Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Cover Reveal: 'When Jackals Storm The Walls' (Song of Shattered Sands) By Bradley Beaulieu

The fifth book in the Song of Shattered Sands series is coming! Presenting the official cover of When Jackals Storm the Walls by Bradley Beaulieu. For a person with an slight OCD for consistency I am relieved because the cover finally follows on the look and feel of the previous book in the series, Beneath the Twisted Trees.

Kudos to the returning artist, Micah Epstein; the creative & design team in DAW Books, including but not limited to Adam Auerbach and Betsy Wolheim; and of course the author himself. I am very pleased with how this series is moving on as well as how the cover arts have been progressing. If you are interested to know the process of creating this fantastic cover, jump ahead to Barnes and Noble for more information.

Check out the cover of When Jackals Storm the Walls by Bradley Beaulieu.

When Jackals Storm the Walls by Bradley Beaulieu

Synopsis

The reign of the Sharakhani kings has been broken. Queen Meryam now rules the city. Çeda, meanwhile, has succeeded in lifting the asirim’s curse, though it came at a terrible cost: Nalamae was slain in battle against her sister goddess. All is not lost, however. Çeda knows Nalamae will be reborn, and so begins a quest to find her.

The scheming King Ihsan has been busy as well, mining the legendary Blue Journals for a way to save the city and the desert beyond from certain destruction. He believes he’s found one, but it won’t be easy, especially when the only tools left at his disposal are his own wits and guile. As he begins to gather the other fallen kings and convince them to work together, he realizes that one person is crucial to their success: Çeda.

Çeda must now choose: work with the kings she’s vowed to destroy or risk losing the city she loves. Whatever she decides, the path will be dangerous. Her allies are divided. Sharakhai is under threat from neighbouring kingdoms. And now the gods themselves are stepping in...

When Jackals Storm the Walls by Bradley Beaulieu will be released on July 23, 2020.

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Few New Official Covers For Sci-Fi And Fantasy Titles To Be Released Next Year

Here are a few recently revealed official covers for titles coming out next year:

Highfire by Eoin Colfer

Highfire by Eoin Colfer

Synopsis

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Artemis Fowl series comes a hilarious and high-octane adult novel about a vodka-drinking, Flashdance-loving dragon who lives an isolated life in the bayous of Louisiana—and the raucous adventures that ensue when he crosses paths with a fifteen-year-old troublemaker on the run from a crooked sheriff.

In the days of yore, he flew the skies and scorched angry mobs—now he hides from swamp tour boats and rises only with the greatest reluctance from his Laz-Z-Boy recliner. Laying low in the bayou, this once-magnificent fire breather has been reduced to lighting Marlboros with nose sparks, swilling Absolut in a Flashdance T-shirt, and binging Netflix in a fishing shack. For centuries, he struck fear in hearts far and wide as Wyvern, Lord Highfire of the Highfire Eyrie—now he goes by Vern. However...he has survived, unlike the rest. He is the last of his kind, the last dragon. Still, no amount of vodka can drown the loneliness in his molten core. Vern’s glory days are long gone. Or are they?

A canny Cajun swamp rat, young Everett “Squib” Moreau does what he can to survive, trying not to break the heart of his saintly single mother. He’s finally decided to work for a shady smuggler—but on his first night, he witnesses his boss murdered by a crooked constable.

Regence Hooke is not just a dirty cop, he’s a despicable human being—who happens to want Squib’s momma in the worst way. When Hooke goes after his hidden witness with a grenade launcher, Squib finds himself airlifted from certain death by…a dragon?

The swamp can make strange bedfellows, and rather than be fried alive so the dragon can keep his secret, Squib strikes a deal with the scaly apex predator. He can act as his go-between (aka familiar)—fetch his vodka, keep him company, etc.—in exchange for protection from Hooke. Soon the three of them are careening headlong toward a combustible confrontation. There’s about to be a fiery reckoning, in which either dragons finally go extinct—or Vern’s glory days are back.

A triumphant return to the genre-bending fantasy that Eoin Colfer is so well known for, Highfire is an effortlessly clever and relentlessly funny tour-de-force of comedy and action.

