Progression. Ascension. On the world of Crucible, where humanity’s spiritual artists train to fight in a war of universal proportions, Aryc Tal Venn has the potential to be one of the gods.But when he accidentally unleashes heretical powers during his Challenge, he is forced to flee his home or face the wrath of the Inquisition. With his sister by his side, Aryc begins a quest to uncover the truth of his own existence. Only to discover a terrible secret.A secret with the power to destroy humanity. Will Aryc master his unnatural powers in time to save the people of Crucible or will he be the harbinger of humanity’s destruction?Awakened – Book One of The Quintessence: Crucible is the first novel in a new epic LitRPG cultivation universe by C.M. Carney, author of the The Realms that began with Barrow King.The book is full of Qi cycling, measurable power progression, immortal gods, intriguing characters, deadly mysteries and universe shattering threats. It is perfect for all fans of progression fantasy, including lovers of LitRPG/GameLit, western cultivation, wuxia and xianxia.

    A magical card system. An apocalypse no one could have predicted.Jake is working at the neighborhood market under his apartment when the world ends. He expected nuclear war, a computer virus, or even climate change burning everyone to a crisp to bring about the downfall of civilization. But cruel and arbitrary gods from another world? Who would have guessed that?When these cruel gods shuffled Earth like a deck of cards, nothing was in the same place anymore. Monsters, dungeons, and magical items appear scattered across the globe. And suddenly, everyone has access to a new, strange magical card system that gives them magical powers.Jake, wasting his day slacking off in the cooler, as he usually did, found himself alone in a completely new and very dangerous world. Can he learn to survive? Can he collect enough cards and create a good enough deck to fight back against the monsters that have overtaken his former home? And why are these strange people that look a lot like elves knocking on the door of the market he is hiding in and asking to buy some of his goods?The gods may have stacked the deck against him, but Jake just might have a few cards up his sleeve that will help him survive.

    There is only one way he can take up the title of cultivator – to Awaken before he comes of age. Time is already running out.When a grand tournament for the magicking arts is announced, bringing old foes to Albion’s shores - rumours of betrayal and war send Falken on a journey in the unknown. There he unearths the mysteries of an ancient, long-forgotten sect – whose secrets offer hope – and the chance for Falken to develop powers that none have seen in an age.But Falken’s newfound powers may not be enough, for nightmare creatures, dark assassins and even the undead stalk the lands of Netherdei.And this is only the beginning…Fans of Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher and Avatar: The Last Airbender will enjoy this vivid, masterful tale of magicking, cultivation and fantasy adventure, inspired by the worlds of Xianxia and Wuxia.

    But seriously though, I'm sitting on a mountain so far away from civilisation it might as well be the godforsaken arse of the world and these control freaks still won't leave me alone. I'm about to ascend and can't wait to leave this crapfest of a planet. Turns out, the powers-that-be decided that an unaffiliated rogue like me is too big of a risk to let run around free. So they sent all the sect-, organisation- and churchmasters, hidden Dao protectors and other bigshots my way to kill me. This failed, obviously. I managed to ascend in a glorious shower of divine power and ascend, after which someone else managed to bitch slap me to another dimension altogether, unfortunately. Long story short, I just woke up in a valley watching some critters murder each other while trying not to freak out about how bad it smells here. Soo… where the fuck am I? Why is that deer fighting a feathery squirrel? Why am I teaching this baby rabbit saved from a cannibalistic mother how to kick beings in the face with the power of qi? Fuck it, let's just kidnap some clueless kids and teach them the wonders of the supernatural power called qi, alright? Come join Drew as he adventures across a rather primitive medieval, low magical fantasy planet while trying to regain his status as a cultivator who spits in the face of the heavens and the earth.

    Without the power to channel the Essence of the world, he is weak and defenseless. Adopted into the Shah clan after his parents' deaths, he is forced to do menial labor day after day, all while enduring the ridicule and physical abuse of his supposed family. Weakness is punishable by death in Buryoku and in the Shah clan, there is no one weaker than Roy. But even the weak can rise up, when pushed to the brink…

    Echoes of the ancients' power are distant memories, tattered and faded by the passage of eons, but that is about to change. A new dawn has arrived. Latent abilities, harbored in mankind's deepest fibers, wait to be unleashed. Ancient evils awaken, and old fears ignite the fires of war.

    Now, Bryn faces being terminated--literally, and with extreme prejudice.With the help of corporate double-agent Patrick McCallister, Bryn has a chance to take down the bigger problem--pharmaceutical company Pharmadene, which treats death as the ultimate corporate loyalty program. She'd better do it fast, before she becomes a zombie slave--a real working stiff. She'd be better off dead...

    And in a world where power is a commodity that can get you killed, Liv's learnt to survive by her own rules.Rule number one? Trust no one.But when a friend's daughter goes missing, Liv is bound by a potent magical oath. She can't rest until the child is safe.And that means trusting her dangerous ex, Cam.A sinister prophecy tells that she and Cam will be the death of each other, yet Liv's tired of being a slave to destiny. She's ready to play the forces controlling her world at their own game. No matter what the cost.

    I dream of the day I burn the world to the ground. I dream of the dayI will finally die.Running is something my mother taught me to do very well. I never knew why until the night I cause an earthquake and meet Isaiah. My shadow. My protector. My other half. I need him. I need his blood. He is the only one who can keep me hidden from the man who created me. The man who createdthe monster.The world is depending on me not to fall in love. But what happens when the temptation becomes too great and falling is my only option? Can I live knowing I will destroy the world because his touch is the only thing keeping me alive?And how can I trust someone as lost as I am?Touch Passion. Touch Power. Touch Smoke!

