September 2012 Releases

Done with August 2012 Releases? Here are September 2012 Releases. For future titles, check Reading Wishlist.

8 New Covers (Balog, Brody, Caine, Dane, Gibsen, Roberts, Williams)

January 2012 Releases

Done with December 2011 Releases? Here are January 2012 Releases. To see future titles, check Reading Wishlist.

7 New Covers (Banks & Dane, Clark, Crane, Dane, Ellison, Leicht & Neal, Roberts)

Introducing Rhonda Roberts…

Rhonda Roberts has recently launched a new time-travel series, published by HarperCollins Voyager in Australia. History, mythology and adventure all appear in the first instalment, Gladiatrix (released on 1st May 2009), and the second, Hoodwink, will be released in November 2009. Needless to say, Rhonda is one busy lass right now, and though she’s leaving her computer for a while (and thus won’t be able to read your comments), she’s dropped in to share some info about Gladiatrix and the Timestalker series.

As far as I know, international rights are still up for grabs. Her agent is Richard Curtis at Richard Curtis Associates, Inc.

Gladiatrix and the Timestalker Series

The Timestalker series follows the adventures of Kannon Dupree, a private investigator licensed to use the time portal operated by the National Time Administration in San Francisco. In each book Kannon visits a different exotic time and location in order to solve a mystery set in the present.

In the first instalment, Gladiatrix, Kannon must travel to ancient Rome to find out the secret to her real identity. Left for dead in the Blue Mountains when she was just a baby, Kannon discovers that an American Time Marshal, Victoria Dupree, could be her real mother. But Victoria has gone missing in ancient Rome while investigating the Hierophant, the mysterious leader of the Isis cult.

I love writing the Timestalker series. I planned it so that my detective heroine could have the maximum amount of adventure possible. I wanted to be able to send Kannon anywhere from ancient Egypt to America in the 1960s and give her mysteries to that range from the true – who really killed the last Tsar of Russia? – through to the best that I could invent. The series is set in an alternate past and present so it’s possible to have a great deal of fun playing the ‘what if’ game and then send Kannon there to check it all out.

I started writing Gladiatrix one summer when I had two weeks of vacation left and nothing much to do. I’d been looking around the bookshops for a good read and couldn’t find anything that suited, so I decided to start writing the book I wanted – a feisty heroine who solves a mystery in an exotic, faraway place. I wanted to send her to ancient Rome so then time travel became a part of the plot.

I like writing about history because in my academic life I specialised in cross-cultural analysis of knowledge systems, that is what passed for science and technology in other times and places. So I did a lot of research for Gladiatrix and then tried to make sure the story hung together and that the reader liked the characters enough to suspend disbelief and come on the adventure with them.

Rhonda Roberts
Gladiatrix (Timestalker, Book 1)
HarperCollins Voyager (AU: 1st May 2009)
Left for dead when she was two‚ Kannon Jarratt has no idea of her real identity. Now‚ twenty years on‚ she discovers that her mother might be US Time Marshal Victoria Dupree. Kannon travels to ancient Rome where Victoria is investigating the Hierophant‚ mysterious leader of the Isis cult. To find her mother‚ Kannon becomes a gladiatrix in the service of Domitia Crassus‚ the only person who knows the Hierophant’s identity. Unfortunately‚ all paths are leading her to an epic battle to the death in the arena…

Relevant Links
Website
HarperCollins Australia

May 2009 Releases

If you’re done with the April 2009 Releases, it’s time to move onto the May 2009 Releases for the US, Canada, UK and Australia. For titles and release dates even further into the future, check my Reading Wishlist.

May’s releases are behind the cut, to spare those of you not interested. I can is considerate, y’all! 🙂

Kelley Armstrong
The Awakening (Darkest Powers, Book 2)
Hachette Orbit (UK: 4th May 2009)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
Chloe Saunders used to be a normal teenage girl – or so she thought. Then she learned the shocking truth – she is a walking science experiment. Genetically altered at birth by a sinister group of scientists known as the Edison Group, Chloe is an aberration – a powerful necromancer who can see ghosts and even raise the dead, often with terrifying consequences. Even worse, her growing powers have made her a threat to the surviving members of the Edison Group, who have decided it’s time to end their experiment – permanently…Now Chloe is running for her life with three other supernatural teenagers – a charming sorcerer, a troubled werewolf and a temperamental young witch. Together they have a chance for freedom – but can Chloe trust her new friends?

