Fantasy
A Highland Secrets Story! Jules MacDonald thought her happily-ever-after was secure with her barbarian laird. She journeyed through time, to seventeenth century Scotland in search of her sister, and fell in love with Hugh MacDonald. Her forever started over a year ago when she decided to stay. Now s ...
A female archangel has a forbidden affair with a human. Mariana, a fierce archangel with a propensity for kicking evil monsters’ butt, stops to stalk a handsome human doctor. She knows that humans and the divine don’t mix. The doctor is amazing at his hospital, but he wonders if the recent death of ...
---In the days of Richard The Lion Heart, Gwendolyn was born. Conceived within the Druid mists, at King Arthur's Legendary Pool of Pendragon and as prophesied by a Druid Priestess, she grew into womanhood, and became the most powerful knight the world had ever seen. ---When Miles Delong, Earl of ...
Exactly whose handfasting is this? Senna feels like naught but an inconvenience at her own wedding.
Lyran’s father seems determined to take over in his pursuit of power, and Senna worries that the man she’s marrying is nothing more than his father’s puppet.
Written as a prequel to the He ...
What would you do during the Apocalypse? How would you survive? Those are the questions that have plagued Katrina for years. All the good boys and girls were raptured up to Heaven, leaving the rest of humanity to ask a single, solitary question: “Why not me?” Hellspawn rose from Hell and rampaged ac ...
They don't know their own magic... 10 quests. If one fails, all fail. And one will never return. ... Melissa is the first. Lost and bewildered after being unceremoniously dumped by her boyfriend, seventeen-year-old Melissa wants nothing more than to curl up with her pain. But then she’s summoned by ...
Death never takes a holiday... Justicar Jhee is back! Between corruption and civil unrest, Galleon City has all the elements for a perfect storm of murder... Storied Galleon City is the central point in the Empire; the place where the Storm Shield protects the Blessed Isles from the wrath that surro ...
Book Two in the Fantasy Romance Series, The King's Riders! Leargan Tegran, Captain of Greenwald's personal guard, is an honorable knight. When his king commands him to wed Senior King's Rider Ansley Fraser, he intends to follow orders; even as he knows nothing of the girl. Not to mention her blasted ...
You do not need to have read book 1 to read book 2. After a series of devastating events, a gifted seventeen-year-old Israeli boy becomes the focus of a wager between good and evil when he unwittingly makes a pact with the devil. 232 pages
Orphaned as an infant, Croft spent his early years in the harsh confines of the Abbey, dreaming of befriending a dragon. When the day finally came, an accident leaves him utterly changed and bonded to a beast named Rueloo. Facing prejudice and fear, Croft builds a quiet life in the nest among his dr ...
Fear holds God Town in its icy grip. A child has disappeared...
Desperate to find little Emily, the town begins an exhaustive search. By the second day, fear grows that the little girl may be lost forever. Only the woods remain to be ...
Lady Elaina Sertan found her death amongst a fire, betrayed by her half-sister and her husband. As the flames roared, the loss of her unborn child created a thirst for revenge. Somehow, against all logic and sense, Elaina rose from her own bed—the bed she once had at her parents’ house t ...
There is something magical about her.
He senses a dark secret, but he can't fight his need for her.
She's bewitched him.
Football is everything to Chris Hajek, and he's worked too hard to let love get in the way of the dream he's finally living. But when he meets t ...
On the planet Fortune, tech is low, tensions high, and heroes… unlikely, and none more unlikely than thief-turned-soldier, Gideon Quinn. Wrongly convicted of treason, Gideon Quinn has spent six years harvesting crystal under the killing suns of the Morton Barrens, until the day a general of the ...
This is the second edition. Shifting Impulse is a club where shifters who don’t believe in fated mates find theirs. Thirty-one-year-old Anna Morison is a sassy, curvy, workaholic attorney who goes to her favorite club, SI, to let off some steam. She finds herself captive in a hot stranger&rsqu ...
Eleanor, a timid orphan, has no clue to her real purpose, but she also has no desire to become a subservient old maid, like the miserable nuns she grew up with. Eleanor believes Edward, whom she loves, will save her from being forced to take vows. She knows Mother Superior has no intention of lettin ...
