Metaphysical Thriller

In this sequel to the much-acclaimed A Killer’s Grace, Pitcairn and Emmy return to the exploration of innocence while adding to it a deepening understanding of injury and ordeal, and its amazing corollary of Post-Traumatic Growth. As the quest and its dangers rip their lives apart, doors open that lure them back and forth across the country in search of tendrils tying together the events and anguish, as well as bringing the protagonists more deeply together.

If you could live forever, would you want to? This is the story of Anita and Kimmo's struggle against cancer, of Aender and Kiyoshi and the first interstellar war, and of An and Ki and Earth’s last days.

When an ancient demon called the Soulstealer takes him as its host, Nythan’s normal life is thrown into torturous chaos. The demon has only one demand - help it steal the souls of the living so that it might leave this world. A secret order known as the Ordo Solis has other plans. They’ve been chasing the Soulstealer one host at a time for thousands of years, and their sights are set on Nythan. Their oath is simple - kill the host, save the world.

I don’t wish to frighten you, reads the anonymous note introverted and bullied eight-year-old Leo Cruz finds in his backpack. All the sender asks is that he avoid a certain spot on a certain day, or he’ll die. Leo has reason to be afraid. The warning hearkens back to nearly a decade ago - to the same site, where a murder has become local folklore and a favorite campfire tale reinvented year after year by the kids of Arenas, a small Spanish town.

At the end of a metaphysical conference, reluctant attendee Camille Dare discovers an envelope with her name on it. Filled with travel documents, a photograph, and bloody scarf material, the source of the envelope and its contents remain anonymous, but the directive is clear: Find the missing person in this unusual case. The missing person, Katherine Agurre, comes from a high-profile family. A growing obsession with the missing person case and her own quest for self-understanding compel Camille to begin a trip to meet people she never knew and locations she never expected to visit.

A Year in the Borderlands writer Kevin Candela's wild second excursion into alternate realities includes 17 tales, twelve of which have appeared in previously released anthologies and are collected here for the first time. These short stories combine with five never before released works, including the novella It's Only Funny if You Laugh, to produce a wide-ranging panoramic view of the worlds and realities that exist beyond our own. Playing With Reality is another vividly detailed page in the Atlas of the Unknown.

Silicon Valley resident Marjorie Veil has been conditioned to ignore her own truth, to give away her power, to subjugate in relationships with others, and to settle for the path of least resistance. But she has many surprises in store, for there are synchronistic forces at work in her life that, if she listens, will lead her to her authentic heart and happiness.

Tarot reader Sara Wilde has spent her whole life finding the lost with the use of her trusty cards. But when her newest assignment sends her straight to Hell, she discovers more than she bargained for. The journey through Dante's playground forces Sara to endure a client's bitter loss, fall victim to a vicious betrayal by her own kind, and come face-to-face with the woman she might have been. Not even Sara's blossoming love for the darkly sensual Magician is safe in the underworld. She's tested in ways she never fathomed, ways that could drive her mad or utterly destroy her.

As the people of Annecy in the French Alps meet the Gestapo’s brutality with surprising resistance, a teen-aged girl cannot rest until she solves the mystery of a death in her family. Aurelie watches as her father places a shrouded body on the north side of the roof of the family home. It’s winter, under a Nazi-declared state of siege, and they must wait until the spring thaw for the burial. But who died? And why is no one speaking to her anymore? Aurelie cannot rest until she discovers the truth and fights to prevent the same terrible fate from happening to her best friend.

Krygelski writes a compelling and startling story centered on the mysterious arrival of a man who claims to be the Creator. Clearly not a mortal, Elohim - as the stranger prefers to be known - astounds those he meets with unexplainable miracles and reality-altering answers. All of this is but a prelude to his announcement that he has come to do something...something which will affect every person on Earth...something which will occur in five days.

Ori may seem like an idealist, but he understands how this world works. Powerful people want it to stay that way, and a degree of social order is needed to ensure that. However, through everything he has done as founder and CEO of Singularity Group, Ori has proven what good can come from granting people certain freedoms. Though he hoped otherwise, he knew the day might come when powerful forces would threaten what he has built. When a series of suspicious events escalates to an attempt on his life, Ori must use all he is capable of to see who, or what, is pulling the strings.

Poet Gabriel Syme believes in the beauty of order and, as such, is recruited by Scotland Yard to an anti-anarchist police corp. While undercover, Syme meets fellow poet Lucian Gregory, a verse writer devoted to disorder, who introduces him to London’s anarchist underworld. Just as Gregory is to be elected to the central council, Syme’s cover is revealed and he is forced to make a decision that sends the cabal into chaos. Is anyone in this underground faction who or what they seem? Syme suddenly realizes he doesn’t have all the answers.

Deep down, Robert Goldner knows he's a mistake. His mother told him so when he was just five years old. But he never found the courage to ask just what she meant before she was murdered under mysterious circumstances on his 11th birthday. Now, on the eve of his 17th birthday, Robert is dead set on becoming a Virginia high school state wrestling champion in order to redeem himself once and for all, reversing whatever curse his mother saw within him.

A seven percent grasp of the infinite. The universe may be limitless, but our senses are not. Just as the human eye sees but a small percentage of the cosmic wave spectrum, in the same way, most of us are only able to perceive a similar sliver of what we brazenly term “reality”, even with the use of all five of our scientifically acknowledged senses. This month-by-month account of people-supernatural relations spans its own sci-fi/fantasy/horror/comedy spectrum, touring the weird side of the cosmos while leaving the passengers comfy and unscathed in their listening chairs.

They reach the shore, barks and joyful laughter swallowed by the crashing waves. Suddenly, an odd-looking object in the sky draws closer. As dark clouds loom, a flicker of unease crosses Scotty’s face. Before he can react, an eerie glow surrounds both boy and dog. In an instant, they vanish without a trace. Now aboard an alien ship, Scotty faces a reality far from home. The walls breathe, the corridors pulse and his fear deepens.

What if your past came back to haunt you and stalked the present until it became your worst nightmare? J.J. Hughes explores the lengths to which we'll go to keep the past from overshadowing the present and destroying the future.

Deep in the enchanted hills west of Florence, a powerful ancient relic lays hidden, shielded by veils of secrecy both human and divine. Julia Giardano’s father tells her she’s a witch, heiress to an ancient tradition and all its mysteries, but before she can learn more, he’s murdered in cold blood. Alone, with few clues, can Julia find her legacy in time to save it from her father’s murderer, Gregor Danilenko, who will stop at nothing to possess the relic he believes will give him eternal life and unmitigated power?

When a solid-gold reliquary missing from a church in Belgium suddenly resurfaces in America, a young newspaperman begins to investigate the story. At first it seems like just another case of a treasure stolen during World War II that has resurfaced. But it soon becomes apparent that much more is at stake.

Rebekah Scarlet is celebrating her 23rd birthday at a midnight pub in downtown Raleigh when fired gunshots send the freezing January night into a blazing panic. In an effort to escape, Rebekah conjures a powerful entity from the dead to protect her. Only, her summoning fails when bullets tear through her side, leaving her unconscious as cops and ambulances race to the scene.

David, a college student, takes a summer job at a run-down family resort in a dying English resort town. This is against the wishes of his family because it was at this resort where David's biological father disappeared fifteen years earlier. But something undeniable has called David there. The characters have a suspicious edge to them.