Crater Girl

Crater Girl By Polly Schattel
Publication date: June 28, 2026
Buy Link: Amazon
Genres: Dark Fantasy, Fantasy, LGBTQ+
Summary:

Greta Tyler has issues. She’s broke, divorced, trans, recently defrocked from her Episcopal priesthood, and her underpaid assistant hates her. But hey, things could always be worse, right?

As a social worker in a small, northern Alabama city, Greta’s just trying to do a little good in the world, and also come to terms with a complicated new life, a demanding new career, and the crushing finality that her marriage to her childhood sweetheart is over for good. But when her friend Suhey fails to show for a party, Greta suspects the worst: Suhey’s either been deported or kidnapped. Thus begins an increasingly surreal odyssey through the inscrutable byways and backroads of contemporary rural America.

Tormented by self-doubt, and with a tendency to harm whatever she touches, Greta careens through a sinister underworld she never knew existed—billionaires and busboys, asteroids and assassins, human traffickers and misfit geniuses … and also an infernal plan to radically change the world.

But first, how to come up with the rent?

Crater Girl is Polly Schattel’s genre-jumping tale of gender politics, self-loathing, clandestine organizations, interstellar geology, thuggee death cults, and the search for personal redemption in the rusted over-sprawl of the meta-modern South.

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EXCERPT:

“The first time I ever heard of the concept of the dead eye was in reference to a man I knew was troubled before I’d even reached my teens. Rick M. Scharpley, who his seventh grade homeroom class called Mr. Scharpley to his face but Prick Him Sharply behind his back, was a substitute who’d been brought in to take over after our regular history teacher had broken her back in a car accident. 

He’d taught us through the rest of that year, a mousy, chubby man with sensible hair, sensible glasses, and a perfectly sensible face. No one knew whether he had a wife or kids, or a family back home, and he seemed normal enough to his students, even funny sometimes, until you’d spent an afternoon or so with him. 

Reaper’s Quest (Curse of the Royal Reaper, #1)

Reaper’s Quest (Curse of the Royal Reaper, #1) By Debra A Kristi
Publication date: July 13, 2026
Buy Link: Amazon
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Romance
Summary:

Two rival reapers. A century of overdue souls. Revelations sure to crumble foundations.

Raven Gunn blamed herself and the cheat she used on her last job for her team’s assignment to the cursed reaping. Her father even packed the tool responsible for the cheat in her travel bag, silently suggesting the need, while reminding her not to trust her designated coreaper, Chace Badden. A hundred years of accumulated reapings, a prohibited reaper-tool, her born rival tasked as her partner… What could go wrong? She definitely wouldn’t allow Chace’s good looks to compromise her focus. Not. One. Bit.

Chace Badden suspected family connections were to blame for his team’s assignment, and he trusted nothing about the current reaping task. Especially not the Fae bastard showering Raven with unnecessary attention. That pr*ck needed to go. Raven was his coreaper and the pretty boy held no claim. Of course, the same could be said for Chace given Raven was his coreaper and his rival, professionalism and distance needed to remain steady between them.

But as more complications arise and old ones intensify, will Chace and Raven’s rivalry cloud emotions, hinder task success, and pave the road for, not only failure but, something far more concerning than mortal danger? Because the overwhelming number of unreaped souls is turning out to be the least of their worries.

Reaper’s Quest is the first book in an adult romantasy series that grows spicier with each book, while containing dark themes that may be uncomfortable for some readers. This series is ideal for fans of:

•Slow Burn & Tension (with plenty of action)

•Angsty, Trapped, Morally Gray Hero

•Forced Proximity

•“Who did this to you?”

•Multiple POV

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EXCERPT:

Halfway across the rotunda, near the God of Death’s center statue, Chace Badden fell into step at my side, a confident swagger in his walk.

“Reaper Gunn,” he said, his delivery a smooth tease I ignored.

Even as my shoulders stiffened at the sight of him―black shirt, two unfastened buttons exposing a hint of skin, and pants snug against his body.

Hearth or Heart (The Bowman Girls, #1)

Hearth or Heart (The Bowman Girls, #1) By Emily Lane
Publication date: July 13, 2026
Buy Link: Amazon
Genres: Adult, Historical, Historical Romance, Romance
Summary:

After her father dies, Effie Bowman and her eight sisters are left penniless, homeless, and alone. Salvation comes in the form of the new custodian of the estate, Mr Thornaby. But the more she learns of Mr Thornaby, the more she realises he needs her discretion as much as she needs his security.

In her efforts to moderate the wild Mr Thornaby, she recruits the unlikely aid of ton society’s most determined widower, Sir John Callander.

