Captain Cherry Pendit is a very improper oracle. A proper seer warns the hero, then retires to the luxury of her temple while the hero saves the day. Pfft. Boring. Cherry doesn't need a hero to defy fate. In fact, she intends to rescue the hero. There might be a few bumps along the way—like an entire alien species her oracular talent didn't warn her about—but Captain Cherry Pendit of the Delphic Dame is prepared to adapt and overcome. If only the pirates, the good guys—who might be bad guys—and her allies would just stop freaking interfering by pushing their own stupid agendas.

On his way to his betrothal, young Lord Penric comes upon a riding accident with an elderly lady on the ground, her maidservant and guardsmen distraught. As he approaches to help, he discovers that the lady is a Temple divine, servant to the five gods of this world. Her avowed god is the Bastard, "master of all disasters out of season", and with her dying breath she bequeaths her mysterious powers to Penric.

Ava is committed to vengeance against the man responsible for the death of her parents. The same man, the queen's herald, kept her prisoner for two years, until she escaped with Luc, a warlord bent on vengeance just as fierce as her own. He's forged a powerful army of people from all through the region, called the Rising Wave, to march on the Kassian royal family and smash its corrupt power under the weight of their anger. But for Luc, just as for Ava, his true motive is a lot more personal. 

When my most hated enemy, Bastion, comes to me for help I tell him to take a long walk off a short pier. I’m not helping the griffin assassin that once killed my lover. But when the Crone visits my coven, she tells me that I have to help him find his daughter or else I won’t achieve my full potential.

Life is tough these days for Lydia Smith, licensed para-archaeologist. Seriously stressed-out from a nasty incident in an alien tomb, she is obliged to work in Shrimpton's House of Ancient Horrors, a very low-budget museum. She has a plan to get her career back on track, but it isn't going well. Stuff keeps happening.

Rose McKenzie may be far from Earth with no way back, but she's made a powerful ally - a fellow prisoner with whom she's formed a strong bond. Sazo's an artificial intelligence. He's saved her from captivity and torture, but he's also put her in the middle of a conflict, leaving Rose with her loyalties divided. Captain Dav Jallan doesn't know why he and his crew have stumbled across an almost legendary Class 5 battleship, but he's not going to complain. The only problem is, all its crew are dead - all except for one strange, new alien being.

Marguerite Florian is a spy with two problems. A former employer wants her dead, and one of her new bodyguards is a far too good-looking paladin with a martyr complex.

Nora Devi is a xeno-archaeologist with a complicated past. She has buried more secrets than she’s dug up. Widowed in the recently ended twelve year war between Capitoline and Palantine, she now makes a living as an independent tagger in border space. Captain Liam Kimani could be credited with ending the latest royal war. Instead, he’s blamed for it. Dirty commoners aren’t meant to lay their hands on royalty. He has no regrets.

Liz Danger has returned home after fifteen years to deliver a giant teddy bear for her mother’s birthday (color: Guilt Red) when a cop with a great ass picks her up for speeding, fixes the missing lug nuts on her back wheel, pulls her out of a ditch, doesn’t give her a ticket, and helps her avoid her family. This is a man with real potential. The rest of the day goes downhill, starting with her finding out that the only man she’s ever loved is getting married to Lavender Blue, the most beautiful woman in southern Ohio. Really, the best thing in her day is that cop with the lug nuts.

Arwen Forester may be a socially awkward introvert, but she’s an expert tracker, archer, and forager who has a pickling recipe for every vegetable in the garden. Unfortunately, none of these skills earn her a lot of money. And when the taxes go up on her father’s farm, she’s not sure how to help him keep the property. Then someone offers her a lucrative new gig: Hunt down a haughty half-dragon criminal with the power to incinerate those who irritate him.