Archives de catégorie : Fiction

THESE SHATTERED SPIRES de Cassidy Ellis Salter

A crossover upper-YA gothic fantasy, with the snark and worldbuilding of Gideon the Ninth mixed with the romances and backstabbing of The Atlas Six.

THESE SHATTERED SPIRES
by Cassidy Ellis Salter
On submission
(via Zeno Agency)

The world of Fourspires, is lucious in its grotesqueness. It is a world constantly on the edge of self-destruction and, whether you’re slinking through the rerouting passages of the library or fighting off cutlery-welding starvings in the poisonous forests of the Ulcer, it propulsively pulls you through unforgettable tableaus.

The crumbling castle of Fourspires is the centre of the sole city that exists under the desecrae, a bloody, domed sky that encloses this small world. This is a world where mirrors are banned lest they allow horrors through, where dead nuns stalk the corridors looking to snap the necks of rule breakers, and where magic is real but comes with a price. Because you can reanimate the dead, control someone through their blood or simply make the flowers grow, but it comes with pain. Pain so unbearable you would do anything to avoid it. Which is why Fourspires developed a system of human familiars. Now Arcanists can go about their days quite happily, knowing that their young familiars will be forced to take the pain for all their magic.

Taro and Nixie just graduated from The Academy of familiars. And they’ve been assigned to the head arcanists of the Bone and Botanist disciplines. As high familiars they see each other all the time, but they can never talk, never touch. Which is a shame for Taro because she thinks they’re in love and Nixie is her girlfriend. It’s also a shame for Nixie, because she hates Taro with a passion and wants to throttle her. Despite their differences, on the eve our story begins, Taro and Nixie are planning to escape. Anything’s better than the life of a familiar and, if they can just sneak out of the castle, maybe they can kiss each other or kill each other – whichever’s more practical.

But that’s the night the Tick Tock king finally dies and everything is thrown into chaos. In 48-hours, Taro and Nixie will have to accompany their arcanists into The Fifth Tower and kill or be killed in the fight to the top…

THESE SHATTERER SPIRES is a twisty, multiple-viewpoint tale that keeps you guessing until the very last page. It’s also a very prescient, very necessary novel, prominently featuring queer characters, characters struggling with their gender identity and characters with selective mutism.

Cassidy Ellis Salter is a queer, non-binary author from London’s Brixton. They have published two middle grade books (The Bone Snatcher and Where the Woods End) and THESE SHATTERED SPIRES is their first fantasy for older readers. They work in marketing in their day job and have a personal author TikTok account where their videos have amassed more than a million views and they now have just shy of 10,000 followers. Alis’ struggle to discover themselves as non-binary is very much based on Cassidy’s own coming to terms with their gender identity.

A FIRE IN THE SKY de Sophie Jordan

New York Times bestselling author Sophie Jordan returns to the high-stakes, sweeping world of dragons, romance, and drama first evoked in her bestselling young adult Firelight series, in a brand-new epic adult romantasy series.

A FIRE IN THE SKY
by Sophie Jordan
Avon/HarperCollins, October 2024

Dragons are extinct. Witches are outcast. Magic is dying.

But human lust for power is immortal.

Dragon fire no longer blisters the skies over Penterra, but inside the lavish palace, life is stil perilous… especially for Tamsyn. Raised in the glittering court alongside the princesses, it’s her duty to be punished for their misdeeds. Treated as part of the roval family but also as the lowliest servant. Tamsyn fits nowhere. Her only friend is Stig. Captain of the Guard.though sometimes she thinks he wants more than friendship.

When Fell, the Beast of the Borderlands, descends on her home, Tamsyn’s world becomes even more dangerous. To save the pampered princesses from a fate worse than death, she is commanded to don a veil and marry the brutal warrior. She agrees to the deception even though it means leaving Stig, and the only life she’s ever known, behind.

The wedding night begins with unexpected passion–and ends in near violence when her trickery is exposed. Rather than start a war, Fell accepts Tamsyn as his bride… but can he accept the dark secrets she harbors-secrets buried so deep even she doesn’t know they exist For Tamsyn is more than a royal whipping girl, more than the false wife of a man who now sees her as his enemy. And when those secrets emerge, they will ignite a flame bright enough fo burn the entire kingdom to the bone.

Magic is not dead… it is only sleeping. And it will take one ordinary girl with an extraordinary destiny to awaken it.

Sophie Jordan grew up in the Texas hill country where she wove fantasies of dragons, warriors, and princesses. A former high school English teacher, she’s the New York Times, USA Today and international bestselling author of more than fifty novels. She now lives in Houston with her family. When she’s not writing. she spends her time overloading on caffeine (lattes preferred), talking plotlines with anyone who will listen (including her kids), and cramming her DVR with anything that has a hapoily ever after.

GILDED MONSTERS de Rebecca Kenney

Neon Gods meets The Great Gatsby in this spicy modern retelling with a magical twist.

