"Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was ten, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself--and his dad. Then, when Charlie is seventeen, he meets Howard Bowditch, a recluse with a big dog in a big house at the top of a big hill. In the backyard is a locked shed from which...

"The life of the youngest musketress of Ninetha has been one of hard training. But Lilith's days have also contained many pleasures, the royal privileges of her family's guardianship of the Cornucopia, a mystical source of limitless bounty. Lilith has never seen a book, and she never expects to encounter one within the safety of the citadel. When Ishmael, an outcast librarian, shows up outside the Afriq Gate, Lilith saves him from immediate execution...

A collection of six short stories imagines future lands with new technologies and beings, where in spite of advanced capabilities, people still must confront deeply human problems.

"In the thriving city of Bassa, Danso is a clever but disillusioned scholar who longs for a life beyond the rigid family and political obligations expected of the city's elite. A way out presents itself when Lilong, a skin-changing warrior, shows up wounded in his barn. She comes from the Nameless Islands- which, according to Bassa lore, don't exist- and neither should the mythical magic of ibor she wields. Now swept into a conspiracy far beyond his...

Annalise Meriwether-though kind, smart, and curious-is terribly lonely. Cursed at birth by the devious Fate Spinner, Annalise has always lived a solitary life with her loving parents. She does her best to ignore the cruel townsfolk of her desolate town-but the black mark on her hand won't be ignored. Not when the monster living within it, which seems to have an agenda of its own, grows more unpredictable each day. There's only one way for Annalise...

The prince who will conquer all the kingdoms of myth. The woman who must stop him. Not all myths are harmless. Yevliesza, formerly of earth and now of the Mythos, knows that one of the mythical realms is based in darkness. Volkia. This warlike kingdom has shattered the rules of magic, bringing all the realms into peril. When Yevliesza is sent to Volkia on a diplomatic mission, she arrives at a nest of vipers. The cunning ruler of Volkia, Prince Albrecht,...