Summer is the season of war in the Free Cities.

Marcus wants to get out before the fighting starts. His hero days are behind him and simple caravan duty is better than getting pressed into service by the local gentry. Even a small war can get you killed. But a captain needs men to lead — and his have been summarily arrested and recruited for their swords.

Cithrin has a job to do — move the wealth of a nation across a war zone. An orphan raised by the bank, she is their last hope of keeping the bank’s wealth out of the hands of the invaders. But she’s just a girl and knows little of caravans, war, and danger. She knows money and she knows secrets, but will that be enough to save her in the coming months?

Geder, the only son of a noble house is more interested in philosophy than swordplay. He is a poor excuse for a soldier and little more than a pawn in these games of war. But not even he knows what he will become of the fires of battle. Hero or villain? Small men have achieved greater things and Geder is no small man.

Falling pebbles can start a landslide. What should have been a small summer spat between gentlemen is spiraling out of control. Dark forces are at work, fanning the flames that will sweep the entire region onto The Dragon’s Path — the path of war.

Welcome to the future. Humanity has colonized the solar system – Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond – but the stars are still out of our reach.

Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, The Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for – and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to The Scopuli and rebel sympathizer, Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations – and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose above the misty peaks of Imfaral. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.

Readers clicking through the Kindle edition of Ken Scholes’s Antiphon, book three in the Psalms of Isaak, got a strange surprise in chapter 16: the book suddenly became Personal Demons , a new urban fantasy by Lisa Desrochers. Phone calls were made and new files uploaded, but Ken Scholes had a funny thought: how would the gypsy king Rudolfo really deal with the unexpected appearance of Lisa’s teenage trio? Thus was born chapter 15.5, “Intersections and Interlopers.”

A cold wind moaned outside the command tent and Rudolfo blessed the warmth of his small furnace and the warmed cup of firespice he held loosely in his hands even as he considered the girl who stood with Lysias before him.

She was fetching enough, if young. Her garb was unlike anything he’d seen before and certainly not appropriate for deep winter in the northern reaches of the Ninefold Forest. She was short, with fair skin, long blond hair and blue eyes. And she wore clothing entirely unfamiliar to him. Her top—a sleeveless cotton bit—revealed more skin than was appropriate for winter or for most audiences with a king. And her pants were tight and made from a faded blue material. Her shoes were like nothing he’d seen before. But still, fetching she was despite her odd dress. With a few more summers behind her, she’d certainly become the type of woman he’d have pursued. Of course, since Jin Li Tam had fallen into his life he’d lost his appetite for any others, much to the disappointment of his former lovers. But there was something in the way she stood before him now that reminded him of his red-headed queen.

His eyes narrowed and he took a sip of the liquor, savoring its burn as it trickled down his throat. “Tell me again,” he said slowly. “Who are you and what are you doing in my forest?”

The slightest trembling of her lower lip was the only telltale sign of her fear. When she spoke, her voice was clear. “My name is Frannie Cavanaugh….” Her words failed and he watched her find them quickly. “And I don’t know.” She paused. “I’m not even sure what forest this is.”