This story is kinda sad (awww) but it has this one part with the smoking remains of a burnt car driven by a char-black skeleton, so there's that. Also, there are gnomes lurking about :DSet in the urban area of Tokyo in the near future, the story revolves around Touka Kimizuki and her twin brother, Yuuto. Both of them are just like a typical 16-year old high schooler. But they're actually recruited by Public Security Intelligence Agency (PSIA) to become a secret agent due to their ability to kill skilled assassins while they were still in the middle school.Together with their father who is the Head of Special Activities Division in PSIA and his squad, they receive a mission to ensure the safety of the last remaining researcher for Transhuman Development Project, Dr. Nobuhiko Hayama. He's their only hope to unfold the mystery behind the other researchers' deaths.Little they know that their first encounter with Dr. Hayama leads to something they least expect. And this is just the beginning.

After inheriting a large horse ranch, Isabella is not only introduced to the love of her life, but finds herself in the midst of a generational war. Forced to battle the long-range effects of greed, she must decide where her true strength comes from. But Bella is not alone. Heaven comes near as struggles for the souls of men erupt throughout Spokane County.“Destroyer of Dreams! They haunt the sons and daughters of each generation always seeking someone to devour. Their arrival was expected. Alert Commander Crystal and his Radiant Ones! Have his armies position themselves as anticipated and wait for Beloved’s call. You and Jasmine know my heart. Stand guard and remain vigilant,” Papa commanded.********After inheriting a large horse ranch, Isabella Janea Randal is not only introduced to the love of her life, but finds herself in the midst of a generational war. Forced to battle the long-range effects of greed, she must decide where her true strength comes from. But Bella is not alone. Heaven comes near as the struggle for souls erupts throughout Spokane County.“The Power of a Legacy” is a story about family, romance, horse ranching, greed, revenge, spiritual warfare, God’s forgiveness, the power of prayer and personal destiny. And by pulling back the thin, whispery veil separating our world from the spiritual world all around, readers discover the heavenly beings dwelling among us. And by the way, they are unicorns!“The Power of a Legacy” is Volume III of the faith-building, action-packed series chronicling the adventures of Eli and Jasmine, Servants of the Most High God. On every page, young readers eight years old and up will experience the thrilling, real-to-life adventures of epic struggles between angels and demons, choices and consequences, sin and redemption, and love and forgiveness.Christian parents will appreciate the redemptive messages woven throughout each adventure, as their children learn to apply biblical truths to every-day moral dilemmas. And by joining the online community of readers on the Divine Commissions blog, children can also share their evangelistic insights with family and friends.

Have you ever thought of God coming back in modern day times? What do you think he might say or do? How would he interact with us? Our book explores this possibility from a non-religious point of view.The story opens briefly with the creation of the universe and its potential for destruction. It moves forward to a message from God, heralding the arrival of messengers, but the true understanding of the message doesn't come until later. Each story deals with current, sensitive issues and unique situations that many of us will face in our lifetimes. They form stories within the main story, offering lessons learned as we seek to find our individual paths to spirituality. A story for both believer and non-believer. What is the true definition of 'love'? There are thousands of perspectives of what love is, but no all-encompassing definition. Discover God's answer.Follow the main characters as they move inevitably to a conclusion of truth and revelation at the end. This positive book of hope, whether one has faith or not, brings a message to believe in. Our hope is that you enjoy reading it as much as we did writing it.

This booklet contains 64 limericks about food(pro and con) by Gary Miller and Lenny Everson.This latest collection of poems, our third, can be considered a grace note attached to the full melody to the first two. The title, "Scattering Dreams and Tales," was written to reflect the other two publications. According to my co-editor, Fabrizio Frosini, "Dreams & Tales" recalls 'Nine Tales of Creation'. "Scattering" evokes 'At the Crossing of Seven Winds". In this Anthology, you will find poems by 13 poets.According to the Random House Dictionary, a POET is a person who has the gift of poetic thought, imagination and creation.Let us see how we can amplify this definition with statements made by poets and prose writers. One of the earliest definitions still current is by the ancient Roman poet, HORACE, one of the masters of Lyric Poetry in Western literature. He wrote Poets were the first teachers of mankind. The poet-teacher would inculcate the highest human values along with whatever information would be deemed necessary. Who are the hyphenated teachers in today's world? Perhaps technocrat-teachers, dogmatist-teachers, militarist-teachers, businessman-teachers. Would there be room for Horace's confidence in Lyric Poetry?The early 20th century poet James Flecker made a very precise distinction in what we can expect poets to accomplish through language, mere words raised to heightened, even electric power: "The poet's business is not to save the soul of man but to make it worth saving." Perhaps several poems in our anthology will perform this redemptive role, if the poets have fulfilled their mission and readers read with lively attention.

