Can you imagine a new chemical compound, a non-addictive designer drug that heightens your assertiveness, opens the door to your primal self, giving you an edge wherever you compete? Whether on the street or the football field, in a classroom or a boardroom. Wouldn’t you be tempted to try it . . . just once? What happens if it releases uncontrollable rage and makes you a killer?

With just a touch, Makani Hisoka-O’Brien can see the deepest secrets that others conceal—and it frightens her. There’s danger in the terrible knowledge that floods her mind and haunts her conscience. With just a touch, Rainer Sparks can learn the biggest problems that others bear—and it thrills him. There’s profit to be made making problems go away, by any means . . . including murder. In a place as big as Southern California, these two might have never met and discovered one another’s chilling abilities. But good and evil have a way of colliding . . . with shattering consequences.

Trying to escape a horrific past, Shyla has immersed herself in life as a tough cop in the bustle of LA. When the case of a lifetime takes her back to her hometown of Redding, she is thrown into a world of organized crime, deceit, and bitter reminders of her childhood. As Shyla’s path crosses that of Brennan, a troubled sidekick to the ringleader she’s intent on taking down, she discovers he has a past even darker than hers and she is forced to re-evaluate everything she believes about herself, her job, and what she knows about right and wrong. Can she face the demons of her upbringing and learn to trust again? Her life will depend on it.

It was the perfect night for a party. That is, until twenty-one-year-old Chelsea Dawson disappeared. The social media star was last seen enjoying a beautiful summer night at the Jersey Shore with her friends. But after an explosive fight with her ex-boyfriend, she vanished without a trace. When Seneca, Maddox, Aerin, and Madison hear about the suspected kidnapping, they notice a jarring detail about the victim: she looks exactly like Aerin’s sister, Helena, who was killed five years earlier. Seneca is convinced she knows who killed Helena, and she can’t shake the feeling that the same person has taken Chelsea. Desperate for answers about the two girls, and the truth behind her mother’s murder, Seneca will stop at nothing to find out if the cases are linked. So when Maddox receives an invitation to the Shore from none other than their primary suspect, the Amateurs begin an intense new investigation. Full of disturbing secrets, startling twists, and horrifying revelations, the second book in #1 New York Times best-selling author Sara Shepard’s The Amateurs series follows the team down a twisted path—one crafted by a brilliant killer.

Harry attacked his commanding officer and is suspended indefinitely, pending a psychiatric evaluation. At first he resists the LAPD shrink, but finally recognizes that something is troubling him and has for a long time. In 1961, when Harry was twelve, his mother, a prostitute, was brutally murdered, and no one has ever been accused of the crime. With the spare time a suspension brings, Harry opens up the thirty-year-old file on the case and is irresistibly drawn into a past he has always avoided. It's clear that the case was fumbled and the smell of a cover-up is unmistakable. Someone powerful was able to divert justice and Harry vows to uncover the truth. As he relentlessly follows the broken pieces of the case, the stirred interest causes new murders and pushes Harry to the edge of his job... and his life.

Avery Doyle loves vampires; he's read every novel, seen all the movies, and researched the folklore. When his first one-night-stand, Caroline, turns out to be a true vampire on the run, he jumps at the chance to leave his ordinary life and join her as a "child of the night." The honeymoon ends, however, when Caroline's brutal Creator Sebastian enslaves them on his island estate and Avery must confront the dehumanizing reality behind his dreams. In order to survive, Caroline and Avery take their place as servants in Sebastian's household during a gathering of the most powerful vampires on Earth, the Hegemony, and soon find themselves involved in the myriad schemes, plots, and revenges that form the night-to-night existence of The Order. A society of wealth, power, and inhuman decadence whose existence is protected by human complicity and disbelief, The Order is the immortal aristocracy hidden behind the giant corporations and political leaders of the world. Sebastian, however, has a plan that will change The Order forever and shatter human civilization. A fast-paced thriller that both re-imagines and pays tribute to the traditional vampire, Ancient Blood is a story of love, ambition, sacrifice, and betrayal that is frighteningly human.

Whether it's poker or trial law, wisecracking Rita Morrone plays to win, especially when she takes on the defense of the Honorable Fiske Hamilton, a prominent federal judge accused of sexual harassment. And it's no coincidence that the judge is her live-in lover's father. Then the action turns deadly, and Rita finds herself at the center of a murder case. She probes deep into the murder, uncovering a secret life and suspects in shocking places. When the killer viciously ups the ante, Rita decides to end this lethal game. She lays it all on the line for the highest stakes ever—her life.

