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From Dracula to Buffy the Vampire Slayer; from Castlevania to Tru Blood, the romance between popular culture and vampires hearkens back to humanity's darkest, deepest fears, flowing through our very blood, fears of death, and life, and insatiable hunger. And yet, there is an attraction, undeniable, to the vampire archetype, whether the pale European count, impeccably dressed and coldly masculine, yet strangely ambiguous, ready to sink his sharp teeth deep into his victims' necks, draining or converting them, or the vamp, the count's feminine counterpart, villain and victim in one, using her wiles and icy sexuality to corrupt man and woman alike...

Edited by John Joseph Adams (Wastelands, The Living Dead), By Blood We Live gathers together the best vampire literature of the last three decades from many of today's most renowned authors of fantasy, speculative fiction, and horror, including Stephen King, Joe Hill, Garth Nix, Neil Gaiman, Kelley Armstrong, Ken Macleod, Harry Turtledove, Carrie Vaughn, and Tad Williams.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (By Blood We Live) - essay by John Joseph Adams
• Snow, Glass, Apples - (1995) - shortstory by Neil Gaiman
• The Master of Rampling Gate - (1984) - novelette by Anne Rice
• Under St. Peter's - (2007) - novelette by Harry Turtledove
• Child of an Ancient City - (1988) - novelette by Tad Williams
• Lifeblood - (2003) - novelette by Michael A. Burstein
• Endless Night - (2008) - shortstory by Barbara Roden
• Infestation - (2008) - novelette by Garth Nix
• Life Is the Teacher - (2008) - shortstory by Carrie Vaughn
• The Vechi Barbat - (2007) - shortstory by Nancy Kilpatrick
• The Beautiful, The Damned - (1995) - shortfiction by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
• Pinecones - (2006) - shortfiction by David Wellington
• Do Not Hasten to Bid Me Adieu - (1994) - novelette by Norman Partridge
• Foxtrot at High Noon - shortfiction by Sergei Lukyanenko
• This Is Now - (2004) - shortstory by Michael Marshall Smith
• Blood Gothic - (1985) - shortstory by Nancy Holder
• Mama Gone - (1991) - shortstory by Jane Yolen
• Abraham's Boys - (2004) - shortstory by Joe Hill
• Nunc Dimittis - (1983) - novelette by Tanith Lee
• Hunger - (2007) - shortfiction by Gabriela Lee
• Ode to Edvard Munch - (2006) - shortstory by Caitlín R. Kiernan
• Finders Keepers - (2008) - shortfiction by L. A. Banks
• After the Stone Age - (2004) - shortfiction by Brian Stableford
• Much at Stake - (1991) - shortstory by Kevin J. Anderson
• House of the Rising Sun - (2005) - shortstory by Elizabeth Bear
• A Standup Dame - (2008) - shortstory by Lilith Saintcrow
• Twilight - (2007) - novelette by Kelley Armstrong
• In Darkness, Angels - (1983) - novelette by Eric Van Lustbader
• Sunrise on Running Water - (2007) - novelette by Barbara Hambly
• Hit - (2008) - shortstory by Bruce McAllister
• Undead Again - (2005) - shortstory by Ken MacLeod
• Peking Man - (1996) - shortstory by Robert J. Sawyer
• Necros - (1986) - shortstory by Brian Lumley
• Exsanguinations: A Handbook for the Educated Vampire by Anna S. Oppenhagen-Petrescu - (2005) - shortfiction by Catherynne M. Valente
• Lucy, In Her Splendor - (2003) - shortstory by Charles Coleman Finlay
• The Wide, Carnivorous Sky - novella by John Langan
• One for the Road - (1977) - shortstory by Stephen King
• For Further Reading (By Blood We Live) - essay by Ross E. Lockhart

Escaping into the world of Faery when her own home begins to fall apart, Maria Blanca joins in the fight against the savage trogs that threaten the eleven great elven cities and is taken into the heart of the trog empire.

Three hundred years ago, a slave sorcerer bought his freedom by showing his master how he could live forever - by using the sacrificial deaths of his own children as a channel to absorb the life essence of others. Now in present-day Los Angeles, two men have seen their daughters consumed by a sorcerous flame and find they have the skills to confront the evil ancestors who have preyed on their family for centuries.

What should have been a breeze of a bank heist for James Glenn and his crew goes violently wrong, forcing them to flee, blood-stained and angry. They stumble onto a remote lodge that doesn't open for another month--a perfect place to lie low until the heat's off.

Except it's occupied.

The Moore family, just arrived to prepare for the season, are taken hostage by the criminals, but not without bloodshed. And when blood gets spilled, something ancient notices. Something malevolent. Something ravenous.

Their only hope is the youngest Moore, teenager Rueben, outside and unseen when James and his gang arrive. It's up to Rueben to get help and save his family, but the influence of the ancient evil is taking a toll on him as well...

Hugo and Nebula Award winning novelette. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, June 1983. It has been expanded to the full novel Blood Music (1985) and has been reprinted many times. It can be found in the anthologies:

• The Year's Best Science Fiction: First Annual Collection (1984), edited by Gardner Dozois
• The 1984 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha
• The Nebula Awards #19 (1984), edited by Martha Randell
• The New Hugo Winners: (1983-85) (1989), edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg
• Visions of Wonder (1996) edited by David G. Hartwell and Milton T. Wolf
• Future on Ice (1989), edited by Orson Scott Card
• Nanotech (1998) edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois
• The Ultimate Cyberpunk (2002) edited by Pat Cadigan
• Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction (2005), edited by Gardner Dozois
• A Science Fiction Omnibus (2007) edited by Brian Aldiss
• The Big Book of Science Fiction (2016), edited by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer

It is included in the collections Tangents (1989) and The Collected Stories of Greg Bear (2002).

Read the full story for free at the Baen website.

An amazing breakthrough in genetic engineering made by Vergil Ulam is considered too dangerous for further research, but rather than destroy his work, he injects himself with his creation and walks out of his lab, unaware of just quite how his actions will change the world. Author Greg Bear's treatment of the traditional tale of scientific hubris is both suspenseful and a compelling portrait of a new intelligence emerging amongst us, irrevocably changing our world.

Rising above the city of Collis is the holy Sanctum. And watching over its spires is Catrin, an orphan girl with unique skills--for she alone can spot the building's flaws in construction before they turn deadly.

But when Catrin witnesses a murderer escaping the scene of his crime, she's pulled into a dangerous chain of events where the only certainty is that the killer will strike again. Assigned to investigate is the mysterious and brilliant Simon, whose insights into the mind of a predator are frighteningly accurate.

As the grisly crimes continue, Catrin finds herself caught between killer and detective while hiding her own secret--a supernatural sight granted by the moon, destined to make her an outcast, and the only thing that might save her and those she loves from becoming the next victims...

Table of Contents:

• Preface - (1982) - essay
• Among the Hominids at Olduvai - (1978) - poem
• Blooded on Arachne - (1975) - novelette
• Cathadonian Odyssey - (1974) - shortstory
• Effigies - (1978) - novelette
• The House of Compassionate Sharers - (1977) - novelette
• In Chinistrex Fortronza the People Are Machines or, Hoom and the Homunculus - (1976) - shortstory
• Leaps of Faith - (1977) - shortstory
• On the Street of the Serpents or, The Assassination of Chairman Mao, as Effected by the Author in Seville, Spain, in the Spring of 1992, a Year of No Certain Historicity - (1974) - novelette
• Piñon Fall - (1970) - shortstory
• Rogue Tomato - (1975) - shortstory
• Spacemen and Gypsies - (1971) - shortstory
• The White Otters of Childhood - (1973) - novella
• For the Lady of a Physicist - (1978) - poem

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in the anthology Epoch (1975), edited by Roger Elwood and Robert Silverberg. It is included in the collections Blooded on Arachne (1982) and The Door Gunner and Other Perilous Flights of Fancy: A Michael Bishop Retrospective (2012).

Zach is a computer hacker who looks like Edward Scissorhands, and Trevor, a comics artist, is traumatized by his father's murder of his mother and brother 20 years previously. Both on the run from their pasts, they end up as lovers in the town of Missing Mile.

A novel of breathtaking space adventure: Earthblood by SF legend and Bolo and Retief saga creator Keith Laumer writing with award-winning SF luminary Rosel George Brown. Humanity has been defeated by the rapacious Niss millennia ago and lies scattered across the galaxy. Young Roan, raised by aliens, is determined to reclaim his heritage and rediscover the legendary, lost human homeworld. But between Roan and home is a dangerous Niss fleet.

Also included are more tales by Laumer and by Brown, masters of humorous SF adventure with a sharp and often satirical point.

Table of Contents

• Earthblood (1966) novel by Rosel George Brown and Keith Laumer
• The Long Remembered Thunder (1963) novelette by Keith Laumer
• The Other Sky (1968) novella by Keith Laumer
• The Soul Buyer (1963) novelette by Keith Laumer
• Save Your Confederate Money, Boys (1959) short story by Rosel George Brown
• Flower Arrangement (1959) short story by Rosel George Brown
• Fruiting Body (1962) novelette by Rosel George Brown
• Visiting Professor (1961) short story by Rosel George Brown
• Car Pool (1959) novelette by Rosel George Brown
• And a Tooth (1962) short story by Rosel George Brown

Budrys's third collection, including:

• Be Merry - (1966)
• Wall of Crystal, Eye of Night - (1961)
• All for Love - (1962)
• A Scraping at the Bones - (1975)
• The Price - (1960)
• The Ridge Around the World - (1957)
• The Girl in the Bottle - (1959)
• The Last Brunette - (1965)
• Scream at Sea - (1954)
• The Master of the Hounds - (1966)
• The Nuptial Flight of Warbirds - (1978)

Hugo, Nebula and Locus Award winning novelette.

Years ago a group known as the Terrans left Earth in search of a life free of persecution. Now they live alongside the Tlic, an alien race who face extinction; their only chance of survival is to plant their larvae inside the bodies of the humans.

When Gan, a young, boy, is chosen as a carrier of Tlic eggs, he faces an impossible dilemma: can he really help the species he has grown up with, even if it means sacrificing his own life?

Bloodchild originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, June 1984. The story has been reprinted many times. It can be found in the anthologies:

• The Year's Best Science Fiction: Second Annual Collection (1985), edited by Gardner Dozois
• Best SF of the Year #14 (1985), edited by Terry Carr
• The 1985 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha
• Nebula Awards 20 (1985), edited by George Zebrowski
• The New Hugo Winners (1989), edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg
• Foundations of Fear: An Exploration of Horror (1992) edited by David G. Hartwell
• Invaders! (1993) edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois
• Women of Wonder: The Contemporary Years: SF by Women from the 1970s to the 1990s (1995), edited by Pamela Sargent
• The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories (2011), edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
• The Big Book of Science Fiction (2016), edited by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer

The story is included in the collection Bloodchild and Other Stories (1995).

Read the full story for free at the Baen website.

Six remarkable stories from a master of modern science fiction.

Octavia E. Butler's classic "Bloodchild," winner of both the Nebula and Hugo awards, anchors this collection of incomparable stories and essays. "Bloodchild" is set on a distant planet where human children spend their lives preparing to become hosts for the offspring of the alien Tlic. Sometimes the procedure is harmless, but often it is not. Also included is the Hugo Award-winning "Speech Sounds," about a near future in which humans must adapt after an apocalyptic event robs them of their ability to speak.

In these pages, Butler shows us life on Earth and amongst the stars, telling her tales with characteristic imagination and clarity.

Table of Contents:

• Preface - (1995) - essay
• Bloodchild - (1984) - novelette
• The Evening and the Morning and the Night - (1987) - novelette
• Near of Kin - (1979) - shortstory
• Speech Sounds - (1983) - shortstory
• Crossover - (1971) - shortstory
• Positive Obsession - (1989) - essay
• Furor Scribendi - (1993) - essay

Some edtions also included

• Amnesty - (2003) - novelette
• The Book of Martha - (2003) - shortstory

Listen to a podcast of the story "Bloodchild" at Drabblecast.

From familiar fairy tales and legends - Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss-in-Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires, werewolves - Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories.

Contains:

• The Bloody Chamber
• The Company of Wolves
• The Courtship of Mr. Lyon
• The Erlking
• The Lady of the House of Love
• The Snow Cild
• The Tiger's Bride
• The Werewolf
• Wolf Alice
• Puss-in-Boots

A tongue-in-cheek horror fantasy. Uncle Albert is laid out in his coffin, dead as a doornail, and things are reasonably normal. But then Uncle Albert sits up and claims he has been robbed of his gold. It takes considerable effort to push him back again and get the lid fastened down.

Saturday was a normal day. People went shopping. To the movies. Everything was just as it should be. But not for long. By Sunday, civilisation was in ruins. Adults had become murderously insane. One by one they became infected with a crazed, uncontrollable urge to slaughter the young - even their own children. Especially their own children.

Will this be the way the world ends, in waves of madness and carnage? What will be left of our world as we know it? And who, if anyone, will survive?

Terror follows terror in this apocalyptic nightmare vision by one of the most powerful talents in modern horror fiction. Prepare yourself for mankind's final days of fear.

Rick Kennedy feels good. Tonight there's going to be the party of the decade, the brother he hasn't seen for years has just flown in, and Rick is all set to do something about Kate Robinson, the beautiful girl he just can't get out of his mind. In the pleasant village of Fairburn the evening air is warm...

But this is also the night that Rick encounters the stranger in the wood. And soon he's waking up to find 30,000 refugees choking in the streets. People are running for their lives. Only there's nowhere to run. Inexorably the ground heats up. Cities erupt into flames. Lakes boil. Survivors search desperately for refuge in a landscape burning forever hotter beneath their feet. But they have yet to confront the Grey Men -- and the demons inside themselves. Because their blood itself is beginning to boil... with savagery, hunger and lust ...

Unbeknownst to Noressa, she is the daughter of a powerful, doomed queen, and was spirited away at birth to be raised as a commoner, keeping her safe from the aunt who would have her dead. But when her foster parents die, Noressa is given an amulet by a strange old woman and answering its powerful mental summons, Noressa leaves her primitive home to fulfill her destiny.

Skinner Cade always felt he wasn't like the others in his small Midwestern town. Violent dreams haunted his sleep and bursts of inexplicable anger flared in his heart. When he discovers that he was adopted, he goes on a search for his birth mother and uncovers a world of savage beasts and blood feuds. There is a wolf in Skinner Cade's heart and it fights to get out - no matter how much blood must be spilled.

Boundaries blur. The skin of the world spirals out of control, bringing distant myths to fresh, vivid life. There are no maps. Expect the unexpected - truths as slippery as blood and as sharp as bone. It can be imagined in the heart or in the mind of even one human being, then it is happening now, in the dark where no one can see...

From the razor-sharp imaginations of the best genre writers in Australia comes this new collection of the gothic and the supernatural. Moving, surprising, erotic, unsettling and unrelenting in the desire to entertain. Southern Blood is the state of the art of horror in Australia.

Includes stories by:

• Deborah Biancotti
• David Carroll
• Bill Congreve
• Stephen Dedman
• Terry Dowling
• Robert Hood
• Naomi Hatchman
• Sue Isle
• George Ivanoff
• Rick Kennett
• Rosaleen Love
• Geoffrey Maloney
• Kirstyn McDermott
• Lucy Sussex
• Sean Williams

For centuries, the legendary Protector, Jehrke Victorious, has kept safe the Crossroad of the World--Shasesserre. The City is kept guarded and blanketed from smaller-scale threats to dark magical anomalies. All was calm and peaceful for generations under the peaceful wizardry--until one day, a mysterious stranger brutally murders the Protector.

In this tale of Sung in Blood, responsibility now falls on Rider, the slain Protector's son. Presuming responsibilities as Protector of Shasesserre, he dedicates his duty to avenge his father's death. Joined by his loyal companions, Rider is not alone in his search for the killer. His companions are a diverse bunch, which include a shape-shifting imp, a northern barbarian, a wild philosopher, and many others.

Together, Rider and his companions battle against the vile minions of the brooding Kralj Odehnal. Soon they will face the ultimate evil, Shai Khe, the merciless sorcerer bent on ruling all of Shasesserre. The desperate mission will be a hard-fought one. They will utilize the sharpest of swords while facing the most powerful of spells.

An avid reader of Dracula and a fan of old Hammer horror films, Chris Callaway has always fantasized about becoming a vampire--and the idea of immortality is even more alluring now that he has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. So when a vampire appears at his apartment and offers him eternal life as one of the undead, Chris jumps at the opportunity.

But unexpected terrors await him in the world of the night. A new enemy, relentless and insatiable, is hunting vampires for his own evil purposes. And unless Chris can stop him, he will face a fate even worse than death...

Here are 18 chilling tales of vampirism from esteemed writers of science fiction and horror. Authors include Robert Silverberg, Suzy McKee Charnas, Jonathan Carroll, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, David J. Schow, Karl Edward Wagner, Kathe Koja, Elizabeth Massie, Barry N. Malzberg, Rick Wilbur, Thomas Ligotti, and many more.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1991) - essay by Ellen Datlow
• Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep - (1991) - novelette by Suzy McKee Charnas
• The Slug - (1991) - novelette by Karl Edward Wagner
• Warm Man - (1957) - short story by Robert Silverberg
• Teratisms - (1991) - short story by Kathe Koja
• M Is for the Many Things - (1991) - short story by Elizabeth Massie
• Folly for Three - (1991) - short story by Barry N. Malzberg
• The Impaler in Love - (1991) - poem by Rick Wilber
• The Moose Church - (1991) - short story by Jonathan Carroll
• Mrs. Rinaldi's Angel - (1991) - short story by Thomas Ligotti
• The Pool People - (1991) - short story by Melissa Mia Hall
• A Week in the Unlife - (1991) - short story by David J. Schow
• Lifeblood - (1991) - short story by Jack Womack
• Requiem - (1987) - short story by Melinda M. Snodgrass
• Infidel - (1991) - short story by Thomas Tessier
• Do I Dare to Eat a Peach? - (1985) - novelette by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
• True Love - (1991) - short story by K. W. Jeter
• Home by the Sea - (1991) - novelette by Pat Cadigan
• The Ragthorn - (1991) - novelette by Robert Holdstock and Garry Kilworth
• Contributor's Notes - (1991) - essay by Ellen Datlow

When we think of vampires, instantly the image arises: fangs sunk deep into the throat of the victim. But bloodsucking is merely one form of vampirism. For this brilliantly original anthology, Ellen Datlow has commissioned stories from many of the most powerfully dark voices in contemporary horror, who conjure tales of vampirism that will chill readers to the marrow.

In addition to the traditional fanged vampires, Datlow presents stories about the leeching of emotion, the draining of the soul, and other dark deeds of predation and exploitation, infestation, and evisceration... tales of life essence, literal or metaphorical, stolen.

Seventeen stories, by such award-winning authors as Elizabeth Bear, Richard Bowes, Kathe Koja, Margo Lanagan, Carol Emshwiller, and Lisa Tuttle will petrify readers. With dark tales by Laird Barron, Barry Malzberg and Bill Pronzini, Kaaron Warren, and other powerful voices, Blood and Other Cravings will redefine the terror of vampires and vampirism.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Ellen Datlow
• All You Can Do Is Breathe - short story by Kaaron Warren
• Needles - short story by Elizabeth Bear
• Baskerville's Midgets - (2009) - short story by Reggie Oliver
• Blood Yesterday, Blood Tomorrow - short story by Richard Bowes
• X for Demetrious - short story by Steve Duffy
• Keeping Corky - short story by Melanie Tem
• Shelf-Life - short story by Lisa Tuttle
• Caius - short story by Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini
• Sweet Sorrow - short story by Barbara Roden
• First Breath - short story by Nicole J. LeBoeuf
• Toujours - short story by Kathe Koja
• Miri - short story by Steve Rasnic Tem
• Mrs. Jones - (1993) - short story by Carol Emshwiller
• Bread and Water - short story by Michael Cisco
• Mulberry Boys - short story by Margo Lanagan
• The Third Always Beside You - novelette by John Langan
• The Siphon - novelette by Laird Barron
• About the Editor - essay by uncredited

Of all the most popular of horror subjects, vampires are the most seductive. These 17 stories portray predators who feed not only on the blood of their victims but on their emotions, youth and souls as well!

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1989) - essay by Ellen Datlow
• Carrion Comfort - (1983) - novelette by Dan Simmons
• The Sea Was Wet as Wet Could Be - (1967) - short story by Gahan Wilson
• The Silver Collar - (1989) - short story by Garry Kilworth
• Try a Dull Knife - (1968) - short story by Harlan Ellison
• Varicose Worms - novelette by Scott Baker
• Lazarus - (1921) - short story by Leonid Andreyev
• L'Chaim! - (1989) - short story by Harvey Jacobs
• Return of the Dust Vampires - (1985) - short story by Sharon N. Farber
• Good Kids - (1989) - short story by Edward Bryant
• The Girl with the Hungry Eyes - (1949) - short story by Fritz Leiber
• The Janfia Tree - (1989) - short story by Tanith Lee
• A Child of Darkness - (1989) - short story by Susan Casper
• Nocturne - (1989) - poem by Steve Rasnic Tem
• Down Among the Dead Men - (1982) - novelette by Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann
• ...To Feel Another's Woe - (1989) - short story by Chet Williamson
• Time Lapse - (1989) - poem by Joe Haldeman
• Dirty Work - (1989) - novelette by Pat Cadigan
• Contributors' Notes - (1989) - essay by uncredited

This novelette originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September-October 2012. It can also be found in the anthology The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Seven (2013), edited by Jonathan Strahan. The story is included in the collection Earth and Air: Tales of Elemental Creatures (2012).

America, accidental victim of a biological warfare, is under forcible quarantine by a world desperate to protect itself from a savage virus named the Red Death, and within America itself entire states have sealed off their borders.

Enclaves exist where the Red Death has not wreaked it's havoc and one of them is a hidden lesbian group rumored to offer sanctuary... if they can be found.

When Blaine Kendricks discovers strangers in Shadow Hollers, she thinks they've come to trade. She couldn't be more wrong.

When Dacey Childers comes to Shadow Hollers, Blaine's family thinks he's there to hunt game. They couldn't be more wrong.

When the Annekteh come to Shadow Hollers, they think the isolated community living there has no way to resist their invasion.

They're pretty much right on target.

But the last man of the lost seer's blood has returned, and is about to draw Blaine into his magic, his adventure... and the most dangerous hunt she could ever imagine.

This short story originally appeared in Interzone, #44 February 1991. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Ninth Annual Collection (1992), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Hackers (1996), edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Axiomatic (1995).

Following his first two acclaimed collections, The Dark Country and Red Dreams, Etchison's much-anticipated third volume of wildly original stories continues to redefine modern horror. From the freeway off-ramps of Los Angeles to the darkest passages of the human heart, these are the visions of a writer whose imagination knows no boundaries.

Table of Contents:

• Call 666
• A Nice, Shady Place
• The Woman in Black
• A Walk in the Wet
• The Night of the Eye
• The Spot (with Mark Johnson)
• The Soft Wall
• Somebody Like You
• Bloodgame (aka Game Plan)
• Deadspace
• Home Call (with C. C. Palaski)
• The Olympic Runner
• The Blood Kiss

This short story originally appeared in the anthology After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia (2012), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. It can also be found in the anthology The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Seven (2013), edited by Jonathan Strahan. The story is included in the collection A Natural History of Hell (2016).

Deidi is a reporter writing about a string of brutal murders--and dreaming about them before they happen. Camisa is a housewife living a waking nightmare--and having the same dreams as Deidi. But the connection between them is more than just coincidence. It is, in fact, pure evil....

Can the Devil be any less trustworthy than a record executive?

Young guitar virtuoso Clarice Marnier is on the verge of success when she crosses the wrong A&R man. Suddenly, instead of being signed to the major label that has been courting her, she finds herself blacklisted across the industry.

So Clarice makes a different kind of deal with the Devil; one that will give her a second chance at the expense of the enemy who cost her the first one.

Soon Clarice and her band, Bloody Waters, are on their way to stardom... but it's not an easy road. Clarice feuds with a disgruntled diva; busybody Wiccans lay a curse on the band; a has-been guitar hero wants to compete for the 'Guitar Mojo'; a succubus popstar wants Clarice to play on her record. And then things really start to get dangerous.

Cracking the Top 10 is one thing; gunfights with the Vatican Mafia and magical duels with a killer DJ are quite another.

Sooner or later Clarice is going to have to confront the Devil himself - the only question is whether she'll be alive or dead when it happens.

When sleuth meets spell...

Victoria, queen of the realm, the mightiest mage in the British Isles, and one of the lustiest women Dr. John H. Weston had ever had the pleasure to companion beneath the covers, was in desparate trouble. And the only one who could help her was the world's most renowned sleuth, Brihtric Donne. For someone had stolen the Rules Brittania, the magic tome that was the secret strength of both Victoria and her kingdom. Now with the Rules gone, Victoria was powerless to halt the unknown foe who was summoning demons of evil to destroy the queen and the Isles. So Donne and Weston began a hunt that would lead from the haunts of Lord Byron and Oscar Wilde to the mound of the Baskervilles to a confrontation with all the darkest magic a would-be monarch's mad ambition could conjure up....

Prix Auroa winning and Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, February 1997. The story can also be found in the anthologies Nebula Awards 33 (1999), edited by Connie Willis, Aurora Awards: An Anthology of Prize-Winning Science Fiction & Fantasy (1999) edited by Edo van Belkom and Galileo's Children: Tales Of Science vs. Superstition (2005) edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Gravity Wells: Speculative Fiction Stories (2005).

This deliciously dark retelling of Dracula is a sensual story of obsession, desire, and the lengths we will go to protect the ones we love.

This is my last love letter to you, though some would call it a confession...

Saved from the brink of death by a mysterious stranger, Constanta is transformed from a medieval peasant into a bride fit for an undying king. But when Dracula draws a cunning aristocrat and a starving artist into his web of passion and deceit, Constanta realizes that her beloved is capable of terrible things.

Finding comfort in the arms of her rival consorts, she begins to unravel their husband's dark secrets. With the lives of everyone she loves on the line, Constanta will have to choose between her own freedom and her love for her husband. But bonds forged by blood can only be broken by death.

In the great kingdom of Quandis, everyone is a slave. Some are slaves to the gods. Most are slaves to everyone else.

Blessed by the gods with lives of comfort and splendor, the royal elite routinely perform their duties, yet some chafe at their role. A young woman of stunning ambition, Princess Phela refuses to allow a few obstacles--including her mother the queen and her brother, the heir apparent--stand in the way of claiming ultimate power and glory for herself.

Far below the royals are the Bajuman. Poor and oppressed, members of this wretched caste have but two paths out of servitude: the priesthood... or death.

Because magic has been kept at bay in Quandis, royals and Bajuman have lived together in an uneasy peace for centuries. But Princess Phela's desire for power will disrupt the realm's order, setting into motion a series of events that will end with her becoming a goddess in her own right... or ultimately destroying Quandis and all its inhabitants.

Red as Blood and White as Bone by Theodora Goss is a dark fantasy about a kitchen girl obsessed with fairy tales, who upon discovering a ragged woman outside the castle during a storm, takes her in--certain she's a princess in disguise.

This Locus Award novelette is included in the anthology The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 11 (2017), edited by Jonathan Strahan.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

After a bruising experience as a teacher in Africa, Harry Clewe has come to the mountains of Snowdonia in Wales for some peace and quiet. One day, he stops to pick up an attractive blonde hitchhiker... and his life will never be the same again.

A desperate and wild obsession ends in a tragedy that condemns Harry to a solitary existence, a loneliness that bears its own depraved and bitter fruit. In the years that follow, his life is changed by a bizarre and ultimately dangerous succession of women. Driven on from crisis to crisis, from one catastrophe to the next, he knows joy, terror, despair... and finally, the horror of his own worst impulses.

A tantalizing selection of stories from some of the best female authors who've helped define the modern vampire.

Bram Stoker was hardly the first author--male or female--to fictionalize the folkloric vampire, but he defined the modern iconic vampire when Dracula appeared in 1897. Since then, many have reinterpreted the ever-versatile vampire over and over again--and female writers have played vital roles in proving that the vampire, as well as our perpetual fascination with it, is truly immortal. These authors have devised some of the most fascinating, popular, and entertaining of our many vampiric variations: suavely sensual... fascinating but fatal... sexy and smart... undead but prone to detection... tormented or terrifying... amusing or amoral... doomed or deadly... badass and beautiful... cutting-edge or classic...

Blood Sisters collects a wide range of fantastical stories from New York Times bestsellers Holly Black, Nancy Holder, Catherynne M. Valente, and Carrie Vaughn, and critically acclaimed writers Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Tanith Lee, all of whom have left their indelible and unique stamps on the vampire genre. Whether they are undeniably heroes and heroines or bloodthirsty monsters (or something in between), the undead are a lively lot. This anthology offers some of the best short fiction ever written by the "blood sisters" who know them best: stories you can really sink your teeth into.

Table of Contents:

• "A Princess of Spain" by Carrie Vaughn
• "Shipwrecks Above" by Caitlín R. Kiernan
• "The Fall of the House of Blackwater" by Freda Warrington
• "In Memory of..." by Nancy Kilpatrick
• "Where the Vampires Live" by Storm Constantine
• "La Dame" by Tanith Lee
• "October 1927" by Jewelle Gomez
• "Renewal" by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
• "Blood Freak" by Nancy Holder
• "The Power and the Passion" by Pat Cadigan
• "The Unicorn Tapestry" by Suzy McKee Charnas
• "This Town Ain't Big Enough" by Tanya Huff
• "Vampire King of the Goth Chicks" by Nancy A. Collins
• "Learning Curve" by Kelley Armstrong
• "The Better Half" by Melanie Tem
• "Selling Houses" by Laurell K. Hamilton
• "Greedy Choke Puppy" by Nalo Hopkinson
• "Tacky" by Charlaine Harris
• "Needles" by Elizabeth Bear
• "From the Teeth of Strange Children" by Lisa L. Hannett
• "Father Peña's Last Dance" by Hannah Strom-Martin
• "Sun Falls" by Angela Slatter
• "Magdala Amygdala" by Lucy Snyder
• "The Coldest Girl in Coldtown" by Holly Black
• "In the Future When All's Well" by Catherynne M. Valente

Hopkins tells the story of Reuel Briggs, a medical student, who is passing for white, but is drawn to the Black singer Dianthe Lusk by visions. His friend Aubrey Livingston (wanting Dianthe) intervenes and sends him on an archeological expedition to Africa. couldn't care less about being black and appreciating African history, but finds himself in Ethiopia on an archeological trip. His motive is to raid the country of lost treasures -- which he does find in the ancient land. There follows a plot full of secret identities, and the discovery of a hidden Ethiopian kingdom and the painful truth about blood, race, and the half of his history that was never told.

First serialized in The Colored American Magazine, 1902-1903; not published in book form until 1988, in an omnibus editon of Hopkins' works. This serialized form can be found at http://coloredamerican.org/

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, April 2013. It can also be found in the anthology Wastelands 2: More Stories of the Apocalypse (2015), edited by John Joseph Adams.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This astonishing novel takes us on a journey along the river of one family's history, carving a course across two centuries and three continents, from ancient Africa into today's America. Here, through the lives of Mother Africa's many daughters, we come to understand the real meaning of roots: the captive Proud Mary, who has been savagely punished for refusing to relinquish her child to slavery; Earlene, who witnesses her father's murder at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan; Big Momma, a modern-day matriarch who can make a woman of a girl; proud and sassy Cinnamon Brown, whose wild abandon hides a bitter loss; and smart, ambitious Alma, who is torn between the love of a man and the song of her soul.

In The River Where Blood Is Born, the seen and unseen worlds are seamlessly joined--the spirit realms where the great river goddess and ancestor mothers watch over the lives of their descendants, both the living and those not yet born. Stringing beads of destiny, they work to lead one daughter back to her source. But what must Alma sacrifice to honor the River Mother's call?

When Irene Rutledge, a brilliant and beautiful young graduate student, meets the mysterious and fascinating Frank Mattison, the two soon fall in love and marry, despite the warnings of Irene's family and friends. But after their marriage, dark secrets from Frank's past begin to emerge to threaten their happiness, secrets that will lead to murder - and a shocking and horrific conclusion ...

Craig Jones's critically acclaimed first novel, the Edgar Award-nominated Blood Secrets (1978), was a bestseller when originally published and has since been acknowledged by many critics as a masterpiece of modern Gothic fiction. This edition features a new preface by the author.

Nothing tears two women apart like the men who want and take indiscriminately.

