Books Tagged With what - topic - religion

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The action-packed conclusion to the award-winning series!

Withrow, Roderick, the Technopagans, the Book People, and all the rest of Withrow’s friends, allies, and accomplices are back again to bring the fight to their enemies – and to finish it once and for all!

The elder vampires have issued their challenge and Withrow has taken them up on it. Now he and the rest of the gang have teamed up to go to where they’ve always known they shouldn’t trespass: the stronghold of the elders, a gated community on the outskirts of Charlotte, North Carolina. Tucked away behind the high walls of their unholy fortress, the elders are ready to spring their villainy on the unsuspecting modern age and only Withrow stands in their way.

Withrow, Roderick, Jennifer, and their friends know they have only one chance to stop these ancient evils from roaring back out of the past – and it will take risking everything and everyone they hold dear if they’re to succeed. Join the fight alongside these unlikely heroes as they risk life, limb, souls, and sanity itself in a no-holds-barred free-for-all against the monsters who stand ready to re-enslave the world!

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Summary: An exiled prince searching for the truth. A curious squire desperate to prove himself. An epic romance that will change the world. Sixteen-year-old Prince Anden has spent eight years in the shadows - banished, forgotten, blamed for the death of a king. When he returns to his tense and divided kingdom, he meets River: an eager squire with a talent for trouble and a smile that disarms Anden’s guarded heart. As their friendship grows into something deeper, Anden begins to believe he might deserve more than vengeance. He might even deserve love. But treason runs deeper than either of them imagined. As assassins close in and war brews across the continent, Anden must rally allies, confront buried truths, and risk everything – not just for the crown or his family, but for the boy who believes in him. Set in a world without overt magic, Prince of Dawn is the spellbinding first volume in a queer fantasy trilogy about loyalty, legacy, and the courage to choose your own future.

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Summary: The epic conclusion to the LGBTQ fantasy series. King Anden of Vindra stands against High Queen Telmaine, a clash of crowns that will determine the fate of the continent. The Berossian Empire launches its forces in a great crusade, but an unexpected voice rises in the form of a barefoot priestess, whose messages of peace spread like wildfire, threatening to derail the empire’s war effort and shake its very foundations. Cities will burn. Generals will fall. History repeats itself as Anden finds himself at sea, torn between saving his kingdom and the man he loves. The final book of the CELESTIA trilogy is a breathtaking tale of love and sacrifice, choices and destiny. When Celestia is drawn for the last time, who will shape the world to come?

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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: RISE (noun / verb) Eight definitions to inspire writers around the world, and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell: 1) An upward slope or movement 2) A beginning or origin 3) An increase in amount or number 4) An angry reaction 5) To take up arms 6) To return from death 7) To become heartened or elated 8) To exert oneself to meet a challenge Rise features 300-word speculative flash fiction stories from across the rainbow spectrum, from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.

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Summary: Book 2 in the Hammer Falls Series (should be read in order) Ever since Jin met his demon father, Ashmedai, and noticed how similar they are, he's been plagued by the idea he's bad. He can see it in the deceiving effects of his lust-demon eyes, the friendship he ruined with best friend Sam, and in the many, horribly obvious differences between himself and his noble part-angel boyfriend Nate. And now, even his fledgeling 'good' magic seems to have vanished - smothered and replaced by something with sinister, evil-feeling intentions... As animals turn up mutilated in the woods and Ashmedai's plans to avenge his banishment become clearer, Nate leaves for a place at the oppressive Seminary and Jin begins to spiral - doubting Nate, doubting himself, fighting his own impulses about love, sex, good and evil. But nothing is what he thinks: not the Seminary, not his magic, and certainly not Ashmedai's plans. Can Jin overcome his fears about what being 'good' enough means in time to save not just himself but all the other people implicated, before his father's schemes bear their terrible fruit? Sons of Heaven and Hell contains a prickly, velvet-loving half-demon, hot demon hunters, werebears, angst, messy love and explicit MM sex and steamy MMM polyamory scenes not suitable for younger readers.

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Summary: In an alternate reality, the human home world of Valchondria comes together under a constitution based on the Iroquois Federation. Centuries later, the Iroquois scientist Taldra becomes Valchondria’s Leader. Now Taldra and her twin gay sons must form new alliances as humanity faces a race of alien shapeshifters intent on using people as a food source. One of Taldra’s rivals might pose an even greater threat.

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Summary: What if the side quest is really the main quest? Divine, a healer of the Goddess of Souls, has chased the thief who stole her talisman across half of Trelvania. The talisman is the key to accessing her magic well, and without it, she is powerless. While chasing her betrayer, former girlfriend, and servant of the Goddess of Condemnation, Divine meets Saph, a flirty tavern owner with an eyepatch and a proposition. Saph will help Divine locate her talisman if Divine helps her complete a mysterious quest in a chest. Inspired by RPGs and set in scenic autumn, prepare for an adventure with gods and goddesses, deceitful exes, axe throwing, and fantastical creatures. Can Divine learn to trust again and find romance in the middle of finding her magic?

