
His mentor, the Arcanist Mordekai Gethsemane, had been arrested for conspiracy to commit regicide. Zarachius knew it was false. He did what had to, and snuck onto a military train to break Mordekai out.
But now, the Ancien Legion, vengeful anarchists, and Mordekai's old co-conspirators are doing whatever it takes to bring Zarachius out of hiding. They need to know what he knows.
They need to know the secret he uncovered on that train.
Blade’s Edge by Virginia McClain
Official Blurb:The Kisōshi, elite warriors with elemental powers, have served as the rulers and protectors of the people of Gensokai for more than a thousand years. Though it is believed throughout Gensokai that there is no such thing as a female Kisōshi, the Rōjū ruling council goes to great lengths to ensure that no one dares ask why.
Even as young girls, Mishi and Taka know that they risk severe punishment - or worse - if anyone were to discover their powers. This shared secret forms a deep bond between them until, taken from their orphanage home and separated, the two girls must learn to survive in a world where their very existence is a crime. Yet when the girls learn the dark secret of the Rōjū council, they discover that much more than their own survival is at stake.
From Legend by Ian Lewis
Official Blurb: Sober, serious, and driven, Logan Hale is the highest peace officer in Beldenridge, and he knows his city better than anyone: the labyrinthine streets, the vaulted architecture, and all the dark corners where tales of mutations and a vicious enemy still linger like hushed secrets. Logan is quick to dismiss these accounts as part of a storied past with which he’d rather not contend, but when a suicide investigation leads him to believe there’s something more sinister at hand, he questions whether that near-forgotten lore isn’t the stuff of legend after all.
In Numina by Assaph Mehr
Official Blurb: A rich landlord finds tenants are abandoning his apartment buildings, spouting tales of horrific events and whispering that the old gods - the numina - came alive and cursed the buildings.
Enter Felix, a professional fox. Dressed in a toga and armed with a dagger, Felix is neither a traditional detective nor a traditional magician - but something in between. Whenever there is a foul business of bad magic, Felix is hired to sniff out the truth. Now he must separate fact from superstition - a hard task in a world where the old gods still roam the earth.
In Numina is set in a fantasy world. The city of Egretia borrows elements from a thousand years of ancient Roman culture, from the founding of Rome to the late empire, mixed with a judicious amount of magic. This is a story of a cynical, hardboiled detective dealing with anything from daily life to the old forces roaming the world.
The 19th Bladesman by SJ Hartland
Official Blurb: His duty is to die young, but fate has something far more lethal in mind.
If Kaell breaks, the kingdom breaks with him. And prophecy says the 19th Bladesman will break...
The Bonded Warrior...
Kill. Die young. That's what a swordsman bonded to the ancient gods does. Without expecting praise from the man who trained him to survive this centuries-old, malignant war against the inhuman followers of an invincible lord. But Kaell wants more. More of Val Arques' attention, his approval. Just more.
The fire dancer...
Ice lord, spy, Heath never loses a fire dance. Yet he longs to know that thrill of danger down his spine as he kills for his god, to fight a warrior who might, just might be better than him.
The broken...
Val Arques is a bladesman of formidable power entrusted not only with Kaell's life but with the truth that will destroy him. Banished to a grim outpost of this doomed kingdom of sorcery, poetry, and treachery, he cannot afford to care about the young warrior. For love means loss. And Val Arques has a shameful secret...
A kingdom on the edge of chaos...
As a vengeful god escapes his ancient prison and Kaell is drawn into his web of deception, even Val Arques can't protect him from the dark prophecy awaiting him. Because you can't flee fate unless you're willing to do the unthinkable.
Fortune’s Fool by Angela Boord
Official Blurb: A secret affair. A disfiguring punishment. A burning need for revenge.
Kyrra d’Aliente has a bad reputation and an arm made of metal. Cast out of the safe and luxurious world of silk to which she was born, played as a pawn in a game of feuding Houses, Kyrra navigates a dangerous world of mercenaries, spies, and smugglers while disguising herself as a man.
War destroyed her family and the man she loved.
Vengeance is within her grasp.
But is she willing to pay its price?
Cry Havoc by Mike Morris
Official Blurb: When the demons come, you either fight or you die.
The Black Dogs know this all too well. For seven hundred years, the warrior priests have sacrificed their lives to keep the island nation of Abios safe from the flesh-eating Nostros, while the rest of the world fell under the demons’ savagery. However, an armada now stands poised to invade mankind’s last bastion.
Child thief Jack Frey is saved from the gallows and joins the mysterious order. Trained with the bullet and the blade, Jack finds himself on the front-line of a centuries-old war. Across the Angel Sea, Lin is fighting for her life. As a slave of the Nostros, she knows death can strike at any time, either at the hands of her masters or her fellow humans.
Little do they know mankind's fate lies in both their hands.
Blood and Shadow (The Mage's Gift #1) by Robin Lythgoe
Official Blurb: A vengeful mage. A powerful gift. A naive youth. .
Sherakai dan Tameko never wanted to become a warrior like his well-known father and brothers. Satisfied with being fourth in line to inherit title and responsibility, he wants only to be Master of the Horse. But a shocking event turns young Sherakai's life upside-down and propels him on a course that changes his life forever..
When he discovers his magic is the key to a powerful secret, Sherakai must risk more than he thought possible and become greater than anyone dreamed if he is to escape the web woven around him. .
Lykaia (Sophia Katsaros #1) by Sharon VanOrman
Official Blurb: "We are the terrors that hunt the night.And we have never been human"
In Greek mythology there’s a story of King Lykaonas of Arcadia and his fifty sons who were cursed by the father of the gods, Zeus, to become wolves. The very first Lycanthropes. Forensic pathologist, Sophia Katsaros, receives a cryptic phone call from Greece telling her that her brothers are missing and leaves to search for them. With the help of Illyanna, her brother’s girlfriend, Sophia examines the evidence but cannot accept a bizarre possibility: Has one or both of her brothers been transformed during the Lykaia, the ceremony where Man is said to become Wolf?
Who is Marcus, a dark stranger that both repels and excites her? And what is the real story behind the 5000 year old curse of King Lykaonas?
The Lord of Stariel (Stariel #1) by A.J. Lancaster
Official Blurb:The Lord of Stariel is dead. Long live the Lord of Stariel. Whoever that is.
Everyone knows who the magical estate will choose for its next ruler. Or do they?
Will it be the lord’s eldest son, who he despised? His favourite nephew, with the strongest magical land-sense? His scandalous daughter, who ran away from home years ago to study illusion?
Hetta knows it won’t be her, and she’s glad of it. Returning home for her father’s funeral, all Hetta has to do is survive the family drama and avoid entanglements with irritatingly attractive local men until the Choosing. Then she can leave.
But whoever Stariel chooses will have bigger problems than eccentric relatives to deal with.
Winged, beautifully deadly problems.
For the first time in centuries, the fae are returning to the Mortal Realm, and only the Lord of Stariel can keep the estate safe.
In theory.
Child of the Flames (The Seven Signs Book 1) by D.W. Hawkins
Official Blurb: In fire, some things are destroyed. Others are forged.
The men of the Galanian Empire came with the dawn, bringing swords and hunger. Seeking an ancient relic, they slaughtered Shawna Llewan’s family. They burned her life to the ground.
But blades are born of fire and tempered by its embrace.
Shawna Llewan is such a blade. Carrying her mother’s heirloom—the very relic for which her family was killed—she sets out on a quest, driving to the heart of a conspiracy that could plunge the entire world into darkness.
She is wrath. She is a blade pointed at the throats of her enemies. She is the child of the flames.
The Narrows By Travis Riddle
Official Blurb: "I can show you how to enter the Narrows to find what you seek."
Oliver and his friends have returned to their hometown of Shumard, Texas for the funeral of their close friend Noah. They each grapple with the loss in their own ways, trying to understand the strange circumstances of their friend's unexpected death.
While visiting the site where the body was found, Oliver stumbles across a chilling discovery that he knows must be related to what happened to Noah. Wanting to protect his friends from these newfound horrors, Oliver takes it upon himself to venture into the grotesque otherworld known as the Narrows to learn what happened to his friend and find a way to bring him back.
Entering the Narrows is one thing, but will whatever he finds there allow him to leave?
We would like to state that this list is in no way an indicator of our choices going forward in the contest. But simply details titles that we WOULD like to read.
So onwards to part II of the noteworthy titles (in random order):
Never Die by Rob J. Hayes
Official Blurb: Ein is on a mission from God. A God of Death.
Time is up for the Emperor of Ten Kings and it falls to a murdered eight year old boy to render the judgement of a God. Ein knows he can't do it alone, but the empire is rife with heroes. The only problem; in order to serve, they must first die.
Ein has four legendary heroes in mind, names from story books read to him by his father. Now he must find them and kill them, so he can bring them back to fight the Reaper's war.
Sweetblade by Carol Park
Official Blurb: Every decision she had thought was right had led her astray..
Perhaps it was time to make the wrong decision..
LIVES ARE SHAPED BY DECISIONS, and Ivana's decisions have destroyed her life..
She finds herself on the streets of Carradon, broken, destitute, and utterly alone. But perhaps not entirely without hope. A man named Elidor comes to her rescue and welcomes her into his home. But Elidor holds secrets of his own..
Lives may turn upon a single moment, and Ivana's decision to accept the hospitality of this stranger will transform her in ways she never imagined...or feared..
The Fox And The Hunter by Linn Tesli
Official Blurb: Fate does not wait for you to be ready...
Elva lives a peaceful life with her tribe, practicing to one day become the noaidi—the shaman. Her peace is shattered when two viking earls arrive in the camp. Her grandmother, the current noaidi, is accused of witchcraft, and is taken away to stand trial before the tyrant king Olav. The punishment is death.
Elva is not ready to become the leader of her tribe, nor is she ready to let go of her grandmother. She is nowhere near strong enough to fight the vikings in Nidaros, but she has to try. She's an outcast in her own land, on a journey that will challenge her convictions, her faith and even her heart. Can Elva overcome the powerful enemy and rescue her grandmother?
Or will she add her name to the fallen?
