How would it feel to be scattered across the rocks? Fifty feet, jagged edges, no mercy for a drunken teenager. A few swigs of whisky under the blazing Arizona sun and you jump…and wake up in a big ol’ truck inner tube, floating within the dark pit of hell toward a destiny filled with evil’s promise.POWERS SPLICED TOGETHER LIKE SCIONS TO STOCKTHIS IS THE FIRST MISSIONAfter years of training among splicers—a secluded community of people able to make auras of energy surround their bodies and burst into concussive blasts—Sophie is ready to run away.She has failed to become a successful splicer at every attempt while it comes so naturally to other students. Their power comes from their communion with one another, which troubles Sophie who is an outsider among a close-knit population and is prone to be alone.But on the eve of her escape, her instructor pairs her with Logan, the best splicer among her peers, in a mission to escort a group of visitors back to their village. They have made a recent pilgrimage to the tower where the splicers live and they are coming back home through a countryside riddled with bandits and an unforgiving wilderness.With the perfect opportunity to escape, Sophie must decide between her responsibilities and her true desires. Can she bring herself to risk Logan’s life and the lives of innocent visitors in order to escape?If you wish to read more, download now!BONUS FOR YOU AT THE END OF THE BOOK!EXCERPTThe sun was beginning to set and they wouldn’t be able to see the trail for much longer, especially once they reached the nearby woods.“We should stop for the night,” she said.Immediately, Logan removed his rucksack from his shoulder and set it amid the grass along the road. He extended an arm behind himself and plopped down on his haunches.Sophie tilted her head towards him. “Wow. That was easier than I expected,” she said.“What?” Logan asked, looking curious.“I just thought you would want to push onward, you know? I mean, you’re the gold standard of splicer students, right? So, I just expected more determination — not that I’m complaining. That’s all.”Logan rested his arms on his knees with a blade of grass in his fingers. He ripped it apart and then doubled the segments over and did it again until he had to grab more grass and restart the cycle.“It’s the smart decision,” he said, distracted by the grass.“Okay. Well, I’m going to go gather some firewood.”Sophie walked away, considering the option of just running away now and saving herself the effort of actually going through with the mission.“Whatever. Don’t let me stop you,” Logan said. And Sophie was glad that he could not see her growing so angry with his rude attitude again that she imagined herself with a fierce red aura.Soon, she disappeared into the woods, mumbling to herself; deciding that, yes, she would leave now and find a new home.Preferably somewhere far from the splicers, please.Download and discover why readers are raving about Elena Snowfield.Scroll up and get the book now!

The sky beyond Neptune’s orbit has gone dark. Colonel Tomás Rexhaut is an attack cruiser commander assigned to Triton Station who is ordered to find out why. Rexhaut’s wife and only love has been murdered in a cowardly terrorist act on Enceladus, and while dealing with his grief, suddenly finds himself on a first contact mission where he meets Jeel, who will give him deeply unsettling news.Six short sci-fi chapters from the giants who create universes to those seeking an answer. Snowfields, invisible monsters that are as big as a freight train, a snow world with a pulsar star and all the gold one could imagine, the old west as you've never seen it. A blackhole sucking the life from a giant red sun, and those who worship them as Gods. More action, and twists to this free little collection and a tie-in to the original sci-fi by Sebar entitled "SOL".

