It's on street corners; it's in our schools, our homes and even our governments. Magic carpets share the sky with jets, international boxing shares air time with magical duellists. It's a whole mess, but then nobody consulted me before outing every mage on the planet. My twin brother is a Wizard, and thinks he's the only magician in the family. It's actually a little funny that he hasn't suspected anything different in the last seventeen years, what with my constantly needing to keep his idiot face out of danger and stupidity, but that's not today's problem. You see, someone's trying to kill him. It started off with a shadow monster that was all but immune to my magic attacking him at school, and it went steadily downhill from there, meandering through an encounter with a succubus (a species I was told categorically didn't exist anymore), to nearly getting abducted by murderous homeless men and blasted by the government's anti-magic police, and that was just Monday! While I'm trying to help the idiot, I'm also doing my level best to keep him from finding out about my own powers (which are frankly so sinister that I was terrified of my own shadow for the first decade of my life), and make sure that in my blundering about trying to solve a mystery I can't trust the Supernatural Crimes Authority to investigate correctly, I don't draw the attention of the people with horrific monsters at their beck and call. Family can be such a pain...

    Humanity has been brought to its knees. Like other survivors, Noah Henson has heard rumors of the Aelves. Among other guesses, predatory aliens seem as good as any other theory for what caused the Shift. But for Noah, everything else takes second place to survival, sometimes even self-respect…or any sort of decency. Lawless, post-apocalypse America had forced Noah to make many difficult decisions, and he has never seemed to choose correctly. However, despite hating himself, he doesn’t have the strength or the courage to change. He will get a lucky break in a big way, though—a mysterious orb with otherworldly power. In time, perhaps Noah will find another path. And if he does die during the Shift, maybe it won’t be the end of his story. Sometimes, another chance can be an opportunity for redemption.

    When she finds that same fae at the river's edge, she's offered a proposal that makes her skin grow cold . . . and her blood run hot.Romance meets horror in this lesbian fairytale. Do you dare dive . . . Beneath the Loch?

    2: Hide out in super exclusive Full Immersion Virtual Reality game until the heat is off. 3: Roll a bard. Max out charisma. Live it up. 4: Profit. With all the pesky planning out of the way Daniel set out to realize his ultimate dream: gaining enough money to buy a tropical island and spend his days playing the violin and RPGs. What could possibly go wrong? Disclaimer: There shall be no harems in this series. Overpowered, perfect protagonists will not be tolerated and excessive cursing will result in donations to the swear jar.

     When this unicorn shifter gets to spend Christmas with the rest of Team Misfit for the first time, she doesn't know what to expect. It's the first time Aslan Academy is celebrating the joyous season, and though many students aren't happy about staying over for the holidays, Celestia Rainbow wants to enjoy every second of it with her men in tow. After years of spending it alone with her trusty familiar, Arielle, and the occasional years with Magnor, Celestia knew this year would be better than ever. When her men find out about their Blessed Love's previous predicament over the years, it's their duty to bring joy and cheer to their lover's heart in their own way. Present shopping, sled board racing, and warm hot baths in the middle of a mountain, Celestia is in for a treat of activity, both outdoors and in the cozy sheets of the bedroom. With the intention of returning the favor, Celestia will fill the shifters' hearts with love, laughter, and a dash of glitter to save them from the Forsaken who want to play the Grinch this holiday season. Will they prevail? Only one way to find out.

    The faculty is hiding an unbelievable secret within their fine arts program. When Autumn Mattison receives an invitation to attend the high school, she yearns to escape her overbearing father yet remains reluctant to leave her mother and brother. Her doubts fade away when a vivid dream convinces her she belongs there.Away from home, Autumn discovers a unique school environment that awakens her creative potential, and her new friends become like a second family. However, as she uncovers more about the dark side of the school and struggles with its curriculum, she questions whether Dickensen Academy is truly where she belongs. When tragedy strikes, Autumn must learn to believe in her own power and stand up to her greatest fear or risk having her memories destroyed to protect the school’s secrets. Caught between secrets and dreams, can she find her true self?

    The Before is devastatingly boring; teacups and girdles, and an overbearing Aunt who makes life hell. The After is Corrick and the uncovered truth about a magical necklace. It is the Wild West, and it is an adventure that could very well change everything.

    Defying the guild, Alden sets out to return Mayli safely home in hopes of restoring peace with the kingdom of Brimley. Mayli feels as though her life has torn asunder after being taken captive. However, if she is to survive, she must come to trust the renegade thief loyal to her mother’s killer. As Alden pleads for Brimley’s innocence, Mayli begins to question what she thought she knew about her kingdom’s enemies.

