Duramen Publishing's Original & Featured Novels — Enjoy!
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- Strider S.R. Klusman
- A. C. Fuller
- Alison Kimble
- Andrew Sweet
- Ashe & Magdalena Stevens
- Beth Bacon
- Brandi Forte
- Britt Lind
- DB Bray
- D. D. Black
- Denise Frisino
- Deston Munden
- DV Berkom
- Gail Noble-Sanderson
- JL Oakley
- J. Tullos Hennig
- Kerry Anne King
- Kerry Schafer
- Kevin G Chapman
- Kim Hornsby
- Lynn Bohart
- Marian Exall
- Mark Berridge
- Michelle Cox
- N'Tyse
- Pamela Beason
- Rebecca Olmstead
- Robert Dugoni
- Ron McManus
- Scott Bury
- Skye Burn
- Talulah J. Sullivan
- Topher Metcalf
- Tony J. Selimi
- Wahida Clark
- William Kenower
The Adventures of Rhone & Stone
Stone
The Adventures of Rhone & Stone, Book 1
The story of an unlikely and powerful friendship, as award-winning author, Strider S.R. Klusman sets aside traditional themes, in this thrilling genre-crossing sci-fi western.
This YA action-adventure survival story takes readers on a wild journey through the Badlands, with Rhone, a bored teen, and his best friend, Stone, a mysterious rock-like creature.
When Commissioner Dodge learns of strange happenings, Rhone and Stone are forced to run for their lives, but an unexpected run-in with the commissioner's men has Stone taken, and Rhone left for dead. He awakes to wander the Badlands, lost and dying of thirst, with no idea where to find his friend. Stone, of course, can't rescue himself, so Rhone must, leading to adventure filled with twists and turns, os convoluted as the badlands themselves.
This gripping story will leave readers on the edge of their seat, wondering what lies around the next corner.
If you enjoyed Temeraire, or The Live Ship Traders, you’ll love Stone, and the unique bond between two friends.
Luna
The Rhone & Stone Trilogy #2
Luna, a totally awesome, genre-crossing, action adventure, gaslight sci/fi, coming-of-age, alien contact story, with a little steampunk thrown in for spice.
Rhone leaves his home in the desert badlands, and finds himself in the Capital Stronghold where the the big city styles take a bit to get use to. With Aundrea's help, he's enrolled in the OPR's academy, learning what it takes to be an effective agent.
Far too soon it's graduation, and time for his first assignment. The little harbor town of Corgy isn't much to look at, and while Rhone finds his cover story as one of the gentry can be useful, it can also create problems, as the mayor develops an instant dislike for him.
Then there's the little problem of pirates. As an agent, it's his job to fix problems, and with the help of Stone, his unique friend, and Bella, the erstwhile waitress at The Common House, Rhone develops an unexpected and rather up-lifting method to do just that.
Whether he survives it, is another matter.
Captain Black, of The Backwater Mistress has this to say. "If you could see the action, as from the eye of a bird flying over, you would be one step ahead of the game."
We'll see how that goes.
The Jossing Affair
British-trained Norwegian intelligence agent, Tore Haugland, is a jøssing—a patriot—sent to a fishing village on Norway’s west coast to set up a line to receive weapons and agents from England via the “Shetland Bus.” Posing as a deaf fisherman, his mission is complicated when he falls in love with Anna Fromme, a German widow. Accused of betraying her husband, she has a young daughter and secrets of her own. Although the Allies have liberated France, the most zealous Nazis hang on in Norway, sending out agents to disembowel resistance groups. If Haugland fails, it could cost him his life and the lives of the fishermen who have joined him. When Haugland is betrayed and left for dead, he will have to find the one who betrayed him and destroyed his network. He will also have to prove that the one he loves was not the informer. In wartime love and trust are not always compatible.
The Quisling Factor
Treason. Espionage. Revenge. In the aftermath of WWII, ex-intelligence agent Tore Haugland tries to adjust to life in his newly freed country with the woman he loves. But he still has to testify against a Norwegian traitor—one of the monsters of the German occupation—whom he helped to capture.
When mysterious notes threaten Haugland and his family, he must choose between protecting them or bringing to justice the man who tortured him and destroyed the village that hid him. Challenged by injuries and recurring nightmares, he will have to rely on his former training and old Resistance friends to rescue his wife from the traitor who will do anything to keep Haugland from testifying.
The Brisling Code
An experienced intelligence agent at 22, Tore Haugland faces certain danger when he accepts an assignment in occupied Norway knowing that his predecessor was killed by the Gestapo only a week before. The dying agent left a mysterious message in his interruption code that London calls the “Brisling Code.” London wants Haugland to find out what it means as well as to gather information on the expansion of the U boat base in Bergen. Haugland is sent to work at a drafting office in a shipyard. His mission is jeopardized when a ruthless SS officer, Hans Becker, with his own secrets, is alerted to his presence by a traitor at the Verks. Becker will do anything to find him. If Haugland can’t discover the meaning of the Brisling Code in time, it could cost him his life and expose the members of the local resistance he works with. If he does, it could hurt the people he has grown to care about. But what if the message was written down wrong?
Tree Soldier
"A masterfully wrought masterpiece that both instructs and inspire."
"A compelling story set in Western Washington during the Depression."
One mistake can ruin a life. One mistake can transform it.
A government forestry camp set deep in the mountainous forests of the Pacific Northwest might not seem the likely place to find redemption, but in 1935, Park Hardesty hopes for just that.
Blaming himself for the fiery accident that caused his brother's disfigurement and the death of the bootlegging woman he loved, planting trees, building bridges and mentoring tough, homesick New Jersey boys brings him both penitence and the renewal of his own self-worth. When he wins the love of Kate Alford, a local naturalist who envisions joining the Forest Service, which allows only men, he also captures the ire of a camp officer who refuses to let her go. Just when he is ready to seek his brother's forgiveness, he is falsely accused of rape. Every aspect of his life he has tried to rebuild is put in jeopardy. In the end, the only way he can defend himself is to tell the truth about his brother, but he risks being kicked out of the camp. Worse, he could lose Kate's love forever.
Timber Rose
1907. Women climbing mountains in skirts. Loggers fighting for the eight hour day. The forests are alive with progress but not everyone is on board. Mountain climbing Caroline Symington comes from a prominent family. When she elopes with an enterprising, working class man bound for the new Forest Service, her father disowns her. Seeking meaning in her new life amidst nature, she’s ushered along by a group of like-minded women and a mysterious mountain man with a tragic past..
When her ruthless uncle muscles his way into the national forest, Caroline must take a stand and defend the man and place she loves.
Hilina Pali
A Hilo Bay Mystery
On the seventy-seventh anniversary of the death of a local man serving in the Civilian Conservation Corps on the Big Island, retired school teacher, Auntie Bee Takahashi, receives a mysterious envelope. Items in it point to an old injustice with tragic consequences. With the help of her great niece, ace TV crime reporter Tawnie Takahashi, and a local historian, she races to discover the source of the photos and articles and prevent another tragedy from happening at Hilina Pali. around her must find meaning in life again.
Volcano House
A HILO BAY MYSTERY
Auntie Bee Takahashi is turning 80 and her friends in the U’ilani Book Lovers Club are planning a big celebration up at historic Volcano House. Plans take a dangerous turn when a long missing manuscript of The Bottle Imp, Robert Louis Stevenson’s great horror story, shows up among Bee’s stack of books. Tied to an unsolved murder 125 years old at the old Kilauea hotel, someone doesn’t want the crime to come out. When weird accidents and mysterious happenings threaten Auntie Bee and members of her book club, her great-niece crime reporter Tawnie Takahashi will have to step in to keep her safe. At the heart of her investigation, are the secrets behind two warring families spanning four generations and a land grab.
Mist-Chi-Mas
A Novel of Captivity
Everyone is bound to something.
Jeannie Naughton never intended to run away from her troubles, but in 1860, a woman’s reputation is everything. A scandal forces her to flee England for an island in the Pacific Northwest, a territory jointly occupied by British and American military forces. At English Camp, Jeannie meets American Jonas Breed, once captive and slave — a mistchimas — of the Haida, and still with close ties to the Coast Salish Indians.
But the inhabitants of the island mistrust Breed for his friendship with the tribes. When one of Breed’s friends is murdered, he is quickly accused of a gruesome retaliation. Jeannie knows he’s innocent, and plans to go away with him, legitimizing their passionate affair with a marriage. But when she receives word that Breed has been killed in a fight, Jeannie’s world falls apart. Although she carries Jonas Breed’s child, she feels she has no choice but to accept a proposal from another man. A story of revenge… and growth.
Coconut Island
Hilo Bay Mystery
Investigative reporter Tawnie Takahashi is no stranger to mysteries, but can she handle one steeped in her own family’s history? A box of letters from a WWII soldier stationed on the Big Island is found at the Big Island Historical Society and unlocks painful memories for Tawnie’s Great Aunt Bee. Bee’s older sister was swept away in the 1946 tsunami, but now Wendy suspects she was murdered first. As she delves into the mystery, Tawnie meets a group of nonagenarians who were at the USO center on Coconut Island during the war. One is a hero. Another is a cold-blooded murderer. and suspense.
strange gods
A summer camp for troubled teens, a trickster god, and a dangerous bargain.
Spooky arrives at a wilderness boot camp for troubled teens with two suitcases and an ultimatum: either she keeps her head down or she won’t be allowed home at the end of it. All she wants to do is survive the pyros, bullies, and power-tripping counselors, get through senior year, and start her life somewhere new.
But if she wants to survive to see any kind of future, she will have to figure out how to gain leverage over an unexpected god. And as if the one wasn’t bad enough, a pantheon of dark entities are lining up between her and the life she’s always wanted.
Mayhem Grand Prize Award
The Only Witness
Neema Mystery Series #1
An infant grabbed from her mother’s car. A dead end of evidence. A most unlikely source of help.
A traditional mystery, with a primitive twist.
The Only Clue
Neema Mystery Series #2
After a crowded open house at her research center, Grace discovers that her worst nightmare has come true. All three apes—Gumu, Neema, and baby Kanoni—have vanished, leaving behind only one clue: a huge pool of blood.
Winner of the Mystery & Mayhem Grand Prize Award
The Only One Left
Neema Mystery Series #3
What does a human finger bone and a signing gorilla have to do with Detective Matthew Finn’s case of two missing girls?
Maybe nothing. But maybe everything.
Race With Danger
Run for Your Life trilogy, book #1
Champion runner Tanzania Grey, 17, has to win the Verde Island Endurance Race’s million-dollar prize to save the life of her friend Bailey.
The treacherous five-day race traverses a remote volcanic island, home to beasts that slither, fly, swim, and slink through the jungle. But the wildlife turns out to be the least of Tana’s problems. Her partner. Sebastian’s personal life has put him in the national spotlight, and his nosy followers are the kind Tana can’t afford. Her biography is invented. She’s been running for three years─from the men who murdered her parents. If her cover is blown, she could be next.
Race to Truth
Run for Your Life trilogy, book #2
When champion endurance racer Tanzania Grey accepts a mysterious invitation to the ‘Ski to Sea Relay Race’ in Bellingham, Washington, she knows she may be risking her life.
She’s been living on the run for four years after masked “ninjas” killed her family. But by returning to her hometown, Tana hopes to find clues to the murders.
Will discovering the motives behind an apparent conspiracy help her find justice, or lead the killers to her doorstep Can she stop the assassins from completing the job of erasing the last Robinson?
*Dante Rosetti Blue Ribbon First Prize Winner*
Race for Justice
Run for Your Life trilogy, book #3
The exciting conclusion to the Run for Your Life trilogy.
When champion runner “Tana” Grey receives a mysterious invitation to the Extreme Africa Endurance Challenge, she fears it might be a trap. But when Tana sees a Mom ‘lookalike’ in the race’s promotional video, she can’t say no.
A Slippery Slope
Introducing Sarah McKinney, lawyer and international mediator. Celebrating the conclusion of a case in London, Sarah is hit by a stray bullet. When she meets the intended target, a journalist on the hunt for the hidden assets of Middle Eastern strongment, she is drawn into a criminal intrigue that follows her home to Georgia.
“Exall does a superb job of adding layers…A suspenseful, intelligent debut mystery novel….” —Kirkus Reviews
A Dangerous Descent
An offer to help her mentor locate his estranged daughter takes Sarah McKinney to the Dordogne region of rural France. There, she uncovers a troubled history that parallels her own. To rescue the woman she has come to find, she must confront danger as well as her own demons.
CLUE AWARD WINNER!
“Exall’s writing is sharp and well-paced, with natural dialogue and gorgeous descriptions of setting.” —Chanticleer Reviews
A Splintered Step
“Nothing much happens in Britain during the week between Christmas and New Year.” Sarah McKinney’s plan for a cozy vacation turns towards terror when she travels to Britain for the holidays, and becomes embroiled in the search for a link connecting apparently random deaths.
CLUE AWARD WINNER!
“…good imagery and believable characters with great dialogue… the story is well crafted and is hard to put down.”
“A great job of plotting, characters and use of language!” Amazon 5 Star Review
i hate reading: A How to Guide
“This book reflects a lot of us. Especially me.”
—student in Mrs. Evan’s class
Did you know 65% of 4th graders in the US read below grade level? Learning to read can be frustrating. But it can also be fun. I Hate Reading by Beth Bacon validates the experience of reluctant readers and rewards them with laughter.
the book no on wants to read
Reluctant readers choose activity books as a way to avoid reading. Here’s an activity book that also has a plot and endgaging character—so kids read as they solve puzzles and play games.
the worst book ever
“Creating magic with, of all things, a BOOK.”
— M. B., parent
A surly (and silly) book dreams of getting on the Banned Books list. All it needs is a librarian’s attention… and a little help from its readers. Kids and librarians alike howl at this hilarious, colorful, interactive story time adventure.
The Family Santa Almost Forgot
You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen. And you surely recall Rudolph (the most famous reindeer of all). But have you ever heard of the loyal team of burros that helped save Christmas for one special family in Tucson?
Lost in Beirut: A True Story of Love, Loss and War
A True Story
An award-winning true story that poignantly captures the essence of living in the moment.
Travel with Ashe to Lebanon to help organize a 50 Cent concert at the invitation of his best friend. There, he falls in love with a beautiful billionaire and the country itself. But when war breaks out, his idyllic romance is interrupted and Ashe is forced to flee for his life. Through this tumultuous experience, he discovers the depths of his own strength and resilience and emerges from the flames of war a transformed and awakened soul. Lost in Beirut is a captivating epic journey of risk, enlightenment, and the power of the human spirit.
The Lavender House in Meuse
The Lavender Meuse Trilogy: Book #1
Marie Durant Chagall, the well-educated daughter of a wealthy shipping merchant, is living a privileged childhood with her half-sister, Solange, when their cultured world is shocked by the chaos of World War I. Feeling restless, and desiring to contribute, Marie volunteers as a nurse with the French Red Cross, quickly finding herself embroiled in the brutal battlefield of Verdun, where she is injured both mentally and physically. Marie eventually returns to life through the unexpected gift from her dead mother, a house among the lavender fields on the Meuse River.
An emotional, intriguing, and sensitive account of the crises of World War I and one woman’s journey towards recovery and growth
The Passage Home to Meuse
The Lavender Meuse Trilogy: Book #2
An epic journey back to the post-war world of the 1920’s. Wistfully, Marie wonders, “What might have been, what would have been had the war not torn us all apart, rupturing the very soul of our lives?” How better than to open a clinic of her own, La Clinique Meuse.
Somehow she and those around her must find meaning in life again.
The Lavender Bees of Meuse
The Lavender Meuse Trilogy: Book #3
Verdun, France, 1939. After many years enjoying her peaceful existence in northern France, Marie Durant Chagall, a rural nurse practitioner, is thrust once again into the conflict of war. Beside loss and sacrifice, lie courage and ingenuity. With the help and resilience of her close friends, Marie must decide what she is willing to risk in saving those unable to save themselves.
An exquisite weave of historical fiction, romance, and suspense.
A Drew Davies Railway Mystery
A Drew Davies Railway Mystery.
Wales, 1946. In the beautiful seaside village of Mumbles, Drew Davies, a young Welsh woman, is determined to pursue a career in a profession that has been historically denied to women. Living with her grandparents in their charming stone cottage, Drew's quiet life changes course suddenly when murder, espionage, and a cast of scoundrels and saints enter the picture, but not even murder can stop Drew in her tracks. This is is the first historical cozy mystery in Gail's new Drew Davies Railway Mysteries series
Orchids of War: A Tale of espionage
The Orchids Trilogy: Book #1
The Untold Story: Japanese Spies in the US during World War II
•Before World War II exploded into the lives of Americans, a Japanese spy ring operated along the West Coast between Canada and Mexico. The classified documents regarding the spy web were finally released with the Freedom of Information Act.
•Through the decrypting machine “Magic,” the US was able to read the Japanese “Purple” code and alter many vital turning points of the war.
•And, it is said, that the FBI employed a young Caucasian woman from Seattle, fluent in Japanese, to help the US uncover the Nippon spies.
I gave this young woman the name Billi O’Shaughnessy, and this is her story.
Suspenseful, packed with accurate details, and told through engaging characters, this book will alter your perception of World War II.
Storms from a Clear Sky
The Orchids Trilogy: Book #2
When WWII spreads across all continents, life drastically changes, especially for FBI agent Jack Huntington and his new wife Billi. As Billi continues her involvement with lifelong friends, the Nakamuras, her actions threaten Jack’s mission of routing out Japanese spies along the West Coast. Torn between his duties to his country and protecting Billi from the ruthless spy Akio Sumiyoshi, who seeks revenge against her at all costs, Jack is forced to make a devastating decision. While family members and close friends march off to war, Billi struggles with her identity and usefulness in this daunting time. Their love is challenged as the brutality of war overshadows their world.
Whiskey Cove: A Prohibition Story
The Orchids Trilogy: Book #3
The enticing exploits of Prohibition the Pacific Northwest. Unintentional stowaway, Alexandria, stumbles into Prohibition’s underworld–and the heart of Jake McKenzie. As a young woman Alex thrills to the risks of rum running, speeding over the dark waters, racing past the many islands between Canada and Washington State in an attempt to evade the law. However, her excitement turns perilous when she catches the eye of Antonio, head of the Italian Mafia. Now, decades later, unsettled by a false accusation, Alex musters the courage to clear her husband’s name, and unraveling clues in her flower bed.
Set in the 1970s, Whiskey Cove is steeped with research of the bootlegging era, portraying the tumultuous times of a changing society ruled by the unquenched demand for booze, and the law that worked both sides.
The Story We Are Living: Folio #5
The Roll of Conflict
Without conflict, a story would have no life. Explains the vital role of conflict in a story’s development; observes the current social and political opposition in the U.S. story field; and explains how this opposition serves to increase the narrative tension and heighten the suspense in the story we are living. perception of World War II.
The Story We Are Living: Folio #6
Antagonistic Force
Analyzes Humanity’s shadow—the antagonistic force that seeks to thwart and defeat Humanity’s efforts to achieve the protagonist’s goal—and suggests how Humanity can vanquish the antagonist by integrating the shadow. must remember why it is important to triumph.
The Story We Are Living: Folio #7
The Central Theme
The central theme of the story we are living is Humanity’s soul journey to become conscious of what it means to be human. The evangelical community believes that we (parts of humanity) are created in the image of the Creator and our goal is to become one with the Creator. The Creator is Humanity’s self-image and our common identity. Achieving the goal requires the consciousness that we truly are one with the Creator.
The Story We Are Living: Folio #8
The Protagonist’s Goal
Metaphors of music and artistic mastery offer insight into the process of becoming one with the Creator, reframing Christian concepts; including, connecting to Source (calling, the feeling of being moved), experiencing the union of heaven and earth when a work comes together, trusting the process (faith), and artistic creation in the timeless flow state (experiencing the End of Time, entering the State of Grace).
The Story We Are Living: Folio #9
A Major Obstacle
The notion of a cultural complex—the Apocalypse Complex consists of a set of beliefs, ideas, images, and expectations that pre-condition the evangelical Christian response to the current world situation. To become one with the Creator and master the art of world creation, Humanity must let go of pre-conceived ideas, beliefs, and expectations that get in the way and preclude the union. as the brutality of war overshadows their world.
The Story We Are Living: Folio #10
Distance
In the story field, distance refers to the teller’s ability to step back from a situation. Today, we (parts of humanity) are caught up in the drama of the story we are living. Instead of being responsive, we are reactive. To resolve the critical challenges facing Humanity, we need to step back from the situation. The story we are living provides a context for thinking about Humanity as a whole. perception of World War II.
The Story We Are Living: Folio #11
Thematic Context
The story we are living provides a thematic context for addressing and resolving the challenges of today’s world. From a Depth Psychology point of view, Humanity is going through a process known as the lifting of original repression or spiritual emergence. In dire cases of spiritual emergency, the best thing a therapist can offer is a context for understanding and trusting the process.
The Story We Are Living: Folio #12
The Reveal
The reveal is the surprise or twist near the end of a story which changes the meaning. The reveal in the story we are living is set to occur in two stages—1st is the conscious realization that we are one with the Creator. The Creator is our common identity. 2nd is really registering that we (not a distant deity) are responsible for life on earth and the state of the world. To become one with the Creator we must master the art of world creation; we must create a world that allows life to flourish.