A makeup artist and her actress lover struggle to stay together as the glitz and glamour of old Hollywood transforms into a cruel and manipulative beast that threatens to pluck them apart.

Read the full story for free at Tor Reactor.

In the tradition of Salem's Lot and The Exorcist comes a mesmerizing novel of murder, possession and twisted family secrets.

A recovering alcoholic on the run from his past, all Billy Smith wants is to be left alone. But commanded by the voices in his head to commit acts of violence he does not understand, he kidnaps a prostitute known only as Angel and heads north to a bucolic little New England town called White Falls. Something monstrous has taken root in White Falls, and has waited centuries for the right time to awaken. Psyches begin to unravel and violence erupts. The fate of the living ultimately rests on the back of one man. For the dead are watching... and they are hungry.

There is no escaping the Empire. Even in death, you will serve.

In an Empire run on necromancy, dead sorcerers are the lifeblood. Their corpses are wrapped in chains and drained of magic to feed the unquenchable hunger for imperial conquest.

Born with magic, Arienne has become resigned to her dark fate. But when the voice of a long-dead sorcerer begins to speak inside her head, she listens. There may be another future for her, if she's willing to fight for it.

Miles away, beneath a volcano, a seven-eyed dragon also wears the Empire's chains. Before the imperial fist closed around their lands, it was the people's sacred guardian.

Loran, a widowed swordswoman, is the first to kneel before the dragon in decades. She comes with a desperate plea, and will leave with a sword of dragon-fang in hand and a great purpose before her.

In the heart of the Imperial capital, Cain is known as a man who gets things done. When his best friend and mentor is found murdered, he will leave no stone unturned to find those responsible, even if it means starting a war.

Step into a world of necromancy, murder, and twisted magic. A world in need of a hero.

A vast new warehouse built on the site of an ancient Indian burial ground brings jobs and prosperity to everyone in town, but it also summons an unspeakable evil from its longstanding dormancy.

Vivian Gandillon relishes the change, the sweet, fierce ache that carries her from girl to wolf. At sixteen, she is beautiful and strong, and all the young wolves are on her tail. But Vivian still grieves for her dead father; her pack remains leaderless and in disarray, and she feels lost in the suburbs of Maryland. She longs for a normal life. But what is normal for a werewolf?

Then Vivian falls in love with a human, a meat-boy. Aiden is kind and gentle, a welcome relief from the squabbling pack. He's fascinated by magic, and Vivian longs to reveal herself to him. Surely he would understand her and delight in the wonder of her dual nature, not fear her as an ordinary human would.

Vivian's divided loyalties are strained further when a brutal murder threatens to expose the pack. Moving between two worlds, she does not seem to belong in either. What is she really--human or beast? Which tastes sweeter--blood or chocolate?

Sturgeon Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, October-November 2009 and was reprinted in Clarkesworld, Issue 113, February 2016. The story can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Seventh Annual Collection (2010), edited by Gardner Dozios.

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Aurealis and Ditmar Award winning short story. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 1999. The story can also be found in the anthologies:

• Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction (1999), edited by David G. Hartwell and Damien Broderick
• Year's Best SF 5 (2000), edited by David G. Hatwell
• The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection (2000), edited by Gardner Dozois
• Genometry (2001), edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois
• Galileo's Children: Tales of Science vs. Superstition (2005), edited by Gardner Dozois

The story is included in the collection Written in Blood (2003).

BFA and Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 1979. It can be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Fantasy Stories: 6 (1980), edited by Lin Carter and The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy By Women (1995), edited by A. Susan Williams and Richard Glyn Jones. It is included in the collections Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer (1983), Forests of The Night (1990) and Tanith By Choice: The Best of Tanith Lee (2017).

How would it be if Snow White were the real villain & the wicked queen just a sadly maligned innocent? What if awakening the Sleeping Beauty should be the mistake of a lifetime--of several lifetimes? What if the famous folk tales were retold with an eye to more horrific possibilities? Only Tanith Lee could do justice to it.

In RED AS BLOOD, she displays her soaring imagination at its most fantastically mischievous. Not for nothing was the title story named as a Nebula nominee. Not for nothing was the author of THE BIRTHGRAVE & THE STORM LORD called by New York's Village Voice, "Goddess-Empress of the Hot Read." Here are the world-famous tales of such as the Brothers Grimm as they might have been retold by the Sisters Grimmer! Fairy tales for children? Not on your life!

Table of Contents:

• Paid Piper - (1981) - shortstory
• Red as Blood - (1979) - shortstory
• Thorns - (1972) - shortstory
• When the Clock Strikes - (1980) - shortstory
• The Golden Rope - novelette
• The Princess and Her Future - shortstory
• Wolfland - (1980) - novelette
• Black as Ink - novelette
• Beauty - novelette

A vampiric Snow White whose pious stepmother is her only salvation....

A supernatural Cinderella who strikes at midnight, leaving behind a prince mad with desire....

A sleeping beauty never meant to be woken...

In her World Fantasy Award-nominated short story collection, Red as Blood, Tanith Lee deconstructed familiar fairy tales, recapturing their original darkness and horror in haunting new interpretations. Behind gilded words and poised princesses, she exposed a sinister world of violence, madness, and dangerous enchantments.

With Redder than Blood, Lee resumes the tradition of twisting tales. Among its nineteen tales, this volume explores unnerving variations of Beauty and the Beast, The Frog Prince, Snow White, and other classics, including three never-before-published stories.

A recognized master fantasist, Tanith Lee has won multiple awards for her craft, including the British Fantasy Award, the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, and the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in Horror.

Love, history or blood...which is the strongest?

In childhood something black settled on Mechail Korhlen and drank from his throat. And later somebody pitied him enough to kill his poor deformed body when he became an adult. But then Mechail chose to return from beyond the veil to enact revenge - and to follow Anjelen, ruler of the sinister monastery sited deep in the forest.

The fulfilment of his destiny had begun.

Chyrie's children, Ria and Val, have never known their mother or each other.

An elf among humans, Ria dreads her arranged marriage to Lord Sharl's son and longs for the forest and kinfolk she has never known.

A half-human among elves who remember humans with hatred and fear, Val resents his mixed blood and waits for the one person who can understand him--his sister.

Elven clan leader Rowan, who dreams of uniting the elven clans for good, and Lord Sharl, determined to rebuild his shattered city, have plans for Ria and Val, never suspecting that Chyrie's children have plans of their own...

Miss Harriet Brandt, daughter of a mad scientist and a voodoo priestess, comes of age and leaves her home in Jamaica for the first time, travelling to Europe. Beautiful and talented, Harriet will gain the affections of many of the men and women she meets and a bright future seems assured for her.

But there is something strange about Harriet. Everyone she gets close to seems to sicken or die. Doctor Phillips has a theory: the blood of the vampire flows through Harriet's veins, and she is draining the life out of those she loves. Are the misfortunes that seem to follow Harriet merely coincidence? Or is she really afflicted with the curse of the vampire?

One of the strangest novels by the prolific Florence Marryat (1837-1899), The Blood of the Vampire was the "other vampire novel" of 1897, appearing the same year as Dracula. Marryat's novel is fascinating not only for its sensational plot and bizarre characters, but also because of its engagement with many of the issues that haunted the late Victorian imagination, such as race, heredity, women's roles, Spiritualism, and the occult. This edition includes the unabridged text of the exceedingly rare 1897 first edition and a new introduction by Brenda Hammack.

Out in a field, deep in the heart of Iowa hog-farming country, Terence Pearson beheads his own children, apparently without reason. But appearances are deceptive, and what the reader doesn't realise however, is that Terence is saving his children from a fate far worse: The Green Traveller, a strange mummer dressed in leaves, who with his companions, The Surgeon and The Witness, bring terror and pain to those who cross him. Terence knows his children are descendants of The Green Traveller, and he's returning for them--the consequences of which will be devastating...

When a terrorist bomb devastates an exclusive junior school in Hollywood, killing the sons and daughters of many famous TV and movie actors and producers, all hell breaks loose. Among the many dead is Danny Bell, the son of successful comedy writer Frank Bell. Responsibility for the blast is claimed by a group who say that they want to put the decadent Western media out of business for good.

But when Frank meets up with another survivor of the blast, the strange and alluring Astrid, he begins to question if this was a terrorist attack at all. As more bombs go off, causing havoc at TV studios and theme parks, Frank enlists Astrid's help and that of a celebrated psychic detective and at last begins to piece together the tragic secret behind the terror campaign. Soon his eyes are opened to a world in which the dead are never gone for ever. But he also has to come face to face with real and absolute evil . .

An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, Blood Meridian brilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the "wild west." Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into the nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.

Although the novel initially generated only lukewarm critical and commercial reception, it has since become highly acclaimed and is widely recognized as McCarthy's masterpiece as well as one of the greatest novels of all time. Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.

BLOOD RUBIES

It would bring bad luck, they said. But she split her pair of ruby earrings and gave one to each of her beautiful twin babies. Within hours she was burned to death in a fire. The twins lived.

KATHERINE

Raised by a poor, childless couple, Katherine was shy and withdrawn, except in her love for the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception. In her heart, Katherine had found God. In her father's heart, they found a butcher knife.

ANDREA

She grew up with all that money could buy. She was pretty and popular and went to the best schools. Her parents loved her dearly and gladly did anything to please her. But what made Andrea happy would make them dead.

THEY MET IN THEIR NIGHTMARES

In the dark of sleep, Katherine and Andrea had terrible dreams of being the other. Until the hand of evil that guided their waking lives brought them face to face with each other... and the crossed fate of horror awaiting them both.

Dark, unnerving and wickedly funny, Patrick McGrath's acclaimed short stories deal in the bizarre, the erotic and the unexpected. A failed writer meets an ageing gin-queen who claims he was once visited by an angel; a little girl finds a delirious, dying explorer from the Congo at the bottom of her back garden; a night-club is terrorized by a strange libidinous hand; and a young Victorian lady sails to India to find her fiance Cecil horribly transformed...

Table of Contents:

• The Angel - (1987) - short story
• The Lost Explorer - (1988) - short story
• The Black Hand of the Raj - (1988) - short story
• Lush Triumphant - (1988) - short story
• Ambrose Syme - (1988) - short story
• The Arnold Crombeck Story - (1988) - short story
• Blood Disease - (1988) - novelette
• The Skewer - (1988) - short story
• Marmilion - (1988) - short story
• Hand of a Wanker - (1988) - short story
• The Boot's Tale - (1988) - short story
• The E(rot)ic Potato - (1988) - short story
• Blood and Water - (1988) - short story

A young priest from a Brooklyn parish becomes the center of a religious upheaval when he discovers that he has miraculous powers and is informed by a secret Vatican tribunal that his powers are the result of a scientific experiment.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, February 2014. It can also be found in the collection Year's Best Weird Fiction, Volume Two (2015), edited by Kathe Koja and Michael Kelly. It is included in the collection Singing with All My Skin and Bone (2016).

Read the full story fo free at Lightspeed.

There's a new addition to the Hamilton family. The adoptive parents couldn't love Baby more if he was their own flesh and blood.

But isn't it strange for an infant to have such sharp teeth? And what nourishment makes Baby grow so big and strong so fast? Not mother's milk...

Now, Mommy's so pale and weak, so drained, as if she's being bled dry. Daddy's entranced by his wif's live-in nurse, whose hypnotic eyes and pointed teeth are just like Baby's. Grandma's disppeared- but she'll be back after dark. Unfortunately.

Only teenage Colleen senses the gathering evil that will turn a sleepy little town into a kingdom of vampires, No one will believe her. Not a living soul...

Only the undead ones.

WFA-nominated novella. It originally appeared in the collection Whispered Echoes (2016).

Set in the world of the House of Comarr, Kristen Painter gives us a new novella about the price of freedom.

Maris's life as a comarr? Has come down to three options: escape her patron and spend the rest of her days looking over her shoulder, fight him for her freedom with the understanding it could mean her death or undergo dangerous experimentation to transform her blood into something even more powerful.

Before she can make a decision, she discovers the vampire who's been charged with sunproofing her blood isn't so fond of her patron either. In fact, Dominic is unlike any vampire she's ever met, but is she desperate enough to put her trust in another noble? Her heart says yes...

Blood of Dreams follows the story of a woman who has the power to stop a killer as he stalks the dreams of his victims.

As Venice is taken over by the hedonism of Carnevale, a charismatic stranger roams the city, intent on stealing the dreams of others by taking their lives. A series of gruesome deaths brings the murderer, the priest and the beautiful young opium addict together in an astonishing encounter from which no one will emerge unscathed.

Bobcat just wants to hang out and have fun rolling in catnip, loving his rabbit girlfriend, playing pranks, and betting on otter polo matches. Then his friend Skink loses his luck, an omen of terrible destruction, and Bobcat himself is visited by a horrific vision of a burning jaguar that inflicts real wounds. They consult the shaman, Fisher, and the omens are confirmed. The Blood Jaguar, the thirteen Curial, or god, is returning to inflict a plague that will kill almost everyone in the world. And when the Blood Jaguar returns, a bobcat, a skink, and a fisher must go on a quest to stop her and prevent the plague. The quest has always failed. Why should this one succeed?

Contents:

• 1 - Introduction (Gifts of Blood) - (1990) - essay by Debbie Cross and Paul M. Wrigley
• 7 - Prides - (1990) - essay by Ursula K. Le Guin
• 15 - Getting the Block and Tackle on the Gargoyle - (1990) - essay by Vonda N. McIntyre
• 23 - What Did You Do at Clarion, Mommy? - (1990) - essay by Kate Wilhelm
• 39 - Spareen Among the Tartars - [Varkela / Spareen] - (1979) - shortstory by Susan C. Petrey
• 59 - Fleas - (1980) - shortstory by Susan C. Petrey
• 61 - The Healer's Touch - [Varkela / Spareen] - (1982) - novelette by Susan C. Petrey
• 89 - Spareen Among the Cossacks - [Varkela / Spareen] - (1981) - novelette by Susan C. Petrey
• 115 - Leechcraft - [Varkela / Spareen] - (1982) - novelette by Susan C. Petrey
• 153 - Small Changes - [Varkela / Spareen] - (1983) - shortstory by Susan C. Petrey
• 169 - Spareen and Old Turk - [Varkela / Spareen] - (1983) - shortstory by Susan C. Petrey
• 179 - The Neisserian Invasion - (1990) - shortstory by Susan C. Petrey
• 191 - Spidersong - (1980) - shortstory by Susan C. Petrey

Twin Vampires. Different motives to kill.

Hybrid vampires Daniel and Diana feel technology's cold, uncountable tendrils hunting them. Daniel scientifically satisfies his needs. Diana, his twin sister, hunts in the old-school way, leaving patches of greasy, scorched earth or mutilated bodies for her brother to take care of.

Daniel created Matrix, a face pack for beauty shops, which pulls blood through skin, leaves blissful clients, kills and alerts no one. Daniel cultivates his human side; Diana mocks him. Impatient, she hunts out of spite as much as need.

Admitting to himself that his twin sister will get him killed, Daniel knows that life's hardest decision is at hand.

This novelette originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, July 2014, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, December 2017. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Second Annual Collection (2015), edited by Gardner Dozois.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Ellen's just 16, but she's dying-and nobody knows why. So when she's sent to her grandmother's house she's relieved to find a distraction in the form of her great-grandmother's diaries, written when she was Ellen's age. As Ellen reads, she becomes increasingly embroiled in the fascinating story of her life. Who is the enigmatic and seductive Count her great-grandmother was supposed to marry? And why is it that Ellen and her great-grandmother resemble each other so much that they could be twins? But Ellen's condition is worsening, and it's becoming more and more difficult for her to distinguish her own life from the nightmarish events recorded in the diaries. Is the past destroying her, or do the diaries hold the key to Ellen's survival?

In the small town of Green Hill, all the children belong to an evil, magical, and entirely secret cult. For generations, every child in Green Hill has belonged to this cult until he reaches puberty. Then all evul, and all memory of evil acts committed, disappers. Only the children know of the ceremonies that take place on moonlit nights and in the canves that lie undneath th town's foundations....

The first novel for adults by hugely acclaimed YA writer Marcus Sedgwick: a gripping saga of love, revenge, and obsession?and vampires.

In 1944, just days after the liberation of Paris, Charles Jackson sees something horrific: a man in a dark tunnel, apparently drinking the blood of a murdered woman. Terrified, he does nothing, telling himself afterward that worse tragedies happen during war.

Seven years later he returns to the city?and sees the same man dining in the company of a fascinating, beautiful young woman. When they leave the restaurant, Charles decides to follow...

A Love Like Blood is a dark, compelling thriller about how a man's life can change in a moment and about where the desire for truth?and revenge?can lead.

Seven stories of passion and love separated by centuries but mysteriously intertwined--this is a tale of horror and beauty, tenderness and sacrifice.

An archaeologist who unearths a mysterious artifact, an airman who finds himself far from home, a painter, a ghost, a vampire, and a Viking: the seven stories in this compelling novel all take place on the remote Scandinavian island of Blessed where a curiously powerful plant that resembles a dragon grows. What binds these stories together? What secrets lurk beneath the surface of this idyllic countryside? And what might be powerful enough to break the cycle of midwinterblood? From award-winning author Marcus Sedgwick comes a book about passion and preservation and ultimately an exploration of the bounds of love.

Lace. Leather. Open collars over exquisite collarbones. A single red drop on paper-white cuffs. From the brocade extravagance of the Unseelie courts to the ubiquitous leather of supernatural detectives to the old-fashioned good taste of wealthy vampires -- we are as familiar with fantasy protagonists' attire as we are with their paranormal deed. Tales of tormented designers and well-dressed vampires strut into spotlight in this anthology of fantasy tales focusing on the world of fashion and its intersection with the uncanny!

Table of Contents:

• The Coat of Stars - (2007) - shortstory by Holly Black
• Savage Design - (2012) - shortfiction by Richard Bowes
• Bespoke - (2009) - shortstory by Genevieve Valentine
• Dress Code - (2012) - shortfiction by Sandra McDonald
• The Anadem - (2012) - shortfiction by Sharon Mock
• The First Witch of Damansara - (2012) - shortfiction by Zen Cho
• The Faery Handbag - (2004) - novelette by Kelly Link
• The Truth or Something Beautiful - (2012) - shortfiction by Shirin Dubbin
• Waifs - (2012) - shortfiction by Die Booth
• Where Shadows Meet Light - (2010) - shortfiction by Rachel Swirsky
• Capturing Images - (2012) - shortfiction by Maria V. Snyder
• How Galligaskins Sloughed the Scourge - (2010) - shortstory by Anna Tambour
• Avant-noob - (2012) - shortfiction by Nick Mamatas
• Incomplete Proofs - (2012) - shortfiction by John Chu

Blood was what they called that mountain town and the forbidding land around it--and the name was significant. Folks there knew a secret that would have shocked the world...but nobody was ever going to get out of Blood to tell. Not even when Portia Clark arrived, hot on a news story for a national magazine. Especially, not her...

Clint Breen, who had once been in the outside world, tried to save her. But he had to fight a tradition that drove men and women to unspeakable lusts and that ruled secretly the lives and afterlives of every being in the county. Blood was the place where more men and women walked the night than ever were seen by day. Horror was their heritage, for they were the people that the census dared not count!

Rifkin Outcast, hunted by the assassins of Moon Isle, becomes trapped in a ruined castle where a tiny band of witches are besieged by an army that's ten times their size. His choices? Save them, betray them, or die with them.

Mike, a friendly Vietnam vet driving a hearse for his uncle, picks up Angela, a half-frozen hitchhiker on her way back to college. When a blizzard makes the road impassable, Mike and Angela spend a night of terror and passion at Blut Farm--a night they will never forget--if they survive.

SHE is a mistress of darkness--coldly sensual and dangerously seductive. She uses her body to possess her victims as she plots her revenge against the man who sentenced her to immorality.

HE is a master of manipulation with the power to take life and grant unlife. Women are his victims. Men are his pawns. But his thirst for the death of the woman he once loved is his sole consuming passion.

THEY are two ancient vampires who have sworn to eliminate each other, driven through the centures by a raging desire to be drenched in their enemy's dying blood. Now the time hs come for a face-to-face confrontation--vampire against vampiress--and neither will rest until one of them is destroyed!

The phenomenon of colony-collapse disorder, the sudden mass disappearance of bees, has become so widespread that much of the world – although not, as yet, Finland – is facing agricultural and ecological disaster.

Amateur beekeeper Orvo, devastated by the recent death of his eco-warrior son, finds two of his hives deserted and begins to fear that the 'epidemic' has reached Scandinavia. Then, in the attic of the old barn, he makes a mystical and frightening discovery: a pathway to a parallel world. Is it a hallucination stimulated by sorrow and loss – or is it something very real and connected with the bees' disappearance? His research teaches him that in practically every culture bees are viewed as half-supernatural messengers that can travel between worlds and are associated with resurrection and the afterlife. He begins to wonder if this portal could reunite him with his dead son and whether he can himself escape the ecological meltdown of this world.

The Blood of Angels reworks the Orpheus myth while analysing modern man's need to deny his mortality and raise himself above the rest of nature, to compare himself to the angels – but at what price?

Hugo and World Fantasy Award-nominated Short Story

Anger is an energy. A young girl, a slave in the South, is presented with a moment where she can grasp for freedom, for change, for life. She grabs it with both hands, fiercely and intensely, and the spirit world is shaken.

This story was originally published on Tor.com, July 24, 2019.

Read this story for free at Tor.com.

A vampire who calls himself Maldureve comes out of the shadowy borderlands of existence in response to the unvoiced desires of philosophy student Anne Charet. By choosing to see him she gives him substance; after feeding him, she too begins to hunger for blood. Maldureve becomes Anne's lover and mentor but he cannot protect her against his own enemies, mysterious creatures of light who call themselves owls because they believe that theirs is the highest wisdom of all. Anne's boyfriend, psychologist Gil Molari, worries about her health and state of mind, although he knows nothing about his supernatural rival. His anxiety is magnified when he becomes convinced that one of the mind-altering viruses with which he works has escaped from the laboratory. Gil refuses to believe in Maldureve but his refusal to believe cannot save him from becoming the victim of a fierce hunger that he cannot satisfy, which drives him in the end to an unendurable extreme. Anne believes that her experiences are entirely real; Gil believes that his are the products of an infectious madness. Whichever of them is right, they are both in deadly danger, and so is everyone around them. Once they have started on their strange journey, there is no way back. But what can possibly lie ahead of them, when death itself no longer seems to be an end?

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology Old Mars (2013), editd by Gardner Dozois and George R. R. Martin, and was reprinted in Clarkesworld, #134, November 2017. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-First Annual Collection (2014), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Tales of Time and Space (2015).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Welcome aboard the Baltic Charisma.

Tonight, twelve hundred expectant passengers have joined the booze-cruise between Sweden and Finland. The creaking old ship travels this same route, back and forth, every day of the year.

But this trip is going to be different.

In the middle of the night the ferry is cut off from the outside world. There is nowhere to escape. There is no way to contact the mainland. And no one knows who to trust...

On the Baltic Sea, no one can hear you scream.

As Tara Stewart drives through the dark, winter night, from Charlotte to Ottawa, she's haunted by ghosts from her past. Summoned to her abusive father's funeral, she hasn't been home, or spoken to her family, in years. The last place she wants to be is in the company of her vindictive twin sister, Evelyn, and her brother-in-law, Peter. The hail begins to fall. Thanks to treacherous road conditions, she barely makes it to her destination. Upon arriving, she falls on the icy driveway, slamming her knee into concrete and compact snow. Evelyn and Peter pull her inside, just as she is losing consciousness.

Outside, the hailstorm still rages. Reports on the news suggest it's a worldwide phenomenon. Globally, resulting damage and death is reaching catastrophic levels. Now a prisoner in her father's old mansion, stuck with her estranged twin and brother-in-law, Tara must try to survive the worst storm in modern history. She soon discovers the storm is not her only enemy. Her family--and the house itself--seem intent on her destruction. Can she survive the undying hailstorm, and whispered threats from her ghosts, who swear the end is near?

Things happen when Greg is around...all kinds of things bet broken, yet you can't relaly say he's destructive because you never see him break anything. Other kids are getting hurt or getting into trouble all the time, yet you can't put your finger on just what he does...it's as if he spends all his energy being furious withthe world; anger is the only consistent thing he's ever had and he'll hold on to it with a vengeance.

When Breanne Novak adopts eleven-year-old Greg, she knows she has troubles ahead. But Greg has an uncanny ability to *make things happen* and Breanne soon realises that she had been totally unprepared for the full impact of the struggle about to rock her life.

A dark Southern Gothic vision of ghosts, witchcraft, secret powers, snake-handling, kudzu, Melungeons, and the Great Depression.

Michael Gibson has returned to the quiet home of his forebears and now takes care of his grandmother Sadie--old and sickly, but with an important story to tell about growing up poor and Melungeon (a mixed race group of mysterious origins) in the 1930s, while bedeviled by a snake-handling uncle and empathic powers she barely understands.

In a field not far from the Gibson family home lies an iron-bound crate within a small shack buried four feet deep under Kudzu vine. Michael somehow understands that hidden inside that crate is potentially his own death, his grandmother's death, and perhaps the deaths of everyone in the valley if he does not come to understand her story well enough.

For generations, the Kalotay family has guarded a collection of ancient and rare books. Books that let a person walk through walls or manipulate the elements--books of magic that half-sisters Joanna and Esther have been raised to revere and protect.

All magic comes with a price, though, and for years the sisters have been separated. Esther has fled to a remote base in Antarctica to escape the fate that killed her own mother, and Joanna's isolated herself in their family home in Vermont, devoting her life to the study of these cherished volumes. But after their father dies suddenly while reading a book Joanna has never seen before, the sisters must reunite to preserve their family legacy. In the process, they'll uncover a world of magic far bigger and more dangerous than they ever imagined, and all the secrets their parents kept hidden; secrets that span centuries, continents, and even other libraries...

This short story originally appeared in Nightmare Magazine, January 2017. It can also be found in the anthology The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018, edited by N.K. Jemisin and John Joseph Adams.

Read the full story for free at Nightmare.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Federations (2009), edited by John Joseph Adams, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, January 2018. The story can also be found in the anthology War & Space: Recent Combat (2012), edited by Rich Horton and Sean Wallace. It is included in the collection Ventriloquism (2010).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Operation Arcana (2015), edited by John Joseph Adams. Ik can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best Young Adult Speculative Fiction 2015 (2016), edited by Julia Rios and Alisa Krasnostein, and The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Ten (2016), edited by Jonathan Strahan.

In the middle of the Mexican jungle a small scientific team prepare to embark on an exploration of the world's deepest sinkhole; a naturally-formed underwater shaft that no one has ever reached the bottom of. What they are about to discover could change the world forever.

Three thousand miles away, Joe McDonald's father is arrested for murder. Joe and his friend Giles are desperate to prove his innocence, but when more people are attacked in mysterious circumstances, Joe begins to suspect that a predator is on the loose. Maybe the dark shapes he has seen in the woods and canal aren't just his imagination.

Could the attacks in Joe's town be linked to his dad's research at the university? Could Dad's colleague have brought something back with him from the expedition in Mexico? Suddenly the search for justice becomes a desperate fight for survival...

Will Sverdrup's role as Hamlet in an amateur production of Shakepeare's play takes on a bizarre twist when he and his fellow actors are swept back in time, into the body of the historical Hamlet and other real-life members of the cast in sixth-century Denmark, where they must play out their roles and try to save their lives.

She comes in the night. She looks into your eyes. One by one, she has taken us all.

For generations they have died young.

Now Iris and her father are the last of the Villarca line.

Their disease confines them to their lonely mansion on Dartmoor; their disease means they must die alone.

But Iris breaks her promise to hide from the world. She dares to fall in love.

And only then do they understand the true horror of the Villarca curse.

Set 500 years in the future, a mad cow-like disease called "Bent Head" has killed off most of the U.S. population. Those remaining turn to magic and sacrifice to cleanse the Earth.

Wonderblood is Julia Whicker's fascinating literary debut, set in a barren United States, an apocalyptic wasteland where warring factions compete for control of the land in strange and dangerous carnivals. A mad cow-like disease called "Bent Head" has killed off millions. Those who remain worship the ruins of NASA's space shuttles, and Cape Canaveral is their Mecca. Medicine and science have been rejected in favor of magic, prophecy, and blood sacrifice.

When traveling marauders led by the bloodthirsty Mr. Capulatio invade her camp, a young girl named Aurora is taken captive as his bride and forced to join his band on their journey to Cape Canaveral. As war nears, she must decide if she is willing to become her captor's queen. But then other queens emerge, some grotesque and others aggrieved, and not all are pleased with the girl's ascent.

Chemical symbol... atomic number... atomic weight...

Scientific terms for gold... but science can't begin to explain the mystery and magic of gold.

It was gold that lured the 'Secret Legion' - as oddly mixed a group of adventures as any song or story - into the world's most treacherous desert.

And gold they found - a golden man, and exotic golden woman, a huge golden tiger, and an eerie golden snake.

Gold brought them together... gold made them enemies in a battle to the death... gold held the key to the mysterious forces that assailed them.

Jack Williamson, alchemist with words, spins a rare web of adventure, fantasy and science... a gem from the golden age of Weird Tales, now available in book form for the first time.

This novelette originally appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Issue Seven, November-December 2015.

Read the full story for free at Uncanny Magazine.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Swords & Dark Magic (2010), edited by Lou Anders and Jonathan Strahan. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011, edited by Rich Horton, and The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2011, edited by Paula Guran.

Born of the royal leaders of Adalon and the White Sea Islands, Antonya Terhune was orphaned as a babe when her wicked uncle usurped her father's rule and invaded her mother's realm. She was raised by the Brothers of Blessed Reason, her existence a secret kept from her family's enemies. She learned skills most women of the land were never taught -- reading, writing, and mathematics -- but she yearned to be a warrior.

Then when she left the monastery, she ventured out into the world under her uncle's dictatorship - adopting and shedding disguises like snakeskin -- and witnessed firsthand how the common people slaved for church and state.

Now Antonya has come of age, and she's ready to reclaim her lands. And with the aid of the lone defender Kerric of Myro, she will lead a small fighting force in an attempt to topple a tyrant... and set the people of two lands free.

This short story originally appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Issue 10, May-June 2016.

Read the full story for free at Uncanny Magazine.

This collection of fresh essays on Suzanne Collins's epic trilogy spans multiple disciplines. The contributors probe the trilogy's meaning using theories grounded in historicism, feminism, humanism, queer theory, as well as cultural, political, and media studies. The essayists demonstrate diverse perspectives regarding Collins's novels but their works have three elements in common: an appreciation of the trilogy as literature, a belief in its permanent value, and a need to share both appreciation and belief with fellow readers.

The 21 essays that follow the context-setting introduction are grouped into four parts:

• Part I "History, Politics, Economics, and Culture,"
• Part II "Ethics, Aesthetics, and Identity,"
• Part III "Resistance, Surveillance, and Simulacra," and
• Part IV "Thematic Parallels and Literary Traditions."

A core bibliography of dystopian and postapocalyptic works is included, with emphasis on the young adult category--itself an increasingly crucial part of postmodern culture.

Whistling Tor is a place of secrets, a mysterious, wooded hill housing the crumbling fortress of a chieftain whose name is spoken throughout the district in tones of revulsion and bitterness. A curse lies over Anluan's family and his people; those woods hold a perilous force whose every whisper threatens doom.

For young scribe Caitrin, it is a safe haven. This place where nobody else is prepared to go seems exactly what she needs, for Caitrin is fleeing her own demons. As Caitrin comes to know Anluan and his home in more depth she realizes that it is only through her love and determination that the curse can be broken and Anluan and his people set free.

Her heart torn between her clean-cut lawman partner and a dashing, dark-eyed mystery man who knows far more about the aliens than he has any right to, Jayne must risk everything to keep the materialistic Japanese government from harnessing the power of the atom decades before humanity-and history-is ready!

Sixteen-year-old Eva is a princess, born with the magick of blood and marrow--a dark and terrible magick that hasn't been seen for generations in the vibrant but fractured country of Myre. Its last known practitioner was Queen Raina, who toppled the native khimaer royalty and massacred thousands, including her own sister, eight generations ago, thus beginning the Rival Heir tradition. Living in Raina's long and dark shadow, Eva must now face her older sister, Isa, in a battle to the death if she hopes to ascend to the Ivory Throne--because in the Queendom of Myre only the strongest, most ruthless rulers survive.

