Michael Fletcher’s SWARM AND STEEL, a fantasy novel set in a harsh world where belief defines reality, in which Zerfall Seele, thousands of years old and creator of a punishing afterlife sees her creation through unbiased eyes for the first time and vows to destroy it, to Bradley Englert at Talos Press, by Cameron McClure.
Ann Claycomb’s THE MERMAID’S DAUGHTER, about a promising opera singer plagued by stabbing pain in her feet, who slowly discovers she is 8 generations removed from the original Little Mermaid in Hans Christian Andersen’s story and is given the same awful choice all the women in her family faced: kill yourself and end the pain, or kill your true love and return to the sea, to Rebecca Lucash at William Morrow, for publication winter 2017, by Cameron McClure.
Jordan Brown at Balzer + Bray has preempted Justina Ireland’s DREAD NATION and an untitled sequel, a YA duology set in a post-Reconstruction America beset by an undead plague that rose from the battlefields of the Civil War. The book follows Jane, the daughter of a plantation-owner mother and enslaved father, who is training as an attendant in Baltimore to protect well-to-do white folk from the undead. Publication is scheduled for 2018. Amy Boggs did the deal for North American rights.
Dan Koboldt’s THE ISLAND DECEPTION and THE WORLD AWAKENING, sequels to THE ROGUE RETRIEVAL. A Las Vegas stage magician joins a mercenary extraction force infiltrating a world where magic is all too real and the penalty for impersonating a true magician is death, to David Pomerico at Harper Voyager Impulse for publication in February 2017 and 2018, by Paul Stevens.
Environmental Scientist Kate Brandes’ debut novel THE PROMISE OF PIERSON ORCHARD, pitched as Erin Brockovich meets Promised Land, about a Pennsylvania family threatened by betrayal, financial desperation, old flames, fracking, and ultimately finding forgiveness, to Nancy Cleary at Wyatt-MacKenzie, for publication in Spring 2017, by Katie Shea Boutillier.
Culture journalist and selfie expert Alicia Eler’s THE SELFIE GENERATION, an exploration of the most direct form of visual communication in the digital age and how it shapes our culture, including discussions of digital privacy, selfie psychology, and depictions of selfie culture in mainstream media, to Maxim Brown at Skyhorse, by Caitlin McDonald.
Nicky Drayden’s debut novel THE PREY OF GODS, a near future thriller set in South Africa in which a diverse set of characters imbued with supernatural abilites by a street drug called Godsend must band together against a disenfranchised goddess who intends to remake their world and change the fate of humanity forever, along with a second untitled novel, to David Pomerico at HarperCollins Voyager by Jennifer Jackson.
Emily Winslow’s STILL LIFE, her fourth crime novel set in Cambridge England, in which new evidence comes to light on the cold case of Annalise Wood, a teenage girl who went missing 40 years ago, and the three present day women whose lives are thrown together because of it: one who claims to be Annalise’s secret daughter, another who has adopted her imagined suffering, and the psychologist who treats them both and knows more about the case than she can share with the police, plus the author’s three previous crime novels, to Deb Brody at William Morrow, by Cameron McClure.
Molly Tanzer’s QUICKSILVER, sequel to VERMILION, named one of the best SFF books of 2015 by io9 and NPR, in which psychopomp Lou Merriwether returns to San Francisco’s Chinatown where someone or something is slowly draining the population’s souls, and the only person who can help is already dead, to Ross Lockhart at Word Horde, by Cameron McClure.
Susan R. Matthews’ Jurisdiction collection, bringing together the short fiction and novellas from the Philip K. Dick Award nominated series, including a brand new previously unpublished novella, to Tony Daniel at Baen Books by Jennifer Jackson.