Book picks similar to
This Changes Everything by Sally Ember


science-fiction
speculative-fiction
fantasy
aliens-on-earth

Terra


Gretchen Powell - 2012
    A young girl struggling to survive. A lost boy with a powerful secret.A discovery that will change everything.In the distant wake of a plague that has decimated the Earth's population, humanity is split in two: The rich and powerful live in skycities that float overhead, while those who remain on the ground have gathered in settlements strewn across a dying planet. Eighteen-year-old Terra Rhodon is a terrestrial--a denizen of the barren groundworld--who makes her living as a scav. Long abandoned by her father, her caregivers gone, Terra supports herself and her younger brother, Mica, by scouring the earth for discarded scraps and metals to recycle for profit. One day, while on a routine scavenging run, she discovers something that shocks her home settlement of Genesis X-16. When the value of her discovery is revealed, Terra's world is turned upside down.Terra suddenly finds herself asking questions no one will answer. Her search for the truth leads her to Adam--a beguiling skydweller unlike any she has ever met. But Adam has secrets and a quest of his own, and with him by her side, the world Terra thought she knew begins to unravel. Soon her discoveries unearth a terrifying conspiracy that has the potential to shatter everything--a revelation that will test the bonds of loyalty, family, and love.

The Mirror


Marlys Millhiser - 1978
    The virginal Brandy, in turn, awakes in Shay's body to discover herself pregnant. What follows is a fascinating look at how two women—and their families—cope with this strange situation.

Anja's Star


Lyn Brittan - 2013
    One could have it ripped away by the captain’s idiot son, Retzi, who used it as collateral in a card game, but one does not lose it. At least, not Anja, but if the captain finds out, she’s the one who’ll be held responsible. She has exactly two weeks to get that ship back before the authorities, the Captain or the galaxy at large, calls in their debts. If she can manage to keep Retzi focused on helping her steal it back, rather than getting her in bed, they just might have a shot at making it out of this mess.

The Shining Girls


Lauren Beukes - 2013
    But it comes at a cost. He has to kill the shining girls: bright young women, burning with potential. Curtis stalks them through their lives across different eras until, in 1989, one of his victims, Kirby Mazrachi, survives and starts hunting him back.Working with a former homicide reporter who is falling for her, Kirby races against time and reason to unravel an impossible mystery.

All the Birds in the Sky


Charlie Jane Anders - 2016
    But as adults they both wind up in near-future San Francisco, where Laurence is an engineering genius and Patricia works with a small band of other magicians to secretly repair the world’s ever growing ailments. But something is determined to bring them back together—to either save the world, or end it.

The Daedalus Incident


Michael J. Martinez - 2013
    However, when rocks shake off their ancient dust and begin to roll—seemingly of their own volition—carving canals as they converge to form a towering structure amid the ruddy terrain, Lt. Jain and her JSC team realize that their routine geological survey of a Martian cave system is anything but. The only clues they have stem from the emissions of a mysterious blue radiation, and a 300-year-old journal that is writing itself.Lt. Thomas Weatherby of His Majesty’s Royal Navy is an honest 18th-century man of modest beginnings, doing his part for King and Country aboard the HMS Daedalus, a frigate sailing the high seas between continents…and the immense Void between the Known Worlds.With the aid of his fierce captain, a drug-addled alchemist, and a servant girl with a remarkable past, Weatherby must track a great and powerful mystic, who has embarked upon a sinister quest to upset the balance of the planets—the consequences of which may reach far beyond the Solar System, threatening the very fabric of space itself.

The Scorpion's Mate


Susan Trombley - 2018
    The last thing she expects is to be abducted by aliens and dropped into a research facility, where a genetically-engineered alien soldier chooses her as his life-mate. Thrax’s pheromones are compelling, and his status as a fellow unwilling test subject makes them allies, but Claire isn't certain she can trust someone who is convinced she belongs to him, when all she wants to do is find a way to return home to Earth—a place that her devoted alien can never follow, because there’s no way the scorpion-like alien would ever be able to pass for human. Still, she’ll accept help where she can find it, so she doesn't hesitate to escape with Thrax from the facility, though their time running from their pursuers in the warrens beneath the research facility will forever change Claire, and could make it impossible for her to return to Earth. But will there be anywhere else in the galaxy they can go where their love will be accepted? Plus a BONUS Full-length novel: Into the Dead Fall Though she was raised by a survivalist, Alice was not prepared to be ripped from her dimension and dropped without ceremony into the massive junkyard of a parallel dimension. She’s wounded, alone, and lost in a world her mind struggles to comprehend. When a strange, four-armed alien comes to her aid, saving her life, she has no choice but to accept his help. She finally starts growing comfortable around her leonine companion, until another warrior intervenes to save her when creatures from the Dead Fall attack them during their exploration, making everything much more complicated. Alice still doesn’t understand what either of the warriors is saying, and if she can’t find the right words to soothe her beastly new protectors, they’ll end up killing each other. Author’s Note: 18+ These books contain scenes that are not suitable for younger audiences. It should also be noted that the alien heroes in these books look alien in many ways, and their cultures and mating habits might not be for everyone.

