New scifi and Fantasy Releases: Week of June 27

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There are some really fantastic new releases this week including Kraken, the much anticipated new novel from China Mieville and Mark Charan Newton's debut novel, Nights of Villjamur , which has already been released in the UK and has received many positive reviews.

There are a couple of books that I've never heard of before but look like they could be really good; Heartless by Anne Elisabeth Stengl (I really like the cover of this one though it reminds strongly of that recent griffin novel whose title I can't recall) and Prospero Lost by L. Jagi Lamplighter.

There are also quite a few urban fantasy sequels being released this week including Tracking the Tempest by Nicole Peeler, Kitty Goes to War by Carrie Vaughn and A Drop of Red by Chris Marie Green. Plus there is a new urban fantasy which I have already seen discussed on a number of blogs, Red Hot Fury by Kasey Mackenzie, though the cover of a psycho looking glowing, green eyed superwoman kinda freaks me out.

Overall I would have to say that this is a very satisfactory book week.

Are there any new releases that you are particularly excited about?

Hope you have a great reading week!




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Keys to the Repository
Melissa de la Cruz
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Hyperion Book CH
Release Date: June 29

Lavish parties. Passionate meetings in the night. Bone-chilling murders. Midterms. The day-to-day life of Schuyler Van Alen and her Blue Bloods friends (and enemies) is never boring. But there's oh-so-much more to know about these beautiful and powerful teens. Below the streets of Manhattan, within the walls of the Repository, exists a wealth of revealing information about the vampire elite that dates back before the Mayflower. In a series of short stories, journal entries, and never-before-seen letters, New York Times bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz gives her hungry fans the keys to the Repository and an even more in-depth look into the secret world of the Blue Bloods.


Pray for Dawn: The Fourth Dark Days Novel
Jocelynn Drake
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Eos
Release Date: June 29

As the fire-wielding enforcer of the nightwalker coven wrestles with the mind-destroying ghosts of her dark past, the slaying of a senator's daughter in Savannah threatens to expose her kind to the brilliant light of day. The dawn of chaos has come. The naturi have broken free of their eternal prison to feed on the defenseless and unbelieving of an unprepared Earth.
Mira and Danaus—vampire and vampire slayer—must unite to prevent the annihilation of their separate races. But for Danaus the challenge is intensified, for he must also fight the bori who covets his soul. And Mira, the nightwalker he must protect—whose power is the Earth's last hope—is rapidly going insane.



A Drop of Red (Vampire Babylon, Book Four)
Chris Marie Green
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Ace
Release Date: June 29

Follow the trail into Vampire Babylon...

When a new Vampire Underground is found in England, Hollywood stuntwoman-turned-vampire hunter Dawn Madison and her crack team are dispatched to carry the fight from the flash and dash of Los Angeles to the seemingly staid and stolid streets of London. Dawn knows by now how deceiving appearances can be-and she's about to find out that it's not only the beautiful people of Hollywood who are willing to bargain with evil.


Red Hot Fury
Kasey Mackenzie
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Ace
Release Date: June 29

Introducing a sizzling new urban fantasy series featuring Marissa Holloway, an immortal Fury who doesn't just get mad...she gets even.

As a Fury, Marissa Holloway belongs to an Arcane race that has avenged wrongdoing since time immemorial. As Boston's chief magical investigator for the past five years, she's doing what she was born to do: solve supernatural crimes.

But Riss's investigation into a dead sister Fury leads to her being inexplicably suspended from her job. And to uncover the truth behind this cover-up, she'll have to turn to her shape-shifting Warhound ex for help.

Tracking the Tempest (Jane True, Bk 2)
Nicole Peeler
Genre: Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Orbit
Release Date: June 29

Valentine's Day is fast approaching, and Ryu - Jane's bloodsucking boyfriend - can't let a major holiday go by without getting all gratuitous. An overwhelming dose of boyfriend interference and a last-minute ticket to Boston later, and Jane's life is thrown off course.

Ryu's well-intentioned plans create mayhem, and Jane winds up embroiled in an investigation involving a spree of gruesome killings. All the evidence points towards another Halfling, much to Jane's surprise...


