Title: Mirror Witch Magic Author: D.H. Gibbs Genre: New Adult Urban Fantasy
Some secrets stay buried while others surface just like the dead…
Fusion City—a place where magic was power and the more a person had, the higher up the caste system they went. It was also the perfect place for Selena Decland, a mirror witch wanting to shuck the responsibility of her magic and lineage, to fly under the radar. At least it was until someone left a dead body on her nightclub’s steps, along with a note written in blood:
I know your secret.
As Selena struggled to keep her secret hidden, she is faced with threats from multiple places—a rep from the witch’s council who would like nothing better than to sell Selena’s talents to the highest bidder; a powerful demon who could make life difficult if he found out her secret; and a killer willing to do anything, including use dark magic, to get what he wants.
A Newsday T&T Choice finalist, D.H. Gibbs enjoys writing fantasy, contemporary romance, and children’s books. When not navigating the adventures of her kick-ass female leads, she’s a complete Starbucks and book addict who binge-watches TV series like Lucifer, Carnival Row, and Warrior. A Trinidadian native, she currently lives and creates new worlds in Japan.
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Title: A Flood of Posies Author: Tiffany Meuret Genre: Fantasy/Science Fiction
*2020 Cygnus Book Award for Science Fiction Long List*
It’s 2025.
Sisters, Doris and Thea, exist worlds apart, despite living within a few miles of one another. Doris with her regular home and regular husband and regular job, and Thea slinking along the edges of society, solitary and invisible. When a storm of biblical proportions strikes, the wayward sisters are begrudgingly forced together as the rain waters rise, each attempting to survive both the flood and each other.
One year later, Thea—now calling herself Sestra—floats throughout a ravaged, flood soaked world. Her former life drowned beneath metric tons of water, she and her only companion, Robert, battle starvation, heatstroke, and the monstrous creatures called Posies that appeared alongside the flood. When they run across what they assume to be an abandoned tugboat, their journey takes a new turn, and the truth about the flood and the monsters seems more intricately linked to Thea’s past than she may realize.
She orbited her sister and New Guy—the stars of the party, whatever the fuck it was for. Probably just to celebrate the fact that Doris had graced them all with her presence. Doris showed up, thinking she was just going to introduce this new guy to the folks, and the second her regal feet touched the foyer, their mother rang the entire fucking neighborhood. My God, everybody! She’s here! Hark, oh hark, ring the steeple bells.
But Ma was stupid, because all that fanfare did was back Doris into a corner. It made her edgy and sharp and sullen. Thea skirted through the people unnoticed, the same family as Doris—same born-again uncle, same noxious auntie, same neighbors across the street who’d watched her grow up. The neighbors that had hand-painted Christmas ornaments for them every year, but it didn’t matter how many ornaments had her name glued onto them. Thea skipped over the top of the family like a rocket. Everyone glared—oh, they looked at her, all right—but their attention fizzled out just as quickly. They darted away from her as if she was about to burst into flames. She might. Maybe she already had, and everyone could see it but her. Look at that girl, waltzing through the chicken skewer buffet as if she’s not shooting sparks everywhere. Thea’s head had been soaked in a fog lately. Perhaps they all knew something she did not.
But her mother didn’t seem to notice. The tilt of the room was off, but Thea couldn’t quite place it. She wished Doris would just leave. Then the party would collapse, and Thea could escape.
Doris was like gravity—everything spiraled out of control without her around.
Thea was itchy for some nicotine. Water dripped somewhere she couldn’t place, and the noise of it agitated her beyond measure.
Dad nodded at her as she escaped to the side yard to smoke. It was a nice place—dark and hidden, and she had a lawnmower and an old garden hose to keep her company. The exterior light had gone out last year, and to his credit, Dad kept it broken despite Ma’s nagging. Or Thea liked to think he did.
If not for the treacherous orange end of her cigarette, no one would ever have known she was there. So when she heard the crunch of approaching footsteps in the gravel, she knew it was someone looking for her.
