But unfortunately, sometimes people DO get what they wish for. Ryan hasn’t gone far before he is set upon by a bunch of scary, nihilistic punk-sorcerers who need him to set off a doomsday device that will destroy the planet and everyone on it. Fun!Riding to the rescue, however, is a certain skeleton detective and his teenage partner/combat accessory. Now Skulduggery and Valkyrie only have a few hours to figure out what's going on, while saving Ryan and – incidentally – the whole world.And all that time, the punk-sorcerors are closing in…

    The story unfolds in the weeks following Andaris’ seventeenth name day: Desperate to escape a life of meaningless drudgery behind the plow, he leaves the safety of his secluded valley town and ventures alone into the uncharted depths of an ancient forest, the heart of which is said to be twisted and black. Choosing to ignore the counsel of his more sensible nature, he is drawn ever onward, lured by the tantalizing splendor of distant mountains, the sheer peaks of which purportedly stand sentinel over a land long steeped in mystery. What ensues is more remarkable than anything even he could have envisioned. Andaris goes looking for adventure.... What he finds is a world in the midst of tidal change, an extraordinary place where he encounters all manner of extraordinary things—vast landscapes teeming with flora and fauna capable of firing the most malnourished of imaginations. To be sure, danger lurks around every bend, a heady amalgam of sword and sorcery which threaten to bring his young life to an abrupt end. Indeed, if not for a very fortuitous encounter, namely the crossing of paths with a band of travelers who turn out to be much more than meets the eye, it surely would have. Gaven, Ashel, and Trilla seem fated to become fast friends, the sort of companions he’d always wanted, but never thought he’d have. The Lost One and his army of shapelings are preparing to march against Rogar’s western border—the only thing standing between them and the green, fertile lands to the East. The balance of power is shifting. Despite the debt of blood owed them by their Sokerran neighbors, the Alderi Shune fear they will be made to stand alone. No one speaks of defeat, but it is on the tip of every tongue. For the first time since they were erected, more than a thousand years ago, the impossible is about to happen: The Eight Walls of Rogar are about to fall. The scales could tip in either direction, depending, oddly enough, on the choices of a rather bookish young man named Andaris Rocaren. You will forgive me, intrepid reader, if I now take the opportunity to formally invite you to join in the fun, to accompany young Andaris and his fellows into and out of the kingdoms of Nelvin, Mindere, Sokerra, and Rogar. Over hill, dell, and stream you shall go, hiking through rugged mountain ranges heavy with snow, into subterranean catacombs whose unplumbed fathoms are illumined by naught but the guttering flames of your makeshift torch, until you reach, at long last, and in just the nick of time, the battered gates of a once great civilization on the brink of war.

    Meet Nilah Stefanik. She’s sassy, smart and fresh out of grad school. With a ton of student debt, she’s taken a “dead-end” office job at the Fogg Funeral Home in Danvers, Massachusetts. It’s a toss-up as to what her family disapproves of more...her current place of employment, or that she has no discernible psychic or magickal talents of any kind. Nilah comes from a long line of Polska Roma fortune tellers, mystics, and psychics. Her grandmother, the incomparable Madame Sabina, is an institution in Danvers. Unfortunately, that talent skipped Nilah...or so the family always believed. Now, paranormal predicaments confound Nilah and draw her into a mystery just in time for Halloween. Deep down, Nilah is a Gypsy at heart, and with a little help from her grandmother and a trouble-making ghost, Nilah may at last uncover the truth about herself and her destiny. *** Previously released in the Welcome to Haven Harbor anthology***

    Thousands have disappeared here, and the respectable have fled, leaving behind the killers, thieves, poets, painters, drunks, and those too poor or desperate to leave.It is a hellish landscape, and Gilda Carr proudly calls it home.Slightly built, but with a will of iron, Gilda follows in the footsteps of her late father, a police detective turned private eye. Unlike that larger-than-life man, Gilda solves tiny mysteries: the impossible puzzles that keep us awake at night; the small riddles that destroy us; the questions that spoil marriages, ruin friendships, and curdle joy. Those tiny cases distract her from her grief, and the one impossible question she knows she can’t answer: “How did my father die?”Yet on Gilda’s Westside, tiny mysteries end in blood—even the case of a missing white leather glove. Mrs. Copeland, a well-to-do Eastside housewife, hires Gilda to find it before her irascible merchant husband learns it is gone. When Gilda witnesses Mr. Copeland’s murder at a Westside pier, she finds herself sinking into a mire of bootlegging, smuggling, corruption—and an evil too dark to face.All she wants is to find one dainty ladies’ glove. She doesn’t want to know why this merchant was on the wrong side of town—or why he was murdered in cold blood. But as she begins to see the connection between his murder, her father’s death, and the darkness plaguing the Westside, she faces the hard truth: she must save her city or die with it.Introducing a truly remarkable female detective, Westside is a mystery steeped in the supernatural and shot through with gunfights, rotgut whiskey, and sizzling Dixieland jazz. Full of dazzling color, delightful twists, and truly thrilling action, it announces the arrival of a remarkable talent.