When Eva is attacked by an assassin just weeks before the battle with her sister, she discovers there is more to the attempt on her life than meets the eye--and it isn't just her sister who wants to see her dead. As tensions escalate, Eva is forced to turn to a fey instructor of mythic proportions and a mysterious and handsome khimaer prince for help in growing her magick into something to fear. Because despite the love she still has for her sister, Eva will have to choose: Isa's death or her own.

Now on the run, Eva is desperate for answers about her transformation and her true heritage. Along with Aketo, a small contingent of guards, and the sister she could not kill, Eva flees Ternain in hopes of finding friends and allies to the north--not to mention Baccha--to help her decide what to do next. Princess Isa is a difficult, unremorseful captive, and Eva knows better than to trust her sister, but she wants to. Despite their history, Eva is convinced that to survive the growing unrest in the queendom, she and her sister must make peace. Since the Entwining ceremony, Eva's and Isa's lives have been bonded, and each can only die by the other's hand. This perhaps provides an opening for a truce and a more hopeful future for both the sisters and the queendom, if only Isa would see reason and give up the battle for the throne.

With the two princesses on the run, the Queendom of Myre is on the brink of a revolution. And without Baccha to guide and train her magick, Eva must find a way not only to survive her own metamorphosis, but to unite all the people of Myre, including her sister, by finally taking the Ivory Throne

Hugo Award winning and Nebula and WFA nominated novella. The novella is made up of the Daenerys chapters from the novel A Game of Thrones (1996). It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, July 1996. It is included in the collection Quartet: Four Tales from the Crossroads (2001).

Centuries before the events of A Game of Thrones, House Targaryen--the only family of dragonlords to survive the Doom of Valyria--took up residence on Dragonstone. Fire & Blood begins their tale with the legendary Aegon the Conqueror, creator of the Iron Throne, and goes on to recount the generations of Targaryens who fought to hold that iconic seat, all the way up to the civil war that nearly tore their dynasty apart.

What really happened during the Dance of the Dragons? Why was it so deadly to visit Valyria after the Doom? What were Maegor the Cruel's worst crimes? What was it like in Westeros when dragons ruled the skies? These are but a few of the questions answered in this essential chronicle, as related by a learned maester of the Citadel and featuring more than eighty all-new black-and-white illustrations by artist Doug Wheatley. Readers have glimpsed small parts of this narrative in such volumes as The World of Ice & Fire, but now, for the first time, the full tapestry of Targaryen history is revealed.

With all the scope and grandeur of Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Fire & Blood is the the first volume of the definitive two-part history of the Targaryens, giving readers a whole new appreciation for the dynamic, often bloody, and always fascinating history of Westeros.

In the icy northern realm of Eron, three young artisans bound by an unspeakable act of violence arrive at an isolated gem mine on a special commission for their king. They are the arrogant but talented Eddyn; Avall, his archrival; and beautiful Strynn, newly wed to Avall, but carrying Eddyn's child.

Meanwhile, to the south, amid Ixti's scorpion-riddled sands and sensuous cities, a horrible accident has forced Prince Kraxxi into exile with blood on his hands and a price on his head.

The four will be drawn together--and torn apart--by a magnificent find: a gem with magical properties beyond anyone's imagining or control. It is a struggle in which hidden forces pursue a frighteningly sinister agenda. For whoever possesses the gem holds the future of the world... and the power to destroy it.

Peace has come to the realm of Eron, and with it a new High King: young, inexperienced Avall, victor in the war against Ixti, sole possessor of the magical gems taken from the mines of the frozen north. But as Eron attempts to heal from the bloody conflict and a devastating plague, unrest once again grips this troubled land, stirred up by a secret cabal of powerful priests who call themselves the Ninth Face.

Avall struggles to quell the unrest and to understand and control the boundless magic of the mysterious gems. At the same time, his twin sister, Merryn, must make her own arduous journey a step ahead of those who would gladly claim her life. But it is the fanatical leaders of the Ninth Face who pose the greatest danger. They have put in motion a deadly plan to drive Avall from the throne, destroy the power of the noble clans, and take possession of the gems themselves-all in the name of their unbending god. For Eron the choice is stark indeed: an imperfect and inexperienced king... or the tyranny of the righteous.

Sasha is a fighter, the like of which the highland country of Lenayin has never seen.

Spurning her royal heritage to be raised by the great warrior, Kessligh, her exquisite swordplay astonishes all who witness it. But Sasha is still young, untested in battle and often led by her rash temper. In the complex world of Lenayin loyalties, her defiant wilfulness is attracting the wrong kind of attention.

Lenayin is a land almost divided by its two faiths: the Verenthane of the ruling classes and the pagan Goeren-yai, amongst whom Sasha now lives. The Goeren-yai worship swordplay and honour and begin to see Sasha as the great spirit the Synnich who will unite them. But Sasha is still searching for what she believes and must choose her side carefully.

When the Udalyn people -- the symbol of Goeren-yai pride and courage -- are attacked, Sasha will face her moment of testing. How will she act? Is she ready to lead? Can she be the saviour they need her to be?

Book two in the quartet A Trial of Blood & Steel picks up the story of the brave and independent heroine, Sasha, now living in the port city of Petrodor. Away from the hills of her Lenayin homeland, Sasha is making a new life in the dark alleys and wealthy houses of Petrodor. An influential trading centre, Petrodor holds the key to preventing the coming war between Lenayin and the mighty Bacosh.

Together with her old mentor Kessligh, Sasha attempts to navigate the political intrigues of the port city and find a way to stop the war. It is the serrin, the beautiful but dangerous people from beyond the Bacosh, who will be the pivotal point in this struggle.

How much can Sasha trust her old serrin friend Errollyn? And how much can she trust herself?

For two hundred years Tracato has been the center of enlightenment, as the serrin have occupied human lands and sought to remake humanity anew. But the serrin have not destroyed Rhodaan's feudal families entirely, and as Tracato faces the greatest threat to its survival in two centuries, old rivalries are stirring. Sasha must assist her mentor Kessligh to strengthen the Tracato Nasi-Keth, yet with one royal sister siding with the feudalists and another soon to be married to Tracato's most powerful foe, her loyalties are agonizingly divided.

Worse still, from Sasha's homeland the Army of Lenayin are marching to make war upon Tracato. Can she fight her own people? Or must she join them, and fight not only her lover Errollyn, but to extinguish the brightest light of hope in all the land--serrin civilization itself?

The great powers of the Saalshen Bacosh are falling. The feudal army of the Regent Balthaar Arosh marches victorious across Rhodaan and Enora, determined to restore the old human ways that were abolished by the serrin of Saalshen two centuries before. The army of Lenayin marches in their wake, in shame. The greater battle was won, yet Lenayin's part in it was defeat, their king slain, their warriors sent running from the field.

Sashandra Lenayin marches with her people, yet she sees the carnage the Regent's armies are inflicting upon her former allies, and like most Lenays, she feels dishonored. Sasha leads three quarters of the army of Lenayin to defect and fight for Saalshen, leaving her brothers Koenyg and Myklas with the Verenthane hardliners to fight for the Regent.

All forces now converge on the city of Jahnd, an Enoran word meaning "Haven." A city of humanity's refugees in Saalshen, its serrin hosts have allowed it to build into a major power over the centuries, humankind's only outpost in Saalshen. But the Saalshen Bacosh's third province, the mountainous land of Ilduur, refuses to come to the aid of its neighbors and without it victory is impossible. Sasha must lead a delegation to the Ilduuri capital, to combat the xenophobic Ilduuri regime's retreat into isolation, and convince the Ilduuri army to defy their own leaders and rise up in rebellion to fight a foreign war that most Ilduuris do not want.

To save Saalshen and all that she loves about Lenayin, Sasha must become a true Lenay warlord, feared and hated by her enemies, uncompromising and all conquering. But will her own people now inflict upon her one of her worst nightmares, by insisting that she, and not her brother Damon, should assume the Lenay throne and lead her people in the greatest battle that the land of Rhodia has ever seen?

Jessica Jacobs-Wolde has somehow survived the worst that any mother or wife could ever endure: the deaths of her husband and first daughter. But now, four years later, not only is the nightmare continuing -- it may have only just begun. Jessica has discovered the terrifying truth behind the legacy that her husband left to their second daughter, Fana...a legacy preordained a thousand years before her time and drenched in the powerful lifeblood that now courses through her veins. As young Fana begins to display unearthly abilities that are quickly spiraling out of control, she becomes the target of those who will stop at nothing to exploit her power -- and the unwitting touchstone in an ancient supernatural battle whose outcome may decide the fate of all humanity.

Acclaimed for seven novels, ranging from supernatural thrillers to historical fiction, which have garnered her a multitude of fans and awards, Tananarive Due now imagines the story of an ancient group of immortals -- a hidden African clan that has survived for more than a thousand years -- facing one of the most challenging issues of our time: the AIDS/HIV pandemic.

There's a new drug on the street: Glow. Said to heal almost any illness, it is distributed by an Underground Railroad of drug peddlers. But what gives Glow its power? Its main ingredient is blood -- the blood of immortals. A small but powerful colony of immortals is distributing the blood, slowly wiping out the AIDS epidemic and other diseases around the world.

Meet Fana Wolde, seventeen years old, the only immortal born with the Living Blood. She can read minds, and her injuries heal immediately. When her best friend, a mortal, is imprisoned by Fana's family, Fana helps her escape -- and together they run away from Fana's protected home in Washington State to join the Underground Railroad.

But Fana has more than her parents to worry about: Glow peddlers are being murdered by a violent, hundred-year-old sect with ties to the Vatican. Now, when Fana is most vulnerable, she is being hunted to fulfill an ancient blood prophecy that could lead to countless deaths.

While her people search for Fana and race to unravel the unknown sect's mysterious origins, Fana must learn to confront the deadly forces -- or she and everyone she loves will die.

In the bleak northlands, Grimnir, the living god of the plundering Vanir, is leading his hordes across Cimmeria. Tales of Grimnir's fury spread as refugees scatter throughout the land to escape his wrath.

In the village of Gaud, the young warrior Kern, the "Wolf-Eye," has been exiled, an outcast from clan and kin. It is he who is fated to confront the dreaded Grimnir. But as loyal friends and desperate fighters rally to his side, even Kern does not know whether he leads his people to deliverance, or certain death.

The pregnancy of Newcomer Cathy Frankel by her human boyfriend, Matt Sikes, ignites tensions city-wide as extremist groups who fear the implications of the birth of the first half-human/half-Newcomer child threaten Cathy's safety. The danger escalates when the medical facility treating Cathy is attacked, forcing her into seclusion. Meanwhile, George Francisco is drawn into a Newcomer cult headed by a mysterious messianic figure. Obsessed with the cult, George quits the police force to devote all his time to his new religion. Now with his partner gone, Sikes must defend his newborn baby from a hostile band of criminals determined to destroy anyone who's different-- even an innocent child.

Working as a Hound-tracing illegal spells back to their casters-has taken its toll on Allison Beckstrom. But even though magic has given her migraines and stolen her recent memory, Allie isn't about to quit. Then the police's magic enforcement division asks her to consult on a missing persons case. But what seems to be a straightforward job turns out to be anything but, as Allie finds herself drawn into the underworld of criminals, ghosts, and blood magic.

Ananna of the Tanarau abandons ship when her parents try to marry her off to an ally pirate clan. She wants to captain her own boat, not serve as second-in-command to a handsome and clueless man. But her escape has dire consequences when she learns that her fiancé's clan has sent an assassin after her.

And when this assassin, Naji, finally finds her, things get even worse. Ananna inadvertently triggers a nasty curse -- with a life-altering result. Now, Ananna and Naji are forced to become uneasy allies as they work to complete three impossible tasks that will cure the curse.

Unfortunately, Naji has enemies from the shadowy world known as the Mists, and Ananna must face the repercussions of betraying her engagement that set her off on her adventures. Together, the two must break the curse, escape their enemies, and come to terms with their growing romantic attraction.

This is an omnibus version consisting of The Assassin's Curse and The Pirate's Wish.

A gripping and thrilling Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, novel

'When the monsters are involved, it's never just one dead body. One way or another the dead multiply.'

First, there were the dead in the graveyard, two hundred years dead. I'd been hired to raise them to settle a dispute over who owned the land they were buried in.

Then there were the three dead teenagers in the woods, slaughtered in a way I'd never seen before.

A favor for a friend puts Anita Blake in the center of a full-blown scandal that threatens master vampire Jean- Claude's reign-and makes her a pawn in an ancient vampire queen's new rise to power.

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. They follow legends and local lore, destroy the murderous dead, and keep pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

Searching for a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas expects the usual: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

Yet she spares Cas's life.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, May 2015.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

A powerful fantasy novel in its own right, set in an expansive and complex fantasy universe, The Price of Blood and Honor brings to a grand climax the tale, begun in The Well-Favored Man and A Sorcerer and a Gentleman, of the kingdoms of Landuc, Noroison, and Phesaotois. The bitter, centuries-old feud between Emperor Avril and his wizardly brother, Prospero, has broken into open warfare, and events and armies are unstoppably on the move. In the midst of all this, Prospero's two grown children - staunch, unworldly Freia, and her urbanely sorcerous half-brother, Dewar - find themselves thrust into the very heart of the action. The Price of Blood and Honor is a rich, complex, and splendidly high-handed work, full of epic tragedies and comedies of manners, wars and romances, primal acts of creation, gritty military details, intricate espionage capers, talking animals, mythic beasts, ducks, and a great deal more besides, in the story that is the climax and completion of this series.

>The Ashuak Chronicles, follows the fortunes of the new Ashuak Imperial General, Sukaal Vekesh, appointed to the southern province, Sekesu. Sukaal has more than rebels to worry about, he has problems within his own ranks also...

When a ruthless ambassador is assassinated, Security Chief Garibaldi and Commander Susan Ivanova join the victim's enraged assistant Na'Toth in a search for the killer, only to find themselves the targets of a blood oath.

Lauded by fellow authors, a five star 'SFX recommends' title, adored by the bloggers, Mark Alder's debut novel of angels, demons, kings and the Hundred Years War marks the beginning of a hugely exciting new series.

Edward III stands in a burnt English church, destroyed in a French raid. A raid on his land, a raid on him. He is in debt and surrounded by doubters, only victory against France will save his throne.

But Philip of Valois can put 50,000 men in the field. He has sent his priests to summon the very angels themselves to fight for France. Edward could call on God for aid but he is a usurper. What if God truly is on the side of the French?

But for a price, Edward could open the gates of Hell and take an unholy war to France...

Mark Alder has brought the epic fantasy of George R.R. Martin to the vivid historical adventure of Bernard Cornwell and has a created a fantasy that will sweep you to a new vision of the Hundred Years War.

Following on from the success of Son of the Morning, which saw him compared to both Bernard Cornwell for the flair of his historical writing and to George RR Martin for his gripping plotting, Mark Alder takes his history of the 100 years war into France as the war between Heaven and Hell swallows up the ambitions of both the French and English crowns.

As the armies mass around Crecy the rivalries between Lucifer, Satan and God become ever deeper and more violent. Combining a cast of larger than life (yet real) characters and a truthful, deeply researched take on the religious beliefs of the time Mark Alder is embarked on a truly unique historical fantasy that will ensure you never see the 100 Years War and the history of medieval Europe in the same way again.

The story of Julie D'Aubigny is well known. Her tumultuous childhood, her powerful lovers, her celebrated voice. Connected to most of the nobility of 17th century Paris, feted for her performance, unwilling to live by the rules of her society, she took female lovers, fought duels with noblemen and fled from city to country and back again.

But now the real truth can be told. She also made a deal with the devil. He gave her no powers or help, but he kept her alive for only one reason. To take revenge...

The Blood Gorgons, a Chaos Space Marine warband, fight the threat from Nurgle-infected foes on the planet of Hauts Bassiq.

The Blood Gorgons Chaos Space Marines are called to one of their recruiting worlds as the populace is struck down by a plague of mutation. But the expeditionary force is decimated by a mysterious foe, and Sargaul is one of few survivors. The polluted world has become even more nightmarish than before, and Sargaul faces insurmountable odds if he is to save the savage planet.

Facing a hostile environment, shadowy xenos enemies and treachery from within his own forces, Sargaul must dig deep into his hatred and determination to leave Haute Bassiq alive.

Truebirth - born in the laboratory, these genetically engineered soldiers train to be the ultimate warriors. They are the elite pilots of the Clan's fearsome BattleMech war machines.

Freebirth - Born of the natural union of parents, these too are soldiers, but pale imitations of their truebirth superiors. Despised for their imperfections, they fight where and when the Clan commands.

Aiden has failed his Trial of Position, the ranking test all truebirth warriors of the Clan Jade Falcon must pass. He is cast out. Disgraced. His rightful Bloodname denied him.

But with a Bloodname, all past failures are forgiven. With a Bloodname comes respect, With a Bloodname comes honor.

Aiden will do anything to gain that name. Even masquerade as the thing he has been taught to despise.

A freebirth.

Melissa Steiner's assassination ignited the fires of civil war, and now secessionist factions clamor for rebellion against the Federal Commonwealth. The rebels' plans hinge on gaining control of Skye March, and thus controlling the crucial Terran Corridor. Throughout the March, civil and military leaders plot the take up arms against Prince Vector Steiner-Davion.

Attempting to settle an old blood feud, Jamie Wolf gathers the key leaders of the Inner Sphere for a meeting at this base on Outreach, hoping that their united forces can defeat an invasion by the technologically superior BattleMechs.

All is not well in Lamentable Moll. A sinister, diabolical killer stalks the port city's narrow, barrow-humped streets, and panic grips the citizens like a fever. Emancipor Reese is no exception, and indeed, with his legendary ill luck, it's worse for him than for most. Not only was his previous employer the unknown killer's latest victim, but Emancipor is out of work. And, with his dearest wife terminally comfortable with the manner of life to which she asserts she has become accustomed (or at least to which she aspires) -- for her and their two whelps -- all other terrors grow limp and pale for poor Emancipor. But perhaps his luck has finally changed, for two strangers have come to Lamentable Moll... and they have nailed to the centre post in Fishmonger's Round a note requesting the services of a manservant. This is surely a remarkable opportunity for the hapless Emancipor Reese... no matter that the note reeks with death-warded magic; no matter that the barrow ghosts themselves howl with fear every night; and certainly no matter that Lamentable Moll itself is about to erupt in a frenzy of terror-inspired anarchy....

Beka Cooper, the heroine of Terrier, is no longer a Puppy.

She's a Dog now-a full-fledged member of the Provost's Guard, dedicated to keeping peace in Tortall. But there's unrest throughout land. Counterfeit coins are turning up in shops all over the capital city of Corus, and the nation's economy is on the brink of collapse.

The Dogs discover that the counterfeit money seems to originate in Port Caynn. So Beka heads upriver to investigate, traveling with her mentor, Goodwin; Achoo, a hound whose nose is as sharp as her claws; and the pigeon Slapper, who carries the voices of the dead.

In Port Caynn, Beka delves deep into the gambling world, where she meets a charming banking clerk named Dale Rowan. Beka thinks she may be falling for Rowan, but she won't let anything-or anyone-jeopardize her mission. From the Silversmith's Guild to the Provost's House to the city sewers, it won't be enough for Beka to be her usual Terrier self. She'll have to learn from Achoo how to sniff out the criminals-to be a Bloodhound. . . .

In the year 1863, a primitive village is raided, the men killed, and the women and children captured. The survivors find themselves chained in the dark, filthy hold of a ship crossing the ocean to the New World, where they are sold into slavery. The powerful master of a vast Southern plantation purchases the 11-year-old Irish lad Aidan O'Dere. Yes, you read that right--in this alternate America, the South was colonized by black Africans, and the North by Vikings, who sell abducted Celts and Franks to the Southerners.

Through his brilliant inversion of our history, author Steven Barnes examines the complex evils of slavery in a new light with Lion's Blood, an intelligent and exciting novel of freedom and bondage, battle and intrigue, sex and love, set in an America threatened by total war as Aztecs, Zulus, Moors, and whites clash.

The Dark Kingdom is preparing itself for the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy the arrival of a new Queen, a Witch who will wield more power than even the High Lord of Hell himself. But this new ruler is young, and very susceptible to influence and corruption; whoever controls her controls the Darkness. And now, three sworn enemies begin a ruthless game of politics and intrigue, magic and betrayal...and the destiny of an entire world is at stake....

In the heart of the Great Forest, nothing is as it should be. Sir Vladisal and her Knights of Boska are lost and far from home. The son of their Duchess has been kidnapped, spirited away to a nameless place within these dark and endless woodlands. Vladisal is his only hope, but an evil has come to the Great Forest, an evil that is corrupting the trees with demons born from ancient magic.

If Vladisal is to save her Duchess' son, if he and the women of Boska are to live through the horrors of the Great Forest, then she must place her trust in Abildan the assassin. But Abildan hails from an age-old enemy, and she once served the very evil they all must fight to survive.

Madis Defranthea's brother presents her with a challenge. If she wants to join his gang, she and her team have to steal a magical belt that's locked to the waist of a bride, on her wedding night, in a fortified castle, on a rock in the middle of the sea.

Madis takes him up on it. But when she discovers just how much her brother didn't know, the job proves even more hazardous than she bargained for...

Featuring magic, automata, snobbery, small gods, large fish, a useful corpse and an unnervingly intelligent horse.

There are four sons of Lot at court and Sir Gaheris knows himself to be the least of them. Yet the charismatic and headstrong young knight Sir Lamorak looks up to him, despite more obvious choices, and when Lamorak catches his mother's eye, Gaheris knows there's trouble brewing. Soon he finds himself at the centre of family tensions, deceit and tragedy. Can he prevent the bloodshed that seems inevitable?

When Sir Thornto Jeness follows his chivalric hero, Lord Philippe Duranton, to war, he soon discovers that heroes are often better worshipped from afar. Betrayed, badly injured, left for dead, Sir Thornto is nursed back to half-life by Gritcham, a ghoul necromancer. Joining forces with Cross, a taciturn professional murderess, he returns to the war, determined to set the record straight.

Chivalry is a grim and gritty tale of revenge, with a cast of scheming nobles, brutal mercenaries, violent criminals and wielders of inhuman dark magic.

His voice was rich, a much loved baritone, as he handed his seven-year-old grandson a gun.

"It's time we had a talk, you and I. You won't remember it, but you need to know it, and one day, when it's time, I'll call it up in you. You'll know who you are, and what you're intended to do. You'll be a soldier, boy. Sealed to it. Life and limb, blood and bone. Not a soldier like others are, for it's not the kind of war most people fight on earth. But because we're not 'most people,' you and I, it will be far more important. The fate of the world will hinge upon it."

Now no longer that wide-eyed child, Gabe is fresh out of prison, a leather-clad biker answering Grandaddy's peremptory summons to, of all places, a cowboy bar in Northern Arizona. He is about to find out just how different he is from "most people"--and to meet the stranger with whom he will be sealed: life and limb, blood and bone, conscripted to fight an unholy war unlike any other.

For the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

When he does.

And Gabe, thrown into the unlikely company of a country-music-loving rodeo cowboy from West Texas, an ancient Celtic goddess of war, an African Orisha who sings volcanoes awake, a Chinese goddess of mercy, Nephilim, and Grigori, finds himself fighting a battle he was bred for, but wants no part of.

It's the End of Days, and Gabe and Remi--an ex-con biker and a Texas cowboy--have been conscripted to join the heavenly host in a battle against Lucifer's spec ops troops: demons who inhabit characters from fiction, history, myths, legends, and folklore.

But Gabe and Remi, still learning their roles, now must deal with one particular demon wearing the body of an infamous murderer: Jack the Ripper. Young women bearing the names of the murder victims killed during the Ripper's time are turning up dead, setting Gabe and Remi on a perilous path to save whoever they can, while also battling members of Lucifer's vanguard bent on killing them.

"What's the first thing you think of when I say 'angel'?" asked Mallory. Alice shrugged. "I don't know... guns?"

Alice isn't having the best of days - late for work, missed her bus, and now she's getting rained on - but it's about to get worse. The war between the angels and the Fallen is escalating and innocent civilians are getting caught in the cross-fire. If the balance is to be restored, the angels must act - or risk the Fallen taking control. Forever. That's where Alice comes in. Hunted by the Fallen and guided by Mallory - a disgraced angel with a drinking problem he doesn't want to - Alice will learn the truth about her own history... and why the angels want to send her to hell.

What do the Fallen want from her? How does Mallory know so much about her past? What is it the angels are hiding - and can she trust either side?

Blood and Feathers is Lou Morgan's electric debut.

"This is a war. The war. There is no stopping; no getting out. You're in this - just like the rest of us - to the end."

Driven out of hell and with nothing to lose, the Fallen wage open warfare against the angels on the streets. And they're winning.

As the balance tips towards the darkness, Alice - barely recovered from her own ordeal in hell and struggling to start over - once again finds herself in the eye of the storm. But with the chaos spreading and the Archangel Michael determined to destroy Lucifer whatever the cost, is the price simply too high? And what sacrifices will Alice and the angels have to make in order to pay it?

The Fallen will rise. Trust will be betrayed. And all hell breaks loose...

The last words Ash hears her mother say are, "When you fall in love, you will carve out your heart and throw it into the deepest ocean. You will be all in--blood and salt."

Determined to find her mother when she disappears, Ash follows her to Quivara, Kansas, the spiritual commune she escaped long ago. But something sinister and ancient waits among the rustling cornstalks of this village lost to time.

Her mother is nowhere to be found, but Ash is plagued by memories of her ancestor, Katia, which harken back to the town's history of unrequited love, murder, alchemy, and immortality. Charming traditions give way to a string of deaths. And Ash feels herself drawn to Dane, a mysterious, forbidden boy with secrets of his own.

As the community prepares for a ceremony five hundred years in the making, Ash fights to save her mother, her lover, and herself. She must discover the truth about Quivara before it's too late. Before she's all in--blood and salt.

Ash may have escaped the immortal-worshipping cult that killed her mother, but the love of her life is still under its thrall. Dane has been possessed by his diabolical ancestor Coronado, a man who's fabulously wealthy, dripping with fame, and the leader of Europe's most dangerous immortal network. Dane begs Ash to join him at Coronado's castle in Spain, and swears that his blood bond with Ash is stronger than Coronado's hold over him. Ash is desperate to help Dane vanquish Coronado without having to sacrifice herself to the darkness. But when you're all in, blood and salt, the only way to hold on to the light might just be by setting everything on fire.

On the streets of White Roaring, Arthie Casimir is a criminal mastermind and collector of secrets. Her prestigious tearoom transforms into an illegal bloodhouse by dark, catering to the vampires feared by society. But when her establishment is threatened, Arthie is forced to strike an unlikely deal with an alluring adversary to save it--and she can't do the job alone.

Calling on some of the city's most skilled outcasts, Arthie hatches a plan to infiltrate the dark and glittering vampire society known as the Athereum. But not everyone in her ragtag crew is on her side, and as the truth behind the heist unfolds, Arthie finds herself in the midst of a conspiracy that will threaten the world as she knows it.

A classic Warhammer 40,000 villain attacks! Fabius Bile plots to bring the Blood Angels low using their most precious artefact – the blood of the primarch Sanguinius himself.

The Blood Angels stand apart from the other Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes, descending from the skies on wings of flame. While they are renowned for their ten-thousand-year history of glorious battle and honourable deeds, these secretive Space Marines seek to hide the dark flaws at the core of their being – the Red Thirst and the Black Rage – from the rest of the Imperium. Do they fight any longer for the protection of mankind, or merely for their own salvation?

This Omnibus collects the first two Blood Angels novels, Deus Encarmine and Deus Sanguinius. In this two-book sequence, battle-brothers Rafen and Arkio find themselves pitted against each other in a battle for the very soul of the Blood Angels Chapter.

On the remote world of Cybele, the Adeptus Astartes of the Blood Angels Chapter fight a losing battle against the forces of Chaos. Battle-brother Arkio leads a counter-attack that has the enemy reeling, and there is talk that this is a holy sign. Is Arkio blessed by the spirit of Sanguinius, or is the turmoil for the Blood Angels just beginning?

Following the supposed resurrection of their legendary primarch Sanguinius, the Blood Angels are divided into factions that undermine the power of the force and could allow the enemies of all humankind to capitalize on the schism.

Following the tragic events that led the Blood Angels to the brink of civil war, the Chapter's strength has been badly depleted. The Blood Angels must act, and act quickly, before their enemies learn of their weakness and attack. With tempers flaring, and mutants running wild on their homeworld, can the Blood Angels and their successor Chapters put aside their rivalries and rebuild the Chapter before it is too late?

Having prevented the ferocious Bloodfiends from bringing disaster to their homeworld of Baal, the Blood Angles go in search of the renegade who almost destroyed them-Fabius Bile. Tracking the Chaos traitor down to his secret base on Dynikas V, a world beset by alien tyranids, the Blood Angels find horrors more terrible than even they can imagine. And with a sample of primarch's blood in his possession, the Blood Angels must discover what nefarious plot Fabius Bile is bent on.

GODS MEDDLE AND MAGIC WILL BETRAY YOU, BUT THIS TIME JUSTICE WILL REIGN.

Thirty years ago, a young woman was murdered, a family was lynched, and New Orleans saw the greatest magical massacre in its history. In the days that followed, a throne was stolen from a queen.

On the anniversary of these brutal events, Clement and Cristina Trudeau?the sixteen-year-old twin heirs to the powerful, magical, dethroned family?are mourning their father and caring for their sick mother. Until, by chance, they discover their mother isn't sick?she's cursed. Cursed by someone on the very magic council their family used to rule. Someone who will come for them next.

Cristina, once a talented and dedicated practitioner of Generational magic, has given up magic for good. An ancient spell is what killed their father and she was the one who cast it. For Clement, magic is his lifeline. A distraction from his anger and pain. Even better than the random guys he hooks up with.

Cristina and Clement used to be each other's most trusted confidant and friend, now they barely speak. But if they have any hope of discovering who is coming after their family, they'll have to find a way to trust each other and their family's magic, all while solving the decades-old murder that sparked the still-rising tensions between the city's magical and non-magical communities. And if they don't succeed, New Orleans may see another massacre. Or worse.

Cristina and Clement Trudeau have conjured the impossible: justice.

They took back their family's stolen throne to lead New Orleans' magical community into the brighter future they all deserve.

But when Cris and Clem restored their family power, Valentina Savant lost everything. Her beloved grandparents are gone and her sovereignty has been revoked?she will never be Queen. Unless, of course, someone dethrones the Trudeaus again. And lucky for her, she's not the only one trying to take them down.

Cris and Clem have enemies coming at them from all directions: Hateful anti-magic protesters sabotage their reign at every turn. A ruthless detective with a personal vendetta against magical crime is hot on their tail just as Cris has discovered her thirst for revenge. And a brutal god, hunting from the shadows, is summoned by the very power Clem needs to protect the boy he loves.

Cris's hunger for vengeance and Clem's desire for love could prove to be their family's downfall, all while new murders, shocking disappearances, and impossible alliances are changing the game forever.

Welcome back to New Orleans, where gods walk among us and justice isn't served, it's taken.

Five noble war heroes of Vagandrak get drunk one night and sign a contract – to journey to the Karamakkos in search of the Five Havens. There, it is written, there lies untold, abandoned wealth and, more importantly, the three Dragon Heads, legendary jewels claimed to give unspeakable power and everlasting life to those who wield them.

But the Dragon Heads aren't what the adventurers think they are, and the world has not encountered their like in many, many generations!

During a recent dwarf civil-war deep under the Karamakkos Mountains, the magick-enslaved dragonlords have broken free from centuries of imprisonment and slaughtered tens of thousands throughout the Five Havens before exploding from the mountain and heading in fire and vengeance for the lands of Vagandrak.

Two once-noble war heroes of Vagandrak -- Dakeroth and his wife Jonti Tal, an archer and scholar, the Axeman, the White Witch and a Kaalesh combat expert find themselves in a unique position: for they have discovered the ancient dragon city of Wyrmblood, and a thousand unhatched dragon eggs.

Dakeroth and his companions must work with their enemies, Skalg and the Church of Hate, in order to bring down the dragonlords and save the world of men and dwarves. But there is no bartering with these ancient dragons; for they seek to hatch their eggs and rebuild the cruel Wyrmblood Empire of legend.

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, #195. The story can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2017, edited by Rich Horton.

Read the full story for free at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

This novella is a sequel to "Blood Grains Speak Through Memories". It originally appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, #246, in March 2018.

Read the full story for free at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

In the Cyrilian Empire, Affinites are reviled. Their varied gifts to control the world around them are unnatural--dangerous. And Anastacya Mikhailov, the crown princess, has a terrifying secret. Her deadly Affinity to blood is her curse and the reason she has lived her life hidden behind palace walls.

