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Showing posts with label Alexandra Oliva. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alexandra Oliva. Show all posts

Friday, July 15, 2016

2016 Debut Author Challenge Cover Wars - July Debuts




Each month you will be able to vote for your favorite cover from that month's debut novels. At the end of the year the 12 monthly winners will be pitted against each other to choose the 2016 Debut Novel Cover of the Year. Please note that a debut novel cover is eligible in the month in which the novel is published in the US. Cover artist/illustrator information is provided when we have it.

I'm using PollCode for this vote. After you the check the circle next to your favorite, click "Vote" to record your vote. If you'd like to see the real-time results click "View". This will take you to the PollCode site where you may see the results. If you want to come back to The Qwillery click "Back" and you will return to this page. Voting will end sometime on July 30, 2016.


Vote for your favorite July 2016 Debut Cover!
 
pollcode.com free polls




Jacket Art: Stephan Martiniere
Jacket Design: Peter Lutjen




Cover Design: Lauren Panepinto
Cover Images (c) Arcangel Images, Shutterstock




Cover artist: Gene Mollica




Cover Artist: Chris Panatier












Cover artist: Will Staehle




Book design: Donna Sinisgalli




Cover: David Stevenson
















Cover Art: Julia Lloyd








Jacket Design: Jake Nicolella
Jacket Photograph: (trees) Gallinago_media/Shutterstock


Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Interview with Alexandra Oliva, author of The Last One


Please welcome Alexandra Oliva to The Qwillery as part of the 2016 Debut Author Challenge Interviews. The Last One was published on July 12th by Ballantine Books.







TQWelcome to The Qwillery. When and why did you start writing?

Alexandra:  As a kid I didn't keep much of a diary, but I often retreated to the woods behind my house with pen and paper or stayed up late filling notebooks with stories. In that way, I've been writing for as long as I can remember. Then, in college, I realized that while I could probably perform perfectly well in any number of professions, I didn't care about anything else as much as I cared about writing. Not knowing what else to do, I started pursuing writing straight after graduation. I had jobs, of course--waitressing, tutoring, a dash of office work--but I always identified as a writer above all else and my goal was to be traditionally published. It wasn't easy--it took three manuscripts, a decade of trying, and a heck of a lot of heartache--but I made it.

As for why: Words are the only medium through which I've ever been able to create anything even close to what I imagined possible. Writing has also always felt like the only way I could contribute something uniquely me to the world. Besides, it's fun! I'm following a selfish impulse, really.



TQAre you a plotter, a pantser or a hybrid?

Alexandra:  I fall somewhere in the middle; I tend to have a few key moments in mind from the beginning of the writing process and then I bushwhack from one to the next. I'd liken it to having a treasure map with a few Xs marked, but there's no trail and the terrain is a mystery--at the beginning, at least.



TQWhat is the most challenging thing for you about writing?

Alexandra:  When I start a new piece of writing I sometimes get annoyed at myself because the prose doesn't feel like it's coming out polished enough. That's natural of course--it's a first draft. But when I've just spent weeks/months/years fine-tuning another project, it's sometimes difficult to readjust to churning out first-draft level writing. I often have to remind myself that it's through revision that I will really get the chance to achieve what I hope to achieve.



TQWhat has influenced / influences your writing?

Alexandra:  I think my somewhat odd childhood is my biggest influence, really. I grew up in an extremely secluded mountain town where I had a lot of freedom to just be. As shy and quiet as I was, I somehow never felt insecure about my off-kilter-for-a-girl interests (video games, sci-fi and fantasy, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)--I just loved what I loved. I also had a lot of time and space to be bored, which is great for developing creativity. When you have only one TV channel and the only thing on is golf, you find other ways to entertain yourself. I think that's where the core of my writing comes from--entertaining myself through reading and writing SFF as a kid. As I've gotten older and more "worldly," my interests have expanded; I've become more aware of what other really cool literature exists out there and become more interested in beautiful prose for the sake of beautiful prose. That's why in my writing I try to meld pretty writing with exciting plots--because I love both.



TQDescribe The Last One in 140 characters or less.

Alexandra:  A woman is on a reality TV show when disaster strikes, and she thinks it's all just part of the show.



TQTell us something about The Last One that is not found in the book description.

