It was a dark and stormy knight, and nine dark defenders embarked upon a most perilous quest. They're the ultimate defenders of humanity, modern day knights who do dark deeds for all the right reasons. In this all-star collection, nine of today's hottest paranormal authors bring us thrilling, all-new stories of supernatural knights that are brimming with magic mystery and mayhem.

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 ten-pound cat with a broken filter. She fancies herself something of a saber-toothed tiger, and claims to have wrestled the thread of her ninth life from the hands of the Fates themselves—although, I'm pretty sure that last part isn't true. Almost positive.

Thara Celehar has lost his ability to speak with the dead. When that title of Witness for the Dead is gone, what defines him? While his title may be gone, his duties are not. Celehar contends with a municipal cemetery with fifty years of secrets, the damage of a revethavar he’s terrified to remember, and a group of miners who are more than willing to trade Celehar’s life for a chance at what they feel they’re owed. Celehar does not have to face these impossible tasks alone.

Find a missing book. That was the job the woman in the Doc Martens gave us. Easy money, right? Only now it seems she's actually an ancient, powerful sorcerer, and the book is a Book of Power that doesn't want to be found. It wants to tear reality apart at the seams, and it'll use anyone it can to do it. So now we've got one spectacularly displeased sorcerer, a hungry, still-missing book, a dentist with bad hygiene, and a neighbourhood having some reality issues to deal with. Plus about a day before the book turns our world - and us - inside out.

After the Final War, after the appearance of the Bug aliens and their enforced peace, Shining Smith is still alive, still doing business from the old scrapyard bequeathed to her by her father. But Shining is now something more than human. And the scrapyard is no longer just a scrapyard, but a place full of secrets. This life she has built, while empty, is predictable and safe. Until the only friend left from her previous life shows up, dead, in the back of a scrapped Tesla warplane. Clutched in her cold fingers is a note to Shining - warning her of a coming attack.

London, 1923. Newly minted research assistant Saffron Everleigh is the first woman to hold the position at University College of London. When she attends a dinner party for the school, she expects to engage in conversations about the university's large expedition to the Amazon. What she doesn’t expect is for Mrs. Henry, one of the professors’ wives, to drop to the floor, poisoned by an unknown toxin. Dr. Maxwell, Saffron’s mentor, is the main suspect, and evidence quickly mounts.

Scarlet Sanderson sees dead people. Literally. As a reluctant conduit between the land of the living and the dearly departed, she is doing her best to have a life of her own.

Mary Jekyll, alone and penniless following her parents' deaths, is curious about the secrets of her father's mysterious past. One clue in particular hints that Edward Hyde, her father's former friend and a murderer, may be nearby, and there is a reward for information leading to his capture...a reward that would solve all of her immediate financial woes. But her hunt leads her to Hyde's daughter, Diana, a feral child left to be raised by nuns.

Harry Adams has always loved horror movies, so it’s not a total coincidence that she took the job cleaning house for movie director Javier Castillo. His forbidding graystone Chicago mansion, Bright Horses, is filled from top to bottom with terrifying props and costumes, as well as glittering awards from his career making films that thrilled audiences—until family tragedy and scandal forced him to vanish from the industry.

Five years ago, Kelana Gardavros lost everything in the war against the Pale empire. Now Kel Garda is just another refugee living on the edge of an isolated star system. No one knows she was once a member of an Order whose military arm was disbanded and scattered across the galaxy. And no one knows that if her enemies found her, they might destroy the entire world to get rid of her. Kel’s past intrudes in the form of a long-dormant Pale war machine, suddenly reactivated. If the massive automaton isn’t stopped, at best it will carve a swath of devastation that displaces thousands of people.

The Bloomin' Psychic Boxed Set includes the first three books in the series: Petal to the Metal, Life's a Birch, and Drive Me Daisy.

Ezra Barker is a traitor. When the Merg invaded Earth, he didn’t fight or even hide. He cooperated, helping them as they seized control of the planet and began their pillaging of its resources. While others toil away in mines and quarries, Ezra works an office job, helping his boss, The Senator, rule over the swath of territory given to her by the Merg. Sergeant Hayes is a brutal enforcer of the Merg’s rules. As an officer in the Health and Safety Department, he follows Merg orders, arresting, interrogating, and executing at their command.

The happily married Mr. Knightley and Emma are throwing a party at their country estate, bringing together distant relatives and new acquaintances—characters beloved by Jane Austen fans. Definitely not invited is Mr. Wickham, whose latest financial scheme has netted him an even broader array of enemies. As tempers flare and secrets are revealed, it’s clear that everyone would be happier if Mr. Wickham got his comeuppance. Yet they’re all shocked when Wickham turns up murdered—except, of course, for the killer hidden in their midst.

Fae games will change you . . . but their love will ruin you. At least, that's what my mother told me. My mother had three rules: 1. Never make a bargain with a fairy. 2. Never enter the Waywoods on a hunting day. 3. Never give the High Fae princes a reason to notice you. But even when I followed all the rules, the royal fae still took my family from me. So in one night I broke all three rules, and brought the kingdom to their knees.

Reluctant lawyer Andy Carpenter is relieved to be headed back to Paterson, New Jersey, after a week-long family vacation in the Adirondacks. He's ready to put the holly jolly season way behind him and settle in at home with his three dogs. But when they finally arrive, there is an extra dog eagerly awaiting them, as well as one anxious dog sitter. When the dog showed up on the doorstep a few days ago, the sitter knew Andy would know what to do. Indeed, Andy recognizes Murphy, who the Carpenters fostered before the dog went home with BJ Bremer and his mother.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.

