Author: Civilian Reader

Upcoming: BURN THE NEGATIVE by Josh Winning (G. P. Putnam’s Sons)

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WinningJ-BurnTheNegativeUSHCNext year, G. P. Putnam’s Sons are due to publish the second novel by Josh Winning: Burn the Negative. I haven’t got around to reading the author’s first novel, yet (The Shadow Glass), but his new novel sounds really interesting. Long-time readers will know that I enjoy novels that are about or linked to Hollywood and the entertainment industries, and Burn the Negative looks like it’s going to be a pretty cool mash-up of Hollywood and slasher-movie style horror/suspense. Here’s the synopsis:

Thirty years hiding from her past.
Eight deaths still unexplained.
One haunted horror film.
Nowhere left to run.

Journalist Laura Warren is mid-flight to LA when she learns that the streaming series she’s about to report on is a remake of a ‘90s horror flick. A cursed ’90s horror flick. The one she starred in—and has been running from her whole life.

As a child star, Laura was cast as the lead in The Guesthouse. She played Tammy Manners, the little girl with the terrifying gift to tell people how the Needle Man would kill them. But her big break was her last, as eight of her cast and crew mates died in mysterious ways, and the film became infamous—a cult classic of fictional horror that somehow summoned the real thing. Hoping to move on, Laura changed her name and her accent, dyed her hair, and moved across the Atlantic Ocean.

But some scripts don’t want to stay buried.

After landing, Laura finds a yellow dress like the one she wore in the movie. Then the words “She’s here” scratched into the wall in an actor’s trailer. And then people working on the series start dying. It’s all happening again, and Laura finds herself on the run with her sister and a jaded psychic, hoping to find answers—and to stay out of the Needle Man’s lethal reach.

An homage to slasher films with a fresh take on the true price of fame, Burn the Negative is a twisty thriller best read with the lights on.

Really looking forward to giving this a try. Josh Winning’s Burn the Negative is due to be published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons in North America and in the UK, on July 11th, 2023.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, Twitter

Upcoming: MARCH’S END by Daniel Polansky (Angry Robot Books)

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PolanskyD-MarchsEndNext year, Angry Robot Books are due to published the anticipated new novel by Daniel Polansky: March’s End. I’ve been a fan of Polansky’s work ever since his debut, Straight Razor Cure (Low Town in North America). This new novel is a “multi-generational portal fantasy of strange magics, epic warfare, and deadly intrigue, in which the personality conflicts and toxic struggles of the Harrow family are reflected in the fantasy world they’ve sworn to protect”. Here’s the synopsis:

The Harrows are a typical suburban family who, since time immemorial, have borne a sacred and terrible charge. In the daylight they are teachers, doctors, bartenders and vagrants, but at night they are the rulers and protectors of the March, a fantastical secondary world populated with animate antiquated toys and sentient lichen, a panorama of the impossible where cities are carried on the backs of giant snails, and thunderstorms can be subdued with song.

But beneath this dreamlike exterior lie dark secrets, and for generation after generation the Harrows have defended the March from the perils that wait outside its borders – when they are not consumed in their own bitter internecine quarrels.

In the modern day the Harrow clan are composed of Sophia, the High Queen of the March, a brilliant, calculating matriarch, and her three children – noble Constance, visionary, rebellious Mary Ann, and clever, amoral Will. Moving back and forth between their youth, adolescence, and adulthood, we watch as this family fractures, then reconciles in the face of a conflict endangering not only the existence of the March, but of the ‘real world’ itself.

THE MARCH’S END is a book about growing up, in which the familial struggles of the Harrows are threaded through the mythic history of the fantastical land they protect. It is a story of failure and redemption, in which the power of love is tested against forces that seek to break it, and the necessity of each generation to recreate itself is asserted.

Daniel Polansky’s March’s End is due to be published by Angry Robot Books in North America and in the UK, on May 9th, 2023.

Also on CR: Interview with Daniel Polansky (2011); Reviews of Straight Razor Cure, Tomorrow the Killing, She Who Waits, The Builders, and The Seventh Perfection

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, Twitter

Upcoming: SING HER DOWN by Ivy Pochoda (MCD)

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PochodaI-SingHerDownUSHCIn May 2023, MCD is due to publish the highly-anticipated new novel by Ivy Pochoda: Sing Her Down. Pochoda’s previous two novels — Wonder Valley and These Women — are superb, dark and thought-provoking literary thriller novels, and I have very high hopes for Sing Her Down, which has a very intriguing premise:

Florence “Florida” Baum is not the hapless innocent she claims to be when she arrives at the Arizona women’s prison—or so her ex-cellmate, Diosmary Sandoval, keeps insinuating.

Dios knows the truth about Florida’s crimes, understands the truth that Florence hides even from herself: that she wasn’t a victim of circumstance, an unlucky bystander misled by a bad man. Dios knows that darkness lives in women too, despite the world’s refusal to see it. And she is determined to open Florida’s eyes and unleash her true self.

