Christmas is next week! My tree is standing in the corner, decorated and blinking with lights. My cat is wearing his Christmas scarf (begrudgingly) and everywhere I could find a spot, Christmas lights are twinkling away. I love this time of year! But it’s Wednesday, which means I need to put the Christmas preparations aside and look at the newest releases in the fantasy genre! Other new releases of December 2017 can be found by genre right here on Goodreads.
- Year One by Nora Roberts (Chronicles of The One #1)
Publication date: December 5th, 2017
It began on New Year’s Eve. The sickness came on suddenly and spread quickly. The fear spread even faster. Within weeks, everything people counted on began to fail them. The electrical grid sputtered; law and government collapsed—and more than half of the world’s population was decimated. Where there had been order, there was now chaos. And as the power of science and technology receded, magic rose up in its place. Some of it is good, like the witchcraft worked by Lana Bingham, practising in the loft apartment she shares with her lover, Max. Some of it is unimaginably evil, and it can lurk anywhere, around a corner, in fetid tunnels beneath the river—or in the ones you know and love the most. As word spreads that neither the immune nor the gifted are safe from the authorities who patrol the ravaged streets, and with nothing left to count on but each other, Lana and Max make their way out of a wrecked New York City. At the same time, other travellers are heading west too, into a new frontier. Chuck, a tech genius trying to hack his way through a world gone offline. Arlys, a journalist who has lost her audience but uses pen and paper to record the truth. Fred, her young colleague, possessed of burgeoning abilities and an optimism that seems out of place in this bleak landscape. And Rachel and Jonah, a resourceful doctor and a paramedic who fend off despair with their determination to keep a young mother and three infants in their care alive. In a world of survivors where every stranger encountered could be either a savage or a saviour, none of them knows exactly where they are heading, or why. But a purpose awaits them that will shape their lives and the lives of all those who remain. The end has come. The beginning comes next. - The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden (Winternight Trilogy #2)
Publication date: December 5th, 2017
The magical adventure begun in The Bear and the Nightingale continues as brave Vasya, now a young woman, is forced to choose between marriage or life in a convent and instead flees her home—but soon finds herself called upon to help defend the city of Moscow when it comes under siege. Orphaned and cast out as a witch by her village, Vasya’s options are few: resign herself to life in a convent, or allow her older sister to make her a match with a Moscovite prince. Both doom her to life in a tower, cut off from the vast world she longs to explore. So instead she chooses adventure, disguising herself as a boy and riding her horse into the woods. When a battle with some bandits who have been terrorizing the countryside earns her the admiration of the Grand Prince of Moscow, she must carefully guard the secret of her gender to remain in his good graces—even as she realizes his kingdom is under threat from mysterious forces only she will be able to stop. - Glass Town by Steven Savile
Publication date: December 5th, 2017
In 1926, two brothers both loved Eleanor Raines, a promising young actress from the East End of London. But, along with Seth Lockwood, she disappeared, never to be seen again. Isaiah, Seth’s younger brother, refused to accept that she was just gone. It has been seventy years since and the brothers are long dead. But now their dark, twisted secret, threatens to tear the city apart. Seth made a bargain with Damiola, an illusionist, to make a life-size version of his most famous trick, and hide away part of London to act as a prison out of sync with our time, where one year passes as one hundred. That illusion is Glass Town. And now its walls are failing. Savile brings out the magic in the everyday. Glass Town is full of gritty urban landscapes, realistic characters, conflict, secrets, betrayals, magic, and mystery. - Flame in the Dark by Faith Hunter (Soulwood #3)
Publication date: December 5th, 2017
Nell Ingram has always known she was different. Since she was a child, she’s been able to feel and channel ancient powers from deep within the earth. When she met Jane Yellowrock, her entire life changed, and she was recruited into PsyLED—the Homeland Security division that polices paranormals. But now her newly formed unit is about to take on its toughest case yet. A powerful senator barely survives an assassination attempt that leaves many others dead—and the house he was visiting burns to the ground. Invisible to security cameras, the assassin literally disappears, and Nell’s team is called in. As they track a killer they know is more—or less—than human, they unravel a web of dark intrigue and malevolent motives that tests them to their limits and beyond. - The Dreamer’s Song by Lynn Kurland (Nine Kingdoms #11)
Publication date: December 5th, 2017
Acair of Ceangail, still dodging his reputation as notorious black mage, has undertaken the ultimate quest: ridding the world of a mysterious, terrible dark magic while using no magic of his own. But he never bargained for three maddening complications: attempting to safeguard his beautiful but horse-obsessed companion, Léirsinn; trying not to slay a profoundly irritating prince of Neroche; and slipping in and out of places he knows will spell his doom if he’s caught. Léirsinn of Sàraichte simply wants to do what needs to be done—find the makers of various spells and rescue her grandfather. But walking side-by-side with Acair brings a terrible revelation about the magic she needs, and what its price will exact from her soul. Together, Acair and Léirsinn face danger they never could have imagined, culminating in choices that will alter them and the history of the Nine Kingdoms.
As I was writing this article, I was imagining talking about how Nora Roberts has a new book coming out and how I love her so much that everything she reads immediately ends up on my to-read list. And how an eleventh book in a series is just way too much. How the fourth book is part of another series that I won’t read until it’s finished but it does look and sound promising. And how I love Doctor Who and Torchwood and can’t wait to find out what Savile wrote about in his first novel! But then I read the description of the second book and I nearly fell off my chair. The Bear and the Nightingale has a sequel? I didn’t even know it was part of a trilogy! I bought this book at the Boekenbeurs earlier this year and only just finished it. I absolutely loved it and am planning to review it soon. For me, the story actually ended quite well. So now I’m super excited to see what the second book has in store! Definitely on my to-be-read list! Yay!
Happy reading,
Loes M.