Some people are born boring. Some live boring. Some even die boring. Fred managed to do all three, and when he woke up as a vampire, he did so as a boring one. Timid, socially awkward, and plagued by self-esteem issues, Fred has never been the adventurous sort. One fateful night, Fred reconnects with an old friend at his high school reunion. This rekindled relationship sets off a chain of events thrusting him right into the chaos that is the parahuman world.

Audie Award, Fantasy, 2016. As the smallest dragon in the Heartstriker clan, Julius survives by a simple code: keep quiet, don't cause trouble, and stay out of the way of bigger dragons. But this meek behavior doesn't fly in a family of ambitious magical predators, and his mother, Bethesda the Heartstriker, has finally reached the end of her patience.

My name is Jemma Blackburn, and I have a secret. I know vampires are real. I watched one murder my father eight months ago, and even though they tried to convince me it didn't happen - that I'd lost touch with reality due to the trauma, I know what I saw was real. Hollow Hills is now the place I call home. It was supposed to be my chance at a normal life. My chance to bury my secret and start over.

She's a prisoner with a secret gift. He's a soldier with a monster locked inside. Now they will decide if humanity is worth the fight.

A boy and his father walk on the shore of an ocean filled with bloody spears cast off from a war between gods. A father travels back in time over and over, unable to rescue the mother of his child. A mischievous satyr lurking in a dungeon has a field day with trespassing adventurers. These tales and more are in Resurrections, a compilation of short stories written by Chris Philbrook.

Gabriel Delling might call himself a professional con artist, but when walking superstitions start trying to bite his face off, his charm is shockingly unhelpful. It turns out living nightmares almost never appreciate a good joke. Together with a succubus who insists on constantly saving his life, Gabe desperately tries to survive a new reality that suddenly features demons, legends, and a giant locust named Dale - all of whom pretty much hate his guts. And when an ancient horror comes hunting for a spirit locked in his head, Gabe finds himself faced with the excruciating choice between death...or becoming some kind of freaking hero.

When Quentin Draith wakes up in a private sanatorium, he has no memory of who he is or how he received the injuries riddling his body. All he knows is that he has to get out, away from the drugs being pumped into him and back to the real world to search for answers. His first question: How did his friend Tony’s internal organs fill with sand, killing him in a Las Vegas car crash? After a narrow escape, he tracks down the basic facts: He is an investigator and blogger specializing in the supernatural - which is a good thing, because Quentin’s life is getting stranger by the minute.

Elana Black has the power to make herself fictional. But when she decides to start saving all the people in books and TV shows who die just for the sake of advancing the plot, she quickly learns that she's not the only one with her powers. All Elana wants to do is save people. But these others don't want the stories to change, and they'll do everything they can to stop her.

Henry’s life as a valiant defender of the realm is over—stolen away when he is transported to a strange new world. Instead of horses and swords, it has cars, rent, hamburgers, and a gun-toting part-time waitress named Shana. There isn't much use for a white knight atop a fiery steed...or is there? Thankfully, Henry’s ability to level up and unlock powerful new skills hasn’t abandoned him. In fact, Shana is starting to level up, too. But there's a catch.

I watched in horror as dark magic sprang from my hand faster than an imp after your socks. I didn't know my name, let alone that I had such power. The man was dead. I panicked. I ran. How was I to know I was a dark magic enforcer, tasked with keeping magic hidden from the world? Yeah, total noob move, I know. But my memory is returning, and the Hidden have given me 24 hours to make amends. Cover it up. Finish the job I was given, or else. Failure isn't an option.

Uh, I always hate doing introductions. Let's see...I'm Mark from Pensacola, a sprawling town in Florida. Don't judge me too harshly. There are plenty of decent jobs, cheap rent, and affordable schooling. I work at Pete's Pancake's, loving the night shift. Well, one evening, a mysterious woman comes into the diner, dripping blood from a cut on her hand. She's not drunk like the usual ones, she's wearing cosplay with pockets, and she leaves an odd spark coursing through me when I bandage her wound.

Bodyguard Celia Graves has definitely accepted her share of weird assignments, both human and supernatural. But her newest job takes the cake. Guarding a prince from terrorists and religious fundamentalists is hard enough, but it seems like the entire supernatural world is after this guy too. When she is betrayed by those she is employed to help, and everything goes horribly wrong, Celia wakes to find herself transformed. Neither human nor vampire, Celia has become an abomination-something that should not exist-and now both human and supernatural alike want her dead.

When Trixa learns of a powerful artifact known as the Light of Life, she knows she’s hit the jackpot. Both sides - angel and demon - would give anything for it. But first she has to find it. And as Heaven and Hell ready for an apocalyptic throwdown, Trixa must decide where her true loyalty lies, and what she’s ready to fight for. Because in her world, if you line up on the wrong side, you pay with more than your life...

A thrilling genre-bending saga about six extraordinary people whose fates become intertwined on an Earth far different from their own. Without warning, the world comes to an end for Hannah and Amanda Given. The sky looms frigid white. The electricity falters. Airplanes everywhere crash to the ground. But the Givens are saved by mysterious strangers, three fearsome and beautiful beings who force a plain silver bracelet onto each sister' s wrist. Within moments, the sky comes down in a crushing sheet of light and everything around them is gone.

Nick and Allie don’t survive the car accident - and their souls don’t exactly get where they’re supposed to go. Instead, they’re caught halfway between life and death, in a sort of limbo known as Everlost: A shadow of the living world, filled with all the things and places that no longer exist. It’s a magical, yet dangerous, place where bands of lost kids run wild and anyone who stands in the same place too long sinks to the center of the Earth.

