Upcoming Books

From the Ashes of a Dead World

by Shane Gries

Release Date: December 3, 2020

Pavel Marino commands one of the last remaining squadrons in the final days of an unwinnable interstellar conflict. He must now spirit his government’s leadership across the stars to a forgotten planet whose inhabitants were believed destroyed in an ancient war. There, far from the reaches of a ruthless foe, they can regroup their forces in order to fight again.

But his ships were never designed to travel such a distance. Along the way many difficult decisions are made so that a few can survive. And when they finally reach their anticipated refuge, they discover that the planet is already inhabited by billions of humans with industrial-level technology, driving cars with internal combustion engines, flying airplanes with propellers, and waging a brutal world war.

Desperate, and with nowhere else to go, the weary space-farers make contact with their primitive cousins. They must now make a fateful decision: Should they strive for peaceful coexistence or domination?

Treadwell

by Stoney Compton

Release Date: December 10, 2020

In 1915, seasoned Pinkerton investigator August Lepke is sent to Alaska Territory to “box up” captured serial killer Edward Krause, a job that should be routine. But once in Juneau he encounters complications, starting with suffragette Florence Malone and her shady, politically powerful father, Jack. The Tlingit policeman, George Mak-we, is nothing like the Red Indians Lepke had expected, not to mention the college-educated Filipino grocery clerk, Begay Santo. And how do the newly widowed flirtatious Austrian noblewoman Amanda Ganbor and the English journalist Arnold Williams fit into the picture?

There is more going on than August had supposed. To start with, numerous attempts on his life make clear that Krause can reach far beyond the bars of his cell in the federal courthouse. The belligerent European immigrant miners have short fuses—so do their dynamite charges—and seem to have at least one saboteur among them.

The mines of the Juneau Gold Belt help fill U.S. coffers and the vast Treadwell Complex dominates the region in production and cutting-edge engineering. Its loss could jeopardize the United States’ ability to enter the Great War enveloping Europe.

Gold mines can be murdered as well as men.

Designed to Fail

by Virginia DeMarce

Release Date: December 17, 2020

Frederik of Denmark, the son of King Christian IV, is the new governor of the new province of Westphalia, and harbors the dark suspicion that the Swedes who now dominate central Europe deliberately designed the province so that he would not succeed in his assignment, thus undermining his father’s position.

Problems are everywhere! Religious fragmentation, cities demanding imperial status, jurisdictional disputes among the nobility and between the nobility and the common folk—there’s no end to it.

And then matters get still more complicated. Annalise Richter, a student at the famous Abbey of Quedlinburg, wants Frederik to correct an injustice. Her mentor, the Abbess of Quedlinburg, is being prevented from running for a seat in the House of Commons because she is, well, not a commoner.

Surely Frederik can do something to fix this wrong!

The prince is of two minds. On the one hand—being very much his father’s son—he has developed a great passion for the marvelous young woman. He is determined to marry her. On the other hand…

She’s Catholic. A bit of a problem, that, for a Lutheran prince.

But there’s worse. She’s also the younger sister of Gretchen Richter.

Yes, that Gretchen Richter.

The Dragon’s Apprentice

by David Carrico

Release Date: December 24, 2020

Evann, having survived meeting dragons and becoming a wizard, is in a tough situation. He has no idea how to handle the spells he’s learned. So he’s come to the city of Morshton to find a wizard to teach him. He’s taken on by Quinton, reputed to be the best wizard in the city, who tells Evann he’s in much deeper trouble than he realizes. He’s not supposed to have these spells at all. They could burn his mind out.

Meanwhile, Evann’s friend Rufous, the new Solon of the dragons, finds himself on the verge of a war with the goblins, who have accused a dragon of stealing some of their magic weapons. In the course of his search for the supposedly guilty dragon, he learns some of the history involved and begins to suspect there’s more going on than the goblins had told him.

Evann’s training progresses, despite some frightening episodes, as does Rufous’ search. But when the search finally uncovers the lair of the mysterious dragon, Rufous finds he has come into a trap. Meanwhile, Evann witnesses a triple murder which seems to have been committed by a goblin—and a spell marker painted on a wall in the victims’ blood.

The fate of the dragon and his apprentice are welded together again. They’ll need each other just to survive, much less triumph against their enemies.