Upcoming Releases: July 31 – August 6, 2016

Here’s a rundown of the books we think you should look out for in coming in the week. See any that you are really looking forward to? Find any you had not heard of yet? Know of books we missed?

We know we don’t have everything and would love to hear what you feel we may have overlooked.

FANTASY          URBAN FANTASY           SCIENCE FICTION           HORROR

FANTASY

The Church of Armes of the Light has battled the forces of Darkness for as long as anyone can remember. The great prophecy has foretold that a band of misfits, led by a high priestess will defeat the Dark Lord Darvezian, armed with their wits, the blessing of the Light and an artifact stolen from the merciless Spider Queen.
Their journey will be long, hard and fraught with danger. Allies will become enemies; enemies will become allies. And the Dark Lord will be waiting, always waiting…
Spiderlight is an exhilarating fantasy quest from Adrian Tchaikovsky, the author of Guns at Dawn and the Shadows of the Apt series.

Book I of the Manifold Worlds from Hugo-nominated author Foz Meadows.
When Saffron Coulter stumbles through a hole in reality, she finds herself trapped in Kena, a magical realm on the brink of civil war.
There, her fate becomes intertwined with that of three very different women: Zech, the fast-thinking acolyte of a cunning, powerful exile; Viya, the spoiled, runaway consort of the empire-building ruler, Vex Leoden; and Gwen, an Earth-born worldwalker whose greatest regret is putting Leoden on the throne. But Leoden has allies, too, chief among them the Vex'Mara Kadeja, a dangerous ex-priestess who shares his dreams of conquest.
Pursued by Leoden and aided by the Shavaktiin, a secretive order of storytellers and mystics, the rebels flee to Veksh, a neighboring matriarchy ruled by the fearsome Council of Queens. Saffron is out of her world and out of her depth, but the further she travels, the more she finds herself bound to her friends with ties of blood and magic.
Can one girl - an accidental worldwalker - really be the key to saving Kena? Or will she just die trying?
File Under: Fantasy 

From the author of The Postmortal, a fantasy saga unlike any you’ve read before, weaving elements of folk tale and video game into a riveting, unforgettable adventure of what a man will endure to return to his family  When Ben, a suburban family man, takes a business trip to rural Pennsylvania, he decides to spend the afternoon before his dinner meeting on a short hike. Once he sets out into the woods behind his hotel, he quickly comes to realize that the path he has chosen cannot be given up easily. With no choice but to move forward, Ben finds himself falling deeper and deeper into a world of man-eating giants, bizarre demons, and colossal insects.  On a quest of epic, life-or-death proportions, Ben finds help comes in some of the most unexpected forms, including a profane crustacean and a variety of magical objects, tools, and potions. Desperate to return to his family, Ben is determined to track down the “Producer,” the creator of the world in which he is being held hostage and the only one who can free him from the path.   At once bitingly funny and emotionally absorbing, Magary’s novel is a remarkably unique addition to the contemporary fantasy genre, one that draws as easily from the world of classic folk tales as it does from video games. In The Hike, Magary takes readers on a daring odyssey away from our day-to-day grind and transports them into an enthralling world propelled by heart, imagination, and survival.

The author of Blood Storm and Iron Axe returns with the third Book of Blood and Iron—where Danr the half-troll must stop two vengeful queens from razing the world to the ground...  From their sacred Garden, the three fates control all life and maintain balance in the world. But one of the fates has been captured by the evil elf queen, placing the future of every being, including Death herself, in jeopardy. And only one hero can defeat the elf queen: Danr the half-troll.   In order to rescue the missing fate, Danr must first acquire the fabled Bone Sword. Normally Danr would expect his companions to help. However, they are currently in pursuit of a mysterious creature who seems both oddly familiar yet dangerously unknown. But one thing is certain for all of the adventurers: failure is not an option.

