Avar-Tek #3: For Alexander Sevik, providing for his family is hard enough without losing grip on reality. His dreams are real. When he wakes, he sometimes forgets who he is. His hands tingle for no reason, and the strange man who is following him talks about aliens. When he discovers the key to his dreams, he uncovers a national threat. And he has to choose between his own sanity or saving lives.Avar-Tek #3: For Alexander Sevik, providing for his family is hard enough without losing grip on reality. His dreams are real. One night, he lives the entire life of a deckhand on a Spanish galleon. The next night, it’s life as an ancient Roman senator. Next, he is a cyborg on a space cruiser. When he wakes, he sometimes forgets who he is. His hands tingle for no reason, and the strange man who is following him talks about aliens. When he discovers the key to his dreams, he uncovers a national threat. And he has to choose between his own sanity or saving lives.Cohesion Lost is a is a long short story at 14,000 words. It is the third short story in the Avar-Tek Series.

You wouldn't expect the children at the Slough Central School for Overlords to have regular toys would you? They don't. They have minions. And sometimes even the grandest of plans can stand or fall depending on the actions of the lowliest minion...The wizard's tower is falling down, falling down, falling down! The Wizard's tower is falling down, my fair lady.This is the second short story in the Evenings with Rory series. It is only tied in with Harriet's Mystery in that the inspiration came from Rory's Story Cubes, which are fun and awesome.Should you like to appear as part of Evenings with Rory, please email the author.

Violet was an ordinary sophomore, until she met Ian. He wasn't just the mysterious new kid. Determined to find out his secrets, Violet gets involved with Ian, who says he is trying to become immortal. She joins him in his nightly rituals under the full moon, where he kisses her passionately. When she discovers he's trying to make her his, Violet wants nothing more than to BE his, forever.Violet was an ordinary sophomore, until the day she met Ian. He wasn't just the mysterious new kid. Violet knew there was more to him. Determined to find out his secrets, Violet gets involved with Ian, who says he is trying to become immortal. She joins him in his nightly rituals under the full moon, where he kisses her passionately while casting black magick, and she is hooked.When Violet spies on one of Ian's rituals, she discovers that he wants Violet to belong to him. Violet wants nothing more than to BE his. But she also has her eyes on his strange book, the Necronomicon. Now Violet's hands are not only itching to get on Ian, but also on his strange book of black magick.Also included is a FREE preview of Bryexe: She Lives in a Dollhouse, coming Halloween 2015.

New Orleans Homicide Detective, Sarah Renner and her partner, Gabriel Lucas investigate a late night robbery homicide in an uptown bodega. The blitz style attack leaves the scene in chaos and Renner and Lucas work round the clock to solve this senseless crime.Bodega A Detective Sarah Renner Short StoryNew Orleans Homicide Detective, Sarah Renner and her partner, Gabriel Lucas investigate a late night robbery homicide in an uptown bodega. The blitz style attack leaves the scene in chaos and Renner and Lucas work round the clock to solve this senseless crime.

Danger awaits as evil witches grow in power. A collection of Elfen creatures and a brave crusader knight, together with gifted monks are asked to save their world. A most enjoyable read that teases the reader with the concepts of trust, loyalty, suspicion, betrayal, and of course love. Witches Snared will trap you deep within the story, leaving you eager for more Dream Cane adventures.Raj and Dan are again summoned by the Dream Cane to a strange new realm. Danger awaits as evil witches grow in power casting spells that will plunge this world into a shroud of evil and eternal darkness. A collection of Elfen creatures, a brave crusader knight, and gifted monks are asked to combine forces with the forest animals in an unlikely alliance to save their world. A fascinating read that spans time and worldly realms culminating in an epic battle that unites the forest’s inhabitants against the most powerful and evil force they have ever encountered. An intelligent read that teases the reader with the concepts of trust, loyalty, betrayal, and of course love. Witches Snared will trap you deep within the adventure, leaving you eager to see where it ends and where the Dream Cane will lead you next.

Jessica, Brynn, and Taylor are three women on Earth that mess up at work. The God of Hope, God of Peace, and God of Love mess up in Heaven. In their fury, other higher God's try to exact punishment on their fellow God's. A soul and body switch goes wrong and everyone learns a lesson.A Junkyard Tradition opens with the dismembering of a cat and progresses through to the murder of a thieving wife. The Immigrants follow, with the police investigating the savage killing of an investment counselor, culminating in the detectives assigned to the case awaiting the next full moon. In Under the Master Bedroom, a newly purchased house has some gruesome history that becomes reality for its new owner.