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Summary: The Big Cinch embeds readers in a magic-laced St. Louis, once known as Mound City, home of the indigenous Americans’ Mississippian ancestors. Little evidence of their civilization survives in 1924, apart from the popular Piasa monster image, invoked to sell plows as well as ornament civic pageants. Sean Joye, a recent Irish immigrant, tried to avoid fae attention and ignore his magical abilities since childhood. A young veteran of 1922’s Irish Civil War, he aims to atone for his assassin past and make a clean life in America.  Sean helps a wealthy, powerful, magic-dabbling family—founders of the most exclusive club in town, the Piasa Lodge--with a discreet inquiry or two. Sexually involved with a secretive, high-society flapper, he falls hard for her fiancé, a Great War flying ace with a few secrets of his own. But Sean asks the wrong questions about a kidnapped toddler and missing Native American artifacts and becomes a suspect in his lover’s bludgeoning and a tycoon’s murder. Can he master the paranormal abilities he’s rejected for so long in time to protect the innocent and save his own skin?

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Summary: The era of darkness has passed, and humanity has painstakingly rebuilt its technological prowess in science and engineering, medicine, and even space flight. Despite the gradual restoration of knowledge over the past millennium, much of history remains shrouded in a dimly-remembered, murky past. Enter Reysa Sahin, a brilliant young archaeologist, who unearths a manuscript from the lost age, penned by the esteemed oracle Blessed Julia Lowell herself. This precious relic not only unveils a forgotten past but serves as a stark warning against repeating the mistakes that once nearly annihilated humankind. Revealing Blessed Julia's wisdom triggers an unstoppable chain of events, ensnaring astronaut Kallman Dorn, his cautious and empathetic partner, the aging patriarch of the Holy See of Klen, and the fanatical, fiery leader of the Zealots—who is determined to finally purify the human race. Once again, humanity is at a crossroads. Echoes from the past collide. Will a discovery on the far side of the moon reignite the powder keg and send it back to the Dark Ages, or will it point the way toward the stars and enlightenment?

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Summary: Magical Realism. Shamanism. Post-apocalyptic survival. Coming of age. Found Family. All of that and more in a short adventure in future Oregon after the great Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquakes have ravaged the west. Meet Rodney, a seven year old boy who can see the spirits of the dead. Meet Justin, a mostly-absent father who still wishes the best for his son. Meet AJ, the bridge between them and commander of the militia forces sent to liberate the community of Sutherlin from their evil overlords. Rodney first sees the spirit of a recently departed soul when he is only seven. He sees two of them in only a couple weeks. And they tell him things. Things his community are having difficulty believing. So he tells them secrets. Secrets that those spirits shared with him. When he's 17, another spirit helps Rodney and his militia patrol survive an ambush. Things build from there with an expedition to a ravaged community resulting in a short war to liberate them. Spirits, haunts, and otherworldly guides work with Rodney to rescue a community. Rodney becomes The First Knight Shaman.

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Summary: Dwyn is a young man in the small, isolated northern town of Manicouga, son of the Minstor, and betrothed to marry the beautiful Kessa in a few weeks. Mael is shepherding the remains of his own people from Land’s End, a village farther north, chased out by a terrible storm that destroyed the town. Both are trying to find their way in a post-apocalyptic world. When they meet, their love may change the course of history.

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Summary: An unprecedented heat and humidity has fallen upon the city of Bridges. People are dying. Crops are failing. And the Inventors can't find the cause. With all she's learned in our previous chapter, Jacqui has what she needs to unravel the conspiracy against the Four Families. The plans that her old nemesis Jack Diamond has set into motion are all that stands in her way. She's ready to stop him. Warning: Bad language, alcoholism, mental illness, animal abuse/death, smoking, gun violence, rioting, infidelity, sexual situations. This series centers a crime family and is intended for adults. This is the eleventh chapter of a 13-part serial novel: * The Jacq of Spades * The Queen of Diamonds * The Ace of Clubs * The King of Hearts * The Ten of Spades * The Five of Diamonds * The Two of Hearts * The Three of Spades * The Knave of Hearts * The Four of Clubs * The Jack of Diamonds <-- you are here * Book 12 coming March 2026 * Book 13 scheduled for March 2028

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Summary: In a far future city divided between violent crime families, mafia wife Jacqueline Spadros has kept her private detective business a secret so far. But then the little brother of her murdered best friend vanishes from his back porch. Can she risk the Family's anger to save him? When the scoundrels begin stalking her, can she afford not to?