The Dame
R. A. Salvatore
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Tor
Release Date: June 29

The vast road network of Honce, completed a decade before, had brought great optimism to the people of the land. Commerce could travel more freely and so could armies, and those armies, it was hoped, would rid the land at long last of the vicious, bloody cap dwarfs and goblins. For the first time, the many individual kingdoms, the holdings of Honce, would be brought closer together, perhaps even united. For the last few years, those promises had become a nightmare to the folk, as two powerful lairds fought for supremacy of a hoped-for united kingdom.
Bransen Garibond, the Highwayman, held little real interest in that fight. To him the warring lairds were two sides of the same coin. Whichever side won, the outcome for the people of Honce would be the same, Bransen believed. A journey north, however, taught Bransen that his views were simplistic at best, and that some things--like honor and true friendship-- might truly matter.
In The Dame, Bransen’s road becomes a quest for the truth, of Honce and of himself, a quest to put right over wrong. That path is fraught with confusion and fraud, and a purposeful blurring of morality by those who would seek to use the Highwayman’s extraordinary battle skills and popularity among the commonfolk for their own nefarious ends.


The Darkest Lie
Gena Showalter
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: HQN Books
Release Date: June 29

Forced to his knees in agony whenever he speaks the truth, Gideon can recognize any lie—until he captures Scarlet, a demon-possessed immortal who claims to be his long-lost wife. He doesn't remember the beautiful female, much less wedding—or bedding—her. But he wants to…almost as much as he wants her.
But Scarlet is keeper of Nightmares, too dangerous to roam free. A future with her might mean ultimate ruin. Especially as Gideon's enemies draw closer—and the truth threatens to destroy all he's come to love….


Wireless
Charles Stross
Genre: Anthology
Publisher: Ace
Release Date: June 29

The Hugo Award-winning author of such groundbreaking and innovative novels as Accelerando, Halting State, and Saturn's Children delivers a selection of speculative fiction brought together in one collection, showdcasing the limitless imagination of one of the twenty-first century's most daring visionaries.


Prospero Lost (Prospero’s Daughter, Bk 1)
L. Jagi Lamplighter
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Tor
Release Date: June 29

More than four hundred years after the events of Shakespeare’sThe Tempest, the sorcerer Prospero, his daughter Miranda, and his other children have attained everlasting life. Miranda is the head of her family’s business, Prospero Inc., which secretly has used its magic for good around the world. One day, Miranda receives a warning from her father: "Beware of the Three Shadowed Ones." When Miranda goes to her father for an explanation, he is nowhere to be found.

Miranda sets out to find her father and reunite with her estranged siblings, each of which holds a staff of power and secrets about Miranda’s sometimes-foggy past. Her journey through the past, present and future will take her to Venice, Chicago, the Caribbean, Washington, D.C., and the North Pole. To aid her, Miranda brings along Mab, an aerie being who acts like a hard-boiled detective, and Mephistopheles, her mentally-unbalanced brother. Together, they must ward off the Shadowed Ones and other ancient demons who want Prospero’s power for their own….



The Human Disguise
James O'Neal
Genre: Science Fiction
Publisher: Tor
Release Date: June 29

The world has been shattered. Disease and war have ravaged the earth. A resurgent Germany once again threatens Europe, the United States is engaged in the Middle East, and New York has been left an empty, radioactive ruin. The city of Miami has become a virtual prison, home to the worst life has to offer. Tom Wilner lives on the outskirts of this forsaken realm. He’s what passes for a police officer in this world.
With his family shattered, Wilner is just a pale version of the police hero he once was. And when a chance encounter in a rundown roadhouse erupts in violence, Wilner is forced to step in. His exploration into the violence of that evening leads him onto the path of two warring ancient races--beings that have been manipulating power and control on Earth for centuries, and are about to enter into a battle for ultimate supremacy.
Unless Tom Wilner puts an end to their fury.


Act of Will
A.J. Hartley
Genre: Science Fiction
Publisher: Tor
Release Date: June 29

Act of Will is a boisterous fantasy adventure that introduces us to Will Hawthorne, a medieval actor and playwright who flees the authorities only to find himself inextricably bound to a group of high-minded adventurers on a deadly mission. Will travels with them to a distant land where they are charged with the investigation and defeat of a ruthless army of mystical horsemen, who appear out of the mist leaving death and devastation in their wake.
In the course of Will’s uneasy alliance with his new protectors, he has to get his pragmatic mind to accept selfless heroism (which he thinks is absurd) and magic (which he doesn’t believe in). Will must eventually decide where his loyalties really lie and how much he is prepared to do--and believe--to stand up for them.

