Tuesday, January 05, 2016

What's Up for the Debut Author Challenge Authors? - Part 16


This is the sixteenth in a series of updates about formerly featured Debut Author Challenge authors and their 2015 works published since the last update and any upcoming works for 2016. The year in parentheses after the author's name is the year she/he was featured in the Debut Author Challenge.



Part 1 herePart 11 here
Part 2 herePart 12 here
Part 3 herePart 13 here
Part 4 herePart 14 here
Part 5 herePart 15 here
Part 6 here
Part 7 here
Part 8 here
Part 9 here
Part 10 here



M.L. Brennan (2013)

Dark Ascension
Generation V #4
Roc, August 4, 2015
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 320 pages

As the “wickedly clever” (Publishers Weekly) series continues, reluctant, slacker vampire Fortitude Scott learns that nothing is more important than family—or more deadly….

After a lifetime of avoiding his family, Fort has discovered that working for them isn’t half bad—even if his mother, Madeline, is a terrifying, murderous vampire. His newfound career has given him a purpose and a paycheck and has even helped him get his partner, foxy kitsune Suzume, to agree to be his girlfriend. All in all, things are looking up.

Only, just as Fort is getting comfortable managing a supernatural empire that stretches from New Jersey to Ontario, Madeline’s health starts failing, throwing Fort into the middle of an uncomfortable and dangerous battle for succession. His older sister, Prudence, is determined to take over the territory. But Fort isn’t the only one wary of her sociopathic tendencies, and allies, old and new, are turning to him to keep Prudence from gaining power.

Now, as Fort fights against his impending transition into vampire adulthood, he must also battle to keep Prudence from destroying their mother’s kingdom—before she takes him down with it….




J. Kathleen Cheney (2013)

The Seer's Choice
A Novella of the Golden City
September 30, 2015
eBook, 121 pages

Genoveva Jardim's father was a monster—a defrocked priest who used his healer's gift to murder instead. Determined to make amends for the deaths her father brought to the Golden City, she turned her back on her life among the aristocracy. She's chosen to work for the Special Police, learning how to use the healer's gift she'd never even known she had. She wants to save lives instead of killing like her father.

Rafael Pinheiro has kept an eye on Miss Jardim for some time now. The very first time he met her, his seer's gift told him he would someday marry her. What he can't figure out is why he would choose her. She's young and an aristocrat—hardly a match for a mere police captain raised in an orphanage. They don't seem to have anything in common.

But when Miss Jardim's life is threatened, everything changes…


Dreaming Death
Palace of Dreams 1
Roc, February 2, 2016
Trade Paperback and eBook, 432 pages

In the Novels of the Golden City, J. Kathleen Cheney created a “mesmerizing” (Publishers Weekly) realm where magic, history, and intrigue combine. Now, she presents a new world ruled by psychic talents and fatal magic…

Shironne Anjir’s status as a sensitive is both a gift and a curse. Her augmented senses allow her to discover and feel things others can’t, but her talents come with a price: a constant assault of emotions and sensations has left her blind. Determined to use her abilities as best she can, Shironne works tirelessly as an investigator for the Larossan army.

A member of the royal family’s guard, Mikael Lee also possesses an overwhelming power—he dreams of the deaths of others, sometimes in vivid, shocking detail, and sometimes in cryptic fragments and half-remembered images.

But then a killer brings a reign of terror to the city, snuffing out his victims with an arcane and deadly blood magic. Only Shironne can sense and interpret Mikael’s dim, dark dreams of the murders. And what they find together will lead them into a nightmare…




Wesley Chu (2013)

Time Salvager
Time Salvager 1
Tor Books, April 26, 2016
Trade Paperback, 400 pages
Hardcover and eBook, July 7, 2015
Published by Angry Robot (UK/Australia/NZ)

Time Salvager: a fast-paced time travel adventure from Wesley Chu, the John W. Campbell award-winning author of The Lives of Tao.

