Download or read book The Seven Petaled Shield written by Deborah J. Ross and published by Astra Publishing House. This book was released on 2013-06-04 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eons ago, a great king used a magical device—the Seven-Petaled Shield—to defeat the forces of primal chaos, but now few remember that secret knowledge. When an ambitious emperor conquers the city that safeguards the Shield, the newly-widowed young Queen, guardian of the heart-stone of the Shield, flees for her life, along with her adolescent son. As one land after another falls to the empire, they become separated and her son fears the emperor has executed his mother. Consumed with grief and vengeance, he transforms himself into the agent of chaos, a ravening destroyer who threatens all the living world. The only ones standing in the way of annihilation are the mother he thinks is dead, a dispossessed enemy prince, a demented prophet, and the nomadic horsewoman whose love alone can heal the heart of the heir to the magical Shield.

Download or read book Shannivar written by Deborah J. Ross and published by Astra Publishing House. This book was released on 2013-12-03 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Kirkus notable new release! Shannivar is a young warrior, skilled in horsemanship and archery and raised by her uncle, the clan chieftain. When all the other young warrior-women have set aside their bows and arrows for husbands, she still dreams of glory. Desperate to resist the imperialistic arm of the nearby growing empire, all of the clans of her nation are gathering to propose an alliance. As Shannivar and her fellow delegates travel to the meeting, they encounter a stranger, Zevaron, heir to the magical Seven-Petaled Shield. Zevaron also seeks to halt the empire’s expansion on behalf of his own fallen lost nation and joins forces with Shannivar. Shannivar has never met anyone like Zevaron, with his aura of power and quiet assurance. Soon the clan gathering is ready, except for the mysterious absence of the clan from the far north. When the ragged band of the missing delegates finally arrive, they tell strange and ominous stories; and Zevaron, bestowed with the ancient central stone of the mystical Seven-Petaled Shield, feels a great emanation of danger from the north . Together, he and Shannivar set out on a journey to discover the source of these dangers—a quest even the prophets believe will fail. Shannivar is the second installment of the thrilling The Seven-Petaled Shield series.

Download or read book Azkhantian Tales written by Deborah J. Ross and published by Deborah J. Ross. This book was released on 2015-05-04 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across the Azkhantian steppe, warrior women ride to battle against foes both human and supernatural. From the world of The Seven-Petaled Shield come four fantasy tales, originally published in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword & Sorceress. Prophecy links a mother and daughter in an unbreakable bond. A young woman defies tradition to become a shaman. When twins are magically divided, the survivor searches for the other half of her soul. A warrior woman discovers that to wield a magical blade dishonorably carries a heavy price. This collection includes a previously-unpublished Introduction and a sneak peek at The Seven-Petaled Shield.

Download or read book The Heir of Khored written by Deborah J. Ross and published by Astra Publishing House. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third and final volume of The Seven-Petaled Shield series! For Shannivar, warrior of the Azkhantia Steppe, the future is grim. She faces twin threats: the mighty Gelon empire, ruthessly conquering independent nations like her own, and the malevolent entity of Fire and Ice, unleashed from its prison in the Far North. And she must face them alone. After meeting Zevaron, an exiled prince in search of aid from Azkhantia, Shannivar and Zevaron had traveled together and fallen in love. But their journey to the north to investigate dangerous omens failed when Zevaron was enthralled by the monstrous Fire and Ice. Now Zevaron's hatred for Gelon, the empire that destroyed his kingdom and killed his mother, threatens to consume not only him, but all the living world.

Download or read book The Poisoned Crown Novelette written by Deborah J. Ross and published by Deborah J. Ross. This book was released on with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The king is dead, long live the prince, but not for long if his stepmother the Queen Regent has anything to say about it. So he appeals to the one person he can trust, his father’s best swordswoman and the king’s secret lover. Venise wants nothing more than to bury herself in her grief at the king’s death, but her conscience will not allow her to abandon the young man who is so like his father. The only question is whether the two of them can stand against the Queen Regent’s black magic.

Download or read book Collaborators written by Deborah J. Ross and published by Deborah J. Ross. This book was released on 2021-07-04 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First-rate world-building from a writer gifted with soaring imagination and good old-fashioned Sense of Wonder. — C.J. Cherryh A romantic and intellectually sexy gender discussion wrapped up in a compelling novel. — J. M. Frey, Lambda Literary Award reviews Poised on the brink of war, the people of the planet Bandar are stunned by the arrival of a disabled Terran space ship. But the Terrans are even less prepared to understand the politics, gender fluidity, or mob reflexes of the natives. The Terran captain uses increasing force as the only way to ensure desperately needed repairs. Hoping to bring enlightened human values to the natives, a young scientist's intervention leads to disaster. After a vicious assault, a pregnant native becomes radicalized. A failed poet sees the Terran occupation as a way to gain the recognition he craves. A widow whose farm is bombed using Terran weaponry journeys to the capital in search of help and ends up facing a firing squad. And a reporter becomes the voice of the resistance, determined to take back his world from the invaders... As violence escalates, the fate of both peoples rests with those who have suffered the most. Can they find a way to forgiveness . . . and peace? Lambda Literary Award Finalist James Tiptree, Jr. Award 2014 Long List

