Thomas the Rhymer, immortal, shape-changing foe of the diabolical Elf Queen and her merciless Yvag knights, continues his one-man war into the reign of England’s “Faerie Queen”—Elizabeth I. When he learns of an assassination plot against Elizabeth, the Rhymer intervenes, only to find himself the object of the special attention of the Queen’s spymaster, Francis Walsingham.

Walsingham blackmails the Rhymer into joining his intelligence network. Allied with Walsingham’s minions and a mysterious shape-changing stage actress, Thomas finds he must deal with Mary, Queen of Scots, scheming Jesuits, and Italian bankers as well as further Yvag attempts against Elizabeth. He moves in the circles of William Shakespeare, John Dee, Giordano Bruno, and Christopher Marlowe, desperately defeating one conspiracy after another in defense of the throne, leading him to an inevitable final confrontation with the Elf Queen, in which to survive he must destroy the source of her power . . . and to do that, he must enter the mouth of Hel itself.

After all the sacrifice, will the Rhymer find peace? And, perhaps, even love?

Fleeing her sheltered life, a noblewoman must trust a warrior, a forester, and a thief to unlock her true power and face her destiny.

Embrace Your Power and Forge Your Destiny

All her life, Aelys of Brionne had been weak. As the noble daughter of one of the empire’s most powerful magic-wielding families, it should have been easy for her to live her dream of bonding with a warrior protector and joining the Imperial Battlemage Corps. But when her weakness robs her of her dreams, her best friend, and the man she loves, Aelys makes the only choice she can see: she takes her fate into her own hands and she runs, leaving her safe, protected world behind.

Now she must find a way to work with three dangerous strangers—a warrior, a forester, and a thief—to escape the bandits stalking her, fight through the dangers of the untamed forest, and make her way back home, where her family and her destiny await.

Only . . . her violent protectors might be the key to the power and freedom she’s always craved. Can Aelys find the strength to choose her own destiny and become the sorceress she was born to be? Or lose herself on the path to power?

A NEW SOLO NOVEL IN DAVID WEBER'S NYT BEST-SELLING HONORVERSE

“It is our duty to pay for our liberty with our own blood. The freedom that we shall win through our sacrifice and exertions, we shall be able to preserve with our own strength.” —Subhas Chandra Bose

Lieutenant Brandy Bolgeo has come home from the Battle of Hancock station wounded in both body and spirit. She will need months to regenerate her lost leg, but how long will it take to heal her heart?

She’s come home to find that her wounds, her ship’s brutal damage, the deaths of so many friends, were the fault of an arrogant, aristocratic coward who broke and ran in the face of the enemy. Who left her ship to pay the price for his craven desertion under fire. And whose powerful political allies are determined to protect and preserve him at any price.

They have held hostage the declaration of war until Lord Pavel Young escaped the consequences of his cowardice. They didn’t care what it cost the Navy. They didn’t care what it cost the entire Star Kingdom of Manticore. Their tactics have cost the Royal Navy the priceless initiative as revolution and military purges wrack the People’s Republic of Haven, and that lost window of opportunity will cost the Star Kingdom seventeen years of bloody warfare and hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Now Young is free to seek vengeance on the people he feels have “wronged” him. People like Paul Tankersley and Honor Harrington. Paid duelists, smear tactics, hired assassins in public restaurants . . . nothing is beneath Pavel Young. But Captain Harrington can look after herself, and Pavel Young is about to face the fury of the woman the newsies call the “Salamander.” Yet who will save the Star Kingdom from the repercussions of his actions?

Women and men like Brandy Bolgeo are about to pay the toll for the Star Kingdom of Manticore’s honor.

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT

Everyone could see it coming. But one man could do something about it. Oh, he couldn’t avert the nuclear holocaust, but a scientist in Austria, ruthlessly using billions of research dollars for his own purposes, set up an out for himself; he created a time machine, and filled a warehouse with low-tech survival gear. Too bad he didn’t get to use it himself.

Instead, a team of American grad students, led by their professor, is sent back to the late Roman Empire in the time of Marcus Aurelius. Even though they are experts in this time and place, they are about to realize that reading books and living experience are very different things.

If they can survive, they hope to remake the world into a better place. But that’s a big “if.”

