Laurence Fitzroy is trapped in a golden cage. The only son of a wealthy London baronet, he's struggling to escape his father's suffocating world. But Laurie is losing his fight. At 19 years of age, bright and imaginative, he's no match for the brutal Sir William. Laurie wants to be an actor - bad enough as far as Sir William is concerned, but, worse than that, he's gay.

Successful British model Sam was making a big name for himself on the catwalks of Rome when he met and fell head over heels in love with Lauro, a waiter in a pizza restaurant. Lauro, charming and naïve, returned all Sam's affection, and they enjoyed one passionate summer in the vibrant city and the wild campagna countryside beyond. But Sam had big dreams. He accepted a modelling assignment in New York and left his pizza boy behind. Now Sam is back, older and wiser. But Lauro is older and wiser too.

A cop and a recovering addict - no chance for romance there. Yet Vince, a street-hardened narcotics officer, is having to reassess his life. Six months ago, he hit rock-bottom. A bullet brought him down, and his beloved partner Jack betrayed him. Badly disabled and in constant pain, Vince is flying a desk these days, and it doesn't suit him at all. His world is looking grim when he meets Rowan Clyde, sole surviving witness to a vicious drugs-related killing.

Rob and Karan are a great couple, but they're tearing apart under the pressures of modern life. They both work as paramedics for the NHS, and just before Christmas, their plans for the future are in jeopardy. Rob knows he's on thin ice with the man he loves more than anyone else in the world, and he's at a loss to fix it. The job is getting tougher, and Karan, who's of Sikh descent, is facing violence on the streets in the wake of Britain's decision to leave the EU. Financial problems, hostile families on both sides.... Their troubles seem insoluble.

Davey Bell has been trying to live safely. He's struggled through a rough adolescence and has a decent job, a home of his own. He agrees to a meeting with his ex, even though Burdo got him into so much trouble in the past. But Burdo has plans, armed robbery among them. When Davey recoils from his efforts at blackmail, Burdo swears he'll track him down. There's something inhuman about Burdo's rage, and Davey panics and runs from him.

Priddy's a lost soul in a part of Cornwall the tourists don't get to see. He's young, sweet-natured, and gorgeous, but that's not enough to achieve escape velocity from his deadbeat village and rotten family life. He's a drifter and a dreamer, and self-preservation isn't his strong suit. An accidental overdose of a nightclub drug leaves him fractured, hallucinating, with too many vital circuits fried to function in a tough world. When a friend offers him winter work in a lighthouse, he gratefully accepts.

John Griffin and Michael South - agents in the renegade counterterrorism agency Last Line, and closer than brothers. It's a fast-lane life of danger and excitement. John loves every minute of it, but he's facing one big problem now: his feelings for Mike have flared up from friendship into a passion he can no longer hide. And Mike, although the bravest and best of partners, doesn't feel the same.

Mallory is on the run from his whole life. He's been working for an environmental activism group, but he's out of control, trying to wipe out the memories of a tough childhood in his efforts to save the planet. When an accident at sea costs the lives of his colleagues, he crash-lands back in his hometown in the far north of Scotland, lonely and at rock bottom. It's the last place on earth he expects to find comfort or friendship.

Thomas Penrose is a village doctor in rural Cornwall. Popular with patients and friends alike, and handsome into the bargain, he lives in a romantic clifftop tower by the sea. It's a wonderful life - if only Dr. Tom could enjoy it. He's a veteran of the conflict in Afghanistan, fighting a lonely battle against alcoholism and PTSD. Determined not to inflict his troubles on anyone else, Tom keeps himself to himself. But fate has other ideas, and brings a handsome surfer crashing to his feet after a dreadful wipe-out on Porth Beach.

Shattered by his lover Jason's suicide, archaeologist Dan Logan is struggling to patch his life together again. He's desperately following up Jason's final obsession, a secret buried deep within the military zone on Salisbury Plain. Anything is better than facing the void of his grief. He's convinced he'll never love again. When unexpected help arrives in the form of a soldier named Summer Rayne, the last thing Dan could have predicted is the spark of attraction between them.

Jamie Canning has never been able to figure out how he lost his closest friend. Four years ago, his tattooed, wisecracking, rule-breaking roommate cut him off without an explanation. So what if things got a little weird on the last night of hockey camp the summer they were 18? It was just a little drunken foolishness. Nobody died.

Julian "Quinn" Quintero, a gruff, tough Miami SWAT officer, has been injured on the job, and all he's looking for is a little peace and quiet to recover - difficult to achieve with his large Cuban family. An adventure in picking up his prescriptions puts him in the path of his geeky, brownie-baking neighbor, Spencer Morgan. Spencer sweeps into Quinn's life like a tropical storm of sunshine and rainbows. Not surprisingly, it's chaos at first sight.

