Science Mysteries

Fourteen-year-old Mona isn't like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can't control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter, and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt's bakery making gingerbread men dance. But Mona's life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona's city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona's worries.

Proud. Imperious. Impassioned. Until three years ago, those words applied to Dominic Asher, the leader of Ash Valley. His family has ruled the feline branch of the Animari for hundreds of years, guiding the pride through perilous times. Unspeakable loss drove him into seclusion, a feral beast nobody can tame. Now he's wrecked, a leopard king in exile, and he wants nothing more than to die.

Vitus Adamson is falling apart. As a pre-deceased private investigator, he takes the prescription Atroxipine hourly to keep his undead body upright and functioning. Whenever he is injured, he seeks Niko, a bombshell mortician with bedroom eyes and a way with corpses, to piece him back together. Decomposition, however, is the least of his worries when two clients posing his most dangerous job yet appear at his door looking for their lost son.

Goonies-meets-James-Bond-style hijinks continue with a group of unpopular fifth-graders who run a spy network right under their teachers’ noses. Their tech-loving, geeky ways may get them shunned by the “it” crowd, but with a little help from science, these kids’ most dweeby qualities become big-time weapons in the fight against super-villains.

Marnie's first big FBI case ended with a bullet in one shoulder and a chip on the other, a queasy heart and a serial killer in the wind, leaving her a public flop and a private wreck. When the FBI's preternatural crimes unit tracks her down at a remote mountain lodge for her insight on a local case, her quiet retirement is promptly besieged by a stab-happy starlet, a rampaging ghoul, and a vampire-hunting jackass in tight Wranglers. Marnie figures the only real mystery is which one will kill her first.

Vivian Gandalon is a teen-aged werewolf with problems. Her father, the pack leader, was killed in a fire, and so the pack is in disarray. The young male members of the squabbling pack howl for her, but still she feels alienated and alone. To be more than human is a lonely thing. Vivian longs to have friends and fit in at school. She yearns to escape her legacy of violence and forbidden appetites, but the beast within her longs for something elementally deep and rich. She glories in her ability to change from woman to wolf.

Blue Magic, the latest designer drug linked to a rash of overdoses, might explain the needle mark on the arm of a young woman found dead in her Kansas City apartment. But when star reporter Rich Azadian digs deeper, the clues point to a far more explosive story: MaryLee Stock was a special protege of evangelical megapastor and power broker Cobalt Becker, who is poised to deliver his followers and the presidency to a firebrand right-wing senator in the next election.

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".

As a fox-shifter, Shayne Davies gets no respect in an underworld run by the fearsome and powerful - werewolves and vampires, sorcerers, demons, and mythical faerie creatures. Even at home, Shayne is still treated like the brat of the pack. All Shayne wants is to prove that she's got what it takes to run with the big dogs, which is why she is constantly hounding Nick Gorgeous to make her an agent at the "Double D", the Detroit Division of the FUA.

Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden has had a rough couple of weeks. As the only openly practicing professional wizard in the Chicago area, he has squared off against a multitude of supernatural bad guys. Harry has won the day against demons, poltergeists, sorcerers, trolls, vampires, werewolves, and even an evil faerie godmother. You might think nothing could spook him. You would be wrong.

World War II is nearly over. For the Russians the enemy is no longer Nazi Germany but the American behemoth that threatens to topple the Communist revolution. Deep within the walls of the Kremlin, Stalin's top man hatches a brilliant plan that will alter the course of postwar history - and it's all based on a deception as simple as the shell game.

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.

Being a mercenary has made Sophia an expert at kicking butt, and her heritage has made her a professional at hiding in plain sight. Sophia is Fireborn, the supernatural community's public enemy number one. Fireborns have the ability to absorb magic - a gift that turns them into insane, power-hungry murderers. After years on the run, Sophia and her sister have finally found a home for themselves and jobs at the Mercenary Guild. Killing monsters may be hard work, but she doesn't need magic to do it. And as long as she keeps her powers under wraps, they're safe.

Stevie has been having repeated nightmares about the mysterious figure known as Herobrine. Some say Herobrine is an old ghost story. Some say he's a virus. But no one believes he is real...except maybe Stevie, whose nightmares are telling him that Herobrine is going to take over the Overworld.

The deadly dimensions over London have been sealed, and the monsters have departed. But word has come to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson of a more terrifying creature still - the great Cthulhu has been sighted off the waters of Innsmouth, Massachusetts. Only Holmes can defeat him. And in the muddy village of Innsmouth, surrounded by villagers who are more sea-monster than human, Holmes meets again his nemesis, Moriarty, and yet greater foes: Amelia Scarcliffe and Maria Fitzgerald, harbingers of Dagon, who have called forth Cthulhu.

Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a horrific accident when he was seven, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. When Charlie is seventeen, he meets a dog named Radar and her aging master, Howard Bowditch, a recluse in a big house at the top of a big hill, with a locked shed in the backyard. Sometimes strange sounds emerge from that shed.

Victoria Emerson is a congressional member of the US House of Representatives for the state of West Virginia. Her aspirations have always been to help her community and to avoid the ambitious power plays of her peers in Washington, DC. Then Major Joseph McCrea appears on her doorstep and uses the code phrase Crimson Phoenix, meaning this is not a drill. The United States is on the verge of nuclear war. Victoria must accompany McCrea to a secure bunker. She cannot bring her family.

John Pritkin has been trying to recover from a demon curse that separated his body and soul and almost killed him. The reunification has left him with a flood of memories to process, some that he recalls from his past and some that he doesn't, as well as wonky magic, fluctuating power levels, and a splitting headache. Something that only intensifies when he finds himself stuck in a city under siege - by his fellow war mages. As the only one not overwhelmed by a massive enthrallment spell, John must find a way to free his fellow mages before they destroy themselves.

Something weird is happening to the Los Angeles freeways - phantom cars, lanes from nowhere, and sometimes unmarked off-ramps that give glimpses of a desolate desert highway - and Sebastian Vickery, disgraced ex-Secret Service agent, is a driver for a covert supernatural-evasion car service. But another government agency is using and perhaps causing the freeway anomalies, and their chief is determined to have Vickery killed because of something he learned years ago at a halted Presidential motorcade. Reluctantly aided by Ingrid Castine, a member of that agency, and a homeless Mexican boy....

Ever since my parents died in the demon war, I've paid my way through life by using magic to con people. It's not right, but a girl's gotta do what she can to survive. Unfortunately, my latest con has left me smack dab in the middle of a murder scene. Now, a coven of angry mages thinks I'm the killer. In order to clear my name, I have to team up with an infuriatingly sexy warlock whose powers are far darker than he admits. Throw in a string of related murders and a vexed vampire clan, and I'm up to my eyeballs in danger.