May New Releases
Books are sprouting like flowers. Let's collect them all!
May is finally here, reader! Spring has sprung enough that most of us can at last say goodbye to the snow! Grass needs mowing because it is growing so fast and the flowers are sprouting as the weather warms. It is possible to go out in a T-shirt and shorts, too!
Of course, this means more books are on the table for avid readers to purchase. Summer is fast approaching but it is not here yet. If you want something quick to read while you wait for beaches, sunshine, and summer thunderstorms, then this list is for you!
Redemption: A Fallen Empire Novel by Jen Finelli and J.F. Holmes
Releasing: May 3
Jocelyn Wimmer is a bitter, battle-scarred ex-doctor who spent her best years patching soldiers back together, only to be chewed up, spat out, and blacklisted by the same military she served. These days she’s drunk more often than sober, and she likes it that way.
Ken Kamakura joined the Terran Union Army Medical Corps to save lives and never got the chance. Stranded after demobilization, he’s desperate for the next low-resource, high-body-count war zone that actually needs him.
Their paths cross in a seedy bar on a backwater world, Wimmer brawling with three bruisers t twice her size while Ken interviews with a mercenary outfit. Through the haze of alcohol she sees a younger version of herself in the idealistic kid. The galaxy is going to eat him alive. So she sobers up just enough to talk her way onto his contract.
Together they ship out to Eden Crescent, a desert world still bleeding from the collapse of the Grausian Empire. Local warlords fight over empire’s remains, and when a rocket turns their transport into scrap metal, Ken and Wimmer are dumped straight into an ever-shifting hostage crisis thick with culture clashes, shifting alliances, and traditions that treat slavery and sex as currency.
In a place where today’s friend might shoot you tomorrow, two broken soldiers finally feel at home. One never saw combat. The other saw too much. In the chaos, maybe the kid can find purpose..And maybe, just maybe, the veteran can find …
Redemption.
The Darkslayer Chronicles: Legions of the Lost (Book 4 of 5): An Epic Sword & Sorcery Adventure Saga by Craig Halloran
Released: April 18
The walls of the Hollow Throne are falling—and the dead aren’t staying dead.
Venir the Darkslayer, battered but unbroken, marches deeper into a city drowning in smoke, treachery, and underlings twisted into something far worse. Skorr’s monstrous army—stitched, reforged, and armed to the teeth—surges toward conquest, ready to seize the Hollow Throne… and the unimaginable power buried beneath it.
Hunted from all sides, Venir and his unlikely companions—Melegal the Rat, Kalla of the Lycans, and Ysra the fire-touched sorceress—descend into the armory’s bloody depths. There, they uncover a truth darker than war:
the underlings aren’t invading blindly. They’re being supplied. Guided. Unleashed.
And behind it all lurks Eep the Imp, a cunning creature who wields the mystic sack and secrets capable of tearing Bish apart. 🕳️✨Outnumbered, wounded, and fighting abominations that refuse to die, Venir must embrace the brutal creed that forged him:
Fight or die.
With the Hollow Throne’s true power revealed and an army rising in the streets, Venir faces a war even he may not survive. Every ally is in danger. Every step spills blood. And each choice pushes Bish one swing closer to ruin.
Perfect for fans of dark heroic fantasy, relentless action, grotesque monsters, and warriors who refuse to fall.
The Darkslayer rises… or Bish burns.
Adverse Possession (Ransom’s Law Book 2) by Robert Kroese
Releasing: May 29
He used to believe the law was a shield. Now it’s just another weapon.
Cal Ransom has barely survived his first repossession mission when TrustUs! sends the Hard Bargain to the Aralx system for what should be another straightforward recovery: the Oculus Finch, a battered freighter in breach of its lease.
Except the Finch isn’t dodging a repo—it’s trying to deliver life-saving equipment to a colony that’s running out of everything. Its captain has a proposition Cal can’t ignore… and a dead-man’s EMP that makes “no” a very expensive answer.
Aralx is a pressure cooker: desperate colonists, hired guns controlling checkpoints, and alien ruins that turn a starving outpost into valuable real estate overnight. Cal came for a ship. He landed in the middle of a fight over who gets to claim the future. On Aralx, possession is the law.
To get his crew off-world, Cal will have to out-negotiate zealots, outmaneuver professionals with better guns, and figure out who’s using contract enforcement as a weapon—before a repo job turns into a massacre.
The Pine - Wicker Feud (Chronicles of the Fall) by Pam Uphoff
Released: April 13
A short novel of events centuries before the Chronicles
Fifty years ago, a judge had a strong precognition, and executed a young lord, heir to the leadership of the Wicker Family, for crimes nearly serious enough for such a harsh sentence. But now the judge has died, and Lord Friedrich Wicker is free to take out his revenge on the surviving Pine Family. And he's planning on killing every single one of them . . . Especially the seventeen-year-old Lord Karlheinz Ingolf Pine.
