Dark Ages Fiction

Hank Fitzpatrick's life is what you might expect from a manchild stumbling his way from his teens to his thirties in small town Indiana: hypersexual, drunk, stoned, prone to fits of spontaneous masturbation, occasionally Catholic, and accidentally well-intentioned. Caught in the crossfire of raging hormones, bad decisions and family tragedy, Hank is just a boy not yet ready to be a man.

The year was 1997. For Brian “Legs” Hamilton and his friends, it was the summer that followed graduation from college, the summer before life as an adult actually began—back when they were still invincible. Legs and his friends embark upon one last road trip before they must face the real world. They set their sites on rafting amidst the canyons of the Rio Grande River along the Mexican border as their final chaotic drug-fueled exploit. A five-day adventure that was supposed to be the best time in these young men’s lives ends as a nightmare that will haunt them forever.

Julie now knows Marcus’s secret. Her personal life is a disaster and Marcus is missing. He needs to confront his past with the fear it might change him for the worst. Can Julie forgive Marcus in time to save him from himself?

A young girl discovers that deep within herself, an ancient power dwells in her soul. Esther Green is known as a "Clockwork", powerful individuals who are sworn to protect the Earth. Along with the Clockworks, there are Exols and Creators who live conspicuously among the humans. But somewhere lies a novel of infinite truth, a living vessel titled Brilliance that writes itself and all that partakes in history and the universe.

Inspired by Celtic mythology, Anroth the Druid, recalls the six day festival of Lúnasa, in the Kingdom of Northumbria, the year A.D. 543, a time and place in which myth and reality are inseparable. When the Celtic high chieftain Midar’s three sons return to Northumbria for the six-day festival of Lúnasa after a raid on Pictish Gododdin – ruled by the warlord Balor and his sister Birog, a shape-shifting black druidess – the trophies they bring back provoke all-out war between the two kingdoms.

Victor Standish: Urban legend, abandoned child, mocker of monsters: “I learned to walk on cat-feet by living on the streets of too many hard cities for six years...since I was seven. I know why dogs howl at the dark and why cats prick up their ears after midnight. All too often I hear the beating of black wings and the scratching of half-seen shapes on the pavement hidden by shadow. I have always known I am an outsider, a stranger no matter where I roam among those who are still men".

Follow Mary Jade VonStine as her world is turned upside down with the murders of her parents. Now, Mary must go to a faraway kingdom, and live with her distant royal family. How will Mary adapt to a strange country and her family? When her family is all a bunch of monsters mostly vampires, werewolves, and other undead creatures, how will Mary survive and cope living with them, and what of the assassins who seek to kill her? Who knows - there may be more to Mary than just your typical southern tomboy

Mages. Sirens. Demons. Dragons. Gryphons. A Federal Paranormal Unit. Attackers of magic. The Mercy Temple Chronicles will hook you! Mercy Temple lives in a world where paranormals are a thing. Humans know of their existence, but the two species don’t interact. Or so it is thought. She’s a bounty hunter. She’s good at what she does.

Ellie is twenty-one. She’s already decided that she’s one of life’s losers. She has no friends, no family, and not much of a life, and although she’s not happy, she’s not sad either; she just is. Life, she believes, is mapped out from birth, and there’s nothing she can do to change it. Until, one day, she discovers that if she’s prepared to do what others won’t, she can have everything she ever wanted. Her life begins to change, and she starts to make friends, and she begins to believe that maybe she can have what everyone else has.

The academy killer returns. Underrealm's Academy for Wizards is in mourning after students and instructors alike have been murdered in its halls, but the killer is now far away across the nine kingdoms - or so they believe. When Ebon learns of a new threat within the Academy, he and his friends must work quickly to stop it - for if anyone knows the terrible secret they conceal, they could all be put to death. As the school's danger looms, and Ebon faces increasing suspicion from the new Dean, he must infiltrate the family Yerrin and learn a dark truth if he hopes to survive.

In a post-apocalyptic future where survivors scavenge in the harsh Australian Outback for spoils from a buried civilization, a girl races across the desert, holding her treasures close, pursued by the Reckoner. Riding her sand ship, living rough in the blasted landscape whose taint she carries in her blood, she scouts the broken infrastructure and trades her scraps at the only known settlement, a ramshackle fortress of greed, corruption, and disease known as the System.

