Category: books

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New ways to enjoy Scott Overton’s fiction

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SF member Scott Overton recently used his 30 years of experience as a broadcaster to convert some of his fiction to audio. His mystery/thriller novel about the radio industry, Dead Air, is now available in audio format from Audible.

When radio morning man Lee Garrett receives a death threat he shrugs it off as a prank, until harassment turns into outright attempts on his life. Then the deadliest attack yet claims an innocent victim and Garret knows he must force a confrontation with his persecutors.

Scott has also been busy with his short fiction. Fifteen of Scott’s science fiction and fantasy short stories  available in  e-book form via the anthologies Disastrous!, Body Of Opinion and other stories plus the series Beyond: The Stars, Beyond: Time, and Beyond: Technology are now gathered together into one paperback. BEYOND: Stories Beyond Time, Technology, and the Stars is now available to buy in print form through Amazon and other online retailers. Your favourite independent bookstore can also order it through the book distributor Ingram.

Find more fiction at Scott’s website, including free stories.

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A Time and a Place released as an audio book

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SF Canada member Joe Mahoney’s A Time and a Place is now available at Audible.

Mahoney’s work is great for those who like their speculative fiction thoughtful, eloquent, and messy. — Publisher’s Weekly

Barnabus’ nephew is behaving oddly.

Calling upon Doctor Humphrey for assistance has not been particularly helpful because the good doctor’s diagnosis of demonic possession is clearly preposterous. Even the demon currently ensconced on the front-room couch agrees it’s preposterous. But then, how else to explain the portal to another world through which his nephew and Humphrey have just now disappeared?

Barnabus knows their only chance of rescue is for Barnabus J. Wildebear himself to step up and go through that portal.

Thus begins an existential romp across space and time, trampling on Barnabus’ assumptions about causality, free will, identity, good, and evil. Can Barnabus save his nephew – and incidentally, all of humanity?

Find more of Joe’s work, including a blog post on the creation of the audio book, at his website.

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Epic Fantasy in a Boxed Set

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Two SF Canada members share mysteries and magic in Secrets & Spells, a bundle of six epic fantasy novels. Dive into these fantastic realms of richly drawn characters and become lost in engrossing stories of friendship, adversity, and love.

Krista D. Ball’s The Demons We See (The Dark Abyss of Our Sins #1) is part of an ongoing series. Society was rocked when the Cathedral appointed Allegra, Contessa of Marsina, to negotiate the delicate peace talks between the rebelling mage slaves and the various states. Not only was she a highborn mage, she was a nonbeliever and a vocal objector against the supposed demonic origins of witchcraft.
Demons weren’t real, she’d argued, and therefore the subjection of mages was unlawful. That was all before the first assassination attempt. That was before Allegra heard the demonic shrieks. All before everything changed. Now Allegra and her personal guards race to stabilize the peace before the entire known world explodes into war with not just itself, but with the abyss from beyond.
So much for demons not being real.
Find more of Krista’s work at http://kristadball.com/

Jane Glatt‘s Unguilded (The Mage Guild #1) features Kara Fonti, who, at sixteen, still has no magic. But Mage Guild, the most powerful of all the Guilds in Tregella, has a use for her – they will force her to bear children for men who do have magic. Arabella Fonti, to protect her own status within the guild, pushes her daughter to do the unthinkable – run away to live outside the guild system.
But unguilded are not welcome in Tregella, especially on the magical chain of islands of the capital Rillidi. In increasing danger of being arrested or killed, Kara finds refuge on Old Rillidi, the original island that was neither created by magic nor controlled by one of the guilds.
On Old Rillidi, Kara discovers true friends, makes a home for herself, and learns more about her strange ability to “see” magic. But the Mage Guild will not let her go, and it is here where she feels safest that Kara is betrayed . . .
This novel and the rest of Jane’s series can be found at http://janeglatt.com

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New SF middle grade novel, The Mystery of Croaker’s Island

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SFC member Linda DeMeulemeester’s latest work, The Mystery of Croaker’s Island, is now available! This Heritage House Publishing Co. Ltd. publication features a diverse group of friends who risk their lives getting to the bottom of a sinister supernatural mystery that is plaguing their otherwise sleepy town.

Blending adventure and realism with a speculative twist, The Mystery of Croaker’s Island introduces a group of unlikely friends who discover connections between a haunted island, monstrous sounds in the briny deep, vanishing cats, and teenagers disappearing in the night with no recollection of where they’ve been. Drawn together, the new friends become embroiled in a perilous quest to uncover the mystery. What sinister force shrouds this sleepy town, and will the kids solve the mystery before it’s too late?

Linda is the author of the critically acclaimed Grim Hill series. The Secret of Grim Hill won the Silver Birch award in 2008. Her other books have been nominated or shortlisted for several awards, including the British Columbia Young Readers’ Choice Red Cedar Award, the Saskatchewan Young Readers’ Choice Diamond Willow Award, and the Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award. Also a teacher, she enjoys sharing her lifelong love of reading with children.

For more information on this, and on Linda’s Grim Hill series, visit her blog.

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New Release, Children of the Bloodlands

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The second book in SF Canada member Samantha Beiko’s YA series The Realms of Ancient, Children of the Bloodlands, is now available through ECW Press, as well as wherever books are sold.

Three months after the battle of Zabor, the five friends that came together to defeat her have been separated. Burdened with the Calamity Stone she acquired in Scion of the Fox, Roan has gone to Scotland to retrace her grandmother’s steps in an attempt to stop further evil from entering the world.

Meanwhile, a wicked monster called Seela has risen from the ashy Bloodlands and is wreaking havoc on the world while children in Edinburgh are afflicted by a strange plague; Eli travels to Seoul to face judgment and is nearly murdered; Natti endures a taxing journey with two polar bears; Phae tries desperately to obtain the key to the Underworld; and Barton joins a Family-wide coalition as the last defense against an enemy that will stop at nothing to undo Ancient’s influence on Earth — before there is no longer an Earth to fight for.

Darkness, death, and the ancient powers that shape the world will collide as our heroes discover that some children collapse under their dark inheritance, and those who don’t are haunted by blood.

“The rewardingly complex mythology is deepened through parallel humanizing themes in the protagonists’ storylines, while game-changing action sequences unleash real consequences in the highly diverse world. A densely-packed, well-crafted sequel that will leave readers eager for the trilogy’s finale.” — Kirkus Reviews

For more information, and a list of cities in Samantha’s book tour this fall, visit her blog.

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Coven at Callington released

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SFC member Shereen Vedam has released her next novel. Coven at Callington is Book 1 of The Cauldron Effect, an exciting new Fantasy Regency romance series.

A kidnapped child. A witch on the warpath. A church guard in crisis.
In the year of our Lord 1815, Thomas Drake Saint-Clair, Earl of Braden, a Guard of the Green Cross, is tasked by his archbishop to rescue a missing boy and return him to his warlock father. The order lands Braden in the middle of an unholy war between witches and warlocks and shoves him headlong past a sacred line he’d sworn never to cross.
Newly confirmed Coven Protectress, Merryn Pendraven, rushes to rescue a witch’s son. She’s convinced the same evil warlock who was responsible for her younger brother’s death is behind this kidnapping, too. She has no intention of letting this vile villain get away with the same crime, twice.
When Merryn discovers Braden is also on the case, she’s tempted to join forces. Yet, how can she truly trust him when her aunt has warned that Braden’s second secret charge is to destroy their coven? Finding love in this cauldron of trouble might prove to be Merryn’s deadliest mission and Braden’s complete undoing.

Find it at Books2Read and find Shereen at her website.