Most Popular Books by Kay Kenyon

Kay Kenyon, noted for her science fiction world-building, has in this new series created her most vivid and compelling society, the Universe Entire. In a land-locked galaxy that tunnels through our own, the Entire is a bizarre and seductive mix of long-lived quasi-human and alien beings gathered under a sky of fire, called the bright. A land of wonders, the Entire is sustained by monumental storm walls and an exotic, never-ending river. Over all, the elegant and cruel Tarig rule supreme. Into this rich milieu is thrust Titus Quinn, former star pilot, bereft of his beloved wife and daughter who are assumed dead by everyone on earth except Quinn. Believing them trapped in a parallel universe—one where he himself may have been imprisoned—he returns to the Entire without resources, language, or his memories of that former life. He is assisted by Anzi, a woman of the Chalin people, a Chinese culture copied from our own universe and transformed by the kingdom of the bright. Learning of his daughter’s dreadful slavery, Quinn swears to free her. To do so, he must cross the unimaginable distances of the Entire in disguise, for the Tarig are lying in wait for him. As Quinn’s memories return, he discovers why. Quinn’s goal is to penetrate the exotic culture of the Entire—to the heart of Tarig power, the fabulous city of the Ascendancy, to steal the key to his family’s redemption. But will his daughter and wife welcome rescue? Ten years of brutality have forced compromises on everyone. What Quinn will learn to his dismay is what his own choices were, long ago, in the Universe Entire. He will also discover why a fearful multiverse destiny is converging on him and what he must sacrifice to oppose the coming storm. This is high-concept SF written on the scale of Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld, Roger Zelazny’s Amber Chronicles, and Dan Simmons’s Hyperion.

Return to the world of the Entire in the acclaimed second book of the epic series. Titus Quinn is back in the universe of the Entire with a new task: to enter and destroy the impregnable fortress of Ahnenhoon. The fortress, called the Repel, is replete with eons-long Tarig secrets and a most disturbing personal one for Quinn: a special prisoner resides there and will perish with the Repel. To reach Ahnenhoon, Quinn journeys across the Entire and down the River Nigh in the company of a subversive godwoman, a renegade Tarig lord, a mad navitar, and Anzi, a woman of the Chalin people, who guides him with her wit and a deepening love. He is pursued by an assassin sent by his own daughter, Sydney, who counts the Entire as her home. Formerly a slave, she now has at her command a transforming and revolutionary power. Not only that, but Sydney has a strange ally, a person from earth who has her own plans for the Entire, enabled by a powerful machine sapient. Weighing into this dance of power are: A Tarig queen who once loved Quinn, the alien Paion, and a Hirrin servant of the Magisterium whose growing disaffection can bring down the whole house of cards. Newly re-issued, this series has been compared to Riverworld, Dune, and the writing of Stephen R. Donaldson and Dan Simmons. "Tangled motivations, complex characters, and intriguing world building will keep readers on the edges of their seats.” --Publishers Weekly Starred Review “One of the most imaginative creations in recent science fiction history.” --SF Site "[R]ivals Larry Niven''s Ringworld and Philip Jose Farmer''s Riverworld series for sheer invention, adventure, complexity, and sense of wonder. --Omnivoracious

