I’m a science fiction and fantasy children’s book author, who loves everything about space and science fiction. I’ve been fascinated by space ever since I was little; mesmerized by clips of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon. As a teenager, War of the Worlds by H.G Wells was my favorite book! My daughter’s complete lack of interest in space inspired me to write a space adventure series. How could I make space entertaining? When it comes to children, I’m a big fan of mixing space facts with a dollop of space fiction, so I hope you will enjoy the collection of books on this list!
The year is 2113 and Leo Gray is like any other normal science-loving boy. Except for his incredibly embarrassing family of course, who weirdly insists on living and dressing like it’s still 2013! Poor Leo has to wear century-old outfits and live in a house full of ancient clocks and TVs. Meanwhile everyone else zips around on flying cars and wears the latest electronic clothes. Leo is desperate to win a science competition so that he can attend the lunar academy on the moon, but his Dad is equally determined to keep him here on earth. Twists and turns abound. Why are the trees disappearing? What about those mysterious aliens the Lunalings? Leo will uncover the truth. But will he have enough time to save Earth from destruction?
What kid hasn't dreamed of going to the moon? That dream for eleven-year-old Leo Gray is about to come true-but he's in for the surprise of his life! In the year 2113, most people live in robotically maintained homes, ride around in self-flying cars, and wear ozone-resistant clothes. Most people that is; just not Leo Gray's parents. They're stuck in the past, and science know-it-all Leo is completely fed up with his beyond-embarrassing living arrangement with them. But when he enters a rocket-building competition for a chance to attend the Lunar Academy, Leo's luck finally seems to turn in his…
As a life-long lover of fairy tales, I believe the reason these timeless stories resonate so deeply is because they speak to an unquenchable desire in the center of each of our souls: the hope for a grand romantic adventure that will change our lives from the inside out. As an author, I strive to create those kinds of soul-speaking stories, crafting characters my readers relate to as friends... and respect as heroes. When my readers adventure alongside these fictional friends, I hope they are encouraged to bravely face the real-life challenges of our modern world, while being emboldened toward acts of everyday and exceptional heroism.
An unexpected detour lands Alyssa, the daughter of a woodcutter, in the royal family’s household. By accepting a position as companion to the king and queen’s rambunctious young daughters, she joins the family’s circle of trust.
When Alyssa witnesses a traitorous plot to overtake the kingdom, she’s forced to face her growing feelings for Max, the crown prince—which he reciprocates. But Max is duty-bound to marry for alliance instead of love.
With only mild fantasy elements, the story is driven by its romantic plot and the idea that true nobility resides in a person’s heart more than their bloodline. If you’re looking for a reimagined fairy tale that’s lighter on the fantasy elements, Melanie Cellier’s sweet retelling ofThe Princess and the Pea is the perfect choice.
Danger and romance await a woodcutter's daughter in a royal palace.
One dark and stormy night, lost and alone, Alyssa finds herself knocking on the door of a castle. After a lifetime spent in the deep forest, Alyssa has no idea what to expect on the other side.
What she finds is two unruly young princesses and one very handsome prince. When Alyssa accepts the job of Princess Companion she knows her life will change. What she doesn't know is that the royal family is about to be swept up in unexpected danger and intrigue, and that she just might…
I’m a Black woman who writes stories about Black girls who aren’t all that nice. And, to me, that means writing stories where Black girls are at the forefront of their stories and given the space to be whoever they are, wholly and without minimizing their character to make them fit into neat boxes next to others. I do this because being able to take up space as you are is, oftentimes, a privilege. And I want to make sure the stories I write offer that space to every reader who picks up one of my books.
I would not be a writer had I not read this book. It was the first time I saw a Black girl be the main character in a fantasy novel, and she doesn’t limit herself to playing by the rules.
Jane McKeene is a troublemaker with a smart mouth, but she’s fearless against the shamblers (zombies), resourceful, and her complicated friendship with Kate was something I loved every minute of.
Trained at Miss Preston's School of Combat for Negro Girls in both weaponry and etiquette, Jane McKeene is poised for a successful career protecting the wealthy from the encroaching plague of walking dead. But when families begin to go missing, Jane uncovers a conspiracy that pits her against some powerful enemies. Sent far from home, Jane will need all her resourcefulness, wit and strength of character to survive.
A powerful, compelling tale of a young girl's journey through a hostile world, Jane McKeene is an unforgettable protagonist, and Dread Nation is an unforgettable book.
Meet Tony Valenti. His high-flying corporate law career just cratered. His society marriage blew up in a bitter divorce. He's returned to the Chicago suburbs to lick his wounds and regroup in the haven of the Valenti family home. But time to heal isn't in the cards.
Tony's elderly father inexplicably shoots a sheriff's deputy on their front porch. Nobody knows why, and Papa isn't talking. Then their house becomes an unlikely target for condemnation and expropriation by corrupt local officials and their cronies.
