When a cold case heats up, Serenity won’t stop until she discovers the truth. In the fourth installment of the bestselling Serenity’s Plain Secrets’ series, Serenity must work with US marshals to uncover the truth behind a shockingly brutal fifteen-year-cold murder. Desperate for answers, Serenity finds herself in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where she unravels secrets that threaten to tear her and Daniel apart. But digging up the past is dangerous, and the quaint Amish settlement isn’t as safe as it seems. If Serenity chooses to trust the man she’s come to love, it could mean a happily ever after… or her final act.

It started with the murder of a stranger. Then the crows appeared… Ari and Andreas know the O-Seven will never leave them alone. Ari is carrying Andreas's mortal child, but the vampire elders are convinced the child will be the first vampire baby and are out to posses it. Or kill it. Either way, Ari and Andreas will do anything to keep their unborn child safe, even if it means Ari has to go into hiding and leave Andreas exposed to the O-Seven alone. But then the O-Seven call on the Mahmo magic that can turn an elder into a winged killer, and each time Ari runs, they find her again. The only way to protect their child's future is to defeat the O-Seven, once and for all. And to do that, Ari will have to face the elders head-on in their castle stronghold deep in Germany’s Black Forest…

1 New York Times bestselling author and queen of true crime Ann Rule’s sixteenth volume in her True Crime Files series, Deadly Neighbors delves into the unsolved case of a billionaire’s son mysteriously falling off a balcony to his death and more. In July 2011, billionaire Jonah Shacknai’s Coronado, California, mansion was the setting for two horrifying deaths only days apart—his young son’s plunge from a balcony and his girlfriend’s ghastly hanging. What really happened? Baffling questions remain unanswered, as these cases were closed far too soon for hundreds of people; Rule looks at them now through the eyes of a relentless crime reporter. The second probe began in Utah when Susan Powell vanished in a 2009 blizzard. Her controlling husband, Josh, proved capable of a blind rage that was heartbreakingly fatal to his innocent small sons almost three years later in a tragedy that shocked America as the details unfolded. If anyone had detected the depth of depravity within Josh Powell, perhaps the family that loved and trusted him would have been saved. In these and seven other riveting cases, Ann Rule exposes the twisted truth behind the façades of Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors. These doomed relationships are the focus of queen of true crime Ann Rule’s sixteenth all-new Crime Files collection. In these shattering inside views of both headlined and little-known homicides, Rule speaks for vulnerable victims who relied on the wrong people. She begins with two startling novella-length investigations.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Deep End of the Ocean, an epic story of courage and devotion that spans three continents and the entire map of the human heart. Just hours after his wife and her entire family perish in the Christmas Eve tsunami in Brisbane, American expat and former police officer Frank Mercy goes out to join his volunteer rescue unit and pulls a little boy from a submerged car, saving the child’s life with only seconds to spare. In that moment, Frank’s own life is transformed. Not quite knowing why, Frank sidesteps the law, when, instead of turning Ian over to the Red Cross, he takes the boy home to the Midwestern farm where he grew up. Not long into their journey, Frank begins to believe that Ian has an extraordinary, impossible telepathic gift; but his only wish is to protect the deeply frightened child. As Frank struggles to start over, training horses as his father and grandfather did before him, he meets Claudia, a champion equestrian and someone with whom he can share his life—and his fears for Ian. Both of them know that it will be impossible to keep Ian’s gift a secret forever. Already, ominous coincidences have put Frank’s police instincts on high alert, as strangers trespass the quiet life at the family farm. The fight to keep Ian safe from a sinister group who want him back takes readers from the ravaged shores of Brisbane to the middle of America to a quaint English village. Even as Frank and Claudia dare to hope for new love, it becomes clear that they can never let Ian go, no matter what the cost. A suspenseful novel on a grand scale, Two If by Sea is about the best and worst in people, and the possibility of heroism and even magic in ordinary life.

In December 2015, I started a free monthly competition challenging my blog visitors to provide me with prompts for me to choose my favourite and write their story in around 500 words. The three pieces published here are the winning prompts from the Jan / Feb 2016 competition, as well as those that came second and third. The prompts submitted can be found at the end of each story.In December 2015, I started a free monthly competition challenging my blog visitors to provide me with prompts for me to choose my favourite and write their story in around 500 words. The three pieces published here are the winning prompts from the Jan / Feb 2016 competition, as well as those that came second and third. The prompts submitted can be found at the end of each story.In the first - the title - story, 'The Maestro', we meet Amontillado-swigging Joe 'The Bricklayer' Marsh who has been seeking revenge for the past ten years.The second, 'Jungfrau', is another revenge story and features Zurich-born Birgitta who, unlike Joe, has nothing to lose.Finally, 'Is it me?', introduces us to job-seeking Dubliner, Arthur, who turns his back on sales for a more interesting career.