Eric Garcia
The Repossession Mambo
Scribe (AU: 4th May 2009)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
In a near future when people live virtually forever, rarely dying of disease or old age, there’s big money to be made in the “artiforg” business – the buying and selling of artificial organs that promise to prolong life. Companies are only too happy to extend credit to anyone with the proper financial means. But buyer beware: if you fall too far behind in your payments, your artiforgs will be repossessed. Like many former US soldiers, Remy makes his living reclaiming organs from debtors who can no longer afford them. He’s one of the best, and business is good until Remy finds himself being hunted by the same people he once worked with, and quickly running out of places to hide. Now, he’s holed up in a deserted building, writing his life story on a beat-up typewriter in the hopes of getting it all down on paper before the Bio-Repo Man shows up to collect on his debts. And what a story it is…

Libba Bray
The Sweet Far Thing (Gemma Doyle, Book 3)
Simon & Schuster (UK: 5th May 2009)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
It has been a year of change since Gemma Doyle arrived at the foreboding Spence Academy. Having bound the wild, dark magic of the realms to her, Gemma has forged unlikely and unsuspected new alliances both with the headstrong Felicity and timid Ann, Kartik, the exotic young man whose companionship is forbidden, and the fearsome creatures of the realms. Now, as Gemma approaches her London debut, the time has come to test those bonds. As her friendship with Felicity and Ann faces its gravest trial, and with the Order grappling for control of the realms, Gemma is compelled to decide once and for all which path she is meant to take. Pulled forward by fate, the destiny Gemma faces threatens to set chaos loose, not only in the realms, but also upon the rigid Victorian society whose rules Gemma has both defied and followed. Where does Gemma really belong? And will she, can she, survive?

Lauren Dane
Relentless (Federated Universes, Book 2)
Penguin Berkley (US & CA: 5th May 2009)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
Fifteen Families rule the Federated Universes – and Abbie Haws has spent her life battling the system. She’s always been too driven to pay much attention to love. But when she meets Roman Lyons, Head of House Lyons, who stands for everything she hates, Abbie’s attraction catches her off-guard…Their world, Ravena, revolves around born leader Roman, who dreads meeting this defiant – if stunning – rabble-rouser. But sometimes headstrong personalities that collide in public become hot-and-heavy, guilty trysts in private.

Kim Harrison
White Witch, Black Curse (Hollows, Book 7)
HarperCollins Voyager (UK: 14th May 2009)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
The demon, Algaliarept, although banished back into the everafter has infected others of his kind with his interest in a witch who can channel demon magic. Rachel soon finds herself with not one but three hellions on her tail; and one of them is even crazier and more dangerous than all the fairy assassins, weres and vampires on the planet.

Lili St. Crow
Strange Angels (Strange Angels, Book 1)
Penguin (US: 14th May 2009; CA: 19th May 2009)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
Dru Anderson has what her grandmother called “the touch.” (Comes in handy when you’re travelling from town to town with your dad, hunting ghosts, suckers, wulfen, and the occasional zombie.) Then her dad turns up dead – but still walking – and Dru knows she’s next. Even worse, she’s got two guys hungry for her affections, and they’re not about to let the fiercely independent Dru go it alone. Will Dru discover just how special she really is before coming face-to-fang with whatever – or whoever – is hunting her?

Rhonda Roberts
Gladiatrix (Timestalker, Book 1)
HarperCollins Voyager (AU: 20th May 2009)
Left for dead when she was two‚ Kannon Jarratt has no idea of her real identity. Now‚ twenty years on‚ she discovers that her mother might be US Time Marshal‚ Victoria Dupree. Kannon travels to ancient Rome where Victoria is investigating the Hierophant‚ mysterious leader of the Isis cult. To find her mother‚ Kannon becomes a gladiatrix in the service of Domitia Crassus‚ the only person who knows the Hierophant’s identity. Unfortunately‚ all paths are leading her to an epic battle to the death in the arena…

Jes Battis
A Flash of Hex (OSI, Book 2)
Penguin ACE (US/CA: 26th May 2009)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
After a series of brutal murders, Occult Special Investigator Tess Corday is convinced the identity of the killer is locked in her own head. The only question is – how many rules is she willing to break to get to the truth?

Richelle Mead
Succubus Heat (Georgina Kincaid, Book 4)
Kensington (US: 26th May 2009)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
Georgina Kincaid has been a bad, bad succubus…which should be a good thing. But lately, thanks to her foul mood over breaking up with best-selling writer Seth Mortensen, she’s been so wicked that Seattle’s über-demon Jerome, decides to “outsource” Georgina to a rival – and have her spy for him in the process. Being exiled to the frozen north – okay, Vancouver – and leaving Seth in the cosy clutches of his new girlfriend is unpleasant enough. Then Jerome is kidnapped, and all immortals under his control mysteriously lose their powers. One bright spot: with her life-sucking ability gone, there’s nothing to keep Georgina from getting down and dirty with Seth – nothing apart from his girlfriend that is. Now, as the supernatural population starts turning on itself, a newly mortal Georgina must rescue her boss and figure out who’s been playing them – or all hell will break loose…

A. J. Menden
Tekgrrl (Elite Hands of Justice, Book 2)
Dorchester Leisure (US: 26th May 2009)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
When she was 12, Mindy asked to go to the School like other gifted girls. Her parents sent her to another planet. Today, Mindy’s back on Earth. She’s a mechanical genius with the Elite Hands of Justice, America’s premier superhero squad. She’s been having headaches, though, and not just because her long-time crush is flirting with a team-mate. It’s not because she’s pushing thirty. It’s also not because of the contrary actions of the new Secretary for Superhero Affairs, ex-ally Simon Leasure. No, what’s burning her brain is a past she can’t remember, a past that has been erased. It’s a memory surging closer – in flying saucers. Her worst nightmare is returning, big-time, and only she, her friends and her one true love can stop it.