I'm trying an experiment for the next few months. Those of you who have subscribed solely to get my scifi roundups and author interviews won't see a change. Those of you, however, who get them as part of my wider newsletter will see a big difference.
Instead of sending the whole roundup, with the large number of cover images that involves, I'm sending an excerpt. You can click on the 'Read this on my blog' link to see the full article.
As I said, it's an experiment. Hopefully most people will like the new setting. Please get in touch if you have strong views either way.

Now, the biggest news with me is that our new shed and deck in the orchard is almost finished. The new shed has meant that I've been able to create lots of extra plant space where one of the old ones was.
Anywho, on to the books...

In the aftermath of a battle a ship drifts helplessly in space. Is the strange new warship they were fighting still out there? Will it come back for them? Commander Johnson faces a desperate race to get her destroyer back into action and save her crew.

Mars invites scientists to participate in terraforming experiments which brings the MAVREK team all the way from Terra. But minutes after docking on the space station, Dr. Mark Warren is accused of murder.
The warm welcome continues with an attack on his spaceship, then three Terrans are found dead, and killer cyborgs are spotted. Authorities immediately conduct a massive hunt throughout Martian space and terrible new enemies surface with a direct link to Warren's old nemesis. On the planet, the same fugitives hunting Warren also threaten the downfall of Mars itself. The high-octane x-military MAVREK crew battles arms dealers, mercenaries, an infamous hacker, clone trafficking, and an insidious female enemy who will kill to avoid capture. Perhaps they'll save Mars... if they don't die first.

Humankind is under siege. Time to send in Star Brigade.
Following a deadly ambush, Captain Nwosu is tasked with resurrecting a once elite unit of covert supersoldiers.
He must now rally an unlikely, untested band of brothers to protect Union Space–and humankind’s survival–from galactic empire upheaval.
If he can’t, they’re all as good as dead.

She tried to be a hero... will she die a traitor?
Star Captain Dani Devereaux dreamt of following in her father's footsteps... but she had no idea where they'd lead her.
Hard work and dedication earned her a respected position in the Galactic Conglomerate.
Then things went sideways.
Dani and her crew get caught up in a battle nobody can win. She has only seconds to make the most momentous decision of her career.
But is it the right choice?
Dani doubts her instincts as the repercussions ripple out of control and the Galactic Conglomerate hunts for a place to pin the blame.

After solar flares decimated Earth’s population, an alien corporation gave humans a recipe for immortality, and saved them from extinction. Cloning might have stopped the spread of disease, but it didn’t stop the black market from thriving.
Snarky smuggler Selene has a bad habit of getting into trouble. While fleeing Dominion drones during a mission gone wrong, she suffers a debilitating head injury. The pain unlocks memories from twenty lost years: stark labs and human experiments. As her nightmares become more and more real, they reveal a sinister plot centuries in the making, and the aliens who saved the world might be at the center of it.
Can Selene decipher her dreams in time to avoid enslavement to the aliens? Or has her luck finally run out?

The stars brought life to the planet, and the stars destroyed it.
Endless sand, hidden secrets, domes... and a mysterious death.
Is Calix also in danger?
As part of a scavenging crew, he must salvage old technology they barely understand, crawling from outpost to outpost.
But the sand hides secrets, and when it shifts, questions unasked and allegiances long forged are challenged.
Just what is the sand hiding?

God's weapons are scattered across the universe.
Sets of armor left by an ancient civilization give unbelievable powers when combined.
Raiden is awakened 2000 years in the future, only to have his fiancée abducted by Dark Mages.
Desperate to save his fiancée, Raiden's only hope is a power suit... but is it enough in this new world, where he is the only human without any magic?
Fighting alongside him is Princess Visaka, an Air Mage and a traitor on her home planet. Running from her past, she's being chased by pirates, the Royal Navy, and now Dark Mages too.
Caught between love and loyalty, Raiden must choose. Which side will he be on? The fate of humanity may rest on his decision.

Sirio Falken has been a fighter his whole life. But when the government bans professional fighting, his life spirals out of control. All of the convicts he's ever known have disappeared from Earth, never to return. He's about to find out firsthand what happened to them. He'll have to stay alive amongst Earth’s most ruthless felons if he wants to survive … and become the first man to escape from Oz.

