The Mortal Heart

Everyone in Gatlin has a story... Before she met and married Mitchell Wate, the beautiful and brilliant Lila Jane Evers was an honors student at Duke University. Studying late into the night in the rare books library, she is captivated by a single line of text on an old piece of parchment: "In the Light there is Dark, and in the Dark there is Light." What can it mean? Then one night, Lila Jane meets a mysterious young man who may have the answer. His name is Macon Ravenwood, and for every secret he reveals, he is hiding another. With Macon's help, Lila Jane uncovers the wonders of the Caster world--the Light and the Dark. But a romance between the Incubus who is fighting his own dark side and this fiercely independent Mortal is doomed from the start. The closer Lila Jane and Macon become, the more her life is in danger. Discover the unforgettable and untold story of how Lila and Macon fell in love in this all-new Beautiful Creatures novella from #1 New York Times bestselling authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. Word Count: ~12,000

Annith's worst fears are realized when she discovers that, despite her lifelong training to be an assassin, she is being groomed by the abbess as a Seeress, to be forever shut up in the convent of Saint Mortain.

In the fifteenth-century kingdom of Brittany, seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where she learns that the god of Death has blessed her with dangerous gifts--and a violent destiny.

Does it always come down to Destiny? The Wheel of Fate? Who's behind that Wheel? What kind of idiot is doing the driving around here? The day has finally arrived: Mitchell Wate and Lillian English are getting married. Everyone has come together--Ethan and Lena, John and Liv, even Link is back in town--and there's enough pie to make Amma proud. But despite the joyous occasion, Ethan can't help but worry that something feels...off. When Siren-turned-Hybrid Caster Ridley blows into town unannounced, Ethan's suspicions are confirmed. And it's worse than he imagined: Silas Ravenwood is coming for them, and no one in Gatlin is safe. Has the Wheel of Fate finally caught up to them, or can the Casters and Mortals come together to stop it in its tracks? #1 New York Times bestselling authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl reveal Gatlin's destiny in this not-to-be missed final installment of Beautiful Creatures: The Untold Stories. Word Count: ~13,000 words

Searching for her missing brother, Grace Carlyle never dreamed she would discover a secret world populated by mythological monsters—or find herself facing a sword-wielding being whose looks put mortal men to shame. But there he was, Darius en Kragin, one of a race of shape-shifting warriors bound to guard the gates of Atlantis, and kill all travelers who strayed within its borders. Now Grace's life was in his hands, and Darius had to choose between his centuries-old vow and the woman who had slipped beneath his defenses and stolen the heart of Atlantis's fiercest dragon.

Filled with characters as menacing as they are memorable, this chilling twist on vampire fiction packs a punch in the bestselling tradition of ’Salem’s Lot by Stephen King. Asmodeus “Sax” Saxon-Tang, a vainglorious and well-established antiques dealer, has made a fortune over many years by globetrotting for the finest lost objects in the world. Only Sax knows the true secret to his success: at certain points of his life, he’s killed vampires for their priceless hoards of treasure. But now Sax’s past actions are quite literally coming back to haunt him, and the lives of those he holds most dear are in mortal danger. To counter this unnatural threat, and with the blessing of the Holy Roman Church, a cowardly but cunning Sax must travel across Europe in pursuit of incalculable evil—and immeasurable wealth—with a ragtag team of mercenaries and vampire killers to hunt a terrifying, ageless monster…one who is hunting Sax in turn. From author Ben Tripp, whose first horror novel Rise Again “raises the stakes so high that the book becomes nearly impossible to put down” (Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother), The Fifth House of the Heart is a powerful story that will haunt you long after its final pages.

Fate is a powerful thing... Ethan Wate is still grieving the loss of his beloved Amma when he receives an unexpected gift--the old, yellow Whitman's Sampler box that held Amma's most closely guarded secrets. "One day I might let you have a look under that lid, Ethan Wate," Amma used to say. "But today isn't the day." Now it's time for one of her greatest secrets to be revealed. In a long-lost letter, Amma tells Ethan the story of growing up as a young Seer with a remarkable gift for reading cards. But with a power that far-reaching comes responsibility, and Amma has been honoring her mission since before Ethan was born--to protect the Wate family at any cost. So when Lila Jane Evers enters Mitchell Wate's life, bringing the whole Caster world with her, Amma turns to her cards. This time, it's a the reading that will define the rest of her life--and Ethan's. In this second installment of Beautiful Creatures: The Untold Stories, #1 New York Times bestselling authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl bring you even deeper into the Caster world. Word Count: ~9,000 words

You can't hide from fate... While looking through her grandmother Emmaline's keepsakes, Lena Duchannes comes across a little blue book with a big history--a book that changed Macon Ravenwood's life and saved Lena's. When Lena was a baby, Seer and gifted card reader Amma Treaudeau saw a terrifying future in the cards that sent her to Emmaline's door. When a powerful Dark Caster sets fire to Lena's house with baby Lena and her father trapped inside, Amma, Emmaline, and Macon vow to protect the child. Lena's grandmother and her Uncle Macon whisk Lena away, protecting her and moving her to a new place at the first sign of trouble. But a Caster can only hide for so long, and Macon must rely on the teachings in an ancient book to control his Dark nature. Ultimately, it will be his job to protect Lena--and keep her from surrendering to a Dark fate. #1 New York Times bestselling authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl revisit the events that would define Lena's future in the third installment of Beautiful Creatures: The Untold Stories. ~8,800 words

In gripping prose, one of the world's leading cardiac surgeons lays bare both the wonder and the horror of a life spent a heartbeat away from death When Stephen Westaby witnessed a patient die on the table during open-heart surgery for the first time, he was struck by the quiet, determined way the surgeons walked away. As he soon understood, this detachment is a crucial survival strategy in a profession where death is only a heartbeat away. In Open Heart, Westaby reflects on over 11,000 surgeries, showing us why the procedures have never become routine and will never be. With astonishing compassion, he recounts harrowing and sometimes hopeful stories from his operating room: we meet a pulseless man who lives with an electric heart pump, an expecting mother who refuses surgery unless the doctors let her pregnancy reach full term, and a baby who gets a heart transplant-only to die once it's in place. For readers of Atul Gawande's Being Mortal and of Henry Marsh's Do No Harm, Open Heart offers a soul-baring account of a life spent in constant confrontation with death.

The stunning conclusion to the New York Times bestselling series, perfect for fans of Cassandra Clare and Maggie Stiefvater! Is death the end . . . or only the beginning? Ethan Wate has spent most of his life longing to escape the stiflingly small Southern town of Gatlin. He never thought he would meet the girl of his dreams, Lena Duchannes, who unveiled a secretive, powerful, and cursed side of Gatlin, hidden in plain sight. And he never could have expected that he would be forced to leave behind everyone and everything he cares about. So when Ethan awakes after the chilling events of the Eighteenth Moon, he has only one goal: to find a way to return to Lena and the ones he loves. Back in Gatlin, Lena is making her own bargains for Ethan's return, vowing to do whatever it takes -- even if that means trusting old enemies or risking the lives of the family and friends Ethan left to protect. Worlds apart, Ethan and Lena must once again work together to rewrite their fate, in this stunning finale to the Beautiful Creatures series.