Sworn to protect the secrets of their race, marshals are trained to police Weeia hiding among humans. After completing her advanced marshal training, Danni is blown away by her new plum assignment to Paris. But, all is not well in the City of Lights; the offices are a shambles, her boss is apathetic ...
Three sisters. An absent prince who promised to protect them. And the wolf is at the door… Once upon a time… When war breaks out, Rudolf promises Portia and her sisters he will protect them. But his father falls in battle, and Rudolf is forced to return home to command his father’s armies. Sh ...
Stabbed. Burned by a dragon. Abandoned for the windrocs to pick over. The traitor Ra’aba tried to silence Hualiama forever. But he reckoned without the strength of a dragonet’s paw, and the courage of a girl who refused to die. Only an extraordinary friendship will save Hualiama’s ...
Chained to a rock and tossed off a cliff by her boyfriend, Aranya is executed for high treason against the Sylakian Empire. Falling a league into the deadly Cloudlands is not a fate she ever envisaged. But what if she did not die? What if she could spread her wings and fly? Long ago, Dragons ruled t ...
The voice broke into his thoughts, everywhere and nowhere at once, deafening, yet somehow a whisper. Are you ready to learn the truth?
Heir to a notorious crime syndicate, 16-year-old Vincent Wilder is determined to live up to his fathers intimidating legacy, and expand his violent empire ...
Magic doesn’t wound the same as a sword. The story of Ian Troy continues in Magic-Scars, the second installment in C. L. Schneider’s riveting epic fantasy trilogy, The Crown of Stones. Captured by his old enemy, King Draken of Langor, Shinree magic user Ian Troy was sentenced to prison. Tortured and ...
Elizabeth has gone through so much lately with her mother's passing. Now she lives with her aunts and she has begun to have nightmares. Only her nightmares are not nightmares at all, but spirit walks. Elizabeth never knew she belonged to a family of witches that dates back centuries. It is believed ...
Julii, a beautiful, insecure and victimized Tennessee Indian is caught up in the white man's world after saving the life of a Confederate captain wounded at the battle of Shiloh.
Overcoming great d ...
Neferre is a coarse, disgusting, slightly-alcoholic elf who is discovered while in a drunken stupor by a strange child in the dark depths of a swamp. Neferre offers to escort the child to safety, only to find the little girl is a legendary dragon slayer torn from the ancient past. Together with her ...
She's a legend at 17, but only Henrietta knows the price she paid for her fame ... and it was much too high.
Alexandra's family have kept a huge secret from her for 21 years. A secret that is now opening her eyes to a weird reality and biting her in the ass. If she had known maybe she would have been prepared when her life gets flipped upside down, and actual trolls start trying to abduct her so the ancien ...
An insane princess who wants to rule the world. A magical artifact of terrifying power. A deadly struggle to possess it.
A hundred and fifty years have passed since the Thrall Masters nearly destroyed the land of Thac. Now the key to their vast power has been found and everyone wan ...
Book Three in the time travel, fantasy romance trilogy, Highland Secrets! Her sister is lost…in the past. Three weeks after her sister goes missing, Juliette McGowan encounters her on a beach in Scotland. Her sister gives her a scroll full of claims about time travel and disappears—literally. As a s ...
Ireland is no promised land in 1846. It is wracked by a crippling potato blight, and people are dying. But Valentia McDowell doesn’t know that. From her father’s prosperous farm in Ohio, young Valentia is haunted by tales of an abandoned family and a lost heirloom. She travels to her gra ...
IT’S THE SECRETS WE HIDE FROM OURSELVES THAT GIVE OTHERS POWER... A rich tapestry of dark magic, obsession, dangerous prophecy, and the forgiveness found through friendship. AN ANCIENT KING RETURNS... For centuries, Roaran sought redemption. Now he can vanquish a tyrant and save a realm in chaos. Bu ...
Abigayle is the princess of the Skylands. Stephan Oliver is the prince of the Lowlands. After an arranged courtship to save both kingdoms, loss, and recovery, they realize to move on and rebuild they have to do it together.
In a world where the South has won the Civil War… It’s 1982. A hundred years have passed since the South emerged victorious in the War of Northern Aggression. From the ashes of the aftermath, the industrial North has evolved into the technical center of the modern world, while the agrarian South, no ...
