New Releases Oct. 8-15 and Reader's Choice C*ntest

Was last week’s list insane, or what? Take a breather this week. It’s a short list, although there’s at least one extremely important release *coughs* on the 9^th.

What do you want to read? As always, leave a comment telling me the book you’d most like to win (or the first in its series), and maybe random.org will make your wishes come true. International? Of course! As long as Book Depository delivers to your country, please enter.

Here we go….

Absolution (Penton Vampire Legacy #2), by Susannah Sandlin (October 9, Montlake Romance)

With the vampire world on the brink of civil war over the scarcity of untainted human blood, battle lines are being drawn between the once peaceful vampire and human enclave of Penton, Alabama, and the powerful Vampire Tribunal. When the descendant of a powerful shaman is sent to bring Penton’s second-in-command back under Tribunal control, will Glory Cummings help Mirren Kincaid find absolution for his ruthless past, or will she turn him back into the Tribunal’s killing machine? It’s a town under siege, a powerful warrior in a battle with his past, and the power of one woman who can make the earth move—literally—as the Penton Legacy continues.

Ghost Town, by Jason Hawes, Grant Wilson and Tim Waggoner (October 9, Gallery Books)

When Amber, Drew, and Trevor are invited to a paranormal conference in the most haunted town in America, they confront a murderous ghost called the Dark Lady and her human servant: Amber’s abusive ex-boyfriend Mitch. The three friends must stop the Dark Lady before she destroys the entire town, and they’ll have the help of a surprising and spooky ally.

Into the Woods: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond (The Hollows), by Kim Harrison (October 9, Harper Voyager)

Fans have fallen for bounty hunter and witch Rachel Morgan. Through banishment and road trips, deadly supernatural duels and lost loves, they have avidly cheered her on, eagerly awaiting the next installment in her adventures. This collection of short works, published together in one volume for the first time, adds a whole new dimension to the Hollows saga, featuring tales involving Rachel and her coterie of friends and enemies. Includes a new novella and novelettes, as well as previously published short stories.

The Unfailing Light (Katerina Trilogy #2), by Robin Bridges(October 9, Delacorte)

Young Adult.  Having had no choice but to use her power has a necromancer to save Russia from dark forces, Katerina Alexandrovna, Duchess of Oldenburg, now wants to forget that she ever used her special powers. She’s about to set off to pursue her lifelong dream of attending medical school when she discovers that Russia’s arch nemesis, who she thought she’d destroyed—is still alive. So on imperial orders, Katerina remains at her old finishing school. She’ll be safe there, because the empress has cast a potent spell to protect it against the vampires and revenants who are bent on toppling the tsar and using Katerina for their own gains. But to Katerina’s horror, the spell unleashes a vengeful ghost within the school, a ghost more dangerous than any creature trying to get in.

Valkyrie Rising, by Ingrid Paulson (October 9, HarperTeen)

Young Adult. Ellie knows what to expect when she visits her grandmother: a tranquil fishing village and long, slow summer days. And maybe she’ll finally get out from under the shadow of her way-too-perfect big brother, Graham, while she’s there. What Ellie doesn’t anticipate is Graham’s infuriating best friend, Tuck, tagging along for the trip. Nor did she imagine boys going missing amid rumors of impossible kidnappings. Least of all does she expect something powerful and ancient to awaken in her and that strange whispers would urge Ellie to claim her place among mythological warriors. When Graham vanishes, it’s up to Ellie and Tuck to uncover the truth about all the disappearances and thwart the nefarious plan behind them.

Velveteen (Velveteen #1), by Daniel Marks (October 9, Delacorte)

Young Adult. At 16, Velveteen Monroe was kidnapped and murdered by a madman named Bonesaw. But that’s not the problem. The problem is she landed in purgatory. And while it’s not a fiery inferno, it’s certainly no heaven. Velveteen aches to deliver the bloody punishment her killer deserves. And she’s figured out just how to do it. She’ll haunt him for the rest of his days. Crossing the divide between the living and the dead has devastating consequences. Velveteen’s obsessive haunting cracks the foundations of purgatory and jeopardizes her soul. Fate has just given her reason to stick around: an unreasonably hot and off-limits coworker. Velveteen can’t help herself when it comes to breaking rules, or getting revenge. And she just might be angry enough to take everyone down with her.

After (Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia), edited byEllen Datlow and Terri Windling (October 9, Hyperion)

If the third World War, new Ice Age, Rapture, alien invasion, clamp-down, meteor, or something else entirely hit today, what would tomorrow look like? Some of the biggest names in YA and adult literature answer that question in this short story anthology. Contributing authors include: Jeffrey Ford, Richard Bowes, Gregory Maguire, Steven Gould, Nalo Hopkinson, Jane Yolen, Carolyn Dunn, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Garth Nix, Cecil Castellucci, Genevieve Valentine, Carrie Ryan, Carol Emshwiller, Beth Revis, Matthew Kressel, Susan Beth Pfeffer, Sarah Rees, Brennan and N.K. Jemisin.  

Romeo Redeemed (Juliet Immortal #2), by Stacey Jay (October 9, Delacorte)

Young Adult. Cursed to live out eternity in his rotted corpse, Romeo is given the chance to redeem himself by traveling back in time to save the life of Ariel Dragland. Ariel is important to both the evil Mercenaries and the love-promoting Ambassadors and holds the fate of the world in her hands. Romeo must win her heart and make her believe in love, turning her away from her darker potential before his work is discovered by the Mercenaries. While his seduction begins as yet another lie, it soon becomes his only truth. Romeo vows to protect Ariel from harm, and do whatever it takes to win her heart and soul. But when Ariel is led to believe his love is a deception, she becomes vulnerable to Mercenary manipulation, and her own inner darkness may ultimately rip them apart.