From the Shadows of the Owl Queen's Court (Yarnsworld #4) by Benedict Patrick
Official Blurb: If you value your life, stay out of the forest.
As a captive of the Owl Queen’s Court, Nascha’s life has always been one knife’s edge away from disaster. But when she is threatened for nothing more than the colour of her hair, Nascha attempts the unthinkable: escape through the dreaded Magpie King’s forest. Hunted by sharp toothed and sharper witted foxfolk, and hated by all for being a witch, Nascha fears herself doomed until she joins forces with a mysterious young man. With him she finds a glimmer of hope, even as her own unpredictable powers flicker into existence.
But hope is fleeting.
The forces arrayed against her are insurmountable, and Nascha soon comes to realise that pursuit of her own freedom will come at a greater cost to the forest. As the darkness closes in around them, Nascha is forced to ask:
At what price is she willing to purchase her life?
How dearly is she willing to sell it?
Quill by AC Cobble
Official Blurb: The fate of empire is to crumble from within.
A heinous murder in a small village reveals a terrible truth. Sorcery, once thought dead in Enhover, is not. Evidence of an occult ritual and human sacrifice proves that dark power has been called upon again. Twisting threads of clues lead across the known world to the end of a vast empire, and then, the trail returns home.
Duke Oliver Wellesley, son of the king, cartographer, and adventurer, has better things to do than investigate a murder in a sleepy fishing hamlet. For Crown and Company, though, he goes where he’s told. As the investigation leads to deeper and darker places, he’ll be forced to confront the horrific spectres rising from the shadows of his past. When faced with the truth, will he sacrifice what is necessary to survive?
Samantha serves a Church that claims to no longer need her skills. She’s apprenticed to a priest-assassin that no one knows. Driven by a mad prophecy, her mentor has prepared her for a battle with ultimate darkness, except, sorcery is dead. When all is at stake, can she call upon an arcane craft the rest of the world has forgotten?
In Quill: The Cartographer Book 1, a pair of unlikely investigators walk a deadly path into the past, uncovering secrets best left alone.
The fate of empire is to crumble from within. Do not ask when, ask who.
Devil’s Cape by Rob Rogers
Official Blurb: Devil's Cape, Louisiana. Founded by pirates. Ruled by villains. Desperate for heroes.
In 1727, the masked pirate St. Diable created the city of Devil's Cape as a haven for his men and a place to begin his empire. Pirates gave way to outlaws, who gave way to gangsters, who gave way to gangs and organized crime. But the city has never escaped from its shroud of violence and corruption.
And now a stunning, murderous act has made Devil's Cape more dangerous than ever. Someone needs to protect the city.
Three people are willing to try. Jason Kale, part of a criminal family, who hides the abilities of Greek heroes. Cain Ducett, a psychiatrist and former gang member, who finds that he is turning into a monster. Kate Brauer, genius engineer, daughter of a slain superhero, who has lost more than most to the city and its criminals. But they're outnumbered and overpowered. Can they possibly make a difference?
Magpie's Song (The IronHeart Chronicles #1) by Allison Pang
Official Blurb: In the slums of BrightStone, Moon Children are worth less than the scrap they must collect to survive. It doesn’t matter that these abandoned half-breeds are part-Meridian with their ancestors hailing from the technologically advanced city that floats above the once-thriving, now plague-ridden BrightStone. Instead they are rejected by both their ancestral societies and forced to live on the outskirts of civilization, joining clans simply to stay alive. Not to mention their role as Tithe, leading the city’s infected citizens deep into the Pits where their disease can be controlled.
Nineteen-year-old Raggy Maggy is no different, despite the mysterious heart-shaped panel that covers her chest. Or at least she wasn’t… Not until her chance discovery of a Meridian-built clockwork dragon—and its murdered owner. When the Inquestors policing the city find Maggy at the scene of the crime, she quickly turns into their prime suspect. Now she’s all anyone can talk about. Even her clan leader turns his back on her, leading her to rely on an exiled doctor and a clanless Moon Child named Ghost to keep her hidden. In return, all she has to do is help them find a cure for the plague they believe was not exactly accidental. Yet doing so might mean risking more than just her life. It also might be the only key to uncovering the truth about the parents—and the past—she knows nothing about.
River of thieves by Clayton Snyder
Official Blurb: Cursed thief Cord relies on his partner, Nenn, to recover his body, stash the money, and convince the authorities that there are no leads left to follow. They spend their days hitting low-tier lenders and banks, but after a botched robbery, Cord begins to think they need something bigger, something that will set them up for life.
When that thing happens to be a heist no one else in the kingdom has the stones to pull off, he gathers a group of rogues with a particular set of talents—Nenn, handy with a knife and a cool head; Rek, cat-fancier and strongman; and Lux, undead wizard.
Together, they converge on the city of Midian to steal the heart of a saint and punish a tyrant. What comes out of the carnage is so much more—a conflict between gods that could decide the fate of every thief in the worlds.
Beggar’s rebellion by Levi Jacobs
Official Blurb: The Councilate controls everything except the truth. I have nothing save my discovery—but with this shall I destroy an empire.
Tai Kulga lost the rebellion and his best friend on the same day, stripping him of everything even as a strange power flooded his bones. When the friend returns as a spirit guide, it feels like a second chance—but his friend is not who he was, and the Councilate is not done oppressing his people. Trouble with lawkeepers lands Tai’s surviving friends in a prison camp, and he goes underground seeking the last of the rebels, to convince them to break his friends free.
Along the way he meets Ellumia Aygla, runaway Councilate daughter posing as an accountant to escape her family and the avarice of the capital. Curious about the link between spirit guides and magic, her insights earn her a place among the rebels, and along with Tai’s new power help turn the tide against the colonialists.
But as the rebels begin to repeat the Councilate’s mistakes, Tai and Ellumia must confront their own pasts and prejudices, before the brewing war turns them into the monsters they fight.
Chasing Graves by Ben Galley
Official Blurb: He's a master locksmith, a selfish bastard, and as of his first night in Araxes, stone cold dead.
They call it the City of Countless Souls, the colossal jewel of the Arctian Empire, and all it takes to be its ruler is to own more ghosts than any other. For in Araxes, the dead do not rest in peace in the afterlife, but live on as slaves for the rich.
While Caltro struggles to survive, those around him strive for the emperor's throne in Araxes' cutthroat game of power. The dead gods whisper from corpses, a soulstealer seeks to make a name for himself with the help of an ancient cult, a princess plots to purge the emperor from his armoured Sanctuary, and a murderer drags a body across the desert, intent on reaching Araxes no matter the cost.
Only one thing is certain in Araxes: death is just the beginning.
Seraphina’s Lament by Sarah Chorn
Official Blurb: The world is dying.
The Sunset Lands are broken, torn apart by a war of ideology paid for with the lives of the peasants. Drought holds the east as famine ravages the farmlands. In the west, borders slam shut in the face of waves of refugees, dooming all of those trying to flee to slow starvation, or a future in forced labor camps. There is no salvation.
In the city of Lord’s Reach, Seraphina, a slave with unique talents, sets in motion a series of events that will change everything. In a fight for the soul of the nation, everyone is a player. But something ominous is calling people to Lord’s Reach and the very nature of magic itself is changing. Paths will converge, the battle for the Sunset Lands has shifted, and now humanity itself is at stake.
First, you must break before you can become.
Blood Of Heirs by Alicia Wanstall-Burke
Official Blurb: Lidan Tolak is the fiercest of her father’s daughters; more than capable of one day leading her clan. But caught between her warring parents, Lidan’s world begins to unravel when another of her father’s wives falls pregnant. Before she has time to consider the threat of a brother, a bloody swathe is cut through the heart of the clan and Lidan must fight, not only to prove her worth, but simply to survive.
Ranoth Olseta wants nothing more than to be a worthy successor to his father’s throne. When his home is threatened by the aggressive Woaden Empire, Ran becomes his city’s saviour, but powers within him are revealed by the enemy and he is condemned to death. Confused and betrayed, Ran is forced to flee his homeland, vowing to reclaim what he has lost, even if it kills him.
Facing an unknown future, and battling forces both familiar and foreign, can Lidan and Ran overcome the odds threatening to drag them into inescapable darkness?
The Blackbird and the Ghost (The Boiling Seas, #1) by Hûw Steer
Official Blurb: The Boiling Seas are the mariner’s bane – and the adventurer’s delight. The waters may be hot enough to warp wood and boil a hapless swimmer, but their scalding expanse is full of wonders. Strange islands lurk in the steamy mists, and stranger ruins hold ancient secrets, remnants of forgotten empires waiting for the bold… or lying in wait for the unwary.
On the Corpus Isles, gateway to the Boiling Seas, Tal Wenlock, the Blackbird, seeks a fortune of his own. The treasure he pursues could change the world – but he just wants to change a single life, and it’s not his own. To reach it, he’ll descend into the bowels of the earth and take ship on burning waters, brave dark streets and steal forbidden knowledge. He’ll lie, cheat, steal and fight – but he won’t get far alone. The ghosts of Tal’s past dog his every step – and one in particular keeps his knives sharp.
The Blackbird will need help to reach his goal… and he’ll need all his luck to get back home alive.
The Prince Of Cats by D. E. Olesen
Official Blurb: To stay alive, Jawad must succeed where all others have failed: he must catch the Prince of Cats. More legend than man, the Prince is draped in rumors. He can steal the silver teeth from your mouth in the blink of a smile. He is a ghost to walls and vaults, he laughs at locks, and Jawad must capture him before powerful people lose their patience and send the young rogue to the scaffold.
Ever the opportunist, Jawad begins his hunt while carrying out his own schemes. He pits the factions of the city against each other, lining his own pockets in the process and using the Prince as a scapegoat. This is made easy as nobody knows when or where the Prince will strike, or even why.
If suddenly collide, Jawad finds himself pressured from all sides. Aristocrats, cutthroats, and the Prince himself are breathing down his neck. Unless Jawad wants a knife in his back or an appointment with the executioner, he must answer three questions: Who is the Prince of Cats, what is his true purpose, and how can he be stopped?
Up To The Throne by Toby Frost
Official Blurb: Revenge is never simple...
