Six years ago, the "Fabulous Gustave" slipped the grasp of Agent Fleur van Beekhof, making off with a priceless artwork . . . and Fleur's beautifully ordered life. Suddenly the cool, pragmatic Europol detective lost her detective partner and wife, her rising career, and her control, thanks to the addictive lure of cards. When a new Italian art theft bears all the markings of Gustave's taunting style, Fleur is put back in the field, because no one knows him better. She jumps at the chance to correct the mistake that ruined her life. The hitch? She has to work with her fiery ex-wife.

Karys Eska is a deathspeaker, locked into an irrevocable compact with Sabaster, a terrifying eldritch being—three-faced, hundred-winged, unforgiving—who has granted her the ability to communicate with the newly departed. She pays the rent by using her abilities to investigate suspicious deaths around the troubled city she calls home. When a job goes sideways and connects her to a dying stranger with some very dangerous secrets, her entire world is upended.

Maddileh is a knight. There aren’t many women in her line of work, and it often feels like the sneering and contempt from her peers is harder to stomach than the actual dragon slaying. But she’s a knight, and made of sterner stuff. A minor infraction forces her to redeem her honor in the most dramatic way possible, she must retrieve the fabled Fireborne Blade from its keeper, legendary dragon the White Lady, or die trying. If history tells us anything, it's that “die trying” is where to wager your coin.

Kyran Loyal is the last heir to the lost throne of a forgotten planet, the figurehead of a nomadic people fleeing the galactic tyranny of a brutal regime. Davia Sifane is the unrecognized daughter of an imperial despot. When happenstance pits them against each other in battle, neither expects the outcome: they are the only two people to survive. Marooned on a barren moon, their only hope of survival is to rely on each other, but what they learn will either kill them or change the galaxy forever.

Now Aelis de Lenti, a daughter of a noble house and recent graduate of the esteemed Magisters’ Lyceum, finds herself in the far-removed village of Lone Pine. Mending fences, matching wits with goats, and serving people who want nothing to do with her. But, not all is well in Lone Pine, and as the villagers Aelis is reluctantly getting to know start to behave strangely, Aelis begins to suspect that there is far greater need for a Warden of her talents than she previously thought.

So, here’s the thing: Cleo and her friends really, truly didn’t mean to steal this spaceship. They just wanted to know why, twenty years ago, the entire Providence crew vanished without a trace. But then the stupid dark matter engine started all on its own, and now these four twenty-somethings are en route to Proxima Centauri, unable to turn around, and being harangued by a snarky hologram that has the face and attitude of the ship’s missing captain, Billie.

Tori Frazee is unapologetic when it comes to falling in love before she's thirty. When her marriage ended amicably, she knew she had to get back into the game to find her soulmate and have the family she wanted. Running face-first into a cold but frazzled funeral director and a rebellious toddler at the grocery store isn't how she expected to find love, and Miranda certainly isn't her soulmate. Or is she?

Eveen the Eviscerator is skilled, discreet, professional, and here for your most pressing needs in the ancient city of Tal Abisi. Her guild is strong, her blades are sharp, and her rules are simple. Those sworn to the Matron of Assassins—resurrected, deadly, wiped of their memories—have only three unbreakable vows. First, the contract must be just. That’s above Eveen’s pay grade. Second, even the most powerful assassin may only kill the contracted. The third and the simplest: once you accept a job, you must carry it out.

Poppy had always loved the night, so it wasn't too much of a bother to wake one evening in an unfamiliar home far from London, weak and confused and plagued with a terrible thirst for blood, to learn that she could no longer step out into the day. And while vampirism presented several disadvantages, it more than made up for those in its benefits: immortality, a body that could run at speed for hours without tiring, the thrill of becoming a predator, the thing that pulls rabbits from bushes and tears through their fur and flesh with the sharp point of a white fang.

