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"Here in the Cellar," Corinna says, "I control the Folk. Here, I'm queen of the world." As Folk Keeper at the Rhysbridge Home, she feeds the fierce, dark-dwelling cave Folk; keeps them from souring the milk, killing the chickens, and venting their anger on the neighborhood; and writes it all down in her Folk Record. Since only boys are Folk Keepers, she has disguised herself as a boy, Corin, and it is a boy and a Folk Keeper she intends to stay.

Yet there comes a moment when someone else knows the truth. Old, dying Lord Merton not only knows she is a girl, but knows some of her other secrets as well. It is at his bidding that she, as Corin, leaves Rhysbridge to become Folk Keeper and a member of the family on Cliffsend, an isle where the Folk are fiercer than ever they were at Rhysbridge.

It is on Cliffsend that Corinna comes face to face with herself, with the powers she does have (some quite unexpected) and those she does not have (even if she lies and says she does). Who really is she? Why does her hair grow two inches a night? Why does the sea draw her? What does she really want? And what future can and will she choose?

Against the backdrop of a never-colonized North America, a broken Ojibwe detective embarks on an emotional and twisting journey toward solving two murders, rediscovering family, and finding himself.

North America was never colonized. The United States and Canada don't exist. The Great Lakes are surrounded by an independent Ojibwe nation. And in the village of Baawitigong, a Peacekeeper confronts his devastating past.

Twenty years ago to the day, Chibenashi's mother was murdered and his father confessed. Ever since, caring for his still-traumatized younger sister has been Chibenashi's privilege and penance. Now, on the same night of the Manoomin harvest, another woman is slain. His mother's best friend. This leads to a seemingly impossible connection that takes Chibenashi far from the only world he's ever known.

The major city of Shikaakwa is home to the victim's cruelly estranged family--and to two people Chibenashi never wanted to see again: his imprisoned father and the lover who broke his heart. As the questions mount, the answers will change his and his sister's lives forever. Because Chibenashi is about to discover that everything about their lives has been a lie.

In the next century, the United States and Russia have joined forces to form the International Peacekeeping Force. The IPF is charged with controlling the satellite network and preventing nuclear missile launches. But many factions resent this orbital police force - and attempt to seize control of the satellites.... and the IPF itself.

Jed Brindle is an alien. At least that's what they call him on earth. He's a colony-bred soldier with the Extraterran Peacekeeping Force, fighting in a war for control of what used to be the US. Sent on a mission behind enemy lines, Jed struggles for survival and tries to find his real self.

This novelette originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, January 1988. It can also be found in the Isaac Asimov's Vampires (1996), edited by Gardner Dozois and Sheila Williams, and The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women (2001), edited by Stephen Jones. The story is included in the collection Patterns (1989). A chapbook edition appeared in 1992.

Sometimes failure is just the beginning

All Lai has ever wanted is to become a priestess, like her mother and grandmother before her, in service to their beloved goddess. That's before the unthinkable happens, and Lai fails the trials she has trained for her entire life. She makes the only choice she believes she can: she runs away.

From her isolated desert homeland, Lai rides north to the colder, stranger kingdom of Alanum--a land where magic, and female warriors, are not commonplace. Here, she hears tales about a mountain city of women guardians and steel forgers, worshiping goddesses who sound very similar to Lai's own. Determined to learn more about these women, these Keepers of the Dawn, Lai travels onward to find their temple. She is determined to make up for her past failure, and will do whatever it takes to join their sacred order.

Falling in love with another initiate was not part of the plan.

The Dovekeepers is Alice Hoffman's most ambitious and mesmerizing novel: "striking....Hoffman grounds her expansive, intricately woven, and deepest new novel in biblical history, with a devotion and seriousness of purpose" (Entertainment Weekly).

Nearly two thousand years ago, nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada, a mountain in the Judean desert. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event, Hoffman's novel is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different path. Yael's mother died in childbirth, and her father, an expert assassin, never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village baker's wife, watched the murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her young grandsons, rendered mute by what they have witnessed. Aziza is a warrior's daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier. Shirah, born in Alexandria, is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power.

The lives of these four complex and fiercely independent women intersect in the desperate days of the siege. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets--about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love.

Meet the 'Keeper of Lost Things'...

Once a celebrated author of short stories now in his twilight years, Anthony Peardew has spent half his life collecting lost objects, trying to atone for a promise broken many years before.

Realising he is running out of time, he leaves his house and all its lost treasures to his assistant Laura, the one person he can trust to fulfil his legacy and reunite the thousands of objects with their rightful owners.

But the final wishes of the 'Keeper of Lost Things' have unforeseen repercussions which trigger a most serendipitous series of encounters...

As a Gracekeeper, Callanish administers shoreside burials, sending the dead to their final resting place deep in the depths of the ocean. Alone on her island, she has exiled herself to a life of tending watery graves as penance for a long-ago mistake that still haunts her. Meanwhile, North works as a circus performer with the Excalibur, a floating troupe of acrobats, clowns, dancers, and trainers who sail from one archipelago to the next, entertaining in exchange for sustenance.

In a world divided between those inhabiting the mainland ("landlockers") and those who float on the sea ("damplings"), loneliness has become a way of life for North and Callanish, until a sudden storm offshore brings change to both their lives--offering them a new understanding of the world they live in and the consequences of the past, while restoring hope in an unexpected future.

Inspired in part by Scottish myths and fairytales, The Gracekeepers tells a modern story of an irreparably changed world: one that harbors the same isolation and sadness, but also joys and marvels of our own age.

As far as her family knows, Julia Winward, a young American women, has been missing in England for nearly a year. When her mutilated body is discovered in the Thames, her brother, Josh, Is determined to find out what happened to his sister during the lost time. But nothing Josh discovers makes any sense:Julia had been working for a company which shut down sixty years ago, and living at an address which hadn't existed since World War II. The only person who might be able to help Josh is Ella, a strange, fey young women with psychic abilities. But the doors she can open with her mind could unearth a terrible secret that is better left unknown...

Keri has been struggling to run her family bakery since her mother passed away. Now the father she barely knew--the Lord of Nimmira--has died, and ancient magic has decreed that she will take his place as the new Lady. The position has never been so dangerous: the mists that hide Nimmira from its vicious, land-hungry neighbors have failed, and Keri's people are visible to strangers for the first time since the mists were put in place generations ago.

At the same time, three half-brothers will their own eyes on the crown make life within the House just as dangerous as the world outside. But Keri has three people to guide her: her mysterious Timekeeper, clever Bookkeeper, and steadfast Doorkeeper. Together they must find a way to repair the boundary before her neighbors realize just how vulnerable Nimmira is.

When you're chasing memories to survive, it's better to leave the past behind...

Seven is a thief with a difference - he steals downloadable memories from banks and memoriums to sell onto London's black market, trading secrets and hidden pasts for a chance at a future of his own. He makes sure he keeps some special stuff back to 'surf' himself though - it's the only real form of entertainment he can afford. But one night, as Seven is breaking into a private memorium in a wealthy part of London, he is caught in the act by one of its residents: Alba, the teenage daughter of London's most famous criminal prosecutor. Instead of giving him away, Alba promises to keep Seven's secret - as long as he allows her to go memory-surfing herself. In doing so, they discover a hidden memory about Seven's past, revealing a shocking secret about his childhood, the government and a mysterious experiment known as The Memory Keepers...

Now Seven and Alba will have to race against time to unlock the maze of The Memory Keepers - but can they keep themselves out of harm's way before the London Guard - and Alba's father - catches up with them?

This is a ghost story. It is a story about werewolves, and things that go bump in the night. It is a story of an ill-fated land, the pathless moors of Northern England so well chronicled in Wuthering Heights. And it is the story of a real family whose destiny it is to deal with this darkly glamorous and dangerous world.

