Showing results by narrator "Nicole Poole" in All Categories

Urban is no longer master of the fearsome starship Dragon. Driven out by the hostile, godlike entity, Lezuri, he has taken refuge aboard the most distant vessel in his outrider fleet. Though Lezuri remains formidable, he is a broken god, commanding only a fragment of the knowledge that once was his. He is desperate to return home to the ring-shaped artificial world he created at the height of his power, where he can recover the memory of forgotten technologies.

Scholarship student Thracius "Tracy" Belmanor and Princess Mercedes de Arango have graduated from the High Ground and become officers in the Orden de la Estrella. Stung by Mercedes' choice of Beauregard “Boho” Cullen as her consort, Tracy is glad they are posted on battleships light years apart but soon finds that without her protection, he is nothing but a target. Meanwhile, Mercedes' posting has its own challenges, not least her unfaithful husband.

Jacqui still remembers what it was like before the honeybee virus destroyed her world. Before children turned into beasts and men desperate for power became raiders. Before she had to disguise herself as a boy. And before her brother Dean left and never came back. "Jack" asks Fiona and Jonah Tarsis to help find Dean, and they quickly set out - along with Fiona's boyfriend, Bowen - in search of their loved ones. But Jacqui soon discovers that they've kept a dangerous secret from her: they have the cure.

Our enemy claims that the darkness lives in all Arcana. That in a world of light and shadow, one cannot exist without the other. That we're all but one tragedy away from giving in. Even the mages who've sworn to love and protect me. Even me - the Star herself. We call ourselves the Light Arcana, but you know what? The enemy's right. I've seen that darkness. Tasted it. Felt it flickering inside me like a black flame.

When life throws her one setback too many, midwife and young widow Tess Hartsong takes off for Runaway Mountain. In this small town high in the Tennessee mountains, surrounded by nature, she hopes to outrun her heartbreak and find the solace she needs to heal. But instead of peace and quiet, she encounters an enigmatic artist with a craving for solitude, a fairy-tale sprite with too many secrets, a helpless infant, a passel of curious teens, and a town suspicious of outsiders, especially one as headstrong as Tess.

Jericho isn't the famous rock star he once was, though he still plays in a local band and loves to party. Beautiful women come and go, but music is his only passion - until a sassy redhead named Isabelle Monroe shows up unexpectedly. Izzy has always loved the freedom and adventure of life on the road, but she has recently decided to settle down-as much as a rogue wolf can. When her boyfriend gets her a job working at a hot Shifter bar, she runs into the last person on earth she expected to see again.

Ever since Callie - the Vatican's rookie monster hunter - killed a demon a few weeks ago, Kansas City's been eerily quiet. But she soon learns it's just the calm before the storm. Because werewolves begin abducting young women in Kansas City, and a new church opens its doors, pronouncing death to all idols, including these "make-believe" monsters and wizards. But when one of their congregation is disemboweled by a monster on the steps of the church with the phrase God is dead painted in blood, someone in the church decides to take a lesson from the Salem Witch Trials.... And the police seem to be helping.

Tensions escalate across the Imperium Empire. Dwerves hunt for new Krackus worlds to raid. The Imperium executors hope to put an end to the huge armed ship’s rampage, and they delegate the duty to those imperators with the most experience against the empire’s invaders.

Cremsylon and his companions visited the center of the Imperium Empire. That provided an opportunity for Kreus, the first Krackus SADE, to contact the Imperium governor, an AI who controls the planet’s communications. It’s also the repository for the empire’s critical data. The visit to Imperium happens, not once, but twice. Each time, Kreus spends time perusing the governor’s records, invasions that the AI is incapable of stopping. These intrusions initiate an odd sequence of events.

Imperium executors face daunting pressure to control their territories. The assembly’s election of a presiding executor upsets the body’s balance of power. A moderate, Gaketork, wins the election, unseating Rebtar. As required by Imperium law, Rebtar is forced to trade territories with Gaketork. Rebtar inherits a territory where a conclave fleet resides. Despite the Imperium’s peacekeepers being ejected by conclave forces from there, the executor orders both patrol fleets to return. This sets up a dangerous collision between the Krackus fleets and the conclave ships.

