Tarnished Are the Stars
Rosiee Thor - 2019
Anna works cog by cog -- donning the moniker Technician -- to supply black market medical technology to the sick and injured, against the Commissioner's tyrannical laws.Nathaniel Fremont, the Commissioner's son, has never had to fear the law. Determined to earn his father's respect, Nathaniel sets out to capture the Technician. But the more he learns about the outlaw, the more he questions whether his father's elusive affection is worth chasing at all.Their game of cat and mouse takes an abrupt turn when Eliza, a skilled assassin and spy, arrives. Her mission is to learn the Commissioner's secrets at any cost -- even if it means betraying her own heart.When these uneasy allies discover the most dangerous secret of all, they must work together despite their differences and put an end to a deadly epidemic -- before the Commissioner ends them first.
The Last True Poets of the Sea
Julia Drake - 2019
At least that's what Violet and her younger brother, Sam, were always told. When the Lyric sank off the coast of Maine, their great-great-great-grandmother didn't drown like the rest of the passengers. No, Fidelia swam to shore, fell in love, and founded Lyric, Maine, the town Violet and Sam returned to every summer.But wrecks seem to run in the family. Tall, funny, musical Violet can't stop partying with the wrong people. And, one beautiful summer day, brilliant, sensitive Sam attempts to take his own life.Shipped back to Lyric while Sam is in treatment, Violet is haunted by her family's missing piece—the lost shipwreck she and Sam dreamed of discovering when they were children. Desperate to make amends, Violet embarks on a wildly ambitious mission: locate the Lyric, lying hidden in a watery grave for over a century.She finds a fellow wreck hunter in Liv Stone, an amateur local historian whose sparkling intelligence and guarded gray eyes make Violet ache in an exhilarating new way. Whether or not they find the Lyric, the journey Violet takes—and the bridges she builds along the way—may be the start of something like survival.
Across a Field of Starlight: (A Graphic Novel)
Blue Delliquanti - 2022
An amazing story that explores the complexity of human nature and what brings us together.When they were kids, Fassen's fighter spaceship crash-landed on a planet that Lu's survey force was exploring. It was a forbidden meeting between a kid from a war-focused resistance movement and a kid whose community and planet are dedicated to peace and secrecy. Lu and Fassen are from different worlds and separate solar systems. But their friendship keeps them in each other's orbit as they grow up. They stay in contact in secret as their communities are increasingly threatened by the omnipresent, ever-expanding empire. As the empire begins a new attack against Fassen's people--and discovers Lu's in the process--the two of them have the chance to reunite at last. They finally are able to be together...but at what cost? This beautifully illustrated graphic novel is an epic science fiction romance between two non-binary characters as they find one another through time, distance, and war.
Cute Mutants Vol 1: Mutant Pride
S.J. Whitby - 2020
Except people and me never got along, and apparently you need social skills to run a successful team. Cue Emma Hall's party. One hot make out session with the host herself, and I can talk to objects like my pillow (who's far too invested in my love life) and my baseball bat (who was a pacifist before I got hold of him). Now there's a whole group of us with strange abilities, including super hot ice queen Dani Kim who doesn't approve of how reckless I can be. The bigger problem is a mysterious mutant causing unnatural disasters, and we're the ones who have to stop him. Except trying to make a difference makes things blow up in my face and the team's on the verge of falling apart. Can I bring them back together in time to stop the villain from taking revenge? Have I mentioned I'm not a people person? Magneto help us.
The Companion
E.E. Ottoman - 2021
When a friend offers her a safe haven as the live-in companion to reclusive, bestselling novelist Victor Hallowell she jumps at the chance to escape the city.Madeline expects to find rest and quiet in the forests of Upstate New York. Instead, she finds Victor, handsome and intensely passionate, and Audrey Coffin, Victor's mysterious and beautiful neighbor.When Victor offers her a kiss and the promise of more Madeline allows herself to become entangled even as Audrey is also claiming her heart. The only problem is that Audrey and Victor are ex-lovers with plenty of baggage between them. As Madeline finds herself opening up and falling in love with both she starts to wonder, can there be a future for all three?