Download or read book A Heat Wave in the Hellers and Other Tales of Darkover written by Deborah J. Ross and published by Deborah J. Ross. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: : In 1985, Deborah J. Ross sold her first Darkover short story to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Free Amazons of Darkover. For the first time, here are all of Ross’s Darkover short stories, some of them previously unpublished, now collected in one volume. ...A pair of City Guards cadets invent an imaginary recruit in order to avoid their chores, and then must face the consequences… In the Ages of Chaos, a young wizard must rely on his uncertain powers to survive a haunted Tower… Only the legendary Keeper could save her circle under the onslaught of forbidden weapons, but the results would cripple generations of women to come… …and in the title story, written as a birthday gift, Ross sends Marion Zimmer Bradley herself to Darkover to solve a crisis in “A Heat Wave in the Hellers”…

Download or read book The Children of Kings written by Marion Zimmer Bradley and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Court life for prince Gareth Elhalyn, grandson of the legendary Regis Hastur, has become unbearable. In a desperate attempt to escape, Gareth appeals to his powerful grandmother, Linnea, and with her blessings, disguises himself and travels to the barbarous, warlike dry towns where no one will recognize a prince. Meanwhile, Linnea has never ceased to search for her lost daughter, Kierestelli, whom she and Regis were forced to send into hiding with the native chieri.

Download or read book The Fallen Man A short story written by Deborah J. Ross and published by Deborah J. Ross. This book was released on with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In magical Renaissance Italy, art not only captures reality but remakes it. Shadows gather within the duke’s palazzo, threats that only the gifted young artist Rodiana can visualize through her painting. Danger lurks even closer, as a lecherous noble guest is bent on taking Rodiana for himself. Her best defense against the attack and its aftermath lies in the power of her art to both reveal and conceal the truth. This story was based on a historical personage, the Renaissance fresco painter, Onorate Rodiana, who escaped an assault by a wealthy courtier to become a notorious bandit queen.

Download or read book Elisha Magus written by E. C. Ambrose and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-03-03 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: E.C. Ambrose's gritty, sharp historical fantasy series, The Dark Apostle, follows Elisha Barber through a magical reimagining of 14th-century England Elisha, a barber-surgeon from the poorest streets of benighted fourteenth-century London, has come a long way from home. He was always skilled at his work, but skill alone could not protect him on the day that disaster left his family ruined and Elisha himself accused of murder. With no other options, Elisha accepted a devil's bargain from Lucius, a haughty physician, to avoid death by hanging--by serving under the sadistic doctor as a battle surgeon of the king's army, at the front lines of an unjust war. Elisha worked night and day, both tending to the wounded soldiers and protecting them from the physician's experiments. Even so, he soon found that he had a talent for a surprising and deadly sort of magic, and was drawn into the clandestine world of sorcery by the enchanting young witch Brigit--who had baffling ties to his past, and ambitious plans for his future. Yet even Brigit did not understand the terrible power Elisha could wield, until the day he was forced to embrace it and end the war...by killing the king. Now, Elisha has become a wanted man--not only by those who hate and fear him, but by those who'd seek to woo his support. Because, hidden behind the politics of court and castle, it is magic that offers power in its purest form. And the players in that deeper game are stranger and more terrifying than Elisha could ever have dreamed. There are the magi, those who have grasped the secrets of affinity and knowledge to manipulate mind and matter, always working behind the scenes. There are the indivisi, thought mad by the rest of the magical world: those so devoted to their subject of study that they have become "indivisible" from it, and whose influence in their realm is wondrous beyond even the imaginations of "normal" magi. And then there are--there may be--the necromancers, whose methods, motives, and very existence remain mysterious. Where rumors of their passing go, death follows. But death follows Elisha, too.

Download or read book The Vanished Queen written by Lisbeth Campbell and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in hardcover in 2020 by Saga Press.

Download or read book Four Paws to Light My Way Novelette written by Deborah J. Ross and published by Deborah J. Ross. This book was released on with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The warlock’s curse swept across the land, affecting each in a different way. Jian the swordswoman was left blind and in despair, but the Soldier God sent her a dog to act as her eyes. Now the king has summons Jian back into his service. Only a sword fighter without sight can protect the princess whose face is death to any who look upon her. Their mission is to defeat the warlock and lift the curse from the dying land. But can Jian fight well enough under her dog’s guidance to survive the perilous journey? And what price will she pay for victory?

