All-Star Love Stephanie J. Scott (A Six Lakes Tennis Academy Novel) Publication date: May 24th 2022 Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Sports, Young Adult
An enemies-to-more fake dating romance set in the world of competitive tennis
Maisie Maxwell planned for a senior year of dazzling college scouts by playing her best tennis. Instead, her beloved tennis training academy is thrown into scandal when the academy founder and head coach, who happens to be her uncle, takes off to Tahiti with the school’s tuition money. Her classmates label her a traitor, but she commits to graduate from the school she loves.
Only her aim to lay low is thwarted by the school’s last-ditch hope to stay open, a new partnership with reality show The Academy.
Also not helping her stay-under-the-radar plan? A wayward forehand shot that nails transfer student Shane Wagner in the face on day one. Shane, obnoxiously gorgeous for starters, is the current number one nationally seeded player in junior boys’ tennis. Oops.
Everyone at school sees Shane as an outsider and fame-seeker. He’s just as much an outcast as Maisie. While reality show producers push for chaos, Shane and Maisie band together with their own idea: pretend to be together and control the narrative.
But the savvy head producer has her own agenda, and it’s not collegiate tennis scholarships. Shane and Maisie need to play hard to save the school before they’re outmatched.
I put all my strength into my next forehand. The ball torpedoed over the net, not even bothering to bounce within the court. Nope, that sucker was headed for the fences. If this was baseball, it’d be time to break out the peanuts and Cracker Jack.
Too bad this wasn’t baseball.
“Ahh!”
A figure in the distance went down, knees to the court. A crowd of students suddenly appeared, gasping and rushing over.
“You hit him!” someone shrieked.
My breath lodged in my throat. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I jogged over, terrified to breathe until I knew my accidental victim was okay.
Caleb directed a dirty scowl at me. “You really are the worst, Maxwell.”
I angled to see the fallen student. “I’m so sorry!”
“Oh, Maisie.” Nia mumbled, now beside me.
“I’m okay,” the guy on the ground said, attempting to stand despite the crowd. His head emerged, sun-bleached brown hair unkempt and curling over a tanned forehead. That perfectly shaggy hair some guys could get away with. He wasn’t a returning student. The face turning toward me could easily belong on a clothing website, the kind with ninety-dollar T-shirts with holes in them for a distressed look. Basically, he was very attractive.
A swath of blood streaked across that very attractive face.
That part was definitely my fault.
Sorry floated across my tongue, but my lips couldn’t form the word under the pressure of so many glaring classmates. Any hope of being an admired senior this year shriveled and burned like a tissue set aflame.
He accepted a clean towel and pressed it to his nose. “I expected I might not be welcome here, but your forehand really confirmed it.”
“Way to go, Maxwell,” Caleb said with a sneer. “You just nailed Shane Wagner in the face.”
Oh. Wait, what? “You’re … you’re—”
“Shane Wagner,” the bloody-faced model boy said through the towel.
Shane Wagner. The Shane Wagner. I just nailed the face of the number one-seeded player in junior boys’ tennis.
Author Bio:
Stephanie J. Scott writes young adult and romance about characters who put their passions first. Her debut ALTERATIONS about a fashion-obsessed loner who reinvents herself was a Romance Writers of America RITA® award finalist. She enjoys dance fitness, everything cats, and has a slight obsession with Instagram. A Midwest girl at heart, she resides outside of Chicago with her tech-of-all-trades husband and fuzzy furbabies.
The number one secret
to my success as a bodyguard? Staying under the radar. But when a wildly public
disaster and a dead client blew up my career and reputation, it turned my
perfect, solo life upside down.
I thought my tiny
hometown of Nowhere would be the ideal out-of-the-way refuge to wait out the
media storm.
It wasn’t.
My little brother had
moved into a treehouse. The obscure mountain town had decided to attract
tourists with the world’s largest collection of big things… Yes, Nowhere now
has the world’s largest pizza cutter. And lawn flamingo. And ball of yarn…
And then I stumbled
over a dead body.
All the evidence points
to my brother being the bad guy. I may have been out of his life for a
while—okay, five years—but I know he’s no killer. Can I clear my brother before
he becomes Nowhere’s next Big Fatality?
A fast-paced and funny
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Murder mystery game
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EXCERPT
Just to be clear, it wasn’t my fault.
It wasn’t my responsibility either. But when my client
slipped me a mickey, there’s a principle involved. Though after falling down a
flight of hotel stairs, I wasn’t sure what that principle was anymore.
I staggered to my feet, lost the rest of my dinner in a
potted palm, and careened through the door into the hotel lobby.
Guests turned to stare, and why not? My blond hair
fountained out of a high, pre-makeup-removal ponytail. Camo pajamas and flip-flops
completed my tipsy party-girl look.
I staggered deeper into the chic gray and white lobby.
Lights glinted off the chrome chandeliers, and I winced at their dizzying
starbursts.
My fists clenched on my phone. Or at least I thought they
did. My fingers were a little numb. But I’d expelled most of the drugs, and I
was going to catch my wayward client, Toomas Koppel, and surveil him until it
hurt. Him. Hurt him.
That wasn’t ego. I was well aware of my many flaws. But I
also knew who I was and what I was, and what I was was very, very good at
surveillance.
Plus, I was an optimist. Personal protection agents,
otherwise known as bodyguards, frequently were. We liked to think we were tough
and cynical, since our job was to watch for trouble. But you didn’t get into
this business if you didn’t think you and your client would survive it. Maybe
that was why I’d been snookered by mine. I still had no idea why he’d drugged
me, but I was going to find out.
AUTHOR Bio and Links
Kirsten Weiss
writes laugh-out-loud, page-turning mysteries. Her heroines aren’t perfect, but
they’re smart, they struggle, and they succeed. Kirsten writes in a house high
on a hill in the Colorado woods and occasionally ventures out for wine and
chocolate. Or for a visit to the local pie shop.
