Your Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Bargains for February 14, 2021

Ever wondered what it feels like to speak to the dead?

When fifteen-year-old Jonny Roberts goes out with his friends on a summer night, he doesn’t expect to be forced to enter a crypt. To look at skeletons decaying in their graves.

To hear the voice, screaming at him. Screaming into his mind. Commanding him to leave.

For weeks afterwards, he is filled with dread, terror as to what the voice might have belonged to. A demon? A ghost? In his nightmares, skeletons strangle him. And when they clear, he has the mysterious nightmare of the girl from his school, making the long walk across the graveyard, and disappearing into the crypt. Never leaving before his waking.

It’s when something awful happens to this girl that his fear turns to panic. Panic which will force him to unravel the mystery of the crypt, and in doing so, many mysteries about himself.

Ex-burlesque dancer and aspiring author Tamara Garvey just had her world turned upside down.

Her best friend died and leaves her as guardian to a teenager. Now, not only is Tamara struggling with her new role but she is also charged with caring for the family home, the Ridaught Plantation known by the locals as the Dead House.

To her surprise, the place is already occupied by an angsty ghost named Joey who has a penchant for wearing her clothes and a fascination for paranormal movies and television shows. Tamara and Joey develop an unexpected friendship but questions remain about how and when he got there.

In an attempt to fit in with the suspicious small-town residents, Tamara hosts a community wide Halloween party.

Everything turns out great until the dead begin to show up too.

Can Tamara solve the secret of the Ridaught Plantation before it’s too late?

Category: Fantasy – Paranormal & Urban

Before…
As the Fairest One of Vallenthar, Aelwyd commands formidable power. Years of battle honed her into a fearsome warrior who never falters in front of an enemy.
However, the minute she walks into the chilling scene of death in front of her, she knows that after centuries of praying, her personal nightmare is back.
He nearly destroyed her once, but she isn’t a victim anymore. This time, she will stop him, or she will die trying.

Now…
The orphaned ward of a ruthless warrior woman, Dalbran’s days are filled with battle, pain and exhaustion. Night-time is the only rest he knows. Until now. For something lurks in the shadows of sleep, clawing at him, whispering, trapping him the moment his eyes close. He tells himself it’s okay, that he can handle it. As long as it stays within the nightmare, everything will be all right.

As long as it stays within the nightmare…

Category: Fantasy – Coming of Age

With the Jovians rushing to take Ceres, the Terrans must move to either destroy the AIs first, or perhaps work out a way to protect them.

Whichever action the Terrans take, Cara and Lyssa are rushing to collide at the world which the AIs destroyed and seized decades earlier, neither quite sure which side they are on.

Category: Hard Science Fiction

Alex is taking her sisters and their kids to her camp in the Adirondacks when the unthinkable happens: a nuclear war. Greeted by guns and bullets when they try to find refuge, they hide in a cave to escape the fallout. When her sisters leave in search of their husbands, Alex is left to care for the children. It’s a 35-mile hike to her camp. Through villages that have become killing fields. Along the way, Alex rescues two orphaned children. Society is devolving. Looters, rapists, and killers hold sway. In her struggle to keep the children fed, she stumbles on a cache of food only to discover its owner is a man who’ll haunt her nightmares: half guardian angel, half demon. Both barbarian and benefactor. A strange mixture of brutality and gentleness, cruelty and caring. A man named Wolf!

Category: Science Fiction – Post-Apocalyptic

Claradon never led his House’s forces into battle before. But now he has to. His father, the mighty lord of Dor Eotrus, went missing, along with all his men, heroes all, while investigating a mysterious fog and otherworldly howling. It’s up to Claradon to find him, to bring him home, or to avenge his death if he has fallen. Claradon is a brave young knight — noble, skilled, and courageous; a warrior born and bred; a northman, tall and strong. But he’s not prepared to face the ancient evil that has entered his lands. An evil with powers beyond any mortal’s imagination. An evil that threatens to overrun Midgaard and destroy all that Claradon holds dear.

Category: Fantasy – Epic

Dwellers of the Deep embraces the pulse-pounding action that the Harbinger of Doom Saga is known for, with battles so real, so immersive, you will find yourself reaching for your sword. Expansive in scope, Dwellers transforms the Saga into truly epic fantasy, and drops the reader into the Byzantine web of political intrigue that swirls about the Kingdom of Lomion.

“Chroma has no vulnerabilities.” That’s what they told us.

A discovery by a researcher threatens the dominance of Philadelphia’s controlling family in the fully imagined, near future of this taut science-fiction thriller.

In a future controlled by family-owned city-states and a nanotech surveillance cloud, Tillers tried hard to avoid the attention of the System.

But the suspicious collapse of a renowned professor sets his researcher, Dez Lighthorse, on a search for foul play that leads to the uncovering of dark secrets. Dez’s quest through the forbidden zones beyond the boundaries and the city’s long-buried catacombs soon attracts the attention of a relentless Safeguard investigator.

With the help of the mysterious Seditionists, Dez must outrun the converging threats to uncover a truth that may spark a revolution.

Category: Science Fiction – Adventure

A young maiden is out picking flowers with her friends on a beautiful day in late summer. The girl innocently plucks a large flower, opening a chasm in the earth from which emerges Hades, god of the underworld. He kidnaps her to the Land of the Dead to make her his bride. Devastated by the loss, her mother mourns, plotting revenge on the gods until she obtains the release of her daughter.

A Pomegranate and the Maiden retells the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone through the voices of a unique set of characters, with each one interpreting the events through a different lens. There are eleven speakers in all, concluding with the pilgrim who describes his experience as a participant in the Eleusinian Mysteries, the ritual based on the myth and celebrated by Greeks for many centuries.

Category: Fantasy – Myths & Legends

A woman lost in time. A star system on the brink of war. A man haunted by past sins. Traitors lurk in the shadows while secrets threaten to put everyone’s life in danger in the cold depths of space. Can a woman trapped in a strange new future be the one to save them or will be she the spark that ignites the war? After an accident on a New York subway, Cara DeLeon finds herself in the future, but not the one she dreamed of. Fleet Commander Nikolas Caine defends the star system he calls home from space raiders called Hostiles until Cara’s arrival sets into motion a chain of events that will change his world forever. Cara uncovers secrets that threaten to tear the star system apart. She must fight to survive if she wants to get home. Battling a looming war and growing feelings for Cara, Caine must finish his mission. Cara faces an uncertain future while Caine faces the ghosts of his past.

Category: Science Fiction – Time Travel