It's 1588, the height of the Reformation, and a killer is terrorizing the German countryside. There are reports that the legendary Werewolf of Bedburg has returned to a once-peaceful land. Heinrich Franz, a cold and calculating investigator, is tasked with finding whomever -- or whatever -- the killer might be. He'll need all the help he can get, including that of a strange hunter who's recently stumbled into town. Though they're after the same thing, their reasons are worlds apart. And through it all, a priest tries to keep the peace among his frightened townsfolk, while a young woman threatens his most basic beliefs.

    But legends sometimes forget the true history of things and Claire’s eyes are soon opened to a world she never knew. One that has been kept from her for most of her life. All Claire wants to do is return home and start looking for her mother, the only family she ever had. But the elves have different plans. The mysterious mark that appeared on her arm isn’t a curse, at least not to them anyway, and before she knows it, she is whisked away on a mission she never agreed to, unless they help her in return.Now she is stuck on an adventure with the perverted elf, Aeron, and one with an attitude, Farron. But there is more to this adventure than she’d ever hoped for.

    But beneath her empire’s seemingly idyllic surface lies a hidden secret. Whispers of an inept crown Prince are growing ever louder—intensified by the five year anniversary of the soulbond initiations.Amidst scandalous whispers, Ciardis finds herself chosen to train for the Companion’s Guild. She leaves her home and sets off on a personal journey to become a Court Companion. A position she’d never thought possible for a lowly servant to obtain, she must prove that she has the skills to attract a Patron. But she must master those skills quickly. If the legends are true, only Ciardis can harness the power to raise a Prince in an Imperial Court sworn to bring him down.This sensational series debut melds intricate storylines with remarkable characters and unforgettable magic. Sworn To Raise is ideal for fans of Kristin Cashore, Michelle Sagara, and Maria Snyder.

    At least, that's what her cards tell her and they've never been wrong. She's evicted from her apartment, loses her job and is banned from Beverly Hills. So when the tarot cards predict her imminent demise, she uses a little magic to make her world right.Suddenly, an aunt she's never met dies, leaving Mara as her sole heir. But when Mara moves into her inherited home, she discovers Aunt Tillie never moved out. She's still one pissed-off old lady, even post-mortem, and she blames Mara's magical meddling for her death.When Mara accidentally releases a demon and awakens the spirit of the most powerful witch in history, Tillie's ready to kill her -- literally. It's the only way she can think of to save the girl from herself. The witch and the demon, however, have other plans for Mara's body.

    Her dad's a demon. And she just wants to be ordinary. Sydlynn Hayle's life couldn't be more complicated. Trying to please her coven, starting over in a new town, and fending off a bully cheerleader who hates her are just the beginning of her troubles. What to do when delicious football hero Brad Peters--boyfriend of her cheer nemesis--shows interest? If only the darkly yummy witch, Quaid Moromond, didn't make it so difficult for her to focus on fitting in with the normal kids. Add to that her crazy grandmother's constant escapes driving her family to the brink and Syd's between a rock and a coven site. Forced to take on power she doesn't want to protect a coven who blames her for everything, only she can save her family's magic. If her family's distrust doesn't destroy her first."A great, inventive plot, a deeply flawed, self-deprecating, heroine . . . What more could you want?" -- Amazon reviewer Hobbitual.Don't miss the exciting sequels in the Hayle Coven Novels: Witch Hunt Demon Child The Wild The Long Lost Gatekeeper Flesh and Blood Full Circle Divided Heart First Plane Light and Shadow Queen of Darkness Dark Promise Unseelie Ties Ancient Ways The Undying Shifting Loyalties Enforcer Coven Leader The Last Call"

