New Scifi & Fantasy Releases: Week of Oct 30th

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As usual, the start of a new month brings a slew of new book releases and this week's selection is particularly varied and vast. No matter what your preference is within the speculative fiction genre you are likely to find something here that appeals to you.

Wheel of Times fans have probably had this week marked off on their calendars for months since it heralds the release of the newest WOT book from Brandon Sanderson and the late Robert Jordan. I actually never made it past the third book in the series but I have been considering giving it another go, with Brandon Sanderson now at the helm.

This is also the week in which N.K Jemisin's sequel to The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms hits the bookstores as well as a new book from Robin McKinley, whose books I used to love when I was younger.

Since I'm currently in the mood for some light and easy reading the book that appeal to me the most here is the scifi romance by Marcella Burnard, Enemy Within. I plan on looking up some reviews of it and seeing if it's worth trying out. Visitants also looks like an interesting book with it's fallen angel theme and stories from some pretty big authors.

What about you? Anything here that you plan on adding to your bookshelf?

Hope you have a great reading Week!




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Afterlight
Elle Jasper
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Penguin
Release Date: Nov 2

Savannah's most unconventional tattoo artist, Riley Poe, lives on the edge. Now she's put over the edge when her younger brother is taken by a sinister cult led by vampires. Her only ally is the hot-tempered vampire Eli Dupre, attracted to Riley's beauty and rare blood type. To save her brother from certain un-death, Riley faces dangers she's never dreamed of, ruthless bloodthirsty enemies, and an evil of endless hunger that wants to devour it all...


Blood Spells
Jessica Andersen
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Penguin
Release Date: Nov 2

Mayan lore and modern science warn that 12/21/2012 will bring a global cataclysm. Dark forces stand poised to crush mankind. The only hope rests with a secret group of modern magic-wielders called the Nightkeepers. But as Patience White-Eagle and her husband, Brandt, team up as a mated warrior pair, they will face a deadly threat that will test their powers-and their love...


Brooklyn Knight
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Tor
Release Date: Nov 2

Professor Piers Knight is an esteemed curator at the Brooklyn Museum and is regarded by many on the staff as a revered institution of his own if not an outright curiosity. Knight’s portfolio includes lost civilizations; arcane cultures, languages, and belief; and more than a little bit of the history of magic and mysticism.What his contemporaries don't know is that in addition to being a scholar of all things ancient he is schooled in the uses of magical artifacts, the teachings of forgotten deities, and the threats of unseen dangers.
If a mysterious object surfaces, Professor Knight makes it his job to figure it out--and make sure it stays out of dangerous hands.
A contemporary on an expedition in the Middle East calls Knight's attention to a mysterious object in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum … just before it becomes the target of a sorcerous attack that leads to a siege on a local precinct house by a fire elemental.
What looks like an ordinary inscribed stone may unlock an otherworldly Armageddon that certain dark powers are all too eager to bring about--and only Piers Knight stands in their way.


Carousel Tides
Sharon Lee
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Baen
Release Date: Nov 2

From Publishers Weekly : A tourist town in Maine hosts a war of faerie magic in this engaging urban fantasy. The fireworks begin when Kate Archer returns to Archers Beach, Maine, to search for her vanished grandmother, Bonny Pepperidge, and to assume Bonny's role as Guardian of Fun Country, an amusement park whose carousel animals are actually exiled fae criminals. Almost immediately, Kate runs afoul of neighbor Joe Nemeier, a drug smuggler who sets his assassins after her. Then she learns from the local earth spirits that Bonny may have discovered the whereabouts of Kate's mom, newly escaped from a pursuing demonic captor. Lee brings these disparate subplots together in a pyrotechnic finale that plays out magically behind the ordinary facade of smalltown Maine life, evoking much of the romance and magic of her popular Liaden series


Confessions of a Vampire's Girlfriend
Katie Maxwell
Genre: YA Paranormal
Publisher: NAL Trade
Release Date: Nov 2

Two Katie MacAlister vampirenovels—Got Fangs? and Circus ofthe Darned—now back in print andtogether for the first time!Meet Francesca. She’s in Europe, working in atraveling faire along with psychics, magicians, andother really bizarre people. Her life? Not-so-normal.Her boyfriend, Ben? Not-so-alive. And in these twonovels, it’s up to Francesca to redeem his soul, findsomething to wear on their very first date, deal withher emerging psychic talent, and shake the warringViking ghosts she accidentally conjured.


