A riveting history of vampire panics across cultures and down through the millennia—and why killing the dead is better than killing the livingKilling the Dead provides the first in-depth, global account of one of the world’s most widespread yet misunderstood forms of mass hysteria—the vampire epidemic. In a spellbinding narrative, John Blair takes readers from ancient Mesopotamia to present-day Haiti to explore a macabre frontier of life and death where corpses are believed to wander or do harm from the grave, and where the vampire is a physical expression of society’s inexplicable terrors and anxieties.In 1732, the British public opened their morning papers to read of lurid happenings in eastern Europe. Serbian villagers had dug up several corpses and had found them to be undecayed and bloated with blood. Recognizing the marks of vampirism, they mutilated and burned them. Centuries earlier, the English themselves engaged in the same behavior. In fact, vampire epidemics have flared up throughout history—in ancient Assyria, China, and Rome, medieval and early modern Europe, and the Americas. Blair blends the latest findings in archaeology, anthropology, and psychology with vampire lore from literature and popular culture to show how these episodes occur at traumatic moments in societies that upend all sense of security, and how the European vampire is just one species in a larger family of predatory supernatural entities that includes the female flying demons of Southeast Asia and the lustful yoginīs of India.Richly illustrated, Killing the Dead provocatively argues that corpse-killing, far from being pathological or unhealthy, served as a therapeutic and largely harmless outlet for fear, hatred, and paranoia that would otherwise result in violence against marginalized groups and individuals.

Two boys, alone in space. After the first settler on Titan trips her distress signal, neither remaining country on Earth can afford to scramble a rescue of its own, and so two sworn enemies are installed in the same spaceship. Ambrose wakes up on the Coordinated Endeavor, with no memory of a launch. There’s more that doesn’t add up: Evidence indicates strangers have been on board, the ship’s operating system is voiced by his mother, and his handsome, brooding shipmate has barricaded himself away. But nothing will stop Ambrose from making his mission succeed—not when he’s rescuing his own sister. In order to survive the ship’s secrets, Ambrose and Kodiak will need to work together and learn to trust one another… especially once they discover what they are truly up against. Love might be the only way to survive.

Ali Hazelwood meets Dungeons & Dragons in this enemies-to-lovers fantasy academia romcom where rival grad student wizards are forced to work together without killing―or falling for―each other. Will they conjure love, or evoke chaos? Two rival wizards are about to find out. Sebastian Walsh: twenty-four. Grad student at Lesiara University in the Mageus of Evocation program. Human. The first of his family to go to college rather than the military (and it goes over at family get-togethers about as well as you’d think). Elethior Tourael: also twenty-four. Also a grad student, but in the far more inferior Mageus of Conjuration program. Half-elf. The latest in a long line of Touraels to grace the hallowed halls of Lesiara U (what would the world do if the Touraels ran out of rich douches to lead their magical weapons manufacturing empire?). ―and the other finalist for the Mageus Research Grant. Sebastian needs that grant to fund the last few months of research for his degree, after which he’ll get a job that actually helps people. He isn’t about to let anyone snatch this from him, least of all a snob who doesn’t even need the money because his family is loaded thanks to war profiteering. But there’s something worse than having a conceited academic nemesis steal grant money from you: you could be forced to work with him. Thio is secretive, broody, and his stunning biceps take up far too much shared lab space―but even as volatile as their partnership is, Sebastian just might find himself falling for his rival―and it could blow up his whole future.

The Company said Omega IV was uninhabited. They said Omega IV was safe. They were wrong. The giant humanoid inhabitants of Omega IV are conditioned to the Change—a biological event in their development that designates them altha or amekha—but for the new colony of humans, the Change comes as an unpleasant surprise. Dr Cameron Grant, bitter after a turbulent break-up, finds himself in a first-contact situation that was never covered in training. The alien warrior Tal'jen, seven feet tall and distinctly male, has taken an interest in him, an interest with a clear and pressing conclusion. Dr Grant can't deny his attraction, even as his body undergoes strange and frightening changes. Whatever is happening to him, it's obvious that Tal'jen understands it instinctively. He will have to place himself in the hands of an alien and hope that Tal'jen's interest is as benign as it seems. Meanwhile, Tal'jen, chief-in-waiting of his people, seeks a mate. The handsome and strange Cam'ren of the newcomers calls to him powerfully, though he has not yet gone through his Change. To be chief Tal'jen must mate with a bearer, so while he longs to claim Cam'ren for his own, he must be patient and hope that Cam'ren's Change will grant him the gift of bearing young. As the Change spreads through the human colony, leaving chaos in its wake, Cameron and Tal'jen must fight to protect both the delicate bond growing between them, and each other. This book is first in the Omega Colony series, however it can be read as a stand-alone title. This book features adult content and language, sexual situations, and male pregnancy.

Welcome to Luxiria, where the twin suns are hot and the alien warriors are hotter… Kate Harper finally had it all back on Earth: her dream job, an amazing best friend, and an apartment completely void of her cheating ex. But when she wakes up chained on an alien planet known as the Pit, her whole reality flips upside down. Here, aliens fight to the death for the right to claim a human female. Even worse? She realizes she’s up for grabs. Vaxa’an, the Prime Leader of Luxiria, has a duty to his people: ensure their dwindling race’s survival. Infamously ruthless and deadly, the Luxirian knows he’ll have no trouble claiming a female at the Pit. What he doesn’t expect to find is his fated mate, with her lush curves and haunting eyes that call to him, and he’ll stop at nothing to claim her. When Kate becomes the warrior king’s prize, her only goal is to return to her old life. Certainly not to fall for an overbearing barbarian with a wicked tongue, whose determined to make her his own.