Reilly was a slug. He is no more, though. You see, he got his comeuppance. A short story by The Crazymad Writer.Reilly was a slug, and I emphasise WAS, because he is no more. You see, he got his comeuppance. My story begins long, long ago, a full three months previous. “Morning, mum,” Reilly sang out, one wonderfully damp, drizzly cold morning.“Good morning, Reilly,” his mother replied. “What has you so chirpy, apart from the fine day that is?”“I don’t know,” her son replied. Mulling it over, he added, “Perhaps it’s because...”“Because – what?” she asked, her head nudging a half-rotten cabbage leaf in his direction. “You will think me silly...” he mumbled, eying the dainty morsel with some considerable delight.“I will if you don’t eat your breakfast,” she chided, nudging the leaf closer to him.Taking a bite out of the decaying leaf, Reilly said, “When I awoke this morning...”“Yes?”“I thought, I somehow knew – and I have absolutely no idea why – this is the day I leave home. Taking another mouthful of cabbage, he chomped away quite happily on it, then said, “Does this make any sense to you, mum?”Smiling, tears of slime running freely down her slippery brown face, his mother said, “My child is all grown up!”

The makings of a pipe bomb are missing and private eye turns up at just the right time. It's almost magical.Susie Edwards found out at an early age how looks can be an advantage if you do something wrong. It all started with small things like the family pet. One day when Susie was out walking the dog, she wanted to see if she could get away with killing the dog. Susie took the dog about twenty feet in front of the edge of a cliff deep within the woods in back of her house and threw a stick and told the dog to go fetch it. The dog did as asked and went over the edge of the cliff to its death. Susie thought this was really cool, but Susie didn't realize killing things isn't such a cool thing to do. Susie was such a likeable person who had many friends, but Susie was getting pretty bored with their company and never forgot about the rush she got when she watched her dog run off the edge of the cliff to its death. Susie was ready to test the waters of death on her friends. Susie invited three of her closest friends over for a sleep over.

Keterlyn has been on the run for an extraordinarily long time. Cursed with immortality, Keterlyn needs to hide, but to do so she needs 12 individuals to help her – willing or not.Keterlyn has been on the run for an extraordinarily long time. Cursed with immortality, Lormorian seeks to make her pay for escaping him and hiding amongst mortals. Keterlyn needs to hide, but to do so she needs 12 individuals to help her – willing or not. With deadly creatures bent on destroying them, they must learn to work as a team in order to survive, but just as they are gaining their strength, there is betrayal in their midst.

Millenniums had passed since the first human caught sight of the first troll. Was it by chance or design? For now, how and why it happened is hidden in the fog of history.Millenniums had passed since the first human caught sight of the first troll. Was it by chance or design? For now, how and why it happened is hidden in the fog of history. With time, humans assumed they were superior to trolls. And the trolls? Well, the trolls just wanted to be left alone. They didn’t care who was superior, they just wanted to live quietly and in peace. As with everything, though, change is inevitable. Common to both humans and trolls, there were those who sought power and wealth. This brought war, and more war. Humans bloodied their hands with their brothers’ blood, over and over, and trolls did the same. Troll and human blood cried out from the ground in battle after battle, for control of the land, and one another.The last of the wars was fought amongst the trolls themselves. One large group of trolls wanted closer ties with humans, feeling they held much in common with them. Those opposing their plan wanted limited contact with humans. Quarreling escalated and the trolls who didn’t want change declared war upon those who sought greater understanding of the humans. The war was one of the bloodiest ever recorded in the Journals of Time, ending suddenly when one of the leaders of the movement was killed. Humans and trolls then continued avoiding one another after the war, but as I said before, change is inevitable, and it was born in the smallest of the kingdoms on a crisp, sunny, fall day.

Herman Melville's The Confindence-Man: His Masquerade was the tenth, last, and most perplexing book of his decade as a professional man of letters. After it he gave up his ambitious effort to write works that would be both popular and profound and turned to poetry. The book was published on April 1--the very day of its title character's April Fools' Day masquerade on a Mississippi River Steamboat.

