Carry On


Rainbow Rowell - 2015
    And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he's probably right.Half the time, Simon can't even make his wand work, and the other half, he starts something on fire. His mentor's avoiding him, his girlfriend broke up with him, and there's a magic-eating monster running around, wearing Simon's face. Baz would be having a field day with all this, if he were here — it's their last year at the Watford School of Magicks, and Simon's infuriating nemesis didn't even bother to show up. Carry On - The Rise and Fall of Simon Snow is a ghost story, a love story and a mystery. It has just as much kissing and talking as you'd expect from a Rainbow Rowell story - but far, far more monsters.

The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack


Mark Hodder - 2010
    The two men are sucked into the perilous depths of this moral and ethical vacuum when Lord Palmerston commissions Burton to investigate assaults on young women committed by a weird apparition known as Spring Heeled Jack, and to find out why werewolves are terrorizing London's East End.Their investigations lead them to one of the defining events of the age, and the terrifying possibility that the world they inhabit shouldn't exist at all!

The Last Policeman


Ben H. Winters - 2012
    There’s no chance left. No hope. Just six precious months until impact. The Last Policeman presents a fascinating portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job—but not Hank Palace. He’s investigating a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week—except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares. The first in a trilogy, The Last Policeman offers a mystery set on the brink of an apocalypse. As Palace’s investigation plays out under the shadow of 2011GV1, we’re confronted by hard questions way beyond “whodunit.” What basis does civilization rest upon? What is life worth? What would any of us do, what would we really do, if our days were numbered?

Planetfall


Emma Newman - 2015
    A planet promising to reveal the truth about our place in the cosmos, untainted by overpopulation, pollution, and war. Ren believed in that vision enough to give up everything to follow Suh-Mi into the unknown. More than twenty-two years have passed since Ren and the rest of the faithful braved the starry abyss and established a colony at the base of an enigmatic alien structure where Suh-Mi has since resided, alone. All that time, Ren has worked hard as the colony's 3-D printer engineer, creating the tools necessary for human survival in an alien environment, and harboring a devastating secret.Ren continues to perpetuate the lie forming the foundation of the colony for the good of her fellow colonists, despite the personal cost. Then a stranger appears, far too young to have been part of the first planetfall, a man who bears a remarkable resemblance to Suh-Mi. The truth Ren has concealed since planetfall can no longer be hidden. And its revelation might tear the colony apart…

Sweet Silver Blues


Glen Cook - 1987
    But for Garrett, a human detective in a world of gnomes, tracking down the woman to whom his dead pal Danny left a fortune in silver is no slight task. Even with the aid of Morley, the toughest half-elf around, Garrett isn't sure he'll make it out alive from a land where magic can be murder, the dead still talk, and vampires are always hungry for human blood.

Century Rain


Alastair Reynolds - 2004
    Archaeologist Verity Auger specializes in the exploration of its surviving landscape. Now, her expertise is required for a far greater purpose.Something astonishing has been discovered at the far end of a wormhole: mid-twentieth century Earth, preserved like a fly in amber. Somewhere on this alternate planet is a device capable of destroying both worlds at either end of the wormhole. And Verity must find the device, and the man who plans to activate it, before it is too late—for the past and the future of two worlds…

Behind the Throne


K.B. Wagers - 2016
    Gunrunner. Fugitive.Quick, sarcastic, and lethal, Hailimi Bristol doesn't suffer fools gladly. She has made a name for herself in the galaxy for everything except what she was born to do: rule the Indranan Empire. That is, until two Trackers drag her back to her home planet to take her rightful place as the only remaining heir.But trading her ship for a palace has more dangers than Hail could have anticipated. Caught in a web of plots and assassination attempts, Hail can't do the one thing she did twenty years ago: run away. She'll have to figure out who murdered her sisters if she wants to survive.A gun smuggler inherits the throne in this Star Wars-style science fiction adventure from debut author K. B. Wagers. Full of action-packed space opera exploits and courtly conspiracy - not to mention an all-out galactic war - Behind the Throne will please fans of James S. A Corey, Becky Chambers and Lois McMaster Bujold, or anyone who wonders what would happen if a rogue like Han Solo were handed the keys to an empire . . .

Light


'Nathan Burgoine - 2013
    Even so, it’s not long before Kieran is struggling to maintain his own anonymity while battling wits with a handsome cop, getting some flirting in with a hunky leather man, saving some drag queens, and escaping the worst blind date in history. It’s enough to make a fledgling hero want to give up before he even begins.One thing’s for sure: saving the day has never been so fabulous.

Into the Woods


Kathleen Kerridge - 2014
    He hears words that have not been spoken, and can see flashes of futures that may never come to pass. Out of his time, place and comfort zone, Eden lives inside his head, constantly haunted by the idea that there is something else. Something more. Running from those who would harm him, Eden breaks through a Divide believed only in myth and stories, and finds himself in another realm—a place, he soon discovers, he should have been in all along. Finding friends, love and completion for the first time in his life, Eden starts to wake up to who he is and sets his feet firmly on a path he can never turn away from, with his tall beautiful warrior-elf lover always at his side Hunted by those who would have his power, trying to hide from evil, Eden finds himself running through the realms in the hope he can escape his fate, lead the future down a path that will not see the worlds destroyed, and will keep Khari safe from a past that is raising its head once more.