Emily Wren had two soul mates. Before she could meet either they were both killed. Is she doomed to always be alone? A race of super immortals, the Paragons and their Luminary companions, who live in the domain between reality and the tangible, must intervene. They have one duty, matching up soul mates to release magic into the world. But is there more at stake than the happiness of one human?Emily is an every-woman, still waiting to find Mr. Right and fall in love. But she’s unaware that a great tragedy has happened, killing her soul mate and the backup one-- two young men that she has never met. Does that mean she’s doomed to a life without true love?Her super immortal protector, a Paragon and his Luminary companion, work in the shadows and must do something unthinkable. They must retrofit a new soul mate for her. Change the make up of a human’s soul so that he’s her perfect complement in every way. It's their only option for insuring a soul mate match -- which releases much needed magic into the world. Magic that advances the causes of mankind.Reshaping the precious hallmarks and soul markers is a nasty painful business without guarantees. But they must try-- if the girl is to have any shot at real happiness. Emily Wren is focused on school and her budding career. Smart, confident, feisty and too modest to realize her own beauty, she’d never had a boyfriend. If her protector is successful that could all soon change. But life in the supernatural world, even the secret world of Paragons, is never quite that simple. Treachery from an unsuspected quarter threatens the super immortal’s plans. Even more baffling-- vampires, werewolves, witches, a shapeshifter and a psychic have suddenly developed a not so subtle interest in the love life of this woman. Will she meet her soul mate? Or is something else going on? Is there more at stake than the happiness of one special human?Read the newly revised and expanded edition of Luminary, for a truly unique perspective on soul mates and the role of coincidence in finding “the one.” Book 1 in the soul mate series by P.S. Meraux.

She didn’t want this, but she could never go back. She is the best, but wasn’t prepared to pay the price. She is a soldier, but isn’t legally an adult. She is Miles, the perfect candidate." The notion that he had travelled in time was both alarming and thrilling, but there had been no time machine, no pimped-out DeLorean DMC-12 in which to ride. He’d only walked through that abandoned house."Going back in time 13 minutes was a neat trick for Austin Baker. It allowed him to get to school at the same time he left his house. But when Jordan Baxter followed him into Number 13, he disappeared completely.Where (and when) Jordan went is a mystery that Austin is compelled to solve. It will take him on the strangest and most dangerous journey of his life...

An itty-bitty short fantasy about an unexpected early morning encounter of companionship under a Harvest Moon.The year is 2043, the life has come to the point where the animal instincts of survival often came into play. The human race is in danger of already taking control “Company.” After the implementing of the microchips and brain waves scan, the things went out of control... Alan is a member of a underground society, working for the good of the human society, preparing and educating the people of the important and forgotten ideals, protecting them from silent enslavement. Courage, honesty, bravery, qualities long gone. No one knows whether Alan and his group will be able to save what has left from the true vibration of the universe, pulsating in each and every one of us. Hope is non existent if action is not present...

A new collection of short stories by Tommy Dakar. From humour to intrigue, from irony to philosophy, each piece has been carefully constructed to perform its task.An observant boy goes to the park, returns home, and has a conversation with his mother in a fabricated, unlikely, never-happened, plausible, impossible, invented, realistic coming-of-age story. What Never Happened: An Observation, a short story, was first published in Waccamaw, Issue 7.From What Never Happened, An Observation:I was a boy. (Dear reader, for the last time I say to you, please remember that this is only a story, meant to comfort friends, relations, and acquaintances, and as such it only exists in your head and those heads who have heard it.) As a boy, I was not especially different than other boys, though I was somewhat indifferent towards them. Of girls, I remember the existence of none save my mother and other assorted relatives: a passel of cousins, an aunt, and a grandmother. I was predominantly interested in myself, though not in a selfish way. I was simply not aroused by games of sport or make-believe or conversation. Allow me to make myself clear: sport, make-believe, and conversation were three of my most cherished pastimes, but they were activities I preferred to conduct with myself. With others these pastimes were diluted, somehow losing their piquancy.What I was most passionate about, though, was observing. I would sit for hours in the same spot, quietly taking mental note of my surroundings. I would not speak my observations, nor would I write them down. I would simply take mental note of the position of a fork on a table, of the number of tines it had, of the sharpness of those tines, of the curvature of the head, of how gracefully the head met the handle at the neck, of any ornamentation on the handle, of any fingerprints. I would note the construction of the table, how its disparate parts were joined, the lay of the grain of the wood, the pattern of the sunlight splashed on the tabletop, the angle of sunlight entering through the window, the shape of a leaf outside the window. When I could fit words to my observations, I did (silently), but I never forced the issue. I did not wish to force my surrounding reality to conform to words if no words were adequate. For example, if the pattern of light on the table was rhombic, I would say so silently to myself, and so too if I could say with reasonable probability that the light passing through the window (forgiving refraction) entered the kitchen at an angle of 30, 45, or 60 degrees while my mother spread peanut butter and jelly on bread for me, I would use just those words. But more often than not, the pattern of light was decidedly unrhombic and indeed indescribable, just as the angle of the sunlight’s penetration was generally immeasurable and inestimable. In such instances, I would wordlessly observe and make wordless mental note. The words, after all, were not what I was after. Words were merely tools. I was after the thing itself.

