A young queen and her confidantes are left to battle evil creatures and depraved tyrants seeking to exploit her home for their own nefarious purposes. Lured to the land of their mortal enemies, a wormhole brings human explorers escaping the cataclysmic end of humanity on Earth, the young queen is engrossed in battling her planet's villains and chasing an otherworldly love.On a majestic planet, a menacing sorceress wins the heart of a power hungry prince who stop at nothing to control the tranquil, wealthy nation of Yantra. To their dismay, the prince's innocent, younger sister, Astrid, is crowned queen of Yantra after the sudden death of the queen. The young fairy princess and her confidantes are left to battle evil creatures and depraved tyrants seeking to exploit her home for their own nefarious purposes. Astrid and her love, Zander, are lured to the land of their mortal enemies when a wormhole brings human explorers escaping the cataclysmic end of humanity on Earth, the young queen finds herself torn between protecting her world from the chaos ensued by the villains of her planet while chasing a forbidden, otherworldly love. Set on a majestic, distant planet with three nations plagued by tense relations from unresolved conflict after years at war, their power struggle reaches a boiling point as Princess Astrid comes of age at the dawn of an alien invasion. The largest continent of Yantra is a bucolic land with peaceful citizens who are winged, hooved, or have fins. The continent south of Yantra is a haven for witches and warlocks called Tulim, where the humid swamps are punctuated by a horrific volcano called Mt. Naga that is cursed with blood ghosts, ogres, and the undead to terrorize prisoners sent there to live out their days. South of Tulim is Vovros which is a merciless desert with a government run by a ruthless dictator, Azaran, who microchips his citizens to b sure of their whereabouts and each citizen is drugged with a highly potent stimulant to keep them working long hours with very little sleep or food. Citizens of Vovros who refused to take the drug would be whipped and locked in a cage under the scorching sun until they finally gave in. The three continents went to war when Azaran realized he would be rich if he controlled the only supply of Coix Floribunda and distribution of Coix salt, and Yantra was the only place where the plant could be found. Yantra knew the dangerous potential of the drug and forbade people from using it recreationally. Tulim joined the fray with the promise of land in Yantra and because some of the sorcerers saw an opportunity for a power grab.The greedy Azaran wants to conquer Yantra along his path to world domination and forcing his son, Yuri to wed Astrid. The dark witch Preta likewise seeks supremacy. After declaring herself Empress of Tulim with her army of sorcerers, ogres, giants, and cursed creatures, she moves on to Yantra. She enchants Prince Maddox and tricks him into poisoning his mother the Queen. Astrid is named queen afterward due to her mother’s last minute change in succession. Preta bewitches Astrid and Zander, leading them to Mt. Naga where she plans for them to rot. Jealous of Stella’s beauty and past relationship with Maddox, Preta traps Stella in the sea among her vampire brethren. Stella becomes cursed after receiving a bite. Astrid and Zander are sent to the foreboding Mt. Naga and barely escape blood ghosts and the undead. Astrid’s wing is badly burned by an explosion of lava hindering her from flying.As Zander and Astrid escape Mt. Naga, they seek the help of a witch. after stealing a page from her spell book, the two lovers find themselves somewhere they never imagined.

Three tales of wonder Three quests for greatness Three feats of imagination Norton Juster, author of the beloved classic The Phantom Tollbooth, shares spellbinding stories that entertain and delight.  The first is of Alberic and his endless search for wisdom—will his journey satisfy him in the end? The second reveals a boy with no illusions and a princess with no kingdom. The third is the tale of the richest monarch in the world—and the poorest. What they discover is as amusing as it is unexpected. With beautiful illustrations by Domenico Gnoli, Alberic the Wise and Other Journeys is a book as rich in meaning as it is fun to read. From the Trade Paperback edition.

A classic short story collection from the writer called Sweden's Stephen King that continues the breathtaking story begun in the internationally acclaimed classic Let the Right One In. Because of the two superb films made of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s vampire masterpiece Let the Right One In, millions of people around the world know the story of Oskar and Eli and of their final escape from Blackeberg at the end of the novel. Now at last, in “Let the Old Dreams Die,” the title story in this absolutely stunning collection, we get a glimpse of what happened next to the pair. Fans of Let the Right One In will have to read the story, which is destined to generate much word of mouth both among fans and online. “Let the Old Dreams Die” is not the only stunner in this collection. In "Final Processing," Lindqvist also reveals the next chapter in the lives of the characters he created in Handling the Undead. “Equinox” is a story of a woman who takes care of her neighbor’s house while they are away and readers will never forget what she finds in the house. Every story meets the very high standard of excellence and fright factor that Lindqvist fans have come to expect. Totally transcending genre writing, these are world class stories from possibly the most impressive horror writer writing today.