Three supernatural princesses faced with a fate worse than death…or so they thought. King Alim’s reign of Acabar draws to a close with no suitable male heirs. He rushes to find husbands for his three magical princesses: Teriliyn, the War Princess/Dragon Rider, Vanessa, the Telepath, and Amma, the Na ...
The thrilling adventure continues in Book Three! Shadyia and Deresi are trapped in a deserted city. Separated by powerful forces, they become pawns in the eternal struggle between life and death. While clashing entities tempt one with immortality to champion their crusade, a being once worshiped as ...
Injustice rules the lives of many. Justicar Jhee, a magic-wielding sleuth, uses her talents to stand against it.
A mystical storm shield built to protect the Blessed Isles against barbarian invasion has caused sea levels to rise and rendered many islands uninhabitable.For many y ...
Lizzie waited twenty years to return to Corfu... Lizzie plucks up the courage to tell Stamatis everything about the witch, who has now revealed her true motive and doesn’t seem to ever intend to let her go. Soon, Lizzie teams up with a powerful ally who proves to be her only hope. All she has to do ...
Feral dogs are blamed when a popular teen is killed. Is it just coincidence that he disappeared after infuriating 14-year-old Haley, who is torn between her anger and her desire to belong? More attacks implicate a creature of Northwoods myth she befriended in its summer form. As the DNR leads a coug ...
I keep the world safe from Fairies but now one of them is protecting me. The Sluagh has come for me and nothing stops them. The monsters of Fairy chitter and cackle and screech all around us while Tiernan holds me tightly, hiding us within his magic. Under the cover of some roots, his body laid over ...
She's lucky he's a charmer. He's lucky she doesn't bite. Much...
“If it’s meaning you seek, there’s no better place to be than here, or perhaps, up there.” A Shining Mountain. Mt. Dolymtiud: the roof of Tanzia and the home of the godlike Altaicans. Their motives inscrutable, they have invited Yates and Sharp to the majikal palaces at the s ...
The second book in the Fallen Angel, Immortal Romance Series takes us from the Arcades and the kingdom of dark angels to The Cirque, a fairy realm where Farrow's brother Prince Drayden rules. Born half fairy and half-fallen angel, Drayden possesses both goodness and evil. After being told by the God ...
Terror was within. Terror was without. Like her mother, she was at the water’s mercy. In the enchanted world of Aeolia, fifteen-year-old Esme Silver faces her hardest task yet. She must master her unruly Gift—the power to observe the past—and uncover the secrets she needs to save her mother, Ariane. ...
What has happened to Aiden after his selfless act of sacrificing his life for Meridian? Where did Meridian go? True love can break the curse, but only an act of true love from a twin soul sets her free. Their epic and sudden departure have left their friends, witches, fairies, and spirits in search ...
A little mermaid. A prince to save. Only silence can break the spell. Once upon a time… The mermaid Margareta saved Prince Erik from a shipwreck. Wanting to see the prince again, Margareta strikes a bargain with the Master of Beacon Isle. If she saves his sons from a terrible curse, he will re ...
When Professor Elena Lukas returns to her cozy Pacific Northwest hometown with a broken heart, she’s plunged back into the fate she tried to escape. Like her mother and grandmother before her, Elena must now dedicate her life to a powerful ancient Lithuanian goddess. Although she is prepared to live ...
Sa'riya was the first of the ascended, and because of it, she was feared. The elders had no reference for her powers, no way to know how strong she'd become - she might even overpower them; so they decided to kill her. But there were those that disagreed: the ones that loved her, the ones that would ...
A kingdom in danger. An ancient weapon. And a cryptic secret that could change everything. The closing lines of a farewell poem, written centuries ago by the last great king of the old world, might prove to be more than it seems: The world and all its light shall fade; I'll stay with her beneath the ...
She's not what she seems. He's determined to uncover the truth. After nearly being assassinated a few weeks ago, King Aerrin has reason to be on edge. The Raven Bringer has returned, and Aerrin knows he’s the fiend’s top target. So he’s naturally suspicious about the new student at ...
This e-book boxed set of The Bow of Hart Saga contains all three novels: The Bow of Destiny, An Arrow Against the Wind, and The White Arrow. Haunted by his past. Hunted in the present. Uncertain what is real. This unique epic fantasy will keep you turning pages as Athson discovers his destiny ...