Alexandra:  It includes Reddit-inspired message boards, which were really, really fun to write.



TQWhat inspired you to write The Last One? What appealed to you about writing a novel that deals with reality TV and an apocalyptic / post-apocalyptic setting?

Alexandra:  I've always loved apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic stories, anything involving impending doom and disaster--one of the earliest I can remember reading was Lucifer's Hammer. Growing up I also read a ton of science fiction and epic fantasy, which wasn't technically apocalyptic, but often involved a hero racing to stop evil from either taking over the world or ending the world. I'm not sure why those stories appealed to me so much, but I think some of it is rooted in the fact that I was such a mouse as a child. I wanted to be more like the brave characters featured in these stories--the more rogue-like the better. However, the books I grew up on tended to be very black-and white, good-versus-evil. That kind of dichotomy no longer appeals to me, but I still love the excitement and emotion inherent to a character's facing the possibility (or actuality) of their world being destroyed.

Regarding reality TV... I don't know. I never had any particular desire to write about reality television. When the idea for this book came to me, it was more about wanting to find a way to really mess with a character's head. I loved the idea of not only using the setup of a potentially apocalyptic event, but giving the main character reason to believe that what was going on around her might not be real--without making her blatantly insane. That's where the reality show came in. This of course meant I had to design and write a reality show, and I figured that if I was going to do that I might as well go all out and have fun with it.



TQWhat sort of research did you do for The Last One?

Alexandra:  I took several wilderness survival classes, including a fourteen-day field course with the Boulder Outdoor Survival School, a fantastic outfit in southern Utah. It was an incredibly intense and amazing experience that really helped me flavor the book with the detail and realism I wanted. While I was writing The Last One, I also liked to joke that whenever I wasted an afternoon binging on episodes of Mantracker or The Colony it was okay because I was doing "research." With those particular shows there's an argument to be made that that was true, but that argument gets mighty weak when applied to things like Masterchef...



TQIn The Last One who was the easiest character to write and why? The hardest and why?

Alexandra:  I don't know if he was the easiest to write, but I probably had the most fun with Exorcist. He's the wild-card contestant on the reality show and very happily plays the part. He does some pretty ridiculous stuff, which was really fun to write. The hardest was Zoo, the main character. Half the tale is from her first-person perspective, which I'd never written in before. There's some pretty intense psychological stuff going on with her, and it took me a long time and many tries to get that aspect of the story where I wanted it to be.



TQWhich question about The Last One do you wish someone would ask? Ask it and answer it!

Alexandra:

Q: Do you think researching and writing this book has affected how you would act in the event of a natural (or unnatural) disaster?

A: Yup! Mostly in that when it comes to the initial survival phase, I wouldn't worry about food at all. A person can function for a surprisingly long time without food, but being without shelter or water can kill you awfully quickly in the right--or more accurately, wrong--circumstances. That's why I now keep a stash of water purification tablets and drops in my house. I'm not a prepper; I don't bank on the worst coming to pass and I certainly don't want it to--but if it does, I really don't want dirty water to be what gets me.



TQGive us one or two of your favorite non-spoilery quotes from The Last One.

Alexandra:

1) The first one on the production team to die will be the editor.

2) They'll wait until I'm asleep--or nearly asleep--to strike. That's how they do it; they blur the line between reality and nightmare. They give me bad dreams, and then they make them come true.



TQWhat's next?

Alexandra:  This is my debut and it took me eleven years to get here, so right now my full attention is on sending this book out into the world. Once things with The Last One quiet down and I'm able to reclaim some mental space, I'm looking forward to settling in to work on my next book.



TQThank you for joining us at The Qwillery.

Alexandra:  My pleasure! Thanks so much for having me.





The Last One
Ballantine Books, July 12, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 304 pages

Survival is the name of the game as the line blurs between reality TV and reality itself in Alexandra Oliva’s fast-paced novel of suspense.

She wanted an adventure. She never imagined it would go this far.

It begins with a reality TV show. Twelve contestants are sent into the woods to face challenges that will test the limits of their endurance. While they are out there, something terrible happens—but how widespread is the destruction, and has it occurred naturally or is it man-made? Cut off from society, the contestants know nothing of it. When one of them—a young woman the show’s producers call Zoo—stumbles across the devastation, she can imagine only that it is part of the game.

