Tag: monstrouslittlevoices

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Monstrous Little Voices wins Best Anthology Award!

We love Sheffield. Like Rome, it has seven hills, and yet it is much, much better than Rome, because it also has the Arctive Monkeys, Jarvis Cocker and the Sheffield Fantasy & Science Fiction Social Club

Brilliantly, the SFSF Social’s best of 2016 awards included a win for Monstrous Little Voices as Best Anthology, which we were obviously delighted with.

We loved putting together this star-studded collection of stories based in Shakespeare’s fantasy worlds, and it’s great to see the people of South Yorkshire giving us a little love for it.

Thanks, SFSF Social, and long may your good taste reign!

Monstrous Little Voices is out now!
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Even in the Cannon’s Mouth: Adrian Tchaikovsky interview

To  celebrate the release of Montrous Little Voices, we asked Dr John Lavagnino from King’s College –  who has written an excellent afterword for our fantastical Shakespearean anthology – for a few questions for the authors.

Here’s Adrian Tchaikovsky on his contribution, Even in the Cannon’s Mouth…

JL: It looks hard to fit things from a lot of different plays together this way! Was it?

AT: The weird thing was that, no, it worked really well, even when I started throwing some tragedy characters into the mix.  So I’ve got characters from four comedies and Macbeth, for heaven’s sake, and I’ve done my best to preserve their personalities as written (or at least to extrapolate where they might go after their original curtain call) but it turns out it’s really easy to make a functioning adventuring party using Shakespearean cast-offs like Benedick from Much Ado or Parolles from Alls Well.

JL: What did you discover or notice about Shakespeare’s works in the course of doing this? And about your own?

AT: I have always been deeply into Shakespeare, especially as works that can be reinvented. I’ve acted in plenty of Shakespeares (I’ve even played one of the characters I’m borrowing for the novella – he gets no special treatment), and I’ve directed a few as well. I guess the surprising thing, given that most of his plays are finely crafted composite pieces, is how modular they turn out to be – kind of literary Lego. Obviously the initial brief was based on the idea that you can work many of the plays into a single coherent world, and there is a kind of continuity of tone with a lot of the comedies so that if Viola turned up in breeches in the middle of As You Like It, for example, she’d fit right in. For my own work, I’ve been pleased with how a heroic fantasy writer’s sensibilities have meshed with the Shakespearean setting. There is definitely a fantasy plot going on with Even in the Cannon’s Mouth, but it is turned upside down so that it functions like a comedy. And I might just have given a shout out to a few fantasy standards within the Shakespeare.

JL: Which character was most rewarding to write about?

AT: I have a soft spot for Parolles. He is a horrible person in All’s Well that Ends Well – Shakepeare’s take on the Miles Gloriosus braggart soldier. It’s not a well known play, and it is insanely problematic for reasons not related to Parolles (the ‘happy ending’ of Helena and Bertram is just… ghastly. It works, but only if you assume that they’re both dreadfully flawed people), but it has some of Shakespeare’s funniest scenes, and Parolles, liar, coward and self-promoter, can be a surprisingly nuanced character. He has some very subtle scenes with Helena where he can come over as lewd and shallow, or he can be played as a man utterly lost to the ideal of vacuous machismo showing he has finer feelings buried in there. I’ve put in shout outs to a lot of Parolles’s original scenes (which work especially because he frankly won’t ever learn from his mistakes), and he even gets to save the day, just a little.

JL: What characters or places were you going to include but had to leave out?

AT: Originally I was going to do something relating to the Tempest, which is one of Shakespeare’s three plays that include a character who is my namesake. Adrian in that work is a minor courtier, one of a pair who have a handful of lines and are usually cut in performance. I wanted to do something with them, but it never quite came together. The other play I had to omit is one of my favourites, Measure for Measure. The villain of that play is Angelo, a spectacular hypocrite it would have been fun to play with, and there is a fun supporting cast of vagabonds and ne’erdowells who would have given a nice ‘thieves’ guild’ fantasy feel to proceedings.

JL: Do you think you’ll do more writing of this kind? building on Shakespeare or perhaps on other writing?

AT: Weirdly I’ve had a second Shakespeare commission after handing in Cannon, which was a Shakespeare/Cthulhu short for Jonathan Green. I’ve also written a story about travelling players for Newcon Press, so this seems to have kicked off a whole load of theatrical business in my writing. I’ve also unearthed something I did for my writing group a couple of years ago, which was a cod Shakespeare play called Miranda’s Republic, and I might stick that up on my website when the novella is released.

