Truly alone in the world, Brett agrees to help colonize the newly discovered planet, Verita. Now Brett's on a strange new world. She quickly makes friends and starts her assigned job. Verita begins to feel like home, but it's far from perfect. Brett has an overwhelming attraction to Brody, despite the fact that he's entirely not her type. Her colleague, Ryan, utterly hates her for reasons out of her control. And there are creatures in the forest that would like nothing more than to devour everyone for dinner.Brett's heart and mind are at odds each other. She's constantly fighting with Ryan. So, concentrating on her job is becoming more and more difficult. Plus it's hard to ignore some of the strange things that have been happening around her. But, when Brett finds herself stranded in the wilderness, the only thing that matters is survival.

    Rowling or secretly want to be Harry Dresden, Jinx Hamilton may be the witch for you. She's new to magic, with one option: learn fast. For the first time in a single ebook collection, enter the world of Briar Hollow, North Carolina, with the first six books of The Jinx Hamilton Mysteries. Set in a fictional town near the Blue Ridge Mountains, Jinx, a former waitress, inherits a store -- and more -- from her eccentric Aunt Fiona. The series begins with a sweet “cozy” note in the first novel Witch at Heart, but evolves into a full-blown paranormal urban fantasy. From shapeshifting werecats and ancient Fae to baseball playing ghosts and paramilitary fairy troops, the Jinx Hamilton books have it all. Listen to what readers have to say about Jinx and her world: “Absolutely terrific! The characters are great, the story is griping and you never want to end.” “The Jinx Hamilton Mysteries, are full of surprise, fantasy, and feeling.” “From the first book, right on through, you feel like you can become friends with each character.” “Plot twists and new characters keep her work fresh and exciting. Lots of humor and romance. Love the series. Want MORE!!!!” “The story has progressed -- we have a full bodied urban fantasy with a well thought out world, well developed characters of all descriptions, and a great and complex story line.” “Great storyline and dialogue, lots of action and drama. The author has great imagination and insight into human behavior.” If you’re ready for magic, adventure, humor, family, and friendship, come with us to Briar Hollow and beyond in this special boxed ebook collection!

    Instead of admiring them and their riders, he’s busy doing whatever he can to make sure his siblings have enough to eat. But after getting caught helping a friend commit an act of petty theft, Tyber is given a choice between imprisonment or entering the King’s Royal Academy of Dragon Riders. New recruits are desperately needed in the face of an escalating war, and King Cadwaller is offering a bonus to any family that enrolls its young adult sons. Even larger bonuses await those who go on to become Royal Hordesmen. It sounds like a golden opportunity for Tyber and his family. But can he endure the trials of the academy and overcome his distaste for serving the king he blames for his family’s poverty? Neither task, however, will be as difficult as winning the loyalty of a young dragon named Rius and accepting the wisdom of dragons. Dragon’s-Eye View is the first novella in a quick-paced serial spin-off set in The Dragoneer universe. Shorter reads for today’s fast-paced life, each book advances Tyber’s adventures with his dragon Rius in this dragon rider fantasy appropriate for most ages.

    Instead, they are taught to persuade. Here the art of coercion has been raised to a science. Students harness the hidden power of language to manipulate the mind and learn to break down individuals by psychographic markers in order to take control of their thoughts. The very best will graduate as "poets", adept wielders of language who belong to a nameless organization that is as influential as it is secretive.Whip-smart orphan Emily Ruff is making a living running a three-card Monte game on the streets of San Francisco when she attracts the attention of the organization's recruiters. She is flown across the country for the school's strange and rigorous entrance exams, where, once admitted, she will be taught the fundamentals of persuasion by Bronte, Eliot, and Lowell--who have adopted the names of famous poets to conceal their true identities. For in the organization, nothing is more dangerous than revealing who you are: Poets must never expose their feelings lest they be manipulated. Emily becomes the school's most talented prodigy until she makes a catastrophic mistake: She falls in love.Meanwhile, a seemingly innocent man named Wil Jamieson is brutally ambushed by two strange men in an airport bathroom. Although he has no recollection of anything they claim he's done, it turns out Wil is the key to a secret war between rival factions of poets and is quickly caught in their increasingly deadly crossfire. Pursued relentlessly by people with powers he can barely comprehend and protected by the very man who first attacked him, Wil discovers that everything he thought he knew about his past was fiction. In order to survive, must journey to the toxically decimated town of Broken Hill, Australia, to discover who he is and why an entire town was blown off the map.As the two narratives converge, the shocking work of the poets is fully revealed, the body count rises, and the world crashes toward a Tower of Babel event which would leave all language meaningless. A brilliant thriller that connects very modern questions of privacy, identity, and the rising obsession of data collection to centuries-old ideas about the power of language and coercion, Lexicon is Max Barry's most ambitious and spellbinding novel yet.

