The Unforgiven


Michael Anderle - 2020
    A moment when one must decide what one is willing to accept. Death, defeat, or allow one’s carnal rage to take control and consequences be damned.” Skharr DeathEaterA lone DeathEater has forsaken his clan. Leaving behind his previous life, Skharr starts building a future next to a dangerous forest in an unknown land.He tells himself it is better than taking gold for questionable reasons.A lone old man travelling with a donkey offers him a choice: Continue this farm life, or trade him Skharr’s just finished home and tilled land for a map.A map that Skharr can use to live large for years… If he survives.The old peddler watches him. Realizing the intelligence, the polished actions of the huge man is but an act. A carefully orchestrated semblance of civility, and shudders.Of all the Barbarian hordes, the rumor was to never, ever upset a DeathEater.And he had come here to unleash this particular DeathEater back into the world.

Children of the Origin Project


Asa S. Rubin - 2020
    But after they find a crashed spaceship in the forest with a dying giant inside, they are faced with a choice that will decide their destinies forever.In his last moments, the giant transfers his knowledge and secrets to them. A war is being fought among the stars, and they have been tasked with completing his final mission to save his people. But it’s not an easy decision whether to stay or go. Joining the war means going up against a murderous regime and its demon-like supersoldiers. But if they do nothing, not only will they be condemning a civilization of trillions, they will be risking an invasion of Earth itself.

Helix


Nathan M. Farrugia - 2016
    A rogue operative.A secret war that could destroy them both.Olesya hunts the augmented operatives she was trained to become. But when a clandestine mission takes her from the illegal bio-clinics of Brazil to the icy borderlands of Kaliningrad, she encounters a rogue assassin with a dangerous secret. As operatives and hunters start vanishing, one thing becomes clear…They aren’t the only players in this deadly game.This is the first episode in the new USA Today bestselling series of cyberpunk thrillers by Australian ex-recon soldier Nathan M. Farrugia. Do you like conspiracies and genetically-enhanced operatives? You’ll love this action-packed cross between Jason Bourne and Altered Carbon. Find out why readers are calling it “the most addictive action series” they’ve read.

Starred Tower


Ryan DeBruyn - 2021
    An epic change in biology. Humanity’s new powers. No instructions. So, everyone created their own!Born over a century after ‘The Rise,’ Jeff scavenges with his tyrannical mother for survival. Banned from cultivating freely, Jeff wants none of this life; his one objective is to join the immortal rankers as they attempt to climb the Northern Tower. On the day of his escape, a powerful guild attacks Leah’s group, and Jeff is thrown through a unique dungeon portal— a portal that hasn’t been used in nearly a hundred years.In the pursuit of Jeff’s ultimate goal, he must choose whether to follow the Church, join a guild or try it all on his own. Predators don’t only come from dungeons, and he must dig through mountains of misinformation for one straight answer.When spells and skills unleash chaos, a special blue screen powers up, and Jeff’s journey to the peak or the grave begins.

Foundling Wizard


James A. Eggebeen - 2012
     For over a hundred years, the Temple of Ran has been sacrificing young wizards in order to steal their power. When Lorit discovers that he holds the rare ability to use magic, he becomes their next target. At first, he runs, working to master his abilities on the move so that one day he might be able to resist them. But that was before the Temple targets his beloved sister, Onult. In order to save her life, he infuses her with his own power. Now, they're both targets. Together, they'll battle to make the world safe for magicians everywhere... if they can survive the temple's power-hungry priests. If they can't, their enemy will absorb their magic and become unstoppable. Experience the start of an Epic Fantasy Series filled with dark magic, sinister villains, and non-stop adventure. It's perfect for fans of D.K. Holmberg, Will Wight, and K.F. Breene.