The Story We Are Living: Folio #13
Creating a Strong Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Shop - Crafting the Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
The Story We Are Living: Folio #1
Creating a Strong Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Shop - Crafting the Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
The Story We Are Living: Folio #2
Creating a Strong Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Shop - Crafting the Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
The Story We Are Living: Folio #3
Creating a Strong Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Shop - Crafting the Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Models & Citizens
Reality Gradient Vol 1
A genetically altered clone. A college graduate. And it’s a long way to Canada…
Harper Rawls struggles to come to grips with her parents’ deaths - but it’s not going well. Accompanying her guilt and inadequacy, she’s somehow gained the attention of an anti-cloning extremist organization. Out of “respect for her father”, they now watch her every move.
Ordell Bentley flees violence at the hands of the same group. Death stalks him through the nascent jungles near League City, Texas as he makes his way to his lover’s house to warn her that they've been discovered, only to find her daughter Harper instead.
The only escape is through the mid-western desert to the north, and Ordell has no food, no money, and no transportation. Hunted by the HPM and an unseen stalker, and plagued by a corporate-sponsored bounty that creeps steadily upward, the future is bleak…
Models and Citizens takes place in a dystopian future where the climate has moved on, taking with it the jobs and dreams of the people. Models, genetically-altered clones like Ordell, work the jobs others won’t, and are hated for it, but since escape means death, most suffer in silence.
A cross between Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go and Bladerunner (based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), this novel entertains from the first paragraph to the last sentence as Harper and Ordell struggle to survive in a post-climate change world. If you loved Atropos by John Lapuntich, you will enjoy this gripping thrill ride.
Models and Citizens is an action-packed rollercoaster of a novel that moves at a breakneck speed and leaves you asking for more. - Reader’s Favorite (5 - stars)
Bodhi Rising
Reality Gradient Vol 2
Is living better than dying from his chronic disease. Some days, Bodhi wondered… Bodhi Rawls already knows that a normal life is out of the question - his mother fled arrest for grand theft human. And his mother’s best friends are genetically altered clones. Oh, and he suffers from a blood disorder that will kill him before his sixteenth birthday. Christine Hamilton relives the same day over and over in her coma - the day her parents died in a fatal car crash. Meanwhile, her grandfather schemes to save the last heir to the Hamilton family empire. His desperation yields a treatment that will save a life, but cost a life. Bodhi’s only chance at survival is to willingly take the life of another, a high price that he suffers to pay. His sole kindred spirit, the only other survivor of the procedure, is destined for greatness, and she knows it. The worlds first two immortals circle each other in a merciless orbit of love, murder, and betrayal. Bodhi Rising takes place in the same dystopian future as Models and Citizens where the climate has moved on, taking with it the jobs and dreams of the people. Models, genetically-altered clones like work the jobs others won’t, and are hated for it. Once, only escape bore a death penalty. Now? No model is immune in this thrill-packed continuation of the Models and Citizens saga! A splash of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow mixed in with a hint of Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, this novel captures you in the first sentence as Bodhi struggles with his disease, and never lets you go until the end, when the sad yet hopeful tale bolts its way toward completion.
Liberia
Reality Gradient Vol 3
A young woman from an obscure past is discovered by Bodhi Paivana Rawls and hired to help bring his vision of Mijloc to reality - a virtual world that could completely upend the modeling industry's offering of immortality. What he doesn't know is that the moderately autistic and unassuming Ada has an unlikely dark past, and an even darker future as she moves forward with her own personal goals. The world will never be the same.
Southern Highlands
Obi of Mars
Apryl Sallow is learning the hard way: never stake your interplanetary trade career on the whims of an abusive ex-lover.
When career-driven Apryl Sallow’s shipments of rhodium start coming back light, it doesn’t take long for the Induna, governing body of United Africa, to take notice. The rare mineral is a base requirement for global technology, and nobody provides more than partially-terraformed Mars. Apryl wants to pick up Admiral, but unless she fixes the problem she can’t even be considered. To make matters worse, Apryl’s abusive ex-fiance somehow has risen to become the new Enze, or supreme leader, of Mars — and has a weapon that controls the destructive power of gravity.
Apryl’s future hinges on her ability to convince her ex to finally give her up and to reconvene rhodium shipments to United Africa. But when she makes it to Mars to begin negotiations, she realizes the cold truth: her ex isn’t just negotiating for rhodium.
Apryl finds herself reliving familiar patterns, this time with an entire world in the balance. Will Apryl reclaim her career by re-opening the rhodium trade routes? Or will she sacrifice her freedom to save all she holds dear?
A tantalizing cocktail of deception, betrayal, and black holes, Southern Highlands follows the tradition of Ghosts of Mars by John Carpenter, with a touch of John Woo’s Broken Arrow.
Brighton Academy
Virtual Wars Vol 1
Brighton Academy student Larken Marche is sixteen years old, and the only thing she wants to do is play lofting. As the most junior member on the varsity team, she has a real shot at making a career out of the team sport, and in 2201, Lofting is a great career choice.
Her best friend Molly Kostic is the kind of friend who both entertains and frustrates. Capable of telling the truth about half the time, when Molly decides that she likes Larken’s (fraternal) twin brother Oliver Marche, Larken doesn’t know whether to be happy for her or nervous about the possibility that Oliver will become just another proverbial notch in Molly’s belt.
When a strange boy, Eliaja Grant, arrives at Brighton via transfer, he looks like a male copy of Larken, down to her nose and chin. Questions begin to circulate about Elijah’s origins and rumors fly about them being triplets instead of twins, or worse, that she, Oliver, and Elijah might all three be clones. Before they can put the rumors to rest, a man is killed in downtown Portland by someone who looks exactly like Oliver, leading to Oliver’s arrest. Larken and Molly work against the clock to rescue a brother Larken knows is innocent. Walking the line between two extremist factions, Larken and Oliver must fight for their right to exist.
Human Pride
Virtual Wars Vol 2
Seventeen-year-old Larken Marche will never walk without assistance again. Any hope she’d had of being a professional athlete was shattered in an extremist attack. Too damaged even for twenty-third-century medicine, she’s relegated to using a cane to get around and must rechart the future she expected to live.
The event that crushed her body and dreams also promoted her to national fame. Larken doesn’t give interviews, and she hates the fame, preferring to live a normal, quiet life if she can’t live the one she’d always dreamed of. She attends the University of Washington, which gives her some sense of normalcy until her roommate, Samantha Caldwell, disappears.
Larken’s roommate finally returns as the victim of a horrendous attack. Larken is plagued with hallucinations and a pervading sense of helplessness after Sam’s attack. She must decide whether she has what it takes to beat back the extremists who targeted her and Sam or cower in fear of an ever-strengthening extremist threat who still seem to have Larken and her friends in their cross-hairs. The next attack could be on any of Larken’s friends or Larken herself. The next attack could mean someone dies…
Malevolence
A Hollywood Mystery, book 2
Rosemaria Baker, a cop whose blood runs true blue, has become a prosecutor who now gets to put the perpetrators in jail instead of just arresting them.
She is blissfully happy living with the love of her life, Josh Sibley, who is about to make a major breakthrough in his career as a singer-songwriter. But real life interrupts their perfect world when two girls who Rosemaria rescued from the streets of Hollywood become the targets of ruthless assassins after a third girl is murdered. Rosemaria must arrange protection for the girls, continue working her caseload at the courthouse, investigate the murder, and deal with a coworker who seeks to destroy her career. Through it all, the love and support Rosemaria and Josh have for each other is unfailing. When it finally seems that some semblance of order is falling into place, Rosemaria faces an unexpected, terrifying threat, and she must depend on those who love her to rescue her from certain death.
Deception
A Hollywood Mystery, book 1
Blood and dreams run red through the magical land of Hollywood, and rarely do kind souls win the spoils of war…
Singer/songwriter Josh Sibley is handsome, talented, and smart, but he tries to appease his demons with alcohol in an effort to break free of his complicated past. When he gets the opportunity to write songs for a multi-million dollar feature film, he throws himself in head first, determined to shake his bad luck streak. Then he meets Lila Levy, the sexy singer/actress who is married to the producer of the movie. She attempts to use her sexuality to hook Josh into a secret love affair—but Josh surprises himself by keeping his feelings under wraps while trying to teach Lila to sing his songs.
But this is Hollywood, and dark souls are clothed in glamour and secrets. When Lila’s husband Stan is murdered, Lila disappears, leaving Josh to deal with the woman determined to track her down—Sergeant Rosemaria Baker of the Beverly Hills Police Department. Beautiful yet disenchanted with the glitz of Hollywood, Rosemaria considers Josh a delusional loser but he’s her best lead. Too bad Josh doesn’t know Lila in the way he thought he did. When the cops finally bring Lila in, she declares herself innocent and builds her case around disturbing childhood trauma that will twist Josh’s soul.
A Fate worse Than Death
A Hollywood Mystery Prequel
As a homicide detective, Rosemaria Baker is known for her street smarts, her feisty personality and her ability to nail the bad guys.
Being the daughter of a cop and an actress gave little Rosemaria a dichotomous view of life. Her mother was inclined to get lost in her fantasies while her father had to face the harsh realities of a world filled with murder and mayhem. Nine-year-old Rosemaria loved both her parents and admired her mother’s talent but even at a young age she felt drawn to her father’s work as a detective, constantly begging him to share with her every detailed description of the dangerous criminals and close calls he survived while chasing the bad guys.
Whatever Rosemaria did she did it well; be it hitting baseballs, shooting baskets, writing school papers, she put her all into every endeavor. When tragedy invaded her world at the tender age of ten, she survived because of her innate ability to compartmentalize her feelings and move forward.
While still in college she was faced with a terrifying situation where she had to use all of her mental and physical capabilities in an effort to save her father’s life. Ignoring what would have been safe and expected of her and asking no one’s advice, she risked everything to find him and bring him home alive.
William Kenower
Featured Books
Fearless Writing
Find the courage to create your best writing life.
Whether you're a fledgling writer or a veteran with years of experience, fearlessness--that elusive blend of self-acceptance, confidence, and curiosity--is the defining quality of those who find fulfillment and success. Truly fearless authors banish writer's blocks with ease, receive critiques gracefully, and infuse their passion for the craft into every word they write.
Filled with insightful wisdom and practical advice, Fearless Writing teaches you how to thrive as a writer, no matter your genre or career path. You'll learn how to:
• Find and enter a Flow state in which writing is a natural, deeply satisfying process.
• Quiet both internal and external critics and embrace the inherent value in your work.
• Use love, emotional engagement, and curiosity as the guiding principles for what you write and how you share it with others.
• Overcome rejection, procrastination, and other obstacles that stifle your creativity.
From the blank page to the first draft, and from querying to marketing, the writing life is filled with challenges, roadblocks, and new experiences. With Fearless Writing, you'll find the inner strength to embark on a bold journey--and build a lifelong career in the process.
Everyon Has What it Takes
An insightful guide for any writer who's ever wondered if they're talented, creative, lovable, or worthy enough. Spoiler alert: You are.
As hard as the craft of writing is, the greatest challenges writers face are often within ourselves. Comparison, self-doubt, isolation, and other internal struggles can derail a writer's progress, at any stage in the writing life. Author, essayist, and speaker William Kenower knows these struggles first-hand, and hears them from writers everywhere he teaches and appears. In this candid and encouraging book, he dismantles the myth that some writers have talent and others don't, and shares relatable stories, wisdom, and best practices for reengaging with our passion, following our curiosity, and staying connected to what matters most.
If you've ever wondered whether you're "really" a writer, or should retreat to a safer, more conventional path, this enlightening and accepting book will spark renewed purpose and joy on your writing journey.
Write Within Yourself
Write Within Yourself is not a guide, but a companion. A guide will tell you where to go. As a writer, only you can know that. A good companion, however, can remind you that forgetting where you want to go is different from not knowing where you want to go. Author William Kenower believes that what it takes to write the book you most want to write is also what it takes to lead the life you most want to live. This collection of essays serves as a companion for those times when you need inspiration. Write Within Yourself will help you stay connected to the writer and the life within you.
Kim Hornsby
Featured Books
Girl of his Dream: Dream Jumper, book 1
James must keep a lifelong secret that has dictated his difficult life.. Kristina has a secret that's threatening her life.
When Seattle cop, James Dunn, saves a child from drowning in the Maui Hyatt pool and finds himself with a free vacation on a romantic tropical island, a series of coincidences has him booking a diving course with Lahaina scuba instructor, Kristina Greene. Although James has vowed to steer clear of love because his clairvoyance always ruins romantic prospects, he can't resist the feisty dive instructor. Days spent in the hot Maui sun soon thaw Kristina's icy exterior and the two fall into a delicious romance.
But all isn't as it seems as Kristina not only fights to keep a dark secret from the cop but worries that her too-good-to-be-true lover might have an ulterior motive for his attentions. As emotions deepen, James finds himself in dreams with Kristina and seeing mCould you walk away from true love if you weren't sure you could save her from tragedy?
When James discovers more than he wants of the woman he's falling in love with, he discovers a heartbreaking truth.
The Dream Jumper's Secret: Dream Jumper, Book 2
Jamey Dunn has always been able to slip into other people's dreams, until recently when he unknowingly passed the ability to Maui dive shop owner, Tina Greene. She doesn't want the ‘gift.’ But she wants Jamey and that means secrets. When Jamey leaves Maui for Seattle, Tina suspects he’s heading back to the war in Afghanistan to finish his tour in Sixth Force. Her insecurities lead her to suspect the worst in Jamey and the discovery of a lie has her turning her back on him. Their shared ability becomes a blessing and a curse when Jamey’s life is threatened in the dream world and Tina must risk her own life to help someone she isn’t sure deserves her help. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
The Dream Jumper's Pursuit: Dream Jumper, book 3
Turning over rocks has a price.
Newlyweds, Jamey and Tina find their idyllic life on Maui interrupted when called upon to use their psychic abilities to sniff out a child abductor. Along with shared dreams, they piece together enough information to track the kidnapper through several countries, all the while hoping for a premonition. But when the vision finally comes, the dream reveals a preventable accident that ends in death. Tina and Jamey scramble to determine specifics and find themselves in a mad rush to save lives. Incidents separated by miles has Tina in torment choosing between those she loves as her bravery is put to the ultimate test. But she can’t save Jamey from his past and they soon discover that turning over rocks has its price. And dreaming can be deadly. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
TEMPTED: Love Will Find A Way, bundle
Love Will Find A Way…
Be TEMPTED by this collection of heartwarming romance and edgy romantic suspense that will keep you reading until the very last page.
Whether you enjoy sweet or steamy romance or thrilling pulse-pounding suspense, these emotionally satiating tales of contemporary romance from NINE WALL STREET JOURNAL, USA TODAY & INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING, AWARD-WINNING AUTHORS, will quench your desire for happy-ever-after.
DEADLY RESEMBLANCE by Kim Hornsby, USA Today Bestselling Author: Jewell Price must navigate recent hearing loss with a simpler life by moving her son and herself to a quiet island off Seattle. But when the resident thriller author takes romantic interest in Jewell and a relationship blossoms, creepy letters show up at her door. Is Matt Cross the man she thinks or does he have a twisted dark side?
BAYOU BABY By Suzanne Jenkins, USA Today Bestselling Author: When Maggie Angel and Justin Chastain aren't in each others' arms, they are busy saving animals in Cypress Cove.
CHANGE UP by Natalie Ann, USA Today Bestselling Author: Can physical therapist Kaelyn mend her shattered trust in men while trying to heal Harris’s broken dreams?
THE EQUALIZER: FOXXY'S TIPPING POINT by Allyson R. Abbott, International Bestselling Author: A chance meeting of a handsome stranger’s eyes across a crowded ballroom changed everything. An invisible thread wove itself around her heart and his, pulling them together for a few timeless moments before the spell was broken.
BURIED SECRETS by Cynthia Cooke, USA Today Bestselling Author: Chet Daniels, the newest member of the Counter-Terrorism Agency (CTA) is trying to keep Jayne safe from a known terrorist, but she isn’t making it easy. When fighting with Jayne becomes the highlight of Chet’s day, he knows he’s in trouble. Unable to shake Chet loose, Jayne takes him to her childhood home hoping to discover why she’s being targeted. The deeper she delves into her family’s secrets, the more she fears there isn’t anyone she can trust. Not her aunt, not the CTA, and not even the bodyguard who’s stolen her heart.
RAND’S RESOLUTION by Tamara Ferguson, USA Today Bestselling Author: Air Force Lieutenant Ciara Ryan is vacationing in Bali when she runs into Rand McAllister, a First Lieutenant & undercover AFOSI agent working as a government liaison with the U.S. Embassy, unofficially assisting the anti-terrorism unit in Indonesia. Sparks fly, but will their future together be endangered when an assassin uses Ciara to draw Rand out?
LILY’S HOMECOMING UNDER FIRE by Anna Celeste Burke, Wall Street Journal & USA Today Bestselling Author: Can Lily Callahan and Deputy U.S. Marshal Austin Jennings find love as the bullets fly? When Lily Callahan's aunt dies, she leaves everything to Lily. Someone wants Lily dead and tries to kill her as soon as she returns home. Austin is determined to keep Lily safe as he and Lily search for the culprit. Life in California wine country is a tangled vine of mystery, suspense, and intrigue.
BENDING THE RULES by Katie O’Sullivan, International Bestselling Author: Bella has rules to keep her heart safe. Dylan MacDonald inspired those rules. Will the past stand in their way or can they bend the rules to find a future together?
THE SWEETHEART TEST by Alicia Street, USA Today Bestselling Author: Megan lived for her career, but a turn of events challenges her driven nature and she decides what she really needs is a man who is a important to triumph.
After a car accident that took her husband's life and her eyesight, YouTube celebrity and paranormal investigator, Moody, finds she has also lost her ability to communicate with ghosts. When she mysteriously inherits a house on the Oregon Coast, Bryn and her team set out from her Seattle houseboat to investigate. The house has many surprises, including an elusive inhabitant-- a handsome ghost with the ability to salvage her business and her reason for living. For a price. ** This book was written from Kim's screenplay (TV Pilot episode) and was intended to read like a new episode of the show every book. Beware of those nasty cliffhangers at the end of the story that keep you coming back next week to see how the show turns out!
BATTEN DOWN: Moody & The Ghost Mysteries, book 2
Bryndle Moody is pissed.
She's being targeted online by a relentless paranormal skeptic, Bane Jackson, to discredit her and the Supernatural community. Desperate to keep her blindness a secret from her You Tube fans, Bryn must turn the tables to debunk Bane before he realizes she's gone blind. Or before he realizes it's much, much worse. When her revenge plan involves Caspian Cortez, the ghost of a sea captain from the 1850's, Bryn discovers her enabling companion has shocking secrets of his own and her plan may not work.
COMING ABOUT: Moody & The Ghost Mysteries, book 3
Moody Paranormal Investigations heads to Portland to rid a hotel of a ghost who is frightening patrons. What they find in the hotel elevator has Bryndle believing that she doesn't know the full truth from her own ghost, Caspian Cortez, who has been mysteriously missing recently. Worried she'll never see him again, Bryndle takes drastic measures to find the dashing sea captain and secure his promise to help her. life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Hoist the Jib: Moody & The Ghost Mysteries, book 4
Bryndle Moody has a dilemma--she keeps waking up in the 1850’s. As if that isn’t troubling enough, her lover, the handsome sea captain, Caspian Cortez, doesn't recognize her in 1850 and is little help in explaining the woman who follows him around. Making sense of time traveling takes over Moody’s life and leads to her enlisting help from Eve and Carlos. Deciphering the mystery of why, how, and when time traveling will strike next has all three head scratching with Bryndle stuck in the life of shipping and smuggling along the Oregon coast until being murdered on a dark beach seems possible for at least one of the star-crossed lovers.
Anchors Aweigh : Moody & The Ghost Mysteries, book 5
The inhabitants of Cove House are in grave danger as something or someone attempts murder on Bryndle and her team. Poison, death traps and more await the group of ghost hunters as they struggle to keep everyone alive in a house already overrun with ghosts who seem to be coming out of the woodwork from the 1850’s. When the culprit is caught, a deal is struck but holding up their end of the bargain is almost impossible for the ghost hunter Bryndle Moody and her amour, the handsome ghost of the Spanish sea captain, Caspian Cortez.
Necessary Detour: Secret Stalker Series
After an attempt on her life, internationally beloved rock star, Goldy, announces she's leaving show business and hides at a secluded lake house from a deranged stalker. Boredom soon sets in and in spying on the new neighbors across the bay, she soon realizes that something strange is happening with the handsome man she's been flirting with. Soon, Goldy can't look away and worries that her life might be in jeopardy. Her new neighbors are as elusive as they are compelling and when Goldy gets pulled into the neighbors' dangerous world she knows there is no turning back. we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Deadly Resemblance : Secret Stalker Series
Jewell Price moves with her son to a small island off Seattle where she can manage her recent hearing loss with a simpler life. She opens a bookstore at the ferry landing and settles into her aunt's cottage on the ocean. But when a famous thriller author makes Daniels Island his summer home and takes an interest in the bookstore owner, Jewell has good reason to ignore his interest. Soon their relationship takes a strange turn. Love letters begin to appear at the cottage and when they become increasingly creepy, Jewell must navigate being deaf with motherhood while a stalker lurks.
Stand Alone Romantic Suspense in Secret Stalker Series by USA Today Bestselling Author, KIM HORNSBY
CHRISTMAS: Love Will Find A Way, set 2
Love Will Find A Way...
Celebrate the spirit of Christmas by cozying up to read these heartwarming holiday stories that will keep you captivated until the very last page. Whether you enjoy sweet or steamy romance, these emotionally satiating tales from ELEVEN WALL STREET JOURNAL, USA TODAY & INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING, AWARD-WINNING AUTHORS, will quench your desire for happy-ever-after.