Crossroads (southern Arcane, Bk 2)
Moira Rogers
Genre: Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Release Date: Nov 2


He’s the last man she should ever want. She’s the last woman he can ever have.
Southern Arcana, Book 2
Coming from a family with psychic gifts, Derek Gabriel was aware of but separate from the dangers of the supernatural world, until a rogue wolf shifter stripped away his humanity. The change he barely survived didn’t drive him insane, but the cultural bias against him as an inferior transformed wolf might. And it doesn’t help that he’s fallen for the daughter of the most powerful wolf in the country.
Almost from the moment she was born, Nicole Peyton started planning her escape from the strict confines of elite shapeshifter society, an old-fashioned world where women are valued only for their bloodlines and bank accounts. In New Orleans she has a bar she loves, friends in decidedly low places, and a smoldering sensual tension with an incredibly attractive and deliciously unsuitable man.
Their forbidden longing erupts into unbridled need—until Nick’s sister burns into town with a strike team hard on her heels. Saving her means Nick has to play by the Conclave’s rules…and give up the man she is growing to love.
Unless Derek does something completely crazy—issue a challenge that could shake the foundations of their world.


Devil at Midnight
Emma Holly
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Penguin
Release Date: Nov 2

For years, mercenary captain Christian Durand has done everything he can to protect his men. When a beautiful ghost appears to offer comfort, he assumes the strain has finally pushed him over the edge. All he knows for certain is that this woman tugs at both his heart and desires. But now that a vampire queen has set her immortal sights on Christian, he must choose between his darker urges and a powerful love that spans centuries.


Destroyer of Worlds
Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner
Genre: Science Fiction
Publisher: Tor
Release Date: Nov 2

Worlds closer to the galatic core than Known Space are --or were-- home to intelligent speciers. Some learned of the core explosion in time to flee.Destroyer of Worlds opens in 2670, ten years after Juggler of Worlds closes; with refugee species fleeing in an armada of ramscoops in the direction of the Fleet of Worlds. The onrushing aliens are recognized as a threat; they have left in their trail a host of desolated worlds: some raided for supplies, some attacked to eliminate competition, and some for pure xenophobia.

Only the Puppeteers might have the resources to confront this threat--but the Puppeteers are philosophical cowards... they don't confront anyone. They need sepoys to investigate the situation and take action for them. The source of the sepoys? Their newly independent former slave world, New Terra.



Enemy Within
Marcella Burnard
Genre: Scifi Romance
Publisher: Penguin
Release Date: Nov 2

An intergalactic cold war-and some heated passion- from an inventive new voice in futuristic romance.

After a stint in an alien prison, Captain Ari Rose wonders why she even bothered to survive. Stripped of her command and banished to her father's scientific expedition to finish a Ph.D. she doesn't want, Ari never planned to languish quietly behind a desk. She wasn't built for it, either. But when pirates commandeer her father's ship, Ari once again becomes a prisoner.

As far as pirate leader Cullin is concerned, Ari's past imprisonment puts her dead center in Cullin's sights. If she hasn't been brainwashed and returned as a spy, then he's convinced she must be part of a traitorous alliance endangering billions of lives. Cullin can't afford the desire she fires within him and he'll stop at nothing, including destroying her, to uncover the truth.


Firewalker
Allyson James
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Penguin
Release Date: Nov 2

Janet Begay's Crossroads Hotel has attracted the supernatural ever since it opened. But a new, dark power is rising, this time inside Janet herself. Her boyfriend Mick, a sexy dragon shapeshifter the Navajo call a Firewalker, know what terrifying magic is threatening to overwhelm Janet and her Stormwalker powers. He watches over her, ready to fight for her, to do anything to keep her safe.
But then a mysterious corpse is found near the Crossroads Hotel-and Janet becomes the main suspect. Now Janet and Mick must uncover what really happened, and their investigation leads to the most perilous decision of their lives...


Game Over
Taylor Keating
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Tor
Release Date: Nov 2

Video game designer River Weston is ready to sell her soul to smooth out the glitches in her latest project. When she unwittingly taps into a parallel dimension via cutting-edge technology, a Dark Lord is quick to take her up on her inadvertent offer. Trapped in the world she thought she’d created for her game, River finds herself in a very real alternate dimension that she must escape from before her soul can be used to unleash evil--upon this dimension and many others.

