Book picks similar to
The Forest at the Edge of the World by Trish Mercer
fantasy
fiction
romance
free-reads
Thief's Magic
Trudi Canavan - 2014
Once a young sorcerer-bookbinder, Vella was transformed into a useful tool by one of the greatest sorcerers of history. Since then she has been collecting information, including a vital clue to the disaster Tyen's world faces. Elsewhere, in an land ruled by the priests, Rielle the dyer's daughter has been taught that to use magic is to steal from the Angels. Yet she knows she has a talent for it, and that there is a corrupter in the city willing to teach her how to use it -- should she dare to risk the Angels' wrath.But not everything is as Tyen and Rielle have been raised to believe. Not the nature of magic, nor the laws of their lands... and not even the people they trust.
Breathless
Scott Prussing - 2010
That’s when her mom started acting weird, refusing to go outside during the day and insisting the sunlight hurt her skin because she had been bitten by a one-fanged vampire…But fascinated doesn’t mean Leesa believes—any more than she believes in blue fire, people who live for centuries, and kisses that can kill. When her beloved older brother suddenly disappears, she is forced to confront all these and more.
The Fourth Sunrise
H.T. Night - 2012
The Fourth Sunrise is such a book. It is a celebration of how love transcends time, a story that makes us believe in true love all over again.When the team bus breaks down in Delta, Colorado, minor league baseball player Joel Murphy sets eyes for the first time on Christine, a waitress. Instantly smitten, he will spend the rest of the night getting to know her...and falling helplessly in love. In fact, he's certain she's the one. But when morning comes, Joel must leave quicker than planned and, tragically, never gets to say goodbye. And when he returns after a grueling season on the road, he discovers that Christine has moved on...and has married someone else.That was thirty years ago...Now in the present day, as Joel Murphy waits at a coffee shop in Delta to meet Christine for the fourth time in his life, and an intriguing young woman joins him to wait for her date, too. As the hour grows late, Joel begins to tell his new friend about Christine, who he has seen only three times over a period of decades. There is one important secret that he has kept from Christine, one that could tear them apart forever. As the hour grows even later, Joel's heart needs a voice and he begins to spill all the secrets of his enduring and lifelong love for Christine.
Enchantress
James Maxwell - 2012
But the elite Academy of Enchanters expects tuition fees and knowledge. Determined, Ella sells flowers and studies every book she can. Meanwhile her brother, Miro, dreams of becoming one of the world's finest swordsmen, wielding his nation’s powerful enchanted weapons in defense of his homeland.A dark force rises in the east, conquering all in its path, and Miro leaves for the front. When the void Miro left is filled by Killian, a charming stranger from another land, Ella finds herself in love. But Killian has a secret, and Ella’s actions will determine the fate of her brother, her homeland, and the world.This is the first book in the epic Evermen Saga.
Bound by Duty
Stormy Smith - 2014
She knows she's an Elder but has no idea what that means. Her father reminds her daily that she must maintain control but he refuses to explain why. Even worse, she's betrothed to the prince of the Immortals and she doesn't even know his name. Finally breaking free to live a few normal years at a community college, the last thing Amelia expects is to find her best friend in a cheeky Southern girl and to fall for a self-assured human who sees her for who she is and not what she'll be.As she learns more about herself, Amelia realizes the line between love and duty is a thin one. As her power continues to increase exponentially and her questions are slowly answered, Amelia must make the ultimate choice. The question is, will her head or her heart win the battle?