When Ana's father, the emperor, is murdered, her world is shattered. Framed as his killer, Ana must flee the palace to save her life. And to clear her name, she must find her father's murderer on her own. But the Cyrilia beyond the palace walls is far different from the one she thought she knew. Corruption rules the land, and a greater conspiracy is at work--one that threatens the very balance of her world. And there is only one person corrupt enough to help Ana get to its core: Ramson Quicktongue.

A cunning crime lord of the Cyrilian underworld, Ramson has sinister plans--though he might have met his match in Ana. Because in this story, the princess might be the most dangerous player of all.

Ana Mikhailov is the only surviving member of the royal family of Cyrilia. She has no army, no title, and no allies, and now she must find a way to take back the throne or risk the brutal retribution of the empress. Morganya is determined to establish a new world order on the spilled blood of non-Affinites. Ana is certain that Morganya won't stop until she kills them all.

Ana's only chance at navigating the dangerous world of her homeland means partnering with Ramson Quicktongue again. But the cunning crime lord has schemes of his own. For Ana to find an army, they must cross the Whitewaves to the impenetrable stone forts of Bregon. Only, no one can be certain what they will find there.

>A dark power has risen. Will revolution bring peace--or will it only paint the streets in more blood.

The Red Tigress, Anastacya Mikhailov, has lost the gift, she has lost the gift she was only beginning to realize defined her. Stolen from her during the battle in Bregon, her blood Affinity rests with Sorsha Farrald, a dangerous Affinite who is on the run, headed staright to Cyrilia and to Ana's aunt... the Empress Morganya.

Though she is weakened, Ana's course remains true--yet her return to her homeland reveals a Cyrilia on the brink of collapse. Morganya's tyrannical rule has transformed into a sinister quest for unquestioned authority, and she has set her sights far beyond Cyrilia. Morganya seeks a legendary ancient power, rumored to have once belonged to the Deities themselves. If she can locate it, she can rule the world.

What's more, Ana's allies, the insurgent Affinite rebels known as the Redcloaks, no longer support her. For their allegiance is with the people--and there can be no equality with a monarchy.

Ana faces enemies at every turn, and every day without her Affinity brings her closer to death. Yet she is determined to liberate her people and vanquish the legacy of her own imperial bloodline--the inequality sewn into the fabric of her land. Her only hope lies in the navy she recruited in Bregon, the courage of her band of friends, and the cunning crime-lord-turned-captain she's fallen for.

If Ana loses this fight, it will be her last. And Morganya's reign of darkness with consume the world.

When San Francisco Homicide Inspector Garreth Mikaelian begins hunting a mysterious red-haired woman who appears involved in the murders of two out-of-town businessmen, he faces a killer unlike any he has investigated before. For unknown to him, Lane Barber is a vampire.

When Garreth comes too close, she attacks him and turns him into a vampire, too. Now, even as he struggles to cope with this devastating change in his life without betraying to others what he has become, he is back on Lane's trail... this time with a vengeance. But can he find her, and find a way to bring her to justice, before she decides to attack again, and this time finish him off?

Two years ago Garreth Mikaelian was turned into a vampire by the seductive Lane Barber. He tracked her to a small Kansas town and when she tried to kill him, killed her. He thought. But a call comes from his old partner in San Francisco that seems to indicate Lane is still alive. Garreth goes to San Francisco to find out. He determines that she *is* dead. But now someone is killing vampires and friends of vampires and trying to frame Garreth for it. Is it the vampire who created Lane? Or maybe his partner's new partner who seems to know Garreth is a vampire and hates him for it? And as Garreth searches for the true killer, is a suspense novelist researching a new book an ally or foe?

Garreth Mikaelian thought he destroyed Lane Barber, the woman who made him a vampire. But did he? When he returns to San Francisco to see, he is relieved to find she is dead. But someone is killing vampires and friends of vampires... and trying to frame Garreth for it. Is it another vampire who wants vengeance for Lane's death? Or a detective who appears to hate vampires and knows Garreth is one? He needs to find the killer before the frame traps him... or he becomes the killer's next victim.

In Lee Killough's Blood Games Vampire Garreth Mikaelian thought he had his existence all arranged. He is comfortably settled in a town where, his nature unknown to those around him, he works the night shift as a police officer. His blood comes in bottles. He has a routine and friends. But that peace is shattered when his fellow officer and sometime lover Maggie Lebekov is killed by a lethal trio playing ever escalating blood games.

Garreth finds himself racing to locate the suspects before other law enforcement officers do, to be sure they are captured alive. Because if they are not yet vampires, and the leader may already be a very old and powerful vampire, they have drunk vampire blood and if killed will rise again even more deadly.

After years of waiting for her Calling - a trial every witch must pass in order to come into their powers - the one thing Voya Thomas didn't expect was to fail. When Voya's ancestor gives her an unprecedented second chance to complete her Calling, she agrees - and then is horrified when her task is to kill her first love. And this time, failure means every Thomas witch will be stripped of their magic.

Voya is determined to save her family's magic no matter the cost. The problem is, Voya has never been in love, so for her to succeed, she'll first have to find the perfect guy - and fast. Fortunately, a genetic matchmaking program has just hit the market. Her plan is to join the program, fall in love, and complete her task before the deadline. What she doesn't count on is being paired with the infuriating Luc - how can she fall in love with a guy who seemingly wants nothing to do with her?

With mounting pressure from her family, Voya is caught between her morality and her duty to her bloodline. If she wants to save their heritage and Luc, she'll have to find something her ancestor wants more than blood. And in witchcraft, blood is everything.

Voya Thomas may have passed her Calling to become a full-fledged witch, but the cost was higher than she'd ever imagined.

Her grandmother is gone.

Her cousin hates her.

And her family doesn't believe that she has what it takes to lead them.

What's more, Voya can't let go of her feelings for Luc, sponsor son of the genius billionaire Justin Tremblay--the man that Luc believes Voya killed. Consequently, Luc wants nothing to do with her. Even her own ancestors seem to have lost faith in her. Every day Voya begs for their guidance, but her calls go unanswered.

As Voya struggles to convince everyone--herself included--that she can be a good Matriarch, she has a vision of a terrifying, deadly future. A vision that would spell the end of the Toronto witches. With a newfound sense of purpose, Voya must do whatever it takes to bring her shattered community together and stop what's coming for them before it's too late.

Even if it means taking down the boy she loves--who might be the mastermind behind the coming devastation.

After the earth's power under her city is suddenly left unprotected, a young geomancer must rely on her unique magic to survive in this fresh fantasy standalone from the author of the acclaimed The Clockwork Dagger.

In an alternate 1906, the United States and Japan have forged a powerful confederation-- the Unified Pacific--in an attempt to dominate the world. Their first target is a vulnerable China. In San Francisco, headstrong secretary Ingrid Carmichael is assisting a group of powerful geomancer wardens who have no idea of the depth of her own talent--or that she is the only woman to possess such skills.

When assassins kill the wardens, Ingrid and her mentor are protected by her incredible magic. But the pair is far from safe. Without its full force of guardian geomancers, the city is on the brink of a cataclysmic earthquake that will expose the earth's power to masterminds determined to control the energy for their own dark ends. The danger escalates when Chinese refugees, preparing to fight the encroaching American and Japanese forces, fracture the uneasy alliance between the Pacific allies, transforming San Francisco into a veritable powder keg. And the slightest tremor will set it off....

Forced on the run, Ingrid makes some shocking discoveries about herself. Her already considerable magic has grown even more fearsome... and she may be the fulcrum on which the balance of world power rests.

A resourceful young heroine must protect the world from her enemies--and her own power--in this thrilling sequel to the acclaimed Breath of Earth, an imaginative blend of alternative history, fantasy, science, magic, and adventure.

When an earthquake devastates San Francisco in an alternate 1906, the influx of geomantic energy nearly consumes Ingrid Carmichael. Bruised but alive, the young geomancer flees the city with her friends, Cy, Lee, and Fenris. She is desperate to escape Ambassador Blum, the cunning and dangerous bureaucrat who wants to use Ingrid's formidable powers to help the Unified Pacific--the confederation of the United States and Japan--achieve world domination. To stop them, Ingrid must learn more about the god-like magic she inherited from her estranged father--the man who set off the quake that obliterated San Francisco.

When Lee and Fenris are kidnapped in Portland, Ingrid and Cy are forced to ally themselves with another ambassador from the Unified Pacific: the powerful and mysterious Theodore Roosevelt. But even TR's influence may not be enough to save them when they reach Seattle, where the magnificent peak of Mount Rainier looms. Discovering more about herself and her abilities, Ingrid is all too aware that she may prove to be the fuse to light the long-dormant volcano... and a war that will sweep the world.

In this stunning conclusion to the acclaimed Blood of Earth trilogy--a thrilling alternate history laced with earth magic, fantastic creatures, and steampunk elements--geomancer Ingrid must find a way to use her extraordinary abilities to save her world from the woman hell-bent on destroying it.

Thanks to her geomantic magic, Ingrid has successfully eluded Ambassador Blum, the power-hungry kitsune who seeks to achieve world domination for the United Pacific. But using her abilities has taken its toll: Ingrid's body has been left severely weakened, and she must remain on the run with her friends Cy and Fenris.

Hoping to learn more about her magical roots and the strength her bloodline carries, Ingrid makes her way across the Pacific to Hawaii, home to the ancient volcano goddess Madam Pele. What she discovers in this paradise is not at all what she expects--and perhaps exactly what she needs.

But Ambassador Blum comes from the same world of old magic and mythic power. And if Ingrid cannot defeat her once and for all, she knows Blum will use that power to take the lives of everyone she holds dear before escalating a war that will rip the world to pieces.

Thomas Chinnery is a young assistant to a Master Apothecary of England, 1597, entrusted by his master with a perilous journey into the Portuguese--controlled waters of East Africa and India. But the captain of the ship on which Chinnery sails has piracy on his mind, rather than trade. And when they attack a small, rich ship fleeing the city of Goa, Thomas Chinnery is set on the path that will lead him through his darkest nightmares into the dungeons of the Inquisition and thence to the heart of ancient India.

Thomas, a young English apothecary's apprentice, has been sent to collect rare herbs in Africa and India. But during the perilous voyage he meets an alchemist who has possession of a mysterious powder - a powder that can restore life to the dead. Thomas determines to discover its source, though the peril to his life and his soul are great.

A young English apothecary's apprentice, sent to collect rare herbs in Africa and India, is shipwrecked off a Portuguese colony and captured by forces of the Inquisition. He saves his life (temporarily, at least) by pretending to know the source of a mysterious powder that can restore life to the dead.

A compelling dystopian novel; winner of the 2010 New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards: Young Adult Fiction.

Maryam refused to play by the Rules, and now they're out to get her blood...

The people of Onewere, a small island in the Pacific, know that they are special-chosen by the great Apostles of the Lamb to survive the deadly Tribulation that consumed the Earth. Now, from their Holy City in the rotting cruise ship Star of the Sea, the Apostles control the population-manipulating texts from the Holy Book to implant themselves as living gods. But what the people of Onewere don't know is this: the white elite will stop at nothing to meet their own blood-thirsty needs...

When Maryam crosses from child to woman, she must leave everything she has ever known and make a Crossing of another kind. But life inside the Holy City is not as she had dreamed, and she is faced with the unthinkable: obey the Apostles and very likely die, or turn her back on every belief she once held dear.

This book is a fast, suspenseful drama underpinned by a powerful and moving story about love and loss.

Award-caliber social science fiction with a strong message about race and the abuse of religious faith by those in power.

Maryam, Ruth, and Joseph have fled Onewere, reluctantly taking Joseph's troublesome cousin, Lazarus, as well. They arrive at their destination, Marawa Island, filled with hope for rescue and reprieve. But at first glance the island appears to be solely populated by birds. Perhaps the Apostles' dire warnings about the fall-out of the Tribulation were true after all?

As Maryam and Joseph experience all the topsy-turvy misunderstandings and sexual tension first love entails, the antagonism between Maryam and Lazarus reaches explosive proportions. But when disaster brings the crushing realization that time is now against them, all four must decide just who they can risk turning to for help.

A futuristic novel for young adults, The Blood of the Lamb trilogy is, at its heart, political - a reflection on the way a few very powerful (mostly white) men hold the balance of power all around the world and maintain it through intimidation, incarceration, and fear.

When Maryam arrives back at Onewere and tries to loosen the Apostles' religious stranglehold by sharing the miraculous remedy for Te Matee lai, she finds herself captured once again - prey to the Apostles' deadly game. The ruling elite manipulate her return by setting in motion a highly orchestrated ritual before a hysterical and brain-washed crowd. Somehow Maryam must get the islanders to listen to her plea that they start thinking for themselves - hoping to stir the independence in their hearts, even as she finds herself on the brink of death.

Grinsa, who nearly single-handedly won the war of the Forelands, has been banished because he is a Weaver, a Qirsi who can wield many magics. He and his family seek only peace and a place to settle down. But even on the distant southern continent, they can't escape the tension between his magical folk and the non-magical Eandi. Instead of peace, they find a war-ravaged land awash in racial tension and clan conflicts. Worse yet, his own people try to harness his great power and destroy his family.

Amid the high tension of clan rivalry comes a plague that preys on Qirsi power across the Southlands with deadly results. When the disease is linked to an itinerant woman peddling baskets, one old man takes it upon himself to find answers in the secrets of her veiled past.

With wonderfully creative magic, dark secrets, and engaging characters faced with a world of trouble, Coe deftly weaves an epic tapestry that launches a richly-entertaining new saga in an unknown land.

David B. Coe created a richly textured, unique world in his Winds of the Forelands, and topped himself with The Sorcerer's Plague, his first novel set in the Southlands of the same world. Divided by clan rivalries and ancient feuds, suspicious of magics wielded by longtime enemies, the folk of the South have lived in a state of truce for generations. But peace is shattered when a woman looses a deadly plague on the magical Qirsi people.

While some people seek to prevent the spread of the plague, others see in this disaster a unique opportunity. With the magical folk weakened by the decimation of the plague, their unmagical enemies might be able to defeat them and take back lands lost in an ancient war. Haunted by the specter of what would be a tragic and devastating new war, the Southlands are aflame with rumors of violence, pestilence, and treachery.

Coe weaves together engagingly complex characters, unique, unusual magic, political intrigue and a compelling, unpredictable story into a captivating epic that will enthrall fantasy readers. A potent brew conjured by a masterful storyteller.

A bitter old woman's curse has set in motion events that have felled innocent lives across an already war-weary land. She has paid the ultimate price, and an end to the curse is at hand, but her evil has created chaos and destruction.

Qirsi all across the Southlands are dying from a plague that turns their own magic against them, allowing an Eandi army from Stelpana to boldly march into their territory. But magic has many faces, and the Qirsi aren't the only ones cursed; even as Stelpana's force wins battles, an insidious magic has corrupted the spells of their sorcerers, and what began as a military triumph is suddenly jeopardized. The future of the Southlands hangs in the balance, as the deeds of previous generations wreak terrible consequences on both sides in this misbegotten war.

Drawn to the ominous house of Scarabae by the promise of passion, Rachaela soon finds herself a prisoner of her own desire, seduced into a dark and dangerous existence by a lover who bears her family name.

Emerging from the burned remains of her old home, the ancient, elegant Scarabae ready themselves for a new life of seduction and feasting, until little Ruth ignites a blaze of chaos through the streets of London that threatens them all.

A new tale of horror featuring the mysterious vampiric family of Scarabae follows Anna, a family member, as she and twenty other children are kidnapped and taken to a pyramid under the southern ice by an immortal named Cain.

This is what they deserve. They wanted me to be a monster. I will be the worst monster they ever created.

Fifteen-year-old Sloane can incinerate an enemy at will--she is a Scion, a descendant of the ancient Orisha gods.

Under the Lucis' brutal rule, her identity means her death if her powers are discovered. But when she is forcibly conscripted into the Lucis army on her fifteenth birthday, Sloane sees a new opportunity: to overcome the bloody challenges of Lucis training, and destroy them from within.

Sloane rises through the ranks and gains strength but, in doing so, risks something greater: losing herself entirely, and becoming the very monster that she ahbors.

For Marion and Roland, a casual holiday in Cornwall begins to take on the proportions of a nightmare when they meet the gaunt, reclusive Keith Sharwood.

Marion's growing and half-unwilling involvement with Keith leads to a chain of macabre events--a mutilated dog half-buried in sand dunes, a compelling telepathic call at the dead of night, a golden statue with the power to obsess, and an insane and bloody murder that finally brings Marion face to face with the power of an Assyrian demon, four thousand years old.

The white, ghastly face staring from the garden was unmistakably Sarah Bailey's. And Sarah had been killed a month ago.

When Keith Sharwood tried to exorcise what he believed to be a ghost he found himself up against the one thing in the world of the supernatural that could truly terrify him -- for Sarah carried the mark of the vampire.

Keith knew what it was to be cursed with the mark, and he had been desperately trying to forget the nightmare of his own experiences. But now it seemed that his only hope of destroying the power that had brought Sarah back from the dead was to fight fire with fire.

1918. A First World War battlefield becomes the cosmic battleground for two vampires, as Karl von Wultendorf struggles to free himself from his domineering maker, Kristian.

1923. Charlotte Neville watches as her father, a Cambridge professor, fills Parkland Hall with guests for her sister Madeleine's 18th birthday party. Among them is his handsome new research assistant Karl - the man Madeleine has instantly decided will be her husband. Charlotte, shy and retiring, is happy to devote her life to her father and her dull fiance Henry - until she sees Karl...

For Charlotte, it is the beginning of a deadly obsession that sunders her from her sisters, her father and even her dearest friend. As their feverish passion grows, Karl faces the dilemma he fears the most. Only by deserting Charlotte can his passion for her blood be conquered. Only by betraying her can he protect her from the terrifying attentions of Kristian - for Kristian has decided to teach Karl a lesson in power, by devouring Charlotte.

For the love of her vampire suitor, Karl, Charlotte has forsaken her human life. Now her only contact with people is when she hunts them down to feed. Her thirst for blood repulses her but its fulfilment brings ecstasy. The one light in the shadows is the passion that burns between her and Karl. A love that it seems will last for eternity - until Karl's former lover, the seductively beautiful Katerina, is rescued from the Crystal Ring. For nearly fifty years she has lain, as dead, in the icy depths of the Weisskalt. Now she wants to reclaim her life... and Karl. In despair, Charlotte turns to the prima ballerina Violette Lenoir, an ice maiden who only thaws when she dances. Charlotte is fascinated as she has been by no other human, longing to bring joy to the dancer. But her obsession opens the floodgates to a far darker threat than the vampires could ever have imagined. For Violette is more than human and if she succumbs to the vampire's kiss it could unleash a new terror.

The ballerina Violette Lenoir has fallen victim to the bite of the vampire Charlotte. Her fire and energy have fuelled a terrifying change and a dreadful realisation; that Violette has become Lilith, the demon mother of all vampires. Haunted by Violette's dark sensuality, Charlotte and her immortal lover Karl are drawn towards the dancer and the terrible destiny that has fallen on her shoulders.But other, far more dangerous shadows are gathering around Violette. She poses a threat to the vampire Sebastian and the heirs of Kristian, and their plans to bring all of mankind under their dark wings.

1927: In the turmoil and glamour of 1920s Europe, vampires Karl, Charlotte and Violette face threats to their very existence. Fiery, handsome dancer Emil achieves his dream to partner the legendary ballerina Violette Lenoir – until his forbidden desire for her becomes an obsession. Rejected, spiralling towards madness, he seeks solace with a mysterious beauty, Leyla. But she too is a vampire, with a hidden agenda.

Is Leyla more dangerous than the sinister activist, Goderich Mann? When Karl and Charlotte undertake an exotic, perilous journey to rescue Emil, they unearth secrets that threaten disaster for vampire-kind.

Saya Otonoshi is a high shcool student suffering from amneisa. Saya can't remember anything from her life beyond the last year. Living with a foster family outside a military base in Okinawa, Japan, Saya's attempts to live a normal life are shattered when a Chiropteran, a horrific vampire-like monster, attacks her. Saved at the last minute by a mysterious man named Hagi, Saya is presented with a sword that awakens in her a warrior's skills and bloodlust, and sets her on a course that will lead her to the answers of her missing memories, and into battle against a race of creatures intent on destroying the world.

The epic adventure that began in the groundbreaking film Blood: The Last Vampire and continued through the worldwide phenomenon TV series Blood+ is brought to life in this all-new series of novels adapting the hit show. Saya's journey of horror, magic, romance and mystery will stretch across time and around the world, expanding on the television series with new characters, new adventures, and breathtaking action.

Following the traces of Diva, the leader of the Chiroptera, Saya and her group make their way to Russia. But awaiting their arrival is Diva's powerful protector Chiroptera, "The Chevalier." In the middle of the battle against this new threat, Saya is told a horrible truth -- "It is because you are one of us." Is Saya a human, or something more sinister...?

The monsters are winning. Saya Otonashi thought she could battle against the chiropterans, defeat the undead monsters, and avenge the life of her adoptive father. But the creatures, led by Saya's twin sister Diva, have struck a fatal blow: their attack on Saya's adopted brother Riku has left him infected with the vampiric curse and destined to transform into a chevalier, a half-human abomination with an unquenchable bloodlust. Saya finds herself drawn to the papers of nineteenth-century explorer Joel Goldshmidt, and his long-forgotten journal. As Saya reads Joel's diary she learns more about her past of murder and horror, the perverse origins of the Red Shield organization, and the grotesque destiny she and Diva share.

In her attempts to stop Diva's plan of turning all of mankind into Chiropterans, Saya makes her way to the United States. Despite her forced rest, the time for action draws near. Meanwhile, Diva, carrying Riku's children, makes preparations for the birth of the queens of the next generation! With the fate of humanity resting with the two queens, who will rise and who will fall in the final showdown?! And what of the "promise" Saya made with Haji?

In downtown Manhattan, a rising young painter is haunted by disturbing dreams...In small-town Minnesota, a teenage orphan struggles with a knowledge beyond his years-and a destiny he wants no part of... In California, young and old, hipsters and hippies, fall under the spell of a wildly charismatic singer whose voice breaks down all barriers-including the ones between heaven and hell.

The fans of Asha are finding one other-and the world is running out of time.

Jess is a beautiful young artist whose prophetic dreams led her to Ramsey, a young teenage boy with an angel trapped inside him. Together, they stopped a demon intent on bringing about the apocalypse - but a gate was opened, and more demons have made their way into the world.

The demons need to inhabit human bodies to survive, and this makes them vulnerable. Ramsey and Jess travel from town to town to find and slay the demon hybrids. Ramsey thing that in time they can kill every demon that made it through the gate, but Jess knows it's not that simple.

The hybrids are preparing for the arrival of the one who will lead them - the one known as Soulbreaker, the Lord of Bones. The gate is still open... and he is coming.

Of all those in the King of Alden's retinue, the bloodbinders are the most prized. The magic they wield can forge invaluable weapons, ones that make soldiers like Lady Alix Black unerringly lethal. However, the bloodbinders' powers can do so much more--and so much worse...

A cunning and impetuous scout, Alix only wishes to serve quietly on the edges of the action. But when the king is betrayed by his own brother and left to die at the hands of attacking Oridian forces, she winds up single-handedly saving her sovereign.

Suddenly, she is head of the king's personal guard, an honor made all the more dubious by the king's exile from his own court. Surrounded by enemies, Alix must help him reclaim his crown, all the while attempting to repel the relentless tide of invaders led by the Priest, most feared of Oridia's lords.

But while Alix's king commands her duty, both he and a fellow scout lay claim to her heart. And when the time comes, she may need to choose between the two men who need her most...

The epic saga that started in The Bloodbound continues...

As war between Alden and Oridia intensifies, King Erik must defend his kingdom from treachery and enemies on all sides--but the greatest danger lurks closer to home...

When the war began, Lady Alix Black played a minor role, scouting at the edge of the king's retinue in relative anonymity. Though she's once again facing an attacking Oridian force determined to destroy all she holds dear, she is now bodyguard to the king and wife to the prince.

Still, she is unprepared for what the revival of the war will mean. Erik is willing to take drastic measures to defend his domain, even if it means sending Prince Liam into a deadly web of intrigue and traveling into the perilous wild lands of Harram himself.

Only the biggest threat to the kingdom might be one that neither Alix nor Erik could have imagined, or prepared for...

The bonds of family, love, and loyalty are pushed to their limits in this thrilling conclusion to the epic saga started in The Bloodbound...

As the war between Alden and Oridia draws to an end, the fates of both kingdoms rest on the actions of a select group of individuals--and, of course, on the unbreakable bonds of blood...

Unbeknownst to most of Alden, King Erik, in thrall to a cruel bloodbinder, is locked away in his own palace, plotting revenge. To save her king, Lady Alix must journey behind enemy lines to destroy the bloodbinder. But her quest will demand sacrifices that may be more than she can bear.

Meanwhile, as the Warlord of Oridia tightens his grip on Alden, the men Alix loves face equally deadly tasks: Her husband, Liam, must run a country at war while her brother, Rig, fights a losing battle on the front lines. If either of them fails, Alden could be lost--and even if they succeed, their efforts may be too late to save everyone Alix holds dear...

Then she opened her mouth to scream-and recognised me. It was what I'd been waiting for. She froze. She looked into my eyes. She said, "It's you."

Meet Jake. A bit on the elderly side (he turns 201 in March), but you'd never suspect it. Nonstop sex and exercise will do that for you-and a diet with lots of animal protein. Jake is a werewolf, and after the unfortunate and violent death of his one contemporary, he is now the last of his species. Although he is physically healthy, Jake is deeply distraught and lonely.

Jake's depression has carried him to the point where he is actually contemplating suicide-even if it means terminating a legend thousands of years old. It would seem to be easy enough for him to end everything. But for very different reasons there are two dangerous groups pursuing him who will stop at nothing to keep him alive.

Here is a powerful, definitive new version of the werewolf legend-mesmerising and incredibly sexy. In Jake, Glen Duncan has given us a werewolf for the twenty-first century-a man whose deeds can only be described as monstrous but who is in some magical way deeply human.

One of the most original, audacious, and terrifying novels in years.

Talulla Demetriou is the last living werewolf. And she is pregnant. Pursued by enemies and racked by the need to kill, she flees to a remote Alaskan hunting lodge to have her child in secret. There, with her infant son in her arms, it looks as if the worst is over. Until the door bursts open - and she discovers that the worst is only just beginning ...Talulla is plunged into a race against time to save her son. Tormented by guilt and fuelled by rage, she is pursued by deadly forces - including (rumour has it) the oldest living vampire on earth. Hopeless odds. Unless, of course, a mother's love for her child turns out to be the deadliest force of all.

By Blood We Live: a stunningly erotic love story that gives us the final battle for survival between werewolves and vampires, and one last searing--and brilliantly ironic--look at what it means to be, or not to be, human.

The story opens: Talulla has settled into an uneasy equilibrium. With her twins safely at her side, and the devotion of her lover, Walker, she has what appears to be a normal family life--except for their monthly transformation into werewolves hungry for human flesh. But even this hard-won, tenuous peace is undermined for Talulla by nagging thoughts of Remshi, the twenty-thousand-year-old vampire who haunts her dreams. For his part, Remshi can't escape the feeling that he knows Talulla from many (many, many) years before. Still, they have their distractions: Talulla is being pursued by a fanatical, Vatican-based Christian cult, and Remshi is following a trail of reckless feedings by a newly turned vampire bent on revenge. But, as the novel unfolds, Talulla and Remshi are inexorably drawn to each other--and toward the moment when an ancient prophecy may finally come to pass.

The evil wizard Nidhug rules, but a cry of rebellion is still remembered: the cry of Bloodsong, the woman warrior who once fought her way to freedom. Hers is the dream of thousands doomed to slavery and unspeakable torture in the deathless lord's terrible fortress.

Now, her cry is heard again, as Bloodsong returns, riding a Hel-horse, from the grim halls of Death itself. She wields such magic as few mortals possess. On her hand is the skull ring of the Death Goddess, Hel. At her side are a few good friends... faithful and daring companions willing to follow Bloodsong into the very bowels of the evil stronghold, capture the powerful War Skull of Hel, and destroy Nidhug's might forever.

They were the Death Riders, the remains of once-proud heroes and Hel's greatest warriors. The very touch of their black-hilted swords or rotted flesh brought instant death and even the sight of their mail-clad corpses chilled the hearts of the bravest warriors.

Now, the warrior woman Bloodsong must face these ghoulish emissaries of Evil in a battle to the death, for the forces of Hel have kidnapped her daughter, and are determined to awaken the dark magic buried in her soul. From the mystical island of the Berserkers to wise Freya's domain, Bloodsong and her companions must prepare for the ultimate battle, honing their swords to lethal rediness, waiting for the onslaught to come.

Bloodsong faces the greatest enemy she has ever known -- her own son, Lokith, the demon of Helheim. Once destroyed by his mother, now Lokith is back with a vengeance, allied with the Death Goddess Hel and supported by a vast army of her fearsome Death Riders. Armed with only her sharpened sword and the dark-beast powers that are her heritage, Bloodsong must face her son's blind fury and battle the foul forces of Hel as she searches for an ancient long-departed army that may be her -- and the Earth's -- only hope.

Many tales are told of the Syldoon Empire and its fearsome soldiers, who are known throughout the world for their treachery and atrocities. Some say that the Syldoon eat virgins and babies--or perhaps their own mothers. Arkamondos, a bookish young scribe, suspects that the Syldoon's dire reputation may have grown in the retelling, but he's about to find out for himself.

Hired to chronicle the exploits of a band of rugged Syldoon warriors, Arki finds himself both frightened and fascinated by the men's enigmatic leader, Captain Braylar Killcoin. A secretive, mercurial figure haunted by the memories of those he's killed with his deadly flail, Braylar has already disposed of at least one impertinent scribe... and Arki might be next.

Archiving the mundane doings of millers and merchants was tedious, but at least it was safe. As Arki heads off on a mysterious mission into parts unknown, in the company of the coarse, bloody-minded Syldoon, he is promised a chance to finally record an historic adventure well worth the telling, but first he must survive the experience!

A gripping military fantasy in the tradition of Glen Cook, Scourge of the Betrayer explores the brutal politics of Empire--and the searing impact of violence and dark magic on a man's soul.

Braylar is still poisoned by the memories of those slain by his unholy flail Bloodsounder, and attempts to counter this sickness have proven ineffectual. The Syldoonian Emperor, Cynead, has solidified his power in unprecedented ways, and Braylar and company are recalled to the capital to swear fealty. Braylar must decide if he can trust his sister, Soffjian, with the secret that is killing him. She has powerful memory magics that might be able to save him from Bloodsounder's effects, but she has political allegiances that are not his own. Arki and others in the company try to get Soffjian and Braylar to trust one another, but politics in the capital prove to be complicated and dangerous. Deposed emperor Thumarr plots to remove the repressive Cynead, and Braylar and Soffjian are at the heart of his plans. The distance between "favored shadow agent of the emperor" and "exiled traitor" is unsurprisingly small. But it is filled with blind twists and unexpected turns. Before the journey is over, Arki will chronicle the true intentions of Emperor Cynead and Soffjian.

Men are more easily broken than myths.

Emperor Cynead has usurped command of the Memoridons--Tower-controlled memory witches--and consolidated his reign over the Syldoonian Empire. After escaping the capital city of Sunwrack, Captain Braylar Killcoin and his Jackal company evade pursuit across Urglovia, tasked with reaching deposed emperor Thumarr and helping him recapture the throne. Braylar's sister, Soffjian, rejoins the Jackals and reveals that Commander Darzaak promised her freedom if she agreed to aid them in breaking Cynead's grip on the other Memoridons and ousting him.

Imperial forces attempt to intercept Braylar's company before they can reach Thumarr. The Jackals fight through Cynead's battalions but find themselves trapped along the Godveil. Outmaneuvered and outnumbered, Braylar gambles on some obscure passages that Arki has translated and uses his cursed flail, Bloodsounder, to part the Godveil, leading the Jackals to the other side. There, they encounter the ruins of human civilization, but they also learn that the Deserters who abandoned humanity a millennium ago and created the Veil in their wake are still very much alive. But are they gods? Demons? Monsters?

What Braylar, Soffjian, Arki, and the Jackals discover beyond the Godveil will shake an empire, reshape a map, and irrevocably alter the course of history.

London is in ruins, a once highly advanced city now a gated wasteland. Within its walls, a bloody war rages between two clans. Hope is sparse, but the people believe the gods have risen from the dead.

Odin himself has come to play a part in the lives of two twins, a brother and sister from the Volson clan. Siggy and Signy must come to grips with their destiny as London's future teeters on the edge of a knife....

