Last night I dreamed that I was back in junior high school. When the teacher called me, I had to go up to the blackboard to solve an equasion he’d written when, all of the sudden, I realized I was the SFF Book Releases This Week. If you are an indie or small press author and would like your book included in this list, email us at adventuresinscifipublishing [at] gmail [dot] com. If you love free books, reviews, and podcasts, sign up to our AISFP Wormhole newsletter.
Now, it’s time to wake up. This list isn’t a dream!
Battlemage
by Stephen Aryan
“I can command storms, summon fire and unmake stone,” Balfruss growled. “It’s dangerous to meddle with things you don’t understand.”
Balfruss is a battlemage, sworn to fight and die for a country that fears and despises his kind.
Vargus is a common soldier — while mages shoot lightning from the walls of the city, he’s down in the front lines getting blood on his blade.
Talandra is a princess and spymaster, but the war may force her to risk everything and make the greatest sacrifice of all.
Wildwood
by Jadie Jones
In Wildwood, the third book of the Moonlit Trilogy, Tanzy’s journey races toward a final battle within the Unseen.
Tanzy Hightower has crossed the veil and entered the Unseen world to fulfill the destiny she has at last embraced, to either seal or destroy the veil between the Seen and Unseen worlds. She is the only mortal in a land teeming with creatures who want her dead. To stay alive long enough to stop Asher, the most powerful of the Unseen, Tanzy accepts his marriage proposal and seeks refuge inside his palace.
On the Seen side of the veil, Tanzy’s allies are fragmented and lost, without leadership. They must gather forces and train an army of candidates to defend their world against unfathomable predators poised to strike should the veil holding them at bay dissolve.
While Tanzy has accepted her own inevitable death in fulfilling her destiny, her closest friends refuse to stop searching for the impossible: a way to save Tanzy’s life.
The Becoming: Redemption
by Jessica Meigs
When Woodside fell, Remy and her companions barely escaped. Now they’re scrambling to recover their shattered lives and find a new place to call home. But their friend Brandy Evans is still missing.
Desperate to recover Brandt from the military’s grasp, Remy and her friends set out on a mission to find him–or die trying. Their search takes them back into the heart of Atlanta. What they find there are the seeds of a betrayal they didn’t expect and a world wholly different than what it had been when the Michaluk Virus struck. With the entire world turned on its head, the group finds themselves dealing with the biggest challenge of their lives.
Heirs of Empire
by Evan Currie
The Scourwind family legacy brought the empire to the height of its power and prosperity and defended it against all enemies. Now one man’s machinations aim to shift the balance of power—with violent and devastating consequences.
When the trusted General Corian launches a coup against Emperor Scourwind, he hurls the planetary kingdom into chaos. To secure his claim as ruler, Corian will need the strength of the Scourwind name behind him, and he will stop at nothing to bring under his grasp the young Scourwind heirs, twins Lydia and Brennan. Barely into adulthood, the two are thrust into the crossfire. Battling new obstacles at every turn, they eventually find refuge with Mira Delsol, pirate and former member of the elite empire forces.
As the stakes rise, loyalists, mercenaries, and political opportunists rally around the heirs in a desperate bid to unseat the usurper. But if their risky gambit fails, will the empire crumble into oblivion?
Noir
by Jacqueline E. Garlick
Navigating her way through nightmarish lands devoid of sunlight, Eyelet Elsworth races to free her beloved Urlick Babbit, the first person to understand and accept her—differences and all. Framed for murder and sentenced to execution, Urlick is running out of time. And the Commonwealth’s tyrannical new ruler, Penelope Rapture, is strangely eager to speed up the clock.
Aided by a band of unusual yet loyal associates, Eyelet stumbles upon a startling rumor. And as she unravels a secret that could challenge Penelope’s claim to the throne, Penelope vows to divert Eyelet’s journey—straight to a dark and deadly end.
Empress of Light
by James C. Glass
Kati used the light of creation to win a war, and now, as empress, she must forge new alliances with former enemies. When her daughter, Yesui, is born with powers exceeding her own, Kati discovers that raising a super-being is no simple task. Yesui, a willful prankster, enjoys torturing her baby brother, Mengjai, who also turns out to be much more than he seems. But Yesui is the true Empress of Light and is later called upon to save a dying gaseous planet by adding mass to its core. There she falls in love with a gentle empath and must help in resisting a coup that endangers his family. Along the way, she discovers beings with powers even greater than her own, and learns that death is only a transformation to something new.
The Last Rite: Russia, 1917
by Jasper Kent
Russia 1917. Zmyeevich, king of all vampires, is dead.
History records that the great voordalak — known across Europe as Dracula — perished in 1893 beneath the ramparts of his own castle, deep in the mountains of Wallachia. In Russia, the Romanov tsars are free of the curse that has plagued their blood for two centuries. But two decades later and Tsar Nicholas II faces a new threat — a threat from his own people. War has brought Russia to her knees and the people are hungry for change. Revolution is in the air.
