The hunter has become the hunted, as the Assassin Without a Name is forced from his usual haunts by Gwendolyn Goddard and her Black Guard watchdogs. On the run and out of patience, a welcome distraction arrives in the form of an old flame, Elizabeth West, who recruits him for a special Warder mission. The fanatical Jakaree are on the move, searching for an ancient relic so diabolical, the Warders are intent on destroying it before the zealots can lay a hand on it.

But the Assassin Without a Name soon learns that Elizabeth has something bigger in mind. Suspicious of her employer's true motives, she sets out to uncover the truth, leading them on a harrowing escapade across Alchester's rooftops, deep beneath the city's once grand temples, and into the sky onboard a Warder airship.

* The Assassin Without a Name series thus far:

Fine Wine, Killing the Dead, Night of Zealotry, The Goddard Affair, Thief's Gambit

sword, sorcery, assassins, dark fantasy, thriller, technology, urban, fantasy, mercenaries, steamfantasy, steampunk, adventure, rogues, airships, priests, zealots, infernal machines, gods, devils, witch

The Assassin Without a Name is on the hunt, looking for the secret organizations which recently tried to kill him before they can try again. But the work of his trade doesn't stop just because of personal business, so when a new client named Walter Goddard comes around wishing to have a rival eliminated, the Assassin Without a Name takes the job.

Only after the task is complete does he learn that Walter Goddard is a member of the Society for the Progression of Science and Technology, one of the very same organizations he's been seeking. At one of the society’s premiere technology galas, the Assassin Without a Name meets Gwendolyn Morgan, a beautiful widow who has run into problems of her own with the society. Not only does she believe the organization hired an assassin to murder her husband, but she’s certain she’s next. Convincing himself he’s only helping Gwendolyn in exchange for the society’s darkest secrets and not because of his part in making the woman into a widow, the Assassin Without a Name finds himself in the unusual role of protector as the society dispatches their Black Guard watchdogs to kill them both.

* The Assassin Without a Name series thus far:

Fine Wine, Killing the Dead, Night of Zealotry, The Goddard Affair, Thief's Gambit

sword, sorcery, assassins, short story, dark fantasy, urban, fantasy, mercenaries, steamfantasy, steampunk, thriller, sword & sorcery, infernal machines, deception, intrigue

I had a name once, same as everyone else, but after one glorious night of murder it was no longer safe to use. Small sacrifice for ensuring my sister's safety, I figured. So now I don't use one. In my line of work, it's not necessary anyway. What is my line of work? Murder, of course, though I fancy myself more than just an assassin. Gentleman, thief, wine connoisseur, adventurer, a man of a thousand names and none. I'm all of those things and more.

My life was about as normal as one could hope until one particular job came along. Kill the artificer, steal the plans, make an exchange. Simple enough, until a band of fanatical priests ambushed and tried to kill me. Turns out the plans have something to do with a source of dark energy. The priests aren't the only ones interested in it, either. I've no interest in being a hero, but I'll do whatever I have to do to keep my city--and my sister--safe. There's already blood on my hands. What's a little more?

***

Enter a world of intrigue, adventure, magic, technology, and, of course, murder, as the Assassin Without a Name finds himself embroiled in a secret war where all is lost no matter who wins.

The Assassin's Blade is a compilation of the first seven Assassin Without a Name fantasy adventure stories. It includes:

1. Fine Wine
2. Killing the Dead
3. Night of Zealotry
4. The Goddard Affair
5. Thief's Gambit
6. Assassin's Justice
7. Witch's Imperative

"Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble." - William Shakespeare

Trouble arrives for the Assassin Without a Name when he is waylaid by a woman with strange powers and a stranger disposition. Claiming she is not a witch, but "something worse," she tells him her name is Mathilda and that she wishes to hire him. The mark? None other than the supreme leader of the Warders, an organization Mathilda believes will bring death and destruction to Alchester unless they are stopped.

But the Warders aren't the only ones with such grand, dire designs. The Progressive Society, led by Gwendolyn Goddard, sets in motion an ambitious plan that will put Mathilda and the Assassin Without a Name's fortitude to the test, for they'll have to fight more than just the living if they hope to survive.

