Fresh Meat: Oct 18 to 24 — 22 Speculative Fiction Releases

Posted October 20, 2015 by Carmel in Fresh Meat / 2 Comments

Paranormal Romance:

	Taming the Wild Cougar (Heart of the Cougar #3) by Terry Spear Paranormal Romance
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]Cougar shifter, Dr. Kate Parker, is planning her annual camping vacation alone this year. She runs into trouble before she even starts her trip in the form of one wounded, hot cougar undercover cop—or so he says. He’s not going along with just her tender loving care because he came into town as a cougar, and he needs her help to get him back to where he can take up the search to look for an arms dealer, who just happens to be a cougar too. Leyton Hill slipped into the unlocked, darkened clinic, figuring his luck had just changed. Except he doesn’t plan for the good doctor to be napping in her office. Taking him on her vacation wasn’t in the plan, and taking her hostage, hadn’t been either, but now she’s stuck with him until he can get back to his mission and the chase at hand. It appears the roles have reversed and who’s holding whom hostage now? [/learn_more]

	Passion Ignites Part 2 (Dark Kings #7) by Donna Grant Paranormal Romance
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]She had no question that what was happening between them was meant to be… Thorn’s desire for Lexi knows no bounds. But by saving this tempting mortal, he exposes himself to his fiercest enemy–and a fiery passion. As the war between Dragons and Fae heats up, so does the heat between Lexi and Thorn. And when love is a battlefield, the heart takes no prisoners…[/learn_more]

	Warrior of Fate (Truth Seers #3) by Debra Mullins Paranormal Romance
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]Warrior Adrian Gray has dedicated his life in service to his people, and has never doubted his calling… until now. Three mystical Atlantean power stones were assumed lost for centuries, but one by one the Seers of Atlantis have tracked them down in a tireless race against the extremist Mendukati. Adrian’s mission? To ensure that the stones are acquired and protected by the right people—his people. Adrian has always been uncompromising in his dedication to the cause. But the True Seer Tessa Montana proves a sensual distraction in his quest, and he soon finds his discipline wavering. Torn between his sacred duty to the Warriors and his desire for Tessa, will Adrian and his secrets cost them the war?[/learn_more]

	Exiled (A Lunar Falls Novella) by Lashell Collins Paranormal Romance
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]Shame and dishonor are all that Zach Mason knows now. Exiled from his pack for one incredibly stupid decision – conspiracy to overthrow the GrandAlpha – he now lives a solitary existence, desperately longing for a life he can no longer have. But when the winds of fate blow him into the path of the beautiful and alluring Sarah Masters, someone he never expected to see again let alone take as his mate, Zach begins to wonder if maybe home is wherever the heart is. At any rate, he knows that he’ll follow her anywhere. Even back to the home he was exiled from upon the threat of death. The song says you can always go home, but Sarah Masters knows better. Sometimes home is simply not an option anymore, not when the only things there for you are humiliation and disgrace. But the longer she stays away the more homesick she gets, and when Zach Mason shows up in the last place she ever expected him to be, reminding her what love really looks like, Sarah knows that home is exactly where she needs to go in order to make things right. Even though her cousin, the GrandAlpha over the five packs, has vowed to kill her new mate if he ever sees him again. [/learn_more]

Urban Fantasy:

	Bloodfather (Othernaturals #3) by Christina Harlin Urban Fantasy
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]The boy’s ghost showed them where he died, then led them to the creature that had killed him – a creature still burning with rage and desire. Disgraced by his involvement in the tragic death of four women ten years before, psychic Andrew Fletcher hid from the public eye until Rosemary Sharpe and the Othernaturals team convinced him to join their ghost-hunting web show. Now Andrew has the chance to redeem himself by solving a decades-old mystery in the small town to Clancy, Missouri. A child went missing, the case unsolved for over thirty years, until Andrew discovers that the boy’s ghost was merely waiting for someone who could hear him speak. Andrew must keep one brutal truth from the boy’s mother, but in doing so, his reputation as a psychic might be saved. Jon’s ubiquitous ghost has silently watched over the small town and his tormented mother since his death. To show the team his gratitude for their help, Jon leads them to the site of a bizarre haunting, a church possessed by a bloodfather ghost, the terrible remnants of the man responsible for Jon’s death. This is no ordinary haunting, the bloodfather no harmless spirit but a powerful force built from a lifetime of bloody, secret rites. When the team ventures inside the church, Stefan McCandless’s best friend, his resident ghost Brentley, is abducted into the bloodfather’s oblivion, the bloodfather making one demand for Brentley’s return: Bring me Ashley James. Now, with Brentley’s safety, Stefan’s peace of mind and Andrew’s reputation at stake, the Othernaturals are working against time, against the belief-driven power of sympathetic magic, against a soul that long ago descended into madness that reached beyond death. Bloodfather is the third book of the Othernaturals series, the paranormal investigations of the psychically gifted Othernaturals team.[/learn_more]