With money and hope dwindling, Tony steps up to defend his father and take to city hall, and quickly finds himself in peril when he unearths sinister connections between the cases. The audacity of the plot against them fuels a gritty determination to get to the bottom of what really happened—regardless of the risks and ultimate cost to himself. To win, Tony must earn his father's trust and outwit his wily opponents.
Meet Tony Valenti. His high-flying corporate law career just cratered. His society marriage blew up in a bitter divorce. He’s returned to the Chicago suburbs to lick his wounds and regroup in the haven of the Valenti family home. But time to heal isn’t in the cards.
Tony’s elderly father inexplicably shoots a sheriff’s deputy on their front porch. Nobody knows why, and Papa isn’t talking. Then their house becomes an unlikely target for condemnation and expropriation by corrupt local officials and their cronies.
With money and hope dwindling, Tony steps up to defend…
I am an academic in rebellion. I have interviewed hundreds of urban leaders and professionals in nine divided urban areas throughout the world. I have written much on this subject, replete with footnotes and sophisticated writing. I am weary of writing more about this important topic—how people do or do not get along in urban settings—from an academic distance. I find the scholarly posture sterilized and insufficiently provocative. I entered into the fictional genre in order to reach a broader audience. I think that fictional futurist writing has the unique ability to portray extraordinary new worlds while at the same time addressing fundamental issues that we face now.
What could be more fun than Gods getting involved in city planning? Spy story wrapped inside a grand and mysterious history of once-supreme Gods now dormant (or not). Memorable characters. Don’t mess with the giant grunt Sigrud. Divine power with 6 Gods (light bearer, judge, warrior, seed-sower, trickster, and builder). Imagine holding a committee meeting with this group. Magical portals that enable back-and-forth between current gritty and past majestic city. A thought-provoking conclusion that speaks to worldwide conflict in real life today.
'Robert Jackson Bennett deserves a huge audience' - Brent Weeks, New York Times bestselling author of The Black Prism
In the city of stairs, nothing is as it seems.
You've got to be careful when you're chasing a murderer through Bulikov, for the world is not as it should be in that city. When the gods were destroyed and all worship of them banned by the Polis, reality folded; now stairs lead to nowhere, alleyways have become portals to the past, and criminals disappear into thin air.
The murder of Dr Efrem Pangyui, the Polis diplomat researching the Continent's past,…
Who knew that Jane Stanford, co-founder of Stanford University, was murdered in 1905?
Until recently, exhibits at University museums and family narratives represented the Stanfords as an ideal nuclear unit destroyed by the tragic death of Leland, Jr., at age 15 from typhoid fever. Jane Stanford devoted the rest of her life to honoring her son by creating a great university.
The founding of Stanford University, however, was fraught with conflicts between Jane Stanford, who was obsessed with the spiritual world that she consulted to make academic decisions, and David Starr Jordan, the University’s founding President, who appointed his favorites and sycophants to the faculty.
When Jane Stanford’s death in Hawaii was attributed to strychnine poisoning, President Jordan succeeded in covering up the poisoning by hiring his physician, who wrote an alternative report attributing Jane’s death to “natural causes.”
Richard White examines the historical record, challenges the laudatory narratives that…
In 1885 Jane and Leland Stanford co-founded a university to honour their recently deceased young son. After her husband's death in 1893, Jane Stanford, a devoted spiritualist who expected the university to inculcate her values, steered Stanford into eccentricity and public controversy for more than a decade. In 1905 she was murdered in Hawaii, a victim, according to the Honolulu coroner's jury, of strychnine poisoning.
With her vast fortune the university's lifeline, the Stanford president and his allies quickly sought to foreclose challenges to her bequests by constructing a story of death by natural causes. The cover-up gained traction in…
The Sweet Goodbye weaves a powerful story of duplicity and loss.
It gave me exactly what I want in a crime thriller, a triumvirate of psychological veracity, physical presence, and page-turning suspense. What’s a crime thriller without complex perpetrators and victims, powerful descriptive passages that pull me into the action, and subterfuge that keeps me guessing until the end?
A book I put down. No danger of that with The Sweet Goodbye. Corbett has been nominated for both the Edgar and Arthur Ellis awards. In this novel, he draws readers deep into the Maine timberlands and holds them there with a riveting plot.
In this thrilling new series from Edgar®-nominated author Ron Corbett, the most dangerous predator in the Maine wilderness walks on two feet—and it is Danny Barrett's job to bring him down.
Something is not right in the North Maine Woods.
A small family-run lumber company should not have more than two hundred million unaccountable dollars on their books. Money like that comes from moving something other than wood across the border.
The first agent the FBI sent undercover was their best man—sure to get the answers that were needed. He was dead within a month.
Steve Berry's book couldn’t have been timed any better as 2023 was the 60th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination.
