It’s that time of the month again, time for “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”.
So what is “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up of speculative fiction by indie and small press authors newly published this month, though some December books I missed the last time around snuck in as well. The books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. So far, most links only go to Amazon.com, though I may add other retailers for future editions.
Once again, we have new releases covering the whole broad spectrum of speculative fiction. This month, we have urban fantasy, epic fantasy, historical fantasy, paranormal mysteries, paranormal thrillers, space opera, military science fiction, science fantasy, werewolves, space pirates, space mages, space prisons, living space marines, undead space marines, , crime-busting witches, crime-busting psychics, the magic of music and much more.
As always, I know the authors at least vaguely, but I haven’t read all of the books, so Caveat emptor.
And now on to the books without further ado:
Captain Esther Lysander, UFMC, is a combat Marine. Her new orders, however, are APOC, or “At the Pleasure of the Chairman,” and while she knows this type of assignment could be career-threatening, she feels duty-bound to accept them.
There is no SOP for being APOC, except that it isn't combat-as-usual. Part spy, part soldier, part political window dressing, Esther has to adapt to everything from clandestine meetings with rebel forces, hostage rescues, and off-the-record sniper missions to being a courier between the chairman and other heads of state.
If she thought being a Marine was dangerous enough, she’s about to find out how deadly things can truly get.
The end of the Undead could be upon us.
The Undead continue to take the fight to the Tucanan invaders, but it’s difficult to achieve such notable success without attracting attention.
Rumors continue to surface about clones and zombies, sparking protests.
Irrefutable proof surfaces that at least one of the Undead was previously declared KIA and buried with honors, and then an insider goes public, sparking uproar and calls for official investigation.
The Undead are trapped between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
On the one hand, the Tucanans are targeting them, and on the other, humanity has turned against them. The public thinks they’re monsters, and the government wants not only to shut down the program but to take action to make the Undead problem disappear forever.
Without legal status, the Undead have no rights, and there is little they can do to stand against society's hatred. Now they must navigate human persecution while still fighting to save humanity from the Tucanan threat.
What will become of them when the dust settles? Who will survive?
You can only escape your destiny for so long…
It’s been more than twenty years since tragedy prompted Luna Valens to walk away from her pack.
Scarred by her past, she’s done her best to lead a normal human life. Thanks to a potion that suppresses her magic, nobody around her has a clue that she’s a werewolf.
Until…
Her potion supplier disappears, her family reestablishes contact, and a mysterious werewolf with a metal detector and a penchant for calling her my lady saunters into her life.
As if all that weren’t enough, someone from her past is trying to kill her. Someone dangerous.
To survive and figure out what’s going on, Luna will have to once again embrace her power. But, after so long, will she be able to summon the wolf?
An AI whistleblower. An ancient conflict. A faltering Union.
When the Union's new AI, Groundbreaker, releases troves of data revealing deep corruption and crime within the Union and her member planets, the fallout is immediate and widespread. Leaders are toppled, governments overthrown, and longstanding bonds broken.
The Union has never been more vulnerable. So when a terrible scandal on Kudar threatens to spawn intergalactic war, sundering any hope of reconciliation between member worlds once and for all, the admiralty enlists the help of The Lady Bane and her crew to find a peaceful resolution.
It's a political minefield, where one wrong step can impact the fate of billions. But when terrorists start targeting the crew, the danger becomes personal.
Christmas has come to the Quarter, and that means big things for Ofelia Archer.
Her father is getting out of the hospital for a holiday visit, she’s about to meet two future sisters-in-law for the first time, and this is her first Christmas with her fiancé.
She should be on top of the world.
There’s just one little problem.
Bodies are showing up around the French Quarter, what looks to be candy canes pierced through their hearts. When those candy canes are removed, some of the victims come back, and they’re different people. Not zombies or anything, but suddenly better people than they were when they were stabbed. It seems they’ve been imbued with the Christmas spirit out of nowhere.
And some others aren’t coming back at all.
The attacks have “demon” written all over them. This demon, however, thinks he’s Santa Claus. He wears the suit and everything.
Ofelia is determined to have a good holiday. She just has a fight to finish before she can get to the nog and presents of it all.
It’s going to be a doozy of a fight.
When a young girl goes missing on the way to her bus, Maddie Graves-Winters goes searching and finds the sort of mystery she never wanted to uncover.
The girl, crying and shaking and talking about a monster, is okay when Maddie finds her. What they discover with the girl isn’t, however.
When Maddie and her husband Nick were in high school, three teenagers went missing. Everybody assumed they fled to Detroit for some fun and never came back, but it turns out, they never left Blackstone Bay.
The new case seems to coincide with the old case but nobody can figure out how. Even when Maddie calls in her friend Ivy Morgan to help, there are more questions than answers.
Blackstone Bay always felt like a safe place to live. Now Maddie isn’t certain. On top of that, her son is having dreams where he’s lost in dark woods. They’re the same dreams Maddie is having. The same monsters haunting them both.
When the unthinkable happens and another girl goes missing, the clock starts ticking. Can Maddie save the day, or will the past ruin the present all over again?
Welcome to Coruscar, where music is magic... for some
It is 1928, a year from Coruscar's Bicentennial and the contentious merger of the classes. On a winter's day at Larimar Keep, a singer is wrongly executed for Class Agitation, the victim of a conspiracy among the dead as well as the living. One of many seeds taking root in a time ripe for revolution.