NEW NOVEL IN THE BEST-SELLING GORDIAN DIVISION SERIES FROM NYT BEST-SELLING AUTHOR DAVID WEBER AND JACOB HOLO

After an industrial ship carrying advanced self-replicating machines explodes on its way to Mercury, analysis of the wreckage reveals it to be forty years too old. Raibert Kaminski, the Gordian Division’s top agent, and his crew on the TransTemporal Vehicle Kleio soon discover the ship was transported to an uncharted universe, one with temporarily accelerated time. Forty years passed for the ship’s industrial machines while everyone else experienced only a few short days. Raibert is certain a powerful weapon of some nature has been built out in the unexplored reaches of the multiverse, but where and by whom remains unknown.

The search is on, and the Gordian Division musters its fleet of time machines at Providence, a massive transdimensional station under construction. They call upon their allies from the militaristic Admin for aid in their search—but before plans can be formalized, the leader of the Admin’s Department of Temporal Investigation is murdered while visiting Providence, and the joint operation is thrown into chaos.

Accusations fly and tensions mount between the two organizations. Detectives Isaac Cho and Susan Cantrell—both fast becoming experts in transdimensional crime—are dispatched to Providence. But the clock is ticking for the detectives and Raibert’s crew. A vast, powerful conspiracy has shuddered into motion, and the two teams may be all that stand between it and destruction on a universal scale.

NEW ENTRY IN THE BEST-SELLING LIADEN UNIVERSE® SERIES

On a world where cake is a necessity, it takes the Grid to protect the civilized and the deaf from the dire influences of the ambient and to keep the chaotic Haosa at bay.

Having arrived at recently Dust-bound Colemeno, Trader Padi yos’Galan is essential to Master Trader Shan yos’Galan’s plan to recoup Clan Korval’s fortunes by establishing new routes for the clan’s tradeship. Shan’s inner Healer insists Padi come to terms with her as-yet unplumbed psychic abilities, which might place her in the top tier of dramliz, if she can learn control.

Padi yearns to concentrate on trade, but Colemeno’s fey ambient and deadly long-term politics combine to bring her face-to-face with the Haosa, and in particular with the mysterious and untouchable Tekelia, as Korval’s trade mission’s necessity of a port audit collide with a cruel history of murder, deception, and brutality. Amid the dangers, Padi unexpectedly finds herself eagerly exploring her dramliz side when faced with the unspoken powers of the ambient, the sky-filling energy of the ribbon dance, and Tekelia’s mutable eyes.

When a prank bonds Harper Tavros to a fierce griffin instead of the dragon she always dreamed of, she must battle her doubts and rise to the front lines, forging an unbreakable alliance to save her country from impending doom.

Together we fly, divided we fall.

All Harper Tavros ever wanted was to be a dragon rider.

But after a prank goes wrong, she ends up soul bonded to a griffin. Now, she'll have to learn an entirely new skillset before she ends up on the front lines of a war her country is slowly losing.

If she's going to make a difference, she'll need to rise up from the ruin of her dreams and embrace a new path. One that includes her accidental bondmate, an utterly ridiculous, insanely brave griffin. But in order to form a strong enough bond to defend their country, they'll need to keep the pressures of war, loss, and doubt from tearing them apart. Because the only way Harper and her griffin will survive is together.

There wasn’t much money to be made as a Trailblazer, searching out new worlds for possible development. Still, it was safer than the bounty hunter career that had cost Gregory Roarke his left arm six years ago. And thanks to his Kadolian partner Selene’s ultrasensitive sense of smell, they occasionally discovered a medically promising seed or spore they could sell under the table. It was a quiet life, uneventful and mostly legal.

Until Roarke was approached by two men with a proposal: track down a mysterious woman named Tera and, through her, locate a secret project called Icarus.

The challenge was intriguing. The unlimited budget was tempting. But Roarke had a more personal reason to accept the job.

The chance for long-delayed payback.

CLASSIC SF STORIES FOR ANYONE THINKING ABOUT THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Imperium Sine Fine

Step back in time and traverse the stars with classic stories that reimagine the grandeur of the Roman Empire—with a science fiction twist.

From the vastness of interstellar conquests to the intricate politics of alien worlds, these tales blend history and imagination, exploring what might have been if Rome had extended its reach beyond the cosmos.

Join us as we uncover the stories that blend the glory of the past with the possibilities of the future—where the empire never truly fell, but soared among the stars.

