There are a lot of notable fantasy and science-fiction books arriving this week, including new releases from James Islington, Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson, Rachel Gillig, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Scott Hawkins.
Scion by James Islington
Release Date: September 1
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James Islington is stepping away from epic fantasy for a shorter cyberpunk thriller about an assassin who is legally employed to kill wealthy people using technology to live forever.
Official book description:
My job, when you think about it, isn’t so different from a lot of people’s.
The more old-fashioned crowd do still get hung up on the “killing people” part of it, I guess, but that’s a them problem: it’s been perfectly legal to take out lifers for ages. Besides, once ultrawealthy morons realised they had a way to live forever—limited resources be damned—there was only ever going to be one genuinely practical deterrent.
So, sure, I have to deal with a ton of boring planning. Inconvenient hours. Some pretty awkward face-to-face interactions. And like most of us, I’m really only clocking in to try to crawl out from beneath my debts. But someone’s got to do it.
Luckily, my genetic compatibilities make me really, really good at doing it.
Still. This next job…I don’t know. It’s something I haven’t had to deal with in years. Kind of the opposite of my regular duties. Strange, that it got thrown my way.
I’m sure it’ll all go totally fine though.
Engines of Reason by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Release Date: September 1
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Adrian Tchaikovsky returns to the world of Elder Race for another story built around the different ways its characters understand science and magic.
Official book description:
On a planet where stories govern identity, where science and magic are merely a point of view, a fallen princess, a reluctant wizard, and a precocious child must unravel the past to shape the future.
Betrayal, ancient myths, and a clash of worlds converge in this spellbinding tale of courage, friendship, and self-discovery from one of science fiction’s most compelling voices.
Blightfall by Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson
Release Date: September 1
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Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson begin the new Riftwake trilogy, a continuation of the Skyward universe that is also intended to work as a new entry point.
Official book description:
After decades of war against alien oppressors, the humans of the Defiant Defense Force are finally free. Yet for Arturo Mendez, leader of Skyward Flight, freedom isn’t what he thought it would be.
His first postwar assignment seems simple: The DDF has found evidence of other settlements of humans who were isolated during their long war against the aliens, and Arturo and his flight of pilots are to escort a team of diplomats as they attempt to make contact. It’s an easy mission—get in, guard the diplomats, and get out.
But no element of this mission turns out to be simple. Blightfall is inhospitable, surrounded by mysterious debris and covered in giant, invasive forests that have swallowed most of the planet. Upon arrival, Arturo’s team is attacked, and it quickly becomes clear that this human settlement isn’t what it appears to be.
Now trapped in an unfamiliar world and unsure who to trust, Arturo and his team must find allies and uncover long-buried secrets if they hope to escape and return home.
The Knave and the Moon by Rachel Gillig
Release Date: September 1
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Rachel Gillig concludes the Stonewater Kingdom duology with a gothic romantasy sequel that picks up after the events of The Knight and the Moth.
Official book description:
Aisling Cathedral is in ruins. Rodrick Myndacious, Bartholomew, and Maude Bauer are rumored to be dead—and the king has taken Sybil Delling as his bride. To show off their union and solidify his power over Traum, Benji proposes a series of tournaments throughout the hamlets. Captive and drugged, Sybil remains determined to vanquish him as she once did the Omens, even if she destroys the kingdom’s faith—and herself—in the process.
But then a mysterious knave rises to the top of the tournament lists, a man with no name and no memory who may just be Sybil’s ticket to undoing Benji’s power. For in a land where stories repeat themselves, where a king can prove as cruel as a god, the only way to truly destroy the Stonewater Kingdom’s faith is to save it.
A Time of Witches by Madeline Martin
Release Date: September 1
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Madeline Martin combines historical fiction and fantasy in a dual-timeline story connecting a present-day woman with another accused of witchcraft in 1645 England.
Official book description:
Lilith Legare’s life is unraveling. Since her mother’s death, strange things have been happening – plants turn toward her touch, animals linger in her path, and the birthmark on her arm has started tingling. Worse still is her recurring nightmare of being burned alive at the stake.
Her search for answers brings her from Savannah to England, to the decaying Brackenmere Manor where the past blurs with the present. There, Lilith discovers a legacy she never asked for and along with it, the threat of peril. History must be rewritten, or she too will die.
In 1645 Suffolk, Sybil Brantham stands accused as a witch. An educated, wealthy widow, she is branded a threat by men who fear her independence. As arrests begin and suspicion abounds, Sybil must protect her younger sister, even as betrayal takes root within her household.
Across centuries, Lilith and Sybil are bound by blood and by danger. To save themselves, and each other, they must confront the silence that has stolen women’s power for generations—and dare to claim their voices before it’s too late.
Under Story by Chloe Benjamin
Release Date: September 1
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Chloe Benjamin’s Good Morning America Book Club selection follows a biologist working in Antarctica who discovers a mysterious phenomenon across the ice.
Official book description:
At the edge of the world, biologist Laurel Salter is hiding from everything she’s ever known. For ten hours a day, six days per week, she works as a dishwasher at McMurdo Station, an isolated research base in Antarctica. She tells no one that before she arrived, she was a renowned young scientist with a promising career and a family.
