The When Swords Fall Silent anthology showcases the imaginations and talents of more than a dozen of the best modern science-fiction and fantasy authors, with each tale centered around one or more characters burdened with a bloody task they will see to completion no matter the cost. Every story takes you for a vicious ride through a world of shadow and death, each as unique in perspective and execution as the contracts carried out within.

On a mountainside at the edge of the Kaigenese Empire live the most powerful warriors in the world, superhumans capable of raising the sea and wielding blades of ice. For hundreds of years, the fighters of the Kusanagi Peninsula have held the Empire's enemies at bay, earning their frozen spit of land the name "The Sword of Kaigen". Born into Kusanagi's legendary Matsuda family, f14-year-old Mamoru has always known his purpose: To master his family's fighting techniques and defend his homeland.

Miss Mildred Percy is a spinster. She does not dance, she has long stopped dreaming, and she certainly does not have adventures. That is, until her great uncle has the audacity to leave her an inheritance, one that includes a dragon’s egg. The egg—as eggs are wont to do—decides to hatch, and Miss Mildred Percy is suddenly thrust out of the role of “spinster and general wallflower” and into the unprecedented position of “spinster and keeper of dragons.” But England has not seen a dragon since…well, ever.

Three lives come together in this truly epic fantasy where magic users go missing, old gods return, and creatures of light ravage the land. A high general with a dark voice in his head that begs to be released. A sheltered young woman addicted to magic. A reckless young man whose life changes after he dies. Together, they will change the world—whether they intend to or not.

With just one touch, bread turns into roses. With just one bite, cheese turns into lilies. There’s a famine plaguing the land, and Princess Yzabel is wasting food simply by trying to eat. Before she can even swallow, her magic - her curse - has turned her meal into a bouquet. She’s on the verge of starving, which only reminds her that the people of Portugal have been enduring the same pain for years. If only it were possible to reverse her magic. Fatyan, a beautiful Enchanted Moura, is the only one who can help. But she is trapped by magical binds.

Bruised, stoned, and still adjusting to her latest wear implants, apprentice enforcer Taya Mint plunges into the darkest depths of Megastructure Seven Zero Three, challenging everything she thought she knew about life within the walls she has never stepped beyond. With only one assignment left to earn her full license, Taya finally stands a chance to rebuild a life wounded by grief. But she quickly discovers that the kidnapping she's investigating is just one piece of a puzzle—one that leads to grisly death and the greedy heart of power within the structure.

Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Children of Time is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Who will inherit this new Earth? The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden.

Rhode Island, 1846. Estranged from his family, writer Merritt Fernsby is surprised when he inherits a remote estate in the Narragansett Bay. Though the property has been uninhabited for more than a century, Merritt is ready to call it home—until he realizes he has no choice. With its doors slamming shut and locking behind him, Whimbrel House is not about to let Merritt leave. Ever.

Tesla Crane, one of the richest women in the world, is on her honeymoon on an interplanetary space liner, cruising between Earth and Mars. She’s traveling incognito and is reveling in her anonymity. Then someone is murdered and her husband is named as the prime suspect. To save him from the frame-up, Tesla will risk exposure and face demons from her past. Even though doing so might make her the next victim.

Fourteen-year-old Mona isn't like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can't control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter, and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt's bakery making gingerbread men dance. But Mona's life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona's city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona's worries.

When a banished witch falls in love with the legendary trickster Loki, she risks the wrath of the gods in this moving, subversive debut novel that reimagines Norse mythology. Angrboda’s story begins where most witches' tales end: with a burning. A punishment from Odin for refusing to provide him with knowledge of the future, the fire leaves Angrboda injured and powerless, and she flees into the farthest reaches of a remote forest. There she is found by a man who reveals himself to be Loki, and her initial distrust of him transforms into a deep and abiding love.

Most of the time the Moontide Bridge lies deep below the sea, but every 12 years the tides sink and the bridge is revealed, its gates open for trade. The Magi are hell-bent on ruling this new world, and for the last two Moontides they have led armies across the bridge on "crusades of conquest". Now, the third Moontide is almost here, and this time the people of the East are ready for a fight... but it is three seemingly ordinary people that will decide the fate of the world.

