These thirteen short stories range from comedy to drama and horror, and from the mundane and everyday to the downright bizarre.High in the hills above fashionable Montecito, California, slipping in and out of their mansions on Swizzle Stick Road, a ridiculously wealthy family is under siege. A crooked lawyer, a beautiful Chinese pro golfer, and a celebrity-mad plastic surgeon conspire to convince a wealthy family’s patriarch to move his factories from Cleveland to China. But the youngest son, a gay man, gets wind of the conspiracy and fights like a mad dog to stop it.What follows is a brutally funny comedy of grandiose intentions, half-baked revenge, heroic upper crust foolishness, and a passionate cross-cultural romance. David Drum's Introducing the Richest Family in America runs the gauntlet of greed, betrayal and desire as America’s richest family teeters precariously on the edge of dissolution and struggles to right itself again.Some comments:“I loved your daffy characters, they were totally refreshing. Gave me some of the best laughs I had all winter.”--Deb Fowler, Amazon Top 100 Reviewer“Glamorous locales and timely subject matter… engaging and fun. I found it hard to put down.”--Kavita Daswani, author of The Village Bride of Beverly Hills“I do like to read books every now and then that sound like Benny Hill is dashing thorough the pages ahead of me and this one fit the bill perfectly...."--Feathered Quill Reviews“Introducing the Richest Family in America is a riveting read and a solidly recommended one.”--Midwest Book Review

Follow the blue line here. Follow the green line there. These were not things that Betsy Walsh expected to have to do on her way to heaven. Impact is a fun little short story about the customs checks required to get into heaven.Eighteen-year-old Sage Hannigan wants to get back to her own time, preferably one that hasn't been destroyed by an underworld plot brewing in Edwardian-era South Carolina. How hard can it be? All she has to do is: 1. Learn to use newly acquired warping skills to bend time to her will. 2. Take out a few rogue vampires. 3. Join an ancient secret society. 4. Figure out who is putting the time stream in jeopardy. 5. Find and maim whoever invented the corset. Sage never asked to be chosen by the Druid Priestess, Amerach, to become a Warper, and she never asked to have the future hanging on her shoulders or to warp a hundred years into the past. She certainly never asked to meet Dr. Aldwin Blake, who would make her question her desire to get back to her own time. But if she fails her mission, people will die, history will change, and the present she wishes to return to will be no more.

Danny is not sad and lonely any more, because he has "the voice"—the voice of an imaginary dog called Demolition. The dog tells him what to do, like how to adjust the bar code reader in the shop so he can read what people are thinking. Soon, Danny can bend others to his will, and fears no other man.

Three short, short stories explore the not-always-successful work of the God of Love, Victor Valentine.In these three short, short stories, the God of Love, Victor Valentine, does his best to add to the world's supply of love. Or, at least, to help settle some scores. But even when managed by an expert, love remains what it always is — exciting, unreliable, heartbreaking.

Eleven year old C.K. has a secret. An epic secret with a furry white coat, long tail, four scratchy feet...and a sickening desire to drain enough life-forces to become a Pharaoh, a mouse-god, and seek his revenge on the two-legged world. Mummy Mouse is a dark tale of friendship, revenge, and bad parenting. C.K. is the only one who can stop Mummy Mouse...but that would break his heart.Eleven year old C.K. has a secret. An epic secret with a furry white coat, long tail, four scratchy feet...and a sickening desire to drain enough life-forces to become a Pharaoh, a mouse-god, and seek his revenge on the two-legged world. C.K. is the only one who can stop Mummy Mouse. The problem is that he has an overly-developed sense of forgiveness, and cannot bear to turn his best friend over to the authorities. Mummy Mouse is a tale of friendship, revenge, and bad parenting. C.K. is the only one who can stop Mummy Mouse...but that would break his heart.

