Jay Lake's first trade novel is an astounding work of creation.  Lake has envisioned a clockwork solar system, where the planets move in a vast system of gears around the lamp of the Sun. It is a universe where the hand of the Creator is visible to anyone who simply looks up into the sky, and sees the track of the heavens, the wheels of the Moon, and the great Equatorial gears of the Earth itself. Mainspring is the story of a young clockmaker's apprentice, who is visited by the Archangel Gabriel. He is told that he must take the Key Perilous and rewind the Mainspring of the Earth. It is running down, and disaster to the planet will ensue if it's not rewound. From innocence and ignorance to power and self-knowledge, the young man will make the long and perilous journey to the South Polar Axis, to fulfill the commandment of his God.

As teenagers Poppy Carlisle and Serena Gorringe were the only witnesses to a high-profile murder. Amid heated public debate, the two seemingly glamorous teens were dubbed "The Ice Cream Girls" by the press and were dealt with by the courts-Poppy headed to prison after being convicted for murder and Serena was set free. Years later, after having led very different lives, Poppy is keen to set the record straight about what really happened. The only problem is she has no one to turn to and no clue where to begin her hunt for Serena. Meanwhile, Serena is married with children and wants no one in her present to find out about her past. Constantly looking over her shoulder, Serena knows she should come clean to her husband, however, she can't seem to find the words. With Poppy determined to salvage what's left of her reputation, Serena may not have a choice in reopening a can of worms that may threaten both their lives...again.

Bennie Rosato the founder of the Rosato & DiNunzio law firm hides her big heart beneath her tough-as-nails exterior and she doesn't like to fail. Now, a case from her past shows her how differently things might have turned out. Thirteen years ago, Bennie Rosato took on Jason Leftavick, a twelve-year-old boy who was sent to a juvenile detention center after fighting a class bully. Bennie couldn't free Jason, and to this day it's the case that haunts her. Jason has grown up in and out of juvenile prison, and his adulthood hasn't been any easier. Bennie no longer represents those accused of murder, but when Jason is indicted for killing the same bully he fought with as a kid, she sees no choice but to represent him. She doesn't know whether or not to believe his claims of innocence, but she knows she owes him for past failures-of the law, of the juvenile justice system, and of herself. Forced to relive the darkest period of her life, Bennie will do everything in her power to get the truth, and justice.

Antonia Fraser's Warrior Queens are those women who have both ruled and led in war. They include Catherine the Great, Elizabeth I, Isabella of Spain, the Rani of Jhansi, and the formidable Queen Jinga of Angola. With Boadicea as the definitive example, her female champions from other ages and civilisations make a fascinating and awesome assembly. Yet if Boadicea's apocryphal chariot has ensured her place in history, what are the myths that surround the others? And how different are the democratically elected if less regal warrior queens of recent times: Indira Gandhi and Golda Meir? This remarkable book is much more than a biographical selection. It examines how Antonia Fraser's heroines have held and wrested the reins of power from their (consistently male) adversaries.

On one side of the border lies the modern world: the internet, homecoming dances, cell phones. On the other side dwell the ancient monsters who spark humanity's deepest fears: dragons. Seventeen-year-old Kay Wyatt knows she's breaking the law by rock climbing near the border, but she'd rather have an adventure than follow the rules. When the dragon Artegal unexpectedly saves her life, the rules are abruptly shattered, and a secret friendship grows between them. But suspicion and terror are the legacy of human and dragon interactions, and the fragile truce that has maintained peace between the species is unraveling. As tensions mount and battles begin, Kay and Artegal are caught in the middle. Can their friendship change the course of a war? In her young-adult debut, New York Times bestselling author Carrie Vaughn presents a distinctly twenty-first-century tale of myths and machines, and an alliance that crosses a seemingly unbridgeable divide.

A prison doctor injects a condemned serial killer with a formula designed to keep his consciousness awake while his body rots in the grave.   But all drugs have unforeseen side-effects.   Before he could be buried, the killer wakes up.   Hungry.   Infected.   Contagious.   This is the way the world ends.   Not with a bang…but a bite.

Though Roe has proven she can handle just about anything, this part-time librarian may not be ready for the full-time crises that comes her way in the sixth Aurora Teagarden mystery...Roe’s life finally seems to have settled into a comfortable pattern. Her marriage to Martin is going well, she’s back at work at the Lawrenceton library—and she hasn’t found a dead body in quite a while. But then one afternoon her handyman goes crazy in her front yard. Roe suspects this is a sign of more bad things to come. And she is right.Soon Martin’s niece, Regina, shows up with a baby that no one knew she had. Then she disappears, leaving behind the child—and a murdered husband. To find her, Roe and Martin retrace her steps from sunny Georgia back to snowy Ohio, where they will uncover dark family secrets—at their own peril...DON'T MISS THE AURORA TEAGARDEN MYSTERIES ON HALLMARK MOVIES & MYSTERIES!

