Hello!

As we reach the end of May (and why is this year going so quickly?) I’m getting ready for the IFA Summer Challenge which kicks off tomorrow. You can find out more about the challenge either on the website or across in the facebook group, but essentially it is an opportunity to celebrate indie fantasy which is one of my favourite things to do.

I have an ever expanding TBR which I will be tackling, but I am also using the challenge to kick off a SPFBO 8 readalong. I’m in no way associated with SPFBO but it’s a great way to find indie books, and I intend to read as many as I can over the course of the competition and you will be able to find my reviews for that under the Readalong page which has it’s own tag at the top in the menu. While I am reading a lot of these for the IFA challenge, I wanted to make sure that other books were included too, and for the Adventure Wheel which is supposed to get us reading outside our usual genres (depending on what you read) I will be reading non-spfbo books and you can find my TBR for that below.

Sword & Sorcery:

Book Summary:

A city ruled by Gods, a mortal champion, a misfit girl and a disobedient dragon…

Stolen from his home, Corthie Holdfast has arrived in the City of the Eternal Siege as a new Champion.

He must fight alongside the Blades, whose lives are dedicated to the defence of the City against the hordes of monstrous Greenhides; or die at the hands of the Gods who rule.

Maddie Jackdaw, a young Blade, faces her last chance. Thrown out of every unit defending the City, either she takes on a new role, or she will be sent to the Rats, a company of misfits given the perilous tasks beyond the Great Walls.

Her new role, if she takes it, will bring her face to face with her deepest fears, for beneath the walls, in a secret and hidden lair, lies a dragon, imprisoned and waiting…

*****

Book Summary:

The race of men has failed. The undead and the necromancers of Mortua reign supreme.

Nurias was once a holy warrior. Now, he wanders across the barren wasteland doing what he has to in order to survive… killing for whoever will pay.

When a chance happening reveals a way to kill the supposed immortal necromancers, Nurias and others spring to act but nothing goes as planned. Nurias is cursed with the soul of the very thing he tried to destroy… and now, everyone is hunting him.

Across the Sunkenlands, other heroes and heroines arise, as Nurias wanders into the most dangerous region of the wastelands, others seek him out not to kill him, but to unite together for a single chance to save their broken race.

But what can any of them do when their gods and hope are dead? Become what they were always meant to be.

Grimdark/Dark:

Book Summary:

“They burned me and mine. I’m not done until I burn them and theirs in return.”

Witch-hunts have plagued the kingdom of Olyanath for decades. Thousands were slain due to the king’s paranoia of women who practice Senspiritic magic.

No more.

Nye and his companions have seen enough of murder and misogyny.
Fifteen years have passed since he joined the witch-hunters, and now, at long last, an opportunity to destroy them from the inside reveals itself.

An opportunity to overthrow the king and end his reign of cruelty.

But fifteen years of pretense have taken a toll. The strive for vengeance has steered Nye toward a path of violence and villainy. His hands are stained by the blood of countless innocents, his heart is scorched by grief, and his sanity hangs by a thread.

Even if he can kill the king and see this revolution through, it may not suffice to purge the voices from his head.

*****

Book Summary:

A human slave.
A Fae Prince.
A single night twists them into a deadly fate.

Hidden deep within nature, ruled by the magical and monstrous Fae, is a world of cruelty and nightmares. Eric Becker, abducted into this world and powerless, is a slave.
One night, when Eric is caught trying to escape by the ruthless Prince Cithrel, he is marked by a powerful and ancient magic that few Fae are ever chosen for. Now bound to the prince, if Eric wants to regain his long lost freedom, he’ll have to find a way to master his newfound powers, resist the allure of Cithrel, and survive the Imperial Family.

High/Epic:

Book Summary:

Long ago, magick filled the land of Dramolux but one sorceress delved too deep into dark sorcery and tainted the magical creatures inhabiting the land. In an effort to save all creatures, a noble sentinel locked the dark powers away and separated Dramolux from the rest of the world. For generations, the dark magick was controlled, passed down to those who ruled the sentinel kingdom, Treoles.

Not anymore.

The newest sentinel, Queen Ismana of Treoles, is murdered and all the magick is released back into the world. It is now up to her daughter, Princess Aymeri–who has no knowledge of what she truly is–to recapture it. Little does she know, there is a war on the horizon for her reign.

A dark sorceress, who declares herself Empress Dimia of Dramolux, is on the rise. She wants to lay claim to the magick and wield it herself, in an effort to take all of Dramolux under her control.

