Get ready to be blown away by this searing standalone space opera where corporate samurai fight beneath merciless stars, and death is always a mere breath away. Isako is a legendary swordswoman, but every legend has to come to an end. When her long-time client unexpectedly retires, she plans to follow-to walk out into the frozen wasteland of their planet with her head held high and her family enriched by her legacy. But when a competitor offers her a final mission, it's one she can't refuse. Soon, she's thrust deep into a world of corporate espionage, duty-bound duels, and shadowy secrets. What she uncovers will change humanity's existence in the stars forever. The Last Contract of Isako is the space opera you didn't know you needed: corporate samurai... in space. This is the first adult science fiction novel from the award-winning author of Jade City.

From the author of the “exciting, suspenseful, horrifying” (Stephen King) Fever House, a Vietnam veteran and his adopted niece hunt—and are hunted by—the vampire that slaughtered their family. It’s the winter of 1975, and Duane Minor, back home in Portland, Oregon, after a tour in Vietnam, is struggling to quell his anger and keep his drinking in check, keep his young marriage intact, and keep the nightmares away. Things get even more complicated when his thirteen-year-old niece, Julia, is sent across the country to live with Duane and his wife Heidi. But slowly, carefully, guided by Heidi’s love and patience, the three of them are building a family. Then Minor crosses the wrong man: John Varley, a criminal with a bloody history and a trail of bodies behind him. Varley, who sleeps during the day beneath loose drifts of earth and grows teeth in the light of the moon. In an act of brutal retaliation, Varley kills Heidi, leaving Minor broken with guilt and Julia filled with rage. The two of them are left united by only one thing: the desire for vengeance. As their quest brings them into the dark orbit of immortal, undead children, silver bullet casters, and the bevy of broken men drawn to Varley’s ferocity, Minor and Julia follow his path of destruction from the gritty alleyways of 1970s Portland to the desolate highways of the Northwest and the snow-lashed plains of North Dakota—only to have Varley turn his vicious power back on them. Who will prevail, who will survive, and what remains of our humanity when our thirst for revenge trumps everything else?

"I will not read it; I should never sleep again" A doctor performs an experiment on a young woman that goes horribly wrong, and a series of increasingly strange events follow: sinister woodland rituals, disappearances, suicides... Viewed as immoral and decadent on first publication in 1894, Machen's weird tale has since established itself as a classic of its genre and has been described by Stephen King as "one of the best horror stories ever written. Maybe the best in the English language."

“All I needed or ever wanted was him. Our bodies. The cold, wet soil. This exquisite death.”This is Jane Eyre meets American Horror Story, set between Yorkshire and London. A complex young woman falls in love with a mysterious funeral director.Lily A. Grace debuts book one of her gothic horromance series. A story of elegance and beauty among sorrow and decay. A place where worms pulse in the soil of their devotion; where their love and longing grows...and where it festers. They say love is madness. Grace Lockett learns that love is death; the death of everything she knows. When her parents die, Grace flees her dilapidated cottage for an apprenticeship at a funeral home run by the enigmatic Nicholas Crowthorne. Exiled and surly, Nicholas recognises a darkness in Grace; a penchant for the disturbing which he has seen before. Her resemblance to Louisa, his long-dead fiancé, makes her all the more intoxicating. Among the formaldehyde, she ignites his need to protect and possess, while he awakens Grace’s dormant desires and allows them to flourish. But who, Grace asks, was Louisa? Can Grace find herself while she walks in the footsteps of the one Nicholas loved before? Their burning passion illuminates the lies and corruption beneath the surface, and unveils their deepest secrets. Deceit, tragedy, and murder unfold in the wake of their love...but what’s a little death, in the funeral business? Age gap, toxic love, dual POV.A modern-day setting with a dark, nostalgic writing style. Contains adult content, mature readers only.Trigger warnings/Sour Rot is a Gothic Romance either detailing or referencing the following dark themes. If they bother you, trigger you, or offend you at all, please do not read this Childhood abuse, trauma, grape. Death, mortuary details, funereal practices. Ghosts, the supernatural. Some spicy adult scenes with graphic details. Mental health issues. Arson. Blood, violence, murder.

