Andrea K. Höst

On her last day of high school, Cassandra Devlin walked out of exams and into a forest. Surrounded by the wrong sort of trees, and animals never featured in any nature documentary, Cass is only sure of one thing: alone, she will be lucky to survive. The sprawl of abandoned blockish buildings Cass discovers offers her only more puzzles. Where are the people? What is the intoxicating mist which drifts off the buildings in the moonlight? And why does she feel like she's being watched? Increasingly unnerved, Cass is overjoyed at the arrival of the formidable Setari. Whisked to a world as technologically advanced as the first was primitive, where nanotech computers are grown inside people's skulls, and few have any interest in venturing outside the enormous whitestone cities, Cass finds herself processed as a 'stray', a refugee displaced by the gates torn between worlds. Struggling with an unfamiliar language and culture, she must adapt to virtual classrooms, friends who can teleport, and the ingrained attitude that strays are backward and slow. Can Cass ever find her way home? And after the people of her new world discover her unexpected value, will they be willing to let her leave?

Stray

Come for the apocalypse. Stay for cupcakes. Die for love. Madeleine Cost is working to become the youngest person ever to win the Archibald Prize for portraiture. Her elusive cousin Tyler is the perfect subject: androgynous, beautiful, and famous. All she needs to do is pin him down for the sittings. None of her plans factored in the Spires: featureless, impossible, spearing into the hearts of cities across the world - and spraying clouds of sparkling dust into the wind. Is it an alien invasion? Germ warfare? They are questions everyone on Earth would like answered, but Madeleine has a more immediate problem. At Ground Zero of the Sydney Spire, beneath the collapsed ruin of St James Station, she must make it to the surface before she can hope to find out if the world is ending.

And All the Stars

Time stole victory. Medair an Rynstar returned too late to drive back the Ibisian invasion. Centuries too late. When friend and enemy have become the same thing, what use are the weapons Medair planned to use to protect her Empire? There is no magic, no artefact, no enchanted trinket which can undo the past. But no matter how Medair wishes to hide from the consequences of her failure, there are those who will not allow her the luxury of denying the present. Her war is already lost, but she carries weapons which could change the course of new battles. With the skirmishes of war beginning, and hunters in near pursuit, it is her conscience Medair cannot escape. Whose side should she be on? What is she really running from?

The Silence of Medair

In the months since Cassandra Devlin walked onto another planet, she has grappled with everything from making blankets to helping psychics battle the memories of monsters. Not able to find a way home, she has instead gained friends and a purpose. Unfortunately, that purpose brings with it the pressure of being more than a little valuable, and those she has befriended are also her guards, ordered to explore and control her abilities to find out just what it is a touchstone can do. Test subject was not the career path Cass had been planning. With no privacy, too-frequent injuries, and the painful knowledge that she must always be an assignment to her Setari companions, Cass can only wish for some semblance of normality and control. And as her abilities become more and more dangerous, tests and training may be the only thing capable of protecting Cass from herself.

Lab Rat One

Soren Armitage is an anachronism. Proclaimed Rathen Champion by the Rathen Rose, intended to support the rule of a Rathen King or Queen. But there are no Rathens. Resigned to symbolising only Darest's faded glories, Soren is not prepared for the sudden appearance of a Rathen. Now she must find and support the heir despite the machinations of the kingdom's regent, sylvan curses, and the strange behaviour of once-dormant protective enchantments. While the odds seem stacked against her, Soren is determined to do her best to live up to the name of Rathen Champion. But what is she to do when it seems that there is something very wrong with her Rathen? Can she trust the person she is meant to protect?

Champion of the Rose

The Touchstone Trilogy

"Five hundred years after the Empire she served fell before the Ibisian invasion, Medair has betrayed her Emperor's memory by helping the descendants of the invaders...Assasins, armies, and desperate magic complicate Mediar's plan of escape. She has learned that you can never return to your past, or run from the consequences of your actions, but can she find a way to live in defeat?"--Back cover.

Medair

Voice of the Lost

Ash Lenthard doesn't call herself a vigilante. She's merely prone to random acts of derring-do, and occasional exhibitions of tomfoolery. Her friends, the Huntsmen, have never stepped over the line while patrolling the streets of Luinhall.That was before the murder of Ash's beloved guardian, Genevieve.Now, Ash Lenthard is out for blood and even when the hunt sends her to the palace, on a collision course with a past identity she would do anything to forget, Ash cannot, will not, back down.

Hunting

Stray (Touchstone Book 1)

NOT A STAND ALONE NOVEL. An extra for The Touchstone Trilogy.What happens when the plot ends? A relentless barrage of weddings, babies, and planetary colonisation! Meandering through the two years following the conclusion of the Touchstone Trilogy, this self-indulgent collection of family reminiscence is more saccharine than dramatic, with the most action to be found in snowball fights.For those who truly just want to know what happens next, no matter how mundane, read on for the everyday, ordinary lives of psychic space ninjas playing house.

Touchstone Extras

Gratuitous Epilogue

Darest stands on the verge of a Golden Age. The revival of the Rathen line and a blood price won from the Fair has drawn a flood of visitors eager to snatch their share of changing fortune - or at least one of the fabulous prizes offered at the Spring Festival. Among those coaxed back to the once-failing kingdom is Gentian Calder, daughter of Shapers. Before she can decide whether to risk her life by staying, news arrives to put all other considerations aside. The Atlaran Ambassador and half the heirs of the western kingdoms have disappeared on Darest's border. Gentian agrees to join the Diamond Coeurveur and his apprentice in a rush to join the search. Will they find the missing? A plot against Darest? Or uncover older secrets, buried deep?

Bones of the Fair

The world has a problem with monsters: creeping through tears in the fabric of space, they feast on every unprotected human they can find. Tyrland has a solution in the Kellian: faster and stronger than humans, they are Tyrland's clawed, shadowy monster hunters. But no matter how faithfully they serve, or how true their sworn word, they are too different, too separate, to ever be entirely trusted. Rennyn Claire is a complication. Secretive and obscenely powerful, she knows entirely too much about a massive new threat to Tyrland's safety. Worst of all, she is linked to a past that the Kellian would rather forget. All three of these things - monsters, Kellian, and an entirely overpowered mage - are about to land in Kendall Stockton's lap. The last thing Kendall wants is to try to play conscience to someone who can swat her like a bug. But innocent lives are at stake, and no-one else seems willing to ask if what is necessary is the right thing to do. And who, exactly, is the monster?

Stained Glass Monsters

Sherwood Smith

P. Djèlí Clark

Intisar Khanani

Joyce Chng

Rachel Neumeier

Melissa McShane

Raf Morgan

Casey Blair

Magic--danger--and the thrill of the chase!Experience the rush of racing across rooftops with thieves--or the desperation of fleeing an assassin who knows you a little too well. From the fish market of a tropical island sultanate, to the monster-filled alleys of a steampunk London, to a land where souls take different forms as they rise or fall through the layers of the world, this collection of chase scenes and vignettes set in nine distinctive worlds will leave you spellbound.Find unexpected allies, unshakeable enemies, sudden twists and turns, and always the swiftness of the chase--whether you're on the hunt, or racing for your life.This sampler includes an exclusive bonus scene set during the events of Tea Set and Match by Casey Blair, available for free online, and a scene from an unpublished novel by Rachel Neumeier not available anywhere else. The excerpts by Intisar Khanani, Raf Morgan, P. Djèlí Clark, Sherwood Smith, Joyce Chng, Melissa McShane, and Andrea K. Höst are from longer works that are available for sale at all major retailers.

Andrea K. Höst

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