Three murder mystery writers speculate about who killed their colleague, Jasmine.A local amusement park seems the perfect setting for seven-year-old Jack’s birthday party. The adults alternate between socializing with each other and chaperoning their children playing throughout the park. It seems like a fun time for everyone, but apparently not. Mandy would rather be finishing her homework than participating in her little brother’s escapades, especially when she considers his classmates in attendance that would make better company for him. It’s safe to say when Jack appears to go missing in the theme park she finds it more believable he is somewhere he shouldn’t be rather than lost or worse. She is right and wrong in the worst ways possible.

Three times. Three tales. Three tails. Journey back in time to the days of pirates to watch a colony attempt to take root on an island ruled by mermaids. Then, travel to the present for the comedic romance of a mermaid who wants to dance. Finally, jump into the future and see what happens when two Marine Biology majors, one of them in search of a mermaid, end up on an environmental pirate ship.In "The Red Siren," travel back in time to the island of Mystycetii in the days when mermaids ate oysters and were ruled by a mer-king. Follow the journey of the naturalist Dove as he attempts to fall in love with his betrothed, Rowynne, and comes crashing down hard for a local mermaid. Then, fast-forward to the present for "Ocean Girl," the story of a mermaid named Luna who wants to win a human dance contest - will she get up after her fall from the spotlight? Finally, jump into the near future with "People with Fishtails," the tale of two landlubbers who find themselves on an environmental pirate ship. Gayle is searching for her mother, whom she believes to be a mermaid ,while Sander is on the lookout for unusual marine specimens. Neither of the two knows they're also looking for love...Enjoy a journey through the ages with these three tales of mermaids!

Each week in 2014 I attended the Pomona Writers Group. The facilitator asked us to write a story about a topic he chose. These stories less than 500 words are OMR (One Minute Read). I hope you enjoy reading each one."A Reason to Live" is a free ebook short story.It takes place a few months before the events of "By Virtue Fall," the first song in the "Shadowdance" action/ urban fantasy saga. If you've read "By Virtue Fall," This story provides insight into the motivations of the characters within.If you're new to the "Shadowdance" saga, "A Reason to Live" is a good way to enter this urban fantasy world.

This a true story about a boy who wants to be a good guitarist like his dad. He goes through a lot of bad times in life. He notices that one thing always stayed with him and that was the want to keep on learning on to be better. He deals with a lot of death and heartbreak.A great read for all guitarist.This a true story about a boy who wants to be a good guitarist like his dad. He goes through a lot of bad times in life. He notices that one thing always stayed with him and that was the want to keep on learning on to be better. He deals with a lot of grief and heartbreak. A great read for all guitarist.

David Peatross is a man who has seen the best and worst that life has to offer. But when a jealous lover pushes him to his breaking point, he goes on the run. Tired of being hunted, he discovers a way to fight back, and is able to defeat those who would see him dead, but at the cost of himself. This is a short story in "The Chronicles of John Alkali".David Peatross is a man who has seen the best and worst that life has to offer. But when a jealous lover pushes him to his breaking point, he goes on the run. Tired of being hunted, he discovers a way to fight back, and is able to defeat those who would see him dead, but at the cost of himself.This is a short story in "The Chronicles of John Alkali".

If generosity is measured by donations, then Jalen Cole is the most emotionally benevolent author of the decade. Witness what is sure to become the bedrock of this writer's long and lively career as he embarks on a journey of the mind and its many forgetful corners.What would you do if a stranger approached you with the opportunity to go back and change your life one, mistake at a time? What if your reality was indistinguishable from your dreams and it was up to you to decide what was real? What if the only person you ever really loved was never anything more than your mind playing tricks on you? Read as author Jalen Cole navigates the dangerous waters of introspection, self-doubt, and inner discourse in a compilation of his best work to date.

