Once he gets over his shock, Sobran decides that Xas, the male angel, is his guardian sent to counsel him on everything from marriage to wine production. But Xas turns out to be a far more mysterious character. Compelling and erotic, The Vintner's Luck explores a decidedly unorthodox love story as Sobran eventually comes to love and be loved by both Xas and the young Countess de Valday, his friend and employer at the neighboring chateau.

    Born with the rare ability to tap into unlimited magick, he finds both Faerie Courts want his allegiance—and will do anything to get it.They don’t realize he can’t levitate a feather, much less defend the Faerie Realm as it slips into civil war.Unseelie Prince Roark Lyne, Phineas’s roommate—and self-proclaimed arch nemesis—is beautiful and brave and a pain in the ass. Phineas can’t begin to sort through their six years of sexual tension masquerading as mutual dislike. But Roark is also the only one able to help Finn tame his magick.Trusting Roark’s mysterious motives may be foolish; not accepting his temporary protection would be deadly.Caught in the middle of the impending war, Phineas and Roark forge a dangerous alliance. And as the walls between them crumble, Phineas realizes that Roark isn’t the monster he’d imagined. But their growing intimacy threatens to expose a secret that could either turn the tide of the war…or destroy them both.

    Though he struggles to escape, John is drawn steadily closer to a fate he shares with Kyle—to wake the destroyer god, the Rifter, and shatter a world.

    Norrell in debut author Freya Marske’s A Marvellous Light, featuring an Edwardian England full of magic, contracts, and conspiracies. Robin Blyth has more than enough bother in his life. He’s struggling to be a good older brother, a responsible employer, and the harried baronet of a seat gutted by his late parents’ excesses. When an administrative mistake sees him named the civil service liaison to a hidden magical society, he discovers what’s been operating beneath the unextraordinary reality he’s always known.Now Robin must contend with the beauty and danger of magic, an excruciating deadly curse, and the alarming visions of the future that come with it—not to mention Edwin Courcey, his cold and prickly counterpart in the magical bureaucracy, who clearly wishes Robin were anyone and anywhere else.Robin’s predecessor has disappeared, and the mystery of what happened to him reveals unsettling truths about the very oldest stories they’ve been told about the land they live on and what binds it. Thrown together and facing unexpected dangers, Robin and Edwin discover a plot that threatens every magician in the British Isles—and a secret that more than one person has already died to keep.

    But ever since a disastrous mission, they have been living separate lives in a universe dominated by a ruthless Coalition - one that is about to reunite them.The pair are dispatched to New Amazonia as diplomatic agents. Allegedly, they are to return priceless art. Covertly, they seek to tap its energy supply. But in reality, one has his mind set on treason. And among the extraordinary women of New Amazonia, in a season of festival, betrayal, and disguise, he will find a new ally - and a force beyond any that humans have known....

    His ability to control technology attracts the attention of the minister of defense and thrusts him into the magical elite of the nation of Carolinia.The son of undocumented immigrants, Noam has spent his life fighting for the rights of refugees fleeing magical outbreaks—refugees Carolinia routinely deports with vicious efficiency. Sensing a way to make change, Noam accepts the minister’s offer to teach him the science behind his magic, secretly planning to use it against the government. But then he meets the minister’s son—cruel, dangerous, and achingly beautiful—and the way forward becomes less clear.Caught between his purpose and his heart, Noam must decide who he can trust and how far he’s willing to go in pursuit of the greater good.

    There are only better guys and worse guys.One of the worse guys is Val Toreth. In a world in which torture is a legitimate part of the investigative process, he works for the Investigation and Interrogation Division, where his colleagues can be more dangerous than the criminals he investigates.One of the better guys is Keir Warrick. His small corporation, SimTech, is developing a "sim" system that places users in a fully immersive virtual reality. A minnow in a murky and dangerous pond, he is only beginning to discover how many compromises may be required for success.Their home is the dark future dystopia of New London. A totalitarian bureaucracy controls the European Administration, sharing political power with the corporations. The government uses violence and the many divisions of the feared Department of Internal Security to maintain control and crush resistance. The corporations fight among themselves, using lethal force under the euphemism of "corporate sabotage," uniting only to resist attempts by the Administration to extend its influence over them.Toreth and Warrick are more natural enemies than allies. But mutual attraction and the fight for survival can create unlikely bonds.

    Their members are caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity. And those who earn a place among their number will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams. Each decade, the world’s six most uniquely talented magicians are selected for initiation – and here are the chosen few...- Libby Rhodes and Nicolás Ferrer de Varona: inseparable enemies, cosmologists who can control matter with their minds.- Reina Mori: a naturalist who can speak the language of life itself.- Parisa Kamali: a mind reader whose powers of seduction are unmatched.- Tristan Caine: the son of a crime kingpin who can see the secrets of the universe.- Callum Nova: an insanely rich pretty boy who could bring about the end of the world. He need only ask.When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they must spend one year together to qualify for initiation. During this time, they will be permitted access to the Society’s archives and judged on their contributions to arcane areas of knowledge. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. If they can prove themselves to be the best, they will survive. Most of them.