Take a wonderfully crazed excursion into the demented heart of a tropical paradise—a world of cargo cults, cannibals, mad scientists, ninjas, and talking fruit bats. Our bumbling hero is Tucker Case, a hopeless geek trapped in a cool guy's body, who makes a living as a pilot for the Mary Jean Cosmetics Corporation. But when he demolishes his boss's pink plane during a drunken airborne liaison, Tuck must run for his life from Mary Jean's goons. Now there's only one employment opportunity left for him: piloting shady secret missions for an unscrupulous medical missionary and a sexy blond high priestess on the remotest of Micronesian hells. Here is a brazen, ingenious, irreverent, and wickedly funny novel from a modern master of the outrageous.

Rome is crumbling. The child-emperor, Heliogabalus, diverts the Roman populace with parties, circuses, and celebrations, while his mother and grandmother jockey for power behind the scenes. The government is riddled with scandal and no business is conducted without bribes which grow ever larger. Religions joust for prominence, with factions of Christians seeking to overthrow the ancient Roman pantheon. Courtesans, once honored for their skills and protected by special guards, have become targets of opprobrium. The vampire Ragoczy Germanius Sanct' Franciscus, already subject to extra taxes and regulations because he is a foreigner, falls under the maleficent eye of Telemachus Batsho, a minor functionary who dreams of power and wealth. When Franciscus thwarts his attempts to extort ever-increasing sums from a young Roman of good birth, Batsho swears revenge. Franciscus finds his activities closely monitored and is accused of treason and conspiracy. His friends, threatened with similar scrutiny, abandon him to Batsho's mercies or urge him to leave the Eternal City.But Franciscus has many ties to Rome. He has taken under his protection a beautiful courtesan who was brutally beaten by the very men who should have been protecting her. She has been the vampire's sustenance for many months. Franciscus is also held in the city by the plight of the family Laelius. The Domina's health is failing despite the vampire's great medical skills; her son has converted to Christianity and rails against his mother's beliefs; her daughter Ignatia, who has sacrified her own life to care for her mother, realizes that when her mother dies, her fate will rest in the hands of her increasingly fanatical brother. Determined to claim pleasure for herself, Ignatia invites Franciscus's attentions, inflaming him with the power of her untapped sexuality. Unfortunately, they are not unobserved, and their simple yet powerful act of love sparks a conflagration that destroys Ignatia's family and nearly brings about the vampire's True Death.

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"Early in the spring of the year 1884, the three-masted schooner Castor, from San Francisco to Valparaiso, was struck by a tornado off the coast of Peru. The storm, which rose with frightful suddenness, was of short duration, but it left the Castor a helpless wreck. ... "The Castor was an American merchant-vessel, commanded by Captain Philip Horn, an experienced navigator of about thirty-five years of age. Besides a valuable cargo, she carried three passengers—two ladies and a boy. ... "But when the storm had passed, and the sky was clear, and the mad waves had subsided into a rolling swell, there seemed no reason to believe that any one on board the Castor would ever reach Valparaiso. The vessel had been badly strained by the wrenching of the masts, her sides had been battered by the floating wreckage, and she was taking in water rapidly. Fortunately, no one had been injured by the storm, ...." All of the row boats had been blown off of the ship, but the crew was able to retrieve two of them from the sea; and "...in less than three hours after the vessel had been struck, the two boats, containing all the crew and the passengers, besides a goodly quantity of provisions and water, and such valuables, clothing, rugs, and wraps as room could be found for, were pulling away from the wreck." The adventure thus begins, lost at sea somewhere off of the unsettled coast of Peru with only a vague idea of where they are.

Robena finds an answer to her 11:11 visions with the help of a friendly swamp dragon.Robena searches for meaning in her life and wants to know what the magical numbers of 11:11 mean. She finds a message of faith through the help of swamp dragons.

