Science Fiction Mystery

My name is Winter Wayne, and I'm a Bone witch - minus the magic. There's a price on my head, and my own coworkers are hunting me down. My mad fighting skills alone aren't going to be enough to keep me alive. Looks like the time has come to dig out my mother's bones and complete the ritual that will finally ignite the magic in my bones - if I even make it that far. She never wanted me to be part of the paranormal world, but she made sure I was prepared for it anyway. I'm finally about to find out why.

Gathering four stories from four best-selling author friends, Invitation is the first collection in the ongoing Harbingers series. In "The Call" by Bill Myers, four strangers are drawn together to help a student at the mysterious Institute for Advanced Psychic Studies. His gifts are supposedly being honed to assist world leaders...but there are some very disturbing strings attached.

The only magic Emma Hart believes in is caffeine and the power of the dryer to lose one sock per load. A public interest lawyer buried under a mound of student debt, Emma's whole life has been one turn of bad luck after another. Her streak seems to continue when she gets lost on the way to see a client in the remote Pocono Mountains. A chance encounter with a suicidal angel lands her in Spellbound, a town where supernaturals have been cursed to remain for centuries - probably not the best time for Emma to discover that she's actually a witch.

Will her first case be her last? Lillian Knudsen, a war vet, amputee, and local shooting range owner, has someone out to kill her, but she's clueless as to who. Thankfully, she isn't clueless about where to turn for help. Werewolf Sara Flores got her P.I. license for one reason — to give cops an excuse why they might find her near dead bodies — lots of dead bodies. It turns out evildoers who attack innocents aren’t interested in giving them up. Not without a fight.

Step Fletcher, his pregnant wife DeAnne, and their three children move to Steuben, North Carolina, with high hopes. But Step's new job with a software company turns out to be a snake pit, and 8-year-old Stevie's school is worse. As Stevie retreats into himself, focusing more and more on a mysterious computer game and a growing troop of imaginary friends, the Fletchers' concern turns to terror.

For 32 years archaeologist Julius Gabriel investigated the Mayan calendar, a 2,500-year-old enigma of time and space that predicts humanity will perish on December 21, 2012 (the winter solstice). Julius believes that certain mysterious sites represent pieces of a global puzzle linked to the salvation of our species. Ridiculed by his peers, Julius dies before he can solve the doomsday prophecy. Now only one person can prevent our annihilation: Julius' son, Michael, a patient locked up in a Miami mental asylum.

I am a weed. Unloved by my abusive, alcoholic dad. Unwanted by my classmates. Unnoticed by everyone else. But I'd suffer anything to give my kid sister a better life - the minute I turn 18, I'm getting us the hell out of here. And some hot stranger telling me I am the key to stopping a war between Heaven and Hell isn't going to change that. Let the world crumble and burn, for all I care. Draven is relentless, though. And very much a liar. Every time his sexy lips are moving, I can see it - even if my heart begs me to ignore the signs. So what does he want?

After a victory that came at too high of a cost, Ryn's sacrifices have paid off. Ryn has awakened Grace, the Davina who's prophesied to save them all...but she's not what Ryn expected. From the start, Ryn knows Grace is keeping secrets. But it's worse than she originally feared, for Grace is hiding something that could mean the end of the world. Ryn decides she has to discover the truth - even as war erupts in Eagle Valley. Everything Ryn thought she knew about the magical world is wrong, but somehow, she and her friends have to make it right again.

As a child, Henry Cadmus lived on Catalina Island, a scenic vacationland off the Southern California coast. But Henry's experiences were far from idyllic. Today, even though Henry has seen firsthand the horrors of war, the ghastly images that haunt his dreams are ones he associates with his childhood... and the island: a snarling pig-man holding a cleaver; a jackal-headed woman on a high balcony, dripping blood; strange occult rituals... and worse. If it was up to Henry, he would avoid the island entirely.

Set in a fractured United States, in the southwestern country now known as Texoma. A world where magic is acknowledged but mistrusted, especially by a young gunslinger named Lizbeth Rose. Battered by a run across the border to Mexico Lizbeth Rose takes a job offer from a pair of Russian wizards to be their local guide and gunnie. For the wizards, Gunnie Rose has already acquired a fearsome reputation and they’re at a desperate crossroad, even if they won’t admit it.