Alone and disoriented, Zoo is heavy with doubt regarding the life—and husband—she left behind, but she refuses to quit. Staggering countless miles across unfamiliar territory, Zoo must summon all her survival skills—and learn new ones as she goes.

But as her emotional and physical reserves dwindle, she grasps that the real world might have been altered in terrifying ways—and her ability to parse the charade will be either her triumph or her undoing.

Sophisticated and provocative, The Last One is a novel that forces us to confront the role that media plays in our perception of what is real: how readily we cast our judgments, how easily we are manipulated.
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound





About Alexandra

Photo © Lynn Paul
Alexandra Oliva was born and raised in upstate New York. She has a BA in history from Yale University and an MFA in creative writing from The New School. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband. The Last One is her first novel.

Website
Twitter @ali_oliva
Facebook



Monday, July 11, 2016

The View From Monday - July 11, 2016


Happy Monday!

There are 3 debuts out this week -

The Devourers by Indra Das

Arabella of Mars (The Adventures of Arabella Ashby 1) by David D. Levine

and

The Last One by Alexandra Oliva.

Clicking on a novel's cover will take you to that novel's Amazon page.


From formerly featured DAC Authors:

New:

Time Siege (Time Salvager 2) by Wesley Chu;

The Stars Askew (Caeli-Amur 2) by Rjurik Davidson;

Outlaw (On the Bones of Gods 2) by K. Eason;

The Returned (An American Faerie Tale 3) by Bishop O'Connell is out in digital format;

Life Debt: Aftermath (Star Wars: The Aftermath Trilogy 2) by Chuck Wendig.

Clicking on a novel's cover will take you to that novel's Amazon page.


Format Change:

Twelve Kings in Sharakhai (Song of Shattered Sands 1) by Bradley Beaulieu is out in Trade Paperback;

Sorcerer to the Crown (A Sorcerer Royal Novel 1) by Zen Cho is out in Trade Paperback;

Shadow of the Void (Sundered World Trilogy 2) by Nathan Garrison is out in Mass Market Paperback;

and

A Brush of Darkness (Abby Sinclair 1) by Allison Pang is reissued in Trade Paperback.

Clicking on a novel's cover will take you to that novel's Amazon page.






July 12, 2016
TITLEAUTHORSERIES
The Razing of Prospero Dan Abnett
Aaron Dembski-Bowden
Guy Haley
Graham McNeill
Chris Wraight
SF - Horus Heresy Omnibus
Deceptions (h2tp) Kelley Armstrong CF/M/Occ/Sup - Cainsville 1
The Great Ordeal R. Scott Bakker F - The Aspect-Emperor Trilogy 3
Twelve Kings in Sharakhai (h2tp) Bradley Beaulieu F - Song of Shattered Sands 1
The Time Train Eric M. Bosarge SF/TT
The Hauntings of Hood Canal Jack Cady SupTh
Sorcerer to the Crown (h2tp) Zen Cho HistF/RR - A Sorcerer Royal Novel 1
Time Siege Wesley Chu SF/TT - Time Salvager 2
The Devourers (D) Indra Das DF/HistF
The Stars Askew Rjurik Davidson F - Caeli-Amur 2
The Real Peter Pan: J. M. Barrie and the Boy Who Inspired Him Piers Dudgeon Biography
Outlaw K. Eason F - On the Bones of Gods 2
"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman (e)(ri) Harlan Ellison SF
A Boy and His Dog (e)(ri) Harlan Ellison SF
Path of Honor (e)(ri) Diana Pharaoh Francis F - Path Trilogy 2
Path of Blood (e)(ri) Diana Pharaoh Francis F - Path Trilogy 3
Path of Fate (e)(ri) Diana Pharaoh Francis F - Path Trilogy 1
Shadow of the Void Nathan Garrison F - Sundered World Trilogy 2
The Iron Assassin (h2tp) Ed Greenwood SP
The Ghoul King Guy Haley F - The Dreaming Cities 2
Red Queen Christina Henry DF/HistF - Chronicles of Alice 2
Buried and Shadowed Alexandra Ivy
Carrie Ann Ryan
PNR - Branded Packs 2
Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell Paul Kane H
The Captive Condition Kevin P. Keating LF/Cr/H
The Devouring God James Kendley F/P - Tohru Takuda 2
Deserts of Fire: Speculative Fiction and the Modern War Douglas Lain (Ed) SF - Anthology
Arabella of Mars (D) David D. Levine AH - The Adventures of Arabella Ashby 1
It Happened One Doomsday Laurence MacNaughton UF
1995 D.A. MacQuin Sup/Occ/UF - 1995 Book 1
The Drifter Stephen A. North SF
The Returned (e) Bishop O'Connell UF - An American Faerie Tale 3
The Last One (D) Alexandra Oliva LF/Sus/SF/AP/PA
Spirit Animals E. E. Richardson UF - Ritual Crime Unit 3
The Hundred Names of Darkness Nilanjana Roy LF/F - The Wildings 2
Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights (h2tp) Salman Rushdie MR
Drowned Worlds Jonathan Strahan (Ed) SF - Anthology
Lawless and the Flowers of Sin William Sutton HistTh - Lawless 2
A Symphony of Echoes Jodi Taylor SF/TT - Chronicles of St. Mary's 2
The Big Book of Science Fiction Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (Eds) SF - Anthology
Necessity Jo Walton F - Thessaly 3
Life Debt: Aftermath Chuck Wendig SF/SO - Star Wars: The Aftermath Trilogy 2