CHRISTMAS CRUSH, Kim Hornsby; USA Today Bestselling Author: When a small town singer meets a rock star idol, Christmas magic takes over but will his lifestyle keep them from having something meaningful or can they make this work? Pepper McGuire and the infamous Tzolt Jones have big sparks but can it last after the holidays when Tzolt returns to life on the road?
RIVER'S MYSTIC CRUSH, Natalie Ann; USA Today Bestselling Author: River has busted his butt to prove that where you come from doesn’t stop you from where you are going. And that crush he’d had when he was a teen, the one for the wealthy stepdaughter of the man whose boat he cleaned? Yeah, it was time to take a step toward her too.
CANDY'S CHRISTMAS RESCUE, Cynthia Cooke; USA Today Bestselling Author: A broken-down car, a dog on the run, a wedding cake in peril, what else does Candy have to lose other than her heart?
A PEBBLE AND A PEN, Joan Donaldson; Bestselling Author: Fleeing an arranged marriage, Mattie lands at Spencer’s school. Although bullied by the young men in her class because of her ambition, Mattie meets Phineas, an admirer. But will her yearning for a future with him be fulfilled when she’s suddenly called home?
ST. NICK’S CHRISTMAS WISH, Tamara Ferguson; USA Today Bestselling Author: The last thing Emma expects is to fall for a Scrooge. But little does she know that Nick is hiding a big secret.
IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS, Casi McLean; USA Today Bestselling Author: Neither believed in destiny…or time travel, but nothing short of kismet could describe their first encounter. Can Carson and Piers discover who tried to murder her, save a young slave girl’s life, and unravel their mysterious connection in time for Christmas?
BRENDAN'S CHRISTMAS SURPRISE, Katie O’Sullivan; Bestselling Author: Five years before, a bum knee brought them together over the Christmas holidays. When another injury permanently ends Brendan’s hockey career, he wants to rethink his life choices and reconnect with the girl he left behind. But Paige has a Christmas surprise for him.
JOEY’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE, Suzanne Jenkins; USA Today Bestselling Author: Joey Saint longer than it took any of the other men in his firefighter family to fall in love. When he let Candy Jones into his life, their picture-perfect romance turned out to be the envy of everyone. But they only lacked one thing.
MIRACLE ON CHRISTMAS TREE STREET, Alicia Street; USA Today Bestselling Author: After relocating to take the reins of a cozy B&B, a single mom gets more than she bargained for when her business partner turns out to be a Santa-like older man and her daughter befriends him as well as a way-too-handsome gym teacher who is determined to break through Hannah's ice-queen shell.
SLAVING OVER CHRISTMAS, Allyson R. Abbott; Bestselling Author: $5 saved their marriage and Christmas.
LOVE A FOOT ABOVE THE GROUND, Anna Celeste Burke; USA Today & Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author: Bernadette and Guillermo had one perfect Christmas together before she lost him. Jessica is deeply moved by the resilience of the human soul and the indestructibility of love as Bernadette reveals how she found him again. Can love really last forever?
There are NEVER ENOUGH HEROES, and you’re sure to find yours in the pages of these semi-steamy and steamy happy-ever-after action-packed romances, from EIGHT USA TODAY, AWARD-WINNING, INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHORS.
Cops fending off stalkers and murderers, a detective on the mend and another endangered, wounded warriors who’ve risked it all to survive, and even everyday heroes who put their lives on the line in unexpected ways - every one of these stories will be sure to capture your heart.
TWO HEARTS UNBROKEN by Tamara Ferguson, USA Today Bestselling Author: Sarah’s been through unimaginable horror, having been captured in Iraq. Can Brand break through her wounded heart two years later, when her life's once again endangered?
HIS PERFECT HERO by Suzanne Jenkins, USA Today Bestselling Author: Luke Esprit, single and thirty something, isn’t looking for Miss Right. But a chance encounter at Bayou Cottage introduces him to Navy Nurse Corps Lieutenant, Bridget Benoit, and sparks fly.
INTENSE LOVE by Natalie Ann, USA Today Bestselling Author: A detective on the mend. A psychiatrist being tormented. Can their pretend relationship uncover who’s behind the threats?
ROCKY BLUFF by Kim Hornsby, USA Today Bestselling Author: Officer Maya Flores, a police officer witnesses a murder soon after she arrives at her new post on Maui but her boyfriend Cash is the detective on the case, not her, and when a strange stalker comes between them, she realizes their relationship might not survive this job. Can She Overlook What Keeps Them Apart?
FORGIVING CHASE by Cynthia Cooke, USA Today Bestselling Author: Officer Jacquie Halloway and Chase must join forces to stop a killer. But can Chase protect Jacquie and his heart this time?
LIAM'S MYSTIC PASSION by Alicia Street. USA Today Bestselling Author: After years serving in the Coast Guard and then working as a captain on chartered yachts, Liam comes home to Mystic for what he thinks is a brief stay. But then he meets Corinna.
MY EVERYDAY HERO LOGAN by Katie O’Sullivan, #1 International Bestselling Author: Cricket is at a crossroads in her life, her family offering no good choices. Can a carpenter named Logan be the hero she needs, and convince her to start living life on her own terms?
THE LIST––ALYSSA’S REVENGE by Casi McLean, USA Today Bestselling Author: When her fiancé is injured in Afghanistan, Harper Drake immerses herself in her military career until she’s abducted by a trafficking cartel. Wyatt Rose can’t overcome his loss, and when the New Patriots recruit him, he finds a traumatized girl that spirals him down a rabbit hole of conspiracy, drug smugglers, and slavery. Obsessed with revenge, can a ghost save Wyatt and Harper before her rage explodes?
Lynn Bohart
Featured Books
The Old Maids of Mercer Island Mysteries, #1
Spoiler Alert: Members of a certain book club are dying in the small town of Mercer Island.
One woman drives off a cliff. Another one drops dead in her peach cobbler at the St. Claire Inn making Julia Applegate, the inn's owner, the prime suspect. Never one to flinch from a challenge, Jula recruits her “sixty-something” group of older women friends to launch their own investigation. Together, this group of loyal friends track down a group of sex traffickers to save the life of a young mother and her baby.
Do you like dog heroes? We have those. Do you like older women who are fearless? We have those. How about helpful but humorous ghosts? We have those, too. Add a talking parrot who likes to quote old movies, a book club member who drives like she's in the Indy 500, and a very handsome detective (or two), and sixty-something won't seem so old anymore!
The Old Maids of Mercer Island Mysteries, #2
Someone’s out to kill the detestable Dana Finkle, but kills her campaign assistant instead. Now Dana wants Julia’s help in finding the murderer. As Julia fights to save her budding romance with Detective Franks, she teams up with her nemesis to solve the crime, but nearly get killed in the process. All the girls are back to lend a hand, along with Minnie and Mickey, Ahab, the talking parrot, and the resident ghosts.
The Old Maids of Mercer Island Mysteries, #3
When a strange, secret room is found at the St. Claire Inn, Julia and the rest of the Old Maids of Mercer Island decide it deserves investigating. Their efforts will lead them down a dark path, revealing a sordid past including the sex-trafficking of underage girls, multiple murders, and the tragic death of a baby. But don't worry, all your favorite characters are back, including Mickey & Minnie, Ahab, the ghosts, and two handsome detectives. Get ready for another romp down mystery lane. David’s? Read The Key to Murder to find out.
The Old Maids of Mercer Island Mysteries, #4
Four older women (and a few ghosts) wreak havoc on a group of killers on this road trip from hell. Who said vacations are boring?
When Julia Applegate and her friends agree to drive a motorhome to Wisconsin for a friend, the trip goes horribly wrong when Julia thinks she sees a young girl in trouble in the back window of an RV. Three dead bodies later, along with a Keystone Cops road chase, a harrowing rescue in the mountains of Minnesota, and a Tarzan-like effort to save the life of a U.S. Senator at the largest Republican gathering in the country, and you know you're back in the wacky world of the Old Maids of Mercer Island. approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
The Old Maids of Mercer Island Mysteries, #5
When an old family friend dies on Julia Applegate’s doorstep, Julia realizes her brother Ben’s hunt for Jack the Ripper has come too close to home.
Carter Davis is one of Julia’s oldest and dearest friends. When he shows up unexpectedly at her door, collapses, and dies, she notifies her brother Ben, who is supposed to be in London researching Jack the Ripper. Little does she know that Ben is not only in the States but at Carter’s home searching for something he left with Carter for safekeeping.
What ensues is a complex deep dive into a century-old secret society called The Electi. Started in London in 1887, and now fully operative in Seattle, Washington, the Electi is looking for the same thing Ben is and will kill anyone who gets in their way. But who are these people?
Julia and Ben will walk a fine line with the law this time, even putting Ben in jail and driving a wedge between Julia and her detective beau, David. As Julia and the girls risk their lives to infiltrate The Electi and catch Carter’s killer, a handsome new ally comes to Julia’s aide. Remember Jake from the deli store in Minnesota (All Roads Lead to Murder)?
Julia’s fate may be in Jake’s hand, but will Julia’s hand end up in David’s? Read The Key to Murder to find out.
To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
The Old Maids of Mercer Island Mysteries, #6
Be fearless like the Old Maids.
Someone is abducting homeless people off the streets of Seattle. When a woman is found dead in Rudy’s kitchen, Julia Applegate assembles an entire team to go undercover to exonerate her friend. Once again, this whacky—but fearless—group of older women will be joined by their team of helpful ghosts to blaze across the pages in search of a diabolical killer. When said diabolical killer holds a scalpel to Julia’s throat, one has to ask, “Is this the end of the Old Maids?” a killer with nothing to lose.
A Giorgio Salvatori Mystery, Book #1
The body of a young woman is found hanging by her bra strap in the supply closet of a local monastery.
As a veteran New York police officer, Detective Giorgio Salvatori moved his family to a small town in Southern California to get away from the dirt and crime of a large city. But when a dead woman is found hanging by her bra strap in the supply closet of a local monastery, he suspects his easy life is about to change.
His suspicions are confirmed when his dog discovers another body buried in the garden, and a monk's body is found floating in the duck pond. Add to that the ghost of a young boy who committed suicide back in the 1940s who appears to be communicating a series of messages, and Salvatori has more than a murder mystery to solve.
Complicated by his own feelings about growing up Catholic and a sudden personal loss, and Detective Salvatori will face more than a killer with nothing to lose.
A Giorgio Salvatori Mystery, Book #2
Do secrets ever die? Or, do they merely wait for the right time to divulge themselves?Detective Giorgio Salvatori is about to find out when the skeleton of a young girl who went missing on prom night in 1967 is found at the bottom of an abandoned well. The investigation will lead to a local historic landmark, where a lifetime of hidden secrets and crimes, including the murder of dozens of young women stretching back decades, is revealed. Giorgio’s wing men are back, including his brother, Rocky, his basset hound, Grosvenor, and the ghost of Christian Maynard. Together, they will face the depravity of sexual sadism, as Giorgio faces a very real threat against his own family.
A Giorgio Salvatori Mystery, Book #3
When Lindsey Nagel joins a wannabe vampire group, it's not her blood they're after, it's her life.
Lindsey Nagel is polyphobic. She’s afraid of needles, heights, and crowds. And yet, when a friend suggests she join the Essence of Life Society, a group of wannabe vampires, she agrees. When her body is found in the streambed of a canyon by three kids, Detective Giorgio Salvatori is called out. He is joined by his brother, Rocky, his intrepid sidekick, Grosvenor, and the ghost of young Christian Maynard to solve this case.
But this case will take them far beyond a group of people living in the shadows and pretending they are vampires; it will lead them to drug trafficking, a vicious dogfighting ring, and a heroic, but mysterious pit bull, named Shadow.
A Paranormal Mystery Novel:
What if you're convinced your best friend was murdered, but the police ruled it a suicide?
Lee Vanderhaven didn’t believe in the supernatural, just like she didn’t believe her best friend committed suicide. But when you start asking questions and sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong, believing in the supernatural becomes the least of your problems.
This psychological thriller will follow Lee Vanderhaven, a strong female protagonist, through the timber country of Oregon and into the inner workings of a local hospital to find a diabolical killer, all with the help of a courageous German Shepherd and what appears to be the spirit of the dead woman. But when Lee desperately hangs from a crossbar over the lethal chain in a sawmill while the killer takes aim, who will be there to save her?
Book 1 in the Tracy Crosswhite series.
Tracy Crosswhite has spent twenty years questioning the facts surrounding her sister Sarah’s disappearance and the murder trial that followed. She doesn’t believe that Edmund House—a convicted rapist and the man condemned for Sarah’s murder—is the guilty party. Motivated by the opportunity to obtain real justice, Tracy became a homicide detective with the Seattle PD and dedicated her life to tracking down killers.
When Sarah’s remains are finally discovered near their hometown in the northern Cascade mountains of Washington State, Tracy is determined to get the answers she’s been seeking. As she searches for the real killer, she unearths dark, long-kept secrets that will forever change her relationship to her past—and open the door to deadly danger.
Her final Breath: Tracy Crosswhite series, book 2
Tracy Crosswhite series, Book 2
Homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite has returned to the police force after the sensational retrial of her sister’s killer. Still scarred from that ordeal, Tracy is pulled into an investigation that threatens to end her career, if not her life.
A serial killer known as the Cowboy is killing young women in cheap motels in North Seattle. Even after a stalker leaves a menacing message for Crosswhite, suggesting the killer or a copycat could be targeting her personally, she is charged with bringing the murderer to justice. With clues scarce and more victims dying, Tracy realizes the key to solving the murders may lie in a decade-old homicide investigation that others, including her captain, Johnny Nolasco, would prefer to keep buried. With the Cowboy on the hunt, can Tracy find the evidence to stop him, or will she become his next victim?
Detective Tracy Crosswhite has a skill, and a soft spot, for tackling unsolved crimes. Having lost her own sister to murder at a young age, Tracy has dedicated her career to bringing justice and closure to the families and friends of victims of crime.
So when Jenny, a former police academy classmate and protégé, asks Tracy to help solve a cold case that involves the suspicious suicide of a Native American high school girl forty years earlier, Tracy agrees. Following up on evidence Jenny’s detective father collected when he was the investigating deputy, Tracy probes one small town’s memory and finds dark, well-concealed secrets hidden within the community’s fabric. Can Tracy uphold the promise she’s made to the dead girl’s family and deliver the truth of what happened to their daughter? Or will she become the next victim?
When a woman's body is discovered submerged in a crab pot in the chilly waters of Puget Sound, Detective Tracy Crosswhite finds herself with a tough case to untangle. Before they can identify the killer, Tracy and her colleagues on the Seattle PD's Violent Crimes Section must figure out who the victim is. Her autopsy, however, reveals she may have gone to great lengths to conceal her identity. So who was she running from?
After evidence surfaces that their Jane Doe may be a woman who suspiciously disappeared months earlier, Tracy is once again haunted by the memory of her sister's unsolved murder. Dredging up details from the woman's past leads to conflicting clues that only seem to muddy the investigation. As Tracy begins to uncover a twisted tale of brutal betrayal and desperate greed, she'll find herself risking everything to confront a killer who won't go down without a deadly fight. Once again, New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni delivers a taut, riveting thriller in the fourth installment of his acclaimed Tracy Crosswhite series.
Close to Home: Tracy Crosswhite, Book 5
While investigating the hit-and-run death of a young boy, Seattle homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite makes a startling discovery: the suspect is an active-duty serviceman at a local naval base. After a key piece of case evidence goes missing, he is cleared of charges in a military court. But Tracy knows she can’t turn her back on this kind of injustice.
When she uncovers the driver’s ties to a rash of recent heroin overdoses in the city, she realizes that this isn’t just a case of the military protecting its own. It runs much deeper than that, and the accused wasn’t acting alone. For Tracy, it’s all hitting very close to home.
As Tracy moves closer to uncovering the truth behind this insidious conspiracy, she’s putting herself in harm’s way. And the only people she can rely on to make it out alive might be those she can no longer trust.
Called in to consult after a young woman disappears, Tracy Crosswhite has the uneasy feeling that this is no ordinary missing-persons case. When the body turns up in an abandoned well, Tracy’s suspicions are confirmed. Estranged from her family, the victim had balked at an arranged marriage and had planned to attend graduate school. But someone cut her dreams short.
Solving the mystery behind the murder isn’t Tracy’s only challenge. The detective is keeping a secret of her own: she’s pregnant. And now her biggest fear seems to be coming true when a new detective arrives to replace her. Meanwhile, Tracy’s colleague Vic Fazzio is about to take a fall after his investigation into the murder of a local community activist turns violent and leaves an invaluable witness dead.
Two careers are on the line. And when more deadly secrets emerge, jobs might not be the only things at risk.
Tracy Crosswhite series, book 7.
The last time homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite was in Cedar Grove, it was to see her sister’s killer put behind bars. Now she’s returned for a respite and the chance to put her life back in order for herself, her attorney husband, Dan, and their new daughter. But tragic memories soon prove impossible to escape.
Dan is drawn into representing a local merchant whose business is jeopardized by the town’s revitalization. And Tracy is urged by the local PD to put her own skills to work on a new case: the brutal murder of a police officer’s wife and local reporter who was investigating a cold-case slaying of a young woman. As Tracy’s and Dan’s cases crisscross, Tracy’s trail becomes dangerous. It’s stirring up her own haunted past and a decades-old conspiracy in Cedar Grove that has erupted in murder. Getting to the truth is all that matters. But what’s Tracy willing to risk as a killer gets closer to her and threatens everyone she loves?
What family secrets are behind two disappearances? Seattle detective Tracy Crosswhite is determined to uncover the truth in the latest installment of New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni’s heart-stopping series.
Returning from an extended leave in her hometown of Cedar Grove, Detective Tracy Crosswhite finds herself reassigned to the Seattle PD’s cold case unit. As the protective mother of an infant daughter, Tracy is immediately drawn to her first file: the abduction of a five-year-old girl whose parents, embattled in a poisonous divorce, were once prime suspects.
While reconstructing the days leading up to the girl’s disappearance, Tracy is brought into an active investigation with former partner Kinsington Rowe. A young woman has vanished on an isolated jogging trail in North Seattle. Divided between two critical cases, Tracy has little to go on except the treacherous deceptions behind a broken marriage—and now, the secrets hiding behind the closed doors of a deceptively quiet middle-class neighborhood.
To find two missing persons, Tracy will have to follow more than clues, which are both long cold and unsettlingly fresh. Given her own traumatic past, Tracy must also follow her instincts—to whatever dark and dangerous places they may lead.
What She Found: Tracy Crosswhite series, book 9
Detective Tracy Crosswhite has agreed to look into the disappearance of investigative reporter Lisa Childress. Solving the cold case is an obsession for Lisa’s daughter, Anita. So is clearing the name of her father, a prime suspect who became a pariah. After twenty-five years, all Anita wants is the truth―no matter where it leads.
For Tracy, that means reopening the potentially explosive investigations Lisa was following on the dark night she vanished: an exposé of likely mayoral graft; the shocking rumors of a reserved city councilman’s criminal sex life; a drug task force scandal compromising the Seattle PD; and an elusive serial killer who disappeared just as mysteriously as Lisa.
As all the pieces come together, it becomes clear that Tracy is in the midst of a case that will push her loyalties and her resilience to the limit. What she uncovers will come with a greater price than anyone feared.
Detective Tracy Crosswhite draws a long-dormant serial killer out of hiding in a nerve-shattering novel by New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni.
Tracy Crosswhite is reopening the investigation into Seattle’s Route 99 serial killer. After thirteen victims, he stopped hunting and the trail went cold, stirring public outrage. Now, nearly three decades after his first kill, Tracy is expected to finally bring closure to the victims’ families and redeem the Seattle PD’s reputation. Even if it means working with her nemesis, Captain Johnny Nolasco.
Lead detective of the original task force, Nolasco dares Tracy to do what he failed to: close the case. Forming an uneasy alliance, Tracy and Nolasco revisit old leads and pursue new evidence only to unearth high-level corruption and cover-ups as dangerous as the elusive killer himself. At the risk of being exposed, such deadly and powerful forces will go to extremes to stay in the shadows.
That’s just where Tracy and Nolasco are headed―to find the twisted truth behind a killer’s motives, his disappearance, and his chilling comeback.
Former CIA case officer Charles Jenkins is a man at a crossroads: in his early sixties, he has a family, a new baby on the way, and a security consulting business on the brink of bankruptcy. Then his former bureau chief shows up at his house with a risky new assignment: travel undercover to Moscow and locate a Russian agent believed to be killing members of a clandestine US spy cell known as the seven sisters.
Desperate for money, Jenkins agrees to the mission and heads to the Russian capital. But when he finds the mastermind agent behind the assassinations—the so-called eighth sister—she is not who or what he was led to believe. Then again, neither is anyone else in this deadly game of cat and mouse.
Pursued by a dogged Russian intelligence officer, Jenkins executes a daring escape across the Black Sea, only to find himself abandoned by the agency he serves. With his family and freedom at risk, Jenkins is in the fight of his life—against his own country.
The Last Agent
Betrayed by his own country and tried for treason, former spy Charles Jenkins survived an undercover Russian operation gone wrong. Exonerated, bitter, and safe, the retired family man is through with duplicitous spy games. Then he learns of a woman isolated in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison.
If it’s Paulina Ponomayova, the agent who sacrificed her life to save his, Jenkins can’t leave her behind. But there’s no guarantee it’s her. Or proof Paulina is still alive. To find out, Jenkins must return to Russia. Next move: blackmail Viktor Federov, a former Russian officer with his own ax to grind, into helping him infiltrate Lefortovo. The enemy who once pursued Jenkins across three continents is now the only man Jenkins can trust.
