Aug 312023
 

Czech rights to New York Times bestselling author Martha Wells’ SYSTEM COLLAPSE, the seventh title in the Murderbot Diaries series, to Dobrovský, by Lola Dunton at Prava i prevodi in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

Estonian rights to New York Times bestselling author Martha Wells’ ROGUE PROTOCOL and EXIT STRATEGY, the third and fourth titles in the Murderbot Diaries series, to OÜ Kirjastus Fantaasia, by Nada Popovic at Prava i prevodi in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

Brazilian Portuguese rights to C.L. Polk’s EVEN THOUGH I KNEW THE END, to Companhia das Letras, by Cristina Purchio at International Editors in association with Katie Shea Boutillier for Caitlin McDonald.

Polish rights to Kel Kade’s MAGE OF NO RENOWN, DRAGONS AND DEMONS, and DESTINY OF THE DEAD, to Fabryka Slow, by Lola Dunton at Prava i prevodi in association with Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.

Aug 222023
 

Glinda Glass is truly trying her best. After dropping out of her graduate school program, she moves back to her childhood home with her mom—who has not only joined a cult, the Starlight Pioneer Society, but has also become enraptured by its charismatic and menacing leader, Arlon. Meanwhile, Glinda spends her days working in the Drench-the-Wench dunk booth at the local Renaissance fair with her only friend Troy—who may be falling in love with her.

When Glinda learns that the cult will be turning her family’s home into their commune, she decides to take matters into her own hands—by infiltrating the cult and taking it down from the inside. There, she realizes things are far more sinister than she could have ever imagined and that she must get her mom out from under the spell of Arlon by any means necessary.

But Glinda can’t do it on her own; to save her mother, she’ll have to confront her own history of trauma and grief and repair her relationships with her sisters and Troy, no matter the cost.

Aug 152023
 

It is not the first time the house has experienced unsettling events. And it will not be the last.

Now the new owner of Thirdhop Scarp, one Marcus Oleander, is gathering an esoteric order at the house, including Miss Griselda Parrington, daughter of the museum’s founder. The museum director demands that Mr Booth discredit Oleander’s occult teachings and end his influence over the credulous Miss Parrington. Reluctantly, Mr Booth joins the weekend séance.

In the beautiful but eerie surrounds of the house and gardens, Mr Booth is drawn into an investigation that spans years – and reveals the house to be much, much more than it seems…

Aug 152023
 

May you see the face and not the mask.

Ren came to Nadežra with a plan. She would pose as the long-lost daughter of the noble house Traementis. She would secure a fortune for herself and her sister. And she would vanish without a backward glance. She ought to have known that in the city of dreams, nothing is ever so simple.

Now, she is Ren, con-artist and thief. But she is also Renata, the celebrated Traementis heir. She is Arenza, the mysterious pattern-reader and political rebel. And she is the Black Rose, a vigilante who fights alongside the legendary Rook.

Even with the help of Grey Serrado and Derossi Vargo, it is too many masks for one person to wear. And as the dark magic the three of them helped unleash builds to storm that could tear the very fabric of the city apart, it’s only a matter of time before one of the masks slips—and everything comes crashing down around them.

Aug 142023
 

Locus: Labyrinth’s Heart is the third and final book in the Rook and Rose trilogy, after The Liar’s Knot and The Mask of Mir­rors. The writing duo Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms, under their joint M.A. Carrick pseudonym, have given the trilogy a revolution­ary, explosive climax – in both political and emotional terms. It’s a fantastic conclusion, but anyone coming to it without the previous books as background is rapidly going to find themself very lost. I have to salute Carrick for their in­clusion of a brief ‘‘The Story So Far’’ summary, though: a year is a long time, and my memory isn’t what it used to be.

The city of Nadežra is a divided one. Set on a river delta, home to the holiest site in Vraszan – the Wellspring of Ažerais – for generations, it has been ruled by Liganti noble houses and wealthy gentry, descendants of conquerors, who set themselves above the Vraszenians whose city it once was. Ren and her sworn sister Tess came back to it with a plan: Ren would con her way into the heart of House Traementis and set them up for life. Swept up in Nadežran politics and magical disasters, Ren – as ‘‘Renata Viraudax’’ – found wholehearted welcome with, and adop­tion into, House Traementis, but her successful con began to weigh on her conscience as her affection for her new family grew. Meanwhile, she grew close with Grey Serrado, one of the few Vraszenian officers in the city police, a man who by night took up the mantle of the Rook, a legendary vigilante. She also found an ally in Vargo, slum-crimelord-turned-nobleman. In her Vraszenian persona as ‘‘Arenza Lenskaya,’’ Ren found herself drawn into the orbit of Vraszenian revolutionaries. And as the Black Rose – a disguise that’s a mystical gift from the Wellspring of Ažerais – Ren found herself in the centre of even more events.

In the course of which both Grey and Vargo became aware of all of her identities, and in which all three of them learned that a set of ancient artefacts – medallions drawing on the corrupting power of the Primordials, which de­stroyed at least one city – circulate in Nadežra. This corrupting power will do nothing good. Unfortunately, Ren, Grey, and Vargo now all have medallions of their very own, which lends a certain urgency to their need to find some way to destroy these dangerous but powerful artefacts.

This is where Labyrinth’s Heart begins. In less accomplished hands, the magical threat would be the novel’s largest focus. But while the mystical threat to Nadežra and its people is never entirely out of sight, Carrick’s just as interested in the non-mystical tensions of a city bubbling with revolutionary ferment, the sort of generational injustice that leads to explosions if you have gunpowder, and to factionalism between the bloody and the less bloody revo­lutionaries on how many things they should blow up. And Carrick’s just as interested, too, in the strains and consequences of Ren’s multiple identities and compounding lies, and what that means for her and her relationships. When her deceptions are revealed to House Traementis, there are a lot of consequences to reckon with, and not just for her.