Time Travel Romance - Medieval Love: Reunited by Dagger Heart Spell
Nina Moon - 2013
Smith. The latest assignment request presented to her from Mr. Smith, is the request to retrieve a man's heart. Once this revelation is disclosed, Elise has serious reservations and declines the assignment, that is until her employer Mr. Smith assures her that it is not for the retrieval of an actual human heart, and that the assignment pays a generous commission fee of two million dollars.Against all her better judgement and intuition, Elise accepts the assignment, where she finds herself suddenly wrapped up in a bizarre set of circumstances. She questions both her sanity, as well as whether or not her mysterious employer Mr. Smith has set her up against her will to participate in some strange time travel experiment.The assignment goes terribly wrong, and Elise finds herself being held captive by a pair who act as if they are living in a different era, and feed her a time travel story dating back one thousand years ago that they are convinced Elise was a part of. Elise begins to question whether she's being fed mind-altering drugs during her captivity in order to play along with the pair's outlandish timetravel scheme, until a series of incidents start to trigger an overwhelming feeling of deja vu.With two failed escape attempts, Elise is mentally frustrated and physically weakened, and to make matters worse, she finds herself strangely drawn to her captor Mr. Andris Blackstone, the very same man who had commissioned her services through her employer Mr. Smith.Desperate to be released, Elise makes a deal with Mr. Andris Blackstone. His request is simple, and if she complies, he will allow her to leave, along with the full two million dollars she was promised. Things don't go quite as Elise had planned, and a memory from one thousand years ago is suddenly returned to her, along with something else she certainly wasn't expecting. A time travel romance and a return of something so sacred, it took the clandestine efforts of those she knew in a previous lifetime to fulfill.Chapter 1: Assignment of the HeartChapter 2: Manor MissionChapter 3: Meet Lord BlackstoneChapter 4: No EscapeChapter 5: RevelationsChapter 6: Silver Box
The Herald of Autumn
J.M. Guillen - 2011
Hungry monstrosities that the sons of man cannot fathom. It is The Herald's place to hunt them, protecting us from the darkness that we cannot see. Every year, with the death of summer, Tommy Maple, the Herald of Autumn, awakens to again wander the land. Wherever he goes, red and golden leaves follow him, and he hunts the twisted creatures in the darkness. This Autumn, however, is different from those in the past. Tommy awakens to the taunting of a depraved enemy, a mysterious and elusive shaman. Tommy is powerless before his strange, bent magics, and knows that the old man has slaughtered his kind in the past. He is the last person the Herald should trust. And yet, Tommy is forced to listen. Soon, a sinister tale unfolds- a story that spans centuries and the entire continent. A story made from the whispering of forgotten legends that ends with a dark revelation. A story that Tommy has always been part of, even though he didn't know it. Now the Herald faces an ancient abomination, unlike anything he has ever known before. For once, the hunter is the one that is hunted, chased through a misbegotten wood by a creature who seems to be little more than darkness and feckless hunger. The behemoth is pure horror, and can unmake everything Tommy is. As the Herald faces a foe unlike any other, will he fall to the darkness that haunts our world? Will the shadows of a lost age devour him, causing him to be reborn as one of the world's terrors? Or can he trust the shaman, a creature spun from little more than trickery, malevolence and deceit?
Thirst
Claire Farrell - 2010
The only thing greater than her thirst for human blood is her capacity for guilt. She does her best to avoid the human world, for everyone's sake.When Ava accidentally enslaves a human while saving him from a vampire, she realises she has to look for help setting him free. Despite her misgivings, she expands her world but finds herself dragged into a possible vampire civil war. With the help of some new friends with ambiguous loyalties, she tries to find a way to keep her human, and herself, alive.
The Tithe
Elle Hill - 2014
Joshua Barstow, raised for twenty years among her town’s holy women, is one of these seventy Tithes. She is joined by the effervescent Lynna, the scholarly Avery, and the amoral Blue, a man who has spent most of his life in total solitude. Each night, an angel swoops down to take one of their numbers. Each night, that is, except the first, when the angel touches Josh… and leaves her. What is so special about Josh? She doesn’t feel special; she feels like a woman trying to survive while finally learning the meanings of friendship, community, and love.How funny that she had to be sacrificed to find reasons to live.
Bacchanal
Veronica Henry - 2021
But the carnival’s newest act, a peculiar young woman with latent magical powers, may hold the key to defeating it. Her time has come.Abandoned by her family, alone on the wrong side of the color line with little to call her own, Eliza Meeks is coming to terms with what she does have. It’s a gift for communicating with animals. To some, she’s a magical tender. To others, a she-devil. To a talent prospector, she’s a crowd-drawing oddity. And the Bacchanal Carnival is Eliza’s ticket out of the swamp trap of Baton Rouge.Among fortune-tellers, carnies, barkers, and folks even stranger than herself, Eliza finds a new home. But the Bacchanal is no ordinary carnival. An ancient demon has a home there too. She hides behind an iridescent disguise. She feeds on innocent souls. And she’s met her match in Eliza, who’s only beginning to understand the purpose of her own burgeoning powers.Only then can Eliza save her friends, find her family, and fight the sway of a primordial demon preying upon the human world. Rolling across a consuming dust bowl landscape, Eliza may have found her destiny.
