Books with author Lois McMaster Bujold

Following her marriage to the notorious 'Butcher of Komarr', Lord Aral Vorkosigan, Captain Cordelia Naismith has become an outcast on her own world. Sick of combat and betrayal, she is ready to settle down to a quiet life on Barrayar, interrupted only by the occasional ceremonial appearances required of the Lady Vorkosigan. At least, that was the plan...With the death of the emperor, Aral has become Regent for the infant heir to the throne of Barrayar, thus making him - and his family - a target for traitors and malcontents. It takes but one lapse in the constant, deadly game of palace intrigue for things to go terribly wrong. An assassination attempt on the young emperor fails but the poison gas used does find a victim: the pregnant Cordelia. The Lady Vorkosigan herself is unharmed, but the gas seriously affects the growth and development of their unborn child, Miles. Irreparable cell-damage means that the heir to House Vorkosigan is born with bones that are, and will always be, unnaturally brittle, and he will never stand taller than his mother's shoulder. But what he lacks in strength, the young Miles more than makes up for in spirit. Neither Aral nor Cordelia could possibly guess the part their fragile son is destined to play in the future of the empire...

[Read by Grover Gardner]A rich Komarran merchant fleet has been impounded at Graf Station in distant Quaddiespace after a bloody incident involving the convoy's Barrayaran military escort. Lord Miles Vorkosigan and his wife, Lady Ekaterin, have other things on their minds, such as getting home in time to attend the long-awaited births of their first children. But when duty calls in the voice of Barrayar's Emperor Gregor, Miles, as imperial auditor, has no choice but to answer. -- Waiting on Graf Station are diplomatic snarls, tangled loyalties, old friends, new enemies, racial tensions, lies and deceptions, mysterious disappearances, and a race with time for life against death in horrifying new forms. The downside of being a high-level troubleshooter comes when trouble starts shooting back.

In a world where malices—remnants of ancient magic—can erupt with life-destroying power, only soldier-sorcerer Lakewalkers have mastered the ability to kill them. But Lakewalkers keep their uncanny secrets—and themselves—from the farmers they protect, so when patroller Dag Redwing Hickory rescued farmer girl Fawn Bluefield, neither expected to fall in love, join their lives in marriage, or defy both their kin to seek new solutions to the perilous split between their peoples. As Dag's maker abilities have grown, so has his concern about who—or what—he is becoming. At the end of a great river journey, Dag is offered an apprenticeship to a master groundsetter in a southern Lakewalker camp. But as his understanding of his powers deepens, so does his frustration with the camp's rigid mores with respect to farmers. At last, he and Fawn decide to travel a very different road—and find that along it, their disparate but hopeful company increases. Fawn and Dag see that their world is changing, and the traditional Lakewalker practices cannot hold every malice at bay forever. Yet for all the customs that the couple has challenged thus far, they will soon be confronted by a crisis exceeding their worst imaginings, one that threatens their Lakewalker and farmer followers alike. Now the pair must answer in earnest the question they've grappled with since they killed their first malice together: When the old traditions fail disastrously, can their untried new ways stand against their world's deadliest foe?