Compelling Tale Publishing
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A list of great summer reads. If you haven't read them yet, they can be great autumn reads. Like Daughter of Redwinter, by Ed McDonald. Read the Amazon review below:
Raine can see―and speak―to the dead, a gift that comes with a death sentence. All her life she has hidden, lied, and run to save her skin, and she’s made some spectacularly bad choices along the way.
But it is a rare act of kindness―rescuing an injured woman in the snow―that becomes the most dangerous decision Raine has ever made.
Because the woman is fleeing from Redwinter, the fortress-monastery of the Draoihn, warrior magicians who answer to no king, and who will stop at nothing to reclaim what she’s stolen. A battle, a betrayal, and a horrific revelation force Raine to enter the citadel and live among the Draoihn. She soon finds that her secret ability could be the key to saving an entire nation.
Though she might have to die to make it happen . . .
Recent and recommended
Older recommendations
The Mask of Mirrors ⚔️
M. A. Carrick
Ren is a liar and a thief, a pattern-reader and a daughter of no clan. Raised in the slums of Nadežra, she fled that world to save her sister. Now, she has returned with one goal: to trick her way into a noble house, securing her fortune and her sister’s future.
But in the city of dreams, her masquerade is just one of many. Enigmatic crime lord Derossi Vargo, stony captain of the guard Grey Serrado, dashing heir Leato Traementis, and the legendary vigilante known as the Rook all have secrets that could unravel her own.
And as corrupt nightmare magic begins to weave its way through the city of dreams, the poisonous feuds of its aristocrats and the shadowy dangers of its impoverished underbelly become tangled—with Ren at their heart.
The Thousand Eyes ⚔️
A. K. Larkwood
Kagen the Damned ⚔️
Jonathan Maberry
The Godbreaker ⚔️
Mike Brooks
Empire of Exiles ⚔️
Erin M. Evans
Sorcerer's Edge ⚔
David Hair
Amazon Review: After all they've suffered, rebel sorcerer Raythe Vyre and his fortune-seekers are still empty-handed, but they've found real treasure: peace.
Deep inside the Ice wastes, Raythe's people stumbled upon Rath Argentium, the legendary Aldar city, and the long-lost Tangato people. After fighting through betrayal, treachery and powerful magic, they forged a hard-won treaty with the Tangato and their extraordinary queen, Shiazar. Now they've put aside their dreams of wealth and revenge and embraced something better: a life outside the tyrannical Bolgravian Empire.
But the Bolgravian Empire never gives up.
The empire hasn't forgotten Raythe Vyre, and his enemies know where he is. Guided by Toran Zorne, the implacable imperial assassin, they are coming to claim Rath Argentium for themselves. Raythe and Shiazar know all too well that courage and cunning won't be enough this time: they are outnumbered, out-gunned and out of time.
Faced with total annihilation, it's up to Raythe to find an edge . . .
Mercy 🔎
David Baldacci
The King's Traitor ⚔
Jeff Wheeler
An Unintended Voyage ⚔
Marshall Ryan Maresca
The Bladed Faith ⚔
David Dalglish
Nettle And Bone ⚔
T. Kingfisher
A Time Of Courage ⚔
John Gwynne
The Thief's Daughter ⚔
Jeff Wheeler
The Justice of Kings ⚔
Richard Swan
The House of Cats and Gulls ⚔
Stephen Deas
The Moonsteel Crown ⚔
Stephen Deas
Amazon Review: The Emperor of Aria has been murdered, the Empire is in crisis, and Dead Men walk the streets, but Myla, Fings, and Seth couldn't care less. They're too busy just trying to survive in the Sulk-struck city of Varr, committing petty violence and pettier crimes to earn their keep in the Unrulys, a motley gang led by Blackhand.When the Unrulys are commissioned to steal a mysterious item to order, by an equally mysterious patron, the trio are thrust right into the bitter heart of a struggle for the Crown, where every faction is after what they have.Forced to lie low in a city on lockdown, they will have to work together if they want to save their skins... and maybe just save the Empire as well.
Sixteen Ways To Defend A Walled City ⚔
K. J. Parker
The Wolf Of Oren-Yaro ⚔
K.S. Villoso
How To Rule An Empire and
Get Away With It ⚔
K. J. Parker
A Practical Guide To Conquering
The World ⚔
K. J. Parker
The Unwilling ⚔
Kelly Braffet
The 6:20 Man
David Baldacci 🔎
The Apollo Murders
Chris Hadfield 🔎
Silver Queendom ⚔
Dan Koboldt
The Queen's Poisoner ⚔
Jeff Wheeler
The Splinter King ⚔
Mike Brooks
Publisher’s Weekly Review: Mike Brooks delivers an outstanding tale of honor, religion, politics, and crime in his second Chronicles of the God-King fantasy (after The Black Coast). In East Harbour, capital of the island realm of Kiburu ce Alaba, street kid Jeya continues to help the last surviving child of the Splinter King, who has taken the name Bulang, to hide from the assassins who killed Bulang’s family—but now someone is targeting Jeya’s friends and allies. In southernmost Narida, Daimon and his new raider wife, Saana, rule over the combined peoples of his Black Keep and her Brown Eagle Clan as a contingent of their rivals from Darkspur come to visit. Meanwhile, Daimon’s foster brother, Darel, travels with the Southern Marshal to the Naridan capital, Idramar, to face the judgment of God-King Natan III, even as Natan’s sister, Tila, faces her own justice for murdering Narida’s Lord Admiral. And in the background, rumors mount that the god Nari has been reborn. Brooks throws in pirates, treachery, witchcraft, combat, and dragons to create a whirlwind of drama and intrigue.