This book is a multi-themed poetry collection. The themes are: Romantic, Christian Faith, Christmas, Space and Science Fiction, and Miscellaneous. The title poem, "Ode to a Protruding Gap Filler" honors the brave crews of the Space Shuttle missions and disparages small-minded politicians. The poems are structured (no free verse for this poet): rhyming couplets, acrostic poems, and a haiku.This book is a multi-themed poetry collection that I have composed over many years. The themes are: Romantic, Christian Faith, Christmas, Space and Science Fiction, and Miscellaneous. The poem that is the title of this collection. "Ode to a Protruding Gap Filler", honors the brave crews of all the Space Shuttle missions and disparages small-minded politicians and others whose views and actions have led to, in my opinion, the abandonment of the dream of humanity in Space. The other poems are just fun. Since, first and foremost, I am a Christian, my relationship with My Lord, Jesus Christ, informs all my work. In my faith themed poems, you will read how Jesus strengthened me and can help other believers during difficult times. In my Christmas themed poems, you will read that Jesus is the "real reason for the Season". I liken myself to be the "Poet Laureate of Walmart" where I have worked for many years as a cashier. One of the poems in the Miscellaneous category in this book, "What's My Line?" is derived from my cashiering experiences. The poems in this collection have structure to them (no free verse for this poet!): rhyming couplets, acrostic poems, and a haiku. I enjoy challenging myself to write structured poems. This also demonstrates a philosophy of mine that one's emotions should be mediated by one's reason and intellect.

The Angel of Death has come to a leafy town in Northern England to take the soul of an old soldier. It appears to be a routine extraction. However, DB Winters is no ordinary old man. Neither was he an ordinary soldier. A tale of love, sacrifice, bloodshed, Tehran and how man can sometimes even make the Angel of Death ponder on the astonishing capacity man has to forge bonds with others.Janus Howard has inherited his recently deceased Uncle’s business empire. His estate is in orbit around Sun-Earth Lagrange 2. Janus’ primary goal is to further his Uncle’s ambition to promote the political and economic influence of space-going people. His direct competition with OraCom has come to a head as each company vies for a world contract for managing interstellar communication. OraCom is Earth based and desires all communication to process through its terrestrial communication center. Howard Industries believes the communications network should be multithreaded and openly shared throughout space, not focused in any particular area.Janus also manages orbital research in materials science and digital electronics. The discovery of a unique fish may lead to profound development in unforeseen areas. Researching this creature occupies Janus as he grows to understand his Uncle’s history and explores his own personal aspirations in love and business.Polly Bergen has completed the Cognitive Mapping Project. Her studies, paid for by OraCom, have established a map of the brain just as the genome project mapped human DNA. Her results have been applied to the creation and optimization of an intelligent horse. This creature represents a preliminary test of intelligence boosting techniques that might someday be used to enhance human intelligence beyond any conception. Polly is excited to be part of such an incredible project but finds her personal qualms being pushed further than even she is comfortable with.Malcolm Koch (owner of OraCom), despises computer intelligence or Ai. His fervent belief is that humankind is God’s greatest and perfect creation, that computer minds are superfluous and dangerous. If he could, he would have them all destroyed or fundamentally limited in capacity to allow human mastery for eternity. He therefore believes that interstellar communication should rightfully be managed from Earth. Only in this way can humans hope to properly manage the actions of all space going people.Janus hopes to find his Uncle’s killer and to win the contract for building an interstellar network of communication nodes, (using entangled particles). His attention is distracted both by an intelligent woman and by the unique properties discovered in a recent acquisition, the Aquagorgon. The Gorgon can kill by destroying the brain cells of its attackers, and then consumes them for food. Discovering the mechanism of this psychic ability may lead to a profound improvement in faster-than-light travel. Should Janus keep the essentials of the experiments secret? Or should he reveal the science to all mankind? The experiments put the Gorgon in harms way. Janus finds his personal relationships interfering with his business and finds it strangely stimulating.Meanwhile Malcolm’s experiment is flourishing as a huge green horse learns to speak and think as a human. His intelligence and potential are grossly underestimated, as are the intelligence and shrewdness of another experiment kept hidden from Polly. The early success with Saxon, the horse, has been expanded in the application of similar techniques with a primate. Singe, the Bonobo has learned to keep his incredible potential secret from the researchers. His mental abilities are beyond measure. He may represent the very intelligence Malcolm wants reserved for man alone. Singe knows that if Malcolm knew his potential he would have him destroyed, so he plots to escape with Saxon. At the end, a well known woman scientist is tasked with making the first ‘contact’ with a new intelligent life form in a meeting place arranged in space.

