World Weaver Press (Eileen Wiedbrauk, Editor-in-Chief) has announced the trade paperback release of Shards of History by Rebecca Roland, out now.

Shards of History is available in paperback and ebook via Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Kobo.com, and other online retailers. You can also find Shards of History on Goodreads.

Only she knows the truth that can save her people. Like all Taakwa, Malia fears the fierce winged creatures known as Jeguduns who live in the cliffs surrounding her valley. When the river dries up and Malia is forced to scavenge farther from the village than normal, she discovers a Jegudun, injured and in need of help. Malia’s existence–her status as clan mother in training, her marriage, her very life in the village–is threatened by her choice to befriend the Jegudun. But she’s the only Taakwa who knows the truth: that the threat to her people is much bigger and much more malicious than the Jeguduns who’ve lived alongside them for decades. Lurking on the edge of the valley is an Outsider army seeking to plunder and destroy the Taakwa, and it’s only a matter of time before the Outsiders find a way through the magic that protects the valley–a magic that can only be created by Taakwa and Jeguduns working together.

As previously announced, Roland’s new short story collection, The King of Ash and Bones, and Other Stories, including a tie-in toShards of History, will be released in digital edition on Tuesday, June 4, 2013.

An exiled man returns to his family and the life he left behind. A king is determined to avenge his people. A man doomed to die gives his wife her greatest wish. A suspected affair leads to a shocking and wondrous surprise. Roland works her magic again in this four-story collection of eerie and enchanting works, including Rasmus’s story from after Shards of History.

The King of Ash and Bones, and Other Stories will be available in ebook via amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, kobo.com, and other online retailers.

Rebecca Roland lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she writes primarily fantasy and horror. Her short fiction has appeared in Everyday Fiction, Uncle John’s Flush Fiction and in Stupefying Stories, and she is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. When she’s not writing, she’s usually spending time with her family, torturing patients as a physical therapist, or eating way too much chocolate. You can find her online at Spice of Life, her blog, or follow her on Twitter @rebecca_roland.

A fractured Europe, a cook-turned-spy, a mighty web of espionage – but what happens when conspiracy threatens to overwhelm even reality itself?

Solaris is pleased to announce is has acquired Europe in Autumn by author and journalist Dave Hutchinson. The dystopian SF espionage thriller will be published in February 2014.

Rudi is a cook in a Kraków restaurant, but when his boss asks Rudi to help a cousin escape from the country he’s trapped in, a new career – part spy-part people-smuggler – begins. 

Following multiple economic crises and a devastating flu pandemic, Europe has fractured into myriad tiny countries, duchies, polities and republics. Recruited by the shadowy organisation Les Coureurs des Bois, Rudi is schooled in espionage, but when a training mission to The Line, a sovereign nation consisting of a trans-Europe railway line, goes wrong, he is arrested, beaten and Coureur Central must attempt a rescue.

With so many nations to work in, and identities to assume, Rudi is kept busy travelling across Europe. But when he is sent to smuggle someone out of Berlin and finds a severed head inside a locker instead, a conspiracy begins to wind itself around him.

With kidnapping, double-crosses and a map that constantly re-draws itself, Rudi begins to realise that underneath his daily round of plot and counter plot, behind the conflicting territories, another entirely different reality might be pulling the strings…

Editor-in-chief of Solaris, Jonathan Oliver, said: “Dave Hutchinson’s novel bowled me over with its brilliance from the first chapter. It’s an extraordinary alternative history of a near-future Europe laced with a Kafka-esque nightmare and written with all the cool-assuredness of a John le Carré. An incredibly original and insightful work of speculative fiction.”

Tartarus Press are delighted to announce that their next publication will be Night Voices by Robert Aickman. Reprinting this eighth volume of Aickman’s short stories means that all of his short fiction is now in print, and they hope to keep it that way, especially as 2014 will be Aickman’s centenary year.

