Waiting on Wednesday

This is a blog meme hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine to spotlight upcoming books. This week we're featuring picks chosen by SQT and Jim.

SQT's can't wait to read selection is:

Fade to Black by Francis Knight
Publisher: Orbit
Date: February 13, 2013
Pages: 384

Synopsis 1~ Today isn’t Rojan’s day. His latest bounty almost killed him three times, his girlfriends all found out about each other and trashed his rooms—and his niece has been kidnapped. Now he’s got to use his magic to find her – and there is a good chance it will end up destroying him.

Rojan follows his niece’s trail to the Pit, the underbelly of the city. The Pit was evacuated when the Synth-tox wiped out most of the city’s residents —and a new city was built over it. But what he wasn’t told is that the Pit was never emptied. And Rojan isn’t the only one using pain magic. And there is more at stake than the life of one little girl.

Synopsis 2~ Mahala: a city built in the dark depths of a valley. A city built up in layers, not across - where streets are built upon streets, buildings balance precariously upon buildings. A city that the Ministry rules from its lofty perch at the sunlit summit & where the forsaken lurk in the shadowy depths of the Pit. Rojan is a bounty hunter trying to make his way in the city. Everyone knows he's a womaniser, a shirker of all responsibility, but they don't know he's also a pain-mage: able to draw magic from his own & other people's pain. He's not keen on using it (not least because it's outlawed), but when his niece is abducted and taken to the dark depths of the Pit, he may just be forced to unleash his power ...

This is a book I might have overlooked if it wasn't being published by Orbit, but it's quickly becoming one of my favorite fantasy imprints. The cover also drew my attention more than the synopsis- or should I say both of them? The reason I posted two was because they're written so differently and convey a different mood. The second one seems grittier while the first one reads a little bit like a typical urban fantasy. I'm curious to see which one is more accurate.

Jim's can't wait to read selection is:

The Constantine Affliction byT. Aaron Payton
Publisher: Night Shade Books
Date: August 7, 2012

1864. London is a city in transition. The Constantine Affliction–a strange malady that kills some of its victims and physically transforms others into the opposite sex– has spread scandal and upheaval throughout society. Scientific marvels and disasters, such as clockwork courtesans, the alchemical fires of Whitechapel, electric carriages, and acidic monsters lurking in the Thames, have forever altered the face of the city.

Pembroke “Pimm” Hanover is an aristocrat with an interest in criminology, who uses his keen powers of observation to assist the police or private individuals–at least when he’s sober enough to do so. Ellie Skyler, who hides her gender behind the byline “E. Skye,” is an intrepid journalist driven by both passion and necessity to uncover the truth, no matter where it hides.

When Pimm and Skye stumble onto a dark plot that links the city’s most notorious criminal overlord with the Queen’s new consort, famed scientist Sir Bertram Oswald, they soon find the forces of both high and low society arrayed against them. Can they save the city from the arcane machinations of one of history’s most monsters–and uncover the shocking origin of . . . THE CONSTANTINE AFFLICTION