“Are you prepared to pay the price for power?” After standing trial in the Summer Court, James is sent on a quest to kill the Cait Sidhe, the monstrous faery cat who manipulated him into betraying the Seelie faeries and destroying the magical barrier that protected them. When the time comes to kill the beast, James decides to trick him into helping undo his mistake. But the man beneath the beast, Cecil Morris, is just as dangerous, and his manor, Heatherfield, is full of wild and deadly magic. In trying to reach Cecil, James risks being pulled into the darkness with him. Cai, accompanying James to Heatherfield, escapes from the Cait Sidhe’s prison and fights for his life against Heatherfield’s deadly magic, determined to keep his oath to kill the beast even if it means making James his enemy. Kallista and Alan, also captives in the manor, face a fight of their own as Alan’s Unseelie magic slowly consumes him. Meanwhile, newly-appointed Noble Faery Deirdre and her human champion, Iain, head into an ancient tomb to find her drachma, an item that will help her control her powerful magic and save the Summer Court from destruction. She must undergo a trial to earn her drachma, but dark forces lurk inside, waiting to use her magic against her and against all she loves. The Thrall's Gambit is book five in the seven-book Winter's Blight series.

An unregistered human con wizard and a duty-bound, straight-laced elf cop. As New York explodes with dangerous creatures, their passion goes nuclear. After a terrible magical accident at Berkeley created unpredictable holes between realities, all manner of non-human creatures started popping into our world. These displacements, called Random Anomalous Reality Events or RARE, have taken magic out of fiction and relocated it firmly in reality, resulting in a great deal of chaos and confusion. Displaced elf Valerian works with AURA, the Agency of Unnatural Resettlement and Assimilation, to intercept these beings as they appear in the human world, helping the peaceful ones and subduing the violent, malevolent ones. It's good, satisfying work, and Val would be happy if he wasn't so lonely. Quinten is a young mage just trying to get by, but New York isn't the easiest city to make a living in. If his methods are sometimes morally dubious, his heart is still in the right place. Of course, for Quinn, the right place means firmly locked away, protected at all costs. Living by his wits and sometimes magically induced luck, he works as a &‘freelance magic user', or unregistered mage and small-time con, according to the authorities. The last thing Quinn wants is to draw the cops' attention, but when an Event happens right on top of him, he's forced to turn to AURA for help. Valerian isn't at all what he'd expected in an AURA cop, and he certainly wasn't expecting to join forces with the sexy elf, a snarky drow and a bitter incubus, when certain individuals in power try to stop the RARE by any means necessary. Things are not all what they seem at AURA headquarters, and a greater evil lurks at the top than anyone could have imagined.

A comprehensive, engaging, and revisionist account of the Court fight that ties it to contemporary policy debates. In the last past few years, liberals concerned about the prospect of long-term conservative dominance of the federal courts have revived an idea that famously crashed and burned in the 1930s: court packing. Not surprisingly, today's court packing advocates have run into a wall of opposition, with most citing the 1930s episode as one FDR's greatest failures. In early 1937, Roosevelt-fresh off a landslide victory-stunned the country when he proposed a plan to expand the size of the court by up to six justices. Today, that scheme is generally seen as an act of hubris-an instance where FDR failed to read Congress and the public properly. In FDR's Gambit, the eminent legal historian Laura Kalman challenges the conventional wisdom by telling the story as it unfolded, without the distortions of hindsight. Indeed, while scholars have portrayed the Court Bill as the ill-fated brainchild of a hubristic President made overbold by victory, Kalman argues to the contrary that acumen, not arrogance, accounted for Roosevelt's actions. Far from erring tragically from the beginning, FDR came very close to getting additional justices, and the Court itself changed course. As Kalman shows, the episode suggests that proposing a change in the Court might give the justices reason to consider whether their present course is endangering the institution and its vital role in a liberal democracy. Based on extensive archival research, FDR's Gambit offers a novel perspective on the long-term effects of court packing's failure, as a legacy that remains with us today. Whether or not it is the right remedy for today's troubles, Kalman argues that court packing does not deserve to be recalled as one fated for failure in 1937.

DIVDIVBored and broke, Marlow quits retirement to search for a mole within MI6/divDIV It’s springtime in Scotland, and an aging spy is tending to his bees. Smoke rises from his bellows as he looks in on the colony for the first time since winter. When his wife goes to check on him, the bellows are still smoking but her husband has disappeared. He may be dead, he may be kidnapped—or he may have gone over to the other side./divDIV /divDIVTo locate the missing beekeeper, the secret service turns to Peter Marlow, a veteran agent who is finding retirement no substitute for life in the field. He soon discovers a byzantine Russian conspiracy, of which the vanished spy is either the architect or the victim, operating deep within British intelligence. In the shadows of this secretive government agency, there are more pressing dangers than the sting of a frightened honeybee. /divDIV /divDIVThe Oxford Gambit is the third book in the Peter Marlow Mystery series, which also includes The Sixth Directorate and The Valley of the Fox. /div/div

