Martha Wells, Short Stories, & More

Will They or Won’t They

On screen, they’re in love. Off screen, they can’t stand each other. Two co-stars with a complex history reunite to film the final season of a beloved paranormal drama in this tension-filled will they won’t they romance from the author of How to Fake It in Hollywood.

Lilah Hunter and Shane McCarthy are madly in love— at least, their characters are. As the stars of the hit paranormal TV show Intangible, they spent years pining for each other on-screen… until Lilah ditched the show at the end of season five in hopes of becoming a film star. With no such luck, she’s back to film the much-hyped ninth and final season, in which their characters will get together at last.

But coming back means facing one of the biggest reasons she left: Shane. Ever since their secret behind-the-scenes fling imploded at the end of the first season, the two of them have despised each other.

Now back on set together for the first time in years, with the world’s eyes on them and their post-show careers on the line, they’ll have to grit their teeth and play nice. But under pressure to give Intangible’s fans the happy ending they’ve been waiting for, Lilah and Shane are forced to get closer than ever. And if they’re not careful, they just might get blindsided by one final twist: a real-life happy ending of their own.

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The Books of Ile-Rien

Collecting Martha Wells’ Element of Fire and Death of the Necromancer for the first time in one place, in a new and revised edition!

The Element of Fire

The kingdom of Ile-Rien lies in peril, menaced by sorcerous threats and devious intrigue, when Kade, bastard sister of King Roland, appears unexpectedly at court. The illegitimate daughter of the old king and the Queen of Air and Darkness herself, Kade’s true desires are cloaked in mystery.

It falls to Thomas Boniface, Captain of the Queen’s Guard, to keep the kingdom from harm. But is one man’s steel enough to counter all the magic of fayre?

The Death of the Necromancer

Nicholas Valiarde is a passionate, embittered nobleman and the greatest thief in all of Ile-Rien. On the gaslight streets of the city, Nicholas assumes the guise of a master criminal, stealing jewels from wealthy nobles to finance his quest for a long-pursued vengeance.

But Nicholas’s murderous mission is being interrupted by a series of eerie, unexplainable, and fatal events. A dark magic opposes him, and traces of a necromantic power that hasn’t been used for centuries abound. Nicholas and his compatriots find themselves battling an ancient evil.

And if they lose? Death would be preferable to the fate that awaits them….

Both novels included in this volume have been revised and updated. These are the author’s preferred texts.

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Love Me Do

She may have given up on love – but she can still play Cupid for somebody else . . .

Lovelorn Brit Phoebe Chapman has barely set foot in her sister’s house in the Hollywood Hills when she’s swept up by lovable Bel, her sister’s personal trainer, and handsome Ren, the sweet and sensitive carpenter next door.

Bel has a head-over-heels crush on Ren but Ren has no idea Bel even exists. Certain that the two of them are meant to be together, Phoebe offers to play matchmaker.

Caught up with writing love letters and an unexpected friendship with a reclusive 82-year-old film star, Phoebe finds herself falling for the real Los Angeles – but is that all she’s falling for?

A feelgood, sunshine-filled, friends-to-lovers romcom, Love Me Do is a dreamy summer love story, perfect for fans of Christina Lauren and Emily Henry.

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I’m Waiting for You

“Her fiction is a breath-taking piece of a cinematic art itself. Reminiscent of the world we experienced in Matrix, Inception, and Dark City, still it leads us to this entirely original structure, which is a ground-breaking, mystic literary and cinematic experience. Indeed, powerful and graceful.”—Bong Joon-ho, Oscar-winning director of Parasite

Two worlds, four stories, infinite possibilities 

In this mind-expanding work of speculative fiction, available in English for the first time, one of South Korea’s most treasured writers explores the driving forces of humanity—love, hope, creation, destruction, and the very meaning of existence—in two pairs of thematically interconnected stories.

In “I’m Waiting for You” and “On My Way,” an engaged couple coordinate their separate missions to distant corners of the galaxy to ensure—through relativity—they can arrive back on Earth simultaneously to make it down the aisle. But small incidents wreak havoc on space and time, driving their wedding date further away. As centuries on Earth pass and the land and climate change, one thing is constant: the desire of the lovers to be together. In two separate yet linked stories, Kim Bo-Young cleverly demonstrate the idea love that is timeless and hope springs eternal, despite seemingly insurmountable challenges and the deepest despair.

In “The Prophet of Corruption” and “That One Life,” humanity is viewed through the eyes of its creators: godlike beings for which everything on Earth—from the richest woman to a speck of dirt—is an extension of their will. When one of the creations questions the righteousness of this arrangement, it is deemed a perversion—a disease—that must be excised and cured. Yet the Prophet Naban, whose “child” is rebelling, isn’t sure the rebellion is bad. What if that which is considered criminal is instead the natural order—and those who condemn it corrupt? Exploring the dichotomy between the philosophical and the corporeal, Kim ponders the fate of free-will, as she considers the most basic of questions: who am I?

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