Dark Ages Literature

Life is precious and precarious on the islands of Belene. Besieged by a capricious ocean full of malicious spirits, the people of the islands seek joy where they can. Mayara, one of the island’s fearless oyster divers, has found happiness in love. But on the day of her wedding to the artist Kelo, a spirit-driven storm hits the island with deadly force. To save her loved ones, Mayara reveals a dangerous secret: She has the power to control the spirits. When the storm ends, she is taken into custody by the queen’s soldiers and imprisoned with other women like her.

Flora has spent her entire life hiding in the trees and ignoring the cursed, poisonous larkspur growing from her ankle and eating away at her life. She lets her anxiety and fear control her, but fate forces her hand when her adopted mother is kidnapped by a cruel witch. The only way to save her is to find the magic shards of her family’s amulet scattered throughout her land. With no time to waste, Flora sets out with her best friend, and along the way they meet a darkly intriguing stranger. But Flora is running out of time and can’t succumb to distractions.

Lenny Marks is excellent at not having a life. She bikes home from work at exactly 4pm each day, buys the same groceries for the same meals every week, and owns thirty-six copies of The Hobbit (currently arranged by height). The closest thing she has to a friendship is playing Scrabble against an imaginary Monica Gellar while watching Friends reruns. And Lenny Marks is very, very good at not remembering what happened the day her mother and stepfather disappeared when she was still a child. The day a voice in the back of her mind started whispering, You did this.

At 27, Naomi is just trying to be a normal person. A normal person who works at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, who cares for lost things, found things, sacred things and her family. A person who finds herself going on bad blind dates, having cringe-worthy sex, a tumultuous, toxic affair, and falling for a man called Moses.

Maggie Young had the market on normal. Normal friends, normal parents, normal grades...normal life. Until him. Clayton Reed was running from his past and an army of personal demons that threatened to take him down. He never thought he had a chance at happiness. Until her. Maggie thought their love could overcome anything. Clay thought she was all he needed to fix his messy life. That together, they could face the world. But the darkness is always waiting.

Hard times prove who’s a survivor and who’s not. Me? I’m a survivor. The plan was perfect: steal one of his cars for a payout to set us up for life. All while getting back at him for tormenting me from the moment I first stepped foot in stuck-up Silver Lake High School. But he caught me red-handed. What’s worse, a jail sentence or becoming the devil’s favorite toy? My devious monster made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Now I’m selling everything to him. Even my soul.

Hope has a price. Nick Prasad has always enjoyed a quiet life in the shadow of his best friend, child prodigy and technological genius Joanna 'Johnny' Chambers. But all that is about to end. When Johnny invents a clean reactor that could eliminate fossil fuels and change the world, she awakens primal, evil Ancient Ones set on subjugating humanity. From the oldest library in the world to the ruins of Nineveh, hunted at every turn, they will need to trust each other completely to survive.

This is the final book in the two-book duet. Book one must be heard first. One man thinks I'm a saint. The other thinks I'm a sinner. One man lives in the public eye. The other lurks in the shadows. One man wants to use me for his own needs. The other wants to use me for his revenge. One man will get what's coming to him. The other will get what he deserves. They told me good girls get rewarded. But I've been bad. Very bad. I made a deal with the Devil...and I liked it.

"There’s nothing there." The words may as well have been a death sentence to young Declan. Without mana, there could be no studying at the sky-piercing Pinnacle Towers, there could be no great monster hunts, and there could be no following in his father’s legendary footsteps. He’d be a cripple. But when a terrible accident forces him to flee, Declan learns the true nature of his mana. Just because it doesn’t resonate at any known frequency doesn’t mean it isn’t magic. Just because he can’t cast the same spells as everyone else doesn’t mean he isn’t a mage.

Faye Bright always felt a little bit different. And today she’s found out why. She’s just stumbled across her late mother’s diary which includes not only a spiffing recipe for jam roly-poly, but spells, incantations, runes and recitations...a witch's notebook. And Faye has inherited her mother’s abilities. Just in time, too. The Crow Folk are coming. Led by the charismatic Pumpkinhead, their strange magic threatens Faye and the villagers.

