Looking for a fantastically creepy book to start off October? The Apartment by S. L. Grey may be just what you need. It is a haunting tale told through alternating perspectives from husband and wife, Marc and Steph. Both have been traumatized and then things start to get …. creepy. I’ve read Sarah Lotz’s The Three and Day Four and loved them both. This is the first time I’ve read one of the books she co-authors with Louis Greenberg under the pen name S. L. Grey. It definitely did not disappointed and makes me think twice about house swapping for vacation. Marc and Steph’s relationship is definitely in need of work. In addition to dealing with the house invasion, Marc also has a traumatic history involving his first family, before he met Steph. So, when the opportunity arises to “get away” and take the honeymoon they never had, they leave their young daughter behind and head to Paris hoping this will get them back in touch with each other, make everything good again. Unfortunately, once they get to Paris, they encounter one problem after another, and their romantic, relaxing time away  starts to feel more like hell. The apartment is nothing as advertised, in a virtually abandoned…

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   FANTASY           URBAN FANTASY     FANTASY          URBAN FANTASY   The Dreaming Hunt Cindy Dees 9/27/2016 Tor Books The Ferryman Institute Colin Gigl 9/27/2016 Gallery Books The Bloodsworn Erin Lindsey 9/27/2016 Ace Cloudbound Fran Wilde 9/27/2016 Tor Books The Fall of the House of Cabal Jonathan L. Howard 9/27/2016 Thomas Dunne The Purloined Poodle Kevin Hearne 9/30/2016 Subterranean Press

The Speculative Herald is looking to expand our team! We are hoping to add some fellow lovers of speculative fiction as regular contributors (at least one post a month, preferably 2 or more). What are we looking for? Pretty much any solid content related to speculative fiction. We would love to add some team members for more new/upcoming release reviews, but also for non-review content as well. If you would be interested in contributing a News Roundup post or something else to keep us all up to date on the latest goings on, let us know! We are excited to see what others may have to offer. What does it pay? Good Karma and gratitude. Nothing monetary, as we are all volunteers who just love sharing our thoughts on books. Interested? Apply Here We will respond to every application, but the response may depend on how many applications are submitted (we want to give everyone a fair shot). Since this is the first time we are running an open recruitment, I hope you can bear with us if we run into anything unexpected. Ideally, we would like to respond within two weeks. We may have some follow up questions for individuals…

Today, we welcome Marc Turner to talk about Tropes! Namely, those top 5 overused Tropes. Marc’s latest book, Red Tide, is the final book in The Chronicles of the Exile trilogy and releases tomorrow! Five Fantasy Tropes That Should Be Consigned To History   As an author, you need to be careful when talking about fantasy tropes. If I were to make an exhaustive list of tropes, you’d be hard-pressed to find a single book in the genre that didn’t contain at least one of them. Most would contain several – but not my own, of course.   Ahem.   Obviously, not all tropes are “bad”. If we define a trope as being a significant or recurrent theme in the genre, then you’d have to include dragons in that, wouldn’t you? And I, for one, will never tire of dragons. You might even find one or two lurking in my new book Red Tide.   Also, a good writer can do something new with a trope and keep it interesting. For example, I’ve lost count of the number of wizard schools I’ve seen. There were three alone on my walk into town this morning. Yet I enjoyed reading about the University…

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               URBAN FANTASY   SCIENCE FICTION           HORROR           FANTASY          URBAN FANTASY           SCIENCE FICTION           HORROR   The Family Plot Priest, Cherie 9/20/2016 Tor Books Magic Binds Andrews, Ilona 9/20/2016 Ace Red Tide Turner, Marc 9/20/2016 Tor Books Deadlands: Thunder Moon Rising Mariotte, Jeffrey 9/20/2016 Tor Books Death’s End Liu, Cixin 9/20/2016 Tor Books Vassa in the Night Porter, Sarah 9/20/2016 Tor Teen Metaltown Simmons, Kristen 9/20/2016 Tor Teen The Warren Evenson, Brian 9/20/2016 Tor.com The Queen of Blood Sarah Beth Durst 9/20/2016 Harper Voyager The Gradual Christopher Priest 9/20/2016 Titan Books Dead Souls J. Lincoln…