Mihail Konstantinovich Danilov — who himself carries Romanov blood — welcomes the prospect of a new regime. Like his ancestors he once fought to save the Romanovs from the threat that Zmyeevich brought them. Fought and won. But now he sees no future for a Russia ruled by a tyrant. He is joined in the struggle by his uncle, Dmitry Alekseevich — a creature born in a different era, over a century before. For more than half his existence he has been a vampire, and yet he still harbours one very human desire; that his country should be free. But the curse that infects the blood of the Romanovs cannot be so easily forgotten and Mihail soon discovers that it — that he — may become the means by which a terror once thought eradicated might be resurrected.
Shadows Collide
by Dan Levinson
The Orion Psi Corps is in shambles, the dead still being counted. And though Orion’s retaliation has begun, Calchis isn’t finished yet. New Axom City—that’s where Nyne Allen has taken refuge in the wake of his desertion from Orion. Soon, it will become a battlefield, as forces from both sides barrel toward a collision that will change the world forever. Meanwhile, in the Far East, Aaron Waverly learns the truth behind the red-robed man, even as a new threat looms that may one day devour everything.
Followed by Frost
by Charlie N. Holmberg
Seventeen-year-old Smitha’s wealth, status, and beauty make her the envy of her town—until she rejects a strange man’s marriage proposal and disastrous consequences follow. Smitha becomes cursed, and frost begins to encompass everything she touches. Banished to the hills, hunted by villagers, and chilled to the very core of her soul, she finds companionship with Death, who longs to coax her into his isolated world. But Smitha’s desire for life proves stronger than despair, and a newfound purpose gives her hope. Will regrets over the past and an unexpected desire for a man she cannot touch be enough to warm Smitha’s heart, or will Death forever still it?
Project Hyperion
by Jeremy Robinson
Jon Hudson has become more than just the director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Fusion Center–Paranormal. He is now a husband and a father, surrounded by a team who have become a family. So when a series of strange new threats rise from the depths and fall from the sky, the stakes are higher than ever. THE HARBINGERS ARRIVE While Maigo, the young woman who was once a part of the kaiju known as Nemesis, goddess of vengeance, and Lilly, a chimera cat-woman, sneak off to investigate Big Diomede, an island with an ancient secret inside Russian territory, two monsters fall from the sky. One heads for Tokyo, the other for the already battered Boston. Tsunamis rise from the depths, leveling cities. The two new kaiju—Giger and Lovecraft—follow close behind, bringing death and destruction with them. And Hudson realizes the horrible truth: the Aeros, an alien race plotting mankind’s destruction, have sent these kaiju in advance.
Drawn by the chaos, and by her connection to people she and her new ‘voice,’ Katsu Endo, are fond of, Nemesis rises to the defense of humanity. But the Queen of the Monsters is not alone. Maigo and Lilly unleash an ancient protector known as Hyperion, and the first battle for the fate of the human race, in all dimensions, begins.
Deadlands: Ghostwalkers
by Jonathan Maberry
Welcome to the Deadlands, where steely-eyed gunfighters rub shoulders with mad scientists and dark, unnatural forces. Where the Great Quake of 1868 has shattered California into a labyrinth of sea-flooded caverns . . . and a mysterious substance called “ghost rock” fuels exotic steampunk inventions as well as plenty of bloodshed and flying bullets.
In Ghostwalkers, a gun-for-hire, literally haunted by his bloody past, comes to the struggling town of Paradise Falls, where he becomes embroiled in a deadly conflict between the besieged community and a diabolically brilliant alchemist who is building terrible new weapons of mass destruction . . . and an army of the living dead!
Binti
by Nnedi Okorafo
Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.
Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti’s stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach.
If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself – but first she has to make it there, alive.
Gestapo Mars
by Victor Gischler
Carter Sloan is a trained assassin—the best there is, pulled out of cryogenic sleep whenever an assignment demands his skills. So when he’s kept in the deep freeze for 258 years, he’s seriously pissed off.
Yet his government needs him, to hunt down the enemy known as the Daughter of the Brass Dragon. The future of the galaxy-spanning Reich depends on it, so Sloan is off—screwing, swearing, and shooting his way across interstellar space.
The Entropy of Bones
by Ayize Jama-Everett
Chabi doesn’t realize her martial arts master may not be on the side of the gods. When he disappears Chabi is devastated and vulnerable to those who wish to use her. She must choose sides quickly: people are dying. She does know her master has changed her from being an almost invisible kid to one that anyone — or at least anyone smart — should pay attention to. But attention from the wrong people can mean more trouble than even she can handle. Chabi might be emotionally stunted. She might have no physical voice. She doesn’t communicate well with words, but her body is poetry.
