From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Heather Graham comes a new story in her Krewe of Hunters series...Angela Hawkins Crow awakens to find herself in total darkness. Despite her years as a Krewe agent, she is first seized with panic, but her life and her training kick in. She knows that she must stay calm and go back in her mind to find out how she got where she is...and where she might be.Meanwhile, an eerie phone call comes in at Krewe headquarters, warning them all that Angela has been kidnapped, describing her ordeal, and lamenting the fact that she can't be saved.But there is no such thing with the Krewe. In the dark and in the light, the fight is on.Angela determines that she might know what has happened to her, and she is prepared when her kidnapper can't resist the temptation to check in on her.By following his wife's expertise with research, Jackson discovers what just might be happening—and in the darkness of night... Views: 676
NEW ENGLAND WITCH CHRONICLES is the first book in the four-book bestselling young adult series. The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were an embarrassing stain on America’s revered past. Innocent people were persecuted at the hands of a few overzealous Puritans, but what if real witches existed during those colonial hunts? What if there are witches in present day New England? That’s what Alexandria Ramsey’s crazy grandmother believes. Grandma Claudia claims Alex descends from a long line of New England witches.
Modern day witches in Hazel Cove, Massachusetts? Unlikely, but strange things are occurring in the weeks preceding Alex’s seventeenth birthday. Alex is haunted by bizarre recurring nightmares of a man chasing her through the Hazel Cove Cemetery. On a few occasions, when her emotions have spiraled out of control, inanimate objects have shattered around her. But that’s just a coincidence, right? Alex isn’t so sure, especially after a local girl, who supposedly dabbled in witchcraft, was killed in the nearby forest.
Alex knows something strange is happening. With the arrival of a new boy in town, James Van Curen, who is causing problems between Alex and her best friend, Peter, Alex feels like her entire world is on the verge of chaos. Could Alex really be a witch? Is it possible Hazel Cove will become a battleground for modern-day witches and witch hunters? Views: 676
While slinging hash in a diner, a would-be Cinderella meets her Prince Charming
Carrie Selden is not at all like the woman you’ve read about in the papers. Though she was raised in an orphanage, she isn’t an orphan. She didn’t finish high school until she was nineteen, but that was because she was working as a waitress, not because she was slow. And though she’s very cunning, well, she’s no femme fatale. But her beauty . . . oh yes, her beauty is everything you’ve heard. At twenty-one, she takes her savings and moves to New York City, landing a job at a diner called Karb’s, at the bottom rung of the restaurant chain’s tall corporate ladder. Though she makes minimum wage, Carrie is savvy, and it isn’t long before she starts to climb. When her coworkers unionize, they choose her as president, and from there, the sky is the limit. But just as the union gets underway, she meets a mysterious intellectual named Grant—who will either help her rise to the top, or drag her straight down to hell. Views: 676
An assassin at a renaissance faire. What could possibly go wrong? Everything, if you're the Spider . . .I might be Gin Blanco, aka the assassin the Spider, but even I need a break from the bad guys every now and then. So when Owen Grayson, my significant other, suggests a trip to the Winter's Web Renaissance Faire, it sounds like a perfect distraction from all my problems.The faire starts off innocently enough, but something seems slightly off about the cheery atmosphere and costumed characters. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I can't help but feel like I'm trapped in someone else's icy web—and that they don't want me to leave the faire alive . . .Note: Winter's Web is a 27,000-word novella that takes place after the events of Venom in the Veins, book 17 in the Elemental Assassin urban fantasy series. Winter's Web first appeared in the Seasons of Sorcery anthology in 2018. Views: 675
A thrilling and original coming-of-age novel about a young man practicing magic in the real world
Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.
He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart.
At once psychologically piercing and magnificently absorbing, The Magicians boldly moves into uncharted literary territory, imagining magic as practiced by real people, with their capricious desires and volatile emotions. Lev Grossman creates an utterly original world in which good and evil aren’t black and white, love and sex aren’t simple or innocent, and power comes at a terrible price. Views: 675
The tree-lined streets and mystical shops of Salem, Massachusetts resonate with a seductive and brutal history. New Orleans musician Megan O’Casey has returned to the home of her ancestors to perform , with her husband Finn, in a weeklong series of concerts, culminating on All Hallow’s Eve…and to renew her connection with the past. But from the moment they arrive in Salem, Finn seems different—sensual beyond belief one moment; cold and ruthless the next. The locals—even Megan’s relatives—regard him strangely, with a distrust bordering on hatred. Megan must soon face the fact that something powerful is rising, a malevolence that may have already claimed Finn for its own… As the full moon approaches, Megan senses that she, too, is in great danger. Sinister forces seem to be bringing her closer to darkness in a centuries–old ritual that music cannot tame…and time cannot conquer… Views: 675
From New York Times Bestselling Author Wendy Corsi Staub, writing as Wendy Markham. Previously published as Slightly Engaged. In the season of weddings, Tracey Spadolini can't help but imagine her own...It's been a year and a half since Tracey and Jack moved in together, and everything's totally perfect—well, okay, almost perfect. There's still Tracey's mom, who says they're "living in sin," and her friends, who are smug, married and totally sure that there would already be a ring on Tracey's finger if she hadn't been in such a rush to cosign a lease. Even Tracey is beginning to wonder whether Jack really is looking for a permanent relationship, or whether she's just renting space in his heart.But just when Tracey's doubts become overwhelming, Jack's mother lets her in on a secret—he's just taken an heirloom diamond out of the family's safe-deposit box, which must mean that... Views: 675
Some loves don't end with the relationship but burrow deep into the heart, live there hidden and silent for years, then one day for no clear reason emerge with a voice--a story to tell, a moment in time to recall and honor.Men's literary short fiction by Hosho McCreeshIn “Taco Fairy” we wonder what will $2 get you at a nearby tacqueria? Answer: A world of stupid trouble.“Say, What Ever Happened To Vidal Sassoon?" explores the sexual politics of business trips, and free hotel shampoo.*Mentioned in TORO Magazine (Canada) Views: 675
WHEN A KILLER HAS NOTHING TO LOSE The crime scene is as puzzling as it is brutal. Doctor Paul Latham and his wife, Brindel, are found dead in separate beds in their beautiful San Francisco home, each the victim of a gunshot wound to the head. There are no signs of forced entry, and despite the emptied safe it's clear this murder isn't random. THERE'S EVERY REASON For Detective Regan Pescoli, news of her sister's death brings grief mixed with guilt. She and Brindel weren't close, and Pescoli barely knows her teenage niece, Ivy, a secretive girl who lands on her doorstep in Grizzly Falls, Montana. Though Pescoli is on maternity leave, she's soon mired deep in the investigation headed by her partner, Selena Alvarez. But as the list of suspects keeps growing, so does the body count . . . TO BE AFRAID . . . Maybe it's exhaustion or hormones that have Pescoli on edge, feeling more vulnerable than ever before. Or maybe the chill running... Views: 675
Twenty-four-year-old Olivia Taylor Jones has the perfect life. The only daughter of a wealthy, prominent Chicago family, she has an Ivy League education, pursues volunteerism and philanthropy, and is engaged to a handsome young tech firm CEO with political ambitions.