**Every time Gwen closed her eyes, she saw him in her nightmares. Now her eyes are open, and he’s not going away.** Gwen Proctor won the battle to save her kids from her ex-husband, serial killer Melvin Royal, and his league of psychotic accomplices. But the war isn’t over. Not since Melvin broke out of prison. Not since she received a chilling text… *You’re not safe anywhere now.* Her refuge at Stillhouse Lake has be-come a trap. Gwen leaves her children in the protective custody of a fortified, well-armed neighbor. Now, with the help of Sam Cade, brother of one of Melvin’s victims, Gwen is going hunting. She’s learned how from one of the sickest killers alive. But what she’s up against is beyond any-thing she feared—a sophisticated and savage mind game calculated to destroy her. As trust beyond her small circle of friends begins to vanish, Gwen has only fury and vengeance to believe in as she closes in on her prey. And sure as the night, one of them will die.

With his disarmingly simple style and complex imagination, Ray Bradbury has seized the minds of American readers for decades.This collection showcases thirty-two of Bradbury's most famous tales in which he lays bare the depths of the human soul. The thrilling title story, A Sound of Thunder, tells of a hunter sent on safari -- sixty million years in the past. But all it takes is one wrong step in the prehistoric jungle to stamp out the life of a delicate and harmless butterfly -- and possibly something else much closer to home ...

"Father Sergius" (Russian: Отец Сергий, translit. Otets Sergiy) is a story written by Leo Tolstoy between 1890 and 1898 and first published (posthumously) in 1911. For some weeks Father Sergius had been living with one persistent thought: whether he was right in accepting the position in which he had not so much placed himself as been placed by the Archimandrite and the Abbot. That position had begun after the recovery of the fourteen-year-old boy. From that time, with each month, week, and day that passed, Sergius felt his own inner life wasting away and being replaced by external life.

If you could change your story, would you? Jane has lived a mostly ordinary life, raised by her recently deceased aunt Magnolia, whom she counted on to turn life into an adventure. Without Aunt Magnolia, Jane is directionless. Then an old acquaintance, the glamorous and capricious Kiran Thrash, blows back into Jane’s life and invites her to a gala at the Thrashes’ extravagant island mansion called Tu Reviens. Jane remembers her aunt telling her: “If anyone ever invites you to Tu Reviens, promise me that you’ll go.” What Jane doesn’t know is that at Tu Reviens her story will change; the house will offer her five choices that could ultimately determine the course of her untethered life. But every choice comes with a price. She might fall in love, she might lose her life, she might come face-to-face with herself. At Tu Reviens, anything is possible.

The final book in the NEW YORK TIMES bestselling series by H.M. Ward Blackmail. Sex. Ferro. Time is my enemy and I won’t waste another second. I have a choice to make: a life with Neil or what’s left of life with Bryan. I make my decision, but could lose everything when the one Ferro I never want to see interferes. I feel like my life is spiraling out of control, but this could lead to what I’ve been searching for all along—hope.

From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Katy Evans comes a brand new contemporary romance. WOMANIZER is a full standalone, and no other books in the series need to be read. You've seen the headlines: Womanizing billionaire player! Watch out! Stay away! We were just two strangers. Facing a forbidden attraction, a chemical connection. Neither of us expected or wanted it to amount to more. But I had never been drawn to a guy the way I was drawn to this one: my brother's best friend, and CEO of the company where I interned. Even knowing I should stay away, I proved to be too human, after all. The chemistry was amazing. The laughs were incredible. I opened up to him in more ways than I'd opened up to anyone before. But sex was as far as I'd go. Just sex because he was too irresistible. Just sex because I wouldn't be falling for him. Just sex because I'd leave in three months, and I'd like for my brother not to kill me, and for nobody to find out he was my wicked little secret. He wasn't the One. He was just a womanizer. But for a time, he would be mine.

“An elegant page-turner of nineteenth-century detective fiction.” –The Washington Post Book World One rainy morning in 1871 in lower Manhattan, Martin Pemberton a freelance writer, sees in a passing stagecoach several elderly men, one of whom he recognizes as his supposedly dead and buried father. While trying to unravel the mystery, Pemberton disappears, sending McIlvaine, his employer, the editor of an evening paper, in pursuit of the truth behind his freelancer’s fate. Layer by layer, McIlvaine reveals a modern metropolis surging with primordial urges and sins, where the Tweed Ring operates the city for its own profit and a conspicuously self-satisfied nouveau-riche ignores the poverty and squalor that surrounds them. In E. L. Doctorow’s skilled hands, The Waterworks becomes, in the words of The New York Times, “a dark moral tale . . . an eloquently troubling evocation of our past.”

