N uala is part muse, part psychic vampire. While the freedom to sing or write or create is denied her, her mark across history is unmistakable: a trail of brilliant poets, musicians, and artists who have died tragically young. She has no sympathy for their abbreviated life spans; every thirteen Halloweens she burns in a bonfire and rises from her ashes with no memories of what has come before other than the knowledge of how her end will come. James is the best bagpiper in the state of Virginia—maybe in the country—plus he's young and good-looking: just Nuala's thing. But James, supremely confident in his own abilities and in love with another girl, becomes the first to ever reject Nuala's offer. He's preoccupied with bigger things than Nuala: an enigmatic horned figure who appears at dusk and the downward spiral of Dee, his girlfriend-who-isn't. James Morgan has an almost unearthly gift for music. And it has attracted Nuala, a soul-snatching faerie muse who fosters and then feeds on the creative energies of exceptional humans until they die. James has plenty of reasons to fear the faeries, but as he and Nuala collaborate on an achingly beautiful musical composition, James finds his feelings towards Nuala deepening. But the rest of the fairies are not as harmless. As Halloween-the day of the dead-draws near, James will have to battle the Faerie Queen and the horned king of the dead to save Nuala's life and his soul. #balladcover.jpg Views: 64
In the sequel to the critically acclaimed The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter, Mary Jekyll and the rest of the daughters of literature's mad scientists embark on a madcap adventure across Europe to rescue another monstrous girl and stop the Alchemical Society's nefarious plans once and for all.Mary Jekyll's life has been peaceful since she helped Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson solve the Whitechapel Murders. Beatrice Rappaccini, Catherine Moreau, Justine Frankenstein, and Mary's sister Diana Hyde have settled into the Jekyll household in London, and although they sometimes quarrel, the members of the Athena Club get along as well as any five young women with very different personalities. At least they can always rely on Mrs. Poole. But when Mary receives a telegram that Lucinda Van Helsing has been kidnapped, the Athena Club must travel to the Austro-Hungarian Empire to rescue yet another young woman who has been subjected to horrific experimentation.... Views: 64
***Thrillers that race from the very first page***'Felix Francis' novels gallop along splendidly' Jilly Cooper 'From winning post to top of the bestseller lists' Sunday TimesHarrison Foster is a lawyer by training but works as a crisis manager for a London firm that specializes in such matters. Summoned to Newmarket after a fire in the Chadwick Stables slaughters six very valuable horses, including the short-priced favourite for the Derby, Harry (as he is known) finds there is far more to the 'simple' fire than initially meets the eye. For a start, human remains are found amongst the equestrian ones in the burnt-out shell. All the stable staff are accounted for, so who is the mystery victim? Harry knows very little about horses, indeed he positively dislikes them, but he is thrust unwillingly into the world of Thoroughbred racing where the standard of care of the equine stars is far higher than that of the humans who attend... Views: 64
Born to violence,bred in Courage--his gun thrustthe frontier West. Views: 64
In this wildly disorienting funhouse of a novel, populated by God-like—or perhaps Satanic—takeover artists and corporate psychics, Philip K. Dick explores mysteries that were once the property of St. Paul and Aquinas. His wit, compassion, and knife-edged irony make The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch moving as well as genuinely visionary. Views: 64
It's London, 1872, where 17-year-old heiress Leonora Somerville is preparing to be presented to upper upper-class society — again. She's strikingly beautiful and going to be very rich, but Leo has a problem money can't solve. A curious speech disorder causes her to stutter but also allows her to imitate other people's voices flawlessly. Servants and ladies alike call her "Mad Miss Mimic" behind her back...and watch as Leo unintentionally scares off one potential husband after another. London is also a city gripped by opium fever. Leo's brother-in-law Dr. Dewhurst and his new business partner Francis Thornfax are frontrunners in the race to patent an injectable formula of the drug. Friendly, forthright, and as a bonus devastatingly handsome, Thornfax seems immune to the gossip about Leo's "madness." But their courtship is endangered from the start. The mysterious Black Glove opium gang is setting off explosions across the city. The street urchins Dr. Dewhurst treats are... Views: 64
Losing a loved one can be devastating to the point of evading life, ignoring another's love, and waiting for something to help her go on.Christmas Eve meant only one thing to Nadine, the death of her husband whom she was married to for only a few short weeks. For two years, the holiday has come and gone without her celebrating.But someone comes along, who finds her so wonderful, so special that Nadine is forced to come to terms with her past. Could she love again? Would she find a sign, a message to let her go on? Views: 64
Tales
of the Citadel 21
Control over the elements is dull until a
man walks onto her world and makes her senses burn.