When young Emily Brontë helps a wounded man she finds at the foot of an ancient pagan shrine in the remote Yorkshire moors, her life becomes contentiously entwined with his. He is Alcuin Curzon, embittered member of a sect working to eradicate the resurgent plague of lycanthropy in Europe and northern England.

But Emily's father, curate of the Haworth village church, is responsible for having unwittingly brought a demonic werewolf god to Yorkshire forty years ago--and it is taking possession of Emily's beloved but foolish and dissolute brother. Curzon must regard Emily's family as a dire threat.

In spite of being at deadly odds, Emily and Curzon find themselves thrown together in fighting werewolves, confronting pagan gods, even saving each other from the lures of moorland demons. And in a final battle that sweeps from the haunted village of Haworth to a monstrous shrine far out on the moors, the two of them must be reluctant allies against an ancient power that seems likely to take their souls as well as their lives.

You never stop worrying about your kids, even when they're adults.

A world-hopping, bad-ass, spell-slinging mother who sets out to rescue her kidnapped adult son from a dragon lord with everything to lose.

It's been a year since Esther set foot in the Beyond, the alien landscape stretching between worlds, crossing boundaries of space and time. She and her magical traveling party - her Hex - haven't spoken since the Concilium banned them from the Beyond for a decade. But when she wakes in the middle of the night to her grown son's cry for help, the members of her Hex are the only ones she can trust to help her bring him back from wherever he has been taken.

Esther will have to risk everything to find him. Undercover and hidden from the Concilium, she and her Hex will be tested by false dragon lords, a darkness so dense it can suffocate, and the bones of an old crime come back to haunt her.

There are terrors that dwell in the space between worlds.

The house stood empty, dark and foreboding, but it was the answer to all of Erica Walsh's problems -- a sturdy roof, a place to raise her kids, a home of her own for the rest of her natural life.

But if the house was empty, who was watching Erica with dead, vacant eyes... calling her name in the night with foul and fetid breath...caressing and arousing her with rough, probing hands?

There was something wrong with the Walsh's new house...something evil... alive... waiting....

Lionel Salkind was glad for a visit from his twin brother Leo; the two rarely saw each other. Tehn their plane went down, and as he lost consciousness Lionel knew that Leo was dead.

Lionel woke up in a hospital, to the eerie news that he owed his life to bits of his dead brother's brain transplanted into his own skull. It was a very experimental operation, but it seemed to have been successful.

And then the memories began. Terrifying snatches of memory that had no place in Lionel's own quiet past. Leo's memories, calling him somewhere to finish a job half-done - a dangerous job whose importance to the world Lionel had not even begun to grasp.

This short story originally appeared in Nightmare Magazine, June 2017. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2018, edited by Paula Guran.

Read the full story for free at Nightmare Magazine.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Dead Man's Hand: An Anthology of the Weird West (2014), edited by John Joseph Adams, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, April 2017.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Everything changed for Gil Stewart on the day he saw the old man die. Gil had witnessed the bizarre accident on the highway and stopped to help. The old man couldn't be saved, but just before he died he clutched Gil's shirt and whispered a warning: "The Keepers are coming!" That was when Gil's nightmare began. At first he thought it was merely odd, a series of weird coincidences. Household pets started acting strangely. Zoo animals escaped. But now he can see a pattern emerging, a chilling reminder from a past that he can't--or won't--remember. As the true horror becomes clear, and terror builds upon terror, Gil can only await the coming of...the Keepers.

A masterful, intensely suspenseful novel about a reader whose obsession with a reclusive writer goes far too far--a book about the power of storytelling, starring the same trio of unlikely and winning heroes King introduced in Mr. Mercedes.

"Wake up, genius." So begins King's instantly riveting story about a vengeful reader. The genius is John Rothstein, an iconic author who created a famous character, Jimmy Gold, but who hasn't published a book for decades. Morris Bellamy is livid, not just because Rothstein has stopped providing books, but because the nonconformist Jimmy Gold has sold out for a career in advertising. Morris kills Rothstein and empties his safe of cash, yes, but the real treasure is a trove of notebooks containing at least one more Gold novel.

Morris hides the money and the notebooks, and then he is locked away for another crime. Decades later, a boy named Pete Saubers finds the treasure, and now it is Pete and his family that Bill Hodges, Holly Gibney, and Jerome Robinson must rescue from the ever-more deranged and vengeful Morris when he's released from prison after thirty-five years.

Not since Misery has King played with the notion of a reader whose obsession with a writer gets dangerous. Finders Keepers is spectacular, heart-pounding suspense, but it is also King writing about how literature shapes a life--for good, for bad, forever.

The second volume of a new fantasy series, by the co-author of "Daughter of the Empire". Ivainson Jaric, Keeper of the Keys, heir of the Firelord, is being hunted down by the Accursed. His blood gifts him with raw power but not enough to overcome the evil forces.

The first anthology of short stories set on Darkover, spanning Darkovan history--from shortly after the arrival of the lost Terran ship, through the Ages of Chaos, the rise of the Comyn and the establishment of the Compact, and the eventual return the Terrans.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: A Word from the Creator of Darkover - essay by Marion Zimmer Bradley
• Vai Dom - (1978) - short story by Diana L. Paxson
• The Forest - short story by Cynthia McQuillin
• There Is Always an Alternative - short story by Patricia Matthews [as by Patricia Mathews]
• The Tale of Durraman's Donkey - (1978) - short story by Eileen Ledbetter
• The Fires of Her Vengeance - short story by Susan Shwartz [as by Susan M. Shwartz]
• The Alton Gift - novelette by Elisabeth Waters
• Circle of Light - short story by Kathleen S. Williams
• The Answer - short story by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Jean Lorrah
• The Rescue - (1978) - novelette by Linda MacKendrick
• The Keeper's Price - (1978) - short story by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Elisabeth Waters [as by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Lisa Waters]
• The Hawk-Master's Son - short story by Marion Zimmer Bradley
• A Simple Dream - (1978) - short story by Penny Ziegler
• Una Paloma Blanca - short story by Patricia Matthews [as by Patricia Mathews]
• Blood Will Tell - short story by Marion Zimmer Bradley
• Ambassador to Corresanti - short story by Linda Frankel
• A View from the Reconstruction: or, Happy Times on Modern Darkover - short story by Paula Crunk

The nuclear storm that swept the globe has left behind the Deathlands, a legacy of hate and violence. Pockets of survivors live off the ravaged land or on stockpiles found in redoubts. But from out of the ashes, a fearless man spearheads the drive to pierce the heart of darkness....

The gateways are secret installations from predark days used by Ryan Cawdor and his group as escape routes. Once again the warrior survivalists emerge from a jump and into a world -- and empire fallen -- ruled by the samurai code. And here Ryan has to face a new threat that could destroy the only home they know.

A new dark age has dawned with the hope of a promised land. But in the Deathlands, hope is not enough.

Homeless, hunted, and desperate to escape a bitter storm, Keira takes refuge in an abandoned groundskeeper's cottage. Her new home is tucked away at the edge of a cemetery, surrounded on all sides by gravestones: some recent, some hundreds of years old, all suffering from neglect.

And in the darkness, she can hear the unquiet dead whispering.

The cemetery is alive with faint, spectral shapes, led by a woman who died before her time... and Keira, the only person who can see her, has become her new target. Determined to help put the ghost to rest, Keira digs into the spirit's past life with the help of unlikely new friends, and discovers a history of deception, ill-fated love, and murder.

But the past is not as simple as it seems, and Keira's time is running out. Tangled in a dangerous web, she has to find a way to free the spirit...even if it means offering her own life in return.

Keira, hired as Blighty Graveyard's new groundskeeper, lives surrounded by the dead. They watch her through the fog. They wordlessly cry out. They've been desperately waiting for help moving on?and only Keira can hear them. But not every restless spirit wants to be saved.

Sometimes the dead hate the living too much to find peace.