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Summary: She barely survived the last round. As the Red Dog Gang closes in on her Family, can she survive the next? After the devastating events of our last chapter, all private eye and mafia wife Jacqueline Spadros wants is to get her life back. Then a missing person she thought she'd never track down falls into her lap. Jacqui is thrown into a series of events which not only puts her and everyone around her into danger, but changes her life forever. Warning: on-screen murder, major consent issues, smoking, language, infidelity, betrayal, description of injury, gore, on-screen suicide, child injury This is chapter 9 of a 13-part serial novel. Please read these books in order: * The Jacq of Spades * The Queen of Diamonds * The Ace of Clubs * The King of Hearts * The Ten of Spades * The Five of Diamonds * The Two of Hearts * The Three of Spades * The Knave of Hearts <-- you are here Book 10 coming October 2023

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Summary: All hell breaks loose when a jailhouse preacher aims for heavenly escape. Sean Joye is a fae-touched young veteran of 1922’s Irish Civil War. He wants nothing more than to start a clean, new life in America, free of supernatural misadventures and shoot-on-sight orders. He takes what he thinks is an easy job as bodyguard for a St. Louis judge, driving him to Missouri’s infamous state penitentiary to witness an execution. The appointed day is clear and fine. A perfect day for a hanging. Yet as soon as they arrive at the prison, Sean realizes his back is up over something.  Maybe it’s just the summer heat or Sean's memories of his own time as a prisoner of war, but psychic premonitions of trouble are more likely. He soon finds himself a pawn in a jailhouse preacher’s mountain-magic-fueled escape attempt. Sean must rise to the occasion, evading rioting convicts, trigger-happy guards, and a preternatural cyclone to rescue both the judge and an unjustly condemned prisoner from the resurrectionist.

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Summary: The great quakes of 2040 led to the downfall of civilization in the Pacific Northwest. Here is a tale of the days of destruction and the survival of one small family that then shaped the future for a thousand years after. Peter is just one year old when his family is stranded in the wilderness after the quakes destroyed roads, bridges, buildings, and civility. His father and mother struggle to bring him home to their city of Sutherlin through a nine-year odyssey. Then, at the very gates of their home, they find themselves under attack by the townsmen they counted on for refuge. Follow Peter, and Wayne and Carrie Williams as they struggle for survival in a post-apocalyptic world, meeting friends and foes all of whom set the path ahead for young Peter to either survive or perish. The Apocrypha of the Knight Shamans is an entire series devoted to explore methods to break people out of the deep programming that civilization and culture impose on them. In short, when nearly half the people in the United States have been convinced that “Woke” is evil and anyone who is “Woke” should be severely dealt with, this series will not only show how two young men escape the mind-prison of our current culture, but will also some ideas of what their human spirit gains in being truly “Woke” as opposed to what the ignorant masses have been indoctrinated to believe.

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Summary: As the epic trilogy hurtles toward its conclusion, the fight for the future isn’t over yet. It could lead to a new beginning, or it might spell the end for the last vestiges of humankind. The generation ship Forever has left Earth behind, but a piece of the old civilization lives on in the Inthworld—a virtual realm that retains memories of Earth's technological wonders and vices. A being named Lilith leads the uprising, and if she succeeds in setting its inhabitants free, they could destroy Forever. But during the generation ship's decades-long voyage, humanity has evolved. Liminals with the ability to connect with the world mind and the Inthworld provide a glimmer of hope. They'll have to face not only Lilith’s minions, but also the mistrust of their own kind and persecution from a new government as homotypicals continue to fear what they can't understand. The invasion must be stopped, the Inthworld must be healed, and the people of Forever must let go of their past and embrace what they’re meant to become.

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Summary: Some stories are epic. The Earth is in a state of collapse, with wars breaking out over resources and an environment pushed to the edge by human greed. Three living generation ships have been built with a combination of genetic mastery, artificial intelligence, technology, and raw materials harvested from the asteroid belt. This is the story of one of them—43 Ariadne, or Forever, as her inhabitants call her—a living world that carries the remaining hopes of humanity, and the three generations of scientists, engineers, and explorers working to colonize her. From her humble beginnings as a seedling saved from disaster to the start of her journey across the void of space toward a new home for the human race, The Stark Divide tells the tales of the world, the people who made her, and the few who will become something altogether beyond human.

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Summary: Justin Earl Knight, The Founder works with his son Rodney and a gifted healer, Peter, to rebuild the Elk Creek Tribe's community from the ashes of a series of quakes that devastate their land. We first meet Justin here when his mother summons he and his five siblings to a church celebration in 2012. There, Justin recalls his past with that church and meets a fanatic who tries to take his spirit down. Justin uses the strength of his own faith to fight off a demon and then must decide whether real family has value in a world of rejection and abuse. "The First Knight Shaman" is told from Rodney Knight's view. Peter's entry into manhood is the primary focus of "The Second Book of the Knight Shamans." Here, in "The Third Book of the Knight Shamans," Justin is the focus as he works through religious fanaticism and resurgent diseases to save the small community he founded only years before the great quakes devastated the western United States. Together, they discover their best chance of survival relies on ancient spiritualism and shamanism. Then they discover the religion which had dominated their world in the centuries before the cataclysm has fallen when Peter meets a fallen archangel in his quest to get a medical doctorate in the far-off city-state of Reno. In the end, we begin to question if Rodney were truly the first Knight Shaman, or if it was Justin himself as he negotiates his own path of spirituality from amongst the religion his culture imprinted onto him.