by Anna Holmes
EMBER
The princess who led a rebellion to retake her home.
A magical prodigy who was imprisoned for fighting against her.
With the peace treaty signed, the island nation of Elyssia is free to rebuild and Caelin finally free to exercise her birthright. She dreams of shaping a nation of ideals—if her advisors would let her. Shut out of state affairs, it’s not until a scrawny, angry mage breaks into her tower that she begins to realize the ideals may have been buried in favor of victory.
Alain was so close to everything he’d ever wanted—until the siege on the Royal City fell apart. The Elyssian rebels captured him, beat him, worked him nearly to death. He seized an opportunity to escape and made for the site of his biggest failure, intending to use his prodigious magical talent to avenge his many losses.
He wasn’t expecting Caelin to commandeer his kidnapping attempt. She demands to be led to the prison camp so she can see it with her own eyes, and begrudgingly he agrees to take her there—if they aren’t ensnared first by her treacherous advisors, his old comrades out for her blood, or, worst of all, their own feelings.
SPARK
The Rosalian Legion made him a weapon.
The Queen of Elyssia made him her Prince Consort.
What he makes of himself is yet to be seen.
Caelin is Queen. The nation has settled into peace in the year since her coronation-until a masked intruder tries to take Alain captive and Alain’s powerful magic backfires. Two things quickly become clear: the abundant power at Alain’s disposal is not natural, and it is barely under his control.
To ward off war and to save Alain’s life, they take off on one more mad dash across the island to try to reconstruct what the Legion wreaked on him-before he’s lost to them for good.
BLAZE
Alain would see Rosalia restored.
Caelin would see it destroyed.
But would either succeed?
Surrendered into his mother’s control, Alain must do the unthinkable to save himself, his sister, and reunite with Caelin: he must become the Archon. As Archon, he can undo the rotten tangles of the Legion from within, but he must lie at every turn to keep his secret safe—even from Caelin.
Meanwhile, Caelin rushes into Rosalia to rescue him and unearths a dangerous ancient relic that might obliterate the cryst load upon which the Seat of the Legion rests. The deeper she gets, the more desperate things seem, and nothing can prepare her for what she will find when she reaches the Seat.
Despite all of Alain’s machinations and despite Caelin’s devotion and strength, the corruption of the Legion may be too deep, and the secret wielded of power in the background too old and powerful to be unseated.
FORTUNE’S LOT
For Cressida Quillionette, Cinderbloom Academy is everything she could never have. A gateway of possibilities. But to attend the secluded academy means she can never go back home.
When she is finally admitted to the Head School, she discovers that this small-town clockmaker’s daughter is to be transformed into a genteel young sorcerer. She is even put into a room with her best friends, including Miles, her secret sweetheart.
But all isn’t what she expected. Discussing classes with other students is prohibited, and all gained knowledge is kept locked behind a blood oath. Soon, the strictures cut her off from her friends. Miles suffers mysterious injuries he won’t talk about, Cressida isn’t sure what she helps assemble in her workshop, and there are gasps in the hall about a student’s death.
Until now, she thought the rules and secrecy were all for the best, but something dark seems to lurk beneath the surface. There are too many signs to ignore. When the enigmatic Headmaster pulls her aside for specialized instruction, she is submitted to an experimental ritual that changes her indelibly.
Now she finds herself cornered by the question: what is the change the Headmaster wishes his students to effect on the world? Is losing her humanity worth it?
And when the time comes to fight back with her fellow students, will she?
FORTUNE’S GAMBIT
Cressida and Miles have escaped from Cinderbloom Academy. Determined to bring its Headmaster to justice for his cruel experiments on students like them, they must spirit his laboratory notebook across the continent to the international Tribunal. If they don’t, the Headmaster’s twisted vision for a better world is just beginning.
As they make their way into Belovia, they endure wave after wave of assault by fellow students. They navigate old hurts, awkward family reunions withintense political ramifications, and questions about the future—all while fighting for their lives— to hold to account the teacher who stole their futures and humanity.
But as they do, Cressida has strange dreams of a devilish entity claiming to be connected to her by the Headmaster’s ritual. Its words cause her to question everything she knows, from history to magic, even to the question she has yet to answer: what is she now?
And is it even possible to be made whole after what the Headmaster has done?
FORTUNE’S CALLING
Cressida has escaped school, brought its cruel Headmaster to account for his crimes against her and her classmates, then watched him usurp her Empress. Justice may be elusive, but she isn’t done with him—and he isn’t done with her.
The Chocolate Rebellion has regrouped at Malimar, and as spring thaws Belovia, they begin to plot. The Headmaster, now Regent of the Empire, keeps his interest in Cinderbloom Academy. The members of the Rebellion find themselves at odds with the deposed Empress, who would much prefer they loose the Headmaster’s claws from her empire as quickly as possible. But Cressida and her friends have too many attachments to Cinderbloom to let it go.
