Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general also knownashertough-as-talons mother has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.
But when you're smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away, because dragons don't bond to 'fragile' humans. They incinerate them. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success.
The rest would kill her just for being her mother's daughter, like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant. She'll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.
Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.
Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda, because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros is the first in the new series The Empyrean.
There are killers so savage, so twisted, that they leave a mark not just on their victims, but on everyone who crosses their path.
For Detectives Bentz and Montoya, Father John, a fake priest who used the sharpened beads of a rosary to strangle sex workers, is one such monster.
Bentz thought he'd ended that horror years ago when he killed Father John deep in the swamp. But now there arechillingsignshemayhave been wrong.
A new victim has surfaced, her ruined body staged in deliberate, unmistakable detail. Either it's a terrifying copycat, or Father John, the detective's own recurring nightmare, has come back to haunt New Orleans.
Another death, and another. Bentz is growing convinced that Father John isn't just back.
He's circling closer, targeting those Bentz loves most. And this time, he won't be stopped until the last sinner has paid the ultimate price...
The Last Sinner by Lisa Jackson is a gripping novel of suspense featuring two veteran homicide detectives matching wits with a twisted serial killer lurking in the shadows of New Orleans.
After her parents perish in a tragic accident, Cosima Saverio assumes leadership of her family's haute couture Italian leather brand.
While navigating the challenges of running a companyattwenty-three,Cosima must also maintain the four-hundred-year-oldfamily palazzo in Venice and care for her younger siblings: Allegra, who survived the tragedy that killed their parents with scars and a spinal injury, and Luca, who has a penchant for wild parties, pretty women, and poker tables.
Cosima navigates her personal and professional challenges with a wisdom beyond her years, but her success has come at a cost: her needs are always secondary.
She's married to the business, and her free time is giventothosewhorelyonher, until she meets Olivier Bayard, the founder of France's most successful ready-towear handbag company.
A brief conversation on her palazzo's terrace turns into a tour of the Saverio workshop, and, fifteen years after her parents' deaths, Cosima has found a confidant. Now the business is financially stable and generating enough income for the Saverios to live comfortably.
Then Luca loses a hefty sum at the casino, and his debt must be repaid with money or his life. Cosima, forced to bail him out, is given an impossible choice: List the palazzo, sell a third of the family business, or let Luca fend for himself. But is there another way to save everything she has fought for before it goes up in flames?
Palazzo by Danielle Steel is a striking tale of family roots and ruin.