Valiant Universe

In this thrilling new take on the superhero origin story, one young man finds himself in the middle of a war between powerful gods, and tasked with saving the city he holds dear. Jack Boniface is having a weird day. Considering himself above the voodoo beliefs of his father and community back in New Orleans, Jack left his hometown to pursue his intellectual dreams at NYU. Normally, Jack is confident in his ultrarational approach to the world, but this morning he swears he can sense things moving in the shadows and keeps having the weirdest daydreams about a hideous monster. Below New Orleans lies the Deadside, where Baron Samedi rules over a pantheon of Lwa, voodoo gods. However, when Freda-one of the most beloved Lwas in New Orleans and one of Samedi's wives-goes missing, the Deadside falls into chaos. Freda's absence negates a decade-long agreement to protect New Orleans from unnatural violent death, resulting in a power struggle that spills over into the human world. When an unexpected death brings Jack back to New Orleans, he finds a city in violent uproar and a neighborhood under siege by undeniably supernatural forces. Turns out Jack was wrong: the voodoo world is quite real. And, if that wasn't enough, Jack finds out he is heir to the mantel of Shadowman, an entity tasked with maintaining the delicate balance of power between the Deadside and the real world. Will Jack be able to control his new powers and right the balance before it's too late? Or will the discord in the Deadside destroy New Orleans forever … A new Shadowman is rising, Jack just hopes it's not from the ashes of his city.

A brand-new Valiant origin story, Livewire is a fun, riveting sci-fi novel with a compelling romance at its core. Amanda McKee is a psiot, an evolved subspecies of humanity with mysterious psychic powers. According to billionaire Toyo Harada and his secret research organization, the Harbinger Foundation, she has the ability to talk to machines, control technology, and even see into a secret parallel world that exists inside computers: the Digital World. But Harada wants Amanda to keep that last bit under wraps-along with the fact that she's his adopted daughter. But when a man from the twenty-seventh century named Matsuoka Sho appears, intent on killing her to save his future, she realizes her days of hiding who she really is are over. Especially after Matsuoka gives her an ominous warning: "One day, you and Toyo will destroy humankind." At first, Amanda doesn't want to believe it. But when techno-soldiers from the future kidnap her father and drag him into the Digital World, she has no choice but to follow. Going into the Digital World with her hot, time-traveling frenemy and fighting off mecha soldiers with her psiot powers? That's one thing. But can she handle learning the truth about who Toyo Harada really is? "Sarah Raughley proves once again that, with her intricate worlds and wonderful characters, she is a force to be reckoned with."