Author: Alex Acks

In the far future, humanity survives inside giant space animals, which they have driven nearly to extinction with this exploitation. But after attaining the throne, Doka has crafted life inside his living ship into something that is almost utopian. But his rivals are trying to push him into failure, and when they must open their home to thousands of refugees, external clashes join the internal. It is up to Doka and the one woman he is forbidden to love, his wife, to work to keep and expand the peace.

Telepathic ambush predator Sarah Zellaby has been kidnapped and manipulated by her birth family and undergone a transformation into greater power, though she’s still externally the same. Now stranded in another dimension with a few familiar faces who do not recognize her at all, Sarah must figure out who and what she is–and if that’s someone she can live with.

After Earth’s civilization has been shattered and partially rebuilt by corporations, the factions left behind are vying for control and power. And in that world is Glow, a nanotech drug that jumps through multiple people and cuts and pastes memories and personas. A confused junkie, a corporate founder living on a satellite, and an unstoppable robotic assassin are tied together by the Glow and trying to survive.

Michael Martiniere is a clone of an old man who does not want to die; his life was always intended to end so that Philip Martiniere could live. He’s rescued from that fate at the age of five, but he still must struggle against his own body and the mind control used against him if he wants to be free of Philip’s legacy.

After her car breaks down in the Nevada desert, Rose hears a radio broadcast of the voicemail her best friend Gaby left just before she died a year ago. She follows the radio broadcast to a small town called Lotus Valley, a place filled with prophets who claim they have been waiting for her, because Rose’s arrival heralds a flood that will come in three days and destroy the town.

Klementia and Eli, wizards from the Holy Russian Empire, have come to Ciudad Juarez with the mission of finding descendants of Rasputin. But they’re not the only ones on the hunt, and they’re all after the same person: Felicia, Rasputin’s granddaughter.

A bandit walks into a coffee house, and his life immediately gets very interesting in a bad way: he finds himself in possession of a sacred object and a young votary who wants to see it protected and doesn’t care what trouble she causes along the way.

In the human kingdom, crops are failing and the sun hasn’t shone in years. Two seventeen-year-old girls are sent on a dangerous journey to the city of the fairy queen. They begin to fall in love, though at the end of their task is the harsh reality that their kingdom only needs one huntress as a savior, not two.

A poor scholar and a mindship who is a notorious thief and master of disguise must team up to solve a mysterious murder that puts their relationship, one built on secrets, to the ultimate test.

In the past, the Dragon Songs could summon storms and rout entire armies, but they have long been forgotten. Now a naive young musician must find her her way to the song and the Dragon Scale Lute with the aid of a foreign Paladin. Though once that instrument is in her hands, will she save the world–or destroy it?

Min comes from a long line of fox spirits, but her mother insists the entire family eschew fox magic for their own safety. When she learns that her older brother Jun has left his Space Force post to search for the fabled Dragon Pearl, she knows something must be terribly wrong. She runs away from her family and home planet to find him and clear his name, embarking on a question that will test her–and her magic–in ways she could ever have imagined.

It’s gunpowder engines versus steam power in an alternate history of the Opium War. After the Emperor orders the execution of his engineers for their failure to drive back the British invasion, Jin, the daughter of one of those engineers, has been laying low. But now the Crown Prince is launching a secret effort to expel the British, and Jin may hold the key to building the engines that will bring their freedom.

Lei is from the paper caste, the lowest in Ikhara after the conquest of the moon caste demons. After losing her mother ten years ago to royal guards, she’s frightened to see them return–this time for her. She is one of nine girls brought to the palace to learn the skills of a consort, forced to entertain the demon king for a year. But she falls in love with another of the paper girls, and finds the fire to fight for herself–and revenge.

Kira is a demon hunter, the bodyguard of the prince, and the only woman in the king’s army. When the king is murdered and the unearthed traitors point to a coming demon invasion, she goes on the run with her charge, who may be the only one who can defeat the Demon Lord according to a cryptic prophecy. With only that prophecy as her guide, Kira must keep her prince alive–and raise him to be a king.