The short stories contained in this collection are: ‘The Stains’, ‘Just a Song at Twilight’, ‘Laura’, ‘Rosamund’s Bower’, and ‘Mark Ingestre: The Customer’s Tale’. We have added Aickman’s fantasy novella ‘The Model’, along with his ‘Essay’ written on winning the First World Fantasy Award, and his Introductions to The Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories. The volume contains an ‘Introduction’ by Barry Humphries, which is bookended by the reminiscence ‘Robert Remembered’ by Ramsey Campbell.

Night Voices is a sewn hardback of 316+ vii pages, printed lithographically, with silk ribbon marker, head and tailbands, and d/w. Price £32.50

Publication date 29th May 2013.

Screaming Dreams are proud to announce that Black Mirrors by Paul Edwards is now available.

Black Mirrors is the debut collection from Paul Edwards. Originally published as a paperback by Rainfall Books, this title is now available as a Kindle edition from Screaming Dreams. Featuring fourteen stories of dark fiction to satisfy your twisted souls!

Available on Kindle from http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00CXACN5U and in ePub format from https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/318898

Screaming Dreams also have two other books now available on Smashwords:

Now That I’ve Lost You by Paul Edwards
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/318923

In these nineteen tales of love and loss, sex and death, you will brave witches, warlocks and the living dead; traverse uncharted, hypnotic highways; and you will meet up with green-eyed losers who inhabit small spaces: whether it’s graveyards, old churches, or their own echoing heads.

Songs from Spider Street by Mark Howard Jones
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/318614

Ambitious killers, haunted clowns, energetic layabouts, tender murderers, discontented lovers, honest thieves and the occassional mislaid hero all jostle for their place in a finely-spun web of desire and death, pleading to be heard. A collection of short story dark fiction.

Out now from The Alchemy Press:

In the Broken Birdcage of Kathleen Fair by Cate Gardner

When the mirror released Kathleen into the unknown, for the briefest of moments she giggled and realised that she’d never laughed before. She had been a blank canvas, sitting and waiting in a room and occasionally bouncing from wall to wall desperate for freedom – and now she was out. White walls no longer surrounded her. In this new place, a thousand mirrors spun reflecting worlds.

The first in The Alchemy Novella Series, available in Kindle format via Amazon, only £1.35

For the ePub version contact The Alchemy Press - alchemypress [at] gmail.com

The Lutterworth Press have announced the upcoming release of their book The Ideal of Kingship in the Writings of Charles Williams, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R Tolkien: Divine Kingship is reflected in Middle-Earth on 27 June 2013. This new work forms an inter-disciplinary approach to the notion of Kingship – literary, theological and historic – that offers a deeper understanding of the work of the three Oxford ‘Inklings’ and their concepts and ideals of kingship.

Ultimately claiming that the foundations of these authors’ ideal of kingship are important to consider in light of today’s Christian belief (or lack of it) in contemporary Britain, Christopher Scarf assesses the authors individually for characteristics of their writing. In the three authors’ work he evaluates the concepts of the vicegerent, the experience of joy, the divine court, hierarchy, life in the kingdom and the historical notion of kingship. It is in understanding these ideas and ideals that the true contributions of these great men to English Life and Literature can be fully appreciated.

This fascinating study looks at three of the world’s most famous authors in new light, and offers novel insight into their oft-studied books.

theEXAGGERATEDpress is proud to announce publication of “Wordland 3: What they saw in the sky”.

The free, on-line magazine is now live at http://wordland3.weebly.com/index.html. Featuring fiction and poetry by the likes of Allen Ashley, Rhys Hughes, Douglas Thompson, Gary Couzens, Terry Martin, Sarah Doyle, A J Kirby, Mark Howard Jones, John Travis, Steve Byrne, Martin Feekins, Jessica Lawrence, Frank Duffy, John Forth and many more.

