Showing results by author "A. J. Nguyen" in All Categories

Yulena has spent years surviving at the edge of the Wildwood, hidden from a kingdom that would rather cage monsters than admit they can bleed. Beautiful, deadly, and long accustomed to being feared, she has learned that hunger is simpler than hope—and far safer than trust. But when a wounded sprite crashes into her refuge with hunters on her heels, Yulena is dragged out of isolation and into a world that has grown far more dangerous than the cave she called home. Across the borderlands, the crown’s new decrees are turning outcasts into fugitives, neighbors into informants, and survival ...

In a realm where faith shapes law and beauty is a weapon, one young woman finds herself caught between the world that raised her—and the wild magic calling her home. The sanctified halls of the Academy were never meant for someone like her. They speak in scrolls and prayers; she stumbles through silence and shadow. But when rules fail to protect and the sacred becomes dangerous, she steps beyond the gates with nothing but her instincts, her grief, and a fire she was never taught to name. Out in the untamed lands, ancient forces stir—gods half-remembered, relics once thought myth, and ...

She thought she was just another fighter—until the world turned her into a story. In a future where martial arts are streamed like sport and packaged like myth, Maya Sabino enters the ring with something the cameras can’t explain. The Pulse. An uncanny flicker. A gift. A glitch. And the feed is always watching. As fame coils tighter and every move is rewound, reframed, and rebranded, Maya finds herself caught between who she is and who the algorithm wants her to be. Fighter, fraud, savior, spectacle—what happens when you no longer control the narrative of your own body? One Pulse is a...

An Echo was never meant to fall in love... At the edge of a dreaming world, she is called to a voice only she can hear—a voice that doesn't belong to this life. All her life, Emma has been told to stay quiet, to keep her thoughts tucked behind a well-mannered smile. But something ancient is awakening in her blood, and with it comes a resonance that defies the life she thought she knew. When a moonlit encounter shatters the boundary between myth and memory, Emma finds herself caught between two men: one who grounds her to the world she’s always known, and one who calls to the deepest ...

She was supposed to stay dead. Lyra is a ghost agent—off-grid, off-record, and barely holding together the fragments of a life that isn’t entirely hers. Once a covert operative built for infiltration at the deepest levels, she now moves through the shadows of cities that never sleep, following traces of a program that should have been buried with her. But the past has a pulse. And someone, somewhere, is resurrecting what she was designed to forget. Set in a near-future landscape of corporate warfare, neural espionage, and synthetic identities, Rising Vengeance is a taut, electrified ...

A Saga of Flame, Frost, and the End of Stars Two rivals. One wounded sky. A choice that could end worlds. When heir Raen of Brand is summoned to the icebound fortress of Frostspire by an omen and a shard of star‑metal that knows his name, he steps into a cold war of ancient Houses—and an older war written in the heavens. Across the battlements, Commander Katharos of Allard holds the north with iron discipline and a blade of frost, sworn to protect her people from enemies she can see…and the ones she can’t. As the heavens begin to blink and forbidden relics stir, their uneasy pact is...

When the land grows silent, listen for the truth beneath the hush... In a kingdom unraveling under drought, discontent, and whispered curses, the people blame illusions, witches, and the dragon said to stalk the mountains. But one princess refuses to let myth dictate justice. Armed with nothing but her resolve, Princess Khanari sets out to challenge centuries of fear—and comes face to face with something far more tragic than legend foretold. Amid scorched orchards, spectral shadows, and fractured alliances, fates converge: – A blacksmith’s son desperate to carve out a future. – A ...

Loyalty was the only thing that ever kept her alive. Now it’s the weapon being used to erase her. After surviving the kind of black-ops mission no one was meant to walk away from, former empathic operative Lyra is doing what ghosts do best—staying off the radar, living between signal and shadow. The systems that built her, broke her, and nearly turned her into a god are still watching. But for the first time, they’re watching from a distance. Until the world watches her kill a man she never touched. A flawless broadcast from a global summit shows Lyra pulling the trigger. Neutral AIs ...

