An aspiring investigative journalist, Killishia Renner, finds out with the rest of the world that she is an elf when she manifests elvish physical traits on the air during the tree lighting ceremony in Rockefeller Center in New York. It challenges everything she thought she knew about herself and her family. Intern follows the hurdles she must overcome as she learns about being an elf while facing the uncomfortable popularity of being elfed in New York.

This short story follows two new mothers and their struggles between new and old traditions. Hilarity ensues as a slightly used MUB (Monster Under the Bed) helps their daughter in a rite of passage. Parenting will never be the same.

This short story is set in Europe before the start of World War Two, Jillian tours the clubs as a jazz singer to put a little adventure into her life. She gets more than she bargains for when she does a little favor for the girl who has her eye. She winds up running for her life and discovering a calling that gives her a purpose in life that is bigger than herself.

Evangeline Kane is thrust into a world and a role she never asked for. She finds herself questioning her sanity as she finds herself bound to a bridge as its Troll when the previous champion died in her arms. The gateway from the Under-Veil to the city of Cincinnati lies unprotected, open to malicious fae intent on chaos and corruption of the mortals that dwell in it, if she does not stand against them.

On her first outing to the forest with her mother, Rain finds herself running for her life from ravenous wolves when she gets lost in the woods. Her mother always taught her than no matter how big you are, there is always something bigger and badder than you out there.

This paranormal short story follows Lischca Fonteneau, who takes an internship at the antiquities museum of the city she had finally settled in. She feels that she has finally ceased her lifelong wanderings. Her boss, Kimoura Kaga, seemed hauntingly familiar to her and she couldn't place exactly why. Lischca believes she is finally rid of the curse that had hounded her since the day she became an adult. But the powers that be had other plans for her.

In this short story, Vicky is introduced to Oxford and quickly shuffled off campus as not to embarrass the Dean. She finds a new roommate, Candice, and decides it is her duty to find her a boyfriend. Because "I'd so make an awesome matchmaker!" She inadvertently succeeds in her own hyper-loveable fashion. We also learn some of the reasons behind her dichotomy of genius and scatterbrained personality, and the reason she left her friends and family to attend Oxford.

This novella occurs 15 years after Ichabod Crane rid Sleepy Hollow of the wraith of a fallen Hessian soldier, the Headless Horseman, which terrorized the village. Now word has spread of the Horseman's return. Ichabod's daughter, Imelda, answers the call to investigate and stop the Horseman at all costs. Armed with her father's sword, fighting prowess, and sharp mind, Imelda uncovers the secrets the Hollow has hidden for so long. New suspicions and old loves complicate her mission, as she finds that all is not as it seems in the little New England town.

After thousands of years away from her home planet of Olympus, Artemis of the Hunt has finally returned to the Citadel. She brings with her hundreds of Olympian men rescued from the clutches of the Titans by the legendary Valkyrie, Kara the Wild One, along with a peace envoy of Asgard intent on coming to a peace accord and mutual defense pact with Olympus. Olympus comes under attack, and Artemis and the Asgard must stand against the oncoming enemy.

This short novella follows Fixit, a worker on the surface of Tau Ceti Prime. She is an ace mechanic who keeps the automated harvesting machines in good running order. She has never missed a quota in her efforts help to feed all the people "topside" in the giant floating cities in the sky. She has to make her first trip to the technologically advanced cities for the first time in her life to make an emergency shipment to New Terra City because Betweeners had hijacked the prior shipment.

While out celebrating her 21st birthday, Angelina Drake finds herself immersed in a curse that goes back generations, to the time when the first Djinn terrorized the world. She has to fight for her life and her friends when an old evil comes knocking. The wishes of the people around her just complicate the situation as she can hear them all, spoken or not. When she finds herself with wings as a result of an errant wish, she must enlist the help of some new friends to try to end the curse that plagues her line.

Fleas is the first in a series of young adult novellas that follow three friends with paranormal powers as they graduate from school and start an odd-jobs business together. Steph Ryder is a lycan shifter, but she is underpowered - what is known as a stringer. She can't shift into her full werewolf form, but she can manage to take the form of a fox. Steph must find out who framed her best friend, Penny, for a theft at the high school that got her expelled just days before graduation.

Zack Lightman has never much cared for reality. He vastly prefers the countless science-fiction movies, books, and videogames he's spent his life consuming. And too often, he catches himself wishing that some fantastic, impossible, world-altering event could arrive to whisk him off on a grand spacefaring adventure.

Leo Graf was just your average highly efficient engineer: mind your own business, fix what's wrong, and move on to the next job. But all that changed on his assignment to the Cay Habitat, where a group of humanoids had been secretly, commercially bioengineered for working in free fall. Could he just stand there and allow the exploitation of hundreds of helpless children merely to enhance the bottom line of a heartless mega-corporation?

Get ready to experience two more origin stories in the Backyard Starship universe.

Joey Harker isn't a hero. In fact, he's the kind of guy who gets lost in his own house. But then one day, Joey gets really lost. He walks straight out of his world and into another dimension. Joey's walk between the worlds makes him prey to two terrible forces: armies of magic and science who will do anything to harness his power to travel between dimensions.