OUR NEW NEIGHBORS AT PONKAPOG BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH When I saw the little house building, an eighth of a mile beyond my own, on the Old Bay Road, I wondered who were to be the tenants. The modest structure was set well back from the road, among the trees, as if the inmates were to care nothing whatever for a view of the stylish equipages which sweep by during the summer season. For my part, I like to see the passing, in town or country; but each has his own unaccountable taste. The proprietor, who seemed to be also the architect of the new house, superintended the various details of the work with an assiduity that gave me a high opinion of his intelligence and executive ability, and I congratulated myself on the prospect of having some very agreeable neighbors. It was quite early in the spring, if I remember, when they moved into the cottage—a newly married couple, evidently: the wife very young, pretty, and with the air of a lady; the husband somewhat older, but still in the first flush of manhood. It was understood in the village that they came from Baltimore; but no one knew them personally, and they brought no letters of introduction. (For obvious reasons, I refrain from mentioning names.) It was clear that, for the present at least, their own company was entirely sufficient for them. They made no advance toward the acquaintance of any of the families in the neighborhood, and consequently were left to themselves. That, apparently, was what they desired, and why they came to Ponkapog. For after its black bass and wild duck and teal, solitude is the chief staple of Ponkapog. Perhaps its perfect rural loveliness should be included. Lying high up under the wing of the Blue Hills, and in the odorous breath of pines and cedars, it chances to be the most enchanting bit of unlaced disheveled country within fifty miles of Boston, which, moreover, can be reached in half an hour's ride by railway. But the nearest railway station (Heaven be praised!) is two miles distant, and the seclusion is without a flaw. Ponkapog has one mail a day; two mails a day would render the place uninhabitable. The village—it looks like a compact village at a distance, but unravels and disappears the moment you drive into it—has quite a large floating population. I do not allude to the perch and pickerel in Ponkapog Pond. Along the Old Bay Road, a highway even in the Colonial days, there are a number of attractive villas and cottages straggling off toward Milton, which are occupied for the summer by people from the city. These birds of passage are a distinct class from the permanent inhabitants, and the two seldom closely assimilate unless there has been some previous connection. It seemed to me that our new neighbors were to come under the head of permanent inhabitants; they had built their own house, and had the air of intending to live in it all the year round. "Are you not going to call on them?" I asked my wife one morning. "When they call on us," she replied lightly. "But it is our place to call first, they being strangers." This was said as seriously as the circumstance demanded; but my wife turned it off with a laugh, and I said no more, always trusting to her intuitions in these matters....

From the moment they first met, life would never be the same again. Despite their age difference, Ellen Jackson allowed herself to be swept into the rich and powerful life of Tom Bradley, the CEO and owner of Satinol Cosmetics. They believed nothing could come between them, but they were wrong."TURNED is a book to rival TWILIGHT and VAMPIRE DIARIES, and one that will have you wanting to keep reading until the very last page! If you are into adventure, love and vampires this book is the one for you!" --Vampirebooksite.com The #1 Bestseller!TURNED is book #1 in the #1 Bestselling series THE VAMPIRE JOURNALS, which includes 11 books (and counting). In TURNED (Book #1 of the Vampire Journals), 18 year old Caitlin Paine finds herself uprooted from her nice suburb and forced to attend a dangerous New York City high school when her Mom moves again. The one ray of light in her new surroundings is Jonah, a new classmate who takes an instant liking to her. But before their romance can blossom, Caitlin suddenly finds herself changing. She is overcome by a superhuman strength, a sensitivity to light, a desire to feed--by feelings she does not understand. She seeks answers to what’s happening to her, and her cravings lead her to the wrong place at the wrong time. Her eyes are opened to a hidden world, right beneath her feet, thriving underground in New York City. She finds herself caught between two dangerous covens, right in the middle of a vampire war. It is at this moment that Caitlin meets Caleb, a mysterious and powerful vampire who rescues her from the dark forces. He needs her to help lead him to the legendary lost artifact. And she needs him for answers, and for protection. Together, they will need to answer one crucial question: who was her real father? But Caitlin finds herself caught between two men as something else arises between them: a forbidden love. A love between the races that will risk both of their lives, and will force them to decide whether to risk it all for each other… "TURNED is an ideal story for young readers. Morgan Rice did a good job spinning an interesting twist on what could have been a typical vampire tale. Refreshing and unique, TURNED has the classic elements found in many Young Adult paranormal stories. Book #1 of the Vampire Journals Series focuses around one girl…one extraordinary girl!...TURNED is easy to read but extremely fast-paced....Recommended for anyone who likes to read soft paranormal romances. Rated PG." --The Romance Reviews “TURNED grabbed my attention from the beginning and did not let go….This story is an amazing adventure that is fast paced and action packed from the very beginning. There is not a dull moment to be found. Morgan Rice did an awesome job bringing the reader into the story. She also made it easy to root for Caitlin and want desperately to her succeed in finding her truth….I will be looking forward to the second book in the series.” --Paranormal Romance Guild “Rice does a great job of pulling you into the story from the beginning, utilizing a great descriptive quality that transcends the mere painting of the setting….Nicely written and an extremely fast read, TURNED is a good start to a new vampire series sure to be a hit with readers who are looking for a light, yet entertaining story.” --Black Lagoon Reviews All 11 books in the VAMPIRE JOURNALS are also available for sale. Morgan Rice's new trilogy, ARENA ONE: SLAVERUNNERS (Book #1 of the Survival Trilogy), a post apocalyptic thriller, is also available. And Morgan Rice's #1 Bestselling fantasy series, A QUEST OF HEROES (Book #1 in the Sorcerer's Ring) is now also available--as a FREE download!

