He's a gambler, womanizer, opportunist, and inebriate . . . and the kingdom's only chance.
Greymond, the Scattered Kingdom has been without a king for hundreds of years, a place ruled by squabbling barons and dukes. Occasionally, rumors arise: a king of the old blood has returned to claim his throne. These days, such claims are met with groans and eye-rolls. Pretenders abound . . . and are generally ignored.
But scheming powers are plotting, machinations that have been in the works for years, and this time . . .
Enter Merrik Niles. A thief hired by dangerous people to steal a map, he instead keeps it for himself, hoping to follow it to some mysterious prize.
The treasure turns out to be an ancient artifact connected to Greymond's last king, and when Merrik touches it, he triggers long-dormant magic. Now, three ghosts have taken up permanent residence inside his mind: A cunning, smart-mouthed jester. A master swordsman. And a powerful wizard.
At first, Merrik believes he's going mad, but at times, these troublesome ghosts lend him their powers . . . for good or for bad.
Greymond, the Scattered Kingdom has been without a king for hundreds of years, a place ruled by squabbling barons and dukes. Occasionally, rumors arise: a king of the old blood has returned to claim his throne. These days, such claims are met with groans and eye-rolls.
But scheming powers are plotting, machinations that have been in the works for years, and this time . . .
Enter Merrik Niles. A thief hired by dangerous people to steal a map, he instead keeps it for himself, hoping to follow it to some mysterious prize.
The treasure turns out to be an ancient artifact connected to Greymond's last king, and when Merrik touches it, he triggers long-dormant magic. Now, three ghosts have taken up permanent residence in his mind: A cunning, smart-mouthed jester. A master swordsman. And a powerful wizard.
At first, Merrik believes he's going mad, but at times, these ghosts lend him their powers . . . for good or for bad.
Merrik is swept along in a scheme to put a fair-haired pretender on the throne of Greymond, making him the target of powerful enemies across the Scattered Kingdom who prefer the realm as it is.
All the while, a new army rises across the mountains . . . and they're coming.
Peyne Erlich’s mission from the king is to learn everything he can about the rival kingdom’s magical ink mage warriors. What he finds is Zayda Yond.
Ever since Zayda was sold into servitude by her financially destitute father, her masters have taught her a punishing lesson: erase the past. Collared with an unmovable band of exotic metal, she faces a future of slavery. She’s also become an ink mage, marked with a tattoo that enables her to experience the world as no one else can—a powerful honor, yet one out of her control. Now, Zayda dreams only of escape.
She gets her chance when a scuttled ocean passage leaves her in a longboat, and in the company of another lone survivor, Peyne, a foreign envoy—spoiled, noble, a libertine, and a gambler. He’s also a skilled fighter. And when they make it to land, in wild and unfamiliar jungle territory, he’s the only person Zayda can trust.
Then come rumors of a lost desert city said to hold the key to removing Zayda’s collar. Shadowed by enemies who want to use her power to win their own war, Zayda must fight for her freedom—whatever the cost. And Peyne will do anything to help her.
From Victor Gischler, the author behind the high-octane, action-packed thriller Stay, comes No Good Deed, a suspenseful audiobook about how an ordinary man--trying to do the right thing--finds himself in an extraordinary situation.
Francis was running late for work when he found the suitcase and the odd card with an email on it. He knew he shouldn't bother but he couldn't resist.
Now Francis is dodging bullets and doing his best to stay alive, wishing he had never bothered with that suitcase full of clothes.
In the thrilling conclusion to the A Fire Beneath the Skin trilogy, the enchanted kingdom of Helva faces a nightmarish future of endless bloodshed, and Rina Veraiin-a young warrior-duchess armed with mysterious, magical tattoos-must use her fantastic powers to save her home from eternal war.
As her far-flung friends scour Helva for additional tattoos to increase her formidable abilities, Rina reckons with an enigmatic death priest...the one whose contract grants her extraordinary magic but demands an awful price. When her debt comes due, can Rina make the ultimate sacrifice?
Deities clash and allies succumb as Rina strives to fulfill her obligation and confront her strange and shocking destiny. Becoming an ink mage taxed Rina''s resources to their very limits; now she must become something else, something more, something awesome and terrible. If she fails, her world will fall.
Rina Veraiin has youth, beauty, and strength. She is a born warrior, able to outride any man, deal death with her fierce blade, and command awesome and mysterious forces granted to her by a set of magical tattoos. Now as the newly minted duchess of Klaar, Rina confronts a menace that threatens her world in a divine conflict that will push her newfound abilities to their limits.
As sinister and magical forces unite against her, Rina''s only chance at stopping them is to gain new tattoos that will increase her powers beyond anything she has known before. United with her few trusted companions, she makes her desperate quest across a bloodshed-ravaged land while war brews among the gods.
With the enchanted world of Helva hanging in the balance, Rina must learn to wield extraordinary power to save herself and her people, before unimaginably powerful forces-and the savage fury of the god-tear apart the land forever.
Nineteen-year-old Rina Veraiin is not your typical duchess. Beautiful, smart, and outspoken, she is also deadly with a sword and can outride any horseman—skills that will come in handy when her peaceful home city, Klaar, falls without warning into enemy hands.
With the help of her bodyguard, Kork, Rina just barely escapes with her life and stumbles headlong into a strange new world of sorcery, magical tattoos, enchanted women—and the threat of betrayal and gruesome death at every turn.
Armed with unexpected new powers and accompanied by a misfit assortment of followers—some loyal, some with their own dark intentions—Rina embarks on a quest to save her city and reclaim what is rightfully hers. In so doing, she faces the biggest challenge of her life: She must learn to harness her own strengths—magical and otherwise—and become a leader truly worthy of ruling Klaar.
David Sparrow is an awesome stay-at-home dad.
He gets his kids ready for school while his wife, Amy, commutes to New York City, where she was recently promoted to Deputy District Attorney. In fact, she just inherited a major case: prosecuting crime lord Dante Payne. Meanwhile, David is content chatting with the moms at school drop-off, making dinner at night, and doing housework.
But when Dante Payne takes the fight directly to Amy, attacking her where she lives, David is forced to "reactivate" himself, revealing a history and deadly skill set his wife knew nothing about. And he'll do anything to protect his family.
Part Taken, part First Blood, Stay is an action-packed, often hilarious, and hugely entertaining suburban thriller.
Edgar Award nominee Victor Gischler "specializes in morbid humor, dark sarcasm, and comic noir, complete with violence and mayhem" (Library Journal). Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse picks up 10 years after the end of the world. Former insurance salesman Mortimer Tate leaves his secluded cabin and discovers a desolate landscape complete with cowboys, bandits, and cannibals, where the only traces of civilization are found at Joey Armageddon's Sassy-a-Go-Go club.
"Compulsively readable."-Booklist