PRE-ORDER THE BRILLIANTLY IMAGINATIVE NEW NOVEL FROM VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED AUTHOR, FRANCES WHITE.-- How far will you go to open The Bone Door?When Hop awakens in an ancient labyrinth, he has no memory of his life or how, indeed, he got here.He does not recognise the mysterious girl trapped with him.And he certainly cannot identify the shadowy figure stalking him, whispering terrible things . . .But there is one thing he is certain of.He must escape.The only way out of the labyrinth is through The Bone Door. But it lies behind a series of locked doors hidden across an array of realms.As Hop travels deeper into the maze, he discovers that he and his companions may be more connected to the place and its horrors than he could ever imagine.

This cosy, atmospheric Sapphic multiverse fantasy spins a tale of love against all odds and across many worlds, for fans of The Ten Thousand Doors of January and V. E. Schwab's Shades of Magic series. Every morning, Tansy takes tea to her employer, Lady Aster. She goes on a walk along the cliffs, waving to the cat on her way. She dusts the elaborate glass globes full of strange and beautiful worlds that Lady Aster creates. She cleans their cottage, Oubliette. Every day, exactly the same. Until, one afternoon, Tansy drops the globe containing a replica of the cottage, leaving a tiny fracture in the glass. And things begin to change. She finds an injured knight from another world, Merit, sleeping in their pigsty. Merit was raised to be a monster, a servant of the terrible Unmaker who once terrorised her world—but after betraying a fellow knight, she escaped through a crack between places and found herself in the Oubliette. There's a reason every day in the Oubliette is identical; that Tansy can't remember anything about her life before she joined Lady Aster's service. As she and Merit begin to explore the many worlds outside the Oubliette, they realise one story unites them the trail of war, violence and destruction left by the Unmaker, who they fear will one day return. And—however unwittingly—Tansy and Merit have opened the door. The crack in the Oubliette was only the beginning. Soon, as the Unmaker's story becomes increasingly ensnared with their own, both Tansy and Merit will have to are they who they were born to be, or the people they've become to each other?

Ghosts passed through the cottage sitting on the peak of Townsend Hill like passengers in a train station. Some, Teddy Ingram knew, stayed longer than others. More than half a year has passed since the disappearance of Gemma Eakley and Teddy Ingram still has no clue as to whether she is alive, dead or something worse. With Gemma's young daughter left in his care Teddy haunts the rural haven of Townsend like one of its many spirits.But then Aurelia – his beloved ex-rival – returns with the news that her own mother is dead – and a ghost forms from the pages of her farewell to give the would-be lovers a They won’t let me rest.One coven's efforts to reverse the looming extinction of witches involves resurrecting the dead. Meredith's old coven wants to know what secrets she took with her to the funeral pyre; did she have the key to fixing their botched attempts at necromancy?From the acclaimed author of Modern Divination comes the dark and magical concluding part of the Spells for Life and Death duology.

The exquisite new novel from bestselling author Louise Hare based in 18th century LondonDecember, 1765. In the early hours of the morning, Sukey Maynard flees her home – a brothel in Covent Garden. Her maidenhood is about to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, and she is too frightened to stay. But when she is captured and returned to the house of fallen sisters, she has a choice to make – should she stay, or should she run again? As Sukey accepts her fate, she begins to learn how to navigate this strange new life of hers, and soon realises that there are those who wish her and her sisters harm. But this world that operates in the shadows has its own set of rules, and if Sukey is to survive then she must learn to play the game … From the brothels of Covent Garden to the oppressive society of the eighteenth century, Louise Hare’s enthralling historical masterpiece paints a vivid picture of London’s underbelly and shows how, even in the darkest of times, there is always hope for a better future. * * * * Praise for Louise Hare 'A tender, at times heart-breaking depiction of a city at once familiar and unrecognisable. It made my heart soar, and should be on every Londoner's shelf' Stacey Halls, Sunday Times bestselling author 'Poignant and authentic … it’s [Hare’s] steady, calm prose and the animating authenticity of her material that make it so hard to resist' Observer 'Hopeful and inspiring' Abi Daré