Nyssa Volari is dying. But that is impossible, because she is a Soulblight vampire, blessed by Nagash with blood-fuelled immortality. More than that, Nyssa is a fighter – one of the handful of Kastelai vampires not dissolved into true death when the Crimson Keep abandoned them a century ago. With her blades and her will, she carved a kingdom out of the Broken Plains of Aqshy. These things matter little, for Nyssa's blood is cursed. It destroyed the vampire she called father, and as it threatens to do the same to her, Nyssa's allies abandon her one by one.

Seventeen-year-old Aria Cayetano dreams of ghosts. She used to see them too, but thanks to a special tea brewed by her grandfather, Aria’s connection to the spirit world has been severed. Until a decades old rosebush suddenly dies across the street, convincing Aria that something supernatural is happening in her neighborhood. She aches to investigate it, but the rosebush sits on her ex-best friend Derek Johnson’s front lawn, and she can't question him because he hates her now.

To survive, Connor Magnuson must become a man with no equal. The path ahead is a deadly one. His end of the bargains he made to get this far have come due, and his debts take him back to a homeland he's been trying to forget. Kirkwall is an island of ancient secrets, and the magic in its soil will topple empires if he doesn't get to it first. His legend has begun to spread through the pubs, and others begin taking credit. Imposters pop up along the coast, and they threaten to undermine everything he has worked for.

When her brother is murdered, a petty thief from the slums of Longhill sets out to discover who killed him and why. But the more she discovers about him, the more she learns about herself, and the truths she finds are more dangerous than knives....

I offered to do anything to save my father’s life when he was captured by the devil he owed a debt to. A three-million-dollar debt. So, I became the devil’s spy as I entered the lair of the Cartel King to take a job as a live-in nanny for his niece. My orders were simple; all I needed to do was this: get close to the Cartel King and be his...to do anything he wanted me to do. I was to make him trust me enough to tell me the secrets his enemies need. Do that, and I would save my father. I just never expected to fall in love.

I'm done playing by my father's rules. Lex Edwards may rule the business world, but he no longer controls me. We did, however, come to one agreement—I'm allowed to take a gap year before college to travel through Europe. But, one year to the day, I must return home. On my travels, I met April. She's like me—escaping life back home until we're both forced to go back. April offers me a place to stay, and since I'm broke and in dire need of a job, I'll take anything over going back to my controlling father. That's when I'm offered an opportunity I can't possibly refuse.

Moonhallow harbours a dreadful secret, and it keeps the populace in a perpetual state of anxiety – not that the town's ruthless arbiter is prepared to do anything about it. Across the great forest to Moonhallow's east, Galen and Doralia Ven Denst return from a gruelling mission for the Order of Azyr, seeking shelter in the mysterious Temple of Silence. However, the two witch hunters won't get much in the way of a warm welcome from the strange priests that reside there as the temple has its own secret, the ramifications of which are inextricably tied to the fate of Moonhallow.

Vi was supposed to be the perfect crown princess. Then, she abandoned her throne. Vi was supposed to save the world as its Champion. Then, the world she loved vanished. Now, all she knows is that she has deadly magic and brutal cunning, and she's ready to settle some scores. Old loves and new allies tell her to play it safe. But Vi is done with caution. She has a chance to right ancient wrongs and this princess-turned-warrior isn't turning back. She's ready to bring an end to the vortex of death the world is trapped in.

West Golden - fierce protector. The one. The cocky jock I once wanted to kill with my bare hands is now the only one I trust with my heart. In a city full of corruption and dark secrets, knowing who’s on your side gets harder to determine every day. Especially now that Vin’s on the warpath, passing out threats he fully intends to see through to the end. His power here in Cypress Pointe seems limitless, and I don’t have time to see if that’s true. I’m prepared to make sacrifices to keep my family safe. Even if what’s sacrificed is my own happiness.

Cast out from the Kyivan Rus, Harald Sigurdsson’s quest for fame and fortune takes him to the far reaches of Europe; the lands of the Eastern Roman empire. The empire is dying the slow death of decay and corruption. In desperation to fend off a myriad of foes, the emperor turns to the legendary Varangian guard for salvation. These deadly warriors from the far north, famed for their fearsome steel and battle skill, have become the empire's greatest protectors. From the golden gate of Constantinople to the holy waters of the river Jordan, Harald will march with the emperor's finest.