Giulia Degarno returns to the city-state of Pagalia with one intention: to kill the man who scarred her and left her for dead. But Publius Severra is no longer a mere criminal, and has risen to become a powerful politician - and perhaps the only man who can save Pagalia from anarchy. Now, as Severra stands poised to seize the throne. Giulia must choose between taking her revenge, and saving her home.
Up To The Throne is a dark fantasy novel set in a magically-enhanced Renaissance: a dangerous world of assassins, alchemists and flying machines. It is a world where artists and scholars cross paths with feuding nobles and clockwork monsters - and death is never far away.
The City Screams by Phil Williams
Official Blurb: Tova's getting her hearing back.
She's going to wish she wasn't.
Alone in Tokyo for experimental ear surgery, Tova Nokes is finally shaking up her life. But when she starts to hear things she shouldn't, all she wants is to make it home alive.
There's a voice saying it's where she comes from that makes her special. If she can only survive violent stalkers, and the terrible screams, she might figure out why...
Experience the world through the eyes of a unique hero in this standalone fantasy thriller from the Ordshaw universe.
The Queen’s Executioner by Christopher Mitchell
Official Blurb: Would you kill for your sister?
High Mage Shella has a choice to make. When her sister decides she wants to be Queen at any cost, should she help her?
Or stop her?
Feeling restless in the claustrophobic and over-crowded metropolis of her birth, Shella is drawn to the power of her sister’s voice as she assembles thousands of their people, calling upon them to gather their possessions and follow her in a Great Migration. Her sister plans to lead them over the border into the Rahain Republic, whose unconquered army has just returned from victorious campaigns abroad. There, she intends to settle and crown herself Queen.
Shella’s mage powers have only ever been used for the good of her homeland. Now, in the service of her sister, is she prepared to use their darker side?
For Shella knows that if she cannot control her powers…
…they will consume all that she loves.
The Sword of Kaigen: A Theonite War Story by M. L. Wang
Official Blurb: On a mountainside at the edge of the Kaigenese Empire live the most powerful warriors in the world, superhumans capable of raising the sea and wielding blades of ice. For hundreds of years, the fighters of the Kusanagi Peninsula have held the Empire's enemies at bay, earning their frozen spit of land the name 'The Sword of Kaigen.'
Born into Kusanagi's legendary Matsuda family, fourteen-year-old Mamoru has always known his purpose: to master his family's fighting techniques and defend his homeland. But when an outsider arrives and pulls back the curtain on Kaigen's alleged age of peace, Mamoru realizes that he might not have much time to become the fighter he was bred to be. Worse, the empire he was bred to defend may stand on a foundation of lies.
Misaki told herself that she left the passions of her youth behind when she married into the Matsuda house. Determined to be a good housewife and mother, she hid away her sword, along with everything from her days as a fighter in a faraway country. But with her growing son asking questions about the outside world, the threat of an impending invasion looming across the sea, and her frigid husband grating on her nerves, Misaki finds the fighter in her clawing its way back to the surface.
When the winds of war reach their peninsula, will the Matsuda family have the strength to defend their empire? Or will they tear each other apart before the true enemies even reach their shores?
The Lore of Prometheus by Graham Austin-King
Official Blurb: John Carver has three rules: Don't drink in the daytime, don't gamble when the luck has gone, and don't talk to the dead people who come to visit.
It has been almost five years since the incident in Kabul. Since the magic stirred within him and the stories began. Fleeing the army, running from the whispers, the guilt, and the fear he was losing his mind, Carver fell into addiction, dragging himself through life one day at a time.
Desperation has pulled him back to Afghanistan, back to the heat, the dust, and the truth he worked so hard to avoid. But there are others, obsessed with power and forbidden magics, who will stop at nothing to learn the truth of his gifts. Abducted and chained, Carver must break more than his own rules if he is to harness this power and survive.
The Steel Discord by Ryan Howse
Official Blurb: Zarachius Skie is presumed dead.
His mentor, the Arcanist Mordekai Gethsemane, had been arrested for conspiracy to commit regicide. Zarachius knew it was false. He did what had to, and snuck onto a military train to break Mordekai out.
But now, the Ancien Legion, vengeful anarchists, and Mordekai's old co-conspirators are doing whatever it takes to bring Zarachius out of hiding. They need to know what he knows.
They need to know the secret he uncovered on that train.
Blade’s Edge by Virginia McClain
Official Blurb:The Kisōshi, elite warriors with elemental powers, have served as the rulers and protectors of the people of Gensokai for more than a thousand years. Though it is believed throughout Gensokai that there is no such thing as a female Kisōshi, the Rōjū ruling council goes to great lengths to ensure that no one dares ask why.
Even as young girls, Mishi and Taka know that they risk severe punishment - or worse - if anyone were to discover their powers. This shared secret forms a deep bond between them until, taken from their orphanage home and separated, the two girls must learn to survive in a world where their very existence is a crime. Yet when the girls learn the dark secret of the Rōjū council, they discover that much more than their own survival is at stake.
From Legend by Ian Lewis
Official Blurb: Sober, serious, and driven, Logan Hale is the highest peace officer in Beldenridge, and he knows his city better than anyone: the labyrinthine streets, the vaulted architecture, and all the dark corners where tales of mutations and a vicious enemy still linger like hushed secrets. Logan is quick to dismiss these accounts as part of a storied past with which he’d rather not contend, but when a suicide investigation leads him to believe there’s something more sinister at hand, he questions whether that near-forgotten lore isn’t the stuff of legend after all.
In Numina by Assaph Mehr
Official Blurb: A rich landlord finds tenants are abandoning his apartment buildings, spouting tales of horrific events and whispering that the old gods - the numina - came alive and cursed the buildings.
Enter Felix, a professional fox. Dressed in a toga and armed with a dagger, Felix is neither a traditional detective nor a traditional magician - but something in between. Whenever there is a foul business of bad magic, Felix is hired to sniff out the truth. Now he must separate fact from superstition - a hard task in a world where the old gods still roam the earth.
In Numina is set in a fantasy world. The city of Egretia borrows elements from a thousand years of ancient Roman culture, from the founding of Rome to the late empire, mixed with a judicious amount of magic. This is a story of a cynical, hardboiled detective dealing with anything from daily life to the old forces roaming the world.
The 19th Bladesman by SJ Hartland
Official Blurb: His duty is to die young, but fate has something far more lethal in mind.
If Kaell breaks, the kingdom breaks with him. And prophecy says the 19th Bladesman will break...
The Bonded Warrior...
Kill. Die young. That's what a swordsman bonded to the ancient gods does. Without expecting praise from the man who trained him to survive this centuries-old, malignant war against the inhuman followers of an invincible lord. But Kaell wants more. More of Val Arques' attention, his approval. Just more.
The fire dancer...
Ice lord, spy, Heath never loses a fire dance. Yet he longs to know that thrill of danger down his spine as he kills for his god, to fight a warrior who might, just might be better than him.
The broken...
Val Arques is a bladesman of formidable power entrusted not only with Kaell's life but with the truth that will destroy him. Banished to a grim outpost of this doomed kingdom of sorcery, poetry, and treachery, he cannot afford to care about the young warrior. For love means loss. And Val Arques has a shameful secret...
A kingdom on the edge of chaos...
As a vengeful god escapes his ancient prison and Kaell is drawn into his web of deception, even Val Arques can't protect him from the dark prophecy awaiting him. Because you can't flee fate unless you're willing to do the unthinkable.
Fortune’s Fool by Angela Boord
Official Blurb: A secret affair. A disfiguring punishment. A burning need for revenge.
Kyrra d’Aliente has a bad reputation and an arm made of metal. Cast out of the safe and luxurious world of silk to which she was born, played as a pawn in a game of feuding Houses, Kyrra navigates a dangerous world of mercenaries, spies, and smugglers while disguising herself as a man.
War destroyed her family and the man she loved.
Vengeance is within her grasp.
But is she willing to pay its price?
Cry Havoc by Mike Morris
Official Blurb: When the demons come, you either fight or you die.
The Black Dogs know this all too well. For seven hundred years, the warrior priests have sacrificed their lives to keep the island nation of Abios safe from the flesh-eating Nostros, while the rest of the world fell under the demons’ savagery. However, an armada now stands poised to invade mankind’s last bastion.
Child thief Jack Frey is saved from the gallows and joins the mysterious order. Trained with the bullet and the blade, Jack finds himself on the front-line of a centuries-old war. Across the Angel Sea, Lin is fighting for her life. As a slave of the Nostros, she knows death can strike at any time, either at the hands of her masters or her fellow humans.
Little do they know mankind's fate lies in both their hands.
Blood and Shadow (The Mage's Gift #1) by Robin Lythgoe
Official Blurb: A vengeful mage. A powerful gift. A naive youth. .
Sherakai dan Tameko never wanted to become a warrior like his well-known father and brothers. Satisfied with being fourth in line to inherit title and responsibility, he wants only to be Master of the Horse. But a shocking event turns young Sherakai's life upside-down and propels him on a course that changes his life forever..
When he discovers his magic is the key to a powerful secret, Sherakai must risk more than he thought possible and become greater than anyone dreamed if he is to escape the web woven around him. .
Lykaia (Sophia Katsaros #1) by Sharon VanOrman
Official Blurb: "We are the terrors that hunt the night.And we have never been human"
In Greek mythology there’s a story of King Lykaonas of Arcadia and his fifty sons who were cursed by the father of the gods, Zeus, to become wolves. The very first Lycanthropes. Forensic pathologist, Sophia Katsaros, receives a cryptic phone call from Greece telling her that her brothers are missing and leaves to search for them. With the help of Illyanna, her brother’s girlfriend, Sophia examines the evidence but cannot accept a bizarre possibility: Has one or both of her brothers been transformed during the Lykaia, the ceremony where Man is said to become Wolf?
Who is Marcus, a dark stranger that both repels and excites her? And what is the real story behind the 5000 year old curse of King Lykaonas?
The Lord of Stariel (Stariel #1) by A.J. Lancaster
Official Blurb:The Lord of Stariel is dead. Long live the Lord of Stariel. Whoever that is.
Everyone knows who the magical estate will choose for its next ruler. Or do they?