    His dad has ditched out on him in favour of a brand-new family abroad, and his teenage sister is bouncing off the walls with rage, but Oz is determined to cope: he’s dropped out of university and taken a boring, responsible job. He’s got it all covered. Doing everything his dad should’ve done. He’s even let go of the love of his life. No room for Kip in Oz’s new grown-up world. Kip is charm and trouble in equal measure, with a good dash of substance abuse thrown in. He’s also ruining a brilliant career in biology by his obsession with cryptids – monsters, as Oz sees them – the yetis, lake beasts and giant squids no sane man would waste his time chasing around the world. Yes, Oz is better off without him. But Oz has a grandmother who remembers how happy Oz used to be with Kip at his side. With his best interests at heart – and a few schemes of her own – Gran sets the pair up for a reunion. Kip and Oz have loved each other since the day they first met – but sometimes love isn’t enough. When disaster strikes their second-chance relationship, Kip takes refuge at Camp Saorsa, a remote community of cryptid hunters near Scotland’s Loch Ness. If there’s one thing Oz is not about to believe in, it’s the Loch Ness monster. He’s not sure he believes in anything anymore, and his happy life with Kip feels like a lost dream. Will the magic of a far-flung Scottish winter be enough to draw these two lonely souls back together, and what mysteries lurk in the depths of the ancient loch?

     Mr. Goldson is filthy rich. He’s also callous and cruel and hasn’t got a festive bone in his ancient body. Naturally, he’s due for a holiday haunting. When his business partner, Bolbi Baggs, announces that they’re to be visited by three spirits, Mr. Goldson braces himself for a whirlwind tour of his past, present, and future.Typically, a trio of time-traveling ghosts heralds a heartwarming tale of hope and redemption for the human race. Mr. Goldson, however, isn’t a member of the human race. He’s a Dwarf, and Mr. Baggs is a Halfling, and the adventure that’s about to take them across the enchanted world of Arth is anything but typical. Holiday magic and economic realities collide in A Song of Three Spirits. It’s A Christmas Carol for the 21st century, with a dash of high fantasy. Read this hilarious satire of Charles Dickens’s classic today!

    Broke and recently fired, he knows the winning Money Carlo ticket that has landed in his mailbox from a car dealership is nothing more than a scam. The promise of five thousand dollars, though, is too tantalizing to ignore.Jon Dangle is a keeper of secrets, many of which are buried deep beneath his dealership. He works hard to keep them hidden, but occasionally sacrifices are required, sacrifices who are penniless, desperate, and who will not be missed. Sacrifices exactly like DeWitt.When Antoine steps foot on Dangle’s car lot, it is with the hope of easy money. Instead, he finds himself trapped in a deep, dark hole, buried alive. If he is going to survive the nightmare ahead of him, if he has any chance of seeing his wife and child again, Antoine will have to do more than merely hope. He will have to fight his way back to the surface, and pray that Jon Dangle’s secrets do not kill him first.

    Everybody.” Hunted for the unique blood that runs through his veins, half-angel, half-demon Gabriel Sinclair lives without expectations. On the run from forces on both sides of an ancient conflict, he searches for strength and peace in a world which only seeks to use him. When Gabriel is forced to stop running, assigned a team—and a mate—he doesn’t want, and reluctantly tasked with a mission, he must overcome obstacles both real and imagined. Otherwise, the world as he knows it, and the mate he’s reluctantly come to care for, may cease to exist. “I will do as the Creator bids me. Always.” Evander Ryan is special, and he knows it. The final handcrafted immortal warrior for the light, he is the Creator’s greatest masterpiece. For fifty-eight years, he’s lived his life in black and white, coddled by his Maker, while leading his team to countless victories against their enemies. Those fights were easy. Working with a new, uncooperative mate who sees the world in shades of gray? Less so. As Evander’s eyes are opened to the existence of light warriors who are not good, dark warriors who are, and the wider world of supernatural beings, he learns nothing is as he thought it was, and his mate isn’t who he thought he was either. Maybe there’s something to be said for not always following the rules. . . This book is LGBT Urban Fantasy with a romantic subplot. Not recommended for readers under 18. Use the Look Inside feature or download a sample to see additional content advisories on the Copyright page.

    From the November/December 2018 issue of Hugo Award-winning Uncanny Magazine.uncannymagazine.com/article/the-rose-...

    People were just mana farms, right?No, that was wrong. Delta refused. Then everything became odd.Book 1 Chapter 1- 68https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/159...