Fifteen-year-old Sigurd, son of King Sigmund, is the last surviving member of the Volson clan. His father's kingdom -- the former city of London -- is gone. And his father's knife, a gift from Odin himself, has been shattered to dust.

Now, Odin's eye is upon him. Armed with a powerful sword forged from the remnants of his father's knife, Sigurd will face death, fire, and torment. He must travel through Hel and back... to unite his country once again.

Police officer Donal Riordan, killed and brought back to life with the heart of his undead lover beating in his chest, is getting used to a bizarre and frightening new existence. As one of the undead the living citizens of Tristopolis distrust and fear him. But death has its advantages. He can sense the presence, the thoughts the feelings of his fellow zombies, he is tireless, he can see better, hear more acutely.

But none of this will necessarily save him as he begins to investigate who is behind a plot to ensorcel the entire population of Tristopolis. The plot goes right to the top and anyway who gets in the way will be killed again.

And all the time the members of the Unity party are stoking the fires of hatred towards the undead.

This short story originally appeared in the collection Clive Barker's Books of Blood: Volume I. It can also be found in the anthology Night Screams, edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg.

It (together with the very short story The Book of Blood (a postscript): On Jerusalem Street from Clive Barker's Books of Blood, Volume VI) was the basis for the 2009 movie Book of Blood.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Ramsey Campbell
• The Book of Blood - (1984) - short story by Clive Barker
• The Midnight Meat Train - novelette by Clive Barker
• The Yattering and Jack - novelette by Clive Barker
• Pig Blood Blues - novelette by Clive Barker
• Sex, Death and Starshine - novelette by Clive Barker
• In the Hills, the Cities - novelette by Clive Barker

Table of Contents:

• Dread - novelette by Clive Barker
• Hell's Event - novelette by Clive Barker
• Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament - novelette by Clive Barker
• The Skins of the Fathers - novelette by Clive Barker
• New Murders in the Rue Morgue - novelette by Clive Barker

Table of Contents:

• Son of Celluloid - novelette by Clive Barker
• Rawhead Rex - (1984) - novelette by Clive Barker
• Confession of a (Pornographer's) Shroud - (1984) - novelette by Clive Barker
• Scape-Goats - (1984) - novelette by Clive Barker
• Human Remains - (1984) - novelette by Clive Barker

Table of Contents:

• The Body Politic - novelette by Clive Barker
• The Inhuman Condition - (1985) - novelette by Clive Barker
• Revelations - novella by Clive Barker
• Down, Satan! - short story by Clive Barker
• The Age of Desire - novella by Clive Barker

Table of Contents:

• The Forbidden - novelette by Clive Barker
• The Madonna - novelette by Clive Barker
• Babel's Children - novelette by Clive Barker
• In the Flesh - novella by Clive Barker

Table of Contents:

• The Life of Death - novelette by Clive Barker
• How Spoilers Bleed - novelette by Clive Barker
• Twilight at the Towers - novelette by Clive Barker
• The Last Illusion - novella by Clive Barker
• The Book of Blood (a postscript): On Jerusalem Street - short story by Clive Barker

With the 1984 publication of Books of Blood, Clive Barker became an overnight literary sensation. He was hailed by Stephen King as "the future of horror," and won both the British and World Fantasy Awards. Now, with his numerous bestsellers, graphic novels, and hit movies like the Hellraiser films, Clive Barker has become an industry unto himself. But it all started here, with this tour de force collection that rivals the dark masterpieces of Edgar Allan Poe. Read him. And rediscover the true meaning of fear.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (Books of Blood) - (1984) - essay by Ramsey Campbell
• Books of Blood, Volume I - [Books of Blood - 1] - (1984) - collection
• The Book of Blood - (1984) - short story
• The Midnight Meat Train - (1984) - novelette
• The Yattering and Jack - (1984) - novelette
• Pig Blood Blues - (1984) - novelette
• Sex, Death and Starshine - (1984) - novelette
• In the Hills, the Cities - (1984) - novelette
• Books of Blood, Volume II - [Books of Blood - 2] - (1984) - collection
• Dread - (1984) - novelette
• Hell's Event - (1984) - novelette
• Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament - (1984) - novelette
• The Skins of the Fathers - (1984) - novelette
• New Murders in the Rue Morgue - (1984) - novelette
• Books of Blood, Volume III - [Books of Blood - 3] - (1984) - collection
• Son of Celluloid - (1984) - novelette
• Rawhead Rex - (1984) - novelette
• Confession of a (Pornographer's) Shroud - (1984) - novelette
• Scape-Goats - (1984) - novelette
• Human Remains - (1984) - novelette

Here are the stories written on the Book of Blood. They are a map of that dark highway that leads out of life towards unknown destinations. Few will have to take it. Most will go peacefully along lamplit streets, ushered out of living with prayers and caresses. But for a few, the horrors will come, skipping, to fetch them off to the highway of the damned...

From the brilliant World Fantasy Award winner Clive Barker come fourteen spine-chilling stories of darkness unleashed, gathered together in one volume for the first time. These are visionary tales of terror which will curdle the very marrow in your bones...

Table of Contents:

• Books of Blood, Volume IV - [Books of Blood - 4] - (1985) - collection
• 1 - The Body Politic - (1985) - novelette
• 34 - The Inhuman Condition - (1985) - novelette
• 68 - Revelations - (1985) - novella
• 108 - Down, Satan! - (1985) - short story
• 113 - The Age of Desire - (1985) - novella
• Books of Blood, Volume V - [Books of Blood - 5] - (1985) - collection
• 1 - The Forbidden - (1985) - novelette
• 38 - The Madonna - (1985) - novelette
• 76 - Babel's Children - (1985) - novelette
• 103 - In the Flesh - (1985) - novella
• Books of Blood, Volume VI - [Books of Blood - 6] - (1985) - collection
• 1 - The Life of Death - (1985) - novelette
• 35 - How Spoilers Bleed - (1985) - novelette
• 66 - Twilight at the Towers - (1985) - novelette
• 97 - The Last Illusion - (1985) - novella
• 149 - The Book of Blood (a postscript): On Jerusalem Street - (1985) - short story

Christopher Fowler's acclaimed Peculiar Crimes Unit novels crackle with sly wit, lively suspense, and twists as chilling as London's fog. Now the indomitable duo of Arthur Bryant and John May, along with the rest of their quirky team, return to solve a confounding case with dark ties to the British theater and a killer who may mean curtains for all involved.

For the crew of the New Strand Theatre, the play The Two Murderers seems less performance than prophecy when a cast party ends in the shocking death of the theater owner's son. The crime scene is most unusual, even for Bryant and May. In a locked bedroom without any trace of fingerprints or blood, the only sign of disturbance is a gruesome life-size puppet of Mr. Punch laying on the floor. Everyone at the party is a suspect, including the corrupt producer, the rakish male lead, the dour set designer, and the assistant stage manager, who is the wild daughter of a prominent government official.

It's this last fact that threatens the Peculiar Crimes Unit's investigation, as the government's Home Office, wary of the team's eccentric methods, seeks to throw them off the case. But the nimble minds of Bryant and May are not so easily deterred. Delving into the history of the London theater and the disturbing origins of Punch and Judy, the detectives race to find the maniacal killer before he reaches his even deadlier final act.

Whip-smart and endlessly entertaining, The Memory of Blood is an ingeniously intricate mystery from the deliciously inventive Christopher Fowler.

Reunited after twelve long years apart, Gyre and Maya will soon find themselves on opposite sides of a brewing civil war between those who wield magic and those who do not in the second instalment in Django Wexler's epic new fantasy series.

Long ago a great war wreaked devastation, destroying an empire and leaving a new republic in its wake. Now a new civil war has begun, pitting those with the power to wield magic against those without. Across that divide stand a brother and sister.

Twelve years after she was taken by the mysterious Twilight Order, Gyre has finally found his sister Maya, now a powerful magical warrior known as Burningblade. But given the chance to kill her and brandish a great blow against the oppressive Order, he instead let her free. The love for his sister was too strong, despite the terrible authority she represents.

All the while, trouble brews within their factions. A small but influential group of the Order conspire, intent to bring about the return of the Chosen; and the warriors of the resistance will need to learn to work as one if they are to stand any chance.

Cadence Drake is a finder of lost things. Badger Bede is a technical wizard adept at creating programs that make Cady's life easier. Both are handy with a stunner.

All their talents are put to the test as they search for the CORRIGAN'S BLOOD, a new kind of TFN-drive spaceship with some very special abilities. At first it looks like their dream job -- the job that will allow them to pay off their own ship, the HOPE'S REWARD, and to be more picky about the clients and work they accept -- but they quickly learn that every dream has a price.

Because behind the stolen ship lies the mystery of the people who stole it, people who appear to be using this insanely expensive vessel and others like it to smuggle inexpensive medicine to people who don't need it.

And behind that mystery is another...

Why are all these people linked to Cady's past and the one person who made it impossible for her to ever go home again?

And why does everyone in the universe want Cady dead?

Raylene Pendle (AKA Cheshire Red), a vampire and world-renowned thief, doesn't usually hang with her own kind. She's too busy stealing priceless art and rare jewels. But when the infuriatingly charming Ian Stott asks for help, Raylene finds him impossible to resist--even though Ian doesn't want precious artifacts. He wants her to retrieve missing government files--documents that deal with the secret biological experiments that left Ian blind. What Raylene doesn't bargain for is a case that takes her from the wilds of Minneapolis to the mean streets of Atlanta. And with a psychotic, power-hungry scientist on her trail, a kick-ass drag queen on her side, and Men in Black popping up at the most inconvenient moments, the case proves to be one hell of a ride.

While Merit didn't choose to become a vampire or Sentinel of Cadogan House, she vowed to fight for her House and its Master, and she's managed to forge strong alliances with powerful supernaturals across Chicago. But even though Merit has had wild adventures, this may be her deadliest yet....

A killer is stalking Chicago, preying on humans and leaving his victims with magical souvenirs. The CPD hasn't been able to track the assailant, and as the body count rises, the city is running out of options. Vampires and humans aren't on great terms, but murder makes for strange bedfellows. Can Merit find the killer before she becomes a target?

"We gave them a chance once, long ago.... We offered to share power equally, and in peace. But they refused and chose war. With them it was all or nothing. Wizard against Sorceress. Male against female. Light against dark."

It is more than three centuries since the ravages of a devastating war nearly tore apart the kingdom of Eutracia. In its wake, those who masterminded the bloodshed--a quartet of powerful, conquest-hungry Sorceresses--were sentenced to exile, with return all but impossible and death all but inevitable. Now a land of peace and plenty, protected and guided by a council of immortal wizards, Eutracia is about to crown a new king. And as the coronation approaches, the spirit of celebration fills every heart. Except one.

Prince Tristan is a reluctant monarch-to-be. Though born with the "endowed" blood that will give him the power to master magic, and destined by tradition to succeed his father as ruler, he is a rebel soul. And when he discovers the ancient, hidden caves where strange red waters flow--possessed of their own mysterious magic--it only makes him yearn all the more to escape his future of duty... and succumb to the stirrings of enchantment within him.

But more than tradition compels Tristan to ascend the throne. The very existence of Eutracia depends upon it. For after these long centuries of peace, dreadful omens have begun to appear, heralding something too unspeakable to ponder. And if indeed the old evil has returned, hungry to wreak vengeance, Tristan's role in an ages-old prophecy must be fulfilled--or the cost to his kingdom and his people will be beyond imagination.

It will be a battle like none ever known, against an enemy whose thirst for blood and domination is depthless and unyielding. And for Tristan, it will be the ultimate challenge: facing an adversary whose greatest weapon is the person he loves most--transformed into the instrument of his annihilation... and the catalyst that will doom Eutracia forever to darkness.

For three centuries, Eutracia was a kingdom at peace, ruled by a benevolent monarchy and guided by a council of wizards. But a horror from the past, long believed vanquished, returned with devastating fury. And when the battle against the bloodthirsty Sorceresses of the Coven was finally won, victory was not without its price. Now, the royal palace lies in ruins; the king and queen, the royal guard, and the Directorate of Wizards are dead; the land is lawless; and Prince Tristan-- forced by the Coven to murder his father, the King--is a wanted man.

In a cavernous underground labyrinth, once headquarters of the wizards' council, Tristan has taken refuge with his sister, Shailiha, her infant daughter, the wizard Wigg--the lone surviving member of the Directorate--and the crippled wizard Faegan, returned from self-imposed exile in the forest of Shadowood. Together they face the daunting task of restoring order to Eutracia and winning back the allegiance of her subjects. But suddenly, even these challenges pale beside a truly terrifying turn of events. The sacred jewel that is the source of all magic has inexplicably begun to lose its power. Without its age-old enchantment to sustain their spells, the immortal wizards will perish... and magic will vanish from Eutracia forever.

At the same time, a mysterious and ruthless mercenary has declared a bounty upon the head of Prince Tristan. And an army of wizards on a mission to rid Eutracia of monsters created by the Coven has fallen prey to an insidious breed of creatures--beings that can only have sprung from forbidden use of malevolent magic. With time and their powers dwindling, Wigg and Faegan desperately seek to discover who, or what, has succeeded the dead Sorceresses in laying siege to Eutracia. But when the shocking truth is revealed, and an evil that transcends life itself is made known, it is Tristan, more than any other, who will be stunned to his very soul. And it is Tristan who will be thrust into the ultimate battle--for his life, his land,

Tristan and Shailiha are the Chosen Ones, prophesied to unite the opposing magics of the dark Vagaries and the benevolent Vigors. With the destruction of the Gates of Dawn, it seems that the wounded kingdom of Eutracia will at last have the chance to heal--and the Chosen Ones, under the tutelage of wizards Wigg and Faegan, can fulfill their rightful destiny.

Alas, such is not to be. For there is another who unknowingly possesses magic in his blood--great magic that, in the wrong hands, could unleash unspeakable evil. To find this unsuspecting soul, the Chosen Ones and their allies embark on a dangerous quest that will lead from the mysterious Chambers of Penitence to the sacred Isle of Sanctuary. A quest that will change everything Tristan and Shailiha think they know about themselves and their purpose.

But they are not the only ones searching. Krassus, a devoted servant of the Vagaries, has dispatched ships of demonic slavers to scour the coasts of Eutracia, capturing men and women and bringing them in chains across the monster-filled Sea of Whispers to the impregnable island fortress of the Citadel, where evil dreams take the form of living nightmares.

Aided by Tyranny, a pirate as fierce as she is beautiful, Tristan and Shailiha struggle to destroy the wicked demonslaver fleet. Meanwhile, the ill-fated pawn of magic is being held by Krassus at the Citadel. It is there that Krassus seeks to awaken the magic in his blood, imbuing him with dark enchantments from the mystic Scrolls of the Ancients--and transforming him into a weapon of evil such as the world has never known... and will not long survive.

Hanuvar had pledged to find the remnants of his people, scattered into slavery across the whole of the peninsula. This time he had no army to help him. His would be a stealthy war of liberation, buying the freedom of some and arranging for the escape of others, aided only by a young playwright, the daughter of a hated political rival, the tattered remnants of his old spy network, and the unlikeliest ally of all, the general who had once defeated him.

Arrayed against them were the mighty legions, the sorcerous Revenants, and the wily Metellus of the Praetorian guard, ever alert to seize advantage. To add to their troubles, someone was drawing unwanted attention to the helpless Volani slaves by murdering influential Dervans and leaving the sign of the sacred Eltyr corps beside their bodies. Someone who might well be Hanuvar's lost daughter, who'd fought her way from captivity and was even now being hunted through the countryside.

Worst of all, a magical attack had left Hanuvar with a lingering curse that might change him forever... or lead him to an early grave.

Anyi is the gem of the Countless Clans. Their Queens make lifeblood, a magical substance used for everything from medicine to weapons. Once, Anyi had so much lifeblood that they gave it away. Now their Queen is dying, none of her daughters, the Diviewe, can produce lifeblood and the gods that guide the clan have gone silent.

In the Empire of Ka, Anyi native Aseye dreams of leaving her work at the imperial armory to strike out on her own. Kwame, a spy with a hidden heritage, is a charming distraction. A man of conflicting loyalties, he's not to be trusted with Aseye's heart -- or her secret, buried so deep that even she doesn't remember it. A secret that could end her life.

As Anyi's lifeblood dwindles, the Diviewe beg the Elders to unleash an ancient weapon to save the clan. The Elders refuse. The Diviewe take matters into their own hands. But the weapon is not what they thought it would be, and it's not the only thing to wake...

Warning: Spoilers for the Chronicles of the Kencyrath in this synopsis and in the collection's stories

Jamethiel Priest's-Bane first entered our lives when she walked out of the Haunted Lands on the opening page of God Stalk in 1982 with the haunts on her trail, searching for her ten-year-older twin brother Tori to give him their father's sword and ring. But what was she doing in the Haunted Lands in the first place? What happened that caused her to leave her home?

For the past 20 years, this has been one of the biggest mysteries of Jame's background. The answers to those questions -- and others -- are found in the pages of this collection.

Blood & Ivory: A Tapestry presents eight original stories by P. C. Hodgell, three of them written especially for this collection. These stories explore different facets of Jame's life and background and weave a lush and complex picture of this enigmatic figure. Also included are new introductions to the stories, as well as maps and drawings by P. C. Hodgell.

This collection was first released in 1994 containing 5 stories; an expanded version, with 3 additional new stories plus maps and artwork, was released in 2002.

Table of Contents:

• Hearts of Woven Shadow (2002) - short story (read online)
• Lost Knots (2002) - short story (read online)
• Among the Dead (2002) - short story (read online)
• Child of Darkness (1980) - novelette
• A Matter of Honor (1977) - novelette
• Bones (1984) - novelette
• Stranger Blood (1985) - novelette
• A Ballad of the White Plague - [Sherlock Holmes] (1998) - novelette
• Maps (2002) - interior artwork
• Art (2002) - interior artwork
• An introduction to P. C. Hodgell - essay

When Jame returned to Knorth hall to help her brother Torisen name all the fallen fighters' death banners stored there, she made the disturbing discovery that thosr banners splattered with their owner's blood also have trapped their owners' souls. She also found a contract proving her cousin Kindrie to be legitmate, proving that there are three full-blooded Knorth. Three full-blooded Knorth means that the Three-Faced God can be manifested -- something that none of the three are likely to want to do, if they have any choice in the matter.

Returning with this unwelcome knowledge to school at Tentir, Jame continued to dodge the attentions of an unwanted admirer, strengthen her link to her feline hunting ounce, work with the rathorn colt Death's-head to insure that it doesn't resume its attempts to kill her, and of course, kept causing plenty of unintended havoc. She also had to help fight off attacks from hillmen, repel a stampede of yarkcarn(think warthogs the size of mamoths), fight in the Winter War (a mock conflict -- or, ar least, that's how it was supposed to be), and solve the mystery behind the death of her evil uncle, who somehow is still spectrally manifesting himself in nasty ways.

No doubt about it -- Jame is back, and with vengeance.

Those exiles and rebels determined to bring peace to Lescar discover the true cost of war. Courage and friendships are tested to breaking point.

Who will pay such heartbreaking penalties for their boldness? Who will pay the ultimate price?

The dukes of Lescar aren't about to give up their wealth and power without a fight.They won't pass up any chance to advance their own interests either, if one of their rivals suffers in all this upheaval.

The duchesses have their own part to play, more subtle but no less deadly.

The Blood King is Book Two in The Chronicles of the Necromancer fantasy adventure series by Gail Z. Martin. It is the sequel to The Summoner, and picks up the action one day after The Summoner ends.

In The Blood King, sequel to The Summoner, Tris Drayke races against time to gain the skills he needs to challenge his half-brother Jared for the throne of Margolan and defeat the dark mage Arontala before the Obsidian King can be loosed from the abyss. Pursued by assassins and caught in a dangerous web of intrigue, Tris' greatest danger is his own magic. The fate of his kingdom, his lady and his soul hang in the balance. As Margolan plunges into darkness under the yoke of a tyrant, Tris leads an unlikely insurrection, knowing that if he fails, death will be the least of his worries...

They look like an everyday family living an ordinary life. But beyond the edges of this peaceful farm, unimaginable forces of light and dark have been unleashed.

Fallon Swift, approaching her thirteenth birthday, barely knows the world that existed before--the city where her parents lived, now in ruins and reclaimed by nature since the Doom sickened and killed billions. Traveling anywhere is a danger, as vicious gangs of Raiders and fanatics called Purity Warriors search for their next victim. Those like Fallon, in possession of gifts, are hunted--and the time is coming when her true nature, her identity as The One, can no longer be hidden.

In a mysterious shelter in the forest, her training is about to begin under the guidance of Mallick, whose skills have been honed over centuries. She will learn the old ways of healing; study and spar; encounter faeries and elves and shifters; and find powers within herself she never imagined. And when the time is right, she will take up the sword, and fight. For until she grows into the woman she was born to be, the world outside will never be whole again.

Conan, hailed and feared as chief of the pirate brotherhood, has built an island kingdom on the stormy waters of the Vilayet. He plays off one mainland empire against another amid the stirrings of a sorcerous war that will set the sea aboil with blood. The lure of ancient treasure draws Conan into a trap woven by the arch-wizard Croyalus.

Since 1978, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro has produced about two dozen novels and numerous short stories detailing the life of a character first introduced to the reading world as Le Comte de Saint-Germain. We first meet him in Paris during the reign of Louis XV when he is, apparently, a wealthy, worldly, charismatic aristocrat, envied and desired by many but fully known to none. In fact, he is a vampire, born in the Carpathian Mountains in 2119 BC, turned in his late-thirties in 2080 BC and destined to roam the world forever, watching and participating in history and, through the author, giving us an amazing perspective on the time-tapestry of human civilization.

In Blood Games, beginning during the reign of Nero, Saint-Germain finds his way through the political turmoil of the time, and becomes the lover of the incomparable Atta Olivia Clemens.

Ambitious in its scope and provocative in its content, the saga of the undying Count Saint-Germain is a monumental feat of the imagination.

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's novels have powerfully captured Saint-Germain throughout his long existence, from the temples of Ancient Egypt to our present century.

Now, on the verge of the First World War, Saint-Germain accepts a top-secret assignment from Czar Nicholas of Russia to deliver one last proposal for peace to the crowned heads of Europe. But powerful men plot against Saint-Germain--and may use his love for a talented young artist against him.

The Comte de Saint-Germain is living in relative peace and prosperity in the village of Orgon in fourteenth-century France. He has won a grudging acceptance from the local populace, who are uneasy with his strange and foreign ways but appreciative of his generosity. But a new threat has upset the precarious balance: Plague has come to France, and the people's fear turns to xenophobia. To avoid the scrutiny that could reveal his true nature, Saint-Germain must flee. However, his travels drive him deeper into the heart of the Black Death--and danger.

In the Count's latest adventure, Communion Blood, Saint-Germain finds himself on the way to seventeenth- century Rome, the center of power for the Catholic Church. Niklos Aurilios, the long-time servant of Olivia Clemens, may lose Olivia's estate to a young German who claims to be the son of Olivia's fictional husband. Saint-Germain must use all of his wiles and diplomatic skill to preserve Olivia's will without revealing his true nature.

Borne in Blood is the landmark twentieth volume of the Saint-Germain cycle. Historically accurate, these deeply emotional novels have a devoted readership.

he year is 1817. In Switzerland, the Count has become intrigued by the work of an Austrian noble who is investigating the properties of blood, a subject always of key interest to a vampire. But when the noble's beautiful young ward fixates sexually on the Count, the vampire fears that it is his blood the Austrian will be most interested in!

Half-Fae, half-human Bryce Quinlan loves her life. By day, she works for an antiquities dealer, selling barely legal magical artifacts, and by night, she parties with her friends, savoring every pleasure Lunathion-otherwise known as Crescent City-has to offer. But it all comes crumbling down when a ruthless murder shakes the very foundations of the city-and Bryce's world.

Two years later, her job has become a dead end, and she now seeks only blissful oblivion in the city's most notorious nightclubs. But when the murderer attacks again, Bryce finds herself dragged into the investigation and paired with an infamous Fallen angel whose own brutal past haunts his every step.

Hunt Athalar, personal assassin for the Archangels, wants nothing to do with Bryce Quinlan, despite being ordered to protect her. She stands for everything he once rebelled against and seems more interested in partying than solving the murder, no matter how close to home it might hit. But Hunt soon realizes there's far more to Bryce than meets the eye-and that he's going to have to find a way to work with her if they want to solve this case.

As Bryce and Hunt race to untangle the mystery, they have no way of knowing the threads they tug ripple through the underbelly of the city, across warring continents, and down to the darkest levels of Hel, where things that have been sleeping for millennia are beginning to stir...

Sasha Trudeau knows all about working beneath the shadows, back-alley deals, and things that go bump in the night. She also knows that the world is unaware of the existence of the paranormal - and that the government would like to keep it that way.

As a highly trained Special Ops soldier, Sasha and her team are an elite group of individuals who are survivors of werewolf attacks, now trained to be loyal to only to each other and their government. But when she returns from a solo mission, she finds that her team has mysteriously gone missing. Shocking government conspiracies, double-dealing vampires, and a host of stunning revelations about who - and what - she really is are only just the beginning...

He had brought his master's Empire to the furthest reaches of the world. All had fallen before him. Now he longs for home.

But home isn't what it was. Could it be that everything he's fought for all those years has been a lie?

A sweeping fantasy of immense battles, demonic magic and dark politics.

Ullsaard has won the crown.

But when he is confronted with a truth too shocking to contemplate, he has to make the impossible choice between power and honour.

And now the real battle has begun in this stunning sequel to The Crown of the Blood, packed with gargantuan battles, demonic magic and treacherous politics.

The stunning conclusion to the epic Crown of the Blood trilogy.

Ullsaard rules the known world. All are subject to his will.

Yet even as another king bows before him, there are those who would wrench his empire from beneath him. He must risk losing the lands he has conquered to confront a foe far more powerful than any he has faced before.

As alliances shift and old enemies return, will he save the empire he has given his life to, or let it fall to ruin?

They call them the "rat-catchers." They're the crew of the spaceship Daedalus, which a declining Earth has sent to re-establish contact with its long-lost colonies. Biologist Alex Alexander, together with his staff, must help solve the mysteries of human and alien ecosystems that they encounter far from home.

On the world called Wildeblood, named for the ecologist/Emperor who founded it, the settlers' descendants harbor a terrible secret--a secret that Alex must uncover, if the colony is to survive. But he must also make contact with the world OTHER intelligent species, something that will take time--time that the colonists are determined not to give him. And even if can solve the biological problem, what about the diplomatic one? The Daedalus Mission, Book Thre

Vali Hallsdottir has returned to her home world of Muspell to discover that her nation is in chaos, preparing to face invasion from the neighbouring country of Darkland. When her friend and mentor Idhunn is brutally murdered and her spine removed and stolen, Vali falls under suspicion and is held by the army of the Morrighanu, but released by a mysterious force. Having nowhere else to run, she travels across the northern ice field to the hostile glacier territory of Darkland, where she meets an old enemy, Thorn Eld, a member of the elite security force known as the vitki.

Eld tells her that Darkland has spawned a rogue assassin, a female vitki killer known as Skinning Knife and despite their differences Vali and Eld decide to join forces and track down the vitki's most lethal weapon. Together they are facing some dangerous questions about the nature of Skinning Knife herself, and her impact on their world ...and they are not the only ones who are desperate to discover the assassin's whereabouts...

'Confirmation, if any were really needed, that Williams is one of the most original and distinctive voices in British SF' - "SFX".

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.

This is not that world.

Art student and monster's apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.

In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou must decide how far she'll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, Days of Blood & Starlight finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.

While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle: a battle for redemption. For hope.

But can any hope be salvaged from the ashes of their broken dream?

A year after saving the powers of Olympus by defeating Nyx, the Goddess of Darkness, Daphne is haunted by still-looming threats, her complicated feelings for the god Apollo, and the promise she made to the Olympian gods that she would help them again when they called upon her. When their command finally comes, it is deceptively simple: secure herself a spot as one of Queen Helen's guards.

A war is coming, and all of Sparta must be prepared.

In the midst of a treaty summit among the monarchs of Greece, Daphne and Helen uncover a plot of betrayal--and soon, a battle begins that leads to all-out war. As the kingdoms of Greece clash on the shores of Troy and the gods choose sides, Daphne must use her wits, her training, and her precarious relationship with Apollo to find a way to keep her queen safe, stop the war, and uncover the true reason the gods led her to Troy. But the gods are keeping more than one secret, and Daphne will be forced to decide how far she is willing to go to save those she loves--and whose side she's on in a war that is prophesized to be the downfall of her people

In the nightmare future of the 41st millennium, the superhuman Space Marines wage an endless war in their quest to protect humanity. Follow the adventures of Brother-Captain Gabriel Angelos and the Blood Ravens Space Marines as they clash against hordes of savage alien orks, battle the forces of Chaos and confront the enigmatic eldar in all out war!

This omnibus collections together the three action packed tie-in novels to the acclaimed computer game, Dawn of War.

Contents:

• Dawn of War
• Ascension
• Tempest
• The Trials of Isador

In the aftermath of the apocalypse little remains except age-old evils of greed, perversion and force. But a small group of survivalists cherishes the legacy of human courage and hope. led by the charismatic Ryan Cawdor, they persevere in a brutal world through warrior skills and a bold desire to regain the promised future.

The fertile bayous teem with mutant life-forms and altered species. Off on a trek with his son, Ryan fends off the dangers from marauders and Nature's traps, but also finds signs of hope for humanity's new future. But the ultimate threat comes upon them in an unguarded moment, shocking in its scope and casting more blame on generations past.

In the Deathlands, nothing is as it appears.

Book #2 of the Scorpion God duology of Deathlands

The Amazon Basin remains a land of primoridal beauty and primitive people. Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists emerge from a gateway into an abandoned U.S. military complex, now a native shrine to the white gods of pre-blast days. Here the group is given royal treatment, only to discover that privilege has a blood price.

The cataclysm of nuclear winter transmuted the world into a place both torturous and unforgiving. But there are those with the courage and perseverance to seek out something beyond the merciless life-and-death struggle of Deathlands. In a treacherous frontier that plays for keeps, staying alive is the best victory....

Washed ashore in the North Atlantic, Ryan Cawdor and Doc Tanner discover two islands still pristinely intact after Skydark, but whose inhabitants suffer a darker, more horrifying punishment. A hideous strain of mutation manifests, turning some into half-monstrous giants with an unquenchable thirst for blood. The Nightwalkers unleash a hellish feast of horror when the sun goes down. Now Ryan and Doc struggle to survive this enclave of unimaginable terror, trapped in a baronial conflict between the rulers of night and day, with only one way out--internecine war in a world of the damned....

Welcome to the dark side of tomorrow.

Welcome to the Deathlands.

In a nuclear wasteland where death and destruction are the norm, Ryan Cawdor and his fellow survivors seek out refuge while looking to one another for protection. Civilization no longer exists in the barren Deathlands. There is only the will to survive and the dim hope of a promised land.

Taken captive on a ship in the former Caribbean, Ryan and his companions must work as part of the crew or perish at the hands of the captain. But the mutant in charge of the vessel is the least of their worries. Each day is a struggle as they face rivalry among the sailors, violent attacks and deadly storms. Worse, a powerful enemy is hunting the ship to destroy everyone on board. Fighting for their lives and those of their shipmates, the companions must find unity within the chaos or die in the attempt.

Twenty years after the war that overthrew the Great Guilds, the Empire is vowing to avenge the massive defeat of the Imperial legions at Dorcastle. Aiding the Imperials are renegade Mechanics and Mages still loyal to the old Guilds or employed by the Empire.

But before they can launch an all-out war, the Imperials must eliminate a major threat: Kira, daughter of Master Mechanic Mari and Master of Mages Alain. Kidnapped and imprisoned, Kira has to escape and avoid recapture as the full might of the Empire is aimed at her. Her only hope lies in the skills she has mastered; her indomitable spirit; and the unfailing aid of Jason, her boyfriend from the distant world of Urth.

With the Imperial legions closing in and thousands of lives riding on her efforts, Kira has to use every weapon available to her, including special abilities she has kept secret until now - abilities that may prove to be as dangerous as the enemy forces. Mari and Alain must come to Kira's aid and work to create an alliance against the Empire.

If they fail, a deadlier new war will erupt, with every soldier carrying a rifle instead of a sword or crossbow - and the Peace of the Daughter will end in a bloodbath.

