World Fiction

Barliona: a virtual world jam-packed with monsters, battles - and, predictably, players. Millions of them come to Barliona, looking forward to the things they can't get in real life: elves and magic, dragons and princesses, and unforgettable combat. The game has become so popular that players now choose to spend months online without returning home. In Barliona, anything goes: You can assault fellow players, level up, become a mythical hero, a wizard, or a legendary thief.

Iqbal, a 13-year-old boy, fights for children's liberation. Bravely, he speaks out against children working long hours in carpet factories in Pakistan.

Étienne Lantier, mécanicien au chômage, erre sur les routes du nord de la France. Au hasard d'une rencontre, frigorifié et mort de faim, il finit par trouver un emploi dans la mine du Voreux. Il découvre alors les conditions inhumaines du travail et la misère de la vie de mineur. Mais, les conditions économiques étant au plus bas, la Compagnie propriétaire du Voreux essaie de baisser encore leurs maigres salaires.

Los Angeles, 2005. Sienna Hayes, Hollywood’s latest It Girl, has ambitions to work behind the camera. When she meets Lena Browning, the enormously mysterious and famous Golden Age movie star, Sienna sees her big break. She wants to direct a picture about Lena’s life—but the legendary actor’s murky past turns out to be even darker than Sienna dreamed. Before she was a Living Legend, Lena Browning was Bina Blonski, a Polish Jew whose life and family were destroyed by the Nazis.

Mackenzie, a Cree millennial, wakes up in her one-bedroom Vancouver apartment clutching a pine bough she had been holding in her dream just moments earlier. When she blinks, it disappears. But she can still smell the sharp pine scent in the air, the nearest pine tree a thousand kilometers away in the far reaches of Treaty 8. Mackenzie continues to accidentally bring back items from her dreams, dreams that are eerily similar to real memories of her older sister and Kokum before their untimely deaths.

After his first college party, Dallion wakes up alone in a small medieval village in the middle of nowhere. First, he needs to figure out where he is and how to survive a mysterious world filled with magic and monsters. Then, he must uncover the secrets of being 'awakened,' which is apparently what he is. Objects in this new world are sentient, allowing the 'awakened' to mend or upgrade them by traveling into any object's unique realm and defeating the guardians that lie within.

Tuscany, 1944: As Allied troops advance and bombs fall around deserted villages, a young English soldier, Ulysses Temper, finds himself in the wine cellar of a deserted villa. There, he has a chance encounter with Evelyn Skinner, a middle-aged art historian who has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the ruins and recall long-forgotten memories of her own youth. In each other, Ulysses and Evelyn find a kindred spirit amidst the rubble of war-torn Italy, and set off on a course of events that will shape Ulysses's life for the next four decades.

Born with the ability to defy death, Annora has been warned to keep her gift secret, but her greedy uncle can't resist exploiting her by any means necessary. Starvation, beatings, broken bones - she's survived them all and emerged stronger. But it's not enough for him. It will never be enough. When she discovers her uncle plans to sell her to the highest bidder, she risks everything to escape the prison that has become her life.

Eric has survived where people much stronger than him have found their deaths. And not just that: He's managed to activate his magic supply, tame one of the most dangerous dungeon monsters, find the ancient city of monster hunters, and rescue Jay, the girl abandoned by the scouts in Gulper's lair. He left the Dungeons of the Crooked Mountains behind him. Now his path leads him to Orchus, where our freshly-minted mage intends to finally free himself of his debt-repayment oath.

The truth is, I'm an admin assistant who applied for a job that sounded kind of interesting and ended up working for the Community of Species Government. I'm the only human in the office, and basically I ride herd on a team of rambunctious shifters and demons. I also spend a lot of time avoiding Gideon Bailey, the demon I had a one-night stand with right before I took this job. He hates me, and I really want to avoid being murdered. But I've been offered a promotion that will mean working with him, so we're both going to have to get over it

The world is no longer safe for the Dragon Rider Murtagh and his dragon, Thorn. An evil king has been toppled, and they are left to face the consequences of the reluctant role they played in his reign of terror. Now they are hated and alone, exiled to the outskirts of society. Throughout the land, hushed voices whisper of brittle ground and a faint scent of brimstone in the air—and Murtagh senses that something wicked lurks in the shadows of Alagaësia. So begins an epic journey into lands both familiar and untraveled.

Roger Ferris is one of the CIA's soldiers in the war on terrorism. He has come out of Iraq with a shattered leg and an intense mission: to penetrate the network of a master terrorist known only as "Suleiman". Ferris' plan for getting inside Suleiman's tent is inspired by a masterpiece of British intelligence during World War II: he prepares a body of lies, literally the corpse of an imaginary CIA officer who appears to have accomplished the impossible by recruiting an agent within the enemy's ranks.

Homicide is always an abomination, but there is something exceptionally disturbing about the victim discovered in a high, lonely place: a corpse with a mouth full of sand, abandoned at a crime scene seemingly devoid of tracks or useful clues. Though it goes against his better judgment, Navajo tribal police lieutenant Joe Leaphorn cannot help but suspect the hand of a supernatural killer.

Presenting the book World of Warcraft fans have been clamoring for - the true story behind one of the Warcraft universe’s most terrifying villains, Arthas the Lich King.

Recruited as a codebreaker of enemy ciphers, ex-debutante Osla Kendall spends her days translating Axis military messages and her nights reading mystery novels. When Osla gets her hands on Agatha Christie's most recent work, N or M?, a mysterious signal within its pages catches her eye, and she and her eccentric book club get in touch with the famous but reclusive writer. Osla's outreach is a welcome distraction for Agatha, who feels restless and underestimated toiling away in a London pharmacy.

It's Darcy and Elizabeth's wedding day, and the journey is just beginning as Jane Austen's beloved Pride and Prejudice characters embark on the greatest adventure of all: marriage and a life together filled with surprising passion, tender self-discovery, and the simple joys of every day.

Cilka is just 16-years-old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in 1942, where the commandant immediately notices how beautiful she is. Forcibly separated from the other women prisoners, Cilka learns quickly that power, even unwillingly taken, equals survival. When the war is over and the camp is liberated, freedom is not granted to Cilka: She is charged as a collaborator for sleeping with the enemy and sent to a Siberian prison camp. But did she really have a choice?

In this anthology, you'll find 17 tales of conflict and heroism, exploration and discovery, endurance and triumph. Flee the apocalypse of modern-day Earth, fly a fighter in the cold emptiness of deep space, and find new life on the distant shores of an alien world. You might even discover something about yourself as each author opens a window on the soul of mankind.

Kousuke and Sylphy's Liberation Army are making big moves! But just as they're settling into their newly captured base, betrayal strikes from within their own ranks! What's a crafty survivor from another world to do when he's trapped behind enemy lines and at the mercy of three very slimy sisters? He'll have to go under all sorts of covers if he ever wants to see his dark elf mistress again!

All Talasyn has ever known is the Hurricane Wars. Growing up an orphan in a nation under siege by the ruthless Night Emperor, she found her family among the soldiers who fight for freedom. But she is hiding a deadly secret: light magic courses through her veins, a blazing power believed to have been wiped out years ago that can cut through the Night Empire’s shadows.