When two history professors and best friends are forced to fake hate to protect their reputations, chaos ensues, in the next rollicking historical-fantasy rom-com from beloved author India Holton. Magical-antique experts Amelia Tarrant and Caleb Sterling have been best friends forever, although lately each has begun secretly wishing for more than friendship. But when rumors about their relationship spread, they're forced to fake being enemies to protect their reputations and keep their jobs. The resulting arguments spark havoc across Oxford University, and when they cause an explosion while fighting over a magical antique, it’s the final straw for their exasperated faculty head. He dispatches them to a job in Cumbria where even they can’t get into trouble.… Which proves just how wrong one man can be. In a stormbound old manor house, Amelia and Caleb face magical mayhem and rampaging ghosts that make the previous havoc look mild in comparison. Most troublesome of all, though, is the secret of how they feel about each other. When it comes to tackling deadly antiques, hiding the truth in their hearts could destroy them for real.

CRACK OPEN THE COFFIN AND UNLEASH THE VAMPIRE. An ancient beast stirs in the shale beneath an oil rig. Lovers languish in a lakeside cottage. A man swipes right, hunting flesh with a predator’s patience. A woman reels from government-sanctioned body horrors. All queer. All ravenous. All relentless. Vampires have always been vessels of longing, craving not only blood, but sex, power, and the sanctity of the taboo. And what hunger is more righteously denied, more persistently policed, than queer love? Like the vampire, the queer spirit endures, unkillable and unashamed. With a foreword by vampire scholar Margaret Hall, Blood, Sweat & Queers presents decadent tales of queer love from eight LGBTQ+ authors, all intertwined with the eternal allure of the vampire— stories of desire unbound, of passion unending, and hunger that threatens to consume everything in its path. Crack open the coffin, if you dare.

A fearless fortune teller in 1920s Paris must use her powers to divine who she can trust—and even more importantly, learn to trust herself—in the searing new gothic novel from the author of The Haunting of Moscow House. Spirited twenty-something Zina and her secretive grandmother, Baba Valya, own a tearoom on rue Daru in Paris, where they have lived quietly since Zina’s mother’s untimely death. By day, the women serve tea, mostly to members of the bustling Russian émigré community, but when dusk falls, they divine fortunes and perform séances for their loyal clientele. Then the charming Princess Olga and her brother arrive, searching for answers about the disappearance of their father, the Grand Duke and cousin to the murdered last Tsar of Russia. Zina, eager to learn more about the spirit world and her powers, performs the séance. She is able to summon the Grand Duke, but to her horror, he starts to haunt the shop, and he seems to know something sinister about her mother’s death. As Zina delves into her family’s hidden past, dark secrets are unearthed, threatening Zina and her grandmother’s found family, home, and tearoom, not to mention their very lives.

When Lorali Wynmar oversees the last blessing of Athera’s most wanted criminal before he is hung from the gallows, she receives a surprising command from a dark save him. With the noose tightening around his neck, she invokes the forgotten rite of a gallows marriage to free him from his fate. For the next year, Eldric Lorecaster is now bound to the enigmatic high cleric that saved him. Forced to live together under the constraints of their bond, the pair forge a tentative and unlikely friendship. When their pasts collide, they must choose if they will follow their predestined-paths or diverge and grow towards something new. Elizabeth Skarpnes invites you to cozy up with a warm drink and your favourite snack in To the Gallows. Dive into this fast-paced, character-driven cozy romantasy set in a lush world and join our characters as they navigate what it means to be vulnerable, to trust, and to love.This book is perfect for fans of Tangled, Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea, Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries, and anyone looking for a cozy standalone novel that feels like home.