With the demise of his evil half brother, Wulfgar, Prince Tristan restored peace to Eutracia... or so he thought. But the Orb of the Vigors was damaged in the climactic battle, and now the powerful artifact is bleeding magical energy and cutting a swath of death and destruction across the kingdom. Tristan can heal the wounded Orb, but not until his enchanted blood is returned to normal. Only then will the powers of the Vigors be his to command. Unfortunately, the secret of reversing the enchantment is lost.

Even worse, Wulfgar is neither dead nor defeated. Ensconced in his fortress across the Sea of Whispers, Tristan's hideously scarred half brother plots with the Heretics, the otherworldly masters of the Vagaries. With their aid, Wulfgar has grown even stronger in the dark arts. Now, with powerful demonic servants and weapons of dire potency, Wulfgar sets forth to complete the destruction of the Orb... and to avenge himself on the Chosen Ones. Preceding him, he sends a brotherly greeting: a cunning assassin with orders to dispatch Eutracia's ruling council.

Tristan and his trusted allies--the wise wizards Wigg and Faegan, the beautiful pirate Tyranny, and, dearest of all, his beloved Celeste--embark on a desperate quest to cleanse his blood. It is a journey that will lead from the Sea of Whispers to distant Parthalon to the mysterious Well of Forestallments, and it will change everything the Chosen Ones think they know about themselves and their destiny. If they should fail, the Orb will perish, and with it, the Vigors.

As for success, it may prove more costly still....

The defeat and death of the evil Wulfgar should inspire a time of rejoicing throughout Eutracia. But Prince Tristan grieves. Not only is his beloved wife dead, but across the Sea of Whispers, in the island fortress known as the Citadel, Wulfgar's bride, the sorceress Serena, plots to continue her husband's nefarious plans, aided by the Scroll of the Vagaries and the advice of the otherworldly Heretics. Although the ranks of Tristan's faithful soldiers were decimated in recent battle, the prince nevertheless plans a bold surprise attack.

But on the eve of the mission, disaster strikes. From behind the towering azure wall of magical energy in the forbidding face of the massive Tolenka Mountains comes Xanthus, a powerful warrior dispatched by the Heretics to bring Tristan into their mysterious realm. A master of a mystical martial art against which even the great swordsman Tristan is helpless, Xanthus launches a reign of terror against Eutracia's innocent subjects, compelling Tristan to journey behind the azure wall. There, in a magical land as beautiful as it is violent, Tristan will learn the shocking truth about the destiny he and Shailiha, his sister, will share.

In Tristan's absence, Shailiha must lead the fleet of Black Ships against the Citadel, accompanied by the wizards Faegan and Wigg and the beautiful pirate queen Tyranny. But unknown to them, Serena has prepared a deadly trap with hellish creatures summoned by the Heretics. And as Shailiha's troops sail blindly into danger, Serena is preparing a spell unlike anything the world has ever seen--a spell powerful enough to defeat death itself.

On the far side of the impassable Tolenka Mountains, where the countries of Rustannica and Shashida fight an endless War of Attrition, a turning point has come. Vespasian, emperor of Rustannica, is desperate. The relentless battle has left his country battered and the treasury all but empty. Unless he can achieve a breakthrough his armies will crumble and the cause of the Vagaries will go down in abject defeat. But if he gathers all his strength in one daring throw of the dice, Vespasian may yet prevail.

Meanwhile, in Eutracia, the wizards Faegan and Wigg make a startling discovery--a new form of magic that grants its users amazing powers. Among them may be an unforeseen method of crossing the Tolenka Mountains and entering directly into the War of Attrition, tilting the balance in favor of the Vigors... and bringing Tristan into full possession of the mystic endowments in his blood.

But a new threat has surfaced in Eutracia. An ancient Vagaries spell has borne its poisonous fruit: half-human, half-serpent monstrosities who live only to slay and are commanded by a hideously transformed sorcerer-demon known as the Viper Lord.

Now, as Tristan departs on a risky mission to cross into Rustannica and meet his destiny in an apocalyptic confrontation with Vespasian, Shailiha will remain behind to battle the Viper Lord and his murderous horde. Failure is unthinkable. But the cost of victory may be impossibly high.

A thief of valuable blooms, Layela's dream is finally coming true with the opening of her flower shop on the small remote planet of Collar. But the disappearance of her twin sister leaves her with a difficult choice: to continue tending to her blooms and promising future, or to blend in once again with the shadows to find her sister.

She soon becomes the prey of two powerful assassins, of a colonel bent on revenge and of a mysterious sword-wielding stranger. Her only allies are Josmere -- a feisty ether creature with the power to unlock the visions that assault Layela's mind, or to keep them from her -- and a smuggling rogue, Ardin, hired to protect Layela at whatever the cost, even if that cost is her freedom.

Their journey takes them across several worlds as Layela discovers who she and her sister truly are. And before them awaits the mythical First Star, on a path to self-destruction and the annihilation of all life.

Unless Layela finds a way to stop it. But to stop it would mean sacrificing her sister.

Or herself.

Ever since the USS Walker came from another world war to defy the terrifying Grik and diabolical Dominion, Matt Reddy and his crew have given their all to protect the oppressed Lemurians. But with the Walker in desperate need of repairs just as the Grik's First General is poised to strike, Reddy is desperate.

With more enemies than ever before arrayed against them, the crew of the Walker needs new allies. That means combing the lethal wilds of Madagascar to find the Lemurians' fabled ancestors, as well as the enigmatic dwellers east of the Pass of Fire. But what Reddy's crew unearths may be more than they can handle--discoveries so shattering they could tilt the balance of the war in either direction.

But Reddy's greatest adversary is from his past: a madman named Kurokawa whose single-minded mission of revenge will shake the Alliance to its core and raise the stakes to the most personal and terrifying levels Reddy has ever faced.

In the peaceful land of the Rhiddaer, Jahdo the ratcatcher's son stumbles upon a secret meeting between a city council man and a dangerous, mysterious woman. Suddenly the boy is tangled in a web of intrigue and black magic that drags him far from home. In the company of a blind bard, Jahdo must travel to Deverry to unravel the evil that binds him. But there the boy is caught up in dangers far greater than he has ever known. Two powerful sorcerers--one human, the other elven--are battling to save the country from a goddess gone mad. Their strongest ally is the mercenary soldier Rhodry Maelwaedd, a berserker bound to both women by fate and magic . . . and to the dragon upon whom all their live may depend.

Days Of Blood And Fire begins an exciting new chapter in the chronicles of Deverry and the Westlands, with a story suited to new readers and loyal fans alike.

No Victor lasts forever.

Victor thought he won when he became the Hero. He thought he won when he took over the DFZ. He thought he'd made himself untouchable.

He's wrong.

Lola isn't the sad little monster she used to be. She has a plan, she has allies, she has more magic than she ever dreamed possible. Killing one blood mage should be easy with an entire fairy kingdom at her fingertips, but Victor didn't make himself a god by playing fair, and his bag of tricks is far from empty. Taking him down will require everything Lola and her friends can bring, but if there's one thing Lola's always been, it's determined. No matter the cost, no matter what it takes, she will see this through.

To the bloody end.

If there is one city that Scarlett Bernard hates, it's Las Vegas. But when the cardinal vampire of Los Angeles convinces her to go investigate a new vampire-themed stage show, Scarlett quickly finds herself shoulder-deep in sequins, slot machines, and Old World intrigue.

The show's creators are vampire celebrities Arthur and Lucy Holmwood, who once inspired characters from the original Dracula. Now, however, they have no qualms about announcing their true status to the human world, endangering the secrecy of the Old World and Scarlett's mission to keep it hidden.

But before she can begin untangling the Holmwoods' motives, Scarlett also discovers that their new production has attracted more than just fans: Las Vegas's many vampires are suddenly disappearing, and rumors are flying that actual vampire hunters may have followed Arthur and Lucy to town.

Now, without her allies, her bargest, or her frequent partner Jesse Cruz, Scarlett must navigate a new underworld of secrets and murders in a city where nothing is ever as it seems. And the stakes have never been higher.

"Release the Doctor - or the killing will start."

An asteroid in the furthest reaches of space - the most secure prison for the most dangerous of criminals. The Governor is responsible for the worst fraudsters and the cruellest murderers. So he's certainly not impressed by the arrival of the man they're calling the most dangerous criminal in the quadrant. Or, as he prefers to be known, the Doctor.

What does impress the Governor is the way the new prisoner immediately sets about trying to escape. And keeps trying. Finally, he sends for the Doctor and asks him why? But the answer surprises even the Governor. And then there's the threat - unless the Governor listens to the Doctor, a lot of people will die.

Who is the Doctor and what's he really doing here? Why does he want to help the Governor? And who is the young woman who comes every day to visit him, only to be turned away by the guards?

When the killing finally starts, the Governor begins to get his answers...

"The Grail is a story, a myth! It didn't exist on your world! It can't exist here!"

The city-state of Varuz is failing. Duke Aurelian is the last of his line, his capital is crumbling, and the armies of his enemy, Duke Conrad, are poised beyond the mountains to invade. Aurelian is preparing to gamble everything on one last battle. So when a holy man, the Doctor, comes to Varuz from beyond the mountains, Aurelian asks for his blessing in the war.

But all is not what it seems in Varuz. The city-guard have lasers for swords, and the halls are lit by electric candlelight. Aurelian's beloved wife, Guena, and his most trusted knight, Bernhardt, seem to be plotting to overthrow their Duke, and Clara finds herself drawn into their intrigue...

Will the Doctor stop Aurelian from going to war? Will Clara's involvement in the plot against the Duke be discovered? Why is Conrad's ambassador so nervous? And who are the ancient and weary knights who arrive in Varuz claiming to be on a quest for the Holy Grail...?

While Graf von Dracula commands the German army and Baron von Richthofen spreads terror in the skies during World War I, a resurrected Edgar Allan Poe is commissioned by the Germans to write a fabulous biography of the Red Baron.

The Bram Stoker Award–Winning saga continues . . . .

Matthew Maule has seen many horrific things in his five hundred years as one of the most powerful vampires in the world. But even his formidable talents cannot predict the unthinkable acts about to occur within his own home.

When the vampire Dickon and his human partner appear in the middle of the night frightened for their lives, Matthew offers them protection. They carry with them a small Egyptian statue of great value and many secrets. By morning, Matthew has woken from a mysterious trance to discover that Dickon's human friend has been brutally murdered, the vampire has gone missing, and their statue has been smashed to pieces. Matthew has also made a dangerous new enemy, one who possesses strength even Matthew may be no match for.

For the statue is no ordinary artifact, but one of six replicas. However, only one contains a gem in the center, a stone of unimaginable magical power that could spell the end of humanity if it ever fell in the wrong hands.

Matthew sets out on a heart-pounding journey to track down the remaining statues before his ancient foe finds them. Racing across the country, the vampire teams up with both the living and the undead, though not all are the allies they pretend to be. Using his wits, he must unearth the answers to a millennia-old mystery in order to prepare himself for a final showdown against the evil stalking him at every turn. Acclaimed fantasy and science fiction author Fred Saberhagen takes readers along for a trek of unbelievable suspense, action, and pure page-turning entertainment.

During the hottest summer in memory, minotaurs fight against the Knights of Takhisis, into whose hands their god Sargonnas has delivered them. In the midst of the conflict, the armies of Chaos plunge into the heart of Ansalon.

Now the minotaur warrior Aryx must unite his people and their enemy, the knights, against the monstrous servants of Chaos. If he succeeds, the two sides may forge a bond that will change Krynn for all time.

If he fails, then they will all perish.

The Dark Disciple's fate will alter the future of Krynn.

In the concluding volume of this post-War of Souls trilogy, Mina learns the truth about herself and the terrible knowledge drives her insane. Rhys, the monk of Majere, accompanied by his dog Atta and the kender Nightshade, is given the dangerous assignment of guarding the crazed god, escorting her on a long, strange journey to the mysterious place known as Godshome, where Mina hopes to find the answer to the riddle of her existence. Their path is fraught with peril, for the undead Beloved want to make Mina their leader, even as the death knight Krell wants to seize her and Galdar tries to deliver Mina to her most hated enemy.

In the deserts of northern Solamnia, many suprises await Catriona Goodlun. The treachery of a friend. The humiliation of captivity. The joy of a long-sought reunion. With one shock after another, Catriona learns at last whether the blood of a warrior beats within her.

Award-winning author Steve Sullivan returns with the second installment of the Goodlund trilogy!

The first title in a new hardcover trilogy from New York Times best-selling author Richard A. Knaak. This direct follow-up to the recent best-selling War of Souls trilogy deals with the minotaurs, a species with which the author is particularly associated in the minds of Dragonlance fans. This series will move the minotaur species to the forefront of the Dragonlance world, and since this is the first hardcover title that deals directly with the world-changing fallout at the end of the War of Souls, it is both a key title for Dragonlance fans and an excellent entry point for new readers.

This second title in The Minotaur Wars trilogy continues the tale of the fallout from the end of the New York Times best-selling War of Souls series. Author Richard A. Knaak is particularly associated with minotaurs in the minds of Dragonlance novel fans, making him the ideal author to move the minotaurs to the forefront of the Dragonlance novel storyline.

The War of Souls has ended, but Krynn is still rife with conflict. The elven land of Silvanesti is no more, replaced by the minotaur colony of Ambeon.

A new emperor sits on the throne in Nethosak, his dark Protectors backed by the magic of the Forerunners. Resistance to the empire is all but crushed.

The rebellion's last hope, Faros, struggles with personal demons. But, unexpectedly bolstered by the very gods he has renounced, the legitimate heir rises up against obstacles all too real as well as others fantastical. A plague of abominations descends upon Faros's forces as they storm the capital... forcing a memorable showdown with the evil usurpers.

The trilogy that began with dire events of NIGHT OF BLOOD and continued with the epic struggles in TIDES OF BLOOD now arrives at this thrilling conclusion.

Bershad stands apart from the world, the most legendary dragonslayer in history, both revered and reviled.

Once, he was Lord Silas Bershad, but after a disastrous failure on the battlefield he was stripped of his titles and sentenced to one violent, perilous hunt after another. Now he lives only to stalk dragons, slaughter them, collect their precious oil, and head back into the treacherous wilds once more. For years, death was his only chance to escape. But that is about to change.

The king who sentenced Bershad to his fate has just given him an unprecedented chance at redemption. Kill a foreign emperor and walk free forever.

The journey will take him across dragon-infested mountains, through a seedy criminal underworld, and into a forbidden city guarded by deadly technology.

But the links of fate bind us all.

The city burned beneath the Dreaming Moon.

In the ancient city-state of Gujaareh, peace is the only law. Upon its rooftops and amongst the shadows of its cobbled streets wait the Gatherers - the keepers of this peace. Priests of the dream-goddess, their duty is to harvest the magic of the sleeping mind and use it to heal, soothe . . . and kill those judged corrupt.

But when a conspiracy blooms within Gujaareh's great temple, Ehiru - the most famous of the city's Gatherers - must question everything he knows. Someone, or something, is murdering dreamers in the goddess' name, stalking its prey both in Gujaareh's alleys and the realm of dreams. Ehiru must now protect the woman he was sent to kill - or watch the city be devoured by war and forbidden magic.

Gujaareh, the city of dreams, suffers under the imperial rule of the Kisuati Protectorate. A city where the only law was peace now knows violence and oppression. And nightmares: a mysterious and deadly plague haunts the citizens of Gujaareh, dooming the infected to die screaming in their sleep. Trapped between dark dreams and cruel overlords, the people yearn to rise up -- but Gujaareh has known peace for too long.

Someone must show them the way.

Hope lies with two outcasts: the first woman ever allowed to join the dream goddess' priesthood and an exiled prince who longs to reclaim his birthright. Together, they must resist the Kisuati occupation and uncover the source of the killing dreams... before Gujaareh is lost forever.

Saba has spent her whole life in Silverlake, a dried-up wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms. The Wrecker civilization has long been destroyed, leaving only landfills for Saba and her family to scavenge from. That's fine by her, as long as her beloved twin brother Lugh is around. But when four cloaked horsemen capture Lugh, Saba's world is shattered, and she embarks on a quest to get him back.

Suddenly thrown into the lawless, ugly reality of the outside world, Saba discovers she is a fierce fighter, an unbeatable survivor, and a cunning opponent. Teamed up with a handsome daredevil named Jack and a gang of girl revolutionaries called the Free Hawks, Saba’s unrelenting search for Lugh stages a showdown that will change the course of her own civilization.

Blood Red Road has a searing pace, a poetic writing style, and an epic love story-making Moira Young is one of the most exciting new voices in teen fiction.

The kingdoms of Elsira and Lagrimar have been separated for centuries by the Mantle, a magical veil that has enforced a tremulous peace between the two lands. But now, the Mantle is cracking and the True Father, ruler of Lagrimar and the most powerful Earthsinger in the world, finally sees a way into Elsira to seize power.

All Jasminda ever wanted was to live quietly on her farm, away from the prying eyes of those in the nearby town. Branded an outcast by the color of her skin and her gift of Earthsong, she's been shunned all her life and has learned to steer clear from the townsfolk... until a group of Lagrimari soldiers wander into her valley with an Elsiran spy, believing they are still in Lagrimar.

Through Jack, the spy, Jasminda learns that the Mantle is weakening, allowing people to slip through without notice. And even more troubling: Lagrimar is mobilizing, and if no one finds a way to restore the Mantle, it might be too late for Elsira. Their only hope lies in uncovering the secrets of the Queen Who Sleeps and Jasminda's Earthsong is the key to unravel them.

Thrust into a hostile society and a world she doesn't know, Jasminda and Jack race to unveil an ancient mystery that might offer salvation.

Twenty years ago, a barmaid in a harbor town fell for a young sailor who turned pirate to make his fortune. But what truly became of Black Edward Tew remains a mystery—one that has just fallen into the lap of freelance sword jockey Eddie LaCrosse.

For years, Eddie has kept his office above Angelina’s tavern, so when Angelina herself asks him to find out what happened to the dashing pirate who stole her heart, he can hardly say no—even though the trail is two decades old. Some say Black Edward and his ship, The Bloody Angel, went to bottom of the sea, taking with it a king’s fortune in treasure. Others say he rules a wealthy, secret pirate kingdom. And a few believe he still sails under a ghostly flag with a crew of the damned.

To find the truth, and earn his twenty-five gold pieces a day, Eddie must take to sea in the company of a former pirate queen in search of the infamous Black Edward Tew…and his even more legendary treasure.

Rosamund is an Earth Master in the Schwarzwald, the ancient Black Forest of Germany. Since the age of ten, she has lived with her teacher, the Hunt Master and Earth Magician of the Schwarzwald Foresters, a man she calls "Papa." Her adoptive Papa rescued her after her original Earth Master teacher, an old woman who lived alone in a small cottage in the forest, was brutally murdered by werewolves. Rosa herself barely escaped, and this terrifying incident molded the course of her future.

For like her fellow Earth Masters of the Schwarzwald Lodge, Rosa is not a healer. Instead, her talents lead her on the more violent path of protection and defense-- "cleansing" the Earth and protecting its gentle fae creatures from those evil beings who seek to do them harm.

And so Rosa becomes the first woman Hunt Master and the scourge of evil creatures, with a deadly specialty in werewolves and all shapeshifters.

While visiting with a Fire Master--a friend of her mentor from the Schwarzwald Lodge-- Rosa meets a pair of Elemental Magicians from Hungary who have come looking for help. They suspect that there is a dark power responsible for a string of murders happening in the remote countryside of Transylvania, but they have no proof. Rosa agrees to help them, but there is a catch: one of the two men asking for aid is a hereditary werewolf.

Rosa has been taught that there are three kinds of werewolves. There are those, like the one that had murdered her teacher, who transform themselves by use of dark magic, and also those who have been infected by the bite of these magical werewolves--these poor victims have no control over their transformative powers. Yet, there is a third kind: those who have been born with the ability to transform at will. Some insist that certain of these hereditary werewolves are benign. But Rosa has never encountered a benign werewolf!

Can she trust this Hungarian werewolf? Or is the Hunter destined to become the Hunted?

Ten years have passed since the disappearence of Lucien and his protege, the young swordsman Dino, is struggling to live up to Lucien's legacy. Sworn to protect the silent queen Anea as she struggles to bring a new democracy to Demesne, Dino finds himself drawn into a deadly game of political intrigue as the aristocratic families of Landfall conspire to protect their privilege. Always ready to prove himself as a swordsman Dino is anguished to discover that in order to fulfil his vow he must become both spy and assassion.

And all the while the dark secret at the heart of Demesne is growing towards fulfilment.

For centuries it has waited. Now it is free. Badger Ettison does not believe in demons. Until a shrieking, freezing horror escapes its ancient prison. A soulless hunger. Hunger that turns a beautiful woman into a shrivelled husk before she has time to scream. Hunger that has no form, no substance - but fangs and claws and eyes to seek its prey. Badger Ettison does not believe in magic. But the old blood- rituals are the only way to stop the voracious evil that pursues his wife and son. And they demand that Badger must sacrifice one of the two he loves to save the other. Badger Ettison does not believe in terror. Now he is living it.

Once upon a time, fairy tales were for children... But no longer.

You hold in your hands a volume of wonders -- magical tales of trolls and ogres, of bewitched princesses and kingdoms accursed, penned by some of the most acclaimed fantasists of our day. But these are not bedtime stories designed to usher an innocent child gently into a realm of dreams. These are stories that bite -- lush and erotic, often dark and disturbing mystical journeys through a phantasmagoric landscape of distinctly adult sensibilities... where there is no such thing as "happily ever after."

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: White as Snow: Fairy Tales and Fantasy - (1993) - essay by Terri Windling
• Introduction: Red as Blood: Fairy Tales and Horror - (1993) - essay by Ellen Datlow
• Like a Red, Red Rose - (1993) - novelette by Susan Wade
• The Moon Is Drowning While I Sleep - (1993) - novelette by Charles de Lint
• The Frog Prince - (1993) - shortstory by Gahan Wilson
• Stalking Beans - (1993) - shortstory by Nancy Kress
• Snow-Drop - (1993) - novelette by Tanith Lee
• Little Red - (1993) - shortstory by Wendy Wheeler
• I Shall Do Thee Mischief in the Wood - (1993) - shortstory by Kathe Koja
• The Root of the Matter - (1993) - novelette by Gregory Frost
• The Princess in the Tower - (1993) - shortstory by Elizabeth A. Lynn
• Persimmon - (1993) - shortstory by Harvey Jacobs
• Little Poucet - (1993) - shortstory by Steve Rasnic Tem
• The Changelings - (1993) - novelette by Melanie Tem
• The Springfield Swans - (1993) - shortstory by Caroline Stevermer and Ryan Edmonds
• Troll Bridge - (1993) - shortstory by Neil Gaiman (variant of Troll-Bridge)
• A Sound, Like Angels Singing - (1993) - shortstory by Leonard Rysdyk
• Puss - (1993) - novelette by Esther M. Friesner
• The Glass Casket - (1993) - shortstory by Jack Dann
• Knives - (1993) - poem by Jane Yolen
• The Snow Queen - (1993) - novelette by Patricia A. McKillip
• Breadcrumbs and Stones - shortstory by Lisa Goldstein
• Recommended Reading - (1993) - essay by uncredited
• Terri Windling - (1993) - essay by uncredited
• Ellen Datlow - (1993) - essay by uncredited

Twenty-one darker, deeper, more adult takes on some of our favorite childhood fairy tales, from acclaimed contemporary fantasists

Long ago, when we were children, our dreams were inspired by the fairy tales we heard at our mothers' and grandmothers' knees--stories of princesses and princes and witches and wondrous enchantments, by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, and from the pages of 1001 Arabian Nights. But, as World Fantasy Award-winning editors Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling remind us, these stories were often tamed and sanitized versions. The originals were frequently darker--and in Silver Birch, Blood Moon, they turn darker still.

Twenty-one modern Grimms and Andersens--masterful storytellers including Neil Gaiman, Nancy Kress, and Tanith Lee--now reinvent beloved bedtime stories for our time. The Sea Witch gets her say, relating the story of "The Little Mermaid" from her own point of view. "Thumbelina" becomes a tale of creeping horror, while a delightfully naughty spin is put on "The Emperor's New Clothes." Author Caitlin R. Kiernan transports Snow White to a dark, gritty, industrial urban setting, and Patricia Briggs details "The Price" of dealing with a royal and unrepentantly evil Rumpelstiltskin.

Rich, provocative, and unabashedly adult, each of these tales is a modern treasure, reminding us that wishes have consequences and not all genies have our best interests at heart.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1999) - essay by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow
• Kiss Kiss - (1999) - shortstory by Tanith Lee
• Carabosse - (1999) - poem by Delia Sherman
• The Price - (1999) - shortstory by Patricia Briggs
• Glass Coffin - (1999) - shortstory by Caitlín R. Kiernan
• The Vanishing Virgin - (1999) - shortstory by Harvey Jacobs
• Clad in Gossamer - (1999) - shortstory by Nancy Kress
• Precious - (1999) - shortstory by Nalo Hopkinson
• The Sea Hag - (1999) - novelette by Melissa Lee Shaw
• The Frog Chauffeur - (1999) - shortstory by Garry Kilworth
• The Dybbuk in the Bottle - (1999) - novelette by Russell William Asplund
• The Shell Box - (1999) - novelette by Karawynn Long
• Ivory Bones - (1999) - shortstory by Susan Wade
• The Wild Heart - (1999) - shortstory by Anne Bishop
• You Wandered Off Like a Foolish Child to Break Your Heart and Mine - (1999) - shortstory by Pat York
• Arabian Phoenix - (1999) - shortstory by India Edghill
• Toad-Rich - (1999) - shortstory by Michael Cadnum
• Skin So Green and Fine - (1999) - novelette by Wendy Wheeler
• The Willful Child, the Black Dog, and the Beanstalk - (1999) - novelette by Melanie Tem
• Locks - (1999) - poem by Neil Gaiman
• Marsh-Magic - (1999) - novelette by Robin McKinley
• Toad - (1999) - shortstory by Patricia A. McKillip
• Recommended Reading - essay by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

The Empire's boldest agents - Jules and Yvette d'Alembert - blast off against the most dangerous conspiracy in the Galaxy. But even the lightning-powers inherited from their triple-gravity planet are no match for their adversary, the beautiful and ruthless star-warrior called... Lady A.

I used to think my sister and I were just two nice southern girls who'd get married in a few years and settle down to a quiet life. Then I discovered that Alina and I descend, not from good wholesome southern stock, but from an ancient Celtic bloodline of powerful sidhe-seers, people who can see the Fae. Not only can I see the terrifying otherworldly race, but I can sense the sacred Fae relics that hold the deadliest of their magic.

When my sister was found dead in a trash-filled alley in Dublin, I came over to get answers. Now all I want is revenge. And after everything I've learned about myself, I know I have the power to get it....

MacKayla Lane's ordinary life underwent a complete makeover when she landed on Ireland's shores and was plunged into a world of deadly sorcery and ancient secrets.

In her fight to stay alive, Mac must find the Sinsar Dubh-a million-year-old book of the blackest magic imaginable, which holds the key to power over both the worlds of the Fae and of Man. Pursued by Fae assassins, surrounded by mysterious figures she knows she cannot trust, Mac finds herself torn between two deadly and irresistible men: V'lane, the insatiable Fae who can turn sensual arousal into an obsession for any woman, and the ever-inscrutable Jericho Barrons, a man as alluring as he is mysterious.

For centuries the shadowy realm of the Fae has coexisted with that of humans. Now the walls between the two are coming down, and Mac is the only thing that stands between them....

Desperate for money, a down-and-out actor impersonates a prince

The Great Jordan has played the finest stages in the Forest Kingdom, performing for kings and queens, earning thunderous applause, and lining his pockets at the same time. But that was a lifetime ago. At twenty-seven, Jordan is washed up, eking out a living in backwater towns whose citizens prefer tawdry magic to true theatrical talent. Jordan's purse is nearly empty when three men approach him in an alley and offer him the role of a lifetime, which will either make his career—or end his life.

They offer ten thousand ducats if the actor will impersonate the son of the late King Malcolm, whose untimely death has caused some to whisper of poisoning. Swayed by their proposal, Jordan accompanies them to Castle Midnight, where a bit of magic makes him look like royalty. But playing a prince is risky business, and Jordan will quickly find that this is a part for which there can be no encore.

In a direct follow-up to the third book in the Sundering series, The Adversary, young warlock Farideh falls into the midst of a battle for the throne of Cormyr. As the war brought on by the Sundering rages across Faerûn, princes and princesses, wizards and rogues scheme to capture the seat of power of the Land of the Purple Dragon--with Farideh and her allies caught squarely in the middle.

Everyone, even Frost, thought that she was an ordinary mother and wife. But she begins a quest to find out who she is after the unforgiving grip of death snatches her husband and two sons from her loving arms. Her identity found, this mother and wife turned witch and swordswoman vows to travel the world fighting the very source of evil. Join Frost on her journey as she wields her mighty demonblade to slay all evil that crosses her path.

The Tanith First have been pulled back from the front line and are enjoying some well-deserved rest. But that is about to end. An enemy prisoner - one of the deadly Blood Pact - wants to betray his masters, but he will only talk to Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt. Can he be trusted, and what exactly does he know?

Gaunt must discover the truth and avert a deadly threat to both his own life and to the Sabbat Worlds Crusade itself.

Former film student Fortitude Scott is finally gainfully employed. Unfortunately, said employment happens to be with a group of sociopathic vampires -- his family. And as much as Fort is loath to get too deep into the family business, when his brother, Chivalry, is temporarily unable to run the territory, it's up to Fort to keep things under control.

So when the leader of a powerful faction of shifters turns up murdered, Fort finds himself tracking down a killer while navigating dangerous rivalries, longtime grudges, and hidden agendas. Even with the help of his foxy kitsune sidekick, Suzume, he'll need to pull out all the stops to hunt for the paranormal assassin.

But as he calls on fairies, witches, and ghouls for help, he discovers that the problem is much bigger than a single dead werebear. The supernatural community is preparing for a massive shift in power within the Scott family leadership -- and Fort has landed right in the middle of the gathering storm.

In this epic grimdark conclusion to the Godblind Trilogy, heroes, armies, and gods both good and evil will battle one last time, with the fate of the world itself at stake....

The great city of Rilpor has fallen. Its walls have crumbled under the siege by the savage Mireces; its defenders have scattered, fleeing for their lives; its new rulers plot to revive the evil Red Gods using the city's captured, soon-to-be-sacrificed citizens. Now, with the Fox God leading the shattered remnants of the Rilporian defence and the Mireces consolidating their claim on the rest of the country, it's up to Crys, Tara, Mace, Dom and the rest to end the Red Gods' scourge once and for all.

While the Rilporians plan and prepare for one final, cataclysmic battle to defeat their enemies, the Blessed One and the king of the Mireces have plans of their own: dark plans that will see gods resurrected and the annihilation of the Dancer for all time. Key to their plan is Rillirin, King Corvus's sister, and the baby--the Bloodchild--she carries.

As both sides face their destinies and their gods, only one thing is clear: death waits for them all.

Enter a war-torn world where gunpowder and magic collide

The nation of Fatrasta is a haven for criminals, rebels, adventurers and sorcerers seeking relics of the past. As insurrection grows, only the iron will of the Lady Chancellor holds the capital city of Landfall together.

Yet an ancient power as old as time is rising, and the fate of this young nation now rests in the hands of a spy, a disgraced war hero and a mercenary general with a past as turbulent as Landfall's present.

Sins of Empire is the bold new epic fantasy from Gemmell Award-winning author Brian McClellan.

The country is in turmoil. With the capital city occupied, half a million refugees are on the march, looking for safety on the frontier, accompanied by Lady Flint's soldiers. But escaping war is never easy, and soon the battle may find them, whether they are prepared or not.

Back in the capital, Michel Bravis smuggles even more refugees out of the city. But internal forces are working against him. With enemies on all sides, Michel may be forced to find help with the very occupiers he's trying to undermine.

As the final battle approaches a sellsword, a spy, and a general must find unlikely and dangerous allies in order to turn the tides of war in this epic fantasy tale of magic and gunpowder by acclaimed author Brian McClellan.

The Dynize have unlocked the Landfall Godstone, and Michel Bravis is tasked with returning to Greenfire Depths to do whatever he can to prevent them from using its power; from sewing dissension among the enemy ranks to rallying the Palo population.

Ben Styke's invasion of Dynize is curtailed when a storm scatters his fleet. Coming ashore with just twenty lancers, he is forced to rely on brains rather than brawn - gaining new allies in a strange land on the cusp of its own internal violence.

