Recensori in anteprimaBlack Rose Writing

It must be said. Scandal follows her family like an ever-faithful hound. No matter how hard they kick it away, it comes slinking around time-after-time. Although her relatives are obsessed with social position and the opinions of others, heiress India Elisabeth Petra De Vries Ledbetter is determined to live life by her own terms, family expectations and society's demands be damned.

Reared away from the social whirl of Gilded Age New York, India would prefer a life of philanthropy in her native Appalachia, but Mother and Grandmama have far grander plans. They believe Mrs. Astor's old 400 are ready to overlook the past and that an advantageous marriage will cement their place in society once more. In fact, they have already selected the prospective bridegroom. The only problem? No one consulted India.

With captivating insights into the human spirit and heart, The Last Dollar Princess leads us on a riveting quest for self-determination through the most elegant and glamorous settings of the early 20th century. Perfect for fans of Marie Benedict, Daisy Goodwin, and Julian Fellows, this sweeping work of historical fiction will stay with readers long after the last page is turned.

A deadly, incurable disease creeps silent through Chattanooga. And its victims aren't random.

When inexplicable human rabies cases appear in Tennessee, disease ecologist Letty Duquesne jumps at the chance to trace the virus back to its source. But the closer Letty gets to finding the outbreak's origin, the further someone will go to stop her.

With an unwanted promotion threatening to take Letty far from the field work she loves, this outbreak feels like her last chance to make a difference. It's not something she can ignore, especially now. The spillover of zoonotic diseases to the human population is on the rise and violent animal attacks—like the one that killed her sister—are becoming all too common.

Something in nature has gone very wrong.

Local authorities would rather she go home, but Letty can track a source animal like no one else. With the help of disgraced detective, Andrew Marsh, Letty follows the virus's epidemiological trail. But her every move is watched. And the source animal is closer than she thinks.

Inhuman Acts is a pulse-pounding thriller. Gripping and intricately paced, Brooke L. French's debut novel will keep you on the edge of your seat.

To some, Lily was just a beautiful little girl. To others, she was a freakish albino who ate live chickens in a freak show. Charles Darwin called her his impossible girl and tried in vain to classify her. P. T. Barnum called her his angel and tried to take advantage of her.

But the creature Barnum thought to turn into a money-making feature attraction is neither girl nor angel. She is something other, a species of unimaginable abilities, with the power to destroy—or save —our world. The power is hers alone, but only the strange blood coursing through her veins will decide when and how to unleash a power she struggles every day to control.

From the cold, barren shores of Tierra del Fuego and the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle to the bustling crowds of Victorian London, Lily's story—and her quest—unfolds in a thrilling historical fantasy for all ages from award-winning author Len Boswell.

Legendary father and son Texas Rangers Larry and John Slade, brought law and order to Central Texas for over 72 years.

Thundering through the pages of American history, between 1835 and 1916, the old-school tough Slade men came to occupy an intriguing place in the gripping tales of the Old West.

Serving as a Ranger in the Texas Revolution, and in ferocious battles against the Apache, Comanches, and Mexican outlaws, Larry Slade gained fame for his lightning quick cross draw of his two Colts. He was the ultimate frontiersman and even rode with the noted explorer Kit Carson.

His son John Slade served with the Rangers in Austin, Texas. After proving his mettle on several missions, the young man returned home only to find his parents had perished in a freak accident.

In time, he married his sweetheart. But tragedy strikes. And on his path for revenge, Slade comes into contact with the Hatcher gang. He tangles with the outlaws, and his remarkable skill with a gun is his only hope of settling the score against overwhelming odds.

Seeking justice and personal redemption, John Slade cements his father's legacy with his own equally dogged determination to fight until the end.

Everyone loves running into and reconnecting with an old friend. Someone you have lost touch with for any number of reasons over the years. It can stir up a cocktail of euphoric emotions through feelings of nostalgia, amusement, hope and love. That is exactly how Emma Goodwin felt when she ran into her high school best friend Charlie Claymore after they found one another randomly after a decade of not seeing or speaking in a small coffee shop in Seattle.

Soon after their reunion, Emma's husband Eddie goes missing without a trace of evidence linking anyone to the disappearance. Anguished, she spirals into her old ways with Charlie. When Detective Angus Pratt is assigned to the case, Charlie is determined to stay by Emma's side, casting a dark veil over her he calls protection.

As they close in on the truth, a sinister plan is revealed that is darker and more terrifying than the vast, uninhabited woods that lay on the outskirts of town. Angus will stop at nothing to find the truth, and Emma may learn the hardest truth of them all. That the flames you hold the closest always burn the worst.

In January 1971, Colin, an officer from British Special Branch recruits eighteen-year-old Sam Nathan to infiltrate a group of student extremists who they believe are planning a terrorist attack in Sam's home city of Glasgow, Scotland.

Sam foils the plot, narrowly escaping being murdered by one of the gang named Max Jordan. In gratitude for his efforts, he is invited to the prestigious event that the gang tried to ravage. During the celebrations, Sam is introduced to a statesman who inadvertently reveals to him highly classified intelligence. This information leads Sam to understand the true motive behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The details are so horrifying that he cannot reveal them for fear of ridicule, or worse, for the fact he might be believed. Concerned that making his knowledge public might endanger his life, Sam keeps these facts to himself, intending never to disclose them.

However, an episode in 2007 changes his mind. Sam finally decides to write about his adolescent experiences, his actions unwittingly threatening to destroy global alliances and bring him face to face with his nemesis who has waited half a lifetime to exact his revenge.

Shortly after her arrival at Brooklyn North Homicide, Detective Kim Brady is assigned a seven-month-old rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl. While the initial investigation focused on a teen suspect, DNA evidence, as well as the killer's signature, establishes that the killer was also responsible for several older crimes, including the 1963 case Kim's grandfather was working when he was killed. She is chasing a killer who's been on the loose for fifty-five years.

Kim's investigation takes place against the backdrop of a special mayoral election pitting a "law and order" state senator against the "defunder" acting mayor. A protest group is accusing the police of letting the case go cold because the victim is a Latina and stoking protests that result in arson and the killing of a firefighter. While Kim awaits the result of DNA analysis, her headquarters receives two bomb threats and the killer strikes again... and again... and again.

This book steps inside the imagination of a little girl who is asked to be a flower girl in her aunt’s wedding. As the adults dance around talking about a ring, a wedding, a dress, and a veil, she questions her role in the day. What does it mean to toss petals down the aisle? Would they be tulips, daisies, or maybe a single rose? As she discovers her role in the celebration, she has some fun, gets into a little trouble, and ultimately learns what it means to be a flower girl. This is the perfect gift for the little one in your wedding.

Salvage yard operator and part-time sleuth Tak Sweedner is asked by a buddy, Roque Zamarripa, to investigate a murder. Tak says OK and for his trouble is assaulted with a tire iron. Then he's run off the side of a cliff—the investigation really goes downhill at that point!

Tak calls up gal-pal Emma to help him and soon discovers his feelings for the woman go beyond palling around. When she asks him to give up his investigation and concentrate on her, Tak balks. She might better have asked a bulldog to give up its bone. It would be like quitting, Tak said, and he wasn't a quitter.