In the vein of the hit television show Battlestar Galactica comes Earth Strike—the first book in the action-packed Star Carrier science fiction series by Ian Douglas, author of the popular Inheritance, Heritage, and Legacy Trilogies and one of the most adept writers of military sf working today. Earth Strike rockets readers into a vast and deadly intergalactic battle, as humankind attempts to bring down an evil empire and establish itself as the new major power. Fans of Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers and Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War, welcome aboard the Star Carrier!

Avalon was the flagship of the Castle Federation in the last war, now twenty years past. The first of the deep space carriers, no other warship in the fleet holds as many honors or has recorded as many kills.
No other warship in the fleet is as old.
Accepting the inevitable, the Federation Space Navy has decided to refit her and send her on a tour of the frontier, showing the flag to their allies and enemies as a reminder of her glory – and then decommission her for good.
But Avalon has been a backwater posting for ten years – and has problems a mere refit can’t fix. The systems along her planned tour have been seeing pirates for the first time in decades, and there are rumblings of Commonwealth scouting ships all along the border.
It may be Avalon’s final tour – but it looks to be anything but quiet!

Former Marine Arthur Holland’s destiny begins when an aircraft crashes on his property in the mountains of Colorado. He moves to investigate and to help any survivors, but the closer he gets the less control he has of his movements.
An unknown force urges him to open the door of the mysterious craft, discovering the secret that lies within: a dead, alien pilot and a peculiar, otherworldly crystal. If that wasn’t enough, the crystal feels like it is alive. That’s when he hears a single word inside his mind: Run.

Joan Everett, captain of the USS Monolith, receives a distress call from the planet Corla’s primary defense, Vulta Station. Engaging her ship’s jump drive, they attempt to save the station from an attack by the Daliqians, an alien race humanity once defeated. As the Monolith retaliates, the ship takes severe damage, putting the crew at the brink of annihilation. Crippled to the point of no return, Captain Everett is forced into a decision that may jeopardize millions of lives.

A Rip in the fabric of time, a far-flung globally warmed future, a flooded Earth and the only remainder of civilisation—a militaristic organisation living underneath 'Desert Amazon'...
Getting back home was the only thing that mattered to messed up, mixed race teenager, Blue (named after his stupid, googly blue eyes) - and that was the problem—home was over four hundred years in the past.
But how does a lowly cadet in a military academy living in a post-apocalyptic future achieve such a goal, especially with the distractions of girls, pilot training, spacewalks and his almost constant unpopularity?
The more Blue found out about this flooded, gung-ho and annoying future, about himself—who and what he was (was he even human?)—and the equally disturbing and shocking truth about his parents, the more he realised getting home was the only solution.

Captain Grimshaw is having a really bad day. Colony 115 was supposed to be a milk run, but when he arrives an unidentified alien race blows his vessel out from under him. His crew is scattered across the planet, and he’s trapped behind the lines of a race the Alliance doesn’t even know exists. Thankfully, the world’s largest pain in his ass also survived. Somewhere on the colony, is the the Chit's worst nightmare. Ensign Evans will find him, even with an alien army standing in her way. They'll get off the god-forsaken planet and warn the powers-that-be or they'll die trying, for the attack on Colony 115 is just the beginning.

Earth: a space pirate's dream when it comes to booty, but not a good place to hide when bounty hunters come looking. Pulling up stakes means Rafe must leave his vintage trailer behind, but in the process, he acquires a passenger, a mouthy female who seems to think she's calling the shots. She'll soon learn who's the captain.
And it isn't Annabelle, his bossy ship.

In a world ravaged by demons, sacrifice is necessary...
What would you be willing to sacrifice to save those you love?
When Minneapolis, MN is ravaged by demons, Erik is forced to go to his sister, Sloane for help. Sloane wants to live a normal life in Dinkytown and forget she was ever born a Shikari warrior. Erik would defy his father before he’d ever admit to needing help.
Five years ago, their mother was murdered due to a vicious betrayal by one of their own. Sloane swore she’d never hunt demons again. Erik is more determined than ever to kill them. Both must put their past aside to save the city.
Secrets known only to the Shikari have been revealed.
Have they been betrayed by one of their own?
Is it the same person who murdered their mother?
Sloane and Erik are forced to work together to discover the truth and stop anyone else from being killed.
Will they be able to put their past aside to save the city and everyone they love?

