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Royal Bastards — Andrew Shvarts (ARC Review)

“Yeah, well, you basically don’t have emotions between ‘gotta kill’ and ‘yay, I killed,’ so that’s not really a surprise.” Life as a royal bastard is never easy, but for Tilla, it’s far from the lot she wants in life. She spends her days drinking away the hours with her half-brother, Jax, holding to a small, childlike hope that her father, Lord of House Kent, will someday legitimize her. Despite these problems, life is simple enough, until the Princess Lyriana...

The Waking Land — Callie Bates (ARC Review)

At five years old, Elanna Valtai is seized from her family at gunpoint and kidnapped by a powerful king who raises her as his own, in his palace, under one condition: her father is never to come and reclaim her. In her home land of Caeris, Elanna was loved and doted upon, warmly welcomed for her natural inclination to magic; in the royal city of Laon, however, despite the king's growing affections for her, she is subjected to prejudices for her darker skin, her Caerisian blood, and her family name. Worst of all, she must hide her magic at all costs, for the witch hunters would surely execute her if they found out her blood could wake the stones and the earth, and bring forth spirits of ancestors past.

When the king is poisoned and his daughter takes her place as Queen, she accuses Elanna of regicide, and thus begins an adventure that leaves Elanna running for her life - right into the arms of the family she was stolen from. They've got big plans for her and her magic, but will she be able to leave behind the life the kingdom gave her?

The Seafarer’s Kiss — Julia Ember

Ersel's tribe of merpeople has been exiled to the coldest habitable water remaining, far north, and every year, their population dwindles as mermaids' eggs are frozen in their wombs, doomed to infertility. In an act of desperation, the king has enforced a law that, in their nineteenth year, each mermaid must undergo a test of fertility - and the female with the highest likelihood of successful brooding becomes a prized possession, coveted by all of the mermen. To be fertile, and wanted, is the greatest pride any mermaid in their tribe can hold.