Showing results by author "Ruby" in All Categories

Tattooed, muscled, and fierce, they look like felons; but these highly trained agents are humanity's protectors - the only ones standing between Earth and the threats of the galaxy. They are the Star Guardians. A born geek, Juanita has dreamed of exploring the stars for as long as she can remember. Getting kidnapped by slavers from another planet? Not so much. If she's lucky, she might be able to convince the hot guy protecting her from the others to help her escape.

Homesteading on the remote farm planet Risda III can be lonely. So when I notice that my neighbor isn't doing so well, I ask for help to give her a Christmas celebration to brighten her spirits.

Amy Chambers: restaurant owner, micromanager, control freak. Amy will do anything to revive her ailing restaurant, including hiring a former reality-show finalist with good connections and a lot to prove. But her hopes that Sophie’s skills and celebrity status would bring her restaurant back from the brink of failure are beginning to wane… Sophie Brunet: grump in the kitchen/sunshine in the streets, took thirty years to figure out she was queer.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Evergreen Academy was meant to be my fresh start. My hair was on point. My skin was flawless. And now, I wore the hell out of my clothes instead of hiding them. Even running into Ryder hadn't thrown me. So what if the silver-eyed devil who tormented me for years now ruled my new school with a band of boys everyone called the Knights. The four of them were devastatingly rich, enviously handsome...and heartbreakingly cruel.

Sergeant Heath “Tick” Hawthorn, the best tracker in Mandrake Company and the captain’s right-hand man, has been admiring microbiologist Lauren Keys from afar for months. Unfortunately, she’s dedicated to her science and doesn’t seem to have any interest in relationships. He’s not even sure she knows his name. Determined to change that, Heath develops a surefire plan: He signs up to be a specimen in her latest study.

I am a bashful, dorky human—your average refugee on Risda III. Haina is tall, blue, and magnificent. She is effortlessly confident, and her laugh is contagious. I might hide behind the candle section at the store in Risda's port just to get a weekly glimpse at her when she makes her vendor runs. I might be in love with her from afar. Someday I'll get the courage to talk to her. Someday. But fate steps in, and 'someday' turns out to be a lot sooner than I expected.

All my life I have served. One lord after another, I have given them my time, my body, and my soul. My newest lord, however, is not one but three. I have become the anchor to the three Aspects of Fate, the mortal chosen to teach the gods humanity. It seems an impossible task for any mortal to satisfy a god's wishes and I must serve three? Three lords means three times the frustration, three times the petty demands . . . and three times the pleasure.

My tribesmates don't understand her. The other humans think she's weak. But no one knows my mate like I do. They don't see her gentle heart or her brave spirit. I know why she struggles. I know how strong she is. And I know I'll do anything to make her smile. But can I convince her that she can be happy in this strange new world with me?

After 10 years of flying freighter ships from planet to planet, Val Calendula never thought she would apply for a job as a combat pilot in a mercenary outfit. But her brother has gotten himself into financial trouble, and he's heading to a mining prison if Val can't pay off his debts. Mercenaries don't always live long...but they make good money while they're alive. A few combat bonuses, and Val could earn what she needs.

I've had a full life: wife, mom, divorcee . . . and then alien property. All of that's changing now that I'm on the ice planet. Here, I'm free again, and I've found love once more. Vaza's older and a widower, but he knows how to make a woman smile both in the furs and out of them. Everyone around me has a baby in their arms or in their belly, though, and it's hard to be the only one without. I love nothing more than being a mama . . . and when I hear there's an orphan at the Icehome camp, I want to adopt him. Vaza and I have so much love to give, but will an alien baby love us back?

My sister was good, kind, loving, and the Royals of Regalia bullied her 'til she killed herself. I set foot on campus ready to right some wrongs when the most handsome bunch of stone-cold weirdos asked if I needed a little help. These four are as determined to make up for not protecting my sister as they are to protect…and keep…me. They’re freaks. Weirdos. Psychos. But damned if they’re not taking my heart like they do everything else—without mercy or permission. It’s the five of us against the most untouchable of Regalia. No one thinks we can win, but I like my chances.

Air Force pilot Andromeda "Andie" Kim dreams of being chosen to join NASA so she can go to space. Instead she's stolen by savage kidnappers from a dystopian future where fertile women are needed for breeding purposes. All she wants is to escape and find a way back to her time before she's sold as broodstock and stuck in this ruined world forever.

Valessa is in danger. Her town has been captured by Aventinian raiders, the women taken, and now she's on a ship destined for nowhere good. But when a terrifying, four-armed sea-ogre pirate boards the ships and demands compensation, Valessa's luck changes. The sea-ogre demands a bride. It's the perfect opportunity for her to escape. Valessa volunteers. She tells everyone she's very experienced with sea-ogres and knows just how to please them. She's very descriptive about it, too. Thing is . . . Valessa's a liar.

I never thought I could forgive them. I didn't believe there was still a heart inside of me that could forgive. But my boys, my knights, were taking down my walls and claiming a piece for themselves. All I wanted was to lock our secret away and enter junior year as though the past never happened...but someone won't let me. Someone knows what we did and the price for their silence may be more than I can give.

New chapters on the brain, intersectionality, and parents. Simple, proven strategies that schools can start using today. With a view through an economic lens that has only become sharper and more focused since its initial publication in 1995, the premise owned by A Framework for Understanding Poverty is unchanged: Middle-class understandings of children and adults in poverty are often ill-suited for connecting with people in poverty and helping them build up the resources to rise out of poverty and into self-sufficiency.

Seguro crees que ser abducida por extraterrestres es lo peor que me ha pasado. Y no lo es. La nave en la que viajábamos tuvo problemas técnicos y nuestros secuestradores nos dejaron a mí y a mis compañeras abandonadas en un planeta congelado.

The crew of the Scarlet Gaze are figuring out what they want to do now that Lord Straik sa'Rin is no longer running a corsair ship. Some of the a'ani crew want to run a cantina on Risda III. Kazex just wants Ruthie. Ruthie just wants to have a nervous breakdown. Well, she wants Kazex, too. The delicious a'ani chief of security has been a steady, protective, delicious presence ever since she joined the crew. He's made it clear that he loves Ruthie as she is, nervous wreck and all. But Ruthie's afraid of what will happen to their easy friendship if she asks for more.

The town of Bedlam was born of rioters, revolt, pain, and murder. Over a hundred years later, nothing has changed. A shadow clings to our lives. Stalking, watching, waiting, taunting, and killing. And when it struck, I wasn't ready. I have to play their game now. Catch them, kill them, before Ruckus Royale or they'll claim another sacrifice. The trouble is a new band of outlaws are in charge, and Arsenio, Cairo, Jacques, Legend, and Roan don't take well to people ruining their fun.

It was only a few days ago that Tess Biedermann, Theo Biedermann, and Jaime Cruz, along with a mysterious figure from the past, managed to survive an assault on the location of the latest clue in the Morningstarr cipher - and, in the process, made a shocking discovery about their own connection to this 160-year-old enigma. Now the friends are divided. Tess and Theo have no idea what the photo they found in Greenwood Cemetery means, but Jaime is convinced that they do, and that they've been keeping their own secrets from him.

Welcome to Breakbattle Academy. The first school of its kind where survival of the fittest is not a saying, it's your reality. Ruled by those who are elite in name, beauty, and cunning, Breakbattle takes the war of the classes to a whole new level.