Honor. Duty. Ritual. When she took the newborn prince to his homeland for a ritual, she never dreamed what she would bring back. The Vhalgenn is a warrior, bedmate, soulmate, companion, and friend. Trusted by the king. Hated by the queen. To save the newborn prince, the Vhalgenn will risk her positi ...
Book Two in the time travel, fantasy romance trilogy, Highland Secrets! She's always been a dutiful daughter... Janet MacLeod has spent the last ten years dedicated to her clan, acting as the Lady of the castle--at the cost of her own happiness. She aches every time she looks at her brothers, both h ...
Dragons, pirates, magic and deceit. Thac is no place for the faint of heart…
Grand Choosing: Kortiama longs to prove herself at the Day of Choosing. Yet that day will hold more for her than she ever bargained for, if she manages to survive.
Price of Honor: ...
Will the Guardians be able to save the kingdom of Poker? This Epic Fantasy adventure continues... Darker. Frenetic. Powerful The Guardians can't run away from their destiny any longer. With Queen Judith and the Elements missing, it's time for them to step up and find a way to save Poker from its des ...
Spirit Guide, Meridian has no idea the storm she is involved with until her father is sent to Etheria's prison. With the Hall of Souls on their heels, Meridian and the spirit guides seek out an ally from the Fairy Queen. The Queen has her own agenda and tricks sending the spirit guides for the fairy ...
To get home, she must save a strange world with a "gift" she hates. 10 quests. If one fails, all fail. And one will never return. ... Now it's Alex's turn. Alex Benton is an exile at Gray Cliffs Academy. Sent there for her senior year, where she knows absolutely nobody, all because of a little, ...
What happens when you cross Lord of the Rings with Dune? You get a rich, complex fantasy world full of political intrigue and magic, where realistic characters confront dangers and adversity, love and betrayal. The first novel in the Shadow Wars series, Assassins will not disappoint! Get Assassins a ...
The Legend People of canyon country are protected by the indigenous Tribes, but that protection prevents Nascha from finding out what happened to her missing mother. When another of the Legend People shows up in Nascha's canyon on a quest to beg leniency from the ruling Coyote, Nascha is given the o ...
The warrior Druid princess, Catrin of Britannia, has faced magical foes, family betrayal, and enslavement. Now, disguised as a boy in the Roman legion, Catrin must gather her strength and her allies if she plans to take back her family’s Celtic throne. But her powerful lover, Marcellus—the great-gra ...
In Alveria, humans and dragons have existed side by side for centuries, but old tensions have grown and the kingdom is now divided between human nobles and the dragons that fear for the survival of their species. For the humans who serve the dragons, the future looks bleak: human Tamers outnumber th ...
Spirit Guide, Meridian has no idea the storm she is involved with until her father is sent to Etheria's prison. With the Hall of Souls on their heels, Meridian and the spirit guides seek out an ally from the Fairy Queen. The Queen has her own agenda and tricks sending the spirit guides for the fairy ...
Computer hacker, Lorcan, is finishing the last spy job so that he could come home and propose to his childhood sweet heart. Unfortunately, the job goes wrong and he is trapped in a magical world underneath the deep sea where mer-creatures hunt for a secret key they think he has stolen.
P ...
Hope is a wild and carefree child growing up in a remote cottage near the coast. Hope’s high-born mother worries her unruly daughter will never become a proper lady living out in the wilderness, while her father, a grizzled military leader, does not share this concern. Instead, he encourages his cra ...
Ian Troy sacrificed everything for peace. After centuries of conflict, the realms of Mirra’kelan are united. His magic is no longer needed. Free to choose his own path, Ian sets sail on a journey of exploration with his friend and ally, Jarryd Kane. Months on the open sea, far from the shores of ho ...
A sultan’s daughter. A pretend prince. Can a genie make all their wishes come true? Once upon a time… When Princess Maram and street rat Aladdin meet in the marketplace, sparks fly, and Aladdin swears to move heaven and earth in order to make the lovely courtesan his wife. He steals a magic l ...
"This is a complex plot at its best. The character development is perfect." -Rabia Tanveer, Readers' Favorite It was the 75th year of Alberoth when the AsZar summoned the Guardians. There was an imbalance in the lands of Faélondul. The Zaxson, Draizeyn Vereux, conspired to exterminate the inf ...
The gripping adventure continues in this international best-selling Steampunk meets Fairy tale series!