As Keira struggles to uncover the tangled histories of some of the graveyard's oldest denizens, danger seeps from the darkest edges of the forest. A vicious serial killer was interred among the trees decades before, his spirit twisted by his violent nature. He's furious. Ravenous. And when Keira unwittingly answers his call, she may just seal her fate as his final intended victim.

Keira must decide if she should use her ability to contact ghosts to help the man who once tried to kill her.

Hunted and haunted, all she wants is to put her mysterious past behind her and move forward with her new friends as Blighty Graveyard's groundskeeper. But then she receives an invitation to dinner at the local recluse's crumbling ancestral estate. The mansion is steeped in history that is equal parts complicated and bloody?and at its center is the man who once tried to kill her, now begging for her help.

Dane Crispin believes his home is haunted?and that the unquiet dead clawing through the ancient house are after him. Unnerved but intrigued, Keira opens her second sight and discovers he's right: resentful specters cling to Dane... and if she can't find a way to stop them, threaten to consume everything in their path.

There's something dark happening in the world beyond most peoples' vision, and if Keira isn't able to sever the ties between the living and the dead, the chained spirits may not be the only things twisted beyond saving.

When Keira first woke alone in a strange forest, she remembered only two things: that she could speak with the dead, helping them move on from the mortal world, and that sinister mask-wearing men were hunting her. She had no idea what she'd done to earn their hatred or what dangerous secrets she may have uncovered.

Until now.

Peeling back layer upon layer of the mystery surrounding her origins, Keira has finally learned that the strange masked men work for Artec, an organization profiting off spectral energy produced by hundreds of chained, tormented souls. Their goal is to spread their macabre cemeteries across the world, using the agony of the dead to extend their power and reach?and only Keira and her loyal group of friends can stop them. But there are still mysteries to uncover in Keira's foggy memories, and as she prepares to fight for the souls of the tormented dead, what she doesn't know about her own past may come back to haunt her.

Rae'en has taken her father's place as First of the practically immortal Aern, a race created by the Eldrennai as warrior-slaves to defend them from the magic-resistant reptilian Zaur. Freed from all Oaths by Kholster's death, Rae'en decides to wage war on the Eldrennai anyway out of rage and grief.

The war between the Eldrennai and Zaur has begun. Bloodmane, leader of the now independent mystic-warsuits, has underestimated both the sheer numbers of the Zaur and their field leader General Tsan. As the warsuits prepare to assist the Eldrennai in the defense of their Watch cities, the Zaur warlord, Xastix, launches the bulk of his forces at the Vael in an attempt to cut off all outside help.

Prince Rivvek, having been accepted as an Aiannai (Oathkeeper) before Kholster's death must claim the Eldrennai throne by completing the Test of Four so that he can enact his plan to save as much of his kingdom as possible. Meanwhile, his brother Prince Dolvek hatches a plot to enlist the aid of the plant-like Vael to defeat the Zaur horde who are in league with the decapitated head of a dethroned deity.

It was her tenth birthday on Isis. By Earth years, she would be sixteen. But Olwen Pendennis had never been to Earth. She had been born on Isis. And since her parents' death, she had lived there alone, manning the Isis Light -- a "lighthouse" in space designed to aid ships, and to bring settlers from Earth. And now, on the day of her tenth year, the settlers are coming at last. Olwen is ready to welcome them, but are they ready for her? She was once human, like them. But the harsh climate of the alien planet has changed her, transformed her into something else -- something the settlers could never be prepared for...

In this world of tomorrow is neither hatred nor love. Normal human sentiment is punishable by death! Dreams of happiness, human warmth and joy have given way to indifference. Man has been programmed not to feel. It is a chilling world in which there is no feeling at all, save fear... fear of any human emotion! This is the world in which Frederick Dainig must live. He told himself he couldn't help it, but he knew better than to let himself care about the little child of whom he is the Keeper.

Some believe Bedford, Maine, is cursed. Its bloody past, endless rain, and the decay of its downtown portend a hopeless future. With the death of its paper mill, Bedford's unemployed residents soon find themselves with far too much time to dwell on thoughts of Susan Marley. Once the local beauty, she's now the local whore. Silently prowling the muddy streets, she watches eerily from the shadows, waiting for . . . something. And haunting the sleep of everyone in town with monstrous visions of violence and horror.

Those who are able will leave Bedford before the darkness fully ascends. But those who are trapped here-from Susan Marley's long-suffering mother and younger sister to her guilt-ridden, alcoholic ex-lover to the destitute and faithless with nowhere else to go-will soon know the fullest and most terrible meaning of nightmare.

No laughter, no tears, not even a smile crosses the faces of the populace. They are doomed by an omnipotent technology. Sentenced to an existence without human emotions. Through his love for Peter, a mentally defective child, Frederic Dainig is able to recapture his feelings and thwart the Anti-Emotion Conditioners. Bearing the highest of all emotions, love and compassion, Dainig sets out to destroy the society that is destroying man.

A remote and affluent Maine community, Corpus Christi was untouched by the environmental catastrophe that destroyed the neighboring blue-collar town of Bedford. But all that will change in a heartbeat . . .

The nightmare is awakened when third-grade schoolteacher Lois Larkin takes the children on a field trip to Bedford. There in the abandoned woods, a small, cruel boy unearths an ancient horror-a contagious plague that transforms its victims into something violent, hungry . . . and inhuman.

The long, dark night is just beginning. And all hope must die as the contagion feeds-for the malevolence will not rest until it has devoured every living soul in Corpus Christi . . . and beyond.

Being one of the Earth's protectors is never easy, but when Claire the Keeper and Austin the cat find themselves in charge of the Elysian Fields Guesthouse Bed and Breakfast, all Hell breaks loose in the form of a gateway residing in the basement!

Claire Hansen was a keeper...

gifted—or cursed—with the job of being one of Earth's Guardians, "Summoned" to areas where anomalies existed, where rifts had opened—or had been opened. Such places were the world's danger spots where, if they weren't sealed in time, all the minions of Hell might break through.

After she'd closed the portal into Hell at the Elysian Fields Guest House, Claire and her talking cat, Austin, found they'd acquired a new companion—Dean. Though Dean was a Bystander and shouldn't have been allowed to even remember Keepers existed, somehow in the course of their mutual ordeal at the Elysian Fields, he'd become an indispensable part of Claire's life. She knew she should change his memories and force him to leave her. Any other course was bound to lead to disaster. But as it turned out, it was already too late, for without Dean around Claire could easily become a danger to herself and the very fabric of space and time.

Yet with Dean around—and a little of her sister Diana's meddling thrown in—the world was headed straight for Chaos.

And Claire was about to face a challenge beyond her wildest imagining—a catastrophe created by the power of love—when an angel and a devil each manifested in the mortal world as fully endowed teenagers, who didn't have a clue how to handle their all-too-human bodies, raging hormones, and opposing needs to do good and evil....

In Tanya Huff's delightful new follow-up to her acclaimed bestsellers, Summon the Keeper The Second Summoning a force from the Otherside threatens to break through to our world and destroy the balance between Light and Darkness. Unless, of course, the Keepers Claire and Diana-two sisters who are able to reweave the possibilities of time and space-can prevent a permanent rift between worlds...at the local shopping mall.

This will be the map of your heart, old woman.

In an ancient time, in a faraway land, a young woman named Aoife is allowed a rare apprenticeship to become her kingdom's mapmaker, tasked with charting the entire domain. Traveling beyond its borders, she finds a secretive people who live in peace, among great wealth. They claim to protect a mythic treasure, one connected to the creation of the world. When Aoife reports their existence to her kingdom, the community is targeted as a threat. Attempting to warn them of imminent danger, Aoife is exiled for treason and finds refuge among the very people who had been declared her enemy. With them, she begins a new life surrounded by kindness, equality, and cooperation. But within herself, Aoife has no peace. She cannot share the grief she feels for the home and children she left behind. She cannot bear the warrior scars of the man she comes to love. And when she gives birth to their gifted daughter, Aoife cannot avoid what the child forces her to confront about her past and its truth. On this most important of journeys, there is no map to guide her. In this tale, her autobiography; Aoife reveals her pain and joy, and ultimately her transformation.