When an unexpected reprieve gives both women their freedom, Dios’s fixation on Florida turns into a dangerous obsession, and a deadly cat-and-mouse chase ensues from Arizona to the desolate streets of Los Angeles.

With blistering, incisive prose, the award-winning author Ivy Pochoda delivers a razor-sharp Western. Gripping and immersive, Sing Her Down is a spellbinding thriller setting two indelible women on a path to certain destruction and an epic, stunning showdown.

Really looking forward to this. Ivy Pochoda’s Sing Her Down is due to be published by MCD in North America on May 23rd, 2023.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Twitter

Upcoming: GONE TO THE WOLVES by John Wray (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

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WrayJ-GoneToTheWolvesUSHCAs a life-long metalhead, my eyes must be tuned to spot “metal script”, as they did on the cover of John Wray‘s upcoming new novel, Gone to the Wolves. “What’s that about?” I wondered. The new novel from the author of The Lost Time Accidents and Godsend, it delves into “the wild, risky world of heavy metal in the 1980s and ’90s”. Here’s the synopsis:

Kip, Leslie, and Kira are outliers—even in the metal scene they love. In arch-conservative Gulf Coast Florida in the late 1980s, just listening to metal can get you arrested, but for the three of them the risk is well worth it, because metal is what leads them to one another.

Different as they are, Kip, Leslie, and Kira form a family of sorts that proves far safer, and more loving, than the families they come from. Together, they make the pilgrimage from Florida’s swamp country to the fabled Sunset Strip in Hollywood. But in time, the delicate equilibrium they’ve found begins to crumble. Leslie moves home to live with his elderly parents; Kip struggles to find his footing in the sordid world of LA music journalism; and Kira, the most troubled of the three, finds herself drawn to ever darker and more extreme strains of metal. On a trip to northern Europe for her twenty-second birthday, in the middle of a show, she simply vanishes. Two years later, the truth about her disappearance reunites Kip with Leslie, who in order to bring Kira home alive must make greater sacrifices than they could ever have imagined.

In his most absorbing and ambitious novel yet, John Wray dives deep into the wild, funhouse world of heavy metal and death cults in the 1980s and ’90s. Gone to the Wolves lays bare the intensity, tumult, and thrill of friendship in adolescence—a time when music can often feel like life or death.

I’m really looking forward to reading this. John Wray’s Gone to the Wolves is due to be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in North America on May 2nd, 2023.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Twitter

Quick Review: PULLING THE WINGS OFF ANGELS by K. J. Parker (Tor.com)

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ParkerKJ-PullingTheWingsOffAngelsAnother quirky, engaging, and twisty novella from Parker

Long ago, a wealthy man stole an angel and hid her in a chapel, where she remains imprisoned to this day.

That’s the legend, anyway.

A clerical student who’s racked up gambling debts to a local gangster is given an ultimatum — deliver the angel his grandfather kidnapped, or forfeit various body parts in payment.

And so begins a whirlwind theological paradox — with the student at its center — in which the stakes are the necessity of God, the existence of destiny — and the nature of angels.

It should come as no surprise to long-time readers of CR that I am a huge fan of K. J. Parker’s novellas and short fiction. As soon as I read the synopsis for Pulling the Wings Off Angels, I was eager to read it. I was lucky enough to get a DRC a while ago, and read it right away. I’m very happy to report that it is classic Parker; I really enjoyed this. Continue reading →

Excerpt: THE HOLLOWS by Daniel Church (Angry Robot Books)

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ChurchD-Hollows“Folk horror meets ancient gods in a remote snowbound Peak District town where several murders take place.” Today, we have an excerpt from Daniel Church‘s The Hollows, which was published this week by Angry Robot Books. Here’s the synopsis:

In a lonely village in the Peak District, during the onset of a once-in-a-lifetime snow storm, Constable Ellie Cheetham finds a body. The man, a local ne’er-do-well, appears to have died in a tragic accident: he drank too much and froze to death.

But the facts don’t add up: the dead man is clutching a knife in one hand, and there’s evidence he was hiding from someone. Someone who watched him die. Stranger still, an odd mark has been drawn onto a stone beside his body.

The next victims are two families on the outskirts of town. As the storm rises and the body count grows, Ellie realises she has a terrifying problem on her hands: someone – or some thing – is killing indiscriminately, attacking in the darkness and using the storm for cover.

The killer is circling ever closer to the village. The storm’s getting worse… and the power’s just gone out.

The excerpt is taken from the middle of the novel, when the action really starts to get going…

Continue reading →

Quick Review: RED LONDON by Alma Katsu (G. P. Putnam’s Sons)

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KatsuA-RW2-RedLondonUSHCThe New Cold War continues, as CIA agent Lyndsey Duncan travels to London, and infiltrates the world of the Russian Oligarchs in Britain

CIA agent Lyndsey Duncan has a new asset to turn, in order to prevent the most calculated global invasion of our time. But will their blossoming friendship get in the way?

