Category: Swords and Spaceships

An old man named Jeremías arrives at a town filled with mist and dead mice, hoping that he can find his missing granddaughter. As he wanders the town, he discovers a landscape of dreams and nightmares that slowly reveal a haunting truth — but also promise the possibility of a reunion in this strange, gaping abyss.

This collection of short stories focuses on the weird and fantastical, searching for the border between dream and reality.

Katrell is a mess. Period. It’s not her fault, though. Her mother is even more of a mess and exploits her daughter’s ability that allows her to speak to the dead. The money Katrell gets from connecting people with their departed loved ones goes towards paying for said deadbeat mother and whoever her mother’s abusive loser-of-the-month boyfriend is. All while (barely) going to high school and working a low-wage job. Bless her heart, you know how much I would be charging with that power?! I would have what they call eff-you money. Katrell is young and doesn’t know any better, though, and it shows. She’s warned one day by her best friend’s dead grandmother during a session to stop communing with the dead, but she doesn’t listen. And, it gets bad bad.

Lobizona is the first of the Wolves of No World trilogy and follows Manuela “Manu” Azul, who is living as an undocumented immigrant in Miami, Florida, to evade her father’s Argentine crime family. But then her adoptive grandmother is attacked and her mother is arrested by ICE, which finally allows her to move freely in the world. As she starts to investigate her past, she learns of a secret world full of Argentine folklore and how, for some families, every seventh daughter is born a bruja, and every seventh son a lobizón (or werewolf).

Here, Cristina and Clement Trudeau, two 16-year-old twins, are descendants of a powerful magical family in New Orleans. They used to be close, but now they find their family in shambles: the talented Cristina has given up her magic because of a tragedy, their father is dead, their mother is cursed, and Clement is trying to fill an emotional void with random hookups. But then they realize someone is after their family, and that it has something to do with a woman who was killed 30 years ago. If they can finally come together, they can save their family, and New Orleans from having another massacre.

There’s a second book (Blood Justice) that’s due to come out on April 23rd this year, but it’s not clear if the two books will be a duology or part of a series.

This urban fantasy series also counts as an Arthurian retelling. In it, 16-year-old Bree Matthews wants to get away from home after her mother dies in an accident, and UNC-Chapell Hill’s residential program for bright high schoolers provides the perfect opportunity to do just that. But then she sees a magical attack on her first night there, which leads to her learning of a secret society full of people called Legendbord, who are descendants of King Arthur’s knights. After her own magic is unlocked and she learns that there was magic involved with her mother’s death, she infiltrates the society to find out more. Thing is, there’s a war coming, and she’ll have to decide whose side she’s on and how to use her power.

So far, there are two books out in this series, which follows 18-year-old Gu Miyoung, who has a secret: she’s a nine-tailed fox demon (gumiho) who eats men’s energy to survive. With all the evil men in the world — and people’s lack of belief in folklore these days — hunting is made super easy in the big city of Seoul, Korea. But maybe she had life too easy, because she decides to save a human boy from a goblin in the forest one day, and it makes her lose her fox bead, aka, her gumiho soul. As she and the boy she saved, Jihoon, grow closer, she’ll have to make a choice between him or having her immortal soul back.

The Daughters of Izdihar had just begun to make headway toward gaining the vote for women and the right to practice magic, but the fundamentalist Ziranis have savagely attacked to destroy what they view as a threat to their way of life and the entire world. Nehal and Giorgina had overcome their differences to seek power for women; now, with Nehal in a Zirani prison and Giorgina on the run, they must first survive and reunite if they hope to rally their people.

January was once a principal in the London’s Royal Ballet; now, after Earth has been deeply wounded by an environmental disaster, he’s a mere refugee on Mars. When he’s randomly put on the spot by Gale, a politician who wants to force Earth Refugees to naturalize using a physically disabling and, at times, deadly process, things go horribly awry for them both. The solution Gale comes up with is a five-year sham marriage that seems a simple way for them both to get what they want…but of course, nothing is so simple as that.

Severin Unck’s father made his name directing Gothic romances; she breaks free of his shadow by focusing her art on documentaries. Her pursuit of a true story to tell has her traveling across the solar System, from Neptune’s cults to Mars’s lawless saloons. Her last film becomes an exploration of a diving colony Venus, and while her crew comes limping home to tell her story, she is never seen again…

The Ragtime is a colony ship that was supposed to bring one thousand people in stasis to the Lagos system. Michelle Campion is one of the first crew to wake, and she quickly discovers that some of her fellow sleepers never will. She immediately calls for help, and soon investigator Rasheed Fin arrives to begin uncovering a sinister mystery that extends far beyond one ship.

One night, a young photographer named Angel discovers a group of drunk teenagers tormenting an injured young troll in the courtyard of his apartment building. He takes in the wounded little creature, half expecting it to be gone when he wakes. Instead, he finds himself with a young troll to care for, and soon discovers that it will influence his life in ways he could have never imagined.

A journalist named Seif teams up with a former exile now returned to Egypt in the wake of the Arab Spring. Together, they explore their country’s strangest and most magical places, including a spot where one might walk on the Nile’s waters. But as they travel, Seif begins to piece together his own life and its trauma’s…including the answer of what happened to his lover, Alya.

