Worldbuilding is something I absolutely adore, and I have always wanted to see more fantasy in worlds created around a more modern thought process. Worlds that got away from the medieval and instead found inspiration in places like 1920s America or 1950s Mexico or anywhere with cars and motorcycles existing right alongside dragons. It’s what I try to write and its desperately what I want to read. Fantasy has so much more range than I think it is given credit for.
I love this book because it marries the brutality of military sci-fi with epic fantasy in a colossally satisfying fashion. It has dark gods, blood magic, and the grueling rigors of military training. And Ikenna, the main character, takes no crap from anyone, no matter how powerful. You can’t help but to root for her!
Blending fantasy and science fiction, N. E. Davenport's fast-paced, action-packed debut kicks off a duology of loyalty and rebellion, in which a young Black woman must survive deadly trials in a racist and misogynistic society to become an elite warrior.
It's all about blood.
The blood spilled between the Republic of Mareen and the armies of the Blood Emperor long ago. The blood gifts of Mareen's deadliest enemies. The blood that runs through the elite War Houses of Mareen, the rulers of the Tribunal dedicated to keeping the republic alive.
The blood of the former Legatus, Verne Amari, murdered.
This book takes an extremely fascinating time period, the Rasputin era in Russia, and throws it in a blender with dark fantasy, gore and passion. I could not get enough of the characters because they are all morally gray and come at the central dilemma of a collapsing empire with their own ambitions. Also, one of the more unique takes I’ve seen on a vampire in ages!
Winter 1917. After years on the run from a dangerous cult, twenty-three-year-old Sasza and his father have established themselves among the Odonic Empire’s ruling class. But there’s a problem: Sasza is a vampire, and vampires aren’t supposed to get involved in human governance. What the aristocracy doesn’t know, after all, cannot hurt them.
Unfortunately, Sasza is far more involved than a stealth vampire should be. Not only does he work to quell the rumors of the vampires’ responsibility for an unsolved massacre, his lover is also the pro-proletariat Ilya, the Empire’s Finance Minister, who tries to recruit Sasza into the…
I walked away from reading this book with my imagination completely on fire. I can promise you’ll never look at wax quite the same after reading this book. It takes the pollution of a post-industrial world but filters the premise through magic and god wars. The politics are juicy and the characters come from all walks of life.
"The Gutter Prayer is captivating and complex. Guerdon is a city that seethes with history, horror, and hidden secrets" (Nicholas Eames). A group of three young thieves are pulled into a centuries old magical war between ancient beings, mages, and humanity in this wildly original debut epic fantasy. Enter a city of saints and thieves . . .
The city of Guerdon stands eternal. A refuge from the war that rages beyond its borders. But in the ancient tunnels deep beneath its streets, a malevolent power has begun to stir.
This book has one of the most refreshing and terrifying take on the concept of immortality that I’ve ever seen. I love it because of how it tackles policing, what it means to be a decent person, and how power unchecked will inevitably consume all it touches. Also, it’s extremely queer, and the prickly immortals were just too hard not to fall in love with.
Gideon the Ninth meets Black Sun in this queer, Maori-inspired debut fantasy about a police officer who is murdered, brought back to life with a mysterious new power, and tasked with protecting her city from an insidious evil threatening to destroy it.
The port city of Hainak is alive: its buildings, its fashion, even its weapons. But, after a devastating war and a sweeping biotech revolution, all its inhabitants want is peace, no one more so than Yat Jyn-Hok a reformed-thief-turned-cop who patrols the streets at night.
Yat has recently been demoted on the force due to "lifestyle choices" after…
I can’t say enough about how dark and foreboding this book is the entire way through. The gods are not kind in this book and yes, it plays with exactly how awful living in such a world would be. It’s such an atmospheric book that I swear I pictured it as being cloudy and rainy the entire way through.
I couldn’t stop thinking of it as a heavy, dark episode of a police procedural but far more critical of the powers at play.
IN THE BEGINNING, MAN WAS PREY, WITHOUT THE GODS, THEY'LL BE PREY AGAIN The old gods have fled, and the monsters they had kept at bay for centuries now threaten to drown the city of Valentine, hunting mankind as in ancient times. In the midst of the chaos, a serial killer has begun ritually sacrificing victims, their bodies strewn throughout the city. Lilac Antonis wants to stop the impending destruction of her city by summoning her mother, a blood god-even if she has to slit a few throats to do it. But evading her lover Arcadia and her friends means…
In a world of magical empires and the anarchists that would tear them down, my book follows two mages, Althus and Vade, each assigned to spy on the other by opposing sides.
But when they both catch feelings, what happens when they’re commanded to kill their target? They must each decide if they'll follow orders or find a way to make their romance thrive beyond the lies.
Growing up in New England, my mother had a set of books that she kept in the living room, more for display than anything else. It was The Works of Edgar Allen Poe. I read them and instantly became hooked on horror. In the seventh grade, I entertained my friends at a sleepover by telling them the mysterious clanking noise (created by the baseboard heater) was the ghost of a woman who had once lived in the farmhouse, forced to cannibalize her ten children during a particularly bad winter. And I’ve been enjoying scaring people ever since.
In 1939, on a remote Pacific island, botanical researcher Irene Greer plunged off a waterfall to her death, leaving behind a legacy shrouded in secrets. Her great-niece Julia, a struggling journalist recovering from a divorce, seeks answers decades later.
Tasked with retrieving Dr. Greer’s discovery–a flower that could have world-changing properties–Julia unearths a story rife with hidden agendas and a missionary community unwilling to share the truth. As she confronts the eerie legends and a fellow traveler with his own motives, Julia finds that the longer she stays, the thinner the line between reality and the fantastical becomes until she…
From the award-winning author of Dead Souls and Poe comes an all-new bone-chilling novel where a mysterious island holds the terrifying answers to a woman's past and future.
In 1939, on a remote Pacific island, botanical researcher Irene Greer plunges off a waterfall to her death, convinced the spirits of her dead husband and daughter had joined the nightmarchers-ghosts of ancient warriors that rise from their burial sites on moonless nights. But was it suicide, or did a strange young missionary girl, Agnes, play a role in Irene's deteriorating state of mind?
