Showing results by author "Rachel Aaron" in All Categories

Audie Award, Fantasy, 2016. As the smallest dragon in the Heartstriker clan, Julius survives by a simple code: keep quiet, don't cause trouble, and stay out of the way of bigger dragons. But this meek behavior doesn't fly in a family of ambitious magical predators, and his mother, Bethesda the Heartstriker, has finally reached the end of her patience.

They say family always sticks together, but when you're your dad's only lifeline and the whole world - humans, dragons, and gods - wants you dead, "family bonding" takes on a whole new meaning. My name is Opal Yong-ae, and I'm in way over my head. I thought getting rid of my dad's bad luck curse would put things back to normal. Instead, I'm stuck playing caretaker to the Great Dragon of Korea. That wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn't such a jerk, or if every dragon on the planet wasn't out to kill him, or if he was my only problem.

After barely escaping the machinations of his terrifying mother, two all-knowing seers, and countless bloodthirsty siblings, the last thing Julius wants to see is another dragon. Unfortunately for him, the only thing more dangerous than being a useless Heartstriker is being a useful one. Now that he's got an in with the Three Sisters, Julius has become a key pawn in Bethesda the Heartstriker's gamble to put her clan on top.

In the real world, twenty-one-year-old library sciences student Tina Anderson is invisible and under-appreciated, but in the VR-game Forever Fantasy Online she's Roxxy—the respected leader and main tank of a top-tier raiding guild. Her brother, James Anderson, has a similar problem. IRL he’s a college drop-out struggling under debt, but in FFO he's famous—an explorer known all over the world for doing every quest and collecting the rarest items.

Expanding on the author's highly successful process for doubling daily word counts, this audiobook - a combination of reworked blog posts and new material - offers practical writing advice for anyone who's ever longed to increase their daily writing output.

There is no way to write a blurb for this final book without spoiling all of the others. Suffice it to say, mysteries resolve, dragons war, pigeons abound, and Julius must risk himself in ways he never dreamed possible as Bob's grand plan finally comes to fruition.

He's not just any thief. He’s the greatest thief of the age - and he’s also a wizard. And with the help of his partners - a swordsman with the most powerful magic sword in the world but no magical ability of his own, and a demonseed who can step through shadows and punch through walls - he’s going to put his plan into effect. The first step is to increase the size of the bounty on his head, so he’ll need to steal some big things. But he’ll start with somethingsmall. Something like a king....

The DFZ, the metropolis formerly known as Detroit, is the world’s most magical city with a population of nine million and zero public safety laws. That’s a lot of mages, cybernetically enhanced chrome heads, and mythical beasties who die, get into debt, and otherwise fail to pay their rent. When they can’t pay their bills, their stuff gets sold to the highest bidder. That’s when they call me. I’m a Cleaner: a freelance mage employed by the DFZ to sort through the mountains of magical junk people leave behind. It’s not a pretty job, or a safe one....

In the world’s most magical metropolis where spirits run noodle shops and cash-strapped dragons stage photo-ops for tourists, people still think fairies are nothing but stories, and that’s exactly how the fairies like it. It’s a lot easier to feast on humanity’s dreams when no one believes you exist. But while this arrangement works splendidly for most fair folk, Lola isn’t one of the lucky ones.

My name is Opal Yong-ae, and I’m a Cleaner. At least, I used to be. Thanks to the supernatural bad luck that turns everything I do against me, these days I’m more of a walking disaster. Getting rid of this curse is the only way to get my life back. Unfortunately, dragon magic is every bit as sneaky and deadly as the monsters behind it, and just as hard to beat.

To save his family from his tyrannical mother, Julius had to step on a lot of tails. That doesn't win a nice dragon many friends, but just when he thinks he's starting to make progress, a new threat arrives. Turns out, things can get worse. Heartstriker hasn't begun to pay for its secrets, and the dragons of China are here to collect. When the Golden Emperor demands his surrender, Julius will have to choose between loyalty to the sister who's always watched over him and preserving the clan he gave everything to protect.

Hungry darkness, haunted guns, tunnels that move like snakes—the crystal mines of Medicine Rocks, Montana, are a place only the bravest and greediest dare. Discovered in 1866, the miraculous rock known as crystal quickly rose to become the most expensive substance on the planet, driving thousands to break the treaties and invade the sacred buffalo lands of the Sioux. But mining crystal risks more than an arrow in the chest. The beautiful rock has a voice of its own. A voice that twists minds and calls unnatural powers. A voice that turns men into monsters.

When Julius overthrew his mother and took control of his clan, he thought he was doing right by everyone. But sharing power isn't part of any proper dragon's vocabulary, and with one seat still open on the new ruling Council, all of Heartstriker is ready to do whatever it takes to get their claws on it, including killing the Nice Dragon who got them into this mess in the first place.

Bastion was supposed to mean safety. When they arrive in the capital, Tina and James find a city on fire in more ways than one. Players and non-players hunt each other in the streets, while the king who controls the city’s all-powerful artifact cowers from the chaos in his castle. When they discover that the captain of the Royal Knights has been massacring low-level players in revenge disguised as justice, James and Tina will have to decide which is more important: the lives of their fellow gamers, or the stability of their new world’s last great city.

After the loss of Bastion, everyone who’s not a zombie has holed up in FFO’s sole remaining safe haven: the lowbie town of Windy Lake. But the undead armies never rest, and it’s only a matter of time before the Once King’s forces come to crush what’s left of life in this world. But Tina, James, and the rest of the players are facing a crisis of their own. After so long in this world, their human bodies are dying on the other side. If they don’t find a way home soon, they may have nothing to go back to.

It’s been one month since Bex’s rebel crew took over the Seattle Anchor, and things have been suspiciously good. They’re emancipating slaves by the busload, earning money from their thriving Free Market, and basically living the Gilgamesh-free life of their dreams. It’s what Bex always wanted for her people, so why does she feel so uneasy? It could be because she’s working twenty-hour days desperately trying to free her wrath demons.

A hulked-out wrath demon who eats gamer rage and loves cats, a shapeshifting lust demon who enjoys their food a bit too much, and a void demon who doesn’t see the point of any of this. They’re not the sort of mercenaries you'd hire on purpose, but Bex wouldn’t trust her life to anyone else. Ever since the ancient Mesopotamian king Gilgamesh decided death wasn’t for him, killed the gods, and conquered the afterlife, times have been rough for a free demon.

The hotly anticipated sequel to HELL FOR HIRE! One month ago, Bex, the demon Queen of Wrath, and Adrian, witch of the Blackwood, pulled off the upset victory of the century. Now, they find themselves facing the question all unexpected champions must answer: what next? They’ve declared war on Heaven, but how do you actually bring down a divinely powerful tyrant when your army’s still in the single digits and your magical fortress is an illegally modified Winnebago? It seems like a hopeless situation. As always, though, Adrian Blackwood has a plan, and this time, he’s going big.

Three weeks ago, Lola put her soul on the line to save her sister and stop an abusive blood mage from making himself a god. But while she managed to derail the worst of Victor’s plans, the rest of the world still sees her old master as the hero. To make matters worse, the Nightmare King Alberich has entirely escaped his prison and is now leading the Wild Hunt on a rampage of fear and chaos across the skies of Europe.

Victor thought he won when he became the Hero. He thought he won when he took over the DFZ. He thought he’d made himself untouchable. He’s wrong. Lola isn’t the sad little monster she used to be. She has a plan, she has allies, she has more magic than she ever dreamed possible. Killing one blood mage should be easy with a fairy kingdom at her fingertips, but Victor didn't make himself a god by playing fair, and his bag of tricks is far from empty.