Books Tagged With author - american

Word Count: Click here to reveal75,600 (Click here to hide)

Summary: Welcome to the Shifting Lands. Silluka was born with only one arm and could never practice the exacting motions to summon the favor of the gods. Caught stealing, she is forced to test her powers or be branded an outcast. She fails, and loses citizenship to her village. In a fit of desperation, Silluka tries to steal a badge of citizenship from a mysterious elder. But instead, Elder Quilqi shows Silluka a different path to gain the powers of the gods, aided by an octopus-like technological wizard who worships their own eldritch divinities. Time is short for training however, because a new island is speeding toward the coastal town, throwing deadly hurricanes and tidal waves before it, and threatening all who live there. Only the gods and godlike storm warriors protect the village from destruction, but all of them fail when a mysterious creature bursts through the wall. It's only one forerunner for a species of terrifying turtlemen: fast, deadly, and ready to invade the larger island. The village must flee inland before the invasion, while Silluka is weighed down by her outcast status and her brother’s failing abilities. To save herself, her family, and her village, Silluka must overcome stigma and self-doubt. She must learn the scope of the world outside her village. She must learn Physical Magic.

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Summary: Chloe’s first memory is of being carried hurriedly by Tashuhunka through sleeting rain with echoing blasts of thunder as an epic battle raged overhead. Tash, the only boy that wasn’t caught that night, raised her in secret as he also hid in the woods. She is devastated years later when he sends her to live with a family. She feels like she was orphaned twice. Now eighteen, Chloe is starting to hear things that other’s can’t. She feels drawn places she was warned about, and she dreams of boys...but there aren’t any boys in the realm - other than Tash. All the other boys were imprisoned by the witch who believes one of them is the emperor's heir and she wants that power. After the witch won the battle and imprisoned the boys, she cast a spell making everyone forget about them. Now, Chloe has seen the boys in visions. Her friends think she's imagining. Tash knows better. This is what he was afraid of. He tried to protect her from a perilous fate written in ancient prophecies, but as she comes of age, destiny propels her to solve the mysteries of the realm and free the boys. But, how? Magic doesn't work without dust, which is scarce now, and Chloe doesn't have superpowers. She's just a misfit, from the wrong side of the pond. Something inside drives her. She doesn't know she's being brave. She's just following her heart, and not thinking how scary it all is.

Word Count: Click here to reveal95000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: “Reality took a greasy slide off-kilter. He had to be mistaken. Please, please God let him be mistaken…” Miles Baumgartner lost his boyfriend. His house. His job. Worst of all, he lost his nephew when Ian—his almost-son—died, crushed to death in a car accident nine months ago. So how is there a recent photo of Ian on Facebook? A series of lies and half-truths leads Miles far north to a long-abandoned orphanage. Secrets slink within St. Hamelin’s shadowed halls, and when Miles starts piecing the truth together, the horrors that walk within its rooms tighten their grip. They say that time heals all wounds, but time is running out for Miles. How can he start his life over now, knowing what really happened to Ian and the children of that unholy place? To have any chance, he must escape before dark forces curse him to walk eternally with the evils inhabiting St. Hamelin’s.  

Word Count: Click here to reveal41099 (Click here to hide)

Summary: Terra is overcrowded, but a solution may have been found -- tucked away in Roswell is alien technology that leads to the creation of a method of space travel known as portaling . A party of soldiers and scientists led by Dr. Emma Bradley, Colonel John Berger, and Dr. Layton Tremayne are about to take what they believe is the first step into the unknown. But what they discover is not only a wonder but a puzzle. The city of Eden on the distant planet Nibiru has obvious Terran influences. Who was there before them? When Emma, John, and Layton return to Terra, they're dismayed to find things are even worse than they were when the trio left. The atmosphere is on the verge of toxicity and the population is reaching Malthusian proportions. Worse, there are plans afoot to portal the excess population off Terra to planets which may not be what their new inhabitants expect. Most won't survive. Then they learn that a platoon of soldiers were portaled to Eden for a planned invasion of Nibiru and the surrounding planets. Emma, John, and Layton scramble to stop the military action, but will they be able to take back the city that’s become their home?