One thousand years after a great conflict known as The Mapmaker's War, a daughter is born to an ambitious historian and a gifted translator. Secret Riven doesn't speak until her seventh year but can mysteriously communicate with plants and animals. Unsettled by visions and dreams since childhood, she tries to hide her strangeness, especially from her mercurial father and cold mother. Yet gentle, watchful Secret finds acceptance from Prince Nikolas, her best friend, and Old Woman, who lives in the distant woods.

When Secret is twelve, her mother receives an arcane manuscript to translate from an anonymous owner. Zavet suffers from nightmares and withdraws into herself. Secret sickens with a fever and awakens able to speak an ancient language, one her mother knows as well. Suddenly, Zavet dies. The manuscript is missing, but a cipher has been left for Secret to find.

Years later, Secret becomes a translator's apprentice for Fewmany, an influential magnate, who has taken an interest in her for reasons she cannot discern. Before Secret learns why, Old Woman confronts Secret with the truth of her destiny--a choice she must make that is tied to an ancient past.

Overflowing with spellbinding storytelling, vivid characters, and set in a fascinating world, The Chronicle of Secret Riven explores the tension between love and hate, trust and betrayal, fate and free will.

The astounding, epic conclusion to the Keeper of Tales Trilogy brings together the cryptic prophecy in The Mapmaker's War and the troubling mysteries in The Chronicle of Secret Riven--leading to an unforgettable reckoning between lies and truth.

We are all born made of gold.

Secret Riven--the mystically gifted heroine who now represses her uncanny telepathic power--works for the mysterious magnate Fewmany as an archivist in his private library. There, she stumbles upon the arcane manuscript that had vanished following her mother's untimely death. She suspects the manuscript contains a profound secret, and she is yet unaware of its link to a thousand-year-old war and her own family's legacy.

The tasks before her are clear: Secret must finally learn what Fewmany wants from her as well as the meaning of a strange symbol she's dreamed of since childhood. At last, she must confront the questions haunting her and depart on a quest to find the truth about herself, her dead mother, and her fate--to unleash a Plague of Silences meant to destroy, and transform, the world as all have known it.

A dazzling, genre-bending masterwork, The Plague Diaries illuminates the power of our choices, the scars they leave, and the wounds they heal.

When strange wolf-like creatures kidnap his girlfriend and his mother, Torrie and his friend Ian Silverstein join Torrie's father Thorsen and the mysterious "Uncle Hosea" on a rescue mission via a passageway to the exotic world from which Hosea and Thorsen had fled two decades earlier. Once entering the world of The Hidden Ways, they must battle gods, monsters and men, including the sinister Fire Duke, who seeks ultimate power and control of magical gems that can destroy the universe. Intrigue, swordplay and courage all loom large in this first novel of The Keeper of the Hidden Ways trilogy by bestselling author Joel Rosenberg, called by Mike Resnick "a major star in the fantasy firmament."

Ian Silverstein and an old army vet from Hardwood, North Dakota make their way through a hidden passageway to Tir Na Nog to find more of the seven jewels that can shape the universe. They are followed soonafter by four friends, including Tir Na Nog natives Thorsen and the mysterious Hosea. Odin sends Ian on a mission, supposedly to broker peace between two strongholds, that places Ian in great danger, and Ian learns that gods like Odin can mislead humans for their own strange reasons. Ian's challenges include overcoming the demons within himself as well as defeating foes in the magical world of The Hidden Ways.

Ian Silverstein returns to the magical land of the Hidden Ways in search of some of the "Brisingamen" gems that can shape or destroy the universe -- and to keep them out of the hands of the likes of the trickster god Loki. Many surprises ensue, and Ian must make some tough choices and survive the deadly intrigues of the powerful lords in Tir Na Nog.

Sorcery and swordplay as well as psychological depth are present in this series that Booklist called an "excellent and intelligent fantasy adventure".

First in a brand new action-packed military science fiction series, meet Major Ariane Kedros--daring pilot, decorated soldier, war criminal.

Fifteen years ago, Ariane Kedros piloted a ship on a mission that obliterated an entire solar system. Branded a war criminal, she was given a new identity and a new life in order to protect her from retribution.

But now, twelve of Ariane's wartime colleagues are dead-- assassinated by someone who has uncovered their true identities. And her superiors in the Autonomist army have placed her directly in the assassin's line of fire on a peacekeeping mission that will decide the fate of all humanity...

She lived where the railway tracks met the saltpan, on the Ahri side of the shadowline. In the old days, when people still talked about her, she was known as the end-of-the-line woman.

Vasethe, a man with a troubled past, comes to seek a favor from a woman who is not what she seems, and must enter the nine hundred and ninety-nine realms of Mkalis, the world of spirits, where gods and demons wage endless war.

The first in a thrilling new Science Fiction spin-off of Tanya Huff's Confederation series.

Someone is searching for the lost weapons of the H'san: powerful tools capable of destroying entire planets. Though the H'san, like the other Elder Races, gave up war long ago, with the formation of the Confederation and the truce with the Younger races, the reappearance of their lost weapons would no doubt lead to a devastating war. It's up to Torin Kerr and her team to fix this problem before it explodes. But the more Torin learns about the relationship between the Elder and Younger races, the more she fears war might be unavoidable...

The second book in the action-packed Peacekeeper series, a continuation of Tanya Huff's military sci-fi Confederation series following Torin Kerr

Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr had been the very model of a Confederation Marine. No one who'd ever served with her could imagine any circumstance that would see her walking away from the Corps.

But that was before Torin learned the truth about the war the Confederation was fighting...before she'd been declared dead and had spent time in a prison that shouldn't exist...before she'd learned about the "plastic" beings who were really behind the war between the Confederation and the Others. That was when Torin left the military for good.

Yet she couldn't walk away from preserving and protecting everything the Confederation represented. Instead, ex-Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr drew together an elite corps of friends and allies--some ex-Marines, some civilians with unique skills--and together they prepared to take on covert missions that the Justice Department and the Corps could not--or would not--officially touch. But after their first major mission, it became obvious that covert operations were not going to be enough.

Although the war is over, the fight goes on and the Justice Department finds its regular Wardens unable to deal with violence and the people trained to use it. Ex-Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr has a solution: Strike Teams made up of ex-military personnel, small enough to maneuver quickly, able to work together if necessary. Justice has no choice but to implement her idea and Torin puts her team of independent contractors back into uniform. It isn't war, it is policing, but it often looks much the same.

When the scientists doing a preliminary archaeological dig on a Class Two planet are taken hostage, Torin's team is sent to free them. The problem of innocents in the line of fire is further complicated by the fact that the mercenaries holding them are a mix of Confederation and Primacy forces, and are looking for a weapon able to destroy the plastic aliens who'd started and maintained the war.

If Torin weren't already torn by wanting that weapon in play, she also has to contend with the politics of peace that have added members of the Primacy--former enemies--to her team. Before they confront the mercenaries, Torin will have to sift through shifting loyalties as she discovers that the line between"us" and "them" is anything but straight.

Former space marine Torin Kerr returns for one final adventure to save the Confederation in the last book in the military science fiction Peacekeeper trilogy.

Warden Torin Kerr has put her past behind her and built a life away from the war and everything that meant. From the good, from the bad. From the heroics, from the betrayal. She's created a place and purpose for others like her, a way to use their training for the good of the Confederation. She has friends, family, purpose.

Unfortunately, her past refuses to grant her the same absolution. Big Yellow, the ship form of the plastic aliens responsible for the war, returns. The Silsviss test the strength of the Confederation. Torin has to be Gunnery Sergeant Kerr once again and find a way to keep the peace.

