Showing results by narrator "Rosa B. Watkinson" in All Categories

The Brain Trade: Grown in crèches and programmed with a tribal warrior code, the minds of children are harvested by the black market. Sold to the highest bidder, they're installed in deadly combat machines and assassin chassis. Griffin, a junior Investigations agent for the North American Trade Union, is put on the case: Find and close the illegal crèches. Installed in a combat chassis, Abdul, a depressed 17-year-old killed during the Secession Wars in Old Montreal, is assigned as Griffin's Heavy Weapons support.

A dying king. A mysterious invader. The seer's vision was clear: Find the lost shard from the Spire of Peace or the realm would drown in blood. The problem: Eight hundred years ago the elven hero Kathkalan took the shard with him into the lair of the most vicious dragon ever known to mankind...and he never returned. Reluctantly drafted to lead the quest is the minor noble Midas, torn between his duty to the realm and the desire to protect his sons.

Includes three short stories and a novelette!

After a cataclysmic war of the gods, the last of humanity huddles in Bastion, a colossal ringed city. Beyond the outermost wall lies an endless desert, haunted by the souls of all the world’s dead. Trapped in a rigid caste system, Nuru, a young street sorcerer, lives in the outer ring. She dreams of escape and freedom. When something contacts her from beyond the wall, she risks everything and leaps at the opportunity.

In the peaceful decades since the Qalil War, Aakifah has gained a few pounds and taken a job as shairf of Basrah. Days from retirement, her plans for a quiet life are shattered when a local family is murdered, their daughters taken by pyumah, a race of ravenous predators. Aakifah sets out with a handful of volunteers, including her lover, in what she knows to be a doomed rescue attempt. Even if the monsters haven't already devoured their prey by the time she finds them, a handful of farmers will be no match for the terrifying creatures.

Wisimir, a city where schemes and plans for power have ruined nobles and commoners alike. Magister Leel sought immortality, but disappeared in a torrent of Dragon fire. Last seen alive by Urin Braymes, who was powerless to help him. Jarno Herren found out the truth only to be dragged into the depths of the city catacombs by the Wizard’s undead minions. And Jack Von Drey? Buried under the burning remains of his best friend’s house.

The Sword of Wisimir is a fantasy tale of crime, intrigue, life, and death, where ideals are cheap and, in the end, everyone finds out what they'd sacrifice to survive....

A stand-alone novella featuring Madis Defranthea, whose brother presents her with a challenge. If she wants to join his gang, she and her team have to steal a magical belt that’s locked to the waist of a bride, on her wedding night, in a fortified castle, on a rock in the middle of the sea. Madis takes him up on it. But when she discovers just how much her brother didn’t know, the job proves even more hazardous than she bargained for.... Featuring magic, automata, snobbery, small gods, large fish, a useful corpse, and an unnervingly intelligent horse.

Shipwrecks, pirates, buried treasure; desolate windswept islands, jungled forests, and the mysterious Everglade—dark and foreboding to all but the Seminole and Miccosuki. Imagine growing up in such a place, no one for miles around, only you and your family. This is the world young Charlie MacLeod was born into. To him it is nothing unusual. It is simply home.

War makes monsters and corpses of us all. For generations the blooded have ruled the Wilds, cultivating a lawless frontier and bleeding the good folk dry. The Black Thorn, once the most wanted outlaw the world has ever seen, is set on stopping them, and bringing an end to the great game that oppresses them all.