World Beyond The Maelstrom Gate

Something in Lavender, California is waking up. Rituals not properly completed for centuries are coming together. Nothing is what it seems. When Nick Leatherman, his girlfriend Ruthie, and their buddies Flash and Weasel invade Shady Grove Cemetery for a “ghost hunt” on their way home from a concert, they are drawn into a web of darkness and intrigue that threatens to consume them. Nick and Ruthie witness a gruesome murder, and Nick’s pocketknife shows up at the crime scene the next morning. Nick has had problems in the past, and Inspector Kendall Straker remembers. He remembers Ned Leatherman, Nick’s alcoholic step-father as well, and he doesn’t believe the boy is a killer. The problem is that the knife - emblazoned with the name of the band Maelstrom - is the only clue he has. Horace Goldbough is the local pastor. He’s built a huge following and a beautiful church, but there are things about the good reverend that the town doesn’t know. In particular there is his relationship with a dark woman named Beauchane, and a certain book he keeps hidden from the world. With local reporters, and a television talk-show host hounding his every step, Straker attempts to unravel the series of grisly killings terrorizing Lavender, while simultaneously protecting Nick. Nick, in the meantime, has begun his own investigation, feeling trapped and needing to clear his name. Ritual words are being spoken, and a power that has been denied access to the Earth for centuries is poised to strike. The clock is ticking. Can Straker, Nick, and Maelstrom find the answer to the killings and put an end to them before the final ritual takes place, or will a horror be unleashed on the unsuspecting town of Lavender beyond their comprehension?

A broken warrior. A hunted thief. The courage to save an empire. As one of the empire's most skilled soldiers, Brandt is no stranger to combat. After he and his fellow wolfblades fight a merciless warrior armed with impossible magic, Brandt is left shattered. Searching for answers, Brandt stumbles upon a secret war, fought by a very few, that threatens the land he calls home. Alena is a gifted student studying for university exams. She moonlights as a thief and spy, searching for a purpose beyond the walls of her small town. When she steals a powerful artifact she becomes the most wanted thief in the empire, sending her fleeing across the continent for safety. Their quest for answers uncovers lies buried for generations. Lies at the heart of their empire. As a mysterious and powerful enemy prepares their assault, Brandt and Alena must race to find the truth and save their home. Before the Gate Beyond Oblivion summons them both.

Fans of The Wheel Of Time, The Stormlight Archives, and The Blue Adept Series who like reading riveting fantasy adventure will love Beyond The Sapphire Gate, an epic science fiction/fantasy! Ancient evil crawls from the dark. The great river of magic threatened. An epic struggle to prevail. Pitted against the hooded man’s ruthless determination to annihilate a race, Crystalyn's mind threatens to slip deeper into madness when faced with a world-shattering choice: hunt down and destroy a former companion who threatens everything, or save those she loves most. With cunning comes power. With power comes arrogance. With arrogance comes brutality. With freewill at stake, Crystalyn may have to resort to them all… Jade’s ability of reading futuristic images whirling around a person’s aura grows strong, though not how she would ever want. Garn’s enslavement ends with something far worse. Within the heat of the Shimmering Sands, a dark robe hatches a brash plan to gain ultimate power, one that if successful will unleash a great malevolence upon the land. Surviving by skulking in the shadows for millennia, a new influence emerges, gaining strength from others. Clinical and calculating, its alien cunning has subjugated entire worlds from within the shadows with no one the wiser…

The Bastion was humanity's last hope against the fearsome undead creatures known as the Inferi Scourge. A fortified city with a high wall, surrounded by lush land rich with all the resources needed to survive, protected by high mountain summits, and a massive gate to secure the only pass into the valley, the Bastion became the last stronghold of the living on earth. But one fateful day, the gate failed and the Inferi Scourge destroyed the human settlements outside the walls and trapped the survivors inside the city. Now decades later, the last remaining humans are struggling to survive in a dying city as resources and hope dwindle.Vanguard Maria Martinez has lived her whole life within the towering walls of steel. She yearns for a life away from the overcrowded streets, rolling blackouts, and food shortages, but there is no hope for anyone as long as the Inferi Scourge howl outside the high walls. Her only refuge from the daily grind is in the arms of her lover, Dwayne Reichardt, an officer in the Bastion Constabulary. Both are highly-decorated veterans of the last disastrous push against the Inferi Scourge. Their secret affair is her only happiness.Then one day Maria is summoned to meet with a mysterious representative from the Science Warfare Division and is offered the opportunity to finally destroy the Inferi Scourge in the valley and close the gate. The rewards of success are great, but she will have to sacrifice everything, possibly even her life, to accomplish the ultimate goal of securing the future of humanity and saving it from extinction.

A team of archaeologists digging in present day Romania uncover a mass execution ground. They have unexpectedly also unearthed the executioner himself, Prince Vlad Dracula! The King of the Undead has been waiting for hundreds of years to resurrect himself in a bid for world domination. In the meantime he forces Doctors Peter Ralston, and Louise Johnston to transcribe his awesome memoirs. In this book, penned by his own dead hand, Dracula describes his monstrous birth, life and rise to power and finally the dark forces which caused him to become the world' most powerful vampire! He describes a world of evil rituals and necromancy that is beyond the rules and laws that govern mankind. He is an inhuman monster who lusts after only immortality and power! This is the Dracula that Bram Stoker shocked the world with! Once again, Dracula has risen from his grave to cast a shadow of evil over the world.

Eleven holiday stories from nine amazing authors! Winter Wonder brings you a confection of Christmas stories by an array of well-loved authors featuring characters drawn from their award-winning books. Eleven new stories spanning all ages from the young to the young at heart will whisk you away on a snowstorm of delight to worlds of fantasy, adventure, history, and even outer space with tales celebrating the magic of Christmas or the wonder of winter holidays. Fill your child's holiday reading with stories of adventure, myths - both Greek and Native American, science fiction, time-travel, a lyric poem, mystery, and even a bit of romance. Eleven stories will entertain your middle-grade to teen to young-at-heart readers. We welcome you into our winter holiday wonders with stories guaranteed to entertain, illuminate, and cheer.

A dramatic retelling of the final years of the Western Roman Empire and the downfall of Rome itself from the perspective of the Roman general Stilicho and Alaric, king of the Visigoths. It took little more than a single generation for the centuries-old Roman Empire to fall. In those critical decades, while Christians and pagans, legions and barbarians, generals and politicians squabbled over dwindling scraps of power, two men – former comrades on the battlefield – rose to prominence on opposite sides of the great game of empire. Roman general Flavius Stilicho, the man behind the Roman throne, dedicated himself to restoring imperial glory, only to find himself struggling for his life against political foes. Alaric, King of the Goths, desired to be a friend of Rome, was betrayed by it, and given no choice but to become its enemy. Battling each other to a standstill, these two warriors ultimately overcame their differences in order to save the empire from enemies on all sides. And when one of them fell, the other took such vengeance as had never been seen in history. Don Hollway, author of The Last Viking, combines ancient chroniclers' accounts of Stilicho and Alaric into an unforgettable history of betrayal, politics, intrigue and war for the heart and soul of the Roman Empire.