-A vampire locked in a cage in the basement, for good luck. -Bad guys, clever girls, and the various reasons why the guys have to stop breathing. -A world where fires never go out (with references to vanilla ice cream). These are but a f

Kari Sperring's first novel was a finalist for the Crawford Award, a Tiptree Award Honor Book, a LOCUS Recommended First Novel, and the winner of the Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer. Now she returns to the same amazing and atmospheric world with an entirely new story set several hundred years after the earth-shaking events of Living With Ghosts.When a wealthy young woman, obsessed with a childhood vision of a magical Shining Palace, sets out with her true love to search for a legendary land, she discovers the devastated WorldBelow - the realm of the Grass King - and the terrifying Cadre, who take her prisoner, and demand she either restore the king's concubine... or replace her.

After parting ways with her troubled mermaid tribe, Luce just wants to live peacefully on her own. But her tranquility doesn’t last long: she receives news that the tribe is on the verge of collapse and desperately needs her leadership. The tribe’s cruel queen wants Luce dead. Dorian, the boy Luce broke mermaid law to save, is determined to make her pay for her part in the murder of his family. And while the mermaids cling to the idea that humans never suspect their existence, there are suddenly ominous signs to the contrary.      But when Luce and Dorian meet, they start to wonder if love can overpower the hatred they know they should feel for each other. Can Luce fulfill her rightful role as queen of the mermaids without sacrificing her forbidden romance with Dorian?

1 cheerleader who’s dealing with her parents’ divorce + 1 geek who’s a lot cuter than he should be + 23 magical beings + 1 scary bad guy = what Tim Kring, creator of TV’s “Heroes” and “Touch,” calls a “cool new series.”In this first book of a series about magic, friendship, and adventure, a seemingly mismatched pair of teens crack open the door to another reality.Julia is too busy wrapping her mind around her parents’ divorce to give half a thought to her friend Kellie’s fascination with “otherworldly stuff.” Julia’s dad has taken off to start a new family on the other side of the country, and now her mom’s decided to ruin her summer, too. Instead of cheerleader camp, Julia will be stranded at her grandmother’s in the nowhere town of Cedarwood Ridge. There she finds that her usual ice-queen act won’t cut it with her childhood friend John Freeman, who’s a lot cuter than he should be and not half the geek she thought he was. Definitely a romance in the making if it weren’t for the visitations from her dead grandfather and John’s infuriatingly open response to such phenomena. And that’s not the only strange thing that’s going on, thanks to a consortium of magical beings called The Twenty-Two who are secretly watching over John and Julia and making big summer plans of their own. Including John and Julia’s future role in saving the world from their nemesis to be, a beyond-evil corporate overlord named Niem Vidalgo Oten. Not that Julia would believe any of it. John, however, would find it way cool.