Excerpt

Excerpt: THE UNKILLABLE FRANK LIGHTNING by Josh Rountree (Tachyon)

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Today, we have an excerpt from the next novel by Josh Rountree: The Unkillable Frank Lightning, “a Frankenstein-inspired tale unlike any other”.

The novel is due to be published in a couple of weeks by Tachyon Publications. To mark the occasion, the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt to share with our readers. Here’s the synopsis:

Catherine Coldbridge is a complicated woman: a doctor, an occultist, and briefly, a widow. In 1879, her husband, Private Frank Humble, was killed in a Sioux attack. Consumed by grief, Catherine used her formidable skills to resurrect her husband. But after the reanimation, Frank lost his soul, becoming a vicious undead monster. Unable to face her failure or its murderous consequences, Catherine fled to grieve her failure.

Twenty-five years later, Catherine has decided she must make things right. She travels back to Texas with a pair of hired killers ready to destroy Frank. But Frank is no longer a monster; he is once again the kind man she knew. He has remade himself as the Unkillable Frank Lightning, traveling with the Wild West Show, and even taking on a mysterious young ward.

Now Catherine must face a series of moral dilemmas that cannot be resolved without considerable bloodshed.

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Excerpt: SEVENTHBLADE by Tonia Laird (ECW Press)

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Tomorrow, ECW Press is due to publish Seventhblade by Tonia Laird, “a fast-paced, anti-colonial action-adventure fantasy”. Pitched as perfect for fans of N. K. Jemisin and Rebecca Roanhorse, I think it should appeal to a number of CR readers. To mark the publication, the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt to share (Chapter 1). Here’s the synopsis:

After the murder of T’Rayles’s adopted son, the infamous warrior and daughter of the Indigenous Ibinnas returns to the colonized city of Seventhblade ready to tear the streets asunder in search of her son’s killer. T’Rayles must lean into the dangerous power of her inherited sword and ally herself with questionable forces, including the Broken Fangs, an alliance her mother founded, now fallen into greed and corruption, and the immortal Elraiche, a powerful and manipulative deity exiled from a faraway land. Navigating the power shifts in a colonized city on the edge and contending with a deadly new power emerging from within, T’Rayles risks everything to find the answers, and the justice, she so desperately desires.

Loaded with complex characters and intricately staged action, and set in a fragmented, fascinating world of dangerous magics and cryptic gods, Seventhbladeis a masterful new fantasy adventure from a bright emerging Indigenous voice.

And now, on with the excerpt…

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Excerpt: IF WISHES WERE RETAIL by Auston Habershaw (Tachyon)

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If Wishes Were Retail is the debut novel by Auston Habershaw, due to be published in a couple of weeks by Tachyon Publications. It is the story of “an enterprising young woman and a clueless genie just try to make a living”, offering an interesting spin on the genie story. To introduce readers to the characters, we have been provided with an excerpt to share with CR readers. Here’s the synopsis:

A pop-up at the local mall meets Aladdin in this cozy, chaotic, and deeply funny debut novel where an enterprising young woman and a clueless genie just try to make a living.

Alex Delmore needs a miracle. She wants out of her dead-end suburban town, but her parents are broke and NYU seems like a distant dream.

Good thing there’s a genie in town ― and he’s hiring at the Wellspring Mall.

It’d help if the Jinn-formerly-of-the-Ring-of-Khorad knew even one thing about 21st-century America. It’d help if he weren’t at least as stubborn as Alex. It’d really help if her brother didn’t sell her out to her conspiracy theory-loving, gnome-hating dad.

When Alex and the genie set up their wishing kiosk, they face seemingly-endless setbacks. The mall is failing and management will not stop interfering on behalf of their big-box tenants.

But when the wishing biz might start working, the biggest problem of all remains: People are really terrible at wishing.

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Excerpt: GOING HOME IN THE DARK by Dean Koontz (Thomas & Mercer)

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Today we have an excerpt from the latest thriller by best-selling author Dean Koontz: Going Home in the Dark. Due to be published in May, the publisher has let CR share the first chapter. First, though, here’s the synopsis:

When hometown horrors come back to haunt, friendship is salvation in a novel about childhood fears and buried secrets…

As kids, outcasts Rebecca, Bobby, Spencer, and Ernie were inseparable friends in the idyllic town of Maple Grove. Three left to pursue lofty dreams―and achieved them. Only Ernie never left. When he falls into a coma, his three amigos feel an urgent need to return home. Don’t they remember people lapsing into comas back then? And those people always awoke… didn’t they?