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Summary: Echo, the unwilling heir to Atlantis, never intended to be a hero. After she and her friends—the magician Barnabas Coy, Artem, son of the Amazons, and the unwitting were-shark, Yuri—were forced to stop a war between Atlantis and the surface world not long ago, Echo thought her adventuring days were over. She headed out with her companions on the ghost ship the Endless, unsure where the sea would take them. But the war they stopped had consequences. The explosive final battle woke something dark and sinister buried for centuries in Poseidon’s Scar, a near-bottomless trench near the borders of Atlantis. That evil force has begun to make its way across the ocean floor, headed toward the coast and leaving a trail of carnage in its wake. To stop this ancient evil, Echo and her crew will have to race across the seven seas, teaming up with Amazons and Atlanteans, sea spirits and river gods, to retrieve the mystic artifacts they need to send this monstrous force back to its watery resting place. Along the way, they’ll reunite with missing friends, discover new allies, and face challenges they’ve never seen before, from mysterious necromancers to Lovecraftian cults. Will this ragtag bunch of warriors, magicians, smugglers, and were-sharks be enough to save the world again? Or will the darkness rising from Poseidon’s Scar being a new age of terror?

Word Count: Click here to reveal26683 (Click here to hide)

Summary: Three months after his run-in with the vampire Marcus Gråsson, Christopher’s ankle has healed but his life is anything but perfect. There are people watching the house. Flora’s worried about the scarecrow. And after an unexpected tragedy strikes, Christopher will need to figure out how to deal with the loss without tearing a rift between his brother and himself. When Victor accepts a job with Pretty, a prestigious private hospital, to work alongside the handsome Austen Poole, Christopher ends up with one more thing to worry about. While it might seem like a dream job, there’s something not quite right in paradise, and when Vic starts acting strangely, Christopher will stop at nothing to get his man back. When striving for perfection, you sometimes need to get your hands a little dirty.

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Summary: In the dystopian future where the rich have turned two dimensional and gobbled up the world’s resources, leaving the enslaved poor to remain three dimensional, can a disgraced detective help his rebellious daughter save the world? The sci-fi paranoia of Philip K. Dick meets the hardboiled sleuthing of Raymond Chandler. Prior Futures is a fast-paced and enigmatic trip through a nightmare world lost to its own decadent affair with nanotechnology and two-dimensional beings. Atmospheric and thought-provoking, this book will have you looking over your shoulder for nanos. It won’t help, though. You can’t see them. – David E. Sharp, author of Lost on a Page Winner of a 2022 Independent Press Award for Science Fiction Distinguished Favorite! Finalist, The Best Thriller Book Awards on BestThrillers.com

Word Count: Click here to reveal206000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: What is the cost of survival? It's been a year since Cassidy Durant became the captain of the Dreamscape Voyager, and six months since she witnessed the carnage at the Dragon's Nest. Supported by her crew and Hymn — the enigmatic Fae with whom she has formed an illicit partnership — she has done all she can to carry on with her life. However, the horrors of the past refuse to stay behind her. Instead, they threaten the future of the entire Empire. Promises of the Empire is the epic second installment in the Dreamscape Voyager Trilogy, which began with Skies of the Empire.

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Summary: At Providence Paranormal College, class is about to start. Who’s enrolled? Students who are a bit different: vampires, werewolves, changelings, shifters, psychics, and magi. For one-hundred years, the college has taught and trained only psychics or magi, and for the first time, it’s opening the doors to those not different: regular humans. At this Ivy-League school, the students are expected to learn their powers and keep high grades. Unfortunately, grades are slipping, but that’s what happens when a mysterious villain is hunting you down… Because someone is angry about this new admissions policy and they'll kill to stop integration. To defeat this rising evil, the students must band together and master their strange powers – because if they don’t.. Well, it’s pretty hard to graduate when you’re dead.

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Summary: The Education Continues at Providence Paranormal College! Five more books, no waiting. Read. Laugh. Catch a case of the feels. Book 6: Roundtable Redcap: Can Fred rescue his brother from the Fae Queen with just reluctant Psychic Irina to help? Book 7: Better Off Undead: Lane and his vampire punk band Night Creatures are broke and broken. Can they pick up their pieces and shine in a Battle of the Bands? Book 8: Ghost of a Chance: Ghostly Horace and his Medium, Bianca, must solve a mystery to save Professor Watkins. Book 9: Nine Lives: It's time for Olivia Adler to trust her instincts or Tony Gitano just might die for good. Book 10: Fae of Fae Knot: The family that's Fae together can't stay together. The series concludes as they bend the tantamount Faerie Law to its breaking point.

