Done with December 2010 Releases? Here are January 2011 Releases. Some of these books will actually be available in late December (Harlequin changed their release info at Amazon after I’d already done December’s list), so pre-order now and they may arrive before 2011. To see further into the publication date future, check Reading Wishlist.
Sean Cummings
Unseen World
Snowbooks (UK: 1st January 2011)
Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
Someone is murdering the good people of Greenfield, and there’s talk of a serial killer on the loose. Finding him should be an easy job for a guy with super-powers; too bad he keeps falling out of the sky. If Marshall Conrad has any hope of ending the killing spree, he’ll need a little help from a morbidly obese shop keeper (who just happens to be a witch) and a hard-drinking senior citizen with a penchant for lifting heavy objects…like automobiles. Corrupt cops, ogres, thirty-six-year-old Siamese cats, and of course, the netherworld. All in a day’s work when you’re trying to save your city from a simmering evil that’s about to be unleashed.
Megan Hart
Precious and Fragile Things
Harlequin Mira (US: 1st January 2011)
Review
Buy (US) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Gilly Soloman has been reduced to a mothering machine, taking care of everyone and everything except herself. But the machine has broken down. Burnt out by the endless days of crying children and menial tasks, and exhausted from always putting herself last, Gilly doesn’t immediately consider the consequences when she’s carjacked. With a knife to her throat, her first thought is that she’ll finally get some rest. Someone can save her for a change. But salvation isn’t so forthcoming. Stranded in a remote, snowbound cabin with this stranger, hours turn to days, days into weeks. As time forges a fragile bond between them, she learns her captor is not the lunatic she first believed, but a human being whose wasted life has been shaped by secrets and tragedy. Yet even as their connection begins to foster trust, Gilly knows she must never forget he’s still a man teetering on the edge. One who just might take her with him.
Dia Reeves
Bleeding Violet (Portero, Book 1)
Simon & Schuster Pulse (AU: 1st January 2011)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Hanna simply wants to be loved. With a head plagued by hallucinations, a medicine cabinet full of pills, and a closet stuffed with frilly violet dresses, Hanna’s tired of being the outcast, the weird girl, the freak. So she runs away to Portero, Texas, in search of a new home. But Portero is a stranger town than Hanna expects. As she tries to make a place for herself, she discovers dark secrets that would terrify any normal soul. Good thing for Hanna, she’s far from normal. As this crazy girl meets an even crazier town, only two things are certain: Anything can happen and no one is safe.
Lilith Saintcrow
Heaven’s Spite (Jill Kismet, Book 5)
Hachette Grand Central (AU: 1st January 2011)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
When a new hellbreed comes calling, playing nice isn’t an option. Jill Kismet has no choice but to seek treacherous allies – Perry, the devil she knows, and Melisande Belisa, the cunning Sorrows temptress whose true loyalties are unknown. Kismet knows Perry and Belisa are likely playing for the same thing – her soul. It’s just too bad, because she expects to beat them at their own game. Except their game is vengeance. Nobody plays vengeance like Kismet. But if the revenge she seeks damns her, her enemies might get her soul after all…
Prey (Shifters, Book 4)
Mills & Boon Mira (AU: January 2011)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Sometimes playing cat and mouse is no game… Play? Right. My pride is under fire from all sides, my father’s authority is in question and my lover is in exile. Which means I haven’t laid eyes on Marc’s gorgeous face in months. Besides, with a new mother and an I-know-everything teenager under my protection, I don’t exactly have time to fantasise about ever seeing him again. Then our long-awaited reunion is ruined by a vicious ambush by strays. Now our group is under attack, Marc is missing and I will need every bit of skill and smarts to keep my family from being torn apart. Forever.