July 13, 2016
TITLEAUTHORSERIES
Once More Into The Abyss: A Tor.Com Original (e) Dennis Danvers SF - Stan 3



July 16, 2016
TITLEAUTHORSERIES
A Brush of Darkness (ri) Allison Pang UF - Abby Sinclair 1
The Clockwork Wolf (ri) Lynn Viehl SP- Disenchanted & Co. 2



D - Debut
e - eBook
Ed - editor
h2tp - Hardcover to Trade Paperback
ri - reissue or reprint



AC - Alien Contact
AH - Alternate History
AP - Apocalyptic
CF - Contemporary Fantasy
CoA - Coming of Age
CM - Cozy Mystery
Cr - Crime
DF - Dark Fantasy
Dys - Dystopian
F - Fantasy
GB - Genre Bender
GenEng - Genetic Engineering
GH - Ghost
GN - Graphic Novel
GO - Gothic
H - Horror
HC - History and Criticism
Hist - Historical
HistF - Historical Fantasy
HistTh - Historical Thriller
HU - Humor
LF - Literary Fiction
M - Mystery
MR - Magical Realism
Noir - Noir
Occ - Occult
P - Paranormal
PA - Post Apocalyptic
PM - Paranormal Mystery
PNR - Paranormal Romance
Pol - Political
PsyTh - Psychological Thriller
R - Romance
RR - Regency Romance
SF - Science Fiction
SH - Superheroes
SO - Space Opera
SP - Steampunk
SpecFic - Speculative Fiction
Sup - Supernatural
SupTh - Supernatural Thriller
Sus - Suspense
TechTh - Technological Thriller
Th - Thriller
TT - Time Travel
UF - Urban Fantasy
Z - Zombies

Note: Not all of these genres are represented in the book above.

Friday, July 01, 2016

2016 Debut Author Challenge - July Debuts





There are 15 debut novels for July including Science Fiction, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Horror, and more.

Please note that we use the publisher's publication date in the United States, not copyright dates or non-US publication dates.

The June debut authors and their novels are listed in alphabetical order by author (not book title or publication date). Take a good look at the covers. Voting for your favorite July cover for the 2016 Debut Author Challenge Cover Wars will take place starting on July 15, 2016.

If you are participating as a reader in the Challenge, please let us know in the comments what you are thinking of reading or email us at "DAC . TheQwillery @ gmail . com" (remove the spaces and quotation marks). Please note that we list all debuts for the month (of which we are aware), but not all of these authors will be 2016 Debut Author Challenge featured authors. However, any of these novels may be read by Challenge readers to meet the goal for July 2016 The list is correct as of the day posted.