Download or read book Sinners and Saints written by Jennifer Roberson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-05-10 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in paperback, a biker and a cowboy must fight the coming apocalypse in the second book of the Blood and Bone contemporary western fantasy series. It's the End of Days, and Gabe and Remi--an ex-con biker and a Texas cowboy--have been conscripted to join the heavenly host in a battle against Lucifer's spec ops troops: demons who inhabit characters from fiction, history, myths, legends, and folklore. But Gabe and Remi, still learning their roles, now must deal with one particular demon wearing the body of an infamous murderer: Jack the Ripper. Young women bearing the names of the murder victims killed during the Ripper's time are turning up dead, setting Gabe and Remi on a perilous path to save whoever they can, while also battling members of Lucifer's vanguard bent on killing them. Sinners and Saints is myth and magic, gods and goddesses, angels and agendas.

Download or read book A Spoonful of Magic written by Irene Radford and published by Astra Publishing House. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A delightful new urban fantasy about a kitchen witch and her magical family Daphne "Daffy" Rose Wallace Deschants has an ideal suburban life—three wonderful and talented children; a coffee shop and bakery, owned and run with her best friend; a nearly perfect husband, Gabriel, or "G" to his friends and family. Life could hardly be better. But G's perfection hides dangerous secrets. When Daffy uncovers evidence of his infidelity, her perfect life seems to be in ruins. On their wedding anniversary, Daffy prepares to confront him, only to be stopped in her tracks when he foils a mugging attempt using wizard-level magic. Suddenly, Daphne is part of a world she never imagined--where her husband is not a traveling troubleshooter for a software company, but the sheriff of the International Guild of Wizards, and her brilliant children are also budding magicians. Even she herself is not just a great baker and barista—she's actually a kitchen witch. And her discovery of her powers is only just beginnning. But even the midst of her chaotic new life, another problem is brewing. G's ex-wife, a dangerous witch, has escaped from her magical prison. Revenge-bent and blind, she needs the eyes of her son to restore her sight—the son Daffy has raised as her own since he was a year old. Now Daphne must find a way to harness her new powers and protect her family—or risk losing everything she holds dear.

Download or read book Transfusion written by Deborah J. Ross and published by Deborah J. Ross. This book was released on 2015-04-28 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The vampire has known only evil since he was made, until an unlikely friendship reconnects him with life... Two women mourning two dead mothers tread the boundaries between grief and obsession... A ghoulish spirit haunts a refugee in Renaissance Venice... A healer discovers a dying man with the heart of a dragon on her doorstep... Two boys travel back in time to discover the true nature of Tyrannosaurus rex... A mother vampire, struggling to raise two vampire children in Hollywood, encounters her biggest challenge yet: the PTA. From the ancient Indus Valley to post-apocalyptic California come fourteen tales of love, redemption, and hope...and occasional humor.

Download or read book Life and Limb written by Jennifer Roberson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biker and a cowboy must stop the apocalypse in the first book of the Blood and Bone modern western fantasy series. His voice was rich, a much loved baritone, as he handed his seven-year-old grandson a gun. “It’s time we had a talk, you and I. You won’t remember it, but you need to know it, and one day, when it’s time, I’ll call it up in you. You’ll know who you are, and what you’re intended to do. You’ll be a soldier, boy. Sealed to it. Life and limb, blood and bone. Not a soldier like others are, for it’s not the kind of war most people fight on earth. But because we’re not ‘most people,’ you and I, it will be far more important. The fate of the world will hinge upon it.” Now no longer that wide-eyed child, Gabe is fresh out of prison, a leather-clad biker answering Grandaddy’s peremptory summons to, of all places, a cowboy bar in Northern Arizona. He is about to find out just how different he is from “most people”—and to meet the stranger with whom he will be sealed: life and limb, blood and bone, conscripted to fight an unholy war unlike any other. For the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. When he does. And Gabe, thrown into the unlikely company of a country-music-loving rodeo cowboy from West Texas, an ancient Celtic goddess of war, an African Orisha who sings volcanoes awake, a Chinese goddess of mercy, Nephilim, and Grigori, finds himself fighting a battle he was bred for, but wants no part of.

Download or read book Ink Dance written by Deborah J. Ross and published by Deborah J. Ross. This book was released on 2015-05-04 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A cup of inspiration, a dash of understanding, and a generous serving of wisdom for writers new and old. From the desk of writer and editor Deborah J. Ross comes a collection of warm, insightful essays on the writing life: including getting started, negotiating with the Idea Fairy and creating memorable characters, writing queries, surviving bad reviews, dealing with life’s interruptions, confronting creative jealousy, and nourishing yourself and your creative muse.