When a dead body comes through her portal at a time of growing rebellion, Xin is drawn deep into a station-wide conspiracy along with Ouyang Suqing, one of the station’s mysterious, high-ranking starmages.

    "It'll be great.""No, it won't," I said, although I'd lost this fight hours ago, and I knew it."It'll be brilliant," said Vic, for the hundredth time. "Girls! Girls! Girls!" He grinned with white teeth.

    But how could she know her return to the capital would coincide with the arrival of young Warrior-in-training Senri? Beautiful and strong, Senri makes for a pleasant distraction from Alina's troubles. But as the prospective ruler of a nation, Alina can hardly devote time to pursuing a romance. As a new threat looms over the kingdom of Osota, she is left with little choice but to turn to Senri for help.Words: 105,140

    Working for one is even harder.Evie Tanaka is the put-upon personal assistant to Aveda Jupiter, her childhood best friend and San Francisco's most beloved superheroine. She's great at her job—blending into the background, handling her boss's epic diva tantrums, and getting demon blood out of leather pants.Unfortunately, she's not nearly as together when it comes to running her own life, standing up for herself, or raising her tempestuous teenage sister, Bea.But everything changes when Evie's forced to pose as her glamorous boss for one night, and her darkest secret comes out: she has powers, too. Now it's up to her to contend with murderous cupcakes, nosy gossip bloggers, and supernatural karaoke battles—all while juggling unexpected romance and Aveda's increasingly outrageous demands. And when a larger threat emerges, Evie must finally take charge and become a superheroine in her own right... or see her city fall to a full-on demonic invasion.

    But no way in hell is he making me his nanny!For fifty years the Kraaj have ruled.Now they come for me and tell me to be a nanny for a Kraaj warrior.He’s got two kids he’s taking care of as a promise to his dead comrade.Now this big bad soldier man has an enemy he can’t fight.Poopy diapers.Sure, I love children.But that doesn’t mean you can snatch me and tell me to take care of your kids.Even if this Kraaj warrior is…something else.He takes off that body armor and I can’t look away from that magnificent body.Those ripped abs. Those dragon wings. That tight torso.But you can’t just grab me and expect me to serve you.You certainly can’t go on to say I’m your fated mate.That you love me after you took me.And we’re all going to live happily ever after as a family.That is not what is going to happen here.Except, every waking moment…That’s all my heart is desiring.Author's Note: This is a completely standalone novel set in the Athenaverse. Even if you've never come into the Athenaverse, you'll be able to enjoy this science fiction romance that has no cliffhangers or cheating and guaranteed happily ever after!

    A lower-caste Luudi who left her planet and made a new home with a group of idealistic humans, she spends her time looking out for new family and working in secret to rescue refugees from a neighboring country. She is content with what she has, if sometimes lonely. Then a Pros arrives their tense little border town. Although mostly human, the Pros were genetically engineered to look perfect and to offer pleasure, both physically and psychically. Beautiful, sophisticated Cin is no exception, which is why when she approaches Tat, Tat knows it can’t be personal. Luudi are big, strong, purple, and impervious to psychic influence—making Tat the safest outlet for someone like Cin. Tat says yes with no expectation that Cin would ever want more, while convinced the danger will eventually drive Cin away. But the Pros can take care of themselves, as well as any quietly heroic Luudi who catches their eye—if only that Luudi would let them. Tat has spent so long helping others find a future, it doesn’t occur to her to seek out her own even when her silence might cost her the one she wants.

    When she awoke, it was dead.In the wake of a fever that decimated the earth’s population—killing women and children and making childbirth deadly for the mother and infant—the midwife must pick her way through the bones of the world she once knew to find her place in this dangerous new one. Gone are the pillars of civilization. All that remains is power—and the strong who possess it.A few women like her survived, though they are scarce. Even fewer are safe from the clans of men, who, driven by fear, seek to control those remaining. To preserve her freedom, she dons men’s clothing, goes by false names, and avoids as many people as possible. But as the world continues to grapple with its terrible circumstances, she’ll discover a role greater than chasing a pale imitation of independence.After all, if humanity is to be reborn, someone must be its guide.