The Ladies Historical Society is proud to take you on a tour through the rich history of our fair town. From its humble founding, through the War Between the States, and up to the 1920's when an eccentric fellow came to town, you will laugh and come to understand why its citizenry is considered a little odd by most. Why, it's almost as good as sippin' lemonade on Ms. Prattlematt's back porch.The Ladies Historical Society is proud to take you on a tour through the rich history of our fair town. From its humble founding by the ill-fated explorer Percival Rumph, to its most famous mayor, Arthur Blackburn, Portsong stands out as a place of culture and flair. Meet Mortimer Lee, who is singlehandedly responsible for saving the city from the Yankee's path of destruction during the War Between the States. You will even get a laugh at the incident now referred to as The Great Sheep Donnybrook of 1908. It's all here in our little booklet we call, A Concise History of Portsong. Why, it's almost as good as sippin' lemonade on Ms. Prattlematt's back porch.

Samurai Shark is the bad ass of the seven seas! Want to see the world? Get a shark!Movie lover Samurai Shark knows dumb ass humans are a dish best served wet and he's gonna get him some.Samurai Shark has a license plate stuck in his teeth and it's pissing him off. The pain makes him go on an epic rant that will make even the toughest dizen of the deep cower in fear. Watch out world, Samurai Shark is comin' to bite you in the butt!

Stephanie Plum In Between the Numbers Christmas novel It's five days before Christmas and things are not looking merry for Fugitive Apprehension Agent Stephanie Plum. She hasn't got a tree. She hasn't bought any presents. The malls are jam-packed with staggering shoppers. There's not a twinkle light anywhere to be seen in her apartment. And there's a strange man in her kitchen. Sure, this has happened to Stephanie Plum before. Strangers, weirdos, felons, creeps, and lunatics are always finding their way to her front door. But this guy is different. This guy is mysterious, sexy-and he has his own agenda. His name is Diesel and he is a man on a mission. And Diesel is unlike anyone Stephanie has ever met before in her life. The question is, what does he want with her? Can he help her find a little old toy maker who has skipped out on his bail right before Christmas? Can he survive the Plum family holiday dinner? Can he get Stephanie a tree that doesn't look like it was grown next to a nuclear power plant? These questions and more are keeping Stephanie awake at night. Not to mention the fact that she needs to find a bunch of nasty elves, her sister Valerie has a Christmas "surprise" for the Plums, her niece Mary Alice doesn't believe in Santa anymore, and Grandma Mazur has a new stud muffin. So bring out the plastic reindeer, strap on your jingle bells, and get ready to celebrate the holidays-Jersey style. In Janet Evanovich's Visions of Sugar Plums, the world of Plum has never been merrier!

Recounting 1939, the birth of a superpower, the twilight of a mostly rural America, and the misbegotten adventures of the last man in the world to know everything except what to do with himself. Comedy, romance, and drama unfold when a dissipated millionaire returns from Europe to his childhood home just in time to interfere with a rural electrifcation project and reawaken the town's old secrets.Recounting 1939, the birth of a superpower, the twilight of a mostly rural America, and the misbegotten adventures of the last man in the world to know everything except what to do with himself. Comedy, romance, and drama unfold when a dissipated millionaire returns from Europe to his childhood home just in time to interfere with a rural electrifcation project and reawaken the town's old secrets."A well written, engrossing spiderweb of a tale. Yes, you can go home again, but then you find indeed why you left in the first place."

The third gorgey book about Georgia’s adventures – guaranteed to have you laughing your knickers off. Find out how Georgia copes with her rapidly expanding nunga-nungas!

