How adventurous are you feeling this month? There’s a little of everything in this catch-all category. Want to see how things play out for the Three Musketeers as vampires? How about teaming up with Henri Toulouse-Lautrec to solve a mystery involving the suicidal Vincent Van Gogh? Or team up with a teenager who gets mixed up with Jack the Ripper? Too out there? Settle down with a cup of tea and Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamour in Glass, the followup to her Jane Austen-style fantasy Shades of Milk and Honey, or ponder the fate of humankind (or lack thereof) with the third in Rhiannon Frater’s As the World Dies series.
Fiction Affliction details releases in science fiction, fantasy, urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and “genre-benders.” Keep track of them all here.
WEEK ONE
The Slayer (The Legend Chronicles, Book 2), by Theresa Meyers (April 1, Zebra)
Brothers Winchester, Remington, and Colt know the legends—they were trained from childhood to destroy demon predators, wielding the latest steam-powered gadgetry. It’s a devil of a job. But sometimes your fate chooses you Winn Jackson isn’t interested in hunting nightmares across the Wild West. Unlike his rakehell brothers, Winn believes in rules. As sheriff of Bodie, California, he only shoots lawbreakers. Until he rescues the Contessa Drossenburg, Alexandra Porter, a lady with all the elegance of the Old World—grace, beauty and class. And fangs. Alexandra isn’t just some bloodsucking damsel in distress. She’s on a mission to save her people—and she’s certain Winn’s family legacy is the only way.
Fear (Gone, Book 5), by Michael Grant (April 3, Katherine Tegen)
Despite the hunger, despite the lies, even despite the plague, the kids of Perdido Beach are determined to survive. Creeping into the tenuous new existence they’ve built, though, is perhaps the worst incarnation yet of the enemy known as the Darkness: fear. Young Adult.
So You Created a Wormhole: The Time Traveler’s Guide to Time Travel, by Phil Hornshaw and Nick Hurwitch (April 3, Berkley)
From H.G. Wells to Einstein to Marty McFly, people have been fascinated by the possibilities of time travel. But novice travelers should learn the do’s and don’t’s before taking the plunge through the fabric of space-time. This handy guide offers essential knowledge for visiting any era, past, future, or otherwise, including: why wormholes are the safest way to travel; what to say (and not to say) when you meet your past or future self; how to befriend a dinosaur; and avoiding “spaghettification” (this is not a cooking term, but an awful way to die).
The Haunted, by Bentley Little (April 3, Signet)
The Perry family’s new house is perfect—except for the weird behavior of the neighbors and that odd smell coming from a dark corner in the basement. Pity no one warned the family about the house. Now it’s too late. Because the darkness at the bottom of the basement stairs is rising.
Sacre Bleu, by Christopher Moore (April 3, William Morrow)
A “Comedy d’Art” from the author of Lamb, Fool, and Bite Me, Moore’s Sacre Bleu is part mystery, part history (sort of), and part love story, following a young baker-painter as he joins the dapper Henri Toulouse-Lautrec on a quest to unravel the mystery behind the supposed “suicide” of Vincent van Gogh.
Sword & Blood: The Vampire Musketeers, by Sarah Marques (April 4, Prime)
In a world where vampires have taken every humble chapel, defiled every grand cathedral, subdued most nations, and treated every human as cattle, Dumas’ hero musketeers rise to a greater challenge than they ever met in their original adventures. Athos has spent a decade fighting vampires in the king’s musketeers. He never expected to see his wife again—he’d discovered Charlotte was a vampiric servant, hanged and left for dead ten years before—yet it is she who turns Athos into a vampire. Or does she?
WEEK TWO
Ripper, by Amy Carol Reeves (April 8, Flux)
It’s 1888, and after her mother’s sudden death, Abbie is sent to live with her grandmother in a posh London neighborhood. When she begins volunteering at Whitechapel Hospital, Abbie finds she has a passion for helping the abused and sickly women there. But within days, patients begin turning up murdered at the hands of Jack the Ripper. As more women are murdered, Abbie realizes that she and the Ripper share a strange connection: she has visions showing the Ripper luring his future victims to their deaths—moments before he turns his knife upon them. Young Adult.
Angels of Vengeance, by John Birmingham (April 10, Del Rey)
When an inexplicable wave of energy slammed into North America, millions died. In the rest of the world, wars erupted, borders vanished, and the powerful lost their grip on power. Against this backdrop, with a conflicted U.S. president struggling to make momentous decisions in Seattle and a madman fomenting rebellion in Texas, three women are fighting their own battles—for survival, justice, and revenge.Three women in three corners of a world plunged into electrifying chaos. Nation-states struggling for their survival. Immigrants struggling for new lives. In this conclusion to the series begun in Without Warningand After America, Birmingham offers an intense adventure that races from the halls of power to shattered streets to gleaming new cities, as humanity struggles to grasp its better angels—and purge its worst demons. U.S. release.
Glamour in Glass (Shades of Milk and Honey, Book 2), by Mary Robinette Kowal (April 10, Tor)
Glamour in Glass continues following the lives of Milk and Honey characters Jane and Vincent as, in the tumultuous months after Napoleon abdicates his throne, they go to France for their honeymoon. While there, the deposed emperor escapes his exile in Elba, throwing the continent into turmoil. With no easy way back to England, they struggle to escape. Left with no outward salvation, Jane is left to overcome her own delicate circumstances and use her glamour to rescue her husband from prison and hopefully prevent her newly built marriage from getting stranded on the shoals of another country’s war.
