Dark Fantasy Mystery Thriller

It’s been a busy month for 32-year-old Jack Mitchel: Three weeks ago, he died. Two weeks ago, he founded the first Faction in the ultra-immersive, fantasy-based VRMMORPG, Viridian Gate Online. A week and a half ago the world ended, destroyed by a cataclysmic asteroid. Seven days ago, he conquered the Imperial city of Rowanheath, bringing all of Eldgard to the brink of war.

The galaxy follows a logical structure. Legion Dark Operator Kel Turner believed that. To know the order of battle and how an enemy unit was organized was to know its purpose and how to destroy it. That logic existed down to the smallest scale, down to what made up life itself. To know a molecule’s structure was to know its function - they were one and the same. It was no different for Kel. He was Dark Ops and Dark Ops was him. But the covert action arm of the Legion is changing. And so is he. And if Dark Ops is no longer the same, how could Kel be Kel?

For more than 30 years, Ellen Datlow has been at the center of horror. Bringing you the most frightening and terrifying stories, Datlow always has her finger on the pulse of what horror fans crave. Now, with the 11th volume of the series, Daltow's back again to bring you the stories that will keep you up at night. With each passing year, science, technology, and the march of time shine light into the craggy corners of the universe, making the fears of an earlier generation seem quaint. This light creates its own shadows. The Best Horror of the Year chronicles these shifting shadows.

David Valentine resigns as a Wolf militia, and accepts an offer to become a Cat, one of the stealthy warriors trained to spy on, and go toe-to-toe with the Reapers. Under the command of his mentor, Smoke, Val's first mission is to enter the Kurian zone and investigate "The Twisted Cross", a strike force of alien-human hybrids, possessing the skills of combat veterans and the hunger of the Reapers....Along the way he befriends a powerful alien, a Grog named Anh-Ka, who declares David his blood brother after Valentine nurses him back from death.

Evan Michaels struggles with being different, with having the complete memories of two other people who lived sequentially before him. He fights loneliness and believes he is unique until he meets Poppy. She recognizes his struggle because she is like him, except that she is much older, remembering seven consecutive lives. But there is something else she must share with Evan - she is a member of the secretive Cognomina. They are, in effect, immortals - compiling experiences and skills over lifetimes into near superhuman abilities that they have used to drive history over centuries.

Occult investigator Quincey Morris and his "consultant", white witch Libby Chastain, are hired to free a family from a deadly curse that appears to date back to the Salem witch trials. Fraught with danger, the trail finds them stalking the mysterious occult underworlds of Boston, San Francisco, New Orleans, and New York, searching out the root of the curse. After surviving a series of terrifying attempts on their lives, the two find themselves drawn inexorably towards Salem itself - and the very heart of darkness.

Drug dealers, hustlers, brothels, dirty politics, corrupt cops...and sorcery. Welcome to Low Town. In the forgotten back alleys and flophouses that lie in the shadows of Rigus, the finest city of the Thirteen Lands, you will find Low Town. It is an ugly place, and its cham­pion is an ugly man. Disgraced intelligence agent. Forgotten war hero. Independent drug dealer. After a fall from grace five years ago, a man known as the Warden leads a life of crime, addicted to cheap violence and expensive drugs.

In a lonely village in the Peak District, during the onset of a once-in-a-lifetime snow storm, Constable Ellie Cheetham finds a body. The man, a local ne'er-do-well, appears to have died in a tragic accident: he drank too much and froze to death. But the facts don't add up: the dead man is clutching a knife in one hand, and there's evidence he was hiding from someone. Stranger still, an odd mark has been drawn onto a stone beside his body.

I am Cassandra Liddell: FBI special agent and bad-ass pixie. After barely surviving my last assignment, I'm on the hunt for answers about my past, when bombs start exploding all over London. Fae terrorists have attacked and thrown the city into chaos. To make matters worse, my best friend, Scarlett, has been abducted, and her captor is playing a twisted game of Simon Says, sending me riddles paired with impossible tasks. Roan, a seductive fae warrior, is willing to help me...but of course, he has a price.

