New Releases 4/28/15

You can support The Update by clicking the banner to your right or the links below if you are purchasing through Amazon!

Hardcovers

Of Noble Family by Mary Robinette Kowal

Jane and Vincent have finally gotten some much-needed rest after their adventures in Italy when Vincent receives word that his estranged father has passed away on one of his properties in the West Indies. His brother, who manages the estate, is overwhelmed, and no one else in his family can go. Grudgingly, out of filial duty the couple decide to go.

The sea voyage is long and Jane spends enough time unable to perform glamour that towards the end of the trip she discovers that she is with child. They are overjoyed, but when they finally arrive at the estate to complete what they expect to be routine legal tasks, they realize that nearly everything they came expecting to find had been a lie. Also, the entire estate is in disarray, with horrifying conditions and tensions with the local slave population so high that they are close to revolt.

Jane and Vincent's sense of peril is screaming out for them to flee, but Vincent cannot stand to leave an estate connected with his family in such a condition. They have survived many grand and terrifying adventures in their time, but this one will test their skills and wits more than any they have ever encountered before, this time with a new life hanging in the balance. Mary Robinette Kowal's Of Noble Family is the final book of the acclaimed Glamourist Histories.

Paperbacks

The Adjacent by Christopher Priest

In the near future, Tibor Tarent, a freelance photographer, is recalled from Anatolia to Britain when his wife, an aid worker, is killed—annihilated by a terrifying weapon that reduces its target to a triangular patch of scorched earth.

A century earlier, Tommy Trent, a stage magician, is sent to the Western Front on a secret mission to render British reconnaissance aircraft invisible to the enemy.

Present day. A theoretical physicist develops a new method of diverting matter, a discovery with devastating consequences that will resonate through time.

Shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for best science fiction novel of 2014.

The Army of Doctor Moreau by David F. Walker

On an unchartered island in the South Pacific, Nazis have uncovered the secret of transforming animals into a human-like army of killers. A team of British and American operatives is sent on a search-and-destroy mission. The team quickly finds themselves in a nightmarish war with savage animals that think they are men!

The Doors You Mark Are Your Own by Okla Elliott and Raul Clement 

Joshua City is one of seven city-states in a post-apocalyptic world where water is scarce and technology is at mid-twentieth-century Soviet levels. As the novel opens, the Baikal Sea has been poisoned, causing a major outbreak of a flesh-eating disease called nekrosis. Against this backdrop of political corruption, violence and oppression, a struggle for control of Joshua City ensues, and a revolutionary group called The Underground emerges.

The Doors You Mark Are Your Own is a sweeping literary epic—the result of years of painstaking writing and world-building by two brilliantly imaginative minds—that readers will get lost in and never want to end.

A Kill in the Morning by Graeme Shimmin

[Editor's Note: Check out my review.]

A fast, furious, fun, and acclaimed high concept alternate history thriller from a great new talent, shortlisted for the Terry Pratchett Fiction Prize

I don’t like killing, but I’m good at it. Murder isn’t so bad from a distance, just shapes popping up in my scope. Close-up work though—a garrotte around a target’s neck or a knife in their heart—it’s not for me. Too much empathy, that’s my problem. Usually. But not today. Today is different . . .

The year is 1955 and something is very wrong with the world. It is 14 years since Churchill died and World War II ended. In occupied Europe, Britain fights a cold war against a nuclear-armed Nazi Germany. In Berlin the Gestapo is on the trail of a beautiful young resistance fighter, and the head of the SS is plotting to dispose of an ailing Adolf Hitler and restart the war against Britain and her empire. Meanwhile, in a secret bunker hidden deep beneath the German countryside, scientists are experimenting with a force far beyond their understanding. Into this arena steps a nameless British assassin, on the run from a sinister cabal within his own government, and planning a private war against the Nazis. And now the fate of the world rests on a single kill in the morning. Take the meticulous research of Robert Harris, the spy thrills of Ian Fleming, the classic action of Alistair MacLean, and the wild ride of a Tarantino film and you're coming close to A Kill in the Morning.

To readers, authors and publishers...

Is your story going to be published in time for the next New Releases? Contact us at ahwupdate at gmail dot com.  We are looking for works of alternate history, counterfactual history, steampunk, historical fantasy, time travel or anything that warps history beyond our understanding.

* * *

Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update and a blogger on Amazing Stories. Check out his short fiction. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.