Dear writers: Please be aware of ongoing scams by agent impersonators. Use extra caution with any unsolicited offers from agents. Reputable agents will not ask for upfront fees of any kind. For more information, look at sites such as Writer Beware (https://writerbeware.blog/). Please always check email addresses/spellings. All official emails from Donald Maass Literary Agency will come from an address that ends in @maassagency.com (2 A's, 2 S's in MAASS).

CRITICAL ROLE: BELLS HELLS – WHAT DOESN’T BREAK by Cassandra Khaw

Oct 082024
 

Uncover the lost years of Critical Role’s unrelentingly upbeat undead spellcaster in this original prequel novel to Laudna’s adventures with Bells Hells.

For as long as she can remember, Laudna has had a friend. A mentor. A little voice whispering in her cropped ear, promising that, no matter how monstrous she becomes or how far she wanders, there will always be someone to guide her.

And so, Laudna is content.

But the thought of more—of life, of love, of the magic stirring in her still veins—is unrelenting in its familiarity. More is the dream of the young girl trapped behind the bloodstained walls of Whitestone, and the nightmare of the woman who now stalks the woods outside them. More, Laudna’s little voice reminds her, is dangerous. From Tal’Dorei to Marquet, the world is infested with heroes destined to rid their kingdoms of creatures like Laudna.

The little voice is right, she knows.

But still, she thinks of more. And when she reaches for that dream, what reaches back will change everything.

Written by USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw, Critical Role: Bells Hells—What Doesn’t Break delves into the unexplored years before Laudna joined up with the crew of Bells Hells, chronicling her departure from Whitestone and her solo adventures on the road to Jrusar.

THE TAPESTRY OF TIME by Kate Heartfield

Sep 262024
 

There’s a tradition in the Sharp family that some possess the Second Sight. But is it superstition, or true psychic power?

Kit Sharp is in Paris, where she is involved in a love affair with the stunning Evelyn Larsen, and working as an archivist, having inherited her historian father’s fascination with the Bayeux Tapestry. He believes that parts of the tapestry were made before 1066, and that it was a tool for prediction, not a simple record of events.

The Nazis are also obsessed with the tapestry: convinced that not only did it predict the Norman Conquest of England, but that it will aid them in their invasion of Britain.

Ivy Sharp has joined the Special Operations Executive – the SOE – a secret unit set up to carry out espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance. Having demonstrated that she has extraordinary powers of perception, she is dropped into Northern France on a special mission.

With the war on a knife edge, the Sharp Sisters face certain death. Can their courage and extrasensory gifts prevent the enemy from using the tapestry to bring about a devastating victory against the Allied Forces?

THE LOVERS by Rebekah Faubion

Sep 242024
 

A second chance at love is in the cards for two women working a stylish California wedding in this charming debut romance.

If Kit Larson believes one thing, it’s that the cards never lie. She’s seen it proven time and time again as a tarot reader and mystic influencer. But unfortunately the cards didn’t warn her about her most recent breakup or her parents’ divorce, so when Kit is offered a gig at another influencer’s boho-chic Joshua Tree wedding she accepts for the distraction. And distract it does when she finds out her high school crush, Julia, is the wedding planner.

Julia Kelley is her agency’s most sought-after wedding planner, and for a good reason—she’s a perfectionist. Control means never showing others the vulnerable, blobby mess she really is deep down inside. Having an ex-girlfriend in the bridal party is a problem, sure, but reconnecting with the beautiful tarot reader who broke her heart as a teenager is so much worse.

Kit’s cards once told her that she and Julia were Twin Flames, two halves of the same soul. With wedding events pushing them together, their spark reignites . . . and so does a chance at being lovers.

COUNTESS by Suzan Palumbo

Sep 102024
 

A queer, Caribbean, anti-colonial sci-fi novella in which a betrayed captain seeks revenge on the interplanetary empire that subjugated her people for generations

Virika Sameroo lives in colonized space under the Æcerbot Empire, much like her ancestors before her in the British West Indies. After years of working hard to rise through the ranks of the empire’s merchant marine, she’s finally become first lieutenant on an interstellar cargo vessel.

When her captain dies under suspicious circumstances, Virika is arrested for murder and charged with treason despite her lifelong loyalty to the empire. Her conviction and subsequent imprisonment set her on a path of revenge, determined to take down the evil empire that wronged her, all while the fate of her people hangs in the balance.

ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ by Andy Marino

Sep 032024
 

May 1962

In the middle of San Francisco Bay looms Alcatraz, home to America’s most infamous prisoners. Also home to Chip Carter and his dad, who works at the high security prison. Their neighbors are former mobsters, gangsters, and murderers, but Chip finds it to be a pretty boring place to live. After all, the inmates can’t hurt him–they’re locked up in an impenetrable fortress, surrounded by unforgiving waters.

Or are they?

Inmate AZ1441, aka the Watcher, has a plan to break out of Alcatraz. It’s a genius plan he’s concocted along with three other inmates. Foolproof. Or so he thought until one of the guard’s kids stumbles into the middle of it.