Bereft of her sorcery and physically and emotionally broken, Lady Vlora Flint now marches on Landfall at the head of an Adran army seeking vengeance against those who have conspired against her. While allied politicians seek to undo her from within, she faces insurmountable odds and Dynize's greatest general.

In this book is concluded the adventure which began in the 17th book in the Gorean series, Savages of Gor. Half-Ear, or Zarendargar, a Kur general fallen from favor in the Steel Worlds, now sought by a death squad of his savage compeers, has determined to lure his pursuers into the Barrens, the vast prairies to the east of known Gor, populated by warring tribes known to Goreans as the Red Savages. He has arranged matters in such a way that he will be abetted in his stand against the death squad, and its human allies, by a human ally of his own, his former foe, Tarl Cabot. The ancestors of the Red Savages, as those of many other Goreans, were brought to Gor long ago in Voyages of Acquisition by the Priest-Kings. The Red Savages were settled in an area not unlike that of their former home, a sweeping, almost endless grassland, where they tend to continue their former ways of life, and war. The various tribes have in common a tradition, or myth, called the Memory. And in virtue of this tradition, myth or memory, they entertain an inveterate hostility to lighter-skinned races. Cabot makes his way into this land, and amongst these tribes, in his quest for Zarendargar, he encounters enemies and perils, conflicts and hatreds, and, ultimately, friends. And meets once more the dreadful Zarendargar.

How do you kill a Saint?

Falcio, Kest, and Brasti are about to find out, because someone has figured out a way to do it and they've started with a friend.

The Dukes were already looking for ways out of their agreement to put Aline on the throne, but with the Saints turning up dead, rumours are spreading that the Gods themselves oppose her ascension. Now churches are looking to protect themselves by bringing back the military orders of religious soldiers, assassins, and (especially) Inquisitors - a move that could turn the country into a theocracy. The only way Falcio can put a stop to it is by finding the murderer. He has only one clue: a terrifying iron mask which makes the Saints vulnerable by driving them mad. But even if he can find the killer, he'll still have to face him in battle.

And that may be a duel that no swordsman, no matter how skilled, can hope to win.

Dr. Bloodmoney is a post-nuclear-holocaust masterpiece filled with a host of Dick's most memorable characters: Hoppy Harrington, a deformed mutant with telekinetic powers; Walt Dangerfield, a selfless disc jockey stranded in a satellite circling the globe; Dr. Bluthgeld, the megalomaniac physicist largely responsible for the decimated state of the world; and Stuart McConchie and Bonnie Keller, two unremarkable people bent the survival of goodness in a world devastated by evil. Epic and alluring, this brilliant novel is a mesmerizing depiction of Dick's undying hope in humanity.

Lucius Shepard's Beautiful Blood is something both special and long awaited: the first novel-length exploration of the world of the Dragon Griaule. It's a subject that has preoccupied Shepard since the publication of "The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule" in 1984, and he has returned to it repeatedly over the years, though never before in such a mesmerizing, all-encompassing fashion.

Like the initial tale, Beautiful Blood begins in the 1850s in the town of Teocinte, in a world "separated from our own by the thinnest margin of possibility." It is a landscape whose dominant feature is the massive, long-dormant body of an ancient dragon that has lain there, motionless, for millennia, exerting a powerful but mysterious influence on the surrounding area. The novel tells the story of Richard Rosacher, an ambitious young medical student who becomes fascinated by the properties inherent in the dragon's blood. His exploitation of those properties launches him on a career that leads him from the shabbiest quarter of Teocinte to a morally ambiguous position of power, wealth, and influence. Beautiful Blood takes us though the entire length of that career, which is marked throughout by the invisible agency of Griaule, who may well be the driving force behind Rosacher's astonishing ascension.

The novel also encapsulates the events of the initial Griaule story, events that dovetail neatly with the current tale. Meric Cattanay, the eponymous protagonist of "The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule," makes a welcome reappearance here. Meric's decades-long involvement with the dragon begins at roughly the same time as Rosacher's. Their stories proceed along parallel but independent lines that occasionally intersect, providing us with a view of familiar events wider and deeper than any we have had before. The result is a colorful, involving narrative with profound metaphysical overtones, one that raises--but does not answer--significant questions. Is the dragon merely a bizarre but entirely natural phenomenon? Or is he/it the manifestation of some divine purpose? And to what extent are the actions of men like Meric and Rosacher the reflections of its implacable but enigmatic will? Questions such as these animate the narrative at every turn, adding an extra level of resonance to one of the most original and important fictional creations of recent years.

Vampire hunter Elena Deveraux is hired by the dangerously beautiful Archangel Raphael. But this time, it's not a wayward vamp she has to track. It's an archangel gone bad.

The job will put Elena in the midst of a killing spree like no other--and pull her to the razor's edge of passion. Even if the hunt doesn't destroy her, succumbing to Raphael's seductive touch just may. For when archangels play, mortals break.

Two masters of epic fantasy have combined in this brilliant collaboration to create a rousing tale of the sort that becomes an instant favorite. This is the story of Shana, a halfbreed born of the forbidden union of an Elvenlord father and a human mother. Her exiled mother dead, she was rescued and raised by dragons, a proud, ancient race who existed unbeknownst to elven or humankind. From birth, Shana was the embodiment of the Prophecy that the all-powerful Elvenlords feared. Her destiny is the enthralling adventure of a lifetime.

The powerful magic of ruthless Elvenlord masters has for centuries rules the world. Even Shana, the legendary Elvenbane prophesied to deliver the oppressed into freedom, is helpless before such power. She and her ragtag band of outcasts, half-blood wizards, escaped human slaves, and free-thinking dragons have gained only a token victory against the mighty lords.

Only the long-forgotten Iron People, a band of human nomads, have escaped the tyranny of the reigning wizards. How have they survived through the centuries?

As the winds of change sweep the world, and as tensions seething beneath the surface of Elven society threaten to break into open revolt. Shana meets the ancient tribe. Could an age-old secret free Shana and her people...or will its discovery call down their doom.

In this long-awaited new novel in The Halfblood Chronicles, fantasy greats Norton and Lackey tell the enthralling story of the reclusive elvenlord Kyrtian, who emerges as a hero in a world torn by politics and war. When his cousin, Aelmarkin, tries to prove that Kyrtian is unfit to run his estate, the plan backfires, and soon Kyrtian, who doesn't share the venal, greedy nature of his cousin, finds himself with more power than he ever wanted.

Like his father before him, Kyrtian has always treated the humans on his estate like servants, instead of enslaving them as other elvenlords do. His father's legacy also leads Kyrtian to learn ancient military skills long since lost to elvenkind through the carelessness of the elvenlords. Kyrtian's rediscovered knowledge piques the interest of the current elvenlords, and soon Kyrtian finds himself appointed the new commander of the army, to the relief of his ruling peers.

For the sons of the most powerful elvenlords, the Young Lords, have rebelled against their fathers and are waging war. But by taking advantage of both the privileges of his new command and the help of some unexpected new friends, Kyrtian finally gains the resources to embark on his own, personal quest--resuming his father's search for the Great Portal, the magical doorway through which the original elvenlords entered this world.

As war rages between some sons and fathers, Kyrtian searches desperately for his own lost father, hoping to uncover not only the mystery of his disappearance, but also the secret behind the origin of elvenkind.

The war against Voldemort is not going well; even the Muggles have been affected. Dumbledore is absent from Hogwarts for long stretches of time, and the Order of the Phoenix has already suffered losses. And yet... As with all wars, life goes on. Sixth-year students learn to Apparate. Teenagers flirt and fight and fall in love. Harry receives some extraordinary help in Potions from the mysterious Half-Blood Prince. And with Dumbledore's guidance, he seeks out the full, complex story of the boy who became Lord Voldemort -- and thus finds what may be his only vulnerability.

On the heels of Patient Zero and Pride and Prejudice with Zombies-- the electrifying sequel to Hater where humanity fights itself to the death against a backdrop of ultimate apocalyptic destruction

The Earth has been torn into two parts by an irreversible division. Whether due to nature, or the unknown depths of the mind itself, everyone is now either Human or Hater. Victim or killer. Governments have fallen, command structures have collapsed, and relationships have crumbled. Major cities have become refugee camps where human survivors cower together in fear. Amidst this indiscriminate carnage, Danny McCoyne is on a mission to find his daughter Ellis, convinced that her shared Hater condition means her allegiance is to people like him. Free of inhibitions, unrestricted by memories of peace, and driven by instinct, children are pure Haters, and may well define the future of the Hater race. But, as McCoyne makes his way into the heart of human territory, an incident on the battlefield sets in place an unexpected chain of events, forcing him to question everything he believes he knows about the new order that has arisen, and the dynamic of the Hate itself.

Prince Manfred and his mentor and bodyguard, the deadly warrior Erik, survived dangers and enemies both natural and supernatural, and if they thought that their new mission was going to be anything but more of the same, they soon gave up on that hope. Returning from Jerusalem, they and their escort of knights of the Holy Trinity are escorting an envoy of II Khan Mongol to the lands of the Golden Horde-between the Black Sea and the Carpathians, which happen to be eastern bastion against their old enemies, the demon Chernobog and his possessed puppet, the Jangellion.

Unfortunately, what began as a diplomatic mission leads to Manfred and his knights being caught up in an inter-clan civil war, rescuing a fugitive woman and her injured brother, and becoming involved in the problems of Prince Vlad, Duke of Valahia, who has been held as a hostage by King Emeric of Hungary until freed by Countess Elizabeth Batholdy to use as bait to capture a group of nonhumans. Instead, the wolflike nonhumans, who masquerade as gypsies, free Prince Vlad, and help him to return to his homeland to raise revolt against Hungary and to renew age-old magics.

Manfred and Erik are forced into an alliance of convenience between the Golden Horde and the ancient magical forces of Valahia, as directed by the troubled Vlad. The magic calls for blood and Vlad is deathly afraid of it--and at the same time, is irresistibly drawn toward it...

Crater Trueblood has to rescue his ex-girlfriend... and the entire human race.

Maria Medaris is the 21-year-old matriarch of the most powerful family on the moon--gorgeous, powerful, and high-maintenance. When she is kidnapped by green-lipped, gene-splicing scientists, Maria's only hope turns out to be the very man she once spurned: Crater Trueblood.

Crater and the Lunar Rescue Company must rescue Maria before she joins forces with the lunatics who have taken her hostage and aim to make her queen.

Turns out more than Maria is at stake: the planet Earth, majestically hanging over the lunar horizon, is in the crosshairs of an asteroid engineered by Maria's abductors. If Crater can't stop it, humanity on Earth will be destroyed.

The fate of two worlds hangs in the balance... and the clock is ticking.

Join the fight for the people and power of Tanegawa's world in this thrilling sequel to Hunger Makes the Wolf

War is coming to Hob Ravani's world. The company that holds it in monopoly, TransRift Inc, has at last found what they're looking for--the source of the power that enables their Weathermen to rip holes in space and time, allowing the interstellar travel all of human society now takes for granted. And they will mine every last grain of it from Tanegawa's World no matter the cost.

Since Hob Ravani used her witchy powers to pull a massive train job and destroy TransRift Inc's control on this part of the planet, the Ghost Wolves aren't just outlaws, they're the resistance. Mag's miner collective grows restless as TransRift pushes them ever harder to strip the world of its strange, blue mineral. Now Shige Rollins has returned with a new charge--Mr Yellow, the most advanced model of Weatherman, infused with the recovered mineral samples and made into something stranger, stronger, and deadlier than before. And Mr Yellow is very, very hungry.

Max always does her job, no matter how brutal and bloody. That's how it's been ever since she was enslaved by a witch, turned into a supernatural warrior, and assigned to protect the coven of Horngate. But her job just got harder.

Waves of wild magic have returned much of the world to a time when fairy tales were real and danger now lurks behind every tree and bush. As winter descends and food, heat, and water are harder to come by, many have turned to Benjamin Sterling for protection. Leader of the Earth's Last Stand cult, Sterling claims to be the Hand of God, but his power and charisma secretly come from a dark and terrible source. With devout followers eager to do his sadistic bidding, he has his eyes on Horngate and its magical inhabitants. To save those she loves, Max will knowingly walk into a trap. But when the cult strips Max's soul bare for all to see, will even Alexander -- her lover and her strength -- remain? And if she were to lose him, what does it matter if she gains the whole world.

Alexi Sokolsky is a Spook, a hitman and mage capable of killing with nothing but a word of power and the strength of his will. But arcane ability comes with a price: The same powers that make Alexi indispensable to the Russian Mafia also make him a social outcast, an object of fear and superstition.

When a high-ranking Sicilian Mafioso is sacrificed to the Demon of Feuds and dumped on Russian territory, the Russians blame the only mage they know - Alexi. Forced to play detective to clear his name, Alexi discovers that the gruesome sacrifice is only the opening move of a very dangerous game. Every underworld mage in New York City is on the hunt for a Gift Horse, a mysterious creature rumored to carry the secrets of all creation in her flesh and blood... a creature who is calling to Alexi for help.

If Alexi heeds the Gift Horse's call, he stands to lose his place in the Mafia and his life. If he doesn't, the world will be held hostage by whoever finds her first - and given that a demon-summoning murderous psychopath is in pole position, the odds are not in the world's favor.

Born into a life of secrets and service, Chrysabelle's body bears the telltale marks of a comarré -- a special race of humans bred to feed vampire nobility. When her patron is murdered, she becomes the prime suspect, which sends her running into the mortal world...and into the arms of Malkolm, an outcast vampire cursed to kill every being from whom he drinks.

Now, Chrysabelle and Malkolm must work together to stop a plot to merge the mortal and supernatural worlds. If they fail, a chaos unlike anything anyone has ever seen will threaten to reign.

With the ring of sorrows still missing, and the covenant between othernaturals and mortals broken, Chrysabelle and Malkolm's problems are just beginning. Chrysabelle still owes Malkolm for his help, but fulfilling that debt means returning to Corvinestri, the hidden vampire city neither of them is welcome in.

The discovery that Chrysabelle has a brother could mean reneging on her promise to Malkolm, something that might make him angry enough to loose the beast living inside him. And fulfilling her vow could prove devastating for Chrysabelle --- especially when you throw in power hungry witches, dead fringe vampires, and the Kubai Mata.

Violent murders occur in Paradise City as counterfeit comarr? are systematically hunted. As war erupts at home, Malkolm and Chrysabelle head to New Orleans to recover the Ring of Sorrows. Forced to make a life and death decision, Chrysabelle will realize that her relationship to Malkolm may have fatal consequences.Samhain approaches, bringing with it the final melding of the mortal and othernatural worlds. No one knows just how much power the night holds...

After nearly dying at the hands of the Aurelian, Chrysabelle finds new determination to move beyond life as a comarr?. That is until the Kubai Mata bring a new task to her doorstep: rescue the child Tatiana has kidnapped, or Mal becomes enemy number one.

In the final showdown between the forces of dark and light, Mal and Chrysabelle face not only Tatiana, but the ancient evil that now controls her: the Castus Sanguis. Chrysabelle gathers her friends and family around her, forming a plan to bring an end to the chaos surrounding them. But the Castus is the most powerful being they've ever come up against. Defeating such evil will require a great sacrifice from someone on the side of light.

One of them will change sides. One of them will die. No one will survive unscathed. Can Chrysabelle save those she cares about or will that love get her killed? What price is she willing to pay to draw last blood?

As the rebellion grows against High King Jakoven, Ward, ruler of Hurog, realizes he must join with the rebels. However, Jakoven can crush his enemies with dragon's blood. The very blood that courses through Ward's veins.

Jazz Dent has never been closer to catching his father.

Jazz has been shot and left to die in New York. His girlfriend, Connie, is in the clutches of Jazz's monstrous father, Billy--the world's most notorious serial killer. And his best friend, Howie, is bleeding to death on the floor of Jazz's new home.

Somehow, these three must rise above the horrors and find a way to come together in pursuit of Billy.

But then Jazz crosses a line he's never crossed before, and soon the entire country is wondering: "Like father, like son? Who is the true monster?"

From New York City to the small town of Lobo's Nod, the chase is on, and this time, Jazz is the hunted, not the hunter--while Billy Dent lurks in the shadows.

And beyond Billy? Something much, much worse. Prepare to meet... the Crow King.

From acclaimed author Barry Lyga comes the shocking conclusion to the bestselling I Hunt Killer trilogy.

Forced into battle with a legion of those infected by the plague of Nurgle in order to reclaim the Imperial shrine world of Kathur, First Lieutenant Parmenion Thade must take a commanding role and ensure victory over insurmountable odds.

There's only one Al MacBharrais: Though other Scotsmen may have dramatic mustaches and a taste for fancy cocktails, Al also has a unique talent. He's a master of ink and sigil magic. In his gifted hands, paper and pen can work wondrous spells.

But Al isn't quite alone: He is part of a global network of sigil agents who use their powers to protect the world from mischievous gods and strange monsters. So when a fellow agent disappears under sinister circumstances in Australia, Al leaves behind the cozy pubs and cafes of Glasgow and travels to the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria to solve the mystery.

The trail to his colleague begins to pile up with bodies at alarming speed, so Al is grateful his friends have come to help--especially Nadia, his accountant who moonlights as a pit fighter. Together with a whisky-loving hobgoblin known as Buck Foi and the ancient Druid Atticus O'Sullivan, along with his dogs, Oberon and Starbuck, Al and Nadia will face down the wildest wonders Australia--and the supernatural world--can throw at them, and confront a legendary monster not seen in centuries.

An ambitious young woman with the power to control minds seeks vengeance against the royals who murdered her family, in a Caribbean-inspired fantasy world embattled by colonial oppression.

Sigourney Rose is the only surviving daughter of a noble lineage on the islands of Hans Lollik. When she was a child, her family was murdered by the islands' colonizers, who have massacred and enslaved generations of her people--and now, Sigourney is ready to exact her revenge.

When the childless king of the islands declares that he will choose his successor from amongst eligible noble families, Sigourney uses her ability to read and control minds to manipulate her way onto the royal island and into the ranks of the ruling colonizers. But when she arrives, prepared to fight for control of all the islands, Sigourney finds herself the target of a dangerous, unknown magic.

Someone is killing off the ruling families to clear a path to the throne. As the bodies pile up and all eyes regard her with suspicion, Sigourney must find allies among her prey and the murderer among her peers... lest she become the next victim.

A Caribbean-inspired fantasy about "power, privilege and survival," King of the Rising is the searing conclusion to the Islands of Blood and Storm series which began with Queen of the Conquered. (K. S. Villoso)

A revolution has swept through the islands of Hans Lollik and former slave Loren Jannik has been chosen to lead the survivors in a bid to free the islands forever.

But the rebels are running out of food, weapons and options. And as the Fjern inch closer to reclaiming Hans Lollik with every battle, Loren is faced with a choice that could shift the course of the revolution in their favor-or doom it to failure.

The new 'James Asher' vampire novel from the best-selling author - It's 1911. War is coming, and according to one of the vampires of St. Petersburg, the Kaiser is trying to recruit vampires. James Asher, Oxford don and formerly on His Majesty's Secret Service, is forced to team up again with his vampire partner Don Simon Ysidro for a journey to the subarctic Russian capital. Are they on the trail of a rogue vampire with a plan to achieve the power to walk in daylight? Asher wonders. Or is Ysidro's real agenda to seek the woman he once loved?

Jane Yellowrock is back on the prowl against the children of the night.

The vampire council has hired skinwalker Jane Yellowrock to hunt and kill one of their own who has broken sacred ancient rules-but Jane quickly realizes that in a community that is thousands of years old, loyalties run deep...

Jane Yellowrock is a shape-shifting skinwalker who's always up for a fight - even if it means putting her life on the line...

The Master of Natchez, Mississippi has a nasty problem on his hands. Rogue vampires - those who follow the Naturaleza and believe that humans should be nothing more than prey to be hunted - are terrorizing his city. Luckily, he knows the perfect skinwalker to call in to take back the streets.

But what he doesn't tell Jane is that there's something different about these vamps. Something that makes them harder to kill - even for a pro like Jane. Now, her simple job has turned into a fight to stay alive...and to protect the desperately ill child left in her care.

It's not easy being a girl. It's even harder when you're the only girl in a family of werewolves. But it's next to impossible when your very existence spells out the doom of your race... Meet Jessica McClain -- she just became part of the pack.In the vein of Kelley Armstrong and Patricia Briggs, a new urban fantasy that rewrites the werewolf myth...

It hasn't been the best week for Jessica McClain.Her newly found mate has been kidnapped by a Goddess hell-bent on revenge, and Jessica is positive she can save him.But being the only female werewolf in town comes with its own set of rules and powers... if only she understood them.Aided by two vamps, two loyal Pack members, and one very reluctant human, Jessica must rescue her man while coming to terms with what being a wolf really means. The second novel in the Jessica McClain series is a full on action adventure featuring one angry Goddess and plenty of monsters, demons, and a few newly risen beasties...

Jessica arrives back in town to find her best friend missing and the most powerful witch in the country is blaming her for it. But before they can move to save her, the group is attacked.

On the run, Jessica and Rourke head to the mountains. Several surprises await them, but in order to save her father they are forced to leave for New Orleans early.

Arriving on the Vampire Queen's doorstep unexpectedly, and bringing trouble on their heels, the Sects are thrown into an all out war. The vicious skirmish ends up forcing the vamps and Jessica to fight on the same team.

The Vamp Queen ends up owing Jessica, but what Jessica doesn't realize is just how soon she'll have to cash it in...

Jessica is going to Hell.

After settling a fragile truce between the vampires, werewolves and witches, the last thing Jessica wants to do is face the demons head on. But when the Prince of Hell kidnapped her brother, he set into motion a chain of events that even Jessica doesn't have the power to stop.

Now, Jessica must go into battle again. But hell is a whole new beast - new rules, more dangerous demons, and an entirely foreign realm. And when Jessica is dropped into the Underworld too soon, without protection or the help of her friends, she must figure out just how powerful she can be... or she will never make it out alive.

There's nowhere left to run.

Back from Hell, Jessica arrives to find her world thrown into chaos. Her father is fighting a losing battle against the Made wolves, and when Jessica and her crew rush to his aid, they discover the war is not as straightforward as it seems. Something larger is on the hunt, something ancient and powerful that won't rest until Jessica is dead. Now Jessica's plan of attack must change - but how can she defeat someone who can predict her every move?

There's only so much room on the Island, only so much blood, and Manhattan's Vampyre Clans aren't interested in sharing. So when the Vyrus-infected dregs of New York's outer boroughs start creeping across the bridges and through the tunnels, the Clans want to know why.

Bad luck for PI and general hard case Joe Pitt.

See, Joe used to be a Rogue, used to work off his own dime, picked his own gigs, but tight times and a terminally ill girlfriend pushed him into the arms of the renegade Society Clan. Now he has all the cash and blood he needs, but at a steep price. The price tonight is crossing the bridge, rolling to Coney Island, finding the Freak Clan, and figuring out what's driving that bunch of savages to scratch at the Society's door. No need to look far. The answer lies around the corner in Gravesend. Convenient, all those graves.

From uptown to the boardwalk, war drums are beating. Murderous family feuds and personal grudges are being drawn and brandished, along with the long knives. Blood will spill and, big surprise, Joe's in the middle. But hey, why should this night be different from any other?

Sunset to sunrise: put off a war, keep your head attached to your neck, and save your girl. Check. Joe's on the case.

The tyrannical rule of the Deacon and his Jerusalem Riders has unleashed upon the world a sea of bigotry and hatred, where Unbelievers and Mutants are massacred in the name of God and Peace. And the long-vanished Jerusalem Man is now considered a saint of the new order. To speak ill of his memory is heresy.

But when the church in Pilgrim's Valley is burnt to the ground, its congregation slaughtered, a rider appears and hunts down the killers. And word spreads - The Jerusalem Man is back!

Hunted and alone, Jon Shannow must battle the forces of the Deacon - and face a terrible enemy from another universe; a dark god who feeds on the souls of worlds.

WITNESS THE BIRTH OF THE RESISTANCE

When the Rebellion defeated the Empire in the skies above Endor, Leia Organa believed it was the beginning to a lasting peace. But after decades of vicious infighting and partisan gridlock in the New Republic Senate, that hope seems like a distant memory.

Now a respected senator, Leia must grapple with the dangers that threaten to cripple the fledgling democracy--from both within and without. Underworld kingpins, treacherous politicians, and Imperial loyalists are sowing chaos in the galaxy. Desperate to take action, senators are calling for the election of a First Senator. It is their hope that this influential post will bring strong leadership to a divided galaxy.

As the daughter of Darth Vader, Leia faces with distrust the prospect of any one person holding such a powerful position--even when supporters suggest Leia herself for the job. But a new enemy may make this path Leia's only option. For at the edges of the galaxy, a mysterious threat is growing....

Andrej Koscuisko is a former Fleet Medical Officer for the enormous totalitarian star empire, the Jurisdiction. But when he served in the Fleet, Andrej's real job was not medicine, at least not primarily medicine, but to act as a torturer of prisoners, whether they had information to give or not. To help him in his duties, Andrej was attended by "bond involuntaries"--slaves--men he'd come to look upon as friends and family. Finally, enough was enough. Andrej absconded with six of his Fleet-provided security slaves and sent them into the no-man's land of Gonebeyond Space--beyond the reach of the Jurisdiction's tyrannical Bench.

Now The Angel of Death, a savage terrorist organization from Andrej's system of origin, means to make Gonebeyond its own. But its ancestral enemy--the secret service of the Dolgorukij church, the Malcontent--has planted a double agent on the inside of the Angel of Death. Finally this interstellar menace might be destroyed forever.

But there is trouble. Andrej Koscuisko wasn't expected to escape from protective custody at Safehaven Medical Center and come looking for his freed bond involuntaries, and now the Malcontent faces Andrej's unplanned intervention at the worst possible time. Now the only way to save the mission and bring down an organization that has slain whole systems of men, women, and children is for Andrej to embrace the savagery in his own heart and once again take on the role of Judicial torturer--a role that he had fought long and hard to escape. He must deploy every dirty trick and brutal stratagem he knows against the Malcontent agent whose secret he has unwittingly betrayed.

Kane. The Mystic Swordsman becomes the living link with the awesome power of a vanished superrace. In the dark swamp where toadmen croak and cower, slumbers a secret relic of the days when creatures from the stars ruled the Earth. In the booty captured in a savage raid, Kane discovers a ring, a bloodstone, which is key to the power that lies buried, inactive but not dead, within the forest. Now Kane, whose bloody sword has slashed and killed for the glory of other rulers, can scheme to rule the Earth - himself!

BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL, MAN AND DEMON, SHE'S ABOUT TO FACE THE ONE THING SHE MAY NOT BE ABLE TO SURVIVE.

Welcome to the world of Kara Gillian, a cop with a gift. Not only does she have the power of "othersight" to see what most people can't even imagine, but she's become the exclusive summoner of a demon lord. Or maybe it's the other way around. The fact is, with two troublesome cases on her docket and a handsome FBI agent under her skin, Kara needs the help of sexy, insatiable Lord Rhyzkahl more than he needs her. Because these two victims, linked by suspicious coincidence, haven't just been murdered. Something has eaten their souls.

It's a case with roots in the arcane, but whose evil has flowered among the rich, powerful, and corrupt in Beaulac, Louisiana. And as the killings continue, Kara soon realizes how much there's still to learn about demons, men, and things that kill in the night--and how little time she has to learn it.

Atlanta was always a dangerous city. Now, as waves of magic and technology compete for supremacy, it's a place caught in a slow apocalypse, where monsters spawn among the crumbling skyscrapers and supernatural factions struggle for power and survival.

Eight years ago, Julie Lennart left Atlanta to find out who she was. Now she's back with a new face, a new magic, and a new name--Aurelia Ryder--drawn by the urgent need to protect the family she left behind. An ancient power is stalking her adopted mother, Kate Daniels, an enemy unlike any other, and a string of horrifying murders is its opening gambit.

If Aurelia's true identity is discovered, those closest to her will die. So her plan is simple: get in, solve the murders, prevent the prophecy from being fulfilled, and get out without being recognized. She expected danger, but she never anticipated that the only man she'd ever loved could threaten everything.

One small misstep could lead to disaster. But for Aurelia, facing disaster is easy; it's relationships that are hard.

Everyone's favorite sword-wielding California girl returns-from the author of Coronets and Steel. With the man she loves set to marry a look-alike princess, Kim Murray returns to California from the magical country of Dobrenica to heal her broken heart. But family politics soon have her leaving for London, where she is forced into a duel with a Dobrenican nobleman. He reveals that her great sacrifice, leaving Alec, was a disaster. To fix her mistake, Kim returns to Dobrenica, but what she finds there is far more shocking and dangerous than she ever imagined. Not just politics and personalities but ghosts and magic, murder and mystery, await her as she struggles to understand the many faces of love. Once again Kim has to take sword in hand as she tries to make peace and learn the truth. Only, whose truth?

Kismet Knight is the Vampire Shrink. She's capable, intelligent and grounded, and she knows exactly how to handle her patients, whether they're vampire wannabes – or the real thing. But when it comes to her love-life she's on less steady ground, for Devereux, her mysterious and sexy-as-hell vampire lover, has become preoccupied and possessive. Needing a break, Kismet heads to the American Psychological Association's annual conference in New York – but it's not long before her new life intrudes. The monster who stalked her three months earlier reappears, her bloodsucking clients won't leave her alone, and there are ghosts haunting the hotel.

So much for Kismet's nice, ordinary life...

If there were two more impetuous and carefree men in the Kingdom of the Isles, they had yet to be found. Twins Borric and Erland wore that mantle proudly, much to the chagrin of their father, Prince Arutha of Krondor. But their blissful youth has come to an end. Their uncle, the King, has produced no male children. Bypassing himself, Arutha names Borric, the eldest twin by seconds, the Royal Heir. As his brother, Erland will have his own great responsibilities to shoulder. To drive home their future roles, Arutha sends them as ambassadors to Kesh, the most feared nation in the world. Borric and Erland will be presented to the Queen of Kesh-the single most powerful ruler in the known world-at her Seventy-fifth Jubilee Anniversary.

But they have not even left Krondor when an assassination attempt on Borric is thwarted. Aware that he is being provoked into war, Arutha does not rise to the bait. His sons' journey will not be deterred, for nothing less than peace is riding on it. Yet there is to be no peace for the young princes. When their traveling party is ambushed, Borric disappears and is presumed dead-sending Erland into spirals of rage and grief as he is forced to navigate alone the court intrigues at Kesh. But unbeknownst to anyone, Borric lives and has escaped his captors. In a strange land, with a price on his head, Borric must use all his wits and stamina to find his way back to his brother.

On separate paths, the two men-one a fugitive and one a future king-make their journey toward maturity, honor, and duty. For every step they take could sway the fragile peace of the land, as those who crave war rally against them-and become ever more daring.

They killed my mother.
They took our magic.
They tried to bury us.

Now we rise.

Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie's Reaper mother summoned forth souls.

But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.

Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.

Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers... and her growing feelings for an enemy.

The shadows have risen, and the line is law.

All Bree wanted was to uncover the truth behind her mother's death. So she infiltrated the Legendborn Order, a secret society descended from King Arthur's knights--only to discover her own ancestral power. Now, Bree has become someone new:

A Medium. A Bloodcrafter. A Scion.

But the ancient war between demons and the Order is rising to a deadly peak. And Nick, the Legendborn boy Bree fell in love with, has been kidnapped.

Bree wants to fight, but the Regents who rule the Order won't let her. To them, she is an unknown girl with unheard-of power, and as the living anchor for the spell that preserves the Legendborn cycle, she must be protected.

When the Regents reveal they will do whatever it takes to hide the war, Bree and her friends must go on the run to rescue Nick themselves. But enemies are everywhere, Bree's powers are unpredictable and dangerous, and she can't escape her growing attraction to Selwyn, the mage sworn to protect Nick until death.

If Bree has any hope of saving herself and the people she loves, she must learn to control her powers from the ancestors who wielded them first--without losing herself in the process.

It was definite -- Dumery had no magical talent at all. He could never fulfill his dream to become a wizard's apprentice. Hurt, angry, and mortally disappointed, he despaired of ever choosing a trade.

But then Dumery spied a so-called great wizard humbling himself before a man selling dragon's blood -- the precious stuff that made difficult spells work. If Dumery couldn't be a wizard, maybe he could become a dragon-hunter and have all those scornful wizards crawling to him.

So, leaving his family, city, and comfortable home, Dumery began trailing Kensher, the man in brown -- even though Kensher said he didn't need a dragon-hunting apprentice. But when Dumery finally caught up with Kensher, he would discover Kensher's great secret of how the precious fluid was obtained -- a secret from which only Kensher's kin could profit.