A Time Of Blood ⚔
John Gwynne
World's Edge ⚔
David Hair
The Pariah ⚔
Anthony Ryan
The Stone Knife ⚔
Anna Stephens
A Time Of Dread
John Gwynne
From the Amazon description:
A race of warrior angels, the Ben-Elim, once vanquished a mighty demon horde. Now they rule the Banished lands, but their peace is brutally enforced.
In the south, hotheaded Riv is desperate to join the Ben-Elim's peacekeeping force, until she unearths a deadly secret.
In the west, the giantess Sig investigates demon sightings and discovers signs of an uprising and black magic.
And in the snowbound north, Drem, a trapper, finds mutilated corpses in the forests. The work of a predator, or something far darker?
It's a time of shifting loyalties and world-changing dangers. Difficult choices need to be made. Because in the shadows, demons are gathering, waiting for their time to rise. . .
Nolyn
Michael J. Sullivan
The New Climate War
Michael E. Mann
Find You First
Linwood Barclay
The Wisdom of Crowds
Joe Abercrombie
The Black Coast
Mike Brooks
From the Amazon description:
War Dragons. Fearsome Raiders. A Daemonic Warlord on the Rise.
When the citizens of Black Keep see ships on the horizon, terror takes them because they know who is coming: for generations, the keep has been raided by the fearsome clanspeople of Tjakorsha. Saddling their war dragons, Black Keep's warriors rush to defend their home only to discover that the clanspeople have not come to pillage at all. Driven from their own land by a daemonic despot who prophesises the end of the world, the raiders come in search of a new home . . .
Daylight
David Baldacci
Sorcery of a Queen
Brian Naslund
The Blacktongue Thief
Christopher Buehlman
The Frozen Crown
Greta Kelly
Blood of an Exile
Brian Naslund
Bershad stands apart from the world, the most legendary dragonslayer in history, both revered and reviled. Once, he was Lord Silas Bershad, but after a disastrous failure on the battlefield he was stripped of his titles and sentenced to one violent, perilous hunt after another. Now he lives only to stalk dragons, slaughter them, collect their precious oil, and head back into the treacherous wilds once more. For years, death was his only chance to escape. But that is about to change. The king who sentenced Bershad to his fate has just given him an unprecedented chance at redemption. Kill a foreign emperor and walk free forever. The journey will take him across dragon-infested mountains, through a seedy criminal underworld, and into a forbidden city guarded by deadly technology.
The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry
C.M. Waggoner
News of the World
Paulette Jiles
The Professionals
Owen Laukkanen
An Innocent Client
Scott Pratt
Map's Edge
David Hair
Follow a renegade sorcerer off the edge of the map
Unnatural Magic
C.M. Waggoner
The Once and Future Witches
Alix E. Harrow
Elevator Pitch
Linwood Barclay
Life
Keith Richards
Call Of The Bone Ships
RJ Barker
In this fantasy world, life upon the ocean is everything
and everyone revolves around it. Condemned to the Black Ships,
and duty until death, Lucky Meas nevertheless has the ambition
to make plans of her own.
Burn
Patrick Ness
The Boy From The Woods
Harlan Coben
Warlord
Bernard Cornwell
The Evening and the Morning
Ken Follet
Fair Warning
Michael Connelly
The Trouble With Peace
Joe Abercrombie
The Red Stained Wings
Elizabeth Bear
Marilia The Warlord
Morgan Cole
The Bone Shard Daughter
Andrea Stewart
In The Kingdom of All Tomorrows
Stephen R. Lawhead
The Unspoken Name
AK Larkwood
Long Road To Mercy
David Baldacci
The Guardians
John Grisham
Torn
Rowenna Miller
Bright Steel
Miles Cameron
Mother of Demons
David Hair
An Anonymous Girl
Greer Hendricks
The Ruin of Kings
Jenn Lyons
Sword of Kings
Bernard Cornwell
A Little Hatred
Joe Abercrombie
Dark Forge
Miles Cameron
Hearts of Ice
David Hair
Cari Mora
Thomas Harris
The Stone in the Skull
Elizabeth Bear