Science Fiction / Fantasy:

	Departure by A.G. Riddle Science Fiction
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]En route to London from New York, Flight 305 suddenly loses power and crash-lands in the English countryside, plunging a group of strangers into a mysterious adventure that will have repercussions for all of humankind. Struggling to stay alive, the survivors soon realize that the world they’ve crashed in is very different from the one they left. But where are they? Why are they here? And how will they get back home? Five passengers seem to hold clues about what’s really going on: writer Harper Lane, venture capitalist Nick Stone, German genetic researcher Sabrina Schröder, computer scientist Yul Tan, and Grayson Shaw, the son of a billionaire philanthropist. As more facts about the crash emerge, it becomes clear that some in this group know more than they’re letting on—answers that will lead Harper and Nick to uncover a far-reaching conspiracy involving their own lives. As they begin to piece together the truth, they discover they have the power to change the future and the past—to save our world . . . or end it.[/learn_more]

	Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente Science Fiction
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]Severin Unck’s father is a famous director of Gothic romances in an alternate 1986 in which talking movies are still a daring innovation due to the patent-hoarding Edison family. Rebelling against her father’s films of passion, intrigue, and spirits from beyond, Severin starts making documentaries, traveling through space and investigating the levitator cults of Neptune and the lawless saloons of Mars. For this is not our solar system, but one drawn from classic science fiction in which all the planets are inhabited and we travel through space on beautiful rockets. Severin is a realist in a fantastic universe. But her latest film, which investigates the disappearance of a diving colony on a watery Venus populated by island-sized alien creatures, will be her last. Though her crew limps home to earth and her story is preserved by the colony’s last survivor, Severin will never return. Told using techniques from reality TV, classic film, gossip magazines, and meta-fictional narrative, Radiance is a solar system-spanning story of love, exploration, family, loss, quantum physics, and silent film.[/learn_more]

	Time’s Divide (The Chronos Files #3) by Rysa Walker Science Fiction
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]The Cyrists are swiftly moving into position to begin the Culling, and Kate’s options are dwindling. With each jump to the past or the future, Kate may trigger a new timeline shift. Worse, the loyalties of those around her—including the allegiances of Kiernan and the Fifth Column, the shadowy group working with Kate—are increasingly unclear. Kate will risk everything, including her life, to prevent the future her grandfather and the Cyrists have planned. But, when time runs out, it may take an even bigger sacrifice to protect the people she loves.[/learn_more]

	A Borrowed Man by Gene Wolfe Science Fiction
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]It is perhaps a hundred years in the future, our civilization is gone, and another is in place in North America, but it retains many familiar things and structures. Although the population is now small, there is advanced technology, there are robots, and there are clones. E. A. Smithe is a borrowed person. He is a clone who lives on a third-tier shelf in a public library, and his personality is an uploaded recording of a deceased mystery writer. Smithe is a piece of property, not a legal human. A wealthy patron, Colette Coldbrook, takes him from the library because he is the surviving personality of the author of Murder on Mars. A physical copy of that book was in the possession of her murdered father, and it contains an important secret, the key to immense family wealth. It is lost, and Colette is afraid of the police. She borrows Smithe to help her find the book and to find out what the secret is. And then the plot gets complicated.[/learn_more]

	The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School by Kim Newman Fantasy
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]A week after Mother found her sleeping on the ceiling, Amy Thomsett is delivered to her new school, Drearcliff Grange in Somerset. Although it looks like a regular boarding school, Amy learns that Drearcliff girls are special, the daughters of criminal masterminds, outlaw scientists and master magicians. Several of the pupils also have special gifts like Amy’s, and when one of the girls in her dormitory is abducted by a mysterious group in black hoods, Amy forms a secret, superpowered society called the Moth Club to rescue their friend. They soon discover that the Hooded Conspiracy runs through the School, and it’s up to the Moth Club to get to the heart of it. [/learn_more]

	Time of the Dragons (The Age of Dragons #2) by James A. Owen Fantasy
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]James A. Owen continues to take readers on a journey through the fantastical world of beloved fantasy, where dragons are real, and dreams–and nightmares–come true. John and Jack, two of the Caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica, have discovered a plea for help on an ancient medieval parchment–it is not only addressed to them, but seems to have been written by their friend, Hugo Dyson. Yet before they can discover the origin of the strange book, Hugo walks through a door in time–and vanishes into the past. And, just like that, the world begins to change. The only hope to restore the proper order of things lies in a forgotten island at the edge of the Archipelago, where a time travel device left by Jules Verne must be used to race through history itself–from the Bronze Age to ancient Alexandria and the founding of the Silver Throne. But even if all of the legendary Caretakers from past and present are able to answer the oldest mystery in the world and save Hugo, darker forces may still be gathering against them, and a greater crisis may be at hand. Together with a new enemy, the Imperial Cartological Society, the Shadow King may be unstoppable. The only hope may in the Grail Child, Rose Dyson, and her companions’ desperate quest to find the only weapon capable of defeating their enemies and the Spear: the broken sword Caliburn. With page-turning action and a great twist, this story is a classic among classics–a volume to be treasured and gifted to those we love. [/learn_more]