Eventually, the murderer gets the drop on Tak, Roque and Emma, then escapes after a shootout. Tak comes away from the deadly confrontation even deeper in love with Emma. Can this blue-collar crime-solver hang in there to get the bad guy… AND win his girl?

The theft of priceless books from a public library and the bloody attack on a security guard trying to protect them, sets Detective Kim Jansen on a twisting road of contradictory evidence and multiple suspects. Along the way, Jansen uncovers a 100-year-old family secret as a possible motive for the crimes.

At the center of it all, is a millionaire vintner and the intergenerational violence that drove him to pay his best friend, a down-on-his-luck gambling addict who is homeless, jobless, and estranged from his family, to steal seven books from Edward S. Curtis' epic 20-volume book, The North American Indian. Worth $3 million as a set, Jansen races to save the missing books from the black market and catch the crook.

A disgraced attorney seeking redemption. A single mother desperate to regain custody of her son. Two women willing to risk everything to put a sexual predator behind bars.

Former Assistant District Attorney Miranda Quinn is on the brink of a career comeback when she gets a phone call. It's a witness who disappeared three years earlier, resulting in a violent criminal going free. Miranda was fired as a result, but the witness has re-surfaced with a shocking story, one that implicates Miranda and her ex, defense attorney Adam Baxter. And now, there's a new victim.

Miranda's legal advice blog-turned-podcast Miranda Writes is about to become a daytime TV show, but the negative press could destroy her credibility. Will the network stand behind her?

When it comes to the law, Miranda has all the answers, but the questions are getting harder, and the stakes are getting higher. The dangerous web of lies and cover-ups she exposes leaves her questioning just how much she is willing to risk. She has the right to remain silent, but needs to speak up… doesn't she?

A story of how far we'll go to protect those we love and the power of second chances.

Seventeen-year-old Charley Foster's power of empathy is so strong, it's probably magic. Bullied and labeled a freak, Charley is friendless until she meets fellow empaths Brynn and Joss who, together, create The Ravens, a circle for girls who feel too much, vowing that this is the year they'll rise.

It isn't long before they are given the chance to do just that. When the high school English teacher is rumored to have sexually assaulted a number of girls at school, including Brynn, Joss wants the Ravens to spring into action and expose the truth. The problem? The accused teacher is Charley's father. When Charley chooses to defend him instead of fight, The Ravens disband, leaving each of the girls alone to battle for justice and, in the process, discover the true sources of their magic and power.

The Ravens, told through the rotating points-of-view of Charley, Brynn, and Joss, explore outcasts and friendship, assault and survivorship, the power of raised voices, and the capacity of ordinary magic.

Betty, an 84-year-old mother and wife, is finally forced into facing a flaw she dealt with her entire life: her inability to communicate. In the loss of a child, in flirting with affairs, in the midst of a troubled marriage, Betty keeps her own counsel. No one knows her deepest heart, not even her own daughter, Reggie, because such things are not spoken of. As a result, Reggie withdraws further and further from her mother.

Watching Reggie fight with issues of her own, edging ever closer to the precipice of a broken life, Betty comes face to face with the necessity of revealing the pearls and daggers of her own life in hopes of helping her daughter. Because she cannot bear to speak of the cracks in her heart, Betty writes a journal chronicling everything she protected.

In a moment of monumental risk, she hands off the book to Reggie, hoping for salvation for both of them, and their families. In turn, Betty and Reggie give the journal to Reggie's daughter with the admonition to remember the story.

Spanning three generations, A Handful of Pearls is the story of love and family, loss and hope.

Meet a New Woman of the 20th Century: educated, career-minded, independent Eliza Pearson Edwards. In 1897 Philadelphia, after witnessing her aunt's suicide, Eliza rejects her mother's wishes for a society debut, and at a time when five percent of doctors are female, she enters a woman's medical college. With the support of a circle of women and driven by determination to conquer curriculum demands, battle sexism, and overcome doubts, Eliza charts her new life path. Combining science and sympathy, she triumphs to heal others and herself.

Organic Chemistry may slay her, if the strain of endless study, odoriferous labs, and gruesome surgeries don't claim her first. As a young intern, she summons a forthright confidence asserting her abilities to those mistrustful of a woman doctor. Through her work with poverty-stricken patients, she defines her version of suffrage work to champion women's rights for and beyond the right to vote. Love is found, love is lost. During a visit to the fairy-tale-like city of Newport, a new relationship may fulfill her desires. When global events devolve into chaos with the 1918 influenza pandemic and a world war, Eliza renews her vow to help and heal.

The year was 1982, and people were dying.

A faceless murderer struck fear into the hearts of every American. This unknown killer poisoned Tylenol capsules. He then slipped them back onto drugstore shelves. As the body count rose, panic seized the nation. People scrambled to throw away their medicines, paranoia gripped once-peaceful neighborhoods, and cities canceled Halloween. Decades have passed since this tragic event, but the murders remain unsolved to this day.

But for me, this story began long before 1982. It started when I was a five-year-old boy and made a gruesome discovery. That discovery expanded into one of the greatest murder mysteries of all time. The man with me when I found the buried secret became infamous. And to many people, he still remains the prime suspect in the Tylenol murders.

My story tells of an innocent time in our country's history, now gone. It features my memories of the prime suspect, my reflections on the Tylenol murders, and my spiritual quest to make sense of the mystery of evil. This is the story of the unknown serial killer some have called America's Jack the Ripper. Others call him the Tylenol terrorist. I call him the Pain Killer.

Hiking trails in remote woods are his hunting grounds. He kills and kills but the police don’t know he exists. Until one escapes his grasp and finds Olivia, a survivor of horror, a sister-in-arms. He has met his match. He just doesn’t know it yet.

David Grant wakes to find himself in the hold of a ship, beaten and strapped to a chair. The Family, David's name for his underground business, are searching for him. Igor Volkov, a business rival and an old colleague of The Family, ambushed David in Venezuela and wants to deliver him to the new, ruthless Russian Mafia, hoping to win their favor.

Now, many underground organizations see The Family as vulnerable. Jobs awarded to The Family are being interfered with by rivals stealing shipments of weapons, stopping assassinations, and capturing people who can reveal many of The Family's secrets.

The Family's government contact, Peter Thompson, reveals he has moles within his ranks. The traitors are circulating documents that expose secrets the government and The Family never wanted released. Peter contracts The Family to eradicate his defiant employees before they release further information to saboteurs who use the intelligence to destroy the government's integrity, and The Family's involvement with classified operations.

The Family must go on the offensive to stop the onslaught of attacks from friends and foes while internally struggling to stay relevant in a world of new technology, procedures, and a merciless way of doing business.

Tired of fighting for the Confederacy, Porter deserts the Civil War. His plan to migrate to California is interrupted when Quinn, a grieving widow, asks for Porter's help restoring her family's ranch. Porter stays, but things soon get complicated when he falls in love with Quinn's daughter, Rose.

