Author: Alex Acks

Vesper is the child of failed revolutionaries. She’s already lost her mother, who was captured by the queen’s soldiers and chose to avoid death at the hands of the hangman instead by accepting the death of being flung into the endless, cursed storm that surrounds the city. Twelve years later, her father is caught and will soon face that same choice — if Vesper doesn’t save him by arming herself with dangerous magic and infiltrating the cold-hearted prince’s soldiers.

A retired soldier named Alex rushes to the ancestral home of the Ushers when they receive word that their childhood friend, Madeline Usher, is dying. What they find on arrival is terrifying wildlife possessed by fungus, and Madeline sleepwalking and streaking in voices that aren’t hers. It’s up to Alex to unravel this horrifying mystery before the fungus consumes them and everyone nearby.

When dragon prince Thuan and his demon husband Asmodeus go on a family holiday, they don’t expect to encounter anything more challenging than babysitting and the usual family politics. What they get instead is a hungry ghost haunting a ruined shrine, who is the only witness to a murder that happened there. It’s up to the husband team to solve the mystery–and hopefully keep everyone alive through it.

Raine has spent her life hiding, lying, and on the run, trying to keep her ability to see and speak with the dead hidden—because if she doesn’t, she’ll be killed for it. But one of the few times she tries to help someone, aiding an injured woman she finds in the snow, may well be her doom. The woman she helped is on the run, herself, from the monastery of Redwinter, and from the warrior magicians who live there, who will stop at nothing to reclaim what she’s stolen.

Tanvi was kidnapped and made into a dream runner for the realm of Nagalok seven years ago. With no memories or emotions, she and the other runners collect mortal dreams for the naga court’s entertainment. But when Tanvi suddenly recovers some of her memories during a dream harvest gone wrong, she turns to the only person she can think of in Nagalok: Venakt, the dreamsmith. But together, what they begin to figure out a terrifying truth that may turn dreams to nightmares.

The Logi are telepathic aliens who maintain a diplomatic presence on Earth. Lydia, a woman with few qualifications and fewer talents, works as the translator for the Logi cultural attaché, interpreting his thoughts into English. But when something terrible happens to the Logi, she finds herself in the middle of a locked room mystery that she is also deeply unqualified to handle… but she’d better figure it out if she wants to avoid jail.

Ivy is a normal suburban girl until her summer break starts off with a stranger appearing suddenly in the middle of the road, in the middle of the night — and things get weirder from there. From then on, Ivy must struggle with some strange happenings and corroded memories, all of which point to her mother being more than she’s ever admitted to. And she’s right to wonder; when Dana was sixteen, she stepped into the supernatural with two of her friends, and what was intended to be a summer fling turned far, far darker.

While the Gearbreakers might have won against the empire on Heavensday, the cost to them was incalculable and they survive only by hiding in the mountains. The victory also almost killed Eris, who has been held prisoner since–and things only become worse when she discovers the girl she loves, Sona, has been corrupted and cybernetically brainwashed by Zenith, the last surviving leader of Godolia. To win this war, Eris must find a way to bring Sona back to herself across the battle line.

The red-blooded rule the empire, their power defined by their blood. Sylah was once told she would spark the revolution against their tyranny while she grew up in the resistance. But when she meets Anoor, the disappointing daughter of the most powerful ruler of that empire, the spark between them will ignite more than change–and might immolate them both.

In a city that’s changing from one run by magic to one run by industry, Malinchen and her sisters live with their xenophobic wizard father and act like a tourist trap as the last true witches. The girls sneak out at night to explore the city and enjoy its thrills, until Marlinchen meets a ballet dancer who captures her heart. But her love is complicated by her tyrannical father–and the monsters that stalk the city’s streets.

An Austrian science fiction classic translated into English, this is the story of a middle-aged woman who is on vacation in the mountains. One day she finds her hunting lodge surrounded by a mysterious, invisible wall. She must learn to survive and cope with loneliness, with only a few domesticated animals as companions.

The leader of the worker rebellion, General Arika Cobane, makes a highly illegal play to win her people’s freedom that ultimately ends in failure. With her co-conspirator hanged for treason, she blacks out, only to awaken to a world where she’s been stripped of her power. The Kongo is now being lead by a traitor who will consign them all back to servitude in the name of peace. Arika must seek treatment for her blackouts and make new allies if she’s to save Kongo.

In the near-future, America has changed over to Universal Basic Income… and January 15th is the day that it’s paid out annually. Four women view this day very differently, each with their own context to her life, from a mother who used the UBI to escape an abusive husband to a college kid who is planning to waste it all spectacularly.

Morwood is a dark and evil house that eats secrets. When Asher Todd comes there to be the governess for the family, she has a revenge in mind, one that will choke the house on all the secrets she carries with her. But she’s not such a monster that she doesn’t become fond of her charges, or of the people of the Tarn, and soon she begins to doubt her plan… until the ghosts from her past become too hard to control.

Witness for the Dead Thara Celehar uses his ability to speak to the dead and experience their final moments to understand the last wishes of the departed–and sometimes find those who murdered them. When a marquise is killed, he’s called upon to solve that murder… but his investigation raises more questions than it answers, and he’s soon drawn into the dark history of Amalo.

This is the first short fiction collection for Nebula Award-winning author Sam J. Miller, which includes an introduction written by Amal El-Mohtar. Stories of queer infatuation, heartbreak, and brutal revenge fill these pages, including a queer take on The Thing.

Joey is a Reality Controller in near-future Delhi, where she manages the multimedia and multi-reality livestreams of an online celebrity who just so happens to be her ex from college. When she impulsively offers Rudra, a rich boy estranged from his family, a job, she gives him a chance to escape his family for good. But multiple conspiracies are waiting to pull them in, and their place in the middle of a surveillance capitalism complex makes figuring out how to do the right thing–or what the right thing is to begin with–very difficult.

In this queer reimagining of The Iliad, Achilles is a trans woman who flees her clan of Myrmidons to join with the priestesses of Aphrodite. When Odysseus comes to recruit her, still seeking a “prince”, it is Aphrodite who intervenes and transforms her body, promising her glory, fame, and victory–if she sets off in a war of vengeance.

With the Doyenne dead and the thrown ready for the taking, two women will decide its fate. Iraya has had the first measure of her revenge, but her magic is now unfettered and she must free Aiyca and become the empress her people need. Jazmyne should be the next Doyenne, but with her mother overthrown, her people aren’t ready to just give the crown to her without a fight. And then a new enemy who has been waiting in the shadows for a decade will strike them both down and take what is rightfully theirs. Sequel to Witches Steeped in Gold.

In a world held in balance between Necromancers and Reapers, the Laheys are a family that has since time immemorial been tasked with keeping the balance between the two. Nyx was born to be a Necromancer but raised as a Reaper, and now she must find her own identity even as she hunts down murderous creatures. During one hunt, she runs into the mysterious Erebus, a dead man who can turn into a raven, who wants the memories of his past back–and the key to his past has ended up in Nyx’s hands.