They descended from the sky amid smoke and fire, and created humanity and gave us rules to live by. They needed gold and they built our earliest civilizations to mine it for them. When they had what they needed, they left. But before they left, they told us someday they would come back, and when they did, a game would be played. A game that would determine our future.This is Endgame.For ten thousand years the lines have existed in secret. The 12 original lines of humanity. Each had to have a Player prepared at all times. They have trained generation after generation after generation. In weapons, languages, history, tactics, disguise assassination. Together the players are everything: strong, kind, ruthless, loyal, smart, stupid, ugly, lustful, mean, fickle, beautiful, calculating, lazy, exuberant, weak. They are good and evil. Like you. Like all.This is Endgame.When the game starts, the players will have to find three keys. The keys are somewhere on earth. The only rule of their Endgame is that there are no rules. Whoever finds the keys first wins the game. Endgame: The Calling is about the hunt for the first key. And just as it tells the story of the hunt for a hidden key, written into the book is a puzzle. It invites readers to play their own Endgame and to try to solve the puzzle. Whoever does will open a case filled with gold. Alongside the puzzle will be a revolutionary mobile game built by Google’s Niantic Labs that will allow you to play a real-world version of Endgame where you can join one of the lines and do battle with people around you.Will exuberance beat strength? Stupidity top kindness? Laziness thwart beauty? Will the winner be good or evil? There is only one way to find out.Play.Survive.Solve.People of Earth.Endgame has begun.

    But Leoden has allies, too, chief among them the Vex’Mara Kadeja, a dangerous ex-priestess who shares his dreams of conquest.Pursued by Leoden and aided by the Shavaktiin, a secretive order of storytellers and mystics, the rebels flee to Veksh, a neighboring matriarchy ruled by the fearsome Council of Queens. Saffron is out of her world and out of her depth, but the further she travels, the more she finds herself bound to her friends with ties of blood and magic.Can one girl – an accidental worldwalker – really be the key to saving Kena? Or will she just die trying?

    The only thing special about her is that she isn't special at all. Which is frustrating in a world of absolutes. Villains, like the one who killed her father, are bad. Heroes, like her mother and best friend, are good. And Kenna, unlike everyone else around her, is completely ordinary— which she hates.She’s secretly working on an experiment that will land her a place among the Heroes, but when a Villain saves her life during a break-in at her lab, Kenna discovers there’s a whole lot of gray area when it comes to good and evil and who she can trust.. After all…not all strength comes from superpowers.

    Two women. One galaxy. As a decorated Space Ranger in the 8th Galaxy, Captain Natalie (Nat) Reynolds has an exciting, albeit lonely, life. Yet, when Nat answers a distress call from a craft in trouble on a nearby planet, it has the possibility of changing the trajectory of her life forever. Catherine Porter is down on her luck in the worst way. Evicted, almost penniless, she worries all hope is lost until a charismatic stranger flies into her life. Inexplicably drawn to the one woman who can possibly save her, Catherine must face feelings she never considered. Will their stars align and lead them to a happily ever after? Or will their differences tear their hearts apart? If you like a story with romance and adventure, mixed with conflict and heroism, then you will love KC Luck’s page-turning new book. Note: This is a full-length, stand-alone novel with a science fiction theme, but is significantly more focused on strong female characters in a loving lesbian relationship.

    Her one glimmer of light in her gloomy existence is a wise beyond his years, fiver-year-old foster named Jackson, who also lives with them. Falon longs for the day her mom wakes from her coma, so she can leave, take Jackson with her and begin a new life. Whenever Ty, the smart and brave new foster shows up, Falon realizes that the three of them just might get their chance. Little do they know, a better life awaits them, just inside the hollow tree...

    Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship—like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor—April and her best friend, Andy, make a video with it, which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day, April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world—from Beijing to Buenos Aires—and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight.Seizing the opportunity to make her mark on the world, April now has to deal with the consequences her new particular brand of fame has on her relationships, her safety, and her own identity. And all eyes are on April to figure out not just what the Carls are, but what they want from us.

    She will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice. On the day of her foretold death, however, a powerful mage offers her a new fate.Csorwe leaves her home, her destiny, and her god to become the wizard's loyal sword-hand -- stealing, spying, and killing to help him reclaim his seat of power in the homeland from which he was exiled.But Csorwe and the wizard will soon learn – gods remember, and if you live long enough, all debts come due.

    And humanity’s only hope just happens to carry pom-poms.Laura Clark thought she was just your average college freshman—until the day she saw a cheerleader on a skateboard get into a superhuman brawl with a lightning-wielding stranger in a trenchcoat. And the weirdest thing of all? Nobody else saw it happen. Nobody, that is, except the beautiful but standoffish Shailene, one of the mysterious (and possibly super-powered) cheerleaders from Laura’s rival school, Bayview University. When girls start disappearing all over the City, Laura suddenly realizes that she may have seen more than she should. And if she wants to keep from disappearing herself, she needs to find some answers. But though Laura can’t shake the feeling that they’re somehow connected, Shailene is more than a little reluctant to share her secrets. With strange, bug-like creatures and a sinister man in a dark coat stalking her every step, Laura will have to uncover the truth fast if she wants to survive.The fate of the planet just might hang in the balance.