    The newest hero is Alice Goodenough, an 18-year-old junior from Washington High School. While her friends spent their summer working and having fun, Alice found herself doing battle with creatures most human beings don't even realize exist. A giant snake. A blood-sucking prince. A terrifying half-man, half-hedgehog. Dastardly dwarfs intent on mind-controlling everyonewho uses a cell phone.Now, senior year has begun. With it comes a new challenge at school, where bullies have grown bolder and classes more challenging. As if that's not enough, Alice must face off against a collection of Corrupted who all share a terrible secret, one that might awaken a creature capable of doing untold damage. To uncover the secret, Alice will have to face off against a man-eating lizard, a bloodthirsty sea captain, and a mysterious wizard who can see into the future ...This book contains the following episodes:Episode Four: The Orphanage of DoomAfter facing off with the dreaded dwarf named Sam Grayle, Alice finds her dreams plagued by two separate visions. In one, she's floating through a massive mansion filled with old, dusty furniture and drafty windows. Shadows dance across the wall. Children cry out in terror. A mysterious animal growl echoes through the halls.In her second dream, a terrible smoke-like creature roams the streets of Minneapolis, feeding off human victims while it plots a terrible revenge that threatens to have far-reaching consequences. Alice must decide which dream to pursue: does she foil the smoke-creature's plot or try to rescue the children from an unseen evil?Episode five: Blood and ThunderUpon making a surprising discovery in a Corrupted's lair, Alice finds herself torn between her responsibilities as the hero and her desire to live a normal life. She's been granted a unique opportunity to leave the entire world of the hero behind. But before she can make her ultimatechoice, her nightmares return ...A ship is coming. And aboard that ship is one of the most terrifying Corrupted creatures Alice has faced yet. In order to face her foe, Alice will have to do without the help of her scorned friend, Br'er Rabbit.At school, a miraculous recovery by the star of the baseball team prompts more questions, all of them bringing Alice back to that fateful encounter at the orphanage of doom. To make matters worse, a school bully has taken his terrorizing too far, a friend is in trouble, and the mysterious ship in Alice's nightmare holds a terrible secret ...Episode six: The Order of the Golden DragonThree mysterious golden coins. What is their purpose? Alice must find out, and in order to do so, she will need to use all of the skills she's learned so far. She cannot fail. Failure means a fate worse than death.Agnim the Mage haunts her dreams, using his terrible black magic to plague Alice with nightmares. Once a character in the Grimms' fairy tales, his magical powers have grown stronger and stronger the more Corrupted he has become. He has foreseen a cataclysmic event that could mean the end of the world, and only the hero stands in his way. But in order to stop him, Alice will have to find him. And soon. Before Agnim steals her sanity and destroys her mind.Agnim knows her weakness. He knows her fears. He controls her dreams. He is the most dangerous Corrupted Alice has ever faced. There is no guarantee she can defeat him.In these trying times, only one thing is certain:The Golden Dragon will awaken.Bonus material:The Lost Journal of Eugene WashingtonAssorted fairy tales by the Brothers GrimmA Legacy of Red

    It's a nice, tidy way to find a reasonable mate for almost everyone. Unfortunately, Tasmin is from the North, a place of magic and strange ritual, and William is from the South, where people pride themselves on being above the kind of insanity practiced by the Northerners, which has nothing to do with the fact that most people in the South have lost their ability to practice magic.William doesn't seem in a hurry to send for Tasmin, for which none of his family blame him. After all, she's a barbarian. She, on the other hand, would like to know what's keeping him. When he's framed for murdering his patron, Tasmin takes matters into her own hands, harnessing the wind to bring her to William's side. She's gotten to know Wiliam from his letters. He's not a murderer and she's going to help him prove it. William, incarcerated for a crime he didn't commit is shunned by his family for the embarrassment, and for giving up the family shipping business for foolishness, and for saddling them with a Hag for a wife, which means he can't protect Tasmin from his family's cold dislike of his barbiaran wife-to-be - but that's not the worst of it. Someone out there doesn't like him and is begining to dislike Tasmin almost as much, and that someone isn't at all averse to making sure William and Tasmin aren't around long enough to celebrate their wedding.Tasmin, of course, has other plans.