Just One Damned Thing After Another


Jodi Taylor - 2013
    They don't do 'time-travel' - they 'investigate major historical events in contemporary time'. Maintaining the appearance of harmless eccentrics is not always within their power - especially given their propensity for causing loud explosions when things get too quiet.Meet the disaster-magnets of St Mary's Institute of Historical Research as they ricochet around History. Their aim is to observe and document - to try and find the answers to many of History's unanswered questions...and not to die in the process. But one wrong move and History will fight back - to the death. And, as they soon discover - it's not just History they're fighting.Follow the catastrophe curve from 11th-century London to World War I, and from the Cretaceous Period to the destruction of the Great Library at Alexandria. For wherever Historians go, chaos is sure to follow in their wake....

Sunshine


Robin McKinley - 2003
    But there hadn't been any trouble out at the lake for years, and Sunshine just needed a spot where she could be alone with her thoughts. Vampires never entered her mind.Until they found her...

Iona Portal


Robert David MacNeil - 2011
    Evil is winning.Since ancient times, our planet has been visited by super-intelligent aliens who shift between parallel worlds as easily as we move from sunlight to shadow. Described in our myths as angels, gods, and demons, these trans-dimensional beings often walk among us unnoticed, but they’re locked in a battle older than time, with our future hanging in the balance.The Archons' goal is to destroy the human race and seize our world for their own. Standing against them are the Irin, a benevolent race of winged aliens with great power but limited numbers. As our planet sinks rapidly toward apocalyptic doom, our only hope lies in the Synaxis, a group of ordinary men and women conscripted by the Irin and given supernormal powers.But it’s a race against time. And as the Synaxis members trek across the Scottish highlands to open the ancient dimensional portal on Iona, they must overcome heavily-armed psychopaths, flying bat-winged demons, and the awakening of a long-dormant volcano. Most of all, they must learn how to use their fantastic new powers to drive back the Archons and rescue the world from destruction.

The Shambling Guide to New York City


Mur Lafferty - 2013
    After stumbling across a seemingly perfect position though, Zoe is blocked at every turn because of the one thing she can't take off her resume --- human.Not to be put off by anything -- especially not her blood drinking boss or death goddess coworker -- Zoe delves deep into the monster world. But her job turns deadly when the careful balance between human and monsters starts to crumble -- with Zoe right in the middle.

Peyton 313


Donna McDonald - 2014
     Kyra Winters never meant for her cyber science discoveries to be used for evil, but that’s exactly what happened. Now returning Peyton 313’s humanity is the last chance she’ll ever have to atone. She can’t get back the lost decade, but she can change the present by restoring the cyborg who was once Marine Captain Peyton Elliot. Certainly her grand plan for rectifying her mistakes didn’t include madly kissing the confused, passionate Marine when he begged her to. The same scientific mind that constructed the cyborg creator code now warned her not to let Peyton’s tempting offers of heaven cloud her rational decision making. Yet it’s difficult to resist the cyborg she’s restoring when he’s also the most intriguing man she’s ever known.

What You Wish For


Mark Edwards - 2014
    And when people around him start to die, Richard is plunged into terrible danger.Drawn into the world of a sinister cult and the darkest corners of the Internet, Richard finds himself increasingly out of his depth as he discovers just how far people will go to protect what they believe in... Revised edition: This edition of What You Wish For includes editorial revisions.

Terrene: The Hidden Valley


Eric Liu - 2010
    Within Flora lies the hope for two.In the isolated rural valley of Terrene, where technology is grown, not manufactured, Flora Karachi paints her anguish with flowers and yearns to travel outside the mountain walls that guard her village. But in a society which values harmony and symmetry above all else, her dangerous curiosity and her indelicate scars, earned from a lifetime of inexplicable blackouts, make her an outcast with few prospects for adventure. Then the dreams come. Lucid and overpowering, they throw Flora into a fascinatingly advanced world where she lives the life of Jane Ingram, an American scientist fighting global climate change while trying to raise a child in a society where interpersonal interaction is becoming obsolete. Flora’s blackouts open a window into knowledge lost long ago and possibilities that are yet to come. To unravel these mysteries, she must travel to the enigmatic Institute, an ancient enclave hidden in the surrounding mountains, where scholars guard the secrets of Terrene.Living two lives, Flora will fight to become an Institute scholar in her own world while struggling to save the planet from humanity's neglect in Jane's. Yet all of Flora's courage combined with all of Jane's experience may not be enough to defeat the powerful forces protecting the secret which ties their two worlds together. To find salvation for both worlds, Jane and Flora must sacrifice their own dreams, conquer their fears, and discover hope for a new beginning.Hailed as a clever blend between science fiction and fantasy, Terrene explores the challenges of accelerating technology and global climate change through the stories of two remarkable women in two worlds that are not as distant as they seem.

Parallel Attraction


Deidre Knight - 2006
    After years of exile on Earth, he's almost developed a time travel weapon. One that will hopefully bring peace to his own people. But a chance encounter with scientist Kelsey Wells ignites a scorching desire that overshadows his people's war. To Kelsey, Jared's heritage is exotic and alarming - nothing like the logical, scientific facts of her own world. But despite her fears, she can't deny the heated response of her body every time the magnetic leader comes near. When an enemy from the future arrives, Jared realizes that his desire to mate with Kelsey may destroy them all.Surely he can't bond with her--not now, when his doing so might destroy not only his own world, but Earth, as well. The lovers face one inescapable fact: Time can save them, as much as it can destroy them…