After an explosive takedown of a well-placed mole within the CIA, agent Lyndsey Duncan has been tasked with keeping tabs on her newest Russian asset, deadly war criminal Dmitri Tarasenko. She arrives in London fully focused on the assignment at hand, until her MI6 counterpart, Davis Ranford, the very person responsible for ending her last mission overseas after they were caught in a whirlwind affair, personally calls for her.

After a suspicious attack on a powerful Russian oligarch’s property on Billionaires’ Row in the toniest neighborhood in London, Davis needs Lyndsey to cozy up to the billionaire’s aristocratic British wife, Emily Rotenberg. Lyndsey’s job is to obtain any and all information related to Emily’s husband, Mikhail Rotenberg, and his relationship with the new Russian president, whom CIA and MI6 believe is responsible for the sudden mysterious disappearance of his predecessor, the Hard Man. Fortunately for Lyndsey, there’s little to dissuade Emily from taking in a much-needed confidante. After all, misery needs company.

But before Lyndsey can cover much ground with her newfound friend, the CIA unveils a perturbing connection between Mikhail and Russia’s geopolitical past, one that could dangerously upend the world order as we know it. As the pressure to turn Emily becomes higher than ever, Lyndsey must walk a fine and ever-changing line to keep the oligarch’s fortune from falling into Russian hands and plunging the world into a new, disastrous geopolitical reality.

In Red London, the highly-anticipated sequel to Red Widow, CIA agent Lyndsey Duncan has been stationed in London to help out with an evolving situation involving a Russian oligarch who may or may not be on the outs with the new president. One of my most-anticipated novels of the year, I’m happy to report that it lived up to my high expectations. Continue reading →

Excerpt: NEOM by Lavie Tidhar (Tachyon)

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Tidhar-CS2-NeomToday, we have an excerpt from Neom, Lavie Tidhar‘s highly-anticipated second novel set in the Central Station universe. If you’re a fan of Tidhar’s previous work, then you’re definitely going to want to check this out. If you’re new to his books, then perhaps start with Central Station before diving into this one. Here’s the synopsis:

The city known as Neom is many things to many beings, human or otherwise. Neom is a tech wonderland for the rich and beautiful; an urban sprawl along the Red Sea; and a port of call between Earth and the stars.

In the desert, young orphan Saleh has joined a caravan, hoping to earn his passage off-world from Central Station. But the desert is full of mechanical artefacts, some unexplained and some unexploded. Recently, a wry, unnamed robot has unearthed one of the region’s biggest mysteries: the vestiges of a golden man.

In Neom, childhood affection is rekindling between loyal shurta-officer Nasir and hardworking flower-seller Mariam. But Nasu, a deadly terrorartist, has come to the city with missing memories and unfinished business.

Just one robot can change a city’s destiny with a single rose — especially when that robot is in search of lost love.

Continue reading →

New Books (October)

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Another interesting and varied selection of review copies and recent purchases. Many of the ARCs are for books that aren’t out for quite some time, so reviews probably won’t be up for a little while. They are, however, all highly anticipated by me, so I wanted to get them mentioned ASAP.

Featuring: Jennifer Banash, Marc Collins, Laura Hankin, CJ Leede, Kate Manning, Holly Goldberg Sloan, Tom Rob Smith, Karin Tanabe, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Gav Thorpe, Martha Wells

Continue reading →

Upcoming: NIGHT ANGEL NEMESIS & Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks (Orbit)

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WeeksB-NA4-NightAngelNemesisWay back in the mists of time (2008), when I was but a wee new book reviewer, Orbit Books were kind enough to send me a certain debut novel: The Way of Shadows, the first novel in Brent Weeks‘s Night Angel trilogy. I was still relatively new to the “modern” fantasy genre, only just venturing into the land of grimdark and non-Elves-and-Dwarves or shared universe fantasy (e.g., Warhammer). I remember blitzing through The Way of Shadows, eager to read the rest of the series. (If I remember correctly, I think I pestered the poor Orbit publicist quite a bit for the next book… Apologies!) Anyway, why am I sharing this? Well, it was recently announced that Weeks is going to return to the world of the Night Angel trilogy, with Night Angel Nemesis! Here’s the synopsis:

Return to the world of the Night Angel, and follow master assassin Kylar on a new adventure as the High King Logan Gyre calls on him to save his kingdom and the hope of peace.

After the war that cost him so much, Kylar Stern is broken and alone. He’s determined not to kill again, but an impending amnesty will pardon the one murderer he can’t let walk free. He promises himself this is the last time. One last hit to tie up the loose ends of his old, lost life.

But Kylar’s best–and maybe only–friend, the High King Logan Gyre, needs him. To protect a fragile peace, Logan’s new kingdom, and the king’s twin sons, he needs Kylar to secure a powerful magical artifact that was unearthed during the war.

With rumors that a ka’kari may be found, adversaries both old and new are on the hunt. And if Kylar has learned anything, it’s that ancient magics are better left in the hands of those he can trust.

If he does the job right, he won’t need to kill at all. This isn’t an assassination—it’s a heist.

But some jobs are too hard for an easy conscience, and some enemies are so powerful the only answer lies in the shadows. Continue reading →