“How rough can you take it? LOURDES He was brazen as hell from the moment I laid eyes on him. He was aggressive, and dominant, with Mack truck arms, and a bar brawler voice. He was too good looking for his own good, with a hard jaw, and harder eyes. I’d always led a fairly peaceful life, but even I could tell at a glance that this man was dangerous. For so many reasons. Not the least of which being that rough, dirty, sheet-clawing sex fairly radiated off him. I’d thought I’d known how to handle every kind of man, but this one left me baffled. To say he wasn’t my type was putting it lightly. But you couldn’t tell that to my libido. Not even when I found out the truth. My lover had lied to me from the very start. Nothing about our meeting was a coincidence. This book can be read as a standalone.

Once upon a time I was the girl who had everything, the clothes, the car. The rich dad who spoiled me. But the truth was, the only thing I had was my body. I used it to buy my way out. I took a bite of the apple knowing full well what would happen. That's how I became a call girl. That's the story of how I ended up in hell. There's only one man who makes me wish things had been different. One man who could never be with a girl like me. Luke is a cop. Untouchable. Unbreakable. And dangerous in his own way. When I end up on the run, he's the only one I can turn to. And he just might be my downfall. Author's Note: WILD is a dark new adult romantic suspense novella in the Chicago Underground series. This part was previously published in Selling Out by Amber Lin. Books in the Chicago Underground series: 1. Rough 2. Hard 3. Fierce 4. Wild 5. Dirty 6. Secret

“A master of her craft.” —Maggie Shayne Holly Parrish has never met anyone like Micah Ravenwood: his dark eyes, his movie-star smile, the indefinable way he looks at her. Even when she thought he was no more than another client for her investment firm, her lust overpowered her logic. But she never expected this attraction to whisk her from her busy southern California life to a silent and eerie ghost town in Wyoming. Only vampires call the deserted place home—and one of them is Micah. He says he’s brought her to Morgan Creek for her safety, that vicious creatures are hunting her. But how can Holly trust him? One look and she can see the need barely restrained behind Micah’s polite words. The heat of his kiss, the pleasure of his touch—none of it can tell her whether he wants her as his lover—or his prey . . . *“A classic vampire tale of sensual, spine-tingling suspense.” —Christine Feehan on Desire After Dark “Sexy, fast-paced, gritty, this is Amanda Ashley at her best! A must read! —Ronda Thompson on Dead Sexy***

This rambunctious first novel by the author of the bestselling Corelli's Mandolin is set in an impoverished, violent, yet ravishingly beautiful country somewhere in South America. When the haughty Dona Constanza decides to divert a river to fill her swimming pool, the consequences are at once tragic, heroic, and outrageously funny.

The Drenai stronghold had fallen. Now blood-hungry Nadir hordes spread desolation and despair across all the lands... ...even tiny Gothir, where slavers seized a young girl while the villagers looked the other way--all but the peasant boy Kiall. His unlikely rescue attempt would lead across the savage steppes and on through the Halls of Hell. The youth would face ferocious beasts, deadly warriors, and demons of the dark; he would emerge a man--or not emerge at all. But Kiall would not face these dangers alone. Heroes out of legend joined his quest: Chareos the Blademaster, Beltzer the Axeman, and the bowmen Finn and Maggrig. And one among their company hid a secret that could free the world of Nadir domination. That one was the Nadir Bane, the hope of the Drenai. That one was the Earl of Bronze. Thus did a search for a stolen slave girl become a quest that would shake the very world.

In this sexy, pulse-pounding new duology by New York Times bestselling author Rachel Vincent, a decadent spring break beach getaway becomes a terrifying survival story when six Miami teens are kidnapped.Maddie is beyond done with her cousin Genesis's entitled and shallow entourage. Genesis is so over Miami's predictable social scene with its velvet ropes, petty power plays, and backstabbing boyfriends. While Maddie craves family time for spring break, Genesis seeks novelty—like a last-minute getaway to an untouched beach in Colombia. And when Genesis wants something, it happens. But paradise has its price. Dragged from their tents under the cover of dark, Genesis, Maddie, and their friends are kidnapped and held for ransom deep inside the jungle—with no diva left behind. It all feels so random to everyone except Genesis. She knows they were targeted for a reason. And that reason is her. Now, as the hours count down, only one thing's for...

From the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of NOS4A2 and Heart-Shaped Box comes a chilling novel about a worldwide pandemic of spontaneous combustion that threatens to reduce civilization to ashes and a band of improbable heroes who battle to save it, led by one powerful and enigmatic man known as the Fireman. The fireman is coming. Stay cool. No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe. Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can live long enough to deliver the child. Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted . . . and as a weapon to avenge the wronged. In the desperate season to come, as the world burns out of control, Harper must learn the Fireman’s secrets before her life—and that of her unborn child—goes up in smoke.