Rose is a God-fearing Christian; Porter is an unapologetic atheist. Rose decides her best opportunity for salvation is to follow her younger sister into the Salt Lake Valley and become a sister wife to a wealthy Mormon. When tragedy strikes, it falls to Porter and Quinn to mete out justice and seek their own redemption.

Rachel's last summer before middle school isn't turning out how she hoped. Rachel has heard rumors about middle school: the older kids are mean, and the schoolwork harder. She wishes summer would never end so she wouldn't have to go. Inspired by her stuffed animals, Rachel draws The Timeduck, a wizard who has power to control time, so he can make the summer endless, and Attack Pig, a bodyguard to protect her. Rachel has no idea she is drawing with a magic pen and, before she knows it, The Timeduck and Attack Pig are real!

As The Timeduck works his magic, Rachel just wants to enjoy endless summer. Instead she finds herself contending with days that bizarrely loop on repeat, and dinosaurs that emerge from cracks in time. The Timeduck is consumed with fulfilling his mission regardless of who it hurts. With the help of her best friend, dramatic theater kid Cooper, and her noble bodyguard Attack Pig, Rachel must outwit The Timeduck before irreparable harm is done to time itself!

Marriage and midlife can be difficult. But when you add a controlling, manipulative and self-absorbed mother-in-law into the mix, things can get worse—much worse. Toxic even.

When Allison Montgomery's beloved father-in-law and long-time confidant passes away, her mother-in-law, Margaret, 'temporarily' moves in. From rearranging the furniture and taking over the kitchen, to undermining and embarrassing Allie at every turn, including funding her daughter's escape, throwing a hissy fit at the mall, and publicly equating Allie's glass of Chardonnay to full blown alcoholism, Margaret turns Allie's life upside down causing her to bounce between a sincere desire to support her grieving mother-in-law and an intense urge to simply push her out of the nearest window. Feeling annoyed, trapped and even a little childish, Allie struggles to avoid a complete meltdown with help from her fearless and audacious best friend, a plan for reinventing herself and enjoying a second act, and, yes, a few glasses of Chardonnay. Along the way, Allie discovers the reasons behind Margaret's attitude toward her all these years. Does it help? Maybe…

A healthier life can be can be achieved!

As a practicing stroke neurologist, Dr. Ramirez knows all too well that it is better to prevent disease than it is to treat it. Heart disease, strokes, cancers—which together take over a million American lives every year, and many more around the world, share many common risks. By targeting these risk factors, we can drastically lower the chances of developing the diseases that affect us, and greatly improve our long-term health.

Dr. Ramirez has simplified his recommendations to a short list of the most impactful changes you can make to help you achieve greater life quality and longevity… all with the evidence to back it up. Let's not take our health for granted! Using the principals in Simplify Your Heath, you can live longer, age with dignity, and enjoy more of the beautiful things life has to offer.

It's Passover, and 10-year-old Sherwood Mendelson's parents are hosting the Seder. Sherwood's big, loving family have all gathered at the Mendelson home, from Grandma Norma, who brings her "Matzoh Balls That Sank the Titanic," to Sherwood's cousins, the Wilder twins, Zach and Seth, who when reciting the Ten Plagues call out "Zach's breath!" and "Seth's soccer shorts!" It's a happy Seder until suddenly a terrible thing happens.

After Solomon hides the afikomen—it goes missing. Not missing as it always does at Passover. It has completely, utterly, and thoroughly disappeared. Right into thin air! Without the afikomen, the Mendelson family cannot finish its Seder! But Sherwood happens to be the Greatest Fan of the Greatest Detective of All Time, Sherlock Holmes. With his faithful assistant, Watson, the family Basset Hound, Sherlock Mendelson uses all of his super detective skills to hunt down the culprit who stole the afikomen.

Carter Mills was a successful and well-known investment broker. He and his wife Loretta had an ideal marriage with three kids, a beautiful home, and even a condo in the Dominican Republic. But their storybook life ended on the day that Loretta fell in the shower and died. Carter tried to save her, he'd even tried to do CPR, but it wasn't enough. His beautiful wife and the mother of his children was gone.

When the police were called to the Mills home on a reported unconscious person after a fall, Sargeant Steve "Mac" MacIntosh knew in his bones that something wasn't right. Loretta had a deep gash in her skull that seemed too extreme to have happened from a fall. He noticed bruising on Loretta's body and a black eye that was so swollen, her eye was shut.

No. This wasn't an unfortunate accident. This was a homicide that had been staged to look like an accident. And now it was up to Mac to fit together the pieces of the puzzle that would lead him to the killer so that he could find justice for Loretta.

In 1991, Greg Preakle's simple life as "Pool Man" at The Oak Hollow Hotel is abruptly halted when a dead body is discovered and he's identified as negligent.

With bills piling up and untimely unemployment looming, an invitation to participate in a locally produced, high-risk game show leaves Greg in the cross hairs of an unexpected enemy.

Hot on the heels of victory and with a new position in tow, Greg's mundane life as an amputee catapults into a mysterious journey of bloody and unexpected proportions, unmasking deeper meaning to past tragedies and unveiling an emerging empire that promises mysterious benefits to its adherents.

Skeptical and jaded, Greg's efforts to resist growing pressures leads him to untraditional measures to protect himself.

Will he crack under the pressure?

BEIRUT, LEBANON, 2020: Home to International Gangsters, Foreign Spies, and Soldiers of Fortune.

O'Hara Poit, released early from prison under the pretext of a Covid-19 outbreak, now owes the men who orchestrated it—a radical organization with connections to fringe elements deep within the U.S. political establishment.

O'Hara is given an alias and sent to Beirut, where he is tasked with tracking down his estranged childhood friend, Red, now a soldier in a violent anarchist militia being trained by the Volk Group—an elite Russian mercenary force. When Red's militia returns to America, they plan to unleash mayhem and bring down the country.

In his quest to stop this from happening, O'Hara must navigate his way among gangsters, spies and even Saudi princes. He meets a beautiful woman, makes dangerous enemies, and learns that nothing in his life is as it seems, and nobody is safe—least of all himself. The mission to find Red becomes a mission to survive.

Jude and Mercedez have kept deadly secrets from each other.

Jackson's suicide haunts Jude. She burned all evidence of her brother's depravity. One less monster in the world, right? Tech-savvy Mercedez is the last living witness to a teenage amateur horror film that ended with a gruesome death. She never told.

A viral video (thanks, Whiskers) brings internet fame—forcing flip-phone wielding Jude to choose between her job as the second female in the VP motorcycle motorcade or her mixologist hobby.

Global visibility brings naked vulnerability—someone has subscribed to Jude's channel.

Missing neighbors found dead in side-by-side freezers, viral drunk “I quit” videos, spammed porn magazine subscriptions, snail mail severed fingers, sabotaged cave trips, cryptic social media comments, and stalking photos push the codependent friends over the edge (literally, off the side of a bluff) when best friends find out that secrets can kill.

When German-born Louis Pfeif leaves home to join the Fifty-Eighth Illinois Infantry Regiment in 1862, his dog accompanies him. At Chicago's Camp Douglas, Bärchen charms Louis's fellow officers—even Colonel Lynch. As the Civil War escalates, the unit is transferred to Tennessee and placed under the command of General Lew Wallace. Shortly afterward, they come under fire at Erin Hollow. Bärchen proves his mettle—remaining by Louis's side amid the boom of cannon and the rattle of musketry. Then one morning the two are thrust onto a battlefield, where one will die and the other must learn to carry on.