Facing down mercenaries in Africa, Jason Bourne witnesses the death of an art dealer named Tracy Atherton. Her killing dredges up snatches of Bourne's impaired memory, in particular the murder of a young woman on Bali who entrusted him with a strangely engraved ring---an artifact of such powerful significance that people have killed to obtain it. Now he's determined to find the ring's owner and purpose. But Bourne never knows what terrible acts he'll discover he committed when he digs into the past. The trail will lead him through layers of conspiracy to a vicious Russian mercenary, Leonid Arkadin, who was also a graduate of the Central Intelligence training program Treadstone. A covert course designed to create ruthless assassins for C.I., it was shuttered by Congress for corruption. Yet before it was dismantled, it produced Bourne and Arkadin, giving them equal skills, equal force, and equal cunning. As Bourne's destiny circles closer to Arkadin's, it becomes clear that the eventual collision of these men is not of their own making. Someone else has been watching and manipulating them. Someone who wants to know, "Who is the more deadly agent?"

My name is Rachel Clancy. Thirty years before I was born, the world ended. Today is my sixteenth birthday. Today I will go Upwards to fight the monsters and, statistically speaking, I won’t be coming back—at least not still living. Initiation is the story of sixteen year old Rachel Clancy, born with a specific set of genes that let her fight monsters, she has trained her entire life to kill Vampires and Werewolves. Knowing since birth what her destiny would be has not made the onslaught of emotions she faces as she journey Upwards any easier. It doesn’t help that her father is drunk and her best friend just doesn’t get ‘it.’ Rachel isn’t prepared for the level of deception she faces, and before long she will find herself on a quest she is in no way prepared to handle. What happens next will alter not only Rachel’s life but the lives of everyone she knows. She will learn beyond a shadow of a doubt that sometimes the monsters we know are worse than the ones we don’t and that love can surprise us when it comes from somewhere we never anticipated it. If she lives, she will be a Warrior. If she doesn’t, no one will ever remember her name.

