This week’s fantasy new releases feature living saints, Depression-era folk magicians, online magi, and refugees hiding in a world of pike and shot.
Awaken Online: Ember (Awaken Online: Tarot #1) – Travis Bagwell
Finn Harris should have been the one to die.
But he wasn’t – his wife took his place. What was worse, he only had himself and his company to blame. They let their passion outpace their prudence, determined to revolutionize the world. While all innovation comes with a price, he never imagined it would cost him Rachael.
Nearly a decade later, Finn is content to hole himself up and wait out the rest of his life – what little he has left. That is, until his daughter intervenes, forcing him out of his grief and into a new virtual reality game developed by his old employer. They’re calling it Awaken Online, and she believes there’s something unusual going on inside the game. And since Finn knows the company, knows their tactics – she might be right.
Finn wasn’t sure what he expected to find when he logged in. But it certainly wasn’t a manipulative fire god or a school for mages – where the students are pitted against each other in deadly duels and the faculty isn’t shy about maiming or injuring novice mages to prove a point.
Now Finn must learn to fight, for his own life and a chance at redemption. He’ll need to prove that his fire hasn’t been snuffed out.
That there’s still an ember burning…
The Chaos Rises (Elemental Academy #6) – D. K. Holmberg
The Draasin Lord is captured but a greater threat remains.
Now that Tolan knows the secret of the Draasin Lord, he recognizes more needs to be done. As a student, he’s not in a position to be able to do more, but as a master shaper, he’d be free to travel as he feels necessary.
When another attack targets the academy, Tolan knows his unique abilities might make him the only shaper able to respond.
He must survive crossing the waste, but even if he does, how can he stop the chaos where none can shape the elements and where no elementals can survive?
The City of Silver (Moonsong #1) – David V. Stewart
Guns on all sides!
Charlotte and Rone are being hunted.
They flee from the sadistic and power-hungry Count Catannel, who will stop at nothing to see Charlotte, his unwilling wife, returned to him whole.
Rone, a solitary mercenary from a tribe of apostates feared and hated for their ability to use magic, is her only hope for escape, but all she can promise him is riches in some indeterminate future. Those who hunt her are rich and powerful beyond belief.
Reaching the Coast, escape is close at hand, but so are the agents of the enemy. Within the walls of the decadent Masala, the Silver City, murder, theft, and betrayal lurk in every shadow and under every rotten eave. Will Rone’s guile and cleverness be enough to get them out, or will his honor break before then?
Guns and swords may not be enough to save them…
Cloak of Wolves (Cloak Mage #2) – Jonathan Moeller
My name’s Nadia, and I do favors for the High Queen Tarlia of the Elves.
Tarlia is not the kind of woman who accepts no for an answer.
So when the High Queen orders me to help a top investigator solve a murder, I have to do it.
Even though I’ve spent most of my life on the run from the law.
I don’t like the investigator, and he doesn’t like me.
But that doesn’t matter, because if we don’t work together, the creatures we’re hunting will kill us both…
The Cunning Man – D. J. Butler and Aaron Michael Richtey
It’s the depths of the Depression, and a mining town in Utah is shut down. Something has awakened underground, and now a monster roams the tunnels.
Along comes Hiram Woolley.
Hiram is a man with mystical abilities derived from the commonsense application of Scot-Irish folk wisdom and German Braucher magic. He possesses an arcane Bloodstone that allows him to see a lie the moment it is spoken. Behind the played-out farms and failed businesses are demons, curses, sorcerers, and unatoned wrongs. Bags of groceries and carpentry won’t be enough this time.
The job will take a man who has known sorrow. A man who has known war. A man of wisdom. A man of magic.
The job will take a Cunning Man.
Deus Vult (Saint Tommy, NYPD #6) – Declan Finn
God wills it. A Saint must find a way.
All Tommy Nolan wants is some peace to enjoy his family. He’s been to hell and back, and now he needs a break.
But evil doesn’t need to take a breather, and now the Vatican is back on his doorstep asking for help.
A nearby monastery has been desecrated and the exorcist monks murdered in the most brutal ways imaginable. A legion of demons is gathering for something big, and Tommy’s the saint they need to help.
An old enemy is the ally he needs, but can Tommy trust him? Can they track down all of the demons in time?
And what does the Necronomicon have to do with it all?
Let Sleeping Gods Lie (Cowboys & Cthulhu #1) – David J. West
Porter Rockwell, wanted for a murder he did not commit, is hiding out in Old California selling whiskey to thirsty forty-niners. When his friends dig up some monstrous bones and a peculiar book and offer to sell it for a helluva price, Porter can’t resist the mystery.
But when both his night bartender and the sellers are murdered at his saloon Porter has to find out what the mysterious artifacts are all about. With some Native American legends, Sasquatch, Lovecraftian horror, and murderous bandits thrown in, not even bullets and blades can stop Rockwell from leaving a swath of righteous carnage in his wake.
Let Sleeping Gods Lie is a weird western fantasy in the vein of classic pulp fiction and Louis L’Amour books. If you like frontier justice, larger-than-life characters, and witty humor, then you will LOVE the first installment of the Cowboys and Cthulhu series.
No Regrets (The Valens Legacy #17) – Jan Stryvant
Sean is back in the Onderwereld, but this time it’s on his own terms and he brought some friends. Their investigations of the djevels and the race that created the mechanisms that power the gateways bear unexpected fruits however, leading Sean and the rest of the lions to some very unexpected discoveries, as well as results.
But regardless of all of that, there is still a war going on back home and Reno is hanging on by its nails as the djevels have some tricks of their own up their sleeves. Win or lose, when all is said and done, the world that Sean and the rest of his friends will find themselves in, will be a very different one than what they grew up in.
How is the Awaken Online novels?