Pride & Planetoids (The Stars By Degrees Book 1) by Mel Dunay
Released: May 2
With only three years remaining on Albion’s hundred-year lease in the Kuiper Belt, Elizabeth Bennet has rather more pressing concerns than her mother's nerves. Terrorist attacks on Albion by a rival power are increasing. Mrs. DeBourgh is buying up shares in the Bennets’ mining consortium, with an eye towards gaining control. And events keep putting William Darcy, commander of Albion’s most powerful warship, in Elizabeth’s path.
His manners are cold, his judgment unerring, and he’s Mrs. DeBourgh’s nephew. Elizabeth isn’t sure which one is his worst trait, but she is sure that they are all unforgiveable
She has misjudged him. Considerably. He shares her vision of Albion's future, and he's willing to risk everything to bring it to life.
A Jane Austen fan fiction retelling of Pride and Prejudice in space, for readers of Lois McMaster Bujold and Georgette Heyer.
Level Five: A Science Fiction LitRPG Novel (Galactic Merc Book 5) by Chris Kennedy
Released: April 24
I just wanted to tell my neighbor to shut up.
Hi, I’m Jack Taylor, a romance author from Earth—though you probably haven’t heard of my planet yet. It’s not part of the Galactic Consortium, and that’s a good thing for the shady alien races lurking in the shadows snatching people.
They got me, and I became first a merc, and now one of its first Protectors, as I’m trying to prevent an invasion of the Void Feeders that intend to consume the galaxy. I’ve never seen them, but apparently, they’re really hungry.
We saved the Helios Cluster, mostly, but now the invasion is growing, and we need to unite all the engineered races so that we can get our shit together before the Void Feeders eat that too!
Now a Level Five merc, I’m ready to finally jump into a mech and kick some butt. If we just had someone who could get one operational. And if we can’t, the galaxy is probably doomed.
Starforged (The Celestial Path Book 8) by D.K. Holmburg
Releasing: May 12
Roran's power has never felt so unstable—or so alive.
After escaping the basin and the wars of the Astralin, Roran is drawn to a storm-wrapped fortress where his long-lost sister now serves those same beings he once feared. She claims to be preparing for something greater than the Celestials themselves—a coming power written in the stars—and she intends to make Roran ready for it.
Under her guidance, Roran begins to understand what few ever do: that every celestial gift carries a structure, a pattern that defines the limits of power. But his own structure is broken—or limitless—and his voidheart feeds on what others release. As he trains, Roran learns he can forge power itself, shaping it into new forms at the risk of consuming everything around him.
Dragons of flame and storm scour the skies, heralds of something vast awakening beyond the Astralin's reach. To survive—and to keep from becoming a weapon of the very forces he opposes—Roran must master his heart, his structure, and the celestial forge that burns within him.
But forging power always has a cost. And when gods fall, even the stars can bleed.
Glory & Empire: Book Two of The Holy Terran Empire by Carlos Carrasco
Released: April 10
In a troubled duchy on the periphery of the Empire, an independence movement has taken root. Its adherents want to sever all ties with Earth, her empire and the Church! Social unrest is spreading quickly and dangerously as imperial loyalists and the independence seekers clash with escalating violence. The emperor fears the outbreak of a civil war that may embroil neighboring systems into a wider conflict, endangering the Pax Imperator.
The Third Fleet of the Imperial Navy is dispatched to the troubled duchy. Zephyrinus Zapatas and his fellow marines are charged with helping the loyalists re-establish order and stamp out the independence movement before it spreads any further. The rebels, however, are many, well organized and, prepared to fight tooth and nail to the bitter end.
Meanwhile, from far beyond the empire’s borders, an ancient enemy returns. Nearly forgotten, dismissed as legend by many, the ancient foe arrives, catching the Empire unawares. Their agenda: Genocide! The Empire must suddenly pivot from fighting a virulent, political ideology to facing an existential threat.
Billions of lives are at stake.
Witless Protection (Vic Boyo, Doofus Detective Book 3) by Milo James Fowler
Releasing: May 5
Third time's the charm? With Detective Vic Boyo, anything's possible.
1933, New York City: Prohibition may be over, but that doesn't mean things have cooled down any for our intrepid hero—even when a massive blizzard strikes the Big Apple hard. Good thing Boyo's always got his trusty heater.