    Not some slight, beautiful nobody of a harper who pushes him up against a wall and kisses him.In the aftermath, Wulfstan isn’t sure what he regrets most—that he only punched the churl in the face, or that he really wanted to give in.Leofgar is determined to prove he’s as much of a man as any Saxon. But now he’s got a bigger problem than a bloody nose. The lord who’s given him shelter from the killing cold is eyeing him like a wolf eyes a wounded hare.When Wulfstan accidentally kills a friend who is about to blurt his secret, he flees in panic and meets Leofgar, who is on the run from his lord’s lust. Together, pursued by a mother’s curse, they battle guilt, outlaws, and the powers of the underworld, armed only with music…and love that must overcome murderous shame to survive.Warning: Contains accurate depictions of Vikings, Dark Ages magic, kickass musicians, trope subversions and men who don’t know their place.

    Defying the new.The making of a legend—and a truly innovative re-imagining of Robin Hood. Rob of Loxley and his older sister Marion have been groomed from birth to take their parents’ places within the Old Religion. Despite this, when Rob finds an injured nobleman’s son in the forest, neither he nor Marion understand what befriending young Gamelyn could mean for the future of their beliefs. Already the ancient spirits are fading beneath the iron of nobleman’s politics and the stones of Church subjugation. More, the druid elders warn that Rob and Gamelyn are cast as sworn adversaries, locked in timeless and symbolic struggle for the greenwood’s Maiden. Instead, in a theological twist only a stroppy dissident could envision, Rob swears he’ll defend the sacred woodland of the Horned God and Lady Huntress to his last breath—if his god will let him be lover, not rival, to the one fated as his enemy.But in the eyes of Gamelyn’s Church, sodomy is unthinkable... and the old pagan magics are an evil that must be vanquished. ------ With a truly original take on the Robin Hood legends, this historical fantasy series sets Robin the outlaw archer as a queer, chaotic-neutral druid; Marion as pagan queen who is sister but not wife, and their consort a Christian--and thusly conflicted--nobleman.

    The realm of myths and magic is growing increasingly unstable, and it is up to Bridger to ascertain the cause of the chaos, eliminate the problem, and help his boss keep the real world from finding the world of myths.

    But the power of an Adept was always bound to a Secret, and whoever discovered this sorcerer's Secret could steal away the Blue Star power, leaving the Adept defenseless, fit only for death.And Lythande's secret was perhaps the most dangerous of all, setting the mage apart from all humanity, forcing Lythande to war against spell beast, sorcerer, thief, swordsman, and the magic of the gods themselves.…As an added bonus, Lythande includes a special guest appearance by Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Vonda N. McIntyre.Contents:The Secret of the Blue Star • (1979) • novelette by Marion Zimmer BradleyThe Incompetent Magician • (1983) • novelette by Marion Zimmer BradleySomebody Else's Magic • (1984) • novelette by Marion Zimmer BradleySea Wrack • (1985) • novelette by Marion Zimmer BradleyThe Wandering Lute • (1986) • novelette by Marion Zimmer BradleyLooking for Satan • (1981) • novella by Vonda N. McIntyre

    Now once-human monsters called Howls prowl abandoned streets, their hunger guided by corrupt necromancers and the all-powerful Kin. Only Hunters have the power to fight back in the unending war, using the same magic that ended civilization in the first place.But they are losing.Tenn is a Hunter, resigned to fight even though hope is nearly lost. When he is singled out by a seductive Kin named Tomás and the enigmatic Hunter Jarrett, Tenn realizes he's become a pawn in a bigger game. One that could turn the tides of war. But if his mutinous magic and wayward heart get in the way, his power might not be used in favor of mankind.If Tenn fails to play his part, it could cost him his friends, his life…and the entire world.

     A noted scholar of ancient literature and spellcraft, Lord Ashcroft "Andrea" de Bourbon, finds his world shaken when the new science of mechanical animation becomes the talk of high society. In response, Andrea takes to the presses gaining notoriety for his scathing critiques of mechanical animation and its founder the Marquis de la Marche. Then one night Andrea comes face to face with the Marquis de la Marche and discovers he is nothing like Andrea expected. Leon Gregory de la Marche VI, Marquis de la Marche is handsome, brilliant, and charming. While their clashes on paper have become legendary in person they are even more explosive. As passions rise Andrea knows there is no backing down ...

    Thara Celehar found the truth, though it did him no good to discover it. He lost his place as a retainer of his cousin the former Empress, and made far too many enemies among the many factions vying for power in the new Court. The favor of the Emperor is a dangerous coin.Now Celehar lives in the city of Amalo, far from the Court though not exactly in exile. He has not escaped from politics, but his position gives him the ability to serve the common people of the city, which is his preference. He lives modestly, but his decency and fundamental honestly will not permit him to live quietly. As a Witness for the Dead, he can, sometimes, speak to the recently dead: see the last thing they saw, know the last thought they had, experience the last thing they felt. It is his duty use that ability to resolve disputes, to ascertain the intent of the dead, to find the killers of the murdered.Now Celehar’s skills lead him out of the quiet and into a morass of treachery, murder, and injustice. No matter his own background with the imperial house, Celehar will stand with the commoners, and possibly find a light in the darkness.Katherine Addison has created a fantastic world for these books – wide and deep and true.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.