    When she gets word that government agents are coming for the remaining Christians, she’s ready to run. Or so she thought.Grace flees to the mountains with her aunt, intending to join a small group of Christians who would face imprisonment or death at home. But as troubles grow into conflicts, living with strangers in a survival crisis proves far more difficult than she’d imagined.The newest member of the group, Maxwell Flynn, finds himself both captivated and repelled by Grace. But he doesn’t have time to give her much thought – he’s focused on protecting his little brother, an unusual boy with a devotion to God… and a strong tendency toward accidents.Their daring escape is full of perils. Will the new group be captured or succumb to the wilderness? Can they find a way to carve out a tenuous existence in the dangerous new world?SAINTS is the first book in the suspense-filled, post-apocalyptic TRIBULATION series. Like all books by Jamie Lee Grey, this is a faith-based, clean read. Join the adventure today!

    Having no idea how many weeks have passed, she slowly realizes the horrifying truth: Ruthie has vanished.And with her, nearly all of civilization.Where once-lush hills carried cars and commerce, the roads today see only cannibalistic Beaters -- people turned hungry for human flesh by a government experiment gone wrong.In a broken, barren California, Cass will undergo a harrowing quest to get Ruthie back. Few people trust an outsider, let alone a woman who became a zombie and somehow turned back, but she finds help from an enigmatic outlaw, Smoke. Smoke is her savior, and her safety.For the Beaters are out there.And the humans grip at survival with their trigger fingers. Especially when they learn that she and Ruthie have become the most feared, and desired, of weapons in a brave new world….

    How? We don't know. But it changes everything: war, crime, daily life.Tony Valdez is a Dispatcher - a licensed, bonded professional whose job is to humanely dispatch those whose circumstances put them in death's crosshairs, so they can have a second chance to avoid the reaper. But when a fellow Dispatcher and former friend is apparently kidnapped, Tony learns that there are some things that are worse than death and that some people are ready to do almost anything to avenge a supposed wrong.It's a race against time for Valdez to find his friend before it's too late...before not even a Dispatcher can save him.___Zachary Quinto - best known for his role as the Nimoy-approved Spock in the recent Star Trek reboot and the menacing, power-stealing serial killer, Sylar, in Heroes - brings his well-earned sci-fi credentials and simmering intensity to this audio-exclusive novella from master storyteller John Scalzi.

    But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: a sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as “the radio people,” Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.For Holly has caught the attention of a cabal of dangerous mystics—and their enemies. But her lost weekend is merely the prelude to a shocking disappearance that leaves her family irrevocably scarred. This unsolved mystery will echo through every decade of Holly’s life, affecting all the people Holly loves—even the ones who are not yet born.A Cambridge scholarship boy grooming himself for wealth and influence, a conflicted father who feels alive only while reporting from occupied Iraq, a middle-aged writer mourning his exile from the bestseller list—all have a part to play in this surreal, invisible war on the margins of our world. From the medieval Swiss Alps to the nineteenth-century Australian bush, from a hotel in Shanghai to a Manhattan townhouse in the near future, their stories come together in moments of everyday grace and extraordinary wonder.

    But now, the sinister plans of Lord Mayor Mangus Crome can finally unfold.Thaddeus Valentine, London's Head Historian and adored famous archaeologist, and his lovely daughter, Katherine, are down in The Gut when the young assassin with the black scarf strikes toward his heart, saved by the quick intervention of Tom, a lowly third-class apprentice. Racing after the fleeing girl, Tom suddenly glimpses her hideous face: scarred from forehead to jaw, nose a smashed stump, a single eye glaring back at him. "Look at what your Valentine did to me!" she screams. "Ask him! Ask him what he did to Hester Shaw!" And with that she jumps down the waste chute to her death. Minutes later Tom finds himself tumbling down the same chute and stranded in the Out-Country, a sea of mud scored by the huge caterpillar tracks of cities like the one now steaming off over the horizon.In a stunning literary debut, Philip Reeve has created a painful dangerous unforgettable adventure story of surprises, set in a dark and utterly original world fueled by Municipal Darwinism -- and betrayal.