Based on a true story and the history of the Fifty-Eighth Illinois, The Faithful Dog powerfully illustrates the unwavering bond of devotion between dogs and their humans.

PI Steve Rockfish's father loses part of his retirement savings in an online romance scam while partner Jawnie McGee handles the firm's newest client who spins a tale of alleged spousal infidelity. Rockfish ignores his current case load and becomes fixated on tracking down those responsible for the fraud. Restitution is coming in the form of cash or broken bones. At the same time, Jawnie's surveillance of the cheating spouse reveals more acts of kindness than sex leading to a client who doesn't want to believe the good news.

Unbeknownst to the partners, each investigative path leads the partners to the Church of the Universal Nurturing II where the fraud is on a cryptocurrency level. Their new SunCoin is marketed as the only post-rapture currency accepted inside the pearly gates. After all, who wants to show up to the after party with out-turned pockets and not get past Heaven's paywall?

Church elders court Rockfish and his new-found Hollywood wealth with an old-fashioned honey pot. The danger level ratchets up as Rockfish counters by sending the firm's two new confidential informants undercover only to find the church's endgame grift is larger and deadlier than anyone expected.

What could possibly make a newly freed man risk recapture?

Unjustly imprisoned upon a desolate island, Ford Barlow desires freedom more than anything. His second wish would be to beat the tar out of a certain pesky priest. After finally getting off the island, he and his friends soon find themselves wallowing deep in the heart of Dargkivi, a remote underground slave city where a dwarfish race of greedy sadists toy with the lives of their captives.

Escape is elusive. Attempt after attempt leads Ford deeper into danger. He struggles through caves, mines, sea and arena battles, and the ruins of a lost city where blood-thirsty creatures lurk in the hidden crevices of the icy wilds. When a golden opportunity to escape does come along, a revealed truth and a purpose greater than himself changes everything.

Jane Roland and her painter friends are enrolled in a watercolor retreat at the picturesque Gardens and Horses Resort. They're looking forward to a week of sun-drenched landscapes, sleek racehorses, art instruction, and—best of all—laughter and conversation.

Out for their first stroll, the women discover a thoroughbred in the pretty reflecting pool. Next evening, they find the handsome young stable man in the horse watering trough. Surely, there's a link between them?

When a painter from their workshop goes missing, Jane realizes that her class notes are valuable clues to catch the culprit in this light-hearted cozy mystery.

With a twisty plot, colorful cast of characters, guilt, deception, blackmail, and a body in the wrong grave, Surprise Witness is a head-scratching roller coaster of a legal thriller.

Three men, each for a different reason, come to A. Stein & Associates for help. A series of unexpected revelations from Will McCarty's client draws Will, Miranda Patel, and the other lawyers at the firm deeper into the past. They discover a dark thread, veiled in secrets, connecting these men, all war veterans, to a life-altering encounter in the jungles of Vietnam.

The team of attorneys must uncover the truth of what happened to stave off deportation, financial ruin, political scandal, and a lifetime of regret, sending them on a wild pursuit of the surprising witnesses to it all.

A malicious entity roams the country, possessing whomever it pleases and forcing them to kill in the most sadistic ways imaginable. Gertie, a powerful psychic, has been chasing this specter for years. It has taken everything from her, and she'll stop at nothing to end its trail of terror for good.

Janelle is an ordinary teenager until the night she and her friends are attacked by a lunatic on the highway. In the aftermath, the boy she loves begins acting like someone else. At first, she thinks he's struggling to cope with the trauma, but soon learns something far more sinister is at work.

Detective Ray Alverson heads the investigation into the highway attack. Since taking the case, he's been having visions he can't explain. As the body count rises in his once-quiet town, he must embrace the gift he's been running from his entire life—even as it threatens to destroy him.

In the fight against unspeakable evil, these three strangers will sacrifice more than they could ever imagine. But evil has plans of its own, and it is growing stronger…

A fast-paced supernatural thriller from one of the genre's strongest new voices, Mr. Ugly will keep you white-knuckled through the night.

Jason Carico is a grieving father, desperately trying to come to grips with the loss of his eight-year-old stepdaughter, Delta, who drowned two months ago.

But if she's dead, then why is there a little girl claiming to be Delta locked up in his basement?

Desperately wanting to believe her, Jason attempts to live a normal life while hiding his nightmare below. His anxiety explodes when his late wife's sister appears on his doorstep. Can he trust her? Would she believe him? And what will the police think if they ever find out the only African American man in town has a white girl trapped in his basement?

The haunting motto of Mother's death cult tolls throughout the book, "The Universe has a plan, independent from the wants of man."

Privileged, educated Melissa Cody's search for her birth parents and her volunteer job with a women's advocacy group on the Navajo reservation, casts her into the midst of the egregious problem of missing and murdered Indigenous women.

As she is sensitized to Native culture and to the real possibility of her own bi-racial beginnings, a case of rape of two teenagers and the disappearance of one of the victims, erupts on the reservation, highlighting painful differences in morals, beliefs, law enforcement, trust and understanding.

With a beautiful and balanced literary style of character development, Bruce Logan is able to carefully explore this complex issue through various lenses.

In a neighborhood nondescript except for how often small houses are being torn down to make way for big houses, a beautiful woman too young to be widowed waits for her husband to come home from prison. Arthur Baladino is getting out courtesy of a compassionate leave program, the theory being that he's too feeble to shoot anybody else.

Next door to the Baladino home, a little boy in a baseball uniform asks his father, "What happens when you die?" It's a question the father will soon confront in a terrible and surprising way. Just down the street, a young woman is trying to figure out how to re-start her life after her husband has lost his money, hers, and their home by day-trading in their basement. Elsewhere in the neighborhood, several women and a couple of men—two of them accomplished arsonists who've sometimes been employed by Arthur Baladino—dream of what might have been if they'd been wiser, more patient, or luckier in a past long dead everywhere but in their imaginations.

On a landscape more often than not indifferent, these people seek mercy, if not in love, than in the sometimes rickety, temporary alternative connections they can find with their fellow seekers.

Fasten your seatbelts for a rollicking ride with more twists and turns than a bowl of pretzels.

L.A.'s historic Bellstone Country Club is famous for its star-studded membership, championship golf course, and glamorous parties.

Here, sexy golfer Mandy Manville is expected to win the club's Women's Golf Championship, which will qualify her to tee it up with legendary golfers in Scotland's Cialis Open. But when ex-college star golfer Jody Benson joins the club, Mandy's beautifully manicured nails become claws as she stops at nothing to keep the newcomer from entering the tournament.

Meanwhile, the Bellstone president's bet on an upcoming heavyweight fight could cause an already struggling club to go bust. Add in a corrupt priest with a free membership, a down-and-out ex-movie star working as a caddy, an LAPD cop on the take, a pregnant stripper on the hunt for her baby's daddy, and you'll find yourself laughing, hooting, booing, cheering, and maybe even taking up golf!

