Starred Review: Even Though I Knew The End by C.L. Polk

Oct 042022
 

Library Journal: In Polk’s (Soulstar) alternate-history Jazz Age Chicago, where angels live among the godly and demons stalk the streets, Helen Brandt is a woman who sold her soul to save her brother. She has one last chance to get it back and spend the rest of her days with the woman she loves. She thinks her task is to figure out which demon is poaching on another’s Chicago turf. But demons lie—and so, as Helen discovers, do angels. This bittersweet urban fantasy romance wraps its tale of love and inevitable loss in a desperate search for a serial killer that begins as a murder mystery and then grows wings—and tentacles. Polk’s world, where angels answer the prayers of the faithful while demons prey on the fallen, turns standard concepts of good and evil on their heads as the heroine learns that her world is not what she thought it was.

VERDICT Readers who fell into recent Jazz Age urban fantasies such as Desideria Mesa’s Bindle Punk Bruja and fans of time-travel or fantasy romances with tragic endings, like Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, will love Polk’s latest.

September Subsidiary Rights Deals

Sep 302022
 

a pair of black ear budsAudio rights to three additional titles in Mike Shepherd’s Jump Universe series, including Kris Longknife: Stalwart, Longknifes Defend the Legation, and Kris Longknife Boot Recruit (novella) to Louise Quayle at Audible via Michael Curry on behalf of Jennifer Jackson.

September Translation Rights Deals

Sep 302022
 

Brazilian rights to Robert Jackson Bennett’s LOCKLANDS, to Morro Branco, by Cristina Purchio at International Editors’, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.

Czech rights to Ronald Malfi’s BLACK MOUTH, to Dobrovsky, by Lola Dunton at Prava I Prevodi, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.

French rights to Robert Jackson Bennett’s CITY OF BLADES and CITY OF MIRACLES, to Gilles Dumay at Albin Michel, in a two-book deal, by Megan Husain at Anna Jarota Agency, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.

French rights to Lavanya Lakshminarayan’s ANALOG/VIRTUAL AND OTHER SIMULATIONS OF YOUR FUTURE, to Hachette Livre by Megan Husain at Anna Jarota Agency, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.

Taiwanese rights to Robert Jackson Bennett’s LOCKLANDS, to Apex by Gray Tan at The Grayhawk Agency, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier at Donald Maass Literary Agency, for Cameron McClure.

Starred Review: Even Though I Knew The End by C.L. Polk

Sep 292022
 

Booklist: The 1940s hard-boiled detective story is reimagined with the role of the world-weary PI played by a sapphic magic user whose damned soul is due for collection. Helen Brandt has only three days left on Earth when she’s given the chance to regain the soul she bargained away and live a long and happy life with her lover, Edith. All she has to do is track down the White City Vampire, a magical serial killer stalking the streets of Chicago. That shouldn’t be a problem for the former rising-star mystic trained by the elite Brotherhood of the Compass, especially with the street smarts Helen picked up as a crime-scene augur after she was cast out of the Brotherhood. But when Helen finds herself caught in a battle between demons and angels with the two people she cares for most in the crossfire, she realizes she might have gotten the raw end of the deal. Combining the sensibilities of Raymond Chandler and Jim Butcher, with an achingly bittersweet tribute to the lesbian underground of the 1940s, this is a must-read for those who like their queer fantasy with a little grit and a lot of soul (pun intended).

Deal: Karin Nordin

Sep 282022
 

Author of ITW nominated LAST ONE ALIVE Karin Nordin’s LOCAL LEGENDS and DEUCES WILD, two suspense novels, to Cat Camacho at HQ Digital by Anne Tibbets (world).

Axle Bust Creek by John Shirley

Sep 272022
 

From the acclaimed author of Ralph Compton’s Prairie Fire, Kansas, the first in an action-packed new series starring Civil War veteran Cleveland Trewe, a master gunfighter, horseman, and lawman who’s looking to strike it rich in the gold fields of Axle Bust, Nevada…

From the battlefield of Shiloh to the prisoner camp at Slocum, former Union soldier Cleveland Trewe has seen more than enough carnage for one lifetime. Now that the war is over he’s found work as a peacekeeper and prospector—the perfect set of survival skills for a town like Axle Bust, Nevada, a place seething with danger.

Cleve’s uncle staked a claim in Axle Bust only to lose it to a murderous con-man partnered with Duncan Conroy, owner of the Golden Fleece Mine and a man determined to build an empire by means fair and foul. The only person keeping Conroy in check is his sister Berenice, a freethinker whose scientific education benefits the family interests—even while catching Cleve’s eye.

To reclaim his uncle’s mine, and bring justice to a town under tyranny, Cleve finds himself turning the streets into a bullet-riddled battlefield. Conroy is about to learn there just isn’t room for both men in a town like Axle Bust.

Congratulations to Tamsyn Muir!

Sep 262022
 

Nona the Ninth coverCongratulations to Tamsyn Muir! NONA THE NINTH debuts at #4 on the NEW YORK TIMES hardcover fiction list and #9 on the NEW YORK TIMES combined list.

Review: Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Sep 162022
 

Nona the Ninth coverBooklist: At just about six months old (in a nineteen-year-old body), Nona lives a full life. She recounts her dreams to her protectors and works as a teacher’s aide at a local school. She’s been grudgingly accepted by a gang of streetwise kids and is trusted to watch a beloved teacher’s dog. At the edges of Nona’s life, glimpses of other truths occasionally slip through: there’s a giant blue sphere hanging in the sky, for one thing. Zombies are a problem. Occasionally Nona and her family are kidnapped by a clandestine local cell and interrogated about her true identity, but she manages to find the best in even those situations. In this ancillary volume set between Harrow the Ninth (2020) and the forthcoming Alecto the Ninth, Muir takes the time to explore unfolding calamity through the eyes of a true innocent. The book is set over the course of five days in the prelude to an apocalyptic event, with chapters interspersed where the reader learns how the death and resurrection of the people of Earth came to pass. Muir fans will be even more eager for the imperial scope of Alecto once they’ve finished Nona’s quiet character study.

Review: It Rides A Pale Horse by Andy Marino

Sep 142022
 

Library Journal: The latest from Marino (The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess) is a lesson about how art can open doors that probably shouldn’t be opened. The story focuses on the Lark siblings, both eccentric artists. Peter Larkin (Lark to his friends) is a famous artist, a hometown boy who made good yet decided to stay in the community where he grew up, idyllic Wofford Falls. His sister Betsy is also talented, but her paintings can have disconcerting effects on people and on reality itself. This makes her integral to the plans of a pair of one-percenter siblings who want the Larkins to help them create works of art that might just destroy the world. Marino demonstrates his skill as a storyteller, creating empathetic, fleshed-out characters who must fight through the madness that is bearing down on them—but note that this novel isn’t Stephen King–style, slice-of-Americana, triumph-of-the-human-spirit horror.

VERDICT Marino is very willing to plumb the depths of human discomfort and nihilistic despair, revealing disturbing images that sear into the brain while showing how art, and sibling bonds, can both create and destroy.

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