Even in the Cannon’s Mouth is out now!
BUY: UK|US|eBOOK

 

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Monstrous Little Voices: Foz Meadows interview

To  celebrate the release of Montrous Little Voices, we asked Dr John Lavagnino from King’s College –  who has written an excellent afterword for our fantastical Shakespearean anthology – for a few questions for the authors.

Here’s Foz Meadows talkingher contribution, Coral Bones…

JL: It looks hard to fit things from a lot of different plays together this way! Was it?

FM: Not really! Before we all started writing, we had a group discussion about which stories we wanted to tell using which characters, and as it turned out, mine was chronologically first, so even though I had to keep some future developments in mind, I didn’t have that much to alter. But it was great fun to try and fit my own ideas to the worldbuilding parameters we’d been given! 

JL: What did you discover or notice about Shakespeare’s works in the course of doing this? And about your own?

FM: I’ve always felt that Miranda gets a short shrift in The Tempest, but before doing my research for the anthology, it had been years since I read the actual play, and I was blown away by the creepiness of Prospero. Historically, he tends to be viewed as a wise man, a good guy, but he literally puts his daughter to sleep when he gets tired of talking to her in the opening scenes, and when she wakes up again, she has no idea that he’s the one responsible for it; she thinks she just nodded off. Which is where I got my opener for Coral Bones – what if it’s something he’s done before? What if Ariel objects? What kind of relationship do the three of them have on the island, and how is that going to influence Miranda’s life with Ferdinand, once they’re back in Italy?

JL: Which character was most rewarding to write about?

FM: As much fun as I had writing the faeries, Miranda is the most important to me. In 2015, I realised I was genderqueer and finally started to recover from my post-natal depression: I’m still navigating the former – will likely be navigating it for the rest of my life – and I put a lot of those feelings into writing her. I think it’s fair to say her story is, in some respects, the most personal fiction I’ve ever written. Which makes it kind of terrifying, wondering how people are going to react to it, but also deeply satisfying, given that the act of creating it helped me. 

JL: What characters or places were you going to include but had to leave out?

FM: I was originally going to have Puck and Miranda getting up to some trickster-style shenanigans on their way to Titania’s court, but in the end, the story went in a different direction – hopefully for the better!

JL: Do you think you’ll do more writing of this kind? Building on Shakespeare or perhaps on other writing?

FM: I don’t know; it depends on the opportunity and context. Coral Bones was hard to write, but also very rewarding. I’ll just have to wait and see!

Monstrous Little Voices is out now!
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Happy publication day Monstrous Little Voices!

The most auspicious of days has finally arrived: Monstrous Little Voices, our collection of five new tales from Shakespeare’s fantasy world, is out today.

Our celebration of the Bard, which was comissioned to celebrate 400 years since his death, has been a labour of love for Abaddon editor David Thomas Moore. You can read all about how Monstrous Little Voices in this interview over at Rising Shadow.

David has also been writing about the inspiration behind the collection here at the Abaddon blog, as well as paying tribute to Lisa Jardine, the Shakespeare scholar that inspired his love of the Bard. 

Finally, David has written a teaser story that ties into the collection – read “Blessed Candles of the Night” right now for an extra piece in the puzzel that is Monstrous Little Voices. 

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We’ve been delighted with the reaction Monstrous Little Voices has been getting, with a four and a half star review from SFX leading the charge:

But that’s not all – there have been great reviews across the board:

So there you have it – our superb new collection is out in the wild, waiting for you to snap it up. 

Monstrous Little Voices is out now!
BUY: UK|US|eBOOK

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Monstrous Little Teaser!

Hey there,

Happy publication day! Monstrous Little Voices hits the shelves (physical and electronic) today in the UK (this Thursday in the US). Get it here.

To get you in the mood, a bit of a teaser/prelude by Mr. Moore:

Blessed Candles of the Night

“It’s good, Will.” He looks up from the page at me, that small smile quirking his lips, and I thrill to it.

I’m dreaming, of course.

“It’s good, you know it’s good. I’faith, I’ve told you often enough.” He tosses the sheets onto my desk, and I scramble to collect them, checking the inkpot’s not spilled.

“My thanks, Kit. It’s still in progress, really. But it works? He’s a good villain?” I’m stammering, nervous. He’s one of my dearest friends in London – my first real friend in London – but when I show him my work I feel like a schoolboy.

