Archives de catégorie : Frankfurt 2023 Adult Fiction

LEGENDS & LATTES: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL de Travis Baldree

After a lifetime of bounties and bloodshed, Viv is hanging up her sword for the last time.

LEGENDS & LATTES: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL
by Travis Baldree
Ten Speed Graphic, September 2025

The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first-ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success―not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is.

If Viv wants to put the blade behind her and make her plans a reality, she won’t be able to go it alone. After all, true rewards of the uncharted path are the travelers you meet along the way. And whether drawn together by ancient magic, flaky pastry, or a freshly brewed cup, they may become partners, family, and something deeper than she ever could have dreamed.

This full color graphic novel adaptation brings the high fantasy and low stakes of this beloved story to vibrant life as its never been seen before.

Travis Baldree is a full-time audiobook narrator who has lent his voice to hundreds of stories. Before that, he spent decades designing and building video games like Torchlight, Rebel Galaxy, and Fate. Apparently, he now also writes books. He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his very patient family and their small, nervous dog.

THE PHOENIX PENCIL COMPANY d’Allison King

THE PHOENIX PENCIL COMPANY combines the cross-generational relationships and epistolary form of Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being with the magical alternate history and probing questions of R.F. Kuang’s Babel. Told in dual timelines, its overarching question is: who owns a story?

THE PHOENIX PENCIL COMPANY
by Allison King
HarperCollins, Summer 2025
(via The Gernert Company)

Yun is a ninety-year-old woman recounting her time growing up in the Phoenix Pencil Company in 1940s Shanghai. While Japan invades China, Yun’s cousin moves in with them, and the two develop a competitive yet loving relationship. When the government discovers their family can magically Reforge a pencil’s words, bringing its words back to life, the cousins are separated and forced into a life of betraying stories in order to survive.

Monica is Yun’s granddaughter, a modern-day college student in America, set on using her software engineering skills to help reunite Yun with her long lost cousin. Through her attempts, she meets Louise, an aspiring digital archivist, ruthlessly determined to record the stories of those who survived World War II. As Monica learns more of Yun’s story, she must confront the same questions her grandmother once did—of what kinds of stories should be preserved, and when data should be left private—all while navigating her growing feelings towards Louise.

THE PHOENIX PENCIL COMPANY is part historical fantasy, part romance, all complex family dynamics, with a smattering of data privacy thrown in. It is loosely inspired by Allison’s own grandparents and the pencil company they once ran in Shanghai.

Allison King is a software engineer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has dedicated time to sharing local community stories and working in data privacy. A story of hers is to be featured on LeVar Burton’s podcast this fall, and other pieces have appeared in Fantasy Magazine, Diabolical Plots, and Paula Guran’s Year’s Best Fantasy, among others. She is also a 2023 Reese’s Book Club LitUp fellow.

HOUSE OF BLIGHT de Maxym M. Martineau

The first novel in an eerie, darkly creative, and romantic new gothic fantasy duology from Maxym M. Martineau, for readers of Sarah J. Maas and Rachel Gillig.

HOUSE OF BLIGHT
The Threadmender Chronicles, Book 1
by Maxym M. Martineau
Harper Voyager, April 2025
(via The Whalen Agency)

Edira Brillwyn is a threadmender. She holds a rare, lifesaving power that can cure disease and heal injuries in the blink of an eye. But magic always comes with a cost, and saving anyone sacrifices a sliver of her own life. She’s always kept her abilities hidden…until the powerful Fernglove family discovers her secret.

The Ferngloves are charming and beautiful, possess powerful magic, and don’t take no for an answer—especially Orin, the head of these ruling elites. When Edira’s brothers unexpectedly contract blight—an incurable virus killing people throughout the town, and an illness too strong for her to heal them both—Orin offers to help. Together at his estate they’ll research a cure while Orin slows their sickness and Edira hones her magic. His kindness and honesty surprises Edira, as does her undeniable attraction to him.