However, when events pull them back to Cinderbloom, they find the two questions hopelessly entangled. The Headmaster seems to have invited some old friends to the school to test a theory of his, and the ramifications promise to ripple to the nation and perhaps the world.
Cressida is determined not to let it get that far. With the help of her scrappy group of students past and present and the legendary Adash’aan, she sets out to confront the Headmaster at the dual seats of his power—the school that took too much, and a dying Empire on the verge of something new.
She may have left her school days behind, but the question they asked of her remains: what is she willing to lose to succeed?
THE BRIDAL PARTY
Cassandra Friend, maid of honor of the Friend Event Company, has seen it all. From fey snatching babies at welcomings to jilted ex-lovers storming weddings, there’s little that can surprise her. But when the royal wedding hires her mercenaries to guard it from a demonic threat, she may just have gotten more than she bargained for.
After having more than her own share of jilted ex-lovers, Cass wasn’t expecting to find a best man so distracting. Lord Alexander Fremont—charming, clever, and quick with a lie—has a secret. And she’s so sure it has to do with the danger hovering around the throne, she’s willing to stake the whole wedding on finding out what it is.
If she’s wrong, she may have just ruined the best thing to ever happen to her.
THE PRINCE WITH SIX FACES
When a mysterious visitor comes to call, Prince Maximillian finds himself the recipient of an unusual curse. Exiled by his mother the Queen until it is broken, Max sets out for the city of Clockbridge in hopes of finding answers.
Instead, he fumbles his way into trouble with the ruling Guild and into the arms of one of its enforcers.
Cormac leads a busy life— a woodworker, a barman, and a Guild heavy—but he’s never met anyone who changes shape every dawn. As he works to help Max and protect him from the Guild that controls Cormac’s life, Max captures more than just his interest.
As Max and Cormac fall deeper in love and into intrigue, questions arise that draw Max back home. Was his exile truly his mother’s own decision? Can he reach her and repair their strained relationship?
And is his curse truly a curse after all?
by J.E. Holmes
NINTHBORN
Ediline must charm Javras and pretend to be the eighth born to do it. As she gets to know him, the lies become heavy on her heart. She wishes she could tell him the truth, but that would be digging her own grave.
Princess Ediline was born eight minutes after her twin brother, labeling her forever the cursed ninthborn. To her father, she is good for nothing-until a mysterious young man named Javras warns her kingdom of a looming threat. The Ender is coming to enforce peace, wielding the traitor god’s fabled bloodsword.
As the dreaded arrival draws near, Ediline is alone. Pressed into a corner, in a situation with no way out, she resolves to do the most selfless thing she can think of-to steal the bloodsword for herself.
It might just get her killed, or it might just save the entire continent.
ENDBEARER
The weapon that can destroy kingdoms rests sheathed at her hip.
It’s hard enough being the Endbearer—with the deadly weapon that everyone covets—but Ediline is also a new advisor for her twin brother, the new king. Then, the traitor god Loethe just appears in her bedroom, even though he died seven hundred years ago.
He warns her—the Desolation returns.
Despite having something like belonging, something like happiness, Ediline must face this threat from the long past that no one believes. At the same time, the Church of the Lords summons her family to answer for the crimes of her late father and eldest brother—also to try Ediline for heresy.
With her love and her friends, Edilined must navigate a deadly and capable templar, her growing power, and a new fearsome enemy that cannot be seen. All to ward off the Desolation. If she fails at any challenge, everything will be lost.
SHADOWALKER
Ediline is the Shadowalker.
As she adjusts to her new power, she must cobble together a rebellion against the new Lord Empress Tathia. Yet Ediline knows that the even greater enemy lies in the darkness behind the Empress, somewhere Ediline is terrified to reach into.
When she accidentally stumbles into the barren realm of Nowhere, she discovers an ancient secret, a slumbering cosmic power, a lost soul, and the horrible Fantasma, hellbent on tearing into her world. The struggles she faces with her alliance against the Empress—and the looming confrontation with these ancient evils—threaten to overwhelm her, and they are disastrously intertwined.
To defeat her world’s oldest enemy, she fears she will have to give in to the power that she has been Granted—and lose herself in the process. In this epic conclusion, Ediline’s fate is undecided. After the darkness is put down, will she see another sunrise?
A DANCE OF DUSKLIGHT
Celani is the ideal spy—charming, clever, graceful—and a telepath.
She lives at the wondrous Dusklight Tree and is sent into the world on missions to collect secrets for her enigmatic Master.
But when a mission goes awry and she returns with a powerful spell embedded within her, she realizes she doesn’t trust anyone.
Her next mission is clear—deceive the Master and escape the Dusklight Tree forever. But the Master won’t let her go easily. She will have to evade capture and go up against the Master’s agents—even her own friends.
Elyssia Books 