Every step of the way―from Moscow to Scandinavia to the open ocean―they’re hunted by a brutal Russian agent on a killer quest of his own. Out of loyalty to Paulina―dead or alive―Jenkins is putting everyone’s life on the line for a new mission that could be his last.
After a harrowing escape from Russian agents on his last mission, Charles Jenkins thinks he’s finally done with the spy game. But then the final two of the seven sisters—American assets who have been deep undercover in Russia for decades—cut off all communication with their handlers. Are they in hiding after detecting surveillance? Or have they turned and become double agents? It’s Jenkins’s duty to find out, but he’s been added to a Russian kill list. It will require all of Jenkins’s knowledge of spycraft—and an array of disguises—to return to the country undetected.
But plans go awry his first night in Moscow when Jenkins gets involved in an altercation that ends in the death of the son of one of Russia’s most powerful organized crime leaders. Pursued by mafia henchmen, Russian agents, and a particularly dogged Moscow police detective, Jenkins is determined to track down the final two sisters and get them to America—or die trying. As various forces close in, Jenkins fears this time he might’ve pushed his luck too far.
A riveting legal thriller from Robert Dugoni.
In San Francisco’s seamy Tenderloin district, a teenage street hustler has been murdered in a shelter for boys. And the dedicated priest who runs the struggling home stands accused. But despite damning evidence that he’s a killer—and worse—Father Thomas Martin stands by his innocence. And attorney Peter Donley stands with him.
For three years Donley has cut his legal teeth in his uncle’s tiny, no-frills firm, where people come before profits. Just as Donley is poised to move on to a lucrative dream job, the shocking case lands in his lap, and he must put his future on hold while putting his courtroom skills to the test. But a ruthless DA seeking headlines and a brutal homicide cop bent on vengeance have their own agendas. Now, as he unearths the dirty secrets surrounding the case, Donley must risk his neck to save his client’s life…and expose the face of true evil.
The Jury Master, David Slone, book 1
In a courtroom, David Sloane can grab a jury and make it dance. He can read jurors' expressions, feel their emotions, know their thoughts. With this remarkable ability, Sloane gets juries to believe the unbelievable, excuse the inexcusable, and return the most astonishing verdicts.
The only barrier to Sloane's professional success is his conscience -- until he gets a call from a man later found dead, and his life rockets out of control.
Wrongful Death: David Sloane, Book 2
Just minutes after winning a $1.6 million wrongful-death verdict, attorney David Sloane confronts the one case that threatens to blemish his unbeaten record in the courtroom. Beverly Ford wants Sloane to sue the United States government and military in the mysterious death of her husband, James, a national guardsman killed in Iraq. While a decades-old military doctrine might make Ford's case impossible to win, Sloane, a former soldier himself, is compelled to find justice for the widow and her four children in what is certain to become the biggest challenge of his career.
With little hard evidence to go on, Sloane calls on his friend, reclusive former CIA agent turned private investigator Charles Jenkins, to track down the other men serving with Ford the night he died. Alarmingly, two of the four who returned home alive didn't stay that way for long, and though the mission's wheelchairbound commander now works for a civilian contractor, he refuses to talk. The final -- and youngest -- soldier is also the most elusive, but he's their only shot at discovering the truth -- if Sloane and Jenkins can keep him alive long enough to tell it.
Meanwhile, Sloane isn't the only one on a manhunt. As he propels his case into a federal courtroom, those seeking to hide the truth threaten Sloane's family, forcing his new wife Tina and stepson Jake into hiding, where they become the targets of a relentless killer. Now Sloane must race to uncover what really happened on that fatal mission, not only to bring justice to a family wronged but to keep himself and the people closest to him from becoming the next casualties....
Bodily Harm: David Sloane, Book 3
Bodily Harm opens with a big win for David Sloane and his new partner, Tom Pendergrass, in a malpractice case centered on the death of a young child. But on the heels of this seeming victory, an unlikely character—toy designer Kyle Horgan— comes forward to tell Sloane that he’s gotten it all wrong: Horgan’s the one who’s truly responsible for the little boy’s death and possibly others—not the pediatrician Sloane has just proven guilty.
Ordinarily, Sloane might have dismissed such a person as a crackpot, but something about this case has always troubled him—something that he couldn’t quite pinpoint. When Sloane tries to follow up with Horgan, he finds the man’s apartment a shambles— ransacked by unknown perpetrators. Horgan has vanished without a trace. Together with his longtime investigative partner Charles Jenkins, Sloane reexamines his clients’ son’s death and digs deeper into Horgan’s claims, forcing him to enter the billion-dollar, cutthroat toy industry. As Sloane gets closer to the truth, he trips a wire that leads to a shocking chain of events that nearly destroys him.
To get to the bottom of it all and find justice for the families harmed, Sloane must keep in check his overwhelming desire for revenge. Full of nail-bitingly tense action scenes as well as edge-of-your-seat courtroom drama, Bodily Harm finds Robert Dugoni at the very top of his game.
Murder One: David Sloane, Book 4
In this riveting legal thriller from Robert Dugoni, the #1 Kindle bestselling author of MY SISTER’S GRAVE, attorney David Sloane takes on his first criminal case…defending the woman he loves.
Recovering from the shock of his wife’s murder the previous year, David Sloane returns to Seattle after some much-needed healing time in Mexico. At a black-tie benefit he reconnects with Barclay Reid, an attorney he went head-to-head with years earlier in the most important case of his career. Like Sloane, Barclay has problems beyond the courtroom, having recently lost her daughter to a drug overdose. In spite of their previously antagonistic relationship, Sloane finds himself falling for Barclay, stirring up feelings he hasn’t felt since the death of his wife.
When Barclay is accused of murdering a Russian drug dealer, Sloane is her only defender. In his first criminal case, Sloane must juggle intensifying media attention and mounting danger, all while diving deep into the past of the mysterious and complicated woman he loves.
With plot twists galore and non-stop tension, New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni earns his stripes once again as the heir to Grisham’s literary throne.
The Conviction: David Sloane, book 5
As David Sloane continues to piece his life back together in the wake of his wife's vicious murder, he also struggles to handle his difficult teenage son, Jake. Reeling from the loss of his mother, Jake's bad behavior escalates and his relationship with Sloane is pushed to the brink. When Sloane's old friend, Detective Tom Molia, recruits Sloane and Jake to join him and his son on a camping trip, Sloane sees the trip as an opportunity to repair their broken father/son bond.
But the trip takes a distressing turn when the boys are arrested for vandalism in the middle of the night and the local judge, Earl Boykin, hastily sentences them to the "Fresh Start" detention program in the middle of the wilderness. Jake soon realizes the facility has little interest in rehabilitating wayward youths, beginning what will prove to be a grueling ordeal.
Sloane's legal expertise is rendered useless in overturning the boys' conviction, as he discovers that Judge Boykin's power reaches far beyond the courtroom. Finding their legal options limited and their sons in mounting danger, Sloane and Molia will stop at nothing to rescue their boys...the law--and their own safety--be damned.
The World Played Chess
In 1979, Vincent Bianco has just graduated high school. His only desire: collect a little beer money and enjoy his final summer before college. So he lands a job as a laborer on a construction crew. Working alongside two Vietnam vets, one suffering from PTSD, Vincent gets the education of a lifetime. Now forty years later, with his own son leaving for college, the lessons of that summer—Vincent’s last taste of innocence and first taste of real life—dramatically unfold in a novel about breaking away, shaping a life, and seeking one’s own destiny.
Close to Home: Tracy Crosswhite, Book 5
While investigating the hit-and-run death of a young boy, Seattle homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite makes a startling discovery: the suspect is an active-duty serviceman at a local naval base. After a key piece of case evidence goes missing, he is cleared of charges in a military court. But Tracy knows she can’t turn her back on this kind of injustice.
When she uncovers the driver’s ties to a rash of recent heroin overdoses in the city, she realizes that this isn’t just a case of the military protecting its own. It runs much deeper than that, and the accused wasn’t acting alone. For Tracy, it’s all hitting very close to home.
As Tracy moves closer to uncovering the truth behind this insidious conspiracy, she’s putting herself in harm’s way. And the only people she can rely on to make it out alive might be those she can no longer trust.
The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell
Sam Hill always saw the world through different eyes. Born with red pupils, he was called “Devil Boy” or Sam “Hell” by his classmates; “God’s will” is what his mother called his ocular albinism. Her words were of little comfort, but Sam persevered, buoyed by his mother’s devout faith, his father’s practical wisdom, and his two other misfit friends.
Sam believed it was God who sent Ernie Cantwell, the only African American kid in his class, to be the friend he so desperately needed. And that it was God’s idea for Mickie Kennedy to storm into Our Lady of Mercy like a tornado, uprooting every rule Sam had been taught about boys and girls.
Forty years later, Sam, a small-town eye doctor, is no longer certain anything was by design—especially not the tragedy that caused him to turn his back on his friends, his hometown, and the life he’d always known. Running from the pain, eyes closed, served little purpose. Now, as he looks back on his life, Sam embarks on a journey that will take him halfway around the world. This time, his eyes are wide open—bringing into clear view what changed him, defined him, and made him so afraid, until he can finally see what truly matters.
Seattle, 1933. The city is in the grips of the Great Depression, Prohibition, and vice. Cutting his teeth on a small-time beat, hungry and ambitious young reporter William “Shoe” Shumacher gets a tip that could change his career. There’s been a murder at a social club on Profanity Hill—an underworld magnet for vice crimes only a privileged few can afford. The story is going to be front-page news, and Shoe is the first reporter on the scene.
The victim, Frankie Ray, is a former prizefighter. His accused killer? Club owner and mobster George Miller, who claims he pulled the trigger in self-defense. Soon the whole town’s talking, and Shoe’s first homicide is fast becoming the Trial of the Century. The more Shoe digs, the more he’s convinced nothing is as it seems. Not with a tangle of conflicting stories, an unlikely motive, and witnesses like Ray’s girlfriend, a glamour girl whose pretty lips are sealed. For now.
In a city steeped in Old West debauchery, Shoe’s following every lead to a very dangerous place—one that could bring him glory and fame or end his life.
I Wish You Were Happy
Rescuing abandoned animals is easier for Rae than attempting relationships with people. According to her therapist, she lacks a dimmer switch—her energy is either full-intensity on or off. Lately, she’s been opting for off.
But the switch flips back on when Rae’s car collides with a cyclist, leaving the rider fighting for her life. After discovering the crash was a suicide attempt, Rae invites the victim—emotionally and physically fragile Kat—into her home. Soon, Rae finds herself opening up, not just to friendship but also to the possibility of love with Cole, the crisis worker assigned to Kat’s case.
However, Kat’s pain threatens to overshadow Rae as their codependent friendship deepens. When disaster strikes again, Rae is desperate to help Kat heal, but the plan backfires, putting at risk Rae’s tenuous connections and forcing her to confront the most difficult challenge of all—embracing her own happiness.
Closer to Home
When Lise Redding’s estranged sister, country-pop star Callie Redfern, is killed during a publicity stunt, the small-town music teacher is dragged from her quiet life into the spotlight.
Lise hadn’t spoken with Callie in ten years, ever since Callie’s betrayal split them apart, so she’s shocked to discover that she’s inherited her sister’s massive estate. Not only that, but Lise is now the guardian of her sixteen-year-old niece, Ariel, to whom she’s practically a stranger.
Overwhelmed by grief and her new responsibilities, Lise thinks things couldn’t get worse. But overnight she becomes the paparazzi’s latest obsession. Suddenly she and her longtime friend Dale are plastered over the front pages of the tabloids. Desperate to escape both the media and her memories, Lise sets off with Ariel on a search for the girl’s father. Yet instead of granting Lise a reprieve, the quest brings her face-to-face with long-buried secrets. Only by learning to forgive will she be able to find her way back home.
Every Thing You Are
One tragic twist of fate destroyed Braden Healey’s hands, his musical career, and his family. Now, unable to play, adrift in an alcoholic daze, and with only fragmented memories of his past, Braden wants desperately to escape the darkness of the last eleven years.
When his ex-wife and son are killed in a car accident, Braden returns home, hoping to forge a relationship with his troubled seventeen-year-old daughter, Allie. But how can he hope to rescue her from the curse that seems to shadow his family?
Ophelia “Phee” MacPhee, granddaughter of the eccentric old man who sold Braden his cello, believes the curse is real. She swore an oath to her dying grandfather that she would ensure Braden plays the cello as long as he lives. But he can’t play, and as the shadows deepen and Phee finds herself falling for Braden, she’ll do anything to save him. It will take a miracle of forgiveness and love to bring all three of them back to the healing power of music.
A Borrowed Life
For thirty years Liz has perfectly played the part of Mrs. Thomas Lightsey, exemplary pastor’s wife and mother. But maintaining appearances for the congregation and catering to her demanding husband takes a toll, and she’s lost herself in meeting the expectations of others. When Thomas suddenly dies, Liz feels shock, grief, and, to her surprise, the siren song of freedom. Dare she dream of a life to call her own?
Despite the resistance of her daughter, Abigail, to even the smallest changes, Liz lands a role at the community theater. Inspired by new friends and the character she plays, she explores life’s possibilities, including an unexpected—and steamy—relationship with her leading man.
Just when Liz thinks she might be winning, life hits her with an unthinkable shock. She’s pregnant at forty-nine. Torn between conflicting loyalties to her daughter, her lover, her unborn baby, and herself, can Liz find a way to rebuild her dream life one more time?
Whisper Me This
Single mother Maisey Addington has always fallen short of her own mother’s expectations—never married, a bit adrift, wasting her high IQ on dead-end jobs. The only thing Maisey’s sure she’s gotten right is her relationship with her twelve-year-old daughter, Elle…until a phone call blows apart the precarious balance of their lives. Maisey’s mother is in a coma, and her aging father faces charges of abuse and neglect.
Back at her childhood home, Maisey must make a heartrending life-or-death decision. Her confused father has destroyed family records, including her mother’s final wishes. Searching for answers, Maisey uncovers one unspeakable secret after another when she stumbles upon a shattering truth: a twin sister named Marley.
Maisey’s obsession with solving the mystery of her sister forces her to examine her darkest memories and triggers a custody battle with Elle’s father. Will Maisey’s love for her daughter be strong enough to break a cycle of abuse and create a new beginning for them all?
Improbably Yours
An unusual inheritance leads to a life-changing journey in a novel of romance, secrets, and the treasure of found family.
Blythe Harmon is on the fast track to a life she never wanted. On her thirtieth birthday, just as she’s about to lock herself into a high-powered job and accept a marriage proposal to match, an unusual bequest from her beloved late grandmother, Nomi, offers an escape and an invitation to adventure.
Equipped with Nomi’s urn of ashes and a treasure map, Blythe sets off for a small island in the San Juans where she rents the mysterious and unsettling Improbable House. Secret by secret, clue by cryptic clue, she begins to unravel the puzzle her grandmother has left her to piece together. Her quest is complicated, though, by a powerful attraction to an enigmatic islander and empathy for his orphaned niece, both of whom are inexorably tied to the old house.
Just when Blythe thinks she’s on the verge of solving the mystery, her quest takes an unexpected turn, and she discovers that the treasure she’s really seeking is something that could never be buried in the ground. While she’s on the treasure hunt of a lifetime, the past and the future are coming together in this magical novel by the Amazon Charts bestselling author of Whisper Me This.
To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
A Borrowed Life
For thirty years Liz has perfectly played the part of Mrs. Thomas Lightsey, exemplary pastor’s wife and mother. But maintaining appearances for the congregation and catering to her demanding husband takes a toll, and she’s lost herself in meeting the expectations of others. When Thomas suddenly dies, Liz feels shock, grief, and, to her surprise, the siren song of freedom. Dare she dream of a life to call her own?
Despite the resistance of her daughter, Abigail, to even the smallest changes, Liz lands a role at the community theater. Inspired by new friends and the character she plays, she explores life’s possibilities, including an unexpected—and steamy—relationship with her leading man.
Just when Liz thinks she might be winning, life hits her with an unthinkable shock. She’s pregnant at forty-nine. Torn between conflicting loyalties to her daughter, her lover, her unborn baby, and herself, can Liz find a way to rebuild her dream life one more time?
Between - The Between Trilogy, Book 1
A dragon is running amok in the town of Krebston, and only one woman can stop it...
If Dr. Vivian Maylor could have just one wish, it would be a normal life. Instead, her dreams – and not necessarily the good ones – are spilling over into her waking hours.
A badly burned teenager spontaneously combusts in the emergency room after raving about a dragon. Her mentally unstable mother vanishes without a trace. A strange woman with supernatural powers breaks into Vivian’s apartment looking for the Key to the Forever.
And when a bookstore-owning artist named Zee, who Vivian knows from her dreams as a sword-wielding warrior, delivers a message from her deceased grandfather, Vivian finally acknowledges the truth: she is the last living Dreamshifter, responsible for guarding the doors between dreaming and waking.
Aided by Zee and an improbable dream penguin, Vivian ventures into the Between – a treacherous maze that lies between dreaming and waking – on a quest that will bring her face-to-face not only with her worst nightmares, but also the darkest parts of her self.
Wakeworld - The Between Trilogy, Book 2
She's part dragon. He's a dragon slayer. What could go wrong?
The quest is clear: find and destroy the Key to the Forever. Vivian and Zee have a plan – coerce Vivian’s former lover into revealing what his dream self did with the Key, and then keep it safe until they can figure out how to destroy it.
But the Dragon Queen, Aidan, also wants the Key, and she’s had a thousand years to hone her power and perfect a devious scheme to destroy the dreamworlds. All she needs is the Key, and the moment Vivian finds it Aidan launches a vicious attack that leaves Zee wounded in the Between and Vivian locked into Wakeworld unable to reach him.
With Aidan’s power barring all doors to the dreamworlds and the Between against her, Vivian joins forces with a rogue Dreamshifter, hoping that together they will be strong enough to counter Aidan. But Vivian’s inner dragon is struggling to break free and she will need to confront her own darkest desires and powers before she and Zee can even hope to save the worlds – if they don’t destroy each other first.
The Nothing - The Between Trilogy, Book 3
Vivian has one last chance to save the worlds, if she’s willing to pay the price...
There’s no rest for the weary. With the Black Gates irrevocably sealed, Vivian and Zee search for another way into The Forever in a desperate attempt to stop Aidan from her plan of ultimate destruction. But the dreamworlds are dying, the Between is growing increasingly unstable, and it’s clear they’re going to need some help.
In Wakeworld, doctors and world leaders are scrambling to determine the source of a mysterious illness that is killing healthy people in their sleep. Weston Jennings knows the truth: dreamworlds are dying and taking dreamers with them. When fate unites him with an orphaned child who has latent dreamshifting ability, he takes her through into the Between in the hope that Vivian can save her – and all of Wakeworld -- from what the child calls the Nothing.
Vivian and Zee have entered the world of the treacherous Sorcieri, who alone hold the secret of an alternate path into the Forever. But even if the Sorcieri can be persuaded to share the secret knowledge, or trusted to uphold their end of a bargain, saving the worlds can come only at the cost of unimaginable sacrifice. we must remember why it is important to triumph.
The Dream Runner - The Dream Wars, Book 1
Jesse Davison skipped town the week she turned sixteen, with nothing but the clothes on her back and her father's vintage Indian Scout motorbike. She swore never to return to the town where in one night of tragedy she lost everything she ever loved.
When news of her estranged mother's death calls her home, she hopes for some time to sort out ten years of tangled emotions. But Jesse’s job doesn’t exactly allow personal days. She’s been forced into service as a runner by the Dream Merchant to pay back a debt for her own dream of revenge, and there are always orders to fill.
Struggling to figure out her mysterious inheritance is more than enough to get a girl down, and things get even worse when the man Jesse loathes—ex-boyfriend Will Alderson—shows up. But she soon discovers the person she’s been running from might just be the one she should be running towards. Too bad she’s been dreaming of killing him for the past ten years.
Dead Before Dying - A Shadow Valley Manor Mystery, Book 1
Sidelined by an on the job injury, veteran paranormal investigator Maureen Keslyn reluctantly accepts an assignment at Shadow Valley Manor, an upscale retirement facility where someone - or something - is picking off residents and staff at a grisly clip.
With her resources dwindling one death at a time and unnatural forces on the loose, Maureen’s experience fighting the supernatural is offers the only hope of defeating a clever and powerful evil before everybody in the manor - and the town - winds up dead. Together with a ragtag team that includes the local sheriff, the undertaker's daughter, and the facility cook whose knife skills in the kitchen could prove deadly out of it - Maureen is on a mission to bring rest to the weary, and peace to the dead....
World Tree Girl: A Shadow Valley Manor Mystery, book 2
When the body of Shadow Valley resident Dason Williams is discovered in his mother’s basement it appears to be a clear-cut case of suicide, but seasoned paranormal investigator Maureen Keslyn knows otherwise. A photograph on the dead man’s wall links him to a murdered teenage girl whose body bears the marks of a dangerous paranormal creature known as the Medusa.Convinced that the Medusa is on a killing spree, Maureen joins forces with an unwieldy team--Jake, the local sheriff, Matt, the Shadow Valley Manor cook, and Sophronia, a teenage girl with an uncanny affinity for ghosts. The case is complicated by the ghost of Maureen's former partner who refuses to cross to the other side, and his much-too-alive daughter Jillian who shows up to claim her father's ashes--and take charge of the Manor.With the life of one of their own in deadly peril, Maureen and the team enlist unlikely allies as they race to unravel a mystery that threatens not only the residents of the Manor, but all of Shadow Valley.