When an old flame shows up on his doorstep seeking help, Boyo promises to do everything in his power to protect her. Problem is, she's not telling him the whole story, and before Boyo knows it, he's caught in the middle of a tug-of-war between powerful political and underworld forces who aren't playing pattycake. No, they're playing for keepsies.
The Tide Runners (The Tidepost Chronicles Book 1) by Marie-Hélène Lebeault
Released: April 10
In Tidemark Harbor, silver tidegates open to the Thousand Worlds and swallow those who misjudge them. Twelve-year-old Beck North wears his missing father’s tideclock, a bronze heirloom that tastes danger before it strikes. On Oath Day, it thrums against his chest like a heartbeat out of rhythm.
His first run should be simple: three sealed dispatches through the Breathing Reefs, a living coral maze that inhales and exhales with crushing force. But the passages are stuttering. Fresh spiral symbols glow in the shadows. Voices whisper of stolen satchels and no survivors. Every time the clock skips, Beck feels the same dread that claimed his father in the Far Reaches.
With quick-witted Tack and razor-sharp Zuri at his side, Beck races to deliver the truth before something ancient and patient tears the gate network apart and their names are already on its list.
The Tide Runners: One wrong current could sever every world forever.
Out Law: A Dresden Files Novella by Jim Butcher
Releasing: May 5
In a city that’s just beginning to recover from the devastation caused by the Battle of Chicago, Harry Dresden is finally pulling himself together as well. He’s ensconced in his own personal castle, healing his various wounds and training an eager new apprentice. The last thing he wants is any trouble. But, as history has consistently—and quite annoyingly—shown, what Harry wants is rarely what Harry gets.
It starts with a visit from Harry’s most powerful frenemy, Gentleman John Marcone, Baron of Chicago. He needs Harry to assist in the redemption of an underling who’s looking to go straight. And since Harry does kinda sorta owe Marcone for saving his life once (stupid honorable debt!), it’s not a request he can refuse. He’ll just wish he had.
Because this little favor is going to drag Harry into a fight he doesn’t want on behalf of a lowlife he doesn’t trust against an enemy more powerful and pestilent than he ever could’ve expected: an insatiable, demonic foe whom Harry himself may have created when he wiped out the vampires of the Red Court so long ago.
Before, all it wanted was blood. Now it wants the entire world . . .
Witch’s Daughter (Empires of Magic Book 2) by Sarah A. Hoyt
Released: April 23
Some letters come from the living. Some come from the dead. This one comes with a formula that turns a rowboat into a miracle.
Seventeen-year-old Lord Michael Ainsling — youngest brother of the Duke of Darkwater, builder of mechanical marvels, survivor of fairyland — receives a letter from a man sixteen years dead. The inventor Tristram Blakley has not perished; he has been imprisoned by his own genius and begs the one mind in all of Avalon brilliant enough to understand his work to set him free. All Michael has to do is find seven missing brothers first and walk a magical path..
Fifteen-year-old Albinia Blakley has spent her whole life under her mother's iron thumb — and her mother is a witch. The day Al finally escapes down a rope of knotted sheets, she lands in a world she doesn't recognize, with no money, no magic kit, and no idea that the stranger who catches her is about to become her greatest ally.
Together, a girl with more secrets than she knows and a boy who builds machines that try to murder him must outwit a sorceress, navigate the treacherous courts of Fairyland, and unravel an enchantment years in the making — before a family is lost for good.
Witch's Daughter is a gaslamp fantasy brimming with wit, warmth, and wonder, for readers who love their magic wrapped in velvet and their adventures served with morning tea.
All That Glows by Lauren Smyth
Releasing: May 12
The apocalypse didn’t take everyone. It just took us.
Ever since the rain turned green, Kyrie’s world has been bathed in glowing dust. She packs it into old mascara tubes and sells it as makeup alongside dried cacti, threadbare blankets, and long-expired canned food. There’s not much else to do when everyone outside Kyrie’s small town in the Mojave Desert died from the plague-bearing rain ten years ago.
Everyone—except the man in the rubber mask.
He’s on the dangerous side of the fence, huffing infected air like it’s nothing, babbling to Kyrie about college and umbrellas and yogurt and everything else that disappeared the day it rained. He doesn't seem to know that the world ended, and he has no explanation for how he survived the apocalypse. But Kyrie doesn't believe in ghosts.
She can’t trust him, but he’s right about one thing: Towns without secrets aren’t surrounded by chain-link fences. And chain-link fences won’t keep out the plague forever.
Balance of Injustice: Book 3 of the Injustice series (Corruption Universe 4) by J.F. Posthumous
Released: April 24
A deadly syndicate. A city on edge. A detective with everything to fight for.