The Fire Chronicle (The Books of Beginning #2), by John Stephens (October 9, Knopf Books)

Young Adult. Kate, Michael, and Emma long to continue the hunt for their missing parents. But they themselves are now in great danger, and so the wizard Stanislaus Pym hides the children at the Edgar Allan Poe Home for Hopeless and Incorrigible Orphans. There they will be safe. How wrong he is. The children are soon discovered by their enemies, and a frantic chase sends Kate a hundred years into the past. Searching for a way back to her brother and sister, she meets a mysterious boy whose fate is intricately, and dangerously, tied to her own. Michael and Emma have set off to find the second of the Books of Beginning. A series of clues leads them into a hidden world. Will Michael and Emma find the legendary book of fire, and master its powers, before Kate is lost to them forever?

Janus, by John Park (October 9, ChiZine)

In the near future, Jon Grebbel arrives on the colony world of Janus, and finds himself mysteriously without memory of his life on Earth. It seems that the journey has caused severe memory loss in many of Janus’s colonists. While Grebbel wants to start his new life, he also wants his memory back, and starts treatments to restore his past. But they only leave him angry and disturbed and he begins to doubt the glimpses of the past the treatments reveal. Grebbel meets Elinda, an earlier arrival, whose lover, Barbara, vanished and then was found lying in the woods, apparently brain-damaged. Elinda has also lost her memories of Earth, but unlike him she has abandoned the effort to recover them. Now their meeting brings each of them a glimpse of an experience they shared back on Earth. Investigating Barbara’s fate and their own, the two find their love and their search for justice turning toward bitter self-discovery and revenge, even as they begin to uncover the darkness at the heart of their world.

No Man’s World: The Alleyman, by Pat Kelleher (October 9, Abaddon)

Four months after the Pennine Fusiliers vanished from the Somme, they are still stranded on the alien world. As Lieutenant Everson tries to discover the true intentions of their alien prisoner, he finds he must quell the unrest within his own ranks while helping foment insurrection among the alien Khungarrii. Beyond the trenches, Lance Corporal Atkins and his Black Hand gang are reunited with the ironclad tank, Ivanhoe, and its crew. On the trail of Jeffries, the diabolist they hold responsible for their predicament, they are forced to face the obscene horrors that lie within the massive Croatoan Crater. Above it all, Lieutenant Tulliver of the Royal Flying Corp, soars free of the confines of alien gravity. However, to uncover the truth he must join forces with an unsuspected ally.

The Hydrogen Sonata (Culture #10), by Iain M. Banks (October 9, Orbit)

The Gzilt helped set up the Culture ten thousand years earlier and were very nearly one of its founding societies, deciding not to join only at the last moment. Now they’ve made the collective decision to follow the well-trodden path of millions of other civilizations; they are going to Sublime, elevating themselves to a new and almost infinitely more rich and complex existence. Amid preparations, the Regimental High Command is destroyed. Lieutenant Commander Vyr Cossont appears to have been involved, and she is now wanted. Aided only by an ancient android and a suspicious Culture avatar, Cossont must complete her last mission. She must find the oldest person in the Culture, a man over nine thousand years old, who might have some idea what really happened all that time ago.

Freakling (Freakling #1), by Lana Krumwiede (October 9, Candlewick)

Young Adult. In twelve-year-old Taemon’s city, everyone has a power called psi, the ability to move and manipulate objects with their minds. When Taemon loses his psi in a traumatic accident, he must hide his lack of power. But a humiliating incident at a sports tournament exposes his disability, and Taemon is exiled to the powerless colony. The “dud farm” is not what Taemon expected. Taemon adjusts to his new life quickly. But gradually he discovers that for all its openness, there are mysteries at the colony, too, dangerous secrets that would give unchecked power to psi wielders if discovered.

Iron-Hearted Violet, by Kelly Barnhill (October 9, Little, Brown Books)

Young Adult. In most fairy tales, princesses are beautiful, dragons are terrifying, and stories are harmless. This isn’t most fairy tales. Princess Violet is plain, reckless, and quite possibly too clever for her own good. Particularly when it comes to telling stories. One day she and her best friend, Demetrius, stumble upon a hidden room and find a peculiar book. Aforbidden book. It tells a story of an evil being, called the Nybbas, imprisoned in their world. The story cannot be true, not really. But then the whispers start. Violet and Demetrius, along with an ancient, scarred dragon, may hold the key to the Nybbas’s triumph, or its demise. It all depends on how they tell the story. After all, stories make their own rules.

Whew!

Now…what do you want to read? Leave a comment and tell me, and I’ll draw one name to win his or her choice. International, as always. And if the book is in a series you haven’t started, you can always pick the first one in the series instead. If there’s a new release in another genre this week you’d like to read, leave that in your comment. If I’ve missed a speculative fiction release, leave it in the comments and I’ll add it in—it’s eligible for giveaway.

As always, four entries possible: +1 for comment to tell me what book (any book) you want, +1 for blog follow, +1 for Twitter follow @Suzanne_Johnson, and +1 for a Tweet or RT about the contest. This contest is international to any place Book Depository ships. Contests end at midnight CDT U.S. on Saturday, and winners are announced on Sunday’s blog. It’s the responsibility of the winner to contact me with their mailing info. Books unclaimed after a month will go into a general giveaway pile.

Now….go!