The Reader


Traci Chee - 2016
    Perfect for fans of Inkheart and Shadow and BoneFinalist for the Kirkus Prize and nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award!Sefia knows what it means to survive. After her father is brutally murdered, she flees into the wilderness with her aunt Nin, who teaches her to hunt, track, and steal. But when Nin is kidnapped, leaving Sefia completely alone, none of her survival skills can help her discover where Nin’s been taken, or if she’s even alive. The only clue to both her aunt’s disappearance and her father’s murder is the odd rectangular object her father left behind, an object she comes to realize is a book—a marvelous item unheard of in her otherwise illiterate society. With the help of this book, and the aid of a mysterious stranger with dark secrets of his own, Sefia sets out to rescue her aunt and find out what really happened the day her father was killed—and punish the people responsible.

The Magicians


Lev Grossman - 2009
    A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery. He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart. At once psychologically piercing and magnificently absorbing, The Magicians boldly moves into uncharted literary territory, imagining magic as practiced by real people, with their capricious desires and volatile emotions. Lev Grossman creates an utterly original world in which good and evil aren’t black and white, love and sex aren’t simple or innocent, and power comes at a terrible price.

Court of Fives


Kate Elliott - 2015
    But away from her family, she can be whomever she wants when she sneaks out to train for the Fives, an intricate, multilevel athletic competition that offers a chance for glory to the kingdom’s best competitors.Then Jes meets Kalliarkos, and an improbable friendship between the two Fives competitors—one of mixed race and the other a Patron boy—causes heads to turn. When Kal’s powerful, scheming uncle tears Jes’s family apart, she’ll have to test her new friend’s loyalty and risk the vengeance of a royal clan to save her mother and sisters from certain death.In this imaginative escape into an enthralling new world, World Fantasy Award finalist Kate Elliott’s first young adult novel weaves an epic story of a girl struggling to do what she loves in a society suffocated by rules of class and privilege.

Shock And Awe (Matt Brunner, #1)


Hervey Copeland - 2019
    The victim is a high ranking drug cartel member, and the leadership of the organization wants revenge. The mission is given to their most ruthless and effective assassin and the order is clear, track down and eliminate the killer. Matt Brunner, a former US Marine and Gulf War veteran becomes an accidental pawn in the cat and mouse game that follows, and has to use all his expertise and experience to stay alive. But is it enough? The cartel is powerful and has tentacles that reach far and deep, and very few people manage to escape its grip. Shock and Awe is the first installment of the Matt Brunner quadrilogy, which follows the protagonist as his life starts to spiral out of control. A fast paced action thriller that is guaranteed to get your heart pumping!

Slave, Warrior, Queen


Morgan Rice - 2016
    By day she delivers her father’s forged weapons to the palace training grounds, and by night she secretly trains with them, yearning to be a warrior in a land where girls are forbidden to fight. With her pending sale to slavehood, she is desperate. 18 year old Prince Thanos despises everything his royal family stands for. He abhors their harsh treatment of the masses, especially the brutal competition—The Killings—that lies at the heart of the city. He yearns to break free from the restraints of his upbringing, yet he, a fine warrior, sees no way out. When Ceres stuns the court with her hidden powers, she finds herself wrongfully imprisoned, doomed to an even worse life than she could imagine. Thanos, smitten, must choose if he will risk it all for her. Yet, thrust into a world of duplicity and deadly secrets, Ceres quickly learns there are those who rule, and those who are their pawns. And that sometimes, being chosen is the worst that can happen. SLAVE, WARRIOR, QUEEN tells an epic tale of tragic love, vengeance, betrayal, ambition, and destiny. Filled with unforgettable characters and heart-pounding action, it transports us into a world we will never forget, and makes us fall in love with fantasy all over again. Book #2 in OF CROWNS AND GLORY will be released soon!

Star of the Morning


Lynn Kurland - 2006
    Legend has it that only the two magical swords held by Neroche's king can defeat the mage. Now the fate of the Nine Kingdoms rests in the hands of a woman destined to wield one of those blades...In this land of dragons and mages, warrior maids and magical swords, nothing is as it seems. And Morgan will find that the magic in her blood brings her troubles she cannot face with a sword-and a love more powerful than she has ever imagined.

