Word Count: 101,000
Summary: AWARDS B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree 2020 READERS FAVORITE International Book Awards 2021 - Bronze Medal LITERARY TITAN Silver Medal 2021 READERS FAVORITE 5 star review 2020 Sometimes, death is necessary. Two thousand years after the Great Diaspora, humanity has spread across the Orion Spur, the human domain fractured and diverse, divided into numerous small federations, empires, dictatorships, and a thousand unaligned and lonely planets. On one of those small worlds, a plant grows, a weed that feeds the addiction of many and the greed and avarice of a few, and kills without favor. Lazarus Hawk, ex-soldier and ex-mercenary, convicted of a crime of terror he did not commit, and sentenced to life on an airless prison moon from which there is no escape, has been offered a way out. It’s a chance. A good chance. To accept the offer, all he has to do is die. Forced to undertake a mission against his better judgment, Hawk finds himself teaming up with the locals of a small, backward world, and Abbie Renner, a young Guarda officer searching for the source of the drug Hellfire, and prepared to go to any lengths. This time, she has gone too far. This time she needs help. Can Hawk overcome the mistrust and reticence of a small colony world to accomplish the mission he has been forced to undertake in return for his life? If you like great, classic science fiction, you will love this new work by multi-award-winning author Mike Waller, an action-packed dive into the world of a galactic mercenary driven by the ghosts from his past. Grab a copy now and join Lazarus Hawk in his search for justice for a remote colony world.
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Summary: Planetary blockades. Rampant viral outbreaks. Can two ex-lovers forge a path through the stars to save their world? Independent trader Gavril Danilovich is slowly slipping into madness. Stuck in quarantine on a dying planet, his raw talent to feel everyone’s emotions has him wrestling with waves of terror and rage. So when the woman who holds his heart offers an opportunity for isolation by repairing a mothballed freighter, he jumps at the chance. Anitra Helden can’t outrun her past. Hiring the only man she trusts to fix up a spaceship destined to fill a new settlement with supplies, she fears for the population’s safety when thieves steal valuable goods. And after she’s invited to join a covert plan to protect all colonists, she’s terrified one misspoken word could burn all her bridges. Racing the clock to prepare the vessel in time, Gavril struggles to master his painful empathy or face being trapped on the ground forever. And with the stranded citizens desperate for Anitra’s help, she’s confronted with the decision to expose her dangerous history… or lose everything she’s built. Can they escape the stricken planet before they’re doomed by intergalactic corruption? Last Ship Off Polaris-G is a fast-paced prequel to the Central Galactic Concordance space opera romance series. If you like heated attraction, seeds of a rebellion, and psychic gifts, then you’ll love Carol Van Natta’s action-packed story.
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Summary: Bloodlines: Book 3 of The Wildblood Learning the truth about the Altered, and the legacy of The Vista, is the first priority of Team Three. It may earn them exile from their home. They know this. Failure is not an option. Loyalty has its price. So does revenge. Someone has to pay. ~~~~~ The Wildblood Series A Post-Apocalyptic Action Adventure No one remembers what started the war, the big one. Civilization stopped, and what came next was fueled by rage and fear. Twenty years on, The Vista remains isolated, and the original survivors are content with that. Their children are not. The search for others will send them out into a world they know nothing about, where the line between enemy and ally is blurred.
Word Count: 18023
Summary: Anonymous post to the Galactic AITA I'm the captain of a small trading ship, and I have a problem. I have a ridiculously high sex drive thanks to that damn parasite from Verda, and I can't afford surgery to remove it. I tried to control it, but I nearly destroyed my crew a dozen times before I found something that worked: A sex slave. I buy a slave from people who are going to work her to death, give her good quarters, good food, and a percentage of each trading run. All I expect is that she be available for sex, mostly with me, sometimes with the crew. A lot. I've had three so far. Two saved enough to buy themselves free and got a nice set up on the world of their choice. The third kept trying to escape so I ditched her at our next planetfall with the clothes on her back. We're on our way to a so-called 'Personnel Processing Platform' to buy the next one. Am I the Asshole? Content warning: This is essentially a heavy non-consent/dubious consent story set in space. If you are uncomfortable with noncon, explicit sex and/or rape, or fictional slavery, this story isn't for you. No AI
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Summary: Eighteen well-reviewed stories in the rare subgenre of trucking science fiction.
