Talent is power. And revenge is sweet.In a distant, future world Kinsmen—small powerful groups of genetically and technologically advanced families—control vast financial empires. They are their own country, their own rulers, and their only limits are other Kinsmen. The struggle for power is a bloody, full-contact sport: in business, on the battlefield...and sometimes in the bedroom. Silent Blade:Old hatreds die hard. Old love dies harder.On the planet Rada, Meli Galdes’ family is of minor rank, and were relying on her marriage to Celino, the razor-smart, ruthless leader of the powerful Carvanna empire. When he abruptly breaks their engagement, he ruins her family and guarantees that Meli will never marry, as no suitor will oppose the rich and influential Carvannas. But Meli has a rare, secret, lethal—and valuable—talent. As a melder of energy, she’s capable of severing anything in her path. So she ‘leaves’ her family and trains to become one of the best and most lethal of assassins, all the while covertly guarding her family’s interests. Now she’s ready to quit; but she has one more assignment.To kill the man who ruined her life. Silver SharkClaire Shannon is a killer…and her weapon is her mind. Born on a planet torn by war for over 300 years, Claire is a soldier: a psycher, with the ability to read, control, and destroy the minds of enemy psychers and to infiltrate the biological network where they battle to death. When Claire’s faction loses the war, she barely escapes extermination from both sides, as her talent brands her as too dangerous to society. By so-deeply burying her ability that she avoids detection, Claire is instead deported to Rada as a refugee, where she must find work to remain. She finds a job as personal assistant to Venturo Escana, a premiere kinsman; one of Rada’s most wealthy entrepreneurs—and most powerful psychers. She thought she had left war behind, but now she must hide her skills and her growing feelings from Venturo…and this battle might just cost her everything…A Mere FormalityThe leader of the fierce Reigh people expires during an intergalactic summit, putting 30 million colonists' lives and livelihoods in jeopardy. When the new heir to the Reigh throne, Lord Nagrad, demands restitution, the phrase "‘a life for a life" turns the intergalactic calamity into an arranged marriage contract between Lord Nagrad and sharply intelligent diplomatic analyst Deirdre Lebed... and the negotiation of terms becomes anything but formal!Limited: 1000 signed numbered hardcover copies, bound in leatherLettered: 52 signed traycased copies, bound in a different leather than the limited edition

    So when a mysterious benefactor from her past shows up demanding she rescue a man from slavers, her first reaction is to run for the hills. Unfortunately, she did promise to repay the loan. But she didn't think it would involve tangling with pirates over a space elf prince...Book 1 of the Her Instruments trilogy is a rollicking adventure set in the expansive Pelted universe, and kicks off an epic space opera series where the fate of worlds hangs in the balance. Fans who enjoyed Firefly or Andromeda will like this series. Rating: PG-13 for violenceTags: found family, woman protagonist, minority/POC protagonist, adventure, space opera, romance, furries, space elves

    The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines, puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them. But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to win—and confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.

    Pursued by a vicious military general who wants them dead or alive, Tess has to decide if she can trust Shade Ganavan, a tall, dark and arrogant stranger with ambiguous motivations. Shade Ganavan had oodles of arrogance, oodles of charm, and oodles of something that made me want to kick him in the nuts. What Tess and Shade don't know about each other might get them killed... unless they can set aside their differences and learn to trust each other - while ignoring their off-the-charts chemistry. Shade swallowed the bad taste in his mouth. Two hundred million. He could buy back his birthright and live like a king forever on that. Captain T. Bailey. Beautiful. Ballsy. And Brave. A wanted criminal. Indecision clawed at his chest. He knew where she was. The easiest nab and grab of his life was waiting for him. He could land two hundred million in his account. Double that if she still had the goods.

    They were beautiful crystals, cool and smooth. They opened doorways to magical realms, leading to escape, happiness, peace. But they exacted a terrible price for they were an incredible narcotic. After only a single use, they dragged you in, sucked your soul dry, leaving you to lingering death. — Where did they come from? And what really were they? For Gleia, Shounach, and Deel it had become a matter of desperate urgency, for each has lost someone to the Eyes, someone they could not forget. For them the source of these damnable jewels must be found and destroyed. Otherwise the Ranga Eyes would destroy them and all their world.

    But the Robotech Masters were already on their way to Earth. And at Tirol, the SDF-3 would face the galaxy's fiercest warlord: the Invid Regent!#2 Dark PowersStranded on the far side of the galaxy after battling the Invid hordes, the Robotech Expeditionary Force's chances for survival were slim. But suddenly a starship unlike any other appeared -- manned by an incredible assortment of beings determined to challenge the Invid Regent himself! REF volunteers and their war mecha signed on for a campaign that would mean their destruction -- or liberty for the planets of the Sentinels!#3 Death DanceFour months had passed without a word from the Sentinels. Fearing the worst, the Expeditionary Mission to Tirol began truce negotiations with the Invid Regent himself. But far away, the surviving Sentinels were stranded on Praxis, a planet in cataclysm. Deep within that world's core were answers to the Sentinels' prayers -- if they could only reach them before Praxis tore itself apart...