When privateer Captain Catherine Blackwood is enlisted to rescue her brother from a treacherous warlord, she finds herself on her most dangerous mission yet.

It's been years since Catherine Blackwood left the stodgy, repressive colony world of Avalon. Now the captain of the privateer vessel Andromeda, she is the master of her own destiny. But Catherine soon finds herself back on Avalon after receiving a plea for help from a most unlikely source: her estranged father, esteemed Avalon Council member Augustus Blackwood.

It seems Catherine's brother, the heir to the Blackwood aristocracy, has gone off in search of treasure on the failed, chaotic world of Zanzibar. But Cecil Blackwood's plans have gone very, very wrong, and he has been taken hostage and held for ransom by a fearsome local warlord. Augustus, knowing his daughter is the only one who can be trusted to return his son safely, swallows his pride and hires Catherine to bring her brother home.

Catherine takes the job--but it won't be easy. Just getting to Zanzibar proves treacherous. And once she arrives, things only get worse. If she is to save her brother, Catherine Blackwood must face down danger at every turn and uncover a mystery four million years in the making.

Two sisters, one from a megacity and one from the wilderness, work together to protect the wilderness and the reintroduction of wolves from a group more interested in private property than public good.

In a future Earth that's run by brilliant green cities separated by open land held in common for the good of wild things, two sisters must work together across and between the vastly different environments to root out dangers to both. They must protect the cities and the wild from the Returners, who prefer the toxic past to the difficult present.

The older sister, Lou, her protector Shuska, and biologist friend Matchiko have reputations as successful rugged environmentalists. They must stay safe, listen, work, and sleuth out hidden nests of Returners. Oh, and save a few wolves along the way. In the meantime, Lou's younger sister, Coryn, is learning that working for the most powerful woman behind the scenes in a megacity is far harder than it looks. When the Returners threaten the city, the sisters must find a way to preserve both their ways of life.

Keepers asks, Do humans have enough creativity, responsibility, and generosity to survive?

Damiana is safe-keeper in the small village of Tambleham. Neighbors and strangers alike come one by one, in secret, to tell her things they dare not share with anyone else, knowing that Damiana will keep then to herself. One late night, a mysterious visitor from the city arrives with an unusual secret for the Safe-Keeper--a newborn baby. Damiana, who is expecting her own child, agrees to take the foundling. She names him Reed and raises him side by side with her daughter, Fiona. Ad the years pass and the two children grow into teenagers, they must come to terms with who they are--and who they may be.

Innkeeper's daughters Adele and Eleda are "mirror twins"--identical twins whose looks are reflections of each other's--and their special talents are like mirrors, too. Adele is a Safe-Keeper, entrusted with hearing and never revealing others' secrets; Eleda is a Truth-Teller, who cannot tell a lie when asked a direct question. The town of Merendon relies on the twins, no one more than their best friend, Roelynn Karro, whose strict, wealthy father is determined to marry her off to the prince. When the girls are seventeen, a handsome dancing-master and his apprentice come to stay at the inn, and thus begins a chain of romance, mistaken identity, and some very surprising truths and falsehoods.

Kellen's mother has always insisted that her only child was born male, not female--so Kellen has been raised as a boy. At school, she meets Gryffin, whose mind is as strong as his legs are damaged, and the two become friends and allies. A few years later, the two get jobs working at an inn nearby. When it is discovered that Gryffin is the kingdom's new Dream-Maker--someone whose mere presence can help dreams come true--he is whisked away to the castle, leaving Kellen behind. By now, their friendship is shading into something more. Will it endure?

What happens when nature will no longer stand by and accept its destruction? A female fire chief discovers an ancient world rooted with secrets that can save - or destroy...

Beneath the forest floor, they watch...

Syrah Carthan doesn't know why she accepted a job as the first female fire chief at Sequoia National Park, where, decades earlier, a forest fire killed her parents. That day, her brother, Romelo, disappeared, as if pulled into the scorched earth itself. Syrah has always had an uncanny affinity for the natural wonders of the park she protects, but after she sanctions a prescribed burn that goes terribly wrong, she quits her position in disgrace.

However, when another devastating wildfire breaks out, Syrah, reluctantly pulled back into action, discovers an unknown world that has existed underground since the beginning of time. This secret society, built around the forest's complex root system, is now divided into two factions. One is ruled by the Keeper, the giant sequoias' benevolent caretaker. The other by a mysterious undoer, who's determined to wage war on humanity. Through him, nature can retaliate and wipe out the earth's careless ravagers for good.

Torn between human loyalty and preserving the delicate balance of nature, Syrah must make a choice - one that will change both her destiny and that of the world above and below forever.

Exploring a deserted alien spaceship, Lt. Commander Data and Lt. Geordi LaForge suddenly find themselves transported light-years away -- into the prison cell, into the middle of a deadly conflict!

While Captain Picard and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise search feverishly for the missing crewmen, Data and LaForge discover they are in a station almost identical to the one they were exploring, high in orbit around an Earth-type world. Years before, the occupants of that planet accidentally stumbled onto the ship and its advanced technology -- and since then have used its weapons to keep the nations on the planet below disarmed, and at peace.

Now their own arrival has precipitated a crisis on the station. Somehow, Data and LaForge must find a way to restore trust between the planet below and the station's guardians up above -- before a final, destructive war breaks out!

Revealed at last, the full story of Jim Kirk's lost friend, the man who helped him become the captain we know....

Stardate 1312.4. -- A young Captain Kirk, early in his legendary career, faces the crisis of his life when he must kill his best friend in order to save the Enterprise. Later, alone in his quarters, be cannot help recalling how he first met Gary Mitchell:

At Starfleet Academy, Gary is reckless and fun-loving while Kirk is driven, ambitious, but awkward around other people -- especially women. Their friendship begins with a fistfight. Then their routine training mission on the U.S.S. Republic is diverted to a planet where centuries of bloody interplanetary conflict are about to end in a ceremony of reconciliation. Assigned to help with security on the planet's surface, Kirk and Gary quickly find themselves in the middle of a life-and-death struggle against terrorists determined to disrupt the ceremony.

With the future of two planets at stake, Kirk and Gary must find a way to work together before a mission of life and peace becomes one of death and despair.

Continuing the powerful story of Jim Kirk's lost friend, the man who helped shape a Starfleet captain....

Gary Mitchell is dead, killed by his best friend for the sake of his ship. As Captain Kirk returns home in sadness, he recalls the first time he held Gary's life in his hands: Seven years earlier, the two men have been assigned to the U.S.S. Constitution, Gary as chief navigator and Kirk as second officer, when the starship comes to the defense of an alien world menaced by ruthless invaders. An early attack leaves both the captain and the first officer in comas, and Jim Kirk must take command for the first time. He finds himself with only one chance to defeat the heavily armed enemy -- but the cost may be Gary Mitchell's life!

The gripping conclusion to the story of Jim Kirk's lost friend, the man who helped shape a Starfleet captain....

Captain Kirk has returned to Earth to attend the funeral of Gary Mitchell -- the man he was forced to kill. As he wonders what he can possibly say in eulogy, he thinks back to the first time he had to do without his friend, several months earlier....

Kirk has just taken command of the U.S.S. Enterprise and brought along Gary as navigator. Kirk has learned to depend on his friend's good sense and advice, but when Kirk confronts the Klingons for the first time in his career, Gary is taken captive and cut off from Kirk. Now the young captain has no choice but to rely on a man he barely knows, a Vulcan named Spock.

Firekeeper only vaguely remembers a time when she didn't live with her "family," a pack of "royal wolves"-bigger, stronger, and smarter than normal wolves. Now her pack leaders are sending her back to live among the humans, as they promised her mother years ago.

