Science Fiction Mystery

Annette Marie presents Book One in the Guild Codex: Warped series. Make sure to check out the companion series, The Guild Codex: Spellbound and The Guild Codex: Demonized, available now.

Kira Miller is a brilliant scientist who discovers how to temporarily boost human IQ to dizzying levels. But this transcendent intelligence brings with it a ruthless megalomania. Determined to use her discovery to propel human civilization to a higher plane, despite this side effect, Kira and ex-special forces operative David Desh recruit a small group of accomplished scientists, all of whom are safely off the grid. Or so they think...

Most humans have no idea that a dark and deadly underworld, filled with magic and monsters, exists. They wander through life blissfully ignorant of the supernatural world around them. Nora Jacobs is different. Nora knows exactly what kinds of hellish creatures haunt the streets of Detroit. Thanks to a unique set of psychic abilities, Nora has managed to steer clear of the underworld most of her life. But all that changes the night the most powerful vampire in the city discovers her gifts and decides to use her as a tool to find one of his missing clan members.

Edgar Hill is 35 and caught in his own headlock. Overweight slob, underperforming husband, and reluctant father - for Ed, the world may as well have already ended. So when it does end in a catastrophic asteroid strike and Edgar and his family find refuge in an Edinburgh army barracks, it comes as something of a relief. But nothing's ever that simple. Returning from a salvage run in the city, Edgar finds his family gone, taken to the south coast for evacuation by an international task force.

Nina is a Lipan girl in our world. She's always felt there was something more out there. She still believes in the old stories. Oli is a cottonmouth kid, from the land of spirits and monsters. Like all cottonmouths, he's been cast from home. He's found a new one on the banks of the bottomless lake. Nina and Oli have no idea the other exists. But a catastrophic event on Earth, and a strange sickness that befalls Oli's best friend, will drive their worlds together in ways they haven't been in centuries.

Hugo Award-winning author Charles Stross is renowned for his cutting-edge science fiction. This third entry in his “edgy … spoof of Cold War spy thrillers” ( Booklist) finds covert agent Bob Howard learning about a top-secret dossier that vanishes with his boss. Determined to discover the contents of this memorandum, Howard runs afoul of Russian spies, ancient demons, and apostles of a hideous cult planning to raise the Eater of Souls from the undead.

The new director at Camp Lone Wolf seems like a nice guy. But when the kids learn the legend of a local boy who disappeared and the wolf that prowls the campgrounds howling in the night, they start to wonder if Camp Lone Wolf is more than just a name. Mr. Jenkins is covered in hair, eats his meat almost raw, and has an obsession with wolves. But could he really be a werewolf?

In the high mountains of Tibet, rumors are spreading. People whisper of an outbreak, of thousands of dead, of bodies pushed into mass graves. It is some strange new disease...a disease, they say, that can kill in minutes. The Chinese government says the rumors aren't true, but no one is allowed in or out of Tibet. At the Pentagon, admiral James Curtiss learns that satellite images prove that a massive genocide is underway. This is no disease. It's a weapons test. Chinese scientists have developed a way to kill based on a person's genetic traits.

When my magic manifested at puberty, my parents sold me to the Illuminati. The Order of the Illuminati trained me as an assassin, spy, and thief. But when they sent me to steal a magical artifact that reveals Truth in all things, I discovered that I was working for the Dark and not the Light. The Illuminati trained me well, and paid the ultimate price for their deception.

When Melanie Ross first meets April Hall, she's not sure what to think. What other sixth grade girl wears her blonde hair piled in a twist and flaunts false eyelashes? But when the two girls discover the storage shed outside the A-Z Antiques and Curio Shop, they discover they both love anything to do with ancient Egypt. Soon the friends create the Egypt Game.

Amara was content to live as a lone wolf, the only one of her kind - or so she'd thought. Her world was flipped on its head when a strange man with a familiar scent showed up at her work, demanding a private meeting. Desperate to find the mate Luc had scented from 400 miles away, he was shocked to find her living as a lone wolf. Amaroki women were to be cherished and protected. What had happened to her family? More importantly, how was he going to convince her to return to the reservation with him? And how would his possessive brothers react when they found him with Amara?

Eleven-year-old Harry Mancini is not Harry Houdini - the famous escape artist who died in 1926. But Harry does live in Houdini's old New York City home, and he definitely knows everything there is to know about Houdini's life. What is he supposed to do, then, when someone starts texting him claiming that they're Houdini, communicating from beyond the grave? Respond, of course.

When Brendan Doyle is flown from America to London to give a lecture on Samuel Taylor Coleridge, little does he expect that he will soon be traveling through time and meeting the poet himself. But Brendan could do without being stranded penniless in the teeming, thieving London of 1810.

Lydia has always known she has no power, especially next to her infamous and more-than-slightly dodgy family. Which is why she carved her own life as a private investigator far away from London. When a professional snafu forces her home, the head of the family calls in a favour, and Lydia finds herself investigating the disappearance of her cousin, Maddie.

When Arkham Advertiser reporter Andy van Nortwick receives a mysterious film reel in the mail, with a simple note: "Maude Brion is very much alive!", he steps onto a path which will lead him to the brink of madness. Brion, the famous actress and film director, vanished a year ago on an ill-fated expedition into the Amazon rainforest, delving into the legend of the Spider Queen. Thrilled by the prospect of his big break, Nortwick swings the funds to launch a rescue mission. He gathers a team of explorers and a keen folklorist to bring back Brion and cement his reputation.

From a remote corner of the galaxy, a message is being sent. The continuous beats of a pulsar have become odd, irregular, and artificial. It can only be a code. Frantically, a research team struggles to decipher the alien communication. And what the scientists discover is destined to shake the foundations of empires around this world - from Wall Street to the Vatican.

My life was going just fine by most standards. I ran a successful business in a tight-knit magical community, and lived just blocks from a beautiful lake and series of hiking trails. Then Selene showed up. According to some magical code I inherit my aunt's ancient familiar; a grumpy 10-pound cat with a broken filter.

Seven years ago a woman with too many secrets and a man with too many lies fell in love. Then she left him. Isabel's quiet life as an assistant to one of London's famous apothecaries hides a deadly secret. A secret that could see her put on trial for witchcraft if the authorities uncover the truth. But when the authority figure who turns up at her shop is Sir Nicholas Merritt, she's at risk of losing more than her life. She could lose her heart and soul, and the man she loves.

Not content with investing his fortune and watching it grow, multibillionaire Howard Christian buys rare cars that he actually drives, acquires collectible toys that he actually plays with, and builds buildings that defy the imagination. But now his restless mind has turned to a new obsession: cloning a mammoth. In a barren province of Canada, a mammoth hunter financed by Christian has made the discovery of a lifetime: an intact frozen woolly mammoth. But what he finds during the painstaking process of excavating the huge creature baffles the mind.

The kids in the third grade at Bailey Elementary are so hard to handle that all of their teachers have quit. But their new teacher, Mrs. Jeepers, is different, to say the least. She's just moved from the Transylvanian Alps, and she seems to have some strange powers that help her deal with these mischief-makers. Her methods may be a little unconventional, but, then again, Mrs. Jeepers may be just what the Bailey School kids need.