SPFBO 9 SEMIFINALIST

The island nation of Ferranda is the jewel of the Acrarian Kingdom, and its Founder, Aritz a Mata, is revered as a god amongst men. But twenty-five years ago, Aritz was merely a man, a colonizer, an Invader seeking glory and fame in the name of his King and Queen, and Ferranda was a nameless union of indigenous Tribes, reverent of the heightened powers and aptitudes granted to them by their Animal Deities, but sundered by the foreigners claiming their lands to the south.In the unconquered north, the Stone Tribe has for fifteen years offered a safe haven for the southern Tribes displaced by Aritz's Invaders, whose occupying march north has been ostensibly halted by a dense forest barrier dividing north and south. Among the Stone people lives Sen, an outcast for the circumstances of her birth, preserved in society only by her status as daughter of her Tribe's Chief. Forever relegated to the fringes of society, she is forced to watch as countless of her kin, including her sister and brother, complete their rites of passage into adulthood and accordingly earn their aptitudes by the Deity to whom they share an affinity - the Bear, the Wolf, or the Owl.Despite this, Sen finds comfort in her life of forced solitude with her close inner circle, but hers is a comfort in days of waning tenuous peace. When Aritz's technologically-advanced forces push north, Sen is thrust into a singular quest to rescue one of her precious few captured in the ensuing struggle. While her goal is earnest - save someone dear to her and prove her worth to her Tribe - her people's goal is far more dire: survival in the face of uncertainty.

His choices will save the land... or destroy it.

Ryuu is a boy orphaned by violence at a young age. Found by a wandering warrior, he learns he may have more strength than he ever imagined possible.A quiet child, Moriko is forced into a monastic system she despises. Torn from her family and the forest she grew up in, she must fight to learn the skills she’ll need to survive her tutelage under the realm’s most dangerous assassin.Young, beautiful, and broke, Takako is sold to pay for her father’s debts. Thrust into a world she doesn’t understand and battles she didn’t ask for, she must decide where her loyalties lie.When their lives crash together in a Kingdom on the brink of war, the decisions they make will change both their lives and their Kingdom forever. If they can stay alive.

Betrayed. Murdered. Reborn. One last chance, to make it right.

Theo's adventure ended with his mentor's hands around his neck. The betrayal cost him his friends, allies and everything he had built... but not his life. Though broken and powerless, Theo has one last chance to enter the Nine Worlds, wielding the knowledge and expertise of his first life. This time, he needs more than just power, he needs to unravel the deception that killed him once... and is coming for him again.Reborn in the world of Tatian, the odds are stacked against Theo this time. Demons are crawling from the darkness, inter-dimensional travelers are working against him, and a shadowy conspiracy lies in wait to destroy him. Theo has a plan to gather allies and regain his power, but weakened from his rebirth, he'll have to survive long enough to enact it.Sarah Lin is the bestselling author of Street Cultivation, the critically acclaimed The Brightest Shadow, and several other completed works. Soulhome is the first book in her newest series.

I’m Val Thorvald, and I’m an assassin.

When magical bad guys hurt people, I take care of them. Permanently.This doesn’t make me popular with the rest of the magical community—as you can tell from the numerous break-ins and assassination attempts I’ve endured over the years. But thanks to my half-elven blood, a powerful sword named Chopper, and a telepathic tiger with an attitude, I’ve always been able to handle my problems with aplomb. Maybe some cursing and swearing, too, but definitely aplomb.That changes when my boss is afflicted with a mysterious disease, a government agent starts investigating me, and a godforsaken

dragon

shows up in the middle of my latest job.I’ve taken down vampires, zombies, and ogres, but dragons are way,

way

more powerful. And it doesn’t look like this one is going to like me.Worse than that, he wants to use his magic to compel me to do his bidding, as if I’m some weak-minded minion.That’s

not

going to happen. I’d die before being some dragon’s slave.But if I can’t figure out a way to avoid him, save my boss, and get rid of the government spook, I’m screwed. Or dead. Or screwed

and

dead. And that’s never comfortable.Pick up

Sinister Magic

today to see if I make it. Even if you don’t care about me, I promise the tiger is cool.

**ON SALE THIS WEEK ONLY!**

He is a king, a warrior, the last hope of his people-and the chosen one of the sidhe ...

Faced with the unleashed might of the Underworld, Rhiann, Cade, and their companions travel to the world of the sidhe. And it is there, in the heart of Arawn’s domain, that Cade finds himself finally able to grasp the reins of his own power to become the Christian king and pagan hero that has always been his destiny.

Song of the Pendragon

is the third book in

The Last Pendragon Saga.

The Complete Series reading order:

The Last Pendragon, The Pendragon's Blade, Song of the Pendragon, The Pendragon's Quest, The Pendragon's Champions, Rise of the Pendragon, The Pendragon's Challenge, Legend of the Pendragon.

A librarian with a mysterious past, a war hero with a secret, and the heist of a magic painting. THE LIBRARIAN OF CROOKED LANE is an intriguing new fantasy from C.J. Archer, the USA Today bestselling author of the Glass and Steele series.

Librarian Sylvia Ashe knows nothing about her past, having grown up without a father and a mother who refused to discuss him. When she stumbles upon a diary that suggests she’s descended from magicians, she’s skeptical. After all, magicians are special, and she’s just an ordinary girl who loves books. She seeks the truth from a member of the most prominent family of magicians, but she quickly learns that finding the truth won’t be easy, especially when he turns out to be as artless as her, and more compelling and dangerous than books.War hero Gabe is gifted with wealth, a loving family, and an incredible amount of luck that saw him survive four harrowing years of a brutal war without injury. But not all injuries are visible. Burying himself in his work as a consultant for Scotland Yard, Gabe is going through the motions as he investigates the theft of a magician-made painting. But his life changes when he unwittingly gets Sylvia dismissed from her job and places her in danger.After securing her new employment in a library housing the world’s greatest collection of books about magic, Gabe and Sylvia’s lives become intwined as they work together to find both the painting and the truth about Sylvia’s past before powerful people can stop them.But sometimes the past is better left buried…