The Dark River
John Twelve Hawks
Genre: Science Fiction
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing
Release Date: June 29

THE DARK RIVER opens in New York City with a stunning piece of news. Gabriel’s father, who has been missing for nearly twenty years, may still be alive and trapped somewhere in Europe. Gabriel and his Harlequin protector, Maya, immediately mobilize to escape New York and find the long-lost Traveler. Simultaneously, Michael orders the Brethren—the ruthless group that has been hunting Gabriel—into a full-scale search. Gabriel yearns to find his father to protect him; Michael aims to destroy the man whose existence threatens his newfound power. The race moves from the underground tunnels of New York and London to ruins hidden beneath Rome and Berlin, to a remote region of Africa that is rumored to harbor one of history’s greatest treasures. And as the story moves toward its chilling conclusion, Maya must decide if she will trade everything to rescue Gabriel.

A mesmerizing return to the places and people so richly portrayed in The Traveler, THE DARK RIVER is propelled by edge-of-the-seat suspense and haunted by a vision of a world where both hope and freedom are about to disappear.

Kraken
China Mieville
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Random House
Release Date: June 29

With this outrageous new novel, China Miéville has written one of the strangest, funniest, and flat-out scariest books you will read this--or any other--year. The London that comes to life in Kraken is a weird metropolis awash in secret currents of myth and magic, where criminals, police, cultists, and wizards are locked in a war to bring about--or prevent--the End of All Things.

In the Darwin Centre at London's Natural History Museum, Billy Harrow, a cephalopod specialist, is conducting a tour whose climax is meant to be the Centre's prize specimen of a rare Architeuthis dux--better known as the Giant Squid. But Billy's tour takes an unexpected turn when the squid suddenly and impossibly vanishes into thin air.

As Billy soon discovers, this is the precipitating act in a struggle to the death between mysterious but powerful forces in a London whose existence he has been blissfully ignorant of until now, a city whose denizens--human and otherwise--are...

Nights of Villjamur
Mark Charan Newton
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Random House
Release Date: June 29

Newton opens a complex epic fantasy series with this impressive debut. The ancient fortress city of Villjamur is filled with human and nonhuman inhabitants, many of them refugees seeking shelter from a predicted decades-long ice age. The untimely death of the mad emperor Jamur Johynn forces his unworldly elder daughter, Rika, to assume the throne as her sister, Eir, gains a perspective beyond her palace walls and the members of the council make their own power plays. War and religious conflicts as well as more personal matters of desires for power and immortality set the scene for acts of compassion and betrayal. Newton handles his multilayered world and diverse cast of characters with the assurance of an experienced author and balances his fantasy tropes with elements of horror and political commentary in vividly descriptive, compelling prose. – Publisher’s Weekly

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Kitty Goes to War
Carrie Vaughn
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Tor
Release Date: June 29

Kitty Norville, Alpha werewolf and host of The Midnight Hour, a radio call-in show, is contacted by a friend at the NIH's Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology. Three Army soldiers recently returned from the war in Afghanistan are being held at Ft. Carson in Colorado Springs. They're killer werewolves—and post traumatic stress has left them unable to control their shape-shifting and unable to interact with people. Kitty agrees to see them, hoping to help by bringing them into her pack.
Meanwhile, Kitty gets sued for libel by CEO Harold Franklin after featuring Speedy Mart--his nationwide chain of 24-hour convenience stores with a reputation for attracting supernatural unpleasantness--on her show.
Very bad weather is on the horizon.

The Holmes-Dracula Files
The Dracula Series (Volume 2)
Fred Saberhagen
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Tor
Release Date: June 29

World-famous “consulting detective” Sherlock Holmes faces a terrible crisis: a ring of criminal masterminds has threatened to loose thousands of plague-infected rats into the streets of London. But the Black Death isn’t Holmes’ only problem. A lone killer haunts the city. His calling card is a trail of corpses, drained of blood to the last drop.
The key to solving both crimes rests in the hands of a mysterious nobleman recently returned to London on a personal matter. His name is Dracula. The Count is quickly entangled in a web of evil that even his immortal powers may not be enough to breach. Holmes and Dracula soon come to the peculiar realization that they may be each other’s only hope.

Heartless (Tales of Goldstone Wood)
Anne Elisabeth Stengl
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Bethany House
Release Date: July 1

Princess Una of Parumvir has come of age and will soon be married. She dreams of a handsome and charming prince, but when the first suitor arrives, she finds him stodgy and boring. Prince Aethelbald from the mysterious land of Farthestshore has traveled far to prove his love--and also to bring hushed warnings of danger. A dragon is rumored to be approaching Parumvir.
Una, smitten instead with a more dashing prince, refuses Aethelbald's offer--and ignores his warnings. Soon the Dragon King himself is in Parumvir, and Una, in giving her heart away unwisely, finds herself in grave danger. Only those courageous enough to risk everything have a hope of fighting off this advancing evil.