Melody and the Pier to Forever Series

Melody Singleton is a bright 13-year-old girl who loves math, classical music, her mom, her best friend Yaeko, and her dog. To her classmates that makes her a nerd, and they cruelly treat her as such. After being expelled from the advanced algebra class for not paying attention, she meets her new teacher, Mr. Conor, who gives her a very strange homework assignment. You see, she got kicked out because she was distracted by a symbol that the rest of us can't see, a beautiful sigil that, incredibly, Mr. Conor can see too, because it's on the assignment he gave her! But that's just the beginning. Her mom goes on a date to the Pier with Mr. Conor, and Melody is forced to tag along. That's bad enough. But then on the date Mr. Conor introduces her to one of his friends who freaks her out because his eyes are completely black; and then on the walk home, seagulls attack Mr. Conor and he has to be taken to the hospital! Her weird assignment still beckons. Melody suspects that the mysterious symbol on it, and Mr. Conor's weird friend, and the seagull attack are all intimately related like the variables in an algebra equation. If she can just figure out what the sigil is, how to make it do what she wants, she knows the rest of the equation will be solved. What she doesn't know is if she's successful, her life will be changed ... forever.

An entire world falls to war. A young man watches helplessly as his sister is eaten by a giant demon right before his eyes. He narrowly escapes death himself; buoyed by the current of a corpse-filled canal, he bears horrified witness to the complete destruction of his country, Theseus. The invaders are everywhere--and intent on killing everything that moves or breathes. With nothing more than the encouraging words of a dying Healer and a mysterious lens-shaped object that his sister threw to him in her last moments of life, Kaza of Theseus dares to escape the closing jaws of doom and make it to the distant renegade fleet rumored to be sailing out of harm's way along the Great Pier known as Ae Infinitus, and led by a king named Conor Kieran Faramond Benedictus I, who dares to stand against the evil and fight back. Witness firsthand the invasion of Aquanus by Necrolius Anaxagorius in this tale of faith, courage, and hope--in a time when all three are seemingly nowhere to be found; and the rise of a singular hero who becomes a shining star in the Saerie Insu fleet.

PARTS FIVE AND SIX   Melody Singleton is a bright 13-year-old girl who loves math, classical music, her mom, her best friend Yaeko, and her dog. To her classmates that makes her a nerd, and they cruelly treat her as such. After being expelled from the advanced algebra class for not paying attention, she meets her new teacher, Mr. Conor, who gives her a very strange homework assignment. You see, she got kicked out because she was distracted by a symbol that the rest of us can't see, a beautiful sigil that, incredibly, Mr. Conor can see too, because it's on the assignment he gave her! But that's just the beginning. Her mom goes on a date to the Pier with Mr. Conor, and Melody is forced to tag along. That's bad enough. But then on the date Mr. Conor introduces her to one of his friends who freaks her out because his eyes are completely black; and then on the walk home, seagulls attack Mr. Conor and he has to be taken to the hospital! Her weird assignment still beckons. Melody suspects that the mysterious symbol on it, and Mr. Conor's weird friend, and the seagull attack are all intimately related like the variables in an algebra equation. If she can just figure out what the sigil is, how to make it do what she wants, she knows the rest of the equation will be solved. What she doesn't know is if she's successful, her life will be changed ... forever.

Anurag de Bouchard is on a mission. He's waited half his lifetime for this moment. At last he can light the beacon that will spread the news across the whole of Aquanus: The Apprentice has come. All across the vast, dangerous waters of that ocean world, thousands of revolutionaries are quietly mobilizing. It is time to rise against Emperor Necrolius Anaxagorius, the soul-consuming monster devouring the heart and soul of Aquanus like a cancer and growing more powerful by the day. The Apprentice is prophesied to be the only one who can destroy him before he invades Earth and consumes it, too. But the Apprentice, Melody Singleton, is only thirteen years old, and still on the other side of the Tangent, the portal separating Aquanus from Earth. As she and Yaeko Mitsaki, her best friend, and their parents prepare for a whole new life and the distinct possibility that they'll never return home, a hidden kingdom and its king brace for all-out war with the emperor's mighty forces. Even with the Apprentice on their side, their chances for victory are next to nothing. But if they don't prevail, Melody will never get the chance to confront Necrolius, and Aquanus and Earth will fall forever to his deadly clutches. The stakes couldn't be higher. Even so, there is time yet for much less frightening things like falling in love, traveling to Antarctica, dancing in the living room, playing in a concert, first kisses, learning how to turn into a red-tailed hawk, and laughing and singing.

Otoro Queril is feared by his fellow Tracluse. As an executioner for Necrolius Anaxagorius' Imperium, it's Otoro's job to kill those poor souls brought to his chopping block, and to do it as efficiently and quickly as possible. No one in the Imperium does it better. Otoro Queril does not tire. He does not complain. It is whispered that he is a demon in a human's body. But Otoro Queril is no demon. And he isn't a Tracluse either. He is, however, a Saeire Insu warrior, and was sent by the King of the Saeire Insu, Conor Kieran Faramond Benedictus I, on a mission of espionage and mercy. It's a mission Otoro Queril has undertaken for almost twenty Earth-years. But things are changing. Perhaps he is finally tiring. He doesn't know. After meeting a young woman condemned to be a prostitute for the Lord of the Demons, something inside him snaps. With the help of two slaves, he embarks on what will be his final quest of mercy.

The search for one's calling takes great patience and courage. Choosing that calling, once it becomes apparent, takes even more. Pursuing a calling is a deadly enterprise, for it will inevitably claim one's life. It allows for no other choice. Rejected and abused by her parents, Elizabeth Finnegan's young life is one tragedy after another. Emboldened by the love of a woman who takes her in after she runs away, she seeks for her calling with all her heart. It isn't what she believes she's doing; instead she clings to the vague notion that she was put on Earth do so something special with her life. Though the world does its best to convince her she isn't special, she pushes on, even when the shadows overwhelm her. One day she watches a video of a pretty young girl playing a violin. The girl plays as though she has been blessed by the singular touch of God. She is an angel. Elizabeth knows she has to meet her. She has no choice. As she flies the skies over America as a flight attendant, Elizabeth's life rockets her towards her final destination, her choiceless choice, her deadly enterprise: to be the angel's guardian.

As a Rogue, the Saeire Insu warship Failure is free to chart course wherever its crew pleases. Their mission, as it stands for all Rogues, is to do as much damage as possible to the Imperial Navy in order to clear the way for the rest of the Armada. Ske T'Chel--"Sketch," as he is known to his friends--is a member of this crew, and is also a member of the XVI Angeli Magna Coronados, the ultra-elite troop of warriors trained in the mystical martial art known as the Daen-Cer-Tain. As such he is trained to kill thousand-pound demons in a split-second, his blades moving so swiftly that they cannot be seen by the untrained eye. He was Melody Singleton's personal guard before the Armada crossed the Tangent to launch the Revolution, a great honor bestowed by the king himself. As Failure sails deeper and deeper into ever more dangerous Imperial waters, they become aware of a dire threat that could squash the Revolution before it gains any consequential momentum. To Failure comes the message from Command: hunt down the fast Imperial warship carrying secrets that could doom the Saeire Insu to total destruction. The chase exacts a dear price on Failure and her crew--but particularly Sketch himself, who finds himself, by virtue of his close relationship to the Apprentice, burdened with a new honorific, conferred by none other than the mysterious Sankyanness herself. She calls him Faithbearer. And to him she entrusts the ultimate fate of the Saeire Insu.