Nina Allan

The Race
Titan Books, July 19, 2016
Trade Paperback and eBook, 400 pages

A child is kidnapped with consequences that extend across worlds… A writer reaches into the past to discover the truth about a possible murder… Far away a young woman prepares for her mysterious future…

In a future scarred by fracking and ecological collapse, Jenna Hoolman’s world is dominated by illegal smartdog racing: greyhounds genetically modified with human DNA. When her young niece goes missing that world implodes... Christy’s life is dominated by fear of her brother, a man she knows capable of monstrous acts and suspects of hiding even darker ones. Desperate to learn the truth she contacts Alex, who has his own demons to fight… And Maree, a young woman undertaking a journey that will change her world forever.
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
iBooks : Kobo




Ezekiel Boone

The Hatching
The Hatching Series 1
Atria/Emily Bestler Book, July 5, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 352 pages

“An apocalyptic extravaganza of doom and heroism…addictive.” —Publishers Weekly

“It’s been too long since someone reminded us that spiders are not just to be feared, but also may well spell doom for mankind. Fortunately, Ezekiel Boone has upped the ante on arachnophobia. This is a fresh take on classic horror, thoroughly enjoyable and guaranteed to leave your skin crawling.” —Michael Koryta, New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Wish Me Dead

An astonishingly inventive and terrifying debut novel about the emergence of an ancient species, dormant for over a thousand years, and now on the march.

Deep in the jungle of Peru, where so much remains unknown, a black, skittering mass devours an American tourist whole. Thousands of miles away, an FBI agent investigates a fatal plane crash in Minneapolis and makes a gruesome discovery. Unusual seismic patterns register in a Kanpur, India earthquake lab, confounding the scientists there. During the same week, the Chinese government “accidentally” drops a nuclear bomb in an isolated region of its own country. As these incidents begin to sweep the globe, a mysterious package from South America arrives at a Washington, D.C. laboratory. Something wants out.

The world is on the brink of an apocalyptic disaster. An ancient species, long dormant, is now very much awake.
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
GooglePlay : iBooks : Kobo




Bill Broun

Night of the Animals
Ecco, July 5, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 560 pages

An imaginative debut that brilliantly recasts the tale of Noah’s Ark as a story of fate and family set in the near future in London

Over the course of a single night in 2052, a homeless man named Cuthbert Handley sets out on an astonishing quest: to release the animals of the London Zoo. When he was a young boy, Cuthbert’s grandmother told him he inherited a magical ability to communicate with the animal world—a gift she called the Wonderments. Ever since his older brother’s death in childhood, Cuthbert has heard voices. These maddening whispers must be the Wonderments, he believes, and recently they have promised to reunite him with his lost brother and bring about the coming of a Lord of Animals . . . if he fulfills this curious request.

Cuthbert flickers in and out of awareness throughout his desperate pursuit. But his grand plan is not the only thing that threatens to disturb the collective unease of the city. Around him is greater turmoil, as the rest of the world anxiously anticipates the rise of a suicide cult set on destroying the world’s animals along with themselves. Meanwhile, Cuthbert doggedly roams the zoo, cutting open the enclosures, while pressing the animals for information about his brother.

Just as this unlikely yet loveable hero begins to release the animals, the cult’s members flood the city’s streets. Has Cuthbert succeeded in harnessing the power of the Wonderments, or has he only added to the chaos—and sealed these innocent animals’ fates? Night of the Animals is an enchanting and inventive tale that explores the boundaries of reality, the ghosts of love and trauma, and the power of redemption.
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
Google Play : iBooks : Kobo




Indra Das

The Devourers
Del Rey, July 12, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 360 pages

For readers of Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, China Miéville, and David Mitchell comes a striking debut novel by a storyteller of keen insight and captivating imagination.

On a cool evening in Kolkata, India, beneath a full moon, as the whirling rhythms of traveling musicians fill the night, college professor Alok encounters a mysterious stranger with a bizarre confession and an extraordinary story. Tantalized by the man’s unfinished tale, Alok will do anything to hear its completion. So Alok agrees, at the stranger’s behest, to transcribe a collection of battered notebooks, weathered parchments, and once-living skins.

From these documents spills the chronicle of a race of people at once more than human yet kin to beasts, ruled by instincts and desires blood-deep and ages-old. The tale features a rough wanderer in seventeenth-century Mughal India who finds himself irrevocably drawn to a defiant woman—and destined to be torn asunder by two clashing worlds. With every passing chapter of beauty and brutality, Alok’s interest in the stranger grows and evolves into something darker and more urgent.