After a thousand years one man's fell magic has returned the Demonic Presence to the land. A young farmer, Aleksei, chosen by a magical Wood, and a prince, Jonas, gifted in the magical meridians of the Archanium, must find a way to defeat the Presence to save themselves and all they love. But what happens when the monsters and figures of prophecy become horrifyingly real? How will Aleksei cope? When the stakes are at their highest, will Jonas falter? Or will both rise to the occasion, reforging themselves into the saviors Prophecy demands they become? In a world of magic and Magi, of Angels and Demons alike, how will they survive their own contorted destiny? This is the story of a seemingly-simple world gone mad, and the reality that every action, no matter how apparently benign, can serve to unravel terrifying truths. This is the story of Aleksei Drago, farmer and Hunter, and Jonas Belgi, prince and Archanium Mage.

A soldier is raised from the dead by a desperate magician who needs his help. The soldier cannot remember who he was when alive, so sets out to discover his former life, those who killed him and what he can do about the fact he’s dead. Hunted by demons and frustrated by gods, what hope is there for just one man?Necromancer's Gambit is the first novel in A J Dalton's best-selling Flesh & Bone Trilogy. A J Dalton is the UK's leading author of gothic fantasy.

A tale inspired by the life of Henry VIII's sixth wife follows her reluctant marriage to the egotistical and powerful king in spite of her love for Thomas Seymour, a situation that compels her to make careful choices in a treacherous court.

In his sci-fi debut, Bellecourt explores an alternate roaring 20s where a shell-shocked soldier must uncover latent telepathic abilities to save himself and the people around him. Liam Mulcahey, a reclusive, shell-shocked veteran, remembers little of the Great War. Ten years later, when he is caught in a brutal attack on a Chicago speakeasy, Liam is saved by Grace, an alluring heiress who's able to cast illusions. Though the attack appears to have been committed by the hated Uprising, Grace believes it was orchestrated by Leland De Pere--Liam's former commander and the current President of the United States. Meeting Grace unearths long-buried memories. Liam's former squad, the Devil's Henchmen, was given a serum to allow telepathic communication, transforming them into a unified killing machine. With Grace's help, Liam begins to regain his abilities, but when De Pere learns of it, he orders his militia to eliminate Liam at any cost. But Liam's abilities are expanding quickly. When Liam turns the tables and digs deeper into De Pere's plans, he discovers a terrible secret. The same experiment that granted Liam's abilities was bent toward darker purposes. Liam must navigate both his enemies and supposed allies to stop the President's nefarious plans before they're unleashed on the world. And Grace is hiding secrets of her own, secrets that could prove every bit as dangerous as the President's.

Solace is booming out of control. An important temple dedication is bringing merchants, dignitaries, and a host of ne’er-do-wells and surprise visitors to the fabled tree-top town. And lately there have been a series of mysterious incidentsÉ. Palin has sworn off magic and nowadays acts as town mayor. He desperately needs a new sheriff, as the last one has just been murdered by malefactors unknown. Fortunately, Gerard has quit the knighthood after a quarrel with his father, and arrives just in time to don a sheriff’s badge. Douglas W. Clark reunites two of the most popular characters from the War of Souls epic in this new novel set in the best-selling Dragonlance¨ world.

A hotheaded hacker must outwit the AI at the heart of a rogue warship–turned–penal colony if she and her crew of con women want to escape with their lives in this electrifying sci-fi thriller from the acclaimed author of Bonds of Brass. “Fleet-footed, quick-witted, and beguiling, The Salvation Gambit is a good old-fashioned tale of high adventure.”—Emery Robin, author of The Stars Undying Murdock has always believed in Hark, the woman who shaped her from a petty thief and lowlife hacker into a promising con artist. Hark is everything Murdock aspires to be, from her slick fashion sense to her unfailing ability to plan under pressure. Together with Bea, a fearless driver who never walks away from a bet, and Fitz, Murdock’s infuriatingly mercurial rival who can sweet-talk the galaxy into spinning around her finger, they form a foursome with a reputation for daring heists, massive payoffs, and never, ever getting caught. Well, until now. Getting caught is one thing. Getting tithed to a sentient warship that’s styled itself into a punitive god is a problem this team has never faced before. Aboard the Justice is a world stitched together from the galaxy’s sinners—some fighting for survival, some struggling to build a civilized society, and some sacrificing everything to worship the AI at the heart of the ship. The Justice’s all-seeing eyes are fixed on its newest acquisitions, Murdock in particular. It has use for a hacker—if it can wrest her devotion away from Hark. And Murdock’s faith is already fractured. To escape the Justice’s madness, they need a plan, and Hark might not be up to the task. If Hark—brilliant, unflappable Hark—can’t plot a way out, Murdock will have to use every last trick she’s learned to outwit the Justice, resist its temptation, and get her crew out alive.