Many play for power and fame; others play to escape the pain and loneliness of real life. One boy, paralyzed at birth, knows no other world. For Ben Shepherd, Verdia is home. The Shepherd is Verdia’s most famous and mysterious blacksmith, constructing armor and weapons for elite and wealthy players while hiding from public view. Players ponder the Shepherd’s true identity, and Ben creates his masterpieces in isolation. Ben discovers friendship in the form of an enormous white wolf - a creature unique in all of Verdia. As news of the boy and his wolf spreads, Ben becomes the target of greed, envy, and fear; Ben’s tranquil life is shattered. A band of strangers, united by compassion, will battle a perilous landscape and unrelenting enemies to deliver the Shepherd and his wolf to a new home. To succeed, they must enlist the help of an enemy - a player who is as powerful as he is hated. They will discover that a small group of friends can face impossible odds, and that a hero can hide beneath a villain’s mask.

    Most know Androma Racella as the Bloody Baroness: a powerful mercenary whose reign of terror stretches across the Mirabel Galaxy. To those aboard her fearsome glass starship the Maurader, she’s just Andi, their captain and protector. When a routine mission goes awry, the all-girl crew’s resilience is tested as they find themselves in a most unfamiliar place: at the mercy of a sadistic bounty hunter connected to Andi’s past and a harrowing betrayal. Meanwhile, on the far side of the galaxy, a ruthless ruler waits in the shadows of the planet Xen Ptera, biding her time to exact revenge for the destruction of her people. The final pieces of her deadly plan are about to fall into place, unleashing a plot that will tear Mirabel in two. Andi and her crew embark on a dangerous, soul-testing journey that could restore order to their ship—or just as easily start a war that will devour worlds. As the Marauder hurtles towards the unknown, and Mirabel hangs in the balance, the only thing certain is that in a galaxy run on lies and illusion, no one can be trusted. From internet sensation Sasha Alsberg and author Lindsay Cummings comes a new serialized space opera, full of action, fantastical intrigue, and steamy star-crossed romance. ​ For fans of popular sci-fi books and fantasy books for teens such as Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, Wool by Hugh Howey, Truthwitch by Susan Dennard, and A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas.

    Now, he’s the victim of an experiment gone wrong, struggling with strange new powers and the temptation surrounding them. Conjured flames, magical flight, reading minds and even influencing the emotions of others are all within his grasp, given enough practice and time. Unfortunately, there are others aware of his abilities, each with agendas of their own. Some, like his old mentor, Lucy Wilson, want to help him in well-intentioned, albeit misguided ways. Others, like the mysterious female terrorist known only as the Night Angel, want something else entirely. It’s up to Victor to decide for himself whether Undercliff City is to be a playground, or a battleground.

    Sending one young woman through may be the key to survival for the kingdom of Fourline. Strapped for cash, college student Natalie Barns agrees to take a job at a costume shop. Sure, Estos—her classmate who works in the shop—is a little odd, but Nat needs the money for her tuition.Then she stumbles through the mysterious door behind the shop—and her entire universe transforms.Discovering there’s far more to Estos than she ever imagined, Nat gets swept up in an adventure to save his homeland, an incredible world filled with decaying magic, deadly creatures, and a noble resistance of exiled warriors battling dark forces. As she struggles with her role in an epic conflict and wrestles with her growing affection for a young rebel, Soris, Nat quickly learns that nothing may go as planned…and her biggest challenge may be surviving long enough to make it home.