Love will kill us all. Angels are real. They aren't always kind. Violet Eden is certain of all this because she is Grigori - part angel, part human. She has felt the influence of both light and dark. When Hell unleashes its worst, Violet must embrace every facet of her angel self to save the people she cares about and the world as she knows it. But death is not the worst thing that Violet will face. For her, the endless question 'Can love conquer all?' will finally be answered.

To change the world, I may lose everything All Eva ever wanted was the chance to be herself. But in the Americas, to be hybrid—to share your body with a second soul—is not tolerated past childhood. Now Eva and Addie, her sister soul, are constantly on the move, hiding from the officials who seek to capture them. But the tide is changing. A revolution is brewing, and people are starting to question the hybrids' mistreatment. Then Marion, an ambitious reporter, offers Eva and Addie a daring proposal: If they go undercover and film the wretched conditions of a hybrid institution, she will not only rescue them, she'll find a way to free Jackson, the boy Addie loves. It's risky, and Eva will have to leave Ryan and her friends behind, but if she succeeds, it could also tip the scales forever and lead to hybrid freedom. As Eva and Addie walk into danger, they cling to each other and the hope of a better future. But the price they might pay is higher than they ever could have imagined.

When sorcerers and demigods go to war, those wars are fought by mercenaries, "dog soldiers," grunts in the trenches. And the stories of those soldiers are the stories of Glen Cook's hugely popular "Black Company" novels. If the Joseph Heller of Catch-22 were to tell the story of The Lord of the Rings, it might read like the Black Company books. There is nothing else in fantasy like them. Now, at last, Cook brings the "Glittering Stone" cycle within the Black Company series to an end . . . but an end with many other tales left to tell. As Soldiers Live opens, Croaker is military dictator of all the Taglias, and no Black Company member has died in battle for four years. Croaker figures it can't last. He's right. For, of course, many of the Company's old adversaries are still around. Narayan Singh and his adopted daughter--actually the offspring of Croaker and the Lady--hope to bring about the apocalyptic Year of the Skulls. Other old enemies like Shadowcatcher, Longshadow, and Howler are also ready to do the Company harm. And much of the Company is still recovering from the fifteen years many of them spent in a stasis field. Then a report arrives of an evil spirit, a forvalaka, that has taken over one of their old enemies. It attacks them at a shadowgate--setting off a chain of events that will bring the Company to the edge of apocalypse and, as usual, several steps beyond. Glen Cook is the leading modern writer of epic fantasy noir, and Soldiers Live is Cook at his best. None of his legion of fans will want to miss it.

The truth is out there. . . The Dex-Files is a compilation novel that accompanies the Experiment in Terror Series and is not to be-read as a stand-alone. In the Dex-Files we find a variety of scenes and chapters from the enigmatic Dex Foray's POV from books #1-6 in the series. Some of these scenes have been previously published, albeit from Perry's POV, while other scenes are completely new. In addition to it not being a stand-alone, the novel also contains some major spoilers and should be read only by those who have read all the published books in the series.