Shifting dreamlike between present and past with intoxicating language, visceral action, compelling characters, and stark emotion, The Devourers offers a reading experience quite unlike any other novel.
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound




Jennifer David Hesse

Midsummer Night's Mischief
A Wiccan Wheel Mystery 1
Kensington, July 26, 2016
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 352 pages

As the Summer Solstice approaches in idyllic Edindale, Illinois, attorney Keli Milanni isn't feeling the magic. She's about to land in a cauldron of hot water at work. Good thing she has her private practice to fall back on--as a Wiccan. She'll just have to summon her inner Goddess and set the world to rights. . .

Midsummer Eve is meant for gratitude and celebration, but Keli is not in her typically upbeat mood. The family of a recently deceased client is blaming her for the loss of a Shakespearean heirloom worth millions, and Keli's career may be on the line. With both a Renaissance Faire and a literary convention in town, Edindale is rife with suspicious characters, and the intrepid attorney decides to tap into her unique skills to crack the case. . .

But Keli weaves a tangled web when her investigation brings her up-close and personal with her suspects--including sexy Wes Callahan, her client's grandson. The tattooed bartender could be the man she's been looking for in more ways than one. As the sun sets on the mystical holiday, Keli will need just a touch of the divine to ferret out the real villain and return Edindale, and her heart, to a state of perfect harmony. . ..
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
Google Play : iBooks : Kobo




David D. Levine

Arabella of Mars
The Adventures of Arabella Ashby 1
Tor Books, July 12, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 352 pages

Since Newton witnessed a bubble rising from his bathtub, mankind has sought the stars. When William III of England commissioned Capt. William Kidd to command the first expedition to Mars in the late 1600s, he proved that space travel was both possible and profitable.

Now, one century later, a plantation in a flourishing British colony on Mars is home to Arabella Ashby, a young woman who is perfectly content growing up in the untamed frontier. But days spent working on complex automata with her father or stalking her brother Michael with her Martian nanny is not the proper behavior of an English lady. That is something her mother plans to remedy with a move to an exotic world Arabella has never seen: London, England.

However, when events transpire that threaten her home on Mars, Arabella decides that sometimes doing the right thing is far more important than behaving as expected. She disguises herself as a boy and joins the crew of the Diana, a ship serving the Mars Trading Company, where she meets a mysterious captain who is intrigued by her knack with clockwork creations. Now Arabella just has to weather the naval war currently raging between Britain and France, learn how to sail, and deal with a mutinous crew…if she hopes to save her family remaining on Mars.

Arabella of Mars, the debut novel by Hugo-winning author David D. Levine offers adventure, romance, political intrigue, and Napoleon in space!
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
Google Play : iBooks : Kobo




Beth Lewis

The Wolf Road
Crown, July 5, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 368 pages

ELKA BARELY REMEMBERS a time before she knew Trapper. She was just seven years old, wandering lost and hungry in the wilderness, when the solitary hunter took her in. In the years since then, he’s taught her how to survive in this desolate land where civilization has been destroyed and men are at the mercy of the elements and each other.

But the man Elka thought she knew has been harboring a terrible secret. He’s a killer. A monster. And now that Elka knows the truth, she may be his next victim.

Armed with nothing but her knife and the hard lessons Trapper’s drilled into her, Elka flees into the frozen north in search of her real parents. But judging by the trail of blood dogging her footsteps, she hasn’t left Trapper behind—and he won’t be letting his little girl go without a fight. If she’s going to survive, Elka will have to turn and confront not just him, but the truth about the dark road she’s been set on.

The Wolf Road is an intimate cat-and-mouse tale of revenge and redemption, played out against a vast, unforgiving landscape—told by an indomitable young heroine fighting to escape her past and rejoin humanity.
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound




Tiffany McDaniel

The Summer That Melted Everything
St. Martin's Press, July 26, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 320 pages

Fielding Bliss has never forgotten the summer of 1984: the year a heat wave scorched Breathed, Ohio. The year he became friends with the devil.