Kirith Kirin


Jim Grimsley - 2000
    Jim Grimsley has created a fantasy that could have come right from our world where power and greed can tempt, and sometimes conquer, even the most rightist person and where knowing who your friends and enemies are can be very difficult if not impossible. Yet it is not our world. For in Kirith Kirin's world magic is real, immortals walk the land, and people are sometimes the playthings for the dark arts. The Blue Queen, upon resuming the throne while King Kirith Kirin's eternality is renewed in the Arthen forest, has partnered with a magician of the dark arts. No longer does she need to leave the throne to renew her eternal nature. Swayed by promises of the dark magician, she has claimed the throne forever and is extending her influence to the far corners of the world. Malleable grey clouds, sidewinding wind, and intelligent lightning bolts made the trip across the vast Girdle nearly impossible. Out of nowhere, the Blue Queen's Patrols made haste to kill the boy and the warrior before they could safely reach the deep forest of Arthen. Riding upon two magnificent stallions, one a royal Prince out of Queen Mnemarra, Jessex and his uncle Sivisal reached Arthen despite a deadly storm that reeked of magic. Thus begins Jessex's new life as he enters Arthen and moves into the royal court of Kirith Kirin.

Magic and the Shinigami Detective


Honor Raconteur - 2018
    The break-in is daring enough, but their method shreds the magical wards and protections on the building like confetti paper. To say the police are ‘alarmed’ by this is the understatement of the century. As a Magical Examiner, Henri Davenforth is of course immediately called in. Quite to his astonishment, Captain Gregson has him work the case like a detective. Even more astounding, he assigns Henri a partner. The Shinigami Detective. The woman is famous for killing the most destructive rogue witch of the century, and no one is quite certain where she’s from. Every officer in the precinct is either in awe of her or a little frightened by her. Henri is just baffled. What is he supposed to do with a partner? Hopefully killing one witch makes Jamie Edwards enough of an expert on magic to be helpful, as the thieves aren’t content to just break into one building. They in fact seem to have an agenda, as with each theft, they take magical objects. It’s all mounting to a dangerously powerful magical construct capable of toppling the wards on any building. And no one has any idea what the thieves’ true target is.

The Oddfits


Tiffany Tsao - 2016
    Unbeknownst to him, there’s a reason why he’s always the odd boy out: he is an Oddfit, a rare type of human with access to the More Known World, a land invisible to most people. Yet unfortunate circumstances keep Murgatroyd stranded in the Known World, bumbling through life with the feeling that an extraordinary something is waiting for him just beyond reach.Seventeen years later, that something finally arrives when a secret organization dedicated to exploring the More Known World invites Murgatroyd on a mission. But as the consummate loser begins to grow into the Oddfit he was meant to be, the Known World becomes bent on exterminating him. For once in his underachieving life, will Murgatroyd Floyd exceed expectations and outsmart those trying to thwart his stupendous destiny?

Rise of Heroes


Hayden Thorne - 2008
    There’s a new villain in town, one with super powers, and he’s wreaking havoc everywhere and on Eric’s life. The new superhero who springs up to defend Vintage City is almost as bad, making Eric all hot and bothered, enough so that he almost misses the love that’s right under his nose.Peter is Eric’s best friend, and even if he does seem to be hiding something most of the time, he finds a way to show Eric how he feels in between attacks on trains, banks, and malls. The two boys decide to start dating, much to the chagrin of their other best buddy, Althea, who has a terrible crush on Peter and a secret or two of her own to keep.As the fight between the Devil’s Trill and Magnifiman picks up, Eric’s relationship with Peter almost ends before it begins when Eric finds out about Peter’s special talents, which might just rank Peter as a superhero in his own right. When the Trill takes an interest in Eric, Peter and Althea, along with Magnifiman and Eric’s normal, middle-class family, all have to work together to keep Eric and their city safe.

The Vanished Birds


Simon Jimenez - 2020
    Decades of travel through the stars are condensed into mere months for her, though the years continue to march steadily onward for everyone she has ever known. Her friends and lovers have aged past her; all she has left is work. Alone and adrift, she lives only for the next paycheck, until the day she meets a mysterious boy, fallen from the sky.A boy, broken by his past.The scarred child does not speak, his only form of communication the beautiful and haunting music he plays on an old wooden flute. Captured by his songs and their strange, immediate connection, Nia decides to take the boy in. And over years of starlit travel, these two outsiders discover in each other the things they lack. For him, a home, a place of love and safety. For her, an anchor to the world outside of herself.For both of them, a family.But Nia is not the only one who wants the boy. The past hungers for him, and when it catches up, it threatens to tear this makeshift family apart.

The Seer


Jordan Reece - 2015
    And Jesco Currane has just gotten stuck with him on the most frustrating case of their careers.When the body of a courier is discovered in an alley, Jesco is called in to assist with his seer skills. All he has to do is touch the clothing of the deceased to identify the killer. But the victim has been stripped naked, and the only evidence at the scene is a timepiece. The people he sees within it have nothing to do with the murder, yet they must be related to the case.Chasing down leads with Scoth lets Jesco see another side of the surly, if handsome, detective. But as their feelings for each other grow heated, so does the investigation. Someone doesn’t want them to know who killed the courier . . . and plans to add them to the death toll if they don’t stop pursuing it.