Five hundred years after The Lies of the Ajungo, the Forever Desert has been attacked repeatedly by the Cult of Tutu until the City of Truth is the last remaining bastion of freedom. The cult is led by a mysterious leader known as the Aleke. When the Aleke commits a massacre and steals the God’s Eyes, Junior Peacekeeper Osi is tasked with destroying the cult, discovering what the Aleke really is, and bringing the God’s Eyes home.

After The Stolen Heir, Prince Oak is paying heavily for his betrayal with imprisonment in the icy north, where he must rely on his charm and calculating mind if he wants to survive. He must decide if he will attempt to regain the trust of the girl he loves or if he will remain loyal to Elfhame and end her reign — and her.

When Peeraphan, the mythological Kinnaree Thai bird princess of legend, steps into The Red Shoes of Hans Christian Andersen fame, a mysterious vampire is the only one who can help. As the vampire representative of a supernatural secret organization tasked with finding and containing mythological objects, Bennet is surprised that a dancer is maintaining enough control to stop moving with the shoes on. He might just be able to save the irresistible supernatural before it’s too late. Now, Peeraphan must learn to claim her place in the supernatural world while she and Bennet work to remove the shoes that threaten to claim her life.

The no-longer-next-in-line Prima witch on the Supernatural Council, Rose Maxwell, has to find herself. For the first time in her life, she doesn’t have a prophesied job lined up for her, and the only thing on her mind seems to be a one-night stand with Damian, a half-Demon Veterinarian. As luck would have it, a failed horse heist lands her in court-appointed community service at Damian’s animal sanctuary, of all places. You would think falling in love would be easy with that kind of forced proximity. Unfortunately, their budding romance doesn’t have a chance in hell. After all, if Damian ever falls in love, his ex’s hex guarantees that he will lose his humanity.

Julien is an actor on a last-ditch trip to figure out how his conspiracy-theorist brother really died in Maudit Falls, North Carolina. Although he was expecting a mystery, he could never have predicted finding a real paranormal conspiracy or a glamorous man with answers. Longtime werewolf, sometimes thief, and current rebel pack runaway retreat manager, Eli knows Julien is getting into dangerous things that don’t concern him. But when the threat continues to hunt the lovable actor down, Eli steps in to help. The unlikely human/werewolf pairing may just make things work as they uncover a deadly truth at the heart of an otherwise scenic slope-side vacation town.

An ace-spec vampire gets rescued from his lover’s lair by an autistic vampire hunter. Jordan, the recently freed vampire, is now Noah’s secret boyfriend and roommate. So, when Jordan’s friends in the vampire support group go missing, he naturally asks Noah for help. A dark truth lies at the heart of the Vampire Hunters Association, and so it’s up to Noah to dig up the conspiracy. If he wants to help Jordan and other innocent vampires whose lives are threatened by a supposedly heroic organization, Noah may just have to bring it all down.

This collection is twelve interconnected stories that blend people, place, and reality into a radiant whole. It includes a mother who turns into a literal monster and a failed reality TV show star who turns out to be a world savior.

Melting permafrost in the Arctic unleashes an ancient plague carried by the archaeologists who have come to the Batagaika Crater. The illness sweeps the globe and forces human society to change and rethink its relationship with death, tragedy, and the future.

Four stories set in two different worlds, yet interconnected to make a whole. Two of the stories follow a pair of lovers on missions of interstellar exploration, trying to time their return to Earth to coincide. The other two are about the creators of humanity, the godlike beings for whom all life is merely an extension of will.

Lore’s village is trapped in a Fae-ruled forest that has become its prison — and escape is impossible. Lore has the scars to prove that point. But when her village is threatened with destruction, she does the only thing she can think of and makes a deal with a Fae Lord, one that requires her to catalog an enchanted library that is barred to the Fae…but a human may be able to enter and find what Lore is truly after: magic of her own.

Freya dreams of becoming a warrior but is bound in a loveless marriage with an awful husband. That changes when that husband betrays her to their jarl, and she’s forced into a fight to the death. This fight reveals her greatest secret: there is a drop of a goddess’s blood in her veins, and she may be the shield maiden of prophecy that will unite Skaland under the one who controls her.

The story: Morgenstern’s ethereal, hugely successful debut novel follows what unfolds between two young magicians, trained from a young age to compete against one another, under the tent of the Night Circus.

The latest: The adaptation of the novel has been in the works for almost as long as the book has been around. As of 2019, it was still going ahead. While fans may have to wait a bit longer, it seems certain that someday there will be a movie of one of the most popular books of the 21st century.

The story: A young woman in France in the 18th century running from her wedding, makes a deal with a dark stranger. Addie wants everyone to forget about her — but she gets more than that. Not only does everyone always forget her now as soon as she is out of sight, but she’s also immortal. But after three centuries of loneliness, Addie meets a man in a bookshop who remembers her, and it changes everything.

The latest: According to Schwab in October, the draft for the screenplay has been revised (and we’re getting a Darker Shade of Magic adaptation, too!)

The story: Ryland Grace is a teacher-turned-astronaut on a last-chance mission to save Earth. When he wakes from cryostasis with no memory, he discovers he is the only survivor left on board. He must puzzle out who he is and what they were doing on this ship in order to save his home planet.

The latest: Hollywood sent Matt Damon to space in the adaptation of The Martian by Weir, and now Ryan Gosling is set to blast off for Project Hail Mary, with Phil Lord and Chris Miller directing.