Jazz Sanders has killed her best friend, Landi. Not on purpose, but accidentally while driving home from a party. While most people, including Landi's parents, offer her sympathy and forgiveness, Jazz feels unworthy of either because Jazz has a secret about what she was doing before her best friend sailed through the windshield and died on the road.

Each day Jazz struggles to present a normal face to her family and everyone at school to avoid sympathy and therapy. And each day she thinks about how she no longer deserves love, human kindness, or forgiveness from anyone. Jazz finds herself seeking help at a nearby Catholic church, looking for some guidance in fighting her panic attacks and moments of soul-crushing self-blame.

There Jazz learns about absolution and embarks on a journey of self-forgiveness. She finally settles on trying to emulate the best of Landi by volunteering at the children's hospital where Landi spent every Friday after school. Can Jazz find a way to forgive herself or will she spend the rest of her life punishing herself for Landi's death?

For all her adult life, Roxy suppressed the impact of two traumatic events—being abandoned by her mother at the age of twelve and being raped by her boyfriend, Spider, at eighteen. She never told anyone but her best friend about the rape. Though happily married to Carl, they both long to be out from under the thumb of Carl’s domineering father, for whom they both work. And she’s convinced that her first play—being staged at the community theater with her movie-star friend from high school in the lead role—is the ticket to that better life.

But now Spider is back, a successful land developer with a proposal to revitalize the town and solve the theater’s financial woes. When he takes an interest in Jewel, Roxy’s eldest daughter whose paternity she’s not entirely sure of, and engineers a big win for Carl in a private poker game, Roxy knows he’s up to his old tricks. She’s determined to expose him before he can harm her family or her beloved theater.

Karen E. Osborne traces the treacherous path between good intentions and poor decisions rooted in the shame of toxic secrets.

Lily's creativeness turns a stressful situation into a positive adventure. Along the way she expresses empathy, compassion, and sacrifice to help others in need. In the end Lily and her family discover that home is where you make it.

A DARK ARMY RISES,

A NEW SHIP SAILS THE SEAS,

AND OLD ONES, LONG SILENT, ARE SUMMONED FORTH TO LEAD.

Whereas only a few months earlier he would not have believed any of it, Salem Swan now finds himself faced with sinister enemies and, equally surreal, surrounded by close friends. He has gained powers as a mythlinguist, and with it a responsibility to reunite the world of humans with the world of myth, known as the Fringe.

With his uncle Ulysses and Captain Fern taken prisoner by a growing Regulat force, it's up to Salem and the crew to seek help in old allies. This takes them to the heart of the Amazonian rainforest, where a city concealed in waterfalls tests the measure of their resolve.

Meanwhile Regulat forces conspire to eliminate fringers of the World Beneath and bear down on a sacred space with a terrible force that knows no mercy.

The world is changing faster than anyone realizes, and salvaging its best parts now rests in the hands of three teenagers and a mythical crew who cannot stand to see it lost.

A lot can happen in the middle of nowhere!

Preston McPherson thought he could save his troubled dairy farm by growing marijuana, but his problems were only just beginning.

With the help of his brother-in-law and local police sergeant, Fergus Becker, he signs an agreement with a cannabis distributor, Green Fields, but money is still tight. When a greenhouse break-in sends Preston deeper into the red, Fergus—not exactly a model cop—comes up with a scheme to sell marijuana illegally to a drug dealer.

Over time, Preston sets up a secret grow-op, launders the proceeds, and becomes involved in robbery and even murder. At the same time, he needs to bluff his way through government inspections, deal with a local group of women bible-thumpers who are picketing his farm, address the growing demands from the drug peddler, and stay one step ahead of the persistent small-town cop who has been investigating a series of local crimes. If any of them catch up with him, Preston risks losing his farm, going to jail, or being found floating at the bottom of a lake with cement shoes.

Winterbourne, set in 1962, is a family-oriented community, surrounding a winterbourne stream, in Northern California. It is full of white, three rail fences, and equestrian properties. A violent motor vehicle accident and the unsuccessful resuscitation of the victim, a homeless drug using man, by Doctor Franklin Carson and his Labrador, Winston, calls attention to a problem in the small community.

A heroin drug ring is rumored, centered around a violent resident of Winterbourne. The resident is Del Grogan, known as the Redman. He is a ruddy complexioned red-haired man with a distinctive disabling absence of his right arm, lost surgically after an intravenous drug related infection. His father is the corrupt, politically powerful Irish immigrant, Theodore Grogan. It is the search for Theodore's young fiancé, that reveals a secret scandal that will tear apart the community.

The story is an evocative tale of murder, revenge, and love. Here is a riveting story of drugs, murder, and madness that terrorizes the small California community, known as Winterbourne.

If a megalomaniac threatened your family, would you give up your freedom for them? Would you give up your soul?

Asher Solomon is faced with that choice. And makes the ultimate sacrifice.

Exactly as Director Silas Reeves expected him to.

Unable to live as the Colony's premier assassin, Ash retreats to a corner of his mind, ceding control of his body to the alter-ego he was engineered to be-Subject A36. As he's unleashed to battle the Insurgents, the only family he ever knew, the tide of war shifts in Silas's favor.

Combined with his expansion into new territories, the director is poised to take over the world.

But the Insurgents don't give up easily. Not on their cause, and not on their people. With the help of a few double agents deep in the Colony, they stand a fighting chance at ending Silas's reign.

In order to shut down the program, they face almost insurmountable odds. And their most dangerous foe-their former champion turned killing machine, A36.

Arthurian tradition has followed two distinct paths. Medieval romance depicts the spectacular capital of Camelot and a land of armored knights, jousts, and fantastical adventures. More recent researchers have focused on identifying the real King Arthur, if such a person existed, in the early days of the Dark Ages. Dark Age Monarch: The Reign of King Arthur blends the two strands together in an inventive re-telling that maintains elements of the traditional tale but set in a historical perspective—with a bit of magic thrown into the mix.

Following the Roman exodus in the early 5th Century, Britain was fractured into petty fiefdoms that left the island vulnerable to foreign invaders. At a point where it appeared the Angles and Saxons would erase the British heritage, Arthur emerged as both a King and the Leader of Battles. His reign unified the land and preserved the Britons' way of life long enough to be remembered throughout history.

Nineteen-year-old Patty has a lot of baggage. Abusive parents. A horrible boyfriend. The stifling cocoon of her Podunk town. She longs to become a travel writer — visiting exotic lands far, far away…

But escaping town the way she does, forced by her boyfriend Roy to join him on a violent crime spree across middle America was not the travel of Patty's dreams. It's a journey that will only land her in jail — or dead. But escaping Roy is out of the question. He'd hunt her down, find her, and surely beat her worse than he's ever beaten her before.

When they stumble across the gentleman alone at the cabin by the lake, he offers Patty a glimmer of hope and freedom. But this man hides evil secrets of his own…

Blake Seever is really trying this time. After nearly destroying his life (and the lives of those around him) with his heroin addiction, he's completed a treatment program and is now working a steady square gig at Telesolutions, a cold-calling firm that offers everything from cosmetics to green vending options.

