The story has been adapted more than once: the mysterious, somewhat murderous, Phantom of the Opera, who tutors a poor chorus girl till she can sing solo upon the stage - and kidnaps her in a fit of jealousy.But what if the Opera-house Ghost really was... dead?The story has been adapted more than once: the mysterious, somewhat murderous, Phantom of the Opera – the "Angel of Music," a disembodied voice who tutors Christine, a poor chorus girl, until she can take the stage and sing solo. But when she does, and is recognized by an old friend who is now a suitor, the Phantom reveals himself as a hideously deformed man, kidnapping Christine in a fit of jealousy - and the suitor must seek and rescue the girl in the hidden tunnels beneath the opera house. There are stories, books, movies (silent and otherwise), and a musical for the stage.But what if the Opera-house Ghost really was . . . dead?

Jazz has just one hour left to live and she’s going to spend it doing what she knows, killing monsters. So she and DJ head into the monster ghetto to settle a score with the goblin gang called, the Clowns. But aside from being vastly outnumbered, the Clowns have home field advantage. Jazz finds herself out of second chances and only seconds left to live. May the one who LOL last, LOL bestJazz: Monster Collector, the serialized adventures of Mirth’s only deferred species bond collector. Stories just the right size for your commute, lunch break, or anytime you want a fast, exciting read. Want more? Follow episode by episode as Jazz seeks to uncover the secret force behind the inter-dimensional takeover of the planet she loved, a little place once called Earth.Episode 15- Down with the Clowns: Jazz has just one hour left to live and that’s put her in a single mind of purpose, the same purpose she always had, kill monsters. So she and DJ head into the monster ghetto to settle a score with the Clowns, a gang of goblins and bvorcs that despise Jazz almost as much as she despises them. Aside from being vastly outnumbered, Jazz may have failed to grant the Clowns home field advantage. May the one who LOL last, LOL best. Jazz, Monster Collector, Season One: Earth’s Lament: Jazz is a deferred species bond collector, which is a polite way of saying, Monster Hunter. She hunts them and whenever she can she destroys them. Her hatred for the bvorcs, goblins, trolls, and fairies that live side by side with humans on the magically conjoined planets called Mirth runs deep. But only Jazz knows why, how deep, and what she’s willing to do to express it. But Jazz’s greatest enemy is the invisible power behind the hostile takeover that destroyed the Earth that she remembers. And that’s one enemy Jazz probably won’t live to face.A fast paced futuristic serial with a touch of noir and a lot of trouble. It’s totally jazzrific.

This collection contains three short stories in the genres of horror, science fiction and fantasy, all about the things we lose: our humanity, our souls, even our very selves, through choice, through sacrifice, or by the passage of time. All stories published for the first time.This collection contains three short stories in the genres of horror, science fiction and fantasy, all about the things we lose: our humanity, our souls, even our very selves, through choice, through sacrifice, or by the passage of time. All stories published for the first time.Contains:“Loyalty”: When his fields become mysteriously barren, a farmer makes a desperate bargain to save his land and his daughter, but he is unprepared for the new crop he must grow in his fields.“Of Memories Lost”: An old and worn out robot on an unfinished journey meets a strange creature on its travels.“To Die in the Spring”: They are the Lok’Chang, the Army of the Damned. They were sent against their will to a nightmarish world outside of their own, to find and bring back an item of immense power. They will do whatever it takes to get home again, even though it may cost them everything.

In the year 2057, in a post-apocalyptic world where three quarters of the population has been wiped out by a global pandemic, and a polar shift threatens the remainder of earth’s inhabitants, sixteen-year-old genetically altered teen, Lily Carmichael, faces bigger challenges—escape capture by a rogue government agency, save her family, and avoid falling in love.In the year 2057, in a post-apocalyptic world where a polar shift threatens the survivors of a widespread pandemic with extinction, sixteen-year-old genetically enhanced Lily Carmichael has more immediate problems. Her uncle is dying of cancer and her healing abilities are ineffective against the blood ties that bind them. In order to find a cure, Lily must leave the protection of her quiet town and journey to the trading city of Albany, all while avoiding the Industry, an agency that would like nothing better than to study and exploit her abilities. Seventeen-year-old Will Callahan has been searching for his father since severe storms blasted through the Midwest, killing his mother and sister. When he learns that his father may be in the city, he catches a ride with Lily, a girl who has come to his rescue more than once. As the two embark on a dangerous journey, the tension between them grows. But the secrets Will’s keeping could put Lily in far more danger than traveling to the city with him, and if he was any kind of man, he would have told her to run the minute she found him.

