Glory St. Clair is a vampire with man trouble. Between her on-again, off-again lover Jeremy Blade, smoking hot rock star Ray Caine, and former bodyguard turned apartment mate Valdez, there's enough man-candy around to make even a gal with a liquid diet feel a sugar rush. Glory's got no time to enjoy it, though, considering that she's in the middle of planning her best friend's wedding. And let's not forget that there happens to be a hit on her head, thanks to when she took out a techno-freak billionaire. Now, between planning a bachelorette party and dodging stakes, Glory has to decide which man she really wants, before her love life meets an early grave. . .

A modern retelling of the ancient folktale, The Juniper Tree.On a remote headland overlooking the Pacific Ocean, a young boy loses his mother and battles his stepmother in a modern retelling of the folktale J R R Tolkien called his favorite.

A short story free on author's website. Timeline: A shorter version of this story was originally a scene in "Texture of Intimacy" and features SnowDancer healer Lara and her Psy mate Walker.

Book Two of The Dawning of Power trilogy. Catrin leaves her homeland behind as she goes in search of knowledge and peace, unaware that she will face the greatest evil her world has ever known.Night of the Assassin is the prequel to King of Swords, and charts the early days of "El Rey," the super-assassin whose specialty is impossible to execute contract killings on behalf of his savage narco-trafficking cartel clients. Night of the Assassin is an intense, no-flinching, gritty epic that will jar, disturb and thrill even the most jaded suspense/thriller readers. It's a shocking journey into the making of a monster that uses the ongoing drug cartel violence in Mexico as its backdrop.

Rejecting the advice of the wizard Varthlokkur and spymaster Michael Trebilcock, King Bragi Ragnarson of Kavelin joins Chatelain Mist's coup against the Dread Empire. Ragnarson dangles the fate of his nation in the jaws of his foes, refusing to see that his one true enemy may be himself.

There was not enough room for an appendix in The Heart of the Staff, the Complete Series, so here it is as the separate publication, The Heart of the Staff, the Complete Appendix.There was not enough room for an appendix in The Heart of the Staff, the Complete Series, so here it is as the separate publication, The Heart of the Staff, the Complete Appendix. Here you will find every character, creature and hamlet listed and described as well as every special word and foreign phrase defined and translated.

Enraged that he gave in to his mother's demands to return home or lose his inheritance, Crayton takes his anger out on a dive-bombing owl prowling a gas station in the mountains. When a codger warns him about wrathful owls, he dismisses the cautions as local folklore. Will the owl seek revenge?What if the old folktales were true?If you enjoy old Twilight Zone episodes or have felt your heart pounding in your chest during an Alfred Hitchcock movie, you need to read by M. K. Theodoratus’s newest tale of suspense. Crayton blows into a gas stop after his mother summons him home as his brother drifts near death after a car accident. Crayton can’t stop wondering why he came back. Was it only to keep his mother from cutting off his inheritance? He instantly regrets being forced to stop at the old service station on the other side of the mountains from home. Everything about the place, even the people, are old and dying. Crayton’s anger and bent for self-destruction come to a head when he spots an owl prowling around the station. An old decrepit storyteller warns Crayton about the dangers of crossing an owl, but the damn owl drives him nuts.Crayton takes his anger and frustration out on the dive-bombing owl. When strange things begin happening, Crayton has to hope it’s just his imagination, but he’s afraid the old folktales are coming true. Can he escape the wrath of the owl?M. K. Theodoratus has nine published works, with more on the way. She has always felt magic and fantasy were apart of her life. She specializes in captivating long-form short stories or novelettes.

Lieutenant Aurelian finds himself lost in the jungles, and following a brush with death, the soldier is captured by bandits. He is led into a subterranean valley ruled by Lord Abraham, the master of a forgotten technology. Aurelian must summon the will to overcome his physical limitations and utilize a curse of blood in an attempt to escape from the valley and return to the surface world.Aurelian, an exile from the militaristic nation of Akkahellonia, finds himself lost in the jungles of a rival nation and, following a brush with death, is brought into a subterranean world where the residents have all been changed by a machine thought lost a millennia ago. After falling victim to the machine and its possessor, Aurelian must summon the will to overcome his physical limitations and utilize a curse of blood in an attempt to escape from the valley and return to the surface world.Here is the first story set on the water planet Triton and its Celestial Isles. Inspired by the myths and legends created by pulp fiction masters Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and H.P. Lovecraft, the Triton Tales blend science, magic, and adventure as they tell the stories of the heroic men and women who struggle against extra-natural forces seeking to corrupt their world.

The reality of life is that you rarely, if ever, get a second chance. Rarer still is the opportunity to see a new perspective before it's too late. Normally, we rely on hindsight to shed light on what would otherwise remain in darkness. Paul Henderson's company is failing and he's going down the wrong road. It takes a serendipitous encounter to finally help him to see.The reality of life is that you rarely, if ever, get a second chance. Rarer still is the opportunity to see a new perspective before it's too late. For many of us, we have to rely on the gift of hindsight to see our mistakes.For Paul Henderson, at the helm of the advertising firm that his father built from scratch which is now at the very brink of utter collapse, this chance comes when he least expects it. Still, when offered the glimpse that could change everything, it takes a serendipitous encounter to finally help him to see.

