Urban Contemporary

Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea is one of the most anticipated science fiction and fantasy collections of recent years. Pinsker has shot like a star across the firmament with stories multiply nominated for awards as well as Sturgeon and Nebula Award wins. In the baker's dozen stories gathered here, listeners travel to the past and future, and explore the weirder points of the present.

Reyna Carpenter was promised paradise. She was delivered into hell. Giving up her body for money was supposed to be the hardest part of becoming a blood escort. She never expected to lose her heart to her dark, enigmatic boss, Beckham Anderson. After being taken by a depraved captor who plans to rule the world, Reyna will do anything to return to Beckham. She just has to find the will to survive this game.

Claudio Bianchi has lived alone for many years on a hillside in Southern Italy's scenic Calabria. Set in his ways and suspicious of outsiders, Claudio has always resisted change, preferring farming and writing poetry. But one chilly morning, as though from a dream, an impossible visitor appears at the farm. When Claudio comes to her aid, an act of kindness throws his world into chaos. Suddenly he must stave off inquisitive onlookers, invasive media, and even more sinister influences.

Asa: I come to Aspen to get away. I need to get away. My ex Christine is a true pill. She lets me know exactly why she cheated on me once again, and I just need something, anything to take this pain away. That's how this all starts with the girl I meet in Aspen. But she was never just a one off. Noni: My ex is a dick, an epic one and despite the urge to curl up with a tub of Häagen-Dazs and a chick flick, I give into my friend pushing this Aspen trip on me. I meet a guy there. I lose myself there, and though I don't know him, I need him.

The one thing you never talk about while you’re in the Scholomance is what you’ll do when you get out. Not even the richest enclaver would tempt fate that way. But it’s all we dream about: the hideously slim chance we’ll survive to make it out the gates and improbably find ourselves with a life ahead of us, a life outside the Scholomance halls. And now the impossible dream has come true. I’m out, we’re all out. We saved everyone. So much for my great-grandmother’s prophecy of doom and destruction. Ha, only joking! Actually, it’s gone all wrong.

Sixteen-year-old Hal Stevens is a budding historical scholar from a small town in Colorado. A virtual outcast at high school, he has only two friends: Roberto the Biker Witch and Cleo Mallawi. Cleo claims to be the reincarnation of Queen Cleopatra. But when Hal and Roberto find Cleo murdered in the forest near her home, it appears she may have been telling the truth. Her last request sends them journeying to Egypt, where it quickly becomes clear that Cleo has set them on the search of a lifetime: the search for the lost graves of Marc Antony and Cleopatra.

Lorsque le jeune Fitz est conduit à la cour des Six-Duchés, il ne sait pas encore que sa vie - et celle du royaume tout entier - va s'en trouver bouleversée. Le roi-servant Chevalerie, père de cet enfant illégitime, devra renoncer au trône pour ne pas entacher la réputation de la famille royale... Et nombreux sont les prétendants à la succession... Fitz se retrouve isolé au centre d'un univers qu'il ne connaît pas.

Savant Black is a protector. More logic than emotion, he places emphasis on his present reality above all. When his sister suggests he speak with a life coach, Savant doesn’t believe she will be capable of opening his eyes and mind to any life altering revelations. However, the longer he works with Addison the more Savant realizes his need to feel so little comes from desiring so much.

Years ago, the magnificent dragon queen Tintaglia forged a bargain with the inhabitants of the treacherous Rain Wilds. In exchange for her protection against enemy invaders, the humans promised to protect an unhatched brood of dragons. But when the dragons emerged as weak and misshapen hatchlings unable to fend for themselves, dragonkind seemed doomed to extinction. When even Tintaglia deserted the crippled young dragons, the Rain Wilders abandoned the burden of caring for the destructive and ravenous creatures.

Thirteen years ago, monsters emerged from the shadows and plunged Kierse’s world into a cataclysmic war of near-total destruction. The New York City she knew so well collapsed practically overnight. In the wake of that carnage, the Monster Treaty was created. A truce … of sorts. But tonight, Kierse—a gifted and fearless thief—will break that treaty. She’ll enter the Holly Library … not knowing it’s the home of a monster.

Once, dragons ruled the Rain Wilds, tended by privileged human servants known as Elderlings. But a series of cataclysmic eruptions nearly drove these magnificent creatures to extinction. Born weak and deformed, the last of their kind had one hope for survival: to return to their ancient city of Kelsingra. Accompanied by a disparate crew of untested young keepers, the dragons embarked on a harsh journey into the unknown along the toxic Rain Wild River.

Kitty Norville is back and in more trouble than ever. Her recent run-in with werewolves traumatized by the horrors of war has made her start wondering how long the U.S. government might have been covertly using werewolves in combat. Have any famous names in our own history actually been supernatural?

Cutting a deal with a trickster god rarely goes well for any human brave or foolish enough to try it, but Atticus doesn’t feel like he has a choice. With members of the Norse pantheon out for his blood, he can’t train his apprentice in peace, so he asks Coyote to help him fake his own death. The cost, however, might wind up being every bit as high as if he’d made no deal at all.

Rosemary and Athena are just settling into their new life in the unapologetically magical village of Myrtlewood. After so many years in financial turmoil, things are looking up. Rosemary even nabs the perfect part-time job while waiting on a certain handsome vampire lawyer to process her inheritance. Life is surprisingly peaceful until strange disappearances throw everything into chaos leading up to the Spring Equinox.

Mercy Thompson's life has undergone a seismic change. Becoming the mate of Adam Hauptman—the charismatic Alpha of the local werewolf pack—has made her a stepmother to his daughter, Jesse, a relationship that brings moments of blissful normalcy to Mercy's life. But on the edges of humanity, what passes for a minor mishap on an ordinary day can turn into so much more.... After an accident in bumper-to-bumper traffic, Mercy and Jesse can't reach Adam—or anyone else in the pack for that matter. They've all been abducted.

At the novel's center: the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt, hero, leader, inspirer, irresistible force, irrepressible spirit, battling (and ultimately reconciling with) a strange otherworldly form that has somehow taken possession of Lestat's undead body and soul. This ancient and mysterious power and unearthly spirit of vampire lore has all the force, history, and insidious reach of the unknowable universe.

Unchained from fate, the Norse gods Loki and Hel are ready to unleash Ragnarok, a.k.a. the Apocalypse, upon the earth. They’ve made allies on the darker side of many pantheons, and there’s a globe-spanning battle brewing that ancient Druid Atticus O’Sullivan will be hardpressed to survive, much less win.

On the surface, it appears that Sunny has got it all: looks, money, a beautiful home, a healthy daughter, and friends who love her. But Sunny has a secret—something she hasn’t even told her best friend. The truth is Sunny is unhappy. She still misses her beloved Dorian and worries that no other man will ever captivate her the way he did. She’s dated some very powerful and successful men since Dorian’s death, but will she ever find love again?

The Lowlands’ city states have lived in peace for decades, hailed as bastions of civilization. Yet that peace is about to end. A distant empire has been conquering neighbours with highly trained soldiers and sophisticated combat techniques. And the city states are its desirable new prize. Only the ageing Stenwold Maker – spymaster, artificer and statesman – foresees the threat, as the empires’ armies march ever closer. So it falls upon his shoulders to open the eyes of the cities’ leaders.

In Scarborough, a low-income urban neighborhood, three kids struggle to rise above poverty, abuse, and a system that consistently fails them. The adults in their lives either rise to the occasion or fall by the wayside; together, they make up a troubled yet inspired community that refuses to be undone.