Meredith Carpenter is just a normal student until her life gets thrust into turmoil by a series of unexplained natural disasters. Meredith just wants for things to get back to normal, but instead she is rushed to the hospital with a mysterious ailment. She soon learns that her medical condition and the natural disasters are related, and that she now possesses a power that others would kill for.Meredith Carpenter was just a normal student whose life revolved around studying, volunteering at the local vet clinic, and going on the occasional date. Suddenly, her life is thrust into turmoil as the world gets rocked by a series of unexplained natural disasters. Meredith hopes just to ride out the storm until things get back to normal, but instead she is rushed to the hospital with a mysterious growth in her abdomen. As she waits for surgery to remove it, Meredith receives an anonymous note telling her to skip the operation or she will die. Uncertain and afraid, Meredith flees the hospital in search of answers. As she runs for her life, she learns that her medical condition and the natural disasters are related, and that she now possesses a power that others would kill to have.

Dark elf Acbain Shadowlyre has been commissioned to seal the Crossblade - a powerful, legendary sword - away before it falls into the wrong hands. But doing so might come at the ultimate price. Will he fulfill his destiny or die along the way?Acbain: Sealer of the Crossblade is the prequel to Crossblade.A worldwide pandemic creates the need for cities to build walls to quarantine the healthy. Those who have caught the virus are tossed outside the walls like trash. This short read follows the parallel stories of one man exiled in the days of the plague before the cure, and another man two hundred years later who seeks his own exile from a bleak and corrupt society. Exiled is a short companion story to the novella GLORY by ME Wynne.

Five patients at Ighosia Falls Institution have multiple personality disorder. Every one of those alternate personalities is delusional. Who is who in the real world, and where have the delusions taken their alternate identities? What is the mysterious Sunsetter they keep talking about? And why is the world collapsing around them?There is a new frontier, the whole galaxy is open for settlement attracting adventurers of all walks of life. They are looking to make a life for themselves, consisting of freedom, self sufficiency, justice for all. One of these adventurers, Brek Ridgeline, is fast with a gun and on the run from the law. He is also on the run from those who wish to revenge his killing their relatives. In an unexpected twist of fate, Brek finds himself hero to a marooned pair in the midst of a desperate flight from a man of great power and prejudice. This encounter lands Breck back in the frying pan again. This time he will have no choice but to confront this sinister man. Yet the marooned pair will be this spaceman's salvation and place Brek on a path that will set him up for life. Run for your life along with Breck by downloading now.

*Arcana* means *secrets*, and these Arcana Chronicles short stories from #1 *New York Times* bestselling author Kresley Cole are filled with them. Experience firsthand the beginning of the end and behold the apocalypse through the eyes of characters you only *thought* you knew. **Ashes to ashes . . .** Evie Greene’s story of the Flash is just one of many. All over the world, those connected in some way to the lethal Arcana game—like Death, Jack, and Fortune—must first survive a horrifying night of blood and screams. **We all fall down.** Some will have to grapple with new powers; all will be damned to a hellish new existence of plague, brutality, desolation, and cannibalism. Find out who they lost, why they endure, and what they sacrificed in order to live past Day Zero. . . .

INCLUDES AN INTRODUCTION AND NEW GHOST STORY FROM AUDREY NIFFENEGGER Haunted houses, spectral chills, and of course, the odd cat… This is Audrey Niffenegger’s eclectic collection of the very best and creepiest ghost stories, by writers including M. R. James, Saki, Rudyard Kipling, Neil Gailman, Ray Bradbury, Edith Wharton and many more. Eerie, uncanny, witty and weird, welcome to a world most ghostly. A spookily beautiful hardback, designed and illustrated by Audrey Niffenegger herself.