Ryn Tyler finally found her home - and demons are out to destroy it. After a lifetime of searching for where she belongs, Ryn knows it's in Eagle Valley...but war threatens to take that all away. Attending an angels-only high school should help her master her magical abilities, but stopping the upcoming battle is more important. Ryn trains in secret with the help of her mentor, Marek, a bad boy who can't decide between duty and love - and who's already stolen Ryn's heart. But the arrival of another Davina complicates things, and Ryn finds herself torn between the two boys.

Gumshoe Conrad Metcalf has problems - not the least of which are the rabbit in his waiting room and the trigger-happy kangaroo on his tail. Near-future Oakland is an ominous place where evolved animals function as members of society, the police monitor citizens by their karma levels, and mind-numbing drugs such as Forgettol and Acceptol are all the rage. In this brave new world, Metcalf has been shadowing the wife of an affluent doctor, perhaps falling a little in love with her at the same time.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched an attack against U.S. naval forces stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. But what if the Japanese followed up their air assault with an invasion and occupation of Hawaii? This is the question explored by Harry Turtledove in Days of Infamy, with frightening implications.

The evening begins like many others. Lionel falls asleep while listening to his uncle tell stories. Ryan stays up reading and listening to music. Vicki goes out smoking pot with her friends. And Judd, tired of being told what to do, takes his father’s credit card and heads to the airport in search of freedom. But in one shocking moment, everything changes. All over the world, millions of people suddenly vanish. Driverless cars crash on the highways, and planes fall through the sky without pilots.

Who would suspect that the same mind that created the most famous literary detective of all time also took on the eternally popular genre of vampires? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a contemporary of Bram Stoker, gave us some fascinating works of vampire fiction. From the bloodsucking plant in "The American's Tale" to the bloodsucking wife in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire," he reveled in the horror created by creatures who survived on the blood of men and women.

What do you do when the guy you’ve loved since you were 14 is sent to the most dangerous prison in Solaria for saving your life? Okay, so maybe he doesn’t love me back. And maybe getting sent down would seem insane to some, but I’m Rosalie Oscura, champion underground cage-fighter and alpha werewolf from the infamous Oscura Clan. My family wrote the book on criminal organizations, and I’ll be ruling this place by the time the next moon rises. Then I just need to get to work on busting us the hell out of here.

In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse - mathematical genius and young Captain in the US Navy - is assigned to detachment 2702. It is an outfit so secret that only a handful of people know it exists, and some of those people have names like Churchill and Roosevelt. The mission of Watrehouse and Detachment 2702 - commanded by Marine Raider Bobby Shaftoe - is to keep the Nazis ignorant of the fact that Allied Intelligence has cracked the enemy's fabled Enigma code. In the present, Waterhouse's crypto-hacker grandson, Randy, is attempting to create a "data haven" in Southeast Asia....

I'm a mage. Problem is, it might kill me. In London, I have my dream job: stacking books in a university library. Even though I'm a mage, I have a quiet life these days. At least, until Levi shows up. Immediately, I know he's trouble. He's too sexy, and I can tell he's dangerous. Worse, he wants a forbidden book in my library. No way in hell am I going to give it to him. It's my job to protect it. But now, Levi won't let it go. And it turns out, he's not the only person who wants the book. All of a sudden, enemies are closing in on me, trying to get the book.

1983. The US nuclear submarine USS Roanoke embarks on a classified spy mission into Soviet waters. Their goal: to find evidence of a new, faster, and deadlier Soviet submarine that could tip the balance of the Cold War. But the Roanoke crew isn't alone. Something is on board with them. Something cunning and malevolent. Trapped in enemy territory and hunted by Soviet submarines, tensions escalate and crew members turn on each other. When the lights go out and horror fills the corridors, it will take everything the crew has to survive the menace.

My name is Scarlet Jones, and I'm a witch...of some kind. Probably. I grew up in a family full of strong Blood witches, in which my strange magic never belonged. I thought I was the only one of my kind out there, a true freak of nature, and I liked it that way. I lived on my own, learning to hunt these creatures nobody seemed to know anything about, a bunch of mindless thingies who were in the habit of sucking my magic dry wherever they found me.