King of Ashes


Raymond E. Feist - 2018
    Feist’s epic heroic fantasy series, The Firemane Saga—an electrifying tale of two young men whose choices will determine a world’s destiny.For centuries, the five greatest kingdoms of North and South Tembria, twin continents on the world of Garn, have coexisted in peace. But the balance of power is destroyed when four of the kingdoms violate an ancient covenant and betray the fifth: Ithrace, the Kingdom of Flames, ruled by Steveren Langene, known as "the Firemane" for his brilliant red hair. As war engulfs the world, Ithrace is destroyed and the Greater Realms of Tembria are thrust into a dangerous struggle for supremacy.As a Free Lord, Baron Daylon Dumarch owes allegiance to no king. When an abandoned infant is found hidden in Daylon’s pavilion, he realizes that the child must be the missing heir of the slain Steveren. The boy is valuable—and vulnerable. A cunning and patient man, Daylon decides to keep the baby’s existence secret, and sends him to be raised on the Island of Coaltachin, home of the so-called Kingdom of Night, where the powerful and lethal Nocusara, the "Hidden Warriors," legendary assassins and spies, are trained.Years later, another orphan of mysterious provenance, a young man named Declan, earns his Masters rank as a weapons smith. Blessed with intelligence and skill, he unlocks the secret to forging King’s Steel, the apex of a weapon maker’s trade known by very few. Yet this precious knowledge is also deadly, and Declan is forced to leave his home to safeguard his life. Landing in Lord Daylon’s provinces, he hopes to start anew.Soon, the two young men—an unknowing rightful heir to a throne and a brilliantly talented young swordsmith—will discover that their fates, and that of Garn, are entwined. The legendary, long-ago War of Betrayal has never truly ended . . . and they must discover the secret of who truly threatens their world.

Crown Duel


Sherwood Smith - 1997
    Filled with intrigue, romance, and magic, this spellbinding novel is a dramatic coming-of-age story about a girl who rises from impoverished beginnings to take command of her own fate.“Smith tells a fast-moving tale of adventure, intrigue, and honor, with Mel a likable heroine and a lively narrator.”--Booklist

Armada


Ernest Cline - 2015
    Dreaming that the real world could be a little more like the countless science-fiction books, movies, and videogames he’s spent his life consuming. Dreaming that one day, some fantastic, world-altering event will shatter the monotony of his humdrum existence and whisk him off on some grand space-faring adventure. But hey, there’s nothing wrong with a little escapism, right? After all, Zack tells himself, he knows the difference between fantasy and reality. He knows that here in the real world, aimless teenage gamers with anger issues don’t get chosen to save the universe. And then he sees the flying saucer. Even stranger, the alien ship he’s staring at is straight out of the videogame he plays every night, a hugely popular online flight simulator called Armada—in which gamers just happen to be protecting the earth from alien invaders. No, Zack hasn’t lost his mind. As impossible as it seems, what he’s seeing is all too real. And his skills—as well as those of millions of gamers across the world—are going to be needed to save the earth from what’s about to befall it. It’s Zack’s chance, at last, to play the hero. But even through the terror and exhilaration, he can’t help thinking back to all those science-fiction stories he grew up with, and wondering: Doesn’t something about this scenario seem a little…familiar? At once gleefully embracing and brilliantly subverting science-fiction conventions as only Ernest Cline could, Armada is a rollicking, surprising thriller, a classic coming of age adventure, and an alien invasion tale like nothing you’ve ever read before—one whose every page is infused with the pop-culture savvy that has helped make Ready Player One a phenomenon.

The Burning Sky


Sherry Thomas - 2013
    The one prophesied for years to be the savior of The Realm. It is her duty and destiny to face and defeat the Bane, the most powerful tyrant and mage the world has ever known. This would be a suicide task for anyone, let alone a reluctant sixteen-year-old girl with no training.Guided by his mother's visions and committed to avenging his family, Prince Titus has sworn to protect Iolanthe even as he prepares her for their battle with the Bane. But he makes the terrifying mistake of falling in love with the girl who should have been only a means to an end. Now, with the servants of the tyrant closing in, Titus must choose between his mission—and her life.The Burning Sky—the first book in the Elemental Trilogy—is an electrifying and unforgettable novel of intrigue and adventure.