This should be the most boring part of recovery, slowly acclimating back to a normal life, a normal job with normal hours. But when one phone call goes awry, Blake finds himself in a struggle with the man on the other end of the line that may prove fatal.

The Phone in the Fishbowl is a postmodern tale of a duel to reclaim lost honor, with shades of everything from Arthur Schnitzler's Lieutenant Gustl to Mike Judge's Office Space.

We all possess secrets. We lock them away. We bury them into the deep recesses of our mind. We go about our day and pretend they aren't there.

That's exactly what Thomas Loggins was doing. Going about his days. The head pastor of a small church in a small town. A family man, with a loving wife and a wonderful daughter.

Until one day, that all changed. It began as a typical meeting with a new member of the congregation. But Thomas soon realized this was anything but typical. This man knew things. Things that nobody should know. And he was making impossible demands.

Thomas’s simple life in the quaint town of Black Rock crashes into life or death when the stranger utters, "I know your secrets, pastor, and it’s time to pay the price…"

Nick Karras is a Korean War veteran and a tough Chicago Homicide detective. But his newest challenge is his most difficult. A serial killer named the Coast to Coast Killer has been raping and murdering young women all across the United States. Nick runs into all kinds of roadblocks to catch this murderer, a man who has raped and left for dead his own daughter Penelope, who now lies in a catatonic state in a mental institution. Penelope's mother deserted her daughter and husband several years back.

Nick meets and falls in love with Nora, who becomes his second wife. Nick finds out that Nora has 'gifts' that might aid him in the capture of the serial slayer who left Penelope for dead in a Chicago alley.

Ferocious is set in the 1980s, back before DNA and cellphones and computers, back when an investigator had to use his wits to bring down murderers. Nick Karras is relentless in finding this so-called Coast to Coast serial killer, and he means to avenge the brutality inflicted on the killer's own daughter.

After a smooth jump to Dimension 9, Chase, Alyx, and chimera pup, Bo, discover that this world’s peaceful existence only extends as far as the local high school. A different kind of battle wages there, and the identity of the school bully is a surprise they never anticipated. When Chase decides they have no choice but to enroll at Dune Harbor High and repeat their senior year, Alyx is less than thrilled. But the two soon discover the influence just one person can have over the decisions, lives, and even deaths, of those around them. While they try to prevent one tragedy, another one unfolds even as Chase unravels one more piece of his family history. What he discovers will leave him reeling, and his life will never be the same.

August 1974. The oil-producing states of the Middle East refuse to sell their oil to the USA, sparking a worldwide economic crisis. What's a catastrophe for some is, for the residents of one small town, an opportunity: Burr, Oklahoma sits atop a sea of petroleum. The embargo sparks an increase in local drilling, resulting in an economic boom. Of course, Burr's newfound prosperity comes with a price. A thriving economy also brings problems citizens of rural Oklahoma have always associated with big cities: illegal drugs, sexual assault, and a skyrocketing murder rate.

A disabled young man is found shot to death in the back row of a drive-in movie theater. To Burr's police chief, Emmett Hardy, it looks like an isolated act of depravity. As the dominos fall, however, Emmett realizes he's searching for a type of murderer who, in 1974, had yet to be named—someone who kills repeatedly, savagely, and seemingly at random. Emmett searches for the culprit, even as old habits cloud his mind and clues to the killer's identity go unnoticed.

The killer's trail circles back and becomes a noose. It's up to Emmett to cut himself down before it's too late.

Everything Here Belongs to You follows Parul and Mohini through their early lives and coming of age. The two young women grow up under the same roof but live very different lives. Parul was six years old when her desperately poor father brought her from their village to live with the Sens, a middle-class Hindu family. Following common customs, Parul was taken in as a servant, asked to hide her Muslim idenity, and trained to do household chores alongside Mrs. Sen. By contrast, Mohini, the Sens' daughter, who is a few years younger than Parul, has led a life of privilege and education.

As Parul grows older, she becomes increasingly unhappy and resentful with her lot in life. Mohini struggles with their relationship as well, never sure whether to treat Parul as a sister or a servant. When Parul has a passionate, secret affair with Rahim, a radical Muslim, the careful order the Sens have maintained is thrown into chaos. Parul must decide where her loyalties lie when Rahim asks her to betray the Sens and endanger a young American man who is staying with them and to whom Mohini is attracted. Parul's choice will shock the family and determine everyone's future.

In Common, a first novel from award-winning memoirist Norma Watkins (The Last Resort, That Woman from Mississippi), is a story of the sacrifices women make for the love of an inaccessible man.

Lillian Creekmore grows up at her family's popular rural spa. She successfully runs an entire hotel, yet longs for a husband. Then she meets Will Hughes.

Velma Vernon accepts life on a small, struggling farm until a boy she barely tolerates proposes marriage. To accept means duplicating her parents' hard life. Alone, she leaves for the city and triumphs, not as a wife, but by being the best at her job. Velma is content until the most beautiful man she has ever seen walks into her office.

This moving and darkly humorous novel follows the intertwined lives of women willing to surrender everything to a man more in love with success than any female.

Having survived deadly forces of nature and the folly of men, Tali Nohkati and his people find a haven of peace with the tribe of Coruba the elder.

Through the telling of legends and to the rhythm of hunts and great fishing, their lives pass by serenely until the day when the long dormant volcano wakes up. Tali Nohkati and his companions helplessly watch the disaster unfold in front of their eyes. However, as their so precious land is nothing but an ash field, the miracle happens.

The name of the miracle is Chepi. With her, the only child who survived, so small and so frail, they flee in a makeshift boat to reach the edge of the land of the Red Earth that Tali once knew. However, this wild and ruthless land is not welcoming to men.

Thanks to a child being born, Tali and his people meet a new tribe. This handful of strong souls will tie their destinies and valiantly face the cruelty of a tyrannical chief as well as the great earthquake...

The Haunting of Kinnawe House is a ghost story that spans two eras in American history.

Matthew Rollins, an aspiring singer whose mother tried to murder him, takes a job as caretaker of Kinnawe House in Agamenticus, Maine. The haunting begins immediately upon Matthew's arrival, when the ghost of his mother appears. A threatening, ghostly stranger watches Matthew as he sleeps. The cellar is filled with mysterious, foul-smelling casks. And with each day, Matthew's insomnia gets worse.

The story alternates between the present, as Matthew struggles with failing health and increasingly violent hallucinations, and the 1740's, as a dark preacher populates his town with a community willing to sell their souls for a comfortable life. Past and present come together as Matthew learns, little by little, of his family's ties to Kinnawe House—and why the house will not rest until Matthew has taken his own life.

Destined to become a classic of the genre, the novel traces the destruction wrought by the preacher, Parthalán Kinnawe, over multiple generations. It also tells the story of a haunted young man who learns that, at his weakest, he is also as his strongest.

Everyone in Titicut Township knew Carl Jenkins suffered from paranoid delusions, but what truly haunted him was far darker in nature. Whatever the small-town talk, only Carl and the shadow force of keepers (headed by Chief of Police, Elias Hicks) knew the truth. There is evil in the swamp—the place where spirits dwell.