Rachel Vincent
My Soul to Steal (Soul Screamers, Book 4)
Harlequin Teen (US & AU: 1st January 2011)
Review
Buy (US) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Trying to work things out with Nash – her maybe boyfriend – is hard enough for Kaylee Cavanaugh. She can’t just pretend nothing happened. But “complicated” doesn’t even begin to describe their relationship when his ex-girlfriend transfers to their school, determined to take Nash back. See, Sabine isn’t just an ordinary girl. She’s a mara, the living personification of a nightmare. She can read people’s fears – and craft them into nightmares while her victims sleep. Feeding from human fear is how she survives. And Sabine isn’t above scaring Kaylee and the entire school to death to get whatever – and whoever – she wants.
Rachel Caine
Midnight Alley (Morganville Vampires, Book 3)
Penguin Razorbill (AU: 4th January 2011)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
When Claire Danvers learnt that her college town was run by vampires, she did what any intelligent, self-preserving student would do: she applied for a transfer and stocked up on garlic. The transfer is no longer an option, but that garlic may come in handy. Now Claire has pledged herself to Amelie, the most powerful vampire in town. The protection her contract secures does little to reassure her friends. All of a sudden, people are turning up dead, a stalker resurfaces from Claire’s past, and an ancient bloodsucker extends a chilling invitation for private lessons in his secluded home.
Carrie Jones
Entice (Need Pixies, Book 3)
Bloomsbury (UK & AU: 4th January 2011)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Zara and Nick are soul-mates – they’re meant to be together forever. But that’s not quite how things have worked out. For starters, Nick is dead, and has been taken to Valhalla, a mystical resting place for warriors. If they can find the way there, Zara and her friends will try to get him back. But even if they do, Zara has turned pixie – and now she’s Astley’s queen! Meanwhile, more teenagers go missing as a group of evil pixies devastates the town of Bedford. An all-out war seems imminent and Zara and her friends need all the warriors they can find…
Dia Reeves
Slice of Cherry (Portero, Book 2)
Simon & Schuster Pulse (US/CA: 4th January 2011)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Kit and Fancy Cordelle are sisters of the best kind: best friends, best confidantes, and best accomplices. The daughters of the infamous Bonesaw Killer, Kit and Fancy are used to feeling like outsiders, and that’s just the way they like it. But in Portero, where the weird and wild run rampant, the Cordelle sisters are hardly the oddest or most dangerous creatures around. It’s no surprise when Kit and Fancy start to give in to their deepest desire – the desire to kill. What starts as a fascination with slicing open and stitching up quickly spirals into a gratifying murder spree. Of course, the sisters aren’t killing just anyone, only the people who truly deserve it. But the girls have learned from the mistakes of their father, and know that a shred of evidence could get them caught. So when Fancy stumbles upon a mysterious and invisible doorway to another world, she opens a door to endless possibilities…
Beth Revis
Across the Universe
Penguin Razorbill (AU: 4th January 2011; US/CA: 11th January 2011)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules. Amy quickly realises that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone – one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship – tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn’t do something soon, her parents will be next. Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed‘s hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there’s only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.
Diana Rowland
Secrets of the Demon (Kara Gillian, Book 3)
Penguin DAW (US/CA: 4th January 2011)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Homicide detective Kara Gillian has a special talent: she can sense the “arcane” in our world, and there’s quite a bit of it, even in Beaulac, Louisiana. She’s also a summoner of demons, and works on a task force that deals with supernatural crimes. Her partners are attractive and smart FBI agents, but they’re not summoners, and they’re not telling Kara why they are on this special force with her. To make things worse, Kara has pledged herself to one of the most powerful of demons – a Demon Lord – who helped save her partner’s life, but now expects things in return. Meanwhile, she’s trying to solve a string of murders that are somehow tied together by money, sex, rock music and…mud. But how can she concentrate on the case when she’s not even sure who – or what – her partners are?