“Stories and poetry from those who have looked up and seen dark and fearful wonders beyond cloud, sun, moon and stars…”

Gray Friar Press is proud to announce the sixth entry in its Gray Matter novella range. But unlike many imprints, we’re not just offering a single novella. We’re offering SIX novellas – in one book!

THE CONDEMNED is Simon Bestwick’s second GFP collection, following the magnificent PICTURES OF THE DARK a few years ago. We’re really excited about this new book and are offering it in both flat-signed, limited (100 copies) hardcover and trade paperback editions. Here are the contents:

Dark Earth
The Narrows
A Kiss of Old Thorns
The Model
The School House
Sleep Now in the Fire

The hardcover comes with a previously unpublished bonus short story (“Made of Clay”) and retails at £18.99 / $36 / 22 Euros + P&P.

The paperback retails at £8.99 / $16 / 11 Euros + P&P. All editions will be ready to ship by early June and can be pre-ordered HERE

Obverse Books is delighted to announce the acquisition from IPC Media of the license to the famous Baker Street detective, Sexton Blake.

Blake initially appeared in several of the Penny Dreadful style British comics and magazines of the latter 19th and early 20th centuries. Lauded by literary figures as diverse as Dorothy L Sayers and Michael Moorcock, Blake’s adventures represent the longest running fictional series in the English language, and appeared in print, in comic format, on radio, television and cinema between 1893 and 1978.

Obverse Books intend to resurrect the famous Sexton Blake Library, commencing with a new novella by best-selling genre author George Mann entitled ‘Sexton Blake and the Vengeful Dead’, combined in one hardback and electronic volume with a reprint of  a rare, classic Blake story from the inter-war years.

“The acquisition of the Sexton Blake license is an important building block in the growth of our catalogue,” said Obverse CEO, Stuart Douglas. “The re-launched Sexton Blake Library will build upon our existing mystery and crime releases, while at the same time fulfilling a long-standing personal ambition to bring the longest-running detective series in literary history back to life.”

Talking about his own novel, George Mann added: “I’ve been an avid devotee of Sexton Blake for many years, and it’s such an honour to be writing the first instalment of the newly resurrected Sexton Blake Library. Expect thrills, spills, action and adventure as a Golden Age Blake is buried alive, takes on a mysterious cult  and faces off against a returning villain from the original saga.”

This July, Pan Macmillan are incredibly excited to be publishing The Sleep Room by F.R. Tallis. This is a taut and well written page-turner which will appeal to fans of Susan Hill and Christopher Ransom.

When promising young psychiatrist, James Richardson, is offered the job opportunity of a lifetime by the charismatic Dr. Hugh Maitland, he is thrilled. Setting off to take up his post at Wyldehope Hall in deepest Suffolk, Richardson doesn’t look back. One of his tasks is to manage Maitland’s most controversial project – a pioneering therapy in which extremely disturbed patients are kept asleep for months. If this radical and potentially dangerous procedure is successful, it could mean professional glory for both doctors.

As Richardson settles into his new life, he begins to sense something uncanny about the sleeping patients – six women, forsaken by society. Why is Maitland unwilling to discuss their past lives? Why is the trainee nurse so on edge when she spends nights alone with them? And what can it mean when all the sleepers start dreaming at the same time?

In this atmospheric re-invention of the ghost story, Richardson finds himself questioning everything he knows about the human mind, as he attempts to uncover the shocking secrets of The Sleep Room . . .

F.R.Tallis is a writer and clinical psychologist. He has written self-help manuals, non-fiction for the general reader, academic text books, over thirty academic papers in international journals and several novels. Between 1999 and 2012 he has received or been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the New London Writers’ Award, the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, the Elle Prix de Letrice, and two Edgars. His critically acclaimed Liebermann series (written as Frank Tallis) has been translated into fourteen languages and optioned for TV adaptation. The Forbidden, his ninth novel, is a horror story set in nineteenth-century Paris and this, The Sleep Room, is his tenth. @franktallis