Will it be the lord’s eldest son, who he despised? His favourite nephew, with the strongest magical land-sense? His scandalous daughter, who ran away from home years ago to study illusion?
Hetta knows it won’t be her, and she’s glad of it. Returning home for her father’s funeral, all Hetta has to do is survive the family drama and avoid entanglements with irritatingly attractive local men until the Choosing. Then she can leave.
But whoever Stariel chooses will have bigger problems than eccentric relatives to deal with.
Winged, beautifully deadly problems.
For the first time in centuries, the fae are returning to the Mortal Realm, and only the Lord of Stariel can keep the estate safe.
In theory.
Child of the Flames (The Seven Signs Book 1) by D.W. Hawkins
Official Blurb: In fire, some things are destroyed. Others are forged.
The men of the Galanian Empire came with the dawn, bringing swords and hunger. Seeking an ancient relic, they slaughtered Shawna Llewan’s family. They burned her life to the ground.
But blades are born of fire and tempered by its embrace.
Shawna Llewan is such a blade. Carrying her mother’s heirloom—the very relic for which her family was killed—she sets out on a quest, driving to the heart of a conspiracy that could plunge the entire world into darkness.
She is wrath. She is a blade pointed at the throats of her enemies. She is the child of the flames.
The Narrows By Travis Riddle
Official Blurb: "I can show you how to enter the Narrows to find what you seek."
Oliver and his friends have returned to their hometown of Shumard, Texas for the funeral of their close friend Noah. They each grapple with the loss in their own ways, trying to understand the strange circumstances of their friend's unexpected death.
While visiting the site where the body was found, Oliver stumbles across a chilling discovery that he knows must be related to what happened to Noah. Wanting to protect his friends from these newfound horrors, Oliver takes it upon himself to venture into the grotesque otherworld known as the Narrows to learn what happened to his friend and find a way to bring him back.
Entering the Narrows is one thing, but will whatever he finds there allow him to leave?
12:00 AM | 
Posted by
The Reader |
With the fifth edition of SPFBO starting today. We thought it would be fun to highlight a few titles among the 300 books that caught our eyes. However once we started noting down the title names, we quickly realized that a few wouldn't cover it at all. Quite a lot of books caught our attention and so we decided to split our post into two.
The books we showcase within this post have caught our eye due to their blurbs, their covers, as well as potential subject matter. A few we have read, reviewed and hence are on this list.
We would like to state that this list is in no way an indicator of our choices going forward in the contest. But simply details titles that we WOULD like to read. Some are from our lot and hence we look forward to them with eagerness.
So without further ado, here's part I of the noteworthy titles (in random order):
Ghosts of the Sea Moon (Saga of the Outer Islands #1) by A.F. Stewart
Official Blurb:In the Outer Islands, gods and magic rule the ocean.
Under the command of Captain Rafe Morrow, the crew of the Celestial Jewel ferry souls to the After World and defend the seas from monsters. Rafe has dedicated his life to protecting the lost, but the tides have shifted and times have changed.
His sister, the Goddess of the Moon, is on a rampage and her creatures are terrorizing the islands. The survival of the living and dead hinge on the courage and cunning of a beleaguered captain and his motley crew of men and ghosts.
What he doesn’t know is that her threat is part of a larger game. That an ancient, black-winged malevolence is using them all as pawns…
The Kishi (Tales from Esowon #1) by Antoine Bandele
Official Blurb: A pacifist monk. A threatening darkness. An innocent village hanging in the balance.
Hoping to escape his dark past, Amana travels to the great village of Bajok in search of redemption. The day he arrives, a young woman is slain and the locals point their fingers at the new arrival. Amana must overcome the village's trepidation. A demon is on the loose and he fears more will die. The solution is obvious—a swift and brutal counterattack.
But his vow of peace is the last virtue that remains in his tattered soul. Is his personal peace more valuable than the lives of the innocent, or will Amana be swallowed by the darkness that has hounded him his entire life?
The God-King’s Legacy by Richard Nell
Official Blurb: God-king Marsun, the 'Demon King', has ruled for centuries. But nothing lasts forever. Once just an illiterate tribal chief, Marsun trapped an ancient evil within his mighty soul, united scattered tribes, then retreated from the world. But his sacrifice is all but forgotten by those he now rules. Technology marches on; new ambitious powers rise; unhappy lords plot rebellion; and from every corner of civilization, savage enemies gather. The God King's legacy has just begun...
From the author of Kings of Paradise comes two tales in a world of knights and demons, muskets and cannon fire. Flintlock fantasy mixed with the grit of Game of Thrones.
1) Rebellion of the Black Militia - Johann Planck, bastard and scribe of the god-king's tower, is yanked from his peaceful life of academia, and ordered to capture an immortal creature of darkness. If the knight he's accompanying doesn't kill him, or the demon 'Sazeal', fresh rebellion just might.
2) Devil of the 22nd - A crumbling empire. An abandoned army. Kurt Val Clause is an ordinary soldier trying to keep it all together because no one else has the balls. Now he has one chance to win a glorious future, die in agony, or lose his soul. He just might do all three.
Women of Wasps and War by Madeleine D'Este
Official Blurb: Women of Wasps and War is a grim, gripping tale of power and politics, and the heart-breaking struggle between love and honour.
Agata, the Duchess of Ambrovna, was never meant to take the throne. In a land where men rule, her sole purpose was to smile and curtsy.
However, when war left her land leaderless, the Fatherhood religion begrudgingly allowed a first; a woman to rule. Now the war is over the men have returned more arrogant and cruel than ever, and the Duchess is shoved back into a life of needlework and silence. But with her new thirst for justice, Agata is reluctant to allow her country to return to its old ways.
Without her position of power, Agata and her circle of women look to the taboo wisdom of the Wasp Women for answers. But this ancient knowledge comes with consequences, and with death and treachery on the horizon, Agata must decide whether it is worth the risk.
The Silk Mind by Pete Alex Harris
Official Blurb: Ashlin Smith is dissatisfied with his pointless job as supervisor of the Royal Badger Survey.He wants nothing more than to quit and go back to being a blacksmith like the rest of his family wanted.However, due to politics, and an inexplicable plot set in motion decades earlier, his job is about to become a lot more interesting, and not in a good way.A giant badger, murderous cultists, abominations and dinner guests straight from the fairy tales, and a frighteningly clever and stubborn empress soon stand in the way of Ashlin's desire to return to a quiet life.
Eyrie (Gryphon Insurrection #1) by K. Vale Nagle
Official Blurb: Zeph is the craftiest gryphon in his pride. Living in the untamed wilds, he hunts in the shadow of the massive sky-cities of the opinici, evolved gryphon cousins. His taste for parrots leads him to a murder scene and a blood-stained notebook—a notebook the opinici will do anything to get back before he unravels the mystery at the heart of the eyrie.
Kia is a serious opinicus scholar with no time for gryphons, but when her best friend goes missing and only a strange notebook holds a clue of his whereabouts, she’ll even team up with an uncivilized parrot hunter to get him back.
When the peace that has held for so long is shattered, they’ll find themselves mixed up with curious songbird scholars, legendary cranes, murderous owl gryphons, mad scientists, and the cunning peafowl who rules them all. Will Zeph make the sacrifices necessary to protect the life he’s always known, or will both their worlds crumble to ash?
The Not-So-Grim Reaper by Sergio C. Pereira
Official Blurb: Because death should be a laughing matter!
Already down on his luck, Claudio Chillwell has a day that goes from bad to worse - he dies on his way to a job interview. A chatty grim reaper named Gee feels horrible about the embarrassing way that Claudio slipped off this mortal coil and decides to give him a second chance at living.
However, the Dead Council frowns upon necromancy, and there are consequences for those who contravene the rules. Gee ends up on the run and seeks sanctuary at Claudio's home. The suits are having none of it, though, and track down Gee and his new human friends, promising to torment them with hellhounds, soap operas, and bad haircuts.
Will Claudio and Gee survive the bureaucracy and live to tell the tale?
Errant Gods (Blood of the Isir #1) by Erik Henry Vick
Official Blurb: What would you do to save the ones you love? KILL A GOD?
Hank Jensen knows what he must do. If he gives in to his disability—his curse—he will never see his wife or son again. Not alive.
In perpetual pain, enervated and exhausted, his time for accepting the limits of his illness is over. He must follow the trail left by the twisted serial killers through the cave where the pair stored their victims and across a shimmering portal into the mythical worlds of the Norse Sagas.
A White Horizon (Stars and a Wind #1) by Barbara Gaskell Denvil
Official Blurb: In the cold frozen north, the smell of magic was in the air. A fugitive princess. An assassin in pursuit. Can she outrun a curse she never cast?
Norway, 804. Viking princess Skarga hides her insecurities behind a cover of strength. And after the young girl’s cruel father puts a price on her head for false claims of black magic, she’ll need all the might she can muster. Fleeing the family fortress with her adopted child by her side, she vows to survive the brutal winter.
With a notorious assassin on her heels, one wrong step could spell their doom. For the hunter who chases her is more than he seems… and in the frozen tundra evil takes many forms. Can Skarga uncover the frightening truth before she and Egil meet the bloody end of a sword?
A White Horizon is the first book in the epic Stars and a Wind Norse fantasy trilogy. If you like determined heroines, rugged wilderness, and heart-wrenching twists, in a world where magic is hidden, then you’ll love Barbara Gaskell Denvil’s original adventure.
Husk (Plague Demon Chronicles #1) by D.P. Prior
Official Blurb: A powerful husk crosses the mountains, leaving a trail of the dead in its wake. When efforts to track the killer end in disaster, the task falls to a man not expected to succeed: Jebediah Skayne, Lothario, hustler, hunter of demons. They call them ‘husks’, the demons that cross the Farfall Mountains, leaving a trail of blood in their wake. No incursion goes unmet; otherwise the cancer would spread until the whole world was consumed by nightmares.
That’s why the Maresmen were formed—trackers and warriors charged with holding back the tide. Each of them is different, uniquely suited to the task in hand, but one thing they hold in common: they are half-breeds, part human, part husk; and they are bound by an inviolable rule: Hunt the husks, or be hunted themselves. Jebediah Skayne has been hunting husks his entire adult life, but there’s something different about the trail leading to the fishing town of Portis on the shores of the Chalice Sea: no spoor, no footprints; nothing save the unmistakable feeling of wrongness.