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Summary: At Providence Paranormal College, class is about to start. Who’s enrolled? Students who are a bit different: vampires, werewolves, changelings, shifters, psychics, and magi. For one hundred years, the college has taught and trained only psychics or magi, and for the first time, it’s opening the doors to those not different: regular humans. At this Ivy-League school, the students are expected to learn their powers and keep high grades. Unfortunately, grades are slipping, but that’s what happens when a mysterious villain is hunting you down… Because someone is angry about this new admissions policy and they'll kill to stop integration. To defeat this rising evil, the students must band together and master their strange powers – because if they don’t.. Well, it’s pretty hard to graduate when you’re dead.

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Summary: Four members of The Vampire Guard—Forge, Blair, Declan, and Lucas—face a dangerous and elusive enemy. And this time, it’s personal. When massive tech outages impact everything from Wi-Fi to traffic control, Blair, Forge, Declan, and Lucas think it’s a simple matter of catching troublesome hackers. But they quickly realize far more is at stake. Millions of dollars in art are the target of a thief who’s not afraid to kill---and he’s no stranger. Not only has he escaped capture, twice, a decade ago, but he’s had a hand in life-altering tragedies throughout their lifetimes. Once it becomes clear that art theft is just a fraction of his plan for mass destruction, they realize time is running out. The clock’s ticking. Catastrophe is imminent. Can they find and disarm all the bombs in time or will countless lives be lost?

Word Count: Click here to reveal115000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: Frontiers have always attracted the Other - where they find that the Other is always already there. These 22 stories explore what happens when queer characters encounter weirdness on the edge of the worlds they know. Authors include: Julie Bozza, J.A. Bryson, Dannye Chase, S.E. Denton, Miguel Flores, Adele Gardner, Roy Gray, KC Grifant, Peter Hackney, Bryn Hammond, Narrelle M Harris, Justin Warren Jackson, Toshiya Kamei, Catherine Lundoff, Bunny McFadden, Angus McIntyre, Atlin Merrick, Eleanor Musgrove, Jennifer Lee Rossman, Lauren Scharhag, Sara L. Uckelman, and Dawn Vogel.

Word Count: Click here to reveal100000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: Qwyrk is having a bad day; several, in fact. One of the Shadow folk tasked with keeping an eye on humanity, she’s ready for a well-earned break in Yorkshire, but now she’s (literally) run into a girl, Jilly, who just saw something quite supernatural and truly awful happen in her town. As Qwyrk tries to unravel the mystery, layers of villainy are exposed, and she’s stuck with an assortment of unlikely folk that she’d rather not have “helping” her. Together, they confront ancient magic, medieval conspiracies, and the possible end of the world (that again?). It’s not the holiday Qwyrk was hoping for! Qwyrk is the first in a series of four novels about the adventures of a group of misfits at the edge of reality in modern northern England, a world of shadows, Nighttime Nasties, sorcery, intergalactic councils, tacky nightclub attire, an abundance of sarcasm, and even elves… though they are a bit silly.

Word Count: Click here to reveal74000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: A cozy high fantasy full of food, fun, and friendship. Here is the official blurb: Cooking, magic, and scandal. When a good deed boils into a mystery, can this talented artificer keep an innocent from going down for the crime? Dana Everet is loyal to a fault. Moving to a remote village to help a good friend make a fresh start, the celebrated magical inventor is certain her grannie’s cookbooks contain the perfect formula for delighting the locals with treats. But the surefire plan turns out half-baked when a search of her late grandmother’s old restaurant turns up nothing but crumbs. Suspecting the town innkeeper of the theft, Dana grows frustrated when the woman denies the charges and the local sheriff refuses to get involved. And with her supernatural power running low, the resident gossip vanishing, and her pal’s buried secret landing her on the suspect list, she scrambles to find the real culprit before it’s too late. Can Dana serve up justice, or will she be left with burnt offerings? Recipes for the Copper Snake is the charming first book in the Post Host cozy fantasy series. If you like big-hearted protagonists, quirky townsfolk, and chasing down clues, then you’ll love J.S. Ruff’s smorgasbord of fun.