I am Ren of Atikala. Kobold. Sorceress. Warrior. I have many stories to tell and this one is about my home.Home.The word has a special resonance with us all. Everyone cherishes their home, and if deprived of it, loses a piece of themselves. I once thought that life could not be so cruel as to take everything I’d known in an instant.Oh how I now understand that life can be capricious indeed.I am Ren of Atikala. Kobold. Sorceress. Warrior. I have many stories to tell and this one is about my home.Home.The word has a special resonance with us all. Great or humble, rich or poor, everyone cherishes their home, and if deprived of it, loses a piece of themselves. I once thought that life could not be so cruel as to take everything I’d known in an instant.Oh how I now understand that life can be capricious indeed.This is the story of how I came to the surface of Drathari and unwillingly traded a life for a life.The Kobolds series:#1: Ren of Atikala#2: Ren of Atikala: The Scars of Northaven (Now available for preorder!)Other stories set in Drathari, the World of Shattered Dreams:- The Gods are Silent, a short story (Coming early 2015!).

Nola and Owen have broken the curse that held the Black Swans and are living happily in the small town of Antrim, Maine. It is time for Holiday celebrations, their first Christmas together and their first Winter Solstice.But Nola has a big surprise for Owen, a very special present.At the end of a perilous trek, leading them into yet another deadly trap, the Alpha-Omega squadron are lost within the madness of Shoebox Stone’s games. As their brave Captain, Charlie Crumble, falters in his leadership, the group quickly becomes undone. A strange infection, causing the dead to rise from the grave, spreads across the land threatening everyone in its wake, and stories of robotic monstrous men haunt the area. The people need a hero. The squad needs a leader. But he is lost…

Markus Kohl's aching body struggles to attend to his duties as the kingdom's lowly tinker. Though his neighbors rely upon the tinker to keep the mechanisms of their livelihoods in working order, few in the kingdom appreciate Markus's effort. Regardless, Markus satisfies his king's newest request with a creation that will remind all of those in the kingdom of the debts owed to the humble tinker.Markus Kohl's old bones groan as the tinker wakes to the first morning of the second sun. The second sun's humidity and heat give Markus little relief. His neighbors show him little patience as their poorly maintained machines shudder for the tinker's attention, and the villagers calling on the Markus's services refuse to allow the tinker's helpful Fay to enter their homes. Markus's work schedule strains to meet King Tiber's request for a device that will cool his court as the second sun crowds the sky. Though his body aches and though his neighbors show no respect for his duties, Markus meets the king's order with the help of his silver-haired Fay. What the tinker presents to the court challenges the realm to take responsibility for itself, or suffer terrible plague should ruin be allowed to gnaw at Markus's final, stunning achievement.

Surrounded and trapped in the tunnels beneath the ancient ruined city, Kaela and the others must locate Helena and find their way out before they are overcome by the darkness that pursues them.Surrounded and trapped in the tunnels beneath the ancient ruined city, Kaela and the others must locate Helena and find their way out before they are overcome by the darkness that pursues them.The Outcast and the Survivor is a chapter-series that follows Kaela, a princess of the mythical kingdom of Kalepo. After her father's sudden death, Kaela is exiled from the kingdom by her older sister Mariam, who claims their father's throne within moments of his passing. By being made an outcast, Kaela is forced not only to say goodbye to her homeland, but also to all of civilization. Kalepo is known only to itself, meaning that Kaela should expect to find a world devoid of humanity beyond the kingdom's borders, but because of something her father whispered to her on his deathbed, she knows that there is more out there, a world of dark secrets for her to discover. The series was originally released one chapter at a time at the start of each month, but after Part I, comprising chapters 1-12, was finished in March 2016, it has transformed into a more standard series with longer releases. Part II, which comprises several more chapters, will be released in the summer of 2016.

A castle that is constantly rearranging itself, and a young royal family sworn to protect it... Celie, Rolf, and their beloved Castle Glower are back in this exciting sequel. Strange things are afoot in Castle Glower: new rooms, corridors, and even stables keep arriving, even when they aren't needed. Celie's brother Bran, the new Royal Wizard, has his hands full cataloguing an entire storeroom full of exotic and highly dangerous weapons, while Celie has her hands full . . . raising the creature that hatches from a giant egg she finds! Will they be able to find out what's making the Castle behave this way in time?

The relationship between a daring young chamois hunter from the remote Bernese Oberland and a prosperous miller’s daughter living in the comfortable French-speaking Swiss canton of Vaud plays out a complex of themes, such as the instinctive life versus rational civilization and the role of early experience in shaping personal destiny, in this dark and affecting Hans Christian Andersen adult novella. In the terrifying Ice Virgin and her eerie minions, with their implacable hatred of mankind, we get a glimpse of the fairy tale Andersen. But The Ice Virgin, the most disturbing, ambitious, and searching of all of Andersen’s narratives, is also a thoroughly absorbing story of the real world. Andersen here is writing about a world he saw as something of a paradigm of the human condition, and this lies behind the story’s multilayered complexity. This splendid new translation by Paul Binding and his erudite and comprehensive afterword together make a compelling case for just why The Ice Virgin deserves to be placed in the first rank of world literature.