But Commonwealth operative Simon Kovalic knows nothing ever goes to plan. So, when a duplicitous bounty hunter lives up to his reputation, Kovalic’s ready—just maybe not ready enough.Now he and his team must get offworld, before their enemies catch up with them…

    In nineteenth-century New England another sort of vampire was relentlessly ravishing the populace, or so it was believed by many rural communities suffering the plague of tuberculosis. Indeed, as this fascinating book shows, the vampire of folk superstition figures significantly in the attempt of early Americans to reasonably explain and vanquish the dreaded affliction then known as consumption. In gripping narrative detail, folklorist Michael E. Bell reconstructs a distant world, where on March 17, 1892, three corpses were exhumed from a Rhode Island cemetery. One of them, Mercy Brown, who had succumbed to consumption, appeared to have turned over in her grave. Mercy's family cut out her heart, which still held clots of blood, burned it on a nearby rock, and fed the ashes to her ailing brother. To Mercy's community she had become a vampire living a spectral existence and consuming the vitality of her siblings. From documents written as early as 1790 to a recent conversation with a descendant of Mercy Brown, Bell investigates twenty cases in which the vampiric dead were exhumed to save the ailing living. He also explores a widespread folk tradition that has survived generations, as ordinary people today strive to battle extraordinary diseases like Ebola or AIDS with a deeply rooted belief in their power to heal themselves. "Bell's absorbing account is ... a major contribution to the study of New England folk beliefs."—Boston Globe "Filled with ghostly tales, glowing corpses, rearranged bones, visits to hidden graveyards.... This is a marvelous book."—Providence Journal

    A sexy fling wasn’t on her Christmas list this year, but Santa has a trick up his sleeve for the hard-working business owner – and his name is Tobin Looney. A missed flight and a few shots of Fireball later, a silent night is the last thing on their minds. Sinclair and Tobin find themselves in a spicy, sweet, and sticky situation. Will the serious Sinclair throw caution to the wind for the very sexy and wild Tobin Looney? Find out in Not So Silent Night.

    Lady Cordelia Branley, daughter of Baron Tillingford, in London for the first time, is captivated by Lord Edward Fitzhugh. But her chaperone, Miss Millpost, is not so convinced of the young Lord’s character. Philip Canterwood, Duke of Rotherhithe, is set in his ways as a widower – until the request of his dying friend, Baron Tillingford, to investigate the man that Lady Cordelia fancies herself in love with. Once he begins to look into it, everything changes… Is Lord Edward as charming and pleasant as he seems? Will Lady Cordelia find true love in the end? Or will she be blinded by charm with no substance? And will the Duke allow himself to love again? The Duke and the Lady’s Maid Eric Caxton, the Duke of Amesbury, suspected that Olivia was no ordinary lady's maid. She was too refined and a bit impertinent. All Olivia wanted was to free herself from the employ of her aunt and cousin who delighted in her discomfort. A summer trip to Bath would be just the ticket to find a respectable Lady in need of a maid, but Olivia found more than she bargained for when she caught the interest of the Duke. Hope for Charity Rumor has it that the Earl of Wentwell is a self-serving rogue who is desired by all the women of the Ton. Lady Charity Abernathy is the epitome of naiveté and believes everything she hears. Both are hoping for happiness. Both are longing for love. And things are not always what they seem. Summer with the Duke Abigail Jones is unhappy with life on her family’s farm and flees to Bath for the summer, to work in her aunt and uncle’s shop. Quite by accident, she meets the Duke of Hampston’s daughter, who takes an immediate liking to her, and invites her to her home for tea. Abigail, unaware that she will be visiting the home of a Duke, agrees. Jealousy ensues when the Duke’s almost fiancée sees how well both the daughter and the Duke hit it off with Abigail. Will the Duke stay the course and marry Lady Margaret? Or will he confess that he’s secretly falling for Abigail? The Duke’s First Love Rose expected a proposal from the dashing Duke of Highbury, but it did not come. When she finds out he is marrying another, she reluctantly goes with her family to Bath for the summer. Will the round of summer parties help wash her sour memories away? The Duke’s Scandalous Scholar Widower Evan Aldercliffe, Duke of Foxchester, joins his family in Bath, hoping to regain his footing and recover from grief. There he meets Bridget Stanhope, a free-spirited woman who thinks that all men are foolish. Sparks fly immediately, but the result is... magical. The Governess and the Scandalous Duke Miss Beatrice Lakeheart is left in the most unfortunate circumstances after the death of her mother and the remarriage of her Papa. When she is offered employment as a governess for the scandalous, world weary Duke of Carrington, little does she know that her very innocence will attract him to her like a moth to a flame. But between her jealous stepbrother and his jealous (and unpleasant) fiancée, can they still find their happily ever after? Amelia and the Earl Amelia Dane, plain, sensible, and poor, gave up her

     Someone with the same habits, the same hobbies, the same interests. She wants The One. And she will do anything to find her. If you like a quick, little read with a touch of romance, a touch of spooky, then you will love KC Luck’s page-turning short story. Note: This is a short story and includes strong female characters in a lesbian relationship.

    As A.S. Byatt renders this relationship with a powerful combination of erudition and passion, she makes the interaction of the natural and the supernatural seem not only convincing, but inevitable.The companion stories in this collection each display different facets of Byatt's remarkable gift for enchantment. They range from fables of sexual obsession to allegories of political tragedy; they draw us into narratives that are as mesmerizing as dreams and as bracing as philosophical meditations; and they all us to inhabit an imaginative universe astonishing in the precision of its detail, its intellectual consistency, and its splendor.