A blessed event becomes a nightmare for pregnant homicide detective Jane Rizzoli when she finds herself on the wrong side of a hostage crisis in this timely and relentless new thriller from the New Your Times bestselling author of Body Double. A nameless, beautiful woman appears to be just another corpse in the morgue. An apparent suicide, she lies on a gurney awaiting the dissecting scalpel of medical examiner Maura Isles. But when Maura unzips the body bag and looks down as the body, she gets the fright of her life. The corpse opens it eyes. Very much alive, the woman is rushed to the hospital, where, with shockingly cool precision, she murders a security guard and seizes hostages…one of them a pregnant patient, Jane Rizzoli. Who is this violent, desperate soul, and what does she want? As the tense hours tick by, Maura joins forces with Jane’s husband, FBI agent Gabriel Dean, to track down the mysterious killer’s identity. When federal agents suddenly appear on the scene, Maura and Gabriel realize that they are dealing with a case that goes far deeper than just an ordinary hostage crisis. Only Jane, trapped with the armed madwoman, holds the key to the mystery. And only she can solve it-if she survives the night.

The President's daughter has been kidnapped by the elusive and lethal Ghost Cell. Quest and Angela are in hot pursuit with vicious winds and blinding rain thwarting them at every turn. It's a desperate high stakes chase. But who is chasing whom? Are Q and Angela the hunters or the hunted?

The lonely scientist and the inventor, Sina, is the worst among his friends, he is lazy and funny since he has never been recognized for creating something, he wants to fight Sharkaban the new king who overtook the world, but Sina has no idea, until the day he receives an important letter from a stranger.In another world an underworld, not so far away, or so far below us, lying in union are very strange and perplexing happenings. One world has un-matched beauty, serenity and peacefulness. Most of the inhabitants who live in this underworld reside in inviting and quaint villages, built upon rolling hills and dales, interspersed with tall green grasses, fields of over-sized yellow and orange daises found growing amongst, inviting slow-moving, peaceable streams. Soft, gentle winds blow up from the south regularly pushing large puffy clouds slowly by, all keeping time with the heartbeat of the friendly elves, diminutive fairies, workingmen, unicorns and brownies that live there. In the other darker underworld is found an evil and unclean world filled with, watery fire-bogs, vast and swift-moving rivers, filled with infected and brooding waters. Surrounding this wasteland lay high un-passable mountain ranges, and deep wide canyons, all cloaked above by shadowy skies filled with godless flying creatures. Living within this craven world are; pocket-sized evil fairies, giant black forest trolls, stone trolls, and malovent elf's, living amongst wicked hobgoblins. There are revolting witches, foul-tempered swamp ogres, and life-stealing water-serpents. All of which are ruled by an army of very mean-spirited, and fatted, bug-eyed toads, called...Undertoads. Long so long ago, in this under-land, a dark spell had been cast upon them all by a very powerful black-hearted king. His name is Túngarar Spadefoot. He is the King of the Undertoads. Found inside of this impure world stands an impervious and foreboding black tower. It is made of unbending black-pearl granite. And held entrenched within this bedeviled and wicked tower is the Tower Keeper. She was once the noble and powerful queen of the Kingdom of Gwynedd. This queen alone nurtured and created the Toad King, giving him his unlimited powers to rule the land for all the good of the residents who resided there, but the Toad King as his power grew realized the unlimited powers that he held. Unclean thoughts were allowed to enter his weak mind. He twisted his power against his people and turned towards the fiendish and depraved, he veered towards the worst side of power; he craved more of it. Unlimited power in the hands of the weaker amongst us always has the chance of turning towards the evil side. The Toad King raped the lands to the north, of the Kingdom of Gwynedd. This area became known as Northumberland where all things turned towards the evil side of man and beast. The land died, the skies, the water, and the creatures that lived there became as sinful and revolting as there malovent leader. As the years passed by, loneliness and solitude engulfed the former queen, thus destroying her mind and infecting it with even more hatred. She became consumed by odium, and hate, now seeking only revenge and more power, so she could one day revenge her great loss to Túngarar Spadefoot, the Toad King. She now lays in a state of constant torment and anguish because she waits in haste for the innocent, and the unknowing to someday, wander into her lair. For on this one day, on this most fortunate of days, she hopes to be unceremoniously un-locked from the powerful and dark magic that holds her steadfast in place. The dark city is called Elphame. The White Queen; is an Ice Queen. Her name is Elphen, she is the Ignoble. She is a land draug, an after-walker. Do these worlds exist? Is this all believable, possible, likely or plausible? Does it only happen in fairy tales, legends, myths, long-winded tales or tall-fables? But in the Kingdom of Gwynedd, and in the underworld of Northumberland, and to a young redheaded boy, with an impish smile and bright red freckles, it is a story he never wants to remember, and one he can never forget. He, by the slimmest of margins, lived to tell the true story of this strange underworld, and the eventual outcome of Northumberland.