The Girls Are Never Gone
Sarah Glenn Marsh - 2021
But publicly, she’s keeping her doubts to herself—because she’s the voice of Attachments, her brand-new paranormal investigation podcast, and she needs her ghost-loving listeners to tune in. That’s what brings her to Arrington Estate. Thirty years ago, teenager Atheleen Bell drowned in Arrington’s lake, and legend says her spirit haunts the estate. Dare’s more interested in the suspicious circumstances surrounding her death—circumstances that she believes point to a living culprit, not the supernatural. Still, she’s vowed to keep an open mind as she investigates, even if she’s pretty sure what she’ll find. But Arrington is full of surprises. Good ones like Quinn, the cute daughter of the house’s new owner. And baffling ones like the threatening messages left scrawled in paint on Quinn’s walls, the ghastly face that appears behind Dare’s own in the mirror, and the unnatural current that nearly drowns their friend Holly in the lake. As Dare is drawn deeper into the mysteries of Arrington, she’ll have to rethink the boundaries of what is possible. Because if something is lurking in the lake…it might not be willing to let her go.
Plain Bad Heroines
Emily M. Danforth - 2020
Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it The Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, The Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever—but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way. Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer, Merritt Emmons, publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded-Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled—or perhaps just grimly exploited—and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins. A story within a story within a story and featuring black-and-white period illustrations.
Blood Countess
Lana Popović - 2020
When Elizabeth takes a liking to Anna, she’s vaulted to the dream role of chambermaid, a far cry from the filthy servants’ quarters below. She receives wages generous enough to provide for her family, and the Countess begins to groom Anna as her friend and confidante. It’s not long before Anna falls completely under the Countess’s spell—and the Countess takes full advantage. Isolated from her former friends, family, and fiancé, Anna realizes she’s not a friend but a prisoner of the increasingly cruel Elizabeth. Then come the murders, and Anna knows it’s only a matter of time before the Blood Countess turns on her, too.
The Reckless Kind
Carly Heath - 2021
Asta would rather spend her life performing in the village theater with her friends and fellow outcasts: her best friend Gunnar Fuglestad and his secret boyfriend, wealthy Erlend Fournier.But the situation takes a dire turn when Nils lashes out in jealousy—gravely injuring Gunnar. Shunning marriage for good, Asta moves with Gunnar and Erlend to their secluded cabin above town. With few ties left with their families, they have one shot at gaining enough kroner to secure their way of life: win the village's annual horse race.
PUNARBHAVA : Rise of the legend of Panini - the Yogi warrior
Ashutosh Jain - 2020
Surfacing (Returning #3)
A.L. Knorr - 2018
Follow Mira's story as she faces life as a single mother, wrestles with the constant call of the ocean to her mermaid nature, and joins an all-male salvage team who is less than thrilled to have her.