GILDED MONSTERS
by Rebecca Kenney
Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2024 – 2025

BEAUTIFUL VILLAIN (Book 1 – July 2024)

Daisy Finnegan is looking forward to a summer of fun on Glassy Mountain, North Carolina. She doesn’t want to think about college, or the newly awakened power of her own voice, which has a way of making people do increasingly frightening things. But when her cousin goes missing at an exclusive house party, Daisy confronts the mysterious host…only to discover the wealthy recluse is Jay Gatsby, her childhood sweetheart. Shocked at the change in the boy she once knew so well, Daisy investigates the source of Gatsby’s new riches and becomes entangled in a web of dizzying wealth and lies and obsession darker than she ever could have dreamed—culminating in an act of violence that shatters the summer haze and threatens to drown them all.

But it isn’t until Gatsby is shot through the heart—and survives—that Daisy discovers the full truth. Gatsby clawed his way up in the world by selling the secret of immortality to the highest bidder, using his lavish parties as the ultimate cover. But Gatsby’s intricately-laid plans are in danger…and so, by extension, is he. With her friends’ lives at stake, her own untested power still volatile, and an unimaginable threat closing in, Daisy will have to face an impossible choice: side with the man who claimed her heart…or with the monsters who would see him lost to her forever.

CHARMING DEVIL (Book 2 – January 2025)

The painting that has kept Dorian Gray flawless for over a century is beginning to fall apart, saturated and rotted by his life of reckless decadence. Desperate, he seeks out the only person who might be able to save him: Baz Allard. She’s a talented young painter who just inherited her aunt’s house and studio in Charleston—and she happens to be a direct descendant of Basil Hallward, Dorian’s first love, and the man who created the magical portrait. Baz has the same gift as her ancestor, but for deeply personal reasons, she has vowed never to paint anyone’s likeness, and she refuses Dorian’s commission.

Rebecca Kenney writes contemporary fantasy, paranormal romance, and spicy fantasy romance. She lives in upstate South Carolina with her handsome blue-eyed husband and two smart, energetic kids.

THE CLOCK STRUCK MURDER de Betty Webb

One woman’s trash is another woman’s—lost Chagall masterpiece?!?

THE CLOCK STRUCK MURDER
by Betty Webb
Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks, April 2024

Expat Zoe Barlow has settled well into her artist’s life among the Lost Generation in 1920s Paris. When a too-tipsy guest at her weekly poker game breaks Zoe’s favorite clock, she’s off to a Montparnasse flea market to bargain with the vendor Laurette for a replacement. What Zoe didn’t bargain for was the lost Chagall painting that’s been used like a rag to wrap her purchases! Eager to learn whether Laurette has more Chagalls lying about like trash, Zoe sets off to track her down at her storage shed. With no Laurette in sight, Zoe snoops around and indeed finds several additional Chagalls—and then she finds Laurette herself, dead beneath a scrap heap, her beautiful face bashed in.

With Paris hosting the 1924 Summer Olympics, the police are far too busy with touristrelated crimes to devote much time to the clock seller’s murder. After returning the paintings to a grateful Marc Chagall, Zoe begins her own investigation. Did the stolen paintings play any part in the brutal killing? Or was it a crime of passion? Zoe soon discovers that there were many people who had reason to resent the lovely Laurette. But who hated the girl enough to stop her clock permanently? When Zoe discovers a second murder victim, the pressure is on to find the killer before time—and luck—run out.

As a journalist, Betty Webb interviewed U.S. presidents, astronauts, and Nobel Prize winners, as well as the homeless, dying, and polygamy runaways. The dark Lena Jones mysteries are based on stories she covered as a reporter. Betty’s humorous Gunn Zoo series debuted with the critically acclaimed The Anteater of Death, followed by The Koala of Death. A book reviewer at Mystery Scene Magazine, Betty is a member of National Federation of Press Women, Mystery Writers of America, and the National Organization of Zoo Keepers.

THIS GIRL’S A KILLER d’Emma C. Wells

Meet your new best friend (who also just happens to be a serial killer).

THIS GIRL’S A KILLER
by Emma C. Wells
Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks, September 2024

Cordelia Black loves exactly three things: Her chosen family comprised of her best friend Diane and her goddaughter, her hairdresser (worth every penny plus tip), and killing bad men.

By day she’s a successful pharma rep with her pristine reputation and designer wardrobe, by night she’s culling South Louisiana of unscrupulous men–monsters who always seem to evade justice, until they meet her. It’s a complicated, yet fulfilling life that requires complete and total control- at all times. But when the evening news starts throwing around the word serial killer, suddenly pressure heightens for Cordelia in the South. And it’s only exacerbated when Diane starts dating a man who Cordelia isn’t sure is a good person. Someone who might just unravel everything Cordelia has worked for.

Soon enough Cordelia’s world starts to spiral and she loses control of those tightly held threads that keep her safe. and she has to come face to face with the choices she’s made. The good, the bad, and the murderous. Both her family, and her freedom, depend on it.

Emma C. Wells loves anti-heroes, dark humor, witty banter, and ride-or-die friendships. Twisty relationships are her kryptonite (or catnip—depending on how you look at it) and her favorite characters are often called unlikable (but at least they’re never boring). Emma enjoys camping, yoga, researching spooky folklore, and collecting copies of Wuthering Heights from used bookstores.