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Summary: African-descended USians are finally obtaining reparations—underwater. Plunge into the action of a visionary future by the award-winning author of Everfair, with narration by LeVar Burton (Star Trek: The Next Generation). Five miles off the South Carolina coast, Darden and Catherina are getting their promised forty acres, all of it undersea. Like every Black “mer,” they’ve been experimentally modified to adapt to their new subaquatic home—and have met with extreme resistance from white supremacists. Darden has an inspired plan for resolution. For both those on land and the webbed bottom-dwellers below, Darden is hoping to change the wave of the future. Nisi Shawl’s 2043 . . . (A Merman I Should Turn to Be) is part of Black Stars, a multi-dimensional collection of speculative fiction from Black authors. Each story is a world much like our own. Read or listen to them in a single sitting.
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Summary: Two female androids in love, an immigrant with a secret, an alien doctor, an astronaut on a mining ship, a man with hands of fire, a young woman with X-ray eyes, a grief-stricken robot, a Venetian executioner, a woman with foresight in a tower, and a delivery driver with a cargo of children all come together to save the planet from destruction when an asteroid plummets toward Earth, threatening to kill everyone. Roiling with themes of modern slavery and racism, as well as AI and the malaise of a modern world half asleep and blind to violence and destruction - not to mention a love affair, a father-son relationship, and android lesbian lovers - Jack Davies's thought-provoking, emotional storytelling is brought together in a shattering conclusion. https://www.amazon.co.uk/944-Hidalgo-Novel-Jack-Davies/dp/1803418354 https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/roundfire-books/our-books/944-hidalgo-novel
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Summary: In one night, change comes with the strike of a match as Leo Riley loses everything. Giacomo Bianco's hitmen burned his home to the ground with his family inside. Leo will pay any price for his revenge. He will need power. Oguina, the mythical woman turned monster, can give it to him. But at what cost? Bianco gazes into an abyss that stares back. His fall to madness is a one-way trip Leo aims to stop at all costs before Bianco kills again. In his quest for vengeance, Leo teeters over that same cliff. Monster and Mafioso fight for dominance over Fall River's streets. Bianco’s got more up his sleeve than anyone suspects, including the means to make his power absolute. Even new powers and strange allies might not be enough to ensure Leo’s victory. Who is the real monster? Bianco, Oguina, or Leo himself?
Word Count: 25000
Summary: Exiled to Earth for perhaps the worst failure in Irasolan history, General Teer must assimilate or die. Earth is too warm, too wet, too foreign, but he does the best he can even though human males are loud, childish louts whom he can't imitate successfully. When a grieving seaplane pilot strikes up a strange and uneasy friendship with him, he finds he may have been too quick to judge human males. They are strange to look at, but perhaps not as unbearable as he thought.
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Summary: Wedding bells…or Death Knell? Sinbad may have traded in his smuggler’s leathers for farmer’s coveralls but “Happily Ever After” isn’t in the cards for him and his beloved Andrea. And Andi soon finds there’s a great deal she doesn’t know about her new husband…such as the young stranger who claims to be Sin’s son. While she’s recovering from that shock, Sin succumbs to the terminal illness he’s kept secret from everyone. Not to worry…there’s a surgeon who can save his life, but Jean-Clair DuPont is as unscrupulous as he is skilled. His fee? Andi, for the duration of her husband’s convalescence. The new Mrs. sh’en Singh doesn’t think twice. DuPont gets what he wants and Sin lives to fight another day…once he recovers. That had better happen soon, for Andi’s lover-by-force has taken her off-planet and directly into an attack by slavetraders. Now a candidate for the slave pits of Bel-Ammon, Andi finds herself face-to-face with enemies new and old.