River’s only ally is the sexy and mysterious Chase Hawkins. A prisoner of the Dark Lord, Hawk is a man adrift—literally. His body safe at home under the watchful care of the Guardians’ scientists, his astral-traveling spirit has been enslaved by his people’s worst enemy, the Dark Lord. Clinging desperately to his sense of self, Hawk is determined to turn the tables on his captor before the connection to his body is lost. When the beautiful, achingly familiar River enters the picture, he vows he will do everything he can to save her from her bleak fate.

Drawn together with an inescapable force, Hawk and River must wrest her soul from the Dark Lord’s grasp before it’s too late.


In Dreams Begin
Skyler White
Genre: Romantic Fantasy/Time Travel
Publisher: Penguin
Release Date: Nov 2

In a Victorian Ireland of magic, poetry, and rebellion, Ida Jameson, an amateur occultist, reaches out for power-but captures Laura Armstrong, a modern-day graphic artist, instead. When Ida channels Laura into the body of celebrated beauty and Irish freedom-fighter Maud Gonne, Laura falls in love with the young poet W. B. Yeats. Their love affair entwines with Irish history and weaves through Yeats' poetry- until Ida discovers something she wants more than magic in the subterranean spaces between Laura's time and her own. With Laura's Irish past threatening her orderly present, she and Yeats must find a way to make their love last over time, in changing bodies...or lose each other forever.


In the Company of Vampires (Dark Ones, Bk 8)
Katie MacAlister
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Penguin
Release Date: Nov 2

When Francesca arrives at GothFaire to save her mother from the trickster god, Loki, things go from bad to worse. Her immortal ex, Benedikt, is there, full of secrets-and with a new girlfriend. Now Fran must battle a power-hungry group who wishes to dominate both the immortal and mortal worlds-and the woman who claimed Ben's heart. It's a good thing Fran's no ordinary mortal...


Living Nightmare
Shannon K. Butcher
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Penguin
Release Date: Nov 2

For nine years, the Sentinel Nika has had one goal-to save her younger sister from the Synestryn who hold her captive. Now, the psychic bond Nika forged with her sibling on that terrible night is fading, and time is running out. But the one man who can unlock the power inside her may be the greatest danger to her.

Luck of the Wolf
Susan Krinard
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Harlequin
Release Date: Nov 2

Branded an outcast by the noble branch of his werewolf clan, Cort Renier had come to San Francisco seeking fortune—and revenge. What he found was a mysterious beauty who could not—or would not—reveal who she truly was. At first glance she seemed vulnerable and afraid, like so many girls caught up in the debauchery of the city's whiskey-soaked gambling dens. But one look into her stunning turquoise eyes and he knew he'd found the winning hand.
Aria di Reinardus had reasons of her own for concealing her identity, but Cort's kisses were more than enough to convince her to go along with his plan to transform her into a missing heiress and return her to her "family." But they were not the only ones with secrets to keep and vengeance in mind, and they were about to discover that some destinies couldn't be outrun….


Magic at the Gate (Allie Beckstrom, Bk 5)
Devon Monk
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Penguin
Release Date: Nov 2

Allie Beckstrom's lover, Zayvion Jones, is a Guardian of the Gate, imbued with both light and dark magic and responsible for ensuring that those energies don't mix. But Zayvion lies in a coma, his soul trapped in death's realm. And when Allie discovers that the only way to save Zayvion is to sacrifice her very own magical essence, she makes a decision that may have grave consequences for the entire world.


Marked By The Moon (Nightcreatured, Bk 9)
Lori Handeland
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Release Date: Nov 2

Tough-as-nails Alexandra Trevalyn does what most people can't: She kills werewolves. Once part of an elite group of hunters, she's going rogue these days, though no less determined to rid the world of bloodthirsty beasts...once and for all. That's why Alex had no choice but to kill Julian Barlow's wife - and will have to pay the price. Julian's brand of vengeance is downright devious, and now he's turned Alex into a member of his pack. It's only a matter of time before she falls under his spell. With the wild freedom of the wolf in her veins, Alex can't deny that Julian wakes her most primal passions...and draws her that much closer to the moon's call, where evil lies in wait.