The pages flew by and kept me up late into the night. I have a history addiction, dating back to my early childhood, and the assassination of JFK has troubled and baffled me as far back as I can remember. The misinformation campaign set forth by the American government has never sat well with anyone who’s done the research, and this book presents the reader with a fresh scenario of what really happened back in November 1963 and the extent of the American coverup.
I’m always delighted to consume an entire library’s worth of new facts and information every time I open a Steve Berry novel.
From New York Times bestselling author of the Cotton Malone series comes a thrilling, action-packed historical adventure that sends Luke Daniels on an international manhunt for the truth about the assassination of President John Kennedy.
Luke Daniels is in London, between assignments with the Magellan Billet, when he receives a frantic call from an old friend. Jillian Stein is in trouble. She made a mistake and now her life may be in danger. She needs Luke’s help. Immediately. Racing to Belgium Luke quickly finds that she was right. A shadow team of highly-trained operatives are there on the hunt. Intervening,…
As an avid reader and digester of Dennis Palumbo’s outstanding thriller series, I eagerly dived into his latest book, Panic
Attack.
Rinaldi expertly uses his skills as a
psychologist with a “tough on the outside, warm heart on the inside” personality
to extricate himself from the dangerous situations he is drawn to as an
advocate for compassionate justice and the innocent.
In Panic Attack, Rinaldi witnesses a college mascot
shot by a sniper at a football game and gets drawn into another murder mystery
when the intended victim calls the psychologist to help him deal with his
panic. Soon, Rinaldi has been drafted to investigate a killing spree in
which a serial murderer could be targeting him.
Palumbo, as in his other Rinaldi books,
weaves a gripping, exciting thriller with fascinating characters and always
surprising plot twists set in a wonderfully created atmosphere of Pittsburgh
noir. I’ve enjoyed…
A shooter takes deadly aim, and throws a city into panic Psychologist Daniel Rinaldi is no stranger to trauma. A survivor of not one, but two attempts on his life by a deranged killer, the therapist also counsels trauma patients in his private practice, and contracts with the Pittsburgh Police to help victims of violent crime cope with their experience. When a sports mascot is gunned down mid-field by a sniper at a college football game he attends, Rinaldi becomes an accidental yet integral part of the investigation. To begin with, the victim in the costume is not the person…
I cut my teeth loving the intrigue of the spy world. Days of old TV shows like Man from U.N.C.L.E. (the original not the remake). All the James Bond movies—old and new. As a child, I had a Man from U.N.C.L.E. spy kit, equipped with a miniature camera and all. It seemed only fitting that when I started writing, I stayed with what I loved. The espionage thriller genre has evolved over time to a more sophisticated, action-packed storyline…which is right up my alley.
The Camel Club took me away from the massive technical details that Clancy wrote to a more intimate spy character…and his cadre of retired spies. Whereas Clancy's writings were broader in scope, Baldacci narrowed the field and presented characterization at a closer level, one the reader can readily relate to. As I discovered David Baldacci's books, I fell in love with his style of writing. His novels have probably had the greatest influence on my writings above any other author.
After witnessing a shocking murder, four conspiracy theorists team up with a Secret Service agent to uncover the government corruption that threatens to cause an international terrorism crisis in this New York Times bestselling thriller.
Welcome to THE CAMEL CLUB.
Existing at the fringes of Washington, D.C., the Club consists of four eccentric members. Led by a mysterious man known as "Oliver Stone," they study conspiracy theories, current events, and the machinations of government to discover the "truth" behind the country's actions. Their efforts bear little fruit--until the group witnesses a shocking murder...and becomes embroiled in an astounding, far-reaching conspiracy.…
I’m a queer speculative fiction writer who gets giddy whenever I read about space and spaceships, aliens, and advanced technology. I get even more of a rush when I discover queer representation tucked around the tech. Why? Because queer people deserve positive representation in literature—everyone should see themselves in creative works. As a reader, I read and shout about as many queer books as I can; as a writer, I infuse my works with as many queer characters I can.
Winter’s Orbit has one of the sweetest romances I’ve read thus far. The characters have trauma to work through and they do so beautifully. I love how broken Jainan is and how he discovers he’s worthy of love. The push and pull between him and Kiem was masterful! Raw. Compelling. And it’s set against a backdrop of a galactic-level political mystery! (But honestly, I read it for the romance.)
'A chilling account of a dark past wrapped in the warm blanket of a promising future . . . A pleasure to read' Ann Leckie
'Sparks fly' NPR
'A stunning new space opera debut' K. B. Wagers
The Iskat Empire rules its vassal planets through a system of treaties - so when Prince Taam, key figure in a political alliance, is killed, a replacement must be found. His widower, Jainan, is rushed into an arranged marriage with the disreputable aristocrat Kiem, in a bid to keep rising hostilities between two worlds under control. But Prince Taam's death may not have…