Finding a husk in Portis would be near impossible for someone who didn’t have the sixth sense, but the instant Jeb arrives, all trace of the incursion vanishes. Forced to rely on more mundane methods of investigation, he starts to uncover a town rife with corruption, where a man will kill you for looking at a woman the wrong way; a town that’s seen its share of incursions from the land of nightmares before.
As events start to slip from his control, he realizes the husk he's come to kill is one step ahead of the game, and it holds a secret that will shake his world to the core.
Dissident (Forbidden Things #1) by Nikki McCormack
Official Blurb: Ascard power can strengthen, heal, and create. It also has great potential to destroy. Indigo’s country restricts the use of ascard, so she must channel her ability into the healing arts or risk severe punishment. An orphan from a disgraced family, trapped by her father’s treason, she is struggling to find her place in society.
Then a mysterious stranger from a neighboring country asks for her help escaping his prison so he can bring an end to his emperor's oppressive rule. His devotion to his cause and the passion behind his cool arrogance move her. She decides to use her power in forbidden ways to help him at the risk of being branded a traitor like her father.
Dragon Destiny (Dragshi Chronicles #1) by Helen B. Henderson
Official Blurb:Lord Branin of the dragshi, is more than just a man, but two beings—one a dragon, the other a human. The pair share one body in space in time and are able to change forms with the other at will. From the time Branin's twinned soul, Llewlyn, awoke, Branin knew the freedom of flight. However, being a shifter comes with a price. Branin and Llewlyn are the only two of their kind who have not found their intended mates, despite millennia of waiting... and searching. The red-haired firebrand, Broch of Ky'Port plans to fill that position in Branin's life—with or without his cooperation.
For eons, he fears he would never find a woman with her own dragon soul partner—until one day another's mind touched his.
The Ukinhan Wilds (Warder #1) by Eldon Thompson
Official Blurb:Assassin. Rogue. Demon’s bane. Dragon-slayer. Kylac Kronus has been called many names, and earned every one of them. Months shy of his seventeenth spring, he is already the deadliest man alive. Nothing—be it man or beast—has been able to prove otherwise.
Uncomfortable with his newfound fame following the War of the Demon Queen, Kylac seeks fresh adventure overseas, recruited by a band of outlanders under royal commission to escort a kidnapped princess back to her father, King Kendarrion, ruler of the Sundered Isle. They warn him that, to do so, he will brave tempest seas full of raging leviathans while seeking to evade those responsible for the princess’s abduction—including a terrifying mutant left over from the days of the Mage Wars.
Kylac readily agrees.
But when the mutant proves as cunning as it is savage, the perilous voyage gives way to an even deadlier trek across a poisoned wilderness once home to the ancient Gorrethrehn—“Breeders”—a sect of magi known for their foul creation practices. Stalked by bestial denizens, treacherous companions, and horrors that his blades cannot touch, Kylac finds himself embattled as never before. For the mutant is relentless in its hunt, the island’s terrors do not rest, and not even the deadliest man alive can hope to emerge unscathed.
The Golden Unseen by L.W. Fells
Official Blurb: Northmen—who know no loyalty beyond that of kin—are about to invade the imperial City of Caldesia, the home of the Alminster family.
Thrift, the younger of two sons, sails for an academy he has always planned to attend. An intriguing girl and a sinister mercenary accompany him on the voyage. Soon the cruel and arbitrary way of the sea takes a psychic toll. And when Thrift winds up stranded in a lawless city, he must decide whether to relinquish his dream of attending the academy.
Thrift’s twin sister, Josefina, sets out to cross an enchanted forest. A determined and inquisitive girl, she struggles as a chasm opens between her and her mother and as she is confronted with a new side of a childhood adversary. Navigating the onset of adulthood, she encounters a bewitching sylvan people who harbor a grievance toward civilization.
The older brother of the twins, Michel, vows to stay in Caldesia to fight the Northmen. A conservative knight who favors restoration, Michel is vexed by differences he has with his childhood friend Joe, a mariner and fledgling revolutionary, who sees the imperial order as unjust. The center may not hold, it seems, as localism asserts itself along the periphery of the Empire and the old aristocratic order trembles. Wrenched away from one another and from the world that they knew, the siblings come of age as an ancient enmity is rekindled.
Shadowless by Randall McNally
Official Blurb: What if the gods themselves wanted you dead?
A young boy lies on a beach on a warm summer's day. While trying to block the sun from his eyes Arpherius makes a shocking discovery; he has no shadow. Confused and bewildered he asks his uncle why he is shadowless. What he learns is a terrifying secret that will change his life forever.
Set in the Northern Realms, Shadowless is a fantasy novel about individuals born without a shadow. Spawned by the malevolent deities of this world these children of the gods are persecuted at every turn. Hunted by the high priests who carry out the wishes of their gods, hunted by the Shadow Watchers; armed soldiers who are assigned to each temple, and hunted by the gods themselves.
Part-mortal and part-god, the Shadowless live for centuries and face a battle for survival, constantly on the run or hiding in far-flung corners of the Northern Realms. Soon their lives and fates become intertwined, expedited by the mysterious monk Amrodan. Driven by a series of visions Amrodan travels through the Northern Realms, seeking out the Shadowless and trying to enlist their help to take a stand and fight back against the gods.
Over a God's Dead Body by Joel Spriggs
Official Blurb: Three gods walk onto a college campus looking for a dead body. A bad joke, a bad day, or both? Loki hates being bound to Seth, the most micromanaging of all the Egyptian Gods. But when their quest to regain Seth's crown leads to a boring midwest town where nothing happens, Loki discovers a family he never wanted to admit may exist.
Esmy is singularly frustrated by the lack of pockets in women's clothing and being stuck in a rut with fixing the same crappy WiFi issues day in and day out. But when it turns out her great-grandfather is Loki, that ignites her life like a powder-keg. Leading her to discover her own college campus's mysterious depths, involving voodoo priestesses, sasquatches, vampires, Canadians who hate girl scout cookies and the magical ability to have a pocket bigger than a closet.
In a high-stakes game of maneuvering, Loki's freedom and Esmy's survival come down to a fight over a God's dead body.
The Blade Within (Raike #1) by Jackson Lear
Official Blurb: Someone kidnapped the wrong girl.
Twelve hours ago Raike didn’t even know she existed. Nor would he have cared. That was until the only clue to her kidnapping lay in a cryptic note foretelling her death - a note Raike has seen once before. Now he’s prepared to lose everything to get her back.
Standing in his way is an alliance of two mercenary companies, a city watch who cares more about stopping Raike than finding the missing girl, and an imperial general who had little to fear – until Raike came along.
A gripping fantasy thriller that will keep your heart racing until the very end.
The Map Maker of Morgenfeld by Sean Monaghan
Official Blurb: Cole Palmer lives an idyllic, quiet life in a small village, trying to put his life together after Liddy disappeared. He sketches and does odd jobs for neighbors, and misses her. A murder in distant, sprawling Morgenfeld changes everything. And not for the better. The chaotic world of the vast kingdom-building shoves Cole into unimaginable situations. Cole just wants to go home. If he can survive. The perfect journey for readers who love the fantastic worlds of Mervyn Peake and Michael Moorcock.
Guns of Liberty by Jamie Mauchline
Official Blurb: "First rule of piracy: be in the wrong place at the right time."
Guns of Liberty is an age of sail fantasy where Airships rule the skies, Pirates stalk the misty main, and Occultists dabble in profane magics left behind by dispossessed gods. Join Rachel Masters, Inquisitor of the Liberty Empire, as she sets sail to discover the source of ancient magic artifact that could bring war to the empire, and secure it before it can fall into the wrong hands. But she's not the only one looking for the artifact... and when the elusive pirate captain Genevieve Jones kidnaps a duchess, Rachel might have just met her match. If she's going to rescue the duchess, secure the artifact, and save the empire she'll need to put aside her prejudices and find unlikely allies...
The Knight with Two Swords by Edward M. Erdelac
Official Blurb: Before Arthur, There was Uther.
Before Lancelot, There was Balin The Savage.
Before the Holy Grail could be found...it had to be lost.
Balin grows up revering the memory of his father, a storied knight of the High King Uther's time. He is held back from following in his footsteps by his mother, a priestess of the old religion whose capitol is the Isle of Avalon. When she is burned at the stake as a witch by fanatics, Balin blames the corrupting influence of Avalon and sets himself against all that is pagan.
A new high king arises; Arthur, whose rule must unite pagan and Christian alike. Sir Balin, now known as The Savage for his ferocity in battle, answers the king's call for champions, but in his heart, questions the presence of the shadowy wizard Merlin beside the throne. When a vengeful enchantress comes to Camelot bearing a cursed sword that will make Balin the greatest knight in all Albion, but doom him to slay his beloved king, Balin sets out on a long quest that will veer between God and glory, love and madness, justice and revenge, and change the land forever.
Song of a Dead Star by Zamil Akhtar
Official Blurb: When Kav sleeps, a firefly whispers in his ear that his wife is not dead. But to find her he has to kill the three Magi that protect the land of Eden. The same Magi destroyed Kav's hometown four years ago to crush a rebellion, and he hasn't seen his wife since.
As Kav plots to kill the Magi, a flying armada bent on conquest and destruction invades Eden. Only the Magi and their ability to turn sunshine into magical energy can stop them. Granted the same power by the firefly, Kav must either kill the Magi to reunite with his wife, or let go of his longing for the sake of Eden and its people.
Pursuit of Shadows by JA Andrews
Official Blurb: Killien, the unyielding clan chief who’s becoming increasingly volatile.
Sora, the suspicious ranger who sees more than she should.
A swarm of frost goblins that devour with tooth and claw.
The list of people and things that could get Will killed keeps growing.
While Alaric is in Queensland, searching for Kordan’s Wellstone, Keeper Will is over the mountains in the hostile Roven Sweep, searching for his missing sister.