In this series Kay Kenyon has created her most vivid and compelling society yet, the universe Entire. Reviewers have called this "a grand world," "an enormous stage," and "a bravura concept." On this stage unfolds a mighty struggle for dominance between two universes. Titus Quinn has forged an unstable peace with the Tarig lords. The ruinous capability of the nanotech surge weapon he possesses ensures détente. But it is a sham. In what the godwoman Zhiya calls "a fit of moral goodness," he’s thrown the weapon into the space-folding waters of the Nigh. This clears the way for an enemy he could have never foreseen: the people of the Rose. A small cadre led by Helice Maki is determined to take the Entire for itself and leave the earth in ruins. The transform of earth will begin deep in a western desert and will sweep over the lives of ordinary people, entangling Quinn’s sister-in-law Caitlin in a deepening and ultimate conspiracy. In the Entire, Quinn stalks Helice to the fabled Rim City, encircling the heart of the Entire. Here he at last finds his daughter, now called Sen Ni, in the Chalin style. Outside of earth-based time, she has grown to adulthood. He hardly knows her, and finds her the mistress of a remarkable dream-time insurgency against the Tarig lords—and more, a woman risen high in the Entire’s meritocracy. Quinn needs his daughter’s help against the woman who would destroy the earth. But Sen Ni has her own plans and allies, among them a boy-navitar unlike any other pilot of the River Nigh—a navitar willing and supremely able to break his vows and bend the world. Quinn casts his fate with the beautiful and resourceful Ji Anzi who—sent on a journey to other realms—holds the key to Quinn’s heart and his overarching mission. But as he approaches the innermost sanctuary of the Tarig, he is alone. Waiting for him are powerful adversaries, including a lady who both hates and loves him, the high prefect of the dragon court, and Quinn’s most implacable enemy, a warrior whose chaotic mind will soon be roused from an eternal slumber.

There is a fine line between transformation and ruin.... Twenty-four-year-old Reeve Calder has spent his life on a high-tech space station, watching as terraforming gradually fails on his home planet of Lithia--a failure that has doomed the colonists stranded there to short, brutish lives. Reeve''s dream has always been to rebuild Lithia. But when a mysterious explosion destroys the station, forcing Reeve to crash-land on Lithia''s blood-hued soil, he soon learns that the reality of saving a dying planet is quite different from what he imagined. For Gabriel Bonhert, former captain of the space station, has set in motion a world cataclysm, using a fatal probe that will travel down the fiery pathway of a deep mantle plume. Now, to save the homeland he has never known, Reeve is caught in a race against time to reach Bonhert''s base in the Rift Valley, a remote volcanic gateway to the hidden heart of Lithia. His staunchest ally may be a feral girl who alone seems enthralled by what Lithia is becoming, and whose enigmatic past holds the key to startling possibilities. As the old Lithia struggles to be reborn in a tide of toxic red flora creeping across the oxygen-starved planet, Reeve forges onward, coming into conflict with savage enclaves of colonists, a doomsday genemorphing cult, and a mysterious alien race with its own intentions for the planet--intentions that may include humanity''s slavery or their terrible transformation.... From the Paperback edition.

In the bloody war that ended between Th Congress Worlds and the alien ahtra, Captain Eli Dammond had distinguished himself as an officer who could no wrong--until his last catastrophic battle. Now, with his shining reputation tarnished, the commander finds himself assigned to a grimy kettle of a ship making basic transport missions. Routine work -until he arrives on Null: a barren, scorned world at the mercy of two suns. Here, a marooned human outpost has survived for three years until their rescue by Eli''s ship. But on this austere planet, the human newcomers are about to learn a harsh lesson: that nothing is quite as it seems. For soon a new season will call forth a hidden ecology both exquisite and deadly. And Null will test the survivors in a fight no soldier was ever trained for, and few can predict - while a young the survivors in a fight no soldier was trained for, and few predict - while a young woman of privilege may well prove to be their finest warrior. Yet for Eli Dammond, the worst struggle will unfold below the surface. There he will discover a threat to all the settle human worlds, even as he matches wits an adversary both familiar and alien. The odds are against human survival on null''s surface or indeed, in the galaxy-- unless Eli succeeds in bringing home the hard-won secret that neither human nor ahtra can hear. From the Paperback edition.

“Come find what you have lost...” Heeding this cryptic message from deep space, the crew of the starship Restoration journeys from Earth to a distant planet, hoping to find humanity’s lost genetic diversity. But with the human race on the verge of extinction from the twin horrors of plague and a mysterious scourge of dark matter, how can an alien world harbor any remedies for Earth’s declining populations? Worse, the Restoration arrives depleted: its captain is dead, its crew demoralized--except for an indomitable old woman whose power and wealth give her the privilege of naming the new captain. Anton Prados, a young, untested officer, will now preside over humanity’s first contact with an alien race. An alien race that, improbably, looks exactly like humans. Only, the Dassa possess highly unusual breeding habits--and a reproductive process that seems to be the nullification of all that is human. And they think much the same about humanity… From the Paperback edition.