""How wonderful to be an artist and a women in the twentieth-century," Fleur Talbot rejoices. Loitering about London, c. 1949, with intent to gather material for her writing, Fleur finds a job "on the grubby edge of the literary world," as secretary to the odd Autobiographical Association. Mad eogmanics, hilariously writing their memoirs in advance - or poor fools ensnared by a blackmailer? Rich material, in any case." "But when its pompous director, Sir Quentin, steals the manuscript of Fleur's new novel, fiction begins to appropriate life. The association's members begin to act out scenes exactly as Fleur herself and already written them in her missing manuscript. And as they meet darkly funny, pre-visioned fates, where does art start or reality end?"--BOOK JACKET.

In the fourth and final installment, Maggie and Caleb must tie up all the loose ends of their lives and make a way to be together completely on their own. With everything that happened with Bish and Maggie's father, she's almost reluctant to move on and move out. And now she must figure out all of this...stuff...with Haddock. But of course, nothing can stay simple for the Jacobsons. Enemies who were thought to be dissolved have decided to not go down so easily. And old flames come calling for more than just Maggie. Caleb is torn between leading his family and personal wants. Maggie is torn between Caleb and being the leader of their people. But neither will let what they need most to be pushed to the wayside. They are determined to make it all work, design a plan toward destiny, and make everything right again for themselves and their family. And then there's a wedding...

At Risk featured Massachusetts state investigator Win Garano, a shrewd man of mixed-race background and a notinconsiderable chip on his shoulder; District Attorney Monique Lamont, a hard-charging woman with powerful ambitions and a troubling willingness to cut corners; and Garano’s grandmother, who has certain unpredictable talents that you ignore at your peril. And in The Front, peril is what comes to them all. D.A. Lamont has a special job for Garano. As part of a new public relations campaign about the dangers of declining neighborhoods, she’s sending him to Watertown to “come up with a drama,” and she thinks she knows just the case that will serve. Garano is very skeptical, because he knows that Watertown is also the home base for a loose association of municipal police departments called the FRONT, set up in order that they don’t have to be so dependent on the state—much to Lamont’s anger. He senses a much deeper agenda here—but he has no idea just how deep it goes. In the days that follow, he’ll find that Lamont’s task, and the places it leads him, will resemble a house of mirrors—everywhere he turns, he’s not quite sure if what he’s seeing is true.

After defying the ruthless Enclave, surviving the wasteland, and overthrowing Sylum, Gaia Stone now faces her greatest challenge yet--to lead the people of Sylum back to the Enclave and persuade the Protectorat to grant them refuge. But in Gaia's absence, the Enclave has become even more ruthless, picking girls from outside the wall to serve in an experimental baby factory. Babies with the right genes are now a priceless commodity with the potential to reshape life inside the wall and redefine humanity. The key to it all comes back to one fearless, young midwife. When negotiations devolve into terrorist threats, Gaia finds herself at the crux of an insupportable decision. As a leader, a woman, and an idealist in love, Gaia must decide if she can sacrifice what--or whom--she values most.

Confidence Girl comprises three interlinked novellas, which together create a stunning, novel-length portrait of Blake Crouch's all-time favorite creation, Letty Dobesh. The Pain of Others - Letty Dobesh, a gorgeous, degenerate thief, is fresh out of the clink and back to her old tricks-in this case, burglarizing suites at a luxury hotel in Asheville, North Carolina. But when she's surprised by returning guests on her last room of the day, she's forced to hide in the closet to avoid getting caught, and inadvertently overhears a hitman being contracted to murder the wife of a wealthy lawyer. Sunset Key - Letty Dobesh is coming off a bender and hasn't had a job in months when she gets a very enticing offer. John Fitch, the ultrawealthy CEO of a major energy company, has recently been convicted of securities fraud. In four days he must report to a federal prison, where he will almost certainly spend the rest of his life. Fitch wants a female companion for his last night of freedom. But Letty is no high-priced call girl, and this gig isn't about sex. The plan is to steal an original Van Gogh from Fitch's island retreat. A petty thief by trade, Letty has never had a shot at this kind of payout. It's certainly dangerous, but the money will set her up for life and allow her to regain custody of her young son. Besides, it's stealing from a very bad guy. If all goes well, she'll be on Easy Street but in Letty's life, all seldom goes well. Grab - Letty Dobesh: thief, junkie, pick-pocket, felon. But now, for the first time in ages, she's also clean and sober, just out of rehab, and on a cross-country trip to reunite with her estranged little boy. Enter psychotic mercenary Isaiah Brown with a proposal that scratches at her oldest itch, something Letty has dreamed of all her life-the ultimate Vegas score. An ingenious plan to take down a casino that might actually work. All that's standing between Letty and an inconceivable pile of money is the pick-pocket of a lifetime. One risky, impossible grab. Pull it off, and retire. But mess things up, and Letty Dobesh will lose everything she holds dear, including her life.

