#Titanuary2 or, AnticipatedReads 2021 from @TitanBooks!

2020 was, well, let’s just agree never to discuss it again, unless it is with a slow, shake of the head and the raising of a glass to symbolise what we went through.

So, with the aim of looking to the future, there are many many treats to look forward to from both Titan Books and it’s imprint Hard Case Crimes!

It’s not specifically chronological because I got immensely overexcited at the ‘upcoming’ books but hey! There is something for everyone, and added to this, for the second year running I will be featuring a Titan title a day for #Titanuary, covering crime, film adaptations, horror, fantasy and science fiction! It will be….wait for it…TITANIC!*

 

 

‘From The Neck Up’ by Aliya Whitely

The new collection of beautiful, strange and disarming short stories from the award-winning Aliya Whiteley, deftly unpeels the strangeness of everyday life with her trademark wit. Witness the future of farming in a new Ice Age, or the artist bringing life to glass; the many-eyed monsters we carry and the secret cities inside our bodies.

Published 14/09/2021

Twitter @AliyaWhitely

Link-https://aliyawhiteley.wordpress.com/

 

 

‘Come With Me’ by Ronald Malfi

Aaron Decker’s life changes one December morning when his wife Allison is killed. Haunted by her absence—and her ghost—Aaron goes through her belongings, where he finds a receipt for a motel room in another part of the country. Piloted by grief and an increasing sense of curiosity, Aaron embarks on a journey to discover what Allison had been doing in the weeks prior to her death.

Yet Aaron is unprepared to discover the dark secrets Allison kept, the death and horror that make up the tapestry of her hidden life. And with each dark secret revealed, Aaron becomes more and more consumed by his obsession to learn the terrifying truth about the woman who had been his wife, even if it puts his own life at risk.

Published 20/07/2021

Twitter @RonaldMalfi

Link-http://www.ronmalfi.com/

 

 

‘The Lights Of Prague’ by Nicole Jarvis

In the quiet streets of Prague all manner of otherworldly creatures lurk in the shadows. Unbeknownst to its citizens, their only hope against the tide of predators are the dauntless lamplighters – a secret elite of monster hunters whose light staves off the darkness each night. Domek Myska leads a life teeming with fraught encounters with the worst kind of evil: pijavice, bloodthirsty and soulless vampiric creatures. Despite this, Domek find solace in his moments spent in the company of his friend, the clever and beautiful Lady Ora Fischerová– a widow with secrets of her own.

When Domek finds himself stalked by the spirit of the White Lady – a ghost who haunts the baroque halls of Prague castle – he stumbles across the sentient essence of a will-o’-the-wisp, a mischievous spirit known to lead lost travellers to their death, but who, once captured, are bound to serve the desires of their owners.

After discovering a conspiracy amongst the pijavice that could see them unleash terror on the daylight world, Domek finds himself in a race against those who aim to twist alchemical science for their own dangerous gain

Published 18/05/2021

Twitter @nicolejarvis 

 

‘The Forest Of Stars’ by Heather Kassner

Left all alone after her mother passes away, twelve-year-old Louisa watches the sky for her father. Long ago, a powerful gust of wind stole him away on the wings of his untamed magic – the same magic that stirs within Louisa. As if she is made of hollow bones and too much air, her feet never quite touch the ground.

But for all her sky gazing, Louisa finds her fortune on the ground when she spots a ticket to the Carnival Beneath the Stars. If her father fits in nowhere else, maybe she’ll find him dazzling crowds alongside the other strange feats. Yet after she arrives, a tightrope act ends disastrously – and suspiciously. As fate tugs Louisa closer to the stars, she must decide if she’s willing to slip into the injured performer’s role, despite the darkness plucking at the carnival’s magical threads.

Published 11/05/2021

Twitter @HeatherKassner

Links-https://www.heatherkassner.com/

 

‘Aliens:Infiltrator’ by Weston Ochse

The official prequel to the huge new Alien video game from Cold Iron Studios, as a Weyland-Yutani scientist arrives at Pala Station and finds the researchers there courting disaster… of the Xenomorph kind.

Dr. Timothy Hoenikker arrives on Pala Station, a Weyland-Yutani facility. Lured there by the promise of alien artifacts, instead he finds a warped bureaucracy and staff of misfits testing the effects of Xenomorph bio-materials on living creatures. Unbeknownst to the personnel, however, there is an infiltrator among them whose actions could spell disaster. Also on staff is Victor Rawlings, a former marine who gathers together other veterans to prepare for the worst. As the personnel receive a delivery of alien eggs, the experiments spin out of control, and only the former Colonial Marines can stand between the humans and certain death.

