Year: 2020

Quick Review: SEPULTURUM by Nick Kyme (Black Library)

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KymeN-WHH-SepulturumSomething strange is happening to all the people…

Morgravia Sanctus is being hunted. Hiding in the low-hive of Blackgheist, she pieces together the fragments of her broken memory, trying to regain her past even as a hideous plague sweeps the hive, turning men into monsters…

Morgravia Sanctus is being hunted; why or by whom she doesn’t know. Something terrible has happened to her, a profound trauma that has left behind ‘red dreams’ and a physical agony that can strike at any moment. Her life in danger and her memory fragmented, she arrives in the low-hive of Blackgheist to escape her pursuers and search for ‘the Broker’ – a trafficker in memories and psychic mind manipulation. Soon after, a plague sweeps the city, turning its citizens into blood-hungry monsters. Order collapses, death and slaughter are rampant. Caught up in the carnage, Morgravia must flee once more. But as the ravening spreads, is there any hope of stopping this contagion?

Nick Kyme’s Sepulturum is a great, classic hive city story, with added zombies! Atmospheric, quickly paced, it ticks all the boxes of a great WH40k novel. Bringing the zombie genre firmly into that of the WH40k setting, I rather enjoyed this. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Influences & Inspirations” by Premee Mohamed

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MohamedP-1-BeneathTheRisingMy parents said I was talking at eight months, and I believed them because many of my cousins also started super early; they said I was walking before I was a year old, and I believed them for the same reason. But when they told me that I could read when I was two, I made an earsplittingly loud raspberry noise. How could that even be possible?

Anyway, later on I researched hyperlexia and (with sinking stomach and moistening skin) realized that they might have been right after all. I cannot remember a time when I couldn’t read. So when I think about the influences on my personality, decisions, preferences, and proclivities, I think: it’s books, it’s always books. It’s always been books and it’s always going to be books. Continue reading →

New Books (February-March)

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Featuring: Asaf Ashery, Robert Dallek, S.A. Hunt, Tim Lebbon, Nick Martell, Adrienne Miller, Sue Miller, Jeff Noon, Josh Reynolds, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Emily Tesh, Gav Thorpe, Lavie Tidhar, Paul Vidich, Drew Williams

Continue reading →

Interview with S.A. HUNT

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HuntSA-AuthorPic (Kate Pierce)Let’s start with an introduction: Who is S.A. Hunt?

S.A. Hunt is… a hillbilly, a witch, a soldier, a wanderer, a rock chick, a gunslinger, a lover, a dreamer, a doer…

… Good God, that all sounds pretentious, doesn’t it? But I feel like at this point I’ve earned the right to editorialize my life a little bit. I’m Samara Hunt, but my friends call me Salem. I’m a horror author living on the shores of Lake Michigan, a transplant from the Appalachian hills of Georgia. I love dogs and bicycles. I’m 80% Irish, 10% coffee, and 10% nightmares.

Your next novel, the brilliantly-titled I Come With Knives, is due to be published by Tor Books in May. The sequel to Burn the Dark, it looks really cool. How would you introduce it to a potential reader? And what can fans of the first novel expect from the sequel?

If you liked where things were going in Burn the Dark, the story continues in I Come With Knives, and everything gets turned up to eleven. I can’t wait for y’all to read the vineyard scene and the new, expanded ending. There’s at least two car accidents, dismemberment, and lots of running from cat-possessed people. Continue reading →

Interview with RYM KECHACHA

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KechachaR-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Rym Kechacha?

I’m a writer and teacher from London, currently living in Norwich. I love: my vegetable patch, secondhand bookshops, endless cups of tea and bright sunny days.

Your new novel, Dark River, is about to be published by Unsung Stories. It looks really interesting: How would you introduce it to a potential reader?

Dark River is the twinned tales of Shaye and Shante, who live eight thousand years apart. In Mesolithic Doggerland, Shaye has to perform a ritual meant to keep her family safe from the floods that threaten her home. In a near future London where the Thames has broken its banks, Shante has to lead her family to safety in another city. Despite their devotion to their children, they both realise there is little they can do to save those they love. Continue reading →

Excerpt: ONE MINUTE OUT by Mark Greaney (Berkley/Sphere)

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GreaneyM-GM09-OneMinuteOutUSToday, Berkley publishes One Minute Out, the ninth novel in Mark Greaney‘s best-selling Gray Man series. The novel is due to be published on Thursday in the UK, by Sphere.

One of my must-read series, I’m very happy that the publisher has allowed me to run this excerpt from the new novel. First, however, the synopsis:

While on a mission to Croatia, Court Gentry uncovers a human trafficking operation. The trail leads from the Balkans all the way back to Hollywood.

Court is determined to shut it down, but his CIA handlers have other plans. The criminal ringleader has actionable intelligence about a potentially devastating terrorist attack on the US. The CIA won’t move until they have that intel. It’s a moral balancing act with Court at the pivot point.