    In every culture, in every age, in every place and, probably, in every heart, there is magic. This non-fiction short-form eBook features content which is adapted from the audiobook Harry Potter: A History of Magic – inspired by the British Library exhibition of the same name.How to become invisible, to make someone fall in love with you, to transform into another creature: these are all things that people have believed in, yearned for, or feared, throughout history. Spells and charms have captured the imagination for hundreds of years. Warding off evil is also something that has concerned people throughout history. From werewolves to all manner of snakes in the wizarding world, you’d learn how to face a number of strange and frightening forces in Defence Against the Dark Arts classes. This eBook short examines the colourful characters and curious incidents of the real history of magic, and how they relate to the Hogwarts lesson subjects of Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts from the Harry Potter stories.

    A very dark secret.An archivist for the Smithsonian Institute and also a part-time operative for the CIA, no one would ever suspect the handsome ‘thirty-ish’ William is in fact the most reviled human being to ever walk the earth. His infectious warmth and sense of humor make such an assertion especially hard to believe.But long ago, William Barrow had another name…one that is synonymous with shame and betrayal: Judas Iscariot.Forced to walk the earth as a cursed immortal, William/Judas is on a quest to reclaim the thirty silver shekels paid to him in exchange for Jesus Christ. Twenty-one coins have now been recovered—thanks in large part to the help from his latest son, the esteemed Georgetown University history professor, Alistair Barrow.Ever hopeful the complete coin collection will buy him a full pardon from God and end his banishment from heaven, William plans a visit to a remote village deep within Iran’s Alborz Mountains to retrieve ‘silver coin number twenty-two’. But the CIA has a different objective for this trip, one that pits both father and son against an unscrupulous Russian billionaire searching for something else that’s just as precious within the ancient mountains of Iran… something that threatens peace in the modern world if William and Alistair fail to reach it first.

    The problem was, he didn't stay that way. Present day, he's just another vampire with another unremarkable story. That is, until he manages to provoke a two thousand year old witch named Katrin, who wants to make him pay in the most horrible way imagined.Along with his brother Sam, newly made vampire Liz and their only witch ally, Gabby, his only chance for survival is to summon the ancient and unpredictable vampire known as the Witch Hunter.Zac is just looking for a way out of his psychopathic witch problems, but instead will find himself falling head first into a blood feud that has stretched thousands of years.Aya has been asleep for the past 150 years, until she was awoken by a haunting call. The witch she has been hunting for thousands of years, Katrin, has resurfaced and marked a young, annoyingly arrogant vampire by the name of Zachary Degaud. Unless she does something, he will die a slow and painful death. He has given her an opportunity to end the witch, but does she want to help him or leave him to his fate? Zac will get under her skin like no one else has and she just might find herself making the ultimate sacrifice before he is gone forever.They will both have to choose sides and look deep within themselves before the end. But, what Zac learns about himself, will surprise him most of all.

    Raised to hate each other, their teenagers meet in the Solstice Stones, a magical battleground where they draw energy from each other to maintain their balance. 16 year olds Logan and Lily have spent years training for their first Stones…only to discover just days before that the enemy may not be what either of them had thought.In Witch’s Brew, Lily is torn between her feelings for Logan and her coven’s need to know who—or what—he is. The young lovers race against time, their distrust for each other, and the powerful influence of their elders to unravel the mystery of their pasts before their future is destroyed. This is an Active Fiction title"Active fiction" is a new type of e-reading experience that allows the reader and the author to interact with each other and the text in new and different ways.In Witch’s Brew, Lily and Logan's fate is already decided, but Heidi explores several different possible pathways for how they get there. She shares scenes that wouldn’t normally fit in a book format and gives readers more precious moments between the two young lovers. As the series progresses, you'll see some normal narrative forms, interspersed with smaller scenes, alternate points of view, and a lot of "what if" scenarios.