In the parallel world of the Gardens, a select group of masters rule their decadent paradise with cruel glee, punishing the teenagers who serve them for growing up. Dora and Thistle try to flee, traveling through time and space and dipping into our world to find the person who can grant their freedom.

When the people of the Black Keep see sails on the horizons, they know this is the day they’ve been preparing for: when the clanspeople of Tjakorsha will invade. But the force of riders on war dragons they send meets not invaders, but refugees fleeing a despot who is trying to bring about the end of the world.

After years of wishing for magic, Arrah finally has exactly what she wanted… but at the price of a shattered family and a kingdom falling apart. As the last witch doctor, she must try to hold all of these things together while searching for survivors of the demon attack. But worse, the demon king wants Arrah, and he will destroy everyone and anything standing in his way.

Near future Earth is a place of deep jungles and monstrously transformed animals, with the surviving humans divided between the dangerous surface and a ring that orbits at the edge of the atmosphere. Pearl is a young techie who lives among the jungle but is promised to a man in the orbiting settlement. (I have seen this pitched as a reimagining of Wide Sargasso Sea and I am fascinated.)

Robin Thorpe has hidden her magic for years to avoid imprisonment by the state. But times are changing; freed witches are flooding the streets and returning to the families robbed of them. Robin has a chance to push for an Aeland that is more free and just for all–and then her childhood love who vanished into one of the witch asylums twenty years ago returns.

The first book of Alyssa Cole’s Off the Grid series, which takes palce in a post-apocalyptic world where all technology has failed and people need to band together to survive–and find romance while they’re searching for supplies.

Also check out Alyssa’s cute near-future AI romance, The AI Who Loved Me.

Holley Trent writes paranormal romance that is funny, and sharp, and snarky, and with characters who are delightful trash not-literal-goblins. This one’s an F/F romance about a coyote shifter and the girlfriend she ghosted hashing out their problems.

This is a space opera with noble houses, runaway daughters, political machinations, secret science experiments, incipient wars, the whole nine yards. And of course, romances between strong-willed daughters of a noble house with a particularly douchey dad and an array of dangerous men who are very good at shooting things.

Nalini Singh writes a ton of paranormal romance–she’s got shifters, she’s got changelings, she’s got vampires, she’s got angels. It’s hard to think where to even start! Nalini herself points to this book as a good entry point to her Psy-Changeling series, which pairs emotionally distant Psy characters with Changeling shifters.

Lyre got sent by her people to betray Empress Sabine, and then fell in lover with her instead. Now they’re on their way back to Lyre’s home, a floating city that runs on biotech, and the city would like its revenge on both of them.

Like Nalini Singh, Kit Rocha writes a lot of great SFF romance in all sorts of subgenres. In all honesty, the reason I grabbed this book as the one to highlight is because I will never be over the concept of “mercenary librarians”–people who help those in need with knowledge and pay the bills by raiding data vaults. It’s delightful stuff.

Kotahi Bay is a place where magic is real, mortals and gods cross paths, and witches and necromancers have to protect their home and their families–while maybe finding someone to share their lonely lives. This series has a bit of a dark undertone to it. JC Hart also writes fantasy/romance fairytale retellings as Nova Blake; check out Ebony Slumbers.

KJ Charles writes mostly queer historical romance, but this one’s a historical romance with magic in it, including animated tattoos and a supernatural threat to a new earl’s life, thanks to the enemies he inherited to go with the title. He hires a magician to protect him, and things get steamy from there. Honestly, I love everything this author writes.

Already an outsider in her own village, Deka fears what the blood ceremony reveals: that her blood runs gold, the color of impurity. A mysterious woman offers her an alternative to a fate worse than death, the opportunity to leave her village and join an army of girls just like her. Deka leaves behind the only home she has known to join in a war against the empire’s greatest threat–and it’s more dangerous than she could have ever imagined.