Dead Before Dinner - A Shadow Valley Manor Mystery, book 3
Veteran paranormal investigator Maureen Keslyn never asked for life to be easy—for her, nothing is more invigorating than hunting down and ending a dangerous paranormal adversary. Fortunately, life at Shadow Valley Manor tends to be a little more...interesting...than the experience at your average retirement community.
Right now, though, even she has to admit that things are getting out of hand. The bizarre murder of one of her elderly residents is only the beginning. How is she supposed to focus on tracking down the killer when there’s a spider loving middle-schooler underfoot? Worse, she’s acquired an unwelcome roommate—an elderly woman with dementia and a penchant for walking through walls.
Maureen is ever resourceful, but the death count keeps rising despite her best efforts and the help of her team. With the life of a child hanging in the balance, Maureen is forced to take extraordinary measures—but will they be enough?
A Girl Like You
A Henrietta and Inspector Howard Novel - book 1
“Mixing Romance and Mystery in a Fizzy 1930s Cocktail!” -
Henrietta Von Harmon works as a 26 girl at a corner bar on Chicago’s northwest side. It’s 1935, but things still aren’t looking up since the big crash and her father’s subsequent suicide, leaving Henrietta to care for her antagonistic mother and younger siblings.
Henrietta is eventually persuaded to take a job as a taxi dancer at a local dance hall―and just when she’s beginning to enjoy herself, the floor matron turns up dead. When aloof Inspector Clive Howard appears on the scene, Henrietta agrees to go undercover for him―and is plunged into Chicago’s grittier underworld.
Meanwhile, she’s still busy playing mother hen to her younger siblings, as well as to pesky neighborhood boy Stanley, who believes himself in love with her and keeps popping up in the most unlikely places, determined to keep Henrietta safe―even from the Inspector, if need be. Despite his efforts, however, and his penchant for messing up the Inspector’s investigation, the lovely Henrietta and the impenetrable Inspector find themselves drawn to each other in most unsuitable ways.
A Ring of Truth
Newly engaged, Clive and Henrietta now begin the difficult task of meeting each other’s family. “Difficult” because Clive has neglected to tell Henrietta that he is in fact the heir to the Howard estate and fortune, and Henrietta has just discovered that her mother has been hiding secrets about her past as well. When Clive brings Henrietta to the family estate to meet his parents, they are less than enthused about his impoverished intended. Left alone in this extravagant new world when Clive returns to the city, Henrietta finds herself more at home with the servants than his family, much to the disapproval of Mrs. Howard―and soon gets caught up in the disappearance of an elderly servant’s ring, not realizing that in doing so she has become part of a bigger, darker plot.
As Clive and Henrietta attempt to discover the truth in the two very different worlds unraveling around them, they both begin to wonder: Are they meant for each other after all?
A Promise given
This third book in the Henrietta and Inspector Howard series provides a delightful romp through the English countryside and back.
Anxious to be married, Henrietta and Clive push forward with their wedding plans despite their family differences, made worse now by Oldrich Exley’s attempts to control the Von Harmons. When the long-awaited wedding day arrives, there is more unfolding than just Clive and Henrietta’s vows of love. Stanley and Elsie’s relationship is sorely tested by the presence of the dashing Lieutenant Harrison Barnes-Smith and by Henrietta’s friend Rose—a situation that grows increasingly dark and confused as time goes on.
As Clive and Henrietta begin their honeymoon at Castle Linley, the Howards’ ancestral estate in England, they encounter a whole new host of characters, including the eccentric Lord and Lady Linley and Clive’s mysterious cousin, Wallace. When a man is murdered in the village on the night of a house party at the Castle, Wallace comes under suspicion—and Clive and Henrietta are reluctantly drawn into the case, despite Clive’s anxiety at involving his new bride and Henrietta’s distracting news from home.
Delicately attempting to work together for the first time, Clive and Henrietta set out to prove Wallace’s innocence, uncovering as they do so some rather shocking truths that will shake the Linley name and estate forever.
A Veil Removed
Murder is never far from this sexy couple . . . even during the holidays!
Their honeymoon abruptly ended by the untimely death of Alcott Howard, Clive and Henrietta return to Highbury, where Clive discovers all is not as it should be. Increasingly convinced that his father’s death was not an accident, Clive launches his own investigation, despite his mother’s belief that he has become “mentally disturbed” with grief. Henrietta eventually joins forces with Clive on their first real case, which becomes darker—and deadlier—than they imagined as they get closer to the truth behind Alcott’s troubled affairs.
Meanwhile, Henrietta’s sister, Elsie, begins, at Henrietta’s orchestration, to take classes at a women’s college—an attempt to evade her troubles and prevent any further romantic temptations. When she meets a bookish German custodian at the school, however, he challenges her to think for herself . . . even as she discovers some shocking secrets about his past life.
A spiritualist, an insane asylum, a lost little girl . . .
When Clive, anxious to distract a depressed Henrietta, begs Sergeant Frank Davis for a case, he is assigned to investigating a seemingly boring affair: a spiritualist woman operating in an abandoned schoolhouse on the edge of town who is suspected of robbing people of their valuables. What begins as an open and shut case becomes more complicated, however, when Henrietta—much to Clive’s dismay—begins to believe the spiritualist's strange ramblings.
Meanwhile, Elsie begs Clive and Henrietta to help her and the object of her budding love, Gunther, locate the whereabouts of one Liesel Klinkhammer, the German woman Gunther has traveled to America to find and the mother of the little girl, Anna, whom he has brought along with him. The search leads them to Dunning Asylum, where they discover some terrible truths about Liesel. When the child, Anna, is herself mistakenly admitted to the asylum after an epileptic fit, Clive and Henrietta return to Dunning to retrieve her. This time, however, Henrietta begins to suspect that something darker may be happening. When Clive doesn’t believe her, she decides to take matters into her own hands . . . with horrifying results.
A Spying eye
Clive and Henrietta return to Europe in an attempt to resurrect their failed honeymoon. While in London, they are approached by their old friend, Inspector John Hartle, who convinces them to search for the missing panel of the Ghent Altarpiece, a famous Renaissance painting, of which Hitler’s top men are also in pursuit.
Meanwhile, back in Chicago, Oldrich Exley threatens to cut off financial support for the entire Von Harmon brood if Elsie continues with her plan to marry Gunther—a situation made worse by the sudden appearance of one Heinrich Meyer, who claims to be little Anna’s father and threatens to take her away. Desperate, Elsie seeks the help of Clive’s sister, Julia, who is herself the victim of domestic abuse and who has fallen under the spell of a handsome Texas millionaire bent on acquiring a rare painting from the Howard collection.
Clive and Henrietta’s search takes them to Chateau du Freudeneck in Strasbourg, France—the ancient seat of the Von Harmons and home to three eccentric distant relatives. What begins as a wild goose chase turns decidedly more deadly when several Nazi officers also arrive at the chateau in search of a “valuable item.” When Henrietta and Clive attempt to flee after Henrietta uncovers a shocking truth, they are forced to trust themselves to a suspicious French servant who seems all-too willing to help . . .
A Haunting at Linley
In this seventh book of the series, Clive and Henrietta return to England to find Castle Linley in financial ruin. When Clive’s cousin, Wallace, invites an estate agent in to assess the home’s value, the agent is later found poisoned, throwing all of the Castle’s guests into suspicion. Clive and Henrietta are soon drawn into an investigation, which is slowed by an incompetent local inspector and several unexplained phenomena―the cause of which many, especially the frail Lady Linley, believe to be the workings of the ghost of a hanged maid.
Meanwhile, Gunther and Elsie have begun life on a farm in Omaha. Circumstances are difficult, but they are content―until Oldrich Exely appears, proposing an option Elsie finds difficult to ignore. Melody Merriweather, still masquerading as a nun to aid Elsie’s escape, likewise finds it difficult to ignore a letter with tragic news from home, while Julia, on the other hand, receives a very different sort of letter from Glenn Forbes.
Back in England, Clive is called away to London on suspicious business, leaving Henrietta to carry on with the investigation alone. When she is mysteriously locked in the study one night, however, things take on a more deadly, supernatural feel, leaving her to fear that Lady Linley's “ghost” might just be real after all…
The Fallen Woman's Daughter
When eight-year-old Nora arrives at the Park Ridge School for Girls in 1932, she is sure there’s been some mistake. She can’t imagine why she and her little sister, Patsy, were torn from their mother only to be subjected to the cruel whims of the house matron, Mrs. Morris. When their mother fails to rescue them week after week—and Mrs. Morris drops hints that their mother may be a “fallen woman”—Nora begins to doubt they will ever see her again.
Nine years prior, at seventeen, Gertie Gufftason runs off with Lorenzo, the barker for the traveling carnival passing through her small coal-mining town in Southern Iowa. Thinking she is embarking on a fantastic adventure, Gertie is bitterly disappointed by the life that follows and is thrown into despair when the State removes their two daughters.
Gertie eventually tracks down her girls at the Park Ridge, but, expecting a warm welcome, she is shocked by Nora’s cool reception. Nora reluctantly returns home with Gertie and Patsy, determined to live a more perfect life than her mother. It is only when she discovers a secret Gertie has kept hidden all these years that Nora begins to fully understand—and forgive—her mother’s tragic choices .
Libido's Twist: A Jake Palmer Novel
Former U.S. Navy SEAL, Jake Palmer, is searching for something to fill the void in his life, a void present since he left the Navy ten years earlier. Neither his previous work as a corporate attorney nor his string of short-term personal relationships filled the indefinable emptiness. When a former colleague at B&A Pharmaceuticals asks Palmer to investigate the deaths of a physician researcher and his nurse in a car crash in southwest England, he is reluctant but accepts the assignment. Palmer is teamed with Fiona Collins, a tenacious B&A research auditor. Collins believes Palmer’s role is to observe and assist her in auditing the deceased physician’s clinical research records, assistance she neither needs nor wants. While Palmer believes the sooner Collins completes her audit, the sooner he can commence his investigation into the deaths.
They travel to a small town on the Cornish coast and follow a trail of evidence that leads them to London, where they become entangled in a web of deceit, ambition and murder. With their lives in imminent danger, Palmer must confront his demons and bring those responsible to justice, even if it means killing them.
The Drone Enigma: A Jake Palmer Novel
Jake Palmer accepts an offer from a defense contractor to consult with the company on the death of an engineer assigned to the top-secret Perseus Project—the development of the navigation and targeting systems for an experimental Navy drone.
Two days into the case, Palmer finds the defense contractor shot dead. What he discovers convinces him that both deaths are related to the project and that someone within the company is working with terrorists to seize control of the drone during a planned live-fire test in Afghanistan. With no hard evidence to support his theory, he is unable to persuade either the company or the Navy that an imminent threat exists. Concerned that he will disrupt the test, the company terminates Palmer’s contract and notifies the police.
Pursued by the police and headed for engagement with a large, well-armed terrorist cell led by the company insider, Palmer is close to defeat when he receives help from the most unlikely person. With only hours to spare, they race to stop an attack half a world away.
The Envelope: A Jake Palmer Novel
Jake Palmer is attending a wedding in New York, and Fiona Collins has flown in from London to accompany him to the event. The night before the wedding a U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agent meets Palmer in the hotel bar and requests his help. He leaves Palmer a sealed envelope and tells him to review the contents, saying he will be in touch in a few days. Moments later, the agent is gunned down. Palmer decides to return the envelope to HSI but not until after he and Collins open it. Inside they find a cryptic note from the agent and information related to a counterfeit medicine case involving a drug manufactured by the company where Collins works. The next morning, they take the envelope to HSI’s New York office, ending Palmer’s involvement in the investigation, or so he thinks. Collins returns to London intent on finding more about the counterfeiting of one of their newest medicines. After an unexpected event changes Palmer’s perspective, he teams with the HSI special agent now in charge of the case. Together they pursue those behind a global counterfeit medicine and money-laundering operation. As the investigation unfolds, Palmer makes a startling discovery that raises his personal stake in the outcome and reveals the real reason the murdered HSI agent wanted him involved. With those closest to him now in danger and more patients dying from taking a medication that contains almost none of the life-saving ingredient, time is running out.
The Chameleon: A Jake Palmer Novel
Jake Palmer, investigative consultant and former US Navy SEAL, has signed on as a contractor with a top-secret US Joint Special Operations Command team in Islamabad, Pakistan. Palmer and his JSOC partner work to uncover a suspected mole and gather intelligence regarding the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapon arsenal as the country prepares for war with India over control of the disputed region of Kashmir. Fears regarding security of the weapons escalate when Pakistan decides to deploy its arsenal and rumors surface that a shadowy figure, the Chameleon, will attempt to divert a nuclear warhead during the deployment. With a nuclear war countdown clock at a minute ’til midnight, Palmer and his partner risk everything to prevent the Chameleon from carrying out a plan for the world’s first act of nuclear terrorism.
DB Bray
Featured Books
Blood & Whiskey
The die was cast before Donegan O'Kelly was ever born into the poverty of the Irish slums in Stones Gate, MI. He has worked out of the hood and into a violent bootlegging operation. His goal in life, the only thing he ever wanted to be was a gangster....a true gangster. The Irish neighborhood he grew up in taught him to hate the Italians. He is all about his paper and he will get it by any means necessary. He lives how he gets it....grinding.The one mistake he makes causes a huge war within the underworld of Stones Gate. If only he hadn't loaned two hundred dollars to a deadbeat bootlegger, no one would have ever heard the name Donegan O'Kelly. Or the bloodbath that followed.
Gangsters on both sides will die, the only question is who makes it to the top?
Blood & Whiskey, book 2
Donegan O'Kelly has moved to Chicago with his girlfriend Gwen. The cards are still stacked against them. And after the bloodbath in Stones Gate, he must move on and keep making money. The one lesson he's learned is, you can't trust anyone, not even yourself.In Chicago, he has founded a new gang known as, The Grover Boys. They will attempt to align with legendary underworld figure Hymie Weiss, the newly appointed Irish mob boss of the Northside Gang.
If Donegan can get into the fold and on their radar, he will make his mark on the worst underworld ever known in the city. The only thing he needs is courage and fearlessness. He has the courage, but for a person who won't trust another living soul, fearlessness will be hard to find. He knows the code; In for a penny, in for a pound. He is willing and ready to kill, but his first priority is the safety of Gwen. The only person he has ever loved.
Gangsters will die, the question is which ones will make it to the mountain top.
How the West Wasn't Won
The 1880s was a bounty hunters dream in the twilight of the Old West, a land divided by the US government as they saw fit, not the way everyone residing there did. The West was won by grit, determination, and good 'ol violence - either by guns or a very sudden stop at the end of a rope.
Henry "Preacher" Blackwell and Josiah "Flash" Gordon are the reason why the West was almost never won. It's not like they did it on purpose. They were just drunk, washed-up Civil War veterans whose only saleable trade were as bounty hunters. They live by the code of "you only live once" and they live it up to the fullest everyday they wake, because tomorrow could be their last.
On a a bounty hunting mission to collar a few low dollar desperados, they accidentally kill "Fish Eyes" Mack, the leader of the Good 'Ol Boys out of Albequerque. If Preacher had never shot Fish Eyes, a lot more people would have survived the prairies and went on to become whatever they wanted.
A single bullet changed bounty hunting in New Mexico...and not for the better.
How the West Wasn't Won
Flash, Preacher's best friend for 30 years, is dead. The grief and anger don't allow him to skip the bottle this trip. The worst bounty hunters in the Old West must now go with Bear Claws and burn Querque to the ground in retribution. It's the Comanche way.
The trio will go through new obstacles, and find out some unwanted truths about their fellow riders. What happened to Blue Guns? Where is Apache Joe? Preacher must ride the prairie and find out how to get everyone out of the pickle alive or die trying.
Topher Metcalf
Featured Books
The Cost - The Torch of Mankind, book 1
A stirring, epic adventure of hope and survival for the youth of a fallen land!
Millions of Americans watched live as the United States Constitution was destroyed in front of them on television. Two hundred years have passed, and sixteen year old Jack Madison, a direct descendant of President James Madison, has more immediate problems.
When The Takers, a vicious tribe of human traffickers raid his village, Jack and his brother Toby are forced to find their own safe harbor in a gritty post apocalyptic world! These brothers must gather allies among the youth of a fallen nation and repair the damage done because the “adults” of the world failed them.
The question remains...who among the youth who carry the new banner will die raising for the masses to see?
Dying for the Cause - The Torch of Mankind, bk 2
Creating a Strong Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Shop - Crafting the Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
The Gates of Anak'anor
Jari Rockjaw, a dwarf from the Blue Mountains wants to retire from bounty hunting and after 100 years in the trenches chasing brigands, highwayman, and an assortment of creatures, he has earned it. He recruits a ragtag group of heroes that need that retirement check too. In his company for retirement are his best friends Betha Silentnight, a female minotaur who kills first and asks questions later, and Toli Hookhand, a one-handed horny dwarf who wants nothing but dwarven ass and money.
The trio prepare for one last mission to produce the coins needed for that permeant vacation on the coasts of Anak'anor, the mercenary hot spot and their favorite watering holes. Lord Polis Silverwell, a human with ties to the king of Ekepia finds them and recruits the group who call themselves the Loners to take out Boro Spiderbinder, an evil dwarf who plans on world domination across Labrys.
Come and join the Loners in an epic battle for survival, friendship, and retirement with some humuor mixed in as they bullnose their way to the finish line all in the name of retirement. The question that will need answering is how many of them live to retire after their one last mission. Retirement is always easy to get when you're the most hated company on Labrys.
More to Come
Brandi Forte
Featured Books
Half Chicken, Half Scholar
A promising debut novel from a highly respected journalist, poet, and author, Brandi Forte's Half Chicken Half Scholar is a delightful take about four divinely appointed, savvy sistahs on the road to wholeness, peace of mind, forgiveness, and self-discovery.--Jamie Walker, author of 101 Ways Black Women Can Learn to Love Themselves.
Free
Powerful, stunningly-beautiful, educated and divinely intuitive, Dream Angelou seems like the perfect package. The veteran journalist is a HBCU graduate and a proud mother, however, she is undoubtedly dangerously in love with D.C.’s hood’s finest, Solomon Avery. Together, Dream, Solomon and their son King are the epitome of a “match-made in Heaven,” and are building a prized future together. In just one day Dream loses her promising career, Solomon and her livelihood, all to experience a brokenness that causes her to mentally snap and dive into an abyss of panic and depression. Dream will learn to face her own nightmare of raising her son alone in the hood, living off of welfare and sometimes loosing battles. She will stop writing for years. These are lessons in life that her college experience never prepared her for or unveiled. God speaks to Dream’s spirit and her heart, reminding her that even though she may “walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” that He still has a purpose and a promise assigned to her life. Dream is humbled through purging, yet inspired by the prayers and upliftment from the wise elders that she meets on her path. Poetically, she is taught lessons on survival from the drug dealers, dope fiends and hood girls in her community. One thing is for sure Dream is all that King has and King is Dream’s angel in disguise. Through the testing of her faith, Dream understands that there is a divine calling on her life and special assignments to endure. Will she make it through? Will she write again? Will she love again? Will Dream ever get the chance to answer the call? This story is only for the LIONHEARTED!
Stronger
Dream Angelou is a college-educated, single mother hailing from Santa Monica, California striving to make a better life in D.C. with her son, King. Dream is as vulnerable as she is guarded with her heart after experiencing lost love. She engages her new energy into building a great career as an executive in the nonprofit field. However, she recognizes that there is a deeper power that speaks to financial freedom and independence that she cannot suppress. As Dream’s career is on a fast track to entrepreneurship, her love life begins to heat up too when she meets the charismatic and edgy Kenya Harris. “We were so opposite from the beginning that our differences became our attraction,” Dream describes her crazy-in-love romance. The fairy-tale life that Dream envisioned came with an empire, beautiful babies, a big house with a ranch-style fence, and a strong Black man for a husband—but then reality hit. Dream becomes embroiled in an intense battle with Kenya, wrestling with mental health, addiction, his yearning for the street life, and a postpartum medical mishap that almost cost her life. Will the unbreakable bond Dream forges with Kenya prove to be the downfall of everything she built? Author Brandi Forte pours her heart and soul out in her most riveting story to date about Black love, family, betrayal, forgiveness, and healing that ultimately proves what doesn’t kill you . . . will make you Stronger.
More to Come
Deston Munden
Featured Books
Dusk Mountain Blues
The Caldwells have one goal in life: to be left alone. They’ve been living on the backwater planet of C’dar for years, smuggling and scavenging their way to a comfortable life on their Homestead. But you know the saying about all good things – they come to an end. The Civilization wasn’t content with falling apart the first time and has finally caught wind of the ol’ boys and girls on their little rock in the middle of nowhere. Ain’t nothing much they can do about that, though…except fight ’em.
It all comes down to three generations of Caldwells— Luke “Drifter” Caldwell, Woodrow “Appetite” Caldwell, and Cassie “Kindle” Caldwell—as they fend for everything they call home.
What is isolation worth?
Tavern - The Dargath Chronicles, book 1
Xelnath of the Gnarled Root—a tavern owner, information broker, healer, and guildmaster of the Blackwind Company—has found a place, far better than the forest from which he came in the magical metropolis and city-state of Lladad in the Magiian Empire.
When a simple act of kindness draws the ire of a troubled assassin, his love-stricken Archmage father, and an army of magically constructed golems, Xel must scheme with vipers of the high court, mingle with royalty at the castle, blackmail drug dealers in the slums, and fight assassins and mercenaries in the streets.
He needs to lean on the support of his motley crew of a dark elf assassin, a dragon pirate, a high elf royal, and a talking dog artificer to keep him from his own inner demons and doubts.