Once again, Dumery would be left without career or future. Unless...

The new techno-thriller from the author of Legion of the Damned and The Final Battle

It takes more than guts to win a war...

In a Legion gone lax, Colonel Bill Booly, with his mixed blood and by-the-book attitude, is a misfit. So when he steps on some important toes, his punishment is assignment to the worst post in the galaxy: Earth.

But Booly and his troops will turn out to be Earth's best line of defense, when a Legion-led military coup topples the government.

It's Legionnaire against Legionnaire in a struggle that will be won by strength, by courage, and...

Death and Tattoos in the Big Easy!

Having killed her last producer (SO not her fault, though), stuntwoman Lee Striga's next film shoot takes her to the voodoo-soaked bayous and haunted back alleys of New Orleans, where sinister supernatural figures stalk the streets. In a dark corner of the French Quarter, an arcane tattoo artist is using his clients in rituals that will open an inter-dimensional gateway for a demon god from beyond the stars.

Allegedly an 'autobiographical' work, the book is set in a very bizarre alternate universe in England before and after the Second World War. Events are rendered in Symbolist fashion and explore the British Fascism of Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts and war-time radio broadcaster Lord Haw-Haw. Other dramatis personae include pop icon Jack Good, 1950s parliamentarian Lord Boothby, philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, poetess Sylvia Plath and the biggest English movie star of the 1930s, Jessie Matthews. Includes illustrations by the author.

Jody never asked to become a vampire. But when she wakes up under an alley Dumpster with a badly burned arm, an aching back, superhuman strength, and a distinctly Nosferatuan thirst, she realizes the decision has been made for her.

Making the transition from the nine-to-five grind to an eternity of nocturnal prowlings is going to take some doing, however, and that's where C. Thomas Flood fits in. A would-be Kerouac from Incontinence, Indiana, Tommy (to his friends) is biding his time night-clerking and frozen-turkey bowling in a San Francisco Safeway. But all that changes when a beautiful undead redhead walks through the door... and proceeds to rock Tommy's life -- and afterlife -- in ways he never thought possible.

10,000 years ago, the Invidians, a warrior race, waged unrelenting war across our galaxy. Arrogant mortal beings, driven to fulfill their destiny and build an everlasting empire, they sought the secret to eternal life. They found it. And then they disappeared. Find out why the galactic order rests on the shoulders of three human beings and one mysterious stranger. To save us, they must follow the ancient path paved in the "Blood of Invidia".

Galaxy Conquering Immortals, Shape Shifting Warriors, Yakuza Ninjas and Gray-skinned Aliens. There's over-the-top action in this SciFi/Paranormal (Non-Romance) novel that's the breathtaking beginning of the Maestru Series!

In the western sky the bright emerald banner of the Visitor descends like a portent of annihilation. On the continent of Jacuruku, the Thaumaturgs have mounted yet another expedition to tame the neighboring wild jungle. Yet this is no normal wilderness. It is called Himatan, and it is said to be half of the spirit-realm and half of the earth. And it is said to be ruled by a powerful entity whom some name the Queen of Witches, and some a goddess: the ancient Ardata. Saeng grew up knowing only the rule of the magus Thaumaturgs -- but it was the voices out of that land's forgotten past that she listened to. And when her rulers mount an invasion of the neighboring jungle, those voices send her and her brother on a desperate mission.

To the south, the desert tribes are united by the arrival of a foreign warleader, a veteran commander in battered ashen mail whom his men call, the Grey Ghost. This warleader takes the tribes on a raid like none other, deep into the heart of Thaumaturg lands. While word comes to K'azz, and mercenary company the Crimson Guard, of a contract in Jacuruku. And their employer... none other than Ardata herself.

In one of the hottest summers for decades, New York City is swept by a strange and terrible epidemic. Doctors are helpless as victims fall prey to a bizarre blood disorder. They can no longer eat solid food, they become hypersensitive to sunlight and they have an irresistible need to drink human blood.

As panic grips the city, psychic Harry Erskine must enter the shadowy realms between the living and the dead, and call on America's native spirits to help him...

Meet Marla Mason--smart, saucy, slightly wicked witch of the East Coast....

Sorcerer Marla Mason, small-time guardian of the city of Felport, has a big problem. A rival is preparing a powerful spell that could end Marla's life--and, even worse, wreck her city. Marla's only chance of survival is to boost her powers with the Cornerstone, a magical artifact hidden somewhere in San Francisco. But when she arrives there, Marla finds that the quest isn't going to be quite as cut-and-dried as she expected...and that some of the people she needs to talk to are dead. It seems that San Francisco's top sorcerers are having troubles of their own--a mysterious assailant has the city's magical community in a panic, and the local talent is being (gruesomely) picked off one by one.

With her partner-in-crime, Rondeau, Marla is soon racing against time through San Francisco's alien streets, dodging poisonous frogs, murderous hummingbirds, cannibals, and a nasty vibe from the local witchery, who suspect that Marla herself may be behind the recent murders. And if Marla doesn't figure out who is killing the city's finest in time, she'll be in danger of becoming a magical statistic herself....

Theodore Sturgeon's dark and foreboding look at the vampire myth was an instant classic when originally published in 1956. When George Smith is arrested for assaulting a senior officer, a military psychiatrist is assigned to the case. The secret of George's past is unearthed, and a history of blood lust and murder. Innovatively told through letters, interviews, and traditional narrative, Some of Your Blood effectively portrays the tragic upbringing of George Smith to his attempts at a stable life and the great love of his life to his inevitable downfall. Millipede Press is proud to present this masterpiece of macabre literature in a brand new edition.

Mechanic Mercy Thompson has friends in low places-and in dark ones. And now she owes one of them a favor. Since she can shapeshift at will, she agrees to act as some extra muscle when her vampire friend Stefan goes to deliver a message to another of his kind.

But this new vampire is hardly ordinary-and neither is the demon inside of him.

Elwere - city of rainbows, where the fortunes of the planet Oroga are concentrated in the grasping hands of the privileged few. To David, stolen from Elwere as a baby and raised as a thief of the Lower City, it is a dream of paradise, a treasure trove to which he must find the key, no matter what the cost... And Eschteef - a schrift of the jewel-and-precious-metals schtann, twice the size of a human, more than twice as strong, with frightfully glowing eyes and rows of needle-sharp teeth. It, too, has a dream, a dream of which David has suddenly become the crucial focus. And once a schrift has chosen, nothing can change its path.

Elwere or the Alien - two different roads to the future, leading to either wealth and power - or death...

Yes, we're going back deep underground for another twelve rounds with Mookie Pearl.

Father, barkeep, former Mafioso, ruler of his subterranean crime-kingdom. The Organization is back, and they'll do anything to get Mookie on board, but Mookie has gone legit, and it's taking every ounce of effort for him to keep his new bar from crashing and burning.

To top it all, his daughter is missing, and when Nora's not in plain sight, that's usually a sign of bad things to come! On one hand, the Organization. On the other, Nora.

Why can't Family ever be easy?

The Moontide is coming, and the world stands on the brink of war . . . Every twelve years the tides sink and the Leviathan Bridge rises above the waves, linking the Eastern and Western continents . . . and allowing the Rondian Emperor, overlord of the west, to march his crusading armies across Antiopia. But this time the East is ready. As two civilisations clash, three ordinary people – a failed mage, a jaded mercenary and a lowly market girl – are about to discover that their actions may determine the fate of nations.

Behind the king's life stands the menacing Protector, and beyond him lies the Protector's Shadow...

Centuries after the death of Uthar the Great, the throne of the Ontilian Empire lies vacant. The late emperor's brother-in-law and murderer, Lord Urdhven, appoints himself Protector to his nephew, young King Lathmar VII and sets out to kill anyone who stands between himself and mastery of the empire, including (if he can manage it) the king himself and his ancient but still formidable ancestress, Ambrosia Viviana.

When Ambrosia is accused of witchcraft and put to trial by combat, she is forced to play her trump card and call on her brother, Morlock Ambrosius—stateless person, master of all magical makers, deadly swordsman, and hopeless drunk.

As ministers of the king, they carry on the battle, magical and mundane, against the Protector and his shadowy patron. But all their struggles will be wasted unless the young king finds the strength to rule in his own right and his own name.

A Wizard, an Angel, and a Horseman of the Apocalypse walk into a bar...

The ancient pact between mankind, Heaven, and Hell has been broken. And this upstart wizard's quest for vengeance may have just kicked off Armageddon. So, time for a drink... or maybe two.

Already plagued with sinister night terrors that could qualify him as a card-carrying psychopathic insomniac, Nate can barely even manage to put his pants on in the morning, let alone pick teams for the Apocalypse.

But when he's framed as a demon sympathizer, condemned by the Armies of Heaven, and hunted down by both his allies and the Four Horsemen, this wizard doesn't think it can get any worse...

Then they take away his magic. And a wizard without magic stands no chance against the forces of Heaven and Hell...

Zach Barrows is a cocky, ambitious White House employee until he's abruptly transferred out and partnered with Nathaniel Cade, a secret agent sworn to protect the president. But Cade is no ordinary civil servant. Bound 140 years ago by a special blood oath, Nathanial Cade is a vampire. On the orders of the president he defends the nation against enemies far stranger-and even more dangerous-than civilians like Zach could ever imagine

A political operative and a volunteer are brutally murdered. Written in their blood on the wall of the crime scene: IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK. In 145 years, Nathaniel Cade, the President's vampire, has fought one particular evil over and over again: the source of urban legends and nightmares across the country. It has gone by many names and guises, but is best known by the one that all children instinctively fear: the Boogeyman. No matter how Cade kills him, the Boogeyman always comes back. When the killer begins targeting the president's people on the campaign trail, Cade and his human handler, Zach Barrows, are tasked with cleaning up the mess before it spills over into the upcoming election. Cade and Zach must stop the one monster Cade has never been able to defeat completely. And they must do it before the Boogeyman adds another victim to his long and bloody list: the President of the United States himself.

The vampires have been vanquished! Harry Keogh and the armies of the dead have destroyed the evil that once plagued the world. Nathan and Nestor, secret twin sons of the Necroscope and a proud gypsy woman, were children when their father, his humanity poisoned by his fearsome struggles, sacrificed himself to save mankind.

Yet there are vampires still, vampires crueler and stranger than any the Necroscope had faced. When these new, merciless killers swoop out of the sky, Nathan and Nestor are men--but they have few of Harry Keogh's miraculous powers.

Torn from each other by battle, the sons of the Necroscope journey across the vampire world, exploring its mysteries, each seeking the powerful, terrible vampires, his missing brother...and the woman they both love!

The twin sons of Harry Keogh, the Necroscope, have taken very different paths. Nathan as his father's powers--to talk to the dead, to travel instantly through space. Like Harry, this new Necroscope fights evil wherever he finds it.

His twin, Nestor, has become the most horrifying evil imaginable: a shape-shifting, blood sucking Wamphyi Lord! Devoid of human feeling, Nestor and his companion, the beautiful, malevolent Wratha the Risen, hunt without mercy.

The battle between the brothers mirrors the war between vampires and humans. On mankind's side: terrible weapons brought from Earth by Nathan's allies. But the vampires are numerous and powerful, and neither side has a clear advantage...until Nathan and his legions of the dead discover a way to destroy the vampires forever.

In the midst of a titanic battle, Nathan makes a desperate move that forever changes millions of lives and two worlds: the vampire world... and earth.

Hell is real. We're all living it.

Nick Holleran learned that truth the hard way the day he took three bullets to the chest and bled out in an alleyway. Only death didn't stick, and it's been five long years working among the ghosts and monsters, demons and fallen angels, hoping that next time he'll make it to heaven. But things are never that simple, are they?

After a night from Hell, private investigator Nick Holleran finds himself face to face with Diana, the mystery ghost from his office, and a job that he can't say no to. With unseen evils on his heels, and a dead girl at his side, Nick uncovers horrific truths that put him at odds with the Haven Police Department, and even closer to death than ever before.

Nick will soon realize the Devil isn't the only one that walks in blood.

Driven on by their hatred of the False Emperor, the Night Lords stalk the shadows of the galaxy, eternally seeking revenge for the death of their primarch. Their dark quest leads them to a fractious alliance with the Red Corsairs, united only by a common enemy. Together with this piratical band of renegades, they bring their ways of destruction to the fortress-monastery of the Marines Errant.

THEY SEEK ONLY TO BRING DEATH

In the shadows of Nocturne City, witches lurk and demons prowl, and homicide detective Luna Wilder must keep the peace--while living life as a werewolf. Now bodies are turning up all over town, the brutal murders linked by a cryptic message: We see with empty eyes...

To make matters worse for Luna, she can't get wolfishly handsome Dmitri Sandovsky out of her mind. The last time he helped her with a case, Dmitri suffered a demon bite that infected him with a mysterious illness...and now his pack elders have forbidden him from associating with Luna. But she'll need his help when high-level witches start turning up slaughtered. Because a war is brewing between rival clans of blood witches and caster witches--a magical gang war with the power to burn Nocturne City to the ground.

This volume contains all three books in the Ombinus and Blood series: Servant of the Underworld + Harbinger of the Storm + Master of the House of Darts

Servant of the Underworld: Year One-Knife, Tenochtitlan - the capital of the Aztecs. The end of the world is kept at bay only by the magic of human sacrifice. A priestess disappears from an empty room drenched in blood. Acatl, high priest, must find her, or break the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead.

Harbinger of the Storm: The year is Two House and the Mexica Empire teeters on the brink of destruction, lying vulnerable to the flesh-eating star-demons - and to the return of their creator, a malevolent goddess only held in check by the Protector God's power. The council is convening to choose a new emperor, but when a councilman is found dead, only Acatl, High Priest of the Dead, can solve the mystery.

Master of the House of Darts: The year is Three Rabbit, and the storm is coming... The coronation war for the new Emperor has just ended in a failure, the armies retreating with a mere forty prisoners of war - not near enough sacrifices to ensure the favor of the gods. When one of those prisoners of war dies of a magical illness, Acatl, High Priest for the Dead, is summoned to investigate.

Table of Contents:

• Servant of the Underworld - (2010)
• Harbinger of the Storm - (2011)
• Master of the House of Darts - (2011)

It is the year One-Knife in Tenochtitlan - the capital of the Aztecs. The end of the world is kept at bay only by the magic of human sacrifice. A Priestess disappears from an empty room drenched in blood.

Acatl, High Priest of the Dead must find her, or break the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead. But how do you find someone, living or dead, in a world where blood sacrifices are an everyday occurrence and the very gods stalk the streets?

The Aztec Empire teeters on the brink of extinction. As the political infighting starts within the imperial court, Acatl, High Priest for the Dead, makes a macabre discovery in the palace: a high-ranking nobleman has been torn to pieces by an invocation - and it looks like the summoner belongs to the court itself...

The year is Three Rabbit, and the storm is coming...

The coronation war for the new Emperor has just ended in a failure, the armies retreating with a mere forty prisoners of war - not near enough sacrifices to ensure the favor of the gods.

When one of those prisoners of war dies of a magical illness, ACATL, High Priest for the Dead, is summoned to investigate.

Transported through time to the dank streets of Victorian London, Alex Locke seeks to unravel the mysteries of the Obsidian Heart, the enigmatic object to which his fate is inextricably bound. When a string of grisly murders takes place across the capital, Alex follows a trail that will lead him through the opium dens of Limehouse into the dark and twisted world of the Society of Blood, and ever closer to unlocking the secret of the Heart.

Set in the same world as the Faithful and the Fallen quartet, the first novel in John Gwynne's Of Blood and Bone series, A Time of Dread, takes place one hundred years after the end of Wrath.

The Ben-Elim, a race of warrior angels, once vanquished a mighty demon horde. Now they rule the Banished lands. But their dominion is brutally enforced and their ancient enemy may not be as crushed as they thought.

In the snowbound north, Drem, a trapper, finds mutilated corpses in the forests - a sign of demonic black magic. In the south, Riv, a young, tempestuous soldier, discovers a deadly rift within the Ben-Elim themselves.

Two individuals with two world-changing secrets. But where will they lead? And what role will Drem and Riv play in the Banished Land's fate? Difficult choices need to be made. Because in the shadows, demons are gathering, waiting for their time to rise...

DEFY THE DARKNESS. DEFEND THE LIGHT.

Drem and his friends are haunted by the horrors they witnessed at the battle at Starstone Lake: the screams of men being warped into beasts and the sight of a demon rising from the dead. But worse than any memory is Fritha, the demons' deadly high priestess. And she is hunting them.

Concealed in Forn Forest, Riv knows her very existence as a half-breed is a threat to the Ben-Elim. She represents their most dangerous secret-and if the warrior angels find her, they won't hesitate to silence her.

As the demonic forces multiply, they send a mighty host to overthrow the angel's stronghold. Like heroes of old, Drem, Riv, and the Bright Star's warriors must battle to save themselves and save their land. But can the light triumph when the dark is rising?

Now is the time of reckoning...

The demon-king Asroth is free of his iron prison, and thewhole of the Banished Lands stands on the brink of domination.

With the Ben-Elim broken and routed, half-breed Riv and asmall band of comrades must try to find a way to strike at the demon forces.

Meanwhile, Drem is with the Order of the Bright Star on a desperate march south to join the battle. He fears what they will find along the way, even as he knows it is better to fight and fall than to live without hope.

The original Orcs trilogy ended with Stryke and his band of Orcs finding the ancestral Orc home hidden in another dimension. Orcs Bad Blood will tell the story of their hectic adventures in the other dimensions as they attempt to find peace for their race and escape the ever greedy, savage expansion of mankind. Fast moving, tongue-in-cheek and full of sorcery and bloodshed these are the perfect reads for the fantasy reader who wants a little fresh perspective on the endless war between good and evil.

A sojourn in their idyllic homeworld has left Stryke and the Wolverines lacking purpose. So when an opportunity for bloodletting appears, Stryke seizes it. Utilizing mysterious artifacts, the Wolverines are transported to Acurial, a world where the indigenous orc population is cruelly subjugated by human invaders.

Upon their arrival, Stryke's band joins with Acurial's emerging resistance movement. As the revolution gathers pace, the Wolverines are forced to embark on a quest that will see Stryke and his comrades pursued by both their most ruthless enemy and a mysterious troop hell-bent on their destruction.

Using the mysterious artifacts known as instrumentalities, the Wolverines embarked on a world-hopping mission to liberate fellow orcs, and to take revenge on their old antagonist Jennesta. But it isn't working out too well for the warband. Saddled with novices and a pair of humans of doubtful loyalty, and pursued by a powerful group bent on retrieving the instrumentalities, life is proving far from simple. And destiny has more complications in store. The instrumentalities can no longer be relied upon, and have left the band trapped in a world where enemies mass on every side. While tensions in the band threaten to rip it apart, Thirzarr, mate of Wolverines captain Stryke, has been seized by Jennesta and faces a living death. With the fate of worlds at stake, daunting obstacles, and fresh adversaries blocking their path, the Wolverines are about to be drawn into the greatest battle of their lives.

When humans arrived on Maras Mantia, home of dwarves, elves, and all the other old races, they raped the land of its soul and magic. And, now the Orcs, whom Earthlings hunted down and slaughtered like beasts of the field, may be the chosen creatures destined to win peace for all.

A blistering sequel to the acclaimed Bodyguard of Lightning takes you into a world full of wonder, magic, and encroaching dark. In the land of Maras Dantias, peace once reigned. Then the humans came, wreaking destruction, killing the enchantment, and bringing war. Even the climate changed, with once-warm summers now autumnal. Of all the races in Maras Dantias, the Orcs, led by Stryke, were the most ferocious. Now, he and his troops have become renegades, chased by his own people as well as the humans. Only a long-lost relic can save them now--and the rest of Maras Dantias, too. But, time is running out and a new foe endangers them all.

War is drowning Maras Dantia. Stryke and his warband have recovered the five instrumentalities but now they must work out how to use them while there is still a world to save. And in the meantime they are being hunted from every corner and the three sisters are close to forming an unholy alliance that will overturn history. Full of action, with a pace that never lets up and a tongue firmly placed in cheek Stan Nicholl's epic trilogy nevertheless manages to hit home hard about religion, the way we treat the natural world, how we see those who are different from us. Praised by all the reviewers and by writers as diverse as David Gemmell and Tad Williams it is a major achievement in the genre.

We're the D'Artigo sisters: half-human, half-Fae, we're savvy and we just turned in our badges to the Otherworld Intelligence Agency. My sister Camille is a wicked good witch. Delilah's a werecat and blossoming Death Maiden. And as for me? I'm Menolly, acrobat extraordinaire turned vampire. But being a vamp isn't all it's cracked up to be, especially when the Godfather of all vampires decides to play Prince Charming...

It's the holiday season and a vampire serial killer is on the loose. Hungry ghosts are tearing up the town and people are running scared. I strike a deal with Ivana Krask--one of the Elder Fae--and too late, discover strings are attached. But when I turn to Roman, one of the oldest, most powerful vampires around, for help, he offers me more than I ever bargained for.

They're the D'Artigo sisters: savvy half-human, half-Fae agents of the Otherworld Intelligence Agency. Camille is the Queen of Dusk and Twilight. Delilah is a two-faced werecat and the Autumn Lord's only living Death Maiden. And Menolly is a vampire princess and married to a gorgeous werepuma Amazon. It's been four long years since they first found out about Shadow Wing... and now, they're facing the end of the line. It's time for the D'Artigo sisters to extinguish Shadow Wing's evil forever, before he goes mad and tries to unravel the world...

In her now classic novel Outlander, Diana Gabaldon told the story of Claire Randall, an English ex-combat nurse who walks through a stone circle in the Scottish Highlands in 1946, and disappears... into 1743. The story unfolded from there in seven bestselling novels, and CNN has called it "a grand adventure written on a canvas that probes the heart, weighs the soul and measures the human spirit across [centuries]." Now the story continues in Written in My Own Heart's Blood.

1778: France declares war on Great Britain, the British army leaves Philadelphia, and George Washington's troops leave Valley Forge in pursuit. At this moment, Jamie Fraser returns from a presumed watery grave to discover that his best friend has married his wife, his illegitimate son has discovered (to his horror) who his father really is, and his beloved nephew, Ian, wants to marry a Quaker. Meanwhile, Jamie's wife, Claire, and his sister, Jenny, are busy picking up the pieces.

The Frasers can only be thankful that their daughter Brianna and her family are safe in twentieth-century Scotland. Or not. In fact, Brianna is searching for her own son, who was kidnapped by a man determined to learn her family's secrets. Her husband, Roger, has ventured into the past in search of the missing boy... never suspecting that the object of his quest has not left the present. Now, with Roger out of the way, the kidnapper can focus on his true target: Brianna herself.

Written in My Own Heart's Blood is the brilliant next chapter in a masterpiece of the imagination unlike any other.

Pat Shavers was an artist and a teacher. She'd had a rough life: a divorce, and the loss of her child. But now things seemed to be in order. Except for the strange force riding in the daily movements of her life. A threat rising in the envy of her colleagues, the jealousies of her new lover, the hidden enmity of those who seemed to be her friends. It was a dangerous fury gathering itself against her. The wind rose and swirled, threatening to destroy her.

As a soldier in the jungle of Vietnam, Chris Stiles learned how to fight against a deadly enemy. Now the war is over, but when his brother is slaughtered in Central Park, Chris finds himself called back into action, this time to battle a different kind of foe: an army of the undead!

His quest for the creature that killed his brother brings him to Isherwood, Indiana, home to 800 people--and one ancient vampire. As all hell breaks loose and the townspeople are turned one by one into blood-sucking monsters, will Chris's tactical skills and his arsenal of automatic weapons be enough to stop the vampire menace?

Chaos reigns in the realm of Kodu Riik. Plague continues to ravage its populace. Armies of the power-hungry Aare are on the march, slaughtering everything in their path to place a madman on the throne. And the rift between the kingdom and the land of Cemanahuatl yawns ever wider, threatening to consume both beneath waves of uncontrollable magic and destroy every living soul within them.

Only Reisil possesses enough power to breach the spellbound city of Mysane Kosk and seal the fracture. Accompanied by her goshawk, Saljane, and her lover, Yohuac, Reisil must journey across a land besieged by war and fight for a domain torn asunder by sorceries beyond imagining...

Agent Pendergast faces his most unexpected challenge yet when bloodless bodies begin to appear in Savannah, GA.

A fabulous heist:
On the evening of November 24, 1971, D. B. Cooper hijacked Flight 305--Portland to Seattle--with a fake bomb, collected a ransom of $200,000, and then parachuted from the rear of the plane, disappearing into the night... and into history.

A brutal crime steeped in legend and malevolence:
Fifty years later, Agent Pendergast takes on a bizarre and gruesome case: in the ghost-haunted city of Savannah, Georgia, bodies are found with no blood left in their veins--sowing panic and reviving whispered tales of the infamous Savannah Vampire.

A case like no other:
As the mystery rises along with the body count, Pendergast and his partner, Agent Coldmoon, race to understand how--or if--these murders are connected to the only unsolved skyjacking in American history. Together, they uncover not just the answer... but an unearthly evil beyond all imagining.

In Dragon's Kin, bestselling author Anne McCaffrey did the unthinkable: for the first time ever, she invited another writer to join her in the skies of her most famous fictional creation. That writer was her son, Todd McCaffrey. Together, they penned a triumphant new chapter in the annals of the extraordinarily popular Dragonriders of Pern. Now, for the first time, Todd McCaffrey flies alone. And Dragonsblood is proof that the future of Pern is in good hands. After all, dragons are in his blood....

Never in the dramatic history of Pern has there been a more dire emergency than that which faces the young dragonrider Lorana. A mysterious fatal illness is striking dragons. The epidemic is spreading like wildfire... and the next deadly cycle of Threadfall is only days away. Somehow, Lorana must find a cure before the dragons-including her own beloved Arith-succumb to the sickness, leaving Pern undefended.

The lyrics of an all-but-forgotten song seem to point toward an answer from nearly five hundred years in the past, when Kitti Ping and her daughter Wind Blossom bred the first dragons from their smaller cousins, the fire-lizards. No doubt the first colonists possessed the advanced technology to find the cure for which Lorana seeks, but over the centuries, that knowledge has been lost. Or has it?

For in the distant past, an aged Wind Blossom worries that the germs that affect the fire-lizards may one day turn on larger prey-and unleash a plague that will destroy the dragons, Pern's only defenders against Thread. But as her people struggle to survive, Wind Blossom has neither the time nor the resources to expend on a future that may never arrive-until suddenly she uncovers evidence that her worst fears will come true.

Now two brave women, separated by hundreds of years but joined by bonds transcending time, will become unknowing allies in a desperate race against sickness and Threadfall, with nothing less than the survival of all life on Pern at stake.

It caused instant addiction, followed by an excruciating slow death, and there was no known antidote.

It was a killer.

Supposedly the drug had been totally eradicated from the humanx galaxy years before. At least that's what everyone thought. But somehow, mysteriously, that dreadful substance was back in circulation on Repler and threatening to wreak havoc throughout the known galaxy.

Someone somewhere was secretly manufacturing Bloodhype, but nobody seemed to know where or who!

When his uncle is abducted by a pair of gargoyles at the behest of an eight-armed god, Aereas joins his cousin Nina on a perilous journey into a bizarre and twisted world where they uncover a plot to turn the tide of the Blood War and unleash a horrific evil.

As the Blood Wars escalate across the various planes of existence, Aereas and Nina find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict--he in Sigil, she at the head of an evil abyssal army.

Aereas is dead. His daughter is growing up to be a beautiful woman, learning from her unle the business of espionage. Nina is close to dying. Her son is training in music at the shop of Boffo the Gnome. The Blood War itself still rages. Even the heavens shake with its fury, and they may well topple, unless these children of heroes truly bear their parents' blood.

Carol Robins is vacationing in Bordeaux, France trying to recover from the tragic failure of her marriage and the possibility that she has been infected with a fatal disease. At a small sidewalk café she meets the enigmatic Andre and her life changes forever in a brutal and shocking way. Andre is not a man but a vampire, cruel, intent on making Carol his next kill, and she has to find a way to save herself.

Carol's bargain with the devil leads to her being dragged further and further down into the murky world of darkness, leaving her at the mercy of the merciless blood drinker. Suddenly, the impossible happens, and both mortal and immortal are swept to the edge of madness. Her one thought becomes an obsession: escape Andre and this nest of vampires!

But soon Carol is forced to return to the lair of the undead Andre because now more than just her life is on the line. In a final tension-packed life-or-death confrontation, Carol is desperate to prevent the disastrous outcome that both she and Andre foresee as inevitable.

David Lyle Hardwick was a poet who lived well over a century ago. Now, he is an undead poet, residing in Manchester, England, surviving during the day in the basement of his ancestors' stately home. He sleeps in a coffin, acting out the role of vampire. This sensitive yet unholy creature would continue his tormented existence but one night a beautiful girl named Zero appears with a stake in hand aimed at his heart. Fortunately for David, the drug-addled New Yorker fails. But now he's left with a complex puzzle: who sent her to murder him, and why?

Zero can't help him much -- she's addicted to heroin and has even bigger problems. Still, she falls for his seductive vampire power and together they set out in search of his enemies, who are not necessarily what they seem.

Both David and Zero are changing, but maybe not for the better. When a vampire's craving for blood mixes with passion and a lust for revenge, he becomes Nosferatu. And once that fury is unleashed, Zero quickly realizes that no one is safe, not mortal, not immortal, and especially not her!

Reborn takes place several years after the events of the second book, Near Death. The half human, half vampire child, Michel is now grown and on the verge of immortality. The story begins with the shocking murder of an ancient vampire, which throws this close knit group of the undead into a tailspin. They have a sense of who is responsible and with the help of the vampire Karl and his scientific methods end up sure of the murderer's identity. This monster is old and powerful and the community is torn between wanting to attack or retreat.

In the midst of chaos, Karl's partner Gerlinde is missing. He leaves the others behind and goes off along in search of her, despite warnings from his friends that the murderer will find him easy prey. But he cannot exist without his lover and eventually is confronted with an existential question that rips him apart: should he exist at all?

Julien de Villier has been a vampire for close to six centuries. He is from an era of warlords and violence. And now he's searching for a companion.

Jeanette Price is beautiful, smart, and wealthy from an inheritance combined with business acumen. She wiles away her copious free time partying.

It is London, England in the 1960s. The post-war world has gone wild and high-drama is the norm. Jeanette has plenty of melodramatic fantasies and Julien is only too happy to act them out as part of his master plan to make her undead. But Jeanette might not be the victim she appears to be, and Julien could have more than a clever rebel on his hands; Jeanette may be an enemy!

"The Sixth Order wields the sword of justice and smites the enemies of the Faith and the Realm."

Vaelin Al Sorna was only a child of ten when his father left him at the iron gate of the Sixth Order--a caste devoted to battle. Vaelin will be trained and hardened to the austere, celibate and dangerous life of a warrior of the Faith. He has no family now save the Order.

Vaelin's father was Battle Lord to King Janus, ruler of the Unified Realm--and Vaelin's rage at being deprived of his birthright knows no bounds. Even his cherished memories of his mother are soon challenged by what he learns within the Order.

But one truth overpowers all the rest: Vaelin Al Sorna is destined for a future he has yet to comprehend. A future that will alter not only the Realm, but the world.

Blue de la Cour has her life planned: hide the magic in her blood and continue trying to turn metal into gold so she can help her city's homeless. But when her father is murdered and a cruel but powerful woman claims custody of Blue and her property, one wrong move could expose her--and doom her once and for all. The only one who can help? The boy she's loathed since childhood: Prince Kellan.

Kellan Renard, crown prince of Balavata, is walking a thin line between political success and devastating violence. Newly returned from boarding school, he must find a bride among the kingdom's head families and announce his betrothal--but escalating violence among the families makes the search nearly impossible. He's surprised to discover that the one person who makes him feel like he can breathe is Blue, the girl who once ruined all his best adventures.

When mysterious forces lead to disappearances throughout Balavata, Blue and Kellan must work together to find the truth. What they discover will lead them to the darkest reaches of the kingdom, and to the most painful moments of their pasts.

When romance is forbidden and evil is rising, can Blue save those she loves, even if it costs her everything?

At the beginning -- no -- at the end -- she appears, full of fury and bound by chains of prophecy.

Once, there was a call -- a binding -- and so, a woman appeared, present in body but absent in knowledge of her past self. Making the ultimate journey of rediscovery was not without its own pitfalls -- or rewards -- and now Ree, a roaming Archeron, spirit of legend and time and physically now bound to her current form, has yet to fully uncover her true identity.