Archives par étiquette : Nancy Yost Literary

THE INNKEEPER de Pradeep Niroula

A witty, dazzling speculative debut for readers of White Teeth and Sea of Tranquility—with a dash of Forrest Gump—the novel braids multiple storylines into a brilliantly converging plot, exploring displaced identity, national mythmaking, privilege, and the search for agency in an age of accelerating mechanization.

THE INNKEEPER
by Pradeep Niroula
Blackstone, Fall 2026
(via Nancy Yost Literary)

Almost everything seems to be going right for our nameless narrator from the secretive nation of Ratnastan. Freshly graduated from a prestigious Northeastern college and newly employed at an AI startup, he appears to be on a path to success—until a chance bicycle collision with a young woman named Samantha sends him careening into an entirely different future.

When Samantha asks him to visit her sprawling, antique-filled house, he discovers it is no ordinary bed-and-breakfast, but a clandestine inn for time travelers—a crossroads of hidden portals stretching from the 1850s into the future.

Unable to travel himself, our narrator becomes the inn’s unlikely steward: host, confidant, and steadying presence to a rotating cast of eccentric and occasionally famous (hello, Herman Melville!) guests from across history. All the while, he juggles the absurdities of his tech job and falls hopelessly for Autumn, a medical student visiting from five years ahead…an almost-romance shadowed by the uncrossable gulf between them.

But when he uncovers a devastating connection between the network of inns, his homeland, and his own family’s past, the careful balance he’s maintained begins to fracture…with consequences that ripple across time itself.

Pradeep Niroula grew up in Nepal and studied physics and fiction at Harvard. After graduation, while working at a startup, he lived in a bed-and-breakfast to save on rent, helping with chores — the setting that ultimately inspired THE INNKEEPER. Pradeep received a PhD in physics and now works as a research scientist in quantum computing and artificial intelligence at JPMorgan. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Scientific American, and his writing has appeared in LA Review of Books, The Drift, and MIT Technology Review, among other publications.

BIRTH OF A DYNASTY de Chinaza Bado

Combining the political intrigue of She Who Became the Sun with the gorgeous world-building of Children of Blood and Bone, BIRTH OF A DYNASTY is the start of a thrilling epic fantasy trilogy centered around three families’ fight for power in Ahkebulin, a land where magic is feared, giants are real, and prophecy holds sway.

BIRTH OF A DYNASTY
by Chinaza Bado
Harper Voyager, July 2025
(via Nancy Yost Literary)

We shall not forgive. We shall not forget. We will have our vengeance.

After witnessing the massacre of everyone he’s ever known and loved, M’Kuru Mukundi, the sole surviving member of the High Noble House Mukundi of Madada, vows revenge. M’kuru flees to a small village where he hides under the guise of farm boy Khalil Rausi… unaware that the real Khalil’s father is the bloodthirsty General of Zenzele army, and under the direction of the King’s scheming son, Prince Effiom, was responsible for the murder of M’kuru’s people. When an imposter claiming to be M’kuru shows up in the village, the real M’kuru—now Khalil—must bide his time amongst his enemies, pretending to be everything that he hates in order to get vengeance.

In another part of the country where giants roam free, young Zikora Nnamani, the only daughter of Lord Nnamani, knows nothing of political intrigue—she wants little more than to be a fierce Seh Llinga warrior. But a well-known prophecy places too much potential power on her small shoulders, and—as far as Prince Effiom and the King know—she is the only living threat to their dynasty ruling forever. However, when a messenger arrives to “invite” Zikora to stay at the palace, her family is not in a position to refuse. Before she is taken away, she begins The Rite of Blessing, a magical inheritance that she will need to learn how to use, but that may also bring the world one step closer to the completion of the prophecy that Prince Effiom so fears.

Between scheming ladies at court, backstabbing princes on the prowl, and paranoid kings, M’kuru and Zikora must do what they can, no matter how terrible, to save their people and claim vengeance for their families. But they are just two young people against an entire kingdom—and a prophecy destined to thwart their dreams—and the last thing they can do is trust anyone…even each other.

Chinaza Bado was born in Canada but is a daughter of a father from Obizi Mbaise in Imo state and mother from Okija in Anambra, both of the Igbo tribe in Nigeria. The Igbo people are located in the Southeastern region of Nigeria. She grew up listening not only to stories of great Igwe’s, Eze’s, Obi’s, travelers, and native rulers, but also of myths and legends from all across the world.

MAGGIE THE UNDYING d’Ilona Andrews

MAGGIE THE UNDYING is the brand new work by Ilona Andrews, the #1 NYT bestselling author duo, who’ve created an incredible new world combining elements of heroic fantasy, romantasy, portal isekai, and D&D.

MAGGIE THE UNDYING
by Ilona Andrews
Tor, TBD
(via Nancy Yost Literary)

Our dauntless heroine wakes up cold, filthy and naked in Kair Toren, a city in the kingdom of Rellas, a world she knows intimately from the pages of a famously unfinished epic-historical-fantasy series she’s been reading, re-reading (and reading again!), while waiting (years!) for the final novel.