Duke's Brand - The Dargath Chronicles, book 2
Ser Torlyek is an awkward and soft-spoken man fumbling through his knightly duties as a member of the Duke’s Brand. Though there is little trust afforded to a band of former criminals, Torlyek and his companions continue to prove themselves to be one of the strongest knightly orders in the land.
But when Jani—a half-orc woman of noble blood—joins their ranks, they find themselves targeted by one of the most powerful lords in Dargath. Soon, Torlyek finds his new life cast into turmoil as the secrets of Jani’s past converge with the shadows of his own.
Faced with an impossible choice, will the Duke’s Brand stand with one of their own? Or will they turn her over to the forces that hunt her? And what will come from Torlyek’s own turbulent past—and the choices that continue to haunt him?
Long awaited sequel of Tavern!
To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
More to come.
Scott Bury
Featured Books
Army of Worn Soles
A Canadian is drafted into the Soviet Red Army during World War 2, just in time to be thrown against Nazi Germany's invasion in Operation Barbarossa. Caught in the vise of the Nazi and Communist forces, Maurice Bury concentrates on keeping his men alive as they retreat across Ukraine from the German juggernaut. Now the question is: will they escape from the hell of the POW camp before they starve to death?
"A unique view of WWII"
"You can hear the explosions from anti-tank shells, feel some of the hopelessness of a POW camp."
Under the Nazi Heel
Under the Nazi Heel
Walking Out of War, Book 2
For Ukrainians in 1942, the occupying Germans were not the only enemy.
Maurice Bury was drafted into the Red Army just in time to be thrown against the invading Germans in 1941. Captured and starved in a POW camp, he escaped and made his way home to western Ukraine, where the Nazi occupiers pursued a policy of starving the locals to make more “living space” for Germans.
To protect his family, Maurice joins the secret resistance. He soon finds the country faces multiple threats. Maurice and his men are up against Soviet spies, the Polish Home Army and enemies even closer to home.
Experience this seldom seen phase of World War 2 through the eyes of a man who fought and survived Under the Nazi Heel.
Walking out of War
Ukraine, 1944: After the Soviets burned the Ukrainian city of Ternopyl to the ground to crush the stubborn Nazi occupiers, they rounded up every remaining Ukrainian man around for the Red Army’s final push on Germany. Maurice Bury, Canadian citizen, Ukrainian resistance fighter and intelligence officer, is thrust once again into the death struggle between Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s USSR.
Fighting across the Baltics in the autumn of 1944 is tough and bloody. Then the Red Army enters Germany, where they’re no longer liberators—they’re the long-feared Communist horde, bent on destruction, rape and revenge. The Communists are determined to wipe Nazism from the face of the earth. And the soldiers want revenge for Germany's brutal invasion and occupation.
Maurice has determined his only way out of this hell is to survive until Nazi Germany dies, and then move home to Canada. But to do that, he’ll have to not only walk out of war, but elude Stalin’s dreaded secret police.
Wildfire - A Wine Country Mystery
Wildfires swept across California wine country in 2017, destroying thousands of homes and businesses and killing dozens of people. Law school grad and single mother Tara Rezeck finds herself in the middle of the catastrophe. She has to evacuate with the rest of of the staff of Sonoma's most award-winning winery. When she returns, she finds her employer’s body in the ashes.
The question that challenges her brain and her legal training is: was it an accident? Or was his body burned to hide evidence of murder?
Torn Roots
Vanessa Storm thought her first week on the job as an FBI Special Agent in beautiful Hawaii would be about settling in. But she’s immediately sent to Hana on Maui's rain-soaked shore to find a kidnapped woman.
Throw in arson, strident environmentalists bent on stirring up strife between local rights activists and foreign property developers, a chill local police lieutenant, a taciturn geologist, and top it all off with a rogue, unpredictable Homeland Security agent.
The case becomes a labyrinth twisting through the jungles on Maui’s volcano. Vanessa knows this case will explode into an international incident and lives will be lost if she doesn’t find answers fast.
Palm Trees & Snowflakes
In Honolulu, where the palm trees are strung with lights for the holidays, FBI Special Agents Vanessa Storm and Alan Terakawa have their hands full trying to stop the deadly flow of snowflake, the newest designer drug. Faulty intel brings the agents into a deadly firefight, which yields even more puzzles. Time is running out to stop this lethal flood.
Dead Man Lying
FBI Special Agent Vanessa Storm returns to Maui’s rain-soaked coast to investigate the death of a once-famous singer. Teaming up with local police, she uncovers drug trafficking, stolen music and a string of mysterious deaths.
As a savage tropical storm traps every witness, and suspect, in the singer’s rambling home, Vanessa learns that they’re all lying.
But the biggest liar of all may just be the victim—the dead man, lying.
Echoes
“I am hopelessly in love with a memory. An echo from another time, another place.” — Michel Foucault
In 1999, the Kahuna was The Man on Oahu’s west coast. The coolest guy at the wildest parties, with the coolest posse, the best weed and the most beautiful girlfriend.
Then he disappeared.
Fifteen years later, that girlfriend is no longer a high school senior. She is FBI Special Agent Vanessa Storm, and she sees through every lie the Kahuna spins when he shows up again to beg her help.
How can she say no when the Kahuna wants her help, not for himself, but to protect his little sister. Young Christine Koraka is ready to set fire to the whole Oahu illegal drug trade—for revenge.
The Bones of the Earth
The Dark Age, eastern Europe: the earth has decided to rid itself of humanity with earthquakes, volcanoes and new plagues. Civilizations, even the mighty Roman Empire, crumble under the pressure of barbarian waves that are fleeing worse terrors. Rejected by his own people, pursued by a dragon, young Javor heads for Constantinople, the centre of civilization, looking for answers to the puzzle of his great-grandfather’s dagger and the murder of his family. On the ancient, crumbling Roman highway across haunted, deserted Dacia, Javor rescues the beautiful Danisa from a human sacrifice. He cannot help falling in love with her. But Danisa has her own plans, and when she is kidnapped again, Javor has to wonder: what is the connection between his dagger, his lover and his enemies?
The children of the Seventh Son
Book 2 of the Dark Age trilogy
The year 600 of the Christian Era is the darkest time of the Dark Age. Young Javor the Sklavene has settled in Constantinople, the last bastion of civilization against dark forces that have shattered the Western Roman Empire. Wielding two special weapons made from the Bones of the Earth, Javor has become the favourite monster-killer of the secret Gnostic Order. As his young family grows, he is sent to distant, exotic lands to eliminate threats and learn more about why the earth is intent on destroying humanity.
Every mission seems to bring more questions than answers—until he finds the greatest danger comes not from forces from beneath the surface of the world, but from the very civilization he has been defending.
Initiation Rites
The Dark Age, Book 3.
The Earth has turned on humanity with earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and a new plague that kills the Roman Emperor himself. Barbarian invasions shatter civilizations.
In this chaos, Javor comes of age in a poor, remote village. Try as he might, though, he never fits in with his own people. There is just something about him that keeps him apart from the others.
When barbarian raiders kidnap the girl he loves, he takes a mysterious dagger handed down from his great-grandfather and tries to rescue her. But while he's away, a horror that Javor could never believe existed murders his parents and devastates his village.
Javor begins his quest for revenge, not realizing that he is entering a war against forces bent on eliminating humanity.
One Shade of Red
One Shade of Red
Women want the perfect man, so they can change him. But when university student Damian Serr discovers a rich, beautiful woman who’s voracious about sex, he doesn’t try to improve on perfection. It’s all that he can do to hold on for the ride.
Damian has always followed the rules, always tried to please others. At 20, he still dates the girl next door because his parents like her parents. When Nick, his university roommate, asks Damian to take over his pool-cleaning business so he can take an internship in London, Damian can’t say no — especially to Nick’s first and only client, a rich widow.
But widow Alexis Rosse is far from helpless or lonely. This beautiful financial genius is busy turning the markets upside-down, and she revels in sex wherever, whenever and with whomever she wants.
Over the summer, Alexis gives Damian an intense education. Day after day, she pushes him to his sexual limits. The only question he has is: will she break them?
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Wahida Clark
Featured Books
Thugs and the Women who Love Them
Book 1 of the Thugs series
New York Times best-selling author Wahida Clark is all too familiar with the terrifying truths of ghetto life. The first novel in her gritty, gripping Thug Series takes you into a world where a wrong choice can be the last choice a person ever makes. In a 'hood boiling over with sex, brutality, and crime, three friends are at a turning point. They can surrender to the streets and the murderous men who rule there, or walk a totally different path. But nothing is simple for women addicted to life on the edge. And everything has consequences. Angel, Jaz, and Kyra are all leading double lives, torn between working hard to leave the ghetto behind--and being dragged back in by the lying, pimping, drug-dealing men they can't seem to let go. From jealous rampages to bloody turf wars to rage-fueled vendettas, a tangled web of sex and violence binds these women to the very place that can destroy them. Get ready to enter a heart-pounding world of danger and eroticism mixed with a glimmer of hope.
Every Lady Needs a Thug
The spellbinding sequel to Wahida Clark's, Thugs and the Women Who Love Them.
After taking us through the rugged, thug-filled lives of Jaz, Kyra, and Angel, Wahida now takes us into the drama-filled life of their best friend, Roz, aka Tasha. She is sexy, beautiful, and torn between her desires to distance herself from the streets and the magnetic attraction to the irresistible and thuggish Trae Macklin, who acknowledges that mature women are a turn-on. Women come and go for a thug who is more about his business over everything else, yet Trae surprisingly falls head over heels for his business partner's woman, Tasha. Since the streets must come first, Trae decides to patiently wait for his partner's relationship with Tasha to come to nothing. Will Tasha and Trae's love ever get off the ground?
Thug Matrimony
Angel is getting ready to marry the man of her dreams - but his past isn't about to let go....
Angel, Jaz, Tasha, and Kyra are four girlfriends pulling themselves out of the ghetto - and trying to bring their hearts up to higher ground with them. Now Angel has started her own law practice and new life with Kaylin. But when an unwanted guest crashes their wedding, all the rage and bloodlust from the hood comes bustin' out - and Angel's gonna need every prayer in heaven to make it to the altar alive....
Thugs: Seven
Romance and Thug Lovin' is at its pinnacle in Part 7 of the Thug Series.
Trae and Tasha fight to hold on to what they have after he's released from prison, but when Trae is given a package containing some damning information regarding Tasha, is there any hope of salvaging the relationship? Kyra has to decide who she will choose: her unborn baby or Rick, the man she loves, but who is in another relationship. Can Rick break his two women out of their Western civilization mind-set in order to become one big, happy family? Who is the mysterious Lolita who suddenly shows up at a baby shower, and what is her connection to Don Carlos, a drug lord? Is she trying to set them up?
Angel has to pledge her love to Kaylin once again, while Jaz and Faheem try to start all over while mourning the loss of his murdered son. Will the couples be able to protect their marriages? Trouble is brewing at the baby shower, where the outcome could very well be a toe tag or a jail cell. Will the brothers get down for whatever when it comes to protecting their family?
Thugs: Seven, by best-selling author Wahida Clark, is a thriller, action, and disaster book with well-developed characters fighting their own personal demons. Be prepared for sleep deprivation because this is an addictive listen.
The Golden Hustla
Detective Houser wants nothing more than his retirement, but when a murder case involving the WMM firm lands on his desk, he can’t avoid it.
All of law enforcement knows that WMM Advertising, also known as We Make Millionaires, is one of the biggest and hardest-to-penetrate fraudulent telemarketing firms in the state of Georgia. A tape recording of a man’s death may finally help Houser make a case against the firm. Calling in Alexis Greenspan, a.k.a. Nina Coles, the top sales associate in the company, Houser is determined to use her to find out the company’s secrets—no matter who’s hurt in the process.
Wahida Clark was born and raised in Trenton, New Jersey. She began writing fiction while incarcerated at a woman’s federal camp in Lexington, Kentucky. Her first novel, Thugs and the Women Who Love Them, and the sequel, Every Thug Needs a Lady, appeared on the Essence best-sellers list. Since her release, she has achieved much success, and her novel Payback with Ya Life was a New York Times best seller. She lives in East Orange, New Jersey.
The Golden Hustla - 2
It is said that the love of money is the root of all evil, and with 50 million dollars missing, there’s a whole lot of evil going around with death lurking close behind! Mixed in with that, Nina thought she had it all on her way to a new life with the man of her dreams in tow! But bloodthirsty gang members, Armenian mobsters, scorned bosses, and crooked FBI agents have other plans! Then to complicate matters, her man’s previous lover has arisen from the dead to come back into his life, turning Nina’s world upside down! So who will be the last man—or woman—standing?
The reigning OG of street lit, African American fiction icon Wahida Clark unleashes another scintillating thriller from the Thugs Universe chronicling Nina’s bid for a better life. With intricate story lines, nonstop action, and unforgettable characters, Golden Hustla 2 is a must-listen! It is guaranteed to keep you sitting on the edge of your chair!
Justify My Thug
Creating a Strong Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Shop - Crafting the Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Emperors & Assassins
A failed protector. A man with nothing left to live for. And a rebellion in need of a hero.
Viridius Vispanius spent his entire life with only one goal—protect the Emperor. When a terrible betrayal results in the Emperor’s death and Viridius’ failure, he has nothing left. With a verdict of execution and a price on his head, he disappears into the wilds of the Batopian wilderness, determined to drink himself into forgetfulness or death, whichever comes first.
But when an old friend reappears, Viridius is given a choice—continue to wallow in his failure, or become the hero that Delos desperately needs. With the Rebellium recently pushed back by the tyrannical new Emperor, Viridius may be the last hope of a desperate people in need of exactly that.
If a man has no friends, he can never be betrayed. But can Viridius find it within himself to become the hero that he never wanted to be?
N'Tyse
Featured Books
Soldiers of Love
Liberty Mae Banks was her birth name, yet Zion called her Mrs. Forever . . .
It took years and fistfuls of tears for Liberty to convince herself that Zion Malik Mitchell had been a figment of her imagination. She’d suppressed every memory to lessen the burn—and because it’s the proper thing to do once you’ve become another man’s wife. Now the mother, wife, and #SoldiersofLove relationship columnist for Love & Lifestyle magazine finds herself in a heartfelt tug of war when her childhood sweetheart, Zion, resurfaces.
For Zion, Liberty had always been his peace and the one who got away. He needed her more than he was ever willing to admit, and while it’s often said that time heals all wounds, all time had done for Zion was rob him of a future with the love of his life. When tragedy strikes, Zion’s freedom is left hanging in the balance as he awaits sentencing. Plagued with guilt and fear, there’s only one person he trusts to help him through his most arduous battle ever—Liberty.
Will Liberty sacrifice her picture-perfect life and rush to Zion’s side in hopes of healing and setting them both free, or will resurrecting their war-torn past open a Pandora’s box neither will be able to close?
Twisted Seduction
Twisted, book 1
An erotic, drama-laced journey into the lives of two best friends who will stop at nothing to have the man of their dreams—even when the cost of betrayal has a price tag neither of them are quite ready to pay.
Thirty-two-year-old Denise Jackson has everything a woman could ask for: a lovely home in the posh Dallas suburbs, a fancy car, a loving husband, and a beautiful nine-year-old daughter, Deandra. While seemingly having it all, Denise still feels incomplete. Her nine years of marriage to Jeff have been nothing more for her than a marriage of convenience to raise Deandra in a stable twoparent home. She pretends to be happily married, but allows her husband and best friend to carry on an affair, giving Denise time to get better acquainted with her multimillionaire client, Greg Adams. But when Denise’s husband discovers he isn’t Deandra’s father after all, her carefully built lies come tumbling down. Twisted Seduction lures readers into an orchestrated web of raw emotion, deceit, infidelity, and sex that makes for an exhilarating read.
Twisted Vows of Seduction
"Some secrets aren't meant to be kept."
In this scandalously provocative soap-drama series, deceit, seduction, and a tempestuous affair intertwines the lives of lascivious lovers who will go above and beyond to keep their sexual trysts a secret, but the curse of temptation will lead to revelations that may result in their own demise.
Still mourning the death of his lover, Denise, Greg Adams conspires to leave his wife. He believes that Denise has come back to him in the form of a woman named Naomi Brooks, and he can't forget her. But there's one problem--his wife is going to honor every line in their wedding vows until death does them part.
Naomi Brooks, a recovering alcoholic, enters into an orchestrated affair to deceive Greg by creating the perfect illusion. Will the plan work or will she find herself a victim in a twisted game?
A long-term torrid affair with her best friend's husband, Jeff, has scarred Nadine Collins for life. Nadine decides she must take a vow of celibacy to cleanse her spirit. While her journey seems impossible, she can see a light at the end of the tunnel. There's only one problem--she's still not over Jeff, now a divorcé living life in the fast lane.
Ménage, an aspiring actress, has her sights set on Hollywood. She will do anything to ensure her rise to the top, including robbing Jeff of all the life insurance money he collected after his wife died. But a blast from the past slows her down. When Jeff comes running to her rescue, it proves to be the perfect setup.
The real twisted games are just beginning.
Twisted Entrapment
Twisted, book 3
Blazing with scandal, deception, temptation, and revenge, this third installment in the Twisted series blurs the lines of infidelity and tests the true meaning of love.
Sabrina and Luke’s marriage was shattered years ago after the devastating loss of their son. Now homeless and bankrupt, the couple develops a twisted obsession that will either repair their broken vows—or wreck their lives forever.
Juggling different women is no simple feat for a bachelor like Jeff Jackson. Yet there’s something extraordinary about Sabrina Montgomery that has him breaking his own cardinal rule. Is he truly over Nadine, or has he walked right into another carefully laid trap?
Nadine Collins finds herself torn between her child’s father and a new man in her life. After losing everything in an apartment fire, she moves in with Leonard Dupree, who unexpectedly proposes. It isn’t until their honeymoon night that Nadine and Leonard learn that not all secrets are meant to be kept…
Denise Adams, formerly known as Naomi Brooks, has a new lease on life. But before she can get too comfortable, she takes a trip back to Texas to see her terminally ill mother. The scandalous past she left behind greets her with open arms, and some unfinished business turns into an almost fatal reunion with her old flame, Greg Adams.
My Secrets, Your Lies
Given all that Sand and Rene have been through, the couple lands an opportunity to share their life story in the upcoming documentary, Beneath My Skin.The question is―are they truly ready to take that trip down memory lane?
As they subconsciously relive their past,Sand ventures to a dark place where agony and judgement has tormented her since the day her parents discovered her sexual orientation in a shoebox full of love letters. Their rejection left her homeless and dependent on the streets, but it was during those trying times that she learned how to not only walk in her truth, but how to survive.
Recycled through the foster system as early as four, Rene is one who has become accustomed to change. Sand introduces her to another side of love and gives her a reason to open her mind and heart to something new―that is, until Rene finds herself questioning not only their relationship, but her sexuality. A series of events leaves them entangled in a web of deceit, wicked passion, and murder. As their love story unfolds, they'll find out soon enough if they are truly each other's ride or die!
Stud Princess
Chyna is on a murder-mission hunt for the crooked lawyer who double-crossed her uncle, and the latest addition to the family brings her one step closer to that sweet revenge. This ruthless queen-pin owns the day and the night. Mother Nature herself can't interrupt her cash flow. But when bad calls are made and her chief female "escort" goes missing, it's time to set things off.
Sand and Rene can admit that they haven't always been honest with one another, but are they ready to forgive and forget, or are the wounds too fresh? When each one finds herself being blackmailed into working for Chyna, it's no coincidence. They go against the grain to prove their love for one another, bearing in mind whose turf they're treading on. An unrelenting thirst for notorious revenge has Chyna, Sand, and Rene riding out, hanging low, and staking out their highest claims yet.
More to come.
DV Berkom
Featured Books
Kate Jones, book #1
This exciting collection contains the first four novellas in the bestselling Kate Jones Thriller Series:
BAD SPIRITS: Kate Jones is on the run with a backpack full of money, intent on finding her way back to the United States from Mexico. Unfortunately, a ruthless drug lord named Salazar is just as intent on finding her, retrieving his stolen money, and making her pay for ever having left him. Is there anyone she can trust?
DEAD OF WINTER: Kate is hiding out in small town Alaska when she witnesses an execution-style murder. Convinced the killers are Salazar's men and desperate to stop them from finding her, she reports the crime to local law enforcement, hoping to put them off her trail so she can escape. What she gets is Sam, an enigmatic cop with a mysterious past who's been assigned to watch over her as the hunt for the killers deepens. Sam and Kate's obvious attraction to each other becomes a dangerous complication as Kate realizes the only way she can stay alive is to keep one step ahead of Salazar.
DEATH RITES: When Kate has to leave Alaska (and Sam) behind, she runs to the last place she remembers feeling safe: the North Shore of Oahu. Against her better judgment, she re-establishes old connections and soon faces a new problem in Alek, a gifted carver and avid surfer. When a brutal murder and theft of a priceless artifact from a museum is discovered, Kate's thrown into the middle of what appears to be a violent ancient sect come to life. Her only chance of survival is to rely on her wits... ...and the ancient gods of Hawaii.
TOURING FOR DEATH: Hiding out from her shady past driving jeep tours through the rugged high desert of northern Arizona, Kate Jones is determined to stop looking over her shoulder and find peace from her mistake of a gun-toting, former life. Testifying against a Mexican drug lord and a dirty DEA agent didn't turn out to be a life enhancing choice and she's been on the move ever since. Now, five years have passed with no sign of trouble and Kate's finally starting to believe she's safe. Her current goal is to make enough money so she can get lost in the tropics when the tourist trade dies off. Unfortunately, it's the tourists that are dying off and she may be next.
