
Soul of the World (The Ascension Cycle Book 1)

The Traitor Baru Cormorant is the critically-acclaimed debut novel from Seth Dickinson, one of the rising new stars in fantasy. Tomorrow, on the beach, Baru Cormorant will look up and see red sails on the horizon. The Empire of Masks is coming, armed with coin and ink, doctrine and compass, soap and lies.
They will conquer Baru’s island, rewrite her culture, criminalize her customs, and dispose of one of her fathers. But Baru is patient. She’ll swallow her hate, join the Masquerade, and claw her way high enough up the rungs of power to set her people free. To test her loyalty, the Masquerade will send Baru to bring order to distant Aurdwynn, a snakepit of rebels, informants, and seditious dukes.
But Baru is a savant in games of power, as ruthless in her tactics as she is fixated on her goals. In the calculus of her schemes, all ledgers must be balanced, and the price of liberation paid in full.
Part of the stones of powers/sipstrassi serie, in order of publication :
Ghost King (2 books)
Wolf In Shadow (3 books)
Hawk Queen (2 books)
A gripping standalone fantasy novel from the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winner Adrian Tchaikovsky. Now reissued with a fresh cover look.When Lascanne falls under the shadow of its warring neighbour, Denland, Emily Marshwic is conscripted to fight for the cause. But do her doubts prove another way to victory?
First, Denland’s revolutionaries assassinated their king, launching a wave of bloodshed after generations of peace. Next they clashed with Lascanne, their royalist neighbour, pitching war-machines against warlocks in a fiercely fought conflict.Genteel Emily Marshwic watched as the hostilities stole her family’s young men. But then came the call for yet more Lascanne soldiers in a ravaged kingdom with none left to give. Emily must join the ranks of conscripted women and march toward the front lines.With barely enough training to hold a musket, Emily braves the savage reality of warfare. But she begins to doubt her country’s cause, and those doubts become critical.
For her choices will determine her own future and that of two nations locked in battle.”An engrossing story, beautifully told.” SFX “One of the best books I’ve ever read.”Peter Newman, author of The Vagrant “Moving, gripping and wonderfully paced.” The Bookbag
A conversation with a handsome stranger leaves Ariane chained in a cellar with a strange affliction. She soon discovers that the darkness of the nineteenth century’s Deep South hides many dangers. Mages, wolf shifters and the humans who hunt them play a risky game where to stumble is to die, all under the amused gaze of the apex predators of the supernatural world: vampires. It is never healthy to attract the gaze of the aristocracy of the night, but for Ariane, it is too late.
It takes much to survive in this merciless world, but she will not let that deter her. The southern belle has a bite, and she is willing to learn and to grow in this hostile new world. She will use whatever means necessary to reclaim her freedom, be it guile, charm, or those intriguing new instincts that make blood so delectable.
New to warhammer 40K universe? go there for a recommended reading order
In the far future towering hive of Necromunda talk and lives are both cheap. Rival factions vie for political control of the hive city’s upper reaches whereas further down they just struggle to survive. Choosing to leave her life of luxury, Mad Donna Ulanti’s past catches up with her as she descends into the city’s anarchic underhive and a few familiar faces reappear to make her life hell.
Lots of books in this setting, amazon seem to have them in random order i’ll sort them out later
this is the first published
An Adepta Sororitas novel
On a distant world, an obscure order of the Adepta Sororitas study their founder’s visions. They live in solitude… which is about to be broken as danger approaches.
READ IT BECAUSE
Peter Fehervari brings a tale of an unusual order of the Sisters of Battle, a sister breaking her self-imposed exile and an Astra Militarum unit seeking respite from their woes… and it’s every bit as weird and wonderful as you’d hope.
THE STORY
The Adepta Sororitas of the Last Candle have stood vigil over their sanctuary world for centuries, striving to decipher their founder’s tormented visions. Outsiders are unwelcome… yet still they come.
Decimated by an encounter with a lethal xenos entity, the survivors of an elite Astra Militarum company have journeyed to the Candleworld in search of healing, escorted by a woman who is no stranger there – Sister Hospitaller Asenath Hyades, who turned her back on the order decades ago.
As the seekers near the sect’s bastion, malign forces begin to stir among the planet’s storm-wracked spires, but the most insidious shadows lie in their own souls.
In the year 2243, the Moon belongs to the dead.
The largest graveyard in the solar system, it was the perfect solution to the overcrowding and environmental problems that had plagued mankind for centuries. And the perfect place for Cali Washington to run away from her past.
But when a mysterious meteor crashes into one of the Moon’s cemeteries, Cali and her fellow Caretakers find themselves surrounded by a terrifying enemy force that outnumbers them more than a thousand to one. An enemy not hindered by the lack of air or warmth or sustenance.
An enemy that is already dead.
Now Cali and her compatriots must fight to survive. Because if they don’t, everyone on the Moon may be joining the dead.
And maybe everyone on Earth, too….
To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history….Late one night, exploring her father’s library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to “My dear and unfortunate successor,” and they plunge her into a world she never dreamed of-a labyrinth where the secrets of her father’s past and her mother’s mysterious fate connect to an inconceivable evil hidden in the depths of history.The letters provide links to one of the darkest powers that humanity has ever known-and to a centuries-long quest to find the source of that darkness and wipe it out.
It is a quest for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the legend of Dracula. Generations of historians have risked their reputations, their sanity, and even their lives to learn the truth about Vlad the Impaler and Dracula. Now one young woman must decide whether to take up this quest herself-to follow her father in a hunt that nearly brought him to ruin years ago, when he was a vibrant young scholar and her mother was still alive. What does the legend of Vlad the Impaler have to do with the modern world? Is it possible that the Dracula of myth truly existed-and that he has lived on, century after century, pursuing his own unknowable ends?
The answers to these questions cross time and borders, as first the father and then the daughter search for clues, from dusty Ivy League libraries to Istanbul, Budapest, and the depths of Eastern Europe. In city after city, in monasteries and archives, in letters and in secret conversations, the horrible truth emerges about Vlad the Impaler’s dark reign-and about a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive down through the ages.
Parsing obscure signs and hidden texts, reading codes worked into the fabric of medieval monastic traditions-and evading the unknown adversaries who will go to any lengths to conceal and protect Vlad’s ancient powers-one woman comes ever closer to the secret of her own past and a confrontation with the very definition of evil. Elizabeth Kostova’s debut novel is an adventure of monumental proportions, a relentless tale that blends fact and fantasy, history and the present, with an assurance that is almost unbearably suspenseful-and utterly unforgettable.
Author also write under the name James rollins