A Conyn the Barbarian story.Any resemblance to Robert E. Howard's Conan is completely intentional.Conyn, a pirate, puts herself in charge and investigates a strange island with mystic waters.A Gender Switch Adventure.Latium 310 BC. In book 9 of his famous History of Rome Livy tells how the Romans, drained by their expansionist war against the Samnites in the south, were in need of a victory and rich booty. The most alluring prey within easy reach were the wealthy Etruscans just to their north but these were protected by the impenetrable barrier of the Cimina Mountains, reputedly haunted by evil spirits and demons. Marcus Fabius Cesus, brother to one of the consuls for the year and a well-known general, volunteers to seek a path through the wilderness. In Livy’s words“He had been brought up in Caere, and was thoroughly conversant with the Etruscan language and literature. There is authority for asserting that at that time Roman boys were, as a rule, instructed in Etruscan literature as they now are in Greek, but I think the probability is that there was something remarkable about the man who displayed such boldness in disguising himself and mingling with the enemy. He is said to have been accompanied by only one servant, and during their journey they only made brief inquiries as to the nature of the country and the names of its leading men, lest they should make some startling blunder in conversing with the natives and so be found out. They went disguised as shepherds, with their rustic weapons, each carrying two bills and two heavy javelins. But neither their familiarity with the language nor the fashion of their dress nor their implements afforded them so much protection as the impossibility of believing that any stranger would enter the Ciminian forest.”This is the tale of Marcus’ extraordinary journey; the tale of his slave, Janu, and his love for Orphea; the tale of the mysterious origins of the Etruscan race; the tale of the immortal priestesses, daughters of the god Arius, waiting to fulfill their sacred mission; the tale of Hanibald, the middle-eastern mystic who seeks religious solace in his lonely hermitage; but most of all it is the tale of the Etruscan civilisation’s swansong.Pier Isa della Rupe is steeped in the lore of her native Cimina mountains and this book is the fruit of careful research, accurate down to the last detail. But scholarship fades into the background as the reader is swept along on a torrent of rich, descriptive language perhaps rare in our minimalist-inspired age. This is no dry history but a visionary tale, a magical evocation of a place and its people, an inspired flow of words which I personally found an intense pleasure to translate. I hope that many people will be able to have the pleasure of reading it.PIER ISA DELLA RUPEETRUSCAN SWAN SONGCHAPTER 1Legend has it that Thetia, the famous Sybil of the Sacred Forests of the Cimina mountains, lived isolated from the world for thousands of years in a dark, windswept cavern under the gaunt Acqua Zita crag to the north of the Cimini Mountain chain. Her only companions were wolves, bears and a beautiful white lion that her mother, the nymph Athea, had given her. Her den was an intricate labyrinth of tunnels hollowed out of the volcanic rock which stretched down to where a hot spring bubbled from the bowels of the earth. Among her collection of archaic documents written on palm leaves an ancient roll was found, half scorched, which claimed in mysterious verse that the world was created from the Cimina mountains.

First in the Movement of Crowns series.The kingdom of Diachona is on the threshold of war. As Princess Constance is coming into power, she suspects that her growing love for one Commander Alexander may be ill-timed—especially if this is the end of the kingdom as they know it...First in the Movement of Crowns series.Is it the perfect or the worst time for the kingdom to...change?The nation of Diachona rejoices as the king's daughter and heir, Constance, turns twenty. Yet, not everyone approves of Constance’s desire to sit on the National Council: a Council run solely by men.What’s more, oppressive threats from a neighboring, powerful empire are rousing the people’s fears. Amid rumors of war and personal doubts about her future, Constance suspects that her growing love for one Commander Alexander may be ill-timed. Especially if this is the end of the kingdom as they know it...

"For as long as I can remember, there was a man who lived out in the desert. Some say he is god. Others say he is a demon. There are tales of him saving villages, and myths of his ability to find water. He is a legend that, even now, is told among the children"This is a flash fiction about a girl's meeting with 'the man in the desert.' Where no one survives out there, what secrets does he hide?It should be a blissful evening for Ben Stanton. Tonight he proposes to Kinsley, the special woman in his life. He has the ring, dinner reservations at the best restaurant in the village, a box of chocolates. But things are suddenly going wrong: anonymous phone calls to Kinsley, the shrill bark of an otherwise docile dog, rainy footsteps leading from his balcony door. When the past and present collide, Ben risks losing much more than woman he loves.

In the vein of Ray Bradbury's "The Halloween Tree," this fantasy adventure follows three friends on their quest to stop a deranged survivalist that has eluded capture and is known as the Redwood Reaper.The Last Dinosaur is totally fiction from the beginning to the end. It's from the warped mind of TJ Daniels Poet. It's filled with humor throughout.A long, long time ago, in a land far away, on a desert covered rain forest lived A Giant. (we don't know what kind of giant it was, it was just called A Giant).One day, the giant was cruising along on his rolling stone, (the stone was the size of Mount Rushmore), but it was round and he had discovered that by balancing on it, he could make it move. And that became his mode of transport. He hadn't yet discovered that he could use two, like inline roller skates. This was the forerunner of the unicycle, pogo stick, big wheel and many other fine inventions, including the wheel and the one wheeled scooter.He was going too fast one day when too late, he saw an egg, just laying there in the rain forest covered desert, but now it looked like a one egg omelet and that was 'The Last Dinosaur'.When the last dinosaur egg was squished, it went to dinosaur heaven and was greeted by all of his/her ancestors. You couldn't tell male from female dinosaurs, but they had a special code, or maybe a special smell so they knew the difference, maybe not. Maybe whenever they met another dinosaur, one would say: 'I'm male' and the other would say: 'Me too, glad to meet you'.There were squirrel dinos, flying dinos, rawling dinos, chicken dinos, and there were even a few Pet Rock dinos that had turned to stone because of age.Dino Heaven looked much the same as Arizona, with blue skies, and a lot of sand and sand castles. It almost looked like a desert, except there weren't any trees. Otherwise it would look like a desert without trees.It was a very peaceful place and very flat, with mountains from horizon to horizon, covered with water filled sand. In the middle, there was a majestic fountain, flowing with sand colored water.This was a very special sand, 'cause you could drink it, eat it and you pooped beautiful hand-carved sandcastles.There were piles of sandcastles everywhere.Everyone that lived in this desert was very rich, because they used sand as currency. Whenever you ran out, all you had to do was reach down and grab a handful, put it in your pocket and you were no longer poor. Many pocketswere filled to bulging. The greedy even had bulging back packs, and they called themselves 'bankers'.At the end of this desert, there was a giant forest, with all sorts of vegetable and fruit trees. The watermelon trees only grew a few inches off the ground though, because of the weight of the watermelons, so you didn't have to climb the trees to harvest the melons. In the middle of the desert/forest, hidden in plain sight, deep in the mountains was a magic sand castle.It was so magical that it was invisible and you could only find it by touch, or by bumping into it. One night, The Giant tripped over it and fell on it and the sand made him sneeze. He sneezed so loud that he created an earthquake and the earthquake created a giant black hole.As The Giant and the desert/forest and everything that existed was sucked into the black hole, The Giant was so startled, angry, sad and happy, that he cursed in a language understood only by him. It could have been ahappy curse, no one knows, since no one understood the language.Then, as if by magic, everything that was in the black hole came shooting out as fast as light and instantly reassembled itself as it was before. Except that in the middle, there was a space ship.

