The Bones Of The Past

Life-twisting magic, demonic possession, and immortals who have outlived gods themselves come together in this epic fantasy inspired by the likes of Glen Cook and Steven Erikson.

After her apprenticeship was done and a place in the guild of villains secured, Tori's life was supposed to get simpler. Unfortunately, a poorly timed errand sees Tori caught in the debut of a new team of capes, one wearing an all-too-familiar name. Thrust into the spotlight, Tori will have to navigate her unwanted fame as well as the suspiciously superheroic new neighbors down the hall, all while keeping up with her own villainous enterprises. With the guild no longer a secret, Hephaestus needs to grow as strong as possible to face her mounting threats. Ambitious gangs, battling against mechanized traps, and brawling with capes are only the beginning. Behind the scenes, a hidden enemy works to settle an old score, one that has burned for decades. This secret scheme will not only endanger Tori, her friends, and the guild, but the very world itself.

Gifted with metahuman powers in a world full of capes and villains, Tori Rivas kept away from the limelight, preferring to work as a thief in the shadows. But when she's captured trying to rob a vault that belongs to a secret guild of villains, she's offered a hard choice: prove she has what it takes to join them or be eliminated. Apprenticed to one of the world's most powerful (and supposedly dead) villains, she is thrust into a strange world where the lines that divide superheroes and criminals are more complex than they seem. The education of a villain is not an easy one, and Tori will have to learn quickly if she wants to survive. On top of the peril she faces from her own teacher, there are also the capes and fellow apprentices to worry about, to say nothing of having to keep up a civilian cover. Most dangerous of all, though, are those who loathe the guild's very existence. Old grudges mean some are willing to go to any length to see the guild turned to ash, along with each one of its members. Even the lowly apprentices.

An African tightrope walker who can’t die gets embroiled in a secret society’s deadly gladiatorial tournament in this “bloodily spectacular” (Chloe Gong, New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights) historical fantasy set in an alternate 1880s London, perfect for fans of The Last Magician and The Gilded Wolves. As an African tightrope dancer in Victorian London, Iris is used to being strange. She is certainly an unusual sight for leering British audiences always eager for the spectacle of colonial curiosity. But Iris also has a secret that even “strange” doesn’t capture…​ She cannot die. Haunted by her unnatural power and with no memories of her past, Iris is obsessed with discovering who she is. But that mission gets more complicated when she meets the dark and alluring Adam Temple, a member of a mysterious order called the Enlightenment Committee. Adam seems to know much more about her than he lets on, and he shares with her a terrifying revelation: the world is ending, and the Committee will decide who lives…and who doesn’t. To help them choose a leader for the upcoming apocalypse, the Committee is holding the Tournament of Freaks, a macabre competition made up of vicious fighters with fantastical abilities. Adam wants Iris to be his champion, and in return he promises her the one thing she wants most: the truth about who she really is. If Iris wants to learn about her shadowy past, she has no choice but to fight. But the further she gets in the grisly tournament, the more she begins to remember—and the more she wonders if the truth is something best left forgotten.

A stand-alone sequel to Lisle's Fire in the Mist. A young girl marked for sacrifice, a band of outcast children, an ancient scholar, a head-hunting mage, and an insane historian travel into the jungle searching for a legendary lost city and discover that the deadly bones of the past are alive . . . and stalking them. "(The) entrancing characters . . . will hold you spellbound".--Mercedes Lackey.

The #1 NYT bestselling authors Preston & Child bring the true story of the ill-fated Donner Party to new life in this thrilling novel of archaeology, history, murder, and suspense. Nora Kelly, a young curator at the Santa Fe Institute of Archaeology, is approached by historian Clive Benton with a once-in-a-lifetime proposal: to lead a team in search of the so-called "Lost Camp" of the tragic Donner Party. This was a group of pioneers who earned a terrible place in American history when they became snow-bound in the California mountains in 1847, their fate unknown until the first skeletonized survivors stumbled out of the wilderness, raving about starvation, murder-and cannibalism. Benton tells Kelly he has stumbled upon an amazing find: the long-sought diary of one of the victims, which has an enigmatic description of the Lost Camp. Nora agrees to lead an expedition to locate and excavate it-to reveal its long-buried secrets. Once in the mountains, however, they learn that discovering the camp is only the first step in a mounting journey of fear. For as they uncover old bones, they expose the real truth of what happened, one that is far more shocking and bizarre than mere cannibalism. And when those ancient horrors lead to present-day violence on a grand scale, rookie FBI agent Corrie Swanson is assigned the case...only to find that her first investigation might very well be her last.

Short-listed for the 2009 Silver Birch Award, commended for the 2009 Best Books for Kids & Teens Due to circumstances beyond her control, 12-year-old Peggy Henderson has to move to the quiet town of Crescent Beach, British Columbia, to live with her aunt and uncle. Without a father and separated from her mother, who’s looking for work, Peggy feels her unhappiness increasing until the day she and her uncle start digging a pond in the backyard and she realizes the rock she’s been trying to pry from the ground is really a human skull. Peggy eventually learns that her home and the entire seaside town were built on top of a 5000-year-old Coast Salish fishing village. With the help of an elderly archaeologist, a woman named Eddy, Peggy comes to know the ancient storyteller buried in her yard in a way that few others can – by reading the bones. As life with her aunt becomes more and more unbearable, Peggy looks to the old Salish man from the past for help and answers.

A thrilling, inventive follow-up to The Desert of Souls by Howard Andrew Jones, a "rare master of the storyteller's art" (Greenmanreview.com) As a snowfall blankets 8th century Mosul, a Persian noblewoman arrives at the home of the scholar Dabir and his friend the swordsman Captain Asim. Najya has escaped from a dangerous cabal that has ensorcelled her to track down ancient magical tools of tremendous power, the bones of the old ones. To stop the cabal and save Najya, Dabir and Asim venture into the worst winter in human memory, hunted by a shape-changing assassin. The stalwart Asim is drawn irresistibly toward the beautiful Persian even as Dabir realizes she may be far more dangerous a threat than anyone who pursues them, for her enchantment worsens with the winter. As their opposition grows, Dabir and Asim have no choice but to ally with their deadliest enemy, the treacherous Greek necromancer, Lydia. But even if they can trust one another long enough to escape their foes, it may be too late for Najya, whose soul is bound up with a vengeful spirit intent on sheathing the world in ice for a thousand years... "The Bones of the Old Ones is a damn good tale that not only pays homage to the masters, but sets its own print on the genre." --SF Signal "This rousing sequel to The Desert of Souls offers a mélange of ancient adventure myths populated by convincing, endearing characters... As intricately woven as the magic carpet of Greek sorceress Lydia, Jones's tale incorporates real historical personages and settings like Mosul of "haggard beauty" from the early days of Islam, and fills the pages with gallantry and glamour to provide a thrilling spectacle." –Publishers Weekly, starred review