UnHappenings
Edward Aubry - 2015
His first girlfriend disappears the day after their first kiss with no indication she ever existed. This retroactive change is the first of many only he seems to notice.Several years later, when Nigel is visited by two people from his future, he hopes they can explain why the past keeps rewriting itself around him. But the enigmatic young guide shares very little, and the haggard, incoherent, elderly version of himself is even less reliable. His search for answers takes him fifty-two years forward in time, where he finds himself stranded and alone.And then he meets Helen.Brilliant, hilarious and beautiful, she captivates him. But Nigel’s relationships always unhappen, and if they get close it could be fatal for her. Worse, according to the young guide, just by entering Helen’s life, Nigel has already set into motion events that will have catastrophic consequences. In his efforts to reverse this, and to find a way to remain with Helen, he discovers the disturbing truth about the unhappenings, and the role he and his future self have played all along.
The War of the Moonstone
Jack Conner - 2013
R. Martin and the nonstop adventure of Robert E. Howard, and you will have some idea of the thrills awaiting you in "The War of the Moonstone," a tale of love, bloodlust and tragedy set in a land on the brink of destruction. Black times have come to Felgrad. Once one of the jewels of the Crescent, now the dark powers have turned their gaze upon it, and Giorn Wesrain, son of the baron of Fiarth, has become inextricably drawn into the machinations of the Dark One, along with his beloved Niara, High Priestess of Illiana. They have loved each other in secret for years, but that love will be tested as the armies of the Dark One strive against Felgrad. Worse, one of their own, Raugst, is in truth an agent of the enemy, and Raugst will soon bend the barony to his will. If Felgrad falls, so too will the rest of the Crescent, and then the Dark One will be unleashed upon the world. Only Giorn and Niara can stop him, but how can they when the legendary Moonstone, the great artifact of the Light that has kept the fell powers at bay for thousands of years, has been taken? As Giorn sets out into the waste lands after it, to either reclaim it or find out what the Dark One wants it for, enemy hordes swarm the mighty city of Thiersgald and Niara is trapped behind its walls . . . with Raugst. This is only the beginning of the adventure that awaits you in "The War of the Moonstone."
The Bones of Others
Vickie McKeehan - 2013
Not this one.Brutalized as a young girl by a vile sexual predator, Skye Cree is a survivor. Guided by the visions of her mystical spirit guide to the whereabouts of abducted girls, she uses her unique abilities to turn her horrifying past into a positive force for justice. Fighting the demons that have haunted her for years, she trusts only in herself—until she falls hard for a man for the first time in her life. Now, discovering her abductor is back with a vengeance, she becomes locked in a deadly race against time to stop the horrors of an evil human-trafficking ring that threatens to tear her world, and her newfound love apart.
Nightfall
L.H. Cosway - 2012
None of them, however, have anything on the handsome stranger who comes in one night and helps her fend off an armed robber. He looks the thief directly in the eye and without confrontation convinces him to turn around and walk out the door.Tegan has never seen anything like it, nor does she understand why he then lays those mesmerising eyes on her and tells her to forget they ever met. She shrugs it off as just another weird night shift encounter, until the following evening when her best friend produces free passes to a new club in the city. Tegan agrees to go and is pleasantly surprised by the tasteful, classy décor and oddly beautiful, intensely ethereal clientele. To her surprise, her mysterious stranger is sitting smack dab in the VIP section. What are the chances?!Tegan is struck by the coincidence of bumping into him again so soon, while he is furious that she remembers him when he insisted she forget their meeting. Tegan has no idea that she’s taken a misstep into a whole new world inhabited by vampires, slayers, dhampirs, witches and warlocks. All of whom display a wholly disconcerting interest in what makes her unique from the rest of the clueless humans who populate the city. On top of this, her handsome stranger keeps turning up at her work and seems intent on getting to know her a whole lot better.Nightfall is book one in L.H. Cosway’s Blood Magic Series. A previous, unedited version of this story was published under the title Tegan’s Blood.
Watchers of the Night
Matthew Keith - 2013
Paul is thrilled - at first - but the agency is under siege from within, and Paul soon finds himself the focal point in the battle for its control. “Watchers of the Night” is the first installment in the Watchers Series. Beware: It does end with a cliffhanger! Books in the Watchers Series: Watchers of the Night The Rise of Indicium The Fall of Astralis Dreampire