Pegasus
Robin McKinley
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Penguin
Release Date: Nov 2

A gorgeously written fantasy about the friendship between a princess and her Pegasus.
Because of a thousand-year-old alliance between humans and pagasi, Princess Sylviianel is ceremonially bound to Ebon, her own Pegasus, on her twelfth birthday. The two species coexist peacefully, despite the language barriers separating them. Humans and pegasi both rely on specially-trained Speaker magicians as the only means of real communication.
But its different for Sylvi and Ebon. They can understand each other. They quickly grow close-so close that their bond becomes a threat to the status quo-and possibly to the future safety of their two nations.
New York Times bestselling Robin McKinley weaves an unforgettable tale of unbreakable friendship, mythical creatures and courtly drama destined to become a classic.


Rebel (Blades of the Rose, Bk 3)
Zoe Archer
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Kensington Publishing
Release Date: Nov 1


On the Canadian frontier in 1875, nature is a harsh mistress. But the supernatural can really do you in...

A Lone Wolf

Nathan Lesperance is used to being different. He's the first Native attorney in Vancouver, and welcome neither with white society nor his sometime tribe. Not to mention the powerful wildness he's always felt inside him, too dangerous to set free. Then he met Astrid Bramfield and saw his like within her piercing eyes. Now, unless she helps him through the harsh terrain and the harsher unknowns of his true abilities, it could very well get him killed...

And The Woman Who Left The Pack

Astrid has traveled this path before. Once she was a Blade of the Rose, protecting the world's magic from unscrupulous men, with her husband by her side. But she's loved and lost, and as a world-class frontierswoman, she knows all about survival. Nathan's searing gaze and long, lean muscles mean nothing but trouble. Yet something has ignited a forgotten flame inside her: a burning need for adventure, for life—and perhaps even for love...


The Other Side of Dark
Sarah Smith
Genre: Young Adult Paranormal
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Release Date: Nov 2

What good is being able to see and speak to the dead if it doesn't help solve a mystery surrounding them? Fifteen-year-old Katie Mullens can interact with ghosts, including that of her father, though not of her more recently deceased mother. Law Walker is the mixed-race son of activists--an academic father who's a prominent advocate for slavery reparations ("Even in pajamas, standing at the top of the stairs and saying, ‘Susan, I have lost my toothbrush,' his voice quivers with the weight of four hundred years of injustice") and a mother struggling to save a historic Boston building. Forging a friendship as outsiders--their classmates have written off Katie as crazy, and Law is a self-described geek trying to escape his domineering father's shadow--Katie and Law dive into a thickening tangle involving slavery, a treasure, and an old cabal that has modern-day repercussions for living and dead alike. Alternating between the teenagers' distinct and searching first-person narratives, and combining real history with quests for identity both personal and national, adult author Smith's YA debut is much more than just a ghost story.


The Shifters
Alexandra Sokoloff
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Harlequin
Release Date: Nov 1

Charged with overseeing the shapeshifters of New Orleans, Caitlin MacDonald has her reasons for being wary of their kind. So when charismatic bounty-hunting shifter Ryder Malloy blows into town claiming to be on the trail of a horde of malevolent entities called Walk-Ins, Caitlin has no reason to trust him—with her city or her heart. But as tourists start dropping dead from supernatural possession, Cait must team with Ryder to navigate his shadowy, ephemeral world…
Fiercely independent, Ryder usually hunts alone—but this case requires an exception. To prevent a supernatural massacre, he needs the beautiful Keeper on his side—and, if possible, even closer. In his world, appearances can be deceiving and deadly. And the only way they'll survive is if this woman who tempts him like no other trusts in him completely….


Towers of Midnight
Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Tor
Release Date: Nov 2

The Last Battle has started. The seals on the Dark One’s prison are crumbling. The Pattern itself is unraveling, and the armies of the Shadow have begun to boil out of the Blight.
The sun has begun to set upon the Third Age.
Perrin Aybara is now hunted by specters from his past: Whitecloaks, a slayer of wolves, and the responsibilities of leadership. All the while, an unseen foe is slowly pulling a noose tight around his neck. To prevail, he must seek answers in Tel’aran’rhiod and find a way—at long last—to master the wolf within him or lose himself to it forever.
Meanwhile, Matrim Cauthon prepares for the most difficult challenge of his life. The creatures beyond the stone gateways—the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn—have confused him, taunted him, and left him hanged, his memory stuffed with bits and pieces of other men’s lives. He had hoped that his last confrontation with them would be the end of it, but the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills. The time is coming when he will again have to dance with the Snakes and the Foxes, playing a game that cannot be won. The Tower of Ghenjei awaits, and its secrets will reveal the fate of a friend long lost.
This penultimate novel of Robert Jordan’s #1 New York Times bestselling series—the second of three based on materials he left behind when he died in 2007—brings dramatic and compelling developments to many threads in the Pattern. The end draws near.
Dovie’andi se tovya sagain. It’s time to toss the dice.


