World Fiction

Kiram Kir-Zaki may be considered a mechanist prodigy among his own people, but when he becomes the first Haldiim ever admitted to the prestigious Sagrada Academy, he is thrown into a world where power, superstition and swordplay outweigh even the most scholarly of achievements. But when the intimidation from his Cadeleonian classmates turns bloody, Kiram unexpectedly finds himself befriended by Javier Tornesal, the leader of a group of cardsharps, duelists and lotharios who call themselves Hellions.

Lorelei Clay isn’t like other people. She isn’t even like other supernaturals. Her specialties are the nightmares of the living, communication with the dead, and cooking bacon until it’s golden brown and perfectly crispy—no magic required.

In 1961 Charlotte, North Carolina, the predominantly black neighborhood of Brooklyn is a bustling city within a city. Self-contained and vibrant, it has its own restaurants, schools, theaters, churches, and night clubs. There are shotgun shacks and poverty, along with well-maintained houses like the one Loraylee Hawkins shares with her young son, Hawk, her Uncle Ray, and her grandmother, Bibi. Loraylee's love for Archibald Griffin, Hawk's white father and manager of the cafeteria where she works, must be kept secret in the segregated South.

Anna Hibiscus lives in Africa. Amazing Africa. She lives with her whole family in a wonderful house. There is always somebody to laugh or play with. She loves to splash in the sea with her cousins and have parties with her aunties. But more than anything else in the world, Anna Hibiscus would love to see snow.

Covert agent Sigmund Ausfaller is Earth's secret weapon, humanity's best defense against all conspiracies, real and imaginary, and all foes both human and alien. Who better than a brilliant paranoid to expose the devious plots of others?

But Sigmund may finally have met his match in Nessus, representative of the secretive Puppeteers, the elder race who wield vastly superior technologies.

When a pilot with no name breaks through a rift to a dying world, he and his experimental fighter plane become the only things in the way of a horrific army of monsters that is marching to burn down the mystical world tree and kill its keeper as the final symbol of their grim victory.

American journalist, short story writer, and poet, Ambrose Bierce is best known for his formidably vicious wit - given free rein in his famous column, "The Prattler." But his stories were elegantly crafted, with a compelling blend of realistic detail, clever plot twists, and his own sardonic humor. These 8 macabre stories, read here by Mark Hammer, establish Bierce as a master of the genre.

Having experienced his first survival type Trial, Trent Embra is eager to explore what else the world has to offer. There is only one problem. Not everyone comes away from a month of constant fighting untouched. Trent's friend Tersa is unhinged by her time in the Land of the Undying Lord, and Sergeant Cullen means to see her fixed. Enlisted to help, Trent is dragged toward another Trial, mostly willingly. Only time will tell if Tersa still has a place in the Guard and what the Infinite World has in store for Trent.

Steven Pressfield is the internationally best-selling author of Gates of Fire and Tides of War. An epic of love and war, Last of the Amazons is a gripping, imaginative novel of the ancient world filled with Pressfield’s trademark extraordinary attention to detail. In the time before Homer, the legendary Theseus, king of Athens, journeys to the nation of proud female warriors whom the Greeks called Amazons.

For the first time, Stephen King has fully authorized a return to the harrowing world of The Stand through this original short story anthology as presented by award-winning authors and editors Christopher Golden and Brian Keene. Bringing together some of today’s greatest and most visionary writers, The End of the World As We Know It features unforgettable, all-new stories set during and after (and some perhaps long after) the events of The Stand.

When an experimental shuttlecraft fails, Captain Christopher Pike suspects a mechanical malfunction—only to discover the very principles on which Starfleet bases its technology have simply stopped functioning. He and his crewmates are forced to abandon ship in a dangerous maneuver that scatters their party across the strangest new world they’ve ever encountered.

Meet Amy, the daughter of the Earl of Northland. Her entire family has been reincarnated as the aristocratic Northland family. In an attempt to amicably remove herself as a candidate for the Third Prince’s fiancée–which would certainly cement her position as the game’s villainess—Amy has taken drastic measures: eating tons of food and just enjoying life (at her mother’s suggestion). With this reincarnation, Amy has been given a precious second chance at life, and this time, nothing—not even an otome game—is going to stop her from fulfilling her dream: Amy wants a cat!

Zylar of Kith B'alak is a four-time loser in the annual Choosing. If he fails to find a nest guardian this time, he'll lose his chance to have a mate for all time. Desperation drives him to try a matching service, but due to a freak solar flare and a severely malfunctioning ship AI, things go way off course. This "human being" is not the Tiralan match he was seeking.

A modern classic in the African literary canon and voted in the Top Ten Africa’s 100 Best Books of the 20th Century, this novel brings to the politics of decolonization theory the energy of women’s rights. An extraordinarily well-crafted work, this book is a work of vision. Through its deft negotiation of race, class, gender, and cultural change, it dramatizes the "nervousness" of the "postcolonial" conditions that bedevil us still.

With nowhere to turn, a young woman must open herself to ancient truths, eternal powers, and the tragic mystery surrounding her mother and grandmother. She must bargain with gods, and give birth to new legends.

While seeking solace from a broken heart, Savannah Rose travels to the picturesque city of Savannah, Georgia, only to find herself trapped within the confines of romance, murder, and mystery. It is the 1940s, a war is being waged in Europe, and a serial killer stalks the streets of Savannah, targeting young women and terrorizing the city. When the killer sets his sights on Savannah Rose, she must fight to survive, and in an attempt to save her life, she journeys away from the city only to encounter tragedy and more heartbreak. Forced to return home and face the danger that continues to lurk...

As fall paints the Pennsylvania countryside in flaming colors, Sylvia Bergstrom Compson is contemplating the future of her beloved Elm Creek Quilts. The Elm Creek Quilt Camp remains the most popular quilter’s retreat in the country, but unexpected financial difficulties have beset them and the Bergstrom family’s stately nineteenth-century manor. Now in her eighth decade, Sylvia is determined to maintain her family’s legacy, but she needs new resources—financial and emotional.

The students in class 6B become nervous when their teacher receives an anonymous note claiming someone in the room is a witch. For in this society, witches are outlawed, whether they are good or bad. In fact, witches are burned at the stake, because that's the law.

Picking up where Fall of Giants, the first novel in the extraordinary Century Trilogy, left off, Winter of the World follows its five interrelated families - American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh - through a time of enormous social, political, and economic turmoil, beginning with the rise of the Third Reich, through the great dramas of World War II, and into the beginning of the long Cold War.

The men and women honored in Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation speak in this collection of letters from and about the Depression and World War II.