Chip is stunned. No one can break out of the Rock. Not unless they have an inside guy. Which it seems like they do … Chip’s dad. They know Chip’s onto them, so if he wants to survive, he’s going to have to make sure these men stay locked up. But first he has to figure out who is planning the prison break and just how deep into this deadly scheme his dad is. Because given what these men have done to end up in Alcatraz, there’s no telling what they’ll do to get out.

ASUNDER by Kerstin Hall

Aug 202024
 

We choose our own gods here.

Karys Eska is a deathspeaker, locked into an irrevocable compact with Sabaster, a terrifying eldritch being―three-faced, hundred-winged, unforgiving―who has granted her the ability to communicate with the newly departed. She pays the rent by using her abilities to investigate suspicious deaths around the troubled city she calls home. When a job goes sideways and connects her to a dying stranger with some very dangerous secrets, her entire world is upended.

Ferain is willing to pay a ludicrous sum of money for her help. To save him, Karys inadvertently binds him to her shadow, an act that may doom them both. If they want to survive, they will need to learn to trust one another. Together, they must journey to the heart of a faded empire, all the while haunted by arcane horrors, and the unquiet ghosts of their pasts.

And all too soon, Karys knows her debts will come due.

BLOOD IN SWEET RIVER by John Shirley

Aug 202024
 

After a long, hard journey west, Cleve Trewe is ready to settle down. He’s got his beautiful wife Berry in San Francisco, a baby on the way, and his sights set on a gorgeous piece of land in the Sierras. This sweet slice of heaven is aptly named Sweet River, and it’s the perfect place to build a ranch, farm, and home for his family. Problem is, Cleve’s not the only one with his eyes on the land. A big-time cattle baron named Asa Hawthorn is prepared to use threats, intimidation—and armed thugs—to get what he wants. Worse yet, Cleve knows the man from the darkest days of the Civil War . . .

Cleve’s not about to surrender his claim.. He’s got his buddy Kanaway by his side, a family of Paiute Indians on his team, and the property papers ready to sign. That’s when the real trouble starts. To squash the deal, Hawthorn unleashes his deadliest henchmen—including a would-be gunfighter from Cleve’s past and a killer-for-hire who never misses. The Paiute family recognizes some of them as the men who slaughtered their tribe—a massacre that Cleve suspects was the work of Asa Hawthorn. Either way, a major battle is brewing. And the crystal blue waters of Sweet River are about to turn red . . .

AN UNLIKELY AMISH INHERITANCE by Jo Ann Brown

Aug 202024
 

An inheritance filled with riddles…

Could love be the answer?

When her Amish grandmother passes away, Englisch police officer Jenna Shetler returns to her family’s farm on Maryland’s eastern shore to carry out her grandmother’s unusual last request. A series of letters with specific instructions forces her to seek help from Amish bachelor Abe Bontranger—and confront her teenage heartbreak. Working together brings them closer than they’ve been in years, but with Jenna’s commitment to the police force and Abe’s plans for his Amish life, is a second chance possible for the two of them?

LOKA by S.B. Divya

Aug 132024
 

Finding a place to belong becomes a girl’s ambitious quest in a thrilling epic about space, humanity, and self-discovery by S.B. Divya, Hugo and Nebula Award finalist and author of Meru.

Akshaya is the hybrid daughter of a human mother and an alloy, a genetically engineered posthuman—and she’s the future of life on the planet Meru. But not if the determined Akshaya can help it. Before choosing where her future lies, she wants to circumnavigate the most historic orb in the universe—the birthplace of humanity: Earth.

Akshaya’s parents reluctantly agree to her anthropological challenge—one with no assistance from alloy devices, transport, or wary alloys themselves who manage humanity and the regions of Earth called Loka. It’s just Akshaya; her equally bold best friend, Somya; and a carefully planned itinerary threading continent by continent across a wondrous terrain of things she’s never seen: blue skies, sunrises, snowcapped mountains, and roiling oceans.

As the adventure unfolds, the travelers discover love and new friendships, but they also learn the risks of a planet that’s not entirely welcoming. On this trek—rapturous, dangerous, and life-changing—Akshaya will discover what human existence really means.

WE SPEAK THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN by Premee Mohamed

Jun 182024
 

The enlivening follow-up to the award-winning sensation The Annual Migration of Clouds.

Traveling alone through the climate-crisis-ravaged wilds of Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, 19-year-old Reid Graham battles the elements and her lifelong chronic illness to reach the utopia of Howse University. But life in one of the storied “domes” — the last remnants of pre-collapse society — isn’t what she expected. Reid tries to excel in her classes and make connections with other students, but still grapples with guilt over what happened just before she left her community. And as she learns more about life at Howse, she begins to realize she can’t stand idly by as the people of the dome purposely withhold needed resources from the rest of humanity. When the worst of news comes from back home, Reid must make a choice between herself, her family, and the broken new world.

In this powerful follow-up to her award-winning novella The Annual Migration of Clouds, Premee Mohamed is at the top of her game as she explores the conflicts and complexities of this post-apocalyptic society and asks whether humanity is doomed to forever recreate its worst mistakes.

 Older Entries  Newer Entries