Welcome to our New Release Roundup feature where we at Read Indie Fantasy will be posting a roundup at the start of every month of new indie and self-published SFFH books due to be released, as well as exciting new crowdfunds by indie and self-published authors launching in the month.
Now, onto the books for this month:
31st August – Unsaved by Pemry Janes
An ancient robot on their last legs and running out of free memory accepts a simple mission. The reward? Everything they need to keep ticking along for a few more centuries so they can watch the last stars burn out.
And all they have to do is join a treasure hunting expedition under false pretenses, help them find one particular ruin in a land choking in history, betray the group, and bring the last remnant of humanity back to a cult that worships those ancient ancestors. Not like they’ll remember what they did afterwards when they can’t spare the drive space.
Yet even when you’re out of time and out of memory, is there still a price too high to pay for survival?
Add Unsaved to your Goodreads | Buy Online
1st September – Jack of Thorns Deluxe Edition Kickstarter by A. K. Faulkner
A breathtaking deluxe special edition of the critically acclaimed M/M Urban Fantasy adventure.
Follow the Jack of Thorns crowdfund on Kickstarter
1st September – Rings of Adventure Anthology Kickstarter by Mike Mollman, Rosaire Bushey, and others
This is an anthology with 34 indie authors who have written a short story about a ring, however they decided to interpret it. The genres span fantasy, horror, scifi and romantasy.
Follow the Rings of Adventure Anthology crowdfund on Kickstarter
1st September – The Chosen One Con by Trudie Skies
Magic is a rich man’s game.
Archons control magic in the great city of Aefenhold. Brand-name spells, addictive potions, and celebrity TV keep the poor entertained while they toil in the factories manufacturing magic. That should have been the fate of Max and his childhood friend Lyle, until a violent workers’ strike tears their lives apart, condemning Lyle to the aetherstone mines and leaving Max orphaned with no choice but to sell his labour to a brothel.
Life under the Archon’s rule has given Max a taste for magical narcotics, and left Lyle with aether dust in his lungs and a deep resentment for magic. So when Aefenhold’s rulers announce a televised contest to find the chosen one—a prophesized distraction to unite the city against its detractors—both Max and Lyle see an opportunity to con their way into the contest.
Where Max seeks to steal magic for his freedom, Lyle views magic as a tool of oppression to be destroyed. Their old friendship will be tested as they’re forced to become adversaries against famous rival mages in a series of magical trials. Whoever becomes the chosen one will change the shape of magic forever.
But magic is a rich man’s game, and should Max or Lyle be discovered as frauds, their deaths will be televised next.
Add The Chosen One Con to your Goodreads | Buy Online
6th September – Untwined (Imbued #2) by Helyna L. Clove
With the help of the ancient magic awakened inside her, Calla led Vesper Forn’s uprising to conquer Kanmane Palace and free the mages of the Kamphua Dominion. Except the victory is short-lived: Calla’s power is still not entirely hers, their people are falling one by one, poisoned by Vesper’s faulty imbuing ritual, and the surviving monarch is gathering forces to once and for all topple magic’s rule on the continent.
Trapped, separated from Gray and Marigo, and in the clutches of her childhood torturer, Calla submerges into strange otherworlds and her own old pain to regain the power that could save her life—save everyone’s lives. And this might not be her final trial either: Vesper’s tampering in the order of things is bringing an insidious presence crawling up from the depths of the world, demanding its due.
It’s a corruption old as time and just as inevitable.
And it will make Calla question even the few things she thought she knew about herself.
Add Untwined to your Goodreads | Preorder Online
8th September – Corners of the Deep Dark by A. P. Howell
There are many places to run and hide in the deep dark between the stars
Xan is the owner/operator of the Kitrino Alogo, a small, scrappy freighter and courier vessel. There’s a viable living to be eeked out making last-mile cargo runs and subcontracting from bigger corporations…especially when you supplement your income with the occasional bit of smuggling or other illegality.
Raj is the proprietor of a bar on a station where people don’t ask too many questions. That’s working out very well and involves fewer people shooting at him than previous careers—until the appearance of an old friend who is rapidly acquiring new problems.
One of Xan’s side jobs has gone unexpectedly sideways. She and Raj are on the run for their lives, desperate to learn why stolen data—supposedly low-level blackmail material—is worth killing over. And what, if anything, can convince the interested parties not to kill them.