Are dreams mere fantasy, or are they real? When Mary Parker finds a magic book everything in her life changes. As she reads, she dreams, and the woman sunk in depression after her mother’s death is transformed to a vibrant beauty. She gives the book and the phenomenon a name, 'falling awake’. The b ...
It's New Year's Eve, the year of 2099, but the distinguished guests aboard the Pearseus won't get to countdown seconds; soon they'll be counting bodies and survivors after the spaceship's crash landing on another planet. The good news? The planet is seemingly hospitable both in resources and in t ...
Got monsters? You need Eno the Thracian! He's the guy with the answer to your problems, whether they're as small as a dragonet you need moved to the other side of the mountain or as big as a minotaur wreaking havoc in your palace. He can train your youth for battle, cure your vizier of fatal ambitio ...
A war between her immortal ancestors and an ancient evil has connected Dane to a world she never knew existed. She is one of the Arcanists, descendants of the supernatural races that ruled the realms of the Thanissia Universe in a time before man. Now she and Rafe, the sexy immortal warrior to whom ...
A collection of short stories by Nebula and World Fantasy Award nominated short story writer Cat Rambo. Find out why Publishers Weekly called this collection "crisp and compelling" while Django Wexler declared "Cat Rambo's writing is everything you could hope for -- lyrical, emotional, funny, by tur ...
Four kings. One girl. And a magical destiny that binds them. Magic is fading in Charnrosa. The Emperor is killing magicians and hoarding their magic for himself. Kyann doesn’t believe in the stories of the four kings from Charnrosa's golden past. She just wants to keep herself and her sister safe fo ...
Kill me with a floating city? You got my attention. But then steal from me and try to burn me alive? You got me thinking.
I think I’m going to find your yigging, walking carcass and introduce it to two friends of ...
What are experiences? Can we represent them as a set of measurable parameters that can be replayed? If we researched and succeeded in creating a perfect experience recorder and replay what will happen? "If only pictures and words could capture the beauty of the world around us!!" Vijay could have ea ...
Hijacked by witches, kidnapped by a dwarf and enraptured by river sprites -- will Lizzie ever manage to go home? And if she can, will she want to? Lizzie is an exhausted honor student and an enthusiastic amateur folksinger. She wakes one day in a strange and terrifying new land. The women who reviv ...
Despite the perks of living with her rich aunt, Ella’s new life in Napper, Indiana, is pretty much tragically boring.
Until Ella starts hearing strange voices.
As rogue wolves begin to stalk the edges of town and a serial killer with a penchant for silver bullets draws closer, ...
Some or ALL FREE thru Kindle Unlimited! Click on the Amazon link to get it!
While sleeping off a large meal, Dragon is rudely awakened by a foul-tempered witch named Bellatrix. Hysterical about the murder of her daughter, a maiden who popped into his cavern as Dragon’s meal, she performs an irrational act. Bellatrix uses the Heart’s Blood Curse to transform Drag ...
One world born from another shall share an equal fate. On Dane’s thirty-first birthday, a long-forgotten past is revealed. A prophecy, written before the time of man, foretells of the rise of an archaic evil and only those born from the blood of the ancient races and marked by fate can stop its asce ...
New edition. Linda Bennett moves from New York to Florida to live a quieter life. Life is peaceful until the dead body washes up onshore. Linda learns that dead bodies and disappearing tourists are typical for the coastal town. Linda and her friends receive an invitation to a party at End House, a d ...
Magical creatures all around … then Dylan realizes he might be one. 10 quests. If one fails, all fail. And one will never return. ... Now it's Dylan's turn. The most normal thing about Dylan’s morning was being called to the headmaster’s office. And that’s where normal forever changed for him. O ...
Time. Travel through it. Bend it. But if she runs out of it, a life will be lost. 10 quests. If one fails, all fail. And one will never return. ... Now it's Natasha's turn. Tash Pruitt lands in 17th century Massachusetts with a mission which soon becomes clear to her: she has to save Goody Cooke ...
In the face of defeat lies true strength. Kelty now lives as an outcast faerie in the human world. But before she was cast out, an encounter with a deceiving faerie resulted in a devastating trick—one that changed Kelty's life forever in this enthralling untold story. For fans of YA fantasy, Outcast ...