A Tale of Alchemy, Ancestry, and Ash In a forgotten village nestled deep within the Carpathian mountains, where fog clings to the trees and the past refuses to die, a wandering healer arrives bearing nothing but tinctures, haunted dreams, and a vow to never look back. But some bloodlines don’t stay buried. What begins as a quiet attempt to start over becomes a descent into ancestral secrets, soul-forged rituals, and an impossible bond with a blacksmith who shouldn’t be alive. When silver-laced curses bleed into bone and monsters wear familiar faces, Marina must decide if love can ...

Some powers demand sacrifice. Others demand surrender. But the fiercest are born when you refuse to give either. The storm has come—and she is its heart. Across war-torn lands and ash-streaked skies, a girl once cast aside now stands at the center of an unraveling world. The relic she carries burns brighter, hungrier. The lines between savior and destroyer are thinning, and the truth buried beneath golden light may devour her before destiny ever can. Allies are falling. Kingdoms crumbling. And desire—once a thread of solace—now threatens to shatter what little remains of who she was. ...

A gifted warrior. A broken legacy. A power that could either save the world—or shatter it. Eirik was born to lead. Trained from youth in the ancient art of Espera, he was destined to carry the honor of his bloodline and protect the kingdom of Ivaldr. But destiny is a fragile thing. When a tragic mistake unleashes a deadly curse, Eirik’s brilliance becomes a weapon of ruin. Haunted by the past and exiled from everything he once knew, he must navigate a world that fears him—while battling the darkness rising within. As war looms and ancient enemies reawaken, Eirik’s only chance at ...

Some codes aren’t meant to be broken. Some were never meant to be written. Lyra was built to weaponize empathy—trained to manipulate emotion, to disappear into neural patterns not her own. But now, stripped of the implants that once defined her, she’s no longer a tool. Or a ghost. She’s something harder to control: a woman reclaiming her body, her voice, and her past. The world, however, is moving on without her. In the wake of system collapse, a seductive quiet spreads—manufactured peace, tuned to the frequency of guilt. Across continents, protests falter. Governments give in. ...

In a land scorched by memory and ruled by silence, a girl once unseen now carries the weight of what should have stayed buried. The journey that began as escape has become something far more dangerous. As whispered power stirs beneath ash and gold, her steps are watched by eyes both mortal and monstrous. Some want what she carries. Others want what she is becoming. Out in the ruins, nothing stays dead—and nothing stays secret. Not longing. Not loyalty. Not the slow-blooming ache of a bond that neither distance nor danger has burned away. But in a world where devotion can devour and beauty...

Some stories never die. They wait beneath the loch, whispering your name. In the frostbitten village of Caulden, nestled in the shadow of Scotland’s Highlands, the old ways never truly vanished—they merely slipped beneath the surface, like kelpies beneath still water. When a fisherman vanishes under a cloudless sky and strange prints appear in the snow with no path in or out, whispers begin to stir. But the shadows that haunt Caulden’s loch are more than myth. Janet, a healer’s daughter marked by dreams she doesn’t understand, begins to witness impossible things. As the veil ...

The truth is hidden in the shadows. Power comes at a price. And Ascendant Academy is about to be eclipsed. Caelum Silverwind always believed getting into the elite Ascendant Academy was the start of his destiny. Between sky-piercing towers and spellbound corridors, students from four powerful houses train to master the convergence of magic and technology. But when a forbidden artifact awakens in his possession, Caelum is thrust into a dangerous conspiracy—one tied to a mysterious experiment. With a war-forged amulet burning against his chest and whispers of dimensional gateways haunting ...

Buddha's Child will flood the shadowy corners of South Vietnam's Byzantine political world with the bright light of truth. Ky will describe the Americans and their activities from the perspective of the Vietnamese patriot.

Condemned by US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara as "the absolute bottom of the barrel," Ky was not expected to survive a week in the office into which he was thrust. Instead, he lasted three years, until he wrote himself out of office by penning the country's first constitution.

A Memory Is a Weapon. Peace Is a Choice. In a star system trembling on the edge of collapse, Titus Ciros—warrior monk and reluctant emissary—carries the weight of a shattered brotherhood and a secret that could unmake empires. Sent to broker a fragile peace, he finds Ilara, a once-proud world ruled by Queen Camilla Ilaris, unraveling beneath the surface. But when a coded message left by his fallen brother reveals a conspiracy buried beneath the pulse of machines, peace becomes more than a mission. It becomes a rebellion against history itself. Camilla governs a people weary from ...