1. Onslaught

by Bowen Greenwood

Once, telepaths almost wiped out humanity. Years later, a brotherhood called the Gentle Hand works to keep it from happening again. But sometimes a telepath is born outside their order. Langston Wheeler, a young Hand with a checkered past, heads to the planet Felicitas to investigate a rogue telepath. His superiors want the rogue brought in and the rules enforced. Tia Dynn, the youngest person ever elected to lead Felicitas, shepherds her peaceful world onto the center of the interstellar stage. Her people are ready for a leading role in Human Space.

However, what Tia lacks is someone to share it all. Together, Langston and Tia face a dark threat from long ago –  when the first telepaths tried to rule humanity. Forced together by dangerous circumstances, the two must deal with assassination and their growing love for each other. But Langston is a Gentle Hand so he’s expected to marry another Hand and bring up telepathic children. Wheeler must choose between his history, the rules of his order, and a woman he can’t resist. The fate of Human Space hangs in the balance.

2. Midnight Wings

by Ariele Sieling

El’s a mechanic whose social grid ranking guarantees she’ll never advance beyond the lowest grunt work. But in her fantasies, she pilots a fighter jet for the intergalactic fleet. She’s a slave in all but name to her cruel and self-centered stepmother and stepsisters. The most she can hope for is a few stolen moments of happiness practicing on her sisters’ flight simulators or talking to the mysterious stranger she met on an illicit night of stargazing. When the queen announces a competition to find new pilots for the fleet, El knows this is her chance to escape but she knows her stepmother will never let her compete. El then learns that her new friend, the one person she thought she could trust, was hiding a secret that changes everything.

3. Overload Flux

by Carol Van Natta

Luka Foxe can’t tell anyone about his secret mental abilities. Debilitated by their influence when faced with violence, the brilliant forensic investigator now only takes assignments involving theft. But when he has to hunt down a hijacked vaccine for a galaxy-wide pandemic, the first clue is his best friend’s brutal murder. 

Nightguard Mairwen Morganthur knows she must keep a low profile. She’s a lethal weapon with no social graces due to illegal genetic alteration. When she’s tasked to protect a detective with frightening intuition, she finds herself falling for him even though he could expose her. Racing to recover the critical cargo, Luka is surprised by his feelings for the mysterious guard. And Mairwen may have to risk everything by revealing her identity. Can the unlikely pair survive an interplanetary conspiracy long enough to find love?

4. Saving Askara

by J.M. Link

​​Victoria’s day starts out like any other aboard the transorbital ship. Such is the life of an emergency medicine specialist in the age of “post-discovery”. Sure, she had always dreamed of interacting with intelligent extraterrestrial life – who wouldn’t? She was happy with her career, however mundane and demanding it might be. That’s what it took to run a ship the size of a small city smoothly – monotony. But all that changes one morning, and suddenly she’s not so sure she didn’t stick her foot in it. Be careful what you wish for.

5. These Broken Stars

by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

It’s a night like any other on board the Icarus until catastrophe strikes. The massive luxury spaceliner is suddenly yanked out of hyperspace and plummets into the nearest planet. After the dust settles, Lilac LaRoux and Tarver Merendsen are the only survivors. Lilac is the daughter of the richest man in the universe. Tarver comes from nothing and learned long ago that girls like Lilac are more trouble than they’re worth. But Lilac and Tarver must work together to make a tortuous journey across the eerie, deserted terrain to seek help. Then, against all odds, Lilac and Tarver find a strange blessing in the tragedy that has brought them together. Everything changes when they uncover the truth behind the chilling whispers that haunt their every step. Lilac and Tarver may find a way off this planet, but they won’t be the same people who landed on it.

6. Taken to Voraxia

by Elizabeth Stephens

Miari: They have blue skin and are seven feet tall. Strapped with corded muscle, the aliens have come again but this time, their king is here and he’s watching me with hunger. A hybrid with red alien skin and brown human eyes, I’ve got no family and am not desired by colony men. I’m an inventor, a mechanic, a tinkerer. The alien king seeks to claim me, but he’ll have to find me first. Our little colony is a scary, desperate place and I’m willing to meet it head-on if it means escaping him and the alien sensations he stirs deep in my gut, where light and truth cannot touch them.

Raku: She is my Xiveri mate, yet she runs from me and straight into the horrors of her savage moon colony. Does she not know that I would kill in her defense? My brilliant hybrid thinks herself a slave – my slave – and in place of acceptance, offers me only pacts and bargains. Shamed by her pacts, I still take them all because she is mine – my hybrid, my Xiveri mate, Voraxia’s queen and mine to worship.

7. Pet Trade

by Carol Van Natta

The vast Central Galactic Concordance strictly prohibits genetic experimentation and alteration of humans on any of its member planets. Animals aren’t so lucky. On a frozen frontier planet, veterinarian Bethnee Bakonin made a home for herself. Her minder talent for healing all kinds of animals would ordinarily assure her success, but an unwilling stint in the shady pet trade industry left her damaged and scared. She works around her limitations as best she can by rescuing pet trade castoffs. 

Forced to participate in a black-box research project, elite forces Jumper Axur Tragon now has dangerous and experimental tech in his cybernetic limbs. He finds a way to escape and crash-lands a stolen freighter in the northern mountains only to discover a secret shipment of designer pets was part of the cargo. Determined to do right by them, he enlists reluctant Bethnee’s aid in caring for them – a challenge, considering Bethnee is terrified of him. When greedy mercenaries come raiding, can Axur and Bethnee work together to overcome their limitations with help from their unusual pets and save the day?

8. Fated Blades

by Ilona Andrews

At first glance, planet Rada seems like a lush paradise. But the ruling families are in constant competition for power – and none more so than the Adlers and the Baenas. For generations, the powerful families have pushed and pulled each other for dominance. Then a catastrophic betrayal from within changes everything. Now, deadly, disciplined, and solitary leaders Ramona Adler and Matias Baena must put aside their enmity and work together in secret to prevent sinister forces from exploiting universe-altering technology.

Expecting to suffer through their uneasy alliance, Ramona and Matias instead discover that they understand each other as no one in their families can – and that their combined skills may eclipse the risks of their forbidden alliance. As the two warriors risk their lives to save their families, Ramona and Matias must decide whether to resist or embrace the passion simmering between them. For now, the dance between their families continues… but just one misstep could spell the end of them both.