Category Archives: Honorable Mentions
Puts a spotlight on new and old release by indie authors in the speculative fiction genre.
’59 Valiant – Part Two
’59 Valiant – Part Two by Anthony Sunderland
All contact with the two ships on the Icarus mission to Proxima Centauri has been lost. Twenty year old Janine Lewis hates her brother Sean for the accident that left her beloved ‘Uncle’ David Stirling, commandant of the space academy, in a wheelchair. She also despises him as a coward. When Sean refuses to re-enlist as an astronaut to search for their missing father, Janine vows to Join the academy, against her mother, Cindy’s, wishes.
418 days after the mission launch the Valiant returned to our solar system, badly damaged. The sole survivor died in the arms of the rescue crew before she could tell them what happened.
Janine’s search for her father looks doomed before it has even started. She faces envy from other cadets, as well as hostility and jealousy from lecturers and officers envious of her father’s reputation and fame.
A vicious fight with another cadet, and the continuing hostility between them threatens to have both women thrown out of the academy in disgrace.
Prospects for finding the missing ship deteriorate drastically after the search mission’s lead ship explodes on reaching light speed.
With Janine facing setbacks and abuse from all sides, Cindy vows to keep a terrible secret from her daughter.
Available for Purchase
Ishtar Rising (Book 4 of Sinnis)
Ishtar Rising (Book 4 of Sinnis) by Natalie Gibson
Tara Kay, or Special K as she likes to be called, has come back to her family home after the violent theft of her magical ability and surrender of her position with her order, the Daughters of Women. Her return is not so celebrated as she expected and she finds that without her skills, her home town is not only unwelcoming but downright dangerous. Her fear awakens her Guardian from his 5000 year slumber but his is not the only new face in town and they must defeat an unfamiliar enemy who possesses a powerful weapon. To to this Kay and her Guardian must wake old allies, create new ones and trust in the growing but fresh bond between them. Will Special K rediscover her magic in time? Can the family land she loves protect her? Does the goddess rise to save her chosen?
Available for Purchase
’59 – Part One
’59 – Part One by Anthony Sunderland
January 24th 2059: The exploration ships Intrepid and Valiant set sail on the first mission to Proxima Centauri. Finally the stars were within our reach. We would step out onto unexplored worlds, in our quest to reach out into the galaxy in search of exciting discoveries and new life.
Mission Commander Donald Lewis promised his daughter Janine that he would return from the nineteen month mission in plenty of time for her twenty first birthday.He never came home.Janine vowed to discover her father’s fate, no matter what it might cost her. This is a quest that will test young Janine’s courage and resolve to their very limits. A journey fraught with massive obstacles and terrible dangers at every turn.
Available for Purchase
Y1
Y1 by Sherrie Cronin
Zane is a twenty-four year old who just wants to be himself. He doesn’t believe in magic, and he’s gotten a whole degree in neuroscience just to try to figure out how he can alter his body the way that he does. Unfortunately, that degree has landed him in the sales department of Penthes Pharmaceuticals, and the more he learns about the company’s secrets the more uncomfortable he becomes.Good thing he has always excelled at blending in. Then upper management discovers him and his life gets far more complicated.A sales boondoggle in the South Pacific lets him learn that he isn’t alone, and that others have problems far worse than his. As his new friends flee those who would control their lives, Zane would like to help, and their freedom-loving philosophy of y1 calls to him.But first he has to deal with a murder charge, an unsavory boot camp manager, and serious repercussions from the fact that not everyone at Penthes likes him, or wants him to knows the mysteries that the company has worked so hard to keep hidden. In fact, it may take all the talents he has just to keep himself from going from a murder suspect to a murder victim.
Available for Purchase
About the Author
Sherrie Roth grew up in Western Kansas thinking that there was no place in the universe more fascinating than outer space. After her mother vetoed astronaut as a career ambition, she went on to study journalism and physics in hopes of becoming a science writer.