It is nighttime in Lyndwald, a serene lakeside city tucked into the hills of the Northern Kingdom, but there is no peace for Liam, a captured spy imprisoned in one of the city's towers. With torture and execution already awaiting him in the morning, he learns that Karsa, his mentor, has killed himself in his cell. Hopelessness sets in, that is until Karsa's journal finds its way into Liam's hands.Constantinople. 1910. They hired Wendel to kill first, ask questions later. What a waste of a necromancer's talent. Besides, he's bored to death of being an assassin. This job might be his chance to go rogue..."Serpent's Tower" can be read as a standalone story; it takes place three years before Shadows of Asphodel, the first in a series of dieselpunk novels.

Ebenezer Smooge is a banker who worships money. His hapless clerk Scratchit ekes out a living while his wife Elisa makes end with a bit of “curtain making” on the side, so her twelve children will be fed. On Christmas Eve Ebenezer is visited first by the ghost of his dead partner, Jacob Harley, and then by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. But will Smooge change his ways?When Charles Dickens wrote his morality tale, A Christmas Carol, he couldn’t know about the banking crisis, fat cat bankers with six figure bonuses or the selling off of state owned assets at knock down prices, so I’ve had to take his story of misanthropy and redemption and update it a little bit.Ebenezer Smooge is a banker who worships money and luxuriates in the possessions that his wealth brings. He corrupts all he touches and will never do a good deed if a bad deed can be done. His hapless clerk Scratchit ekes out a living working long hours for poor while his wife Elisa makes end meet by supplementing her income with a bit of “curtain making” on the side, just so her twelve children will be fed.As in the original, on Christmas Eve Ebenezer is visited first by the ghost of his dead partner, Jacob Harley, and then by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. Heeding the messages of these three shades Smooge wakes up on Christmas morning and sets out to enjoy the day along with everyone else.Does Smooge change his ways? Can a leopard change its spots? Read An Alternative Christmas Carol to find out.

"The dead don't talk. I don't know why." But they do try to communicate, with a short-order cook in a small desert town serving as their reluctant confidant. Odd Thomas thinks of himself as an ordinary guy, if possessed of a certain measure of talent at the Pico Mundo Grill and rapturously in love with the most beautiful girl in the world, Stormy Llewellyn. Maybe he has a gift, maybe it's a curse, Odd has never been sure, but he tries to do his best by the silent souls who seek him out. Sometimes they want justice, and Odd's otherworldly tips to Pico Mundo's sympathetic police chief, Wyatt Porter, can solve a crime. Occasionally they can prevent one. But this time it's different. A mysterious man comes to town with a voracious appetite, a filing cabinet stuffed with information on the world's worst killers, and a pack of hyena-like shades following him wherever he goes. Who the man is and what he wants, not even Odd's deceased informants can tell him. His most ominous clue is a page ripped from a day-by-day calendar for August 15. Today is August 14. In less than twenty-four hours, Pico Mundo will awaken to a day of catastrophe. As evil coils under the searing desert sun, Odd travels through the shifting prisms of his world, struggling to avert a looming cataclysm with the aid of his soul mate and an unlikely community of allies that includes the King of Rock 'n' Roll. His account of two shattering days when past and present, fate and destiny converge is the stuff of our worst nightmares, and a testament by which to live: sanely if not safely, with courage, humor, and a full heart that even in the darkness must persevere.

The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold remains one of Eveyln Waugh's most remarkable and self-revealing works. Three years before he wrote it, Waugh suffered "a brief bout of hallucination" similar to the one that besets Mr. Pinfold in this wildly witty and occasionally frightening novel. A successful, middle-aged novelist with a case of "bad nerves," Gilbert Pinfold embarks on a recuperative trip to Ceylon. Almost as soon as the gagnplank lifts, Mr. Pinfold hears sounds coming out of the ceiling of his cabin: wild jazz bands, barking dogs, loud revival meetings. He can only infer that somewhere concealed in his room an erratic public-address system is letting him hear everything that goes on aboard ship. And then, instead of just sounds, he hears voices. But they are not just any voices. These voices are talking, in the most frightening intimate way, about him!

