I’ve been fascinated by “other worlds” since I found my father’s battered copy of Dune when I was eleven. I’ve been seeking that experience of transportation, of transcendence, that I got from reading Dune, ever since. I’ve found it in diverse places, from the very alien worlds of Jo Clayton’s Diadem from the Stars series to the somehow-familiar woods of Richard and Wendy Pini’s ElfQuest comics. I’ve tried to give that experience back to my readers, in creating worlds wondrous and strange but entirely relatable. The books on this list sparked that same sense of transcendence and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!
Fenn’s Orc Sworn series transports the reader to a world both familiar and utterly strange, where gray-skinned, monstrous orcs show courage, kindness, and compassion to the human women they desperately need to continue their race while being hunted by human men. It’s a world of darkness, oppression, and fear, but also wonder, beauty, and hope. Fenn’s world building is utterly immersive—you will hear, feel, smell (and only rarely see, because it’s dark under Orc Mountain!)—what it is to be Orc Sworn.
He’s a fierce, ferocious, death-dealing beast. And he’s reading a book in her library...
In a world of recently warring orcs and men, Rosa Rolfe leads a quiet, scholarly life as an impoverished librarian — until the day she finds an orc. In her library. Reading a book.
He’s rude, aggressive, and deeply terrifying, with his huge muscled form, sharp black claws, and cold, dismissive commands. But he doesn’t seem truly dangerous… at least, until night falls. And he makes Rosa a shocking, scandalous offer…
Her books, for her surrender. Her ecstasy. Her enlightenment…
I’m always enamored of a truly dark, gritty setting. I want to see the dirt under the hero’s nails. Smell his sweat and hear his harsh breaths as he fights or...does other things. Aimes’s world in the Ruthless Warlord series is visceral. It grabs you by the throat, shakes you, throws you down, and smothers you. It’s brutal and in some ways unbearably harsh. But Aimes’s books are always tempered with humor, warmth, and ultimately, triumph of the human spirit. I may shiver and shudder my way through Nikolai and Dahlia’s story, but I feel hopeful by the end, and that’s why I return to Aimes’s books again and again—to be, ultimately, uplifted.
"I tore myself away to throw dinner at the kids and then hurried back. Ruthless King was EVERYTHING I want in a romance and more." -5 Star Reviewer He's the most brutal crime boss in the galaxy—and she belongs to him now. Payment for a debt owed. Pawn for an act of vengeance. Property to be used.
Irresistibly gorgeous mafia king Nikolai Skolov is dominant, hard, possessive—and determined to bend innocent Dahlia Lundin to his will. But she is equally determined to resist. The lives of those she loves depends upon it.
Except Dahlia isn't prepared for the insatiable hunger…
Burne’s been hiding out in the forest since deserting the King’s Guard. Each time he tries to return to the village, he begins to panic. And then one day, he encounters a handsome stranger picking flowers and hides behind a tree instead of talking.
This book made me completely shift my frame of reference. Why? It’s set in the modern world. It should be familiar to me as a reader. But it’s not. It’s wholly “other.” It’s a world in which moth fae and succubae use a dating app to set up their monstrous rendezvous. It’s a world in which they work side by side with humans, one of them “out” and public in every way, the other closeted and fearful, and it’s not the ones you might expect. It’s a world of deep needs almost too ugly to be expressed which drive behavior in a way I immediately recognized, and sympathized with, but only when seen through the lens of these very alien characters in a very familiar world. It’s a world that requires you to completely open your mind, and you will come away much richer for it.
This monster wants to get under more than just her skin…
Avirin has a dirty little secret.
She hates her fae coworker - but that’s no surprise. Not when Pye’s tattoos and easy-going attitude clash with her pencil skirts and rigid expectations. Those strict rules help her maintain a corporate appearance so no one catches onto the truth of what she is...
A succubus, secretly scheduling the feedings she needs to survive. Imagine her shock to find Pye on her doorstep offering their services.
Avirin should refuse, but the need to feed is growing stronger...and once she gets a taste…
“What if?” That’s the question sci-fi and fantasy authors have been asking for over a hundred years. What if humanity was dying and aliens offered salvation, but only at a terrible price? That’s the question this book poses, and it does it so compellingly. The story’s set on a poisoned world, and in a dying race’s spaceship. There is no escape here except death. There are no familiar, comfortable spaces. Nowhere left to hide. There is only the smallest spark of hope: that the humans can somehow connect with the aliens who are “not squid” but absolutely not like us. To do so, they have to overcome the basest squeamishness of human nature, and that they do makes for not just brave characters, but an extremely brave book.
“It will take the whole night at least,” he said, “to implant all my eggs.”The colony planet is a death trap. Only the tiniest fraction of humanity survives the gruesome rejection virus.
And then the aliens arrive.
The Nepenthe, too, seek a new home world, but discover instead a species capable of incubating their precious eggs: humans.
The two dying races can either reach an agreement to help each other live on … or prepare for extinction.
Publisher's Note: The We Are Nepenthe series contains tentacles, shapeshifting aliens and squirm-in-your-seat depravity. A one-click read for the seriously adventurous only.
Crushed under writer’s block and a looming deadline, Mack escapes from New York to Seattle. She meets Charlie, a beautiful, generous, nearly bankrupt coffee shop owner recovering from heartbreak. For the first time, Mack has a muse. And then Mack starts using Charlie’s private stories in her novel…
Is this a book about a human woman and a space lizard? Absolutely. Put that aside and immerse yourself in the magnificence that is The Last Hour of Gann. This is a world unlike any I’ve read before. It’s post-apocalyptic, brutal, complex, and yet deeply devout. It’s a world that not only shapes the characters but shapes the way they learn to love each other. It’s an ugly world, and they are initially ugly to each other. But it’s also a world that’s finally beginning to bloom again after a great catastrophe, and that opens the way for the heroine and her space lizard to forge an incredible, unforgettable connection.
It was her last chance:Amber Bierce had nothing left except her sister and two tickets on Earth’s first colony-ship. She entered her Sleeper with a five-year contract and the promise of a better life, but awakened in wreckage on an unknown world. For the survivors, there is no rescue, no way home and no hope until they are found by Meoraq—a holy warrior more deadly than any hungering beast on this hostile new world…but whose eyes show a different sort of hunger when he looks at her.It was his last year of freedom:Uyane Meoraq is a Sword of Sheul, God’s…
Hale Hauser is a Company killer. Perfectly engineered, highly trained, superbly effective. He has everything and nothing. Kezra Kerryon is a runner on the backwater colony of Kuseros. She'll get anything from A to B, for a price. When Kez hires Hale to help her retrieve a black-market package, she introduces him to the maze of strange loyalties and twisted customs of Kuseros’ underground gangs. In payment, he takes the one thing only a woman can give him, and discovers the one thing he's missing.
But Kez has a secret, which will threaten them both. To protect her, Hale must unleash the monster. Can he control the killer inside long enough to discover the truth before it destroys them? Or will he lose everything just as he’s found it?
Seeker: As societies grow increasingly fragmented, hopelessness, nihilism, division, and despair are on the rise. But there is another way—a way of mystery and magic, of wholeness and transformation. Do you dare take the first step? Our path is not for the faint-hearted, but for seekers of ancient truths...
Katie's Gamble is an unexpected, unique story about a young woman who's trying to support her younger siblings by keeping her family's confectionery shop open.
In order to do that, she has to take on her older brother, who's a notorious gambler in Louisiana. Additionally, she has to outsmart Rowdy…
