Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Publishing" in Science Fiction & Fantasy

When Dan, sixteen, runs away from a terrible home life to join a circus, he has no idea what he’s getting himself into. Based on Dante’s Inferno, The Ninth Circle follows a young man’s coming-of-age as he travels with the circus through nine states. With the Ringmaster as his guide, Dan finds himself falling in love with the Bearded Lady but hated by almost everyone else, including the Strong Man, the Lion Tamers, and the Sword Swallower.

Following in the footsteps of such chroniclers of American lunacy as Cormac McCarthy, Joy Williams, and Charles Portis, Robin McLean’s Pity the Beast is a mind-melting feminist Western that pins a tale of sexual violence and vengeance to a canvas stretching back to prehistory. 

Twins Virginia and Tommy Matthews have been on their own since they were orphaned at the age of five, surviving a merciless foster care system by relying on each other. Twelve years later, the world begins to collapse around them as a deadly contagion steadily wipes out entire populations and a devastating world war rages on for the cure. When Tommy is drafted for the war, the twins are faced with a choice: stay and accept their fate of almost certain death or run. Virginia and Tommy flee into the dark night.

In the aftermath of Ireland’s battle with her ancient enemies, Queen Isolde orders her cousin, smuggler Duncan O’Malley, to assume the throne of fairy as King Finvara. He’s a fish out of water when it comes to nurturing the alliance between Ireland’s mortal and fairy peoples. And the queen wants him to wed the daughter of Ireland’s enemy, the king of Icelandic shadow elves, to help keep the peace. But the Irish think of the elves as goblins, and Finvara refuses.

Arran MacLain is a vampire on a suicide mission, driven to kill his former partner who betrayed him and the enclave they served. But two things stand in his way: Gabrielle, the human female who holds his heart, and the past that won’t let him go. If only death was enough to cleanse his soul.

Genetics Professor Michelle Murphy loses her husband under mysterious circumstances and without warning, while their brilliant eight-year-old daughter, Avalon, adopted in Kazakhstan, stubbornly believes she is a mutant. As if this were not enough, she soon finds herself thrown into the middle of a quickly thickening plot, where the legacy of Genghis Khan meets the hunt for FOXP5, a genetic transcription factor that could herald the dawn of new human species.

The goddess of love and beauty is adrift on an enchanted ocean in a magic world. The myriad forces of satanic evil plague the vessel of the passionate red-haired goddess. Only one man, John Kenton, the American adventurer, can try to save Ishtar’s priestess from the black magic that divides her world from ours.

Michael Dahl is broken. After sacrificing his magic, his health, and his lover to exorcise a demon spy, the nineteen-year-old agent is devastated to learn that the people he sought to protect see him as a conspiracy theorist and an embarrassment. But when he is shunted away to a meaningless research post, Dahl uncovers a disturbing revelation: his victory over the demon was not the end, but a portent of the impending apocalypse.

Everest Lovecraft is going to be murdered. After joining forces with a devil to destroy a tyrannical shadow corporation, Everest is furious when he foresees a massacre at the hands of the other-worldly prince. But preventing the demon’s rise to power comes with an unthinkable price: saving the world will kill his partner. Setting a trap to force the demon’s hand, Everest hopes to slay the would-be overlord and change the flow of fate. But with cutthroat traitors stalking his every move and his honor stained with treason, Everest knows he cannot face the apocalypse alone.

A double adventure written at the end of the 19th century, somewhat in the theme of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth, telling of a submarine trip in the year 1947 to reach the North Pole and a project to examine the center of the Earth by boring a deep shaft. What they find at the core of the planet surprises the enterprising explorers. 

Torn between the beauty and brutality of the new world she has found herself in, Darcy struggles to adapt. Her days are filled with magic, balls and champagne until she is sent to the shore. Accompanied by her younger sister, fake boyfriend and Guards, Darcy is expected to scare off the enemy ships that patrol the island. However, when Darcy loses control and reveals a hint of the true power she hides, Darcy piques the interest of a powerful Torturer. The darker side of the Magician’s world is revealed to Darcy, reigniting her need to keep her sister safe.

Meet Laszlo, eight-hundred-year-old demon and Hell’s least productive Curse Keeper. From his office beneath Midtown, he oversees the Drakeford Curse, which involves a pathetic family upstate and a mysterious black monolith. It’s a sexy enough assignment—colonial origins, mutating victims, et cetera—but Laszlo has no interest in maximizing the curse’s potential; he’d rather sunbathe in Ibiza, quaff martinis, and hustle the hustlers on Manhattan’s subway.

Assemble Artifacts: A short story magazine that assembles a thrilling new mix of stories from genres including horror, science-fiction, comedy, and suspense. Buried at the heart of every story in the magazine is a unique artifact, an object that has inspired our storytellers to create a big idea, an irresistible question, a new immersive world, or a sense of wonder. Unearth your next great listen with Assemble Artifacts.

What do you do when the brutal system that once kept you safe hunts you down? What price would you pay for freedom? In the acclaimed dystopian world of the Key by New York Times bestselling author Kristin Cast, two young rebels fight to determine their own worth and change the world along with themselves. This set includes The Key to Fear and The Key to Fury.

Across forty years, three continents, and a past incident in 1560 France, Serafina Olegario tests the boundaries of love, power, and corruption as she fights to escape her life of poverty and abuse. Serafina’s quest begins in Brazil when she’s possessed by the warrior goddess Yansã, who emboldens her to fight yet threatens to consume her spirit. Fueled by power and enticed by Exú, an immortal trickster and intermediary to the gods, Serafina turns to the seductive magic of Quimbanda. It’s dangerous to dance in the fire. But when you come from nothing, you have nothing to lose.

Liv’s role in the war between the Bevans and the Moores is as solid as the motif carved in her protective amulet. The problem? She never volunteered. Her connection with Trey happened too fast. She can’t trust in love built by magic. Trey’s place in the war has shifted. No longer the target, he’s just someone in the way. Not if he can help it. He’s packed and ready to return to the Moore estate. This time, he can’t bring Liv, but he can’t leave her to battle Moore-trained assassins alone.

Eleanor’s old nemesis, Ezra Oliver, forms a mysterious alliance with an army of vicious, bloodthirsty ogres, pushing Cartheigh to the brink of war. His magical finagling exposes strange connections between Eleanor’s world and our own, and places her precocious, enigmatic daughter, Natalie, in terrible danger.

Isoldra Maan is drowning in debt, specifically over 250 souls deep. As a Hound for the diabolical yet irresistible Lord of Lost Souls, she’s been stuck serving the fallen god and hunting his contracts in order to be free of her own. But when Haalarcus strikes a bargain with a divine, he places her freedom finally within reach.

Every passing night brings her closer to a terrible destiny, and even the help of her supernatural friends may not be enough to save her. The worst part is her sealed fate finally brings Rowan, the leshy she loves, back into her life. But there’s another danger lurking in the trees, something unnatural. It is a magic beyond Amy’s understanding or even Rowan’s power to control. As time runs out and danger mounts, Amy must test her strength and her courage if she has any hope of saving her friends—or herself.