You’re hereby invited to spend a night you’ll never forget in the . . .House of Dark DelightsNestled deep in the French countryside, hidden from prying eyes, stands an infamous castle that for centuries has lured guests with its whispered promise to make any erotic dream come true. Inside its walls you’ll discover a world of sensuality, magic, and mystery, courtesy of the château’s residents—beautiful and reclusive immortals who strive to fulfill their guests’ most secret desires even as they pursue their own insatiable gratification. You’ll meet a tall, seductive elf who can morph from male to female, a bewitching goddess from ancient Babylonia, a playfully lusty satyr, a djinni obligated to satisfy the unspoken appetites of any human he touches, and a vampire as sexually rapacious as he is bloodthirsty.Within these pages are related the House’s most scintillating encounters, past and present. A pair of modern lovers find themselves captivated—and transformed—by the carnal demands of their hosts. An adventuress visiting with the notorious Hellfire Club stumbles from a black mass into a dungeon fitted out for restraint and discipline, where a brooding stranger turns her darkest longings into reality. A virginal female scientist is awakened by an invisible lover to the pleasures of the flesh. A young couple, forbidden to wed by an ancient taboo, finds hope in a sensual threesome. A journey into the realm of sexual love and erotic passion, House of Dark Delights is sure to leave you feeling enthralled, seduced . . . and utterly ravished.

    Where tinkerers and dreamers craft and re-craft a world of automatons, clockworks, calculating machines, and other marvels that never were. Where scientists and schoolgirls, fair folk and Romans, intergalactic bandits, utopian revolutionaries, and intrepid orphans solve crimes, escape from monstrous predicaments, consult oracles, and hover over volcanoes in steam-powered airships.

    For Tom Dargin, courting an ailing spinster was only one duty in a long life of service to his sire. But after he meets the curious Miss Shaw, will Tom become the seducer or the seduced? Can a love fated to end in tragedy survive a looming grave? In Gaslight Hades, Nathaniel Gordon walks two worlds—that of the living and the dead. Barely human, he's earned the reputation of a Bonekeeper, the scourge of grave robbers. He believes his old life over, until one dreary burial he meets the woman he once loved and almost married. Lenore Kenward stands at her father’s grave, begging the protection of the mysterious guardian, not knowing he is her lost love. Resolved to keep his distance, Nathaniel is forced to abandon his plan and accompany Lenore on a journey into the mouth of Hell where sea meets sky, and the abominations that exist beyond its barrier wait to destroy them.

    In this enticing collection, spanking enthusiast Rachel Kramer Bussel has assembled 22 tales of red-cheeked arousal. Whether being disciplined for naughtiness or simply because they crave the sting of a hand against flesh, the men and women in these stories revel in being bent over, paddled, punished, and possessed by their spankers. Those delivering the blows find extreme pleasure in pushing their bottoms' buttons, making them -- and the reader -- tremble and quiver in anticipation as they await the next smack. Featuring stories by Alison Tyler, Sage Vivant, Stan Kent, Elizabeth Coldwell, Thomas Roche, and others, this sizzling collection offers tales so breathtakingly vivid that readers might find their own cheeks sore just from reading it.

    Her father is dead, her fiancé took her inheritance, and no one will employ her, despite years working for her watchmaker father. Indeed, the other London watchmakers seem frightened of her. Alone, poor, and at the end of her tether, India takes employment with the only person who'll accept her - an enigmatic and mysterious man from America. A man who possesses a strange watch that rejuvenates him when he's ill. Matthew Glass must find a particular watchmaker, but he won't tell India why any old one won't do. Nor will he tell her what he does back home, and how he can afford to stay in a house in one of London's best streets. So when she reads about an American outlaw known as the Dark Rider arriving in England, she suspects Mr. Glass is the fugitive. When danger comes to their door, she's certain of it. But if she notifies the authorities, she'll find herself unemployed and homeless again - and she will have betrayed the man who saved her life. With a cast of quirky characters, an intriguing mystery, and a dash of romance, THE WATCHMAKER'S DAUGHTER is the start of a thrilling new historical fantasy series from the author of the bestselling Ministry of Curiosities, Freak House, and Emily Chambers Spirit Medium books.