That good spirit Puck finally tells his own story, in which he faces a threat from the time before Faery, and the worst of all possible enemies: himself. Puck doesn’t face this threat alone, however; he has the Iron Queen Meghan Chase and her prince consort, Ash, at his side. Together, the three of them must reckon with a darkness so profound even their combined powers may not be enough… and if they don’t succeed, Faery will fall.

Princess Thanh was sent away as a hostage to Ephteria when she was a child. After returning home to her mother’s court, she takes on the role of diplomat. This puts her directly in the path of her first love, Eldris of Ephteria, who wants both Thanh back and concessions from Thanh’s home. But Thanh has her own fire inside, and she sees her chance to make her own fate and change the future of her country.

Angrboda is burned by Odin as punishment for not giving him knowledge of the future. She survives, her power severely damaged, and hides in a remote forest. There, she meets and falls in love with Loki. Together, they have three children, each with their own destiny. But as Angrboda heals and slowly regains her power of prophecy, she realizes her family, her life, and the entire world is at stake–and only she can remake the future into something better.

This is a collection of Isabel Yap’s short fiction, including an entirely new novella titled A Spell for Foolish Hearts. Her subjects range from immigrant tales to urban legends, and the page sings for each.

Silicon Valley outsiders Ben and Adhi develop a computer that can connect to the internet one year in the future, and suddenly their startup is the hottest commodity out there. Their machine predicts everything perfectly, from the stock market to relationships, to deaths, and what seems like a chance for fortune at first reveals a darker future than they could have guessed, culminating in a possible apocalypse. Once they’ve seen the future, can they change it?

A group of humans is stranded for centuries on another world; they have no choice but to expose themselves to the alien biome, including all its viruses and bacteria. Survival means they must adapt. On the other side of that, are they still even human, or have they been remade into another species entirely?

There is no way I could do a romantic SFF feature and not have this book as number one on my list. It is the book that caused my house to coin the term “disaster heteros” because we spent so much time clutching our faces and screaming about why can’t these two dorks just KISS already. PLUS it’s Mughal-inspired fantasy about the evils of empire! Its sequel, Realm of Ash is excellent and also hits the romance buttons, though not quite as strongly for me as this one.

Let me be clear–any book by C.L. Polk fits this bill, and I heartily recommend them all. The Kingston Cycle (Witchmark, Stormsong, Soulstar) offers an entire bi pride flag of romance options. But this book is the newest one that’s currently out, and it’s about a sorceress who wishes to not marry despite family pressure because she doesn’t want to lose her magic… and then she falls in love.

Yes, this book really is as good as everyone says. Two soldiers in an endless post-human war begin writing letters to each other, and love finds a way. It’s gorgeous, it’s lush, and it deserves every award it’s gotten.

This is probably my second favorite of the Vorkosigan saga novels. It’s extremely funny, it has Miles playing Space Nancy Drew, and it’s about him absolutely flaming out because he’s desperately in love with a widow named Ekaterin, which gets them both tangled up in some twisty politics. I cannot do this book justice.

A young trans man out to prove he can be a proper brujo accidentally summons the ghost of a missing classmate. So then he has a mystery to unravel and a ghost to send to rest… but what if he messes things up even more by falling in love? This book is a lot of fun in general, but the romance is absolutely adorable.

Come for the gender-bent Shakespearian history crossed with fantasy, stay for the romance between Hotspur and Hal, both of whom are victims of circumstance and politics and fate… but their love might just be strong enough to conquer all of those things and save their kingdoms besides.

A fierce warrior princess who wants to save her kingdom and the life of her father. A shape-shifting dragon who claims her as his “Given”–his fated partner. They have very different goals, but maybe they can manage both romance and saving the day–if the princess can find room in her perceived destiny for both.