    She intends to renovate the ruinous house into a hotel, but the shocking discovery of human remains brings her ambitious restoration plans to an abrupt halt before they even begin. Few physical clues are left to identify the body, but one thing is certain: this person did not die a natural death.Hungry for answers, Hetty discovers that Muirlan was once the refuge of her distant relative Theo Blake, the acclaimed painter and naturalist who brought his new bride, Beatrice, there in 1910. Yet ancient gossip and a handful of leads reveal that their marriage was far from perfect; Beatrice eventually vanished from the island, never to return, and Theo withdrew from society, his paintings becoming increasingly dark and disturbing.What happened between them has remained a mystery, but as Hetty listens to the locals and studies the masterful paintings produced by Theo during his short-lived marriage, she uncovers secrets that still reverberate through the small island community—and will lead her to the identity of the long-hidden body.

    Handsome Will Baker offers help and secrecy, but soon Sam will have to choose between keeping her secrets and keeping Will in her life. Suspenseful and romantic, Rippler and its sequels capture the collision of the beautiful with the dark.Two further sequels form a complete trilogy. Four additional books in series for those who fall in love with the Ripple world and want even more!RIPPLER is the free first book in a teen and young adult paranormal fantasy series set in a contemporary world where invisibility has long been a well kept secret. It combines the heart pounding action of a thriller with a touch of clean romance and a science fiction twist.

    The year is 1880. Two hundred years after the trials in Salem, Adelaide Thom ('Moth' from The Virgin Cure) has left her life in the sideshow to open a tea shop with another young woman who feels it's finally safe enough to describe herself as a witch: a former medical student and "gardien de sorts" (keeper of spells), Eleanor St. Clair. Together they cater to Manhattan's high society ladies, specializing in cures, palmistry and potions--and in guarding the secrets of their clients. All is well until one bright September afternoon, when an enchanting young woman named Beatrice Dunn arrives at their door seeking employment. Beatrice soon becomes indispensable as Eleanor's apprentice, but her new life with the witches is marred by strange occurrences. She sees things no one else can see. She hears voices no one else can hear. Objects appear out of thin air, as if gifts from the dead. Has she been touched by magic or is she simply losing her mind? Eleanor wants to tread lightly and respect the magic manifest in the girl, but Adelaide sees a business opportunity. Working with Dr. Quinn Brody, a talented alienist, she submits Beatrice to a series of tests to see if she truly can talk to spirits. Amidst the witches' tug-of-war over what's best for her, Beatrice disappears, leaving them to wonder whether it was by choice or by force. As Adelaide and Eleanor begin the desperate search for Beatrice, they're confronted by accusations and spectres from their own pasts. In a time when women were corseted, confined and committed for merely speaking their minds, were any of them safe?

     When Kara Magari uncovers an ancient book of dark and deadly magic, she realizes she’s the only one who can read its enchanted pages… and overnight, she becomes the most coveted magical creature in not just one, but two worlds. Now hunted by every living creature under the sun, she discovers a new world full of beautiful and terrifying things: Ourea. Out here, everyone wants something from her, and there’s no one she can trust. Kings and queens are drawn to her, assassins and demons seek her out, but it’s the charming soldier with a protective streak and a dark secret that may just be her undoing. Before this is over, Kara will have to make the ultimate choice… either she surrenders to this dangerous book of magic, heart and soul, or it will be the death of her. Welcome to Ourea, where only the cunning survive. Buckle in & experience the beginning of a timeless epic fantasy adventure with this first installment of the Grimoire Saga. If you enjoy Lord of the Rings, The Wheel of Time, or Eragon, you’ll love this breathtaking epic fantasy adventure with a modern twist and a slow burn romance. NEW 5th EDITION with never-before-read scenes and chapters from your favorite bad guys. Completely re-edited and revised for a smoother, more vivid reading experience. Want more? Read the full series… Book 1: Lichgates Book 2: Treason Book 3: Heritage Book 4: Illusion Book 5: The First Vagabond: Rise of a Hero Book 6: The Misanthrope Warning: this story contains adventure, action, and mild cussing.