A guide to the end of the world and our possible solutions to avoid extinction as seen in classic Science FictionAmerican Dreams (The Idea Book) is a compilation of fourteen essays, each one a dream for improving lives of Americans from all walks of life. Apropos to it's title the first two essays are aimed at restoring that most basic American Dream the dream of home ownership (which for too many was lost when the real estate bubble broke).Six of the essays (including the second) are entrepreneurial ideas that should lead many to riches while enriching the lives on many more. These ideas range from marketing real estate and yachts to new concepts in restaurants, clubs, exercise, jewelry, and prophylaxis.Six essays (including the first) are public sector ideas that run from the adoption of existing technology in our schools and prisons to new liquor laws to amending the federal constitution and even to changing the calendar week.The reader should expect to be amused by the novelty of many of these American dreams. And what could be more American than dreams of change and schemes for getting rich. If just one idea in this book sees fruition America will be a better place. For the go-getters, the embrace of just one money making scheme should make you rich.

Global warming, a secret brotherhood, climate scientists, and politics conspire to create the circumstance for a global catastrophe. Be unsettled as fact and fiction merge to make plausible the unthinkable. Enjoy this short tale and be comforted that only some of it is true. You may have to surf the net a bit to determine which parts are in fact real.Global warming, a secret brotherhood, climate scientists, and politics conspire to create the circumstances for a global catastrophe. Be unsettled as fact and fiction merge to make plausible the unthinkable. Enjoy this short tale and be comforted that only some of it is true. You may have to surf the net a bit to determine which parts are in fact real.

The past year has not been a good one for Curt Savage. Depressed over the death of a loved one, the urge to find that elusive killer draws him out of hiding. With the help of his new buddy Mike, he delves into the murky world of murder. As Mike puts it, "Private investigation just got Savage."“When life gives you lemons … be sure to spit the pits out of that lemonade you’re making. Otherwise you’ll choke.” – Curt SavageThe past year has not been a good one for Curt Savage. Depressed over the death of a loved one, he’s gone into hiding, becoming entirely too comfortable with saying that he’s in the Witness Protection Program. But the urge to find that elusive killer puts his MIA status on hold. With the help of his new buddy Mike, he delves into the murky world of tracking down a killer—and uncovering who poisoned a neighbor’s dog. Savage Summer is the first in the Curt Savage mystery series. Going from former cop to private dick, he represents a new kind of detective—the reluctant kind. As his best bud Mike puts it, “Private investigation just got Savage.”

Idaha wakes up at the call of his wife. On a bright morning his wife tries to persuade him to go to the beach. Idaha disagrees. He is no longer romantic. Idaha is unhappy at the prospect of not having any off springs to continue his lineage. Idaha meets an ascetic who directs him to go to the ‘Temple of Five Elements’ so as to fulfill his wish. But things do not go as planned.Idaha wakes up at the call of his wife. On a bright morning his wife tries to persuade him to go to the beach. Idaha disagrees. He is no longer romantic. Idaha is unhappy at the prospect of not having any off springs to continue his lineage. Idaha meets an ascetic who directs him to go to the ‘Temple of Five Elements’ so as to fulfill his wish. But things do not go as planned. There he is directed by an ethereal being Chakra and starts his journey of saving the island from evil Kalihan and the Asuras. Will he be successful? Find out by reading the first edition ‘Tribes of Chonohaush The Mace and The Bow’.