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Summary: 1899 years after the Catastrophe, Bridges is run by the Mob. As its steam-driven infrastructure fails, a new faction rises. Can she stop them? The Red Dog Conspiracy follows the story of 22-year-old small-time private eye Jacqueline Spadros beginning from her first major case: the missing little brother of her best friend, whose murder ten years before in front of her still haunts her nightmares. The only clue? A Red Dog stamp across the alley from where the boy was last seen. Dodging the man - seemingly mad - who has publicly threatened her life, placating her brutal, sadistic father-in-law, and dealing with her feelings about her ex-lover, while being married to one of the city's biggest drug lords: Jacqui is a busy woman. Her life is about to get much busier. From the very first page, Jacqui is dragged into a web of lies, secrets, and betrayals which both endangers her life and the lives of those she loves. Dark, gritty, violent steampunk crime fiction which keeps you guessing to the very end. If you like crime fiction, noir, Victorian/historical, gritty steampunk, psychological thrillers, hardboiled mystery, hard sf, dystopian, or mafia romance you will love this set. This digital box set comprises Act 1 of a 13 part serial novel. Included in this set: The Jacq of Spades: Part 1 of the Red Dog Conspiracy The Queen of Diamonds: Part 2 of the Red Dog Conspiracy The Ace of Clubs: Part 3 of the Red Dog Conspiracy If made into movies, this set would be rated R for bad language, graphic violence, smoking and alcohol use, child kidnapping, teenagers murdered (a serial killer is on the loose), and sexual content (Jacqui is married, after all). Welcome to the Family.

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Summary: She escaped Spadros Manor, but her troubles are only beginning. Not even hostile mobs, assassins, drive-by shootings, and an explosive encounter with her worst enemy can stop private eye and mafia wife Jacqueline Spadros. She's on a quest to destroy the Red Dog Gang - before they destroy her. Dark, gritty, violent steampunk crime fiction which keeps you guessing to the very end. If you like crime fiction, noir, Victorian/historical, gritty steampunk, psychological thrillers, hardboiled mystery, hard sf, dystopian, or slow burn mafia romance you will love this series. If made into movies, this set would be rated R for bad language, graphic violence, smoking and alcohol use, pregnancy loss, child injury/murder, animal injury/death, and sexual content (Jacqui is married, after all). This digital box set comprises Act 2A of a 13 part serial novel, which brings us to the midpoint of the story. Included in this set: The King of Hearts: Part 4 of the Red Dog Conspiracy The Ten of Spades: Part 5 of the Red Dog Conspiracy The Five of Diamonds: Part 6 of the Red Dog Conspiracy The Two of Hearts: Part 7 of the Red Dog Conspiracy The Red Dog Conspiracy is one giant book - please read the first three books in the series (start with The Jacq of Spades, or read Red Dog Conspiracy Act 1) before beginning this set.

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Summary: Everything Tristan, Ushna, and Brian have fought for comes down to the moment they face Inanna and Marduk. Before then, Ushna must embrace his destiny and be transformed by Tiamat. But he returns with a fractured mind and will need the help of the new firebird or he'll be lost to the insanity of a primordial God. If he's lost, so is the balance Brian and Tristan sorely need. Tristan has vowed to care for his ex-Flame, Theo Sullivan, who is doomed to forget more and more with each use of his new ability. When not dealing with his stubborn ex, Tristan must free the warriors stolen by the government and devise a trap for Inanna. And that's only the start of the challenges, and everything that can still go wrong. Note: Releasing Chaos is the final book in the Sumeria's Sons series and features a poly (M/M/M) relationship. This book was previously released by another publisher and has been re-edited.

Word Count: Click here to reveal84000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: Stationmaster and exiled aristocrat Albert St. John Rembrandt—Bertie to his friends—is in love with a Tolari ruler he believes he can’t have. When he nearly dies finding out the hard way that some Tolari are as poisonous as their planet, it’s only the beginning of his troubles. A ship has gone missing. His station is in crisis. Bertie must somehow recover his health and manage the disaster while trying to decide whether to accept genetic modification in order to be with the man he loves. And no Rembrandt has ever taken a gen mod.

Word Count: Click here to reveal49000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: Will the bond of blood outweigh the passions of the heart? While sketching the Temple of Dendur, graduate student Carter Denwright meets—and is seduced by—a powerful vampire by the name of Alder. Once kept secret from the human world, now everyone knows of their existence. Blinded by mistaken feelings for Alder, Carter allows himself to be drawn into his life. Too late, he realizes two things: one, Alder is vicious and cruel, and two, Carter’s true love is Alder’s brother, Freyr. The attraction between Carter and Freyr is strong, but they must fight this feeling or face the wrath of Alder. Despite their best efforts, Alder discovers the truth, and punishes Carter, hiding him from Freyr in a cruel game of cat and mouse. Freyr is not as strong as his brother, but he vows that he will find Carter again and will stop at nothing to get him back. Carter, caught in Alder’s cruel grip, commits an act of desperation which will change all their lives forever. The question is: can Freyr find Carter and is the bond between him and Carter enough to break Alder’s hold and spoil his plans to ruin them both?   *Note: There are scenes of mental/sexual abuse in the first chapter of this book.