Julia Karr
XVI
Penguin Speak (US: 6th January 2011; CA: 11th January 2011)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Nina Oberon’s life is pretty normal: she hangs out with her best friend, Sandy, and their crew, goes to school, plays with her little sister, Dee. But Nina is fifteen. And like all girls she’ll receive a Governing Council-ordered tattoo on her sixteenth birthday. XVI. Those three letters will be branded on her wrist, announcing to all the world – even the most predatory of men – that she is ready for sex. Considered easy prey by some, portrayed by the Media as sluts who ask for attacks, becoming a “sex-teen” is Nina’s worst fear. That is, until right before her birthday, when Nina’s mom is brutally attacked. With her dying breaths, she reveals to Nina a shocking truth about her past – one that destroys everything Nina thought she knew. Now, alone but for her sister, Nina must try to discover who she really is, all the while staying one step ahead of her mother’s killer.
Brenna Yovanoff
The Replacement
Simon & Schuster (UK: 6th January 2011)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Mackie Doyle is a replacement – a fairy child left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years ago, to replace the baby when it was stolen away by the fey. So though he lives in the small town of Gentry, Mackie’s real home is the fey world of tunnels and black, murky water, a world of living dead girls ruled by a little tattooed princess. Now, because his fey blood gives him fatal allergies to iron, blood and consecrated ground, Mackie is slowly dying in the human world. Mackie would give anything just to be normal, to live quietly amongst humans, practise his bass guitar and spend time with his crush, Tate. But when Tate’s baby sister goes missing, Mackie is drawn irrevocably back home to the fey underworld of Gentry, known as Mayhem, where he must face down the dark creatures, rescue the child, and find his rightful place – in our world, or theirs.
Tracey O’Hara
Death’s Sweet Embrace (Dark Brethren, Book 2)
HarperCollins Eos (CA: 7th January 2011; US: 25th January 2011)
Review
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
After centuries of secret conflict, humans and parahumans have reached an uneasy truce. But unspeakable evil now threatens the tenuous peace. Teenaged shapeshifters are being slaughtered by a sadistic serial killer who rips their still-beating hearts from their paralysed bodies. A task force forms to halt the madness, including the vampiric Aeternus Antoinette Petrescu, as well as Kitt Jordan and Raven Matokwe, members of enemy Animalian tribes…and forbidden lovers. A centuries-old blood feud has divided their shapeshifting peoples, and if their passion is discovered it will doom them both. But past hostilities must be put aside, for the killer they seek is but the first sign of the all-consuming nightmare of the Dark Brethren.
Joss Ware
Night Betrayed (Envy Chronicles, Book 4)
HarperCollins Avon (CA: 7th January 2011; US: 25th January 2011)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
The Change that devastated the earth did not destroy Theo Waxnicki. It made him something more than human – eternally young, eternally beautiful…but not immortal. When he dies on a mission against the Strangers, he is lost to the darkness…until a miracle lady brings him back. Born during the apocalyptic storms and earthquakes that left the world in ruins, Selena has dedicated her life to easing the pain of others. But Theo is the first in her care to survive. Responding to Selena’s tender touch, Theo starts to live again, to feel and desire again. But joined in a world of terrors, the secrets they can never share make them targets. And love could be the ultimate betrayal.
Lilith Saintcrow
Taken
Harlequin Nocturne (US: 18th January 2011)
Buy (US) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Sophie Wilson never believed she was special. Avoiding a violent ex, she can’t remember the last time she felt truly safe. Then vampires murder her best friend and Sophie is kidnapped by a dangerously sexy shapeshifter. Zach insists Sophie is a shaman – someone with a rare gift for taming a shifter’s savage side – and he needs her to help him save his pack. Now, with a malevolent enemy closing in, Sophie and Zach must risk everything on a bond that may be their only salvation…
Leslie Tentler
Midnight Caller (Chasing Evil, Book 1)
Harlequin Mira (US: 18th January 2011)
Buy (US) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Late-night radio show psychologist Rain Sommers is used to the crazies who call in to rage from the back alleys of the French Quarter and the shadows of the bayou. But one caller’s chilling obsession with her and her long-ago murdered mother – an iconic singer beloved among the city’s Goth community – has even the jaded Rain running scared as a sadistic serial killer known as the Vampire prowls New Orleans. FBI agent Trevor Rivette is convinced her midnight caller and the killer are one and the same. As it becomes disturbingly clear that the Vampire has a sick bloodlust only Rain can satisfy, she allows Trevor to get closer and closer. But he soon discovers that his secretive past and troubled present are intertwined – and that he may die trying to keep Rain’s fate out of a madman’s control.