    They enslaved humanity not by force, but through an aggressive mind control that turned people into contented, unquestioning robots. Except sixteen-year-old Althea isn’t content at all, and she doesn’t need the mysterious note inside her locket to tell her she’s Something Else. It also warns her to trust no one, so she hides the pieces that make her different, even though it means being alone. Then she meets Lucas, everything changes. Althea and Lucas are immune to the alien mind control, and together they search for the reason why. What they uncover is a stunning truth the Others never anticipated, one with the potential to free the brainwashed human race. It’s not who they are that makes them special, but what.And what they are is a threat. One the Others are determined to eliminate for good.

    starts to feel like something isn't quite right. His most tried-and-true remedies--from beak-delivered beer to the slobbering affection of Big Jim's loyal but dim-witted dog, Dennis--fail to cure Big Jim's debilitating malady. S.T. is left with no choice but to abandon his old life and venture out into a wild and frightening new world with his trusty steed Dennis, where he discovers that the neighbors are devouring each other and the local wildlife is abuzz with rumors of dangerous new predators roaming Seattle. Humanity's extinction has seemingly arrived, and the only one determined to save it is a foul-mouthed crow whose knowledge of the world around him comes from his TV-watching education.Hollow Kingdom is a humorous, big-hearted, and boundlessly beautiful romp through the apocalypse and the world that comes after, where even a cowardly crow can become a hero.

    There, I was struck by an ancient power which invested me as the head witch of all supernatural creatures. By accident. Fun side note: the mantle was supposed to be granted to my crush, Fletcher, who... guess what... also happens to be a witch. Thanks to Macaroon, I really stepped in it this time. As freaked as I am, the coven is in a complete tizzy. Fearing a magical upheaval in the supernatural community, they warn that no one can learn of this catastrophic secret. But when I’m overcome by a devastating vision, I discover a far more sinister darkness closing in.  Partnering with the coven, can we find a way to transfer the magic to Fletcher? Or will the chaos of rebellion bring the supernatural community to its knees?  Fans of young adult fantasy that leave readers gasping for more will love The Accidental Witch by Gemma Perfect!

    A small bump in the ground next to her grave marks former police officer Robert’s last resting place.And in thirty years, no visitors for either of them.Confined within the cemetery borders and yearning for closure to move on, the two ghosts can’t go after the people who killed them.Until Clothilde receives her very first visitor — and along with it, the means to escape the cemetery.Beyond the Grave is the first novel in the Ghost Detective series, following Robert and Clothilde in their search for justice.

    Using scrap metal and salvaged junk, he creates forests for rich patrons who seek a reprieve from the desolate landscape. Although Banyan's never seen a real tree—they were destroyed more than a century ago—his father used to tell him stories about the Old World. But that was before his father was taken . . .Everything changes when Banyan meets a woman with a strange tattoo—a clue to the whereabouts of the last living trees on earth, and he sets off across a wasteland from which few return. Those who make it past the pirates and poachers can't escape the locusts—the locusts that now feed on human flesh.But Banyan isn't the only one looking for the trees, and he's running out of time. Unsure of whom to trust, he's forced to make an uneasy alliance with Alpha, an alluring, dangerous pirate with an agenda of her own. As they race towards a promised land that might only be a myth, Banyan makes shocking discoveries about his family, his past, and how far people will go to bring back the trees.In this dazzling debut, Howard presents a disturbing world with uncanny similarities to our own. Like the forests Banyan seeks to rebuild, this visionary novel is both beautiful and haunting—full of images that will take permanent root in your mind . . . and forever change the way you think about nature.

    The world has collapsed, and there are no heroes any more.But when a lone gunman reluctantly accepts the mantel of protector to a young boy and his dying mother against the forces that pursue them, a hero may yet arise.