Showing results by author "R. L. King" in All Categories

When a portal trip home to visit Aubrey on a stormy Halloween night goes awry, Alastair Stone finds himself in a bizarre, alternate-reality version of his idyllic, wealthy adopted hometown, Encantada. Not that much is different, really—except nobody can leave, most of the population doesn’t seem to know or care, and terrifying monsters prowl the streets when the sun goes down.

The last person Alastair Stone wants anything to do with is his twin sister Acantha. Having her consciousness stuffed inside another body has done nothing to improve her. So when one of the Windermere druids reaches out to him with news that Acantha’s disappeared—and by the way, she’s also losing her mind—he’s in no particular hurry to help track her down.

The portals are closed. The Evil have lost their pathway between their home and ours. No longer does humanity need to worry about extradimensional bodysnatchers with a thirst for pain and terror pouring through to wreak destruction on Earth. So that means Stone, Jason, and Verity can rest for a while, right? Yeah, maybe not. The problem is, while there might not be any new Evil coming through, a whole lot of very powerful, very angry Evil are still stuck on our side.

When his friend Jason Thayer disappears after heading to his home town to attend a wedding, the only clue Alastair Stone has to his whereabouts is a cryptic phone message about "something weird" Jason saw shortly before he vanished. Stone travels to the picturesque tourist town where Jason was last seen and is soon caught up in a horrific web of murder, malevolent magic, and a mysterious and ancient force that's resurfaced even more powerful than ever after a long dormancy.

Alastair Stone has already paid off two of the three favors he owes his ancestor Aldwyn. He expects the third to be big, but he has no idea how big. Aldwyn reveals he has another scion—a man the dragon has sensed, but never been able to locate.

For Alastair Stone, problems rarely come one at a time. He’s busy helping an old friend with a case of blackmail, when he’s contacted about a mysterious wave of minor crimes in the Oakland area - one that might involve magic. He asks Verity to look into it. When tragedy strikes, and the petty crime spree leads to a friend's disastrous near-death, Stone hurries home to investigate the situation himself. What he finds suggests terrifying new connections to a problem he thought he’d already dealt with.

For the Sake of the Game is the latest volume in the award-winning series from New York Times best-selling editors Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger, with stories of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, and friends in a variety of eras and forms. King and Klinger have a simple formula: Ask some of the world's greatest writers-regardless of genre - to be inspired by the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. The results are surprising and joyous.

Kira Talon has a secret. Raised since childhood among the nonmagical “Dim” when her expected magical birthright didn’t materialize, she barely remembers her early time in the opulent floating city high above the war-torn sprawl below. Years later, she’s made a life for herself among the nonmagical, discovering an affinity with machines, making good friends, and venturing carefully into the dangerous, clandestine resistance against the magical overlords.

After 15-year-old Alastair Stone is caught performing magic at his prestigious boarding school, he can hardly believe his good fortune; not only isn't he punished, but his father arranges a trial apprenticeship - three years early - with one of the most powerful mages in all of Britain. He'll have a month to prove himself, or he'll be packed back off to school. But when Alastair arrives at his new master's vast, remote country house, he soon finds that his teacher's draconian style and exacting standards aren't the only challenges he'll have to face to pass his trial.

Alastair Stone knew it would take a big sacrifice to end the Evil's hold over our world. He was ready to make that sacrifice - but he expected it to be his life. Never in his worst nightmares did he think it would be his magic. Despairing and grief-stricken at the loss of the abilities that defined his existence, he's on the fast track to self-destruction when a dear friend convinces him to take a desperate last chance. He heads to Las Vegas to find the only man who might be able to help him, but instead finds some old allies in dire need of his own help with a deadly threat.

Kira Talon’s future has never looked brighter. She’s got a new home in New Argana. Its brilliant and enigmatic leader Trevor Harrison has agreed to train her in magic. And as she settles into the next stage of her life, she’s finally beginning to get over her grief at the loss of her old friends.

It's hard enough for Alastair Stone to keep his two lives - powerful mage and mundane Occult Studies professor - separate without an old friend asking him to take on a new apprentice. Especially after a university colleague wants him to investigate a massive old house for things that go bump in the night. Still, Stone figures it's an easy job: just turn up, put on a little show, and announce that the house is clean. Only it isn't. A malevolent spirit is reawakening in the basement.

When Alastair Stone’s former apprentice Verity approaches him with the story of a drugged and caged Changeling she spotted at a magical black market in Europe, Stone is quick to offer his aid to locate the victim. Once on the Changeling’s trail, though, Stone and Verity soon discover they have stumbled upon the tip of a horrific iceberg—a shadowy organization operating deep underground, kidnapping specifically-targeted Changelings for an unspeakable fate.

It starts with an article from Jason's crank file. Some campers have discovered an unconscious "space alien" in the wilds of Colorado. Every mention of the story quickly vanishes from the internet - but not before Alastair Stone gets a look at the single, blurry photo. The "space alien" looks tantalizingly familiar....

Alastair Stone figures using tracking magic to help Jason Thayer and his new wife Amber find a missing child will be a good diversion. At least it will take his mind off a summer that, without Verity around, is shaping up to be a lot less eventful than he’d hoped. But when the boy’s kidnapper turns out to be a mage — one who’s using the public portal network to steal children for some mysterious purpose of his own — Stone, Jason, and Amber are thrown into a terrifying web of mystery, mad science, and deadly peril.

It was meant to be a simple few days away: Verity heading off for a much-needed girls’ weekend in New York City. But then comes her desperate call to Alastair Stone: A terrifying disaster has occurred, killing dozens of people - including a dear friend. When Stone joins her to investigate, they quickly discover that magic is behind the catastrophe. Even worse, it’s magic that isn’t even supposed to exist. As a long-simmering disagreement explodes into a rift between Stone and a grief-stricken Verity, Stone learns that things are even worse than he feared.

When Alastair Stone investigates a tale of odd events at an abandoned Midwestern paper mill, he figures it's just another hoax. After all, he's seen hundreds of them in his career. He soon discovers this one isn't a hoax, though - and neither is the backwoods hunter who's suddenly developed healing abilities in Pennsylvania...Stone knows he has to get to the bottom of this supernatural mystery - no matter how many enemies he has to make in the process. And when he finally does learn the truth, it comes with the horrifying revelation that he might already have made a terrible mistake.

Alastair Stone isn't proud of the dark deeds of his family's past, but he thought they were just that: past. But when a routine renovation of his ancestral home releases a horde of angry spirits bent on vengeance against anyone of his blood, he soon learns that his family's horrific acts were even worse than he ever could have imagined. Driven from his home, Stone must rally his most trusted friends and allies to discover the truth and find a way to exorcise the relentless spirits.

Alastair Stone and fellow professor Edwina Mortenson go together like punk rock and patchouli. So when an unwilling Stone is "volunteered" to participate in a paranormal TV reality show with her, neither of them is thrilled about it - even if the ghost town they’ll be filming in is supposedly the site of a powerful curse. As if dealing with Mortenson, the show’s overbearing producer, and its prima-donna star weren’t bad enough, Stone soon uncovers evidence that the town’s curse is very real - and it’s resurfacing again, more deadly than ever.

When a police detective approaches Alastair Stone to consult on a grisly occult-related murder, he initially considers it nothing more than an intriguing puzzle to fill a few dull late-summer hours. But then the detective becomes a victim, and the murderer begins taunting Stone, daring him to discover the truth before more of his friends join the list of targets. As he delves deeper into the case, Stone soon learns that the murderer isn't human - and has committed similar crimes in the past.