Some of the humans think she may be the lost heir to their throne. This could be good-and it could be very, very dangerous. In the months to come, learning to behave like a human will turn out to be more complicated than she'd ever imagined.

But though human ways might be stranger than anything found in the forest, the infighting in the human's pack is nothing Firekeeper hasn't seen before. That, she understands just fine. She's not your standard-issue princess-and this is not your standard-issue fairy tale.

A tale of humane wolves, beastly men, and a brilliant heroine who must find her way in a dangerous world

Raised by intelligent, language-using wolves, brought back to the human society at the court of Hawk Haven, young Firekeeper had to learn to cope with human society and its complexities... and discovered that, for someone raised in a wolf pack, the politics of a royal court were neither complex nor wholly unfamiliar.

But the happy ending of Through Wolf's Eyes has proved to have consequences. Hawk Haven and Bright Bay are unifying, but the power balance of the neighboring lands is threatened by this prospect. New intrigues abound. The rulers of Bright Bay, it transpires, have been hoarding a collection of forbidden magical artifacts... which Queen Gustin took with her when she abdicated, intending to use them to restore her power. Melina Shield is still scheming to obtain them, and she's older, smarter, and more devious than the Queen. And the even-more-devious civil service of neighboring New Kelvin would like to get their hands on that magic as well....

Which will make life very hard for Firekeeper. Because the powers of the world have decided who'll be required to obtain those much-contended-for magical articles. It'll be her.

The sequel to Through Wolf's Eyes and Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart

Smart like a human. Smart like a wolf. Better yet, smart like both.

With Through Wolf's Eyes and Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart, Jane Lindskold introduced us to young Firekeeper, one of the most appealing heroines in modern fantasy. Raised far from humans by smart, language-using wolves, then brought back to the court of Hawk Haven, Firekeeper has had to learn to cope with human society. And as it turns out, for one raised amidst intelligent social carnivores, the intrigues of the human pack aren't all that unfamiliar.

Now Melina Shield, the beautiful, unscrupulous, and thoroughly discredited sorceress whose power-hungry intrigues have already made so much trouble for Firekeeper, is once again using her power to cloud men's minds. She has induced the ruler of New Kelvin to marry her. This is bad news all round.

It's particularly bad news for Firekeeper. Melina has never abandoned her schemes to gain power through the use of forbidden ancient sorcery. And the leaders of the royal beasts who watch over this world have given Firekeeper -- and her intelligent wolf companion, Blind Seer -- the responsibility of stopping her.

Jane Lindskold's Through Wolf's Eyes, Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart, and The Dragon of Despair told the story of Firekeeper, the young girl raised by sentient, language-using wolves who is then plunged back into human society, where her training as a pack animal stands her in good stead amidst political and dynastic intrigues. Now, in Wolf Captured, the focus returns to Firekeeper and her wolf companion Blind Seer, as they find themselves kidnapped and dragged overseas, and forced to maneuver for their lives in an unfamiliar and dangerous new society.

The Liglimoshti worship animals and portents, which rule their lives. And the Liglimoshti are aware, as the other countries are not, that Royal animals like Truth and Blind Seer exist, are intelligent, and can speak to each other. They've kidnapped Firekeeper and Blind Seer because they've never before heard of a human who could talk to animals. They want to see what Firekeeper can do. They want her to teach them how to do it.

Firekeeper's more than willing to talk to the animals there. But she fears that Liglim's Royal animals are being held in polite and unobtrusive bondage. She wants to find out the truth -- and, if necessary, free them...

In Through Wolf's Eyes, Jane Lindskold introduced Firekeeper, the young girl raised by intelligent, language-using wolves. Abducted back into human society, Firekeeper found that, in the world of deadly human political intrigues, her training as a pack animal served her well.

Later, in Wolf Captured, Firekeeper and her lupine companion Blind Seer found themselves kidnapped and dragged overseas, to the unfamiliar land of Liglimon, where humans have a different relationship to intelligent animals. Now, still in Liglimon, Firekeeper and Blind Seer respond to a request for assistance from Truth, the soothsayer-jaguar.

Then, while helping Truth, Firekeeper and her companion come across evidence of elaborate investigations into kinds of ancient magics taboo in Liglimoshti culture. It appears more people in Liglimon are willing to flout this taboo than anyone cares to admit, and Firekeeper and Blind Seer decide their duty is to find out more.

But Truth knows more than she's telling. She can see and trace future timelines for particular individuals, which in the past has led her into madness. Since then, the Voice that guided her out of that madness has continued to speak to her, and it's not her friend.

Eventually Truth realizes that her Voice may well be a person the Liglimoshti call "The Meddler" -- a dangerous trickster figure. But Truth doesn't own up to this until far too late...

Compellingly told, rich with real people and real animals, WOLF HUNTING is the latest and strongest in an increasingly and rewarding sequence of fantasy epics.

Raised in the wild by intelligent, language-using wolves, in her teens Firekeeper was abducted back into the lands of men, where her upbringing as a wolf helped her survive the deadly intrigues of human beings.

One of the first things she learned in Hawk Haven was that magic was a thing to be feared and despised. Long ago, all the human kingdoms were ruled by powerful sorcerers. Then a plague came and the sorcerers died. Nobody misses them. Much was lost--but still, nobody misses them.

Yet as Firekeeper has travelled and grown wiser in the ways of human beings, she's learned that the true story was more complex. In coming to the country of the Liglim, she, Derian Carter, and Blind Seer discovered that magic is still working in the world, and that it isn't always the evil they'd been warned against. But it also turned out that the old plague specifically targeted magic users. And when Firekeeper and her friends learned to open the gates between worlds, the plague came back with them.

Firekeeper, Blind Seer, and Derian Carter survived the plague: not unchanged, but still themselves. Now Firekeeper is determined to learn the nature of the plague--and if she can, to end it forever. What happens next will be the culmination of the remarkable fantasy epic that began with Through Wolf's Eyes.

Blind Seer has run at Firekeeper's side since the wolf-woman first crossed the Iron Mountains into human-held lands. Now it's her turn to run alongside the blue-eyed wolf as he sets out in search of someone who can teach him how to use his magical gift--on his own unique terms.

The pair's search will take them to the far side of the world in the company of allies who include a young woman scarred by war, a falcon who believes himself a traitor, and an old friend... or possibly enemy. Together they will fight battles from before they were born, climb mountains, cross badlands, eventually unveiling a threat that will reshape not only Blind Seer, but his belief in what he most desires.

Firekeeper has always believed that her heart is a wolf's heart.

Now the time has come for her to prove it. Blind Seer's search for a teacher of the magical arts brought him and Firekeeper to Rhinadei, a land rich in magical lore, but intolerant of those who would rebel against its core precepts. Now, eager to aid Wythcombe, his new teacher, Blind Seer agrees to lend his keen senses to the hunt for Kabot--Wythcombe's childhood rival and leader of a band of fanatical blood mages.

In this hunt, Firekeeper runs as ever at Blind Seer's side. Rounding out their pack are Laria and Ranz, two young humans with potent magical gifts of their own; Farborn, a yarimaimalom falcon; Wythcombe himself, and the ever enigmatical Meddler.

Yet, despite the versatility of this pack, Kabot's blood mages miraculously elude them, leaving behind the tantalizing scent of more power than they should possess. Suspicion builds that Kabot has acquired a new ally: an ally who may be one of their own pack turned traitor.

When Matt Freeman gets into trouble with the police, he's sent to be fostered in Yorkshire. It's not long before he senses there's something wrong with his guardian: with the whole village.

Then Matt learns about the Old Ones and begins to understand just how he is different. But no one will believe him; no one can help.

There is no proof. There is no logic. There is just the Gate.

The second thrilling, chilling installment in Anthony Horowitz's bestselling Gatekeepers series.