The odds are against Aymeri as secrets unravel themselves and as war threatens her kingdom. She must prepare to battle or die fighting for the survival of her people.

*****

Book Summary:

Sworn to a goddess. One with her blade. A heart yet unbroken.

It would have been only one more year of training. One year in the dust and wind of the Calma Desert. But Gandrett Brayton’s fate storms in disguised as a beautiful stranger with a damning secret.

As he forces her into the service of the lord who tore her from her mother’s arms ten years ago to commit her to the Order of Vala, Gandrett is left with a choice: run, or work for the man she despises and earn the chance to see her family again. Trained with all the weapons she can wield with her hands, Gandrett must learn that at the courts of the shattered kingdom of Sives, her sword won’t help her – especially when it is her own heart on the line.

Contemporary/Urban:

Book Summary:

Even myths have legends. And not all legends are myth.

When a local hospital is attacked by strange and frightening men, Fiona Patterson and Zeke Prisco save a catatonic old man named Peter—and find themselves running for their lives with creatures beyond imagination hounding their every step.

With nowhere else to turn, they seek out Fi’s enigmatic Uncle Edgar. But the more their questions are answered, the more they discover that nothing is what it seems–not Peter, not Edgar, perhaps not even themselves.

The gods and monsters, heroes and villains of lore—they’re real. And now they’ve come out of hiding to hunt their own. In order to survive, Fi and Zeke must join up with powerful allies against an ancient evil that’s been known by many names and feared by all. The final battle of the world’s oldest war has begun.

*****

Book Summary:

Welcome to Ordshaw. Don’t look down.

Pax is one rent cheque away from the unforgiving streets of Ordshaw. After her stash is stolen, her hunt for the thief unearths a book of nightmares and a string of killers, and she stands to lose much more than her home.

There’s something lurking under her city.

Knowing it’s there could get you killed.

Medieval/Historical:

Book Summary:

Hunted by demons. Lost in time.

Welcome to the First Crusade.

Syria, 636: As heretic invaders circle Jerusalem, young Lukas Bessarion vows to defend his people. Instead, disaster strikes.

His family is ripped apart. His allies are slaughtered. And Lukas is hurled across the centuries to a future where his worst nightmares have come true…

Constantinople, 1097: Ayla may be a heretic beggar, but she knows one thing for sure: nine months from now, she will die. Before then, she must avenge her father’s murder–or risk losing her soul.

Desperate to find their way home, Lukas and Ayla join the seven armies marching east to liberate Jerusalem. If Lukas succeeds in his quest, he’ll undo the invasion and change the course of history.

But only if he survives the war.

Only if his enemies from the past don’t catch him.

And only as long as Ayla never finds out who he really is.

*****

Book Summary:

When seventeen-year-old salt witch Kinneret learns of a lost island of silver, she sets out to find it, raise her status, and finally have a chance to wed Calev, the high-caste friend she secretly loves.

But when a madman enslaves her sister, Kinneret must make a deal with the local ruler: Find the island to secure the ruler’s place in history. In return, the woman’s fighting sailors will rescue Kinneret’s sister.

Using Salt Magic to navigate cursed waters, Kinneret and Calev struggle to hide their taboo, caste-breaking feelings, knowing if the ruler witnesses the attraction, she will cancel the agreement. But when Calev makes a terrible mistake, Kinneret must choose between the life of her only remaining family member and saving the boy she loves from a traitor’s death.

Coming of Age/YA:

Book Summary:

A narcissistic teenager who doesn’t believe in destiny. 
A city under supernatural attack. 
An adventure that unfortunately changes everything. 

Sixteen-year-old Hamilton Dinger leads a charmed life. He’s got the grades for the top of the class, the abilities of a star athlete and Tetris player, and the charisma to get away with anything. Everything seems to be going along perfectly, including his plans to ask out Gwen Kessler, as he enters into tenth grade at Apollo Central High School.

Everything, that is, until a meteor crashes into the city, releasing the Seven Deadly Sinisters and their leader, Orpheus, from their celestial prison, and awakening Hamilton’s longtime dormant supernatural abilities. Suddenly Hamilton finds himself reluctantly allied with his self-declared mentor, Elysian, a changeling dragon, and Starry Knight, a beautiful but dangerous warrior, as they seek to protect the souls of Apollo City from the Sinisters and their evil intentions.

Can Hamilton give up his self-proclaimed entitlement to happiness in order to follow the call of a duty he doesn’t want? More importantly, will he willingly sacrifice all he has to find out the truth?