    A police consultant and private investigator, Dresden has to walk the dangerous line between the world of night and the light of day.Now Harry Dresden is investigating a brutal mauling at the Lincoln Park Zoo that has left a security guard dead and many questions unanswered. As an investigator of the supernatural, he senses that there’s more to this case than a simple animal attack, and as Dresden searches for clues to figure out who is really behind the crime, he finds himself next on the victim list, and being hunted by creatures that won’t leave much more than a stain if they catch him.Written exclusively for comics by Jim Butcher, The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle is a brand-new story that’s sure to enchant readers with a blend of gripping mystery and fantastic adventure.

    In The Devil's Detective, a sea change is coming to Hell . . . and a man named Thomas Fool is caught in the middle.    Thomas Fool is an Information Man, an investigator tasked with cataloging and filing reports on the endless stream of violence and brutality that flows through Hell. His job holds no reward or satisfaction, because Hell has rules but no justice. Each new crime is stamped "Do Not Investigate" and dutifully filed away in the depths of the Bureaucracy. But when an important political delegation arrives and a human is found murdered in a horrific manner—extravagant even by Hell's standards—everything changes. The murders escalate, and their severity points to the kind of killer not seen for many generations. Something is challenging the rules and order of Hell, so the Bureaucracy sends Fool to identify and track down the killer. . . . But how do you investigate murder in a place where death is common currency? Or when your main suspect pool is a legion of demons? With no memory of his past and only an irresistible need for justice, Fool will piece together clues and follow a trail that leads directly into the heart of a dark and chaotic conspiracy. A revolution is brewing in Hell . . . and nothing is what it seems.The Devil's Detective is an audacious, highly suspenseful thriller set against a nightmarish and wildly vivid world. Simon Kurt Unsworth has created a phantasmagoric thrill ride filled with stunning set pieces and characters that spring from our deepest nightmares. It will have readers of both thrillers and horror hanging on by their fingernails until the final word. In Hell, hope is your worst enemy.

    But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she’s forced to take on her least favourite kind of job – missing persons.Being hired by reclusive music producer Odi Huron to find a teenybop pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the criminal underclass and their animal companions live in the shadow of hell’s undertow.Instead, it catapults Zinzi deeper into the maw of a city twisted by crime and magic, where she’ll be forced to confront the dark secrets of former lives – including her own.

    Abigail Argent is a skilled craftsman working in the world of sculpture. Her particular talent lies in seeing the beauty in a plain piece of metal and being able to draw it out. When she comes across a book that links her craft with the ancient myth of alchemy, she's intrigued. Digging deeper, she discovers that some types of research can be dangerous. Delving into one of Italy's oldest secret societies, curiosity comes at a price that no-one should have to pay. If you like a conspiracy theory that walks the line between myth and science, you'll love A Rarer Gift Than Gold. A Rarer Gift Than Gold takes everything you think you know about alchemy and turns it on its head Treat yourself to A Rarer Gift Than Gold as featured on Radio 4, BBC World Service & Timeout Magazine Interview with the Author Will you share a little about your book?  It’s a conspiracy theory about alchemy.  Set in the art and craft world, it’s low fantasy with high stakes. Readers who enjoy the Da Vinci Code should like it.   Will you share how you came up with the idea for this book?    I am a sculptural restorer specialising in metals. I wanted to convey my love of metals and the idea came to me when a historian friend was doing some research and calling up some pretty rare volumes. He got a warning to stay away from the material he was looking at. I wondered why anyone would be so protective of something so dry and academic. I wondered what motivation they could possibly have and what might happen if he ignored the warning. I built this book around this event.   Who or what was your inspiration for this book?   Every day, I work with historic objects and one of the questions I always ask myself when restoring them is ‘what is missing from this object. What can I not see?’ and ‘why might evidence have been lost?’ It has made me very interested in what’s absent from history and why.  This story is about how history can be manipulated by the removal of physical evidence for personal gain.   It is said that authors write themselves into their characters. Is there any part of you in your characters and what they would be?   The only part of the lead character that is like me is her love of metals. That we share.   Have you been influenced by the writing style of other authors?   I adore and devour books, but trying to imitate someone else would just be too hard. Your own voice has to be authentic otherwise I think you come off as a hack.    Do you have plans to write another book?   Girl in A Golden Cage will be out at the end of 2016 – it’s another book in The Gold Gift Series