A follow-up to The Ages of Chaos omnibus, Thunderlord is a brand-new novel of the genre-bending Darkover universe, expanded by Marion Zimmer Bradley's collaborator Deborah J. Ross.
Far in Darkover's past, the Ages of Chaos were a time of constant warfare, when immensely powerful psychic weapons ravaged the land and slaughtered entire armies. Perhaps none was more dangerous and unpredictable than the mental Gift to sense--and control--thunderstorms. When the realm of Aldaran and their Scathfell cousins came to blows, that Gift turned the tide of battle, and Aldaran prevailed.
A generation later, the heir to Scathfell, Gwynn, has grown up in the shadow of that conflict, his life shaped by the loss of his entire family. Now he plots his revenge for his family’s humiliating defeat by seeking to marry a woman who carries the storm control Gift, so that his sons will be able to wield the terrible power of storms against Aldaran.
Since childhood, Kyria has been able to sense approaching storms. She had never expected to marry a rich man; independent and athletic, she defied tradition by donning her brother’s castoff clothing and trapping small game to keep her family from starvation. When Gwynn’s emissary arrives with a marriage proposal that will secure her family’s financial future, she agrees. Along with her younger sister as her companion, she sets out for Scathfell, where she will be formally wed.
During their passage through rugged mountains, a blizzard drives them to seek shelter in a traveler’s hut, where they meet Edric, the young heir to Aldaran.
Edric has inherited the storm control, but he has never dared to use it. His whole life, he has been warned against the consequences, not just to his enemies but to everyone he loves. Now, disguised as an ordinary traveler, he journeys home after years of study, disciplining himself to control his powers.
When he meets Kyria, he senses the presence of the same storm power, but unschooled and dormant. They know each other only as Edric and Kyria--for under shelter truth, all identities are concealed--and are drawn to one another.
Thus begins the saga of two kingdoms, divided by bitter history and present-day suspicions, one armed with devastating power and the other determined to overcome it, no matter what the price. Can their love and resourcefulness overcome even the overwhelming power of a Thunderlord?

URBAN FANTASY

Set in the same world as the New York Times bestselling Jane Yellowrock novels, an all-new series starring Nell Ingram, who wields powers as old as the earth.
When Nell Ingram met skinwalker Jane Yellowrock, she was almost alone in the world, exiled by both choice and fear from the cult she was raised in, defending herself with the magic she drew from her deep connection to the forest that surrounds her.
Now, Jane has referred Nell to PsyLED, a Homeland Security agency policing paranormals, and agent Rick LaFleur has shown up at Nell’s doorstep. His appearance forces her out of her isolated life into an investigation that leads to the vampire Blood Master of Nashville.
Nell has a team—and a mission. But to find the Master’s kidnapped vassal, Nell and the PsyLED team will be forced to go deep into the heart of the very cult Nell fears, infiltrating the cult and a humans-only terrorist group before time runs out…

SCIENCE FICTION

Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston return to their Ender's Game prequel series with this first volume of an all-new trilogy about the Second Formic War in The Swarm.
The first invasion of Earth was beaten back by a coalition of corporate and international military forces, and the Chinese army. China has been devastated by the Formic's initial efforts to eradicate Earth life forms and prepare the ground for their own settlement. The Scouring of China struck fear into the other nations of the planet; that fear blossomed into drastic action when scientists determined that the single ship that wreaked such damage was merely a scout ship.
There is a mothership out beyond the Solar System's Kuiper Belt, and it's heading into the system, unstoppable by any weapons that Earth can muster.
Earth has been reorganized for defense. There is now a Hegemon, a planetary official responsible for keeping all the formerly warring nations in line. There's a Polemarch, responsible for organizing all the military forces of the planet into the new International Fleet. But there is an enemy within, an enemy as old as human warfare: ambition and politics. Greed and self-interest. Will Bingwen, Mazer Rackam, Victor Delgado and Lem Juke be able to divert those very human enemies in time to create a weapon that can effectively defend humanity in the inexorable Second Formic War?