A trans woman who was once a prince in an enemy kingdom falls in love with a prince of her own–and then sets about reclaiming everything she gave up from her old life by saving the kingdom and her prince from a war started by her father. Everything in this book is kicked off by Razia’s romance with the prince, Arjun, and they make an epically cute couple.

A family from Afghanistan journeys to Australia, keeping their hopes alive with fairy tales and stories. During the long journey from Pakistan to Indonesia to Nauru, they must rely on the kindness of strangers with questionable motives for temporary shelter. But Australia is not the land they’ve made into myth along the journey, and once there, Firuzeh, the daughter of the family, escapes into her fantasy worlds once more.

Karis has been forced to serve the Scriptorium, her country’s ruling group of scribes, who have one main purpose: unlock the magic of an army made of ancient automatons. As she searches for her missing brother, Karis accidentally awakens one of the automatons–which turns out to be intelligent and sentient, and named Alix. Alix doesn’t know why he was made or why his creator once tried to destroy him and all the other automatons. Now hunted by the Scriptorium, Karis and Alix must work together to find Karis’s brother and unearth the secrets that have long held the country in darkness.

Mia’s family has shaped humanity over 99 generations, always pushing them to try to reach for the stars. Her task in this mission is to lure Wernher Von Braun to the American space program, thus securing the move into the space race. But Mia’s family isn’t the only one trying to manipulate history, and her enemies are far more ruthless and creative than she yet imagines.

A kingdom once founded to be a utopia has collapsed into feudalism, with the gap between wealthy and poor ever-widening. A rumor circulates that a True Queen will save the kingdom, and these are the sort of rumors that fuel rebellion. A young man named Lazarus, who has lived most his life without ever seeing the sky as he is trained to kill mercilessly, ascends to the surface and joins a royal court filled with intrigue. There he meets Niya, a handmaiden with a true identity that must never be revealed, and the princess she serves, Elyssa. Together, the three of them must fight for a better world and to master their own fates.

Twenty years ago, Joseph Bridgeman’s little sister, Amy, disappeared, and his life fell apart. A friend convinces him to see a hypnotherapist for his insomnia, and instead he accidentally discovers he can time travel. He suddenly has a new purpose: to go back and save Amy. But the further he travels back, the less time he gets to spend in his destination–and he has a deadly mystery to solve.

Cas Russell can use mathematics like a magic superpower to dodge bullets. But after having her memories screwed with and her life manipulated, she is rightfully mad as hell by the time she gets to Null Set. That anger powers her to Fight Crime–and fix the problem she herself caused by crushing her last enemies.

The islands of Hans Lollik have been ravaged by colonizers, with families murdered and the survivors subjugated. The anger that comes from that pain drives one woman to try exact her revenge by way of the trhone, and in its sequel King of the Rising, powers former slave Loren to lead a revolution.

Navajo monster hunter Maggie Hoskie has a lot of reasons to be really mad at the world. She’s been given that anger by a lot of betrayal and a lot of death around her, and it’s been used to manipulate her. But it powers her into being almost unstoppable, both in pursuing revenge and pursuing justice.

The Fifth Season starts with an act of destructive anger, when Essun’s husband beats their son to death because he reveals he has the powers of an Orogene, someone who can manipulate seismic energies. It’s set in a world built upon injustice and iniquity, shaped by the rage of the Earth itself at what has been done to it. But Essun and many of the other characters use both their grief and the accompanying anger at what has been done to them to ultimately forge a better world–even if at great cost.

Two archrivals meet at a memory loss support group after having their pasts erased: Jamie, who uses his powers to read and erase the memories of others to hold up banks; and Zoe, who uses her powers of super speed and strength to mostly deliver fast food. They soon realize that the keys to their missing pasts lie in each other. As outer threats begin to mount, they must learn to trust each other–and themselves.

Rubi Whiting has convinced the galactic governing body that humanity deserves a seat at the table… and the responsibility of fixing its own problems. But humanity isn’t being welcomed universally into the galactic community of worlds, and there are those who would happily sabotage its stumbling attempts to stand on equal footing.

