After I saw my little brother’s death but failed to stop it, my parents abandoned me to a juvenile detention facility. I don’t let people touch me anymore. Not my fingertips, not my skin, not my heart. I make my own clothes by stitching together the donations we get; usually a bunch of crap that fits like a parachute. My sweater is a patchwork of different shades of inky, dark squares. I make plain gray skirts that hang to my knees, with cute or funny T-shirts sewed in. They clash ironically with my unsmiling face. My Allstar high-tops are black and frayed, like my soul. I also wear a chunk of brightly colored legos around my neck. My little brother was working on it the day he died. The day I failed to save him. It’s unfinished, so I’ll never know what it was meant to be. Most days, I just try to get by. But then I got a visit from a cute guy, who tricked me into giving up my secrets. He said I was special. That he needed me. For a while, I believed him. But once I found out what I could really do, I learned everybody wanted the power I possessed. The power to destroy deities. To kill gods. To end the world... or to save it. My heart is torn, and those I loved most betrayed me. I'm trying so hard to do what's right, but nobody can tell me what that is anymore, and the moral boundaries I'd always let define my life have been shattered. Whose rules should I obey now? Or do I have to make my own? The Scarlet Thread is a dark fantasy for fans of Greek mythology and Gothic romance. Fans of Fallen and Percy Jackson will be captivated by this mashup of fallen angels and forgotten gods.

    Just as she has grown accustomed to exile, local police discover a mutilated body outside the abandoned church where she lives. Recognising the murder as the work of one of her own kind, Eilidh must choose: flee, or learn to tap into the forbidden magic that cost her everything.

    Leah spends her nights scavenging in the rural zone around the City, risking capture by the Wild Ones as she hunts for salvage her father can trade for food and other essentials. But when Leah takes a bag of salvage from a dying stranger, she and her father are drawn into the world of Transport and its war against the terrorist organization, TRACE. A war that could cost them both their lives. The Girl in the City is a standalone science fiction novella set in the world of Michael Bunker's Pennsylvania.

    Sometimes they don’t get it right.Ugly Stepsister Anna has wrongly been accused of being mean and evil. Now it is time she got the opportunity to tell her side of the story.With Cinderella so perfect and wonderful, it is no wonder Anna feels ugly in comparison. Dealing with bullies, a grumpy mother and the death of her step-father, Anna is at her wits end.When the Prince’s ball approaches, Anna is told she must find a husband to save the family fortune. Attending with her sisters, the sulky Prince Charming only has eyes for Cinderella.With the burden of being the only one to unite her step-sister with the Prince, will Anna act as cupid? Or will she protect Cinderella from the arrogant Charming?A charming twist to the story of Cinderella, told completely from the point of view of the Ugly Step-Sister.

    And in Johanna Von Arlo’s case, it can be fatal. Expelled from her troupe after her father’s death, Johanna is forced to work for the handsome Lord Rafael DeSilva. Too bad they don’t get along. But while Johanna’s father’s death was deemed an accident, the Keepers aren’t so sure.The Keepers, a race of people with magical abilities, are on a quest to find the princess—the same princess who is supposed to be dead and whose throne the dukes are fighting over. But they aren’t the only ones looking for her. And in the wake of their search, murdered girls keep turning up—girls who look exactly like the princess, and exactly like Johanna.With dukes, Keepers, and a killer all after the princess, Johanna finds herself caught up in political machinations for the throne, threats on her life, and an unexpected romance that could change everything.

    I can do things normal people can't do. Powerful things. Magical things. It scares me.I never chose to learn witchcraft. But I'm starting to wonder if witchcraft is choosing me.

    A Scottish hero determined to protect her. Can they survive the storm? Cast adrift on the Indian Ocean, Maria carries a terrible secret. Wherever she goes, death soon follows, and she's powerless to prevent it. William McGregor boarded the SS Trevessa in search of adventure, but he gets more than he bargained for when he saves the mysterious Maria from the sea. She can't tell them her tragic tale, so the superstitious sailors make up their own stories - and some would sacrifice her to the waves to save themselves from the coming storm. When the sharks start circling and the storm closes in, are sirens more than just a myth?

    Barely eighteen years of age, she wields the gift of fire yet she is unable to control it. She leaves her family in the dead of night and heads to the city of Frost Arch, her future seemingly grim.Will Avalon be able to overcome the trials that befall her? Will she be able to save the ones she loves and stay strong within herself?Time will tell.

