Unrest brews among gods and mortals alike when Hades makes a deal with the Fates to end his loneliness in the Underworld. But when Persephone proposes to conspire with him in a plot against Demeter, things get out of hand. Find out the truth of how Hades and Persephone met and fell in love and the impact it had on the rest of the pantheon in the throes of the Trojan War. Learn how their children—Hypnos, Thanatos, Megaera, Tisiphone, Alecto, and Melinoe—came into being. Discover why they were assigned their respective duties as Sleep, Death, the Furies, and the goddess of ghosts. Find out the real reason why the Olympians possessed such profound disdain for these Underworld gods. This prequel to The Underworld Saga is more than a retelling of the Persephone myth. Many more of the ancient myths are woven together to reveal the conflict, tension, and relationships among the gods in one of the most beloved pantheons in human... Views: 199
Bored socialite Polly Brewster has cajoled her father into renting a villa in a politically unstable but beautiful Central American nation, Caracuña. Her intent: to get away from three suitors whose persistence she finds annoying. One of the three is so intent on marriage that he follows her South. It is while trying to avoid him that she encounters an American unlike any other man she has ever known. Perkins is a naturalist, a "beetle man," who looks something like a beetle himself in his overlarge, patched clothing and thick dark glasses. A semi-recluse, he avoids the company of his fellow expatriates, searching the forest and beach for specimens during the day and living in a hilltop compound, which may or may not also house a young woman. Intrigued, Polly wonders if it is possible to uncover all the secrets he seems so determined to hide. other excerpt from the story: "And now you wish he hadn't?" "Oh--well--I don't know. He's awfully good-looking and gallant and devoted and all that. Only he's such a prickly sort of person. I'd have to spend the rest of my life keeping him and his pride out of trouble. And I've no taste for diplomacy. Why, only last week he declined to dine with the President of the Republic because some one said that his excellency had a touch of the tar brush." "He'd better get out of this country before that gets back to headquarters." "If he thought there was danger, he'd stay forever. I don't suppose Fitz is afraid of anything on earth. Except perhaps of me," she added thoughtfully. "Young woman, you're a shameless flirt!" accused the invisible one in stern tones. "If I am, it isn't going to hurt you. Besides, I'm not. And, anyway, who are you to judge." Views: 199
A dark and sexy reimagining of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale from the author of THE DEMON TRAPPERS.
For Briar Rose, life is anything but a fairy tale. She's stuck in a small town in deepest Georgia with parents who won't let her out of their sight, a bunch of small-minded, gossiping neighbours and an evil ex who's spreading nasty rumours about what she may or may not have done in the back of his car. She's tired of it all, so when, on her sixteenth birthday, her parents tell her that she is cursed and will go to sleep for a hundred years when the clock strikes midnight, she's actually kind of glad to leave it all behind. She says her goodbyes, lies down, and closes her eyes . . . And then she wakes up. Cold, alone and in the middle of the darkest, most twisted fairy tale she could ever have dreamed of. Now Briar must fight her way out of the story that has been created for her, but she can't do it alone. She never believed in handsome princes, but now she's met one her only chance is to put her life in his hands, or there will be no happy ever after and no waking up. Views: 199
“See! It’s—it’s in my kit-bag, over there! The thing—the Thing at which the whole world will stand aghast!” The thin, white-faced, grey-bearded man lying on his back in bed roused himself with difficulty, and with skinny finger pointed at his strong but battered old leather bag lying in the corner of the small hotel bedroom. Views: 199
Marie Belloc Lowndes was a popular English novelist in the early 20th century, and her books were imbued with psychological and spiritual elements at a time when such works were still unusually rare. Views: 199
In the race to save one of their own, Sigma Force must wrestle with the deepest spiritual mysteries of mankind in this mind-expanding adventure from the #1 New York Times bestselling author, told with his trademark blend of cutting edge science, historical mystery, and pulse-pounding action.Arriving home on Christmas Eve, Commander Gray Pierce discovers his house ransacked, his pregnant lover missing, and his best friend's wife, Kat, unconscious on the kitchen floor. With no shred of evidence to follow, his one hope to find the woman he loves and his unborn child is Kat, the only witness to what happened. But the injured woman is in a semi-comatose state and cannot speak—until a brilliant neurologist offers a radical approach to "unlock" her mind long enough to ask a few questions.What Pierce learns from Kat sets Sigma Force on a frantic quest for answers that are connected to mysteries reaching back to the Spanish Inquisition and to one of the most reviled... Views: 199
Empire continues the journey of Syl and Paul as they fight to regain planet Earth from a ruthless alien species, in this next installment of a stunning new science fiction trilogy that "should not to be missed" (The Guardian).
