Showing results by author "Lilith Saintcrow" in Action & Adventure

The Black Land is a myth: Centuries have passed since that Great Enemy was slain. Yet old fears linger, and on the longest night of the year, people in the South still light ritual bonfires to banish the dark. In her village, this duty falls to Solveig, a girl favored by the gods with powerful fire magic. But when her brother kills a Northern lord’s son during the ritual, it is Sol who faces punishment, by being weregild—part hostage, part guest—in the North for a year and a day.

Her name is unimportant. She is her job: a liquidator. Deep in debt for cyborg modifications, the agent eliminates whatever target she's given. It's a relatively simple job—until now. Her latest assignment is to kill a child, and she can't refuse—because refusal means Dismissal, a fate worse than death.

Natasha Drozdova is desperate to save a life. Doctors can do little for her cancer-ridden mother, who insists there is only one cure—and that Nat must visit a skyscraper in Manhattan to get it. Amid a snow-locked city, inside a sleek glass-walled office, Nat makes her plea and is whisked into a terrifying new world. For the skyscraper holds a hungry winter goddess who has the power to cure her mother…if Nat finds a stolen object of great power. Now Nat must travel with a razor-wielding assassin across an American continent brimming with terror, wonder, and hungry divinities.

Solveig and her shieldmaiden have finally made it to Waterstone, a fabled city hidden in a world of frost by ancient magic. Shrouded from the Enemy’s gaze, they are safe to rest and regroup—or so they think. Sol suspects their hosts are not as benevolent as they seem. Whispers race through the halls, hinting at self-serving agendas and secret plots. So, as Sol attempts to harness her awakened magic, she must fight for her voice to be heard or risk being used like a pawn in the greater game.

It could have been aliens, it could have been a trans-dimensional rift, nobody knows for sure. What's known is that there was an Event, the Rifts opened up, and everyone caught inside died. Since the Event certain people have gone into the drift...and come back, bearing priceless technology that's almost magical in its advancement. When Ashe - the best Rifter of her generation - dies, the authorities offer her student, Svinga, a choice: go in and bring out the thing that killed her, or rot in jail.

History is written by the victors; but when you've been fighting your fellow patriots, your own brothers and sisters, does anyone really win? A harrowing gut-punch of a novel, Afterwar tells the story of a dark future where America has been devastated by a second civil war. As the fighting draws to a close, the camps are liberated, the fascist regime crumbles and the work of rebuilding begins. But can a population that's spent years divided and hell-bent on victory at any cost ever be truly reunited?

Nat Drozdova has crossed half the continent in search of the stolen Dead God’s Heart, the only thing powerful enough to trade for her beautiful, voracious, dying mother’s life. Yet now she knows the secret of her own birth—and that she’s been lied to all her young life. The road to the Heart ends at the Salt-Black Tree, but to find it Nat must pay a deadly price. Pursued by mouthless shadows hungry for the blood of new divinity as well as the razor-wielding god of thieves, Nat is on her own.

Reeling from trauma and divorce, Cara Halperin takes what should be a simple job with an expensive agency. As a nanny to rich children, she shouldn’t have much to worry about. Unfortunately, the agency’s sent her into a trap. Vincent Desmarais wants to go back into the field, but instead, he’s put on leave. The diagnosis? PTSD. No problem—he can pick up security work on the side to keep himself sharp. When the lights go out, Cara and her young charge have only one option: to trust the new security guy.