    With nothing to his name but a pair of mysterious heirlooms and a handful of coins, he must prove his talent to earn an apprenticeship with a guild of sorcerers.But he soon learns the world outside the monastery is a darker place than he ever imagined, and his treasured sorcery has disturbing depths.As a shadowed evil manipulates the unwary and forbidden powers are unleashed, Caldan is plunged into an age-old conflict that brings the world to the edge of destruction…

    Their leader has chosen Thalia as the test subject for a torture device of untold power, designed to change and twist her into something that is neither human nor Denai.Escaping, Thalia finds an unwilling warrior to protect her and an unlikely Denai to befriend her. After finding a home at the Citadel as a servant, Thalia’s worst nightmare comes to life and she begins to show signs of power. Scared and unable to control her gifts, she tries to hide her past to fit in among the Denai. But the Septori want their latest test subject back and will stop at nothing to retrieve her, dead or alive.

    Only they can wield the fiercest of magics, to protect the Arka, until either death or the madness takes them.Five scholars of Arfell have been assassinated. A spellbook has gone missing – a powerful summoning manual from the time of elves and fire-born daemons. The Arkmages are running out of time and options, and the world is once again on the brink of war with the Siren dragon-riders.It falls to Farden – one of the Arka's most powerful yet troubled Written mages – to keep Emaneska from falling into chaos. Entangled in a web of lies and politics, Farden is tasked with hunting down the assassin, and recovering the spellbook before it falls into the wrong hands, and the world is cast into shadow.It will mean fighting his way across savage Emaneska and back, a land infested with wyrms, marauders, and betrayal. It will take every fibre of his will, every scrap of magic in his bones, and if he falls, so shall the world.Welcome to Emaneska.The Written is the first volume in The Emaneska Series, a fast-paced, epic and norse-inspired fantasy saga perfect for fans of Joe Abercrombie, Steven Erikson, Will Wight, and George R.R. Martin. Join over 100,000 other readers and delve into the iron world of Emaneska.

    They turned their heads to look at Kes out of fierce, inhuman eyes. Their feathers, ruffled by the wind that came down the mountain, looked like they had been poured out of light; their lion haunches like they had been fashioned out of gold. A white griffin, close at hand, looked like it had been made of alabaster and white marble and then lit from within by white fire. Its eyes were the pitiless blue-white of the desert sky.Little ever happens in the quiet villages of peaceful Feierabiand. The course of Kes' life seems set: she'll grow up to be an herb-woman and healer for the village of Minas Ford, never quite fitting in but always more or less accepted. And she's content with that path -- or she thinks she is. Until the day the griffins come down from the mountains, bringing with them the fiery wind of their desert and a desperate need for a healer. But what the griffins need is a healer who is not quite human . . . or a healer who can be made into something not quite human.

    or feed them.The dashing young king, Nikolai Lantsov, has always had a gift for the impossible. No one knows what he endured in his country's bloody civil war--and he intends to keep it that way. Now, as enemies gather at his weakened borders, Nikolai must find a way to refill Ravka's coffers, forge new alliances, and stop a rising threat to the once-great Grisha Army.Yet with every day a dark magic within him grows stronger, threatening to destroy all he has built. With the help of a young monk and a legendary Grisha general, Nikolai will journey to the places in Ravka where the deepest magic survives to vanquish the terrible legacy inside him. He will risk everything to save his country and himself. But some secrets aren't meant to stay buried--and some wounds aren't meant to heal.

    A DETERMINED GIRL Dindi can't do anything right, maybe because she spends more time dancing with pixies than doing her chores. Her clan hopes to marry her off and settle her down, but she dreams of becoming a Tavaedi, one of the powerful warrior-dancers whose secret magics are revealed only to those who pass a mysterious Test during the Initiation ceremony. The problem? No-one in Dindi's clan has ever passed the Test. Her grandmother died trying. But Dindi has a plan... AN EXILED WARRIOR Kavio is the most powerful warrior-dancer in Faearth, but when he is exiled from the tribehold for a crime he didn't commit, he decides to shed his old life. If roving cannibals and hexers don't kill him first, this is his chance to escape the shadow of his father's wars and his mother's curse. But when he rescues a young Initiate girl, he finds himself drawn into as deadly a plot as any he left behind. He must decide whether to walk away or fight for her... assuming she would even accept the help of an exile.

    While some are born with a talent for one of the five passions—art, music, dramatics, wit, and knowledge—Brienna struggled to find hers until she chose knowledge. However, despite all her preparations, Brienna’s greatest fear comes true: she is left without a patron.Months later, her life takes an unexpected turn when a disgraced lord offers her patronage. Suspicious of his intent, she reluctantly accepts. But there is much more to his story, for there is a dangerous plot to overthrow the king of Maevana—the rival kingdom of Valenia—and restore the rightful queen, and her magic, to the northern throne. And others are involved, some closer to Brienna than she realizes.With war brewing, Brienna must choose whose side she will remain loyal to—passion or blood. Because a queen is destined to rise and lead the battle to reclaim the crown. Who will be that queen?With gorgeous description and detailed rendering of a world where not everything is what it seems, debut author Rebecca Ross weaves an intricate tale of revenge, loyalty, and, ultimately, self-discovery.