    Now she just wants to keep her head down, but her boyfriend has a dark secret of his own—one involving an apparent stranger who is destitute and despised. Lucie alone knows the young men’s deadly connection, and even as the knowledge leads her to make a grave mistake, she can trust no one with the truth. Blood and secrets alike spill out when revolution erupts. With both halves of the city burning, and mercy nowhere to be found, can Lucie save either boy—or herself?

    Sloane is a straight-A student with a big and loving family. Maggie lives a glamorously independent life as an up-and-coming actress in New York. The two girls couldn't be more different--except for one thing. They share a secret that they can't tell a soul. At night, they dream that they're each other. The deeper they're pulled into the promise of their own lives, the more their worlds begin to blur dangerously together. Before long, Sloane and Maggie can no longer tell which life is real and which is just a dream. They realize that eventually they will have to choose one life to wake up to, or risk spiraling into insanity. But that means giving up one world, one love, and one self, forever. This is a dazzling debut that will steal readers' hearts.

    Graduating shortly after artificial intelligence is allowed to enter the workforce; he can’t get his career off the ground. He clings to what he believes a responsible adult should pursue, but it just isn’t in the cards. As his last hope for a steady paycheck disappears new opportunities open. Ajax gets a chance to play a brand new Immersive Reality game. Things aren't as they seem. Mega Corps hover over what appears to be a simple game. Two unlikely women join his party as he tries to get ahead of the competition and set himself on the path of becoming a professional gamer. Join Ajax and Company as they enter the world of Legendary Rule. Disclaimer: this book contains graphic violence, harem elements and explicit scenes.

    She can feel the emotions people leave behind on objects and believes that most of them need to be handled extremely carefully, and—if at all possible—destroyed. The harmless ones she sells at Vancouver’s Chinatown Night Market to scrape together a living, but even that fills her with trepidation. Meanwhile, in another part of town, Harriet hoards thousands of these treasures and is starting to make her neighbors sick as the overabundance of heightened emotions start seeping through her apartment walls. When the two women meet, Harriet knows that Ev is the only person who can help her make something truly spectacular of her collection. A museum of memory that not only feels warm and inviting but can heal the emotional wounds many people unknowingly carry around. They only know of one other person like them, and they fear the dark effects these objects had on him. Together, they help each other to develop and control their gift, so that what happened to him never happens again. But unbeknownst to them, the same darkness is wrapping itself around another, dragging them down a path that already destroyed Ev’s family once, and threatens to annihilate what little she has left. The Memory Collectors casts the everyday in a new light, speaking volumes to the hold that our past has over us—contained, at times, in seemingly innocuous objects—and uncovering a truth that both women have tried hard to bury with their pasts: not all magpies collect shiny things—sometimes they gather darkness.

    All believe that Aleksi, a sixteen-year-old orphan, was blessed to be born with a Rune embedded in his palm, but that’s only because they don’t know the truth―Aleksi’s Rune is so powerful it’s killing him.Asura, a brutal emperor who uses Runes to conquer entire continents, will stop at nothing to kill Aleksi and claim the boy’s power for his own. With Aleksi’s Rune burning its way through his body and assassins hunting his every step, his survival depends on discerning ally from enemy and learning to tame the competing forces of light and dark within.With the burden of his rune haunting his days and the prophetic whispers of a young captive priestess illuminating his nights, Aleksi will be able to unravel the mysteries of his past, rescue the girl in his dreams, and challenge the most powerful warlord the world has ever known only if the one thing keeping him alive―his Rune―does not kill him first.--From the Back Cover:AN ANCIENT CURSE COULD MEAN ULTIMATE POWER.BUT AT WHAT COST?"Stone has hit it out of the ballpark with this book, and you will not want to put it down." --Ben Greenfield, New York Times bestselling author of Beyond Training"An engaging story filled with magic, swordplay, and even pirates... Easy five stars." --Dave Barrett, author of It's All Fun and Games"The flowing prose is experienced rather than read--and done with vivid clarity. I'm highly anticipating the next in the series!" --J-F. Dubeau, author of The Life Engineered and A God in the Shed"I was on the edge of my seat, across oceans and over land, until the last page." --Zachary Tyler Linville, author of Welcome to Deadland"Absolutely the perfect universe to geek out over." --Rick Heinz, author of The Seventh Age: Dawn"A fresh superbly crafted fantasy epic that conquers both world and character building" --Tal M. Klein, author of The Punch Escrow

     Daniel Worth is an aimless college student struggling with classic problems. He’s got no girlfriend, no passion for his lackluster education, and he lives at home with his mother. Unfortunately for him, he also has incredibly bad luck, stumbling into the dangerous aftermath of a duel between a wizard and a dark sorcerer. Somehow, he makes it through the fight, and even ends up with a book full of cursed spells and a magical familiar in the form of an attractive (though centuries out of fashion) young woman. Daniel isn’t the only one aware of the reemergence of the Book of Sins, and he quickly discovers that it’s one of the most coveted magical artifacts known to man. He’s got a target on his back, and only through undergoing the book’s convoluted spell trials can he unlock the magical abilities he needs to defend himself. WARNING: This book contains explicit sexual content, gratuitous violence, and multiple relationships (centered around the main character). Reader discretion is advised.