Urban Contemporary Fiction

In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than 100 years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee - the chance to travel back in time. Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. But time travel isn’t so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold.

Gregory Maguire's Wicked Years series became national best sellers and the basis for a hit Tony-winning Broadway musical. Now, Maguire returns with the final installment in his transformative work, a thrilling and compulsively readable saga in which the fate of Oz is decided at last.

A magical serial killer is on the loose, and gelatinous, otherworldly creatures are infesting the English countryside. Which is making life for the Ministry of Occultism difficult, because magic is supposed to be their best kept secret. After centuries in the shadows, the Ministry is forced to unmask, exposing the country's magical history - and magical citizens - to a brave new world of social media, government scrutiny, and public relations.

Benedict Aaron Rodney had a terrible life for eighteen years. Then, something miraculous happened: the Heavens stepped in, granting him a Sphere. Spontaneous manifestation of a Sphere was very rare, but it happened on occasion. Benedict, while being beaten unconscious and having his bones broken, was suddenly the Holder of a Sphere of Regeneration.

Since the day they unwittingly found themselves in the horror show of Carousel, Riley (the Film Buff), Antoine (the Athlete), Kimberly (the Eye Candy), Camden (the Scholar), and Anna (the Final Girl) have learned the rules of their horror-movie world. They've fought through story after story and come out alive—or at least preserved the storyline enough to come back to life. But their biggest challenge yet lies ahead.

Archaeologist Annja Creed and her sword have never been outmatched — until now. When a surprise party for her mentor Roux includes some uninvited guests, Annja finds herself fighting desperately for her life. The intruders escape but leave a sinister message behind. A legend has resurfaced about a sword that should be feared. A sword that seeks a master as bloodthirsty as itself. It is wielded by an assassin known as the Dragon who initiates a terrible game of cat and mouse. Eventually, the two swords — light and dark — must meet...and only one shall triumph.

In the final installment, Ricky must deal with the mind-blowing news his grandmother has just revealed to him. Feeling like he's all alone in being betrayed by people who were expected to be loyal to him, Ricky soon realizes that the person who can understand his situation completely has been right by his side all along. Draylah, too, has her own troubles to face - the main one dealing with someone she thought she'd lost but has been able to reunite with. However, there is a big block in her road to bliss, and Draylah is beyond ready to take it out.

Meet Justice, the beautiful bombshell with a slick mouth and the attitude to match it. Running a drug empire is hard enough, but try being a female while doing so. In a profession that’s mostly men, she has no problem stepping up and getting it done in her stiletto heels and a Glock on her hip. Anytime she walks in the room, people notice her, and there’s nothing but respect. When the plug dies, and she has to meet with his son, she finds out that there may be more to life than being the head of an empire.

Atticus O’Sullivan, last of the Druids, doesn’t care much for witches. Still, he’s about to make nice with the local coven by signing a mutually beneficial nonaggression treaty - when suddenly the witch population in modern-day Tempe, Arizona, quadruples overnight. And the new girls are not just bad, they’re badasses with a dark history on the German side of World War II.

Alexis Griggs has worked hard to get where she is in life. She owns several clinics that service people in need and is a pillar of her community, but looks can be deceiving. Alexis and her brother, Jace, are both leading double lives, which are both illegal and deadly. It leaves little time for Alexis to have a personal life; that is until she has a chance encounter with single father Kevell Farrell.

Even though Brynlee is a hood girl at heart, getting out the hood has always been number one on her to-do list. Now at the age of 25, she has done just that. Big house, dream job, and even engaged to her college boyfriend. She has it all, but she is consistently left wondering, am I really happy? Is my life complete? After getting into it with her fiancé Troy about the one thing she desires so desperately, she decides that it is time to let her hair down and escape reality for a while.

Latro now finds himself in Egypt, a land of singing girls, of spiteful and conniving deities. Without his memory, his is unsure of everything, except for his desire to be free of the curse that causes him to forget. The visions Gene Wolfe conjures, of the wonders of Egypt, and of the adventures of Latro as he and his companions journey up the great Nile south into unknown or legendary territory, are unique and compelling.

When the beautiful and precocious sisters Sally and Gillian Owens are orphaned at a young age, they are taken to a small Massachusetts town to be raised by their eccentric aunts, who happen to dwell in the darkest, eeriest house in town. As they become more aware of their aunts' mysterious and sometimes frightening powers - and as their own powers begin to surface - the sisters grow determined to escape their strange upbringing by blending into "normal" society.

Harry Dresden, Chicago's only practicing professional wizard, should be happy that business is pretty good for a change. But he also knows that whenever things are going good, the only way left for them to go is bad. Way bad. Recent examples: A duel with the lethal champion of the Red Court, who must kill Harry to end the war between vampires and wizards...Hit men using Harry for target practice...The missing Shroud of Turin - and the possible involvement of Chicago's most feared mob boss.

Welcome to Charon's Crossing. The tea is hot, the scones are fresh, and the dead are just passing through. When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead. And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he’s definitely dead.

Fitz, le bâtard royal, a survécu à sa première mission meurtrière, mais son contact avec la mort lui a laissé d'inaltérables séquelles. Revenu à Castelcerf, il retrouve celle qu'il a aimée, mais ne peut lui déclarer sa flamme sous peine de la condamner irrémédiablement. Car autour de lui, la Cour fourmille d'intrigue, les menaces se resserrent, la mort rôde. Il a pourtant quelques alliés dans la place : un prince qui lui fait découvrir les mystères d'une magie toute puissante, un maître assassin qui lui veut malgré tout du bien, et un loup, avec qui il partage lien étrange et périlleux.

From best-selling author Anne Rice, writing as A.N. Roquleaure, in the traditional folktale of "Sleeping Beauty", the spell cast upon the lovely young princess and everyone in her castle can only be broken by the kiss of a prince. It is an ancient story, one that originally emerged from and still deeply disturbs the mind's unconscious. Now Anne Rice's retelling of the Beauty story probes the unspoken implications of this lush, suggestive tale by exploring its undeniable connection to sexual desire. Here the prince reawakens Beauty, not with a kiss, but with sexual initiation.

Al MacBharrais is both blessed and cursed. He is blessed with an extraordinary white moustache, an appreciation for craft cocktails - and a most unique magical talent. He can cast spells with magically enchanted ink and he uses his gifts to protect our world from rogue minions of various pantheons, especially the Fae.

Fresh off a summer vacation to remember, Hugo resumes his role protecting the city of San Miguel. As a teen hero trying to make his way through a dangerous world, he's been forced to reflect on the impact he's making around him while juggling his ambitions and romances with his growing responsibilities as Aegis. On top of all that, Hugo and his friends are now on the cusp of adulthood starting their senior year of high school. However, the scars from Damocles's reign of terror have not fully healed, with countless superheroes across America hanging up their capes for good.

In Chicago, someone has been killing practitioners of magic, those incapable of becoming full-fledged wizards. Shockingly, all the evidence points to Harry Dresden's half brother, Thomas, as the murderer. Determined to clear his sibling's name, Harry uncovers a conspiracy within the White Council of Wizards that threatens not only him, but his nearest and dearest, too.