– the blade flashes in the lamplight –

“He’s a fine, monstrous king,” he says, stretching like a cat and standing. “‘Thus I clothe my naked villainy with holy writ; and seem a saint, when most I play the devil.’ Superb. Alleyn’ll chew the scenery and scowl at the scullions ’til they wet their braies.”

“I thought I might give young Burbage a chance.”

“Oh?” He raises an eyebrow and I look back to my papers, blushing. But he nods, thoughtfully. “Good choice. He’s old enough now, and he’s surely got the talent.”

“I thought so.” I reach for my cup and, finding it empty, rise to fetch the bottle of sack sitting by the fireplace.

“It’s good, Will, but” – he tilts his own goblet at me as I fill my cup, with an expectant look, and I oblige – “but I’ve already said the problem’s not talent, but experience. You write of Padua, Verona, but you’ve never been there. By’r Larkin, you’ve not been so far as Calais!”

“I know what you’re about to say, but –”

“Come with me, Will. I’m off in a day or so. Venice, Florence –”

“But I’m busy, Kit. Howard wants Richard in two weeks, and he’s keen for another, on the Black Prince, as soon as I can –”

He rolled his eyes theatrically. “Kings again. All to flatter the old bag of –”

“Kit, please.” I look around nervously, for all we’re alone in my garret, and shrug, helplessly. “And Henry Carey wants a comedy, for his new company. Something with mistaken identities, and an idiot, and people running on and off.”

Kit drains his cup and sets it down on my desk, then looks me in the eye. “Two months, Will. Venice, Florence. I have business to see to –”

“Dodging the Privy Council? Why don’t you appeal to the Queen?”

He grimaced. “I may have spent my credit on that front. Anyway, it’ll have blown over when I get back. Come with me, Will. Please. It’ll be merry.”

I stare at him, and I want to say, ‘Yes!’ I want to say, ‘Let us go! Let us not wait even an hour on leaving, but leave at once!’ There’s always a ship bound for Venice at the Pool. I yearn to speak, to change the past.

Nothing happens. I look at my feet; awkwardly, stupidly silent.

Kit shrugs. “I’ll ask again before I leave. I’m in Deptford tomorrow – Poley’s asked me to join him at Bull’s – but I’ll be by again before I go.”

Something brushes my back, and I stir. It’s dark in my chambers – larger, now, and rather better appointed – and still a long way from dawn. A leg, warm against my own.

Edward? John? I was too drunk to take proper note. I normally turn actors down; they’re nothing but trouble, and half of them have the pox. But I was drowning my sorrows – and drowning in my sorrows – when Edward-or-John came bouncing over and threw himself in my lap, grinding his arse against me, and I guess I let it happen. Wanted it to happen, maybe.

I think, for a moment, of Anne, and wince. A trouble for the morning. For now, it’s still a comfort.

– the men struggle for the knife –

It’s been thirteen years. I’m wealthy, now; more or less. The new King’s seen the histories I wrote to please old Bess and wants one about his own ancestors. I can just about make out the manuscript on my desk, and feel a pang of guilt.

“Ho, Dickon!” I’m saying, and I’m dreaming again, as easily as snuffing out a candle. “Is Kit here? I’d thought to see him.”

The Queen’s Head is full of players and playwrights, and louder and merrier than usual. Burbage’s face drains of colour all at once and I wonder if he’s misheard me.

“I said –”

“Have you not heard, Will?” said the young actor, laying a hand on my arm like I’m already grieving, like he’s already said what he’s about to tell me – what I already know, knowing I’m dreaming.

“Has the Privy –” I begin.

“Kit’s dead, Will. Killed last night.” Richard’s hand is clasping my shoulder and he’s staring into my eyes intently, looking for the start of pain.

“Killed – ?”

– the blade flashes, the men struggle for the knife –

“A bar fight. Over a bill. Or so ’tis said.” He’s still searching my face, still watching me, still –

I didn’t see it happen, but that’s when I begin to dream about it. The struggle, the knife, the blood.

Not all the time. Sometimes, I dream about it every night for a month; sometimes I don’t even think about it for nigh on a year. But always it comes back, that moment –

– the blade flashes yellow, blood a splash of crimson –

It feels like I’m blaming the knife. Not Frizer, who did the deed, nor that bastard Poley, who surely had a hand in it, but the knife itself, as though insensate steel could choose to kill, could thirst for blood. Who knows what came of it? It’s probably tucked into a bollock pouch somewhere, and serving no purpose darker than cutting cheese.