    They can’t be real, can they?Something has slain a villager, and the locals of Bajok point their fingers at Amana, a pacifist monk running from his dark past. But Amana knows there’s something else, something much darker, lurking in the village.Can he save the village, his name, and his principles? To save one would mean the sacrifice of the others, if he has the strength.

    One of which is to answer the question: can angels handle the gift of emotions without it interfering with their loyalty to God?Enter Laramie.Angel Laramie is given emotions as a trial to decide once and for all if angels are ready to feel again. However, she soon becomes sidetracked by an infatuation with a human called Maggie, prompting her to neglect her orders and allow her mission to fail. She returns to her superiors in hopes of helping the human only to learn her feelings were a test. Her failure means her banishment to Earth until she fades away forever.Magda Mercy is a twenty-three-year-old college student with dreams of becoming a doctor. Her life changes forever when her brother returns on leave from the military with devastating family news.In exile, Laramie is confronted by Lucifer with a confounding revelation that changes everything Laramie has ever known as an angel. Lucifer presents an offer of eventual immortality in exchange for Laramie’s ceaseless fidelity. When Laramie declines, Lucifer lashes out by tormenting the innocent Maggie as punishment for Laramie’s refusal. Laramie must now do everything in her power to save Maggie and prevent Lucifer from realizing his goals, even if it means reaching oblivion sooner.

    Weeks. That’s how long Maggie’s been waiting for her best friend and partner in crime, Abby, to come home from Camp Cantaloupe. Half of summer break may have been lost, but Abby is finally heading back! Only when Abby arrives, she’s. . . different. She doesn’t want to play any of their usual epic spy games. All New Abby wants to do is talk about camp things and plan campy activities—she even has the nerve to call Maggie’s massive, award-worthy pillow fort a “cabin.” But at least Abby’s excited to build a “cabin” of her own. And when Maggie discovers that a pillow in the back of her fort mysteriously leads right into Abby’s new one, the two friends are suddenly just an arm’s length away. Soon they’re adding links and building more forts, until Maggie looks behind one pillow too many and finders herself face-to-face with. . . the authorities. Turns out their little pillow fort network isn’t the first to exist. It’s not even the second, or third, or hundredth. A massive network of linked-up pillow and sofa forts already spans the globe, and the kids who run it are not happy with Maggie and Abby. And they are not fooling around. With just three days to pass the North American Founding and Allied Forts Alliance’s outrageous entrance tests or lose the links forever, Maggie and Abby pull out all the stops to try to save their network. But the kids on NAFAFA’s Council have their own agenda, and it just so happens Maggie’s fort might actually hold the key to a mystery that’s gone unanswered for generations. There’s only a little bit of summer left to burn, and Maggie and Abby are determined to win back their pillow fort freedom. But can their mission—and their scrappy homemade network—survive the mission?

    A GLASS LOCKET. A POWERFUL CURSE UNLEASHED ON CHRISTMAS EVE.Twelve-year-old Kitty Wigeon can't wait for Christmas at St Flurries, a grand old manor house in the countryside, until one chilly night she vanishes without a trace.One hundred years later… Still grieving over the death of their mother, Kes Bunting and his younger sister Star, are sent to live at St Flurries. They find a house steeped in mystery and brimming with secrets. Who, or what, is making footprints in the snow?And what evil force is taking a cold grip on Star?Wrap up warm as you join Kes, and a cast of eccentric snow creatures, in a race against time to solve a hundred-year-old curse. Will he succeed? Or will the fate of his sister be decided by a shivery kiss from… the Snow Witch?

     When twelve-year-old Kaira Renn listens in on one of her father’s secret meetings, she hears of strange things: Searings, Melackin and the words which bring quiet to the room below … The Sign of the Symean. Soon after, Kaira leaves the comfort of childhood and enters a place like no other: The Society for the Preservation of Magical Artefacts. In this secret world of wonders, Kaira learns how to use magic, conjuring spells, charms and remedies. She also begins to make links between the strange words overheard on her bedroom landing and the darkness closing in on the magical society. And soon Kaira learns the true meaning of bravery, betrayal – and sacrifice.

    Not the fictional magic of spells, I mean the magic of wonderful writing, a strong, original voice, and a fictioneer's power to weave worlds. I was in awe of every page and thrilled by the end of the novel. Reshma K. Barshikar goes straight onto my very short list of must-read authors of fantasy. Write on!" --Ashok K. Banker‘What price would you pay to be extraordinary? What would you do to speak to a butterfly?' Shayamukthy cruises through life: shooting hoops, daydreaming and listening to her favourite books. Even moving from the US to India, to a new school, a new culture, hasn't really rattled her. But something isn't right anymore and it begins when a New Girl joins the school. She pulls Shui into a world of magic and wonderment, a world she has been hidden from all her life. What starts as a quest to look for a lost book, hurtles Shui into a world where people live in trees, talk to the dead and speak to butterflies. But like all power, magic comes at a steep price and under all things wondrous lie demons waiting to crawl out. The more Shui learns, the more she doubts everything and everyone around her. Will she be able to master her powers, or will they devour her and everyone she loves?

