When shadows fill the night, it’s hard to tell friend from foe.With young to raise and her Pack under attack, Sylvan, Alpha of the wolf Weres, takes on her greatest challenge when she determines to uncover the faceless enemies know as the Shadow Lords. While her mate Drake struggles to find the link between the deadly Were fever virus and the mutation she carries, Sylvan calls upon her allies among the Vampires and Fae to defeat the secret pact of humans and Praeterns bent on destroying her and those she is bound to safeguard. Liege Jody Gates, Sylvan’s ally and heir to a powerful Vampire Clan, must choose between her promise to Sylvan and her duty to Clan when she aligns her forces against the deposed Vampire Regent Francesca. If the battle to come is lost, all the Praetern species will be sentenced to exile in the shadows.

A historic crossover seventy-five years in the making! The Shadow, Doc Savage, and The Avenger, the three iconic crime-fighters first introduced in the pulp magazines of Street & Smith Publications, come together for the first time ever to avert global catastrophe! Out of tragedy, a hero is born... and an alliance formed! When an airliner carrying industrialist Richard Henry Benson and his family disappears, it's the first strike in a secret cabal's master plan for world conquest. As genius adventurer Doc Savage and brutal vigilante The Shadow attempt to avert disaster with their science and bullets, Benson rises from the ashes with a fearsome new identity: The Avenger. Can three men of contrasting ideology and methodology cast aside their inherent differences and band together to conquer the overwhelming threat of the Voodoo Master and his mysterious allies?

Only hours after Holmes and Russell return from solving one murky riddle on the moor, another knocks on their front door . . . literally. It’s a mystery that begins during the Great War, when Gabriel Hughenfort died amidst scandalous rumors that have haunted the family ever since. But it’s not until Holmes and Russell arrive at Justice Hall, a home of unearthly perfection set in a garden modeled on Paradise, that they fully understand the irony echoed in the family motto, Justicia fortitudo mea est: “Righteousness is my strength.” A trail of ominous clues comprise a mystery that leads from an English hamlet to the city of Paris to the wild prairie of the New World. The trap is set, the game is afoot; but can Holmes and Russell catch an elusive killer--or has the murderer caught them? BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Laurie R. King's Pirate King.

Publisher Description

Demonstrating that it is possible for writing to articulate ethical concerns and enlighten the broader community, this powerful collection of essays explores the relationship between writing and justice. Including thought-provoking contributions from Australian poets, essayists, playwrights, critics, and novelists--including Gail Jones, Eva Sallis, and Frank Brennan--it asks if writing can inform a collective national consciousness and challenge citizens to take action.

Every year the British government spends £80 billion outsourcing public services. Today, private companies are responsible for fulfilling some of the most sensitive and important roles of the state – running prisons and providing healthcare, transport, legal aid, even child protection. These organizations have been handed enormous amounts of power and yet for the most part they operate with no transparency or accountability. From deportations to NHS cutbacks, Alan White exposes what goes wrong when the invisible hand of the market is introduced into public services. Informed by exclusive interviews with senior managers, campaigners and whistle-blowers, Shadow State is the first book to examine the controversial phenomenon of government outsourcing. Not only does White provide the full story behind scandals involving G4S, Serco and ATOS, but he also reveals previously unknown cases of system failure in areas such as social care, welfare and justice. The picture that develops is deeply troubling.

A contractor gets a special treat when her wife packs her lunch. A sexy romance short. Previously published in A Is for Amour, ed. Alison Tyler (Cleis Press, 2007); republished in Radical Encounters (Bold Strokes Books, 2009).

Dr. Lily Davenport is the poster child for burnout—physically and emotionally. All she wants is a few months of nondemanding work at a summer camp, of all places, so she can figure out what to do with the rest of her life. The last thing she expects is to run into a woman who awakens a passion she hadn’t even realized had died along with all those she’d failed to save. Forest ranger Chase Fielder is not in the market for a relationship. Counting on people never leaving is for fools. A fling with Lily promises to be exactly what Chase is looking for—short-term, hot as a forest fire, and one Chase can extinguish whenever she wants. Now all she has to do is convince Lily they’re a perfect match. After all, it’s only one summer.

The last time Brody Clark left the Rivers, she walked away from her life—her foolish dreams, her few friends, and the secrets she'd kept from everyone. For ten years she'd told herself there was nothing in her past she cared about—not the family who'd given her a home or the one girl she never stopped thinking about. But now she’s back as part of the new medevac flight crew, for at least as long as it takes to finally bury her ghosts. Val Valentine, DVM, planned on a big city boutique vet practice with high profile clients, easy hours, and lucrative profits. All until the man who was more father to her than her own asks for her help, and she ends up back in the backwater where all she has are bad memories. Brody figures cutting her ties to the past would be a hell of a lot easier if she could only avoid the woman she’s never been able to forget. Since Val never even knew she was alive back in high school, that shouldn’t be too hard now. When their lives collide, both women discover what might have been is closer than they think.

A blind musician and her lover take a romantic journey where love is the melody that plays for only them. Previously published in In Deep Waters: Cruising the Seas, by Karin Kallmaker and Radclyffe (Bella Books, 2007); republished in Best Lesbian Romance 2009, edited by Radclyffe (Cleis Press).