Swords and Spaceships for February 2

A family from Afghanistan journeys to Australia, keeping their hopes alive with fairy tales and stories. During the long journey from Pakistan to Indonesia to Nauru, they must rely on the kindness of strangers with questionable motives for temporary shelter. But Australia is not the land they’ve made into myth along the journey, and once there, Firuzeh, the daughter of the family, escapes into her fantasy worlds once more.

Karis has been forced to serve the Scriptorium, her country’s ruling group of scribes, who have one main purpose: unlock the magic of an army made of ancient automatons. As she searches for her missing brother, Karis accidentally awakens one of the automatons–which turns out to be intelligent and sentient, and named Alix. Alix doesn’t know why he was made or why his creator once tried to destroy him and all the other automatons. Now hunted by the Scriptorium, Karis and Alix must work together to find Karis’s brother and unearth the secrets that have long held the country in darkness.

Mia’s family has shaped humanity over 99 generations, always pushing them to try to reach for the stars. Her task in this mission is to lure Wernher Von Braun to the American space program, thus securing the move into the space race. But Mia’s family isn’t the only one trying to manipulate history, and her enemies are far more ruthless and creative than she yet imagines.

A kingdom once founded to be a utopia has collapsed into feudalism, with the gap between wealthy and poor ever-widening. A rumor circulates that a True Queen will save the kingdom, and these are the sort of rumors that fuel rebellion. A young man named Lazarus, who has lived most his life without ever seeing the sky as he is trained to kill mercilessly, ascends to the surface and joins a royal court filled with intrigue. There he meets Niya, a handmaiden with a true identity that must never be revealed, and the princess she serves, Elyssa. Together, the three of them must fight for a better world and to master their own fates.

Twenty years ago, Joseph Bridgeman’s little sister, Amy, disappeared, and his life fell apart. A friend convinces him to see a hypnotherapist for his insomnia, and instead he accidentally discovers he can time travel. He suddenly has a new purpose: to go back and save Amy. But the further he travels back, the less time he gets to spend in his destination–and he has a deadly mystery to solve.