After catching a glimpse of a woman who could be her in a Keeper-hating Roven clan. Will convinces Killien to let him travel north with them to their summer homes.
Under the relentless suspicions of Sora, a tenuous friendship grows between Will and Killien, who talks of building peace among the hostile Roven.
Except Will’s thin disguise as a storyteller is crumbling quickly and Sora may already know who he is.
The more Will gets to know Killien, the more troubling things he learns. Killien’s hatred for Keepers runs deep, and for all his talk of peace, the man’s greatest wish is to control a vicious army.
And a dragon.
But Will doesn’t know that the chief has taken more from him than just his sister.
And Killien controls enough power to gain everything he wants.
The Thorning Ceremony by Andrew Einspruch
Official Blurb: A slightly OCD princess. Her ambitious twin sister.
And the worst rite of passage in the history of all the realms.
Princess Eloise Hydra Gumball III is on track to become the Future Ruler and Heir to the Western Lands and All That Really Matters. That is, if she can survive the grueling training of the demanding Thorning Master, stave off her sister’s desires to take on the role, and get through the horrific Thorning Ceremony.
The Thorning Ceremony is a humorous story set in a unique fantasy world that features weak magic, equality between species, way töö mänÿ ümläüts. It's a funny and witty standalone prequel novel to the Western Lands and All That Really Matters series. If you like quirky, clever characters, lively dialog, and a fun Discworld-ish fantasy setting, then you'll love this book from Andrew Einspruch.
Necromantica by Keith Blenman
Official Blurb: Storm the castle. Raise the dead. Bring the world to its knees.
Best. Date night. EVER.
In this heart-stopping, dark fantasy, two thieves charge through an epic battle between monsters and men. One, a necromancer, a sorceress who uses black magic to manipulate the dead. The other, a rogue assassin and skilled swordsman. Enemies to both armies, allied only to each other, they face doom at every moment on a suicide mission to steal from a holy king.
Hound of The Mountain (Lawless Ink Book 1) by Stephan Morse
Official Blurb: The weight of the world shouldn’t rest on a 17-year-old’s shoulders, but that’s what it feels like for Chase Craig. With his daddy’s last breath, he was given a goal: save Momma from The Mountain.
Escaping this monstrous shadow will take money, lots of it, and Chase’s best option is to join The Rangers—an elite group who hunt dangerous ink-touched beasts that spawn from The Mountain’s depths. Only one person will be chosen out of the several dozen who apply, and if he doesn’t get a magic tattoo before the Trials, he’ll be out of the running.
Cloak of the Two Winds (The Glimnodd Cycle Book 1) by Jack Massa
Official Blurb: Pirates, sorcerers, and witches battle for an ancient magical treasure
To the Iruk people of the South Polar Sea, the crew of a hunting boat is sacred—a band of men and women warriors bound by oath and a group soul. But when Lonn leads his crew away from the hunt to pursue his dream of a treasure ship, they find more than an easy bit of piracy.
The ship belongs to the witch Amlina, and after the Iruks carry off her possessions, they are robbed in turn. Worse, one of their band is also taken—Glyssa, the woman Lonn loves.
To rescue her, the Iruks must join forces with Amlina on a perilous voyage far from the seas they know. To Lonn and his mates, nothing matters but saving Glyssa. But Amlina knows much more is at stake. Among her possessions is an object of ancient power. In the wrong hands, the Cloak of the Two Winds can unravel the age-old magic that keeps the world from chaos.
The Empress of Timbra (Hidden Histories, #1) by Karen Healey & Robyn Fleming
Official Blurb: My father's eyes were steady on my face as I blew out the last bubbles of my breath. I pressed my knife into his hand but he could not make his fingers close around the hilt. I screamed for help with my first lungful of air, and dove again with my second. I was too late.
Fourteen-year-old Taver didn't know he was a nobleman's bastard until his real father died. Eleven-year-old Elaku has always known she was the bastard daughter of the same nobleman. When the two siblings meet in the Empress of Timbra's palace, they become fast friends.
Around them, intrigue and rumour swirl. Not everybody is happy with the rule of the Empress of Timbra. Some have plans for Taver and Elaku. And when treachery and war threaten their home, Taver and Elaku must rely on their magic, their wits, and each other to have any chance of preventing disaster.
Broken Crossroads (Knights of the Shadows #1) by Patrick LeClerc
Official Blurb: The city of Laimrig, once a mighty hub of commerce and a seat of power sinks into corruption and decay. Slavers, crime lords and corrupt officials hold sway while the ruling nobility wallow in decadence. War rages beyond the borders, while within rebellion simmers and sinister plots unfold.
Trilisean is an acrobat turned burglar. Conn is a jaded former mercenary. Against the background of deadly blades, subtle schemes, glittering treasures, dark sorceries and fell servants of forgotten gods, fate has thrown them together.
Fate has a sense of humor.
The Skald's Black Verse (Dreadbound Ode #1) by Jordan Loyal Short
Official Blurb:A last ditch rebellion. A powerful curse. An omen of disaster. Dark, epic, fun – a new world full of wonder, dread, and gallons of blood!
When a sinister creature murders one of the conquerors’ soldiers, Brohr’s violent reputation makes him the prime suspect. Haunted by a rage-filled ghost, Brohr’s disturbing possessions quickly become the reason for all of his troubles…and the only way he can survive.
With a grandfather bent on dragging him into a failed rebellion, and a deadly comet hurtling toward his embattled world, Brohr sets off on a quest to save his people and uncover the secrets of his own past!
Yesterday's Demons by Michael Ripplinger
Official Blurb: When he was a boy, Siv McCaig came face-to-face with a monster. After a childhood lived in fear, he encountered it again.
Siv just wants to work his trade as a blacksmith, play cards at the saloon, and watch the stars. But he'll never be at peace without answers. What was the monster that burned down his house? Where did it come from? And will it ever come back again?
His search becomes a battle for his planet's survival. Only two things might keep all of Verde from falling to the horrors of Siv's nightmares, but they've been lost for two hundred years: technology and magic.
Ayana: The Journey by Geetha Krishnan
Official Blurb: Captured by an evil that has been stalking her since her previous birth, Sita's only hope of rescue lay in her husband's love and tenacity. But neither Rama or she is aware of their true purposes or of the destiny that is in store for them
The books we showcase within this post have caught our eye due to their blurbs, their covers, as well as potential subject matter. A few we have read, reviewed and hence are on this list.
We would like to state that this list is in no way an indicator of our choices going forward in the contest. But simply details titles that we WOULD like to read. Some are from our lot and hence we look forward to them with eagerness.
So without further ado, here's part I of the noteworthy titles (in random order):
Ghosts of the Sea Moon (Saga of the Outer Islands #1) by A.F. Stewart
Official Blurb:In the Outer Islands, gods and magic rule the ocean.
Under the command of Captain Rafe Morrow, the crew of the Celestial Jewel ferry souls to the After World and defend the seas from monsters. Rafe has dedicated his life to protecting the lost, but the tides have shifted and times have changed.
His sister, the Goddess of the Moon, is on a rampage and her creatures are terrorizing the islands. The survival of the living and dead hinge on the courage and cunning of a beleaguered captain and his motley crew of men and ghosts.
What he doesn’t know is that her threat is part of a larger game. That an ancient, black-winged malevolence is using them all as pawns…
The Kishi (Tales from Esowon #1) by Antoine Bandele
Official Blurb: A pacifist monk. A threatening darkness. An innocent village hanging in the balance.
Hoping to escape his dark past, Amana travels to the great village of Bajok in search of redemption. The day he arrives, a young woman is slain and the locals point their fingers at the new arrival. Amana must overcome the village's trepidation. A demon is on the loose and he fears more will die. The solution is obvious—a swift and brutal counterattack.
But his vow of peace is the last virtue that remains in his tattered soul. Is his personal peace more valuable than the lives of the innocent, or will Amana be swallowed by the darkness that has hounded him his entire life?
The God-King’s Legacy by Richard Nell
Official Blurb: God-king Marsun, the 'Demon King', has ruled for centuries. But nothing lasts forever. Once just an illiterate tribal chief, Marsun trapped an ancient evil within his mighty soul, united scattered tribes, then retreated from the world. But his sacrifice is all but forgotten by those he now rules. Technology marches on; new ambitious powers rise; unhappy lords plot rebellion; and from every corner of civilization, savage enemies gather. The God King's legacy has just begun...
From the author of Kings of Paradise comes two tales in a world of knights and demons, muskets and cannon fire. Flintlock fantasy mixed with the grit of Game of Thrones.
1) Rebellion of the Black Militia - Johann Planck, bastard and scribe of the god-king's tower, is yanked from his peaceful life of academia, and ordered to capture an immortal creature of darkness. If the knight he's accompanying doesn't kill him, or the demon 'Sazeal', fresh rebellion just might.
2) Devil of the 22nd - A crumbling empire. An abandoned army. Kurt Val Clause is an ordinary soldier trying to keep it all together because no one else has the balls. Now he has one chance to win a glorious future, die in agony, or lose his soul. He just might do all three.
Women of Wasps and War by Madeleine D'Este
Official Blurb: Women of Wasps and War is a grim, gripping tale of power and politics, and the heart-breaking struggle between love and honour.
Agata, the Duchess of Ambrovna, was never meant to take the throne. In a land where men rule, her sole purpose was to smile and curtsy.
However, when war left her land leaderless, the Fatherhood religion begrudgingly allowed a first; a woman to rule. Now the war is over the men have returned more arrogant and cruel than ever, and the Duchess is shoved back into a life of needlework and silence. But with her new thirst for justice, Agata is reluctant to allow her country to return to its old ways.
Without her position of power, Agata and her circle of women look to the taboo wisdom of the Wasp Women for answers. But this ancient knowledge comes with consequences, and with death and treachery on the horizon, Agata must decide whether it is worth the risk.
The Silk Mind by Pete Alex Harris
Official Blurb: Ashlin Smith is dissatisfied with his pointless job as supervisor of the Royal Badger Survey.He wants nothing more than to quit and go back to being a blacksmith like the rest of his family wanted.However, due to politics, and an inexplicable plot set in motion decades earlier, his job is about to become a lot more interesting, and not in a good way.A giant badger, murderous cultists, abominations and dinner guests straight from the fairy tales, and a frighteningly clever and stubborn empress soon stand in the way of Ashlin's desire to return to a quiet life.