But the knife of the mind? It haunts me. Dances through my dreams, slaughtering everything good and kind, singing shrieking metallic songs of death and loss –

I’m awake again, suddenly, sharply, heart pounding. The room’s not changed an inch. I throw back my covers, and John-or-Edward shifts irritably, sounding a wordless question.

“Sorry,” I say. “It’s just – I have to –”

He’s already snoring, and I’m sitting at my desk, lighting the lantern.

The knife.

I thought to just push the old man down the stairs, but I have to do something about this knife, and Jimmy’s play seems the place for it. A dark home for a dark thing. I need to –

– to send it somewhere. Out of my thoughts. Be rid of the thing.

I pick up the quill and begin to write:

 

MACBETH: Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee…

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Why ‘Monstrous Little Voices’?

Alright All,

So the release date of Monstrous Little Voices is almost upon us, and I thought you might want a couple words about the title. So what’s with “Monstrous Little Voices”? Where did it come from, and why did I choose it?

The line comes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, Scene ii, in which the tradesmen commissioned by Theseus to put on a play for his wedding have come together for their first rehearsal. It’s a “play within a play,” a device that Shakespeare used any number of times, including in the Dream, in Love’s Labour’s Lost, famously in Hamlet and as a framing device for The Taming of the Shrew and Pericles. It’s an odd, wonderful conceit, which Shakespeare generally used to highlight particular themes and plots in the plays.

The play the mechanicals are performing is “Pyramus and Thisbe,” a tragic story about lovers from warring houses (a story Shakespeare returns to in Romeo and Juliet, written about the same time); a fitting accompaniment to the many warring lovers in Athens’ forests that night. Nick Bottom, the weaver, is a strong, confident actor whom the director, the carpenter Peter Quince, has cast as the noble Pyramus.

…a little too confident, perhaps, as he insists he can play every part, even simultaneously – when Quince offers the part of beautiful Thisbe to the bellows-maker Francis Flute, reassuring him he can cover his beard with a mask, Bottom jumps in:

An I may hide my face, let me play Thisbe too! I’ll speak in a monstrous little voice: “Thisne, Thisne!”—“Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear, thy Thisbe dear and lady dear!”

It should be obvious by this point that Bottom is a bit of a fathead. He’s a clown, shouting that he’ll play the part with a higher, squeakier voice than anyone else – a “monstrous little voice” – an absurd, ironic sort of boast.

So why did I choose it?

I’ll be honest and say I was just looking for a good Shakespearean quote that would stand out from the others. The authors weren’t yet commissioned at this point, and I didn’t know how the project would shake out yet; I wanted something that said a) this was a collection of stories by different writers, b) it was set in the world Shakespeare created, and c) it was fantastical and strange. Brave New World? Turns out there’s a tolerably well-known science fiction book by that name already. All the World’s a Stage? Wildly overused. Sound and Fury? Several films and books, and not immediately recognisable as Shakespeare (also, who wants their anthology to invoke the phrase “a tale told by an idiot”?). Monstrous Little Voices? With about 3000 hits on Google, and I could find precisely one small-press anthology from a few years ago with the title, this felt like a winner.

And a happily apt one. Monstrous ended up with three female contributors out of five, so a quote specifically about women’s voices (albeit about a man feigning a woman’s voice) seemed particularly fitting. “Monstrous” suggests loud, but also dangerous and transgressive, something I think fits the final project well. The title predated the thing, and if it fits better than expected I have to credit that to luck rather than particular foresight.

But it’s a title the book wears well.

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A Tribute to Professor Lisa Jardine

Hey all,

With only a couple weeks until the release date of Monstrous Little Voices (although you can pick up the first four volumes in ebook form right now), I wanted to take a moment to talk about a truly remarkable woman, without whom the book might never have existed.

The following is taken from the foreword of the collected edition, out on March 8th this year:

Note from the Editor

The dedication to this volume honours the memory of Professor Lisa Jardine, who passed away in October 2015 after a lengthy battle with cancer.

Professor of Renaissance Studies at UCL and founder of its Centre of Interdisciplinary Research in the Humanities, Lisa had a list of appointments, honours and awards from institutions around the world too long to list here. A Fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Historical Society, she was a world authority on the renaissance who spoke eight languages, ancient and modern, an impassioned political advocate and a regular guest on TV and radio. She was also the lecturer for Queen Mary University of London’s Shakespeare course in 1997-1998, when I studied under her.

