"What the hell?" I took a step closer to the mirror, staring at my reflection in disbelief. The person looking back was still me, but at the same time it wasn't. I had the same thick, dark, curly hair. The same hazel eyes. The same olive skin with a light dusting of freckles (ugh) scattered across the bridge of my nose. But my curls were now streaked with highlights. And not the subtle, golden-brown ones that sometimes appeared during the summer. No, these were an aggressive, dazzling blond that went from the roots of my hair all the way to the tips. It looked like I had spent a full day getting my hair done in some upscale salon. Never mind that I had never set foot in such a place since the day I was born. My eyes appeared somehow wider and more luminous. The colour brighter, my eyelashes darker up against them. And, when I looked closely, my pupils seemed to be slitted almost like a cat. I looked down at my body. My skinny arms-which had always refused to gain any definition no matter how hard I exercised-were lined with flat, wiry muscles. My bony shoulders were now curved and smooth. My scrawny legs were toned like a dancer. I reached down and lifted my shirt, revealing two subtle lines running vertically down my perfectly flat stomach, hinting at the rock-hard abs underneath. My whole body was rippling with strength. Like liquid steel.

Each baby born beneath the waves is killed--with one exception: the one hundred thousandth is spared. There's one rule shared between the island's tribes: don't touch the water. When Cressa-la breaks this law, her world, and body, changes. Sure, change is normal... but when has growing scales ever been normal? • • • Watty Award Winner 2015: Best Use of Visuals • • • Each baby born beneath the waves is killed--with one exception: the one hundred thousandth is spared. Among the spared, magic chooses a rare few, connecting them to the moon or sea. These are the One-Hundreds, mermaids and humans with the power to save the world-or corrupt it. When Cressa-la breaks the first rule of her tribe and touches the water surrounding her island, everything she knows turns on its head. Talking, sinister dolphins, mind control, and a whole world just under the waves await her on her eigteenth birthday... but she never asked for any of this. All she wanted was to become a Tribe Leader and take care of her village. It's amazing how one screw-up can change everything. A relentless darkness reaches for her, wanting her affections for his own twisted purposes. In opposition stands a fractured light, haunted by a painful past where corruption eroded friendship. Unless Cressa-la can bring the darkness to his knees and fight the war raging inside, the world is doomed. • • • Content warning: This story contains themes of depression and violence.

From National Book Award finalist and Printz Award winner Laura Ruby comes an epic alternate history series about three kids who try to solve the greatest mystery of the modern world: a puzzle and treasure hunt laid into the very streets and buildings of New York City. It was 1798 when the Morningstarr twins arrived in New York with a vision for a magnificent city: towering skyscrapers, dazzling machines, and winding train lines, all running on technology no one had ever seen before. Fifty-seven years later, the enigmatic architects disappeared, leaving behind for the people of New York the Old York Cipher-a puzzle laid into the shining city they constructed, at the end of which was promised a treasure beyond all imagining. By the present day, however, the puzzle has never been solved, and the greatest mystery of the modern world is little more than a tourist attraction. Tess and Theo Biedermann and their friend Jaime Cruz live in a Morningstarr apartment-until a real estate developer announces that the city has agreed to sell him the five remaining Morningstarr buildings. Their likely destruction means the end of a dream long held by the people of New York. And if Tess, Theo, and Jaime want to save their home, they have to prove that the Old York Cipher is real. Which means they have to solve it.

25 year old Adrian Ruth, from Kearney, Nebraska, prepares himself for his journey to Belem, Brazil to study biological life. But on his ride there, the airplane was struck by lightning and crashed. But when Andrew woke up without a scratch, and no idea where he is, or where the plane went. He happens to explore, looking for help, to run into a floating rock, thus floating islands. He just entered a whole another world....

Hello lovelies! After a million (!!!) reads, I've taken DarkWeb down. Thank you for all the comments, votes, and reads! UPDATE: DARKWEB IS NOW FREE IN KINDLE UNLIMITED. A revised, improved, totally portable version of DarkWeb is on sale at Amazon for a couple of bucks if you want your own shiny new copy: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CYHXC4Y In the meantime, I'll be around, working on other stories. See you soon, --T **** If you want to check out the beginning of DarkWeb to see if it's the kind of story you might like, I'm leaving the first three chapters up. ****THIS IS ONLY AN EXCERPT/TEASER, NOT THE COMPLETE STORY.**** {WATTPAD FEATURED STORY} {Highest Rank #1 Mystery/Thriller} When the FBI approaches 22 year old Wren Bower to work as an informant, she knows she'll take the job no matter what. The pay: Time off her jailbird brother's sentence. Wren's assignment: Put herself in the path of enigmatic computer programmer Mark Donahue. The FBI suspects Mark's the mastermind of DarkWeb, an untraceable website that deals in drugs, weapons, hit men, and human trafficking. But Mark is more than Wren bargained for. To make matters worse, Mark's arrogant, dangerous, totally hot younger brother, Davis, starts sniffing out inconsistencies in Wren's cover story. Can Wren get the FBI what they want before Mark or Davis discover she's an informant? The only way out is to solve the mystery of DarkWeb. {Featured} Highest Rank -- #1 in Mystery/Thriller