Pi in the Sky stars Joss, the seventh son of the Supreme Overlord of the Universe, whose job is to deliver magical pies - ones that happen to hold the secrets of the cosmos. But when planet Earth suddenly disappears, Joss must figure out a way to bring it back - even if it means enlisting the help of an outspoken Earth girl named Annika.

Syd Chambers grew up on Earth with his human mother and barely remembers his alien father from Denza, who left on a mission when Syd was very young. After leaving Earth, Syd learned the truth of his father’s disappearance on the planet Ashfall—his father had died protecting a devastating secret about the history between humans and Denzans.

Joy Abara knows her place. A commoner from the lowly planet Hali, she lives a simple life—apart from the notoriety that being Kindred to the nobility’s most infamous playboy brings. Duke Felix Hamdi has a plan. He will exasperate his noble family to the point that they agree to let him choose his own future and finally meet his Kindred face-to-face. Then the royal family is assassinated, putting Felix next in line for the throne and accused of the murders. Someone will stop at nothing until he’s dead, which means they’ll target Joy, too.

Boss loves to dive historical ships, derelict spacecraft found adrift in the blackness between the stars. Sometimes she salvages for money, but mostly she's an active historian. She wants to know about the past--to experience it firsthand. Once she's dived the ship, she'll either leave it for others to find or file a claim so that she can bring tourists to dive it as well. It's a good life for a tough loner, with more interest in artifacts than people.

Earth is about to go dark. Without a new power source, life as we know it will be toast. A global competition is under way to determine which four kids will join the secret mission that might just save us all. Project Alpha is a contest of physical challenges, mental puzzles, and strategic alliances. The battle is fierce. Who will lead the team? Who will pilot the most complicated space ship ever built? Who will be a friend? An enemy? And how will they survive over a year stuck on a space ship together?

On September 28th, a geologist working in Death Valley finds a mysterious new cinder cone in very well-mapped area. On October 1, the government of Australia announces the discovery of an enormous granite mountain. Like the cinder cone, it wasn't there six months ago.

Something is happening to planet Earth, and the truth is too terrifying to contemplate

They tried to destroy our planets. Our way of life. They tried to send us into extinction. But we, the Coalition, fought them and won. That was a decade ago. They’re known as the Host: a cabal of aliens seeking to dominate our sector of space. And they’re back - with help from a powerful new enemy. We’re outnumbered and unprepared. But there is hope. An ancient race of long-dead but technologically advanced aliens called the Navigators have a ship called the Blackstar that could potentially turn the tide. That is if I, Kai Locke, a humble ship racer, can find it and learn how to harness its power in time.

Cities all around the world reported strange alien vessels descending. Some saw them as the heralds of a new age; others fired everything they had at them. All were taken as the beams lashed down and drew them into the sky. Dean was left behind, seemingly the last man on Earth. A trail of clues left by his dead wife guides Dean on a perilous journey across America and beyond to learn the truth behind the mysterious ships and save humanity from its doom.

Tina never worries about being 'ordinary' - she doesn't have to, since she's known practically forever that she's not just Tina Mains, average teenager and beloved daughter. She's also the keeper of an interplanetary rescue beacon, and one day soon, it's going to activate, and then her dreams of saving all the worlds and adventuring among the stars will finally be possible.

The year is 1939. A secret society of extraordinary geniuses is about to share an incredible discovery with the world. A misguided enemy - half man, half machine - will stop at nothing to prevent the group from giving this forbidden knowledge to humanity. And a mother and son on vacation in New York City are handed a comic book infused with a secret code that will lead them straight into the crossfires of the conspiracy.

When Sara Donovan joins Project Enterprise she finds out that what doesn't kill her makes her stronger. An Air Force pilot - the best of the best to be assigned to this mission - Sara isn't afraid to travel far beyond the Milky Way on an assignment that takes her into a galaxy torn apart by a long and bitter warfare between the Dusan and the Gadi.

Colonial Union Ambassador Ode Abumwe and her team are used to life on the lower end of the diplomatic ladder. But when a high-profile diplomat goes missing, Abumwe and her team are last minute replacements on a mission critical to the Colonial Union’s future. As the team works to pull off their task, CDF Lieutenant Harry Wilson discovers there’s more to the story of the missing diplomats than anyone expected... a secret that could spell war for humanity.

Ollie and Celia think they know what the life of an elf is supposed to be like: Make toys. Help Santa. Make more toys. Help Santa. Try out a new ice-cream flavor. Help Santa. But then Santa rocks the North Pole with a surprise announcement! He's decided this is going to be his last year in the Big Red Suit, and, instead of letting his oldest son - the unfortunately named Klaus Claus - take over, he's opening up the job to any Claus or elf who wants to apply.

The first interstellar ship, John Glenn, fled a solar system populated by rogue AIs and machine/human hybrids, threatened by too much nanotechnology, and rife with political dangers. The John Glenn’s crew intended to terraform the nearly pristine planet Ymir in hopes of creating a utopian society that will limit intelligent technology, but by some miscalculation they have landed in the wrong system.