Karen Mahoney
The Iron Witch (Ironbridge Chronicles, Book 1)
Random House (UK: 20th January 2011); Lewellyn Flux (US: 25th January 2011)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
When she was seven, a horrific fey attack killed Donna Underwood’s father and drove her mother mad. Her own nearly fatal injuries were fixed by alchemy – the iron tattoos branding her hands and arms. Now seventeen, Donna feels like a freak, doomed by the magical heritage that destroyed her parents and any chance she had for a normal life. Only her relationship with her best friend, Navin, is keeping her sane. But when vicious wood elves abduct Navin, Donna is forced to accept her role in the centuries-old war between human alchemists and these darkest outcasts of Faerie. Assisted by Xan, a gorgeous guy with faery blood running through his veins and secrets of his own, Donna races to save Navin – even if it means betraying everything her parents fought to the death to protect.
Cherie Priest
Bloodshot (Cheshire Red Reports, Book 1)
Random House Spectra (US/CA: 25th January 2011)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Raylene Pendle (AKA Cheshire Red), a vampire and world-renowned thief, doesn’t usually hang with her own kind. She’s too busy stealing priceless art and rare jewels. But when the infuriatingly charming Ian Stott asks for help, Raylene finds him impossible to resist – even though Ian doesn’t want precious artefacts. He wants her to retrieve missing government files – documents that deal with the secret biological experiments that left Ian blind. What Raylene doesn’t bargain for is a case that takes her from the wilds of Minneapolis to the mean streets of Atlanta. And with a psychotic, power-hungry scientist on her trail, a kick-ass drag queen on her side, and Men in Black popping up at the most inconvenient moments, the case proves to be one hell of a ride.
Rachel Caine
Feast of Fools (Morganville Vampires, Book 4)
Penguin Razorbill (AU: 31st January 2011)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
The tenuous good-neighbour policy between the vampires and humans of Morganville is turned on its head with the arrival of bad-to-the-bone Mr Bishop. What the ancient old-school vampire wants from the town is unthinkably sinister. It’s only at a formal ball that Claire realises the elaborately evil trap Bishop has set for the warm-blooded souls of Morganville.
Rachel Caine
Lord of Misrule (Morganville Vampires, Book 5)
Penguin Razorbill (AU: 31st January 2011)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
In the college town of Morganville, vampires and humans have co-existed in (relatively) bloodless harmony…until the arrival of Bishop, a master vampire who threatens to put the evil back in evil undead and smash the fragile peace. But Bishop isn’t the only threat… Violent black clouds promise a storm of devastating proportions. As student Claire Danvers and her friends prepare to defend Morganville against the elements – both natural and unnatural – the unexpected happens: Morganville’s vampires begin to vanish one by one. Discovering why leads Claire to one last choice: Swear allegiance to Bishop…or die.
Rachel Caine
Carpe Corpus (Morganville Vampires, Book 6)
Penguin Razorbill (AU: 31st January 2011)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
In the small town of Morganville, vampires and humans lived in (relative) peace – until all the rules got rewritten when the evil vampire Bishop arrived, looking for the lost book of vampire secrets. He’s kept a death grip on the town ever since. Now an underground resistance is brewing, and in order to contain it, Bishop must go to even greater lengths. He vows to obliterate the town and all its inhabitants – the living and the undead. Claire Danvers and her friends are the only ones who stand in his way. But even if they defeat Bishop, will the vampires ever be content to go back to the old rules, after having had such a taste of power?
Tez Says 