Milo. Unusual. Quirky. Different. I’ve heard it all. I’ve accepted I’m not for everyone. When I find out I inherited a bookstore and apartment on a small East Coast island, I jump at the chance for a new life. Turns out I’ve also inherited a sexy, tattooed guy who not only rents the space next to my store but my apartment too. Gideon. I wasn’t looking for a roommate, but it’s not like I can stay at Milo’s place while he’s banished to a hotel. According to Milo, we’re bestie goals. And if he doesn’t wear pants at home, who am I to complain?

Every bartender should follow one simple rule—don't go home with the customers. That’s been easy for me to stick to, until the night a cocky, confident, and sinfully charming hockey star walks into my bar. This sexy athlete is too hard to resist, especially when he makes it clear how much he wants the “sarcastic, witty, hot AF” guy behind the bar—also known as me.

Caitlyn Sullivan had come from a long line of Hollywood royalty, stretching back to her Irish immigrant great-grandfather. At nine, she was already a star - yet still an innocent child who loved to play hide-and-seek with her cousins at the family home in Big Sur. It was during one of those games that she disappeared. Some may have considered her a pampered princess, but Cate was in fact a smart, scrappy fighter, and she managed to escape her abductors. Callan Cooper was shocked to find the bloodied, exhausted girl huddled in his house.

Gideon Frayne has spent his whole working life as a policeman in the village of Dark on Bodmin Moor. His first missing-child case is eating him alive. When his own boss sends in a psychic to help with the case, he's gutted - he's a level-headed copper who doesn't believe in such things, and he can't help but think that the arrival of clairvoyant Lee Tyack is a comment on his failure to find the little girl. But Lee is hard to hate, no matter how Gideon tries. At first Lee's insights into the case make no sense, but he seems to have a window straight into Gideon's heart.

M'lady's name is Shadowless, cos she's the fastest ship in the sky. And she ain't no everyday airship, she's an aethership, meaning she don't need engines nor turbines nor nowt but an aethermancer and the stars t' guide her. When luckless Dil falls half-dead onto the deck of the skyship Shadowless, he joins an outlaw crew haunted by visions of maelstrom. Driven by a ruthless captain, guided by a pilot with madness in her eyes, they hunt the power that holds up the clouds. Until it turns - to hunt them.

Marine biologist Susie Cooper traded her life in America for a dream job on the rugged Scottish coast. Now all she lacks is the right man to start a family with. After their first meeting, she knows sexy Detective Inspector Nick Archer isn't what she's looking for. He's the type of guy whose idea of commitment is staying the whole night. Nick has returned to St. Andrews for one reason only - to fulfill his vow to find his wife's killer.

Search-and-rescue pilot Kacey Fairing is home on leave in Mercy Falls, Montana, 12 years after she joined the military to escape the mistakes of her past. With a job waiting for her as the new lead pilot of Peak Rescue in Glacier National Park, Kacey hopes to reconnect with the now-teenage daughter she sees only between deployments. What she doesn't realize is that someone else is also back in town.

On the vast, sunlit walls of the world's greatest monolith, two veteran climbers unwittingly ascend into a vertical underworld. In a place where obsession kills, they quickly fall prey to past loves, old demons, and ghostly revenge.

When Kim Fraser enters the lair of shifter Liam Morrissey to get answers for a client accused of murder, she is unprepared for her attraction to him. But her venture into Shiftertown uncovers too many secrets the shifters want kept secret. The unmated Liam is forced to protect Kim against the wrath of his clan leader and his own father. What Liam doesn't expect when he makes the mate claim for Kim's own protection is a powerful attraction to the courageous and warm-hearted human woman.

When the final four women in competition for an aloof, if somewhat sleazy, bachelor’s heart arrive on a mysterious island in the Pacific Northwest, they mentally prepare themselves for another week of extreme sleep deprivation, invasive interviews, and of course, the salacious drama that viewers nationwide tune in to eagerly devour. Each woman came on The Catch for her own reasons - brand sponsorships, followers, and yes, even love - and they’ve all got their eyes steadfastly trained on their respective prizes.

It was supposed to be a 72-hour mission, in and out, until Brandt Stryker got stranded in the arid African plains with predators before him, a killer at his heels, and an exotic princess by his side. Dalilah Al Arif stirs his blood, makes him crave things he'd lost long ago - but she is off-limits, promised to a sheik. Dalilah's wedding contract stipulates she must wed before her 30th birthday - just months away. It's a duty she accepts. But in the arms of her handsome protector, she's torn between her sense of duty and honor, and her freedom.

One woman's story as she blogs about - and fights back against - the zombie apocalypse.

Allison Hewitt and her five colleagues at the Brooks and Peabody Bookstore are trapped together when the zombie outbreak hits. Allison reaches out for help through her blog, writing on her laptop. It may also be her only chance to reach her mother. But as the reality of their situation sinks in, Allison's blog becomes a harrowing account of her edge-of-the-seat adventures.

Kate Archer returns home in search of her missing grandmother Bonny, and to serve as guardian of the town's amusement park until her return… only the carousel animals are really exiles from the faerie world. And not the nice kind of exiles either - no, these are hardened criminals.