As the season progresses and Effie pulls Sir John deeper into her desperate schemes to moderate Mr Thornaby, both are forced to wonder if Effie is attempting to tame the wrong gentleman.

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EXCERPT:

Of all the consequences to befall a clutch of daughters belonging to an entailed estate, this one was quite outside the common.

‘£20 a month in pin money?!’ cried Effie.

‘Each.’

Mrs Thornaby, ensconced in a cream morning gown of twilled French silk that seemed to defy her age, smiled most becomingly upon her niece.

‘That is just for your frills and affects and whatever other small accoutrements you young girls require these days,’ said Mrs Thornaby. ‘Your dresses, gowns, and hats, of course, can be drawn against my son’s account.’

After Dark (The Vampire Next Door, #2)

After Dark (The Vampire Next Door, #2) By Rose Titus
Publication date: February 23, 2018
Buy Link: Amazon
Genres: Adult, Paranormal, Romance
Summary:

In Night Home: The Vampire Next Door Volume I, the fact that vampires truly exist was almost accidentally made public when a story presented as fiction seemed all too real to an amateur vampire hunter, who at the end, was made to remain silent about the secrets he discovered

But it doesn’t end there: the tale circulates as far as the west coast, where a small community of vampires have been quietly hiding; and to them, also, this story is too close to reality to be just a fantasy. But while they take the time to decide whether to attempt contact with their own kind so far away, they have their own local problems to deal with.

A savage and barbaric serial killer, suspected of being a vampire, lurks in their own city, stalking the innocent at night. Will the vampires be able to stop the killer before they are blamed for his acts of extreme horror?

And that’s not all. A beautiful yet tragic and suicidal young woman wanders like a lost angel from out of the darkness and into their midst, hoping a vampire will make her end swift and easy.

 

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EXCERPT:

Alex drifted slowly through the back door to step down into the darkened entrance to the well-kept old building’s lower levels. On the upper floors there was an exclusive restaurant that catered to the wealthy and sophisticated; below, on the ground level there was a dance club, which attracted a completely different crowd of people—many with spiked purple hair. But under the dance floor, underground, there was served another kind of people. This dining area was not well known to many above ground.

He surveyed the area. A few tables were empty, but most tables had one or two people sitting and talking. And there she was, in the corner, alone, waiting for him. His sister Alexandra looked up and nodded to acknowledge him. He went to her table and sat down. “You wanted to see me?”

“Yes,” she put her fine crystal glass down. “Jim Ellison left a message on my answering machine. I was surprised to hear from him after so long a time. He said, ‘I know you’re asleep but I’ve got some shocking news.’“

Children of Eternity: Being the First Part of the Apocalis

Children of Eternity: Being the First Part of the Apocalis
Macaulay Christian
Publication date: March 10th 2026
Buy Link: Amazon
Genres: Adult, Science Fiction
Summary

Thirty years ago, an impossible transmission pierced the cosmos. Hidden within it were instructions for a device no one fully understood—an extragalactic Telegraph built to answer the call.

On a distant world in neutral space, humanity and its former enemies resolved to build the device, a rare moment of unity and a calculated gamble that shared purpose might overcome politics.

The answer is not what anyone expected.

The colony is devastated. Reality fractures. Technology fails. People vanish without a trace—among them soldiers, citizens, and voices no civilization can afford to lose. Aboard the warship Banterra, Captain Heron Agathon is dispatched into the unknown to search for survivors and the truth behind the signal.

Beyond the galaxy’s edge, something older than civilization is observing humanity’s first steps into the uncharted—measuring what it will become when fear, power, and principle collide. The answers lie in the dark between stars. And the truth behind the signal is older—and nearer—than anyone suspects. There is no going back.

The human adventure is about to begin.

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EXCERPT:

P R O L O G U E

holindrian returns

A shimmering light fell all around Holindrian, hoisting him high into the sky, his feet dangling beneath. First, he could see just the top of the palace as he rose through the dense black smoke. A little higher and he could see the city itself. Fires burning, consuming whole wards at a time. The sounds were muffled, but he knew there would be the clanging of swords, the whizzing of arrows, and the miserable, painful screams of wretched, dying souls. Higher, Holindrian continued to rise. Boats had sunken in the harbor. The fighting on the rocky hills surrounding the town seemed to have calmed. A haboob traveled in a northeasterly direction, a transitory wall of brown, choking death.

The light continued to shine. All the colors of the rainbow streamed down, carrying him up, up into the clouds. He was higher than the mountains! There seemed to be no limits to his ascent. The definitions, the contours, the distinctive features of the land blurred together. Muted, people vanished into minute dark specks, fields became strokes of green, the clouds white wisps overlaying the canvas. He could see the whole of the blue world from up here….