At the opening of a new season, at Realgar Keep, a symphony that is more than music-for those born with the ability to appreciate it-fills the sky over an amphitheater of stone. Waiting to play his part is one of the four Founding Cores, crystalline manticores the size of a palace. He is newly tuned to a Mode of rebirth.
In the seats reserved for the highest of the Blood Harmonious, battered from the day's Tuning but gloriously alive, Prentice Mica Kalekai is also waiting-impatient to escape to the music she wishes she'd been born to.
Many rows back, in the Common seats, is Chalcy Greenglass, a songwriter with a secret, who has paid a terrible price to possess what a highblood takes for granted.
Their meeting will alter both of their lives, and the course of history.
The Beast at the center of it all dances, delighted by the disruption he has set in motion. Coruscar is already poised for upheaval. But even he will fail to foretell what the Merger truly has in store.
TO TUNE THE BEAST is the debut fantasy novel by Sun Hesper Jansen, author of the poetry collection Fairy of Disenchantment.
Moonstone Bay is in a tizzy. Not only has a new village been discovered—it was hidden by magic for hundreds of years—but family members long thought dead are back and infiltrating lives that had changed in their absence.
It is not all smooth sailing.
Hadley Hunter is trying to keep things under wraps but she’s as excited to explore the village as anybody. There’s just one little problem. How did a body make it into the village when it was magically warded to keep people out?
A local shifter is dead and Hadley and her merry band of paranormal powerhouses are on the case. She thought the village had given up all of its mysteries. What if she was wrong, though?
Hadley’s dreams are being haunted, her future uncertain, her friends in turmoil. Is it an old enemy coming back, or is someone new—someone terrible—on the horizon?
Hadley is about to find out. She’s not going to want to hear the answer. Nobody is.
Stormy Morgan should be on top of the world. She’s engaged, about to move into her dreamhouse, and her magic is stabilizing. In fact, she’s becoming one heckuva witch.
Too bad trouble keeps finding her.
This time it comes in the form of a gang of kids who appear to be stealing cars from various townsfolk. It’s become a big enough issue that everybody in town is becoming unnerved, paranoid even. Their solution is to form a Neighborhood Watch, which should be okay in theory. Unfortunately, the reality is anything but.
Stormy’s dreams are being plagued by threatening shadows, to the point where she thinks she’s being watched. On top of that, there’s something odd going on with the mayor and his wife, which just might involve one of Stormy’s cousins. That would be enough to keep Stormy busy, but there’s more.
The residents are acting odd. They’re not just fighting crime, they’re treating it as if it’s life or death. They’re getting aggressive, and everybody is in danger. That’s everybody.
Stormy doesn’t know where to start. Is she dealing with one problem or multiple problems? She’s going to need help to get to the bottom of things. Even her powerful allies might not be enough to save the town.
Shadow Hills is home but suddenly it feels like a different place. Will Stormy be able to save Shadow Hills—and everybody who lives there—before it’s too late?
Strap in. You’re about to find out.
The fall from hopeful revolutionary to prison laborer is a hard one. Fer's world has shrunk from the whole damn universe to this anonymous asteroid and the four other convicts who share it with them. It's a fitting end, for someone who used to wish on stars but now can only seem to collect endings.But magic and falling stars have ways of finding those who need them, and when Fer takes a chance and looks up, there's a mermaid staring back at them, silhouetted by stars.twice-spent comet is a fairy tale for forgotten places and the people whose stories are stuck waiting for the next sentence.
The power and reach of Mars are beyond question
The limits of that power are all too real
At the edge of their reach, even they cannot save everyone…
Faced with the terror-inspiring might of the reawakened Reezh Kazh, the Church of the Nine that once ruled hundreds of stars, the people of the Dual Republics of Chimera have asked Mars and humanity for protection.
For now, the Protectorate is united behind their Mage-Queen. Ambassador Connor O’Hannagain and Mage-Captain Roslyn Chambers are charged to do everything they can—but the reality is grim.
The Protectorate is too far away. The Chimera System cannot be saved… but the Chimeran people might be. Even as every warship Mars can spare is rushed forward to their new ally, massive fleets of transports are assembled to carry as many people to safety as possible.
The magical power of Mars can save some of Chimera’s people, human and reezh alike, but if steel and magic cannot guard the innocent, Chambers, O’Hannagain and others all face a single harsh question:
When Chimera falls, who stays behind?
Curse the darkness. Or embrace it. There’s no other choice.
Special Agent Emma Last barely survived the psychic attack that tore through her when she drove past her hometown of Salem for a case. At the time, she was chasing a cannibal through a booby-trapped wilderness, but the shadows of Salem have lingered, haunting her every mile.
Now, she’s not just driving past—she’s going back. On purpose.
Emma and two of her closest colleagues arrive to assist with a puzzling crime wave plaguing Salem. Four unrelated arsons, over a dozen muggings, vandalism, carjacking, home invasions. Every crime has been committed by a person with no criminal background. Stranger still, none remember their crimes.
Emma knows something sinister and supernatural is at play. Her late mother’s two best friends each blame the other for using magic to manipulate the people of Salem into acts of violence. But as the attacks escalate to murder, Emma uncovers a chilling truth. One of the women deliberately lured Emma to Salem to kill her.
But which one?
Fighting a threat she can’t see and unsure who she can trust, Emma must find the source of the madness destroying Salem. Before it destroys her.