Clio Finn is a Dive pilot on a troubled Earth in 2019. Public paranoia about the AIDS virus and its successors has led to the imprisonment of the "subversives" of the society (namely, drug users and gays) in forced labor quarantine camps known as quarries. Meanwhile, Earth itself is dying from a progressive lack of greenery, as the UV irradiation from a successively depleted ozone layer is killing off all the plants, and therefore the planet''s ability to sustain itself. To counteract this problem, the powers of Earth have decided that new greenery must be found on alternate worlds, to supplement Earth''s dying stock with heartier, alien strains. But since faster-than-light travel is still unavailable, a new method must be found to achieve this. Enter time travel, in which a quick jaunt down through time can bring ships into the position of planets which had rotated through Earth''s present position in the distant past, due to the galaxy''s extended period of rotation. As most people are unable to remain awake during these temporal Dives, the guiding duty is left to an exclusive class of Dive pilots. Only dive pilots have a limited span before they burn out. Most can last thirty to forty Dives. Clio Finn has lasted fifty-five, and she is on the ragged end of burn-out, kept on track only by a handful of outlawed drugs. But the potential rewards are great. A previous haul of greenery, once thought to be Earth''s salvation, is dying off, and an illicit jaunt into the future taken by Clio and her colleagues has discovered the violent end of humanity itself. So her current destination, Niang, an Edenic tropical planet, seems the answer to mankind''s prayers. Only, on Niang''s surface, Clio discovers a desperate secret. The green which may save mankind also subsists on metals, and may therefore destroy all of mankind''s existing technology. Clio''s dilemma--whether to regreen Earth at the risk of driving man back into the dark ages--is only exacerbated when an accidental loop in time catches her in a paradox between two alternate futures, each of which is determined to eradicate the other completely and absolutely. From the Paperback edition.

Of starships, aliens, and butterflies.Collected in this volume are stories set in space and at home--as far as Alpha Centauri and as close as a town near you. In space, we''ll walk the decks of a generation ship, visit a starship graveyard and test-drive quantum teleportation. On the home planet we''ll watch gargoyles come to life, meet aliens who offer far-flung tourism, ride on the shoulders of an avatar, and enter a new green world where metal and plastic bow down to the seeds of time. There will also be a butterfly. "Kenyon writes beautifully, her characters are multilayered, and her extrasolar worlds are real and nuanced while at the same time truly alien." --Robert J. Sawyer

The powerful conclusion to The Arisen Wolrds, a four-book series! Yevliesza is no longer alone. In her adopted land, people call her their savior. For a vast army of demonic engines is massing and, in the crossings between the worlds, only Yevliesza can stop them. Amid this vital mission, her heart still belongs to Valenty, who has sworn to find her again across a chasm of war and duty. But she has a dilemma. If she uses her rare power to block the invaders at the Gates, she risks bringing the arisen worlds to ruin. Her only hope is to unlock the deeper secrets of the Mythos crossings. She has no time to lose. The sorceress Nashavety is coming home. Accompanying an army of conquest, she will wield an immense and ancient magic—a legacy of the origin world, Earth. For ages, that power has rested in fitful sleep. Soon it will awaken. coming of age; fantasy saga; hidden power; lost magic; hidden realms; medieval realm; dark magic; magic gate; warlike realms; female protagonist; sorcery; slow burn romance; world threatening forces; myth world; powerful lord; fantasy romance action adventure

Enter a magic-infused Victorian alternate history, where silver tigers and demon birds roam, and one young woman is caught up in a sweeping mutiny... In this epic historical fantasy by Kay Kenyon, discover an alternate 19th century where two warring continents vie for power: the scientific Anglica and magical Bharata. Inspired by her grandfather''s final whispered secret of a magical lotus, young Tori Harding, an aspiring botanist, embarks on a quest to Bharata, where magic, intrigues, and ghosts await. There she will find what she most desires; less perfect than she had hoped and stranger than she could have dreamed. Her fate awaits. But how can she make the choice between two suitors - and two irreconcilable realms?