	The Dread Wyrm (The Traitor Son Cycle #3) by Miles Cameron Fantasy
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]Some are born to power. Some seize it. And some have the wisdom never to wield it. The Red Knight has stood against soldiers, armies and the might of an empire without flinching. He’s fought on real and magical battlefields alike, and now he’s facing one of the greatest challenges yet. A tournament. A joyous spring event, the flower of the nobility will ride against each other for royal favor and acclaim. It’s a political contest — one which the Red Knight has the skill to win. But the stakes may be higher than he thinks. The court of Alba has been infiltrated by a dangerous faction of warlike knights, led by the greatest knight in the world: Jean de Vrailly — and the prize he’s fighting for isn’t royal favor, but the throne of Alba itself…[/learn_more]

	Gatefather (Mither Mages #3) by Orson Scott Card Fantasy
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]Danny North is the first Gate Mage to be born on Earth in nearly 2000 years, or at least the first to survive to claim his power. Families of Westil in exile on Earth have had a treaty that required the death of any suspected Gate Mage. The wars between the Families had been terrible, until at last they realized it was their own survival in question. But a Gate Mage, one who could build a Great Gate back to Westil, would give his own Family a terrible advantage over all the others, and reignite the wars. So they all had to die. And if the Families didn’t kill them, the Gate Thief would—that mysterious Mage who destroyed every Great Gate, and the Gate Mage, before it could be opened between Earth and Westil. But Danny survived. And Danny battled the Gate Thief, and won. What he didn’t know at the time was that the Gate Thief had a very good reason for closing the Great Gates—and Danny has now fallen into the power of that great enemy of both Earth and Westil. [/learn_more]

	Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor Fantasy
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]From the creators of the wildly popular Welcome to Night Vale podcast comes an imaginative mystery of appearances and disappearances that is also a poignant look at the ways in which we all struggle to find ourselves…no matter where we live. Located in a nameless desert somewhere in the great American Southwest, Night Vale is a small town where ghosts, angels, aliens, and government conspiracies are all commonplace parts of everyday life. It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge. Nineteen-year-old Night Vale pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro is given a paper marked “KING CITY” by a mysterious man in a tan jacket holding a deer skin suitcase. Everything about him and his paper unsettles her, especially the fact that she can’t seem to get the paper to leave her hand, and that no one who meets this man can remember anything about him. Jackie is determined to uncover the mystery of King City and the man in the tan jacket before she herself unravels. Night Vale PTA treasurer Diane Crayton’s son, Josh, is moody and also a shape shifter. And lately Diane’s started to see her son’s father everywhere she goes, looking the same as the day he left years earlier, when they were both teenagers. Josh, looking different every time Diane sees him, shows a stronger and stronger interest in his estranged father, leading to a disaster Diane can see coming, even as she is helpless to prevent it. Diane’s search to reconnect with her son and Jackie’s search for her former routine life collide as they find themselves coming back to two words: “KING CITY”. It is King City that holds the key to both of their mysteries, and their futures…if they can ever find it.[/learn_more]

	Hides the Dark Tower Anthology Fantasy
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]Mysterious and looming, towers and tower-like structures pierce the skies and shadow the lands. Hides the Dark Tower includes over two dozen tales of adventure, danger, magic, and trickery from an international roster of authors. Readers of science fiction, fantasy, horror, grimdark, campfire tales, and more will find a story to haunt their dreams. So step out of the light, and into the world of Hides the Dark Tower—if you dare. Featuring fiction by Richard Chizmar, Alex Shvartsman, Rie Sheridan Rose, Jeff Stehman, Jonathan Shipley, Robert E. Waters, Evan Dicken, Anatoly Belilovsky, Brad Hafford, A.P. Sessler, Larry C. Kay, Jeremy M. Gottwig, Steven R. Southard, Kelda Crich, M.J. Ritchie, Edward McDermott, Ray Kolb, Andrew Gudgel, Jeremy Zimmerman, N.O.A. Rawle, Meg Belviso, Daniel Beazley, Briana McGuckin, Kane Gordon, Peter Schranz, G. Scott Huggins, Vonnie Winslow Crist, and Kelly A. Harmon, and featuring a poem by Laura Shovan.[/learn_more]