Fifty thousand gun-toting paladins march behind him, all baptized in angel blood, thirsty to burn unbelievers. Only the janissaries can stand against them. Their living legend, Kevah, once beheaded a magus amid a hail of ice daggers. But ever since his wife disappeared, he spends his days in a haze of hashish and poetry. To save the kingdom, Kevah must conquer his grief and become the legend he once was. But Micah writes his own legend in blood, and his righteous conquest will stop at nothing. When the gods choose sides, a legend will be etched upon the stars.

The child of a married Japanese aristocrat and her African American GI lover, Nori is an outsider from birth. Her grandparents take her in, only to conceal her, fearful of a stain on the royal pedigree that they are desperate to uphold in a changing Japan. Obedient to a fault, Nori accepts her solitary life, despite her natural intellect and curiosity.

In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. That’s why they’re banished for their 16th year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive. Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life - a society that doesn’t pit friend against friend or woman against woman, but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that it’s not just the brutal elements they must fear.

You define life or it defines you. In Shawn Speakman’s case, it was both. Lacking health insurance and diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2011, Shawn quickly accrued a massive medical debt that he did not have the ability to pay. That’s when New York Times best-selling author Terry Brooks offered to donate a short story that Shawn could sell to help alleviate those bills—and suggested he ask the same of his other writer friends. Unfettered is the result: An anthology built in order to relieve that debt, featuring short stories by some of the best fantasy writers in the genre.

Evoking Beyoncé’s Lemonade for a teen audience, these authors who are truly Octavia Butler’s heirs have woven worlds to create a stunning narrative that puts Black women and gender-nonconforming individuals at its center. A Phoenix First Must Burn will take you on a journey from folktales retold to futuristic societies and everything in between. Filled with stories of love and betrayal, strength and resistance, this collection contains an array of complex and true-to-life characters through which you cannot help but see yourself reflected.

After her daughter is kidnapped, Emmeline Highclere—a thirty-four-year-old mother living in isolation with memories and grief her only companion—must do everything in her limited power and divine abilities to get the girl back. Emmeline believes her daughter, Elora, is the Beloved—the conduit with goddess-granted divine abilities prophesied to bring peace to the Three Kingdoms. Because the last person thought to be the Beloved was brutally murdered by the enemy kingdom of Folterra, Emmeline has dedicated the last sixteen years to hiding her daughter and keeping her safe.

Psychologist Loche Newirth becomes hunted when he sees a painting that opens a window onto the afterlife. An ancient order of men seeking to control the art pursue him across the world, through centuries, into madness, and beyond. The first part of Michael B. Koep's the Newirth Mythology The Invasion of Heaven is mystery, adventure, myth, betrayal, murder, and madness. Loche Newirth wonders if it was his fall: The 50-foot drop from the rocky cliff to the icy water below. Is this why he has been hallucinating?

For Malik, the Solstasia festival is a chance to escape his war-stricken home and start a new life with his sisters in the prosperous desert city of Ziran. But when a vengeful spirit abducts his younger sister, Nadia, as payment to enter the city, Malik strikes a fatal deal - kill Karina, Crown Princess of Ziran, for Nadia’s freedom. But Karina has deadly aspirations of her own. Her mother, the Sultana, has been assassinated; her court threatens mutiny; and Solstasia looms like a knife over her neck. Grief-stricken, Karina decides to resurrect her mother through ancient magic.

When a banished witch falls in love with the legendary trickster Loki, she risks the wrath of the gods in this moving, subversive debut novel that reimagines Norse mythology. Angrboda’s story begins where most witches' tales end: with a burning. A punishment from Odin for refusing to provide him with knowledge of the future, the fire leaves Angrboda injured and powerless, and she flees into the farthest reaches of a remote forest. There she is found by a man who reveals himself to be Loki, and her initial distrust of him transforms into a deep and abiding love.

Below Forsaken Mountain, a plot is being hatched to overthrow the tyrant king of Trollus, and Marc is the right-hand man of its leader. His involvement is information more than one troll would kill to possess, which is why he must keep it a secret from everyone, even the girl he loves. After accidentally ruining her sister's chance to become queen, Pénélope is given one last opportunity by her father, the Duke d'Angoulême, to make herself useful: she must find proof that the boy she's in love with is conspiring against the crown.

Most of the time the Moontide Bridge lies deep below the sea, but every 12 years the tides sink and the bridge is revealed, its gates open for trade. The Magi are hell-bent on ruling this new world, and for the last two Moontides they have led armies across the bridge on "crusades of conquest". Now, the third Moontide is almost here, and this time the people of the East are ready for a fight... but it is three seemingly ordinary people that will decide the fate of the world.

