Frank Carlson Library

From critically acclaimed author Laura Bickle (Dark Alchemy) comes the first novel in the Wildlands series, NINE OF STARS. Longmire meets Patricia Brigg's Mercy Thompson in this exciting new series that shows how weird and wonderful the West can truly be. Winter has always been a deadly season in Temperance, but this time, there's more to fear than just the cold...As the daughter of an alchemist, Petra Dee has faced all manner of occult horrors...

"Geologist Petra Dee arrives in Wyoming seeking clues to her father's disappearance years ago. What she finds instead is Temperance, a dying western town with a gold rush past and a meth-infested present. But under the dust and quiet, an old power is shifting. When bodies start turning up--desiccated and twisted skeletons that Petra can't scientifically explain--her investigations land her in the middle of a covert war between the town's most powerful...

"If nature could invent intelligence of our scale in a blink of geologic time, who's to say it hasn't been done before... A routine dig in Kazakhstan takes a radical turn for thirty-two-year-old anthropologist Claire Knowland when a stranger turns up at the site with a bizarre find from a remote section of the desolate Kazakh Steppe. Her initial skepticism of this mysterious discovery gives way to a realization that the find will shake the very foundations...

Raleigh Harmon, geologist and special agent for the FBI, is suddenly transferred from the Richmond field office to Seattle. A missing hiker, a ransom note, and a "friend" with deadly intentions all ensure that there's no time for an easy transition.

Diamond mining should be easy; Especially in an area famous for large gems But the secrets lurking at Fona are bigger than any of them It's 1990 and Geologist Sam Harris goes to West Africa to work in the diamond fields of Fona. She is soon involved with a cast of characters who operate in a dangerous mix of superstition, cultural practices and ignorance (mostly her own). When she uncovers the tale of a massive diamond missing since a rebel...

"He wasn't civilized or tame. He had his own code and he lived by it. Monk. Bounty hunter. Vampire slayer. Andre Boroi has spent centuries battling the undead, holding out against the dark with honor. But now, gravely wounded by master vampire Costin Popescu, Andre will be easy to track--his spilled blood marking the killing trail for Popescu and his hungry band of underlings. Andre's only chance is to disappear into the gray mist of the Carpathians....