Addict
by Lexi Blake
In order to destroy a legendary monster and save the royal family, Kelsey must make a deal with a devil… When Kelsey Owens returns home to Dallas, she is a changed woman. After months of training with Marcus Vorenus, she has more control over her abilities. She’s ready to start her new job, even if it means dealing with the King of All Vampire and his partner, Devinshea Quinn. Her first assignment, however, will force her to face her past. Grayson Sloane is in trouble and she has to find him. With the help of Gray’s brother, a full empath demon, Kelsey tracks her one-time lover down. Before she knows it, she’s pulled into Gray’s undercover operation in a demon sex club and sitting across from a Duke of Hell. Abbas Hiberna plans to use her city to test his new drug, Brimstone. It doesn’t just give supernatural creatures a high. It also leaves them vulnerable to demonic persuasion. When the king’s own men begin to turn against him, even the royal family is in danger. Keeping them safe will put Kelsey in the duke’s crosshairs and test her fledgling relationship with Marcus. With her new life crumbling around her, a dark secret about her former lover is revealed, and Kelsey will have to choose between saving Gray Sloane and the revenge she’s waited a lifetime for.
Lost Causes
by Mia Marshall
Aidan Brook has spent months living with the horror of what happened when she lost control of her magic. Now she’s searching for a way to manage her immense power, but she only hits one dead end after another. On the run from a council intent on her death, Aidan, the bear shifter Mac, and the rest of her friends find themselves on a desperate chase across deserts and oceans in search of answers. Along the way, they encounter a living myth and a dual magic with secrets of his own-and they learn that the cure may be more deadly than the disease. To save her own life, Aidan will need to confront the most dangerous foe she’s ever faced…herself.
Get Real
by Tellulah Darling
Francesca Bellafiore is a good Jewish girl, living up to family expectations that she use her magic to heal others. Underneath, she’s a wannabe badass with her heart set on becoming a detective and solving magical crimes. But nice girls don’t disappoint their moms. Party boy Rafael Muñoz does everything possible to publicly disappoint his high profile father. Privately, it’s a different story. His carefully crafted bad boy reputation masks the fact he’s a master illusionist, forced into solo covert ops. The role is wearing thin and Rafael longs to be part of a team. When Francesca meets Rafael at a friend’s party, she’s taken by the sexy stranger. Until he speaks. Beautiful plumage doesn’t compensate for spectacular ego. Rafael finds Francesca’s sweetness a turn-on. For about five minutes. Judgmental golden girls are more trouble than they’re worth. Then a terrified girl with reality warping powers, locked and loaded on their destruction, whisks the pair to Manhattan. Francesca and Rafael are caught in a web of magic, minions, secrets, and enough sexual tension to power NYC. Desperate to prove themselves, their only chance to save the city and survive is to team up, trust each other-and maybe even fall in love. Provided they don’t kill each other first.
The Promise of the Child
by Tom Toner
In the radically advanced post-human worlds of the Amaranthine Firmament, there is a contender to the Immortal throne: Aaron the Long-Life, the Pretender, a man who is not quite a man.
In the barbarous hominid kingdoms of the Prism Investiture, where life is short, cheap, and dangerous, an invention is born that will become the Firmament’s most closely kept secret.
Lycaste, a lovesick recluse outcast for an unspeakable crime, must journey through the Provinces, braving the grotesques of an ancient, decadent world to find his salvation.
Sotiris, grieving the loss of his sister and awaiting the madness of old age, must relive his twelve thousand years of life to stop the man determined to become Emperor.
Ghaldezuel, knight of the stars, must plunder the rarest treasure in the Firmament—the object the Pretender will stop at nothing to obtain.
Asurmen: Hand of Asuryan
by Gav Thorpe
Book one in the Phoenix Lords series, featuring Asurmen, the first and greatest of the Phoenix Lords.
Asurmen is the first and greatest of the Phoenix Lords, a demigod of battle whose legend spans the stars. He shielded his people from destruction at the time of the Fall, and led his chosen warriors, the Dire Avengers, in defence of the eldar for ten thousand years. A superlative warrior and peerless leader, Asurmen is one of the greatest hopes of the eldar race.
Luna: New Moon
by Ian McDonald
The Moon wants to kill you. Whether it’s being unable to pay your per diem for your allotted food, water, and air, or you just get caught up in a fight between the Moon’s ruling corporations, the Five Dragons. You must fight for every inch you want to gain in the Moon’s near feudal society. And that is just what Adriana Corta did.
As the leader of the Moon’s newest “dragon,” Adriana has wrested control of the Moon’s Helium-3 industry from the Mackenzie Metal corporation and fought to earn her family’s new status. Now, at the twilight of her life, Adriana finds her corporation, Corta Helio, surrounded by the many enemies she made during her meteoric rise. If the Corta family is to survive, Adriana’s five children must defend their mother’s empire from her many enemies… and each other.
Byron Dunn is an AISFP Contributor, a friend to werewolves, and… um…
Let’s not talk about that other thing, okay? There’s a reason he’s still banned in California.
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