Cruising for Death: Kate Jones Thriller #2
A mysterious artifact. A ruthless enemy. Paradise lost...
Kate Jones is on a luxury cruise in the Caribbean when a passenger dies of an apparent heart attack and the ship is boarded by modern-day pirates. Along with two other passengers, Kate is kidnapped by a long-lost enemy who wants to settle an old score.
Kate's vacation turns into non-stop action when she finds herself on a jet ski surrounded by sharks, staked down over patch of fast growing bamboo, and drugged in a Voodoo ceremony, all because of a mysterious artifact only she can recover. Add a 16th century Spanish shipwreck, hidden treasure, and an Obeah priestess and you've got trouble in paradise.
Can Kate recover the mysterious artifact in time, or will she face certain death?
Yucatán Dead: Kate Jones Thriller #3
Retribution. Revenge. Murder. If your deadliest enemy was at your door, would you cut and run, or stand and fight?
For Kate Jones, being on the run was never going to be easy. But with a new identity and a new life, she was beginning to believe she'd made it through the worst.
Then, in an act of twisted revenge, Kate's kidnapped and imprisoned deep in the Yucatán by her deadly enemy, his intention to make her pay for her sins before her excruciating death. Fate intervenes and she's given a second chance by a group of off-the-grid commandos waging war against a vicious drug cartel. In return, she'll have to fight for her life--and theirs.
From peaceful northern Arizona to the steamy jungles of Mexico, Kate Jones must decide for herself if she'll cut and run...
...or turn and fight the evil that pursues her.
A One Way Ticket to Dead: Kate Jones Thriller #4
A powerful enemy. A fight for survival. A shocking betrayal.
Digging up the past can be deadly…
After years of running from her ex, Kate Jones is ready to bury the past and try to piece together a new normal. But first there’s a loose end to tie and it involves digging up old ghosts that are best left alone.
Unaware her actions have attracted the notice of a powerful enemy Kate is plunged into a deadly fight for survival, as both her life and the lives of those she loves hang in the balance. And, with the possibility of an informant inside the DEA, she doesn’t know who she can trust.
From the emerald green shores of Seattle to the lush Yucatán jungle and unforgiving Sonoran desert, Kate Jones must once again face her past...and hope she survives.
A Killing Truth: A Leine Basso Thriller #1
Creating a Strong Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Shop - Crafting the Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Serial Date: A Leine Basso Thriller, #2
A former assassin is drawn into the twisted game of a serial killer who may be a grisly remnant from her past.
What happens when a reality show turns deadly?
Determined to leave her old life behind, retired assassin Leine Basso accepts a job working security at one of television's most popular reality shows, Serial Date. When a contestant is found dead in the prop closet, it appears the killer is one of the 'bachelors' on the show- an ex-con billed as a serial killer- but the detective in charge of the case isn't so sure.
When Leine's estranged daughter is abducted by a man claiming to be the real killer, she's forced to rely on old skills to find her. She soon realizes the murderer may be a grisly remnant from her past and she'll need to use all of her cunning to stop him... ...and rescue her daughter.
Bad Traffick: A Leine Basso Thriller #3
Dangerous obsessions take center stage when a former assassin and a homicide detective race against the clock to find a missing girl before she's sold to the highest bidder.
Identified as a person of interest in three cold case murders she didn't commit, retired assassin Leine Basso accepts a temporary position as a security specialist for A-list actor Miles Fournier. Soon, a woman contacts Miles, claiming to be his long-lost sister. Her twelve-year-old daughter, Mara, has been abducted and she's desperate to get her back.
Leine learns from a contact that Mara escaped, but the traffickers are determined to track her down and deliver her to their powerful client. Running out of time, Leine must find Mara before they do, or she will be lost forever.
The Body Market: A Leine Basso Thriller #4
A retired assassin is called in when a celebration south of the border turns into a nightmare.
Everything's for sale...
Former assassin Leine Basso is hired by a wealthy Beverly Hills power couple to find their missing daughter, Elise, last seen partying with her boyfriend at a club in Tijuana. At first, police believe the two teenagers are the victims of a carjacking. But when Leine finds their missing vehicle with a mutilated body inside, and the local cartel warns her away, she knows if Elise isn’t already dead, she will be soon, or worse.
As Leine races to uncover the reason behind Elise Bennett’s disappearance, she must also battle the powerful interests fighting to keep her from the truth.
Cargo: A Leine Basso Thriller #5
An adventurous young backpacker, captured and sold. A black market merchant who will stop at nothing to amass the power he craves. The one woman who can stop him before he destroys everything…
Haunted by memories of an op gone bad, former assassin Leine Basso travels to Bangkok in search of a missing backpacker. With help from an old contact, she discovers the man responsible for the girl’s disappearance is connected to a violent Hong Kong triad and is the linchpin of an extensive trafficking network—both animal and human.
Making enemies isn’t new for Leine, but making one in the triad is—she soon finds herself a prisoner on board a cargo ship headed for sub-Saharan Africa. To ensure her survival and to continue her hunt for the missing girl, she must join forces with Derek, an ivory poacher who promises to help her.
For a price.
The Last Deception: A Leine Basso Thriller #6
Espionage. Deception. A nation on the brink of war…
Just when former assassin Leine Basso thinks she’s free from the business of murder and deception, a desperate call from a friend drags her back into the dark world of espionage and arms dealers.
Leine uncovers evidence of a horrendous deception that affects national security and could have global repercussions. Can she stop it in time before The Last Deception?
Dark Return: A Leine Basso Thriller #7
A former assassin, battling her demons. A sinister enemy, determined to destroy her. A wily street kid caught in the middle.
Former assassin Leine Basso is fresh off an assignment rescuing an American teenager from a terrorist group in Libya when she thwarts the murder of a street kid in Tripoli. Leine agrees to help the girl, but must first visit a refugee camp to uncover the reason behind a rash of mysterious abductions. Leaving the camp, Leine comes under a surprise attack--but only a handful of people knew her true mission.
The more she discovers about the abductions, the more of a target she becomes, forcing her to revisit a dark and violent past she thought she'd left behind. But it's easy--too easy to fall back into her old ways. And that could get her killed.
Will Leine be able to survive a dark return?
Absolution: A Leine Basso Thriller #8
There’s only one sure way to stop a terrorist…
Former assassin Leine Basso has severed ties with everyone she loves to keep them safe while she hunts for the ruthless terrorist, Salome. There are rumblings that the French-born assassin is planning another attack and Leine’s determined to stop her before it’s too late.
Can Leine thwart her plans, or will Salome’s own twisted vengeance mean the end for Leine and everyone she loves?
From London to Edinburgh to the City of Angels, Salome’s making a comeback—and that comeback includes killing Leine.
Dakota Burn: A Leine Basso Thriller #9
A kidnapped girl. A ruthless criminal who preys on the innocent.
Leine Basso will stop at nothing to bring him down.
Former assassin Leine Basso was supposed to be in sunny LA, watching the first class of operatives graduate from the new anti-trafficking academy. Instead, she’s in North Dakota in the middle of a brutal winter, helping ex-poacher Derek van der Haar track down and eliminate a deadly group of criminals hell-bent on providing young girls to the highest bidder.
The closer Leine and Derek get to the organization, the more dangerous the mission becomes. Soon, it’s evident that the traffickers are playing for keeps—and don’t care who they kill.
In a story ripped from the headlines, Dakota Burn reveals the dark underbelly of the Bakken oil fields, where human life is a commodity and outlaws still rule.
Shadow of the Jaguar: A Leine Basso Thriller #10
Leine Basso is back in Shadow of the Jaguar, an edge-of-your-seat, page-turning action-adventure thriller!
A lost civilization. A woman's abduction. The promise of unimaginable treasure.
Deep in the heart of the Amazon, an expedition finds evidence of a fabled lost city of gold. It isn't long before a ruthless drug trafficker learns of the possible find and kidnaps an expedition member, threatening to kill her and the rest of the expedition unless he's given the coordinates to the city.
Former assassin Leine Basso and her daughter are called in to rescue the kidnapped woman, who also happens to be a good friend’s niece. But in the jungle, danger lurks at every turn, and nothing is as it seems... playing for keeps—and don’t care who they kill.
A Plague of Traitors: A Leine Basso Thriller #11
A former assassin leads a heroic band of foreign fighters to thwart an enemy like no other.
Leine Basso races to prevent Syrian intelligence from obtaining a lethal bioweapon—a savage combination of toxins never before seen in nature.
Leine’s called back to war-torn Tripoli, enlisted by her former employer to train a heroic group of Isis-fighting snipers to crush the horrific threat. But there’s a leak, and the Libyan operation goes terribly wrong—the bioweapon ends up in the hands of a brutal terrorist who will stop at nothing to force the West to its knees.
Are there spies in their midst? Can Leine and her warriors prevent a ruthless enemy from releasing the deadly toxin before it's too late? Or will humanity be destroyed in a cataclysmic finale orchestrated by A Plague of Traitors?
Fatal Objective: A Leine Basso Thriller #12
BASSO'S BACK. Read book #12 in the heart-stopping, page-turning, stay-up-all-night Leine Basso thriller series now.
A missing assassin. An unlikely betrayal. A secret cabal, sowing chaos.
Leine Basso's missing.
She's not answering her calls. Or texts. Lou and Santa fear she's been compromised. According to her contact on the op she's fine, just busy.
When she finally responds it doesn’t sound like her.
The two men who know her best aren’t buying it. Something isn't right.
Leine Basso's missing.
And Lou and Santa are going to find out why.
Terminal Threat: A Leine Basso Thriller #13
A former assassin makes a new start in a small town on the coast of Italy, but puts herself squarely in the sights of an old enemy when she helps the townspeople fight back against the local crime boss.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Leine Basso is settling into her new life in a quiet village in Italy when a small-time crook threatens the town. Leine steps in to help, drawing the attention of an old adversary who she thought was long gone.
When her enemy learns that Leine is still alive, he orders her assassination. But Leine is not an easy target, and she eliminates the hired guns sent to kill her. Frustrated by his failed attempts, her adversary vows to take vengeance and kill her himself.
As tension builds and the threat escalates, Leine's past collides with her present, blurring the line between friend and foe. In a breathtaking showdown, Leine unleashes her deadly skills to protect not only herself but the tight-knit community she has grown to love. Will she succeed--or will her enemy destroy everything she holds dear?
we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
The entire set of 13 Leine Basso Thrillers
Creating a Strong Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Shop - Crafting the Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
J. Tullos Hennig
Featured Books
Greenwode book #1,
Daring the old gods. Defying the new.
The making of a legend—and a truly innovative re-imagining of Robin Hood.
---
Rob of Loxley and his older sister Marion have been groomed from birth to take their parents’ places within the Old Religion. Despite this, when Rob finds an injured nobleman’s son in the forest, neither he nor Marion understand what befriending young Gamelyn could mean for the future of their beliefs. Already the ancient spirits are fading beneath the iron of nobleman’s politics and the stones of Church subjugation. More, the druid elders warn that Rob and Gamelyn are cast as sworn adversaries, locked in timeless and symbolic struggle for the greenwood’s Maiden.
Instead, in a theological twist only a stroppy dissident could envision, Rob swears he’ll defend the sacred woodland of the Horned God and Lady Huntress to his last breath—if his god will let him be lover, not rival, to the one fated as his enemy.
But in the eyes of Gamelyn’s Church, sodomy is unthinkable... and the old pagan magics are an evil that must be vanquished. Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. important to triumph.
Shirewode, book #2
Legends chronicle Robin Hood and Guy de Gisbourne as the deadliest of enemies.
The reality is… complicated.
Home razed by Church edict, loved ones struck down by treachery, Rob is left for dead. Taken by the old druid master into the deeps, he emerges with a new name and purpose: leader of a band of tight-knit outcasts, claiming the ancient forest and wielding the Horned God’s vengeance with silent, deadly arrows. Also escaping the aftermath of Loxley’s destruction, Gamelyn has returned from Crusade with his own new identity and purpose--but no absolution.
When the two boyhood lovers next cross paths, a brutal, blindfolded game of foxes and hounds ensues, pitting Templar assassin against Heathen outlaw. And as Robyn discovers his sister Marion is still alive, the game turns.
Thwarted kings of a breaking realm, Robyn Hode and Guy de Gisbourne must restore the Maiden to her rightful place-- and manage to not destroy each other in the process.
we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Winterwode, book #3
Beneath winter’s chill lies the deepest of magics—and the struggle for a crown.
Marion is instrumental in rescuing England's Queen Mother, but she must take up her own crown within the Shire Wode and prove her rights: not only to Robin Hood's outlaws, but herself.
Robyn Hood seeks to raise the Ceugant—the magical trine of the Old Religion—against the tyranny of Church and Crown. Yet their forest kingdom roils with conflict. Most of the outlaws hold an uneasy truce with Gamelyn, recently known as Guy of Gisbourne, defrocked Templar and Robyn’s fiercest enemy. And while Marion’s welcome is unquestioned, old shackles and new fears hamper her true promise.
When a lone traveller is waylaid on the road, a common occurrence quickly proves uncommon. Knight and Maiden, Archer and Men, all are conscripted to aid a Queen’s—and ultimately a King’s—ransom. England lies divided… and there are those who would seek the power of Robyn Hode and his Shire Wode for their own ends.
Summerwode, #4
It is 1194, and the devil is indeed loose—
in Sherwood Forest.
Ransomed from captivity, a Christian king rides through royal forest, intent upon reclaiming his realm. Yet the Shire Wode already has a king—the Pagan outlaw known as Robyn Hood.
The Old Religion is regaining its strength through the emergence of the Ceugant—the mystical trine of Winterking, Summerlord, and Maiden. But amongst those who think to win the Maiden’s notice, there will be treachery of both heart and hand.
A Queen once gave a promise: that the honour of Tickhill should be restored to its lord, and the outlaws all given pardon. Yet the price of such grace might well be more than any can afford.
The Templars have sent one of their own into the Shire Wode, to untangle the enigma that bides in the ancient forest ways. Yet that emissary is one with the enigma, in ways they—and he—cannot begin to fathom.
And still, it is the deepest and darkest of magics that could well rive apart the Ceugant...
Forever.
Wyldingwode, #5
The Green Man is lost to Sherwood Forest...
Yet the Horned Lord roams there still, and the legend grows.
Robin Hood has vanished, and the mystic trine of the Old Religion—Archer, Maiden & Knight—has been broken. Or has it?
Rumours abound as to a hooded man wandering the Shire Wode. Marion holds both the Wode’s magical influence and the castle of Tickhill with shield, sword, and wit—not only for love of her covenant and her children, but as a weapon to bring her brother Robyn back. And Robyn’s lover, Gamelyn, plays a dangerous game with his Templar masters. They believe he has delivered the Wode’s Pagan rites to their use, all the while unaware that Gamelyn has sworn an even deeper oath: he will realise his own power and find Robyn, whatever the sacrifice.
Yet it is Robyn’s to wield the deepest magic of all—he is the Sacrifice, and Undying King of the Wylding Wode.
Kevin G. Chapman
J. Tullos Hennig
Featured Books
Righteous Assassin
A Mike Stoneman thriller
A MOB BOSS IS EATEN ALIVE BY TIGERS AT THE BRONX ZOO. . . .A sweatshop owner is mutilated and left to bleed out . . . .A pharmaceutical baron is tortured and frozen to death . . . .A fashion designer is poisoned in her Upper East Side apartment.
Four months, four unsolved murders – each on the last Saturday of the month. NYPD homicide detectives Mike Stoneman and Jason Dickson must stop the elusive killer before he completes his decathlon of death. Each month, a new murder adds a piece to the killer’s puzzle, but even unravelling the clues and finding the killer’s pattern may not be enough to catch him.
The task force includes an FBI profiler, and Mike gets an assist from Medical Examiner Michelle McNeill, who seems to be on his mind a lot lately. She’s an asset to the investigation, but is this any time to be starting a romance?
Each month is a race against the calendar. Only one thing is certain – on the last Saturday of the month, there will be blood. important to triumph.
Deadly Enterprise
THE DEAD GIRL THEY FISHED OUT OF THE EAST RIVER WAS A DRUG ADDICTED HOOKER, SO NOBODY REALLY CARED. Except that Medical Examiner Michelle McNeill thinks it's a murder, and NYPD Homicide detective Mike Stoneman agrees.
Every death is a tragedy, and every murderer should be exposed, even when nobody wants to hear about it. When Mike and his partner, Jason Dickson, start to dig into the case, they find that there may be other cops protecting the criminals - or maybe they are the criminals. And one of them might be Mike's former partner. In order to uncover the truth, Mike and Jason have to go outside the lines, and risk their own reputations, jobs - and lives. This case is one that Mike can't walk away from, no matter how much he wants to.
Lethal Voyage
A DEAD BODY can ruin a vacation. . . .It was a suicide, wasn’t it? . . .
Maybe the on-board production of Chicago isn’t the only place people are getting murdered!
NYPD homicide detective Mike Stoneman and medical examiner Michelle McNeill just want a relaxing cruise. But, Michelle is convinced that there is foul play at work in the death of a Broadway talent agent’s wife.
The ship’s head of security wants to keep it quiet. But, how many bodies can he cover up during one sailing? When it looks like Michelle might be the next victim, Mike needs to find the killer and keep Michelle alive for the end of this Lethal Voyage.
we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Fatal Infraction
He took a knee for social justice. Now he's dead.
Controversial quarterback Jimmy Rydell's body was found naked - on the Central Park carousel. Who killed him? How did he get there two days after he disappeared? . . . And why was the body frozen?
Jimmy's team just wants to move on, after collecting on the $20 million insurance policy. Jimmy's teammate - the one who threatened to kill him - swears he wasn't there. Jimmy's bodyguard had the night off. Somebody is going down for this if NYPD homicide detectives Mike Stoneman and Jason Dickson can find a theory that explains all the bizarre facts. They just hope the case doesn't tear the team, and the City, apart first.
A fully stand-alone story and part of the Mike Stoneman Thriller Series.
Perilous Gambit
A murder can sure put a damper on a Vegas wedding party.
An unexpectedly hurried marriage in Las Vegas was not what Jason and Rachel planned, but circumstances made it their best option. At least Rachel would have her brother, Jackie, there for the happy occasion. Jason had to find out eventually that Jackie is a drag performer. That surprise turns out to be the least of Rachel's worries.
When the star of the drag show is murdered and Jackie is accused of the crime, Jason and his partner, Mike Stoneman, find themselves out of their jurisdiction and all-in on a complex case that stretches from Nevada to New York to South Dakota and back again. When somebody tries to kill Jackie, being arrested and having to miss the show take a backseat to staying alive.
All this excitement could scuttle the wedding - and could get them all killed - unless Mike and Jason figure a way to take the heat off of Jackie and convince the killers they've made a terrible mistake. But they are not taking no for an answer, and Mike has to risk everything on a gamble that could save the day - or end in tragedy.
A Legacy of One
From the Kindle Book Award-winning author, a story of politics, self-determination, identity, and the consequences of our choices.
Senator Jonathan Prescott III is on track to make a run for President. He has the pedigree, the credentials, and the smile. But, at his twenty-fifth college class reunion, Jonathan meets up with two old friends who remind him of the brief period in his life when he thought about charting his own course. Now, the keeper of his biggest secret threatens to reveal it, along with another bombshell that will put Jonathan’s political life on the line. Jonathan must decide whether his true legacy is the one his father has planned for him since birth -- or one of his own making. His entire future hangs in the balance.
The Other Murder
Sometimes, the most dangerous thing . . . is the truth.
For disgraced cable news producer Hannah Hawthorne, covering the shooting of a pretty NYU sophomore is a chance for redemption. When the story snowballs into a media circus, Hannah’s reporting fans the sensationalistic flames and earns her acclaim. The tragic murder, seemingly the result of random urban gun violence, prompts protests and vigils that further magnify the story.
Meanwhile, Paulo, a reporter for a small online neighborhood newspaper, is following the other murder in Washington Square Park that same night – a Hispanic teen. He discovers an unexpected connection that is political dynamite. When Hannah and Paulo team up, they uncover disturbing facts, leading them to question everything they thought they knew. Their reporting also leads them to the man who might be the killer.
When the story is ready to explode, the truth may be hotter than anyone can handle. Breaking the next scoop could ruin Paulo’s paper and wreck Hannah’s career – and it could get them both killed.
Identity Crisis
A young woman (Cindi Phillips) wins a trip to Bermuda on a game show, but doesn't return home. Her uncle, Rick LaBlonde, a PrivateInvestigator starts to investigate. Rick traces Cindi's movements from her flighthome from Bermuda to New York, but instead of continuing on to her hometown, she purchased a ticket for Miami. In Miami, the trail goes stone cold. Meanwhile, Rick is contacted by Cindi's college roommate (Tina Forsyth), who happens to bump into Cindi in Bermuda. When told of Cindi's disappearance, Tina is worried and, since her family is filthy rich, she hires Rick and volunteers to finance the investigation. Tina ends up coming to New York to "assist" Rick, which complicates both the investigation and Rick's love life, since his girlfriend is not thrilled about Rick spending so much time with the young and curvaceous Tina. From Bermuda to Miami to Dallas to Las Vegas, Rick traces the trail of not only Cindi, but several other young women who seem similarly to have disappeared. Are these girls really even missing? And if so, who is behind it -and why? As the mystery grows more complex, it also gets more dangerous for Rick, who seems to have stumbled onto something far bigger than a simple missing person. Even if Cindi is still alive, can Rick stay alive long enough to find her?