    Und er ist in Schwierigkeiten, denn er muss einen Krieg verhindern, in dem sich seine besten Freunde und daneben auch die großen Familien von Dragaera gegenseitig auslöschen würden...The first to be published, this is actually the fourth novel in the timeline of the VLAD TALTOS series. The books recount the adventures of the wisecracking hired killer Vlad, a human on a planet mainly inhabited by the long-lived, extremely tall sorcerers known as the Dragaerans. One of the most powerful bosses in the Jhereg--Dragaera's premier criminal organization--hires Vlad, one of their guild members, to assassinate Mellar, who stole millions from the Jhereg leadership and fled. Unfortunately, this thief turns out to be protected in a way that makes it difficult for Vlad to do his job without gaining the permanent enmity of a friend. The reader also learns more about Vlad's past in this, and in other, lives.

    So when a man is found dead with his body impossibly covered in a fungal rot, the local authorities know they are out of their depth.Fortunately this is Germany, where there are procedures for everything.Enter Investigator Tobias Winter, whose aim is to get in, deal with the problem, and get out with the minimum of fuss, personal danger and paperwork. With the help of frighteningly enthusiastic local cop, Vanessa Sommer, he’s quick to link the first victim to a group of ordinary middle aged men – and to realise they may have accidentally reawakened a bloody conflict from a previous century. But the rot is still spreading, literally and with the suspect list extending to people born before Frederick the Great solving the case may mean unearthing the city’s secret magical history.. . . so long as that history doesn’t kill them first.

    If you search for it, you will find it, or it will find you. Welcome to the magical world.Having lived all her life in Edinburgh, the last thing 25-year old Dizzy expected was to see a man with a real (if tiny) dragon on his shoulder. Following him, she discovered that she had stumbled from her mundane world into a parallel magical world, an alternate reality where dragons flew through the sky and the Great Powers watched over the world. Convinced that she had nothing to lose, she became apprenticed to the man with the dragon. He turned out to be one of the most powerful magicians in all of reality. But powerful dark forces had their eye on this young and inexperienced magician, intending to use her for the ultimate act of evil – the apocalyptic destruction of all reality. If Dizzy does not realise what is happening to her and the worlds around her, she won’t be able to stop their plan. A plan that will ravage both the magical and mundane worlds, consuming everything and everyone in fire.

    Gwynn is a gunslinger from the north, a loner, a survivor . . . a killer. Raule is a wandering surgeon, a healer who still believes in just--and lost--causes. Bound by a desire to escape the ghosts of the past, together they flee to the teeming city of Ashamoil, where Raule plies her trade among the desperate and destitute, and Gwynn becomes bodyguard and assassin for the household of a corrupt magnate. There, in the saving and taking of lives, they find themselves immersed in a world where art infects life, dream and waking fuse, and splendid and frightening miracles begin to bloom . . .

    He just can't guess how much and how fast. A violent incident on the road brings Danny the favor of a man known only as Mr. Patrise, who gives Danny a job, a home, and a new identity.The City is a different world from the one Danny — now called Doc — knew, and literally so. Long-vanished powers have returned, and more is going on in the streets than nightlife and street warfare. Power is gathering: a power rooted in terror, madness, and death. To fight it will require Doc to face what he fears most. To defeat it will take something more than courage.

     Overview: Where am I? Andy awakes with no recollection of where he is, how he got there, or how long he's been there. All he knows is that it's cold, it's dark, and he's alone. When he finally escapes, he encounters strange, supernatural creatures. Terrifying monsters of the night. Thinking of his daughter, Emma, his only goal is to get home and make sure she's okay. And he has only one choice... ...Run.

    Mysterious phone calls from San Francisco at odd hours of the night are the only contact she has had with Elizabeth for years. Now, Elizabeth has sent her a plane ticket and reserved a room for her at San Francisco's most luxurious hotel. Yet she has not tried to contact Martha since she arrived, leaving her lonely, confused and a little bit worried. Into the story steps Mayland Long, a distinguished-looking and wealthy Chinese man who lives at the hotel and is drawn to Martha's good nature and ability to pinpoint the truth of a matter. Mayland and Martha become close in a short period of time and he promises to help her find Elizabeth, making small inroads in the mystery before Martha herself disappears. Now Mayland is struck by the realization, too late, that he is in love with Martha, and now he fears for her life. Determined to find her, he sets his prodigious philosopher's mind to work on the problem, embarking on a potentially dangerous adventure.