Young Adult:

	Born to Endless Night (Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy #9) by Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan Young Adult
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]Simon, like the rest of the Academy, is stunned when a navy-skinned warlock baby is found on the Academy steps. They hand the child over to guest lecturer Magnus Bane, who has to bring a child home… temporarily, of course… to his man![/learn_more]

	Illuminae (The Illuminae Files #1) by Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff Young Adult
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do. This afternoon, her planet was invaded. The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit. But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet’s AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it’s clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she’d never speak to again.[/learn_more]

	The Many Lives of John Stone by Linda Buckley-Archer Young Adult
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]An English teen questions all she knows about aging when she encounters a set of journals that date from the present back to the reign of King Louis XIV in this blend of contemporary and historical fiction from the author of the acclaimed Gideon trilogy. Stella Park (Spark for short) has found summer work cataloging historical archives in John Stone’s remote and beautiful house in Suffolk, England. She wasn’t quite sure what to expect, and her uncertainty about living at Stowney House only increases upon arriving: what kind of people live in the twenty-first century without using electricity, telephones, or even a washing machine? Additionally, the notebooks she’s organizing span centuries—they begin in the court of Louis XIV in Versailles—but are written in the same hand. Something strange is going on for sure, and Spark’s questions are piling up. Who exactly is John Stone? What connection does he have to these notebooks? And more importantly, why did he hire her in the first place?[/learn_more]

	Dead Investigation by Charlie Price Young Adult
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]In this standalone sequel to Charlie Price’s acclaimed debut novel, Murray is a boy who lives in a cemetery and can talk with those buried beneath the tombstones. He’d rather no one knew, but word got out once he helped solve a fellow student’s murder. Now people think he’s nuts, or want to use his ability for their own ends, or don’t care that he might not want to get tangled in another police investiagation all over again. But there’s been a brutal killing—maybe more than one—and Murray may be able to help unravel the crime, although not without risking his own life. [/learn_more]

	Return Once More (The Historians #1) by Trisha Leigh Young Adult
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]If you could learn the identity of your one true love—even though you will never meet— would you? Years have passed since refugees from a ruined earth took to space, eventually settling a new system of planets. Science has not only made the leaps necessary to allow time travel, but the process engineered a strange side effect—predicting your one true love. If you could save your one true love from an untimely death, would you be able to resist? Sixteen-year-old Kaia Vespasian is an apprentice to the Historians—a group charged with using time travel to document the triumphs and failures of the past—and she can’t resist a peek at her long-dead soul mate in Ancient Egypt. Before she knows it, she’s broken every rule in the book, and the consequences of getting caught could destroy more than just her new romance. Or would you have the strength to watch him die? But when Kaia notices a fellow classmate snooping around in a time where he doesn’t belong, she suspects he has a secret of his own—and the conspiracy she uncovers could threaten the entire universe. If her experience has taught her anything, to changing history means facing the consequences. The Historians trained her to observe and record the past, but Kaia never guessed she might have to protect it— in a race across time to save her only chance at a future.[/learn_more]

	Willful Machines by Tim Floreen Young Adult
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]In the near future, scientists create what may be a new form of life: an artificial human named Charlotte. All goes well until Charlotte escapes, transfers her consciousness to the Internet, and begins terrorizing the American public. Charlotte’s attacks have everyone on high alert—everyone except Lee Fisher, the closeted son of the US president. Lee has other things to worry about, like keeping his Secret Service detail from finding out about his crush on Nico, the eccentric, Shakespeare-obsessed new boy at school. And keeping Nico from finding out about his recent suicide attempt. And keeping himself from freaking out about all his secrets. But when the attacks start happening at his school, Lee realizes he’s Charlotte’s next target. Even worse, Nico may be part of Charlotte’s plan too. As Lee races to save himself, uncover Charlotte’s plan, and figure out if he can trust Nico, he comes to a whole new understanding of what it means to be alive … and what makes life worth living.[/learn_more]

	A Sliver of Stardust (A Sliver of Stardust #1) by Marissa Burt Middle Grade
[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]Wren Matthews thought she’d outgrown nursery rhymes a long time ago. But that was before she knew that songs of twinkling little stars and four-and-twenty blackbirds were the key to an ancient, hidden magic. Wren’s discovery catapults her into a world of buried secrets, strange dreams, and a mountain fortress under an aurora-filled sky. But just as she starts to master her unique abilities, her new world begins to crumble around her . . . and only she can save it.[/learn_more]

Carmel

Owner, designer and main blogger behind Rabid Reads. Avid book reader, snowboard bunny, video gamer and Supernatural fan. I love all things paranormal, werewolves especially. Oh, and I’m Canadian, eh!

Tags: Fresh Meat, October 2015

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