“You know nothing. Nothing about Tanzia or its people. You would never have agreed to dog me if you didn’t want to see the Black Continent, and only I can show it to you. You have only one option anyhow: follow me, Commander Sharp.” A Lost World. A Marvelous Expedition. A Dangerous Ambassador. Acros ...
Blood waters the fields of Alfheim. War rips across the land of usurped kings and elves. The Fae gods draw near, and Queen Kallan’s strength is tested as she follows King Rune into Alfheim. But the Shadow Beast caged within Rune’s body writhes in hunger, and Kallan’s newest compani ...
Meet Edward Nodd, a peculiar young boy who has spent his entire life feeling as though he was missing something. It's not that he isn't a whole boy, because he certainly is, but rather it seems as if something inside is absent. That is until one day, when he stumbles upon a mirror that will take ...
In this comedic fantasy gamebook for adults, YOU play Mr Artanon, the conniving butler to the dark lord, and the choices you make shape the story. Navigate a cast of treacherous nobility and unwelcome relatives. Help the household werewolves make it through ‘that time of the month’. Manage a kitchen ...
After Breed, a thief-assassin of small renown, is chased by a dragon, tricked by a demon, almost killed by a psychopathic gang boss and hunted by a ferocious spider life really takes a turn for the worst.
Sentenced to five years bonded servitude to a one-handed priest magician, Br ...
It takes a gang of thieves to catch a gang of thieves Toric's Dagger is just another religious relic, until it's stolen. Belwynn and her twin brother, Soren, volunteer to lead a team tasked with its retrieval. Drawn into a world of danger and treachery, they must rely on Soren's magical abilities, a ...
The curtain, the veil, the void, the abyss. So many names for the mystery of the beyond. People spend a good part of their lives just wanting to lift the heavy canvas of the circus tent and take a peek inside. Eventually they’ll know, in the end, we all know, but mankind is an impatient beast. Sadly ...
The asteroid hurtling toward the earth will kill billions. The Emperor and his Gold Court will be safe in their space station, watching from the stars. The Silvers will be protected underground. But the Bronzes must fight it out at the Shadow Trials for the few remaining spots left on the space stat ...
The region of Autumnum is in a dire state: a nationwide civil war, foreign enemy Sky Pirates, and to top it all, a new mass murderer headlined as the Hypnotist. Reclusive hunter, Ashkii Dighin cares little of these affairs. But when his tribal chief accounts him with hunting the Hypnotist, he is for ...
With her parents dead, the daughter of Cleopatra and Mark Antony is left at the mercy of her Roman captors. Heir to one empire and prisoner of another, Princess Selene must save her brothers and reclaim what ...
The Ancient World...where the mythology, monsters, and gods are real. Eno the Thracian sets off to find the truth about himself and his possible descent from the gods themselves. Instead he becomes involved with a race of people kidnapped from their homeland, set to toil endlessly by the will of a m ...
I have two choices. Unleash the dark magic inside of me. Or die. I had always been an outcast. I was born without magic into one of the most powerful magical families in the world and shunned from birth. My family believed that power was worth any price and anyone without it was less than worthless. ...
"If you like the Harry Potter series, you should definitely give this book a try" - Amazon customer
Strap in. A new, magical adventure begins...
When twelve-year-old Kaira Renn discovers she is part of a magical family, she leaves the comfort of childhood and enters a place like n ...
Recently forced into the underwater city of Atlantis, Emma Harris has managed to avoid marrying the merman who brought her, but her grandfather—the Sea King—insists that joining with the abusive Merrick is inevitable. When Emma discovers a poison that might restore her human lungs, she goes in searc ...
1st Place Winner, Fantasy, Royal Palm Literary Award 2014.
When fear exceeds understanding, nothing is as it seems...Alone for a millennium, since a human murdered her beloved consort, Ashra, the immortal icrathari q ...
Dead Calm, Bone Dry is a Directors' Choice Finalist
What if you were forced to sail with pirates?Captured and tried for piracy.
Then sentenced to hang.
Would you trade your body to the crew of the Flying Dutchman to save your soul?
Ricky did.
Some dead men ...
A brutal murder. A missing heart. A race against time and death.
The Baron of Ravenford was found dead in his chambers, his heart removed. A slim chance exists to revive him with magic if it’s found in time. Now a determined Lady Andrella joins Glolindir and friends in the frantic ...