My enduring recollection of that course – aside from her clearly prodigious knowledge of the subject, and her passion and candour – was her enthusiasm for teaching Shakespeare in a modern context. We studied revisions and updates; we examined Shakespeare’s language in his own time, and ours; we interrogated his politics. I remember she taught Romeo & Juliet almost entirely off the Luhrmann film, and spent half a lecture looking at a shot of a guardsman weeping silently at Princess Diana’s funeral to discuss emotion and eloquence.

I’d barely thought of Lisa for years when I heard the news, and while I have no particular superstitions about coincidence, the fact I was working on this volume at the time struck me as timely. I can’t say if Lisa would have approved of the book you’re holding, but I hope so. She wanted to give Shakespeare to today’s world, and I believe Foz, Kate, Emma, Adrian and Jonathan have done that, and done it some justice to boot. Her voice – never little, and rarely monstrous – will be missed in the world.

David Thomas Moore
November 2015

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Happy publication day The Course of True Love!

The Course of True Love by Kate Heartfield, the second of our Monstrous Little Voices novellas, is out today. Hooray!

To  celebrate, we asked Dr John Lavagnino from King’s College, who has written an excellent afterword for our fantastical Shakespearean anthology, for a few questions for the authors.

Here are Kate’s answers for The Course of True Love…

JL: It looks hard to fit things from a lot of different plays together this way! Was it?

KH: That part of it was pure fun. Mashing up or bouncing around tends to be the way the creative mind works – or at least, the way mine does. But it works best when you give it some constraints. In an interview about Shakespeare, the late (argh) Alan Rickman spoke about the need for simultaneous discipline and freedom: “I always think it’s a bit like the last image of The Tempest, when Caliban is held tight at the same moment as Ariel is let go and it seems to me that in a way maybe that’s Shakespeare writing about being a creative person.”

When I tell the brain to think about Shakespeare, but to imagine whatever it can within that universe, the brain is happy. The brain can work with that. And in fact, what we discovered as we were brainstorming together is that many of Shakespeare’s plays could fit together, that the timelines and mechanics could be made to work. Our editor, David Thomas Moore, was really brilliant at figuring out how the backgrounds from several plays could be imagined as a single setting to be our common playground.

JL: What did you discover or notice about Shakespeare’s works in the course of doing this? And about your own?

KH: If you had asked me, before this project, whether I preferred Shakespeare’s tragedies to his comedies, I would have said “oh, the tragedies, definitely” without thinking too much about it. But the story I chose to tell is a fairly light-hearted romance, although it has a darkness looming behind it. I think I learned a greater appreciation not only for the comedies but for the aesthetic potential of delight in general.

JL: Which character was most rewarding to write about?

KH: My protagonist, Pomona. She’s a witch of advanced years – she’s basically one of the hags from Macbeth – and she’s the heroine of a love story. It was fun to just blow up the whole maiden/mother/crone paradigm. She’s like me in some ways – practical, private, stubborn. She is also driven in part by her friendships and sense of duty in a way that was foreign to me, and that was fun to explore. I also found it immensely satisfying to include one real historical person: Esperanza Malchi, who was an important figure during the so-called Sultanate of Women of the Ottoman Empire. One of my favourite things about Monstrous Little Voices, as a whole, is the book’s varied cast of female characters.

JL: What characters or places were you going to include but had to leave out?

KH: Queen Mab has a bit part in my story, and I had hoped to have her talk about Mercutio, to explain their history with each other from her perspective, but she never really got the chance.

JL: Do you think you’ll do more writing of this kind? building on Shakespeare or perhaps on other writing?

KH: See above! I’d love to write something about Mercutio sometime. I’ve been fascinated by him since I first saw John McEnery play him in the 1968 movie. I have some ideas about his past. In a broader sense, Shakespeare has always informed my writing and will continue to do so, I’m sure, and most of my writing tends to build on old stories, myths or histories in some way. In fact, the story I told is borrowed loosely from Ovid, although in the tradition of Shakespeare himself, I did what I wanted with it.

The Course of True Love is out now!
Buy: UK|US

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Happy publication day Coral Bones!

Abaddon’s celebration of Shakespeare’s fantasy realms begins today as Foz Meadows’ brilliant Coral Bones is released. Hooray!