Highfire by Eoin Colfer will be released on January 28, 2020.


Soot (A Smoke Novel) by Dan Vyleta

Soot by Dan Vyleta

Synopsis

The electrifying sequel to the national bestseller Smoke - bringing back readers to a world that Entertainment Weekly called "Part Dickens, part dystopia, and totally immersive."

The year is 1909. It has been ten years since Thomas Argyle, Charlie Cooper and Livia Naylor set off a revolution by releasing Smoke upon the world. They were raised to think Smoke was a sign of sin manifested, but learned its suppression was really a means of controlling society. Smoke allowed people to mingle their emotions, to truly connect, and the trio thought that freeing the Smoke would bring down the oppressive power structure and create a fair and open society. But the consequences were far greater than they had imagined, and the world has fractured.

Erasmus Renfrew, the avowed enemy of Smoke, is now Lord Protector of what remains of the English state. Charlie and Livia live in Minetowns, an egalitarian workers' community in the north of England which lives by Smoke. Thomas Argyle is in India on a clandestine mission to find out the origins of Smoke, and why the still-powerful Company is mounting an expedition in the Himalayas.

Mowgli, the native whose body was used to trigger the tempest that unleashed the Smoke, now calls himself Nils and is a chameleon-like thief living in New York. And Eleanor Renfrew, Erasmus' niece who was the subject of his cruel experiments in suppressing Smoke, is in hiding from her uncle in provincial Canada. What she endured has given her a strange power over Smoke, which she fears as much as her uncle.

Believing her uncle's agents have found her, she flees to New York with a theater troupe led by Balthazar Black, an impresario with secrets of his own. There they encounter Nils and a Machiavellian Company man named Smith.

All these people seek to discover the true nature of Smoke, and thereby control its power. As their destinies entwine, a cataclysmic confrontation looms, and the Smoke will either bind them together or rend the world.

Soot by Dan Vyleta will be released on February 25, 2020.


Ruthless Gods (Something Dark and Holy) by Emily A. Duncan

Ruthless Gods by Emily A. Duncan

Synopsis

The stunning sequel to instant New York Times bestseller, Wicked Saints.

Nadya doesn’t trust her magic anymore. Serefin is fighting off a voice in his head that doesn’t belong to him. Malachiasz is at war with who--and what--he’s become.

As their group is continually torn apart, the girl, the prince, and the monster find their fates irrevocably intertwined. They’re pieces on a board, being orchestrated by someone…or something. The voices that Serefin hears in the darkness, the ones that Nadya believes are her gods, the ones that Malachiasz is desperate to meet―those voices want a stake in the world, and they refuse to stay quiet any longer.

In her dramatic follow-up to Wicked Saints, the first book in her Something Dark and Holy trilogy, Emily A. Duncan paints a Gothic, icy world where shadows whisper, and no one is who they seem, with a shocking ending that will leave you breathless.

Ruthless Gods by Emily A. Duncan will be released on April 7, 2020.


Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Wells

Network Effect by Martha Wells

Synopsis

I’m usually alone in my head, and that’s where 90 plus percent of my problems are.

It calls itself Murderbot, but only when no-one can hear. It’s a private joke. Funny.

It doesn’t care, it tells itself, and its attachment to the humans around it is merely professional obligation.

It tries to never drop the F-bomb.

“Friends.”

Ugh.

So, when its human associates (not friends, never friends) are captured and another not-friend from its past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action.

Drastic action it is, then.

Another F-bomb.

“Feelings.”

Ugh.

Network Effect by Martha Wells will be released on May 5, 2020.


Age of Empyre (Legends of the First Empire) by Michael J. Sullivan

Age of Empyre by Michael J. Sullivan

Synopsis

The tide of war has turned once more and the Fhrey seem to be unstoppable. In this conclusion of the Legends of the First Empire Series, the Great War comes to a climatic end, and with it dawns a new era in an Age of Empyre.

Age of Empyre by Michael J. Sullivan will be released on May 5, 2020.