THE NO. 1 LADIES’ DETECTIVE AGENCY - Book 10 Fans around the world adore the best-selling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series and its proprietor, Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s premier lady detective. In this charming series, Mma  Ramotswe—with help from her loyal associate, Grace Makutsi—navigates her cases and her personal life with wisdom, good humor, and the occasional cup of tea. In this latest installment in the endlessly entertaining series, Precious Ramotswe faces problems both personal and professional. The first is the potential demise of an old friend, her tiny white van. Recently, it has developed a rather troubling knock, but she dare not consult the estimable Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni for fear he may condemn the vehicle.  Meanwhile, her talented assistant Mma Makutsi is plagued by the reappearance of her nemesis, Violet Sephotho, who has taken a job at the Double Comfort Furniture store whose proprietor is none other than Phuti Radiphuti, Mma Makutsi’s fiancé.  Finally, the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency has been hired to explain the unexpected losing streak of a local football club, the Kalahari Swoopers.  But with Mma Ramotswe on the case, it seems certain that everything will be resolved satisfactorily. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Scotland, 1477: Nicholas de Fleury, former banker and merchant, has re-appeared in the land that, four years earlier, he had brought very close to ruin in the course of an intense commercial and personal war with secret enemies--and, indeed, with his clever wife Gelis. Now the opportunity for redemption is at hand, but Nicholas soon finds himself pursuing his objectives amid a complex, corrosive power struggle centering on the Scottish royal family but closely involving the powerful merchants of Edinburgh, the gentry, the clergy, the English (ever seeking an excuse to pounce on their neighbor to the north), the French, the Burgundians. His presence soon draws Gelis and their son Jodi to Scotland, as well as Nicholas's companions and subordinates in many a past endeavor--Dr. Tobias and his wife Clémence, Mick Crackbene, John le Grant, and Andro Wodman among them. Here, too, Nicholas meets again with others who have had an influence, for good or evil, in his life: King James III of Scotland and his rebellious siblings; the St. Pols: Jordan, Simon, and young Henry; Mistress Bel of Cuthilgurdy and David de Salmeton; Anselm Adorne and Kathi his niece. Caught up in, and sometimes molding, the course of great events, Nicholas exhibits by turns the fierce silence with which he masks his secrets, and the explosive, willful gaiety that binds men, women, and children to him. And as the secrets of his birth and heritage come to light, Nicholas has to decide whether he desires to establish a future in Scotland for himself and his family, and a home for his descendants. Gemini brings to a dazzling conclusion Dorothy Dunnett's House of Niccolò series (synopsized in this volume), in which this peerless novelist has vividly re-created the dramatic, flamboyant world of the early Renaissance in historical writing of scrupulous authenticity and in the entrancing portrait of her visionary hero. Now, in a book infused with wit and poetry, emotion and humor, action and mystery, she brings Nicholas de Fleury at last to choose his heart's home, where he can exercise all his skills as an advisor to kings and statesmen, as a husband, a father, and a leader of men--and where, perhaps, we will discern a connection between him and that other remarkable personality, Francis Crawford, whose exploits Lady Dunnett recorded so memorably in The Lymond Chronicles. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Nothing is for free when it comes to demons…a fact that Gwendolyn LaRoux finds out the hard way when she summons Laish, a minor demon from the Shadow Lands to help her cook up a little black magic. Unfortunately black magic has a way of growing and soon Gwendolyn finds herself drowning in darkness. Still, she’s determined to clean up her own mess. But when a creature from the Abyss enters our world and threatens her beloved grandmother, Gwendolyn has to admit she needs help—which means summoning the infuriating Laish, even though she swore never to call on him again. Answering Gwendolyn’s incantations in a moment of boredom was a mistake for a demon who keeps what little heart he has left under lock and key. Laish immediately fell for the Creole beauty with jade green eyes and creamy, café au lait skin and now he’s determined to have her—no matter what the cost. And thanks to Gwendolyn’s sticky dilemma, the price just went up. When it turns out that the intrepid witch must travel through the Shadow Lands and close the door she left open to the Pit, she knows at once she can’t make the dangerous journey on her own. Of course Laish is more than willing to act as her escort and bodyguard…for a not-so-small fee. Gwendolyn doesn’t want to use her body as a bargaining chip but the lustful demon will accept no other form of currency. And since her grandmother’s life is at stake, she has no choice. Little by little she must give in to his demands. As Gwendolyn and Laish travel further and further into the interior of Hell, will he be able to keep her safe? And will she be able to keep her innocence? Or with they lose themselves and each other among the… Ruby Shadows?

Charles Martel is a brilliant cancer researcher who discovers that his own daughter is the victim of leukemia. The cause: a chemical plant conspiracy that not only promises to kill her, but will destroy him as a doctor and a man if he tries to fight it...

The Boxcar children learn how hot air balloons work and even help launch one, but before they get the chance to ride in one they have to figure out who is trying to ruin the rally.

Dr. Chris Shepard, a busy young doctor in Natchez, Mississippi, has never seen his new patient Alex Morse before. But the attractive young woman with the scarred face has come to Dr. Shepards office on a mission to catch a killer. This New York Times bestseller is available in a tall Premium Edition.

He walked away once; he won't do it again. Wolf shifter Aldric Kazan is no stranger to pain. Since the loss of his mate a century ago, he won't allow himself to fall for someone again—not even the feisty female who stirs things in him that he thought were gone long ago. But as a supernatural investigator, he's forced to team up with the same woman he vowed to stay away from. She let him in once; she refuses to do it again. Natalia Cordona refuses to back down from any challenge—even if it means joining forces with Aldric, the sexy and brooding man who won't get too close. Locating missing vampires before a volatile war breaks out seems nearly impossible as the duo struggle with their explosive and undeniable attraction. Now it's up to Natalia and Aldric to trust each other to stop an all-out war from breaking out that would destroy the harmony they've all worked so hard for. Length: 60,000 words Author note: Though part of the Moon Shifter series, this book can be read as a stand-alone.

The Lost Souls: A Holy Trinity Novel (Holy Trinity 2.5) Tahyra Petros tried desperately to save herself and her sister, and instead ended up forever changed. Shandor Asenov battled with death, and lost. Hockey Sava, in a valiant attempt at saving his friends, vanished. Caroline Andrews lost her brother during a violent attempt at survival and was subsequently left alone in the hands of an unknown fate. And, Marko Siwak disappeared in the middle of the night and was never heard from again. These are the stories of their journeys lost in a world where devastation knows no boundaries, where enemies await them at every turn, and where heartache, loss, and death supersede happiness, peace, and love...and the destiny that awaits them all.