In a future when Earth is a toxic, abandoned world and humanity has spread into the outer solar system to survive, the tightly controlled use of time travel holds the key maintaining a fragile existence among the other planets and their moons. James Griffin-Mars is a chronman--a convicted criminal recruited for his unique psychological makeup to undertake the most dangerous job there is: missions into Earth's past to recover resources and treasure without altering the timeline. Most chronmen never reach old age, and James is reaching his breaking point.

On a final mission that is to secure his retirement, James meets an intriguing woman from a previous century, scientist Elise Kim, who is fated to die during the destruction of an oceanic rig. Against his training and his common sense, James brings her back to the future with him, saving her life, but turning them both into fugitives. Remaining free means losing themselves in the wild and poisonous wastes of Earth, and discovering what hope may yet remain for humanity's home world.

[description from Hardcover]


Time Siege
Time Salvager 2
Tor Books, July 12, 2016
Hardcover and eBooks, 400 pages
Published by Angry Robot (UK/Australia/NZ)


[description not yet available]



Wesley Chu has signed with Angry Robot Books for a new series starting with The Rise of Io which is presently slated for publication in August 2016.  Read the announcement here.

Here is the description from Angry Robot:
Ella Patel – thief, con-artist and smuggler – is in the wrong place at the wrong time. One night, on the border of a demilitarized zone run by the body-swapping alien invaders, she happens upon a man and woman being chased by a group of assailants. The man freezes, leaving the woman to fight off five attackers at once, before succumbing. As she dies, to both Ella and the man’s surprise, the sparkling light that rises from the woman enters Ella, instead of the man. She soon realizes she’s been inhabited by Io, a low-ranking Quasing who was involved in some of the worst decisions in history. Now Ella must now help the alien presence to complete her mission and investigate a rash of murders in the border states that maintain the frail peace.

With the Prophus assigned to help her seemingly wanting to stab her in the back, and the enemy Genjix hunting her, Ella must also deal with Io’s annoying inferiority complex. To top it all off, Ella thinks the damn alien voice in her head is trying to get her killed. And if you can’t trust the voices in your head, who can you trust?

File Under: Science Fiction




Jan DeLima (2013)

Autumn Moon
Celtic Wolves 3
Ace, September 29, 2015
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 304 pages

The author of Summer Moon returns to her “great werewolf world,”* where war looms and love may be the key to saving all of shifter kind…

For centuries, Cormack has lived between worlds—a man trapped in the body of a wolf, shunned by humans and shifters alike. Only one person has ever welcomed his company: Elen, a kindred outcast who is feared by others of her ancient Celtic race for her strange healing abilities. Cormack has always valued Elen’s kindness and understanding, but after a desperate act of friendship causes Elen to free him from his curse, he realizes he wants more. He wants all of her—completely and forever.

Except before Cormack can win Elen’s heart, Pendaran, the evil leader of the Guardians, captures her, determined to manipulate her incredible power to aid him in his twisted war against the shapeshifting tribes. Now Cormack must use all of his skills as a warrior and a wolf to save the woman he loves—before Pendaran’s vile schemes destroy them all…

*USAToday.com




Ian Doescher (2013)

William Shakespeare's Christmas Carol
A Kindle Single, December 8, 2015
Kindle eBook, 95 pages

Humbug, forsooth! In William Shakespeare’s Christmas Carol, you’ll experience Dickens’ classic tale with a new (Oliver) twist. Ebenezer Scrooge is a wealthy theater owner with a stingy heart, until he’s visited by his old partner Marlowe. The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future become Puck (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Falstaff (the Henry V plays), and the Ghost of King Hamlet. Benedick and Beatrice Cratchit worry about their child Tiny Tim, and other familiar characters fill out the cast in this Shakespearean adaptation of your holiday favorite, all in iambic pentameter. Bard bless us, every one!

Ian Doescher - author of the William Shakespeare Star Wars series - has a B.A. in Music from Yale University, a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in Ethics from Union Theological Seminary. Ian lives in Portland, Oregon, with his spouse and two sons. Visit Ian online at www.iandoescher.com.

Cover design by Evan Twohy


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