Word Count: 125075
Summary: In the aftermath of Ahnak’s Doom, the Elementals have fled to the North. Have they escaped one peril only to encounter another even more terrifying? Fallout from the Doom threatens the survivors with starvation. Aftershocks set the simple dwellings of Tenfir Abarad quaking, sending townspeople screaming into the streets in renewed fear. And in the near-total darkness, the Elementals find their powers dwindling. Can the refugees resolve their differences with the northern people and work together to survive the Impact Winter? Is the planet still resonating from the gargantuan impact, or are more sinister forces at work? And will the Elementals discover the reasons for their limited powers in time to face their latest, most devastating enemy? Continue your journey of discovery with this first book in the Second Chronicles, and follow our heroes as they battle once more with nature, dread foes, and their own internal demons!
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Summary: Welcome to the last of the great flying Cities! It’s 9172, YE (Year of the Empire), and the future has forgotten its past. Soaring miles over the Earth, Autumn, the sole surviving flying city, is filled to the brim with the manifold forms of humankind: from Human Plus “floor models” to the oppressed and disfranchised underclasses doing their dirty work and every imaginable variation between. Valerius Bakhoum is a washed-up private eye and street hustler scraping by in Autumn. Late on his rent, fetishized and reviled for his imperfect genetics, stuck in the quicksand of his own heritage, Valerius is trying desperately to wrap up his too-short life when a mythical relic of humanity’s fog-shrouded past walks in and hires him to do one last job. What starts out as Valerius just taking a stranger’s money quickly turns into the biggest and most dangerous mystery he’s ever tried to crack – and Valerius is running out of time to solve it. Now Autumn’s abandoned history – and the monsters and heroes that adorn it – are emerging from the shadows to threaten the few remaining things Valerius holds dear. Can the burned-out detective navigate the labyrinth of lies and maze of blind faith around him to save the City of Autumn from its greatest myth and deadliest threat as he navigates his feelings for his newest client, the handsome golem Alejandro?
Word Count: 80000
Summary: Beware the demon prince who's sick and tired of running. Federico Duomo is dead, to begin with. But this is only the first bit of Shax's problems resolved. Powerful crime lords and an obscenely wealthy oligarch are still determined to destroy him and his crew, and Fluffy's original owner may be coming after the Brimstone now, too. It would be splendid to be able to take on one thing at a time. Adding to the external conflicts, life on board the Brimstone has only grown increasingly stranger. Shax has no idea what to do with the seven partly human children that Heckle rescued from slavers. Heckle himself has grown short-tempered, even with Mac. Someone from Julian's past catches up to them on Barbary. It's enough to put a demon off his cinnamon buns. Shax isn't panicking, though. In fact he's had it up to his handsome royal nose with the people he loves having to live in constant fear. The fox has turned at bay and the Brimstone's enemies are in for a shock. The demon prince of thieves is coming for them.
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Summary: After the loss of his wife, children, and home, Miles Sheffield sees the position as Chief Researcher at the TerraFormation colony on Élysée as a new start in life. Still mourning the deaths of his wife and two eldest sons, newly-abdicated margrave Aric kan Ingan views becoming head of Security on the planetoid a final attempt at closure. Neither counted on being the only men in a colony of fifty-three women, or of becoming embroiled in an intergalactic divorce and kidnapping case…much less being enthralled by the mysterious lure of Élysée’s itself. Two men seek redemption for real and imagined sins, while a jungle sends its eerie messages—a whispered word, the scent of a dead woman’s perfume—intruding into their psyches, offering metaphysical rebirth and a final chance for happiness… …if a threat from Terra doesn’t destroy everything they may regain.
Word Count: 114192
Summary: In the new land of Nanegria, every Elemental’s power is enhanced and strengthened. But unlimited, uncontrollable power is more of a curse than a blessing. What is causing these strange effects? How is it connected with the overwhelming Stone memories that plague Piers’ every waking moment? And can the Elementals persuade the dragons of Nanegria and their riders to join them on their last quest to find the ultimate answer? The final volume in John Beresford’s epic fantasy series The Second Berikatanyan Chronicles brings to a thrilling conclusion the adventures of the seven Elementals and their companions, as they race to an electrifying and unanticipated climax. Fans of high-stakes adventure and intricate world-building will not want to miss this stunning finale.
