Showing results by author "Uma Ruby" in All Categories

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.

Katie Saunders isn’t used to sitting on her butt, but she’s been stuck doing exactly that as the Star Guardians fly all over the galaxy, trying to get her and the other kidnapped women back home. Now, it looks like they have to engage in a battle against evil aliens before making the final flight to Earth. Since they’ve captured an extra ship and are short on pilots, Katie wants to help. She flew jets during her time in the navy, and she’s been training on the spaceship’s flight simulator, so she knows she can be useful.

As a database programmer from Arizona and a fan of sedate, indoor activities, Indi Smith doesn't belong in outer space. Certainly not in a star system with a broken wormhole gate and no way home. But through no fault of her own, that's where she's landed, and nobody on the ship, not even the genius chief engineer, Hierax, knows how to repair the gate. The only clue that could help is an untranslatable transmission coming from an uninhabitable planet with no atmosphere.

It was 1798 when the Morningstarr twins arrived in New York with a vision for a magnificent city: towering skyscrapers, dazzling machines, and winding train lines, all running on technology no one had ever seen before. Fifty-seven years later, the enigmatic architects disappeared, leaving behind for the people of New York the Old York Cipher - a puzzle laid into the shining city they constructed, at the end of which was promised a treasure beyond all imagining.

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.

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.

Lady Iolanthe of Rockmourn Keep expects to be a spinster all her days. She is very tall. She is very poor. And she is thirty. What lord could possibly want her? But then her father returns with news that he has found a bridegroom for her—one that is impressively tall. One that is strong, and bold, and wealthy. And best of all? He wants Iolanthe. It seems too good to be true. And when Iolanthe gets her first look at her husband-to-be, she realizes why. No one mentioned the 'orc' part of things . . .

Ruby Wax - comedian, writer and mental health campaigner - shows us how our minds can jeopardize our sanity. With her own periods of depression and now a Masters from Oxford in Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy to draw from, she explains how our busy, chattering, self-critical thoughts drive us to anxiety and stress. If we are to break the cycle, we need to understand how our brains work, rewire our thinking and find calm in a frenetic world.

This collection includes four novellas: Vektal & Georgie, Raahosh & Liz, Aehako & Kira, and Rukh & Harlow.

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?

No one ever comes back for me. I've always been on my own, and why should it be any different on an ice planet? So when I'm kidnapped by a feral outcast, I suspect I'd better learn to love raw fish and rough living. Then...U'dron comes to my rescue. He's always understood me more than anyone else. He's been my friend and my confidante. We've made music together. And now that he's my hero? The crush I've had on him is turning into something more, something deeper. He won't want me when he hears my terrible secrets, though. But it turns out that U'dron has a secret of his own....

After being stolen from Earth, I learned that I could live each day in fear...or I could meet life head-on and unafraid. I chose the latter. Which is why, when I find a terrifyingly huge cat-alien male hip-deep in my favorite fishing spot, I don't run away in fear.

Naomi has spent her entire profits from her farm's yield for a fertility shot. She wants a baby to ease some of the loneliness of life at the edge of the universe. Unfortunately for her, the donor she had lined up can't finish the job. What's a lonely ovulating human to do? This one heads to the Port Custodial office and asks for help from the military custodian on duty. Brawny but awkward Ainar isn't sure why this human is insisting on needing his help for sleeping, but he's happy to assist someone as delicate and pretty as the human colonist.

In today’s online culture, it’s easy to confuse influencers with leaders and chase the followers, the likes, and the superficial success. But, while influencers paint a pretty picture, real leaders pave a path. Leadership isn’t about what you do, nor is it about what you’ve accomplished. It’s about who you be. What people really yearn for is someone who cuts through the bullshit and lives and operates authentically.

Life has taught me that I can't trust anyone. Not friends, not family. In the worst, darkest moments, no one can be counted on to have your back. Even a billion miles away from Earth, on a remote icy planet, I still feel alone. The only consolation? I haven't resonated. It's not that I don't want love or children. I just can't trust anyone, even myself.

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.

As a pirate, I tend to hang out with unsavory outcasts at the edges of the known universe. I'm used to running into thieves, assassins, and fugitives. It shouldn't surprise me to see a forbidden human female for sale in the tunnels of the space station, but I hate it. When I see she's near death, I have to act. I buy her. She spits in my face. It's love at first sight. At least, it's love at first sight on my end. I know it can never be, though, because I'm an ugly beast of an alien to her. The enemy.

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.

My parents forgot something when they ran…me. After scamming most of our town out of their life savings, my folks disappeared in the middle of the night. Forced to take me in, my estranged aunt and uncle shipped me off to Raven River Academy the first chance they got. In my town, the line between the haves and the have-nots is actually a 12-foot gate that keeps the unwanted where they belong. Nothing could unite the two factions until I set foot on campus. For the first time in our history, they all agree on one thing: I must pay for my father’s sins.

For months, I've been chased by a red dragon. They're the females of the dragon shifter invaders, fierce and vicious and as ruthless as they are wild. She hunts me wherever I go, and I'm not safe even behind the walls of a fort. There's only one thing I can do to stop her...and that's to take her as my mate. But to win the heart of a female dragon, I have to conquer her first. Not so easy for a human man...but Teva's worth the challenge.