Science Fiction Suspense

Sharon Shinn's Twelve Houses books have fascinated fans and critics alike with their irresistible blend of fantasy, romance, and adventure. Now in Quatrain, she weaves compelling stories in four of the worlds that fans love in "Flight", "Blood", "Gold", and "Flame".

Urgent! An epidemic is sweeping the country. You are among the infected. There is no cure, and you cannot be permitted to infect others. You are now under quarantine. The five percent of the infected who survive are dangerous and will be taken into the custody of the army. Young runaway Callie survived the disease but not the so-called treatment. Her brother, Kai, is still looking for her. And his new friend, Shay, may hold the key to uncovering what truly happened.

Desperate to pay the rent, Broadway star wannabe Poppy McGuillicuddy is the middle of DJ-ing a Halloween party when a mishap with a cat named Calamity changes her life forever. Suddenly, she's a familiar - as in, a witch's familiar. Or in her case, a warlock's. Even more specifically, a gorgeous warlock...who wants nothing to do with her. Thank God for the ladies from OOPs, who've promised their help as Poppy navigates her accidental paranormal powers.

This seventh entry picks up right from the cliffhanger ending of Tales from the Hood, as Sabrina and Daphne's parents finally awake from their sleeping spell. But this is no time for complacency. The family must help Prince Charming's Everafter army fight the Scarlet Hand, and Sabrina must confront the deadly and mysterious Master.

Dr. Timothy Ryan, head of the military psychiatric unit at Grantham Barracks, is meeting a new patient, a woman known as Prisoner Alpha. As she is being transferred, they are attacked by assassins, barely escaping with their lives. One shooter vanishes, leaving behind a dead companion unlike anyone Ryan has ever seen. But even more baffling is the puzzle of Alpha herself. She speaks in a strange tongue, and doodles in bars, dots, and little pictures like nothing Ryan has ever seen. Is she some sort of savant, or the most cunning spy he's ever met?

Angharad "Harry" Russo is just your ordinary 20-something, with one exception - she's a witch with an out-of-the-ordinary gift. When her blind date goes sideways and she ends up face-to-face with a dead body, her life starts to go sideways too. Harry soon finds herself right in the middle of the mayhem, dealing with Cian Nash, a homicide detective that is as aggravating as he is sexy.

In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep: They become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent; and while they sleep they go to another place.... The men of our world are abandoned, left to their increasingly primal devices. One woman, however, the mysterious Evie, is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease.

In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. That’s why they’re banished for their 16th year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive. Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life - a society that doesn’t pit friend against friend or woman against woman, but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that it’s not just the brutal elements they must fear.

John Thomas Rourke, M.D., ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapons expert, and survival authority, has accomplished one of his goals — he's helped his young friend Paul Rubinstein locate his parents. Now, Rourke's search for his own family must continue, hampered by severe storms raging along the Eastern Seaboard caused by the earthquakes which destroyed Florida.

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price - and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can't pull it off alone.

Doc may have made a terrible mistake toying with one of the most powerful witches in existence, and it’s not Abigail Jury! Edgar Achaean and his remaining Acolytes are far from finished, and if Doc can’t derail their plans ASAP, all his efforts thus far won’t mean a damn thing. In the face of annihilation, playing by the rules is not an option. Fortunately, Doc has never been one for playing by the rules. Unfortunately, some rules were never meant to be broken...

Charles Forbin has dedicated the last 10 years of his life to the construction of his own supercomputer, Colossus, rejecting romantic and social endeavors in order to create the United States' very first Artificially Intelligent defense system. Colossus is a supercomputer capable of taking in and analyzing data rapidly, allowing it to make real time decisions about the nation's defense.

Meet Jessica Jones: retired superhero, private investigator, loner. She tried her best to be a shiny spandex crimefighter, but that life only led to unspeakable trauma. Now she avoids that world altogether and works on surviving day-to-day in Hell’s Kitchen, New York. The morning a distraught mother comes into her office, Jessica would prefer to nurse her hangover and try to forget last night’s poor choices. But something about Amber Randall’s story strikes a chord with her. Amber is adamant that something happened to her teenage twins while they were visiting their father in the UK.

You’re riding in your self-driving car when suddenly the doors lock, the route changes and you have lost all control. Then, a mysterious voice tells you, “You are going to die.” Just as self-driving cars become the trusted, safer norm, eight people find themselves in this terrifying situation, including a faded TV star, a pregnant young woman, an abused wife fleeing her husband, an illegal immigrant, a husband and wife, and a suicidal man. From cameras hidden in their cars, their panic is broadcast to millions of people around the world.

I never thought my life would take a turn into the world of murder mysteries, but here I am, Ophelia Pane, vampire veterinarian extraordinaire, caught in the middle of a deadly game of cat and mouse... or should I say parrot and vampire? As I struggle to juggle my overflowing clinic of fur babies and mythical creatures, a simple house call to check in on a chatty parrot named Elvis turns into a nightmare when I stumble upon his owner’s lifeless body.

The first rule of a supernatural fight club? Don't kill your opponent. When the fighters come with lethal spells, werewolf strength, and half-demon powers, that can be a lot tougher than it sounds. It's hard to attract talent if they know they might not leave the ring alive. So when fighters at a California club start dying, it's bad for business. Witch detectives Paige Winterbourne and Savannah Levine take the case.

“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born". An epic and gripping tale of catastrophe and survival, The Passage is the story of Amy - abandoned by her mother at the age of six, pursued, and then imprisoned by the shadowy figures behind a government experiment of apocalyptic proportions. But Special Agent Brad Wolgast, the lawman sent to track her down, is disarmed by the curiously quiet girl and risks everything to save her. As the experiment goes nightmarishly wrong, Wolgast secures her escape - but he can’t stop society’s collapse.

All good things must come to an end, Constant Listener, and not even Stephen King can write a story that goes on forever. The tale of Roland Deschain's relentless quest for the Dark Tower has, the author fears, sorely tried the patience of those who have followed it from its earliest chapters. But attend to it a while longer, if it pleases you, for this volume is the last, and often the last things are best.

As Molly Dark knows all too well, the problem with being able to see ghosts is that they never tell you what you wish to know. For instance, how a proper young lady like Miss Dark is supposed to support an impoverished family after her father has died a ruined man. Or how she is going to impersonate a missing princess long enough to steal a fortune out from under the collective noses of a whole family of royal monsters. Or exactly why the charming imposter claims to be none other than Grand Duke Vasily Nikolaevich, when he certainly isn’t a prince…or a vampire.

Harry Dresden, Chicago's only professional wizard, is about to have a very bad day.… Because as Winter Knight to the Queen of Air and Darkness, Harry never knows what the scheming Mab might want him to do. Usually, it’s something awful. He doesn’t know the half of it… Mab has just traded Harry’s skills to pay off one of her debts. And now he must help a group of supernatural villains - led by one of Harry’s most dreaded and despised enemies, Nicodemus Archleone - to break into the highest-security vault in town, so that they can then access the highest-security vault in the Nevernever.