10 new fantasy and science fiction books to read in April 2023
By Daniel Roman
ENGINES OF CHAOS by R.S. Ford (The Age of Uprising #2) — April 4
From the terrifying depths of space, we head next to a fantasy world embroiled in a bloody revolution. R.S. Ford’s novel Engines of Empire kicked off his new trilogy The Age of Uprising last year, introducing readers to the fantasy nation of Torwyn and the Hawkspur Guild family that struggles to keep it from collapsing in on itself. Industry rules in Torwyn, yet it is the Guilds that keep everything running.
Or at least, they used to. In Engines of Empire, matriarch Rosomun Hawkspur sends her children out across the land, each with different tasks deemed essential to maintaining the stability of Torwyn and their own illustrious house.
With Engines of Chaos, Ford continues his epic fantasy tale. Conall Hawkspur is trapped behind enemy lines in a dangerous land, unable to return to help his family. His sister Tyreta must set out with newly acquired magical abilities on a vital quest. And all the while, nefarious forces tighten their hold on the Hawkspur’s homeland.
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ONE FOR MY ENEMY by Olivie Blake — April 4
Author Olivie Blake is best known for her dark academia series The Atlas Six, which made headlines last year when it was announced that it had received a straight-to-series order at Amazon Prime Video. But even with the success of The Atlas Six and its sequel The Atlas Paradox, Blake is still churning out new works. This month she’ll be releasing One For My Enemy, an urban fantasy story about criminal witch families battling for control of New York City:
In modern-day Manhattan where we lay our scene, two rival witch families fight to maintain control of their respective criminal empires.
On one side of the conflict are the Antonova sisters — each one beautiful, cunning, and ruthless — and their mother, the elusive supplier of premium intoxicants, known only as Baba Yaga. On the other side, the influential Fedorov brothers serve their father, the crime boss known as Koschei the Deathless, whose community extortion ventures dominate the shadows of magical Manhattan.
After twelve years of tenuous co-existence, a change in one family’s interests causes a rift in the existing stalemate. When bad blood brings both families to the precipice of disaster, fate intervenes with a chance encounter, and in the aftershocks of a resurrected conflict, everyone must choose a side. As each of the siblings struggles to stake their claim, fraying loyalties threaten to rot each side from the inside out.
If, that is, the enmity between empires doesn’t destroy them first.