Sal seems to appear out of nowhere - a bruised and tattered thirteen-year-old boy claiming to be the devil himself answering an invitation. Fielding Bliss, the son of a local prosecutor, brings him home where he's welcomed into the Bliss family, assuming he's a runaway from a nearby farm town.

When word spreads that the devil has come to Breathed, not everyone is happy to welcome this self-proclaimed fallen angel. Murmurs follow him and tensions rise, along with the temperatures as an unbearable heat wave rolls into town right along with him. As strange accidents start to occur, riled by the feverish heat, some in the town start to believe that Sal is exactly who he claims to be. While the Bliss family wrestles with their own personal demons, a fanatic drives the town to the brink of a catastrophe that will change this sleepy Ohio backwater forever.
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound




K.S. Merbeth

Bite
Orbit, July 26, 2016
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 416 pages

Kid is trying to survive in a world gone mad.

Hungry, thirsty and alone in a desert wasteland, she's picked up on the side of the road by Wolf, Dolly, Tank and Pretty Boy - outlaws with big reputations and even bigger guns.

But as they journey across the wild together, Kid learns that her newfound crew may not be the heroes she was hoping for. And in a world that's lost its humanity, everyone has a bit of monster within them...
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
Google Play : iBooks : Kobo




Alexandra Oliva

The Last One
Ballantine Books, July 12, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 304 pages

Survival is the name of the game as the line blurs between reality TV and reality itself in Alexandra Oliva’s fast-paced novel of suspense.

She wanted an adventure. She never imagined it would go this far.

It begins with a reality TV show. Twelve contestants are sent into the woods to face challenges that will test the limits of their endurance. While they are out there, something terrible happens—but how widespread is the destruction, and has it occurred naturally or is it man-made? Cut off from society, the contestants know nothing of it. When one of them—a young woman the show’s producers call Zoo—stumbles across the devastation, she can imagine only that it is part of the game.

Alone and disoriented, Zoo is heavy with doubt regarding the life—and husband—she left behind, but she refuses to quit. Staggering countless miles across unfamiliar territory, Zoo must summon all her survival skills—and learn new ones as she goes.

But as her emotional and physical reserves dwindle, she grasps that the real world might have been altered in terrifying ways—and her ability to parse the charade will be either her triumph or her undoing.

Sophisticated and provocative, The Last One is a novel that forces us to confront the role that media plays in our perception of what is real: how readily we cast our judgments, how easily we are manipulated.
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound




Paige Orwin

The Interminables
Angry Robot, July 5, 2016
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 416 pages

It’s 2020, and a magical cataclysm has shattered reality as we know it. Now a wizard’s cabal is running the East Coast of the US, keeping a semblance of peace.

Their most powerful agents, Edmund and Istvan — the former a nearly immortal 1940s-era mystery man, the latter, well, a ghost — have been assigned to hunt down an arms smuggling ring that could blow up Massachusetts.

Turns out the mission’s more complicated than it seemed. They discover a shadow war that’s been waged since the world ended, and, even worse, they find out that their own friendship has always been more complicated than they thought. To get out of this alive, they’ll need to get over their feelings, their memories, and the threat of a monstrous foe who’s getting ready to commit mass murder…

File Under: Fantasy [ After the Cataclysm / Thief and Surgeon / Your Best Nightmare / Haunting the Ghost ]
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Stephen S. Power

The Dragon Round
Simon 451 / Simon & Schuster, July 19, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 336 pages

A swashbuckling adventure with a dark side for fans of George R.R. Martin and Naomi Novik—when a ship captain is stranded on a deserted island by his mutinous crew, he finds a baby dragon that just might be the key to his salvation…and his revenge.

He only wanted justice. Instead he got revenge.

Jeryon has been the captain of the Comber for over a decade. He knows the rules. He likes the rules. But not everyone on his ship agrees. After a monstrous dragon attacks the galley, the surviving crewmembers decide to take the ship for themselves and give Jeryon and his self-righteous apothecary “the captain’s chance”: a small boat with no rudder, no sails, and nothing but the clothes on his back to survive on the open sea.

