When Hart decides that’s not good enough for her, she takes on the high stakes world of no-holds-barred fighting. There's just one problem: women aren’t allowed in the ring. Hair cut short and dressed in her father’s old clothes, Hart ventures into the Alley and the world of arena fighting. There she meets Ruby, the daughter of the Arena owner and a brilliant fighter in her own right. When she offers Hart the chance for friendship, Hart cannot resist.But Ruby thinks Hart is a man, and as she and Ruby grow closer, it gets harder and harder to maintain the façade …

    The skilled, young botanist rarely leaves her living quarters, where she maintains an elaborate garden. When an imperious older woman is captured from a pirate ship and given to her as a slave, Ariana’s perfectly ordered life is thrown into chaos. Her nameless slave is watchful, intelligent, dangerous, and sexy, and seems to know an awful lot about tactics, star charts, and the dread, marauding pirate queen, Mir. What happens when the slave also reveals an expertise in seduction to her innocent mistress?The Lily and the Crown is a lesbian romance about daring to risk your heart with someone you shouldn’t.87,000 words

    As war erupts and their families are torn apart, they fear they may disappear into the unwritten pages of history. Using the sword and the pen, the body and the voice, they struggle not just to survive, but to make history.Sofia Samatar is the author of the Crawford, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy award-winning novel A Stranger in Olondria. She also received the John W. Campbell Award. She has written for the Guardian, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and many other publications. She lives in California. Her website is sofiasamatar.com.Praise for A Stranger in Olondria:"A book about the love of books. Her sentences are intoxicating and one can easily be lost in their intricacy. . . . Samatar's beautifully written book is one that will be treasured by book lovers everywhere."— Raul M. Chapa, BookPeople, Austin, Texas

    It is not for the faint of heart—no more so than the study of dragons itself. But such study offers rewards beyond compare: to stand in a dragon's presence, even for the briefest of moments—even at the risk of one's life—is a delight that, once experienced, can never be forgotten. . . .All the world, from Scirland to the farthest reaches of Eriga, know Isabella, Lady Trent, to be the world's preeminent dragon naturalist. She is the remarkable woman who brought the study of dragons out of the misty shadows of myth and misunderstanding into the clear light of modern science. But before she became the illustrious figure we know today, there was a bookish young woman whose passion for learning, natural history, and, yes, dragons defied the stifling conventions of her day.Here at last, in her own words, is the true story of a pioneering spirit who risked her reputation, her prospects, and her fragile flesh and bone to satisfy her scientific curiosity; of how she sought true love and happiness despite her lamentable eccentricities; and of her thrilling expedition to the perilous mountains of Vystrana, where she made the first of many historic discoveries that would change the world forever.

    And the only people who can help are the mercenaries who think she screwed them over.In an apathetic society devoid of ethics or regulation, where fusing tech and flesh can mean a killing edge or a killer conversion, a massive conspiracy is unfolding that will alter the course of the human condition forever. With corporate meatheads on her ass and a necro-tech blight between her and salvation, Riko is going to have to fight meaner, work smarter, and push harder than she’s ever had to. And that’s just to make it through the day.File Under: Science Fiction [ Viral Hitman | Renegade | Nano Shock | Swear On Your Life ]

    Until the day she hears something. A song, an unfamiliar one that moves her in a way she cannot understand or explain. Judy Paige was also an ordinary woman, who lived an ordinary life, up until the day she sang a song at a concert in the year 1964. When Karen's curiosity about the song she heard turns into an obsession about the woman who sang it, she's drawn to the town of Leyfant, Texas. The town Judy Paige was born and raised in, and it's there that Karen is approached by a man who calls himself Mr. Smith. A man who asks Karen a simple question. "Would you like to meet her?" The question is simple, but the answer is not. Because Judy Paige has been dead for almost twenty years.

    Her husband Lucas vanishes until she spots him one night. The Company wiped his memory, sent him to kill her, but he cannot. Yet if he does not, someone will — and kill him.

    She will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice. On the day of her foretold death, however, a powerful mage offers her a new fate.Csorwe leaves her home, her destiny, and her god to become the wizard's loyal sword-hand -- stealing, spying, and killing to help him reclaim his seat of power in the homeland from which he was exiled.But Csorwe and the wizard will soon learn – gods remember, and if you live long enough, all debts come due.