The Assassin Without a Name has a new client and a new job in the form of Kaileesh, a Southlander too sly for his own good. The job goes down without a hitch, but things sour when it comes time to settle. Finding himself at the receiving end of a double-cross isn't anything new for the Assassin Without a Name, so he knows just what to do to Kaileesh. But the situation becomes more complicated when he learns Kaileesh was in league with an influential member of Alchester's gentry. What starts as simple revenge becomes something more as the Assassin Without a Name formulates a plan to bring his own particular form of justice down on the heads of those who betrayed him.

Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.

Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire -- and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.

With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London's high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?

SOULLESS is the first book of the Parasol Protectorate series: a comedy of manners set in Victorian London, full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.
The Parasol Protectorate
Soulless
Changeless
Blameless
Heartless
Timeless


For more from Gail Carriger, check out:

The Custard Protocol
Prudence
Imprudence

Finishing School (YA)
Etiquette & Espionage
Curtsies & Conspiracies
Waistcoats & Weaponry
Manners & Mutiny

Quitting her husband's house and moving back in with her horrible family, Lady Maccon becomes the scandal of the London season.

Queen Victoria dismisses her from the Shadow Council, and the only person who can explain anything, Lord Akeldama, unexpectedly leaves town. To top it all off, Alexia is attacked by homicidal mechanical ladybugs, indicating, as only ladybugs can, the fact that all of London's vampires are now very much interested in seeing Alexia quite thoroughly dead.

While Lord Maccon elects to get progressively more inebriated and Professor Lyall desperately tries to hold the Woolsey werewolf pack together, Alexia flees England for Italy in search of the mysterious Templars. Only they know enough about the preternatural to explain her increasingly inconvenient condition, but they may be worse than the vampires -- and they're armed with pesto.
BLAMELESS is the third book of the Parasol Protectorate series: a comedy of manners set in Victorian London, full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.
The Parasol Protectorate
Soulless
Changeless
Blameless
Heartless
Timeless


For more from Gail Carriger, check out:

The Custard Protocol
Prudence
Imprudence

Finishing School (YA)
Etiquette & Espionage
Curtsies & Conspiracies
Waistcoats & Weaponry
Manners & Mutiny

Alexia Maccon, the Lady Woolsey, awakens in the wee hours of the mid-afternoon to find her husband, who should be decently asleep like any normal werewolf, yelling at the top of his lungs. Then he disappears; leaving her to deal with a regiment of supernatural soldiers encamped on her doorstep, a plethora of exorcised ghosts, and an angry Queen Victoria.

But Alexia is armed with her trusty parasol, the latest fashions, and an arsenal of biting civility. So even when her investigations take her to Scotland, the backwater of ugly waistcoats, she is prepared: upending werewolf pack dynamics as only the soulless can. She might even find time to track down her wayward husband, if she feels like it.
CHANGELESS is the second book of the Parasol Protectorate series: a comedy of manners set in Victorian London, full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.
The Parasol Protectorate
Soulless
Changeless
Blameless
Heartless
Timeless


For more from Gail Carriger, check out:

The Custard Protocol
Prudence
Imprudence

Finishing School (YA)
Etiquette & Espionage
Curtsies & Conspiracies
Waistcoats & Weaponry
Manners & Mutiny

Lady Alexia Maccon, soulless, is at it again, only this time the trouble is not her fault. When a mad ghost threatens the queen, Alexia is on the case, following a trail that leads her deep into her husband's past. Top that off with a sister who has joined the suffragette movement (shocking!), Madame Lefoux's latest mechanical invention, and a plague of zombie porcupines, Alexia barely has time to remember she happens to be eight months pregnant.

Will Alexia manage to determine who is trying to kill Queen Victoria before it is too late? Is it the vampires again or is there a traitor lurking about in wolf's clothing? And what, exactly, has taken up residence in Lord Akeldama's second best closet?
HEARTLESS is the fourth book of the Parasol Protectorate series: a comedy of manners set in Victorian London, full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.
The Parasol Protectorate
Soulless
Changeless
Blameless
Heartless
Timeless


For more from Gail Carriger, check out:

The Custard Protocol
Prudence
Imprudence

Finishing School (YA)
Etiquette & Espionage
Curtsies & Conspiracies
Waistcoats & Weaponry
Manners & Mutiny

Alexia Tarabotti, Lady Maccon, has settled into domestic bliss. Of course, being Alexia, such bliss involves integrating werewolves into London High society, living in a vampire's second best closet, and coping with a precocious toddler who is prone to turning supernatural willy-nilly.