From New York Times bestseller, Mimi Jean Pamfiloff, comes CHECK, book #3 of the Romantic Suspense series, Mr. Rook’s Island. SHE’S ONLY GOT DAYS TO LIVE. HE’S GOT HOURS. BUT WHEN IT COMES TO SAVING THE WOMAN YOU LOVE, WHAT WOULD YOU DO FOR MORE TIME? Mr. Rook, eccentric billionaire and owner of the most exclusive island resort in the world, has a secret. Hint: Legends say it can make you young again. But when he’s no longer willing to pay the dark price to keep eternal youth on the island’s menu, the very thing that once kept him young is now turning on him. With only hours left to live, the woman he loves is taken by the worst kind of man this world has to offer. Turns out she’s been keeping dark secrets of her own, and getting her back won’t be as simple as writing a check. The cost will leave her broken hearted, hating him forever.

In the summer of 1972, Famagusta in Cyprus is the most desirable resort in the Mediterranean, a city bathed in the glow of good fortune. An ambitious couple are about to open the island's most spectacular hotel, where Greek and Turkish Cypriots work in harmony. Two neighbouring families, the Georgious and the Özkans, are among many who moved to Famagusta to escape the years of unrest and ethnic violence elsewhere on the island. But beneath the city's façade of glamour and success, tension is building. When a Greek coup plunges the island into chaos, Cyprus faces a disastrous conflict. Turkey invades to protect the Turkish Cypriot minority, and Famagusta is shelled. Forty thousand people seize their most precious possessions and flee from the advancing soldiers. In the deserted city, just two families remain. This is their story.

From the author of The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley comes a brand-new novel about a teenage boy who must decide whether or not the world is worth saving. Henry Denton has spent years being periodically abducted by aliens. Then the aliens give him an ultimatum: The world will end in 144 days, and all Henry has to do to stop it is push a big red button. Only he isn’t sure he wants to. After all, life hasn’t been great for Henry. His mom is a struggling waitress held together by a thin layer of cigarette smoke. His brother is a jobless dropout who just knocked someone up. His grandmother is slowly losing herself to Alzheimer’s. And Henry is still dealing with the grief of his boyfriend’s suicide last year. Wiping the slate clean sounds like a pretty good choice to him. But Henry is a scientist first, and facing the question thoroughly and logically, he begins to look for pros and cons: in the bully who is his perpetual one-night stand, in the best friend who betrayed him, in the brilliant and mysterious boy who walked into the wrong class. Weighing the pain and the joy that surrounds him, Henry is left with the ultimate choice: push the button and save the planet and everyone on it…or let the world—and his pain—be destroyed forever.

[Suncoast Society #30, MF, BDSM, NOT a paranormal - the "pack" is their family structure] Eva’s world collapsed when Leo announced he was divorcing her. She believed an imperfect marriage was better than none since Leo protected her and their daughter. Then she quickly came to love Jesse, Leo’s new husband, and realizes their “pack” is better, for all of them. Nate Crawford practices acupuncture and enjoys helping people in his clinic and at Venture, the BDSM club. Family is all to him, because he raised his little sister as a single parent. He thought Leo, Jesse, and Eva were a triad, until matchmaking Tilly gets involved. Their only barrier to long-term love is whatever dark secret Eva keeps deeply buried. When a confrontation finally forces the truth out, Nate and Eva are able to move forward, with Leo and Jesse’s blessings. But the worst day of Nate’s life pales in comparison when an unexpected crisis forces him to rely on the strength of their pack to carry him through a nightmare he can’t escape. NOTE: This book is a direct sequel to Vulnerable (Suncoast Society 29) and that book should be read first to avoid spoilers.

He’s ready for his close up, but she’s the one calling the shots. On the night of her graduation from film school, straight-laced Maddie Bauers fell completely out of character for an oh-my-god make-out session with a perfect stranger. Complete with the big O. Seven years later, that romantic interlude is still fresh in her mind. That stranger is now a rich and famous actor. And she’s one very distracted camera assistant working on his latest production. She might consider another tryst…if he even remembers her. Micah Preston does indeed remember Maddie. Too bad he’s sworn off Hollywood relationships. He allows himself as much sex as he likes—and oh, he does like—but anything more is asking for trouble. For the woman, not for him. Yet knowing Maddie could want more than a movie-set fling doesn’t stop him from pursuing her like a moth drawn to hot stage lights. But as the shoot nears its end, it’s decision time. Is it time to call, “Cut!” on their affair, or is there enough material for a sequel? Warning: Contains a dreamy movie star hero, a focus-pulling heroine, off-the-charts instant chemistry, steamy sex in near-public locations, and a new use for lip gloss.