13 fantasy and science fiction books to read in July 2023
By Daniel Roman
DEFIANT by Michael R. Miller (Songs of Chaos #3) — July 13
If you’ve been jonesing for a bit of dragonriding fantasy adventure, author Michael R. Miller’s Songs of Chaos has you covered. There are reflections of series like Christopher Paolini’s Eragon and Anne McCaffrey’s Pern in Miller’s tale, but with a very unique spin. In the first novel of the series, teenager Holt Cook discovers that adult dragons kill off younger dragons they consider weak; after discovering a blind dragon slated to suffer this grisly fate, Holt saves it and his life is forever changed as he bonds with the hatchling.
Defiant is the third book in Songs of Chaos, and will continue the story of Holt and his blind dragon Ash. If this is a series that peaks your interest, it’s also worth noting that the series opener Ascendant is free to read this month if you have an Amazon Prime subscription.
The great powers are stirring, and Holt and Ash are ready to return to the fight.
A summons from the Life Elder sets them on a perilous mission, leading to steaming jungles and blistering islands where ancient secrets will challenge everything they know of magic and dragons.
Talia, the Red Queen, is beset on all sides by pirate raiders and marauding mercenaries. Empress Skadi has abandoned her, battling uprisings in her own lands. As the noose tightens on Feorlen, Talia faces a difficult choice: let her people suffer or turn her powers against mortal foes?
Osric Agravain has found hope with his newly bonded black dragon, but some wounds run deeper than flesh and bone. Along the Fallow Frontier, he seeks the inner peace that has long eluded him.
And within the sanctum at Falcaer, Paragon Adaskar is struggling to unite the fracturing riders. If he fails, ruinous chaos will break across the world.
For when Elders and Paragons quarrel, kingdoms will fall.
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DARK WATER DAUGHTER by H.M. Long (The Winter Sea #1) — July 18
Dark Water Daughter marks the start of a new series from The Four Pillars author H.M. Long. It’s a nautical fantasy set on dangerous seas! The Winter Sea series is full of pirates and magical intrigue; Dark Water Daughter follows a woman capable of great magic who is trying to escape a dangerous pirate lord, and a naval officer brought to the limits of sanity on a quest to clear his name. Pirate fantasies can be a total blast, and it sounds like Dark Water Daughter will continue that grand tradition.
Mary Firth is a Stormsinger: a woman whose voice can still hurricanes and shatter armadas. Faced with servitude to pirate lord Silvanus Lirr, Mary offers her skills to his arch-rival in exchange for protection – and, more importantly, his help sending Lirr to a watery grave. But her new ally has a vendetta of his own, and Mary’s dreams are dark and full of ghistings, spectral creatures who inhabit the ancient forests of her homeland and the figureheads of ships.
Samuel Rosser is a disgraced naval officer serving aboard The Hart, an infamous privateer commissioned to bring Lirr to justice. He will stop at nothing to capture Lirr, restore his good name and reclaim the only thing that stands between himself and madness: a talisman stolen by Mary.
Finally, driven into the eternal ice at the limits of their world, Mary and Samuel must choose their loyalties and battle forces older and more powerful than the pirates who would make them slaves.