Tsumiko inherits an ancestral home, a vast fortune, and a butler who isn't exactly human. Humanity is rocked by the Emergence of a people who call themselves the Amaranthine. They are our myths and legends come to life. Neither human nor animal, yet embracing qualities of both, the inhuman races inspire both awe and fear. Every newsfeed is clogged with updates about the peace process, but some places don't concern themselves with worldly affairs. Like the girls' school run by Saint Midori's of the Heavenly Lights, where Tsumiko Hajime grew up.

Pete is a simple man who enjoys a good drink amongst good friends. Not too much to ask, right? Now, he's trapped in a fantasy world far from home, stuck underground and inside the body of a smelly dwarf with fantastic facial hair. The worst part? The swill that the dwarves are falling all over themselves to drink. It's flat, it's watery, and it has the alcohol content of a rancid coconut. Can Pete save the dwarves from their own sour fate, or will he be forever doomed to plink his pickaxe away in hopes that he hits the motherlode?

Oli the goblin is the last creature anyone would send on a world-ending quest. But the Dark Lord's under siege and without his doomsday weapon, those pesky forces of Good might just get it done this time. Seizing the long-awaited opportunity to serve their Big Boss, Oli and his cousins strike out on a super secret mission to retrieve the doomsday weap-on a road trip to see their family. With the hopes of every creature sinister and foul riding on them, the goblins hurry directly to their destination. Mostly directly. Okay, so it's more of a zigzag.

Betrayed by his former gang and thrown into the Rendhold Underprison, Dantes has spent the last five years scraping by. A bastard of human, orcish, and elvish blood, he's lived on the periphery of the periphery, lying, cheating, and stealing to survive.

Governed by Whimsy: The Anthology is a collection of short stories set in Forthright's Amaranthine universe. Before the Emergence, the clans were nothing more than whispers and mysteries and legends and lore. But every so often - in out-of-the-way places or shockingly close to home - an unsuspecting person stumbled into a fateful encounter with someone who was decidedly other.

Wanda and Wumble are a small pair with vast ambitions. One an aspiring alchemist, and the other her faithful hound, the pair bond as wizard and familiar to begin their pursuit of magic. As a newly made wizard without any training, resources, or even a home to return to, Wanda will have to forge her own way on a path where constant dangers lurk. Even the simple act of furthering her alchemy education swiftly becomes a harrowing ordeal.

Kit McCafferty's life is quiet, unremarkable, and filled with cat hair. In the magical city of Coldstream, located on the border between Scotland and England, Kit is viewed as little more than mildly eccentric and mostly harmless. She passes her days caring for her family of five cats, feeding the local feral moggies, and maintaining relatively good relations with her neighbors. All that changes, however, when a teenage werewolf shows up at her door in the desperate hope of renting out a nearby vacant flat.

John Doc Henry had been on the shortest, crappiest end of the stick since the first day of his life; no parents, bad foster parents, and abysmal luck at every turn. The day his life changed started out exactly like he had come to expect. His car died on a rarely traveled road, and he broke his toe shortly after dodging the one other car on the road. When it stopped and backed up to him, the license plate read “LADYLUK”, adding insult to injury.

All his life, Mark Fields has dreamed of joining the Defense Force to fight the vicious, alien Exlian, just like the rest of his renowned family. But so far, he’s … a dishwasher, trapped in a dead-end job with no powers, no money, and even fewer friends. But an encounter with a dying woman changes everything—granting him the abilities he needs to join the training camps—and his life finally feels like it’s turning around, faster than a movie martial-arts montage (just ignore the weird cat).

Ah, Nyil, with its magic, its monsters, and its petty gods. A divine spat leaves French medic Viv stranded in the middle of an arcane disaster zone crawling with undead horrors. Thankfully, there are strange allies to be found, not least the mysterious interface that helps humans survive in this merciless world. Viv will have to progress fast to survive this calamity and find civilisation. She will also need a bit of luck. Unless, of course, she becomes the calamity herself. After all, luck is such a fickle thing.