Fighting for their lives against the elements, Jeryon and his companion land on an island that isn’t as deserted as they originally thought. They find a baby dragon that, if trained, could be their way home. But as Jeryon and the dragon grow closer, the captain begins to realize that even if he makes it off the island, his old life won't be waiting for him and in order get justice, he’ll have to take it for himself.

From a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and speculative short story writer, The Dragon Round combines a rich world, desperate characters, and gorgeous, literary fiction into a timeless tale of revenge. 
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Michelle Pretorius

The Monster's Daughter
Melville House, July 19, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 464 pages

Somewhere on the South African veld, 1901: At the height of the Boer War, a doctor at a British concentration camp conducts a series of grim experiments on Boer prisoners. His work ends in chaos, but two children survive: a boy named Benjamin and a girl named Tessa . . .

One hundred years later, a disgraced young police constable is reassigned to the sleepy South African town of Unie, where she makes a terrifying discovery: the body of a young woman, burned beyond recognition.

The crime soon leads her into her country’s violent past—a past that includes her father, a high-ranking police official under the apartheid regime, and the children left behind in that long-ago concentration camp.

Michelle Pretorius’s epic debut weaves present and past together into a hugely suspenseful, masterfully plotted thriller. With an explosive conclusion, The Monster’s Daughter marks the emergence of a thrilling new writer.
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Hayley Stone

Machinations
Machinations 1
Hydra, July 26, 2016
eBook, 374 pages

Perfect for fans of Robopocalypse, this action-packed science-fiction debut introduces a chilling future and an unforgettable heroine with a powerful role to play in the battle for humanity’s survival.

The machines have risen, but not out of malice. They were simply following a command: to stop the endless wars that have plagued the world throughout history. Their solution was perfectly logical. To end the fighting, they decided to end the human race.

A potent symbol of the resistance, Rhona Long has served on the front lines of the conflict since the first Machinations began—until she is killed during a rescue mission gone wrong. Now Rhona awakens to find herself transported to a new body, complete with her DNA, her personality, even her memories. She is a clone . . . of herself.

Trapped in the shadow of the life she once knew, the reincarnated Rhona must find her place among old friends and newfound enemies—and quickly. For the machines are inching closer to exterminating humans for good. And only Rhona, whoever she is now, can save them.
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Jen Williams

The Copper Promise
Copper Cat 1
Angry Robot, July 5, 2016
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 448 pages

There are some tall stories about the caverns beneath the Citadel - about magic and mages and monsters and gods.

Wydrin of Crosshaven has heard them all, but she’s spent long enough trawling caverns and taverns with her companion Sir Sebastian to learn that there’s no money to be made in chasing rumours.
But then a crippled nobleman with a dead man’s name offers them a job: exploring the Citadel’s darkest depths. It sounds like just another quest with gold and adventure … if they’re lucky, they might even have a tale of their own to tell once it’s over.

These reckless adventurers will soon learn that sometimes there is truth in rumour. Sometimes a story can save your life.

File Under: Fantasy
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Thursday, June 30, 2016

2016 Debut Author Challenge Update - The Last One by Alexandra Oliva




The Qwillery is pleased to announce the newest featured author for the 2016 Debut Author Challenge.


Alexandra Oliva

The Last One
Ballantine Books, July 12, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 304 pages

Survival is the name of the game as the line blurs between reality TV and reality itself in Alexandra Oliva’s fast-paced novel of suspense.

She wanted an adventure. She never imagined it would go this far.

It begins with a reality TV show. Twelve contestants are sent into the woods to face challenges that will test the limits of their endurance. While they are out there, something terrible happens—but how widespread is the destruction, and has it occurred naturally or is it man-made? Cut off from society, the contestants know nothing of it. When one of them—a young woman the show’s producers call Zoo—stumbles across the devastation, she can imagine only that it is part of the game.

Alone and disoriented, Zoo is heavy with doubt regarding the life—and husband—she left behind, but she refuses to quit. Staggering countless miles across unfamiliar territory, Zoo must summon all her survival skills—and learn new ones as she goes.

But as her emotional and physical reserves dwindle, she grasps that the real world might have been altered in terrifying ways—and her ability to parse the charade will be either her triumph or her undoing.

Sophisticated and provocative, The Last One is a novel that forces us to confront the role that media plays in our perception of what is real: how readily we cast our judgments, how easily we are manipulated.
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