Eyrie (Gryphon Insurrection #1) by K. Vale Nagle
Official Blurb: Zeph is the craftiest gryphon in his pride. Living in the untamed wilds, he hunts in the shadow of the massive sky-cities of the opinici, evolved gryphon cousins. His taste for parrots leads him to a murder scene and a blood-stained notebook—a notebook the opinici will do anything to get back before he unravels the mystery at the heart of the eyrie.
Kia is a serious opinicus scholar with no time for gryphons, but when her best friend goes missing and only a strange notebook holds a clue of his whereabouts, she’ll even team up with an uncivilized parrot hunter to get him back.
When the peace that has held for so long is shattered, they’ll find themselves mixed up with curious songbird scholars, legendary cranes, murderous owl gryphons, mad scientists, and the cunning peafowl who rules them all. Will Zeph make the sacrifices necessary to protect the life he’s always known, or will both their worlds crumble to ash?
The Not-So-Grim Reaper by Sergio C. Pereira
Official Blurb: Because death should be a laughing matter!
Already down on his luck, Claudio Chillwell has a day that goes from bad to worse - he dies on his way to a job interview. A chatty grim reaper named Gee feels horrible about the embarrassing way that Claudio slipped off this mortal coil and decides to give him a second chance at living.
However, the Dead Council frowns upon necromancy, and there are consequences for those who contravene the rules. Gee ends up on the run and seeks sanctuary at Claudio's home. The suits are having none of it, though, and track down Gee and his new human friends, promising to torment them with hellhounds, soap operas, and bad haircuts.
Will Claudio and Gee survive the bureaucracy and live to tell the tale?
Errant Gods (Blood of the Isir #1) by Erik Henry Vick
Official Blurb: What would you do to save the ones you love? KILL A GOD?
Hank Jensen knows what he must do. If he gives in to his disability—his curse—he will never see his wife or son again. Not alive.
In perpetual pain, enervated and exhausted, his time for accepting the limits of his illness is over. He must follow the trail left by the twisted serial killers through the cave where the pair stored their victims and across a shimmering portal into the mythical worlds of the Norse Sagas.
A White Horizon (Stars and a Wind #1) by Barbara Gaskell Denvil
Official Blurb: In the cold frozen north, the smell of magic was in the air. A fugitive princess. An assassin in pursuit. Can she outrun a curse she never cast?
Norway, 804. Viking princess Skarga hides her insecurities behind a cover of strength. And after the young girl’s cruel father puts a price on her head for false claims of black magic, she’ll need all the might she can muster. Fleeing the family fortress with her adopted child by her side, she vows to survive the brutal winter.
With a notorious assassin on her heels, one wrong step could spell their doom. For the hunter who chases her is more than he seems… and in the frozen tundra evil takes many forms. Can Skarga uncover the frightening truth before she and Egil meet the bloody end of a sword?
A White Horizon is the first book in the epic Stars and a Wind Norse fantasy trilogy. If you like determined heroines, rugged wilderness, and heart-wrenching twists, in a world where magic is hidden, then you’ll love Barbara Gaskell Denvil’s original adventure.
Husk (Plague Demon Chronicles #1) by D.P. Prior
Official Blurb: A powerful husk crosses the mountains, leaving a trail of the dead in its wake. When efforts to track the killer end in disaster, the task falls to a man not expected to succeed: Jebediah Skayne, Lothario, hustler, hunter of demons. They call them ‘husks’, the demons that cross the Farfall Mountains, leaving a trail of blood in their wake. No incursion goes unmet; otherwise the cancer would spread until the whole world was consumed by nightmares.
That’s why the Maresmen were formed—trackers and warriors charged with holding back the tide. Each of them is different, uniquely suited to the task in hand, but one thing they hold in common: they are half-breeds, part human, part husk; and they are bound by an inviolable rule: Hunt the husks, or be hunted themselves. Jebediah Skayne has been hunting husks his entire adult life, but there’s something different about the trail leading to the fishing town of Portis on the shores of the Chalice Sea: no spoor, no footprints; nothing save the unmistakable feeling of wrongness.
Finding a husk in Portis would be near impossible for someone who didn’t have the sixth sense, but the instant Jeb arrives, all trace of the incursion vanishes. Forced to rely on more mundane methods of investigation, he starts to uncover a town rife with corruption, where a man will kill you for looking at a woman the wrong way; a town that’s seen its share of incursions from the land of nightmares before.
As events start to slip from his control, he realizes the husk he's come to kill is one step ahead of the game, and it holds a secret that will shake his world to the core.
Dissident (Forbidden Things #1) by Nikki McCormack
Official Blurb: Ascard power can strengthen, heal, and create. It also has great potential to destroy. Indigo’s country restricts the use of ascard, so she must channel her ability into the healing arts or risk severe punishment. An orphan from a disgraced family, trapped by her father’s treason, she is struggling to find her place in society.
Then a mysterious stranger from a neighboring country asks for her help escaping his prison so he can bring an end to his emperor's oppressive rule. His devotion to his cause and the passion behind his cool arrogance move her. She decides to use her power in forbidden ways to help him at the risk of being branded a traitor like her father.
Dragon Destiny (Dragshi Chronicles #1) by Helen B. Henderson
Official Blurb:Lord Branin of the dragshi, is more than just a man, but two beings—one a dragon, the other a human. The pair share one body in space in time and are able to change forms with the other at will. From the time Branin's twinned soul, Llewlyn, awoke, Branin knew the freedom of flight. However, being a shifter comes with a price. Branin and Llewlyn are the only two of their kind who have not found their intended mates, despite millennia of waiting... and searching. The red-haired firebrand, Broch of Ky'Port plans to fill that position in Branin's life—with or without his cooperation.
For eons, he fears he would never find a woman with her own dragon soul partner—until one day another's mind touched his.
The Ukinhan Wilds (Warder #1) by Eldon Thompson
Official Blurb:Assassin. Rogue. Demon’s bane. Dragon-slayer. Kylac Kronus has been called many names, and earned every one of them. Months shy of his seventeenth spring, he is already the deadliest man alive. Nothing—be it man or beast—has been able to prove otherwise.
Uncomfortable with his newfound fame following the War of the Demon Queen, Kylac seeks fresh adventure overseas, recruited by a band of outlanders under royal commission to escort a kidnapped princess back to her father, King Kendarrion, ruler of the Sundered Isle. They warn him that, to do so, he will brave tempest seas full of raging leviathans while seeking to evade those responsible for the princess’s abduction—including a terrifying mutant left over from the days of the Mage Wars.
Kylac readily agrees.
But when the mutant proves as cunning as it is savage, the perilous voyage gives way to an even deadlier trek across a poisoned wilderness once home to the ancient Gorrethrehn—“Breeders”—a sect of magi known for their foul creation practices. Stalked by bestial denizens, treacherous companions, and horrors that his blades cannot touch, Kylac finds himself embattled as never before. For the mutant is relentless in its hunt, the island’s terrors do not rest, and not even the deadliest man alive can hope to emerge unscathed.
The Golden Unseen by L.W. Fells
Official Blurb: Northmen—who know no loyalty beyond that of kin—are about to invade the imperial City of Caldesia, the home of the Alminster family.
Thrift, the younger of two sons, sails for an academy he has always planned to attend. An intriguing girl and a sinister mercenary accompany him on the voyage. Soon the cruel and arbitrary way of the sea takes a psychic toll. And when Thrift winds up stranded in a lawless city, he must decide whether to relinquish his dream of attending the academy.
Thrift’s twin sister, Josefina, sets out to cross an enchanted forest. A determined and inquisitive girl, she struggles as a chasm opens between her and her mother and as she is confronted with a new side of a childhood adversary. Navigating the onset of adulthood, she encounters a bewitching sylvan people who harbor a grievance toward civilization.
The older brother of the twins, Michel, vows to stay in Caldesia to fight the Northmen. A conservative knight who favors restoration, Michel is vexed by differences he has with his childhood friend Joe, a mariner and fledgling revolutionary, who sees the imperial order as unjust. The center may not hold, it seems, as localism asserts itself along the periphery of the Empire and the old aristocratic order trembles. Wrenched away from one another and from the world that they knew, the siblings come of age as an ancient enmity is rekindled.
Shadowless by Randall McNally
Official Blurb: What if the gods themselves wanted you dead?
A young boy lies on a beach on a warm summer's day. While trying to block the sun from his eyes Arpherius makes a shocking discovery; he has no shadow. Confused and bewildered he asks his uncle why he is shadowless. What he learns is a terrifying secret that will change his life forever.
Set in the Northern Realms, Shadowless is a fantasy novel about individuals born without a shadow. Spawned by the malevolent deities of this world these children of the gods are persecuted at every turn. Hunted by the high priests who carry out the wishes of their gods, hunted by the Shadow Watchers; armed soldiers who are assigned to each temple, and hunted by the gods themselves.
Part-mortal and part-god, the Shadowless live for centuries and face a battle for survival, constantly on the run or hiding in far-flung corners of the Northern Realms. Soon their lives and fates become intertwined, expedited by the mysterious monk Amrodan. Driven by a series of visions Amrodan travels through the Northern Realms, seeking out the Shadowless and trying to enlist their help to take a stand and fight back against the gods.
Over a God's Dead Body by Joel Spriggs
Official Blurb: Three gods walk onto a college campus looking for a dead body. A bad joke, a bad day, or both? Loki hates being bound to Seth, the most micromanaging of all the Egyptian Gods. But when their quest to regain Seth's crown leads to a boring midwest town where nothing happens, Loki discovers a family he never wanted to admit may exist.
Esmy is singularly frustrated by the lack of pockets in women's clothing and being stuck in a rut with fixing the same crappy WiFi issues day in and day out. But when it turns out her great-grandfather is Loki, that ignites her life like a powder-keg. Leading her to discover her own college campus's mysterious depths, involving voodoo priestesses, sasquatches, vampires, Canadians who hate girl scout cookies and the magical ability to have a pocket bigger than a closet.