    But can she prove to the norms that she’s more than just an Earth Girl?2788. Only the handicapped live on Earth. While everyone else portals between worlds, 18-year-old Jarra is among the one in a thousand people born with an immune system that cannot survive on other planets. Sent to Earth at birth to save her life, she has been abandoned by her parents. She can’t travel to other worlds, but she can watch their vids, and she knows all the jokes they make. She’s an ‘ape’, a ‘throwback’, but this is one ape girl who won’t give in.Jarra invents a fake background for herself – as a normal child of Military parents – and joins a class of norms that is on Earth to excavate the ruins of the old cities. When an ancient skyscraper collapses, burying another research team, Jarra’s role in their rescue puts her in the spotlight. No hiding at back of class now. To make life more complicated, she finds herself falling in love with one of her classmates – a norm from another planet. Somehow, she has to keep the deception going.A freak solar storm strikes the atmosphere, and the class is ordered to portal off-world for safety – no problem for a real child of military parents, but fatal for Jarra. The storm is so bad that the crews of the orbiting solar arrays have to escape to planet below: the first landing from space in 600 years. And one is on collision course with their shelter.

    A notorious anti-patent scientist who has styled herself as a Robin Hood heroine fighting to bring cheap drugs to the poor, Jack’s latest drug is leaving a trail of lethal overdoses across what used to be North America—a drug that compels people to become addicted to their work.On Jack’s trail are an unlikely pair: an emotionally shut-down military agent and his partner, Paladin, a young military robot, who fall in love against all expectations. Autonomous alternates between the activities of Jack and her co-conspirators, and Elias and Paladin, as they all race to stop a bizarre drug epidemic that is tearing apart lives, causing trains to crash, and flooding New York City.

    Blackmailed into helping Commander Kell Frayne infiltrate a treacherous corner of the galaxy, Mara learns that her biggest danger is from her sexy, by-the-book partner. She's a loner with more than a few battle scars on her heart, but something about Commander Frayne stirs up her long-buried need for an intimate connection.An ace pilot for the elite Black Wraith Squadron, Kell's mission is to rescue a lost pilot and ship. Unable to deny his attraction to the beautiful, rebellious Mara, he decides bedding her would cool his ardor. But one taste is not nearly enough, and he finds himself sharing more of his real self with her than he has with anyone.With deadly criminals on their heels and an increasingly dangerous assignment to complete, he's starting to wonder...if they survived, could he let her go? And will Mara want to stay?46,390 words

    Now two individuals from opposite ends of settled space are on a collision course with the darkest of those secrets, even as the world threatens to explode around them.The year is 2322. Humanity has expanded into the stars, inhabiting over 100 worlds across a third of the galaxy. Though thriving as never before, they have discovered neither alien life nor the key to utopia. Earth struggles to retain authority over far-flung planets and free-wheeling corporations while an uneasy armistice with a breakaway federation hangs by a thread as the former rebels rise in wealth and power.Alexis Solovy is Earth Alliance royalty, her father a fallen war hero and her mother an influential military leader. But she seeks only the freedom of space and has made a fortune by reading the patterns in the chaos to discover the hidden wonders of the stars.Nothing about her latest objective suggests the secret it conceals will turn her life— not to mention the entire galaxy—upside down. But a chance encounter with a mysterious spy leads to a discovery which will thrust Alex into the middle of a galactic power struggle and a sinister conspiracy, whether she likes it or not.When faced with its greatest challenge, will humanity rise to triumph, or fall to ruin?Aurora Rising is an epic tale of galaxy-spanning adventure, of the thrill of discovery and the unquenchable desire to reach ever farther into the unknown. It's a tale of humanity at its best and worst, of love and loss, of fear and heroism. It's the story of a woman who sought the stars and found more than anyone imagined possible.

    Humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now scythes are the only ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control.Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe—a role that neither wants. These teens must master the “art” of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.

    Paul Anderson has no memory of working for Stellar Research, except flashes from a secret-and terrifying-project that threatens to tear his sanity apart...

    

    Nightmarish female warriors with blue skin, fangs, and razor sharp talons, the Kreelans have technology that is millennia beyond that of the Confederation, yet they seek out close combat with sword and claw, fighting and dying to honor their god-like Empress. Captured and enslaved, Reza must live like his enemies in a grand experiment to see if humans have souls, and if one may be the key to unlocking an ages old curse upon the Kreelan race. Enduring the brutal conditions of Kreelan life, Reza and a young warrior named Esah-Zhurah find themselves bound together by fate and a prophecy foretold millennia before they were born.

    But war with the rival empire of the Traders seems imminent, a war that can only lead to slavery for the Skolians or the destruction of both sides. Destructive skirmishes have already occurred. A desperate attempt must be made to avert total disaster.