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Kill the Queen

Gladiator meets Game of Thrones: a royal woman becomes a skilled warrior to destroy her murderous cousin, avenge her family, and save her kingdom in this first entry in a dazzling fantasy epic from the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Elemental Assassin series—an enthralling tale that combines magic, murder, intrigue, adventure, and a hint of romance.In a realm where one's magical power determines one's worth, Lady Everleigh's lack of obvious ability relegates her to the shadows of the royal court of Bellona, a kingdom steeped in gladiator tradition. Seventeenth in line for the throne, Evie is nothing more than a ceremonial fixture, overlooked and mostly forgotten.But dark forces are at work inside the palace. When her cousin Vasilia, the crown princess, assassinates her mother the queen and takes the throne by force, Evie is also attacked, along with the rest of the royal family. Luckily for Evie, her secret immunity to magic helps her...
Views: 548

Scavenger Alliance

In the year 2408, a century after the invention of interstellar portals, seven hundred people scavenge a living in abandoned New York. The respectable citizens have either withdrawn to new settlements in the countryside, or joined the great exodus of humanity to new, unpolluted colony worlds, but eighteen-year-old Blaze is one of the undesirables that neither the citizen settlements nor the new colony worlds will accept. Blaze’s mother died six years ago. She thinks her father is Donnell, the leader of the uneasy alliance between the remnants of the Earth Resistance and the old criminal gangs. It’s less clear what Donnell thinks, since he barely speaks to her. The alliance is crumbling under the strain of its hardest winter ever, when an old enemy tries to use Blaze as a pawn in a power bid. She thinks her life can’t possibly get more difficult, but then an aircraft carrying three off-worlders arrives in New York.
Views: 548

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Meet the Cooke family. Our narrator is Rosemary Cooke. As a child, she never stopped talking; now that she's started college, she has wrapped herself in silence: the silence of intentional forgetting, of protective cover. Rosemary is now an only child, but she used to have a sister the same age as her, and an older brother. Both are now gone—vanished from her life. Her once lively mother is a shell of her former self, her clever and imperious father now a distant, brooding man. And there was something unique about Rosemary's sister, Fern. You'll have to find out for yourself what it is that makes her unhappy family unlike any other.
Views: 548

The Virtual Swallows of Hog Island

A programmer finds himself working for the self-proclaimed "Bad-Boy of Virtual-Reality Therapy." While his boss is breaking new ground and breaking the rules and his coworkers are engaging in questionable uses of the latest technology, the lonely programmer is in a state of mourning over his deep personal losses and must figure out his own form of therapy.
Views: 548

Straken

The High Druid of Shannara trilogy draws to a thrilling close as a young hero nears completion of his trial by fire, a banished ruler fights for her life in a wilderness of dread, and forces of darkness and lightsquare off in a battle unto death for the right to absolute rule. Prepare to be spellbound by the masterly hand of bestselling legend weaver Terry Brooks, conjuring at the peak of his skills. For reasonsknown only to himself, the King of the Silver River has charged young Penderrin Ohmsford, barely more than a boy, with the daunting task of rescuing his aunt, Grianne, Ard Rhys of the Druid order, from her forced exile inthe terrifying dimension of all things damned: the Forbidding. With the noble dwarf Tagwen and the prodigal elven princess Khyber Elessedil by his side-and with the outcome of the bloody war between theFederation and the Free-born at stake-Pen has accepted his mission without question. But not without risk . . . or sacrifice. Because Shadea a'Ru, the ruthless Druid responsible forimprisoning the true Ard Rhys and usurping leadership at Paranor, has sent her agents and assassins in relentless pursuit of Pen and his comrades. And in securing the talisman he needs to breach the Forbidding, Pen haspaid a devastating price. Now if the Free-born forces-already decimated by the Federation's death-dealing new weapon-should fall, Shadea's domination of the Four Lands will beassured. Nothing short of Pen's success can turn the tide. But Pen's challenge grows greater when he learns that his parents, Bek Ohmsford and Rue Meridian, have fallen intoShadea's hands. He must try to help them-but once within the walls of Druid's Keep, where Shadea's minions and dark magic lurk at every turn, Pen's survival is far fromassured. Yet it will all pale in comparison to the horrors that wait inside the Forbidding-horrors poised to break free upon the Four Lands when the time is right. . . . "Fromthe Hardcover edition."
Views: 548

Anchorite

Randall Garrett was a popular 20th century science fiction and fantasy writer whose works continue to be widely read today. This is one of his most famous works.
Views: 548