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Summary: How much must one sacrifice for the sake of friendship? Lady Claire Trevelyan has had to deal with betrayal before, but none is quite so painful as the belief that Gloria Meriwether-Astor deserted her and her friends and left them to die under the waters of Venice. But when she learns that Gloria has vanished, can she do the right thing and attempt to find the missing heiress? Of course she must. But this does not sit well with the gentlemen in her life, who had every reason to believe she planned to settle down at last. Suddenly Claire finds herself without a career, a fiancé, or the confidence in her own abilities that has carried her this far. Worse, Captain Ian Hollys is suffering from the megrims and cannot seem to recover from his dreadful experience as a prisoner. Alice’s dream of captaining her own ship in England is scuttled. Tigg is struggling with a revelation that has turned his life upside down—and may result in a betrayal more harrowing than any the flock has yet seen. Will the bond of friendship that has brought Claire and the flock together be the very thing that separates them for good? Or will love tip the balance and prove that what really defines a gentleman of means is none other than a lady of resources?
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Summary: NOMINATED FOR BEST NOVELLA OR SHORT STORY IN THE 2020 PARANORMAL ROMANCE GUILD REVIEWER'S CHOICE AWARDS Taken from the arms of her mother, a girl is raised by a family so alien that she hardly knows how to describe them. They are incredibly feral. She is anything but. As life with them becomes more and more bizarre, she has no choice but to incur the wrath of the pack and plead for her release--risking her life to ask it. Much to her surprise, but even more to his, her chosen mate devises a plan to get her home. It involves considerable deception but if ultimately successful, makes it possible for her to return to the mother and the home she so desperately misses. The plan succeeds. It has, however, unintended consequences since his actions cause her to question his motives and what it is to be his mate. She leaves him, nevertheless, returning home with her faithful dog as her travelling companion. Once there, she has a chance encounter with someone--a man who has a surprising connection to her past. But their joyful and unexpected reunion is short-lived. And in the aftermath of the tragedy that occurs, they learn family is what you make it, the people who love you most are the ones who make the greatest sacrifices, and home is where you belong.
Word Count: 120000
Summary: Isabelle des Zephyrs has always been underestimated, but after discovering the well of hidden magic within her, unraveling a centuries-long conspiracy, and stopping a war between rival nations, she has gained a newfound respect amongst the cutthroat court. All that is quickly taken away when Isabelle is unfairly convicted of breaking the treaty she helped write and has her political rank and status taken away. Now bereft, she nevertheless finds herself drawn into mystery when her faithful musketeer Jean-Claude uncovers a series of gruesome murders by someone calling themselves the Harvest King. As panic swells, the capital descends into chaos, when the emperor is usurped from the throne by a rival noble. Betrayed by their allies and hunted by assassins, Isabelle and Jean-Claude alone must thwart the coup, but not before it changes l’Empire forever.
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Summary: Will a daring rescue put a wedding and a future at risk? Lady Claire Trevelyan and renowned scientist Andrew Malvern are looking forward to domestic felicity in London—until a desperate and fugitive Alice Chalmers turns up seeking help. Her ship has been seized in the Duchy of Venice and worse, her navigator Jake has been thrown into the dreaded underwater prison from which no one ever escapes. Even the innocent. Lady Claire is about to embark on her career in Munich at the Zeppelin Airship Works. The Mopsies are beginning their final year at school. Andrew Malvern begins to despair of his fiancée ever choosing a wedding gown. But when help is denied from official quarters, the close bonds of friendship and shared adventure demand that they set sail in the airship Athena. There is a brooding evil waiting for them in Venice … an evil that would put an end to the flock’s interference once and for all. With an innocent friend’s unexpected return and a pair of secret agents who don’t want their help … the situation clearly calls for the inner resources of a lady of integrity.
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Summary: You can choose your friends, but you cannot choose your family ... or can you? Now sixteen, Lizzie and Maggie are educated young ladies who have not been called “the Mopsies” in years … except by their guardian, Lady Claire Trevelyan. With the happy prospect of choosing their own future, the girls can leave their dodgy past behind, and Lizzie can bury her deepest childhood memories where they can do no harm. But is she ready to be separated from Maggie and become the woman she believes she was meant to be? Or will old habits tempt her into defiance—like picking the wrong man’s pocket—and plunge her into disaster? But sometimes disaster leads to dreams coming true—dreams of family and a place in the world. Lizzie must decide whether her true family is the one she was born to … or the one she chose long ago when the Lady of Devices steamed into their lives …