Tiffany Meuret is a writer of monsters and twisted fairy tales. Her publications include Shoreline of Infinity, Luna Station Quarterly, Ellipsis Zine, and others. When not reading or writing, she is usually binge watching comfortable sitcoms from her childhood or telling her kids to put on their shoes for the tenth time. She lives in sunny Arizona with her husband, two kids, two chihuahuas, gecko, and tortoise.
The time has come for Kai and her friends to make a final stand, and as the war begins, everyone must choose a side. But with the lines between good and evil more blurred than ever, Kai has to stick with her convictions and follow her heart. Kai’s first priority is to free Finn from the clutches of Tessa Raven, who has become no better than the evil she once fought against.
As Kai reluctantly turns against the people she once considered her closest friends, she becomes entangled in a struggle with a mysterious new power that threatens to destroy what is left of Finn and change everything she thought she knew about the planet.
Meanwhile, Charlie and Aric remain behind and help Raven breach the underground world of the Science Council. All bets are off as they prepare to cross every line and burn every bridge in an attempt to claim the world that has abused them for too long.
Raven ran her ungloved hand over the smooth, cool metal of the missile. She needed it to shatter the barrier—opening the way down so that she could destroy the Science Council. She knew enough about terminal ballistics to be able to calculate its exact impact on the crystal tube that led to the Science Council’s underground lair when it struck. The only problem was that the makeup of the tube was so unique…
“It’s a thing of beauty, Raven,” Sayers commented. He stared at her hungrily from his spot amongst her people, seeking approval.
“Yes, it is,” she offered, and he smiled.
“The only problem is, because the substance we’re striking has never been studied, there’s no way to tell if it will work without testing it. Our likelihood for success is still low.” She glanced around the interior of the Dome of Artifacts, taking in the relics from the original Earth with an appreciative eye. “And I’m not willing to risk destroying all of these artifacts by blowing up the whole place when the chance of it failing to destroy the tube is unacceptably high.”
Her soldiers stood around her, silent, waiting for her suggestions. She’d been trying to puzzle this out for three weeks, and the answer was painfully obvious: a last straw plan. And yet, she hesitated, because there was a small part of her that wanted to try every other possible scenario before resorting to what she knew would work, even though she knew that wasn’t logical.
Damn my weakness.
“We’ll need something softer,” she said at last. “Something that will turn to mush on impact rather than ricocheting off the crystal and taking out this whole place. Also, we’ll need something much bigger… heavier.” She scrutinized the crystal tube housing of the elevator platform that had, thus far, been impossible to penetrate.
“Would you like us to try crafting a hollow missile that’s twice this size?” asked Larson. “We’d have to melt this down first.” He gestured toward the missile they’d taken three weeks to craft and painstakingly calibrated.
“No.”
The time to divulge her last straw plan was now. She knew a missile wouldn’t work. A rain of bullets wouldn’t work. But she happened to have a special tool—a former friend who could run at the speed of a bullet and who was close to two hundred pounds.
A human body hitting the tube at that speed would spread adequate weight over a large enough surface area to crack open the entryway to the Science Council’s underground world like an egg. Also, a body would explode upon impact, resulting in a mostly liquid byproduct, causing minimal damage to the artifacts. Finn’s sacrifice would save the planet.
Tracy Auerbach is an author of science fiction and fantasy for teens and adults. As an avid reader with a vivid imagination, she chose to study film, English, and education, and went on to teach and write STEM curriculum for the New York Department of Education. This helped to polish her writing skills and ignite her passion for science fiction and fantasy.
Her first scholarly article, published in Language Magazine, was about the value of active, creative learning in science. On the fiction side, Tracy’s work has been featured in the online literary journal Micro-horror, The Writing Disorder fiction anthology, and the “(Dis)ability” short story anthology, in addition to her novels.
When she is not teaching or writing, Tracy is usually reading or spending time with her family. She lives in New York with her husband and sons.
