Last week, we announced what books from our initial batch we choose to put forward into the semi-finals. Today, we’ll share the books we’ll be reading this round.
Here goes, in no particular order…
The Not So Mundane Mysteries of Norman Melamourne
By: G.J. Terral
A down-on-his-luck ex-detective, a jittery professor suspected of murder, and a mystery they can’t solve without each other.
If Norman Melamourne, a Source-hating ex-detective, had things his way, the Source wouldn’t have snapped into existence twenty years ago. After all, it’s the reason his wife lost her life; he lost his job, and now even his favorite restaurants use Source-processed ingredients. He can taste the difference, and it’s awful.
When a consulting position lands on his plate, it leaves a bad taste, too. The Source was the apparent method of murder. As much as Norman despises the Source, the one hard and fast rule was it couldn’t affect living things. But it seems it had, and to make matters worse, the prime suspect, Lance Delum, is the son of the man Norman blames for his wife’s death.
Lance Delum, Professor of Source Studies, can’t get the image of his student’s, Sasha’s, magically burned-out eyes from his head. It was an impossible thing, the Source affecting living material, but it had happened, and Lance, for all his knowledge of the damned field, couldn’t figure out how. Or why.
Torn between grief and frustration at his lack of understanding, Lance soon finds himself in a desperate attempt to clear his name. Another body was found days after Lance’s release, and more circumstantial evidence points to him.
As he investigates, Norman’s heart says Lance did it. An expert in the field might be able to pull this off, and the kid came from a bad crop as far as Norman was concerned. But his gut says Lance is being set up, and Norman always trusts his gut.
Getting Lance to trust Norman might be about as difficult as clearing the kid’s name, but the two must work together to prove Lance’s innocence and discover why someone is killing with the Source.
Sunchaser
By: Emily Barlow
Glorya is a sunchaser, someone born with the ability to bend the weather to their will. She has spent the last five years of her life training, honing her body, her ability, and her mind in an attempt to become the most effective weatherworker the world has ever seen–but will it be enough? Or will the raw power of nature defeat her before she has a chance to prove herself?
Sunbathers
By: Lindz McLeod
Hordes of cannibalistic sun-vampires rule the daylight hours, forcing the remaining humans to adapt to a grubby, nocturnal existence. When she sacrifices everything to become a Sunbather, queer Soph discovers that the heterosexual commune is not the glowing paradise she’d hoped for, and her new immortal body still yearns for womanflesh. After discovering that the Sunbathers are building a solar lamp that will enable them to walk in permanent light, Soph must decide if she’s willing to doom what’s left of humanity just to finally fit in.
The Butcher’s Lot
By: Cate Baumer
A folkloric sapphic gothic romance for fans of A Dowry of Blood and A Study in Drowning.
Outcast Marguerite spends her nights fishing in violent waters and her days hiding from the judgment of her backwater island community. The painful monotony is broken with the arrival of the Butcher of Galiness, a captured vampire general sentenced to a season of labor and penance in the hometown of each person who died at her hand.
Shared work is better than working alone, even with a monster, especially with an attractive monster. But Marguerite learns the vampire has her own reasons for accepting her punishment. Aiding her could give Marguerite back the freedom she’s lost and a path to the revenge she desires. But the Butcher’s trust is harder won than the rest of her, what she seeks may no longer exist, and if their dalliance is caught they’ll both burn.
From These Dark Abodes
By: Lyndsie Manusos
St. Edah’s, a house without exit: Lethe and Petunia are mortal prisoners, servants to immortal creatures who unzip from their skin each night and party as skeletons.
Lethe has no memory of how she came to be trapped in this nightmare, only that despite the tenderness she feels for Petunia, she must escape. Together, they traverse the infinite house, searching for passage while finding evidence of their former lives—lives that are not what they believed them to be.
Lethe must decide: join the immortals in their revelry or escape St. Edah’s once and for all.
Well, well, well…
There we have it. I know I’m looking forward to digging into these books to see what they have to offer.
