New Books Releasing WE 01.09.24

 

 New Books Publishing Week of

26 August 2024


Welcome to this week's new book releases. Our last week of the month brings out some anticipated releases.


Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan


SubjectsScience Fiction & Fantasy, Comic Fantasy, Fantasy Romance

Series: Time of Iron

Description:

When her whole life collapsed, Rae still had books. Dying, she seizes a second chance at living: a magical bargain that lets her enter the world of her favorite fantasy series.

She wakes in a castle on the edge of a hellish chasm, in a kingdom on the brink of war. Home to dangerous monsters, scheming courtiers and her favourite fictional character: the Once and Forever Emperor. He’s impossibly alluring, as only fiction can be. And in this fantasy world, she discovers she's not the heroine, but the villainess in the Emperor's tale.

 So be it. The wicked are better dressed, with better one-liners, even if they're doomed to bad ends. She assembles the wildly disparate villains of the story under her evil leadership, plotting to change their fate. But as the body count rises and the Emperor's fury increases, it seems Rae and her allies may not survive to see the final page.


Available at these retailers:
Amazon          Barnes & Noble


The Crimson Crown by Heather Walter

SubjectsFantasy Romance, Fairytale Retelling, LGBT Fiction, Villian Origin story

Series: The Crimson Crown Duology

Description:

Legends tell of a witch who became a queen—the heartless villain in the story of Snow White.

But now the wicked queen is stepping out of Snow White’s shadow to become the heroine of her own legend.

Her real “once upon a time” begins when she is just Ayleth, a young witch who lives in the forest with her coven. The witches practice their magic in secret, hiding from the White King and his brutal war against witchcraft.

Ayleth, however, faces a war of her own. Her magical gifts have yet to reveal themselves, and as the threat of the Royal Huntsmen intensifies, Ayleth fears she will never become the witch her coven needs.

To prove herself, Ayleth sets out on a perilous quest that sends her to the White Palace, a decadent world of drama and deceit. There, Ayleth encounters an unlikely figure from her past: Jacquetta, a witch who once held Ayleth’s heart—and betrayed her.

As events at the palace escalate, Ayleth finds herself caught in the web of the White King, whose dark charisma is as dangerous as the sinister force that seems to be haunting the palace—and perhaps even Ayleth herself. With the threat of discovery looming, Ayleth and Jacquetta must set aside the wounds of their past and work together to survive.

As she uncovers the secrets of the White Court—and those of her own heart—Ayleth must find the strength to transform into someone she never imagined she could be.

A powerful witch, the very wickedest of them all.


Available at these retailers:
Penguin Random House            Barnes & Noble





Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

SubjectsRole-Playing Game Fiction, Adventure Fantasy, LitRPG Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Action & Adventure Science Fiction

Description:

You know what’s worse than breaking up with your girlfriend? Being stuck with her prize-winning show cat. And you know what’s worse than that? An alien invasion, the destruction of all man-made structures on Earth, and the systematic exploitation of all the survivors for a sadistic intergalactic game show. That’s what.

Join Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they try to survive the end of the world—or just get to the next level—in a video game–like, trap-filled fantasy dungeon. A dungeon that’s actually the set of a reality television show with countless viewers across the galaxy. Exploding goblins. Magical potions. Deadly, drug-dealing llamas. This ain’t your ordinary game show.

Includes part one of the exclusive bonus story “Backstage at the Pineapple Cabaret.”


Available at these retailers:
Amazon           Barnes & Noble


Between Dragons and Their Wrath 

by Devin Madson


SubjectsScience Fiction & Fantasy, Fantasy Fiction, Myths & Legends

Series: The Shattered Kingdom

Description:

When dragons rage, chaos reigns.

Conquest built the Celes Basin, now enemies once more threaten its borders. But when the Lord Reacher declares himself supreme ruler to enforce unity, old angers erupt, threatening to tear the basin apart from within.

Tesha, a glassblower's apprentice with a talent for poisonwork, becomes a false tribute bride as part of a desperate political plot. In the Reacher's court, she's perfectly placed to sabotage him, but her heart has other plans.

Naili is laundress to an eccentric alchemist, a job that has left her with strange new abilities that are slowly consuming her-and attracting the notice of the city's underground rulers. With time running out, she'll have to gain power by any means just to survive, let alone change the world.

And in the desolate Shield Mountains, sharp-shooting dragon rider Ashadi protects the basin from the monsters of The Sands beyond, but when an impossible shot pierces his dragon's glass scales, he becomes the hunted one.