The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll & Mademoiselle Odile, by James Reese (April 10, Roaring Brook)
It’s 1870, and a young woman named Odile is fighting to survive on the blood-soaked streets of Paris. Luckily, Odile has an advantage and a bizarre birthright. She is descended from the Cagots, a much-despised race whose women were reputed to be witches. Were they, in fact? This is the question Odile must answer—about her ancestors and herself—while she uses her talents to help a young Doctor Jekyll, who seems to be abusing the salts that she gave him in a most disconcerting way. Young Adult.
Lost Everything, by Brian Francis Slattery (April 10, Tor)
Lost Everything is the story of a man who takes a boat trip up the Susquehanna River, through a version of America that’s been torn apart by a mysterious war, in order to find and rescue his lost wife and son. Slattery’s prose moves between present and past, action and memory. With Lost Everything, he celebrates the resilience and ingenuity of the American spirit.
Westlake Soul, by Rio Youers (April 10, ChiZine)
Meet Westlake Soul, a twenty-three-year-old former surfing champion. A loving son and brother. But if you think he’s just a regular dude, think again; Westlake is in a permanent vegetative state. He can’t move, has no response to stimuli, and can only communicate with Hub, the faithful family dog. And like all superheroes, Westlake has an archenemy: Dr. Quietus—a nightmarish embodiment of Death itself. Westlake dreams of a normal life of surfing and loving again. But time is running out; Dr. Quietus is getting closer, and stronger. Can Westlake use his superbrain to recover… to slip his enemy’s cold embrace before it’s too late?
Radiant Days, by Elizabeth Hand (April 12, Viking Juvenile)
After Meredith’s girlfriend commits suicide, she abandons art school and goes home to Washington, D.C., intending to kill herself. But a chance street encounter leads her to create a painting that acts as a magical passage through which the young, 19th-century French poet Arthur Rimbaud emerges, and both their lives are changed. Young Adult.
WEEK THREE
Faustus Resurrectus, by Thomas Morrissey (April 17, Night Shade)
Donovan Graham, part-time bartender, full-time occult scholar, has just graduated college with a master’s in philosophical hermeneutics, having completed his thesis on the Faustus legend. Now, on the recommendation of a friend and mentor, Donovan has begun helping the NYPD investigate a particularly gruesome series of murders, in which the victims have been artfully arranged to resemble the signs of the Zodiac. Is it a serial killer Donovan and the NYPD seek, or is something deeper and more sinister taking place?
WEEK FOUR
Siege (As the World Dies, Book 3), by Rhiannon Frater (April 24, Tor)
The zombie illness has shattered civilization. The survivors who have found tenuous safety in Texas defend their fort against the walking dead and living bandits. Katie has made peace with the death of her wife and is pregnant and married to Travis, who has been elected mayor. Jenni, her stepson, Jason, and Juan—Travis’s righthand man—are a happy family, though Jenni suffers from PTSD. Both women are deadly zombie killers. In Siege, the people of Ashley Oaks are stunned to discover that the vice president of the United States is alive and commanding the remnants of the U.S. military. What’s left of the U.S. government has plans for this group of determined survivors.
The Night Sessions, by Ken MacLeod (April 24, Pyr)
A bishop is dead. As Detective Inspector Adam Ferguson picks through the rubble of the tiny church, he discovers that it was deliberately bombed. That it’s a terrorist act is soon beyond doubt. It’s been a long time since anyone saw anything like this. Terrorism is history. After the Middle East wars and the rising sea levels—after Armageddon and the Flood—came the Great Revulsion. In this enlightened age there’s no persecution, but the millions who still believe and worship are a marginal and mistrusted minority. Now someone is killing them. Something very old has risen from the ashes. Old and very, very dangerous. U.S. release.
The Mongoliad (The Foreworld Series, Book 1), by Neal Stephenson, Erik Bear, Greg Bear, Joseph Brassey, E.D. deBirmingham, Cooper Moo and Mark Teppo (April 24, 47North)
It is the spring of 1241. The Mongol takeover of Europe is almost complete. The hordes commanded by the sons of Genghis Khan have swept out of their immense grassy plains and ravaged Russia, Poland, and Hungary… and now seem poised to sweep west to Paris and south to Rome. King and Pope and peasant alike face a bleak future—until a small band of warriors, inheritors of a millennium-old secret tradition, conceive of a desperate plan to kill the Khan of Khans. Their leader, an elder of the order of warrior monks, will lead his elite group on a perilous journey into the East. They will be guided by an elusive and sharp-witted young woman, who believes the master’s plan is insane. But this small band is the West’s last, best hope to turn back the floodtide of the Mongol Empire. The novel is now available from 47North.
Author Suzanne Johnson is a book geek with a fondness for a good dystopia. Her new urban fantasy series, scheduled to begin with the release of Royal Street on April 10 by Tor Books, is set in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina. Find Suzanne on Twitter and Facebook.