AN EASY ASSIGNMENT INSTEAD TURNS HARD AND LEADS TO A STRING OF MURDERS, AND A RACE AGAINST AN ALIEN ENEMY

Gregory Roarke—former bounty hunter, former Trailblazer, current agent for the ultra-secret Icarus Group—has received a new assignment: locate a suspected but as-yet undiscovered teleportation portal on the backwater colony world of Alainn.

The rival Patth are also searching for the device, and have considerably more resources at their disposal. Fortunately, Roarke has Selene and her incredibly sensitive Kadolian sense of smell. On paper, it should be a straightforward enough job.

But that was before there was a murder in the small town of Bilswift . . . and another one . . . and the discovery that the Patth are already on the scene and have narrowed the search to a heavily forested area in the hills and mountains east of town.

Most disturbing of all is the discovery that one of Selene’s people, a Kadolian teenaged boy named Tirano, is working at one of Bilswift’s fish markets. A boy who may have lost his parents before his proper socialization was completed. A boy who may be connected to both the murders and the Patth.

A boy who may be the potentially dangerous wild card that the Kadolians call changelings.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ALL THE OLD MONSTERS?

The vampires, the werewolves, the ghouls . . . Daniel and Tina Hyde wiped them out, to make the world a safer place. But nature abhors a vacuum, supernature even more . . . Something’s got to fill the gap left by all those monster clans. The question now is, what happened to all the old aliens?

The Martians, the Bug-Eyed Monsters, the Reptiloids and the Greys? They’re coming out of the shadows with a vengeance, and Daniel and Tina Hyde are about to discover there are much worse things than monsters. Fortunately, Hydes love a good fight.

Daniel and Tina are in for the fight of their lives, with the whole world at stake.

In a desperate fight for humanity's survival, Captain Saef Sinclair-Maru must lead the powerful private warship Salahdiin and an unlikely alliance against genocidal forces, balancing the demands of shareholders with the heart of a rebellion.

Piracy, War, and Humanity's Last Stand

The heavy cruiser Salahdiin is the most powerful private warship in the history of the Myriad Worlds, and bears a Letter of Marque, the Imperial charter for legalized piracy. As the most successful fighting captain of the Imperial Fleet, Saef Sinclair-Maru is the ideal choice to command the privateer, but exchanging egotistical admirals for demanding shareholders carries its own unique challenges, particularly when the fate of humanity lies in the balance.

While war rages within the Imperium, few comprehend the inhuman instigators at the heart of the conflict or their genocidal ambitions, but Saef and his counterpart, Inga, draw a surprising coterie of allies to their campaign of desperate resistance, including spy master Winter Yung, former Molo Ranger Kyle Whiteside, and even Erik Sturmsohn, a Thorsworld war chieftain sworn to overthrow the emperor.

Together, in the face of approaching annihilation, they each must choose: Obedience to the edicts of their leaders, or loyalty to a deeper motivation that defines the very heart of humanity.

Interstellar medic Melanie Mooney races against time to save her patients while unraveling cosmic mysteries and navigating the dangers of space, all while longing for the Earth she left behind.

Find a Way Home

Everything is relative. Einstein said so.

After years of traversing the galaxy as an emergency medic, Melanie Mooney is learning this in a personal way. With each run to a far-flung star system, she is taken ever farther from her former life, and not only in distance. The penalty for zipping around the galaxy at light speed means time is moving slower for her than it is back home, and the difference is adding up. If Melanie ever hopes to return, she must do so before the Earth she knew becomes as unrecognizable to her as the alien worlds of the Galactic Union.

Intergalactic travel is expensive, far beyond anything Melanie can afford with her Medical Corps pay. There may yet be a way to not only get a free ride home, but in a manner that would avoid the pernicious effects of relativity. It’s risky, and will force Melanie to place her trust in some unsavory characters, including the last person in the galaxy she wants to be caught dead with.

The trick will be not getting caught dead or hopelessly lost in dimensions of the universe where no human or alien belongs. That’s a lot for a woman who just wants to go home.

A relentless alien pursues a beleaguered squad of soldiers through time and reality, while the Elderwatch monitors their fates, unraveling the intertwining stories of survival and annihilation.

When does the hunter become the hunted? How does a single image change the story to something . . . else?

In Dancing with Destruction, we get to find out. Nine stories from some of the top authors in military science fiction will tell the tale of the poor, hapless soldiers and an apex predator in hot pursuit.

Featuring stories from David Weber & Marisa Wolf, Nick Cole & Jason Anspach, Kacey Ezell, Jacob Holo & Edie Skye, Rick Partlow, Joelle Presby, Blaine Pardoe, Nick Steverson & Melissa Olthoff, and Jason Cordova.

