10 Halbjahres – Highlights aus 2023 | Top Ten Thursday №53

In a land where three suns almost never set, a fledgling killer joins a school of assassins, seeking vengeance against the powers who destroyed her family.

Daughter of an executed traitor, Mia Corvere is barely able to escape her father’s failed rebellion with her life. Alone and friendless, she hides in a city built from the bones of a dead god, hunted by the Senate and her father’s former comrades. But her gift for speaking with the shadows leads her to the door of a retired killer, and a future she never imagined.

Now, Mia is apprenticed to the deadliest flock of assassins in the entire Republic—the Red Church. If she bests her fellow students in contests of steel, poison and the subtle arts, she’ll be inducted among the Blades of the Lady of Blessed Murder, and one step closer to the vengeance she desires. But a killer is loose within the Church’s halls, the bloody secrets of Mia’s past return to haunt her, and a plot to bring down the entire congregation is unfolding in the shadows she so loves.

Will she even survive to initiation, let alone have her revenge?

After selling her soul to become Queen of the Wicked, Emilia travels to the Seven Circles with the enigmatic Prince of Wrath, where she’s introduced to a seductive world of vice.

She vows to do whatever it takes to avenge her beloved sister, Vittoria... even if that means accepting the hand of the Prince of Pride, the king of demons.

The first rule in the court of the Wicked? Trust no one. With back-stabbing princes, luxurious palaces, mysterious party invitations, and conflicting clues about who really killed her twin, Emilia finds herself more alone than ever before. Can she even trust Wrath, her one-time ally in the mortal world... or is he keeping dangerous secrets about his true nature?

Emilia will be tested in every way as she seeks a series of magical objects that will unlock the clues of her past and the answers she craves...

One sister.
Two sinful princes.
Infinite deception with a side of revenge… Welcome to Hell.

Shannon Chakraborty, the bestselling author of The City of Brass, spins a new trilogy of magic and mayhem on the high seas in this tale of pirates and sorcerers, forbidden artifacts and ancient mysteries, in one woman’s determined quest to seize a final chance at glory—and write her own legend.

Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.

But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’s future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God’s will.

Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there’s more to this job, and the girl’s disappearance, than she was led to believe. For there’s always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power…and the price might be your very soul.

In this lush, romantic new epic fantasy series from New York Times bestselling author Hannah Whitten, a young woman's secret power to raise the dead plunges her into the dangerous and glamorous world of the Sainted King's royal court.

When Lore was thirteen, she escaped a cult in the catacombs beneath the city of Dellaire. And in the ten years since, she’s lived by one rule: don’t let them find you. Easier said than done, when her death magic ties her to the city.

Mortem, the magic born from death, is a high-priced and illicit commodity in Dellaire, and Lore’s job running poisons keeps her in food, shelter, and relative security. But when a run goes wrong and Lore’s power is revealed, she’s taken by the Presque Mort, a group of warrior-monks sanctioned to use Mortem working for the Sainted King. Lore fully expects a pyre, but King August has a different plan. Entire villages on the outskirts of the country have been dying overnight, seemingly at random. Lore can either use her magic to find out what’s happening and who in the King’s court is responsible, or die.

Lore is thrust into the Sainted King’s glittering court, where no one can be believed and even fewer can be trusted. Guarded by Gabriel, a duke-turned-monk, and continually running up against Bastian, August’s ne’er-do-well heir, Lore tangles in politics, religion, and forbidden romance as she attempts to navigate a debauched and opulent society.

But the life she left behind in the catacombs is catching up with her. And even as Lore makes her way through the Sainted court above, they might be drawing closer than she thinks.

FairyLoot Exclusive Edition

Das Lied der Sirenen ist verführerisch und tödlich

Lira ist die Tochter der Meereskönigin und dazu verdammt, einmal im Jahr einem Prinzen das Herz zu rauben. Als Lira einen Fehler begeht, verwandelt ihre Mutter sie zur Strafe in die Kreatur, die sie am meisten verabscheut – einen Menschen. Und sie stellt ihr ein Ultimatum: Bring mir das Herz von Prinz Elian oder bleib für immer ein Mensch. Elian ist der Thronerbe eines mächtigen Königreichs und das Meer ist der einzige Ort, an dem er sich wirklich zu Hause fühlt. Er jagt Sirenen, vor allem die eine, die bereits so vielen Prinzen das Leben genommen hat. Als er eine junge Frau aus dem Ozean fischt, ahnt er nicht, wen er da an Bord geholt hat. Das Unerwartete geschieht: die beiden verlieben sich ineinander – doch hat ihre Liebe eine Zukunft?

Celaena has survived deadly contests and shattering heartbreak-but at an unspeakable cost. Now, she must travel to a new land to confront her darkest truth . . . a truth about her heritage that could change her life-and her future-forever. Meanwhile, brutal and monstrous forces are gathering on the horizon, intent on enslaving her world. Will Celaena find the strength to not only fight her inner demons, but to take on the evil that is about to be unleashed?

»Mit ›Der Report der Magd‹ hat sich Margaret Atwood in die Nachfolge von Aldous Huxley und George Orwell hineingeschrieben.« Der Spiegel
Die provozierende Vision eines totalitären Staats, in dem Frauen keine Rechte haben: Die Dienerin Desfred besitzt etwas, was ihr alle Machthaber, Wächter und Spione nicht nehmen können, nämlich ihre Hoffnung auf ein Entkommen, auf Liebe, auf Leben ... Margaret Atwoods »Report der Magd« wurde zum Kultbuch einer ganzen Generation und von Volker Schlöndorff unter dem Titel »Die Geschichte der Dienerin« verfilmt.

Deep in the burning sands of the Masdar League stands a gate.

It guards the legendary City of Dawn.

A source of magic so powerful, it holds the secret to immortality.

If the Red King Balaur finds it, he'll make himself a dark god. Reshape the world in his own bloodthirsty image.

But the desert dwellers took precautions to hide the source. The gate can only be opened with seven keys—each forged from a different alchemical metal. And the keys are held by seven guilds of deadly assassins.

Only a madman or a Fool would try to steal them.

As war explodes on the continent and intrigues simmer at the Golden Imperator's court, a band of unlikely saviors must pull off an impossible heist to stop the unthinkable and save the ley.

Die Welt steht kurz vor dem Untergang. Die Erzengel brauchen nur noch eine letzte Schlüsselträgerin um die Tore zum Paradies zu öffnen und die Apokalypse auszulösen. Aber so einfach wird Moon ihnen die Erde nicht überlassen. Als sie herausfindet, welches ihre wirkliche Bestimmung ist, steht sie vor der Entscheidung, sich selbst zu opfern, um wenigstens einige Menschen zu retten.
Gemeinsam mit ihren Freunden versucht sie verzweifelt einen Ausweg zu finden. Aber kann es diesen überhaupt geben? Sind die Engel nicht viel zu mächtig und wird Lucifer zulassen, dass sie sich seinen Plänen entgegenstellt?

Everyone Celaena Sardothien loves has been taken from her. But she’s at last returned to the empire—for vengeance, to rescue her once-glorious kingdom, and to confront the shadows of her past…

She has embraced her identity as Aelin Galathynius, Queen of Terrasen. But before she can reclaim her throne, she must fight.

She will fight for her cousin, a warrior prepared to die for her. She will fight for her friend, a young man trapped in an unspeakable prison. And she will fight for her people, enslaved to a brutal king and awaiting their lost queen’s triumphant return.

The fourth volume in the New York Times bestselling series continues Celaena’s epic journey and builds to a passionate, agonizing crescendo that might just shatter her world.