    This series is part of a universe where cursing is not only accepted but encouraged to be as creative as possible. Some dragons of cursing in this series are small and some are full grown, but they all could pose a barrier to those who find cursing dragons to be offensive.The second group are the dragons of violence. The dragons of violence in this book are relatively young, but they grow as the series progresses. They make no apologies for staring you in the face while they kick the asses of those who find injustice acceptable.The last group are the dragons of abuse. The dragons of abuse in this book are mental and emotionally related, but they still exist to nibble at the unwary traveler’s defenses.If these dangerous dragons intimidate you, best you stay clear. There will always be dragons at the edge of the map.

    but she's also not what she seems. Months before school started, Finch and her parents got into an accident that should have left her dead at the bottom of a river. But something monstrous, and ancient, and terrifying, wouldn't let her drown. Finch doesn't know why she woke up after her heart stopped, but since dying she's felt a constant pull from the school and the surrounding town of Rainwater, like something on the island is calling to her.Selena St. Clair sees right through Finch, and she knows something is seriously wrong with her. But despite Selena's suspicion, she feels drawn to Finch and has a sinking feeling that from now on the two will be inexplicably linked to one another.One night Finch, Selena, and her friends accidentally summon a carnivorous creature of immense power in the depths of the school. It promises to grant every desire the girls have kept locked away in their insecure hearts―beauty, power, adoration―in exchange for a price: human body parts. But as the cost of their wanting becomes more deadly, Finch and Selena must learn to work together to stop the horror they unleashed, before it consumes the entire island.

    By night, she cracks heads of rival gangs in brutal bike wars to gain possession of a rare, valuable contraband: an engine-boosting "machine narcotic" known as Crush.Collecting: Motor Crush 1-5

    She casts webs of power, reading the feelings of living beings and telling them what to do. Nobody knows what causes it, least of all her. Her name is Jessica, but most people call her ‘freak’.One fateful day, her ‘web’ connects with a stranger, and stray power causes the plane in which she’s travelling to crash in an alien world. An accident? The more she discovers about the world in which she has landed, the more she doubts it.She is a survivor from an ancient race that once travelled the stars. Her ancestors were powerful and dangerous, and it seems at least two people want her: the man who invades her mind, and the man who’s desperate to help her get back home. But Jessica grew up an Earth girl, and isn’t having any of this. She’ll pander to no one, thank you very much, even if her stubbornness enrages the tyrant race who hold the world in their grip.

    Single and recently scorned, she’s dreading the next two weeks of couple’s massages, wine tastings and moonlight walks surrounded by people in love. Even the staff are hot and flirty… or maybe that’s just Haley’s heartache talking.But when a white-out catches Haley unprepared and underdressed, romance is the least of her worries.She’s disoriented and shivering when someone reaches through the storm and pulls her into an unoccupied cabin. As the blizzard rages outside, Haley meets her savior—the admirer she’d noticed before, a tall, dark and handsome woman named Destiny. And those sultry looks? Haley wasn’t imagining them.Des builds a fire in the hearth and kindles another in Haley’s core. Snowed in on Valentine’s Day, Haley can’t resist Cupid’s arrow—or Des herself. At least until the storm lets up.

    She is the mother of the perfect daughter. She has her own thriving business and seems to be living the perfect life. But she has secrets... Secrets that haunt her dreams.Along comes Latoya Bradshaw. She's beautiful, successful, and edgy.She awakens feelings in Joi that have lain dormant for years. She reminds Joi of her past.Joi must decide on whether she wants to continue living the life of the woman that she has become or risk it all to become the woman that she once thought that she was meant to be.

    See, my name is Karen Memery, like memory only spelt with an e, and I'm one of the girls what works in the Hôtel Mon Cherie on Amity Street. Hôtel has a little hat over the o like that. It's French, so Beatrice tells me."Set in the late 19th century—when the city we now call Seattle Underground was the whole town (and still on the surface), when airships plied the trade routes, would-be gold miners were heading to the gold fields of Alaska, and steam-powered mechanicals stalked the waterfront, Karen is a young woman on her own, is making the best of her orphaned state by working in Madame Damnable's high-quality bordello. Through Karen's eyes we get to know the other girls in the house—a resourceful group—and the poor and the powerful of the town. Trouble erupts one night when a badly injured girl arrives at their door, begging sanctuary, followed by the man who holds her indenture, and who has a machine that can take over anyone's mind and control their actions. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the next night brings a body dumped in their rubbish heap—a streetwalker who has been brutally murdered.Bear brings alive this Jack-the-Ripper yarn of the old west with a light touch in Karen's own memorable voice, and a mesmerizing evocation of classic steam-powered science.