When fifteen year old Drake was born, they called him boneless. Destined to die for what his clan called an abnormality, the love of his mother saved him. But growing up with a weak bone disease meant he cannot fight, hunt, joust, or draw a blood-sigil that has become a custom for every kid. Considered a weakling by many including his family, Drake knows his only chance to succeed is to learn faster and work twice harder than the other boys, but he lacks the very thing that defines greatness amongst his clan; the ability to wield a blood bonded magic. When a failed assassination attempt leaves him lost in the woods, a chance encounter sets him upon a strange creature with secrets that could change his life or destroy him. In the prominent cities of the Nine Worlds, an assassin strikes fear in the hearts of Kings. People whisper of the Black Fury, a goddess of vengeance, but Zelos Shadowstealer is just a girl burdened by a great power, whose identity, happiness, and future have been enslaved to serve the greed of her masters. Kingdoms have fallen, wars ignited, and great names extinguished at the edge of her blade, but when she is set upon a young prince doomed to die by her hand, she begins to entertain questions that leaves her with two choices- smother the affection that had sprouted in her cold heart or be hunted by the murderers she had once served. In a world where a strong arm and a cold heart rules, the two begin to realize that the line between withering and surviving is truly thin.

"Fire is the element of power. It is the element of anger, the element of passion. It has the power to destroy, yes, but what many have overlooked is that it also has the power to create. This is who you are, and if you don't control yourself, how are you supposed to control your powers?" Between August 1996 and August 1997, secret and illegal experiments were conducted on 120 baby girls and boys in Holland, Ireland, Germany, Greece, Italy, France and Spain. However, only 12 of these children survived the process. This is the story of Valyn Enya Mesman. She was born with ability to control, manipulate and create fire and lightning, the cold-blooded fire. She grows up in the small, quiet town of Limburg in Holland as the daughter of a Vlaae maker and a clock-maker/clock shop owner. Although getting good grades, she is the school's resident Bad Girl; she is considered a pyromaniac and a manipulative witch. However, Valyn knows that sometimes the things she did was not her fault. But when a man in black with a British accent takes her parents and then in turn attempts to kidnap her, Valyn's life takes a turn for the scary. She's saved by two Irish accented strangers dressed in black leather and taken to Britain, where she meets 10 others like the strangers, who tell Valyn that her attempted kidnapping was only the beginning and that it's up to her to find the other 11 Kinetics and take down the people that took Valyn's parents and are after their blood. Her creators. (This book contains Dutch, German, Spanish and some Russian words that I know; also cultural references that I know or learned or have relearned!)

When seventeen year-old Runner was sentenced to death for stealing a loaf of bread in MegaCity One, his dreams were literally at an end. But then he opts to sign up for the Remnants of Men, a government sanctioned search for a rumoured fresh water lake beyond a radiated wasteland. At first, it seemed like a second chance to a new life, the transformation from zero to hero. But after an encounter with a rabid gang of men suffering an acute insanity, he soon comes to understand that he is one of many discarded into the wasteland to study the cannibalistic effects of a new drug called the Sixth Sense. Olivia Patterson has had one too many doses of the Sixth Sense and owes a massive debt to a shadowy rebel and loan shark called Death-Throe. Being the daughter of the City's dictator, she knows too well that the gallows awaits any who associates with the rebel. In an attempt to free herself, she acquires an asset in the form of Runner and finds herself always at the edge, for if he survives it means freedom for both, but if he dies...