Debut Showcase: A Darkness Forged in Fire

A Darkness Forged in Fire
by Chris Evans (website, blog)
Pocket
Hardcover

Blurb:
Konowa Swift Dragon, former commander of the Empire's elite Iron Elves, is looked upon as anything but ordinary. He's murdered a Viceroy, been court-martialed, seen his beloved regiment disbanded, and finally been banished in disgrace to the one place he despises the most -- the forest.

Now, all he wants is to be left alone with his misery...but for Konowa, nothing is ever that simple. The mysterious and alluring Visyna Tekoy, the highborn daughter of an elfkynan governor, seeks him out in the dangerous wild with a royal decree that he resume his commission as an officer in Her Majesty's Imperial Army, effective immediately.

For in the east, a falling Red Star heralds the return of a magic long vanished from the earth. Rebellion grows within the Empire as a frantic race to reach the Star unfolds. It is a chance for Konowa to redeem himself -- even if the entire affair appears doomed to be a suicide mission...

and that the soldiers recruited for the task are not at all what he expects. And worse, his key adversary in the perilous race for the Star is the dreaded Shadow Monarch -- a legendary elf-witch whose machinations for absolute domination spread deeper than Konowa could ever imagine....

Iron and Elves have a tradition of not mixing very well in fantasy literature, so this one appears to be a new twist. However, it also seems to be gritty, and I don't seem to be having much luck reading gritty fantasy lately. Gritty science fiction I can enjoy in quite heavy doses, but for some reason, gritty fantasy is not working for me these days.

What about the rest of you? Sound interesting?

Staked by J. F. Lewis

Staked(Amazon UK, Canada)
J. F. Lewis (website, blog)
Pocket Books
Trade Paperback
Google Books Excerpt

Blurb:
UNREPENTANT. UNIMPRESSED. AND TOTALLY UNDEAD.

Eric's got issues. He has short-term and long-term memory problems; he can't remember who he ate for dinner yesterday, much less how he became a vampire in the first place. His best friend, Roger, is souring on the strip club he and Eric own together. And his girlfriend, Tabitha, keeps pressuring him to turn her so she can join him in undeath. It's almost enough to put a Vlad off his appetite. Almost.

Eric tries to solve one problem, only to create another: he turns Tabitha into a vampire, but finds that once he does, his desire for her fades -- and her younger sister, Rachel, sure is cute. And when he kills a werewolf in self-defense, things really get out of hand. Now a pack of born-again lycanthropes is out for holy retribution, while Tabitha and Rachel have their own agendas -- which may or may not include helping Eric stay in one piece.

All Eric wants to do is run his strip club, drink a little blood, and be left alone. Instead, he must survive car crashes, enchanted bullets, sunlight, sex magic, and werewolves on ice -- not to mention his own nasty temper and forgetfulness.

Because being undead isn't easy, but it sure beats the alternative.

There's a longer blurb at the SFWA website that makes this novel look much more intriguing. His one true love is in her 80's and still sticking by him? That's just downright sad. I'm much more interested in her than any sassy girlfriend. John Scalzi featured Lewis on his blog last week, which had to have been a great boost for him.

One of my co-workers has the same name as the author, so I just had to check and see if my co-worker was a clandestine novelist--but apparently there are two of them.