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

Riley is so confident and kind, and she and Valerie bond quickly over existing as multiracial teens in a very white Christian community. As Valerie explores her feelings for Riley, she begins to see that the world she knows is a carefully crafted narrative. Publicly, the girls are close friends—holding hands in prayer, rooming together at a conference. Privately, they grasp at any chance to continue their forbidden romance—until they are found out. Now, Valerie must choose between staying with a family she fears will never accept her, or running away with the girl she loves.

The Huntresses of Artemis must obey two rules: never disobey the goddess, and never fall in love. After being rescued from a harrowing life as an Oracle of Delphi, Kahina is glad to be a part of the Hunt; living among a group of female warriors gives her a chance to reclaim her strength. But when a routine mission goes awry, Kahina breaks the first rule in order to save the legendary huntress Atalanta.

In an eternal paradise, the most beautiful angel, Lucifer, struggles with shame, identity, and timidity, with little more than the desire to worship his creator. It isn't until the strongest angel, Michael, comes into his life that Lucifer learns to love himself. Along the way, their friendship begins to bloom into something else. Maybe the first romance in the history of everything. But this God is a jealous one, and maybe paradise is not paradise.

At the dawn of the twentieth century in Paris, Samantha Harker, daughter of Dracula's killer, works as a researcher for the Royal Society for the Study of Abnormal Phenomena. But no one realizes how abnormal she is. Sam is a channel into the minds of monsters: a power that could help her solve the gruesome deaths plaguing turn-of-the-century Paris—or have her thrown into an asylum.

Like her father before her, Joan Matthews is a witch. For generations, their family of binder witches has protected Calvert, Oregon from vampires by strengthening the land with spellcraft. Pushing back against tradition, Joan defied her father and left town to become a war witch, one who fights the monsters hand-to-hand. But when her father dies, Joan returns to find her hometown assailed by a vampire lord's endless attacks—and the answers lie with the one woman who chose a rival over Joan.

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.

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.

Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down.

In the wake of an environmental catastrophe, January, once a principal in London's Royal Ballet, has become a refugee in Tharsis, the terraformed colony on Mars. There, January’s life is dictated by his status as an Earthstronger—a person whose body is not adjusted to lower gravity and so poses a danger to those born on, or naturalized to, Mars. January’s job choices, housing, and even transportation are dictated by this second-class status, and now a xenophobic politician named Aubrey Gale is running on a platform that would make it all worse.

Born on the gallows, the corpse of his mother swinging from the rope above, the villagers brand him The Bane of the North and leave him out for the Fug to claim - a deadly fog ruled by Draugr - Viking warriors that had long ago fallen in battle. They didn’t expect to find him the next day, tattooed with the mark of an ancient god.

The world of Arden is vast, filled with ancient magics, opportunity, and brewing political disasters, but above all else it is permeated by an ever-existing and mysterious System that grants power to those who follow its rules. Peregrine Borncrest was fathered by a master druid and mothered by a renown swordswoman, both of near equal talent. Gifted with the power of recall as his unique, born trait, Pery finds himself grappling with the weight of so many expectations—many of which he has placed on his own shoulders.

Stanley is almost fifty. He hates his job, has an overbearing mother, and is in a failed relationship. Then he meets Asher, the man of his dreams, literally in his dreams. Asher is young, captivating, and confident about his future—everything Stanley is not. So, Asher gives Stan a gift. The chance to be an extra five years younger each time they meet.

Tea Leaves presents 16 speculative short stories that place queer characters in larger-than-life situations to emphasize the surreal experience of marginalization. A queer romance spans multiple incarnations, but only in doomed cities. A gay medieval scholar must testify for his life to the otherworldly octopus who traps him in a cafe bathroom. Ignoring their better judgment, a witch brings their mortal partner on a hunt for a dangerous sorcerer and must cope with the dire consequences.