Published 20/04/2021 

Links-https://www.westonochse.com/

 

‘Dark Lullaby’ by Polly Ho-Yen

Kit is an ‘out’, she doesn’t want children. Infertility is universal and she has witnessed the agonies of her friends and sister going through the painful and dangerous fertility treatment, Induction, and then struggling to keep their babies, and cannot face going through it herself. But then she meets Thomas, and gradually the idea of a baby becomes more and more important. She and Thomas go through Induction and have a baby girl, Mimi. At first everything goes well but then the small mistakes, ISPs (Insufficient Standard of Parenting), build up and suddenly Kit is face to face with the idea of losing Mimi, and she is forced to ask herself how far she will go to keep her family together.

Published 23/03/2021

Twitter @bookhorse  

Links-https://www.pollyhoyen.com/

 

‘Birds Of Paradise’ by Oliver K.Langmead

Many millennia after the fall of Eden, Adam, the first man in creation, still walks the Earth – exhausted by the endless death and destruction, he is a shadow of his former hope and glory. And he is not the only one. The Garden was deconstructed, its pieces scattered across the world and its inhabitants condemned to live out immortal lives, hiding in plain sight from generations of mankind.

But now pieces of the Garden are turning up on the Earth. After centuries of loneliness, Adam, haunted by the golden time at the beginning of Creation, is determined to save the pieces of his long lost home. With the help of Eden’s undying exiles, he must stop Eden becoming the plaything of mankind.

Adam journeys across America and the British Isles with Magpie, Owl, and other animals, gathering the scattered pieces of Paradise. As the country floods once more, Adam must risk it all to rescue his friends and his home – because rebuilding the Garden might be the key to rebuilding his life.

Published 16/03/2021 

Links-http://oliverlangmead.com/

Twitter @oliverklangmead

 

‘All The Murmuring Bones’ by A.G Slatter

Orphaned as a young child, Mirin O’Malley has been brought up by her grandparents on their isolated, rambling estate Hob’s Hallow. Long ago her family prospered due to a deal struck with the mer, the terrifying creatures who live in the depths of the sea: safety for their merchant ships in return for a child of each generation. But for many years the family have been unable to keep their side of the bargain and their fortunes have suffered as a result. When Mirin’s grandfather dies, her grandmother puts in train a plans to restore their glory – but at the price of Mirin’s freedom. Finding amongst her grandfather’s papers evidence that her parents may still be alive, Mirin is determined to escape and discover the truth about her origins. This takes her on a treacherous journey to Blackwater, the estate her parents built when they fled Hob’s Hallow, but on arrival Mirin finds the estate in decline and her ‘Uncle Edward’ in charge: where are her parents, and who is this Edward Elliott really?

A story of mystery and magic and the strange creatures that lurk beneath the waves.

Published 09/03/2021

Twitter @AngelaSlatter

Links-http://www.angelaslatter.com/

 

‘Later’ by Stephen King

The son of a struggling single mother, Jamie Conklin just wants an ordinary childhood. But Jamie is no ordinary child. Born with an unnatural ability his mom urges him to keep secret, Jamie can see what no one else can see and learn what no one else can learn. But the cost of using this ability is higher than Jamie can imagine – as he discovers when an NYPD detective draws him into the pursuit of a killer who has threatened to strike from beyond the grave.

Later is Stephen King at his finest, a terrifying and touching story of innocence lost and the trials that test our sense of right and wrong. With echoes of King’s classic novel IT, Later is a powerful, haunting, unforgettable exploration of what it takes to stand up to evil in all the faces it wears

Published 02/02/2021

Twitter @StephenKing 

Link-https://stephenking.com/

 

‘The Forever Sea’ by Joshua Phillip Jonson

On the never-ending, miles-high expanse of prairie grasses known as the Forever Sea, Kindred Greyreach, hearthfire keeper and sailor aboard harvesting vessel The Errant, is just beginning to fit in with the crew of her new ship when she receives devastating news. Her grandmother—The Marchess, legendary captain and hearthfire keeper—has stepped from her vessel and disappeared into the sea.

But the note she leaves Kindred suggests this was not an act of suicide. Something waits in the depths, and the Marchess has set out to find it.

To follow in her grandmother’s footsteps, Kindred must embroil herself in conflicts bigger than she could imagine: a water war simmering below the surface of two cultures; the politics of a mythic pirate city floating beyond the edges of safe seas; battles against beasts of the deep, driven to the brink of madness; and the elusive promise of a world below the waves.

Kindred finds that she will sacrifice almost everything—ship, crew, and a life sailing in the sun—to discover the truth of the darkness that waits below the Forever Sea.

THE FOREVER SEA is a story about the beauty and threat of nature and the relationship between finite natural resources and infinite greed. It’s about leaving behind everything that is familiar and plunging into the terrifying unknown.

