A stolen destiny. An impossible quest. Kara Valari has broken one of the underworld’s highest laws and is serving the ultimate sentence. But nothing—not even the impossible quest of breaching the boundaries of hell and facing off with Hades himself—will keep Maximus Kane from rescuing her. The journey will demand all of Maximus’s courage…and help from an unlikely guide. Driven by love, he sets off into a dark realm he only knows from the tattered pages of Dante’s Comedy. In hell’s bleak world, every part of Kara’s soul is subjected to Hades’s morbid fascination and merciless assault. Giving in to his demands means sharing the intimate details of why she dared to disobey him—a love for Maximus that, even now, burns on in her heart. Just when Kara resolves herself to an eternity of her nightmare, she discovers a glimmer of hope…a way to glimpse her beloved. Could her visions of Maximus unite them once more, or are they just another twisted punishment for her in a kingdom designed for agony? In those fleeting moments of light and passion, Kara rekindles her fight to survive. Darkness may still separate her from Maximus, but they’re connected by fate. But can their love survive this storm?

Anzig is Ddraig of Laxtal. He knows he must unite the western clans to muster a powerful force against Xital and their human allies, but his mind is breaking, torn apart by the revelations of his identity and the struggles to contain his magic. Preying of his weakness, a spectre stalks his shadow. Ellian knows she must make a choice, but she fears being the one to shatter Anzig's mind for good. New allies flock to their side, but inaction will bring only death. Their army must fly. The dragon who leads it holds the fate of dragonkind in their paws.

One foretold love deserves a second chance... Haunted by dreams of a lover who takes the form of a mythical dragon, Eileen Grosvenor searches for the truth. She never expects to find a real dragon shape shifter, let alone one who awakens her passion and ignites memories of her own forgotten past. Erik Sorensson is focused on leading the Pyr to triumph over the Slayers, even if it costs him his life. When an ancient relic that can turn the tide of the battle reveals itself, Erik knows he has to retrieve it from Eileen's possession. But when he tries to do so, heÕs shocked by an incredible firestorm that compels him to confront the truth about Eileen's identity. Her presence reminds him of mistakes he's determined not to repeat, and Erik is forced to make a choice: duty or love. Only by unlocking the secrets of the past can Erik and Eileen fulfill the final prophecy of the Pyr. Can they face their deepest fears and claim their destined love in time to defeat the Slayers? "Second chances are a key theme in this latest Dragonfire adventure. Cooke keeps the pace intense and the emotions raging in this powerful new read. She's top-notch, as always."—Romantic Times *** The Dragonfire Series of Paranormal Romances Each Dragonfire Novel is a complete romance, but you would probably prefer to read them in order to follow the story of the Dragon's Tail Wars, the final battle for supremacy between the Pyr and the evil Slayers. The series is complete with fourteen stories. 1. Kiss of Fire (Quinn and Sara) 2. Kiss of Fury (Donovan and Alex) 3. Kiss of Fate (Erik and Eileen) 4. Winter Kiss (Delaney and Ginger) 5. Harmonia's Kiss (a short story about the Dragon's Tooth Warriors) 6. Whisper Kiss (Niall and Rox) 7. Darkfire Kiss (Rafferty and Melissa) 8. Flashfire (Lorenzo and Cassie) 9. Ember's Kiss (Brandon and Liz) 10. Kiss of Danger (a Dragon Legion novella featuring Alexander and Katina) 11. Kiss of Darkness (a Dragon Legion novella featuring Damien and Petra) 12. Kiss of Destiny (a Dragon Legion novella featuring Thad and Aura) 13. Serpent's Kiss (Thorolf and Chandra) 14. Firestorm Forever (Sloane and Sam, plus Drake and Veronica, and Marcus and Jac. Yes, this book has THREE firestorms and is the big finish.) The three Dragon Legion novellas are also available in a bundle called The Dragon Legion Collection. There is a world guide called Here Be Dragons: A Dragonfire Companion. The Dragonfire books are also available in three boxed sets of three books each: 1. Dragonfire Quest (Kiss of Fire, Kiss of Fury and Kiss of Fate) 2. Dragonfire Elixir (Winter Kiss, Whisper Kiss and Darkfire Kiss) 3. Dragonfire Reunion (Flashfire, Ember's Kiss, Harmonia's Kiss, Kiss of Danger, Kiss of Destiny and Kiss of Darkness) 4. Dragonfire Triumph (Serpent's Kiss, Firestorm Forever) *** The stories of the Pyr continue in the DragonFate novels, a paranormal romance series featuring dragon shifter heroes and heroines who have their own powers. This series is in progress: 1. the prequel, Maeve's Book of Beasts 2. Dragon's Kiss 3. Dragon's Heart 4. Dragon's Mate 5. Dragon's Wolf (May 2022) *** Keywords: dragon, dragon shifter romance, destined mate, action adventure, urban fantasy romance, dragonfire, romantic comedy, second chance at love, reincarnation, scholar, leader, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Donna Grant, Thea Harrison, Jennifer Ashley, Christine Feehan, Lara Adrian, G. A. Aiken

