Transgender demigod Teo is unexpectedly selected for the Sunbearer Trials, a fierce competition among demigod heroes where the winner sacrifices the loser to Sol, their blood fueling the Sun Stones that protect Reino del Sol. "Only the most powerful and honorable semidioses get chosen. I'm just a Jade. I'm not a real hero." As each new decade begins, the Sun's power must be replenished so that Sol can keep traveling along the sky and keep the evil...

When Susanne leaves her city home to visit her grandmother, she finds a very special tree of her own in the forest. Each time she returns to the tree, she observes something unique about it--from the sheltering protection of its branches to the scratchy surface of its bark.

Chosen as the sacrifice needed to break the tether that holds her city in the sky to the planet below, Sera feels betrayed, and as things don't go as planned, she finds herself not only fighting for her own life, but the lives of her people as well.

It is a time of trouble in the Northern Kingdoms because a group of power-hungry polar bears called Roguers has been snatching cubs from their mothers and killing those who resist; but Svenna is not about to relinquish her two cubs to that fate, so she agrees to go with the Roguers and serve Mystress of the Hands if her cubs, who have special powers, are allowed to stay with her cousin--but nobody is truly safe when a way of life is collapsing around...

"Once every eighteen years, the isolated forest village of Weatherell is asked to send one girl to the god of the mountain to give a sacrifice before returning home. Twins Anya and Ilva Astraea are raised with this destiny in mind, and when their time comes, spirited Ilva volunteers to go. Her devoted sister Anya is left at home to pray for Ilva’s safe return. But Anya’s prayers are denied. With her sister dead, Anya volunteers to make a journey...

"Khosa is destined to be sacrificed to the sea and struggles to understand her destiny as the kingdom comes under attack and the ocean threatens to destroy them all"--

Teased, bullied, and finally humiliated by the girls at school, twelve-year-old Rose Coffin escapes into the mysterious forest where she is immediately captured and taken to the magical world of Eppersett, where she is told that she is special, the one who will save Eppersett from the Abomination with the power of her voice; Rose is thrilled to be wanted--until she finds out that she is wanted not as a singer but as a human sacrifice.

In the magical kingdom of Orkena, a teenaged girl is chosen to be the human sacrifice in a deadly game between three heirs who will do anything for the crown. Zahru has dreamed having adventures, but as a lowly Whisperer in the kingdom of Orkena, her power to commune with animals means that her place is serving in the royal stables until the day her magic runs dry. Then the ailing ruler invokes the Crossing: a death-defying race across the desert,...

"One boy's parents travel from far-off lands to improve their son's life. But what happens next is unexpected. What does it mean when your parents are different? With humor and pathos, Sworder reflects on the strange nature of giving and receiving love and celebrates those parents who embrace a hard life for themselves in the hope of a better life for their children"--