It’s the end of summer 2003. George W. Bush has recently declared the mission in Iraq accomplished, the unemployment rate is at its highest in years, and Martha Stewart has just been indicted for insider trading. Meanwhile, somewhere in the Midwest, Troy Augustus Loudermilk (fair-haired, statuesque, charismatic) and his companion Harry Rego (definitely none of those things) arrive at America’s most prestigious creative-writing program, to which Loudermilk has recently been accepted for his excellence in poetry. Loudermilk, however, has never written a poem in his life.

The strongest of them all. Eyes blacker than the darkness they all fantasize about, but have never seen. An abomination. Hemera Harkibel has spent her life concealing abilities she doesn’t fully understand. She is hated and feared because of her black eyes and inhuman strength. When her people’s underground cave system is attacked, Hemera is thrust above ground into a dangerous world where the sun’s rays can kill in seconds and enemies are tracking her every move.... Hemera comes to learn that her very existence is a threat in the war brewing between humans and Halves.

Orchid & the Wasp brings to life the charged, compulsive voice of Gael Foess - daughter of a self-interested investment banker and a once-formidable orchestral conductor, and sister to a vulnerable younger brother - as she strives to build a life raft in the midst of economic and familial collapse. Moving by wits alone, Gael cuts a swathe through the leather-lined, coke-dusted social clubs of London, the New York gallery scene and birth-throes of the Occupy movement.

After the death of her father and her own serious issues, Kara Maven decides to move back to her hometown to complete her senior year at Belman University. She settles into life on campus when her world is shaken by a handsome bad boy with a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Dominic Benenati is a half-demon Damamah, or whisperer, whose role on earth is to ensure Hell’s population thrives by pushing humans to act upon their sinful thoughts. To complicate matters, enter Cayden Adams who is an angel determined to save Kara from Dominic’s influence. But does Kara really want to be saved?

Twenty-eight-year-old Lana Green has never been good at making friends. She’s perfectly happy to be left alone with her books. Or at least that’s what she tells herself. Nancy Ellis Hall was once a celebrated writer. Now 80, she lives alone in her North London house and thinks she’s doing just fine. But dementia is loosening Nancy’s grip on the world. When Lana and Nancy become unconventional housemates, their lives will change in ways they never expected. But can an unusual friendship rescue two women who don’t realise they need to be saved?

Logan Ragsdale and his younger sister, Ariana, have been marked, chosen to be unwilling participants in a war between angels and demons. Logan can sense something's not quite right. Like an unexpected chill on a summer's day, he can feel the unseen closing in. He's had these feelings before, and each time, someone close to him died. He's afraid this time it might just be Ariana. Logan's fears are soon confirmed when he discovers their new friends aren't human, but rather representatives from Heaven and Hell sent to Earth to ensure he and Ariana accept their roles.

Eighteen-year-old aspiring comic Joey Rossi just found out his boyfriend has been cheating on him for the past 10 months. But what did he expect? Joey was born with an addiction to toxic jerks - something he inherited from his lovably messy, wisecracking, Italian-American spitfire of a mom (and best friend): 34-year-old Gia Rossi. When Gia’s latest non-relationship goes up in flames only a day later, the pair’s New Jersey apartment can barely contain their rage. In a misguided attempt at revenge, Joey and Gia inadvertently commit a series of crimes and flee the state....

Life is precious and precarious on the islands of Belene. Besieged by a capricious ocean full of malicious spirits, the people of the islands seek joy where they can. Mayara, one of the island’s fearless oyster divers, has found happiness in love. But on the day of her wedding to the artist Kelo, a spirit-driven storm hits the island with deadly force. To save her loved ones, Mayara reveals a dangerous secret: She has the power to control the spirits. When the storm ends, she is taken into custody by the queen’s soldiers and imprisoned with other women like her.

Lia Weaver went against everything she’d ever known when she risked her life to help a Farther fugitive named Gabe escape from the Aeralian soldiers, and her life changed forever. And the Frost changed, too—the Farthers have taken over her village, a new group of vigilantes calling themselves the Blackcoats are making plans to overthrow the Farther occupiers, and the Thorns are seeking for her to join them.