What happens when you take two sisters stuck in middle age and join them with two sisters struggling to enter adulthood and stir them all together in the cauldron of life's trials? This novel picks up the story of Brooke and Leah Fulcher now in their fifties and adds Jodie and Penni, Brooke's daughters, to their mix, creating emotional entanglements beyond the sum of those parts.When a group of curious Archaeological students receive a text specified with co-ordinates, they immediately begin their own quest by following the trail, ultimately leading them into a trap; they stumble upon, what they think, is an age old buried scripture, but it doesn't stop there.Now they must dig deep to unravel the mystery, which would shake the entire Archaeological community of Baltimore.Their every single move are being watched. A mystery that's worth killing. Some things are always meant to be buried in the past.

After Lark Greene's best friend and future mate, Beck, is accused of being Sensitive and organizing an attack against her, he disappears. Heartbroken and convinced the State made a mistake, Lark sets out to find him and clear his name. But what she discovers is more dangerous and frightening than Sensitives: She must kill the boy she loves, unless he kills her first.In the years following the destructive Long Winter, when half the world’s population perished, the State remains locked in battle against the Sensitives: humans born with extra abilities. As one of the last descendants of the State’s Founders, seventeen-year-old Lark Greene knows her place: study hard and be a model citizen so she can follow in her family’s footsteps. Her life’s been set since birth, and she’s looking forward to graduating and settling down with Beck, the boy she’s loved longer than she can remember. However, after Beck is accused of being Sensitive and organizing an attack against Lark, he disappears. Heartbroken and convinced the State made a mistake, Lark sets out to find him and clear his name. But what she discovers is more dangerous and frightening than Sensitives: She must kill the boy she loves, unless he kills her first.

Raw stories, thoughts, experiences; hopes, dreams and fantasies from a passionate young woman. One could feel a bit subconscious about the naiveté of it all, the almost childlike thoughts and ideas of sexuality, loneliness and desires. Although some could relate with her words of intimacy and frustration. In this Ashley's third poetry collection, she is raw, open and exposed again in 58 poems.Raw stories, thoughts, experiences; hopes, dreams and fantasies from a passionate young woman. One could feel a bit subconscious about the naiveté of it all, the almost childlike thoughts and ideas of sexuality, loneliness and desires. Although some could relate with her words of intimacy and frustration. In this Ashley Rebecca Kingston's third poetry collection, she is raw, open and exposed again in 58 different poems.

At the flat in Weatherall Walk there was no milk in the fridge, no ice in the tiny freezer unit.... The better furniture was hung over with drop cloths, the leather-bound books evacuated from their shelves.... Unconnected wiring threaded from walls, and a smell of lazy drains, something rotting, unfurled from the sewer all the way up to this flat. Winnie wrenched open a window. But no sign of John? Winifred Rudge, a bemused writer struggling to get beyond the runaway success of her mass-market astrology book, travels to London to jump-start her new novel about a woman who is being haunted by the ghost of Jack the Ripper. Upon her arrival, she finds that her stepcousin and old friend John Comestor has disappeared, and a ghostly presence seems to have taken over his apartment in the nineteenth-century rowhouse once owned by Winnie's great-great-grandfather. Is it the spirit of this ancestor, who, family legend claims, was Charles Dickens's childhood inspiration for Ebenezer Scrooge? Could it be the ghostly remains of Jack the Ripper? Or a phantasm derived from a more arcane and insidious origin? Winnie begins to investigate, but John's erstwhile girlfriend, Allegra, is aggressively unhelpful, and his downstairs neighbor, the cat-obsessed Mrs. Maddingly, is growing stranger by the day. Gripped by inspiration and desperation alike, Winnie finds herself the unwilling audience for a drama of specters and shades, some from her family's peculiar history and some from her own unvanquished past.

The past returns to haunt a guilt-stricken man who survived a tragic Antarctic expedition decades earlier in this powerful and thought-provoking novel from the author of *Schindler’s List* A professor at an Australian university, Alec Ramsey has lived an eventful life, much of which he is reluctant to discuss. In the 1920s, he was a member of a small expedition to Antarctica that resulted in the tragic death of its leader and Ramsey’s dear friend, Stephen Leeming. Four decades later, Ramsey has yet to make peace with himself over two things: He had slept with Leeming’s wife just prior to their embarkation, and his friend had still been alive when Ramsey left him behind on the ice at the bottom of the world. Closemouthed avoidance has enabled Ramsey to go on with his life in academia, despite the “betrayal obsessions” that have become an integral part of his being, even though what he so vividly recalls may or may not be the truth. But now there will be no silencing Ramsey’s inner demons—because, after forty years frozen in the Antarctic, Leeming’s body has finally been found. An enthralling, profoundly affecting novel of guilt, perception, and endurance, The Survivor is a gripping story from award-winning author Thomas Keneally. Intriguing and intelligent, it is a masterful fictional journey through the complex labyrinth of the human heart and psyche.