Until, that is, she receives a summons that cannot be ignored. With husband, child, and Tunstells in tow, Alexia boards a steamer to cross the Mediterranean. But Egypt may hold more mysteries than even the indomitable Lady Maccon can handle. What does the vampire Queen of the Alexandria Hive really want from her? Why is the God-Breaker Plague suddenly expanding? And how has Ivy Tunstell suddenly become the most popular actress in all the British Empire?
TIMELESS is the final book of the Parasol Protectorate series: a comedy of manners set in Victorian London, full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.
The Parasol Protectorate
Soulless
Changeless
Blameless
Heartless
Timeless


For more from Gail Carriger, check out:

The Custard Protocol
Prudence
Imprudence

Finishing School (YA)
Etiquette & Espionage
Curtsies & Conspiracies
Waistcoats & Weaponry
Manners & Mutiny

I had a name once, same as everyone else, but after one glorious night of murder it was no longer safe to use. Small sacrifice for ensuring my sister's safety, I figured. So now I don't use one. In my line of work, it's not necessary anyway. What is my line of work? Murder, of course, though I fancy myself more than just an assassin. Gentleman, thief, wine connoisseur, adventurer, a man of a thousand names and none. I'm all of those things and more.

My life was about as normal as one could hope until one particular job came along. Kill the artificer, steal the plans, make an exchange. Simple enough, until a band of fanatical priests ambushed and tried to kill me. Turns out the plans have something to do with a source of dark energy. The priests aren't the only ones interested in it, either. I've no interest in being a hero, but I'll do whatever I have to do to keep my city--and my sister--safe. There's already blood on my hands. What's a little more?

***

Enter a world of intrigue, adventure, magic, technology, and, of course, murder, as the Assassin Without a Name finds himself embroiled in a secret war where all is lost no matter who wins.

The Assassin's Blade is a compilation of the first seven Assassin Without a Name fantasy adventure stories. It includes:

1. Fine Wine
2. Killing the Dead
3. Night of Zealotry
4. The Goddard Affair
5. Thief's Gambit
6. Assassin's Justice
7. Witch's Imperative

When powerful earth sorcerers forsook their vows to harness the earth not with magic, but with science, their brethren struck them down and hunted them to the last. Or so they thought... Now, five hundred years later, one person seeks to carry on the work of those first early thinkers by making the parts of their greatest creation whole again.

Aaron and Shanna fall victim to these ambitions when their home is leveled by a surprise elemental attack. In the ensuing chaos, the two are separated. For Shanna, hardship soon turns to fortune, as she finds herself embarking upon the greatest adventure of her life. Only the worst of nightmares awaits Aaron. Hunted at every turn, the only thing keeping him alive is his own resourcefulness and an eslar mercenary whose reputation as a killer might make him the worst threat of all.

Though Aaron and Shanna travel different paths, their purpose is joined when they individually learn of the mysterious Fifth Element. Shanna sees it as the final piece in the puzzle that is her destiny. To Aaron's logical mind, it is an impossible ambiguity. Whatever the answer, the Fifth Element draws them back together and into a final confrontation that will mean the end of everything unless they succeed.

"Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble." - William Shakespeare

Trouble arrives for the Assassin Without a Name when he is waylaid by a woman with strange powers and a stranger disposition. Claiming she is not a witch, but "something worse," she tells him her name is Mathilda and that she wishes to hire him. The mark? None other than the supreme leader of the Warders, an organization Mathilda believes will bring death and destruction to Alchester unless they are stopped.

But the Warders aren't the only ones with such grand, dire designs. The Progressive Society, led by Gwendolyn Goddard, sets in motion an ambitious plan that will put Mathilda and the Assassin Without a Name's fortitude to the test, for they'll have to fight more than just the living if they hope to survive.

The Assassin Without a Name has a new client and a new job in the form of Kaileesh, a Southlander too sly for his own good. The job goes down without a hitch, but things sour when it comes time to settle. Finding himself at the receiving end of a double-cross isn't anything new for the Assassin Without a Name, so he knows just what to do to Kaileesh. But the situation becomes more complicated when he learns Kaileesh was in league with an influential member of Alchester's gentry. What starts as simple revenge becomes something more as the Assassin Without a Name formulates a plan to bring his own particular form of justice down on the heads of those who betrayed him.

