All power and glory shall go to the winners of Vaedi Vooma...This contest is a test of magic, a competition of dancing, and a fight to the death.Seven couples will go to the stage to display their virtuosity, but only one couple can win.Will it be Dindi and the man she loves?Even if she finally proves herself, might the cost be so high that her victory turns into a nightmare?

Tara Maya's previously published short stories, most of them no longer available in print, are gathered together here for the first time. A number of the tales are short shorts or flash fiction, including the poignant, "Ghosts on Red Strings, " and the biting alternate history, "Best of All Possible Worlds. " Longer stories and two novelettes round out the collection. The emotional timbre ranges across a wide gamut. "Tomorrow We Dance" is a bleak retelling of the fairy-tales Pied Piper and the Emperor's New Clothes. In the more heroic and romantic Painted World stories (two are here), artists are able to bring their paintings to life. For fans of hard sf, there is "A Thousand Blossoms With The Day," which starts from the premise there might have been life in the first fractions of a second after the Big Bang. An Author's Note, and author Comments on the story behind each story, enliven the volume with the author's own strange journey from homeless street person to published...

Dindi longs to become a Tavaedi, one of the powerful warrior-dancers who wield magic. No one of her kind has ever succeeded.But Dindi has a plan.DEADLY INITIATIONA DETERMINED GIRL...Dindi can't do anything right, maybe because she spends more time dancing with pixies than doing her chores. Her clan hopes to marry her off and settle her down, but she dreams of becoming a Tavaedi, one of the powerful warrior-dancers whose secret magics are revealed only to those who pass a mysterious Test during the Initiation ceremony. The problem? No-one in Dindi's clan has ever passed the Test. Her grandmother died trying. But Dindi has a plan.AN EXILED WARRIOR...Kavio is the most powerful warrior-dancer in Faearth, but when he is exiled from the tribehold for a crime he didn't commit, he decides to shed his old life. If roving cannibals and hexers don't kill him first, this is his chance to escape the shadow of his father's wars and his mother's curse. But when he rescues a young Initiate girl, he finds himself drawn into as deadly a plot as any he left behind. He must decide whether to walk away or fight for her... assuming she would even accept the help of an exile.

Sami leaves behind her whole life when her family moves to a seastead—an artificial island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And the day she arrives, she overhears the hottest guy there secretly planning to oust her family from the island. But two can play that game. Sami isn't going to let any guy push around her family. Or her. No matter how gorgeous he is... This is a stand-alone Young Adult Romance Science Fiction novel in the world of the Seastead Adventures.

WELCOME TO FAEARTH…where humans are trapped between the immortal fae and the minions of Death. But one woman and the warrior who loves her will defy every taboo to protect their people.

Have you ever wondered where the Easter Bunny comes from? How old is he? And how he happened to become a talking rabbit with a fondness chocolate eggs? And how this involved goblins and a feisty princess?Gather around, children, and I shall tell you the amazing legend of Peter Cottontail...