THE SERIES WITH OVER A MILLION COPIES SOLD *~Volume 11 in the New York Times Bestselling Arrangement Serials~* Sean Ferro is my addiction. I can’t tell him no, no matter what he asks for, and I know there are so many dark questions behind those blue eyes, so many things he wants me to do with him. When I watch him go down on one knee, with his sexy body covered in sand, and hold up a glittering ring, I can barely stand. It looks like he’s going to propose, and I know exactly what I’m going to say. Genre: New Adult Romance This story unfolds over multiple volumes approx. 20,000 words each. ~The Arrangement Vol 1-11 are on sale now.~

ISABEL DALHOUSIE - Book 6 Nothing captures the charm of Edinburgh like the bestselling Isabel Dalhousie series of novels featuring the insatiably curious philosopher and woman detective. Whether investigating a case or a problem of philosophy, the indefatigable Isabel Dalhousie, one of fiction's most richly developed amateur detectives, is always ready to pursue the answers to all of life's questions, large and small. Isabel's son, Charlie, is now of an age--eighteen months--to have a social life, and so off they go to a birthday party, where, much to Isabel's surprise, she encounters an old adversary, Minty Auchterlonie, now a high-flying financier. Minty had seemed to Isabel a woman of ruthless ambition, but the question of her integrity had never been answered. Now, when Minty takes Isabel into her confidence about a personal matter, Isabel finds herself going another round: Is Minty to be trusted? Or is she the perpetrator of an enormous financial fraud? And what should Isabel make of the rumors of shady financial transactions at Minty's investment bank? Not that this is the only dilemma facing Isabel: she also crosses swords again with her nemesis, Professor Dove, in an argument over plagiarism. Of course her niece, Cat, has a new, problematic man (a tightrope walker!) in her life. And there remains the open question of marriage to Jamie--doting father of Charlie. As always, there is no end to the delight in accompanying Isabel as she makes her way toward the heart of every problem: philosophizing, sleuthing, and downright snooping in her inimitable--and inimitably charming--fashion.

The Third Novel in the Epic ChroMagic Fantasy Series At last Havoc and Gale are married, having discovered the source of the changelings, but the King and Queen have yet to enjoy a peaceful reign. The knowledge they've gained, as well as their new Glamor status, opens doors to new questions-and new missions for Havoc's loyal friends. While Ennui, Aspect, and Nonce are discovering the source of the enigmatic loom, Aura, Augur, and Ini are sent in search of more altars. And in the midst, the royal family quickly blossoms. With the adoption of three remarkable babies, and the news that Gale will soon add a fourth, the King and Queen find themselves very busy! When the loom points the way to Counter-Charm the whole assemblage makes ready to visit and explore the mysterious sister planet. With the help of the peculiar cloud-like ifrits, the Glamors must find the location indicated by the tapestry and permeate powerful illusion fields to find whatever lies at the center. In the process they just might discover that the key to their destiny may be the smallest among them.

The line between best friend and something more is a line always crossed in the dark. Jess Wong is Angie Redmond’s best friend. And that’s the most important thing, even if Angie can’t see how Jess truly feels. Being the girl no one quite notices is OK with Jess anyway. While nobody notices her, she’s free to watch everyone else. But when Angie begins to fall for Margot Adams, a girl from the nearby boarding school, Jess can see it coming a mile away. Suddenly her powers of observation are more curse than gift. As Angie drags Jess further into Margot’s circle, Jess discovers more than her friend’s growing crush. Secrets and cruelty lie just beneath the carefree surface of this world of wealth and privilege, and when they come out, Jess knows Angie won’t be able to handle the consequences. When the inevitable darkness finally descends, Angie will need her best friend. “It doesn’t even matter that she probably doesn’t understand how much she means to me. It’s purer this way. She can take whatever she wants from me, whenever she wants it, because I’m her best friend.” A Line in the Dark is a story of love, loyalty, and murder.

From the New York Times bestselling author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena—dazzling, poignant, and lyrical interwoven stories about family, sacrifice, the legacy of war, and the redemptive power of art. This stunning, exquisitely written collection introduces a cast of remarkable characters whose lives intersect in ways both life-affirming and heartbreaking. A 1930s Soviet censor painstakingly corrects offending photographs, deep underneath Leningrad, bewitched by the image of a disgraced prima ballerina. A chorus of women recount their stories and those of their grandmothers, former gulag prisoners who settled their Siberian mining town. Two pairs of brothers share a fierce, protective love. Young men across the former USSR face violence at home and in the military. And great sacrifices are made in the name of an oil landscape unremarkable except for the almost incomprehensibly peaceful past it depicts. In stunning prose, with rich character portraits and a sense of history reverberating into the present, The Tsar of Love and Techno is a captivating work from one of our greatest new talents.