After two decades, not a lot has changed in Maple Grove, especially Ernie’s obnoxious, scary mother. But Rebecca, Bobby, and Spencer begin to remember a hulking, murderous figure and weirdness piled on mystery that they were made to forget. As Ernie sinks deeper into darkness, something strange awaits any friend who tries to save him.

For Rebecca, Bobby, and Spencer, time is running out to remember the terrors of the past in a perfect town where nothing is what it seems. For Maple Grove, it’s a chance to have the “four amigos,” as they once called themselves, back in its grasp.

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Excerpt: THE EXCLUSION ZONE by Alexis von Konigslow (Wolsak & Wynn)

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Today we have an excerpt from The Exclusion Zone by Alexis von Konigslow. Due to be published by Wolsak & Wynn, on May 6th. It is a novel that takes a look at the impact of politics on science, and women in science in particular. It has been described as “part ghost story, part literary thriller”, and I am looking forward to giving it a try. Here’s the synopsis:

She would harness fear. And this terrifying place would help her do it.

Renya, a scientist who studies how people react to fear, flees a troubled marriage to conduct research on the scientists working in the “exclusion zone” around Chernobyl. In the eerily silent forests surrounding the research station, she finds more is haunting her than the dangers of radiation exposure. As she gathers data from her colleagues and probes historical records of the Chernobyl disaster, unsettling questions rise to the surface. Who is funding her research? Why are all the scientists’ findings off? And what do those who stalk the ruins of the abandoned city nearby want?

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Excerpt: THE ADVENTURES OF MARY DARLING by Pat Murphy (Tachyon)

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Next month, Tachyon Publications are due to publish The Adventures of Mary Darling by Pat Murphy, a “subversive take on both Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes”. I don’t think I’ve seen anything that attempts to merge those two stories, so this sounds like it could be quite interesting. To introduce readers to the characters, the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt to share with our readers. First, here’s the synopsis:

Mary Darling is a pretty wife whose boring husband is befuddled by her independent ways. But one fateful night, Mary becomes the distraught mother whose three children have gone missing from their beds.

After her well-meaning uncle John Watson contacts the greatest detective of his era (but perhaps not that great), Mary is Sherlock Holmes’s prime suspect in her children’s disappearance. To save her family, Mary must escape London — and an attempt to have her locked away as mad — to travel halfway around the world.

Despite the interference of Holmes, Mary gathers allies in her quest: Sam, a Solomon Islander whose village was destroyed by contact with Western civilization; Ruby, a Malagasy woman on an island that everyone thinks is run by pirates (though it’s actually run by women); Captain Hook and the crew of the Jolly Roger; and of course, Nana, the faithful dog and nursemaid.

In a witty and adventurous romp, The Adventures of Mary Darling draws on the histories of women and people indigenous to lands that Britain claimed, telling the stories of those who were ignored or misrepresented along the way.

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Excerpt: ONE LEVEL DOWN by Mary G. Thompson (Tachyon)

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One Level Down is Mary G. Thompson‘s debut novella for adults, which examines identity and autonomy through the lens of technology and more. It due to be published at the beginning of next month, by Tachyon Publications. Today, we have an excerpt for our readers! First, here’s the synopsis:

Trapped in a child’s body, a resourceful woman risks death by deletion from a simulated world…

Ella is the oldest five-year-old in the universe. For fifty-eight years, the founder of a simulated colony-planet has forced her to pretend to be his daughter. Her “Daddy” has absolute power over all elements of reality, which keeps the colonists in line even when their needs are not met. But his failing experiments and despotic need for absolute control are increasingly dangerous.

Ella’s very life depends on her performance as a child. She has watched Daddy delete her stepmother and the loved ones of anyone who helps her.

But every sixty years, a Technician comes from the world above. Ella has been watching and working and biding her time. Because if she cannot make the technician help her, the only solution is a desperate measure that could lead to consequences for the entire universe.

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Excerpt: LADY PAMELA BERRY by Harriet Cullen (Unicorn Publishing)

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Something a little different, today: an excerpt from Harriet Cullen‘s Lady Pamela Berry. As someone with a professional interest in the Cold War, the mention of the Suez crisis in the synopsis for this book caught my attention.