In the end, it’s not about who is the hunted or the hunter, but who is willing to dance . . .

When hunters from around the world gather in Las Vegas for a conference, a creature left over from a World War Two weapons experiment wakes up and goes on a rampage across the desert. A not-so-friendly wager between the rival companies turns into a race to see who can bag the mysterious creature first.

Only there is far more to this particular case than meets the eye, and as Hunters fall prey to their worst nightmares, Owen Zastava Pitt and the staff of Monster Hunter International have to stop an ancient god from turning Sin City into a literal hell on earth.

Listen to the author discuss the book here on the Baen Free Radio Hour.

Lexile Score: 730

For Jason Graham, the world ends not with a bang, not even with much of a whimper.

One second, he's sitting in a restaurant in Mobile, Alabama, chatting with a server, the next he finds himself in a strange room, rescued by mysterious alien benefactors. Seems the world did end, though how and why are something of a mystery.

Now, Jason—and five hundred million other humans—are in orbit around an Earthlike world that is abundant in natural resources and totally untamed. For the newly awakened humans, this is a chance to start society with a clean slate and a bright future. For Jason, who has knocked about aimlessly in several different careers in his Earth life, it’s an opportunity to unleash his creativity and ambition and see what he can really do.

YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT . . .

After saving the world (again), Thomas Quinn wants nothing more but to return to a quiet life, be forgotten by the world, and run his little shop of esoteric goods in Philadelphia. But it seems fate has other plans, when he accidentally uncovers a problem in the source of magic itself, and he’s once again called upon to figure out what it all means. His investigation takes him back to the Otherworld, where he tangles with a beautiful and mysterious Faerie maiden, monsters of myth and legend, the dangerous intricacies of Fae hospitality, beings once regarded as gods, and eventually the nature of reality itself.

And on top of all that, someone keeps trying to kill him.

So much for a quiet life.

HONOR HARRINGTON MUST DIE

Hounded into retirement and disgrace by political enemies, cut to the heart by the murder of the man she loved, and bereft of confidence in herself and her abilities, Captain Honor Harrington has retreated to the planet Grayson to take up her role as Steadholder while she tries to heal her bitter wounds.

But the People's Republic of Haven is rising from defeat to threaten Grayson anew, and the newborn Grayson Navy needs her experience desperately. It's a call Honor cannot refuse, yet even as she once more accepts the duty whose challenges she fears she can no longer meet, powerful men who hate and fear the changes she's brought to their world are determined to reverse them. They have a plan ... and for it to succeed Honor Harrington must die.

Two irresistible forces are rushing together to crush Grayson between them, and only one woman uncertain of her capabilities, weary unto death, and marked for murder-stands between her adopted planet and its devastation.

THE GODDESS OF WAR RIDES, HERALDED BY STORM FURIES

The oni have invaded Pittsburgh on Elfhome. And, so far, it looks like they are winning. All this is according to prophecy. But the prophecy is big on symbols and light on specifics. Tinker and her allies are doing the best they can to defend the city and the civilians caught in the crossfire of a war between elves that’s been brewing for centuries. But the enemy has no hesitation whatsoever in involving innocents. All the pieces in this deadly game are in place—and everyone trusts Tinker will save them. All she needs is a plan. And then the lights go out, and the storm begins to rage. . . .

THE LATEST ENTRY IN TIM AKERS’ KNIGHT WATCH URBAN FANTASY SERIES

Steampunks Have Heroes Too

Knight Watch stands between the mundane world and the monsters of myth and legend. But there are more than dragons and trolls prowling the shadows of the modern world. Creatures of clockwork and mad science threaten to disrupt the peace. For monsters such as these, a different band of heroes guards the world.

The Eccentrics

Led by the eighth incarnation of Nikola Tesla, the Society of Eccentric Geniuses protects the Mundane world from the horrors of the Gestalt, a timeline of the future that never was. Powered by SCIENCE and steam, the Eccentrics travel the world in their airship, righting wrongs and rescuing troubled suitors, mad scientists, and optimistic engineers, often from monsters of their own creation. But now something new threatens the Gestalt, and they need help from John Rast and the heroes of Knight Watch. Will John be able to navigate a world of clockwork and science to save the day? Or will he fall into the clutches of a madman bent on remaking both the Gestalt and the Unreal in his own image?