NB: There are two stories fewer in this edition (13 stories) than in the Gregg Press edition (15 stories). Short story collection, comprising: Colony; Impostor; Expendable; Planet for Transients; Prominent Author; The Builder; The Impossible Planet; The Indefatigable Frog; The Turning Wheel; Progeny; Upon the Dull Earth; The Cookie Lady; Exhibit Piece.

Boundaries will be crossed and souls laid bare as Foster and Cela discover if sizzling passion can ignite into something more in the breathtaking conclusion of Not Until You. When Cela walked into his life, scared, innocent, and seeking thrills beyond her wildest dreams, Foster never expected she could become the submissive he’s always desired. Cela has changed, has blossomed into something he can’t resist, and she’s ready and willing to surrender to Foster fully. But when devastating news reminds Foster how tragically he failed to take care of someone he loved in the past, he wonders what right he has to be with a woman as beautiful and vibrant as Cela. She’ll leave eventually anyway—everyone always does. But Cela isn’t about to let Foster chase her away. Can she convince this dominant playboy that her love for him is here to stay? *This is part 8 of an 8-part serial

He's a "lemon drop wrapped in licorice": tall, dark, handsome, and as smooth as his silk shirts and leather jacket. He can discuss everything from art to world events, he's traveled the world, and he owns a Jeep, a condo, and a jazz CD collection. But best of all, twenty-three-year-old Jonathan Hathaway, the new track coach and the principal's son, has his golden eyes set on Keisha Montgomery. In her senior year of high school, still recovering from the suicide of her ex-boyfriend, Keisha's thrilled to have someone treat her like a woman rather than a girl. As Jonathan tells her, she's a butterfly ready to try her wings -- much too mature for high school boys, whose only deep thoughts are words from rap songs. Jonathan makes her feel alive again; he seems like the answer to all her dreams and the cure to all her nightmares. Gifts wrapped with silver ribbons begin to mysteriously appear on her doorstep, and Keisha is swept off her feet. But events take a terrifying turn, and suddenly darkness overwhelms her life.... As Keisha struggles to put her world back in perspective, she learns the power and the danger of silence, and discovers the secret gifts that had been waiting for her all along.

Jersey Cameron has always loved a good storm. Watching the clouds roll in and the wind pick up. Smelling the electricity in the air. Dancing barefoot in the rain. She lives in the Midwest, after all, where the weather is sure to keep you guessing. Jersey knows what to do when the tornado sirens sound. But she never could have prepared for this. When her town is devastated by a tornado, Jersey loses everything. As she struggles to overcome her grief, she's sent to live with relatives she hardly knows-family who might as well be strangers. In an unfamiliar place, can Jersey discover that even on the darkest of days, there are some things no tornado can destroy? In this powerful and poignant novel, acclaimed author Jennifer Brown delivers a story of love, loss, hope, and survival.

Taking us from smoggy Los Angeles to the woods of Idaho, from Hawaii at the turn of the twentieth century to the post-Civil War frontier, these riveting stories trace the perils and occasional triumphs of lawmen and -women who put themselves in harm's way to face down the bad guys. Some of them even walk the edge of becoming bad guys themselves. In T. Jefferson Parker's "Skinhead Central," an ex-cop and his wife find unexpected menace in the idyllic setting they have chosen for their retirement. In Alafair Burke's "Winning," a female officer who is attacked in the line of duty must protect her own husband from his worst impulses. In Michael Connelly's "Father's Day," Harry Bosch faces one of his most emotionally trying cases, investigating a young boy's death. These are hard-hitting, thrilling, and utterly unforgettable stories, from some of the best writers in the mystery world.