Somewhere in North Dakota, there is a town called Owl that isn't there. Disco is over, but punk never happened. They don't have cable. They don't really have pop culture, unless you count grain prices and alcoholism. People work hard and then they die. They hate the government and impregnate teenage girls. But that's not nearly as awful as it sounds; in fact, sometimes it's perfect. Mitch Hrlicka lives in Owl. He plays high school football and worries about his weirdness, or lack thereof. Julia Rabia just moved to Owl. She gets free booze and falls in love with a self-loathing bison farmer who listens to Goats Head Soup. Horace Jones has resided in Owl for seventy-three years. He consumes a lot of coffee, thinks about his dead wife, and understands the truth. They all know each other completely, except that they've never met. Like a colder, Reagan-era version of The Last Picture Show fused with Friday Night Lights, Chuck Klosterman's Downtown Owl is the unpretentious, darkly comedic story of how it feels to exist in a community where rural mythology and violent reality are pretty much the same thing. Loaded with detail and unified by a (very real) blizzard, it's technically about certain people in a certain place at a certain time...but it's really about a problem. And the problem is this: What does it mean to be a normal person? And there is no answer. But in Downtown Owl, what matters more is how you ask the question.

Once long ago, or short ago if you haven't got much time, somewhere on the African savannah, a group of trees decided to form a wood. The wood became a forest and then a Lost Forest...Within and around the forest lived many animals. Some had quite unusual adventures.This is the tale of one, a leopard named Opa. One day Opa lost her spots. But that is only half the story.On her journey around the lost forest, Opa meets a stork with a clipboard, a lost explorer, a polar bear...oh and a sloth but we won’t mention the sloth...or what it says...Will Opa be the same without her spots? Why does Opa get mistaken for a bat? This is no ordinary tale of animals in a forest. This is a quite unusual tale from The Lost Forest!

"Traditional publishing ruined my life!"Many writers tell tales of the horrors of writing for a traditional book publisher. None are quite like Under Contract.It’s a tale that never needed to be told, probably shouldn’t have been told, yet against all legal advice, common sense, and wisdom, has now been told.So, did Craig Hansen survive a secret past as a contract writer? You decide."Traditional publishing ruined my life!"Many writers tell tales of the horrors of writing for a traditional book publisher. None are quite like Under Contract.Under Contract reveals the long-buried tale of Craig Hansen’s secret past as a contract writer working for a traditional print publisher, and everything that led to his long, twenty-year silence before emerging last year as an independent author.It’s a tale that never needed to be told, probably shouldn’t have been told, yet against all legal advice, common sense, and wisdom, has now been told.So, did Craig Hansen survive a secret past as a contract writer for a traditional publisher, or is he full of cherry smoothie? Decide for yourself.Featuring heavy doses of horror and satire with a metafiction boost, Under Contract is a standalone short story and is intended for older readers.Craig Hansen is the author of the young adult novel, Most Likely, and the young adult novella, Shada. He lives in Oregon where he is currently working on his next books, a horror novel for older readers, EyeCU; and the young adult novel, Ember, the follow-up to Shada.

A hilarious look at teenage life in a book that has been described as 'Adrian Mole meets The Inbetweeners'Matthew Patterson is your run of mill, every day average 16-year-old school boy. The ‘Diary of a Teenage Murderer’ takes you through the day-to-day events of Matthew’s life. Dealing with the tricky things a teenager faces, such as: Mums, Dads, little brothers, best friends, girlfriends, exams and his grandmother’s facial hair. Then something happens to change the course of Matthew’s life forever. He is faced with the ultimate decision: Stay and face the music, or run and face the world alone. A story that will make you laugh, cry and force you to ask yourself the question… Just what would I do?

Shredderman.com just made the national news! Everyone is talking about the new cyber-superhero. Oh yeah! But now people are dying to know who is behind Shredderman.com. Reporters are snooping all over Cedar Valley! Oh no! Nolan's parents and even his sidekick, Mr. Green, think he should lay low for a while. But being Shredderman is the best thing that's ever happened to Nolan. It's so much better than being Byrd-the-Nerd. Plus, Nolan's just stumbled across what might be a real spy-ring! How can Shredderman not try to fight it? But some problems are too big for even a superhero to handle. Sometimes the mask gets in the way. Will Nolan's quest for truth and justice mean he has to give up his secret identity? Can he become a superhero in real life? From the Trade Paperback edition.