Naomi Novik's Scholomance series meets Plain Bad Heroines in this sapphic dark academia fantasy by instant national and international bestselling author Emily Tesh, winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. "Look at you, eating magic like you're one of us." Doctor Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood Academy and one of the most powerful magicians in England. Her days consist of meetings, teaching A-Level Invocation to four talented, chaotic sixth formers, more meetings, and securing the school's boundaries from demonic incursions. Walden is good at her job―no, Walden is great at her job. But demons are masters of manipulation. It’s her responsibility to keep her school with its six hundred students and centuries-old legacy safe. And it’s possible the entity Walden most needs to keep her school safe from―is herself.

Part I of this dark fantasy novella begins the complete first book of Blood of the Banshee. This is Part 1 of a 5-part serial novella. It ends on a cliffhanger.If you prefer complete books, the full volume will be released after Part 5. When a banshee-blooded outlaw is snatched in a crowded inn, she becomes leverage in a legal battle amongst the Valariels of Sanctaris. Bindings hold her between life and death, and rival orders contest her fate. The Justarin demands custody while others fight to spare her.Zaras, a battle-worn elf turned bounty hunter who nearly captured her, wakes in rioting Nocturnis, stabbed and choking on sewage. Auralon, exhausted from purging plagues, returns to Sanctaris to find the girl cocooned in spell-thread as his mentor faces a trial mired in politics.Across the world of Elisar, dragons vanish, necromancy resurges, and plagues are spreading like ink in rainwater.Blood of the Part One blends grim magic, political intrigue and gritty, character-driven drama. For readers who enjoy their fantasy unpredictable, their heroes flawed, and their antagonists certain they’re right.Content The path through Lunaaris and Sanctaris is paved with violence, corruption, and death. Blood of the Banshee is written for mature readers and contains dark, emotionally heavy themes throughout.

Part I of this dark fantasy novella begins the complete first book of Blood of the Banshee. This is Part 1 of a 5-part serial novella. It ends on a cliffhanger.If you prefer complete books, the full volume will be released after Part 5. When a banshee-blooded outlaw is snatched in a crowded inn, she becomes leverage in a legal battle amongst the Valariels of Sanctaris. Bindings hold her between life and death, and rival orders contest her fate. The Justarin demands custody while others fight to spare her.Zaras, a battle-worn elf turned bounty hunter who nearly captured her, wakes in rioting Nocturnis, stabbed and choking on sewage. Auralon, exhausted from purging plagues, returns to Sanctaris to find the girl cocooned in spell-thread as his mentor faces a trial mired in politics.Across the world of Elisar, dragons vanish, necromancy resurges, and plagues are spreading like ink in rainwater.Blood of the Part One blends grim magic, political intrigue and gritty, character-driven drama. For readers who enjoy their fantasy unpredictable, their heroes flawed, and their antagonists certain they’re right.Content The path through Lunaaris and Sanctaris is paved with violence, corruption, and death. Blood of the Banshee is written for mature readers and contains dark, emotionally heavy themes throughout.

An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here. A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance.Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid.The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah’s white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss. Derek’s father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed his father was a criminal. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy.Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys.Provocative and fast-paced, S.A. Cosby's Razorblade Tears is a story of bloody retribution, heartfelt change - and maybe even redemption.

The majestic palace atop the tallest peak of the Hornacis Mountains and an unseen gaze—are they a mysterious guidance or the lure of a malevolent deity? A magic mirror corrupts a young girl. The inverted giant eye flashes crimson. Even a true seer cannot trust their eyes. Death descends, calamity enroaches, and a hidden scheme unfolds in silence. Above the grey fog, The Fool lowers his head, listening to the discord of fate...

The majestic palace atop the tallest peak of the Hornacis Mountains and an unseen gaze—are they a mysterious guidance or the lure of a malevolent deity? A magic mirror corrupts a young girl. The inverted giant eye flashes crimson. Even a true seer cannot trust their eyes. Death descends, calamity enroaches, and a hidden scheme unfolds in silence. Above the grey fog, The Fool lowers his head, listening to the discord of fate...

LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER Yancheng Municipal Bureau is called in to handle a school bus hijacking—a bizarre crime, but seemingly an isolated one. Sadly, the police are unable to return one of the bus’s young passengers to her parents. She’s vanished without a trace. The schoolgirl’s disappearance leads Luo Wenzhou and Tao Ran to reexamine a police investigation that took place twenty years earlier. That strange case seems to have haunted almost everyone who lived through it—especially Luo Wenzhou and Tao Ran’s own mentor. Soon, it’s impossible to overlook the fact that the school bus passenger wasn’t the first young girl to go missing in Yancheng. On the contrary, girls have been vanishing into thin air for twenty years. And the next to go missing is one Tao Ran knows personally. Dealing with that bus hijacking already forced Luo Wenzhou to enlist Fei Du’s help, and it seems he won’t get a break from the petulant young scion anytime soon. The only way for Tao Ran and Luo Wenzhou to find this girl alive may be to follow Fei Du’s instincts—however strange or disturbing they may be…

Can they stop hating each other long enough to fall in love? A commitment-phobe and a hopeless romantic clash over and over again—until heartbreak and unexpected chemistry bring them together in this clever enemies-to-friends-to-lovers debut romance. When Ari and Josh first meet, the wrong kind of sparks fly. They hate each other. Instantly. A free-spirited, struggling comedian who likes to keep things casual, Ari sublets, takes gigs, and she never sleeps over after hooking up. Born-and-bred Manhattanite Josh has ambitious plans: Take the culinary world by storm, find The One, and make her breakfast in his spotless kitchen. They have absolutely nothing in common . . . except that they happen to be sleeping with the same woman. Ari and Josh never expect their paths to cross again. But years later, as they're both reeling from ego-bruising breakups, a chance encounter leads to a surprising connection: friendship. Turns out, spending time with your former nemesis is fun when you're too sad to hate each other--and too sad for hate sex. As friends-without-benefits, they find comfort in late-night Netflix binges, swiping through each other's online dating profiles, and bickering across boroughs. It's better than romance. Until one night, the unspoken boundaries of their platonic relationship begin to blur. . . . With sharp observations and sizzling chemistry, You, Again explores the dynamics of co-ed friendship in this sparkling romantic comedy of modern love in all its forms.

Selected as an Evening Standard 'one to watch in 2023' It's the early 1990s, and in the Irish village of Crossmore, Lucy feels out of place. Despite her fierce friendships, she's always felt this way, and the conventional path of marriage and motherhood doesn't appeal to her at all. Not even with handsome and doting Martin, her closest childhood friend. Lucy begins to make sense of herself during a long hot summer, when a spark with her school friend Susannah escalates to an all-consuming infatuation, and, very quickly, to a desperate and devastating love. Fearful of rejection from her small and conservative community, Lucy begins living a double life, hiding the most honest parts of herself in stolen moments with Susannah. But with the end of school and the opportunity to leave Crossmore looming, Lucy must choose between two places, two people and two futures, each as terrifying as the other. But only one can offer her real happiness. Sunburn is an astute and tender portrayal of first love, adolescent anxiety and the realities of growing up in a small town where tradition holds people tightly in its grasp.

People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever-encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded town. And that rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior hockey team is about to compete in the national championships, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of the town now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys. A victory would send star player Kevin onto a brilliant professional future in the NHL. It would mean everything to Amat, a scrawny fifteen-year-old treated like an outcast everywhere but on the ice. And it would justify the choice that Peter, the team's general manager, and his wife, Kira, made to return to his hometown and raise their children in this beautiful but isolated place. Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semifinal match is the catalyst for a violent act that leaves a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Hers is a story no one wants to believe since the truth would mean the end of the dream. Accusations are made, and like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

For Lewis and Wren, their first year of marriage is also their last. A few weeks after their wedding, Lewis receives a rare diagnosis: He will retain most of his consciousness, memories, and intellect, but his physical body will gradually turn into a great white shark. As Lewis develops the features and impulses of one of the most predatory creatures in the ocean, his complicated artist’s heart struggles to make peace with his unfulfilled dreams. At first, Wren internally resists her husband’s fate. Is there a way for them to be together after Lewis changes? Then, a glimpse of Lewis’s developing carnivorous nature activates long-repressed memories for Wren, whose story vacillates between her childhood living on a houseboat in Oklahoma, her time with her college ex-girlfriend, and her unusual friendship with a woman pregnant with twin birds.

A SLACKER’S PRIDE The university entrance exams are looming on the horizon, and with even his deadbeat biological father now out of the picture, Jiang Cheng knows he has to score exceptionally if he’s going to make a stable future for himself. Luckily, he can count on his boyfriend to support him through the grueling gauntlet of studying and practice exams—he just wishes Gu Fei would study for his own sake, too. Gu Fei is smarter and more talented than he likes anyone to see, and Jiang Cheng is eager to see him shine… But Gu Fei has his own reasons for hiding, and even the happiness he’s found with Jiang Cheng might not be enough to change his mind.