Showing results by publisher "--Tyson Hanks" in Science Fiction & Fantasy

Blessed by the gods and goddesses, edoli have lived alongside humans for thousands of years. While some hold such abilities as shape-shifting and controlling the elements, the rarest are the kings and queens who can bond through blood with keepers and amplify their power...and their own. Titos has been seen as useless and weak his entire life. He's never been able to bond with another edoli and has nothing of value to offer his queen. When a stranger saves him from certain death, Titos's life will never be the same.

If there is one thing you needed to know about me it is this: I hate vampires. They are useless, soul-sucking monsters that destroy everything in their path, even my own family. I joined The Order and became a vampire hunter for revenge, but I never would have guessed that my job would entail baby-sitting the vampire heir to the most powerful clan in the world. And if she thought I was going to break like the other hunters she has been through... she has another thing coming to her.

The Tarot Sequence imagines a modern-day Atlantis off the coast of Massachusetts, governed by powerful Courts based on the traditional Tarot deck. Rune Saint John, last child of the fallen Sun Throne, is backed into a fight of high court magic and political appetites in a desperate bid to protect his ward, Max, from a forced marital alliance with the Hanged Man. Rune's resistance will take him to the island's dankest corners, including a red light district made of moored ghost ships and the floor of the ruling Convocation, where a gathering of Arcana will change Rune's life forever.

Leon Jäger, a stoic and unyielding knight, lives by a simple code: repay kindness with a river of ambrosia, and slights with total destruction. When an unexplainable force pulls him into a foreign world where magic flows and monsters roam, his creed will be tested like never before. Struggling to comprehend powers beyond his imagination, Leon must master the mystical art of Qi cultivation while hiding his abilities from those who might exploit them.

Boston Homicide Detective Caitlin Reagan walks a razor's edge, propping up her life on emotional constructs designed to help her manage grueling PTSD. She keeps her mother, boyfriend, and work separated and controlled, all in service to one horrible, tragic act she committed amid the Iraq war.

My big secret is out. Adam Vex may be a tiny bit not human. But it's not so bad. Just so long as Gideon Cain doesn't find out. It's probably best if I keep my head down and stay out of trouble, especially after our "accident" at the vampire chapel. But one little date won't hurt.

Misha is a jaded scriptwriter who has been working in Hollywood for decades, and has just been nominated for his first Oscar. But when he's pressured by his producers to kill off a gay character in the upcoming season finale—"for the algorithm"—Misha discovers that it's not that simple. As he is haunted by his past, and past mistakes, Misha must risk everything to find a way to do what's right—before it's too late.

In the Prime Kingdoms, the system dominates everything. It dictates one’s strength, skills, and power. It spawns dungeons and guides the actions of their monsters. But every system has its limits, and it’s about to push four oddball adventurers to theirs.

After getting punched in the face by a golem, Jason discovers he desperately needs two things: A much better offense and a much better defense. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and to a mage, everything is solved with magic. That is, unless your magic is small and restricted like Jason’s. Since he can’t use charms, create shields, or throw fireballs, he needs to find a different way to win battles. Fortunately, Tyler is back, and as a Natural, he is ready to teach Jason the Way of the Fist. Among other things. (Nudge nudge, wink wink).

When Deputy US Marshal Danielle "Danny" Martin was told she'd gotten a promotion, she expected to be leading her own fugitive retrieval team. Instead, she got transferred to Pontian, Florida, of all places, and assigned to a Superhero support detail for Focus, a seemingly immortal superhero who is also one of the most famous lesbian icons on the planet. Bad enough she's got to spend every day working with a woman she's had a crush on since she was five years old, but when she arrives at her new post, things start getting weird.

Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: To escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six. When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka's ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She's found her final candidate. But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four.

This should be the story of Hercules: his twelve labours, his endless adventures…everyone’s favourite hero, right? Well, it’s not. This is the story of everyone else. Herc gives voice to the silenced characters, in this feminist, queer (and sometimes shocking) retelling of classic Hercules myth.

This remarkable novel begins in 1850s Louisiana, where Gilda escapes slavery and learns about freedom while working in a brothel. After being initiated into eternal life as one who "shares the blood" by two women there, Gilda spends the next 200 years searching for a place to call home. An instant lesbian classic when it was first published in 1991, The Gilda Stories has endured as an auspiciously prescient book in its explorations of blackness, radical ecology, re-definitions of family, and yes, the erotic potential of the vampire story.

Having only recently ascended from your average nobody to what many would consider the pinnacle of humanity, the inexperienced Cat is overwhelmed, to say the least. She’s worried about how her girlfriend, Lucy, will react to the changes, and wonders whether she can use her newfound power and growing influence to care for her “kittens,” a group of orphans in her charge. Meanwhile, as if black-ops assassins and their corporate masters weren’t dangerous enough, the alien Antithesis have infiltrated the mining town of Black Bear.

The strangest thing about Annie's new reality isn't that she's now in the body of a seven-year-old child, the beloved Lillith, feared dead by her family after a particularly nasty bout of pneumonia. It's that she's constantly having to conceal her adult intellect, which is not only advanced but otherworldly. Sure, being a young woman and a grad student in twenty-first-century America had its challenges, but this life as Lillith presents even tougher obstacles. She must tread carefully to conceal her vast knowledge of biology, math, physics, and . . . being an adult.

Yael Clauneck might be an indifferent warlock, but they are also the only scion of an obscenely wealthy banking family with its fingers in every pie in the realm. On the precipice of a predetermined life, a loveless political marriage, and eventually, children who’ll be raised exactly as they were, they flee during their own graduation party, in search of the chance to feel like life can still be a grand adventure.

Medium and clairvoyant Simon Kincaide owns a Myrtle Beach boardwalk shop where he runs ghost tours, holds seances, and offers private psychic readings, making a fresh start after his abilities cost him his lover and his job as a folklore professor. Jaded cop Vic D'Amato saw something supernatural he couldn't explain during a shootout several years ago in Pittsburgh and relocated to Myrtle Beach to leave the past behind, still skeptical about the paranormal. But when the search for a serial killer hits a dead end, Vic battles his skepticism to ask Simon for help.

Elaine's mission through the fairy ring went horribly wrong, and she finds herself in Pallos once again—over 20,000 years in the future. All she has are her friends, her magic, and the clothes on her back. Fighting their way out of the wilderness, they quickly meet Iona, a wandering paladin of the Valkyrie order. She's heading to the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft, and Elaine joins her: To learn wizardry. To figure out her place in the world and where she wants to go next. To get her third class. To kiss cute women. To eat some tasty mangos. To read books, at long last.

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.

After nine years as the people's beloved princess in the sun-soaked Kingdom of Carca, Vita witnesses the execution of her mother by her father's hand. Forced into exile, Vita fades into obscurity with her only friends—the crows that visit her window. Eleven years later, Vita is given a choice: marry an enemy general, granting him legitimacy to take the throne, or die as the forgotten princess. With time running out, Vita meets Soline, an intriguing lady-in-waiting who introduces her to the powerful but unstable magic of alchemy.