After America’s Second Civil War, the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life armies came to an agreement. According to their Bill of Life, human life may not be terminated from the moment of conception until the age of thirteen. But between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, the child may be gotten rid of by their parent through a process called “unwinding.”

Not even death can save her now. As a grave witch, Alex Craft can speak to the dead---she's even on good terms with Death himself. As a consultant for the police, she's seen a lot of dark magic, but nothing has prepared her for her latest case.

Bodyguard Celia Graves has definitely accepted her share of weird assignments, both human and supernatural. But her newest job takes the cake. Guarding a prince from terrorists and religious fundamentalists is hard enough, but it seems like the entire supernatural world is after this guy too. When she is betrayed by those she is employed to help, and everything goes horribly wrong, Celia wakes to find herself transformed. Neither human nor vampire, Celia has become an abomination-something that should not exist-and now both human and supernatural alike want her dead.

Her job description is the "tracking and apprehension of mentally-fractured killers". What this really means in FBI profiler Jace Valchek's brave new world - one in which only one percent of the population is human - is that a woman's work is never done. And real is getting stranger every day. Jace has been ripped from her reality by David Cassius, the vampire head of the NSA. He knows that she's the best there is in the business, and David needs her help in solving a series of gruesome murders of vampires and werewolves.

They killed me. They healed me. They changed me. Sure, the life of a graduate student wasn't exactly glamorous, but it was mine. I was doing fine until Chicago's vampires announced their existence to the world---and then a rogue vampire attacked me. But he only got a sip before he was scared away by another bloodsucker...and this one decided that the best way to save my life was to make me the walking undead.

Modern gods and goddesses, remote, revered - and like the pantheon of heroes and heroines of ancient myth - possessing great power tempered with flaws. Now, find within this anthology great tales by gifted and award-winning authors who move superheroes from the four-color panels of comic books to the fantastic pages of fiction, stories that will remind anyone who ever wanted to wear a cape or don a cowl of the extraordinary powers of the imagination!

She won't rest until she's sent every walking corpse back to its grave. Forever. Had anyone told Alice Bell that her entire life would change course between one heartbeat and the next, she would have laughed. From blissful to tragic, innocent to ruined? Please. But that's all it took. One heartbeat. A blink, a breath, a second, and everything she knew and loved was gone. Her father was right. The monsters are real.

Stuntwoman Dawn Madison hasn't been on the best of terms with her father since her movie star mother died. Still, he is her dad, and when he vanishes while investigating the bizarre sighting - caught on film - of a supposedly long-dead child star, she comes home to Tinseltown to join the search for him. Working with his odd colleagues, she discovers an erotic and bloody underground society made up of creatures she thought existed only on the screen.

After the loss of his girlfriend Jesse, druid-trained hunter Colin McCool swore off monster-hunting for good. Now a rogue vampire is killing the weak and defenseless in his city, and no one else seems to care enough to stop him. To end the slaughter, Colin has agreed to take up his sword one last time...but will this "one final job" be the death of him?

Morganville, Texas, is a small college town filled with quirky characters. But when the sun goes down, the bad come out. Because in Morganville, there is an evil that lurks in the darkest shadows---one that will spill out into the bright light of day.

The struggle to get into a top-tier college consumes 16-year-old Genie's every waking thought. But when she discovers she's a celestial spirit who's powerful enough to bash through the gates of heaven with her fists, her perfectionist existence is shattered. Enter Quentin, a transfer student from China whose tone-deaf assertiveness beguiles Genie to the brink of madness. Quentin nurtures Genie's bodacious transformation - sometimes gently, sometimes aggressively - as her sleepy suburb in the Bay Area comes under siege from hell spawn.

For Kira Solomon, normal was never an option. Kira's day job is as an antiquities expert, but her true calling is as a Shadowchaser. Trained from youth to be one of the most lethal Chasers in existence, Kira serves the Gilead Commission, dispatching the Fallen who sow discord and chaos. Of course, sometimes Gilead bureaucracy is as much a thorn in her side as anything the Fallen can muster against her. Right now, though, she's got a bigger problem....

Calliope Reaper-Jones so just wanted a normal life: buying designer shoes on sale, dating guys from Craig’s List, web-surfing for organic dim-sum for her boss. But when her father - who happens to be Death himself - is kidnapped, and the Devil’s Protege embarks on a hostile takeover of the family business, Death, Inc., Callie returns home to assume the CEO mantle - only to discover she must complete three nearly impossible tasks in the realm of the afterlife first.

Eighteen-year-old Aidan Salt isn't a superhero. With his powerful (and unpredictable) telekinetic abilities, he could be one if he wanted to, but he doesn't. He's unambitious, selfish, and cowardly, and he doesn't want to have to deal with all the paperwork required to become a professional superhero. But since the money, fame, and women that come with wearing the cape are appealing, he decides to become the first supervillain the world has seen in more than 20 years: Apex Strike.

Jack and Allen need a break. They’ve decided to spend the summer before their senior year of college out in Western Massachusetts. But their quest for rest and relaxation comes to an end when they arrive in Greifsfield, MA. Their friendship is tested by a mysterious beauty and her razor-sharp smile, then broken when they’re caught up in a rash of mysterious disappearances. How will these two friends cope with the truth behind a town that craves raw meat? And how will they survive beneath the glow of the full moon?