Now, on to the excerpt…

Continue reading →

Upcoming: TROUBLE THE SAINTS by Alaya Dawn Johnson (Tor)

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JohnsonAD-TroubleTheSaintsUSThe cover and synopsis for Alaya Dawn Johnson‘s upcoming new novel, Trouble the Saints were met with quite a bit of excitement and anticipation. That cover is certainly gorgeous and is bound to grab attention. I was reminded of it when it appeared on NetGalley earlier today. A cover isn’t everything, of course, and so if you do happen to pick it up, spot the great blurb from N.K. Jemisin, and read the back cover copy, I think your interest will be cemented (mine certainly was):

Amid the whir of city life, a young woman from Harlem is drawn into the glittering underworld of Manhattan, where she’s hired to use her knives to strike fear among its most dangerous denizens.

Ten years later, Phyllis LeBlanc has given up everything — not just her own past, and Dev, the man she loved, but even her own dreams.

Still, the ghosts from her past are always by her side — and history has appeared on her doorstep to threaten the people she keeps in her heart. And so Phyllis will have to make a harrowing choice, before it’s too late — is there ever enough blood in the world to wash clean generations of injustice?

Trouble the Saints is a dazzling, daring novel — a magical love story, a compelling exposure of racial fault lines — and an altogether brilliant and deeply American saga.

Described as “The dangerous magic of The Night Circus meets the powerful historical exploration of The Underground Railroad” the “unsettling” novel is “set against the darkly glamorous backdrop of New York City, where an assassin falls in love and tries to fight her fate at the dawn of World War II.” I think this sounds fantastic, and I can’t wait to read it.

Trouble the Saints is due to be published by Tor Books in North America and in the UK, on June 2nd, 2020.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Twitter

Upcoming: CREATURES OF CHARM AND HUNGER by Molly Tanzer (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

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TanzerM-CreaturesOfCharmAndHungerI stumbled across this novel on NetGalley, and it caught my attention. I’ve been aware of Molly Tanzer‘s fiction for a while, and it’s always interesting. The synopsis for Creatures of Charm and Hunger is very intriguing:

Two young witches, once inseparable, are set at odds by secrets and wildly dangerous magic.

In the waning days of World War II, with Allied victory all but certain, desperate Nazi diabolists search for a demonic superweapon to turn the tide. A secluded castle somewhere in the south of Germany serves as a laboratory for experiments conducted upon human prisoners, experiments as vile as they are deadly.

Across the English Channel, tucked into the sleepy Cumbrian countryside, lies the Library, the repository of occult knowledge for the Société des Éclairées, an international organization of diabolists. There, best friends Jane Blackwood and Miriam Cantor, tutored by the Société’s Librarian — and Jane’s mother — Nancy, prepare to undergo the Test that will determine their future as diabolists.

When Miriam learns her missing parents are suspected of betraying the Société to the Nazis, she embarks on a quest to clear their names, a quest involving dangerous diabolic practices that will demand more of her than she can imagine. Meanwhile Jane, struggling with dark obsessions of her own, embraces a forbidden use of the Art that could put everyone she loves in danger.

As their friendship buckles under the stress of too many secrets, Jane and Miriam will come face to face with unexpected truths that change everything they know about the war, the world, and most of all themselves. After all, some choices cannot be unmade — and a sacrifice made with the most noble intention might end up creating a monster.

The novel is the third in the Diabolist Library series, following Creatures of Want and Ruin and Creatures of Will and Temper.

I’m really looking forward to reading this. Creatures of Charm and Hunger is due to be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on April 21st, 2020, in North America and in the UK.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Twitter

Interview with T. R. NAPPER

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NapperTR-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is T. R. Napper?

My website has, as a subheading: “writes, plays poker, smashes poverty with his bare hands.” This is a decent summary.

The last, obviously ironic reference, is to my previous career as an aid worker in Southeast Asia. I worked on projects that delivered basic education to some of the poorest communities in places like Laos and Burma, where children would never otherwise have set foot inside a school.

I did once play a lot of poker, I was what you’d call a ‘semi-professional’, meaning I derived part of my income from cards. I quit for a few years, but just recently got back into it with gusto.

These days I work in the community sector with ‘at risk’ teenagers and with people living with autism. I’m a professional dungeon master, as well. Continue reading →

Interview with K.S. VILLOSO

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VillosoKS-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is K.S. Villoso?

I’m a Filipino-Canadian living in BC, Canada. When I’m not writing, I’m enjoying my time with family and friends, getting lost in the woods or running around with my dogs. My background is in civil engineering technology, but I foolishly gave all of that up so I could write more books…

Your debut novel, The Wolf of Oren-Yaro, will be published by Orbit in February. It looks really intriguing: How would you introduce it to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?

Let’s take an epic story with high stakes and complex politics like Game of Thrones, and then throw everything but one point-of-view away. Now, let’s make it unfold like a sword-and-sorcery with thriller-like pacing from the perspective of a woman haunted by her failed marriage and her father’s crimes. It is a book of contrasts, all done in a manner to serve this woman’s character arc; love it or hate it, it’s going to make you think. Continue reading →