    A defiant priestess confronts her foes, armed only with ingenuity and forbidden magic. "Priestess of Ishana evokes everything I love about historically-inspired fantasy with a strong and savvy heroine, a compassionate hero, and a world both blessed and cursed by the oversight of gods. Mystery, romance, action: this has it all." -Beth Cato, author of The Clockwork Dagger and Breath of Earth A malignant curse from the Underworld threatens Tesha's city with fiery devastation. The young priestess of Ishana, goddess of love and war, must overcome this demonic darkness. Charred remains of an enemy of the Hitolian Empire reveal both treason and evil magic. Into this crisis, King Hattu, the younger brother of the Great King, arrives to make offerings to the goddess Ishana, but he conceals his true mission in the city. As a connection sparks between King Hattu and Tesha, the Grand Votary accuses Hattu of murderous sorcery and jails him under penalty of death. Isolated in prison, Hattu's only hope lies in Tesha to uncover the conspiracy against him. Unfortunately, the Grand Votary is Tesha's father, a rash, unyielding man, and now her worst enemy. To help Hattu, she must risk destroying her own father. Step into this exotic world of historical fantasy, with its richly imagined details of the Bronze Age, evocative of the Near East. In a whirlpool of magic, politics, family crisis and love, Tesha pursues justice over the dark forces arrayed against her.

     When Nataria invaded and conquered their southern neighbour there was a time of Great War and strife. The land of Aria has been at peace for two generations, but now it faces a new threat from a would be conquerer. But there is much more to this threat than meets they eye! Is it the time the old prophecy predicted, when Aria would have need of the wizard and the warrior? Book One: Beginnings Aliah and Seamus have run away from the future their parents have planned for them. As they journey northwards through Aria they learn more about each other and the growing threat to their homeland. Could they really be the wizard and warrior of the prophecy? Are they destined to save their home from the greatest threat it has ever faced?

    Take their powers. Save the world.When Mickey stepped into that bar, he never expected to find out he was the most powerful superhero the world had ever seen.But when footage of him beating up the strongest hero, and biggest bully, in the tristate area goes viral, suddenly the world can't get enough of him.Now villains are challenging him, the hero society is ringing his line off the hook, and the endorsements? Well, they're second only in size to his burgeoning fan club.And since none of their super powers work on him, he's never been closer to the top than ever before.There's just one problem.The world's greatest villain has returned from the dead, and he's set his sights on making Mickey his first victim.Please Note: This novel contains a harem. You have been warned.

    One that will let her keep the gang’s next big score for herself, get her free of the streets, and give her the hope of a new life. Then she finds her plan was someone else’s all along — and that man’s intentions are not at all what they seem.

     An army zombie hunter and an NGO infection inspector struggle against the increasing, daily outbreaks in Colombo. They discover that the ‘Zees’ have a secret: one they could use to overwhelm the entire city. Yet before they can fight the zombies, they must first overcome a panicked social media blackout; the ugliness of unchecked Sinhala-Muslim violence; and the corruption and stupidity of their own government. By gun and blade they must somehow save their city – but first, they must save themselves. 'Zeelam' is a Sri Lankan zombie apocalypse story. Sri Lankan and Diaspora readers will appreciate the local flavor - and also the quite local problems. International fans of the genre may find these touches perplexing, but will find the mosquito-driven spread of the disease of interest, as written from the perspective of a native of a country actively fighting a mosquito-borne, dengue epidemic.

    The Deal of a Lifetime is a profound and moving novella set on Christmas Eve. It tells the story of the intertwining destinies of a man who has built a global business empire but lost his family in the process and a courageous little girl fighting for her life, and it asks the question: if you had the chance to change your legacy, would you take it? In the touching novella And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer, an elderly man sits on a bench with his son and grandson, reminiscing and telling jokes. As he recalls his most precious memories and faces his regrets, the man discovers there is one last thing he must do: help his family learn to say goodbye without fear. Finally, “Sebastian and the Troll” is Fredrik Backman’s newest work—an eloquent short story about a young boy struggling with depression and how he finds the courage to discover the person he might become. With his signature humor, compassion, and charm, Backman reminds us that life is a gift, and what matters most is how we share that gift with those we love.