The Moyi Tsaa, one of the oldest and most feared criminal organizations on K’lais, is out for blood. Detective Violetta Cq’linns Addelia, a ‘Halfer’ mated to another, is shattering long-held traditions, proving that those of mixed heritage are just as capable as pure-blood K’laians—something the syndicate refuses to accept.
As the military cracks down on corruption within the police force, the Moyi Tsaa retaliates, eliminating former allies and striking at those who challenge their authority. Now, Violetta finds herself caught between a new Chief of Police who favors native-born K’laians and a ruthless criminal empire that wants her dead. And in the midst of it all, she discovers she’s pregnant—adding even more to the stakes in a fight she can’t afford to lose.
Despite relentless attacks, Violetta refuses to back down. Armed with a sword and unexpected allies, she is determined to bring balance to her world.
But balance comes at a cost, and the Moyi Tsaa doesn’t forgive. Can Violetta survive their wrath, or will she pay the ultimate price for defying tradition?
Dropout: A LitRPG Sci-Fi Adventure by Tao Wong and Jason J. Willis
Releasing: May 15
Out of the earth apocalypse into a galactic meatgrinder.
Caleb and the children have escaped the Humanist, flying out from Earth on the stolen Voloid spaceship. That escape is not without cost, though, as the ship is packed with enemies turned reluctant allies.
Hostilities run deep among aliens and humans, ex-HLF members and tribe members, and between the peacemaker ex-teacher Caleb and the warmongering tactician Lee. Balancing everyone’s needs, along with a failing spaceship, while being pursued by old enemies and facing new Galactic ones, will present a major challenge for them all.
They've dropped out of the battle for Earth, but the Galactic universe is no easier.
Colt Ostergaard: A Man With A Gun : A Science Fiction Western Novel by Rick Cutler
Released: April 23
Some men are hard to kill. Colt Ostergaard is something else entirely.
On the frontier world of Fenris — where forty-year winters give way to savage springs, where ranchers ride six-legged yimas across golden plains, and where the scars of a brutal independence war haven’t finished healing, one man drifts from trouble to trouble, justice to justice, and never seems to slow down.
Colt Ostergaard is a former soldier, court-martialed for an act of mercy that saved hundreds of lives and cost him everything else. He carries a hand-crafted Diamond Firearms Shark Elite, a pocket watch with his grandfather’s name inside, and a reputation that arrives in town a full day before he does. He doesn’t look for fights. Fights find him. And the men who start them rarely finish standing.
Across the high plains of Fenris, Colt will face Feral raiders, rogue Alphan soldiers, corrupt lawmen, a disgraced general raising a private army in an underground fortress, and a powerful foundation that has been hunting him for reasons he doesn’t fully understand — and won’t stop, no matter what it costs them.
Riding alongside him is Shelby Yodersen, who introduced herself at fifteen with a pink shotgun and has been saving his life-and complicating it-ever since.
Collecting all of Rick Cutler’s stories from the complete six-volume Space Cowboys anthology series by Raconteur Press, plus new chapters written exclusively for this novel, Colt Ostergaard: A Man With a Gun is the definitive arc of one of independent science fiction’s most original characters.
Science fiction written like a Western. A frontier that doesn’t forgive mistakes. A story for anyone who believes the best science fiction has always been a morality play with better guns.
Writing And Reflection Volume 2: Essays on the writing process from world-building to words by Mary Catelli
Releasing: May 7
Reflections on the many and far-flung fields that writing can touch upon, from original inspiration to the final work.
Wizards. Metaphysics. Good, evil, virtues, and morality meters. Fairy tales in all their varied glory. Desert, forest, and other settings. Dragons and industry. Guilds of magic, quacks, and superstitions. Love and courtship. Portals. And more.
Halfling Alchemy (Blades of Ruin) by Jonathan Moeller
Released: April 14
An Alchemist's bargain might lead to destruction.
Lukas the halfling is a master Alchemist, respected and rich. When an emissary from the Grand Company wishes to hire him, Lukas refuses to work with the thieves and killers of the Free Companies.
But the emissary's true masters are the Disciples of Vhalzarok.
And the Disciples and their dark magic do not take no for an answer...
There you have it, readers! All the derring-do, adventure, romance, and fun anyone could ask for in one neat list. Did we miss anything? Are you looking for any books in particular? If so, leave a comment and tell us what they are so we can include them next time!
Until then, we here at Upstream have more reviews for your reading pleasure lined up and ready to go. Enjoy!
Thank you Song!
New and very good: "Daughter Seven", by Jaxon Reed, "The Doctor from Nowhere - Book 3", by Anatoly Drozdov, and "Space Fleet Academy - Year 1 Biostellar Book 1", by Jon Del Arroz (Books 2 and 3 are also new and good.)