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A Throne of Swans
Katharine Corr - 2019
Aderyn's ancestral bird is a swan. But she has not transformed for years, not since witnessing the death of her mother - ripped apart by hawks that have supposedly been extinct since the long-ago War of the Raptors. With the benevolent shelter of her mother and her father now lost, Aderyn is at the mercy of her brutal uncle, the King, and his royal court. Driven by revenge and love, she must venture into the malevolent heart of the Citadel in order to seek the truth about the attack that so nearly destroyed her, to fight for the only home she has ever known and for the land she has vowed to protect.Written in rich detail and evocative language, this is the start of an irresistible, soaring duology about courage, broken loyalties and fighting for your place in the world.
Blood Song
Anthony Ryan - 2011
The Brothers of the Sixth Order are devoted to battle, and Vaelin will be trained and hardened to the austere, celibate, and dangerous life of a Warrior of the Faith. He has no family now save the Order.Vaelin’s father was Battle Lord to King Janus, ruler of the unified realm. Vaelin’s rage at being deprived of his birthright and dropped at the doorstep of the Sixth Order like a foundling knows no bounds. He cherishes the memory of his mother, and what he will come to learn of her at the Order will confound him. His father, too, has motives that Vaelin will come to understand. But one truth overpowers all the rest: Vaelin Al Sorna is destined for a future he has yet to comprehend. A future that will alter not only the realm, but the world.
The Hunt
Frost Kay - 2020
Driven by rage and an oath to avenge her mother's memory, Tempest throws herself into training.But becoming the first ever female assassin isn't enough. Now, she must obtain the heart of her kingdom's most feared enemy - the jester - a deadly shapeshifter hidden in a land twisted by myth and darkness.Revenge is never easy or cheap. Tempest is willing to sacrifice everything to see justice served. Even her own soul and freedom.Enter the world of the Twisted Kingdoms at your own risk where monsters wear pretty masks, good and evil are at war, and fairy tales don't exist. If you love fiery heroines, sexy villains, enemies-to-lovers romance, pulse-pounding action, mafia undertones, and dark fairy tales, you need to discover the new series readers are comparing to Holly Blacks's Cruel Prince and Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows.
Gateway to Fourline
Pam Brondos - 2015
Sending one young woman through may be the key to survival for the kingdom of Fourline.
Strapped for cash, college student Natalie Barns agrees to take a job at a costume shop. Sure, Estos—her classmate who works in the shop—is a little odd, but Nat needs the money for her tuition.Then she stumbles through the mysterious door behind the shop—and her entire universe transforms.Discovering there’s far more to Estos than she ever imagined, Nat gets swept up in an adventure to save his homeland, an incredible world filled with decaying magic, deadly creatures, and a noble resistance of exiled warriors battling dark forces. As she struggles with her role in an epic conflict and wrestles with her growing affection for a young rebel, Soris, Nat quickly learns that nothing may go as planned…and her biggest challenge may be surviving long enough to make it home.
And All the Stars
Andrea K. Höst - 2012
Her elusive cousin Tyler is the perfect subject: androgynous, beautiful, and famous. All she needs to do is pin him down for the sittings.None of her plans factored in the Spires: featureless, impossible, spearing into the hearts of cities across the world - and spraying clouds of sparkling dust into the wind.Is it an alien invasion? Germ warfare? They are questions everyone on Earth would like answered, but Madeleine has a more immediate problem. At Ground Zero of the Sydney Spire, beneath the collapsed ruin of St James Station, she must make it to the surface before she can hope to find out if the world is ending.
Cephrael's Hand
Melissa McPhail - 2010
One man holds the secret to reverting this decline: Bjorn van Gelderan, a dangerous and enigmatic man whose shocking betrayal three centuries past earned him a traitor’s brand. It is the Adept Vestal Raine D’Lacourte’s mission to learn what Bjorn knows in the hope of salvaging his race. But first he’ll have to find him...In the kingdom of Dannym...the young Prince Ean val Lorian faces a tenuous future as the last living heir to the coveted Eagle Throne. When his blood-brother is slain during a failed assassination, Ean embarks on a desperate hunt for the man responsible. Yet his advisors have their own agendas, and his quest for vengeance leads him ever deeper into a sinuous plot masterminded by a mysterious and powerful man, the one they call First Lord...In the Nadori desert...tormented by the missing pieces of his life, a soldier named Trell heads off to uncover the truth of his shadowed past. But when disaster places him in the debt of Wildlings sworn to the First Lord, Trell begins to suspect a deadlier, darker secret motivating them.Librarian's note: See alternate cover edition of ASIN B0046A9VLO here.
This Poison Heart
Kalynn Bayron - 2021
Hopefully there, surrounded by plants and flowers, Bri will finally learn to control her gift. But their new home is sinister in ways they could never have imagined--it comes with a specific set of instructions, an old-school apothecary, and a walled garden filled with the deadliest botanicals in the world that can only be entered by those who share Bri's unique family lineage.When strangers begin to arrive on their doorstep, asking for tinctures and elixirs, Bri learns she has a surprising talent for creating them. One of the visitors is Marie, a mysterious young woman who Bri befriends, only to find that Marie is keeping dark secrets about the history of the estate and its surrounding community. There is more to Bri's sudden inheritance than she could have imagined, and she is determined to uncover it . . . until a nefarious group comes after her in search of a rare and dangerous immortality elixir. Up against a centuries-old curse and the deadliest plant on earth, Bri must harness her gift to protect herself and her family.From the bestselling author of Cinderella Is Dead comes another inspiring and deeply compelling story about a young woman with the power to conquer the dark forces descending around her.