The publisher was kind enough to let me share an excerpt related to that event, from the chapter “Muggeridge and Suez”. Berry was married to the owner of the Daily Telegraph in the United Kingdom, and was able to wield a considerable amount of influence over British politics and high society. During Anthony Eden’s premiership, Berry developed a feud with the PM’s wife, Clarissa.

Before we get to the excerpt, here’s the synopsis:

This is a biography lightened with the intimate tone of a social memoir, about a woman who was both a bystander and protagonist through some fifty years of twentieth-century British history. Pamela Berry was the daughter of the buccaneering and brilliant politician and lawyer, FE Smith, the first Earl of Birkenhead, and married the son of another self-made man, William Berry from South Wales, who became Viscount Camrose and the owner of a group of national newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph.

She had an unusually glamorous and precocious childhood, spoiled by her adoring father, and much photographed by Cecil Beaton. In her prime she used her position as a newspaper proprietor’s wife to become the most famous political and press hostess of her generation, harnessing her beauty and wit to influence successive governments, and was accused of wielding ‘petticoat power’ during the Suez crisis. She had a decade-long affair with Malcolm Muggeridge, became a vigorous promoter of British fashion, dragging it out of the dowdy fifties, and in later life was active in the museum world. Harriet Cullen has opened a window back into the remarkable story of her mother’s life from a rich cache of family diaries and letters, interweaving them with many other unpublished sources. It is revealing, in turns scathing and admiring, but always entertaining.

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Excerpt: THE MARTIAN CONTINGENCY by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor Books / Solaris)

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Today we have an excerpt from The Martian Contingency, the fourth novel in Mary Robinette Kowal‘s critically-acclaimed Lady Astronaut series! Due to be published in North America by Tor Books, next week, here’s the synopsis:

Years after a meteorite strike obliterated Washington, D.C. — triggering an extinction-level global warming event — Earth’s survivors have started an international effort to establish homes on space stations and the Moon.

The next step – Mars.

Elma York, the Lady Astronaut, lands on the Red Planet, optimistic about preparing for the first true wave of inhabitants. The mission objective is more than just building the infrastructure of a habitat – they are trying to preserve the many cultures and nuances of life on Earth without importing the hate.

But from the moment she arrives, something is off.

Disturbing signs hint at a hidden disaster during the First Mars Expedition that never made it into the official transcript. As Elma and her crew try to investigate, they face a wall of silence and obfuscation. Their attempts to build a thriving Martian community grind to a halt.

What you don’t know CAN harm you. And if the truth doesn’t come to light, the ripple effects could leave humanity stranded on a dying Earth…

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Excerpt: PAGANS by James Alistair Henry (Moonflower)

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Today, we have an excerpt from the recently-published Pagans, by James Alistair Henry. It certainly has an intriguing premise, as it is a crime/mystery novel set in an alternative 21st Century Britain where a number of key events never happened (including the arrival of Christianity, the Norman Conquest and the Industrial Revolution). My interest in the novel grew after I learned that the author had written for Smack the Pony and Green Wing. The novel is out now, published by Moonflower Books. Here’s the synopsis:

21st Century London.
The Norman conquest never happened.
The ancient tribes of Britain remain undefeated.
But murders still have to be solved.

The small, mostly unimportant, island of Britain is inhabited by an uneasy alliance of tribes – the dominant Saxon East, the beleaguered Celtic West, and an independent Nordic Scotland – and tensions are increasing by the second. Supermarket warpaint sales are at an all- time high, mead abuse shortens the lives of thousands, and social media is abuzz with conspiracy theories suggesting the High Table’s putting GPS trackers in the honeycakes.

Amid this febrile atmosphere, the capital is set to play host to the Unification Summit, which aims to join together the various tribes into one ‘united kingdom’. But when a Celtic diplomat is found brutally murdered, his body nailed to an ancient oak, the fragile peace is threatened. Captain Aedith Mercia, daughter of a powerful Saxon leader, must join forces with Celtic Tribal Detective Inspector Drustan to solve the murder – and stop political unrest spilling onto the streets.

But is this an isolated incident? Or are Aedith and Drustan facing a serial killer with a decades-old grudge? To find out, they must delve into their own murky pasts and tackle forces that go deeper than they ever could have imagined.

Set in a world that’s far from our own and yet captivatingly familiar, Pagans is “The Bridge” meets “Vikings”, exploring contemporary themes of religious conflict, nationalism, prejudice… and the delicate internal politics of the office coffee round. Gripping and darkly funny, Pagans keeps you guessing until the very end.

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