She has no idea how or why she’s landed in this gritty world filled with rival warlords, magic and mayhem, but she’s determined to survive until she can figure out how to get home. Her only tools? Her encyclopedic knowledge of the book’s plots, settings, and the characters’ actions, motivations, fates and ambitions: information she can sell to the dueling factions, while staying under the radar so as not to affect the very information she plans to barter.

She quickly discovers she has another, surprising ’skill’: she cannot be killed (though many will try!).

But her initial goals swiftly change as she becomes attached to the motley band she’s somehow gathered — which includes a disgraced lady’s maid, a deadly assassin, and a dangerous and experienced soldier, as well as various outrageous creatures — and instead she finds herself trying to save them and the Kingdom of Rellas from the cataclysmic war she knows is brewing.

“Ilona Andrews” is the pseudonym for a husband-and-wife writing team. Ilona is a native-born Russian and Gordon is a former communications sergeant in the U.S. Army. Contrary to popular belief, Gordon was never an intelligence officer with a license to kill, and Ilona was never the mysterious Russian spy who seduced him. They met in college, in English Composition 101, where Ilona got a better grade. (Gordon is still sore about that.)

Gordon and Ilona currently reside in Texas with their two children and many dogs and cats.

They have co-authored several bestselling series, including the #1 NYT bestselling urban fantasy of Kate Daniels, rustic fantasy of the Edge, paranormal romance of Hidden Legacy, and Innkeeper Chronicles.

SILVER AND BLOOD de Jessie Mihalik

This enthralling Beauty and the Beast-inspired retelling is Naomi Novik’s Uprooted meets Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thrones and Roses, delivering all the high stakes and steamy intensity that make it every fantasy romance fan’s perfect next read.

SILVER AND BLOOD
Book 1
by Jessie Mihalik
Avon, 2025
(via Nancy Yost Literary)

When Riela, an untrained magic wielder, agrees to venture into the dark forest to kill the deadly beast that has been attacking her fellow villagers, she accepts the responsibility even though it likely means her death. The last thing she thought to encounter while battling one of the forest beasts was a powerful, scarred, and strikingly handsome mage.

Riela awakens in a magical castle complete with a gorgeous library, a strange wolf, and the surly man who saved her life. Riela soon learns Garrick is not a mortal mage at all—he’s a powerful Etheri sovereign who has been locked out of his kingdom in Lohka for nearly a century, and his powers are weakening.

Trapped in his castle and surrounded by the dangerous woods, Riela and Garrick fight a losing battle against the desire growing between them. But the more they discover about Riela’s magic, the more suspicious Garrick grows of her identity. As they unravel the secrets connecting Riela’s past to Lohka, the tenuous threads of trust between Riela and Garrick begin to fray because her life—or her death—might be the key to regaining everything he’s lost.

Jessie Mihalik writes romantic fantasy and science fiction packed with found family, action, adventure, and badass women.

NEVER THE ROSES de Jennifer K. Lambert

With atmospheric and lyrical stylings akin to This Is How You Lose the Time War and Genevieve Gorniches’s The Witch’s Heart, NEVER THE ROSES is a debut star-crossed loversfantasy romance that is perfect for fans of Madeline Miller, Stephanie Garber, Elodie Harper, and Erin Morgenstern.

NEVER THE ROSES
by Jennifer K. Lambert
Tor, 2025
(via Nancy Yost Literary)

Oneira’s tale begins at the end, or so she thought. Exiling herself from the warring courts of men, she seeks peace in a remote forest where the mountains meet the beach. She’s long acceptedthat her death is near, as it and destruction have been her constant companions since she was a child when her family sold her to the Academy of Sorcerers.

Her seclusion is first interrupted by three otherworldly companions—a near-mythical wolf, a goddess’s avatar in the form of a kestrel, and a feline that embodies magic itself. Then on a whim,or perhaps at the behest of fate, Oneira invites a second interruption when she makes an unlikely and otherworldly trip to the most extensive library in existence. Which is the home of hermost powerful rival, the sorcerer Stearanos.

There, she finds herself stealing a book from him, and this act of reckless thievery inadvertently initiates an unlikely correspondence. Taunting notes and clever retorts reveal a connectionneither has—nor could ever find—in any other. But a relationship is far too dangerous to pursue despite their mutual desire.

When Stearanos is called to war, he pleads with Oneira to help, jeopardizing the vows Oneira made to herself on her darkest day and to the Queen she once served. Faced with the impossible,to save her love or herself, Oneira must once again choose between life and death.

NEVER THE ROSES gives fantasy readers everything they could want: expansive world-building, an intriguing magic system, a timeless story of star-crossed lovers, and beyond all else—a yearning forsomething more.

Jennifer K. Lambert is a member of SFWA.