A lot of bad hands get dealt in Vegas, but E. L. Speare may be holding one of the worst: He’s cursed with the need to commit sins, and if he misses his daily quota, there’s hell to pay—literally. Fortunately, his hometown affords him plenty of chances to behave badly. But Speare’s newest case really has him going out on a limb. The right-hand man of a notorious crime boss has been found dead in a Dumpster—minus his right hand, not to mention the rest of his arm. What catches Speare’s attention, however, is that the missing appendage was severed clean by a demon-sword, a frighteningly powerful tool of the underworld. Speare’s out of his element, so he turns to a specialist: Ardeth Coyle, master thief, dealer in occult artifacts, and bona fide temptress. Ardeth’s hotter than a Las Vegas sidewalk on the Fourth of July, but she’s one sin Speare has to resist. The dismembered corpses are piling up, unimaginable evil lurks in the shadows, and if this odd couple hopes to beat the odds, Speare needs to keep his hands off Ardeth, and his head in the game.

The classic memoir of Africa, aviation, and adventure—the inspiration for Paula McLain’s Circling the Sun and “a bloody wonderful book” (Ernest Hemingway). Beryl Markham’s life story is a true epic. Not only did she set records and break barriers as a pilot, she shattered societal expectations, threw herself into torrid love affairs, survived desperate crash landings—and chronicled everything. A contemporary of Karen Blixen (better known as Isak Dinesen, the author of Out of Africa), Markham left an enduring memoir that soars with astounding candor and shimmering insights. A rebel from a young age, the British-born Markham was raised in Kenya’s unforgiving farmlands. She trained as a bush pilot at a time when most Africans had never seen a plane. In 1936, she accepted the ultimate challenge: to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean from east to west, a feat that fellow female aviator Amelia Earhart had completed in reverse just a few years before. Markham’s successes and her failures—and her deep, lifelong love of the “soul of Africa”—are all told here with wrenching honesty and agile wit. Hailed as “one of the greatest adventure books of all time” by Newsweek and “the sort of book that makes you think human beings can do anything” by the New York Times, West with the Night remains a powerful testament to one of the iconic lives of the twentieth century.

Where can a woman turn when her own life threatens to overwhelm her ability to keep her children safe? New York Times bestselling author Jacquelyn Mitchard takes the readers of her newest novel on a wry and moving journey of loss and healing. Giving advice is what Julieanne does for a living -- every Sunday she doles it out to clueless people she doesn't know, in a column in her local Wisconsin paper. But when it comes to her personal life, Julie herself seems to have missed some clues. Having worked creatively to keep her twenty-year marriage to Leo fresh and exciting, she is completely caught off guard when he tells her he needs to go on a "sabbatical" from their life together, leaving Julie and their three children -- Gabe, Caroline, and Aury -- behind. But it soon becomes clear that his leave of absence is meant to be permanent. The succeeding months are filled with a confusion and sadness that shake the core of the entire family. Things take a turn for the worse when Julie is diagnosed with a serious illness and the children undertake a dangerous journey to find Leo -- before it's too late. As the known world sinksprecariously from view, the clan must navigate its way through the shoals of love, guilt, and betrayal. Together, with the help of Leo's parents and Julie's best friend, Cathy, they work their way back to solid ground and a new definition of family. No one illuminates modern love, marriage, and parenting better than Jacquelyn Mitchard. Written with her trademark poignancy, humor, and insight, The Breakdown Lane is her most moving, eloquent,and life-affirming work yet.