The 22 Murders of Madison May

From the critically acclaimed author of Jennifer Government and Lexicon comes mind-bending speculative psychological suspense about a serial killer pursuing his victim across time and space, and the woman who is determined to stop him, even if it upends her own reality."I love you. In every world."Young real estate agent Madison May is shocked when a client at an open house says these words to her. The man, a stranger, seems to know far too much about her, and professes his love—shortly before he murders her. Felicity Staples hates reporting on murders. As a journalist for a mid-size New York City paper, she knows she must take on the assignment to research Madison May's shocking murder, but the crime seems random and the suspect is in the wind. That is, until Felicity spots the killer on the subway, right before he vanishes.Soon, Felicity senses her entire universe has shifted. No one remembers Madison May, or Felicity's encounter with...
Views: 548

Man Camp

Four short stories about family love, discovery, revenge. A working class father tries to maintain a connection with his family over a very long distance. An unlikely explorer on Mars stumbles upon what may be the greatest discovery in history. A widowed mother gets an unusual second chance at love via a time machine. An angry man seeks revenge on a system which wronged him.Are all ghosts on Halloween or can some be left over for Thanksgiving? One family found out to their surprise.The Thanksgiving feast was delicious and everyone, except for Missus Gob, was having a wonderful time, a cozy family get-together. The weather wasn’t good, a ‘dark and stormy night’ just right for November.But what was that? I thought I saw something….
Views: 548

Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell

The World's Greatest Detective Meets Horror's Most Notorious Villains!Late 1895, and Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion Dr John Watson are called upon to investigate a missing persons case. On the face of it, this seems like a mystery that Holmes might relish—as the person in question vanished from a locked room. But this is just the start of an investigation that will draw the pair into contact with a shadowy organisation talked about in whispers, known only as the 'Order of the Gash.'As more people go missing in a similar fashion, the clues point to a sinister asylum in France and to the underworld of London. However, it is an altogether different underworld that Holmes will soon discover—as he comes face to face not only with those followers who do the Order's bidding on Earth, but those who serve it in Hell: the Cenobites...
Views: 548

The Stalker

The Stalker is a short science fiction story that centers around John "Heart" Wolanski, a professional Starcraft player living abroad in South Korea. John encounters a strange glitch in the game that comes at the worst possible time in his professional gaming career. He must struggle against the glitch and his own personal demons, which are threatening to destroy him.The Stalker is a short science fiction story set in the present day, in a parallel universe that is very similar to our own. The hero, John "Heart" Wolanski, is a professional Starcraft player trying to make a living far away from home, in the Mecca of Starcraft, South Korea.While John struggles to keep mentally focussed on his career and the game he plays, he is confronted by a glitch in the game that he believes to be the work of an elite computer hacker. As the stakes grow higher, John worries about his mental condition.The story takes place in a parallel universe where the names of the professional players are different, but it is based on the reality of present-day professional Starcraft gamers who live in South Korea and elsewhere around the world.
Views: 548

Nice Girls Dont Live Forever

Nothing sucks the romance out of world travel like a boyfriend who may or may not have broken up with you in a hotel room in Brussels. Jane Jameson’s sexy sire, Gabriel, has always been unpredictable. But the seductive, anonymous notes that await him at each stop of their international vacation, coupled with his evasive behavior over the past few months, finally push Jane onto the next flight home to Half Moon Hollow — alone, upset, and unsure whether Gabriel just ended their relationship without actually telling her. Now the children’s-librarian-turned-vampire is reviving with plenty of Faux Type O, some TLC from her colorful friends and family, and her plans for a Brave New Jane. Step One: Get her newly-renovated occult bookstore off the ground. Step Two: Support her best friend, Zeb, and his werewolf bride as they prepare for the impending birth of their baby . . . or litter. Step Three: Figure out who’s been sending her threatening letters, and how her hostile pen pal is tied to Gabriel. Because for this nice girl, surviving a broken heart is becoming a matter of life and undeath. . .
Views: 547

A Questionable Client

In a world beset by magic waves, Kate Daniels works as a mercenary. She is tired, hungry, and there is foul-smelling blood on her boots. All she wants to do is to go home, but when Mercenary Guild offers her a job she can't refuse, she finds herself protecting a man against Russian wizards. This story was originally published in the anthologies * Dark and Stormy Knights * and Magic Graves.)
Views: 547

Summers at Castle Auburn

As a child, Coriel Halsing spent many glorious summers at Castle Auburn with her half-sister-and fell in love with a handsome prince who could never be hers. But now that she is a young woman, she begins to see the dark side of this magical place...
Views: 547