    Scholey's popular science fiction & romance series are available in one ebook bundle, including:Book 1: SHIELDEarth is all but dead. With meteors exploding in their midst, the shuttle Grace boards takes flight in a last ditch effort to save human lives. With little food, water and eight stowaways the situation is volatile while they race to the new planet, Ulsy. A wormhole and a crash are their undoing. While fleeing into the strange surroundings on an even stranger planet two of Grace’s shuttle pilots are killed by a massive ebony creature with fangs as white as ivory.Rask is a full blooded Castian warrior who thinks his planet has been stormed. When he comes across the little being that cowers from him he is intrigued. After four hundred years and virtual immortality Rask thought he had seen everything. When the being before him declares herself to be a human female he is beyond amazed. Females have been extinct as long as he can remember. But there is no denying her sweet scent. One inhaled breath is all it takes to drop his shield and reveal the muscular tanned male beneath.Rask had thought his armor impenetrable - but one touch from a slender hand and he realizes he is powerless against the tiny human he must have.Book 2: ARMOREarth is a fiery pile of rubble. Amy, a woman left to fend for herself on the volatile planet, seeks to feed a pitiful group of women and children, misfits left to perish because of various and devious reasons. Amy was diagnosed with cancer the year her world fell apart and not given a shuttle pass to the new planet, Ulsy. That she is still alive is all but a mystery to her. When strange beings land on Earth’s surface, Amy presumes the armored, hideous creatures are looming death.Dasks is a full-blooded Castian warrior from Dargon. He and his warrior mate have come to Earth seeking human females to bond with. A male of almost four hundred years old, he can’t believe how captivating his new human female, Amy, is. But Dasks’ race can sense deception and lies—he can smell fear. Amy is keeping a secret from him.When a Castian mates, he mates for life. If Amy dies, so will Dasks. Dasks must decide if he can live without her—because if they mate he will surely die with her.Book 3: IMPENETRABLEKidnapped from dying Earth by the heinous Tonan race, Piper is locked in a small cell, deprived of light and human companionship and tormented on a daily basis. When the door to her hell opens unexpectedly Piper is blinded by the light and walks headlong into a massively built creature. She is tossed over a shoulder, taken on the wildest ride of her life then placed into a healing pool.Jago is a four-hundred-year-old immortal who has never seen a living breathing female before, but he knows of their existence. Their ship was headed to the planet Earth to see if they could find these rare human gifts when they accidently stumbled onto the Tonan vessel. Desperate to find a mate Jago was thrilled when the little female walked right into his arms as though she was waiting for him. Unfortunately Jago’s leader, Cobra, has asked to impregnate Piper, thinking Jago too young. Ultimately, the choice is Piper’s. Who will she choose?Book 4: APPARITIONHalf Castian and half Tonan, Doss is considered nothing more than a Tonian hybrid. A being to be feared, with the power to kill by penetrating what is supposed to be impenetrable.Loathed by many, feared by more, Doss has spent the last 700 years alone, shunned by the Tonans on his planet. He prefers it that way until a nude female rider on a huge, black stallion, fleeing for her life, catches his eye. If left alone, both beast and human would be killed by their pursuant, an enraged Tonan warrior. When the scent of the female invades his nostrils, Doss is captivated. He must have the female human and will go to great lengths to secure her safety.Zoe hates both Castians and Tonans. The promise of salvation from dying Earth, on planet Ulsy, had been nothing more than a lie. Human males were slaughtered, and human women were captured to lure secrets of the Castian planets, Bagron and co-planet Dargon, from enslaved warriors with the promise of sex. When met with the six-foot-six hybrid warrior who moved like an apparition in battle to save her and her beloved stallion Caveat, Zoe is unsure what to do. She has no idea of his intentions, but from the shiver that runs down her spine she is certain she's about to find out.Book 5: ENGULFFor a year, Abri and five other women have found themselves trapped on a lonely planet, after their shuttle crashes on its way to Ulsy. They have fled Earth and the fiery rubble it has become. The crash has left Abri deaf and hurting with her aloneness. When sound becomes nothing, her other senses heighten, especially when they encounter two huge, handsome aliens.Raiden has seen human women, but on his planet, females are few and far between. He and his warrior mate Cace can't believe their good luck when they stumble across six of them on a deserted planet. The little deaf female, Abri, catches Raiden's heart the moment her essence seeps into his skin. He must have her. Their healing waters or his shield will cure her strange malady once they have mated. Or will it?

    When he was ten, Bo claimed to have witnessed the Titanic hit an iceberg, and at fifteen, he found himself on a Civil War battlefield, horrified by the bodies surrounding him. So when his worried parents send him to a school for troubled youth, Bo assumes he knows the truth: that he’s actually attending Berkshire Academy, a school for kids who, like Bo, have “superpowers.”At Berkshire, Bo falls in love with Sofía, a quiet girl with a tragic past and the superpower of invisibility. Sofía helps Bo open up in a way he never has before. In turn, Bo provides comfort to Sofía, who lost her mother and two sisters at a very young age.But even the strength of their love isn’t enough to help Sofía escape her deep depression. After she commits suicide, Bo is convinced that she’s not actually dead. He believes that she’s stuck somewhere in time—that he somehow left her in the past, and that now it’s his job to save her. And as Bo becomes more and more determined to save Sofía, he must decide whether to face his demons head-on or succumb to a psychosis that will let him be with the girl he loves.

    Only one city has survived: Neo-Babel, a city full of cultures – and racial tension. Fifteen-year-old Silver is an Elite, a citizen of Neo-Babel chosen to guard the city due to her superior DNA. She’d never dream of leaving – but then she fails to prevent the assassination of Neo Babel’s president, setting off a chain of events more shocking and devastating than she could ever have imagined. Forced to flee the city with her best friend Butterfly (a boy with genetically-enhanced wings), Silver will have to fight to find her family, uncover the truth about Neo-Babel and come to terms with her complicated feelings for Butterfly.Packed full of adventure, romance, exoticism and the power of friendship, The Elites is a highly compelling and beautifully written novel from a supremely talented debut author.

    Following on from the success of his thriller, Ex Machina, Alex Garland returns to cerebral sci-fi with his adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer's cult novel -a tale of a biologist attempting to uncover the mystery of her husband's disappearance into a restricted zone.What she and her fellow scientists discover is a world populated by mysterious life forms that might offer answers, but which exposes them to madness and death.Beside the screenplay, the book also includes 20 pages of behind-the-scenes photos.