    Each story contains the common elements of the gothic tale--a warped sense of time, a claustrophobic setting, a link to archaic modes of thought, and the impression of a descent into disintegration. Yet taken together, they reveal the progression of the genre from stories of feudal villains amid crumbling ruins to a greater level of sophistication in which writers brought the gothic tale out of its medieval setting, and placed it in the contemporary world. Bringing together the work of such writers as Eudora Welty, Thomas Hardy, Edgar Allan Poe, William Faulkner, Arthur Conan Doyle, Joyce Carol Oates, and Jorge Luis Borges, The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales presents a wide array of the sinister and unsettling for all lovers of ghost stories, fantasy, and horror.

    . . Carolyn and her eight-year-old son Jason unwittingly step into a maelstrom of horror partially brought about by their unwillingness to allow a long-standing ritual to continue. As family relationships, heritage, neighbors, and deadly forces intersect, evil becomes apparent in not only an unleashed supernatural beast, but in the hearts of men. Rural roots, supernatural horror, Native rituals, and family relationships blend seamlessly to build a nicely-paced drama that comes full circle for elderly Native John Crow, whose new neighbors have now become part of this sacred valley and its long-standing ritual practices, changing their lives forever. Meadowlarks is especially recommended for fans of Tony Hillerman-style intrigue who seek a vifgorous dose of the supernatural added into a mix of mystery and interpersonal struggle. Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review All Carolyn Potter wanted was a safe haven in which to raise her son, Jason, not to find a night stalker lurking in the forest surrounding their new mountain home. Following the unsolved murder of her husband and a violent attack on her son, Carolyn Potter learns she has inherited a cattle ranch located in a remote valley high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. She eagerly leaps at the opportunity to escape urban violence, move out of her oppressive mother's home and get away from her hungry eyed, lip licking employer, Tom Kirby. Kirby, buried under gambling debts, is destroying Kirby Publications, a company built by his deceased father. Learning of Carolyn's inheritance compels him to win her favor in order to marry into her newfound wealth but Carolyn chooses Shangri-la, her dead husband's family ranch. Carolyn and Jason love their new home but soon learn of a local ritual being practiced on their land where a bull calf is brutally slaughtered with each cycle of the full moon. Seeking to end this gruesome practice, Carolyn saves the young calf and unleashes a monstrous creature, not realizing this creature is the protector of Shangri-la. After the creature attempts to break into their home, Carolyn calls on Tom Kirby for help. Kirby zooms to the rescue to confront the beast, rescue the girl and inherit her wealth, with which he intends to regain his prowess as a winning gambler. After her complete failure to end the slaughter of both bull calves and her neighbors, Carolyn must now decide whether to move back to civilization, stay and try to defeat her new threat or accept a bloody ritual that keeps the beast at bay.

     Stealing the best talent from my competitor seemed like a grand idea. That was until I fell head over heels for the beautiful, curvy vixen. Love stories don’t belong in the office, but rules be damned. This woman has me wrapped around her finger almost from the start. I’m good with keeping things casual until she walks away. Then I’m willing to give away anything to get her back. I have no choice. She’s pregnant with my secret baby. And outside of that? I’m mad in love.

    She has been dubbed “one of our most important writers,” (Junot Diaz), with “an imagination that most of us would kill for” (Los Angeles Times), and her work has been called “stunning,” (New York Times) “rich in voice, humor, and dazzling imagery” (Kirkus), and “simply triumphant” (Dorothy Allison).Falling in Love with Hominids presents over a dozen years of Hopkinson’s new, uncollected fiction, much of which has been unavailable in print. Her singular, vivid tales, which mix the modern with Afro-Caribbean folklore, are occupied by creatures unpredictable and strange: chickens that breathe fire, adults who eat children, and spirits that haunt shopping malls.

    If you have ever experienced loss, heartbreak, love, or joy, reading this poetry will bring back a shocking wave of emotions.Dark Mermaid Song was previously published as Le Chant Des Sirènes: Poems. It has been expanded in this new edition.

    Here, word for word is that amazing speech to inspire you to find what it is that you "Love".

    The bridge holds many secrets.Two hurting women face each other on this night, destinies merging. Mistakes have been made, people have been hurt, and these two are the victims. After the many years, they are ready to give up, ready to end it all. But one thing keeps them from giving up.The bridge holds many secrets, and the city breeds scum. But together, they can heal and help.This passionate, emotional story about the power of forgiveness takes you far away, to a city you'll always remember and never forget. Follow me to the place where mercy and grace mingle, where love and pain go hand-in-hand. Follow me to the bridge.

    Series editors Scott Conners and Ronald S. Hilger excavated the still-existing manuscripts, letters and various published versions of the stories, creating a definitive "preferred text" for Smith's entire body of work. This first volume of the series, brings together 25 of his fantasy stories, written between 1925 and 1930, including such classics as "The Abominations of Yondo," "The Monster of the Prophecy," "The Last Incantation" and the title story.

    Raised on a Sioux reservation, she was educated at boarding schools that enforced assimilation and was witness to major events in white-Indian relations in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Tapping her troubled personal history, Zitkala-Sa created stories that illuminate the tragedy and complexity of the American Indian experience. In evocative prose laced with political savvy, she forces new thinking about the perceptions, assumptions, and customs of both Sioux and white cultures and raises issues of assimilation, identity, and race relations that remain compelling today.