2011 Debut Author Challenge - May Debut Authors

Here are the debut authors and their novels for May 2011. Pick one or more and let us know in the comments which one(s) you'll be reading.


Awaken the Highland Warrior
Author:  Anita Clenney
Series:  Highland Warrior 1
Format:  Mass Market Paperback, 448 pages
Publisher:  Sourcebooks (May 1, 2011)
Price:  $6.99
Language:  English
Genre:  Paranormal Romance
ISBN:  978-1402251238

Historian Bree Kirkland has always been in love with the past, but when she accidentally wakes an ancient Scottish warrior who's spent the past 150 years sleeping in her backyard, her present is suddenly fraught with danger. Faelan has awakened from the time vault ravenous--in more ways than one. He grieves for his lost family, wondering who sent the woman to wake him. If she's a demon, Faelan will have to kill her. If she's innocent, she's unleashed the gates of hell in her backyard. Either way they must rely on each other to save their future.









Chosen by Blood
Author:  Virna dePaul
Series:   Para-Ops 1
Format:  Mass Market Paperback, 384 pages
Publisher:  Berkley (May 3, 2011)
Price:  $7.99
Language:  English
Genre:  Paranormal Romance
ISBN:  978-0425241547

Five years after the Second Civil War ends, humans and otherborn- humanlike creatures with superhuman DNA-still struggle for peace. To ensure the continued rights of both, the FBI forms a Para-Ops team with a unique set of skills.


















Hounded
Author:  Kevin Hearne
Series:  The Iron Druid Chronicles 1
Format:  Mass Market Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher:  Del Rey (May 3, 2011)
Price:  $7.99
Language:  English
Genre:  Urban Fantasy
ISBN:  978-0-345-52247-4

Atticus O’Sullivan, last of the Druids, lives peacefully in Arizona, running an occult bookshop and shape-shifting in his spare time to hunt with his Irish wolfhound. His neighbors and customers think that this handsome, tattooed Irish dude is about twenty-one years old—when in actuality, he’s twenty-one centuries old. Not to mention: He draws his power from the earth, possesses a sharp wit, and wields an even sharper magical sword known as Fragarach, the Answerer.

Unfortunately, a very angry Celtic god wants that sword, and he’s hounded Atticus for centuries. Now the determined deity has tracked him down, and Atticus will need all his power—plus the help of a seductive goddess of death, his vampire and werewolf team of attorneys, a sexy bartender possessed by a Hindu witch, and some good old-fashioned luck of the Irish—to kick some Celtic arse and deliver himself from evil.


Mind Storm
Author:  K.M. Ruiz
Series:  Strykers Syndicate 1
Format:  Hardcover, 304 pages
Publisher:  Thomas Dunne Books  (May 10, 2011)
Price:  $24.99
Language:  English
Genre:  Science Fiction
ISBN:  978-0-312-67317-8

The first in an exciting new sci-fi series that’s being described as Blade Runner meets X-Men

Two hundred and fifty years after the world was nearly wiped out by nuclear war, what’s left of society fights over the scraps of the Earth as the rich and powerful plan to ascend in secret to another planet. But the deadly new breed of humanity that the rulers have enslaved to protect their interests are about to change everything. 

K.M. Ruiz’s Mind Storm is the rip-roaring tale of Threnody Corwin, a “psion” with the ability to channel electricity like lightning through anything she touches. As a solider-slave for the human government, Threnody is recruited by an unknown enemy: the scion of Earth’s most powerful (and supposedly human) family, the Serca Syndicate. But Lucas Serca is far from human and he intends to make Threnody and her fellow psions meet their destiny, no matter how many people he has to kill to do it.  

Mind Storm is the first of two books chronicling the fight for survival by the psions and other “gene-trash” humans, before they’re killed by the racist world government, or left to die on a crumbling Earth.