Ah, the final chapter in a trilogy. It is always bittersweet when pick up that last book in series, excited to find out what comes next, yet wondering how the final chapters will go for characters you have grown to love during the series, sad to think that your journey with them is almost at a close. I have really enjoyed the books in the Bloodbound series, so I definitely felt this going in. There’s almost a sense of nervousness if I will be satisfied the end of series. No one wants to depart on a bad note, and it is hard know that even if you love it, there’s no guarantee you will get to read more about the characters. But, excitement to read overshadows all of that, and so I dove into The Bloodsworn without hesitation. The Bloodsworn takes off immediately, with our beloved characters facing situations more dire than ever before as they face the prospect of the complete loss of their land and people. The threat is very real and quite dire. With King Erik, well, let’s just call him “indisposed“, due to the bloodbinder from the last book,  Alix and Liam face new challenges of running the land, while trying to not…

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           SCIENCE FICTION           HORROR   FANTASY         SCIENCE FICTION         HORROR       FANTASY           SCIENCE FICTION           HORROR    

Ghost Talkers is an alternate history set during WWI. The British has a group of mediums, called the Spirit Corps, that is used for intelligence gathering. Their job is basically to interview the recently deceased soldiers before they move on to whatever awaits them beyond this world. The purpose of these interviews is to get critical information that would normally be lost forever , intelligence and information that a soldier would normally take to their awaiting grave. I immediately found the premise of interviewing recently deceased soldiers as part of a war strategy for intelligence gathering fascinating. I couldn’t help but theorize how this could be used, what kinds of information could suddenly become available and I found the possibilities very intriguing (and plentiful). Kowal did a great job with the fantastical element in this story. I loved the mediums and how they were used to gain advantage during war time. Their abilities also carried a risk to themselves if not done properly as safely. Interviews were done with groups that contain supporting members to keep the interviewing medium from losing themselves in the process. Ginger is our main character, and as one would expect, is a member of the Spirit Corps. Ginger’s…

Today we are excited to host a giveaway for High Stakes, edited by George R. R. Martin and Melinda M. Snodgrass. The book just released this week and while it may be the 23rd Wild Cards book, it is actually a great starting pointing for new readers. Thanks to the good people at Tor who have given us 2 copies of High Stakes to giveaway to our readers! ABOUT THE BOOK After the concluding events of Lowball, Officer Francis Black of Fort Freak, vigilante joker Marcus “The Infamous Black Tongue” Morgan, and ace thief Mollie “Tesseract” Steunenberg get stuck in Talas, Kazakhstan. There, the coldblooded Baba Yaga forces jokers into an illegal fighting ring, but her hidden agenda is much darker: her fighters’ deaths serve to placate a vicious monster from another dimension. When the last line of defense against this world weakens, all hell breaks loose, literally…. The Committee in New York sends a team of aces to investigate. One by one, each falls victim to evil forces–including the dark impulses within themselves. Only the perseverance of the most unlikely of heroes has a chance of saving the world before utter chaos erupts on Earth. Edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author George R….

Bite is not the book I was expecting, but I loved every minute of it. For some reason, when I read the synopsis for this book, I got it in my head this was a horror book which was completely wrong. Don’t get me wrong, there are some horrors in the book and world, but it’s a very exciting post-apacolyptic story that follows the journey for survival by one young woman. The world and land has been devastated by nuclear weapons, water and food are scarce, and the surviving people live in a free for all type of world where raiders and worse roam, destroying any semblance of order or safety. Our protagonist is a young woman, traveling completely on her own for several years since the death of her father. This is a dangerous world for anyone to be on their own, but probably particularly so for women. But she is often mistaken for a boy, which probably works to her benefit. Her life changes when things start to look the darkest for her. She is hungry and thirsty, traveling alone in the desert. She starts to resign to her fate when she crosses paths with a group of…