When my mother died, I ran to the ocean like a coward. Its cradle of salt puckered my memories and withered my sorrow like a grape drying in the sun. I had cheated grief and was foolish enough to think I had gotten away with it.When Nathan died, I couldn’t run away. No matter how much I flinched, bending toward the Atlantic the way ivy strains for rays of light, I could not leave. Grief was back to take what belonged to it for the time it was allotted. I had everything I wanted a few short years ago. My mate. My daughter. A home, a family. It made my head spin to think how much could change so suddenly. I mused, wondering later if I was the only mermaid to ever walk fully through the five stages of grief. But I had my daughter.Targa had yet to turn, the color and shape of her fins were yet to be revealed, but she would. I had been so sure of it then. Siren genes are passed from mother to daughter, without fail. Young legs melded into a shimmering virgin tail in response to a salty sea. But Targa didn’t turn in response to ocean water, not the first time, not any time after that. Something was wrong. I shoved my fear down deep into some dark corner where Targa would not see it and said with a smile that we’d just have to keep trying. I had turned at the age of three, but if there could be late-bloomers in the human race, why not ours too?Her fifth birthday came and went, still she hadn’t turned. Concern sent its barbs into me like a thistle, then it rooted and grew.Targa and I had weekly late night secret swims in the Atlantic, which had once been fun but were now polluted with expectation and suspense. Coaching sessions (my idea), where I attempted human psychology exercises I’d found in outdated textbooks at the library; guided visualization, breathing techniques, and even a failed go at hypnosis. The memory of her skinny little frame sitting in a bathtub containing more salt than water (Targa’s idea) is still enough to fill my eyes with moisture.I don’t know exactly when she lost hope, but she hid it expertly, patiently participating however I asked.I ignored the creeping thoughts that whispered in my mind; she didn’t even like water, didn’t really want to go for swim, couldn’t hear the ocean calling her. I would shove the thoughts away violently, excusing them as nothing but my own anxiety. It was ridiculous. A daughter of a mermaid who disliked the ocean. Impossible. When I muzzled those fears, I became aware of others of a different kind. Not my own, but hers, for me.She could see the want in my eyes. Whatever mechanism bees and dogs used to smell fear, Targa had it for despair. She could sense it on me, reeking like cheap perfume. Her eyes dipped in desperation, her obvious desire not to disappoint me sliced through me like a white-hot blade from heart to gut. She thought she was my tormentor. The realization struck like a hammer and gave me the strength to do what was needed: Let it go.The ocean could call. I’d let the smell of it crucify me, the sound of its waves crash against me, echo through me, call me, beg me.Targa’s need and my love for her was greater. If she never turned and I was locked in a land-cycle for the rest of our lives, so be it.So be it.
Escaping Exodus
Nicky Drayden - 2019
Her clan has just now culled their latest ship and the workers are busy stripping down the bonework for building materials, rerouting the circulatory system for mass transit, and preparing the cavernous creature for the onslaught of the general populous still in stasis. It’s all a part of the cycle her clan had instituted centuries ago—excavate the new beast, expand into its barely-living carcass, extinguish its resources over the course of a decade, then escape in a highly coordinated exodus back into stasis until they cull the next beast from the diminishing herd.And of course there wouldn’t be much of a story if things didn’t go terribly, terribly wrong.Escaping Exodus is scheduled to be in readers’ orbit Summer 2019.
Hard Reboot
Django Wexler - 2021
When did academia get to be so complicated?Kas is a junior researcher on a fact-finding mission to old Earth. But when a con-artist tricks her into wagering a large sum of money belonging to her university on the outcome of a manned robot arena battle she becomes drawn into the seedy underworld of old Earth politics and state-sponsored battle-droid prizefights.Is it time to get back to the books, yet?
Blackheart Knights
Laure Eve - 2021
. ."A riveting tragedy of blood and desire - and the coolest thing you'll read this year" ― Samantha Shannon, author of The Bone Season and The Priory of the Orange Tree"The boldest, smartest, most adventurous fantasy I've read in ages - and it's really f**ing fun" ― Krystal Sutherland, author of Our Chemical Hearts"Arthurian legend meets urban fantasy in a brilliant, bloody wild ride" ― Jay Kristoff, No.1 New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author
The Storm Crow
Kalyn Josephson - 2019
That terrible night has thrown Princess Anthia into a deep depression. Her sister Caliza is busy running the kingdom after their mother's death, but all Thia can do is think of all she has lost. But when Caliza is forced to agree to a marriage between Thia and the crown prince of Illucia, Thia is finally spurred into action. And after stumbling upon a hidden Crow egg in the rubble of a rookery, she and her sister devise a dangerous plan to hatch the egg in secret and get back what was taken from them.