Matt thought his troubles were over when he closed Raven's Gate... but in fact they were just beginning. His fate -- and the fate of the world -- is tied to four other kids across the globe. The second is a street kid in Peru. He and Matt have never met; they don't even speak the same language. But destiny is going to throw them together as the evil threat of the Old Ones grows... and another Gate suddenly comes into play.

A gate has been opened. The Old Ones have been released. And now the third and fourth of The Five -- twins with a mysterious psychic bond -- are joining the fight.

Hong Kong has been taken over by the Old Ones and has become Necropolis, City of the Dead. Once in, there is no way out... Evil has been unleashed on the world and only five children – with special powers – can save it. Matt and the other three desperately need to find Scar, the final Gatekeeper, who has been trapped in Hong Kong, where puddles of water turn into puddles of blood, where ghosts, demons and hideous creatures stalk the streets. Matt has no choice but to follow her. Now, both imprisoned, their only hope of survival is to reach a secret door in the Man Ho temple. But even if Scar can find her psychic power, it may already be too late.

Having escaped from Hong Kong, the five gatekeepers - Matt, Pedro, Scott, Jamie and Scarlett - are scattered in a hostile and dangerous world. As they struggle to re-group and plan their next move, the malevolent King of the Old Ones gathers his forces in Oblivion: a desolate landscape where the last survivors of humanity must fight the ultimate battle.

Meet Dina Demille, a nice Texas gal who runs a seemingly ordinary, quaint BnB. But Dina's inn is a magic, thinking entity; her fluffy Shih-tzu, Beast really is a beast; and her guests are the kind that no one on earth is supposed to know about: guests like a dethroned galactic tyrant with a massive bounty on her head, the Lord Marshal of a powerful vampire clan, and a displaced--and superhot--alpha-strain werewolf.

So don t expect a normal stay...and don't stand too close, or you may be collateral damage...

In Clean Sweep, Dina--with the unwanted assistance of newcomer (and alpha werewolf) Sean Evans and Arland, a cosmic vampire soldier--takes on an extraterrestrial killing machine that could destroy her Inn, her neighbors, and everything she holds dear.

Sweep in Peace, finds Dina hosting an anything-but peace summit between three warring intergalactic species; Space Vampires, the Hope-Crushing Horde, and the devious Merchants of Baha-char.

One Fell Sweep sends Dina to the galaxy's worst penal colony to rescue her sister; and back home to fend off a clan of assassins in pursuit, all while saving a guest's civilization from annihilation...and searching for her missing parents.

Maud Demille is a daughter of Innkeepers--a special group who provide 'lodging' to other-planetary visitors--so she knows that a simple life isn't in the cards. But even Maud could never have anticipated what Fate would throw at her.

Once a wife to a powerful vampire knight, Maud and her young daughter, Helen, were exiled with him for his treachery to the desolate, savage planet of Karhari. Karhari killed her husband, and Maud--completely abandoned by his family--has spent over a year avenging his debts. Rescued by her sister Dina, she's sworn off all things vampire.

Except... In helping Dina save the world, she met Arland, the Marshal of House Krahr, one of the most powerful vampire houses. One thing led to another and he asked for her hand in marriage. She declined. Arland is not used to hearing the word 'no;' and try as she might, Maud can't just walk away from Arland. It doesn't help that being human is a lot harder for Maud than being a vampire.

To sort it all out, she accepts his invitation to visit his home planet. House Krahr is extremely influential and Maud knows that a woman--a human, with a very questionable past--who's turned down a proposal from its most beloved son won't get a warm reception. Maybe she's not sure about marrying Arland, but House Krahr isn't going to decide for her. Maud Demille has never run from a fight, and House Krahr will soon discover that there's a lot more to Maud than they're expecting.

Thank you for joining us at Gertrude Hunt, the nicest Bed and Breakfast in Red Deer, Texas, during the Treaty Stay. As you know, we are honor-bound to accept all guests during this oldest of innkeeper holidays and we are expecting a dangerous guest. Or several. But have no fear. Your safety and comfort is our first priority. The inn and your hosts, Dina Demille and Sean Evans, will defend you at all costs. [But we hope we don't have to.]

Every winter, Innkeepers look forward to celebrating their own special holiday, which commemorates the ancient treaty that united the very first Inns and established the rules that protect them, their intergalactic guests, and the very unaware/oblivious people of [planet] Earth. By tradition, the Innkeepers welcomed three guests: a warrior, a sage, and a pilgrim, but during the holiday, Innkeepers must open their doors to anyone who seeks lodging. Anyone.

All Dina hopes is that the guests and conduct themselves in a polite manner. But what's a holiday without at least one disaster?

The magic has returned... and so have the monsters.

Devin Eveson is a Soulkeeper, traveling through remote villages as a priest and healer. But when a mysterious black water washes over the world, the veil is torn, flooding the land with ancient magic and forgotten races. And not all the creatures that have reawakened remember humanity fondly.

As the land grows increasingly dangerous and chaotic, Soulkeepers are turning up dead. Devin must set aside his words of peace and accept his new role: slayer of monsters and protector of the human race.

Magical creatures are attacking the capital city, seeking to retake what was once theirs, and no one is safe. Ancient cultists have cursed the highest members of the Church, turning them into twisted abominations. The only hope for a cure lies with Adria Eveson. To learn the cure, she must befriend an imprisoned cultist, and guard her heart against his seductive promises and twisted logic.

The fate of all races, human and magical, rests in her hands, and in the choices she makes. Should she choose wrong, only one person stands in her way: her brother, the Soulkeeper Devin Eveson.

Monsters have retaken the capital city of Londheim and claimed it for themselves. Humanity, fearful of being pushed out for good, has reacted with violence and destruction, and peace between the two races seems all but impossible. Devin will need to bring all his skills to bear in order to find a solution. But the greatest threat to humanity's safety may well be closer than he expects. Because his sister is the most powerful priestess the world has ever seen... and she's fighting for the monsters.

The fate of all races, human and magical, rests in their hands, and the only person standing in their way is each other.

Guided by the great blue dragon Tintaglia, they came from the sea: a Tangle of serpents fighting their way up the Rain Wilds River, the first to make the perilous journey to the cocooning grounds in generations. Many have died along the way. With its acid waters and impenetrable forest, it is a hard place for any to survive.

People are changed by the Rain Wilds, subtly or otherwise. One such is Thymara. Born with black claws and other aberrations, she should have been exposed at birth. But her father saved her and her mother has never forgiven him. Like everyone else, Thymara is fascinated by the return of dragons: it is as if they symbolise the return of hope to their war-torn world. Leftrin, captain of the liveship Tarman, also has an interest in the hatching; as does Bingtown newlywed, Alise Finbok, who has made it her life's work to study all there is to know of dragons.

But the creatures which emerge from the cocoons are a travesty of the powerful, shining dragons of old. Stunted and deformed, they cannot fly; some seem witless and bestial. Soon, they become a danger and a burden to the Rain Wilders: something must be done. The dragons claim an ancestral memory of a fabled Elderling city far upriver: perhaps there the dragons will find their true home. But Kelsingra appears on no maps and they cannot get there on their own: a band of dragon keepers, hunters and chroniclers must attend them.

To be a dragon keeper is a dangerous job: their charges are vicious and unpredictable, and there are many unknown perils on the journey to a city which may not even exist...

After World War III, Earth is in ruins, and the final armies have come to a reluctant truce. Everyone must obey the law--in every way--or risk shattering the fragile peace and endangering the entire human race.

Arika Cobane is on the threshold of taking her place of privilege as a member of the Kongo elite after ten grueling years of training. But everything changes when a new student arrives speaking dangerous words of treason: What does peace matter if innocent lives are lost to maintain it? As Arika is exposed to new beliefs, she realizes that the laws she has dedicated herself to uphold are the root of her people's misery. If Arika is to liberate her people, she must unearth her fierce heart and discover the true meaning of freedom: finding the courage to live--or die--without fear.