In the year 1605 a young woman, hiding from her past, takes up the veil becoming Soeur Auguste. Five years later the past has found her and to protect herself and her beloved child she'll have to perform one last act of dazzling daring more audacious than any she has previously attempted. With her internationally bestselling novels Chocolat, Blackberry Wine, Five Quarters of the Orange, and Coastliners, Joanne Harris has woven intoxicating spells that celebrate the sensuous while exposing the passion, secrets and folly beneath the surface of rustic village life. In Holy Fools, her most ambitious and accomplished novel to date, she transports us back to a time of intrigue and turmoil, of deception and masquerade. In the year 1605, a young widow, pregnant and alone, seeks sanctuary at the small Abbey of Sainte Marie-de-la-mer on the island of Noirs Moustiers off the Brittany coast. After the birth of her daughter, she takes up the veil, and a new name, Soeur Auguste. But the peace she has found in remote isolation is shattered five years later by the events that follow the death of her kind benefactress, the Reverend Mother. When a new abbess -- the daughter of a corrupt noble family elevated by the murder of King Henri IV -- arrives at Sainte Marie-de-la-mer, she does not arrive alone. With her is her personal confessor and spiritual guide, Père Colombin, a man Soeur Auguste knows all too well. For the newcomer is Guy LeMerle, a charlatan and seducer now masquerading as a priest, and the one man she fears more than any other. Soeur Auguste has a secret. Once she was l'Ailée, "The Winged One," star performer of a troupe led by LeMerle, before betrayal forced her to change her identity. But now the past has found her. Before long, thanks to LeMerle, suspicion and debauchery are breeding like a plague within the convent's walls -- fueled by dark rumors of witchcraft, part of the false priest's brilliantly orchestrated scheme of revenge. To protect herself and her beloved child, l'Ailée will have to perform one last act of dazzling daring more audacious than any she has previously attempted.

By the end of the 30th century humanity has the capability to travel the universe, to journey beyond earth and beyond the confines of the vulnerable human frame. The descendants of centuries of scientific, cultural and physical development divide into three: fleshers — true Homo sapiens; Gleisner robots — embodying human minds within machines that interact with the physical world; and polises — supercomputers teeming with intelligent software, containing the direct copies of billions of human personalities now existing only in the virtual reality of the polis. Diaspora is the story of Yatima — a polis being created from random mutations of the Konishi polis base mind seed — and of humankind, Of an astrophysical accident that spurs the thousandfold cloning of the polises. Of the discovery of an alien race and of a kink in time that means humanity — whatever form it takes — will never again be threatened by acts of God.

Even though Basilard is the official Mangdorian ambassador to the Turgonian Republic, he still isn’t fully trusted by his pacifist people. After he was enslaved and forced to entertain spectators in pit fights that left him scarred and mute, his kin turned their backs on him, condemning him for choosing violence. They don’t let him travel home without supervision, and he isn’t allowed to see his daughter. When trouble arises in his homeland, a mysterious blight that could cause widespread starvation for his people, he’s invited to take several old friends to travel to his country to investigate. If Basilard can solve the problem, perhaps his people will finally realize he’s not a bad influence on his family. But unlikely obstacles stand in his way, including a strange Kendorian woman that he’s ordered to take along on the mission. A Kendorian fugitive hiding in Turgonia, former tracker and assassin Ashara Longbow wants to start a new life, so she can sneak her children out of her country to join her in the republic. Not only is she hunted back home, but the Kendorian ambassador in Turgonia has learned she exists and wants a favor in exchange for keeping her secret. If she doesn’t help him thwart Basilard’s mission, she may never see her children again.

Physicist Portia Harding’s life is grounded in facts. There’s nothing that can’t be explained by logic and science. Until she travels with her best friend to England—and accidentally summons an ethereal Virtue who bequeaths her gift of weather control to Portia… Now Portia’s walking around with a literal cloud over her head—and a heartstoppingly handsome maniac trying to kidnap her. But Theondre North is no run-of-the-mill maniac. He’s a nephilim—the son of a fallen angel—who needs Portia’s help to change his fate. Problem is, Portia’s down-to-earth attitude frustrates beings from both heavenly and hellish realms—and gets Theo turned into a vampire. But at least he has Portia to satisfy his newfound hungers—and possibly save his soul…

(Short Story) When an ancient creature tries to steal your last breath, the consequences can be...severe.(Short story) When an ancient creature tries to steal your last breath, the consequences can be...severe.

When Morgan receives a shocking revelation about her family, she's thrown into a moral tailspin, believing that her essential nature is evil. Is her dark heritage too powerful to overcome?