A secret hidden in plain sight. A devastating attack. And a world hanging in the balance.
There are a lot of things I wish I’d known earlier—but three top my "wow, she was naïve" list.
First—there are others on Pendomus.
Second—a prophecy is in motion & I hold the key to the survival of literally everything.
Third—I'm being hunted by a madman who is desperately trying to wipe me from existence.
So yeah, no pressure.

When a battered old robot washes up on the shores of the Old Kingdom, it signals the end of a fragile alliance amongst the four ancient lands.
It turns out dragons are really tasty, and having filleted, boned and baked their scaly allies to the very brink of extinction, no single kingdom can hope to win out against the other three.
Into this shaky impasse steps the mechanical man, impervious to crude weapons, magic, suspicious wedding feasts, poisoned wine, and fire of any colour, be it wild, angry or just slightly annoyed.
Each kingdom stakes their claim to the mechanical marvel, convinced the mysterious creature will lead them to a crushing victory against the others once they teach it to fly. And breathe fire. And, you know, ignore the Three Laws.
It's just a pity none of them thought to ask the robot what it wants.

The sky over the Edges shimmers then falters. Hovering between night and day, the dawn has come and trapped it between two very different realities - blurring it at the fringes until it becomes impossible to tell whether it is in one state or the other.
Maybe both, maybe neither. Maybe something altogether different.

The only vaccine for a deadly galaxy-wide pandemic is missing... and the only ones who may be able to find it are a powerful talent on the verge of a meltdown, and a security specialist hiding her extraordinary skills in a menial job.

A millennium into the future, the Saloon Sector is where the Wild West meets the 1950s, in space, with robots. It’s where careers go to die.
Thelma Bach graduated top of her class after four years at the Galactic Justice academy. But she’s a Rock Sector citizen. The core worlders were never going to let her transcend her background. So she’s been assigned to serve her seven years as a deputy in the Saloon Sector. The message for the Federation’s out-world citizens is clear: you’ll never be our equal, so don’t even try.
The stuffy bureaucrats of the Galactic Justice service chose the wrong person to push around. Thelma will subvert her interstellar sheriff, charm artificial intelligences, fight bandits and hunt the legendary Eldorado Cache. But with the frontier region holding secrets of its own, she needs to choose her new allies wisely because a scary, business-suited enemy is hunting her.

It is 1961 and America’s a theocracy controlled by the Fellowship and its tyrannical council of eleven men. Miranda Clarke’s family is part of the ruling elite, rich and powerful, with plans for Miranda’s life.
Haunted by lurid nightmares, Miranda wants nothing more than to stay out of the public eye.
Her power-hungry mother forces Miranda into an engagement to an up-and-coming Fellowship member and schemes to get Miranda’s father elected President of the United States.
To escape the nightmares, the arranged marriage, and the repressive Fellowship, Miranda makes a break for freedom.
But she finds a dead man and lands in a prison called Redemption.
She not only must escape prison and outwit her mother’s ruthless ambitions but avoid the deadly Azrael, the Fellowship’s enforcers who Take unbelievers.

As the Greshian Empire broadens its reach, pockets of rebel forces form to combat their tyrannical rule. Death before dishonor becomes the last gasp of dying civilizations.
Brendle Quin is the death dealer. More times than he can count he has pulled the trigger to desolate entire worlds. Growing disenchanted with galactic murder, he finds himself on a course that will pit him against the empire he once swore to serve.
When two sides of the war converge, surviving becomes common ground for unlikely allies. As the battle wages overhead, they will die unless they trust one another—no simple task after years of mutual hate.

Contacting recent settlers half a planet away is the only hope for a rebellious young man's failing colony, though the conflicts they bring from Earth could be deadly.
Jake lives in a colony that's slowly dying, abandoned by Earth. Sickness plagues his family and friends, and they lack vital resources. A second colony arrives half a planet away, but visiting the newcomers is more perilous than he imagined.
They hold the key to survival, if only he can understand the conflicts among these Earth-borns from China and Africa. They bring advanced technologies and offer Jake a tantalizing chance to meet new people for the first time in his life. But if they forge ties with Jake, they'll defy their masters on Earth and perhaps also be abandoned on the deadly Red Planet.

If you've ever believed angels were really aliens. If you've ever wondered what goes through a sentient butterfly's mind. If you've ever been in love and couldn’t make yourself leave. If you believe Chuthulu is coming. If you've ever wondered, you'll want to read the stories waiting to thrill you in Ofendra.