Trolls in the Hamptons
Celia Jerome
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Penguin
Release Date: Nov 2

Willow Tate is a graphic novelist who earns enough money at her craft to keep her rent-controlled Manhattan apartment and still put food in the fridge. But when she decides to write about a ten-foot-tall troll who's a superhero, one suddenly appears, causing mayhem in Manhattan.
When no one else can see the stony red giant, Willy thinks she's gone crazy, until she meets Agent Grant from the Department of Unexplained Events. According to him, Willy has managed to break ages-old cosmic laws that could destroy the Earth as we know it. Now she has to help him save the world, rescue a little boy, and stop a murdering kidnapper who wants to use the power of a little village in the Hamptons to become master of the universe...


Visitants: Stories of Fallen Angels and Heavenly Hosts
Edited by Stephen Jones
Genre: Paranormal Anthology
Publisher: Ulysses Press
Release Date: Nov 1

Swooping in from both heaven and hell, the new generation of angels portrayed in Visitants is youthful, immortal and powerful. These ultimate bad beings, capable of both immense destruction and heavenly acts, will captivate fans of this new paranormal fiction phenomenon.
Visitants offers a wide-ranging collection of various authors’ stories about the new angels, including romantic entanglements with winged bad boys, devilish interventions with evil messengers, and bloody battles against ravaging demons. Far from the old sappy TV melodramas where angels touch people’s lives, these stories will challenge readers to reimagine the very idea of how cast-out heavenly spirits would interact with the humans they are now forced to live among.


Under the Poppy
Kathe Koja
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Small Beer Press
Release Date: Nov 2

FROM A WARTIME BROTHEL to the intricate high society of 1870s Brussels, Under the Poppy is a breakout novel of childhood friends, a love triangle, puppet masters, and reluctant spies.
Under the Poppy is a brothel owned by Decca and Rupert. Decca is in love with Rupert but he in turn is in love with her brother, Istvan. When Istvan comes to town, louche puppet troupe in tow, the lines of their age-old desires intersect against a backdrop of approaching war.
Hearts are broken when old betrayals and new alliances—not just their own—take shape, as the townsmen seek refuge from the onslaught of history by watching the girls of the Poppy cavort onstage with Istvan’s naughty puppets.
With the war getting too close, Istvan and Rupert abandon the Poppy and find a place in high society where they try to avoid becoming more than puppets themselves in the hands of those they have helped before and who now want to use them again.
Under the Poppy is a vivid, sexy historical novel as delicious and intoxicating as the best guilty pleasure.


Wolfsbane
Patricia Briggs
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Penguin
Release Date: Nov 2

For the last ten years, shapeshifting mercenary Aralorn has led a dangerous existence — a far cry from her noble upbringing. Now she must return home under the most unfortunate circumstances. Her father, the Lyon of Lambshold, has passed away. But when Aralorn and her companion Wolf arrive, the combination of their magic uncovers something wonderful yet alarming — her father is not actually dead, but only appears so. Yet a dark mist is also very much alive within him…
The Lyon of Lambshold has been ensorcelled by the ae’Magi, who’s using him as a conduit to finally destroy Aralorn and Wolf. With her father as the pawn, can Aralorn overcome this mysterious sorcery? Or will she finally fall to the blackest of magic, losing not only her one true companion but also her life…?


World of Warcraft: The Essential Sunwell Collection
Richard Knaak
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: TOKYOPOP
Release Date: Nov 2


From the minds of Kim Jae-Hwan, artist of the best-selling King of Hell series, and Richard A. Knaak, the New York Times best-selling author, here is the Warcraft universe like you have never seen it before: The Dragon Hunt Is On!


The Broken Kingdoms
N.K. Jemisin
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Orbit
Release Date: Nov 3

In the city of Shadow, beneath the World Tree, alleyways shimmer with magic and godlings live hidden among mortalkind. Oree Shoth, a blind artist, takes in a strange homeless man on an impulse. This act of kindness engulfs Oree in a nightmarish conspiracy. Someone, somehow, is murdering godlings, leaving their desecrated bodies all over the city. And Oree’s guest is at the heart of it. . .