Every week, the Castalia House Blog spotlights some of the many new releases in independent, pulp, and web novel-influenced science fiction and fantasy.

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Cloak of Embers (Cloak Mage #10) – Jonathan Moeller

A deadly puzzle. A closing trap.

My name is Nadia, and I’m a Marshal of the High Queen of the Elves.

That means it’s my responsibility to broker a peace deal between the dwarves and the Elven commoners…and there are lots of Elven nobles who would like to see the deal fail.

So when the Lord Inquisitor Arvalaeon arrives on my doorstep, critically wounded and missing the last week of his memory, things have just gotten even more complicated.

One false step and the embers will become an inferno…

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Revolution’s Light (The Last Revolution #1) – Armond J. Boudreaux

A retired Marine. A child born with abilities. Only she can protect him.

In the near future, every new child must be approved and birthed from artificial wombs. This medical miracle is sold as a health benefit to humankind, but the truth is darker…

They’re in place to keep the birth of telepaths hidden and under control.

This truth is no secret to former U.S. Marine Valerie Hara, however. Her illegally born son is a powerful telepath. When government agents storm her home to take him away from her, she’ll stop at nothing to protect her family—including turning her skills as a soldier against the government she once swore to obey.

As she fights to get her son back from those who want to control him, she becomes a spark to ignite a revolution that threatens to spread across the globe.

But will she survive to see a better world?

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Shadow Threat (Travis Hurts Novels #2) – Toby Neighbors

A call for help

A world where things aren’t what they seem

And an enemy that will stop at nothing to destroy Travis Hurts

There’s always another job to do. Fugitive Recovery Specialist Travis Hurts has no shortage of outlaws and desperados to track down. But when a call for help comes in from Las Brazzas, a world with secrets, he soon finds that he’s in over his head. And there’s nothing he can do but shoot his way out of trouble.

Morgan Black has a score to settle. He’s a paid killer, but the money doesn’t drive him. He’ll kill Travis Hurts and the widow woman on the Purgatory out of sheer revenge. But he has to be careful. Getting close to Travis isn’t easy. The bounty hunter is one of the only people in the galaxy who can recognize The Man In Black. He’ll have to go hard and fast, straight at his target, and that’s a dangerous place for anyone.

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Wasteland Warlords – James A. Hunter and eden Hudson

“You keep what you kill. That’s one law everybody out here respects.”

Twenty years ago, the Merge brought armies of monsters flooding into the West Coast.

Dungeons popped up in shopping malls, airports, and Starbucks. Walls were built to contain the spread, but the promise of priceless loot dropped by the creatures inspired a new type of gold rush. Magical weapons, powerful gear, potions to cure every ill… If you survive long enough to kill the mob, whatever they drop belongs to you.

Clay Jaeger has nothing left outside the walls. Civilization took everything he worked for, chewed it up, and spat it out. Now Clay, his wife Alex, and his beer-loving, chainsaw-toting brother Joe are going west to try their hand at monster killing.

The loot from the low-level mobs is enticing, but it isn’t the real reason they risked the Infested Zone. They need to kill a Dungeon Lord. Only one in ten thousand hunters pull it off. The rest become fertilizer for the wasteland. But the few who beat the odds gain riches, glory, and most importantly, the Dungeon Lord’s magical powers.

They have nothing left to lose, and everything to gain. If they survive.

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Waterstone (A War of Light and Shadow #1) – Ryan Kirk

Ronan dreams of wandering beyond the thick stone walls of his town. Unfortunately, he is the only youth unable to wield the magical force of onda, which means no caravan will risk bringing him into the wild.

The walls that protect him from the monsters of the night are also his prison.

In the capital of Lindra, Count Jamie Pierce is coerced into stealing an ancient book. As he plans the theft, he comes to learn that all is not well in his homeland. An ancient foe prepares to attack, but no one is sounding the alarm.

The thief who has never stood for anything must decide whether he’ll fight or flee.

Laran is a sumar, one of the select warriors who wander the wild to protect the citizens hiding behind their impenetrable walls. He’s more at home among the trees and the stars, but when he stumbles upon a new breed of demon, cleverer than any he’s fought before, he’ll need to learn how to trust the very humans he so despises.

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The Burned Book (The Arkwright Saga) – a crowdfunding campaign from Brian Niemeier

An outcast boy with a terrible secret …

A disillusioned priest seeking release from fate …

The restless son of a fading race seeking his destiny …

Thrown together by chance, their historic quest will span a continent. And change all worlds forever.

Zebrin wanders the human-dominated mainland, having fled his people’s rigid island refuge. Alone in barbaric lands, he yearns to find himself in those his race shuns.

But when an ambitious emperor drafts him for a harrowing mission to the farthest ends of the world, will he discover and embrace his divine calling? Or will the kingdom he was ordained to save fall?

The answer lies in the Burned Book.

This crowdfunding campaign will remain open until 2 December, 2023.