Talulah L. Sullivan
Blood Indigo
A centuries-long stalemate endures over possession of a sentient world.In one corner, a dwindling cabal of shamans holds onto a desperate defense; in the other, a colony of aliens try to control a bio-engineering experiment run amok. In the middle stands a youth who has been genetically altered to 'Shape' the elemental powers.Yet if Tokela claims his power, it will make of him an outcast, a catalyst-and a weapon.The stalemate is about to break...
More to Come
Creating a Strong Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Shop - Crafting the Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
More to Come
Creating a Strong Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Shop - Crafting the Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
More to Come
Creating a Strong Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Shop - Crafting the Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Tony J. Selimi
A Pathway to Wisdom
If you are searching for that one book that will help you lead a more fulfilling life then this is the book for you. Packed with insights and tools from Tony's own personal and professional experience, this book will help you map out your own route for living the life that you were always meant to live!
-- Viv Grant, former Head Teacher and Director, Integrity Coaching Ltd.
The Unfakeable code
"A life manual that gives you valuable insights into the science of changing your mindset that will transform your existence." Marie Diamond, a star from The Secret
The Unfakeable Code is much more than a simple self-help guide that eloquently explains how perception is merely the tip of the iceberg in how we experience life and its nature. He guides readers through a five-step method to dissolve the detrimental beliefs, energies, skewed perceptions, and habits gathered through our transient persona's experiences and gained passive knowledge while simultaneously bestowing the wisdom of life's true secrets and how they operate within us and our environment - a life process that regularly occurs, but mostly goes unseen due to the distraction, obstructions, and noise in our lives.
Step forward a fresh new way to:
Handle judgments and rejections easily.
Manage your negative self-talk.
Stop being a people pleaser.
Use your emotions intelligently.
Infuse your life with freedom.
This must-read book makes a compelling and scientific case for being more authentic at home, socially, and at work. It assists in harmonizing body-mind-heart intelligence to deal with any form of anxiety, conflict, stress and willfully create an inspired destiny. This must-read book makes a compelling and scientific case for being more authentic at home, socially, and at work. It assists in harmonizing body-mind-heart intelligence to deal with any form of anxiety, conflict, stress and willfully create an inspired destiny.
Are you tired of settling for mediocrity? Do you want to become the high-achieving person you know you can be? Are you ready to let go of your limiting beliefs and step into the prosperous, successful, and fulfilled life you know you are meant to have?
If so, A Path to Excellence™ is for you.
Thoroughly researched with authentic advice and ground breaking strategies, this illuminating blueprint for self-mastery invites you on a journey to realize your full potential, clarify your vision, and dare to achieve your dreams.
Inside, you’ll join #1 bestselling, award-winning author, Tony Jeton Selimi as he reveals a proven path to achieving the highest levels of personal and professional excellence. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Tony went from living homeless and penniless as a victim of civil war, to becoming a self-made millionaire and internationally recognised authority on emotional intelligence and maximising human potential.
Built on his critically acclaimed The Octagon of Excellence Method, this book breaks down Tony’s 30 years of experience into an easy-to-digest blueprint, challenging you to step beyond your limits and become the master of your destiny.
Inside, you’ll discover:
• The Eight Essential Components of Human Excellence
• How to Go Beyond Your Perceived Limits To Face Your Doubts, Excuses and Fears Head On
• A Step-By-Step Path To Address Challenges Mindfully, Overcome Distractions and Sharpen Your Focus
• The Exact Actions to Take to Break Free From the Internal Barriers That Are Preventing You From Achieving Your Full Potential
A must-read for anyone who dreams of creating a rewarding and meaningful personal, professional, and business life, A Path to Excellence™ will quickly become the key you need to realize your true vision of excellence.
# Loneliness
So connected, yet desperately alone.
We have become accustomed to a new way of being alone together in a technological cocoon that covers up our real pain. Our true essence is hidden behind facades that we show to the world from the fear of being judged, criticized, and rejected. This is what brings us out of a natural state of healthy balance, is the root cause of disease, and what creates the segregation experienced worldwide.
#Loneliness is a global call for people to redefine themselves in the face of lifes greatest challenges. Comforting, moving, and spiritually practical, this book is a guide to help people break through their apparent loneliness, and shift them toward crowd-nurtured world peace and the next stage in our evolution.
Rebecca Olmstead
Dreams and Illusions: A Gabrielle Dorian Mystery #1
Suffering a crisis of faith, will one woman’s cryptic visions lead to the path of healing and save her sister from death row?
Gabrielle Dorian believes God has turned against her. Despite prophetic dreams, the grieving boutique owner resents that her alleged gift didn’t prevent her parents’ accidental deaths or protect her husband from a fatal worksite accident. So after receiving a panicked call from the last of her family, the distraught woman shelves her own sorrow and rushes to Seattle to rescue her estranged sister.
Discovering her sibling has been charged with murder, Gabrielle begins to fear the worst when her brother-in-law is missing and his best friend mysteriously comes up with bail money. Battling a hated former classmate in charge of the case, she fights through the murk of suspicious clues that all point to a guilty verdict.
With her last loved one’s life on the line, can she uncover the truth before it’s too late?
Dreams and Illusions, the riveting first book in the Gabrielle Dorian Mysteries Series. If you like headstrong heroines, fast-paced drama, and dark twists, you’ll love Rebecca Olmstead’s tale of doubt and redemption.
More to Come
Creating a Strong Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Shop - Crafting the Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
More to Come
Creating a Strong Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Shop - Crafting the Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Mark Berridge
A Fraction Stronger
"This is a truly moving and uplifting tale." ~ Jessica Barbosa, Readers' Favorite
In a split second, Mark Berridge's life came crashing down. His bicycle understeered through a corner, the impact wrenching him over the handlebars and catapulting him headfirst into a stormwater drain. A large piece of dislodged vertebrae compressed his spinal cord, causing devastating nerve damage. The accident fractured Mark's body and his identity. Fortunately, his helmet - though deeply crushed - protected his ability to think and retain valuable memories, allowing him to pursue every possible avenue in his physical recovery and beyond.
Mark spent more than six weeks in hospital and nine months in intensive rehabilitation. His sustained effort to regain mobility became an integral part of his new identity. A Fraction Stronger is Mark's story, focused on the insight and inspiration that will guide you through life's impossible moments. Mark shares how small actions, combined with determination to seek out possibility in the darkness, can light your way forwards.
More to Come
Creating a Strong Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Shop - Crafting the Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
More to Come
Creating a Strong Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Shop - Crafting the Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
A. C. Fuller
The Anonymous Source
Find the Source. Break the Story. Stay Alive.
One year after the 9/11 attacks, Alex Vane--a brilliant, fitness-obsessed reporter for The New York Standard--wants nothing more than to break into the flashy world of TV news. But when he uncovers the scoop of a lifetime, his tightly controlled world is rocked: his editor buries his story, a source turns up dead, and Alex finds himself at the center of a violent media conspiracy.
As he receives tips from a mysterious source, Alex enlists the help of a captivating professor, Camila Gray. Aided by an Internet genius, a billionaire's sexy widow, and a washed-up sports reporter, Alex and Camila discover a $500-million secret that could derail the largest media merger in history.
It's a secret that unearths dark memories from Alex's past. It's a secret that leads back to the morning of 9/11. And it's a secret that could get them both killed. Integrity Coaching Ltd.
The Inverted Pyramid
Journalist Alex Vane is always hunting for the truth. But now the truth may cost him his life...
After exposing a low-level congressman for accepting bribes, Alex attends a conference and runs into an old friend--and flame--Media Studies Professor Camila Gray. But just as they begin to reconnect, Alex's business partner disappears, leaving Alex only one clue: the name of a hacker who was recently murdered. A source hints at a vaster conspiracy, one that may reach all the way up to the fast-approaching presidential election.
Alex and Camila travel to Alex's hometown to find answers, where they race to untangle the connections between the dead hacker and the disappearance of Alex's partner. But all the while, a mysterious source is pulling the strings of their investigation, of the election, and possibly of their lives.
Five people are dead at a small Las Vegas newspaper...
The police and the media are running with the "official story"...
But Alex Vane is after the truth.
Alex Vane was once a top investigative journalist. Now he peddles celebrity gossip and clickbait listicles, watching from a distance as his wife moves on with her life - without him. But Alex's past catches up to him when he learns that an old source, James Stacy, has been killed in a random mass shooting.
James left Alex one last scoop: a 50-year-old hard drive that may contain a secret worth killing for...and the name of the one person who can help him access the data. That person is Quinn Rivers, a paranoid and reclusive computer expert who believes the CIA is tracking her every move. And she may be right.
When Alex shows up at her door with the hard drive, armed operatives are right behind him. Now Alex and Quinn are on the run. There is no one to trust, nowhere to hide, and nothing but the hard drive to prove that James Stacy's death wasn't random at all.
The Shadow File
America's intelligence security is in the hands of a million private contractors. Now one hacker may bring down their entire system.
Four months ago, Alex Vane's friend James Stacy was murdered by private security contractors working for the intelligence-industrial complex. Alex exposed the killers, but most of the system survived, including the amoral torturer known only as Amand.
From within Cuba's internet desert, James's widow Innerva Shah seeks her own kind of revenge. After quietly penetrating the system of contractors that run America's security, she's launching the largest ransomware attack in history, with the aim of burning that system to the ground.
But when Alex learns that Amand and his forces may be closing in on Innerva, he must make a desperate attempt to save her. With Innerva's surrender-or-die deadline only hours away, Alex finds himself in Cuba, threatened from every direction, and the only person he can count on is the wife he almost lost.
The Last Journalist
On a cold, rainy night in Seattle, a legendary journalist is found face down in the street below a posh high-rise. Local police are calling it a suicide, but Alex Vane sees signs of murder.
With help from a brash young journalist, Alex pieces together clues from the dead man's extraordinary career. But an unexpected discovery leads him to believe that all those legendary scoops may have been built on a lie so great it led to his murder. If what he's discovered is true, it's proof of a conspiracy that could upend everything Alex believes in and rewrite American history. Just when he thinks he's cracked the case, another prominent investigative journalist turns up dead.
Is someone systematically killing reporters?
D. D. Black
The Bones at Point No Point
How do you catch a killer who's already behind bars?
Thomas Austin was once a star NYPD detective, known for locking up a psychopathic serial killer: The Holiday Baby Butcher. Now retired in a small beach town, Austin runs a little café, trying to overcome the loss of his wife, a district attorney who was gunned down only one year ago.
But when a mysterious bag of bones appears on a nearby beach, Austin is dragged back into law enforcement for one last job. The Holiday Baby Butcher is behind bars, so it has to be a copycat. But with each new clue, the killer seems closer and closer to the real thing.
Now Austin must overcome the darkness of his past to chase a killer as twisted as any America has ever seen. And when Austin finally learns the truth, it's a twist so shocking it shakes him to his core, and threatens his life.
The Bones at Point No Point
Sometimes the past is better left buried.
When the matriarch of a rich Seattle family dies under suspicious circumstances, private investigator Thomas Austin is on the case. This time, the suspect list is easy.
Seven people were in the lakefront mansion with the millionaire when she died: a spoiled son, a jealous brother-in-law, a beloved chef, a rebellious grandson, an arrogant memoirist, and a pair of successful daughters. All had motive. All had opportunity. But which one is the killer?
To solve the case, Austin must look into the past of one of Seattle's most powerful families. With the help of a fiery reporter and a long-lost diary, he uncovers a series of dark secrets that betray the criminal underbelly of old-money Seattle.
But the closer Austin gets to the truth, the more dangerous the investigation becomes. Sometimes, when you dig into a secret past, the past comes out to bury you.
If the marshlands could speak, whose name would they whisper?
On Memorial Day,1992, three decorated Navy officers disappeared in the sleepy beach town of Hansville, Washington. Thirty years later, their medals were found in the marshlands of Foulweather Bluff. So were their bones.
For private investigator Thomas Austin, this case hits close to home. The son of a JAG lawyer, Austin grew up around the Navy. To solve the case, he must piece together clues buried in the marshlands, and dark secrets hidden in Navy history.
But when another investigator disappears, Austin realizes that the threat may not be in the past after all. In his most shocking, personal case yet, the darkness comes for Austin in a way it never has before. And the gut-wrenching final revelation leaves him questioning everything he’s ever known, even his own past.
The Horror at Murden Cove
A triple homicide. A blind witness. What is the sound of evil?
Late one night, two young couples walked to a park in an affluent Bainbridge Island neighborhood to celebrate the sale of their tech startup. The next morning, three mutilated bodies were found.
One witness was left alive. Blind from birth, she didn't see anything. But she heard everything. The killer took his time, butchering her friends as she listened to every sadistic moment. What she heard left her broken, traumatized, and barely able to speak.
Private investigator Thomas Austin is the only person who can get her to open up. And when she does, the suspect list is shocking: the murders were committed by one of five people, all of whom the witness was dating.
Stranded on the island after a rare summer storm closes the bridges and ferries, Austin must crack the case before the storm ends and the killer escapes forever. But when another massacre occurs—this one more gruesome than the first—he realizes the killer's motive is not what he imagined.
This killer is more depraved than any he's ever seen.
This is the stuff of nightmares.
The Terror in the Emerald City
An elusive terrorist. A city on razor's edge. Twenty-four hours to stop a massacre.
Former NYPD detective Thomas Austin is enjoying a rare date at a Monday Night Football game in Seattle when the evening takes a horrifying turn.
A team of merciless terrorists has taken over the stadium by force, blocking cellphone signals and sealing the exits.
The terrorists have a single demand: release a high-ranking Al Qaeda operative from a U.S. supermax prison. And they have a simple threat: do so in the next twenty-four hours or they will blow up the stadium, killing themselves along with tens of thousands of innocent victims.
With 60,000 fans in the crosshairs, and the world watching live on TV, Austin must work with security inside the stadium to find a weak point in the terrorists' plans before the countdown ends. But the closer he gets to the attackers, the more he believes their true plan is even more sinister than anyone would believe.
In the ultimate race against time, Thomas Austin will be tested in ways he never has before, and forced to answer the question: would you sacrifice someone you love to save a thousand strangers?
The Drowning at Dyes Inlet
Sometimes murder comes in waves...
In 1979, a florist's lifeless body surfaced in the serene waters of Dyes Inlet, an enchanting estuary connected to the vast Puget Sound. Although the murder was never solved, a sinister heart carved into the victim's back made the case unforgettable.
Forty-four years later, history repeats itself as not one, but two more victims are discovered within 48 hours, each bearing the exact same chilling carving in their flesh. The county's darkest mystery is about to be ripped wide open.
Enter Thomas Austin, a private investigator with a haunted past he's finally ready to leave behind. Called in to untangle the threads of one of the most disturbing cold cases in the state's history, Austin realizes quickly that nothing is as it seems.
To unravel the mystery, he must delve into the past and confront a chilling question: How long can love endure, and to what unimaginable lengths will one person go to preserve it?
Gripping, visceral, and hauntingly evocative, The Drowning at Dyes Inlet is a pulse-pounding mystery that will leave you breathless and questioning everything you thought you knew about the depths of true love.
The Nightmare at Manhattan Beach
In the city where he lost everything, he'll stop at nothing to learn the truth.
Former NYPD detective Thomas Austin has spent three long years haunted by his wife Fiona's unsolved murder.
Three years searching for answers.
Three years finding little.
Until one lead changes everything.
Back in New York City, Austin picks up the scent of a far-reaching conspiracy involving rogue elements of the FBI, the NYPD, and ruthless Southeast Asian and Colombian drug cartels. Each new clue paints a more sinister picture, suggesting Fiona was caught in something bigger than Austin ever imagined. Something powerful enough to silence her forever.
To get justice, Austin must plunge deeper into the corrupt underworld where she spent her final days. A world where the truth comes at a deadly price.
A price Austin may not be willing to pay.
Can Austin overcome the nightmares haunting Brooklyn's Manhattan Beach? And if he finally learns the truth, will it bring him the peace he's been yearning for, or shatter everything he thought he knew about himself, his city, and the woman he still loves.
A thousand people watched. No one saw a thing.
Private investigator Thomas Austin is enjoying a relaxing holiday vacation in picturesque Port Townsend, Washington, accompanied by an intriguing new friend. But his tranquility is shattered when the nearby community of Mystery Bay is rocked by the death of a revered musician at an infamous counterculture festival: The Rabbit Hole.
The Rabbit Hole is an annual gathering of musicians, gamers, techies, and political radicals who revere music, art, technology, and—perhaps most highly—mind-altering substances. Bound by an unspoken code of silence, festival goers refuse to aid police in their investigation, raising tensions between law enforcement and dozens of tight-lipped witnesses.
Desperate, the local sheriff enlists Austin and the Kitsap Sheriff's Department to penetrate the stonewalling witnesses and unearth the truth. Navigating the unconventional beliefs and simmering conflicts permeating The Rabbit Hole, Austin nears a breakthrough. But as he does, the festival takes a deadly turn no one saw coming.
In this community bound by defiance and dark secrets, Austin faces his most challenging case yet. A case that will leave him questioning everything he's ever been sure of, even his own sanity.
The thrilling eighth installment in this acclaimed mystery series immerses you in a suspenseful journey into a quaint small town and a futuristic festival so strange—and so deadly—you'll have to read it to believe it.
The Darkness at Deception Pass
It's not the fall that kills you.
Three years ago, the body of an elderly woman was found in the cool waters beneath the Deception Pass Bridge near Whidbey Island, Washigton. Two years later, a deceased man of almost ninety floated onto the pebbly shore of Bremerton, just south of the Manette Bridge. Each case left the authorities puzzled. Were these the final acts of individuals lost to despair, or were they meticulously staged murders?
Two inexplicable deaths, two years apart, the cases colder than the waters where the bodies were found.
Until now.
When a third body turns up in the chilling waters of Deception Pass, Thomas Austin and the Kitsap Sheriff's Department are on the case. Together, they embark on a quest to connect the dots between past mysteries and the present horror, unraveling a thread that leads to an unthinkable crime.
In Book 9 of the Thomas Austin Crime Thriller series, Austin is confronted with his first case as a detective for the Kitsap Sheriff's department. But as he gets closer to the deadly truth and the twisted individuals behind it, it may just be his last.
The Things She Stole
Twenty years ago Brandon Penny was a criminal prodigy. Today, he’s a broken-hearted movie buff working a dead-end job. But everything is about to change.
As a child, Brandon carefully studied his mother and her crew of thieves. Gifted from the start, Brandon was pulling short cons by age six, stealing jewelry by age eight, and orchestrating heists by age eleven. But one night a job went bad, a gun went off, and Brandon’s mother disappeared.
Shuffled in and out foster homes, Brandon burned with anger. What happened that night? Why did his mom leave him behind? And why didn't she ever come back?
When his mother returns to Portland for a major heist, the police ask Brandon to help track her down. He doesn't trust the cops, can't trust his mother, and is too afraid to trust the ex-girlfriend he still loves. The only one he can count on is that twelve-year-old criminal genius inside him.
One way or another, he’ll get his answers, but he’ll have to tear down the life he’s built to do it.
The Fifth Victim
Across the Pacific Northwest, a twisted killer stalks victims representing ancient archetypes: The Ruler. The Warrior. The Scholar. The Priest. Four are dead, leaving FBI investigators puzzled by the macabre, color-coded shrines the killer left behind.
And clues now point to a fifth victim.
With only two weeks until retirement, seasoned FBI Agent Claire Anderson is desperately trying to balance her work and complex home life when she's called in for one last job: lead a special task force to hunt down the enigmatic "Color Killer."
That task force is the FBI's Special-Washington-Oregon-Regional-Detachment—nicknamed S.W.O.R.D. Now, Claire must marshal the talents of an eclectic crew of agents, including a brilliant criminal psychologist, a street-savvy undercover prodigy, a rugged covert-ops specialist, and a quirky tech savant.
Pursuing the killer through the rain-soaked streets and deep forests of the Pacific Northwest, the men and women of S.W.O.R.D. must delve into an ancient lost religion, its shocking view of life and death, and the dark mind of a cunning psychopath. But when clues start intertwining with Claire's own life, she realizes she’s up against a predator who's always one step ahead.
The fifth victim is closer than she ever imagined.
In the fragments of a failing mind lie clues to a forgotten evil. Can FBI Task Force S.W.O.R.D. uncover the truth before it disappears forever?
In the hushed corridors of the Evergreen Memory Care facility, a young nurse's obsession with true crime leads to a chilling discovery. An elderly patient—his memories fading—speaks of unthinkable acts. Is he the Interstate Reaper, a notorious serial killer who terrorized the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s?
Enter FBI Task Force S.W.O.R.D., fresh off their dangerous pursuit of The Color Killer. As the team peels back the layers of this chilling cold case, their investigation stretches from the misty evergreen forests of Bellingham, Washington to the urban centers of Seattle and Portland, all the way down Interstate 5 to the rolling hills outside Yreka, California.
But with every clue they unearth, the team faces a web of deceit, its strands stretching across decades. And when past and present collide, the case takes a dangerous turn no one saw coming.
Can FBI Task Force S.W.O.R.D. solve a puzzle where the pieces are memories before those memories fade away? Or will the echo of old evils claim new victims?
—and so deadly—you'll have to read it to believe it.
More to Come
Creating a Strong Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
Shop - Crafting the Ending
Weak endings feel contrived and superficial. Strong endings deliver the message, or moral, of the story. Strong endings resolve all themes, wrap up the plot, and leave no loose ends. The climax is the build-up to the end of a story. Currently, the story we are living is approaching the end. As the authors of Humanity’s fate, our actions will decide whether Humanity suffers a tragic fate or triumphs over the life-threatening situations. To create a strong ending, we must remember why it is important to triumph.
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Stone, the story of a young teen, his unique friend.
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