Add Corners of the Deep Dark to your Storygraph | Preorder Online
15th September – Arcane Awakenings edited by Alin Silverwood
18 incredible authors bring 17 new urban fantasy worlds to life!
Follow the Arcane Awakenings crowdfund on Kickstarter
15th September – Dance the Harvest Home by E.H. Timms
Once upon a time there was a war between two mages, full of devastation and destruction. In the end, the Storm Mage evacuated a swathe of land, lured the Fire Mage to it, and put up a barrier around them both to keep everyone else out. Neither mage was ever seen again. Nor has the barrier wavered.
Until now.
Now the barrier has crumbled, the distant descendants of those evacuees are returning, and villages are beginning to spring up like fireweed from the ashes.
Uninterested in romance and unable to understand speech, Dandelion has never really fit in with other people. For many years he gave up, retreating to live in the wild with his ponies and only coming back to town to trade for what he couldn’t make.
Until now. Now, he has the chance to make somewhere better, somewhere kids like him can grow up without being ostracised, and somewhere he can actually talk to the people around him. A chance to turn half-bitter daydreams into reality.
But first, his collection of outcasts and oddities must prepare to survive winter.
Find Dance the Harvest Home on Itch.io
15th September – Wild Skies (Star Runners #3) by Rex Burke
A wild planet. An invading force.
Don’t be surprised if natures bites back.
The crew have got their feet up. Dix, Vaskez, Alard and Drake are no longer on the run. With money in the bank, it’s time to kick back and relax.
Except Alard – incomprehensibly to the others – has only gone and got himself a proper job, as a wildlife guide on the safari planet of Akhdar, where giant creatures roam.
But when danger threatens a hidden community, his unique skills prove invaluable as the crew are called upon to defend an extraordinary way of life.
They’re outgunned and outnumbered, and the skies are getting wilder, but nature’s about to give them a helping hand.
‘Jurassic Park’ x ‘The Magnificent Seven’ – Wild Skies is Book 3 in the Star Runners series. It’s star-crew SciFi with explosive pace, an emotional heart, and blasts of weapons-grade humour.
Add Wild Skies to your Goodreads | Preorder Online
22nd September – Light & Earth & Marrow by Jeannie Marschall
Hedge witch Tilly Reinicke resides in a bucolic village where magic and all manner of paranormal creatures are real—everyone knows it, but not everyone is necessarily kenning.
Tilly passes the quiet seasons alongside her dead but far-from-gone wife Ralda, cultivating their garden, respecting the Others, and teaching the children the ways and the Paths… until their peace is shattered by the rumble of construction next door.
Her new neighbors, Yola and Karsten Bell, are determined to control every last detail of their new home build… and are decidedly not kenning. As the nights grow longer and the most hallowed day of the year approaches, Tilly tries her very, grumpy best to guide, cajole, and reason with the Bells, before their unbelief in—and contempt for—the paranormal world endangers everyone.
For the Others do not suffer disrespect lightly, and soon they will walk the Paths again.
Add Light & Earth & Marrow to your Goodreads | Preorder Online
30th September – Book Name: The Worth of Scars by Gabriel Farrell
A bookworm, a brothel madam, a gangster, an aristocrat, a widow and a war hero walk into an inn – though it turns out there’s nothing funny about what happens next.
For humanity’s ancient enemy the Serafin are rumoured to have returned, and the old man who assembled such an unlikely band believes these misfits might hold the key to defeating them. United only by guilt, trauma, and the machinations of their mysterious patron, together they must journey to the centre of the continent to do battle with gods.
But only by using the Serafin’s own powers do they hold any chance of victory: a magic that has a cost. Corrupted long ago, it condemns those who wield it to become the shunned, self-mutilating sorcerers known as the Scarred.
Each must decide – is that cost worth paying to save the world?
Perfect for fans of authors like Joe Abercrombie, Brian McClellan and George R.R. Martin, The Worth of Scars is an epic flintlock adventure with a twist, fusing thought-provoking, dark and intriguing themes with the classic fantasy quest.
Add The Worth of Scars to your Goodreads – Check Goodreads for Content Warnings. Preorder Online
Do any of these new releases catch your eye? Let us know in the comments which books you’re playing to pick up this month!