Published 19/01/2021

Twitter @johnsonjoshuap

Links-https://www.joshuaphillipjohnson.com/

 

‘The Seep’ by Chana Porter

Trina Goldberg-Oneka is a fifty-year-old trans woman whose life is irreversibly altered in the wake of a gentle—but nonetheless world-changing—invasion by an alien entity called The Seep. Through The Seep, everything is connected. Capitalism falls, hierarchies and barriers are broken down; if something can be imagined, it is possible.

Trina and her wife, Deeba, live blissfully under The Seep’s utopian influence—until Deeba begins to imagine what it might be like to be reborn as a baby, which will give her the chance at an even better life. Using Seeptech to make this dream a reality, Deeba moves on to a new existence, leaving Trina devastated.

Heartbroken and deep into an alcoholic binge, Trina follows a lost boy she encounters, embarking on an unexpected quest. In her attempt to save him from The Seep, she will confront not only one of its most avid devotees, but the terrifying void that Deeba has left behind. A strange new elegy of love and loss, The Seep explores grief, alienation, and the ache of moving on.

Published 19/01/2021

Twitter @PorterChana

Links-https://www.chanaporter.com/

 

‘Fable’ by Adrienne Young

Welcome to a world made dangerous by the sea and by those who wish to profit from it. Where a young girl must find her place and her family while trying to survive in a world built for men.

As the daughter of the most powerful trader in the Narrows, the sea is the only home seventeen-year-old Fable has ever known. It’s been four years since the night she watched her mother drown during an unforgiving storm. The next day her father abandoned her on a legendary island filled with thieves and little food. To survive she must keep to herself, learn to trust no one and rely on the unique skills her mother taught her. The only thing that keeps her going is the goal of getting off the island, finding her father and demanding her rightful place beside him and his crew. To do so Fable enlists the help of a young trader named West to get her off the island and across the Narrows to her father.

But her father’s rivalries and the dangers of his trading enterprise have only multiplied since she last saw him and Fable soon finds that West isn’t who he seems. Together, they will have to survive more than the treacherous storms that haunt the Narrows if they’re going to stay alive.

Fable takes you on a spectacular journey filled with romance, intrigue and adventure.

Published 26/01/2021

Links-https://www.adrienneyoungbooks.com/

Twitter @adriennebooks

 

The Cottingley Cuckoo by A.J Elwood (AKA Alison Littlewood)

Captivated by books and stories, Rose dreams of a more fulfilled life, away from the confines of the Sunnyside Care Home where she works to support herself and her boyfriend. She hopes the situation will be short term.

Charlotte Favell, an elderly resident, takes a strange, sinister interest in Rose, but offers an unexpected glimpse of enchantment. She has a mysterious and aged stack of letters about the Cottingley Fairies, the photographs made famous by Arthur Conan Doyle, but later dismissed as a hoax. The author of the letters insists he has proof that the fairies exist; Rose is eager to learn more, but Charlotte only allows her to read on when she sees fit.

Discovering she is unexpectedly pregnant, Rose feels another door to the future has slammed. The letters’ content grows more menacing, inexplicable events begin to occur inside her home, and Rose begins to entertain dark thoughts about her baby and its origins. Can this simply be depression? Or is something darker taking root?

Published 14/04/2021

Links-https://titanbooks.com/70574-the-cottingley-cuckoo/

Twitter @Ali_L

 

The Book Of The Baku by RL Boyle

Sean hasn’t been able to speak a word since he was put into care, and is sent to live with his grandad, a retired author whom he has never met before. Suddenly living an affluent life, nothing like the world of the estate he grew up in, where gangs run the streets and violence is around every corner, Sean spends his time drawing, sculpting and reading his grandad’s stories.

But his grandad has secrets of his own in his past. As he retreates to the shed, half-buried in his treasured garden, Sean finds one of his stories about ‘The Baku’, a creature that eats the fears of children.

Plagued by nightmares, with darkness spreading through the house, Sean must finally face the truth if he’s to have a chance to free himself and his grandfather from the grip of the Baku.

Published 15/06/2021

More information on this title as it comes out!

How exciting is this brief, whistle stop tour of the amazing forthcoming books coming in the first half of this year!
Shout out loudly to those titles you are looking forward to, follow the authors on Twitter and dive on in.

 

*MAHOOSIVE delay in finsihing this post because I contracted the design to this rather awesome person I know pretty well, who is a bit bad at deadlines. It’s my other half, he was summarily sacked for failing to deliver a feature image on time, apparently it was my fault due to arguing over the inclusion of a pegasus???

Who says no to a pegasus?

Anyhow, I hope that after watching the New Year Doctor Who-what an absolute belter of an episode, no spoilers please!-I hope this brief taste of what Titan has coming up in 2021 has whetted your appetite for other worlds, new writers and adventures. Who knows what lies ahead?

All I know is that with a good book (or 10!) you are never really alone.