    An unsatisfying job, a relationship gone south, she’s heading nowhere fast—until she sends one little text to an old best friend, estranged with time.But bringing Aubrey back into her life changes everything for Erin, as the last things holding her relationship together fall apart. With nothing left to lose, what’s stopping her from leaving home, crossing the country and staying with Aubrey instead?In the middle of struggles with her self-image, with health and with work trying to start a new life starting from scratch, she finds herself falling into something unfamiliar—she never thought she might be a lesbian, but before long, her best friend starts to feel like maybe more than a friend.Good Composition is a 50k-word low-angst friends-to-lovers romance. Content warning for an emotionally abusive relationship, hospitalization, an eating disorder, open-door sex scenes and Britney—just Britney. Pick it up for a lighthearted, fluffy and easy read that feels like a shippy fanfiction or a teenage romantic daydream!

    For no crime on his record, the young officer had been identity wiped, and his innumerable, now-forgotten enemies were still tracking him across the galaxy.

    For a woman like Hadley, deemed not acceptable to procreate, there’s only one recourse. Unlicensed for motherhood, she can alleviate her grief and frustration at a “baby library,” where a curiously endless supply of infants is available for a two-week loan. But the borrowed life that serves as a temporary balm leads to a journey of self-discovery that will forever change the direction of Hadley’s future.Roxane Gay’s Graceful Burdens is part of Out of Line, an incisive collection of funny, enraging, and hopeful stories of women’s empowerment and escape. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

    The magic of the Hollows runs full force into the technological sophistication of The Drafter when a device capable of carrying a city’s data stream pulls Rachel, the bounty hunter witch of the Hollows, between realities, marooning her in a world where the supernatural holds no sway. To get Rachel and Jenks home, Peri, the dangerous renegade of 2030, must decide what will chart her future: her blind trust in those who grant her power, or her intuition telling her to believe.

    She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won't set her free without a service.Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon's sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.Of course, some things are better left dead.

    First, with the will of the gods, but after much bloodshed and loss, they fought for revenge. I was taught that the Light Elves were heartless killers, but it was hard to believe that someone with such a benevolent spirit could be as heartless as they say. That’s probably why I ended up falling in love. I should’ve known better though. I should’ve known the consequences of falling for her kind. The night I thought that we were finally going to be together, I found myself alone at the bottom the ocean with more power than any elf could bear. I had the power to destroy kings…and maybe even end a war.

    Any high school student with a chemjet and internet connection can download recipes and print drugs, or invent them. A seventeen-year-old street girl finds God through a new brain-altering drug called Numinous, used as a sacrament by a new Church that preys on the underclass. But she is arrested and put into detention, and without the drug, commits suicide.Lyda Rose, another patient in that detention facility, has a dark secret: she was one of the original scientists who developed the drug. With the help of an ex-government agent and an imaginary, drug-induced doctor, Lyda sets out to find the other three survivors of the five who made the Numinous in a quest to set things right.A mind-bending and violent chase across Canada and the US, Daryl Gregory's Afterparty is a marvelous mix of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Philip K. Dick’s Ubik, and perhaps a bit of Peter Watts’s Starfish: a last chance to save civilization, or die trying.

    The radical One State Party—nicknamed the Ospies—is gaining popular support to unite Gedda's four municipal governments under an ironclad, socially conservative vision.Not everyone agrees with the Ospies' philosophy, including master spy Cyril DePaul and his lover Aristide Makricosta, smuggler and emcee at the popular Bumble Bee Cabaret. When Cyril's cover is blown on a mission, however, he must become a turncoat in exchange for his life. Returning to Amberlough under the Ospies' watchful eye, Cyril enters a complex game of deception. One of his concerns is safeguarding Aristide, who refuses to let anyone—the crooked city police or the homophobic Ospies—dictate his life.Enter streetwise Cordelia Lehane, top dancer at the Bee and Aristide’s runner, who could be the key to Cyril’s plans—if she can be trusted. As the twinkling lights of nightclub marquees yield to the rising flames of a fascist revolution, these three will struggle to survive using whatever means—and people—necessary. Including each other.