When outsider and city reporter, Don Williams, arrives to investigate a 1973 cold case involving Carl Jenkins and the disappearance of three men, Hicks knew time was running out. The secret order he swore to protect was under threat of exposure. As chief of police and head of The Keepers, his charge was two-fold: appease the warring spirits in the realm of the dead and protect the faithful against God's adversary.

Hicks ordered Titicut locked down and called a meeting beneath the old meeting house, but something went wrong. It was the first time in the order's dark history a member would violate their oath of secrecy placing all within the township at risk. What only Hicks and the order knew is there were some secrets so grave, that if ever unearthed, not even God himself could save them.

The murder of successful author Kara Dolan's husband Michael shatters her world. Despite overwhelming grief and guilt, she insists she's fine.

At her stepmother's insistence, she agrees to see a psychiatrist, but the pills he prescribes loosen her hold on reality. When an investigative reporter tells her Michael's death is the result of their investigation into fraud at a veteran's shelter, Kara agrees to help him find the truth.

A visit from one of the vets and threats from an angry fan make her question both her decision and her career choice.

When Garnet, the sexy avenger from her novels, appears, Kara is tempted to put her in charge. But if she lets Garnet take the wheel, will she ever get it back? Worse, will she want to? 

Fred Jones, owner of world-famous Contessa Chocolates, has been murdered while relaxing in his Barca-lounger. Stepdaughter Candace McCready is devastated by the death of the stepfather she adored. As his righthand woman, she's worked side-by-side with him for the last dozen years so she fully expects to inherit the business as he promised.

Big Surprise! Fred changed his mind and left it to his son Gabe despite the fact he disinherited him years ago. Too bad Candace can't do the same to the man who, once upon a time, stole her heart then dumped her without a word.

The only good news is that Fred left Candace the Recipe, the secret to the company's billion-dollar sales. The bad news is the Recipe has mysteriously disappeared.

Will former sweethearts Candace and Gabe ever find the Recipe? Will they be able to rekindle their lost love while hunting for a killer before the killer finds them?

The race is on to find the answers as bumbling detectives Candace and Gabe investigate the suspects, who could be any one of Fred's five ex-wives, his brother Mr. Toad, and his son, the Tadpole, a Mafioso boyfriend, or even, gasp, the butler.

As the conflict in Vietnam heats up, Simon Hannay is pursuing his Masters in Comparative Literature at a Midwest university, teaching karate on the side and doing his best to avoid the draft. He's not overly excited about his thesis... until he stumbles upon an encrypted renaissance journal that's been hidden for decades in the rare book room.

Simon, who's been fascinated by codes and ciphers since he was a kid, convinces his advisor to let him use the mysterious codex as his thesis topic. But first he has to decipher it—and, as he soon learns, that's going to be a formidable task. To add to his problems, an unidentified rival he calls the Mystery Man is desperate to get his hands on the codex—so desperate that he ransacks Simon's apartment and even drugs and interrogates him and his advisor.

With the help of Gabriela, a Brazilian classmate, Simon finally hits upon the key to the cipher. Together they struggle to unravel and translate the text, which was penned by a 16th-century Portuguese fortune-hunter. In the process, they learn the secrets the codex contains, and why the Mystery Man is so determined to steal it.

Delores Farrell of Sherborn, Massachusetts, had her future all planned out: she would marry an attorney, have sons who'd become attorneys, daughters who'd become patrons of the arts, and live in the shadow of Harvard University, thereby continuing her privileged purebred Irish-Catholic legacy.

It didn't quite work out that way.

Delores, now a Long Island housewife married to salesman Ken Kelleher, must watch as each of her five children adopt lives and lifestyles quite different from what she had imagined, including a sarcastic son who is missing a leg due to a terrible childhood accident.

One day, the boy who used to live across the street, and is now a successful journalist, oversees Delores hugging a six-year-old, dark-skinned girl—and smiling! That just doesn't seem like something the stern Delores Kelleher would do.

Almost Like Praying consists of three separate stories the curious journalist reconstructs: one about the family's Massachusetts and Long Island roots, another about the troubled early adulthood of the eldest son, and the last which details the relationship between Delores and that girl—and a startling revelation that emerges at the end.

Armed with extraordinary medical talent and a winning smile, newly trained surgeon, Chase Callaway, enters the world of private practice in Los Angeles, only to be greeted by a wall of stunning peer rejection. A charge of malpractice is levied a mere three days into his career, followed by professional attacks intended to ruin, effectively ending his practice after only a month.

Battling back to respectability takes many years until he emerges as Chief of Surgery, but dark clouds linger. Significant mental injuries still fester, reinforcing his growing fear of a multi-generational family curse and prompting a return to academic medicine at his alma mater, Far West Texas University.

Under the direction of his former mentor, he is given the charge to develop a multidisciplinary breast center, a new concept in the late 1980s, in the midst of a controversial revolution in breast cancer management. Energized by the abiding belief that the California experience had served its Providential purpose to strip away personal gain in favor of group excellence, Dr. Callaway's indomitable spirit meets head-on with unrelenting tribulation. 

“What do you do when the person you are trying to save has to kill you to stay alive?”

March 2019 to February 2020.

Ben Rooker and Teddy Dabrowski are middle-aged friends who meet regularly at “The Bard,” a Pasadena, California coffee shop slash bookstore until one fateful day the café is rocked by an explosion. A woman, previously unknown to Teddy, but who nonetheless had moments before muttered an obscenity at him is killed as well as several others, while Ben and Teddy suffer non-life threatening injuries.

In their subsequent attempt to find the bomber they encounter a bizarre cast of characters that includes a sadistic drug cartel warlord who loves animals, an 8 year old cancer patient with a penchant for CS Lewis, a faux Cajun FBI Agent and a Plant Manager of a historic hospital who also dabbles in “decorative corpses.”

All culminating in a race to find a young woman who may be the key to the mystery but just might have to kill them for their trouble.

Some people ask, “Who am I?” Mark Giuliano woke up one morning and asked, “Where am I?” Better yet, “Where is home?” In the spirit of Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat Pray Love) and Richard Florida (Who's Your City?), Making It Home is a memoir of both journey and placemaking. With gritty optimism, heart-wrenching honesty, and playful humor, Giuliano shares the story of his audacious endeavor to trade the coastal suburbs of Savannah, Georgia for a home in the hardscaped core of the second poorest city in America – Cleveland, Ohio.

“Home is where the cause is,” writes Giuliano. “It's not necessarily our 'deep gladness' but our restless passion for a better world that urges us toward our purpose.”

Weaving together personal relationships with some of Cleveland's most iconic characters and some of its most lowly, Making It Home is the story of the tenacity, entrepreneurial spirit, and redemptive conviction of America's comeback cities. With eloquence and passion, hope and vulnerability, Giuliano shares his unrelenting faith, the limits of love, and those people and places worth living and spiritually dying for. 

Detective Tomas O'Malley had his last days in Chicago include the red light of a laser scope locked on his chest outside the hospital where his partner lay dying. Sandman's bomb had been meant for him. It was at that moment that he wanted Mike Sandman to pull the trigger. To end his life and with it, the trail of death around him. But Sandman didn't fire, and Tomas O'Malley couldn't live the same because of it.