General Arika Cobane, beloved leader of the worker rebellion, makes a bold--but illegal--move to ensure the people's freedom. When her scheme fails and her co-conspirator hangs for treason, Arika--overworked and overwrought--blacks out.

When she awakens, everything has changed. She's been stripped of her rank and power and the new leader of the Kongo, Kira Swan, is a charismatic traitor bent on consigning the Kongo under the guise of peace.

Desperate, Arika reunites with Hosea Kahn and seeks treatment for her blackouts at the Compound, deep in the deadly Obi Forest. Arika is determined to regain her influence, stop Kira Swan, and continue leading the Kongo to freedom, but time is running out and she's still unwell. Control is slipping from her fingers. When a new source of strength presents itself, an ancient authority reserved for the One destined to save the Kongo, Arika gives up everything, including Hosea Khan, to grasp the power, but--all alone, and sick and tired--can she muster the will to hold it?

In the second Witches of Echo Park novel, one coven must keep the world in balance and stand against a rising darkness.

Lyse MacAllister did not step into an easy role when she took over as master of the Echo Park coven of witches after her great-aunt Eleanora's death. As she begins to forge the bonds that will help her lead her sisters, she struggles to come to terms with her growing powers. And she soon faces a deadly new threat. A group of fanatics intent on bringing about the end of times has invaded the witches Council--but the Council is turning a blind eye to the danger growing in its midst.

Only one witch is prophesied to be able to stop the encroaching darkness. And if Lyse and her blood sisters are to have any chance at protecting all we know from being lost forever, they must keep her safe--no matter what the cost...

Using time travel to fight wars seemed like the perfect way to solve the international disputes of the 27th Century: all the economic advantages of warfare without any of the devastation taking place in your own time. Multinational corporations and governments geared up for the effort, secure in the knowledge that since the past already happened, it could not be changed, so history was safe. Or was it? When it was discovered that history could, indeed, be changed as a result of interference from the future, it seemed too late to stop the Time Wars, so a special unit was created to "adjust" for historical disruptions and preserve the continuity of the timestream. But as if going back into the past on missions to preserve the future wasn't challenging enough, now the elite First Division of the U.S. Army Temporal Corps faced a new and much more dangerous threat. A peaceful protest group had spun off a militant offshoot called the Timekeepers, radicals who believed the only way to stop the war machine was to create massive historical disruptions. A covert agent of Temporal Intelligence gave his life to warn of a terrorist plot by the Timekeepers, so Capt. Lucas Priest and Pfc. Finn Delaney are clocked back to 17th Century France, so they can join up with agents of the T.I.A. already in place to find out what the Timekeepers have planned. Their target could be Cardinal Richelieu, but it will be hard enough trying to figure out who their target is and how to stop them in a scenario where almost anyone could be a ringer, including a young Gascon named D'Artagnan and three of the King's flamboyant musketeers.

Two o'clock was missing.

In an alternate Victorian world controlled by clock towers, a damaged clock can fracture time--and a destroyed one can stop it completely.

It's a truth that seventeen-year-old clock mechanic Danny Hart knows all too well; his father has been trapped in a Stopped town east of London for three years. Though Danny is a prodigy who can repair not only clockwork, but the very fabric of time, his fixation with staging a rescue is quickly becoming a concern to his superiors.

And so they assign him to Enfield, a town where the tower seems to be forever plagued with problems. Danny's new apprentice both annoys and intrigues him, and though the boy is eager to work, he maintains a secretive distance. Danny soon discovers why: he is the tower's clock spirit, a mythical being that oversees Enfield's time. Though the boys are drawn together by their loneliness, Danny knows falling in love with a clock spirit is forbidden, and means risking everything he's fought to achieve.

But when a series of bombings at nearby towers threaten to Stop more cities, Danny must race to prevent Enfield from becoming the next target or he'll not only lose his father, but the boy he loves, forever.

Clock mechanic Danny Hart knows he's being watched. But by whom, or what, remains a mystery. To make matters worse, clock towers have begun falling in India, though time hasn't Stopped yet. He'd hoped after reuniting with his father and exploring his relationship with Colton, he'd have some time to settle into his new life. Instead, he's asked to investigate the attacks.

After inspecting some of the fallen Indian towers, he realizes the British occupation may be sparking more than just attacks. And as Danny and Colton unravel more secrets about their past, they find themselves on a dark and dangerous path--one from which they may never return.

The crew of the Prometheus is intent on taking down the world's clock towers so that time can run freely. Now captives, Colton, Daphne, and the others have a stark choice: join the Prometheus's cause, or fight back in any small way they can and face the consequences. But Zavier, leader of the terrorists, has a bigger plan--to bring back the lost god of time.

As new threats emerge, loyalties must shift. No matter where the Prometheus goes--Prague, Austria, India--nowhere is safe, and every second ticks closer toward the eleventh hour. Walking the line between villainy and heroism, each will have to choose what's most important: saving those you love at the expense of the many, or making impossible sacrifices for the sake of a better world.

Vega Jane was always told no one could leave the town of Wormwood. She was told there was nothing outside but the Quag, a wilderness filled with danger and death. And she believed it - until the night she stumbled across a secret that proved that everything she knew was a lie.

Now just one thing stands between Vega Jane and freedom - the Quag. In order to leave Wormwood and discover the truth about her world, Vega and her best friend Delph must find a way to make it across a terrifying land of bloodthirsty creatures and sinister magic. But the Quag is worse than Vega Jane's darkest imagining. It's a living, breathing prison designed to keep enemies out and the villagers of Wormwood in.

The Quag will throw everything at Vega Jane. It will try to break her. It will try to kill her. And survival might come at a price not even Vega Jane is willing to pay.

Dwarfs and elves are pitched into battle in this stirring fantasy tale by Oathbreaker author, Nick Kyme.

This title is the third novel in the Stefan Kumansky saga, preceded by Star of Erengrad and Taint of Evil. The agents of Chaos have launched an all-out attack on the empire of men. Yet, as their armies assault the city of Middenheim in the north, a plot is hatched in the capital city of Altdorf to assassinate the Grand Theogonist, head of the church of Sigmar, the spiritual heart of mankind. Without his guidance, surely the Empire will fall?

Rhode Island, 1846. Estranged from his family, writer Merritt Fernsby is surprised when he inherits a remote estate in the Narragansett Bay. Though the property has been uninhabited for more than a century, Merritt is ready to call it home-until he realizes he has no choice. With its doors slamming shut and locking behind him, Whimbrel House is not about to let Merritt leave. Ever.

Hulda Larkin of the Boston Institute for the Keeping of Enchanted Rooms has been trained in taming such structures in order to preserve their historical and magical significance. She understands the dangers of bespelled homes given to tantrums. She advises that it's in Merrit's best interest to make Whimbrel House their ally. To do that, she'll need to move in, too.

Prepared as she is with augury, a set of magic tools, and a new staff trained in the uncanny, Hulda's work still proves unexpectedly difficult. She and Merritt grow closer as the investigation progresses, but the house's secrets run deeper than they anticipated. And the sentient walls aren't their only concern-something outside is coming for the enchantments of Whimbrel House, and it could be more dangerous than what rattles within.

Six breathtaking stories set in the bestselling world of The Inkeeper's Song.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron (2012), edited by Jonathan Strahan. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Seven (2013), edited by Jonathan Strahan, and The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2013, edited by Paula Guran. The story is included in the collection The Overneath (2017).

Read the full story for free at the Baen website.

Locus Award nominated novelette.

This short story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May, 2004. It has been collected in The Line Between (2006) and anthologized in Fantasy: The Best of 2004, edited by Jonathan Strahan and Karen Haber, and in Year's Best Fantasy 5, edited by Kathryn Cramer and David G. Hartwell.

Set in a shadowy world of magic and mystery, a fantasy novel in which a young man sets off on a wild ride in pursuit of the lover whose death and resurrection he witnessed.