Available at these retailers:
Amazon           Barnes & Noble



Alteration by S.E. Wheeler

SubjectsScience Fiction & Fantasy, Fantasy Fiction, Sea Fiction

Series: Alteration

Description:

The letter arrives: Ondine's final assignment in her teaching program that will finally - finally - secure her future on the Isle of Mardona. The process has been difficult due mainly to her father's Neridian bloodline, but also the legacy her mother left in the wake of her death. But this final step will put all of that in the past where it belongs, and Ondine will settle into her place on the Isle. 

But there's a problem. She has been assigned to teach at Regiatus: an underwater school in deep Neridia. Not only is Neridia dangerous - especially for Ondine - but her assignment to the depths throws her plans into chaos and pulls her into a rip tide of discoveries about herself, her Isle, and the spiritual power of the ocean herself.

Ondine must decide between a secure and planned future on the Isle she knows, or risk that future - and possibly her life - to pursue a world she's only begun to understand.



Available at these retailers:
Amazon           Barnes & Noble






The Temptation of Magic by Megan Scott

SubjectsTeen Romantasy, Teen Fantasy Fiction, Paranormal Fiction

Series: Empyreal

Description:

Nicole Palmer and her family have been in hiding for years from the Wake—a shadowy organization that governs all supernatural creatures. If the Wake discovers that Nicole is an Empyreal—a rare kind of creature that can shapeshift into any creature’s natural predator—they’ll force her to join them or kill her for resisting.

Like they did her mother.

Nicole is close to uncovering a secret message hidden in a supernatural art collection—a message from her mother about how to destroy the Wake for good. But when the collector is murdered and a key painting stolen, the Wake sends their best Empyreal assassin to track down the dangerous creature on the loose.

Kyan McCarter is handsome, perceptive, and the last person Nicole wants to work with to find the stolen painting. Their search sparks a powerful connection between them, but if Kyan finds out that Nicole is a rogue Empyreal, he’ll have no choice but to hunt her next. After all, no one disobeys the Wake and survives.


Available at these retailers:
Amazon           Harper Collins



Pride and Persistence by Joe Chianakas

SubjectsTeen Fiction, Coming of Age, Martial Arts Fiction

Series: Unveiling Aiden

Proceeded By: Singlets and Secrets 

Description:

What are we fighting for if not each other?

After a roller coaster of ups and downs last year, Aiden Rothe starts sophomore year on a high. After all, he's dating the boy of his dreams. What else matters? But Aiden's hopes for a drama-free school year are thrown aside when a new student captures everyone's attention: Michelle, an incredibly athletic, transgender black belt.

Fearing a repeat of last year's bullying, Aiden's karate club reaches out to Michelle, hoping to recruit her. To their surprise, she already has a team. Michelle is training with local police Captain Decker at his MMA studio, the epicenter of LGBTQ+ hatred in and around Washington High. Soon after, Decker and his notorious partner, Washington High Wrestling Coach Krake, announce a new tournament with a $25k college scholarship as the grand prize. For some, like Mateo, it's a crucial opportunity-he lost his scholarship chances when he came out and quit the wrestling team the year before.

Can the true meaning of martial arts heal the divisions in this town, or will fighting only make things worse? A rousing story of love versus hate, where hidden truths and life-altering decisions lay behind every corner, Pride and Persistence celebrates the indomitable spirit within us all-the fighter that refuses to stay down, no matter how many times one falls.


Available at these retailers:
Amazon           Joe Chianakas



Jupiter Rising by Gary D. Schmidt

SubjectsTeen Fiction, Coming of Age, Sports & Running Fiction

Proceeded By: Orbiting Jupiter

Description:

When Jack's P.E. coach pairs him up with Jay Perkins for the cross-country team, neither of them is happy about it. Jack is grieving the loss of Joseph, his foster brother, and adjusting to his role as big brother to Jupiter, Joseph’s orphaned daughter. Dealing with Jay Perkins—who'd once ganged up with his buddies to jump Joseph in the locker room—is the last thing he wants to do.

But then Jack realizes that Jay is grieving too—the loss of his cousin Maddie, Jupiter’s mom.

As Jack's relationships with both Jay and Jupiter grow and his running improves, he starts to feel more like himself than he has since Joseph died. He's finding his stride . . . until Maddie’s parents, who have never shown interest in their granddaughter before, decide to claim Jupiter as their own, blocking Jack’s family from adopting her.

And suddenly Jack’s past and present smash together, threatening to dissolve both his newfound confidence and his friendships.