Cinderella meets the grown-up world of greed, corruption, and power. The last eligible heir to the Gurun dynasty has a terrible choice to make: follow her heart & marry the knight who has always loved her or marry a cruel and power-hungry political rival in hopes of securing the future for her family. The fate of planet Beinan hangs in the balance as Anlei makes her fateful choice.Cinderella meets the grown-up world of greed, corruption, and power.The last eligible heir to the Gurun dynasty has a terrible choice to make: follow her heart and marry the knight who has always loved her or marry a cruel and power-hungry political rival in hopes of securing the future for her family. Young and innocent, what is a princess to do? The fate of planet Beinan hangs in the balance as the great succession crisis threatens all Princess Anlei holds dear in this romantic prequel to “The Ghosts of the Past.”

"I am Unnamed. My title is dead." Run. For your life. For your name. Don't become an Unnamed."I am Unnamed. My title is dead."In the World, the Planet, and the Base, it's either be number one or die.The alternative to dying, however, is to become an Unnamed. Turning eighteen means that you will compete for your name. Come out on top, you get a name and continue to the next two stages. Don't win, become one of the Unnamed. And no one knows what happens to the Unnamed. Running is easy for the Runner. He's been doing it since he was five. Easy, until things start happening, abnormal things. People aren't finishing their races. Others are acting strange. Easy, until the Runner has to become an Unnamed to find out what's going on.He has no name, but he has a title. The Runner. That's all he is in the midst of Runners. He'll get a name, yes. But not until his birthday. Not until the Competitions. Not until things are back to normal.Not until he earns it. Can he do it?Run. For your life. For your name. Don't become an Unnamed.

This year’s Fiction Vortex Horror Contest has some of the best short fiction horror we’ve ever seen. Entries ran the gamut from personal to apocalyptic. Filled with strangeness and terror, madness and fear, these stories are a tour to the dark places of the imagination.This year’s Fiction Vortex Horror Contest has some of the best short fiction horror we’ve ever seen. Entries ran the gamut from personal to apocalyptic. Filled with strangeness and terror, madness and fear, these stories are a tour to the dark places of the imagination. Guided by expert writers who build tension upon fear and lure us into places of wonder and fright these stories that do not end at the final word but haunt the reader for days like a dark secret memory.

Can you find Heaven on Earth in the arms of an archdemon? Bet your soul on it. Kalyani Martin is a virginal preacher’s daughter. Waiting for Mr. Right is Kal’s plan, which doesn’t include the hunky, standoffish Will Hellenboek. Will cohosts the Otherworlds ghost hunting show with cousin Aidan Faust. All Will wants to do is end his life following his wife’s murder twenty-five years earlier. Falling for Kal would jeopardize everything. Ryan Ausar’s job as head of the Firm is to protect the Earth. Unfortunately, archdemon Will refuses to return to work. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Ryan holds a secret that, if revealed, would devastate Will and Aidan, men he once called brothers. With lives on the line, Kal, Will, and Ryan must choose to give up what they most hold dear. Can Kal turn her back on everything she knows and help heal a hellishly hunky archdemon’s heart? NOTE: This book was previously published with another publisher. A Siren Erotic Romance