The Assassin Without a Name is on the hunt, looking for the secret organizations which recently tried to kill him before they can try again. But the work of his trade doesn't stop just because of personal business, so when a new client named Walter Goddard comes around wishing to have a rival eliminated, the Assassin Without a Name takes the job.

Only after the task is complete does he learn that Walter Goddard is a member of the Society for the Progression of Science and Technology, one of the very same organizations he's been seeking. At one of the society’s premiere technology galas, the Assassin Without a Name meets Gwendolyn Morgan, a beautiful widow who has run into problems of her own with the society. Not only does she believe the organization hired an assassin to murder her husband, but she’s certain she’s next. Convincing himself he’s only helping Gwendolyn in exchange for the society’s darkest secrets and not because of his part in making the woman into a widow, the Assassin Without a Name finds himself in the unusual role of protector as the society dispatches their Black Guard watchdogs to kill them both.

* The Assassin Without a Name series thus far:

Fine Wine, Killing the Dead, Night of Zealotry, The Goddard Affair, Thief's Gambit

sword, sorcery, assassins, short story, dark fantasy, urban, fantasy, mercenaries, steamfantasy, steampunk, thriller, sword & sorcery, infernal machines, deception, intrigue

Jerrick Bur returns to a home he does not recognize. The King's Patrol has vanished. Their Hall stands empty. An invading army encroaches upon the fringes of the forest and folk whisper of a sitheri witch brewing evil from the darkest hollows.

Once a patroller, always a patroller, and so Jerrick is duty-bound to investigate. He is joined by Kayra Weslin, knight errant, and her chronicler, Holly, who go to answer a plea for help from nearby Homewood. Along with Murik Alon Rin'kres, an eslar sorcerer who harbors a secret purpose all his own, the four attempt to unravel the mystery of the missing patrollers. They soon find tales of their disappearance frighteningly untrue as they are forced to ally themselves with an evil far more deadly than any of the other adversaries facing them.

ranger, witch, wizard, devil, demon, sword, sorcery, myth, legend, elves, elf, fae, ghost, gods, goddesses, dryad, goblin, fantasy, dark fantasy, mystery, deities, magic

The hunter has become the hunted, as the Assassin Without a Name is forced from his usual haunts by Gwendolyn Goddard and her Black Guard watchdogs. On the run and out of patience, a welcome distraction arrives in the form of an old flame, Elizabeth West, who recruits him for a special Warder mission. The fanatical Jakaree are on the move, searching for an ancient relic so diabolical, the Warders are intent on destroying it before the zealots can lay a hand on it.

But the Assassin Without a Name soon learns that Elizabeth has something bigger in mind. Suspicious of her employer's true motives, she sets out to uncover the truth, leading them on a harrowing escapade across Alchester's rooftops, deep beneath the city's once grand temples, and into the sky onboard a Warder airship.

* The Assassin Without a Name series thus far:

Fine Wine, Killing the Dead, Night of Zealotry, The Goddard Affair, Thief's Gambit

sword, sorcery, assassins, dark fantasy, thriller, technology, urban, fantasy, mercenaries, steamfantasy, steampunk, adventure, rogues, airships, priests, zealots, infernal machines, gods, devils, witch

The city of Brighton promises new beginnings for Aaron, Serena, and the taciturn eslar, Ensel Rhe. But, upon their arrival, Aaron and Serena are arrested for their role in the Chaos of a week ago, while Ensel Rhe slips away on business of his own.

The pair are given the opportunity to plead their case before the earl himself, whereupon they are released and assigned a very special duty, for deep below the palace lies the Nullification Engine, an ancient machine completed hundreds of years ago but never activated. Until now. While Aaron and Serena struggle to unravel the machine's mysteries, Ensel Rhe confronts his past once more when he learns his daughter has come to Brighton, but in the company of one of his greatest enemies.

A race against time begins as Aaron comes to realize the Nullification Engine was never turned on for a reason, for once the machine reaches a state of full nullitivity, it will destroy Brighton and everyone in it.

Witches, Wizards, Devils, Demons, Sword, Sorcery, Coming of Age, Mythology, Legends, Elves, Fae, Greek, Roman, steampunk, steamfantasy, science fantasy, infernal machines, infernal devices, second in a series, arcanepunk, fantasy, fire, earth, water, air, historical, adventure, epic