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 June 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, sword and sorcery, paranormal mysteries, fantasy romance, space opera, military science fiction, horror, vampires, ghosts, gravediggers, undead marines, spaceships for rent, crime-busting witches 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:
All Kaylina ever longed to do was open her own meadery and prove her worth to her family. She didn’t want to develop feelings for the haughty royal ranger, Lord Vlerion, and she definitely didn’t want to be accused of trying to poison the queen.
But a conniving competitor has framed her, and now the Kingdom Guard is hunting her down.
Vlerion wants to help, but a rebel faction has learned that he’s cursed to turn into a deadly beast when his emotions are aroused. They’re blaming numerous murders on him and demanding his death.
Caught in a city far more dangerous and chaotic than she expected, Kaylina must avoid capture while finding evidence to clear her name. If she can’t, she may lose Vlerion—and her own life.
The Undead have been blooded in combat. Now it’s time to prove their value.
The huge cost and effort to reanimate them must be worth it. With no rights of their own, their very existence depends upon their return on investment.
But as the Undead are finding their footing and discovering how to best fight the war with the Tucanan invaders, the aliens are not standing still. They are experimenting with their evolutionary past to create new ways to fight humanity’s military forces.
It’s become an arms race. Which species can stay ahead of the other? Which one can gain the advantage?
For every new innovation, there is a counter, and when the Undead’s secret base on Opal-3 is attacked by the Tucanans, is that just a coincidence? Or is it an effort to wipe out the Undead Marines before they can establish themselves?
With pressure from the bean counters to prove their value on one side and the Tucanans’ invasion on the other, the Marines could be snuffed out before they ever really establish themselves as the premier fighting force of humanity.
In 2007, Beck Randall moves with his wife and teenage daughters into a long-abandoned cabin deep in the woods, built a century before by his grandparents. Once there, daughters Tina and Lucy discover that their predecessors have left an imprint of suffering and violence the girls refer to as “ The Whistler,” an eerie presence infused in the nature that surrounds them. As the 1907 and 2007 storylines braid together, characters and events intrude upon each other, blurring the boundaries between eras and illustrating that people and lives are not forgotten; instead, they are woven into the fabric of the land itself. With gritty, lyrical storytelling, Let Gravity Seize the Dead is an intergenerational literary horror story featuring a blend of suspense, beauty, and terror.
Noah, Ben, and the rest of the crew have done the impossible—defied the Warden and lived to tell the tale.
But for how long?
Faced with the Warden’s retribution, they’ll have to put all their combined skills and teamwork to the ultimate test to survive. And even if they make it through the gauntlet in one piece, their reward is hardly a reward at all…
A showdown with the Warden for the fate of the galaxy.
Long ago Lord Huto abandoned the City of Masters to live as a hermit atop a nameless mountain. Casting aside his royal lineage, he also abandoned his mastery of sorcery, leaving his brother to rule as Emperor of Yhorom. Yet Huto could not abandon the Thousand Year Bond that extends his natural life by ten centuries. Now, some 350 years later, an emissary from the great city brings news that Huto's brother has been murdered. The chief suspect for this crime is the Emperor's own wife, whose sorcery rivalled that of her husband. Huto doesn't give a damn about politics, but he comes down from his lonely mountain for one reason: to expose and destroy his brother's killer. However, it's a long way back to Yhorom, and dark forces conspire to ensure that the hermit-prince never makes it home alive.
When rampaging soldiers destroy a small northern village, Umi loses her mother and her people in a single day. She flees into the depths of the Mossback Forest, where dangers and wonders abound. Adopted by a pack of wild forest spirits, she learns the secrets of earth magic, as well as how to track and kill those who despoil the forest. One day she will leave behind the wilderness and its vengeful spirits to walk the Dragon Road, which carries her all the way to ancient Yhorom, where the Old Masters rule by the twin virtues of steel and sorcery.
The hermit prince and the daughter of spirits are destined to meet...but will it be as allies or enemies?
The answer to this question will change the course of history.