She published her first and only science fiction short story in the November 1979 issue of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and waited a lot of tables while she looked for inspiration for the next story. When it finally came, it declared to her that it had to be whole book, nothing less. One night, while digesting this disturbing piece of news, she drank way too many shots of ouzo with her boyfriend. She woke up thirty-one years later demanding to know what was going on.
The boyfriend, who she had apparently long since married, asked her to please calm down. He explained that in a fit of practicality she had gone back to school and gotten a degree in geophysics and had spent the last 28 years interpreting seismic data in the oil industry. The good news, according to Mr. Cronin, was that she had found it at least mildly entertaining and ridiculously well paying. The bad news was that the two of them had still managed to spend almost all of the money.
Apparently, she was now Mrs. Cronin, and the further good news was that they had produced three wonderful children whom they loved dearly, even though to be honest that is where a lot of the money had gone. Even better news was that Mr. Cronin turned out to be a warm-hearted sort who was happy to see her awake and ready to write. “It’s about time,” were his exact words.
Sherrie Cronin discovered that over the ensuing decades Sally Ride had already managed to become the first woman in space and apparently had done a fine job of it. No one, however, had written the book that had been in Sherrie’s head for decades. The only problem was, the book informed her sternly that it had now grown into a six book series. Sherrie decided that she better start writing it before it got any longer. She has been wide awake ever since, and writing away.
Connect with Sherrie at the Y1 Blog
See XO also by Sherrie Cronin
Ishtar Anomaly (Book 3 of Sinnis)
Ishtar Anomaly (Book 3 of Sinnis) by Natalie Gibson
Camilla Lovejoy is barren because her natural healing ability cannot differentiate between a desired pregnancy and a unwanted parasite, but wants children desperately. Nanae is the Nephilim with healing talents that could enable Camilla to carry a child to term, but Nephilim cannot procreate. They turn to a friend and sometimes lover of the Daughters of Women, Israel. Izzy, as his friends call him, is happy to aid Camilla achieve her dream of motherhood. He loves Camilla but has always felt there was something missing in the traditional two person relationship. Now with Nanae in the mix he may have found the perfect solution. Can Nanae share his Sinnis with another man? Can Camilla handle her lovers loving each other? Will Israel survive the appetites of both? Will the hunger that Nanae battles constantly win and force him to destroy everything that he has come to love and need?
This is an extremely graphic novel with sexual situations for open minded adults, with not only m/f/m scenes but also m/m/f with a sprinkle of BDSM between two superhuman men and a pregnant petite.
Available for Purchase
Icefire Trilogy Book 3: Blood & Tears
Icefire Trilogy Book 3: Blood & Tears by Patty Jansen
Following the destruction of the City of Glass through an explosion of sonorics, huge numbers of refugees have descended upon the Chevakian capital Tiverius.
The refugees are mostly members of the rebel group Brotherhood of the Light, supporters of the old royal family. They are injured, scared and hungry, and few speak Chevakian. The young Queen Jevaithi and her lover Isandor are amongst them, safe from the Eagle Knights for now.
Young Eagle Knight Carro is waiting in an old farmhouse with his fellow Knights for the order to invade the camp, capture the Queen and deliver her back to his father, where she will continue to live as imprisoned puppet for the Knights’ tyranny.
The Chevakians know none of this, and struggle to contain the refugee population, and the dangerous sonorics contamination the people have brought from their ravaged country, contamination that defies Chevakian efforts to contain it, and is getting worse, not better.
In their struggle for power, the Brotherhood and the Knights disturbed something from an ancient and magic civilisation.
The sorcerer Tandor knows what happened, but he is on death row in a Chevakian jail.
The southern woman Loriane is aware of the things that are required, but she is amongst Chevakians who can’t understand her.The Chevakian proctor Sadorius han Chevonian could put the pieces of the puzzle together, but he is struggling to keep the peace, and besides, Chevakians don’t believe in magic.
Meanwhile, the massive, and malevolent, sonorics cloud drifts towards the city, hungry for revenge.