The story picks up Miranda, daughter to Prospero, the feared sorcerer-Duke of Milan, as she struggles in her new marriage. Oppressed by her father, unloved by Ferdinand, she seeks freedom – and is granted it, when her childhood friend, the fairy spirit Ariel, returns. Desperate for a new life, Miranda sets out to reach Queen Titania’s court in Illyria, to make a new future…

Monstrous Little Voices is a collection of five short novellas, a single long tale set in Shakespeare’s fantasy world of fairies, wizards and potions, in honour of the four-hundredth anniversary of the Bard’s death.

Coral Bones is out now!
Buy: UK|US

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Abaddon goes Shakespearean with Monstrous Little Voices

Abaddon is taking a trip to the Globe in 2016 with Monstrous Little Voices, a collection of new tales set in the fantastical world created by William Shakespeare.

Commissioning editor David Thomas Moore has assembled the finest voices in genre fiction to do justice to the Bard’s realms, with Emma Newman – fresh from winning a 2015 British Fantasy Award for her short story “A Woman’s Place”, appearing in Abaddon anthology Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets – joining Jonathan Barnes (The Somnambulist, Cannonbridge), Adrian Tchaikovsky (Shadows of the Apt, Children of Time) and exciting new talents Kate Heartfield and Foz Meadows.

Consisting of five interlocking stories and featuring some of the Bard’s most intriguing characters, Monstrous Little Voices is surely a fitting way to mark 400 years since Shakespeare’s death. Each individual tale will be released throughout the first quarter of 2016 as e-first novellas, before being collected in a handsome print edition.

Abaddon Commissioning Editor David Thomas Moore said:

“Centuries before The Lord of the Rings, Londoners were trooping to the Globe and the Curtain to watch stories of the fantastic: stories of fairies, magic, witches and potions, of wars won and lives changed by capricious Fate and uncertain Fortune. Monstrous Little Voices summons Shakespeare’s heroes and heroines, four hundred years almost to the day after the Bard’s death, to tell new stories of magic and mayhem, with the aid of five incredibly talented men and women. Foz, Kate, Adrian, Jonathan and Emma are wonderful storytellers, and the tale they’ve woven between them will utterly delight.”

Monstrous Little Voices: New Tales From Shakespeare’s Fantasy World
Release date: 8 March 2016        
Pre-order: UK|US           

Monstrous Little Voices Book 1: Coral Bones by Foz Meadows
Release date: 8 January 2016     
Pre-order: UK|US

Miranda, daughter to Prospero, the feared sorcerer-Duke of Milan, stifles in her new marriage. Oppressed by her father, unloved by Ferdinand, she seeks freedom; and is granted it, when her childhood friend, the fairy spirit Ariel, returns. Miranda sets out to reach Queen Titania’s court in Illyria, to make a new future… 

Monstrous Little Voices Book 2: The Course Of True Love by Kate Heartfield
Release date: 22 January 2016   
Pre-order: UK|US

Pomona, a gifted hedge-witch of advancing years in fair Illyria, is walking about her own business when she spies a fairy gentleman trapped in a secret garden. Vertumnus, King Oberon’s emissary to the Duke, has been taken captive by proud Titania, and a war is in the offing… unless Pomona can prevent it.  

Monstrous Little Voices Book 3: The Unkindest Cut by Emma Newman
Release date: 5 February 2016  
Pre-order: UK|US

Lucia de Medici sought only to marry, ending a war that has engulfed the world from Navarre to Istanbul; but she has been lied to, and made into an assassin. Now, armed with new knowledge and accompanied by the ghost of her victim, she sets out to find who so grievously deceived her, and to what end, to try and restore the damage done. 

Monstrous Little Voices Book 4: Even in the Cannon’s Mouth by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Release date: 19 February 2015
Pre-order: UK|US

Illyria’s Duke Orsino has raised new, powerful allies, and in a last-ditch attempt to win the war, Don Pedro and his brother John, wise old Jacques and the physician Helena sail to Milan to appeal in person for the wizard Prospero’s aid. But unseasonal storms drive them onto the Illyrian shore, and into the hands of their enemies… 

Monstrous Little Voices Book 5: On the Twelfth Night by Jonathan Barnes
Release date: 4 March 2016        
Pre-order: UK|US

Anne Hathaway – contented wife of a glovemaker and aletaster, proud mother of three – has her life turned upside down when strangers, oddly familiar, come to her door and whisk her husband away. What is their business, this terrible danger they say we all face? What is the lattice, and what part must her Will play to save it?