    These are not the characters you think they are. This is not the book you are expecting.In an alternate 1880s London, angels inhabit every public building, and vampires and werewolves walk the streets with human beings under a well-regulated truce. A fantastic utopia, except for a few things: Angels can Fall, and that Fall is like a nuclear bomb in both the physical and metaphysical worlds. And human beings remain human, with all their kindness and greed and passions and murderous intent.Jack the Ripper stalks the streets of this London too. But this London has an Angel. The Angel of the Crows.

    It combines Part 1: Her Ladyship's Curse and Part 2: His Lordship Possessed into one volume.In the Provincial Union of Victoriana, a steampunk America that lost the Revolutionary War, Charmian “Kit” Kittredge makes her living investigating crimes of magic. While Kit tries to avoid the nobs of high society, she follows mysteries wherever they lead.Unlike most folks, Kit doesn’t believe in magic, but she can’t refuse to help Lady Diana Walsh, who claims a curse is viciously wounding her while she sleeps. As Kit investigates the Walsh family, she becomes convinced that the attacks are part of a more ominous plot—one that may involve the lady’s obnoxious husband.Sleuthing in the city of Rumsen is difficult enough, but soon Kit must also skirt the unwanted attentions of a nefarious deathmage and the unwelcome scrutiny of the police chief inspector. Unwilling to surrender to either man’s passion for her, Kit struggles to remain independent as she draws closer to the heart of the mystery. For the truth promises to ruin her life—and turn Rumsen into a supernatural battleground from which no one will escape alive.

    With her career and her life at stake, June Stefanov will ally with a remarkable traveler who exposes her to a reality she never imagined, as they embark on an around-the-world adventure and discover breathtaking secrets of the past...Russia, 1725: In the depths of the Kremlin, the tsar's loyal mechanician brings to life two astonishingly humanlike mechanical beings. Peter and Elena are a brother and sister fallen out of time, possessed with uncanny power, and destined to serve great empires. Struggling to blend into pre-Victorian society, they are pulled into a legendary war that has raged for centuries.The Clockwork Dynasty interweaves past and present, exploring a race of beings designed to live by ironclad principles, yet constantly searching for meaning. As June plunges deeper into their world, her choices will ultimately determine their survival or extermination.

    And sometimes there isn't.Summer, 1993. Claire has been dumped in rural Indianola, Texas, to spend her whole vacation taking care of mean, sickly Grammy. There's nothing too remarkable about Indianola: it's run-down, shabby, and stifling hot, a pin-dot on the Gulf Coast.Well, there is one remarkable thing, she discovers. Something otherworldly.But if you leave Indianola, you forget about it... and if you stay, you have to live with it every day.Because there's a confluence of energies at Indianola, a fissure in time and space, a gap in reality. Nothing is as it seems. And unless Claire can figure out this town--the talkative lizards under the pecan trees; the honey-sweet but terrifying girl next door; the cute daughter of a powerful family, who would answer Claire's questions if she had any answers; the pervasive sense of history coming unspooled, like a video tape--she might never leave.

    Two women. One galaxy. As a decorated Space Ranger in the 8th Galaxy, Captain Natalie (Nat) Reynolds has an exciting, albeit lonely, life. Yet, when Nat answers a distress call from a craft in trouble on a nearby planet, it has the possibility of changing the trajectory of her life forever. Catherine Porter is down on her luck in the worst way. Evicted, almost penniless, she worries all hope is lost until a charismatic stranger flies into her life. Inexplicably drawn to the one woman who can possibly save her, Catherine must face feelings she never considered. Will their stars align and lead them to a happily ever after? Or will their differences tear their hearts apart? If you like a story with romance and adventure, mixed with conflict and heroism, then you will love KC Luck’s page-turning new book. Note: This is a full-length, stand-alone novel with a science fiction theme, but is significantly more focused on strong female characters in a loving lesbian relationship.

    Download a FREE sneak peek today!To possess the Mandate of Heaven, the female monk Zhu will do anything“I refuse to be nothing…”In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness…In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother's identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu takes the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother's abandoned greatness.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    Here you'll meet inventors, diamond thieves, lonely pawn brokers, clockwork empresses, brilliant asylum inmates, and privateers in the service of San Francisco's eccentric empire. Though they hail from across the globe and universes far away, each character is driven to follow her own path to independence and to romance. The women of Steam-Powered push steampunk to its limits and beyond.