Teleportation makes everything possible.

It allows Taylor Kendall to live in Chicago, work in Houston, and take a part-time job tutoring the teenaged son of the richest man in America. But the more time she spends in Duncan Phillips' lavish home, the more uneasy she becomes. She adores Quentin, who is suffering from a fatal degenerative disease. She's strongly attracted to Bram Cortez, who heads up security for the household. But she's growing increasingly afraid of Duncan Phillips, who makes it clear he has no interest in his dying son-and far too much interest in Taylor.

When Duncan Phillips turns up dead, Taylor's on the short list of suspects who could have killed him. Sure, she was in Atlanta on the night of the murder. But Atlanta is only a few minutes away by teleport . . .

​The long-awaited new book in the Elemental Blessings series!

Valentina Serlast has reluctantly traveled to the royal city to witness her brother Darien be crowned the king of Welce. A hunti woman with an affinity for the forest, Val is much more comfortable living in isolation on her country estates, almost forgotten by everyone. When Darien convinces her to extend her stay, she is drawn into an unfamiliar whirl of activity, meeting with ambassadors from other countries, becoming friends with the unpredictable Princess Corene, and trying to learn the secrets of a glamorous foreign visitor named Melissande.

But nothing makes Val more breathless than the reappearance of Sebastian Ardelay, a red-headed rogue who has been her best friend since childhood. She quickly learns that Sebastian has been risking his life in a dangerous venture that could get him banned from the kingdom-or even lead Welce to the brink of war. ​

In the south, hostility toward magic and its users has risen to a dangerous level, though King Baryn has ordered that such mystics are to be tolerated. It is whispered that he issued the decree because his new wife used her magic powers to ensnare him...

The King knows there are those in the noble Twelve Houses who could use this growing dissent to overthrow him. So he dispatches the mystic Senneth to assess the threat throughout the realm. Accompanying her is a motley band of magic-users and warriors including Tayse, first among the King's Riders--who holds a hard view of mystics in general, and Senneth in particular.

But as the unlikely allies venture farther into the south, they will face death in a land under the sway of a fanatical cult that would purge Gillengaria of all magic users. And they will come to realize that their only hope of survival lies in standing together...

​In the city of Corcannon, everyone has a secret.

Madeleine is planning her wedding to Tivol, but she's really in love with Reese.

Jayla has become the guardian of a child named Aussen, but she knows that Aussen possesses a mysterious and dangerous power.

Brandon is a temple soldier keeping the enigmatic Villette a prisoner in her own home, but finds himself risking everything to keep her safe.

Pietro is pretending he's surprised every time the city is wracked by tremors, but he'll do anything to stop the devastation.

Even Corcannon itself has a secret. It's built on a lie, and that lie is about to come tumbling down.

In a world of secret sorceries and forbidden desires, the mystic Cammon must put aside his personal feelings for Princess Amalie and help her find a suitor, until he discovers that he needs to protect her from her own powers.

Through science, faith, and force of will, the Harmonics carved out for themselves a society that they conceived as perfect. Diverse peoples held together by respect for each other. Angels to guard the mortals and mystics to guard the forbidden knowldge. Jehovah to watch over them all...

Generations later, the armed starship Jehovah still looms over the planet of Samaria, programmed to unleash its arsenal if peace is not sustained. But with the coming of an age of corruption, Samaria's only hope lies in the crowning of a new Archangel. The oracles have chosen Gabriel for this honor, and further decreed that he must first wed a mortal woman named Rachel.

It is his destiny and hers. And Gabriel is certain that she will greet the news of her betrothal with enthusiasm, and a devotion to duty equal to his own.

Rachel, however, has other ideas...

Winner of the William Crawford Award for Achievement in Fantasy
Nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

In this story of hidden magic and forbidden love, the King's Rider Justin befriends Ellynor, a young novice at a convent-only to discover that she is a mystic being manipulated by the fanatical Daughters of the Pale Moon into hunting down and killing other mystics.

Josetta is a princess of one of the Five Families. But she is far from the throne, so she is free to spend her days working in the poorest sections of the city.

Rafe Adova lives the life of a career gambler in those slums. He has no real ambition--until the night he helps a girl named Corene, who looks like she's stumbled into the wrong bar.

Josetta is fascinated by the man who has helped her sister. Rafe is unlike anyone she's encountered--someone seemingly devoid of elemental blessings.

Rafe is also drawn to Josetta, but when he is assaulted by foreign mercenaries and they discover the reason behind the attack, Rafe and Josetta realize that the truth could endanger not only their newfound love, but also their very lives...

