Summary: Road-weary soldier Lindel thought all he needed to do to return home was finish his current escort mission. Then he discovers one of his charges murdered with a wailing newborn in her limp arms and his ally Aemun holding the accused murderer at knifepoint. His new mission? Take the murderer, Tylle, to face judgment and execution. But then Lin is ambushed by monsters and gravely wounded. While unconscious, Tylle magically stitches Lin's wounds closed. An act forbidden by the Binding Tenets, laws that Lin's military faction aggressively enforces. Lin wakes to find himself marked by Tylle's magic, making him...
Sister of the Dead by E.C. Greaves
Summary: "Call it ritual or cult, if you will. But it is just business... And the dead have long been our commodity." The Vulkari do not belong within the walls of a city, and Zyntael Fairwinter is no different. So when a perilous quest into the heart of the Old-Reach is planned, Zyntael jumps at the chance to join it. Together with her closest allies, she embarks on a journey to travel beyond the mysterious “Mortuary-City” of Quaresh—to cut off the source of the Merchant Combine’s Necromancy. But there is a reason they call it the Mortuary-City. Between dangerous arcane...
The Traitors We Are by Michael Roberti
Summary: In a world where writing disappears when the author dies, 22-year-old Cael Oberlan watches the last gasping breaths of his best friend. He pulls a scrap of paper out of his pocket as his friend’s signature fades. Cael only wants vengeance for his friend and to create a reality where he no longer has to bow before any man. However, the nagging suspicion that his father, who started this war, hasn't given him the whole story about his role in this conflict threatens to unravel everything he ever thought he knew about himself and the people he is fighting...
The Red Knight by Miles Cameron
Summary Twenty-eight florins a month is a huge price to pay for a man to stand between you and the Wild. Twenty-eight florins a month is nowhere near enough when a wyvern's jaws snap shut on your helmet in the hot stink of battle, and the beast starts to rip the head from your shoulders. But if standing and fighting is hard, leading a company of men—or worse, a company of mercenaries—against the intelligent, deadly creatures of the Wild is even more challenging. It takes all the advantages of birth, training, and the devil's luck to do it. The Red...
Bastards of Liberty by Matthew Zorich
Summary: In the heart of the Holy Imperium, a family's lives are shattered. Runt Ashburn, the youngest of three siblings, journeys to seek his father needing answers. His sister Alsyha, now an indentured servant to blacksmiths, plots her escape and revenge. At the same time, the oldest, Ashburn Benjamin, juggles the life of a soldier and the pressure of a father who's the General of an army. Political forces twist around the three siblings. Could one of their deaths lead to a revolution? Review: *Review note, I read/reviewed Matthew's book months before I joined the Silverstones Blog team, this is...
Empire of the Damned by Jay Kristoff
Summary: From holy cup comes holy light; The faithful hands sets world aright. And in the Seven Martyrs’ sight, Mere man shall end this endless night. Gabriel de León has saved the Holy Grail from death, but his chance to end the endless night is lost. Drawn into an uneasy alliance with the mysterious vampire Liathe, Gabriel must now deliver the Grail to ancients of the Blood Esani, and learn the truth of how Daysdeath might be finally undone. But the Last Silversaint faces peril, within and without. Pursued by terrors of the Blood Voss, drawn into warfare between the...
To Steal the Sun
Summary: When Raik, the most cunning smuggler this side of the desert, finds where the Ivory King vaults his magical runes—he builds a crew to execute an elaborate heist. Among them is Kahli Mahanta, a religious assassin with blind ambition. A young rogue, Kirin, with wit sharper than his arrows ought to be. And Amara, the so-called Nightspirit, whose raven-hair conceals even darker secrets. It won't be easy. They’re opposed by the curved blades of the magic-deranged, watched by a paranoid king, and hunted by gaunt beasts that click in the cold desert night... All the while discovering that trusting...
Partial Function by JCM Berne
Summary: If Taken starred Michelle Yeoh and was set on a Jurassic Park - inspired Cradle. Monster hunter Akina Azure inherited the most powerful weapon in the martial world before retiring to a peaceful life raising her twin girls. The Reaver has them kidnapped, thinking Akina will trade that weapon for their safe return. Will she? Or will she use it to wreak a terrible retribution on the men who took her girls? You get one guess. Review: Partial Function by JCM Berne is dog revenge martial arts extravaganza, and not the John Wick type of dog revenge, moreso in...
Troupe of Shadows by Jennings Zabrinsky
Summary: Once the heir to an empire. Now just a shadow. Throne stolen by her traitorous brother, chased to the edge of the world, Sellane has only her beloved sword, a penchant for ruthlessness, and four elite ‘blade dancer’ bodyguards to her name. Where once she lived a life of courtly duels, decadent feasts, and palace intrigue, she now finds herself weathering the dust of a wild frontier populated by pioneers and warlords. The food has run out, shelter is scarce, her followers are on the verge of mutiny, and she can’t even communicate with the inhabitants of this alien...
The Price of Power by Michael Michel
Summary Prince Barodane could not hold back the darkness. Not even in himself. He laid an innocent city in its grave and then died a hero. In his absence, war whispers across the land. Power-hungry highborn dispatch spies and assassins to the shadows as they maneuver for the throne, while an even greater threat rises in the South. Monsters and cultists flock to the banners of a mad prophet determined to control reality…and then shatter it. Destiny stalks three to the brink of oblivion. A dead prince that isn’t actually dead. Barodane buried his shameful past in a stupor of...