An action-packed, Star Wars-style science fiction adventure trilogy from debut author K. B. Wagers.
Hail Bristol has made a name for herself in the galaxy for everything except what she was born to do: rule the Indranan Empire.
When she is dragged back to her home planet to take her rightful place as the only remaining heir, she finds that trading her ship for a palace is her most dangerous move yet.

The U.S.S. Merrimack space battleship was on the galaxy’s edge, patrolling the Perseid arm. Rumor said it had become home to an underground subversive faction of the Roman Empire—the followers of Romulus. The United States was not an ally of Rome, favoring neither Caesar Numa nor the fallen Romulus, who had declared war on the U.S. two years ago and caused great devastation before his defeat. Then the Merrimack suffered an unprovoked attack by what seemed to be a Roman ship. Was it an unexpected move by Numa, or the opening salvo by the forces of Romulus?
The Twice and Future Caesar is the sixth installment of the hard-hitting military science fiction series set in a future when Earth's Terran Empire and the Roman Palatine Empire vie for control of the galaxy.

HORROR

The sequel to the “pick-your-own-path” adventure Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?, which the Florida-Times Union hailed, “may just be the best thing to happen to literary zombies since Max Brooks”—for fans of the blockbuster phenomenon The Walking Dead.
You’ve probably read your fair share of zombie stories. But this time it’s different. In a horrific and hilarious cross-country road trip (or rather, suicide mission), you must overcome obstacles of every kind to save zombified America from utter collapse.
You're inside your prison cell, waiting to be released. Your name is Jimmy El Camino, and you’re a badass—in fact, you’re a supreme badass. Rambo with style. Snake Plissken with a failing liver. You’ve killed more men than cancer. But more men than the zombie apocalypse? That’s questionable.
Your mission? Drive your heavily armed 1967 El Camino from New York City to San Francisco in order to save the world. Along the way, you’ll encounter Ring’s Most Wonderful Circus Show; you’ll battle zombies gladiator-style; you’ll be forced to deal with lunatics. And every step of the way, an army of drivers in armored vehicles is hot on your tail—because there is one man, the mayor of New York, who will stop at nothing to keep this apocalypse of the undead alive.

For fans of legendary pulp author H. P. Lovecraft, there is nothing bigger than the annual Providence-based convention the Summer Tentacular. Horror writer Colleen Danzig doesn't know what to expect when she arrives, but is unsettled to find that among the hob-knobbing between scholars and literary critics are a group of real freaks: book collectors looking for volumes bound in human skin, and true believers claiming the power to summon the Elder God Cthulhu, one of their idol's most horrific fictional creations, before the weekend is out. Colleen's trip spirals into a nightmare when her roommate for the weekend, an obnoxious novelist known as Panossian, turns up dead, his face neatly removed. What's more unsettling is that, in the aftermath of the murder, there is little concern among the convention goers. The Summer Tentacular continues uninterrupted, except by a few bumbling police. Everyone at the convention is a possible suspect, but only Colleen seems to show any interest in solving the murder. So she delves deep into the darkness, where occult truths have been lurking since the beginning of time. A darkness where Panossian is waiting, spending a lot of time thinking about Colleen, narrating a new Lovecraftian tale that could very well spell her doom.

FANTASY          URBAN FANTASY           SCIENCE FICTION           HORROR

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Lisa Taylor

I read. Mainly fantasy. Sometimes horror or science fiction. I like books that have a dark side and am not a fan of happy fairy tales. I also have a tendency to tell people what I think of these books (and hopefully why!)

You can also find me blogging about books at Tenacious Reader

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Latest posts by Lisa Taylor (see all)

• Review: A Veil of Spears by Bradley P. Beaulieu - April 30, 2018
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• Review: The Defiant Heir by Melissa Caruso - April 11, 2018