A beguiling fantasy filled with magic, adventure, romance... and dangerous secrets. When she is pulled from the wreckage of a New York subway crash, Jane Gray is astonished to recognize her rescuer as Prince Starling, an imaginary companion from her childhood. Determined to uncover the truth about her past, Jane tracks him to another realm; the world of the Palazzo, a magical ship that is both a colossal steam vessel and a Renaissance kingdom. There, she discovers that magic is real and her destiny is more tangled than she ever imagined. In this story of a modern Alice in Wonderland, Jane is courted by two different men and must survive the machinations of an exotic and dangerous queen. When she discovers the urgent secret of the Palazzo''s endless voyage, Jane holds the fate of the realm in her hands. Guided by maps, legends, and dead reckoning, she must pilot a course that will lead to the salvation or destruction of the world she has come to love.

We love our dystopias. Dark societies call us with a twisty fascination. And yet. No matter how bad things get, there will always be people who refuse, rebel and survive. Enter these dystopian worlds inspired by the Singularity, designer medicine, a few all-too-possible oppressive ideologies and, of course, the plain-old end of the world. Collected here are seven short stories of the world gone wrong in its hierarchies, ecology, governments, elite circles and controlling technologies from a science fiction and fantasy author known for her unique world-building.

Finally in control of the Ascendancy, Titus Quinn has styled himself Regent of the Entire. But his command is fragile. He rules an empire with a technology beyond human understanding; spies lurk in the ancient Magisterium; the Tarig overlords are hamstrung but still malevolent. Worse, his daughter Sen Ni opposes him for control, believing the Earth and its Rose universe must die to sustain the failing Entire. She is aided by one of the mystical pilots of the River Nigh, the space-time transport system. This navitar, alone among all others, can alter future events. He retires into a crystal chamber in the Nigh to weave reality and pit his enemies against each other. Taking advantage of these chaotic times, the great foe of the Long War, the Jinda ceb Horat, create a settlement in the Entire. Masters of supreme technology, they maintain a lofty distance from the Entire’s struggle. They agree, however, that the Tarig must return to the fiery Heart of their origins. With the banishment immanent, some Tarig lords rebel, fleeing to hound the edges of Quinn’s reign. Meanwhile, Quinn’s wife Anzi becomes a hostage and penitent among the Jinda ceb, undergoing alterations that expose their secrets, but may estrange her from her husband. As Quinn moves toward a confrontation with the dark navitar, he learns that the stakes of the conflict go far beyond the Rose versus the Entire--extending to a breathtaking dominance. The navitar commands forces that lie at the heart of the Entire’s geo-cosmology, and will use them to alter the calculus of power. As the navitar’s plan approaches consummation, Quinn, Sen Ni, and Anzi are swept up in forces that will leave them forever changed. In this rousing finale to Kenyon’s celebrated quartet, Titus Quinn meets an inevitable destiny, forced at last to make the unthinkable choice for or against the dictates of his heart, for or against the beloved land.

Kim Tavistock, now officially working for the Secret Intelligence Service, returns to solve another mystery—this time, the case of a serial killer with deep Nazi ties, in this sequel to At the Table of Wolves. Summer, 1936. In England, an assassin is loose. Someone is killing young people who possess Talents. As terror overtakes Britain, Kim Tavistock, now officially employed by England’s Secret Intelligence Service, is sent on her first mission: to the remote Sulcliffe Castle in Wales, to use her cover as a journalist to infiltrate a spiritualist cult that may have ties to the murders. Meanwhile, Kim’s father, trained spy Julian Tavistock runs his own parallel investigation—and discovers the terrifying Nazi plot behind the serial killings. Cut off from civilization, Sulcliffe Castle is perched on a forbidding headland above a circle of standing stones only visible at low tide. There, Kim shadows a ruthless baroness and her enigmatic son, playing her skills of deception and hearing the truths people most wish to hide. But as her cover disguise unravels, Kim learns that the serial killer is closing in on a person she has grown to love. Now, Kim must race against the clock not just to prevent the final ritual killing—but to turn the tide of the looming war.