In a high-stakes game of maneuvering, Loki's freedom and Esmy's survival come down to a fight over a God's dead body.
The Blade Within (Raike #1) by Jackson Lear
Official Blurb: Someone kidnapped the wrong girl.
Twelve hours ago Raike didn’t even know she existed. Nor would he have cared. That was until the only clue to her kidnapping lay in a cryptic note foretelling her death - a note Raike has seen once before. Now he’s prepared to lose everything to get her back.
Standing in his way is an alliance of two mercenary companies, a city watch who cares more about stopping Raike than finding the missing girl, and an imperial general who had little to fear – until Raike came along.
A gripping fantasy thriller that will keep your heart racing until the very end.
The Map Maker of Morgenfeld by Sean Monaghan
Official Blurb: Cole Palmer lives an idyllic, quiet life in a small village, trying to put his life together after Liddy disappeared. He sketches and does odd jobs for neighbors, and misses her. A murder in distant, sprawling Morgenfeld changes everything. And not for the better. The chaotic world of the vast kingdom-building shoves Cole into unimaginable situations. Cole just wants to go home. If he can survive. The perfect journey for readers who love the fantastic worlds of Mervyn Peake and Michael Moorcock.
Guns of Liberty by Jamie Mauchline
Official Blurb: "First rule of piracy: be in the wrong place at the right time."
Guns of Liberty is an age of sail fantasy where Airships rule the skies, Pirates stalk the misty main, and Occultists dabble in profane magics left behind by dispossessed gods. Join Rachel Masters, Inquisitor of the Liberty Empire, as she sets sail to discover the source of ancient magic artifact that could bring war to the empire, and secure it before it can fall into the wrong hands. But she's not the only one looking for the artifact... and when the elusive pirate captain Genevieve Jones kidnaps a duchess, Rachel might have just met her match. If she's going to rescue the duchess, secure the artifact, and save the empire she'll need to put aside her prejudices and find unlikely allies...
The Knight with Two Swords by Edward M. Erdelac
Official Blurb: Before Arthur, There was Uther.
Before Lancelot, There was Balin The Savage.
Before the Holy Grail could be found...it had to be lost.
Balin grows up revering the memory of his father, a storied knight of the High King Uther's time. He is held back from following in his footsteps by his mother, a priestess of the old religion whose capitol is the Isle of Avalon. When she is burned at the stake as a witch by fanatics, Balin blames the corrupting influence of Avalon and sets himself against all that is pagan.
A new high king arises; Arthur, whose rule must unite pagan and Christian alike. Sir Balin, now known as The Savage for his ferocity in battle, answers the king's call for champions, but in his heart, questions the presence of the shadowy wizard Merlin beside the throne. When a vengeful enchantress comes to Camelot bearing a cursed sword that will make Balin the greatest knight in all Albion, but doom him to slay his beloved king, Balin sets out on a long quest that will veer between God and glory, love and madness, justice and revenge, and change the land forever.
Song of a Dead Star by Zamil Akhtar
Official Blurb: When Kav sleeps, a firefly whispers in his ear that his wife is not dead. But to find her he has to kill the three Magi that protect the land of Eden. The same Magi destroyed Kav's hometown four years ago to crush a rebellion, and he hasn't seen his wife since.
As Kav plots to kill the Magi, a flying armada bent on conquest and destruction invades Eden. Only the Magi and their ability to turn sunshine into magical energy can stop them. Granted the same power by the firefly, Kav must either kill the Magi to reunite with his wife, or let go of his longing for the sake of Eden and its people.
Pursuit of Shadows by JA Andrews
Official Blurb: Killien, the unyielding clan chief who’s becoming increasingly volatile.
Sora, the suspicious ranger who sees more than she should.
A swarm of frost goblins that devour with tooth and claw.
The list of people and things that could get Will killed keeps growing.
While Alaric is in Queensland, searching for Kordan’s Wellstone, Keeper Will is over the mountains in the hostile Roven Sweep, searching for his missing sister.
After catching a glimpse of a woman who could be her in a Keeper-hating Roven clan. Will convinces Killien to let him travel north with them to their summer homes.
Under the relentless suspicions of Sora, a tenuous friendship grows between Will and Killien, who talks of building peace among the hostile Roven.
Except Will’s thin disguise as a storyteller is crumbling quickly and Sora may already know who he is.
The more Will gets to know Killien, the more troubling things he learns. Killien’s hatred for Keepers runs deep, and for all his talk of peace, the man’s greatest wish is to control a vicious army.
And a dragon.
But Will doesn’t know that the chief has taken more from him than just his sister.
And Killien controls enough power to gain everything he wants.
The Thorning Ceremony by Andrew Einspruch
Official Blurb: A slightly OCD princess. Her ambitious twin sister.
And the worst rite of passage in the history of all the realms.
Princess Eloise Hydra Gumball III is on track to become the Future Ruler and Heir to the Western Lands and All That Really Matters. That is, if she can survive the grueling training of the demanding Thorning Master, stave off her sister’s desires to take on the role, and get through the horrific Thorning Ceremony.
The Thorning Ceremony is a humorous story set in a unique fantasy world that features weak magic, equality between species, way töö mänÿ ümläüts. It's a funny and witty standalone prequel novel to the Western Lands and All That Really Matters series. If you like quirky, clever characters, lively dialog, and a fun Discworld-ish fantasy setting, then you'll love this book from Andrew Einspruch.
Necromantica by Keith Blenman
Official Blurb: Storm the castle. Raise the dead. Bring the world to its knees.
Best. Date night. EVER.
In this heart-stopping, dark fantasy, two thieves charge through an epic battle between monsters and men. One, a necromancer, a sorceress who uses black magic to manipulate the dead. The other, a rogue assassin and skilled swordsman. Enemies to both armies, allied only to each other, they face doom at every moment on a suicide mission to steal from a holy king.
Hound of The Mountain (Lawless Ink Book 1) by Stephan Morse
Official Blurb: The weight of the world shouldn’t rest on a 17-year-old’s shoulders, but that’s what it feels like for Chase Craig. With his daddy’s last breath, he was given a goal: save Momma from The Mountain.
Escaping this monstrous shadow will take money, lots of it, and Chase’s best option is to join The Rangers—an elite group who hunt dangerous ink-touched beasts that spawn from The Mountain’s depths. Only one person will be chosen out of the several dozen who apply, and if he doesn’t get a magic tattoo before the Trials, he’ll be out of the running.
Cloak of the Two Winds (The Glimnodd Cycle Book 1) by Jack Massa
Official Blurb: Pirates, sorcerers, and witches battle for an ancient magical treasure
To the Iruk people of the South Polar Sea, the crew of a hunting boat is sacred—a band of men and women warriors bound by oath and a group soul. But when Lonn leads his crew away from the hunt to pursue his dream of a treasure ship, they find more than an easy bit of piracy.
The ship belongs to the witch Amlina, and after the Iruks carry off her possessions, they are robbed in turn. Worse, one of their band is also taken—Glyssa, the woman Lonn loves.
To rescue her, the Iruks must join forces with Amlina on a perilous voyage far from the seas they know. To Lonn and his mates, nothing matters but saving Glyssa. But Amlina knows much more is at stake. Among her possessions is an object of ancient power. In the wrong hands, the Cloak of the Two Winds can unravel the age-old magic that keeps the world from chaos.
The Empress of Timbra (Hidden Histories, #1) by Karen Healey & Robyn Fleming
Official Blurb: My father's eyes were steady on my face as I blew out the last bubbles of my breath. I pressed my knife into his hand but he could not make his fingers close around the hilt. I screamed for help with my first lungful of air, and dove again with my second. I was too late.
Fourteen-year-old Taver didn't know he was a nobleman's bastard until his real father died. Eleven-year-old Elaku has always known she was the bastard daughter of the same nobleman. When the two siblings meet in the Empress of Timbra's palace, they become fast friends.
Around them, intrigue and rumour swirl. Not everybody is happy with the rule of the Empress of Timbra. Some have plans for Taver and Elaku. And when treachery and war threaten their home, Taver and Elaku must rely on their magic, their wits, and each other to have any chance of preventing disaster.
Broken Crossroads (Knights of the Shadows #1) by Patrick LeClerc
Official Blurb: The city of Laimrig, once a mighty hub of commerce and a seat of power sinks into corruption and decay. Slavers, crime lords and corrupt officials hold sway while the ruling nobility wallow in decadence. War rages beyond the borders, while within rebellion simmers and sinister plots unfold.
Trilisean is an acrobat turned burglar. Conn is a jaded former mercenary. Against the background of deadly blades, subtle schemes, glittering treasures, dark sorceries and fell servants of forgotten gods, fate has thrown them together.
Fate has a sense of humor.
The Skald's Black Verse (Dreadbound Ode #1) by Jordan Loyal Short
Official Blurb:A last ditch rebellion. A powerful curse. An omen of disaster. Dark, epic, fun – a new world full of wonder, dread, and gallons of blood!
When a sinister creature murders one of the conquerors’ soldiers, Brohr’s violent reputation makes him the prime suspect. Haunted by a rage-filled ghost, Brohr’s disturbing possessions quickly become the reason for all of his troubles…and the only way he can survive.
With a grandfather bent on dragging him into a failed rebellion, and a deadly comet hurtling toward his embattled world, Brohr sets off on a quest to save his people and uncover the secrets of his own past!
Yesterday's Demons by Michael Ripplinger
Official Blurb: When he was a boy, Siv McCaig came face-to-face with a monster. After a childhood lived in fear, he encountered it again.
Siv just wants to work his trade as a blacksmith, play cards at the saloon, and watch the stars. But he'll never be at peace without answers. What was the monster that burned down his house? Where did it come from? And will it ever come back again?
His search becomes a battle for his planet's survival. Only two things might keep all of Verde from falling to the horrors of Siv's nightmares, but they've been lost for two hundred years: technology and magic.
Ayana: The Journey by Geetha Krishnan
Official Blurb: Captured by an evil that has been stalking her since her previous birth, Sita's only hope of rescue lay in her husband's love and tenacity. But neither Rama or she is aware of their true purposes or of the destiny that is in store for them
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