Archives de catégorie : Fiction

ON THE SURFACE de Rachel McGuire

A YouTubing cruiser couple sails the world living their best life—until one of them goes missing and their whole world capsizes, in this captivating psychological thriller perfect for fans of Something in the Water and Saint X.

ON THE SURFACE
by Rachel McGuire
Crooked Lane Books, July 2024

Sawyer Stone III and Dani Fox, a young couple who spends their time circumnavigating the globe aboard their 42′ sailboat and documenting it for their fledgling YouTube channel Sailing with the Foxes, have anchored in Exuma, in the Bahamas.

As they wait for the price of crypto to rebound so they can provision and continue their journey, they’re partying and exploring with their fellow cruisers off shore. But one night, Dani vanishes after a boat party, and Sawyer has no memory of her disappearance.

The search for Dani is initially fueled by concerns that she disappeared during one of her daily ocean swims, but friends soon reveal that Dani’s relationship with Sawyer is not quite as perfect as everyone thinks it is.

Meanwhile, Royal Bahamas Police Force Inspector Knowles has her hands full trying to keep the investigation on course as the story of the American woman missing in the Bahamas goes viral and the internet sleuths unearth secrets from Sawyer’s past. Sawyer Stone is far from perfect, but is he a murderer?

This twisty, edge-of-your-seat thriller will keep readers gripped all the way through the final satisfying turn.

Rachel McGuire is the pen name for the collaboration between Rachel Graham and Lee-Ann McGuire Whitlock.

Rachel Graham has worked as a firefighter, paramedic, clinical researcher, and health consultant. She lives in San Diego, California with her family.

Lee-Ann McGuire Whitlock is a former lawyer, serial entrepreneur, and national pub trivia champion several times over. She and her husband, two children, two Cavalier King Charles spaniels split their time between Arkansas and Vancouver, Canada.

ON THE SURFACE is their first thriller.

THE POISONS WE DRINK de Bethany Baptiste

In a country divided between humans and witchers, Venus Stoneheart hustles as a brewer making illegal love potions to support her family.

THE POISONS WE DRINK
by Bethany Baptiste
Sourcebooks Fire, April 2024
(via Writers House)

Love potions is a dangerous business. Brewing has painful, debilitating side effects, and getting caught means death or a prison sentence. But what Venus is most afraid of is the dark, sentient magic within her.

Then an enemy’s iron bullet kills her mother, Venus’s life implodes. Keeping her reckless little sister Janus safe is now her responsibility. When the powerful Grand Witcher, the ruthless head of her coven, offers Venus the chance to punish her mother’s killer, she has to pay a steep price for revenge. The cost? Brew poisonous potions to enslave D.C.’s most influential politicians. As Venus crawls deeper into the corrupt underbelly of her city, the line between magic and power blurs, and it’s hard to tell who to trust. . . Herself included.

THE POISONS WE DRINK is a potent YA debut about a world where love potions are weaponized against hate and prejudice, sisterhood is unbreakable, and self-love is life and death.

Bethany Baptiste is an inner-city educator by day and a young adult SFF novelist by night. If she’s not writing a lesson plan or a story, she does retail therapy in Florida bookstores and takes scheduled naps with her three chaotic evil dogs.

THE KINDRED’S CURSE SAGA de Penn Cole

When old secrets catch fire, everything will burn.

THE KINDRED’S CURSE SAGA
by Penn Cole
Self-published, 2023 – 2024
(via The Whalen Agency)

Book 1: SPARK OF THE EVERFLAME (June 2023)

In a mortal world colonized by the gods and ruled over by the Descended, their cruel offspring, Diem Bellator yearns to escape the insular life of her poor village.

Her mother’s sudden disappearance—and the discovery of a dangerous secret about her past—offer Diem an unexpected opportunity to enter the dark world of Descended royalty and unlock the web of mysteries her mother left behind.

With the dying King’s handsome, mysterious heir watching her every move, and a ruthless mortal alliance recruiting her to join the growing civil war, Diem will have to navigate the unwritten rules of love, power, and politics in order to save her family—and all of mortalkind.

Book 2: GLOW OF THE EVERFLAME (July 2023)

An unexpected gift offers the power to change everything. Keeping it could cost Diem her life.

The threat of war has arrived at Diem’s doorstep, along with a new discovery that could save her people. To use it, she must survive the next thirty days by forming a devil’s bargain with the people she hates most: the royal family of House Corbois.