Vexaniali has spent her life in solitude,
finding ways to entertain herself on an empty world that has become her prison.
She was ordered to keep anyone from landing, but it was just a make-work job to
keep her out of the way.
Burn arrives and offers her a chance to use
her skills on a variety of worlds under the aegis of the Citadel Arcani.
Moving a cure around a world using her
mastery of air is time consuming and tiring but not difficult. It is a good
start, and when Burn offers himself to top up her flagging energies, how could
she refuse?
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Glamorous, divorced Sabrina and her quiet homemaker sister Stephanie never dreamed that their light-hearted game of switching places for a week would end in passion and tragedy. But Sabrina fell in love with her sister's husband, cherishing their children as her own -- and Stephanie, in the midst of an affair with a powerful London socialite, was killed in an explosion on his yacht. Torn by loss and remorse, but deeply a part of her new family, Sabrina made the decision to assume her twin's role forever.When A Tangled Web opens a year later, only one person knows Sabrina's true identity -- her husband, Garth. Deeply in love, he has forgiven her for her deception. Then a friend swears to have seen Stephanie in Europe. Sabrina feels the past and present collide, threatening to shatter her new happiness. Is her sister really dead? Or is the deception even deeper, darker, and more complicated than she ever imagined? Views: 64
An introverted teenage girl with an unconventional superpower, Taylor goes out in costume to find escape from a deeply unhappy and frustrated civilian life. Her first attempt at taking down a supervillain sees her mistaken for one, thrusting her into the midst of the local ‘cape’ scene’s politics, unwritten rules, and ambiguous morals. As she risks life and limb, Taylor faces the dilemma of having to do the wrong things for the right reasons. The story, titled Worm, takes the form of a web serial, posted in bite-sized reads in much the same way that authors such as Mark Twain would release their works one chapter at a time in the days before full-fledged novels. Worm started in June 2011, updating twice a week. It has (as of September 2013) reached an excess of 1,500,000 words; roughly 9-23 typical novels in length. The story updates on Tuesdays and Saturdays, with bonus chapters appearing on the occasional Thursday, as explained below. The actual work is divided into a number of story arcs, each containing five to sixteen individual chapters. Interludes (side stories) are inserted between each story arc to showcase events from different perspectives or provide some background information that the reader wouldn’t get from Taylor’s point of view. Still more interludes continue to be released as bonus content when the audience reaches specific donation goals (though I’ve taken to frequently releasing regular chapters instead, so as not to disrupt the core story). Readers should be cautioned that Worm is fairly dark as fiction goes, and it gets far darker as the story progresses. Morality isn’t black and white, Taylor and her acquaintances aren’t invincible, the heroes aren’t winning the war between right and wrong, and superpowers haven’t necessarily affected society for the better. Just the opposite on every count, really. Even on a more fundamental level, Taylor’s day to day life is unhappy, with her clinging to the end of her rope from the story’s outset. The denizens of the Wormverse (as readers have termed it) don’t pull punches, and I try to avoid doing so myself, as a writer. There’s graphic language, descriptions of violence and sex does happen (albeit offscreen). It would be easier to note the trigger warnings that don’t apply than all the ones that do. All in all, this probably isn’t a story for the sensitive or the young. I’d peg it with a PG-18 rating, but I think we all know that there’s kids who can handle that sort of thing and there’s adults who can’t. Use your best judgement and ask in the comments below if you’re still unsure. Views: 64