24/7 Demon Mart: Publisher's Pack features two books from the 24/7 Demon Mart series: The Graveyard Shift, book one, and Monster Burger, book two. It also includes the bonus Hell for the Holidays, a 24/7 Demon Mart Christmas special. Lloyd Wallace is the most clueless crossing guard the intersection of hell and earth has ever seen. So clueless, that he doesn't even realize the beer cave in the corner store where he works is the gateway to hell.

It's Ruwen’s Ascension Day, and he finally dies for the first time. His newly revived body can learn spells and abilities for the class given him by the Goddess Uru, and dying is no longer permanent. Ruwen’s high intelligence makes becoming a Mage inevitable. With his new powers, he will locate his parents and clear their family name. But nothing goes as Ruwen imagined, and when a rival God tries to kill Ruwen shortly after his disastrous Ascension, his focus turns from his future to just surviving.

Hello stranger, my name is Tal, and I’m not an adventurer—those people are crazy. I’m just a sorcerer who is masquerading as a wizard. Oh, and I’m searching for answers about my parents’ mysterious deaths. Also monsters and other foes seem to show up wherever I go. All right, I see it. My new traveling companions are seasoned adventurers and are teaching me their ways—or at least they were before something happened to Time.

Hiral is the Everfail, the weakest person on the flying island of Fallen Reach. He trains harder than any warrior. Studies longer than any scholar. But all his people are born with magic powered by the sun, flowing through tattoos on their bodies. Despite having enormous energy within, Hiral is the only one who can’t channel it; his hard work is worth nothing. Until it isn’t. In a moment of danger, Hiral unlocks an achievement with a special instruction: Access a Dungeon to receive a Class-Specific Reward.

Tao is an immigrant fortune teller, traveling between villages with just her trusty mule for company. She only tells "small" fortunes: whether it will hail next week; which boy the barmaid will kiss; when the cow will calve. She knows from bitter experience that big fortunes come with big consequences…

On a day like any other, an alien descends to Earth, unleashing untold death and destruction. Alistair watches the live news footage of the carnage, his eyes glued to the image of impossible power made manifest. The alien’s arrival kicks events into motion that no one could have predicted. Earth is prematurely initiated into a universe-spanning empire of cut-throat cultivators, beasts, and entities of ungodly power–all guided by a mysterious AI System. The System’s first quest? Kill someone.

In the Miers, a fragile peace has held for the twenty years since the Spirit Wars. Mortals stay within their boundaries, and the Faen keep to the Lost Green. Anything else is suicide. Renly Teurig, a young musician, unwittingly binds himself to a Bardic War Lute, becoming the reluctant Champion of Tetulinok, a Celestial Muse. Acting on the Muse's will soon ends in disaster—his sister Chloe is left unable to walk, scarred beyond recognition, and Renly is exiled in disgrace.

Alistair’s life is turned upside down when he is abruptly separated from his friends and family. As the universe slowly transforms and new laws take hold, everyone within his universe is cast into the trial—a crucible of survival and transformation. Before being set on his path, Alistair encounters a system avatar—a brief and enigmatic guide who offers little explanation, guidance, or aid before sending him and the rest of his universe into the unknown.

Greg walked into a bar hoping to wash away the sour taste of a bad day at work. What he got instead was a bartender offering him the opportunity of his dreams—with a catch. A ticket to purchase a class that could make him the strongest being alive. If he can afford the asking price. Thrust into a world he knows nothing about, Greg will need power on another level entirely. To get ahead, he'll need the kind of power only deities possess.

Special Forces operator Matt Whitaker survived the Oniki War—but only just. Now the war is over, and a tenuous peace has been struck. When weapons plans are stolen from an Oniki shipyard and all evidence points to human involvement, tensions flare, threatening that hard-won peace. Whitaker is the only person with the knowledge and experience to uncover the truth. Still recovering from his injuries, he is forced to face his demons, and charge back into the fray.