The great Russian 20th-century novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Stalingrad. Life and Fate is an epic tale of a country told through the fate of a single family, the Shaposhnikovs. As the battle of Stalingrad looms, Grossman's characters must work out their destinies in a world torn by ideological tyranny and war. Completed in 1960 and then confiscated by the KGB, this sweeping panorama of Soviet Society remained unpublished until it was smuggled into the West in 1980, where it was hailed as a masterpiece. 'A literary genius. His Life and Fate is rated by many as the finest Russian novel of the 20th Century' Mail on Sunday VINTAGE CLASSICS RUSSIAN SERIES - sumptuous editions of the greatest books to come out of Russia during the most tumultuous period in its history.

In this genre-defying book, best-selling memoirist and critic Daniel Mendelsohn explores the mysterious links between the randomness of the lives we lead and the artfulness of the stories we tell. Combining memoir, biography, history, and literary criticism, Three Rings weaves together the stories of three exiled writers who turned to the classics of the past to create masterpieces of their own—works that pondered the nature of narrative itself. Erich Auerbach, the Jewish philologist who fled Hitler’s Germany and wrote his classic study of Western literature, Mimesis, in Istanbul... François Fénelon, the seventeenth-century French archbishop whose ingenious sequel to the Odyssey,The Adventures of Telemachus—a veiled critique of the Sun King and the best-selling book in Europe for one hundred years—resulted in his banishment... and the German novelist W. G. Sebald, self-exiled to England, whose distinctively meandering narratives explore Odyssean themes of displacement, nostalgia, and separation from home. Intertwined with these tales of exile and artistic crisis is an account of Mendelsohn’s struggles to write two of his own books—a family saga of the Holocaust and a memoir about reading the Odyssey with his elderly father—that are haunted by tales of oppression and wandering. As Three Rings moves to its startling conclusion, a climactic revelation about the way in which the lives of its three heroes were linked across borders, languages, and centuries forces the reader to reconsider the relationship between narrative and history, art and life.

An ancient grudge. A forbidden love. The only thing worse than being a demon is being a Valari. As an undergraduate at Los Angeles’s Alameda University, Kara Valari can sometimes succeed at forgetting she’s both. Lost between the pages of the classics and tucked into the shadows of lecture halls, she can dodge the paparazzi’s lenses as well as her family’s publicized dramas—not to mention their private expectations. She has one more year to feed her true passions. Then she’ll be expected to fulfill a much darker destiny. Cursed with inexplicable strength and godlike stature, literature professor Maximus Kane knows all about darkness. Every day he’s reminded of the missteps of his childhood and the devastating consequences they’ve had on those dearest to him. To atone, Maximus spends his nights alone and his days submerged in the quiet life of academia. His existence has become a study in control, and he’s become a master at it—until Kara Valari walks into his toughest course. Viscerally, Kara’s everything he craves. Logically, she’s everything he rejects. She’s a starlet of privilege. She’s also a student. And after one touch, he can’t deny that she’s awakened something in him that may never go dormant. Nothing about her makes sense, but everything about her feels right. Especially in the deepest strands of his DNA, which are still shadows of mystery to him—a mystery Kara seems determined to uncover. She’s Hollywood royalty. She’s forbidden fruit. And he’s pretty sure she could be the answer to everything.

Three sexy dragonborn princes. An assassin with an erased past. And the impossible mission of assassinating the dragon emperor. I have spent my whole life training to be an assassin of Linmoor Valley, an underground gild of the world’s most lethal merceneries. My past is a blank, my master merciless. I kill on command, no questions asked. Life changes after the day I’m sent to the town’s brothel to make a kill. The people who ordered the killing now want me to execute the greatest assassination of our time. Their mission is simple: Kill the tyrant dragon emperor and bring peace to the four kingdoms. A wiser assassin would refuse the impossible. But I can’t. From the moment I see the three dragon born princes, I know I belong to them. And they, to me. Assassinating the emperor is no longer my only mission. I must protect the three princes, for they are the only hope of reviving the four kingdoms. My tasks seem impossible, but I am determined to carry them out if only for a chance to be with the men who make my frozen heart throb and bleed. Assassin’s Fate is the first book in an intrigue-filled whychoose fantasy romance that support’s our heroine’s right to choose more than one mate. Get ready for this captivating tale full of heart-pounding romance and edge-of-your-seat action. Note: The Assassin and Her Dragon Princes is a reverse harem series meant for mature readers who enjoy their fantasy fiction with no restraint to language, violence and a few heated scenes. The Assassin and Her Dragon Princess is now a completed series. Book 1: Assassin’s Fate Book 2: Assassin’s Past Book 3: Assassin’s Crown Book 4: Assassin’s Reign