Description:

A writer who would rather live with ghosts than face her troubled marriage. A woman who receives calls over her cell phone from people who have recently died. A man who suddenly finds strange objects appearing in his life-and just as suddenly disappearing.

These characters and more fill the pages of Sharon Shinn's collection of seven short stories. Romance, mystery, and a little bit of magic follow each of them as they grapple with the past so they can move forward into the future.

Chief Executed Officers is never before published. The other six stories have appeared previously in anthologies published 2004 through 2012.

The Sorcerer's Assassin

In the House of Seven Spirits

Chief Executed Officers

The Unrhymed Couplets of the Universe

Can You Hear Me Now?

The Double-Edged Sword

Wintermoon Wish

Enjoy the stories!

A Misfit and a Mystery

In the royal city of Camarria, a street urchin named Chessie lives by her wits, always attended by her two faithful friends, Red and Scar. What no one realizes is that the friends are really echoes, creatures who look exactly like their originals but who possess no volition of their own.

Echoes normally are only born to high nobles, and Chessie doesn't want anyone to start asking questions about her past. So she's developed the ability to move between bodies so rapidly that she can maintain the illusion that she and Red and Scar are three separate people. After someone tries to murder the crown prince, Chessie gets entangled in the investigation when she comes to the aid of Lord Dezmen, the high noble who's trying to solve the crime. From the back alleys of Camarria to a society party to a rural province, they track down clues.

Until one of those clues leads right back to Chessie.

A Murder and a Masquerade

Brianna loves her new job as maid to Lady Marguerite. Like many high nobles, Marguerite is attended by echoes, silent creatures who look exactly like her and move in perfect synchronicity. News soon comes that Marguerite has been invited to the royal city as a potential bride for the crown prince. Brianna is delighted to accompany Marguerite to the city-and perhaps get a chance to continue her own flirtation with Nico, one of the king's inquisitors.

Then, disaster strikes on the road when they come under attack. The brutal assault forces Marguerite and Brianna to concoct a desperate plan. Their subterfuge just might work-but only if Brianna can keep Nico from learning the truth. And only if Marguerite can give up her own secret, doomed romance.And all that's at stake-is the future of the kingdom.

More than a hundred years after the time of Rachel and Gabriel, Samaria is in deep turmoil. Charismatic Archangel Delilah has been injured and forced to give up her position, and she has been replaced by shy, uncertain Alleluia. What's worse, ungovernable storms are sweeping across the country, and the god never seems to hear the angels' pleas to abate the bad weather. Unless those prayers are offered by the new Archangel...

An Echo and an Original

Lady Elyssa despises her echoes-the creatures who look just like her and copy her every move. But it's only the echoes that mark her as a high noble, someone elite enough to marry the king's youngest son, Jordan. She can't get rid of the echoes, so instead she amuses herself by torturing them when no one is looking.

But there's something Elyssa doesn't know: Her casual cruelty has brought one of the echoes to life. And this echo, Hope, is learning to think and speak and act on her own. There's something else Elyssa doesn't know: Hope has witnessed her secret meetings with revolutionaries bent on starting a war and overthrowing the king. And Hope has made friends in high places-very high places.

As one of the four princesses of Welce, Corene always thought she might one day become queen. Only circumstances changed, leaving fiery Corene with nothing to show for a life spent playing the game of court intrigue--until a chance arises to become the ruler of a nearby country.

After stowing away on a ship bound for Malinqua with her loyal bodyguard, Foley, Corene must try to win the throne by making a play to marry one of the empress's three nephews. But Corene is not the only foreign princess in search of a crown.

Unaccustomed to being anyone's friend, Corene is surprised to find companionship among her fellow competitors. But behind Malinqua's beautiful facade lie many secrets.

The visiting princesses are more hostages than guests. And as the deadly nature of the court is revealed, Corene must rely on both her new allies and Foley's unwavering protection--for the game she has entered is far more perilous than she ever imagined...

It is eight years after Colleen Cavanaugh's home world was invaded by the Derichets, a tyrannical alien race bent on exploiting the planet's mineral resources.

Most of her family died in the war, and she now lives alone in the city. Aside from her acquaintances at the factory where she toils for the Derichets, Colleen makes a single friend in Jann, a member of the violent group of rebels known as the Chromatti. One day Colleen receives shocking news: her niece Lucy is alive and in need of her help. Together, Colleen, Jann, and Lucy create their own tenuous family.

But Colleen must decide if it's worth risking all of their survival to join a growing underground revolution against the Derichets ... in Sharon Shinn and Molly Knox Ostertag's Shattered Warrior.