Thracius "Tracy" Belmanor has struggled to do his patriotic duty in the wake of the loss of the love of his life, Empress Mercedes de Arango. Amid a desperate war, the Solar League cannot afford his grief, nor the political instability of admitting the depth of their relationship. It is for duty alone, both as a soldier and as a father, that he has entered into a loveless marriage that makes him part of the royal family to shepherd his son and the Solar League towards what seems to be humanity's triumph against its foe.

One of the Vatican’s most infamous Shepherds has been murdered, and Callie’s friends are the prime suspects. To prove them innocent, Roland and Callie must risk their very souls.... Because Callie can’t reveal that she’s hearing strange whispers when she uses her magic, or that she’s harboring an Angel’s Grace. And if the Shepherds discover the hellish bargain Roland made, the streets of Rome will flow with blood as brother turns against brother.

Pixies are disappearing, and not in a good way. The flighty little creatures are made of pure magic, making them both extremely powerful and vulnerable. A mage with the right knowledge can capture and drain them, becoming a wizard of near-godlike power in the process. It's happened before, and it's happening again. But no one will believe the pixies. That same flighty reputation means nobody is taking the abductions seriously - except Kylara Diamantine, the only mage who can transform into a dragon.

My name is Callie Penrose - and I'm a rookie spell-slinger from Kansas City. I work part-time for the Vatican Shepherds, hunting monsters for them, but you won't find me in the pews on Sundays. Not really my thing. But when my boss is injured by a werewolf, it's time for me to put my big girl pants on. Because the Spear of Longinus - the one that allegedly stabbed Jesus on the Cross - has surfaced, and it's going up for auction.

One monster wants my soul. One man wants my magic. Me? I want to be left alone to live my life out like a dull, one of the lucky people who were born devoid of magic. But that won't happen because being born a Wyrd blood gives me two choices in life: ruler or slave.

Fourteen years have passed since he was framed for theft to cover up an imperial atrocity, and disgraced military officer Thracius "Tracy" Belmanor has built a new life for himself. Living under an assumed name as the captain of a small trading vessel crewed primarily by aliens, he and his crew engage in both legal and illegal deals just under the radar of the Solar League authorities.

Human descendants of the Earth colony ship Destiny face an incursion into their area of space by a powerful race. The Imperium Empire, which is ruled by the Krackus, is one wormhole away from the humans, and a rim mining planet, Kilmer, would be the alien race’s first contact. Fear rules the company leader. The Krackus represent danger. They sail powerful battleships. Moreover, the Naiad Council reels from the news that an alien race abuts their space. For centuries, humans in the Axis Crossing region thought they were alone.

The Solar League, humanity's empire, has existed since mankind reached for the stars. While the humans considered it the pinnacle of human achievement, for the subjugated alien races it seemed only to endorse humanity's worst impulses. But the worst of humanity pales in comparison to an alien onslaught that is on the verge of bringing mankind down into death and subjugation.

When a mission in New York City goes terribly wrong, Sienna Nealon finds herself replaced as head of the government agency in charge of policing people with powers beyond those of a normal human. Marginalized, humiliated, she ponders her place in the world now that her war is over. But it isn't long before another threat rears its ugly head, and Sienna finds herself outmatched and outgunned - against former prisoners bent on executing a scheme which will push Sienna past limits of ruthlessness even she could not imagine.

The Emperor's daughter Mercedes is the first woman ever admitted to The High Ground, the elite training academy of the Solar League's Star Command, and she must graduate if she is to have any hope of taking the throne. Her classmate Thracius has more modest goals - to defy his humble beginnings and rise to the rank of captain. But in a system rocked by political division, where women are governed by their husbands and fathers, the poor are kept in their place by a rigid class system, and the alien races have been conquered and subjugated, there are many who want them to fail.