Showing titles in Contemporary

When a large, heavily fortified and armoured empire makes a faintly menacing request of a much smaller, infinitely more cowardly neighbour, it would be churlish, if not extremely dangerous, not to comply; particularly if all they want is a wizard, and they don't specify whether competence is an issue.

It’s a secret lost in time, a myth among immortals, a relic of such power that vampires around the world have quietly harbored the hope that it doesn’t really exist. It’s a mystery that Tenzin and Ben cannot resist.

Belladonna Blackthorn hasn’t lost her magical spark, precisely . . . but she hasn’t seen it in a while either. With her witchcraft under wraps and a toxic boss making her days miserable, Belle is struggling to keep her beloved Lunar Books afloat and just make it through the day. The last thing she has time for is perfecting her magic. So when her thirtieth birthday brings a summons from her coven and a trial that tests her worthiness as a witch, Belle fears the worst.

The quest for answers - and ultimate survival - hinges on finding the cosmic link between the Skin Map, the Shadow Lamp, and the Spirit Well. The search for the map of blue symbols began in a rainy alley in London but has since expanded through space and time and includes more seekers. Kit, Mina, Gianni, Cass, Haven, and Giles have gathered in Mina's 16th-century coffee house and are united in their determination to find a path back to the Spirit Well.

Jacky Rowan once slew giants. In this thrilling sequel, she is tricked and then enslaved by a master of vicious Unseelie creatures. This cruel thief is bent on stealing his very sustenance—not only from Jacky—but from all of the Seelie faerie court. Only the Moon herself and a handsome young fiddler, unaware of Faerie and the power of his music, have the magic to set Jacky free.

I'm John Taylor. I work as a PI out of the Nightside, that secret center of London where clocks always read three AM, terrible things happen with predictable regularity, and the always-dark streets are full of people partying like Judgement Day will never come. Now it may have arrived. God's own enforcer, the righteous engine of destruction known as the Walking Man, has come to the Nightside. He's a being whose sole purpose is the elimination of the wicked—and given the nature of the Nightside, he'll just keep on until there's no one left. So the Authorities hired me to stop him.

As the new story begins, Leeds and his "aspects" are hired by I3 (Innovative Information Incorporated) to recover a corpse stolen from the local morgue. But there's a catch. The corpse is that of a pioneer in the field of experimental biotechnology, a man whose work concerned the use of the human body as a massive storage device. He may have embedded something in the cells of his now dead body. And that something might be dangerous.

I’m one placement away from becoming a fully fledged London detective. It’s bad enough that my last assignment before I qualify is with Supernatural Squad. But that’s nothing compared to what happens next. Brutally murdered by an unknown assailant, I wake up 12 hours later in the morgue - and I’m very much alive. I don’t know how or why it happened. I don’t know who killed me. All I know is that they might try again.

Charged with gross incompetence, Satan is fired from his job as prince of Hell and exiled to that most terrible of places: English suburbia. Forced to live as a human under the name of Jeremy Clovenhoof, the dark lord not only has to contend with the fact that no one recognizes him or gives him the credit he deserves but also has to put up with the bookish war-gamer next door and the voracious man-eater upstairs.

Jessie is well on her way to learning her new life and settling in. The tough alpha, Austin, has joined her team, and she has painstakingly learned to fly. At the moment, life couldn’t get any better. But it can get a whole lot…more irritating. Her parents have decided to visit. They don’t know anything about magic, about Jessie’s new digs, or about the crazy crew living in and around Jessie’s house. She must do everything in her power to keep the truth away from them. Which would be much easier without the unfelt presence lurking within Ivy House’s borders.

First we live. Then we die. And then...we get another try? Ten thousand tries, to be exact. Ten thousand lives to "get it right". Answer all the big questions. Achieve wisdom. And become one with everything. Milo has had 9,995 chances so far and has just five more lives to earn a place in the cosmic soul. If he doesn't make the cut, oblivion awaits. But all Milo really wants is to fall forever into the arms of Death. Or Suzie, as he calls her.

Haunted by recurring nightmares of terrifying beasts, Erin McDaniels is afraid to sleep - until a hero arrives in her dreams to save her...and makes erotic, incredible love to her. But can she find him again when she is awake?

James Stark, aka Sandman Slim, has managed to get out of Hell, renounce his title as the new Lucifer, and settle back into life in L.A. But he also lost the Qomrama Om Ya, an all-powerful weapon from the banished older gods. Older gods who are returning and searching for their lost power. The hunt leads Stark to an abandoned shopping mall - a global shopping paradise infested with Lurkers and wretched bottom-feeding Sub Rosa families, squatters who have formed tight tribes to guard their tiny patches of retail wasteland.

Being a double merlin sucks. You’d think having power, having people treat you with respect, an insanely awesome inheritance waiting for me, and knowing you could do really awesome (awful) things would be cool. It isn’t. I’ve got strings you wouldn’t believe attached to the inheritance. Then it turns out other people want it, so instead of suing me, I mean that would be logical, right? No, they are trying to kill me. And I don’t mean a single person, a freaking country! How insane is that? Well, screw them. I’m getting my degree and getting the inheritance.

As a cassandra sangue, or blood prophet, Meg Corbyn can see the future when her skin is cut - a gift that feels more like a curse. Meg's Controller keeps her enslaved so he can have full access to her visions. But when she escapes, the only safe place Meg can hide is at the Lakeside Courtyard - a business district operated by the Others. Shape-shifter Simon Wolfgard is reluctant to hire the stranger who inquires about the Human Liaison job.

Ray Lilly is living on borrowed time. He's the driver for Annalise Powliss, a high-ranking member of the Twenty Palace Society, a group of sorcerers devoted to hunting down and executing rogue magicians. But because Ray betrayed her once, Annalise is looking for an excuse to kill him - or let someone else do the job. Unfortunately for both of them, Annalise's next mission goes wrong, leaving her critically injured. With the little magic he controls, Ray must complete her assignment alone.

They say the best things come to those who wait, and no one hopes that's true more than Special Operations Commander Nathan McNamara. For over a year, he's put his life, his career, and his mother's hopes for more grandchildren on hold to dive headfirst into a world he never knew existed. A world full of angels, demons, and enough sexual frustration to crack the Pope. But all that is supposed to be behind him, and his future looks bright and full of possibilities. That is, until a familiar chill ripples the atmosphere - and a supernatural thunder rumbles over the mountains.

The Edge lies between worlds, on the border between the Broken, where people shop at Wal-Mart and magic is a fairy tale—and the Weird, where blueblood aristocrats rule, changelings roam, and the strength of your magic can change your destiny…Charlotte de Ney is as noble as they come, a blueblood straight out of the Weird. But even though she possesses rare magical healing abilities, her life has brought her nothing but pain.

When a Druid lives as long as Atticus does, he’s bound to run afoul of a few vampires—make that legions of them. Even his former friend and legal counsel turned out to be a bloodsucking backstabber. Now the toothy troublemakers—led by power-mad pain-in-the-neck Theophilus—are no longer content to live undead and let live. Atticus needs to make a point—and drive it into a vampire’s heart.

"This is real." Three small words on a film canister found by graduate students Justin and Veronica, who discover a long-lost silent movie from more than a century ago. The startlingly realistic footage shows a young girl transforming into a winged being. Looking for proof behind this claim, they travel to the rural foothills of Tennessee to find Sadieville, where it had been filmed.