Available at these retailers:
Amazon           Harper Collins



Daydream by Hannah Grace


SubjectsContemporary Romance, Humorous Sports Romance, New Adult

Proceeded By: Wildfire

Description:

When his procrastination lands him in a difficult class with his least favorite professor, Henry Turner knows he’s going to have to work extra hard to survive his junior year of college. And now with his new title of captain for the hockey team—which he didn’t even want—Henry absolutely cannot fail. Enter Halle Jacobs, a fellow junior who finds herself befriended by Henry when he accidentally crashes her book club.

Halle may not have the romantic pursuits of her favorite fictional leads, but she’s an academic superstar, and as soon as she hears about Henry’s problems with his class reading material, she offers to help. Too bad being a private tutor isn’t exactly ideal given her own studies, job, book club, and the novel she’s trying to write. But new experiences are the key to beating her writer’s block, and Henry’s promising to be the one to give them to her.

They just need to stick to their rule book.

Oh, and not fall in love.


Available at these retailers:
Barnes & Noble           Simon & Schuster



Truly Madly Magically by Hazel Beck


SubjectsParanormal Romance, Magical Realism, Small Town

Proceeded By: Big Little Spells

Description:

A witch cursed to tell the truth, and the man who won't let her lie to herself anymore...

Cursed by her own mother to always tell the truth and one of the only half-witches around, Ellowyn Good has never considered herself an equal part of the Riverwood coven. But when the Joywood, the evil rulers of the witching world, target her directly, she begins to wonder why they want her gone.

She'll need to work with her newly formed coven to survive, which includes dealing with her first love, past wreckage and a whole new complication she didn't see coming. With their fates in the balance, Ellowyn will have to learn to trust Zander again-or be doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. Assuming they all survive the Joywood's latest bid for absolute power over the witching world...


Available at these retailers:
Amazon           Harper Collins



Given Our History by Kristyn J. Miller


SubjectsContemporary Romance, Romantic Comedy


Description:

Assistant professor Clara Fernsby is nothing if not driven. She’s wanted to teach history since she was fourteen, and she hasn’t let anything stand in her way—not even the love of her life. And it all paid off in the end, because she landed a well-paid position at a private liberal arts college fresh out of grad school, and this year, she’s finally up for tenure.

When Theodore Harrison is brought on for the fall semester as a visiting scholar, it’s an unexpected blast from Clara’s past. She hasn’t spoken to Teddy since rejecting him over a phone call ten years ago. Now that he’s here, she’s reminded of their time together at every turn: autumns spent at a sleepaway camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains, trading battered history books and burned CDs with the quiet, dark-haired boy she once fell in love with.

That boy might’ve been her best friend, but the man teaching HIST-322 is a total stranger—or so she thinks. As they spend evenings working on a shared project and brainstorming over drinks at a college bar, Clara realizes she’s at risk of falling all over again. Given their history, she knows there’s every chance he’s not interested. But history’s all down to interpretation, and this time around, she’s got no intentions of repeating it.


Available at these retailers:
Amazon           MacMillan




The Madness by Dawn Kurtagich


SubjectsHorror, Mystery & Thriller, Psychological Suspense, Gothic Horror, Fiction

Description:

Beware what waits in the shadows…

With one unexpected email from her estranged best friend, Lucy, Mina Murray’s carefully curated life is turned upside down. Leaving behind her psychiatric practice in London, she returns home to the windswept shores of Wales. Faced with everything she’s left behind, she soon discovers that Lucy’s symptoms mirror those of her mysterious amnesiac patient hundreds of miles away.

With nothing but an untreatable sickness connecting the two women, and with Lucy’s life on the line, Mina finds herself asking questions and being drawn ever-deeper into a web of secrets, missing girls, and the powerful, nameless force at its center—one that has been haunting her for years.

As terrible, ancient truths begin to reveal themselves, Mina prepares to confront her own darkest secrets, and with them, an evil beyond comprehension. Together with a group of smart, savvy women, Mina seizes one last, desperate chance to stop the cycle that began so long ago. But there are dangers to inviting the attentions of what might not be a man, but a monster…


Available at these retailers:
Amazon           Harper Collins


The Ghost Cat by Alex Howard

SubjectsFiction, Historical Fiction, Animals, Magical Realism

Description:

Early morning, 1902. At 7/7 Marchmont Crescent, Eilidh the charlady tips coal into a fire grate and sets it alight. Overhearing, Grimalkin the cat ambles over to curl up against the welcome heat and lick his favorite human’s hand. But this is to be his last day on earth…before he becomes the Ghost Cat.

Follow Grimalkin as he witnesses the changes of the next 120 years, prowling unseen among the inhabitants of an Edinburgh tenement while unearthing some startling revelations about the mystery of existence, the unstoppable march of time and the true meaning of feline companionship.


Available at these retailers:
Amazon           Barnes & Noble




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