But even in this remote outpost, Laurel can’t escape her past. When a strange light appears across the ice—and draws a group of physicists to McMurdo—her former husband, Eli, won’t be far behind. Laurel is captivated by the Arc: its surreal glow; the way it seems almost alive. And though Eli is reluctant to test her wildest theory, Laurel is convinced that the Arc leads down a rabbit hole and into a world they can barely imagine. Can she persuade him to risk everything to fix the burden that hangs between them—to turn back the clock and live their story a second time?
Hawk & Sparrow by Ayana Gray
Release Date: September 1
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Ayana Gray combines Gilded Age fantasy, murder mystery, magic, and a fake courtship in her first novel following the Beasts of Prey trilogy.
Official book description:
Nineteen-year-old Vesper Evans has always resented Basalton’s high society, and the sorcery that provides them with a luxurious life unimaginable to most. Orphaned as a child and rescued by the editor of The Basalton Globe, Vesper is now an ambitious reporter determined to keep her newspaper afloat.
While covering a lavish society gala, Vesper happens upon a shocking scene: the murdered body of an inventor whose new machine promised to bring the benefits of sorcery to everyone. Several of the powerful magical elite may want the man dead, but the prime suspect is wealthy industrialist Maximilian Kite.
Max soon makes Vesper a tempting offer: Find the culprit and restore his reputation in exchange for a substantial fee. Despite her distaste for Max’s world, Vesper agrees—the money would save the Globe, and the story would be the scoop of a lifetime. There’s only one catch: In order for her to infiltrate society, the two must pose as a courting couple.
Their investigation takes them from the highest echelons of privilege to the seediest backstreets of Basalton. As they unearth the city’s secrets and scandals, Vesper finds herself in grave danger—while falling for one of the most infuriating, arrogant, handsome men she has ever met . . .
Paper Ghosts by Sarah Addison Allen
Release Date: September 1
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Sarah Addison Allen returns with a multigenerational Southern family story that mixes romance, long-buried secrets, ghosts, and magical realism.
Official book description:
For decades, the women of Wester House have unsettled and fascinated their small, timeless North Carolina town. Their home is full of whispers, old griefs, and uncanny knowing. But when Willamena Wester reaches out to the granddaughter she once pushed away, long-buried truths begin to stir.
1976:Â Restless young Willamena falls for a stranded musician who brings freedom and the promise of another life to her carefully controlled world. Their brief, incandescent love story promises to escape the pull of the Wester legacy until Willamena makes a fateful choice that changes her life forever.
Present day: Returning home is the last thing Bailey Wester wants. Yet as she reconnects with Willamena, the grandmother she feared, Bailey begins to understand the love, heartbreak, and impossible choices that shaped the women in her family and realizes the past may not have been trying to haunt them after all. A luminous novel filled with Sarah Addison Allen’s stunning prose and signature blend of romance, Southern charm, and wonder, Paper Ghosts reminds us that in order to have the future we really want, sometimes we need to live with the past, and not let go of it.
Blacktail by Scott Hawkins
Release Date: September 1
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Scott Hawkins returns with his first novel since The Library at Mount Char, following a wolf whose search for revenge grows into something much larger.
Official book description:
The wolf Blacktail is faithful to his Forest God, but in these times, faith is not enough. His world is besieged by men. Soon his territory will be overrun, and then there will be nowhere left to go. When his mate, a house dog, is killed, Blacktail rebels. He invades the house of her owners, seeking vengeance.
Blacktail’s fury catches the notice of an ancient and terrible feline witch, who makes an offer. What if Blacktail could end the human race responsible for the death of his family and for the destruction of the natural world, altogether? To do so, Blacktail must find and wake the Forest God. Only He might stand against the plague of men. Blacktail knows that his north woods are dwindling to nothing. He sees no other choice.
As Blacktail journeys farther from his wild home and deeper into the world of man, he encounters strangers—animal, mortal, and otherworldly—who, for their own reasons, want to help Blacktail rid the world of humans. Along the way, it becomes clear that he is more than just a wolf. The Forest God is sleeping, yes. But what will be the price of waking him?
The Last Harbinger by Jeff Wheeler
Release Date: September 1
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Jeff Wheeler brings his Harbinger and Kingfountain worlds together for a historical fantasy involving a princess, her protector, and two kingdoms approaching war.
Official book description:
Hastings Creigh is a rake, gambler, and spendthrift. He’s also the best dragoon in the Muirwood military, and with mounting tensions between kingdoms, he’s appointed as bodyguard to a princess on an off-world journey.
Princess Maia Fitzempress’s duty has always been to her people and maintaining peace between the worlds. Now, she must venture to Kingfountain, where her aunt reigns as queen and her cursed cousins have fallen ill. If Maia can reestablish the royal line, she can secure its longevity.
Yet in the devastating aftermath of war between two empires and with rebellion forces on the rise, Kingfountain holds danger for a princess and a bodyguard on a mission. Hastings and Maia must forge ahead on a quest to save themselves and a kingdom at the brink of civil war before cunning magical entities determine their destinies―even as an ancient force threatens to destroy both worlds.
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