    Airships ply the skies and Queen Victoria presides over three-quarters of the known world—including the East Coast of America, following the failed revolution of 1775.London might as well be a world away from Sandsend, a tiny village on the Yorkshire coast. Gideon Smith dreams of the adventure promised him by the lurid tales of Captain Lucian Trigger, the Hero of the Empire, told in Gideon’s favorite “penny dreadful.” When Gideon’s father is lost at sea in highly mysterious circumstances Gideon is convinced that supernatural forces are at work. Deciding only Captain Lucian Trigger himself can aid him, Gideon sets off for London. On the way he rescues the mysterious mechanical girl Maria from a tumbledown house of shadows and iniquities. Together they make for London, where Gideon finally meets Captain Trigger.But Trigger is little more than an aging fraud, providing cover for the covert activities of his lover, Dr. John Reed, a privateer and sometime agent of the British Crown. Looking for heroes but finding only frauds and crooks, it falls to Gideon to step up to the plate and attempt to save the day...but can a humble fisherman really become the true Hero of the Empire?David Barnett's Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl is a fantastical steampunk fable set against an alternate historical backdrop: the ultimate Victoriana/steampunk mash-up!

    Fortunately, she looks fabulous in black.What society doesn’t know is that all her husbands were marked for death by Preshea’s employer. And Preshea has one final assignment.It was supposed to be easy, a house party with minimal bloodshed. Preshea hadn’t anticipated Captain Gavin Ruthven – massive, Scottish, quietly irresistible, and… working for the enemy.In a battle of wits, Preshea may risk her own heart – a terrifying prospect, as she never knew she had one.New York Times bestselling author Gail Carriger presents a charming love story set in her popular steampunk Parasolverse. May contain plaid, appearances from favorite characters, and the strategic application of leather gloves.The Delightfully Deadly novellas stand alone and may be read in any order.Delicate Sensibilities?Contains men pleasing women, and ladies who know what they want and ask for it, sometimes in detail.

    At 21, her age and her unladylike interest in automatons have sealed her fate as an undesirable marriage prospect. But a devastating plague sends Alice off in a direction beyond the pale—towards a clandestine organization, mad inventors, life-altering secrets, and into the arms of an intrepid fiddle-playing airship pilot.

    The original volume of the bestselling women's erotica series

    All she wants is to survive the conference she's planning and spend some time with her best friend Kate Edwards. She's not expecting the conference services manager to be so tall, dark and handsome...or so eager to please. It's Brandon Long's job to make Leah happy, but after a scorching interlude in her hotel room, neither can deny business has become pleasure.Smart, driven and successful attorney Katherine Edwards has spent her life doing the right thing but . Charles Dixon is a bad choice she can't help but make - over and over. A conference and a promotion bring Kate back to Pennsylvania and suddenly, Dix wants far more than a few nights in random hotel rooms. He wants something permanent and Katherine has to figure out if sometimes a wrong choice isn't exactly what a woman needs.

    . . fangs are more than an accessory. These are no Twilight tales — the stories in Girls Who Bite are varied, unexpected, and soul-scorching. Best-selling romance writer Delilah Devlin and her contributors investigate vampire myths from around the world, and add fresh girl-on-girl blood to the pantheon of the paranormal.Take a walk on the wild side with some of the hottest erotic romance authors out there. In "La Caida," a Mexican "salt-eater" saves a fallen angel and redeems her own soul. In "Bloody Wicked," a powerful witch's spell to lure a lover turns her into a vampire's love slave. Through a "Pet Door," a shapeshifting vampire meets the dominatrix of her dreams. South African "Impundulu" sweeps you back to a vampire's primeval beginnings. With a list of contributors that include Adele Dubois, Christine d'Abo, Paisley Smith, Myla Jackson, Shayla Kersten, and Vivi Anna, Devlin delivers a dark and sexy read you can sink your teeth into!So, sit astride the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, sail with modern-day pirates, watch a meteor fall to earth, and taste the powdery wings of a Monarch butterfly. Not things you'd expect in a vampire tale? Then sip O-positive from a femoral artery while tugging at the silky strands of your lover's hair. Eternally delicious.