Presented for your entertainment four tales of futuristic horror by an author you probably never heard of. In his desperate attempt to introduce you to his writing he is offering them to you free of charge, and hopes you enjoy them.Four Short Stories that blend science fiction and horror.I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE:A man decides to to keep his friends close and his enemies closer until he can remove them from space-time.I NEVER MEANT TO HURT YOU:A childish prank dooms mankind to slavery.CONJUNCTION:An astronaut believes that his crewmates have had their minds taken over by an alien microbe.CURSED SHIP:The Commander of a Moon shuttle doesn't believe in curses, until his career is ruined by one.

When the train doesn't stop in the Old West town of Muddy Creek, Sheriff Jesse Hawkins goes to investigate. What he finds is a mystery that goes far beyond anything in his experience: a car full of people frozen in time.Prequel to Book One of The Gifted Series Lily East is different from other people and has been since her birth. The government has been trying to recruit her, wanting to use her uncontrollable gift to their advantage. After years of evading, Lily finally gives into her "civic duty" and helps the government solve cases gone cold. Her life outside of being a special agent is far from normal. And as if that isn't enough, she finds herself falling in love with the man who almost killed her. This is life, as she sees it. Coming soon, in Book One of The Gifted Series, you will learn the whole story, and how Lily's powers came to be. I hope you'll enjoy this novella until then.

Myles Hunter is one of the world's elite covert intelligence officers. He takes over where others fail. This job is no different, but there are unexpected complications -- of the Faere kind.In the fifth book of the series, family loyalties are put to the test; Eric and Travis fret over Tanner, while Eric’s girlfriend Dana proves Sam and Jenny’s youngest hasn't fallen far from the tree. Mitch’s tenure in Iraq continues as Chelsea marries, then receives the shock of her life.As the recession hits America, the Cassels and Smiths are faced with further joys and dilemmas; Will and Bethany give Sam and Jenny their first grandchild, but Eric is torn by his love for an injured young woman. Jenny’s aches grow worse, but help for her illness soothes Rachel’s heart. David finds Rachel’s new boyfriend lacking, but when a cousin’s life is on the line, David’s reckless nature triggers a crisis.Events in Iraq add to the melancholy, but as a family gathers for various holidays, love is paramount. Then hearts are broken when one man’s revenge explodes. Will Arkendale ever be the same?

The Palmir People teeter on the verge of utter destruction. They are losing their long battle with the creatures from the north. The Volastoque devastate the Palmir population, destroying all in their path.To stop the Volastoque, it is time for desperate measures.Can any of the Palmir People or their dragon allies survive?1 girl + 1 prom + 3 guys = Prom Impossible!Cassidy decides her senior year, including prom, will be about Michael, the boy destined to be her soul mate. One problem. He hasn’t figured that out yet.But certain events meant as innocent pranks—that weren’t completely her fault—introduce her to Zeke, the reformed bad boy. And cutting deals in the boys’ bathroom with Jasper, the hottest guy in school, lands her in a complicated web of half-truths.At the end of the year, she’s dateless the day before the big night but risks a lot more than her pride if she can’t fix her mistakes.Prom Impossible is a modern-day romantic comedy in the world of teens, true love, and life.

The true beauty of a rose (love) is that it responds so intimately and wonderfully in accordance to how it is kept, treated and respected; and there are always thorns there to remind, should one forget.This story was inspired by Brian Aldiss' Supertoys Last All Summer Long. But instead of exploring what happens when a couple recieves a child that is a robot this story explores what happens when a child recieves a surrogate parent that is a robot. It's done with alternate history, the year 1957, and aliens that resemble us but say very little about their origins are trading technology and advanced machines for some of our soil.Quickly companies form partnerships with the extraterrestrials and single mother, Lydia Meyer is convinced by a slick salesman that used to sell vacuum cleaners to purchase a new Solomon series robot to be a companion for her lonely son. It goes badly.

Second of Diane Duane's "Middle Kingdoms" sequence, sequel to THE DOOR INTO FIRE. The quest of Freelorn Ferrant's son, exiled prince of Arlen, continues as he and his people push eastward across the Middle Kingdoms in pursuit of his lost throne. But his companion, the warrior and sorceress Segnbora, brings her own possibly deadly agenda to the search...