But the other Ferngloves are suspicious of her power and may be more dangerous than the ever-present disease. The longer Edira stays within the confines of the Manor, the more the family’s pristine exterior begins to crack—until Edira discovers a terrifying secret and must choose who she can save and at what cost…

« [E]nthralling…With court intrigue, a dash of romance, and betrayal galore, this promises good things to come. » — Publishers Weekly

« Wrenching, thrilling, and wildly imaginative…The kind of story that you just can’t put down. » —Thea Guanzon, New York Times and international bestselling author

« [A] gorgeous fae gothic… I’m excited to see what [Martineau] does next. » —Illona Andrews, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Maxym M. Martineau is an associate creative director by day and a fantasy author by night. When she’s not getting heated over broken hearts, she enjoys playing video games, binge-watching television shows, competing in just about any sport, and of course, reading.

SANDYMANCER de David Edison

A wild girl with sand magic in her bones and a mad god who is trying to fix the world he broke come together in SANDYMANCER, a genre-warping mashup of weird fantasy and hard science fiction.

SANDYMANCER
Sandymancer Series, Book 1
by David Edison
Tor Books, September 2023
(via Vertical Ink)

All Caralee Vinnet has ever known is dust. Her whole world is made up of the stuff; water is the most precious thing in the cosmos. A privileged few control what elements remain. But the world was not always a dust bowl and the green is not all lost.

Caralee has a secret—she can draw up power from the sand beneath her feet. But when she does… she winds up summoning a monster: The former god-king who broke the world 800 years ago and has stolen the body of her best friend.

Caralee will risk the whole world to take back what she’s lost. If her new companion doesn’t kill her first.

SANDYMANCER is what happens when Oz meets Armageddon, with failed gods, lost magics, and murderous gigantic steel harpies. Caralee has always longed to see more of this broken world – but as she stumbles upon its secret roots, she may discover that their doomsday wasn’t quite what everyone thought.

David Edison was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and has spent most of his life living in New York City and California. His passions include rescuing pit bulls, leveling up, and all things queer.

INVISIBLE WOMAN de Katia Lief

From internationally bestselling crime writer Katia Lief, INVISIBLE WOMAN is the story of a dangerous secret held for too long between estranged best friends and a long marriage that comes apart with devastating consequences.

INVISIBLE WOMAN
by Katia Lief
‎ Atlantic Monthly Press/Grove Atlantic, January 2024

Joni Ackerman’s decision to raise children came with a steep cost. Twenty-five years ago, she was a pioneering filmmaker, one of the few women to break into the all-male club of Hollywood feature film directors. But she and her husband Paul had always wanted a family, and his ascending career at a premier television network provided a safety net. They have recently transplanted to Brooklyn, so that Paul can launch a major East Coast production studio, when a scandal rocks the film industry and forces Joni to revisit a secret from long ago involving a powerful man who abused women, including the friend of her youth, Val.

Joni is adamant that the time has come to tell the story, but Val and Paul are reluctant, for different reasons. As the marriage frays and the friends spar about whether to speak up, Joni’s struggles with isolation in a new city and old resentments about the sacrifices she made start to boil over. She takes solace in the novels of Patricia Highsmith—particularly the masterpiece Strangers on a Train, with its duplicitous characters and their murderous impulses—until the lines between reality and fantasy become blurred.

INVISIBLE WOMAN is at once a literary thriller about the lies we tell each other (and ourselves), and a powerful psychological examination of friendship, marriage, and motherhood.

Katia Lief is the author, most recently, of the novels A Map of the Dark and Last Night published by Mulholland Books/Little, Brown under the pseudonym Karen Ellis. Earlier work includes USA Today and internationally bestselling novels Five Days in Summer (a #1 bestseller in Germany), One Cold Night (#1 on Kobo’s UK bestseller list), and The Money Kill, the fourth installment of her Karin Schaeffer series published by HarperCollins and nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award. She teaches fiction writing at The New School in Manhattan and lives with her family in Brooklyn.