In the hospital ER where she works, Mary is used to chaos. But lately, every aspect of her life seems adrift. She's feeling disconnected from herself. Voices appear in her head. And the vivid, disturbing dreams she's had all her life are becoming more intense. Then she meets Michael. He's handsome, enigmatic, and knows more than he can say. In his company, she slowly remembers the truth about herself.

With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect - and enjoy.

There came an elastic aftershock of creaks and groans and then, softly softly, a chinking shower of rubbled cement. Leaves calmed and trunks stood serene. Where, not a minute before, there had been a suburb, there was now only woodland standing amid ruins. There is no warning. No chance to prepare. They arrive in the night: thundering up through the ground, transforming streets and towns into shadowy forest. Buildings are destroyed.

Best-selling science fiction superstars Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle combine their talents with those of Steven Barnes in an extraordinary adventure of humankind’s first outpost in the farthest reaches of space. Light years from Earth, colonists land on a planet they name Avalon. It seems like a paradise—until native creatures savagely attack. It will take every bit of intelligence, courage, and military-style discipline to survive.

Since she bought her rambling fixer-upper of a house, Jacobia Tiptree has gotten used to finding things broken. But her latest problem isn't so easily repaired. Along with the rotting floor joists and sagging support beams, there's the little matter of the dead man in Jake's storeroom, an ice pick planted firmly in his cranium. Jake's unknown guest turns out to be local boy turned billionaire Threnody McIlwaine.

Indulge in all the shenanigans at CSG in one volume! Hellhounds declaring a glitter fight? Vampires at war with accounting? It's another day at the Community of Species Government.

Troy: Of course I fell for a football jock. But Jackson and I are polar opposites. He's popular, confident, and as hot as hell in a tight T-shirt. Me? I'm just a scrawny, awkward nerd. Another point of difference: He's straight.

August is a misfit with a pyro streak, and Jack is a golden boy on the varsity rugby team - but their intense friendship goes way back. Jack begins to see increasingly vivid hallucinations that take the form of an elaborate fantasy kingdom creeping into the edges of the real world. With their parents' unreliable behavior, August decides to help Jack the way he always has - on his own. He accepts the visions as reality, even when Jack leads them on a quest to fulfill a dark prophecy.

THE MARSHAL. Melvin Kaur is a nobleman, a magician, and a high-ranking cog in the Clockwork Brigade working out of Istal. His well-established spot in high society is a grand cover for the smuggling his family oversees. But when a handoff goes wrong, and Melvin is forced to flee through the night with his charges, he finds unexpected help from an endearing man in the unlikeliest of places.

When musclebound frat bro Brad gets run off the road by a reckless driver, he thinks it's game over. When he wakes up inside his twin brother's favorite corny shifter romance novel, he realizes the real game is just beginning. Desperate to get back to a world where he's top dog, Brad finds himself in the crosshairs of Raul, the menacingly hot hero of The Wolf's Mate, who's intent on teaching Brad a whole new meaning to the word alpha.

Mallory is on the run from his whole life. He's been working for an environmental activism group, but he's out of control, trying to wipe out the memories of a tough childhood in his efforts to save the planet. When an accident at sea costs the lives of his colleagues, he crash-lands back in his hometown in the far north of Scotland, lonely and at rock bottom. It's the last place on earth he expects to find comfort or friendship.

Jamie Canning has never been able to figure out how he lost his closest friend. Four years ago, his tattooed, wisecracking, rule-breaking roommate cut him off without an explanation. So what if things got a little weird on the last night of hockey camp the summer they were 18? It was just a little drunken foolishness. Nobody died.

Hundreds of years ago, on a wild sea coast, two bold-hearted men met in combat and love...This is the story of Caius, a Christian monk struggling to reconcile his sensual nature with his newfound faith, and of Fenrir, a ferocious Viking raider abandoned by his comrades and left for dead. When Caius takes pity on the wounded man, his brethren are horrified: what kind of wolf has Cai brought into the fold?

Marty Bell knows what it's like to be bullied. He was the shy, overweight kid at school, and those memories have helped turn him into an excellent teacher - though he's never spread his wings beyond the remote northern village where he grew up. The last thing he needs in his life is the reappearance of Devlin Surtees, leader of the gang who made his schooldays so tough. Dev is the glamorous village hero now, flying acrobatics planes and fighter jets for the RAF. He’s just as spellbinding, handsome and infuriating as Marty recalls.

After the death of his wife, Tanner Rowe takes a step toward making her dying wish come true and buys the house with the dilapidated barn she'd been drawn to in the Upper Peninsula. But after a year, he still can't get past his grief long enough to make the repairs he'd promised. Recently out of prison, Cole Lachlan has little to his name. Homeless, broke, and without many options as a felon, Cole heads to Red Bluff with hopes of a second chance. There he meets Tanner, whose loneliness mirrors his own, and soon Cole is trading room and board for rebuilding the burned-out barn.