This novella introduces two of the main characters in my full-length novel THE OMEGA SEQUENCE. The novel is a stand-alone work so the novella is extraneous to a full and complete understanding of it. I hope you enjoy this introductory NOVELLA!Nelson KingThis novella introduces two of the main characters in my full-length novel THE OMEGA SEQUENCE. The novel is a stand-alone work so the novella is extraneous to a full and complete understanding of it. I am offering this novella in the hopes I might capture your imagination, and perhaps your interest in my website and travel blog.Regards,Nelson King

Jack Morgan investigates the disappearance of the biggest superstar couple in Hollywood. Thom and Jennifer Harlow are the perfect couple, with three perfect children. They may be two of the biggest movie stars in the world, but they're also great parents, philanthropists and just all-round good people. When they disappear without a word from their ranch, facts are hard to find. They live behind such a high wall of security and image control that even world-renowned investigator Jack Morgan can't get to the truth. But as Jack keeps probing, secrets sprout thick and fast - and the world's golden couple may emerge as hiding behind a world of desperation and deception that the wildest reality show couldn't begin to unveil. Murder is only the opening scene.

It is 1844. In the remote penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land, a barefoot Aboriginal girl sits for a portrait in a red silk dress. She is Mathinna, the adopted daughter of the island’s governor, Sir John Franklin, and his wife, Lady Jane, and the subject of a grand experiment in civilization -- one that will determine whether science, Christianity and reason can be imposed in the place of savagery, impulse and desire. A quarter of a century passes. Somewhere in the Arctic, Sir John Franklin has disappeared with his crew and two ships on an expedition to find the fabled Northwest Passage. The people of England are horrified by reports of cannibalism filtering back from search parties, no one more so than the most celebrated novelist of the day, Charles Dickens, for whom Franklin’s story becomes a means to plumb the frozen depths of his own life. As several lives become joined by unexpected events and tragedies, Wanting transforms into a stunning contemporary meditation on the ways in which desire -- and its denial -- shape all our lives.

Bestselling master of suspense Jeffery Deaver is back with a brand-new Lincoln Rhyme thriller.Lincoln Rhyme and partner/paramour Amelia Sachs return to face a criminal whose ingenious staging of crimes is enabled by a terrifying access to information.... When Lincoln's estranged cousin Arthur Rhyme is arrested on murder charges, the case is perfect -- too perfect. Forensic evidence from Arthur's home is found all over the scene of the crime, and it looks like the fate of Lincoln's relative is sealed. At the behest of Arthur's wife, Judy, Lincoln grudgingly agrees to investigate the case. Soon Lincoln and Amelia uncover a string of similar murders and rapes with perpetrators claiming innocence and ignorance -- despite ironclad evidence at the scenes of the crime. Rhyme's team realizes this "perfect" evidence may actually be the result of masterful identity theft and manipulation. An information service company -- the huge data miner Strategic Systems Datacorp -- seems to have all the answers but is reluctant to help the police. Still, Rhyme and Sachs and their assembled team begin uncovering a chilling pattern of vicious crimes and coverups, and their investigation points to one master criminal, whom they dub "522." When "522" learns the identities of the crime-fighting team, the hunters become the hunted. Full of Deaver's trademark plot twists, "The Broken Window" will put the partnership of Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs to the ultimate test.

Ellie Cavanaugh was only seven years old when her fifteen-year-old sister, Andrea, was murdered near their home in Oldham-on-the-Hudson, a rural village in New York's Westchester County. There were three suspects: Rob Westerfield, nineteen-year-old scion of a wealthy, prominent family, whom Andrea has been secretly dating; Paul Stroebel, a sixteen-year-old schoolmate, who had a crush on Andrea; and Will Nebels, a local handyman in his forties. It was Ellie who had led her parents to a hideout in which Andrea's body was found -- a secret hideaway in which she met her friends. And it was Ellie who was blamed by her parents for her sister's death for not telling them about this place the night Andrea was missing. It was also Ellie's testimony that led to the conviction of the man she was firmly convinced was the killer. Steadfastly denying his guilt, he spent the next twenty-two years in prison. When he comes up for parole, Ellie, now an investigative reporter for an Atlanta newspaper, protests his release. Nonetheless, the convicted killer is set free and returns to Oldham. Determined to thwart his attempts to whitewash his reputation, Ellie also returns to Oldham, intent on creating a Website and writing a book that will conclusively prove his guilt. As she delves deeper into her research, however, she uncovers horrifying and heretofore unknown facts that shed new light on her sister's murder. With each discovery, she comes closer to a confrontation with a desperate killer. Gripping and relentlessly compelling, Daddy's Little Girl, a portrayal of a family shattered by crime, reflects Mary Higgins Clark's uncanny insight into the twisted mind of a killer and is further evidence of why she is America's favorite author of suspense.