When Zareth was first reborn into a strange new world of magic and wonder, he was ecstatic. He’d expected to go on to live an exciting life filled with danger and adventure. Instead, Zareth spends much of his new life on the streets of Tal’Qamar before eventually becoming a Cultist to Cerebon, God of Flesh and Transformation, where he spends most of his time helping rich women smoothen their skin.

To gain an advantage over the Soviets, the CIA uses genetic testing to identify children who are more than human and place them in the Greenhouse, a covert school to turn them into weapons in the war against the Soviets. Lynna Harrison, who is half-human and half-sea dragon, is among the first of these children.1983Lynna and her teammates are using their powers to aid in the Agency's black ops, an advantage the Soviets have yet to discover. That's until Lynna goes on a mission in East Berlin and learns someone in the unit is planning to trade their secrets.

On a snowy New Year's Eve, Fennrick negotiates one last hurrah in a seedy internet cafe, but at the stroke of midnight, he receives a tantalizing invitation: "You have been invited to join the Tutorial." And when presented with the available difficulty levels, he makes the obvious choice: Hell. Soon, Fennrick finds himself in frenzied, violent combat, and it's a toss-up as to which he'll lose first: his life or what little sanity he has left. With his criminal record, estranged family, and nonexistent future, he's ready to accept death.

All Auric Cain ever wanted was a chance. A chance to prove himself. A chance to take control of his life. A chance to be more than a lowly D-Tier, the lowest of the low, in a world broken by the arrival of an alien, enigmatic being known as The System.

Clyde was a picturesque, quiet, little town until the night of the accident. A virus, unleashed into the air, would soon fill the streets with blood as man's best friend turned on him. Adorable pets and loving companions would become snarling, bloodthirsty beasts hungry for human flesh. Will anyone survive this brutal betrayal?

Azetla has served the Maurowan Army for thirteen years. There are seven left to pay. A pariah and a debt soldier, he is a commander with no rank, a soldier without citizenship, and wears a sword that it is unlawful for him to either own or use. He has learned to hold his tongue or risk losing everything. When Azetla’s battalion is sent into the desert to catch a Sahr devil—one of the famously brutal inhabitants of the region—his tenuous position is threatened. He discovers that there is far more to this mission than catching a fiend.

The 42nd Merging arrives, mass-transporting every human to a hostile new world with a System. Everyone must choose a Class, and Quest directives compel them to climb the leaderboards for categories like highest level… and most kills of other people. Jordan isn’t anyone special before the Merging, but the new start equalizes the playing field. He must exploit his versatile class to overcome powerful monsters and opportunistic strangers who kill people as a quick path to power.

Born one of the Powered in a world starving for superhuman defenders, Boyd is both blessed and cursed—blessed in that he was born Powered, possessing superpowers on a world in desperate need of each Hero able to defend humanity from a hostile planet, but cursed in that he is one of the Changed.

Belissar has always lived a peaceful life, if not a particularly easy one. Though he lost his parents, he was taken in by a kindly villager who taught him his life's calling: beekeeping. But one day the local lord's ruthless son, Ruckanos, comes to their humble village to claim his own tower, slaughtering everyone. Luckily for Belissar, as he lies dying with an arrow in his back, a tiny worker bee decides to interfere, and he wakes up not only alive but a whole new bee-ing.

A New Star Wu Ji, unlike the other children at his age, couldn't cultivate. He didn't give up even after failing the awakening ceremony. His consciousness holds something, which took him years to reach. Every word he endured, every beating made his will stronger to reach it, the key to unlocking his cultivation. Follow Wu Ji in his starting path of cultivation into the Myriad Stars. Watch him grow stronger, making innumerable enemies. Young Masters, Clan princesses, genius talents... nothing can rival the monster Wu Ji is destined to grow into. Devil Plane He will find a new path to grow ...