Leading the field of artificial intelligence, Halfway, a subsidiary of Soul-Tech, provides customers with the opportunity to digitally upload their minds so that in the eventuality of their death, loved ones will be able to communicate with an AI simulation and gain closure. But at what cost?A year after her brother Mark’s death, Florence is still consumed by grief. And though her parents encourage her not to dwell on the past, Florence decides to visit Halfway and speak to the simulation of Mark that was created not long before his passing.

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive - and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet.

Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits.

Twenty-one-year-old Marigold Claude has always preferred the company of the spirits of the meadow to any of the suitors who’ve tried to woo her. So when her grandmother whisks her away to the family cottage on the tiny Isle of Innisfree with an offer to train her as the next Honey Witch, she accepts immediately. But her newfound magic and independence come with a price: No one can fall in love with the Honey Witch. When Lottie Burke, a notoriously grumpy skeptic who doesn’t believe in magic, shows up on her doorstep, Marigold can’t resist the challenge to prove to her that magic is real.

A beautiful discovery outside the window of her underwater home prompts the reclusive E. to begin a correspondence with renowned scholar Henerey Clel. The letters they share are filled with passion, at first for their mutual interests, and then, inevitably, for each other. Together, they uncover a mystery from the unknown depths, destined to transform the underwater world they both equally fear and love. But by no mere coincidence, a seaquake destroys E.'s home, and she and Henerey vanish.

When Nell Ingram met skinwalker Jane Yellowrock, she was almost alone in the world, exiled by both choice and fear from the cult she was raised in, defending herself with the magic she drew from her deep connection to the forest that surrounds her. Now, Jane has referred Nell to PsyLED, a Homeland Security agency policing paranormals, and agent Rick LaFleur has shown up at Nell's doorstep.

Ganga, joyful goddess of the river, serves as caretaker to the mischievous godlings who roam her banks. But when their antics incur the wrath of a powerful sage, Ganga is cursed to become mortal, bound to her human form until she fulfills the obligations of the curse. Though she knows nothing of mortal life, Ganga weds King Shantanu and becomes a queen, determined to regain her freedom no matter the cost. But in a cruel turn of fate, just as she is freed of her binding, she is forced to leave her infant son behind. Her son, prince Devavrata, unwittingly carries the legacy of Ganga’s curse.

Davi has done this all before. She’s tried to be the hero and take down the all-powerful Dark Lord. A hundred times she’s rallied humanity and made the final charge. But the time loop always gets her in the end. Sometimes she’s killed quickly. Sometimes it takes a while. But she’s been defeated every time. This time? She’s done being the hero and done being stuck in this endless time loop. If the Dark Lord always wins, then maybe that’s who she needs to be. It’s Davi’s turn to play on the winning side.

Dragons are common in the backwater kingdom of Bellemontagne, coming in sizes from mouse-like vermin all the way up to castle-smashing monsters. Gaius Aurelius Constantine Heliogabalus Thrax (who would much rather people call him Robert) has recently inherited his deceased dad’s job as a dragon catcher/exterminator, a career he detests with all his heart in part because he likes dragons, feeling a kinship with them, but mainly because his dream has always been the impossible one of transcending his humble origin to someday become a prince’s valet.

Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body using a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth. However, the hunters chase Shesheshen out of her home and off a cliff. Badly hurt, she's found and nursed back to health by Homily, a warmhearted human, who has mistaken Shesheshen as a fellow human

A woman is accused of killing her husband, but is she guilty? Inspired by a true historical case, this spellbinding novel will keep you guessing until the final heart-stopping revelation....

Hector Santinio is the younger son of Alejo and Mercedes, who moved to New York from Cuba in the mid-1940s. The family of four shares their modest apartment with extended relatives in Harlem, where homesickness and nostalgia are dispelled by nights of dancing and raucous parties. But life’s realities are nevertheless harsh in the Santinio family’s adoptive land.

Kept busy by her obligations as a wife and mother, art history professor Ava Zaretsky has little time to devote to her research and writing. Now tagging along on her film-producer husband’s shoot in Bulgaria for the summer, where she’s mostly solo parenting her sweet son and rebellious budding tween daughter, she has a chance encounter with her fierce feminist mentor from college, which changes everything.

In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial even proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world. Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger.

This is a perfect book for a very imperfect generation. Millennials were the kids who wore slap bracelets and jeans so low rise they could see one another's colons, and they are now adults wondering, Is everyone else as messed up as I am? In her book, Jess shares relatable tales of a woman who feels like a dumpster fire even with a seemingly ideal set up with a fire-captain wife, three kids, and a mortgage.

How do you raise a boy who can bend reality with his mind? How do you keep him levelheaded, sane, and good? Raising any child is a tremendous undertaking, let alone one blessed by the goddess herself. Levi Guildersleeve, retired soldier and successful collector of rare books, finds himself as the only male role model of the most powerful witch ever born.

Dr. Renee Caisson knows there are worse things than an attractive man in uniform drafting her into a secret government project—especially when Major Jackson makes it clear that he isn’t bothered by her questionable past. But when her labs come back with decidedly odd results, the Major is forced to come clean over who the government is actually studying. Renee is shocked to learn her subjects are demonic-looking beings who call themselves “Neighbors”—refugees from a dying world, who arrived during the nation-wide solar eclipse.

Lore, legend, and history tell us of the Vikings: warrior kings on epic journeys of conquest and plunder. But the stories we know are not the only stories to tell. There is another story, one that has been lost to the mists of time: the saga of the dark queen.