America Pacifica
Author:  Anna North
Series: NA
Format:  Hardcover, 304 pages
Publisher:  Reagan Arthur Books (May 18, 2011)
Price:  $24.99
Language:  English
Genre:  Science Fiction
ISBN:  978-0316105125

Eighteen-year-old Darcy lives on the island of America Pacifica--one of the last places on earth that is still habitable, after North America has succumbed to a second ice age. Education, food, and basic means of survival are the province of a chosen few, while the majority of the island residents must struggle to stay alive. The rich live in "Manhattanville" mansions made from the last pieces of wood and stone, while the poor cower in the shantytown slums of "Hell City" and "Little Los Angeles," places built out of heaped up trash that is slowly crumbling into the sea. The island is ruled by a mysterious dictator named Tyson, whose regime is plagued by charges of corruption and conspiracy.

But to Darcy, America Pacifica is simply home--the only one she's ever known. In spite of their poverty she lives contentedly with her mother, who works as a pearl diver. It's only when her mother doesn't come home one night that Darcy begins to learn about her past as a former "Mainlander," and her mother's role in the flight from frozen California to America Pacifica. Darcy embarks on a quest to find her mother, navigating the dark underbelly of the island, learning along the way the disturbing truth of Pacifica's early history, the far-reaching influence of its egomaniacal leader, and the possible plot to murder some of the island's first inhabitants--including her mother.


The Failing Machine
Author:  Andrew Mayer
Series:  Society of Steam 1
Format:  Trade Paperback, 305 pages
Publisher:  Pyr (May 24, 2011)
Price:  $16.00
Language:  English
Genre:  Steampunk
ISBN:  978-1-61614-375-6

In 1880 women aren’t allowed to vote, much less dress up in a costume and fight crime...

But twenty-year-old socialite Sarah Stanton still dreams of becoming a hero. Her opportunity arrives in tragedy when the leader of the Society of Paragons, New York’s greatest team of gentlemen adventurers, is murdered right before her eyes. To uncover the truth behind the assassination, Sarah joins forces with the amazing mechanical man known as The Automaton. Together they unmask a conspiracy at the heart of the Paragons that reveals the world of heroes and high-society is built on a crumbling foundation of greed and lies. When Sarah comes face to face with the megalomaniacal villain behind the murder, she must discover if she has the courage to sacrifice her life of privilege and save her clockwork friend.

The Falling Machine (The Society of Steam, Book One) takes place in a Victorian New York powered by the discovery of Fortified Steam, a substance that allows ordinary men to wield extraordinary abilities and grants powers that can corrupt gentlemen of great moral strength. The secret behind this amazing substance is something that wicked brutes will gladly kill for and one that Sarah must try and protect, no matter what the cost.


Blood of the Wicked
Author:  Karina Cooper
Series:  Dark Mission 1
Format:  Mass Market Paperback, 384 pages
Publisher:  Avon (May 31, 2011)
Price: $7.99
Language: English
Genre:  Paranormal Romance
ISBN:  9780062046857

When the world went straight to hell, humanity needed a scapegoat to judge, to blame . . . to burn. 

As an independent witch living off the grid, Jessie Leigh has spent her life running, trying to blend in among the faceless drudges in the rebuilt city. She thought she was finally safe, but now she's been found in a New Seattle strip club—by a hard-eyed man on a mission to destroy her kind. 

A soldier of the Holy Order, Silas Smith believes in the cause: trawling the fringes of society for the murderous witches who threaten what's left of the world. Forced into a twisting web of half-truths and lies, he has to stay close to the most sensuous and electrifying woman he has ever seen and manipulate her into leading him to the witch he has to kill: her brother. Silas doesn't know that Jessie's his enemy, only that he wants her, needs her, even as he lies to her . . . and must protect her until his final breath.




Look for interviews with Anita Clenney on May, 18, 2011, Virna dePaul on May 11, 2011, Kevin Hearne on May 3, 2011, K.M. Ruiz on May, 12, 2011, and Karina Cooper on May 31, 2011.

For more information on the 2011 Debut Author Challenge visit the 2011 DAC page.