But as she dives into the world of the Descended elite, Diem quickly realizes good and evil aren’t as simple as they seem. Old prejudices are challenged, and new loyalties blur the line between friend and foe.

Meanwhile, her mother is still missing, and the secrets she left behind can no longer be ignored—and neither can the Guardians and their demands. Caught between an old flame and a sizzling new spark, Diem must confront the truth about who she is and what she wants before time runs out.

War is coming, and dangerous enemies wait on all sides.. but the most deadly battle Diem faces may be the one for her heart.

Book 3: HEAT OF THE EVERFLAME (September 2023)

The war has begun. Both sides demand Diem’s allegiance—or her death.

After her disastrous coronation, Diem finds herself at the center of the conflict between the Descended and the Guardians. With her newfound friends and the man she’s falling for on one side, and the mortals she has vowed to protect on the other, Diem must walk a careful line to save the people she loves… even from each other.

The mystery of her unusual heritage begins to unravel, sending Diem and Luther on an unexpected journey across the realms. The answers may hold the key to winning the war, but finding them will require her to face painful truths about her mother, her bloodline, and her fate.

Meanwhile, the Crowns have set Diem in their sights. Some could be her greatest allies—while others want her dead. To end their oppressive reign, Diem must sort friend from foe and risk it all to build an army of her own.

But a powerful figure in the north has plans that could change everything…

Book 4: BURN OF THE EVERFLAME (Spring 2024)

The journey concludes in the final book of The Kindred’s Curse Saga, a four-book epic fantasy romance series that follows our fiesty, bad*ss heroine Diem Bellator in her fight against injustice and oppression, her struggle to survive in a royal palace full of betrayal and intrigue, and her journey of self-discovery and finding true love. This slow burn, enemies-to-lovers series is perfect for fans of unique magic systems, dragons and other mythical creatures, angst and romantic tension, and hilarious banter. This book will appeal to fans of plot-heavy, character-driven romantasy such as A Court of Thorns and Roses, Throne of Glass, From Blood and Ash, Gild, Shadow & Bone, and The Serpent & the Wings of Night.

WINK de Rob Harrell

A hilarious and heartwrenching story about surviving middle school–and an unthinkable diagnosis–while embracing life’s weirdness.

WINK
by Rob Harrell
Dial Books for Young Readers, 2020
(via Writers House)

Ross Maloy just wants to be a normal seventh grader. He doesn’t want to lose his hair, or wear a weird hat, or deal with the disappearing friends who don’t know what to say to « the cancer kid. » But with his recent diagnosis of a rare eye cancer, blending in is off the table.

Based on Rob Harrell’s real life experience, and packed with comic panels and spot art, this incredibly personal and poignant novel is an unforgettable, heartbreaking, hilarious, and uplifting story of survival and finding the music, magic, and laughter in life’s weirdness. 

Rob Harrell created the Life of Zarf series, the graphic novel Monster on the Hill, and also writes and draws the long-running daily comic strip Adam@Home, which appears in more than 140 papers worldwide. He created and drew the internationally syndicated comic strip Big Top until 2007. He lives with his wife in Indiana.

CLEOPATRA de Saara El-Arifi

You know my name, but you do not know me.

CLEOPATRA
by Saara El-Arifi
Borough Press, September 2025
(via Mushens Entertainment)

Credit: Mustafa Raee, Lightning Rod Films

After the death of her father, nineteen year old Cleopatra is thrust upon the throne, unaware of what the next twenty years would bring. Blessed by the Goddess Isis, Cleopatra’s reign is plagued by Roman intervention that even her deity cannot stop. She must navigate the Roman civil war, the wrath of the gods, but most of all the lure of love. Writing back to the millenia of propaganda and myth-making, El-Arifi weaves together a never seen before rendition of Cleopatra in this captivating new tale. With the magical spark of Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne and the feminist heart of Madeline Miller’s Circe, Cleopatra promises a spell-binding adventure in the land of ancient Egypt.

Saara El-Arifi is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Final Strife and The Battle Drum, the first two instalments of The Ending Fire Trilogy inspired by her Ghanaian and Sudanese heritage, and much beloved on Tik Tok. El-Arifi knew she was a storyteller from the moment she told her first lie. Over the years, she has perfected her tall tales into epic ones. She has lived in many countries, had many jobs, and owned many more cats. After a decade of working in marketing and communications, she returned to academia to complete a master’s degree in African studies alongside her writing career. She currently resides in London as a full-time procrastinator.