*****

Book Summary:

A teenage assassin. An impossible choice. The fate of everything hangs in the balance…

Sixteen-year-old Reen swore she’d never take another life. Divinely selected to assassinate a few in order to save many, she learned to jump from shadow to shadow and claim her victims without question… until she was ordered to kill the boy she loved. But when an ancient plague returns threatening to infect everyone she knows, she is forced to resume her deadly duties.

Battling a disease that turns people into nightmarish monsters, Reen must track down and terminate those responsible before the city falls, and the evil spreads beyond its borders. But the closer she gets to the source, the more she uncovers sinister secrets that will shake the foundations of her world and everything she believes.

Can Reen defend her realm without losing her soul?

Futuristic Fantasy:

Book Summary:

Once upon a future-time, in a city of steel, concrete, and Magick, a wicked queen trapped a mighty warrior with a curse …

In the tiny village of Somer, far from the city, Cherie knows nothing of the evil spell. Her home is a safe, Magickal place. The Fae travel freely along its roads, Magickal humans and animals are welcome, and everyone is hidden from the Queen’s sight by Jack Frost, the local ghost, who blurs the Queen’s mirror with snow and ice.

But when Jack’s spell begins to crack, the Queen’s eyes fall on Somer. Nothing will keep her from abducting all of Somer’s Magickals, not even a war with the Fae.

To avert a war, save her village–and herself–Cherie strikes a perilous bargain. Aided only by Jack and her own small Magick, she’ll set off on a quest … If she fails, she’ll lose more than her life.

*****

Book Summary:

Like all Purebred with their menial jobs, Ken ekes out a living sweeping the floors of Kyoto Peacekeeping Central. His kind serve as a benchmark for XHumans to measure how far they’ve progressed, and a reminder of what homo sapiens once was.

His life changes when eight-hundred-year-old Ryu crosses over from the World of Rivers and Lakes, looking for a lost temple; and Aya, a beautiful hacker whose Sensory Interface perceives the EtherCloud as Feudal Japan, learns that XHumans aren’t as perfect as they thought.

They’ve edited out the genes which allow for Cultivation.

That will give Ken a chance to surpass them. And maybe use mythical martial skills to save the world from an oppressive government, spirit beasts, and alien invaders.

Low Fantasy/Magical Realism:

Book Summary:

It is the autumn of 2019. Merlin’s wayward apprentice has escaped from the Tower of London with his raven familiars. Legend foretells that the White Tower, then England, will fall.
Can King Arthur, a weary veteran of the English Civil War, Waterloo and the Somme, prevent the Ravenmaster from exacting his revenge?

*****

Book Summary:

Many faces, many names, have passed through the ranks of the Blackshield Dogs. But few of them ever surpassed the bloody reputation of the man known and feared on Caermark’s battlefields as Red Harry.

But before he was Red Harry, before he was anything, he was Harruvard of Werrewood, a man-at-arms sworn in service to Lord Gadrin Strael.

Injured and left for dead during a bitter conflict along Lord Gadrin’s borders, his life was saved by the kindness of a stranger. But as Harruvard’s past refused to let him go, that same kindness soon would be stained red.

In the deep of winter, beneath creeping snows and biting ice, the black seeds of the monster Harruvard would become were sown by the hands of men, and nurtured by their cruelty.

Comedy/Humor:

Book Summary:

Victoria Marmot is just an average teenage girl… if by “average” you mean an orphaned, multi-lingual, martial arts expert who owns her own home and may or may not have magical abilities.

When Vic is told her parents didn’t die the way she thinks they did, her world is turned upside down and she’s left with the task of finding out what really happened to them. But when her quest to uncover the truth reveals a massive conspiracy by a corrupt magical government, will her efforts save the world or take the whole universe down with her?

*****

Book Summary:

Gandalf. Dumbledore. Merlin. We all love the legendary wizards who mentored the heroes of our favorite tales.

It’s time we add a new wizard to that list. This is his origin story.

Join Falin and his honorable (and not-so-honorable) Champions on his journey for the Gems of Elsana. Dragons, monsters, and even the dreaded Wildbarrens can’t deter this motley bunch of adventurers as they embark on one of the greatest quests Elsana has ever known. Into the Wildbarrens is filled with comedy, action, romance, and thrills making it the perfect read for those seeking a feel-good fantasy!

Diverse/BIPOC:

Book Summary:

Rasia is determined to destroy her old man’s record in the Forging, a trial each child must succeed to come of age. All Rasia needs to do is hunt down a gonda, hitch its tentacle ass to her windship, and haul it back home in record time. Easy. Or it would be if Rasia wasn’t stuck on the same team as Nico—a know-it-all, spoiled, grubworm who never does anything Rasia tells her to do.