"In 1936, paranormal abilities of the bloom have broken through in the world as a slow, subconscious tide, brought to the surface by the suffering of the Great War. While Germany has worked for over a decade to weaponize these abilities, in England, research lags behind. It''s now underway at an ultra-secret site, Monkton Hall. Among the test subjects is Kim Tavistock, a woman with the Talent of the spill--drawing out truths that people most wish to hide. When she wins the confidence of caseworker Owen Cherwell, he recruits her into an effort to expose the head of Monkton Hall as a German spy. Kim infiltrates the upper-crust circles of some of the country''s fascist sympathizers. There she encounters dangerous opponents, including a charismatic Nazi officer in the intelligence arm of the SS, Erich von Ritter. Playing a perilous game of cat and mouse with him, she uncovers a Nazi plan that she is convinced involves an invasion of England. Eluding von Ritter, traitorous English aristocrats, and at times her fascist-leaning father, Kim hunts a deeply undercover individual with a mysterious power over cold and ice. No one believes an invasion of the island nation is possible, not Whitehall, not even England''s Secret Intelligence Service. Unfortunately they are wrong, and only one woman, without connections or training, wielding her Talent of the spill and her gift for espionage, can stop it"--

In this “riveting” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) conclusion to the Dark Talents series, Kim Tavistock is undercover in Berlin as the wife of a British diplomat but when she uncovers a massive conspiracy that could change the course of the war, she’s the only one in a position to stop it. November, 1936. Kim Tavistock is in Berlin for her first Continental mission for SIS, the British intelligence service. Her cover: a sham marriage to a handsome, ambitious British consul. Kim makes a diplomatic party circuit with him, hobnobbing with Nazi officials hoping for a spill that will unlock a secret operation called Monarch. Berlin is a glittering city celebrating Germany’s resurgence, but Nazi brutality darkens the lives of many. When Kim befriends Hannah Linz, a member of the Jewish resistance, she sets events in motion that will bring her into the center of a vast conspiracy. Forging an alliance with Hannah and her partisans, Kim discovers the alarming purpose of Monarch: the creation of a company of enforcers with augmented Talents and strange appetites. Called the Progeny, they have begun to compel citizen obedience with physical and spiritual terror. Soon Kim is swept up in a race to stop the coming deployment of the Progeny into Europe. Aligned against her are forces she could never have foreseen, including the very intelligence service she loves; a Russian woman, the queen of all Talents, who fled Bolsheviks in 1917; and the ruthless SS officer whose dominance and rare charisma may lead to Kim’s downfall. To stop Monarch and the subversion of Europe, Kim must do more than use her Talent, wits, and courage. She must step into the abyss of unbound power, even to the point of annihilation. Does the human race have limits? Kim does not want to know the answer. But it is coming.

In a time of war and sorcery, Yevliesza faces the ultimate test. One that may lead to deliverance—or the loss of all that she loves. As war threatens her adopted land, Yevliesza has found a refuge. But it won’t last. Her enemies are closing in and mean to exploit her apparently accidental and rare power. It is a lost magic. But in the wrong hands, the worlds of the Mythos may not survive. In the fight against the brutal Volkish, Yevliesza is called upon to use this lost power. But first she must learn how. To find her true strength, she turns to an ancient wisdom hidden in the wilderness. There she will be invited to enter a mysterious realm to seek answers and pass its tests. If she accepts the challenge, she may return with new skills in her fight against the twisted realm. But the price for using her power may be exile from her new-found homeland and from the man she has grown to love. Can she bear to lose everything? When Yevliesza emerges from the secret kingdom, she will have the answer. A high fantasy from acclaimed fantasy and science fiction world-builder Kay Kenyon. Don''t miss books one and two in The Arisen Worlds quartet, The Girl Who Fell Into Myth and Stranger in the Twisted Realm. Watch for book four, Keeper of the Mythos Gate, the conclusion of the series, coming February 20, 2024. KEYWORDS: high fantasy, portal fiction, coming of age, women''s fantasy, chosen one, royal destiny, slow burn romance, forbidden love, fantasy romance action adventure, myths and legends, saga, sorcery, myth world, dark magic

