Showing results by narrator "Jennifer O' Donnell" in All Categories

Keeping up-to-date with the most buzzworthy and cutting-edge science fiction requires sifting through countless magazines, e-zines, websites, blogs, original anthologies, single-author collections, and more - a task accomplishable by only the most determined and voracious readers. For everyone else, Night Shade Books is proud to introduce the latest volume of The Best Science Fiction of the Year, collecting the finest that the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the most exciting new writers.

It's finally time for the Alandrian Central Magic Academy's famous Spring Tournament. For Lesti, it's her best opportunity to prove her strength before turning fifteen and becoming an adult. She'll have to do it alone, though. The academy has forbidden Astria from participating. Still, the tournament isn't all about fighting. People from across the alliance gather to watch the spectacle. Amongst the masses and gathered lords, threats new and old plot their moves. As Astria works to neutralize these threats, she finds herself with a choice that could change the course of her new world.

They did their best to destroy everything I hold dear, but heaven made one fatal flaw - they didn’t kill me when they had the chance. You don’t attack the ones I love and get away with it. I never asked for this. I never wanted to become what I am. But the path to hell isn’t paved with good intentions. It’s paved by the retribution of the worst kind of monsters. The ones we create. And heaven is about to face the deadliest of their makings.

CIA operative Alex Parker is one of the most successful ghosts the agency has. Recruited as a 17 year old, she has over 100 kills to her credit. But 10 years of blending in, disappearing, and assassinating targets has taken a toll on her and she'd like to get out. Now, she has a new problem...her partner's gone rogue. After stealing government secrets, he intends to sell them to the highest bidder. It's up to Parker, and her new partner, to find him and bring him in...dead or alive.

What began for Molly as a simple journey to retrieve her father’s old spaceship has turned into an epic adventure with far-reaching consequences. For years, she dreamed of reconnecting with her past. Now she’s going to meet it in a way she never expected: head-on. Her father is alive. Her mother’s memories are trapped inside his old ship. She’s on the run from her very own Navy, and now has been tasked with the impossible: Rescue her parents. Save the galaxy. End a war.

Contains volumes one and two of Reincarnated as a Familiar. A young teacher finds herself reborn with only fuzzy, damaged memories of her past life. Even worse, she's stuck in the body of a cat and can't remember her own name. Summoned by a young mage girl named Lesti, she takes up the name Astria and becomes the girl's familiar.

FBI agent Jessica Blackwood believes she's left her complicated life as a gifted magician behind her - until a killer with seemingly supernatural powers puts her talents to the ultimate test. A hacker who identifies himself only as "Warlock" brings down the FBI's website and posts a code in its place that leads to a Michigan cemetery, where a dead girl is discovered rising from the ground - as if she tried to crawl out of her own grave.

It was supposed to be a fun weekend at our family cabin. I was going to surprise my husband, Mike, with a small get-together for his 40th birthday. Something is wrong, though. Mike isn’t himself lately. He goes out often and by himself, leaving me and our young son. Our happy marriage is fading away, and I don’t know why. This weekend is just what's needed to cheer him up. It’s what we need for us. When I get to the cabin and set up, I hear sounds coming from the basement. That’s when I see her. A young woman tied up and scared.

In just a few short weeks, a group of young orphans have come together to form a family. They have united in the most unlikely of alliances, finding strength in the tight bonds of friendship. In their individual cultures, these orphans were seen as children. At best, they were ignored by their elders. At worst, they are treated as nuisances, told what they could and could not do. But no one ever told them they couldn't save the universe. Nobody knew they would ever get the chance....

I fell in love with a devil, and now, it will take everything I have to save him. The gates to the Realm of the Damned have been cracked open, and the only thing preventing them from being flung wide apart is my mate. Killing him will unleash Hell itself. Revelations will bring about unlikely allies, but will it be enough?

Exiled Charmer Leena Edenfrell is running out of time. Empty pockets forced her to sell her beloved magical beasts - an offense punishable by death - and now there's a price on her head. With the realm's most talented murderer-for-hire nipping at her heels, Leena makes Noc an offer he can't refuse: powerful mythical creatures in exchange for her life. Plagued by a curse that kills everyone he loves, Noc agrees to Leena's terms in hopes of finding a cure.

January is a dying planet - divided between a permanently frozen darkness on one side, and blazing endless sunshine on the other. Humanity clings to life, spread across two archaic cities built in the sliver of habitable dusk. Sophie, a student and reluctant revolutionary, is supposed to be dead, after being exiled into the night. Saved only by forming an unusual bond with the enigmatic beasts who roam the ice, Sophie vows to stay hidden from the world, hoping she can heal.

For Melanie Drake, school guidance counselor in a small Virginia town, the day’s challenges typically involve a playground scuffle or a student skipping school. It’s worlds away from her previous career as a vital part of the Office of Special Investigations. There, she devoted herself heart and soul to covert operations, the riskier the better.

When a church combusts in rural Appalachia, the bizarre trail of carnage suggests diabolical forces are at work. Charged with explaining the inexplicable, the FBI's Dr. Ailes and Agent Knoll once again turn to the ace up their sleeve: Agent Jessica Blackwood, a former prodigy from a family dynasty of illusionists. After playing a pivotal role in the capture of the Warlock, a seemingly supernatural serial killer, Jessica can no longer ignore the world - and the skills - she left behind.

Boston cop, Josh Wallace, is having the worst day of his life. First, he's dumped by the woman he was about to propose to, then everything goes downhill from there when he is shot in the line of duty. While recovering in the hospital, he can't seem to forget the woman he wanted to marry, nor can he make sense of the vivid images that flashed before his eyes when he was wounded.

In the year 2035, robots, artificial intelligences, and neural implants have become commonplace. The Institute for Ethics keeps the peace, using social reputation to ensure that robots and humans don't harm society or each other. But a powerful AI named Adam has found a way around the restrictions. Catherine Matthews, nineteen years old, has a unique gift: the ability to manipulate the net with her neural implant. Yanked out of her perfectly ordinary life, Catherine becomes the last firewall standing between Adam and his quest for world domination.

When Corie Geller asked her parents to move from their apartment into the suburban McMansion she shares with her husband and teenage daughter, she assumed they'd fit right in with the placid life she’d opted for when she left the Joint Anti-terrorism Task Force of the FBI. But then her retired NYPD detective father gets a call from good-natured and slightly nerdy film professor April Brown—one of the victims of a case he was never able to solve. When April was a five-year-old, she’d emerged unscathed from the arson that killed her parents. Now, two decades later, April is asking for help.

Jame is a Kencyr. Kencyrs are not native to the planet where they now live. For 30 centuries they have been the weapon that their Three-Faced God has used against the power of the Perimal Darkling. Jame knows this as she stumbles out of the hilly, barren Haunted Lands into the city of Tai-tastigon. But she knows little else. She does not remember where she has been or what she has done for the last 10 years of her life. Her memory goes back only a week or two - to finding her home destroyed and all her family dead.

A team divided. A leader in turmoil. A love tested. Now it's the heroes who need saving

Jake knows the woman sitting next to him on his business flight to Denver - he just can't figure out how he knows her. Clara Stowe isn't in Jake's line of work. They have nearly nothing in common apart from a deep and shared certainty that they've met before. As their airplane conversation deepens, both struggle to figure out what circumstances could have possibly brought them together. Then, in a revelation that sends Jake reeling, Clara admits she's traveling to the Colorado mountains to kill herself, and she disappears into the crowded airport immediately after landing.