    In The Bonds of Love a struggling couple will do anything to save their marriage, even if it means experimenting with a little bondage. But once their research moves beyond the bedroom, how will they know if they’ve gone too far?... In The Lair a woman answers an ad for a female submissive, ready to surrender to her body’s deepest yearnings. Finding love is the last thing she anticipates… And in Love and Discipline a journalist expects her interview with a sensual extremist to be business as usual. Instead she finds herself submitting to the dominant desires of a handsome stranger—and discovering more about herself than she ever dreamed possible.Sensual and mysterious, this captivating collection is sure to seduce you, page after tantalizing page.…

    Trouble was, he didn’t ask Rose what she thought of the idea.It’s been more than sixty years since that night, and she’s still sixteen, and she’s still running.They have names for her all over the country: the Girl in the Diner. The Phantom Prom Date. The Girl in the Green Silk Gown. Mostly she just goes by “Rose,” a hitchhiking ghost girl with her thumb out and her eyes fixed on the horizon, trying to outrace a man who never sleeps, never stops, and never gives up on the idea of claiming what’s his. She’s the angel of the overpass, she’s the darling of the truck stops, and she’s going to figure out a way to win her freedom. After all, it’s not like it can kill her.You can’t kill what’s already dead.

    Contributors include: Jeff VanderMeer, Caitlín Kiernan, Mary Robinette Kowal, Jay Lake, Cherie Priest, Cat Rambo, Catherynne M. Valente, Genevieve Valentine, and many more.Contents:Steampunk : looking to the future through the lens of the past / Ekaterina Sedia --Fixing Hanover / Jeff VanderMeer --The Steam Dancer (1896) / Caitlin R. Kierman --Icebreaker / E. Catherine Tobler --Tom Edison and his amazing telegraphic harpoon / Jay Lake --The Zeppelin Conductors' Society Annual Gentlemen's Ball / Genevieve Valentine Clockwork fairies / Cat Rambo --The mechanical aviary of Emperor Jala-ud-din Muhammad Akbar / Shweta Narayan --Prayers of forges and furnaces / Aliette de Bodard --The effluent engine / N.K. Jemisin --The clockwork goat and the smokestack magi / Peter M. Ball --The armature of flight / Sharon Mock --The anachronist's cookbook / Catherynne M. Valente --Numismatics in the reigns of Naranh and Viu / Alex Dally MacFarlane --Zeppelin City / Eileen Gunn & Michael Swanwick --The people's machine / Tobias S. Buckell --The hands that feed / Matthew Kressel --Machine maid / Margo Lanagan --To follow the waves / Amal El-Mohtar --Clockmaker's requiem / Barth Anderson --Dr Lash remembers / Jeffrey Ford --Lady Witherspoon's solution / James Morrow --Reluctance / Cherie Priest --A serpent in the gears / Margaret Ronald --The celebrated carousel of the Margravine of Blois / Megan Arkenberg --Biographical notes to ''A discourse on the nature of causality, with air-planes'' by Benjamin Rosenbaum / Benjamin Rosenbaum --Clockwork chickadee / Mary Robinette Kowal --Cinderella suicide / Samantha Henderson --Arbeitskraft / Nick Mamatas --To seek her fortune / Nicole Kornher-Stace --The ballad of the last human / Lavie Tidhar.

    An infamous poet living in self-imposed exile. An ancient treasure about to fall into the wrong hands.Melanie Karsak's Chasing the Star Garden takes readers on a thrilling adventure from the gritty opium dens of gaslamp London to the gem-coloured waters of the ancient world. Lily Stargazer, a loveable but reckless airship racer with a famous lover and shattered past, reluctantly plunges into a centuries-old mystery in a romantic adventure best described as Dan Brown meets Mary Shelley.It all begins on one of the worst days of Lily’s life. She just lost the London leg of the 1823 Airship Grand Prix. To top it off, a harlequin fleeing from constables shoved a kaleidoscope down her pants, told her to fly to Venice, then threw himself from her airship tower. What’s a girl to do? For Lily, the answer is easy: drink absinthe and smoke opium. Lily’s lover, Lord Byron, encourages her to make the trip to Venice. Lily soon finds herself at the heart of an ancient mystery which has her running from her past and chasing true love and the stars along the way.