    But when the biggest movie star of this generation wakes up in an unfamiliar jungle without his Range Rover or even a single one of his assistants, he'll have to draw on his childhood as a boy scout if he's to have any chance of surviving. There's just one problem: he was never actually a boy scout, he only played one on TV. This is a story about alien worlds and the end of the world, monster girls and straight-up monsters, and how by losing it all, one man can become something greater than he ever could have imagined.

    Unhealthy for Lyewax, at least.It’s not every day that violent earthquakes cause a rare and potent energy to leak from the planet's core. One that immediately kills over half the world's population while gifting the survivors with incredible powers.That energy is Cesmial. One of the most highly sought-after resources in the universe. Its sudden appearance has attracted attention.Enter the monsters. Huge, fearsome creatures with one purpose. Remove the Earth’s current occupants, so the Cesmial can be harvested.Humanity is on the back foot. They need heroes. They need leaders. They need Lyewax Vix. But he has more problems than you can poke a stick at. Embroiled in a game of cat and mouse with an unknowable enemy. Trapped in a loop of someone else’s making. If he can survive, then perhaps humanity has a chance too.

    

    The first problem, she was born with; the second a good junkyard could take care of; but the last might be a little more difficult to deal with – especially when it comes with three matchmaking brothers. Reno Brewerigeron has his hands full dealing with his three young brothers who have decided it is his responsibility to continue the family since he is the oldest. Reno wants to get off the miserable planet his younger brother crashed on. They want him to mate, but that isn’t likely considering how small and fragile the women on Earth are. Thanks to the meddling of his brothers, he has a change of heart when a human woman awakens the beast inside him. His plans to court her take a turn when another alien species arrive searching for B​irgit. Will Reno be able to keep​ ​​Birgit​ safe long enough to convince her that she is the perfect mate for a stranded alien, or will he be destined to lose his one chance at happiness? Find out in Bewitching Birgit; where anything can happen in Magic, New Mexico!

    When Lissa's father discovers Earth still exists, she accidentally inhales the toxic air of Jutaire, and in one breath, discovers she isn't quite human.Her father hangs for his discovery, and Lissa knows the Chancellors will come for her, for she saw the Earth that night too. With nothing to lose, she sets out to expose the truth. It isn't long before she meets Julian, a beautiful boy who can breathe the toxic air like she can - and shows her that the Jute, the original inhabitants of the planet, are more tangled in their lives than she knows.But the Chancellors are only pawns in a greater game - one where the Jute control everything. Worse, the Jute plan to leave Jutaire for Earth, but to get there, they need her. And they'll stop at nothing until Lissa is in their clutches, even if they kill every human in the process. The race for Earth has begun.Unbreathable is a tale of love, redemption, and sacrifice, and one girl's struggle to find her place in a world where she doesn't belong.

    Kidnapped nearly four weeks earlier, she remembers nothing of her mysterious abduction. When she tries to remember what happened, she hears only a melody – a faint and delicate set of notes, strung together in a tune she doesn’t understand. THEIR POWER, UNMATCHED.A year later and desperate to put the lingering nightmares of her past behind her, Lilix crosses the country to enroll at Baelmorte Academy, aiming to become the violinist she once dreamt of. Things seem to be finally going well, and Lilix settles into a routine of sheet music and inspiration among new friends.Then the dreams start. The melody and night terrors she thought she’d left behind return with a vengeance, threatening to ruin her fragile version of normalcy. Then an unlikely ally tells her that she isn’t alone. That there are others just like her, fighting to hide their own shocking truths from coming to light. That they know who she is, and what she’s been through. Now, accompanied by four other girls, Lilix discovers her nightmares are larger than a single trauma; they’re a window to a hidden part of her soul, a place of immense power with a destiny that cannot be ignored. THEIR BATTLE, IS ONLY BEGINNING.With this knowledge comes a new and frightening reality. For Lilix has been reawakened to stop an age-old enemy, one thought to have been destroyed centuries ago. Trapped by her destiny, Lilix is torn between what feels right and what she remembers. Her memories tell her of a star-crossed love waiting to be reunited, of friendships and trust broken in the past. But can she save that love when reality brings her an enemy, and an evil that will be the undoing of them all if they don’t destroy it?

     Ready to break the rules? Emma, Callie, Maya, and Avalon have a few things in common: 1. They're all part of a secret society that exists within the human world. 2. They're big fans of Converse, great food, and sarcasm. 3. They're about to find themselves co-existing alongside some of the most alpha, frustrating, gorgeous men in both worlds. Yeah, that's right. Two worlds. Two worlds that might end if someone isn't ready to break the rules. Lucky these four have never been a huge fan of rules, and together with the overlords, they're going to figure out how to save everyone. Or die trying. **This paranormal romance series is over 350k words, filled with strong, sarcastic women, and alpha men. **