Nico doesn’t care about Rasia’s egotistical dreams of glory. This is her brother’s last chance to pass the Forging or her father is going to banish him from the family. She needs to scour the desert to find whatever team the bones placed him on and help him kill a gonda before it kills him.

Too bad Nico and Rasia can’t get along to steer a windship straight.

*****

Book Summary:

Since the outbreak of the phoenix fever in Drothidia, Tori Kagari has already lost one family member to the fatal disease. Now, with the fever threatening to wipe out her entire family, she must go against everything she believes in order to save them—even if that means making a deal with the enemy.

When Tori agrees to join forces with the unscrupulous Khadulians, she must take on a false identity in order to infiltrate the queendom of Avarell and fulfill her part of the bargain, all while under the watchful eye of the unforgiving Queen’s Guard. But time is running out, and every lie, theft, and abduction she is forced to carry out may not be enough to free her family from death.

Romantic Fantasy:

Book Summary:

She could be his light… If his darkness doesn’t destroy them both.

Bastard and former mercenary Lord Regulus Hargreaves’ resolve is crumbling. He’s desperate to pay off his debt to the sorcerer who enslaved him, but after two years, he fears he’ll never be free of the cursed mark that won’t even let him die. Then Lady Adelaide sees past his scarred face and shadowed past, and Regulus’ fading hope rekindles.

But will loving Adelaide while serving the Prince of Shadow and Ash put her in danger?

Adelaide Belanger yearns to use the magical energy within her, but revealing her power could get her killed–like every other mage in the kingdom. When she meets kind and rugged Regulus, she wonders if she has finally found someone to trust with her secret—and her heart. Regulus and Adelaide struggle to protect their romance and keep their secrets from predatory nobles and the devious sorcerer.

By the time their secrets are revealed, it may be too late for them both…and possibly for the kingdom.

*****

Book Summary:

What if you received an invitation to an all-expense paid cabin in the mountains? An opportunity to escape your sorrows and find yourself again.

Desmond is dead, and Iscah is to blame. At least that’s what she and their friends believe. The devastation of the loss has nearly destroyed her, but a surprising invitation to a cabin changes everything. Nothing is quite as it appears though it strange from the beginning with a great auburn oak tree in the foyer, a fae in the desk, and a curse in the halls. Worse still there is a creature stalking them who feeds on grief.

Iscah must escape the cabin before the full moon passes, elude this monster, and…perhaps, if there’s time, find some way to mend her bleeding heart.

Wild Card:

Book Summary:

As any warrior will tell you; even the best swordsman is one bad day away from a corpse. It’s a lesson Blademaster Jezzet Vel’urn isn’t keen to learn. Chased into the Wilds by a vengeful warlord, Jezzet makes it to the free city of Chade. But instead of sanctuary all she finds is more enemies from her past.

Arbiter Thanquil Darkheart is a witch hunter for the Inquisition on a holy crusade to rid the world of heresy. He’s also something else; expendable. When the God Emperor himself gives Thanquil an impossible task, he knows he has no choice but to venture deep into the Wilds to hunt down a fallen Arbiter.

The Black Thorn is a cheat, a thief, a murderer and worse. He’s best known for the killing of several Arbiters and every town in the Wilds has a WANTED poster with his name on it. Thorn knows it’s often best to lie low and let the dust settle, but some jobs pay too well to pass up.

As their fates converge, Jezzet, Thanquil, and the Black Thorn will need to forge an uneasy alliance in order to face their common enemy.

*****

Book Summary:

“Closer, mortal. You are here, finally, to feed the Aching God…”

The days of adventure are passed for Auric Manteo. Retired to the countryside and isolated with his scars and riches, he no longer delves into forbidden ruins seeking dark wisdom and treasure. But just as old nightmares begin plaguing his sleep, he receives an urgent summons back to that old life.

To save his only daughter, he must return to the place of his greatest trauma: the haunted Barrowlands. Along with a group of inexperienced companions and an old soldier, he must confront the dangers of the ancient and wicked Djao civilization. He has survived fell beasts, insidious traps, and deadly hazards before. But how can he contend with the malice of a bloodthirsty living god?

June’s Featured Reads:

So, there we are a brief look at what is on the horizon for June (and beyond depending on how work and life treat me), and there will be a lot of reviews coming up on the blog. Books for this challenge will be marked by the badge below.

*****