O'Malley believes he can find solitude escaping to his childhood home in White City, KS, until he receives a call about a strange murder-suicide in the Chicago suburbs using a gun from the past—a past O'Malley will never forget—the murder of his first partner. The gun was one psychopath's plan to reach O'Malley wherever he had run to and bring him back to Chicago and back to minutia that was his life. The plan worked. As evidence unfolds with misdirection and murder, two paths will cross once again. Blackmail, deception, and betrayal all within the department drive this case creating what could be O'Malley's last case of his life—with only one way to prevent it being lost in the Sand.

Faced with the approach of an unstoppable army, the people of the Citadel are forced to flee. While most of the population attempts to escape along the southern waterways, the group of newly possessed friends choose a more dangerous path.

Guided by visions, the possessed friends enter the Theleram, an expansive network of caves, stretching hundreds of miles beneath the rainforest. The visions direct them to the ruins of the ancient city of Semilae, where a hidden library lies.

Meanwhile, Raelyn, the willful demon who brought about the fall of the Citadel, struggles to make a home for herself in Derregain, the largest remaining human city. The Demon Queen has placed a price on her head, and many powerful demons are interested in collecting.

But Derregain itself is struggling, as sickness begins to spread through city streets. Raelyn knows the plague is demonic in origin, but will she survive long enough to share her knowledge?

When fantasy meets reality, a young boy's dream of having a dragon for a pet takes him on an adventure that is sure to strike joy into every child's imagination.

An unlikely match, the two experience what life could be like in a world not used to a combination like this. With no boundaries to stop them, they go out and seize the day, and learn what it's like having a dragon as a pet.

Fun to follow, this rhyming adventure will take you far, far away from the companions of an ordinary pet store.

What could possibly make life better? Well, I bet a dragon could.

Renee, her sister Lou, and their team of photojournalists from Itinera are excited about their three-week assignment to delve into Romanian history and capture its beauty on film. 

A tip about a yet undocumented castle promises to be a tantalizing addition to their project, but instead leads them to the forefront of a collision between the modern and ancient worlds. Now they must face powerful magic, a twisted love that survived death, and evil so strong that it persisted through time to renew itself again and again until it found the perfect host... 

Murder, bloodlust, and supernatural power beyond imagining leads them on a journey to the wildest, remotest regions of Romania, to a people locked in time, where Renee and her team find themselves in the midst of an ancient struggle and in a desperate race to save one of their own.

The discovery of his father Raymond's mysterious "treasure box" forces an award-winning writer to reexamine their contentious relationship. As he opens the box and begins taking items out one by one—taking you on a treasure hunt—he is overwhelmed by memories, many funny, some poignant or sad, and a few that may send shivers up your spine. It is in those curiosities that Raymond will be revealed, piece by piece, memory by memory. Hopes, dreams, warts and all. In the end, a different unexpected father emerges. 

By the time the treasures are all laid out, Raymond will have earned some measure of redemption, and you will have experienced not just the life of a self-employed upholsterer, pigeon fancier, and believer in ghosts and angels, but a glimpse of times long gone, when horses and streetcars ruled Washington, D.C., and Raymond ran barefoot through its streets. 

You will also discover, as the author did, that when you put people in boxes, there's always room for two. So unboxing one, unboxes the other—with surprising results.

During the 1950's, two white children find out about racial prejudice when a black family with two kids moves into their previously all-white neighborhood in Buffalo. 

Watching the black children endure taunts and cruel pranks at the hands of their other classmates, the white kids adopt a cavalier attitude. Then, on summer vacation, when they visit their grandmother in the South, the white children find themselves being treated differently because—as Notherners—they don't fit in. 

Although, they only get a taste of what the black kids have to tolerate, they return home with a new perspective on prejudice. Despite peer pressure from their classmates—and no real guidance from their indifferent parents—they start a tentative friendship with the black children. 

That growing relationship, however, is jeopardized when the black children's father is arrested for a crime he didn't commit. 

The only way to clear their friends' father, who must now defend himself in court, is for an eyewitness to come forward with the truth—before it's too late.

Luke is the coolest sixth grader at Benjamin Wright Middle School. Then his dad dies unexpectedly, leaving the family in debt and turning his world upside down. 

Forced to move with his family to Grandma's house on Blackbeard Creek in the marsh, Luke must adjust to a strange, new life on the Georgia coast. In addition to the stress of being the new kid in school, Luke finds himself constantly teased and bullied by his mean cousin Buck. 

Just when he thinks life can't get much worse, Luke almost drowns in the tidal creek, while mullet jumping on a cold, moonless night. Then, after getting into a fight with Buck on the school bus, their principal takes the two boys to his primitive island for the weekend to work out their issues. 

Unfortunately, the boys and their principal get kidnapped for ransom by wild-hog-poaching pirates. 

Knowing their families have no money to pay any amount of ransom, Luke and Buck declare a truce in order to escape Pirates Island and save themselves and their principal.

Take a bribe, meet your maker.

Imagine if someone recorded politicians accepting bribes. Or, an execution squad murdered corrupt legislators on camera, then broadcast politicians' wrongdoings. What if politicians actually feared retribution for accepting payola? Consider the seismic reverberations which would occur within the DC infrastructure if politicians feared dishonesty and graft.

Could our current government still run as our founding fathers intended?

Those questions drive the conflict at the center of Politikill, a thriller that grapples with timely issues around the broken political system in Washington, DC. Only Rice University History Professor Erasmus Luther understands that history is indeed repeating itself, and more importantly POWER does not share secrets. 

After three long years of war and disruptions, Alfred hopes for a time of peace and tranquility. A time to devote his energy to bettering the lives of his people, to focus on what the future holds for his children, to nurture his alliances, and to see his previous endeavors bear fruit. But even the home front has bumps in the road.

The campaign to suppress Teuton aggression has been costly, Lord Meriden's threat to disrupt the kingdom shows no sign of abating, and Nerrick's growing negativity casts a shadow over the mutual defense plans with the Territories. Against this domestic backdrop, Alfred can't forget his obligation to support the fledgling reign of young King Denis, whose kingdom is an essential buffer against Teuton ambitions.

The threat to peace and tranquility, when it comes, arises from an entirely unexpected quarter and puts Alfred in the unfamiliar position of being completely dependent on others to find a resolution. Could his grandfather have been wrong about his special destiny?

The fates of Destiny, IL are once again at work when Cashton Roberts lands on Delaney Walsh's doorstep with a wound in need of care. Except he's the homeless guy camping out on George Street. Why is he knocking on her door, dragging her out of her crying jag and pity party?

Things get stranger when a letter comes from a woman she doesn't know. A woman Cash knows very well. He begs Delaney not to open it until he can explain his story. A story that can turn her away if she decides.

But there's something about this man that feels trustworthy to Delaney. A bond she can't describe. She puts off opening the letter. When something special builds between the two, the guards come down. Crashing down. She discovers the truth of who he really is and how he's connected to her... and her late husband.

Will Delaney be able to forgive him?