She is the trophy of a civilization at war with itself.
He is its rebel captive.
Separated by millions of light years, they will fight to be united
Earth has been conquered and occupied. The war is lost.
The Resistance still fights the invaders, but they are nothing more than an annoyance to the Illyri, an alien race of superior technology and military strength.
When caught, the young rebels are conscripted. Part soldiers, part hostages, they join the Brigades, sent to fight at the edges of the growing Illyri Empire.
Paul Kerr is one such soldier -- torn from his home and his beloved Syl Hellais. She is the first alien child born on Earth, a creature of two worlds and a being possessed of powers beyond imagining. Now both must endure the terrible exile that Syl's race has deemed just punishment for their love.
But the conquest of Earth is not all it seems.
There is another species involved, known only as the Others, and the Illyri will kill to keep their existence secret.
Light years from Earth and millions of miles apart, Paul and Syl must find a way to reveal the horrifying truth behind the Empire, and save all that they hold dear from the hunger of the Others.
Even at the cost of their own lives. Views: 199
From the award-winning author of the Dominion of the Fallen series comes a dark retelling of Beauty and the Beast.In a ruined, devastated world, where the earth is poisoned and beings of nightmares roam the land...A woman, betrayed, terrified, sold into indenture to pay her village's debts and struggling to survive in a spirit world.A dragon, among the last of her kind, cold and aloof but desperately trying to make a difference.When failed scholar Yên is sold to Vu Côn, one of the last dragons walking the earth, she expects to be tortured or killed for Vu Côn's amusement.But Vu Côn, it turns out, has a use for Yên: she needs a scholar to tutor her two unruly children. She takes Yên back to her home, a vast, vertiginous palace-prison where every door can lead to death. Vu Côn seems stern and unbending, but as the days pass Yên comes to see her kinder and caring side. She finds herself dangerously attracted to the dragon who is her... Views: 199
In her fifth outing, Maisie Dobbs, the extraordinary Psychologist and Investigator, delves into a strange series of crimes in a small rural community.
With the country in the grip of economic malaise, and worried about her business, Maisie Dobbs is relieved to accept an apparently straightforward assignment from an old friend to investigate certain matters concerning a potential land purchase. Her inquiries take her to a picturesque village in Kent during the hop-picking season, but beneath its pastoral surface she finds evidence that something is amiss. Mysterious fires erupt in the village with alarming regularity, and a series of petty crimes suggests a darker criminal element at work. As Maisie discovers, the villagers are bitterly prejudiced against outsiders who flock to Kent at harvest time—even more troubling, they seem possessed by the legacy of a wartime Zeppelin raid. Maisie grows increasingly suspicious of a peculiar secrecy that shrouds the village, and ultimately she must draw on all her finely honed skills of detection to solve one of her most intriguing cases. Views: 198
At the deathbed of Ursula, the eldest of three sisters, the dying women declares that she will return from the dead when the time comes to accompany each of her younger siblings into the afterlife. The two survivors and their old housekeeper, now live on in fear of encountering Ursula\'s ghost, and strange happenings in the house bring this terror to an unholy climax. Views: 198
Note: This work also appears in the anthology, Murder Most Historical and Past Crimes: A Compendium of Historical Mysteries.
London, 1880. Kat Holloway, highly sought-after young cook to the wealthy of London, finds herself embroiled in murder when she’s accused of poisoning her employer, the loathsome Sir Lionel Leigh-Bradbury. Her only help as she works to clear her name comes from the mysterious Daniel McAdam, a handsome man-of-all-work who seems to know everyone and always happens to be in the right place at the right time. Kat and Daniel investigate the crime, but the mystery of Daniel’s background might be just as elusive and dangerous as the poisoner bent on framing Kat for murder. Views: 198
Best known for her New York Times bestselling urban fantasy novels, Carrie Vaughn has also written dozens of short stories for Talebones, , and many other magazines and anthologies.
Collected here for the first time are ten of her favorite hard-to-classify stories covering the full range of speculative fiction -- science fiction, fantasy, horror -- sometimes all in the same story. Read about Emily Dickinson's dog, women pilots in WWII, future Hollywood, a haunted Europa, and more! Views: 198