After her mother is murdered on her doorstep, Rue is taken away from her neighborhood and her sister, Tasha, by the father she never knew and whisked away to the hidden island of Ghizon. There she learns she is half-god among magic wielders who thrive on human suffering. She escapes to visit Tasha on the anniversary of their mother’s death and discovers her falling under the influence of those that took everything from them. Rue must embrace her true identity and powers if she’s to save her sister and her home.

Driwana is a soldier who works for a merchant guild, guarding their caravans. During a bandit attack, she discovers a corpse hidden in one of the caravan’s wagons. The body is of one of the Oskoro people, and thus a priceless object. As Driwana investigates where the body came from and where it was intended to go, she finds herself on the trail of a great evil that leaves deceit and corruption in its wake.

Catalina has lost everything: her throne, her people, her best friend. She’s been banished to the Yanu Jungle, but she won’t stop trying to escape and regain all she has lost. She’s rescued by Manuel, the son of a general. Together, they will search for the lost city of gold that could buy allies for them both. But first they must find a way to stop the corruption that’s threatening to destroy the jungle and its people from within.

After a terrible freshman year in which she loses her only friend, math prodigy Nephele invents time travel to give herself a chance at a do-over. Only instead, she traps herself in a time loop where time advances without her. On her tenth shot at the ninth grade, she has a teacher who used to be a classmate, and finally has a new friend in a student named Jazz. She’s also figured out how to undo her time loop, but why go back to the past when she has something worth staying for, now?

“I believe that any dad who raises his child to believe the world is full of magic, and that there’s always hope no matter what, truly deserves for her to rescue him one day when he needs it.”

Do you need any more than that? In a world of water, a submarine pilot must rescue her dad and take down a corrupt government.

After a meteor strike means humanity has to get off the planet right now (right now being the 1950s) the next step in the reach for the stars is establishing a moon base. Nicole Wargin, wife of a senator and a Lady Astronaut in her own right, takes what might be her last trip up to the Moon just in time for conspiracies to reach a head and disaster to strike. She and her crewmates have to figure out how to keep everyone alive, find the traitors—and remind the world that hope will be found in space. (This one also involves an epidemic, so take care if you want to avoid that.)

Aliens who are distantly related to humans are made into refugees when their homeland is destroyed, and so they reach out to the people of Earth for a new home. Now the two clashing societies must work together if they are to save themselves and find a new way of being.

Freedom, Truth, Justice, and Reasonably Priced Love. The May revolutionaries of Ankh-Morpork aren’t asking for anything that unreasonable, are they? Sam Vimes gets to live through this revolution twice; once as an idiotic youth and once as his world-weary adult self, kicked back in time by a mysterious accident and still in pursuit of a murderer. He knows how the revolution goes; he knows how many of his friends fall. And he’ll try to save them anyway, even if it means sacrificing his own future life.

The Exodus Fleet is a living relic of humanity’s escape from Earth; humanity has mostly moved on at this point. While the Exodans grapple with their obsolete home and the fundamental question of if their way of life is worth saving at all, the fleet offers a new home and a new beginning to those who feel lost and disconnected from their own lives.

This one might be a bit close to home because the inciting incident for concerts (and other public gatherings) becoming illegal is a pandemic, but…

A musician who has been cut off from her audience performs illegal, underground concerts, and a young woman who spends all her life in the online world makes it her mission to find musicians and bring them to a new, virtual audience.

I generally don’t do graphic novels in this newsletter since they have their own newsletter, but I’m making an exception for this one. In a world where aliens are real and living among us, a Nigerian-American doctor anmed Future who is pregnant under “mysterious” circumstances smuggles an illegal alien plant into NYC and settles into her grandmother’s tenement, among African and shape-shifting alien immigrants. The community faces discrimination, travel bans, and other very topical problems… and if that’s not enough, Future’s pregnancy seems to be changing her…