It’s been five years since Wendy and her two brothers went missing in the woods, but when the town’s children start to disappear, the questions surrounding her brothers’ mysterious circumstances are brought back into the light. Attempting to flee her past, Wendy almost runs over an unconscious boy lying in the middle of the road....

Step into Shadow Falls, a camp for teens with supernatural powers. Here friendship thrives, love takes you by surprise, and our hearts possess the greatest magic of all. Kylie Galen wants the truth so badly she can taste it. The truth about who her real family is, the truth about which boy she’s meant to be with - and the truth about what her emerging powers mean. But she’s about to discover that some secrets can change your life forever…and not always for the better.

Kel Turner is a victim of his own success. His exploits and victories as part of Kill Team Three bring the attention of forces seeking hegemony over the Republic. These shadowy power brokers know that a man like Kel represents a threat to their plans...unless he can be persuaded to join them. And if the operator declines, his hidden enemy will stop at nothing to destroy him. At a deadly crossroads, Kel is told to choose between love and duty. But his foes are ignorant that he has a third choice. Win.

Four friends have a pact: to meet up on the same day every year in their small hometown in southern Italy. Art, the charismatic leader of the group, has always been adamant about the pact. But this year, he doesn't show up. Searching for him, the friends make a worrying discovery: Art has been farming marijuana, a very dangerous activity in mafia-controlled country.

The rebellious son of a long line of pureblood cartographers and diviners, Valen has spent most of his life trying to escape what society - and his family - have ordained for him. His own mother has predicted that he will meet his doom in water, blood, and ice. Her divination seems fulfilled when a comrade abandons Valen in a rainy wilderness half-dead, addicted to an enchantment that converts pain to pleasure, and possessing only a stolen book of maps.

Kit Gordy sees Blackwood Hall towering over black iron gates, and she can't help thinking, This place is evil. The imposing mansion sends a shiver of fear through her. But Kit settles into a routine, trying to ignore the rumors that the highly exclusive boarding school is haunted. Then her classmates begin to show extraordinary and unknown talents. The strange dreams, the voices, the lost letters to family and friends, all become overshadowed by the magic around them.

Seth never expected he would want to settle down with anyone - but that was before Aislinn. She is everything he'd ever dreamed of, and he wants to be with her forever. Forever takes on new meaning, though, when your girlfriend is an immortal faery queen.

Even at a camp for supernatural teens, Kylie Galen has never been normal. Not only can she see ghosts, but she doesn’t seem to belong to any one species - she exhibits traits from them all. As Kylie struggles to unlock the secrets of her identity, she begins to worry that Lucas will never be able to accept her for what she is, and what she isn’t…a werewolf. With his pack standing in their way, Kylie finds herself turning more and more to Derek, the only person in her life who’s willing to accept the impossible.

On Marin’s island, sunrise doesn’t come every 24 hours - it comes every 28 years. Now the Sun is just a sliver of light on the horizon. The weather is turning cold and the shadows are growing long. Because sunset triggers the tide to roll out hundreds of miles, the islanders are frantically preparing to sail south, where they will wait out the long night. Marin and her twin brother, Kana, help their anxious parents ready the house for departure. Locks must be taken off doors. Furniture must be arranged. Tables must be set. The rituals are puzzling - bizarre, even.

The phone rang, and like a fool I answered. Mistake number one. Then I agreed to do a job for the Hidden Council. Definitely mistake number two. Now I've lost count of my bad choices, same as I have the bodies, as they're piling up faster than a troll after free chalk. As I get to grips with this new magic I've been gifted, the city remains under a spell of violence, and it's down to yours truly to deal with it. But I'm a noob at this job, ill-prepared and with my own personal demons to fight.

With the world clinging to a fragile peace forced on the Fae by humanity after the Faerie Wars, metalsmith Alex Blackwood is plunged into the world of the half-fae who traffic in illegal magical artifacts. Her best friend's murder and his cryptic last message place her in the crosshairs of a scheme to reignite the decade-old war between humans and fae. Worse, violent attacks against her and the arrival of a fae knight on a mission force Alex to face a devastating revelation of who and what she is.