October - new releases
Dyce (short for Candyce) Dare never thought she’d end up twenty-nine and divorced, with a toddler to raise, an ex who “forgets” his child support and a diet consisting mostly of pancakes.
To make ends meet, Dyce takes a chance and starts up Daring Finds, a furniture refinishing business. But finding things to refinish is tough-especially when Dyce goes Dumpster diving for discarded furniture and uncovers a gelatinous-looking corpse. Turns out the body was immersed in a vat of lye-a technique used for refinishing furniture-making Dyce a prime suspect.
Now, in order to clear her good name, Dyce has to play private eye. But solving a murder isn’t child’s play, especially when the next victim might be her….
FRIDAY NIGHT BITES by Chloe Neill (October 6, NAL)
The story of a young heiress's initiation into the dark society of the Chicagoland Vampires continues...
Ten months after vampires revealed their existence to the mortals of Chicago, they're enjoying a celebrity status usually reserved for the Hollywood elite. But should people learn about the Raves-mass feeding parties where vampires round up humans like cattle-the citizens will start sharpening their stakes.
So now it's up to the new vampire Merit to reconnect with her upper class family and act as liaison between humans and bloodsuckers, and keep the more unsavory aspects of the vampire lifestyle out of the media. But someone doesn't want peace between them-someone with an ancient grudge...
BITTER NIGHT by Diana Pharaoh Francis (October 27, Pocket)
SOMETIMES YOU CHOOSE YOUR BATTLES. AND SOMETIMES, THEY CHOOSE YOU...
Once, Max dreamed of a career, a home, a loving family. Now all she wants is freedom...and revenge. A witch named Giselle transformed Max into a warrior with extraordinary strength, speed, and endurance. Bound by spellcraft, Max has no choice but to fight as Giselle's personal magic weapon -- a Shadowblade -- and she's lethally good at it. But her skills are about to be put to the test as they never have before....
The ancient Guardians of the earth are preparing to unleash widespread destruction on the mortal world, and they want the witches to help them. If the witches refuse, their covens will be destroyed, including Horngate, the place Max has grudgingly come to think of as home. Max thinks she can find a way to help Horngate stand against the Guardians, but doing so will mean forging dangerous alliances -- including one with a rival witch's Shadowblade, who is as drawn to Max as she is to him -- and standing with the witch she despises. Max will have to choose between the old life she still dreams of and the warrior she has become, and take her place on the side of right -- if she survives long enough to figure out which side that is....
UNTAMED by Crystal Jordan (October 27, Kensington Aphrodesia)
The biological warfare of the twenty-first century changed the planet in astonishing ways, transforming humans into shape-shifters who love to walk on the wild side - reveling in danger and the explosive desire that consumes them...Half-human, half-lynx, Delilah Chase makes her living as a professional thief. But when half-human, half-hawk Hunter Avery catches her trying to steal his priceless ruby, he makes her a proposition: spend a week in his bed, or take a trip to jail. What follows is seven days of unrelenting, primitive passion neither can live without...As the owner of Tail, the most notorious techno brothel in New Chicago, mink-shifter Lorelei Chase specializes in fulfilling all of her clients' kinky fantasies. She just has one rule: Never sample the goods that her customers or workers offer. But every day, jaguar-shifter Nolan Angelo tempts her to break that rule - until she ultimately gives in to a burning lust that knows no control...
THE 4400: PROMISES BROKEN by David Mack (October 27, Pocket Books)
4400 taken, 4400 returned.
All were given startling new abilities.
Now they are sharing their power with the world …
But is the rest of humanity ready to join the 4400?
Promicin - which kills half of those who dare to inject it and grants paranormal abilities to those who survive - is spreading across the globe and threatening to plunge the entire world into chaos.
A year has passed since Jordan Collier and his followers seized control of Seattle and renamed it Promise City. American armed forces have surrounded Seattle, and each day brings Collier and his Promicin-Positive Movement closer to all-out war with the world's greatest military superpower.
However, the real threats are the Marked - agents from the future whose identities were encoded into body-hijacking nanites and sent back to thwart the efforts of the 4400. The last three surviving Marked lurk in the shadows, working in secret as they prepare to deliver a deathblow to the planet.
Caught in the crossfire are NTAC agents Tom Baldwin and Diana Skouris. His son, Kyle, and her thirteen-year-old adopted daughter, Maia, are both more loyal to Collier's movement than to them. And when the standoff between the Movement and the military explodes into open conflict, Tom, Diana, and their fellow agents wind up outnumbered and outgunned.
In the end, the fate of all mankind will rest in the hands of one man: Tom Baldwin.