Available for Purchase
Kiss Of The Butterfly
Kiss Of The Butterfly by James Lyon
In the year of his death, 1476, the Prince of Wallachia — Vlad III (Dracula) — committed atrocities under the cloak of medieval Bosnia’s forested mountains, culminating in a bloody massacre in the mining town of Srebrenica.
A little over 500 years later, in July 1995, history repeated itself when troops commanded by General Ratko Mladic entered Srebrenica and slaughtered nearly 8,000 people, making it the worst massacre Europe had seen since the Second World War. For most people, the two events seemed unconnected…
Amidst the violent breakup of Yugoslavia, a college student embarks on a journey into its war-torn lands. The narrative transports the reader from medieval Bosnia to enlightenment-era Vienna, from the bright beaches of modern-day Southern California to the exotically dark cityscapes of Budapest, Belgrade and Novi Sad, and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.
Naively trusting the advice of his enigmatic academic mentor, the student unwittingly descends into a crucible of decay, destruction, passion, death, romance, lust, immorality, genocide, and forbidden knowledge promising immortality. As the journey grows ever more perilous, the protagonist realizes that he is being drawn into something sinister from which there is no turning back. He will be forced to confront an ancient evil that has been once again loosed upon the earth.
Meticulously researched and written, “Kiss of the Butterfly” is set against the backdrop of Yugoslavia’s breakup. It weaves together intricate threads from the 15th, 18th and 20th centuries to create a rich phantasmagorical tapestry of allegory and reality about divided loyalties, friendship and betrayal, virtue and innocence lost, obsession and devotion, desire and denial, lust and rejection. The book blends history and the terrors of the Balkans as it explores dark places of the soul, and is about the thirst for life and the hunger for death, rebirth and salvation. And vampires.Vampires have formed an integral part of Balkan folklore for over a thousand years. “Kiss” represents a radical departure from popular vampire legend, based as it is on genuine Balkan folklore from as far back as the 14th century, not on fantasy. “Kiss of the Butterfly” offers up the real, horrible creatures that existed long before Dracula and places them within a modern spectrum.
Available for Purchase
House of Shadows
House of Shadows by Walter Spence
Befriended as a young teenager by a beautiful and mysterious benefactress, Eugene Evans believes the downward trajectory of his white trash existence has finally been arrested and his life turned around. Then, after he becomes a man, he is confronted by a horrifying and unavoidable choice between two unacceptable options.
But it doesn’t stop there.For once his decision has been made, and the consequences accepted, he finds himself in a new and terrifying reality threatening all that he loves, where his first wrong choice will be his last . . .
Available for Purchase
Manifest, An Alice Meriwether Novel
Manifest, An Alice Meriwether Novel by Beth Dolgner
Alice Meriwether is everything a well-bred young Victorian woman should be: genteel, proper, and a vision of petite beauty. She would be the ideal 18-year-old if it weren’t for her love of New Science.
Steam-powered inventions, electricity generators, and airships fill Alice’s thoughts, much to the dismay of her family. When Alice’s love of science proves to be greater than her love for her intended husband, her displeased mother sends Alice to Atlanta to be a governess.
As Alice settles into life with the Highcroft family, Mr. Highcroft’s brother Roland captures her imagination. He’s mysterious, distant, and definitely a New Scientist. When Alice helps him perfect his Ghost Machine, she finds herself in the role of Roland’s assistant. As she delves further into the world of New Science, Alice finds herself dealing with love, rivalry, impertinent ghosts, and runaway horseless carriages.
Available for Purchase
The Blue Witch
The Blue Witch by Kevis Hendrickson
An evil witch hatches a plot to destroy the kingdom of Kaldan. Kòdobos Falinn must embark on a perilous quest to save his kingdom from the malevolent witch.
Taken from the legendarium of the ancient tales of Arva, The Blue Witch retells the legend of Prince Kòdobos, his knights, his love for Enolia and the great war that was waged to rescue her from a jealous king. It also tells of the coming of a menacing witch and the fall of a great kingdom. Hearken to a tale of mighty warriors, lusty maidens, and foul treachery. The Blue Witch awaits you!