The prince who will conquer all the kingdoms of myth. The woman who must stop him. Not all myths are harmless. Yevliesza, formerly of earth and now of the Mythos, knows that one of the mythical realms is based in darkness. Volkia. This warlike kingdom has shattered the rules of magic, bringing all the realms into peril. When Yevliesza is sent to Volkia on a diplomatic mission, she arrives at a nest of vipers. The cunning ruler of Volkia, Prince Albrecht, appears to welcome her, but suspects that she is linked to a rare and world-altering power. One that he intends to harness for conquest. To preserve the Mythos, Yevliesza must never reveal that power. But she has left behind a trail of evidence, and worse, she possesses a damning arcane tracery--etched upon her very skin. Now she is in the hands of a ruler who is determined to bend her to his will, whether through a twisted courtship or outright coercion. Unless she can outwit him. The prince has formidable allies, but one is supreme: the twisted being who hovers over the realm, guiding the Volkish and seeking revenge on Yevliesza’s homeland. And especially on the girl with the Lost Power. Book two of a high fantasy quartet from acclaimed science fiction and fantasy world-builder Kay Kenyon. Don''t miss the first book in The Arisen Worlds quartet, The Girl Who Fell Into Myth. Watch for Servant of the Lost Power, Book three, coming February 20, 2024. KEYWORDS: high fantasy, portal fiction, coming of age, women''s fantasy, chosen one, royal destiny, slow burn romance, forbidden love, fantasy romance action adventure, myths and legends, saga, sorcery, myth world, dark magic

Zoya Kundara has lived on the space vessel Star Road for two hundred fifty years. As its Ship Mother, kept alive in a state of pseudoimmortality, she has provided wisdom and counsel to succeeding generations of its crew, self-exiled survivors of earth’s great plague. But now, to escape the ravages of space radiation, the giant starship has returned to earth, only to discover a world on the verge of extinction, its barren surface blanketed in a crystalline substance that resembles ice and that is slowly, inexorably encapsulating the planet. Zoya is chosen as emissary to this strange new earth, and now she must approach its denizens and find a suitable home for her desperate crew among the shrinking lands. But what she finds shakes Zoya to her core: groups of humans huddled like moles in underground techno-warrens called preserves, and a pseudospiritual order known as the Ice Nuns, who seek control of the physics-defying crystals and enslave their disciples in their crazed quest for truth. For on this once green land, Ice and the science behind it are now the only God–and mastering this grand ecology of information the only higher calling. Allies are few and far between, but somehow Zoya must uncover the secrets of Ice and halt its expansion. That is, if the snow witches don’t get her first...

The complete four-book series now available! A modern woman travels through a secret portal, flies on the back of a dragon, and encounters a storm that splits open the sky—before arriving in a ruined state in a world of magic, war, and legend. A lover is waiting. And a looming power of darkness. In Book One you’ll discover: -- A castle on a towering hill where foreigners are unwelcome, but where a foreigner is just what they need. -- What happens when a 21st century woman finds herself in a medieval culture. -- Where witches went when they were driven from Earth by fear and prejudice. -- How the alter-worlds of the Mythos are connected with each other. -- What the worst myth in the world is and the havoc it’s going to cause. -- How a lightning strike changes Everything. A high fantasy from acclaimed fantasy and science fiction world-builder Kay Kenyon. “The Girl Who Fell Into Myth is a marvel of beautiful language, elegant worldbuilding, and a story of powers and magic on a grand scale. This will be a series to treasure.” —Louisa Morgan, author of The Great Witch of Brittany The Girl Who Fell Into Myth is set in a richly imagined world of entangled mythologies, elusive magic, and bitter treachery, perfect for fans of complex, dark-edged fantasy. —Rachel Neumeier, author of the Tujo Series “Kay Kenyon excels at creating strong women who must navigate chaotic, perilous situations as they slowly learn the extent of their own abilities. I was hooked on The Girl Who Fell Into Myth and am impatiently waiting for the next installment in this series!” —Sharon Shinn, author of The Shuddering City KEYWORDS: medieval fantasy, portal fiction, coming of age, women''s fantasy, warlike realm, chosen one, royal destiny, slow burn romance, forbidden love, hidden power, fantasy romance action adventure.