Hali Waverly is in a holding pattern following hip surgery. She’s getting better, but she still has to be careful…especially living so close to the beach. Still, she thinks it’s safe enough to go out for dinner with her boyfriend Gray Hunter…right up until they’re swarmed by escaped prisoners.
Hali thinks everything is okay until one of the prisoners uses magic on Gray and forces him to attack Hali. She manages to snap him out of it, but Gray no longer trusts himself and Hali is left with a doubting boyfriend as well as a lot of unanswered questions.
Even though most of the prisoners are recovered right away, a few manage to evade capture, including the witch who hexed Gray. Things get worse when the witch approaches Hali with a deal: Help her prove her innocence and she won’t go after Gray again. Otherwise…Gray is going to be her target, and she isn’t shy about what she’s going to do to him.
Hali and Gray have to work together to make sure he’s not taken advantage of. With Hali not at a hundred percent, though, that’s easier said than done.
Not all witches are created equal. Hali is powerful, but what happens when she comes up against a type of magic she doesn’t know how to defeat?
She’s determined to protect Gray at all costs, even if she has to put herself on the line to do it.
Mackenzie thought she could finally breathe after escaping the Governments clutches—but fate has other plans.
After being held captive and tortured for months, Mackenzie is finally home. But her peace is shattered when Master Dagmar asks for her help. Children are still going missing, and the Task Force created to stop these abductions is hitting road bumps at every turn.
With her powerful mate by her side, she must track down the Rogue, a monster vampire crazed from drinking supernatural blood.
Their hunt leads them to the Warrens, the vampire city below GreenRiver. Where they delve deep into the world of the undead. Together, Lucan and Mackenzie must stop the Rogue before more young lives are lost.
With their relationship still forming, can Lucan and Mackenzie strengthen their bond enough to finally overcome their foe? Or will the trauma of the past be the catalyst that tears them apart?
Hadley Hunter never saw herself as mayor of Moonstone Bay. Now she has the job, and it seems to be a whole lot of squabbling neighbors and missing foul-mouthed birds instead of the action and adventure she was expecting. All of that changes when a local worker for one of the hotels calls in to report seeing a child wandering in the road in the middle of nowhere. Both the woman and child are missing when units go looking.
Sheriff Galen Blackwood can’t find a record of a missing child. He can’t find a path to follow for the missing woman. All he can find is a spit of desert in the middle of the island and no way across.
Moonstone Bay has a lot of secrets. When Hadley starts digging on this one, she’s confused. How is it that nobody has any information on this specific bit of land? Why has nobody ever bothered to ask? Why is it that everybody just accepts the land can’t be crossed?
Hadley smells a conspiracy, and she may be right. The problem is, there’s nobody around to confirm or deny anything she believes.
That, of course, means her mind is running wild. She’s going to take all of her friends along for the ride, too, whether they want to be dragged into this mess or not.
Some secrets are kept for a reason. When this one blows up, they all might regret it…if they live that long that is.
Darkness sleeps beneath Barrowdeep.
War-weary mercenary Leoric has traded his sword for a shovel, burying the undead blight that plagues the little town of Barrowdeep. Now he fights for the living instead of against them.
Fae trickster Orphium travels from town to town, stealing human trinkets and memories through games of chance. He's desperate to fill the hollow in his heart, but the hunger never goes away.
Barrowdeep is ripe for the picking, except the nosy local gravedigger keeps interfering. But when Leoric unearths an ancient fae artifact, Orphium knows he’ll stop at nothing to possess the powerful coin.
And the undead will stop at nothing to possess him.
Orphium and Leoric must fight the undead together before tensions and their shadowy pasts rise to the surface — and before an even darker evil awakens beneath Barrowdeep.
Dr. Selina Norden, survivor of The Culling, has sworn to take revenge on the people responsible for the death of her family. A genetically superior mutant, she labors to produce an evolved form of homo sapiens, one that will ultimately mean the extinction of humanity. Letting nothing stand in her way, she enlists the aid of Artificial Intelligences and rogue scientists to reach her goal. But Fate strands her on a lunar base, with rabid Scavengers bent on killing them all. Will she win?
