Hyam is a likeable lad who will make a fine farmer someday. But he carries a burden few can fathom. As his mother slips toward death, she implores him to return to Long Hall, where he spent five years as an apprentice. It was there that Hyam's extraordinary capacity for mastering languages came to light-and soon cast him into the shadows of suspicion. How could any human learn the forbidden tongues with such ease? When Hyam dares to seek out the Mistress of the Sorceries, her revelation te...

Amber Houston was born light-years away from Earth aboard the enormous colony starship Dandelion.By the age of 14, she has spent her entire life training as a Ranger, ready for the day when she will be among the first humans ever to set foot on an alien world and build a new civilization.When Dandelion suffers an emergency toward the end of its journey, Amber and her fellow young rangers are evacuated and land on the planet Newhome years ahead of s...

Tasmarin is a place of dragons, a plane cut off from all other worlds, where dragons can be dragons and humans can be dinner. It's a place of islands, forests, mountains and wild oceans, filled with magical denizens. Fionn-the black dragon-calmly tells anyone who will listen that he's going to destroy the place. Of course he's a joker, a troublemaker and a dragon of no fixed abode. No one ever believes him. He's dead serious. Others strive to refresh the magics that built this place. To do...

The year is 1642.As a decades-long war rages through Central Europe, military field surgeon Martin shares a shocking truth with his apprentice Gustav: Demons are real, and the victims of battle are their reward for fighting for mankind. A reveal that changes everything…Historical facts combined with elements of fantasy and sprinkled with a good dose of humor.

She points the lens of the camera. The artist turns his head slightly. The light catches his brow and his silver-white hair. She snaps. He is lit like a Vermeer.Ireland. County Wexford, 1951. A father and son go swimming in the sea. The waves crash. The wind rises. Only one comes back—Colin, aged six. His mother, Eileen, runs to seek help, but this is a tragedy that will haunt them forever. Colin won’t speak a word. He is mute and struggling to cope. But Eileen can see he ...

Tess Matheson expects nothing more from her summer job at the boarding school library than to bore herself to death shelving books. But when the insufferable headmaster’s son, Eliot Birch, requests a mind-boggling number of occult books,Tess’s search for them opens a door to a world of dark magic and forgotten places.She and Eliot find a secret tunnel that leads them to an ancient book. Upon reading it, they discover it’s filled with more than words and accidentally release ...

Sherlock Holmes is the most famous fictional detective in history, with a popularity that has never waned since catching the imagination of his late-Victorian readership. This Companion explores Holmes' popularity and his complex relationship to the late-Victorian and modernist periods; on one hand bearing the imprint of a range of Victorian anxieties and preoccupations, while on the other shaping popular conceptions of criminality, deviance, and the powers of the detective. This collectio...

A hideous beast with glowing red eyes ambushes Bryn on his way home through the forest.After a narrow escape, the sixteen-year-old must flee with his foster father Gerald to the only place that promises safety: Âlaburg University, where humans, dwarves, elves, and orcs come together to study the colors of magic.Bryn soon discovers he can use all three magical colors, which renders him powerful and dangerous at the same time. Will he learn to channel his pow...

A remote English village wakes on the morning after harvest, looking forward to enjoying a hard-earned day of rest and feasting. But two mysterious columns of smoke mar the sky, raising alarm and suspicion. The first column of smoke comes from the edge of the village land, sent as a signal by newcomers to announce their presence as per regional custom. The second smoke column is even more troubling: it comes from a blaze set in Master Kent's stables. Walter Thirsk, a relative outsider in t...

From the award-winning author of The Great Trouble comes a story of espionage, survival, and friendship during World War II. Bertie Bradshaw never set out to become a spy. He never imagined traipsing around war-torn London, solving ciphers, practicing surveillance, and searching for a traitor to the Allied forces. He certainly never expected that a strong-willed American girl named Eleanor would play Watson to his Holmes (or Holmes to his Watson, depending on who you ask). But when a young...

The best of the year's Science Fiction and Fantasy stories as selected by the multiple award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan. The series moves to its new publishing home, Solaris, with this eighth annual volume of the celebrated and popular series. DISTANT WORLDS, TIME TRAVEL, EPIC ADVENTURE, UNSEEN WONDERS AND MUCH MORE! The best, most original and brightest science fiction and fantasy stories from around the globe from the past twelve months are brought together in one collection by mult...

In nine short stories and one brand new, never-before-seen Sherlock Holmes mystery, Laurie R. King blends her long-running brand of crime fiction with historical treats and narrative sleight of hand, that begins with England's declaration of war in 1914. As told in Mary Russell's teenage diaries, the whip-smart girl investigates familial mysteries, tracks German spies through San Francisco and generally delights with her extraordinary mind - until an unimaginable tragedy strikes.