When We Were Magic
Sarah Gailey - 2020
Being in love with your best friend is harder. Alexis has always been able to rely on two things: her best friends, and the magic powers they all share. Their secret is what brought them together, and their love for each other is unshakeable—even when that love is complicated. Complicated by problems like jealousy, or insecurity, or lust. Or love. That unshakeable, complicated love is one of the only things that doesn't change on prom night. When accidental magic goes sideways and a boy winds up dead, Alexis and her friends come together to try to right a terrible wrong. Their first attempt fails—and their second attempt fails even harder. Left with the remains of their failed spells and more consequences than anyone could have predicted, each of them must find a way to live with their part of the story.
The Shock of Night
Patrick W. Carr - 2015
Yet the clues to the crime lead to contradictions and questions without answers. As Willet begins to question the dying priest, the man pulls Willet close and screams in a foreign tongue. Then he dies without another word.Willet returns to the city, no closer to answers than before, but his senses are skewed. People he touches appear to have a subtle shift, a twist seen at the edge of his vision, and it's as though he can see their deepest thoughts. In a world divided between haves and have-nots, gifted and common, Willet soon learns he's been passed the rarest gift of all: a gift that's not supposed to exist.Now Willet must pursue the murderer still on the loose in Bunard even as he's pulled into a much more dangerous and epic conflict that threatens not only his city, but his entire world--a conflict that will force him to come to terms with his own tortured past if he wants to survive.
Child of the Flames
D.W. Hawkins - 2011
She alone escapes the slaughter, spiriting away the secret which brought them down on her family. Revenge is all she has to keep her alive. Dormael Harlun just wants to find a place to sleep off the drink, but he decides to help her--though he wonders why something in her possession makes his magic react so violently, and what it's trying to tell him. Some secrets, though, are better left where they lie. Will they escape, avenge the deaths of Shawna's family, or drown in a tide of blood?
Crown of Feathers
Nicki Pau Preto - 2019
After a shocking betrayal from her controlling sister, Veronyka strikes out alone to find the Riders—even if that means disguising herself as a boy to join their ranks.
But it is a fact of life that one must kill or be killed. Rule or be ruled.
Just as Veronyka finally feels like she belongs, her sister turns up and reveals a tangled web of lies between them that will change everything. And meanwhile, the new empire has learned of the Riders’ return and intends to destroy them once and for all.
Sometimes the title of queen is given. Sometimes it must be taken.
The Hands of the Emperor
Victoria Goddard - 2019
An impulsive word can start a war.A timely word can stop one.A simple act of friendship can change the course of history.Cliopher Mdang is the personal secretary of the Last Emperor of Astandalas, the Lord of Rising Stars, the Lord Magus of Zunidh, the Sun-on-Earth, the god.He has spent more time with the Emperor of Astandalas than any other person.He has never once touched his lord.He has never called him by name.He has never initiated a conversation.One day Cliopher invites the Sun-on-Earth home to the proverbially remote Vangavaye-ve for a holiday.The mere invitation could have seen Cliopher executed for blasphemy.The acceptance upends the world.
The Reborn King
Michael R. Miller - 2015
Scornful. Full of pride. Darnuir, Prince of Dragons, cares nothing for the damage he's doing to the faltering alliance against the demonic forces of the Shadow. He thinks himself invincible - right up till a mortal wound forces him to undergo a dangerous rebirthing spell, leaving him a helpless babe in human hands.Twenty years pass and demonic forces are once again poised to sweep across the land. With the alliance between humanity, dragons, and fairies fracturing, Darnuir will have to uncover the secrets of his past, seek redemption for his sins, and rally the disparate races if they are to survive.Only Darnuir can do this. For he’s the last member of the royal bloodline and only he can wield the Dragon’s Blade...
Hope and Red
Jon Skovron - 2016
A nameless girl is the lone survivor when her village is massacred by biomancers, mystical servants of the emperor. Named after her lost village, Bleak Hope is secretly trained by a master Vinchen warrior as an instrument of vengeance. A boy becomes an orphan on the squalid streets of New Laven and is adopted by one of the most notorious women of the criminal underworld, given the name Red, and trained as a thief and con artist. When a ganglord named Deadface Drem strikes a bargain with the biomancers to consolidate and rule all the slums of New Laven, the worlds of Hope and Red come crashing together, and their unlikely alliance takes them further than either could have dreamed possible.
We Are the Dead
Mike Shackle - 2019
The enemy won. Now it's time to fight back.For generations, the people of Jia - a land where magic has long since faded from the world, clinging on in only a few rare individuals - have been protected from the northern Egril hordes by their warrior caste, but their enemy has not been idle. They have rediscovered magic and use it to launch an overwhelming surprise attack. An invasion has begun.And in moments, the war is over. Resistance is quashed. Kings and city leaders are barricaded in their homes awaiting banishment and execution, the warriors are massacred, and a helpless people submit to the brutality of Egril rule.Jia's heroes have failed it. They are all gone. And yet... there is still hope. Soon the fate of the kingdom will fall into the hands of a schoolboy terrorist, a crippled Shulka warrior and his wheelchair bound son, a single mother desperate enough to do anything she can to protect her baby... and Tinnstra, disgraced daughter of the Shulka's greatest leader, who now lies dead by Egril hands.A brand new epic fantasy: gritty and modern featuring a unique ensemble of characters who will lead a revolution against their overlords.