The setting is richly detailed, with a deep sense of place. Carrick evokes atmosphere deftly, and Nadežra draws from the same well as Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint and Melissa Scott and the late Lisa A. Barnett’s Astreiant series, where duellists and brawlers, con artists and revolutionaries and fortune-tellers (false and truthful) rub up against aristocrats and schol­ars, and slums and sewers provide counterpoint to lavish fetes and the upholstered parlours of the wealthy: the kind of sensibility that’s always struck me as a working in a very Renaissance vein, even when it doesn’t draw directly on the aesthetics of late medieval Italy.

The characters, too, are drawn with skill and compassion. We see them reckoning with their own changes in who they are and how they’re seen by the world. Ren’s unmasking to House Traementis, teased all throughout the trilogy, is an excellent piece of narrative payoff: I honestly thought she’d get away with it, but if she had, she’d never have been spurred to reckon with who she is without her (metaphorical and real) masks.

Family and heritage, of blood or otherwise, is a theme that comes to the fore, as Ren discovers truths about hers, Grey is forced to confront his birth family and a more mystical inheritance, Giuna and Donaia of House Traementis reckon with their heritage and Ren’s position in their lives, and even Vargo has to come to terms with the connections he’s made: microcosms of the same reckoning that Nadežra as a whole has to make with its past and its unjust present, in political and in magical terms.

Labyrinth’s Heart ends on a very satisfying, if unlikely, note of revolution and reconcilia­tion: change and hope for a better future, both for the city and for all our protagonists. This is a novel full of tension and incident, colour and verve. It has style and a sense of humour, and as the capstone to the trilogy it more than lives up to its predecessors. I really enjoyed it, and I recommend the entire trilogy wholeheartedly.

Jul 312023
 

Swedish rights to New York Times bestselling author Anne Bishop’s DAUGHTER OF THE BLOOD, the first book in the Black Jewels series, to Milla Emrén and Staffan Emrén, by Jeanine Langenberg at Sebes & Bisseling Literary Agency in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

Italian rights to Robert Sheckley’s THE ALCHEMICAL MARRIAGE OF ALASTAIR COMPTON, to Mondadori, by Stefania Fietta at Donzelli Fietta, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.

Hungarian rights to Robert Jackson Bennett’s FOUNDRYSIDE, to Fumax, by Lola Dunton at Prava I Prevodi, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.

Skye Warren’s HUGHES series, to Petra Kruijt at April (The Netherlands), in a three-book deal, by Vere Bank at Sebes & Bisseling, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier.

Ruthanna Emrys’s WINTER TIDE and  DEEP ROOTS, to Infortress (Taiwan) by Gray Tan at The Grayhawk Agency on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.

Jul 182023
 

From the bestselling author of Come with Me, five collected novellas from the master of terror, featuring possession, parasites and something monstrous lurking outside…

COME CLOSER…

Five terrifying collected horror novellas newly reissued from the “modern-day Algernon Blackwood”.

Skullbelly
After three teenagers disappear in a forest, a private detective is hired and uncovers a terrible local secret.

The Separation
Marcus arrives in Germany to find his friend up-and-coming prizefighter Charlie in a deep depression. But soon Charlie’s behavior grows increasingly bizarre. Is he suffering from a nervous breakdown, or are otherworldly forces at work?

The Stranger
Set a rural Florida parking lot, David returns to his car to find a stranger sat behind the wheel. The doors are locked and there’s a gun on the dashboard. And that was when then the insanity started…

After the Fade
A girl walked into a small Annapolis tavern, collapsed and died. Something had latched itself to the base of her skull. And it didn’t arrive alone.
Now, the patrons of The Fulcrum are trapped, held prisoner within the tavern’s walls by monstrous things, trying to find their way in.

And one more novella to be revealed!

Jul 142023
 

Congratulations to our DMLA authors who are finalists for the 2023 Hugo Awards!

BEST NOVEL

  • Nona the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tordotcom)

BEST NOVELLA

  • “Even Though I Knew the End”, C.L. Polk (Tordotcom)

BEST SERIES

  • The Founders Trilogy, Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey; Jo Fletcher)
  • The Locked Tomb Series, Tamsyn Muir (Tordotcom)

LODESTAR AWARD FOR BEST YOUNG ADULT BOOK

  • Akata Woman, Nnedi Okorafor (Viking)

And special recoginition to Premee Mohamed in BEST SEMIPROZINE for Escape Pod!

Jul 112023
 

A single father fights to retain control as he shares his body and mind with an evolving AI.

It’s been nine years since the government banned all technology. So, when Joel Lodowick, a young transgender father struggling to support his five-year-old daughter, has an old bionic upload itself into his head, he is faced with a decision: Go to the cops and risk prosecution? Or use the robot’s skills to turn his life around?

Scared of losing his daughter, Joel chooses the latter. Heightened intelligence and physical enhancements quickly land him a better job and a brighter future. But things take a sinister turn when Joel realizes his uninvited companion has an agenda of its own, which may or may not include leaving him in control.

Unable to approach the government who covered up the truth about AI sentience, Joel finds himself on the run. With his daughter’s life on the line and his own body turning against him, he must find a way to convince the bionic in his head to value his human life before he loses the chance forever.

Jun 302023
 

a pair of black ear budsAudio rights to Premee Mohamed’s NO ONE WILL COME BACK FOR US, to Sonia Brand-Fisher at Tantor Media, by Michael Curry.

Audio rights to Katherine Addison’s Doctrine of Labyrinths series, to Kim Budnick at Tantor Media, in a four-book deal, by Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.