Seth spends his days hunting down mystical artifacts. As a curator for the Arcanum College, that's his job. But when an arcanist murders a fellow scholar, Seth finds himself assigned instead to a dusty, thirsty, frustrating manhunt. Why him? Because, he's been told by his superiors, he's the only curator sufficiently tenacious and brutal for the job. (Seth resents that.) When the murderer vanishes at the edge of a deadly desert, Seth finds himself in need of a guide.

“Any tool,” she whispers after a long moment, reaching out and letting Malaya grab her finger, “can be molded into a weapon, couldn’t it?” As one, she must walk. Time shall obey but only if there's harmony. She will be ripped apart and the Cat will test her cunning. • wholer than most who are halved • Between a rock and a hard place, she strikes a deal with a cat, one wish per Vorpal sword-- hoping she's the lesser of two evils. Soar across space and time as our main character does her best to juggle the voices in her head and keep herself from ripping in two.

Prince Kitsune dreamed of leading an army in his father's wars for supremacy. Before he can wage a single battle, the king crushes those hopes, banishing his devoted son. But not all is lost. Kitsune will regain his birthright if he assassinates the son of his father's rival.

One hundred years ago, the Eternals, 13 men and women closer to gods than mortals, stood against the greatest threat the world had ever faced. They died. All save for one who managed to flee with the enemy leader’s weapon, a cursed blade of incredible power. This is a battle he fights alone, for after they defeated the Eternals, the enemy used their magic to pose as their conquered opponents, taking over rule of the world in their stead. For the last 100 years, the people have believed that the legendary Eternals triumphed, that they are safe. Only the wanderer knows the truth .

A fox spirit avenges a teen girl by seducing her abuser. A shapeshifting woman finds herself chased through the woods by fox hunters; meanwhile, an assassination plot called Operation Fox Hunt unfolds against the last Queen of Korea. Chinese migrants hoping to make new lives as “paper children” in America find their pasts—and their hopes for the future—embodied in the foxes that haunt the harbor in 1900s Angel Island.

Istehar Sha'an, whose unique powers allow her to communicate with trees and books, has led her community of refugee forest people to a remarkable place. In the archipelago-city of Moonstone, the Sha'an people find themselves in an extraordinary, multicultural metropolis that houses the Library: the world's all-encompassing repository of wisdom. But in their search for a new home, the refugees soon garner the suspicion of Moonstone's locals, who forbid their magical practices.

In the heart of San Antonio, Texas, Victoria Leighton's sixteenth birthday takes an unexpected turn. Instead of the typical teenage dreams of cars and spring formals, she's thrust into a realm she never knew existed: the System. February twenty-ninth is only her fourth birthday, Victoria is unknowingly inducted into this mystical network, Her most unexpected sixteenth birthday present upends her life as she's called to fulfill her destiny.

The year is 2701. Following a near-fatal disaster, roughneck freelancer Roman Matthews becomes unwittingly trapped at the center of a harrowing conspiracy. Hunted by Deorum’s government, the Coalition for Prosperity, Roman must use his deadly skillset to survive against all odds.

After winning a costly clash with Diamonte’s Thegn Clovis and High Mago Deverel, Marcus must find a way to press the attack even though more than half of his Black Hat legionnaires are unable to take the field. Thegn Clovis cannot afford another costly battle so he must turn to High Mago Deverel to conjure victory from defeat. But a lot of magos have been playing with the weather in the past year and succeed or fail, the consequences of Deverel’s efforts could prove devastating for the Jeweled Hills.

The creature slithered, dragging Duen mercilessly toward the mirror’s abyss. “No! What’s happening? Help!” Duen’s anguished cry pierced the air as he was gradually pulled into the mirror, his legs disappearing first. Desperately, he extended his left arm, clinging to the mirror’s edge as he teetered on the brink. The creature hissed ominously as it prowled the periphery of the lava pit, observing Duen’s torment. “Argh… am I dead? Is this hell? Help me, old man, Lia…” Duen gasped desperately as countless demented hands clutched and dragged him deeper into the scorching abyss.