But Olivia’s world is shattered when she learns that she’s adopted. Her real parents? Todd and Pamela Larsen, notorious serial killers serving a life sentence. When the news brings a maelstrom of unwanted publicity to her adopted family and fiancé, Olivia decides to find out the truth about the Larsens.
Olivia ends up in the small town of Cainsville, Illinois, an old and cloistered community that takes a particular interest in both Olivia and her efforts to uncover her birth parents’ past.
Aided by her mother’s former lawyer, Gabriel Walsh, Olivia focuses on the Larsens’ last crime, the one her birth mother swears will prove their innocence. But as she and Gabriel start investigating the case, Olivia finds herself drawing on abilities that have remained hidden since her childhood, gifts that make her both a valuable addition to Cainsville and deeply vulnerable to unknown enemies. Because there are darker secrets behind her new home and powers lurking in the shadows that have their own plans for her. Views: 675
Epub“Galactic Effectuator” is an omnibus containing two of the famous detective “science fiction” stories written by the grandmaster of the genre, Jack Vance. This is a classic Vance: breathtaking adventures on colorful and dangerous planets, exotic customs of races evolved in unique conditions, and, of course, moving fast on the vivid background of it all, a brave and clever man, moderately quixotic but never forgetting his self-interest. Vance’s protagonist, Miro Hetzel, is a top-notch interstellar private investigator who solves two tangled and risky cases.In the first story, “Dogtown Tourist Agency,” Hetzel travels to planet Maz: there he has to investigate a mysterious shipping company. Axistil, the hypnotically strange capital of this grotesque planet, serves as a diplomatic rendezvous point for at least four mutually hostile Galactic races, including humans. Meanwhile, a young man, after being subjected to a weird mental torture, is accused of a triple murder; trying to save this confused victim of unknown evil forces from an imminent execution, Hetzel discovers that young man’s improbable story is intricately connected with the case that he investigates, not to mention the deadbeat lover of a rich woman, whom Hetzel was tasked to find, and whom he also unexpectedly encounters on the same faraway planet. Inevitably, there is also a lovely innocent girl that may not be so innocent after all…In the second, shorter and somewhat more sarcastic story, “Freitzke's Turn”, Miro Hetzel deals with his former classmate from the Academy, an evil genius who almost killed Hetzel many years ago, and then escaped to lead a life above all laws, those of men as well as, seemingly, those of the nature. Working for a wealthy client whose health and happiness will never be restored without Hetzel’s help, galactic effectuator gathers pieces of evidence on several planets, minutely going through risky turns and stunning discoveries, and finally tracks the criminal down in the remote tropical paradise of his last refuge — only to lose the sight of him again… Views: 675
Her life didn't turn out the way she expected—so she made herself a new oneWhen Clemmie goes next door to check on her difficult and unlikeable neighbor Dom, he isn't there. But something else is. Something stunning, beautiful and inexplicable. Clemmie photographs the wondrous object on her cell phone and makes the irrevocable error of forwarding it. As the picture swirls over the internet, Clemmie tries desperately to keep a grip on her own personal network of secrets. Can fifty years of careful hiding under names not her own be ruined by one careless picture?And although what Clemmie finds is a work of art, what the police find is a body. . . in a place where Clemmie wasn't supposed to be, and where she left her fingerprints. Suddenly, the bland, quiet life Clemmie has built for herself in her sleepy South Carolina retirement community comes crashing down as her dark past surges into the present.From international bestselling author of... Views: 674
In the hilarious new novel in the best-selling Detective Varg series, an eminent art historian is framed and the ace investigators of the Department of Sensitive Crimes are on the case. Detective Ulf Varg is a man of refined tastes and quite familiar with the art scene in Malmö. So when art historian Anders Kindgren visits the Department of Sensitive Crimes to report a series of bizarre acts committed against him, they swing into action. Fish stuffed into the vents of his car and a manipulated footnote in a recent publication would be cause enough for an investigation, but when a painting Kindgren had confidently appraised as a genuine is later declared a fake, it’s clear that someone is out to tarnish his reputation. Meanwhile, Ulf himself is also weathering personal issues that quickly spiral out of hand. When his lip-reading dog Martin engages in a contretemps with a squirrel, it results in a grievous wound, and Ulf must... Views: 674