Warrior angels, vampire hunters, and angels gone bad heat up this altogether sizzling paranormal alternate universe. This anthology of novellas features Angels' Wolf, Angels' Judgment, Angels' Pawn, and the never-before-published Angels' Dance.

The Red Swords came with the sunrise and took everything Shawna Llewan held dear. Her family massacred, her home destroyed, she escapes with nothing but her mother’s heirloom and the desire for vengeance. When she’s found by Dormael, a Warlock of the Conclave, she learns that her mother’s keepsake - the very reason her family was killed - holds the power to unleash boundless destruction.

Asher Todd comes to live with the mysterious Morwood family as a governess to their children. Asher knows little about being a governess but she is skilled in botany and herbcraft, and perhaps more than that. And she has secrets of her own, dark and terrible—and Morwood is a house that eats secrets. With a monstrous revenge in mind, Asher plans to make it choke. However, she becomes fond of her charges, of the people of the Tarn, and she begins to wonder if she will be able to execute her plan—and who will suffer most if she does.

In the first novel of Melanie Rawn's Dragon Star trilogy, there is a devastating new challenge to the power of both the High Prince Rohan and Andry, Lord of the Sunrunners at Goddess Keep, as a mysterious and seemingly unstoppable invasion force swarms across their lands. For Andry it signals the start of a nightmare made real, the horrifying fulfillment of his long-ago visions of his homeland in flames, and he will draw upon even the forbidden sorcerer's magic in an attempt to destroy this enemy which is bent on the extermination of all Sunrunners.

Everyone dreams of marrying a prince - except for me. I am nothing more than a pawn in my adoptive mother's diabolical plot against the seven kingdoms. I was the chosen tool, her sharpened blade that would cut the deepest into the heart of the kingdom of Baist. But like all deadly weapons, my wedding is two-edged sword that could cost me my soul. For I am Rosalie, one of the adopted daughters of Lady Eville, and it is my duty to enter into a loveless and hate-filled marriage with the narcissistic Crown Prince of Baist.

When Jessica marries David, he is everything she wants in a family man: brilliant, attentive, ever youthful. Yet she still feels something about him is just out of reach. Soon, as people close to Jessica begin to meet violent, mysterious deaths, David makes an unimaginable confession: More than 400 years ago, he and other members of an Ethiopian sect traded their humanity so they would never die, a secret he must protect at any cost.

Princess Aurelia is a prisoner to her crown and the heir that nobody wants. Surrounded by spirits and banned from using her blood-magic, Aurelia flees her country after a devastating assassination attempt. To escape her fate, Aurelia disguises herself as a commoner in a new land and discovers a happiness her crown has never allowed. As she forges new bonds and perfects her magic, she begins to fall for a man who is forbidden to rule beside her.

The When Swords Fall Silent anthology showcases the imaginations and talents of more than a dozen of the best modern science-fiction and fantasy authors, with each tale centered around one or more characters burdened with a bloody task they will see to completion no matter the cost. Every story takes you for a vicious ride through a world of shadow and death, each as unique in perspective and execution as the contracts carried out within.

For twenty years, Sciona has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry at the University of Magics and Industry. When Sciona finally achieves her ambition and becomes a Highmage, she finds her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues are determined to make her feel unwelcome—and instead of a qualified lab assistant they give her a janitor.

On a mountainside at the edge of the Kaigenese Empire live the most powerful warriors in the world, superhumans capable of raising the sea and wielding blades of ice. For hundreds of years, the fighters of the Kusanagi Peninsula have held the Empire's enemies at bay, earning their frozen spit of land the name "The Sword of Kaigen". Born into Kusanagi's legendary Matsuda family, f14-year-old Mamoru has always known his purpose: To master his family's fighting techniques and defend his homeland.

The people suffer under the centuries-long rule of the Moon Throne. The royal family—the despotic emperor and his monstrous sons, the Three Terrors—hold the countryside in their choking grip. They bleed the land and oppress the citizens with the frightful powers they inherited from the god locked under their palace.

It has been 20 years since the end of the war. The dictatorial Augurs, once thought of almost as gods, were overthrown and wiped out during the conflict, their much-feared powers mysteriously failing them. Those who had ruled under them, men and women with a lesser ability known as the Gift, avoided the Augurs' fate only by submitting themselves to the rebellion's Four Tenets.