Kirsten is best
known for her Wits’ End, Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum, and Tea &
Tarot cozy mystery books. So if you like funny, action-packed mysteries with
complicated heroines, just turn the page…
Links:
Website: https://kirstenweiss.com
Pre-order Swag for Big Shot with FREE Mystery Role-Playing Game: https://www.kirstenweiss.com/big-shot-pre-order-extras
Dead Wrong Annie Anderson (Grave Talker, #6) Publication date: May 24th 2022 Genres: Adult, Urban Fantasy
Never make a deal with a demon.
There are two things Darby Adler wants more than anything: to take a vacation, and to find who is responsible for the rash of witch abductions in Knoxville.
With an ancient vampire in town and a slew of fugitives on the loose, her suspect pool is vast. But Darby has a sneaking suspicion she knows the culprit all too well.
And if she can’t catch him on her own, she might just have to resort to more creative measures to get the job done.
Here’s hoping she doesn’t lose her soul in the process.
Hooking a finger in the bridge of my sunglasses, I pinned him with a cold glare. “Tell me, is it fibbies in general, my gender, or me in particular you don’t like, Preston? Because this is the second time in a matter of days that you have skirted around another agent to tell me to get off a crime scene, and I gotta say, it’s pissing me off.”
A sneer curled his lip as he planted his feet, leaning forward just a touch too close for my comfort. “Maybe I don’t like your kind, Warden,” he growled, cutting through any and all levels of pretense. “Maybe I don’t like trying to clean up arcane fuck shit on my only day off. Maybe I—”
I caught sight of his KPD brethren stopping to stare, and cut him off.
“Shut. Up,” I growled, fighting off the urge to cover his mouth with my hand. The absolute last thing I needed was a cranky beat cop exposing the arcane world to all a fucking sundry. “If you know who I am and even an inkling of what’s good for you, you will keep your fucking mouth shut until I tell you to open it.”
Snatching my cell from my back pocket, I dialed Tobin’s number.
“Yeah, boss?” he answered, the timid waver to his voice gone now that he was alone in the house and couldn’t see my face. Tobin didn’t like direct contact of any kind, but on the phone? In front of a computer? He was an absolute powerhouse.
“I need everything you have on an Officer N. Preston.” I squinted at the shield pinned to his chest. “Badge number 745632. And I need it yesterday, if you please.”
Tobin paused briefly, a faint snicker rattling down the line. Tobin loved it when other people were in trouble. His keyboard clacking like machine gun fire was music to my ears. “On it. Give me five.”
Without so much as a nod to polite phone etiquette, the line disconnected, and I stuffed the cell back in my pocket. I’d have to talk to him about that.
Staring at the prick whose face had turned an unhealthy shade of puce in the short time I was on the phone, I tilted my head to the side and narrowed my eyes.
“Now that’s done, what were you saying about my kind, again? Not that you know what my kind even is or what I’m capable of.” The subtle buzz around the guy had a solid human flavor to it, but I’d been wrong before.
I’d been wrong about a lot of things.
Author Bio:
Annie Anderson is a military wife and United States Air Force veteran. Originally from Dallas, Texas, she is a southern girl at heart, but has lived all over the US and abroad. As soon as the military stops moving her family around, she’ll settle on a state, but for now she enjoys being a nomad with her husband, two daughters, an old man of a dog, and a young pup that makes life… interesting.
Dark Blue Waves Kimberly Sullivan Publication date: May 27th 2022 Genres: Adult, Historical, Romance, Time-Travel, Women’s Fiction
When you wake up in Bath, England two hundred years in the past, how far can a love of Jane Austen get you?
Janet Roberts dreams of an academic career in literature, so she can hardly believe her good fortune when she’s accepted into a Jane Austen graduate seminar in Bath, England. Settled in Georgian splendor among her seminar colleagues, Janet and her classmates live, eat and breathe Jane Austen.
An accident interrupts this idyll when Janet regains consciousness in her own room—back in Regency England. For a scholar of nineteenth-century literature, this should be a dream come true.
But Janet quickly learns there’s a world of difference between scholarly knowledge of the written page and maneuvering real life as a reluctant time traveler.
Her burgeoning friendship with Emma Huntington eases her entrée into nineteenth-century society. However, Emma’s brother, the handsome, proud and frustratingly magnetic Sir Edward, is far less welcoming.
While desperately attempting to make sense of her dilemma, Janet treads a thin line between trying to blend into her new world and not being unmasked as the imposter she is. Can she discover the way to return to her twenty-first century life? After working so hard to create a rewarding nineteenth-century life for herself and opening her hart to friendship and love, does she even want to?
Janet marveled at her reflection in the mirror. Her light brown hair with its sunny highlights looked elegant swept up; her neck appeared long and delicate. Her green eyes sparkled. She looked older, more sophisticated with her nineteenth-century toilette. She was certainly too suntanned to be fashionable among the creamy-skinned young women of Bath. Her form was perhaps too muscular for nineteenth-century tastes, but sport-sculpted shoulders and legs would be well-covered by the fashions of the day.
It did not require an extreme stretch of the imagination to believe that she might have just stepped out of the Bennet household. If only she could learn the manners and banish anachronisms from her discourse, she might actually get away with it.
“Why, Jane! Don’t you look lovely! What a miraculous recovery.” Emma glided into the room, all smiles and good cheer. “Doctor Perry has given me an excellent report. We are to take a short walk, but I have strict instructions to rest frequently. I have brought my sketching pad and pencils so that we shall have every excuse to sit and rest. Doctor Perry assures me you are strong, and he is confident you should soon be back to your old self.”
Janet smiled at her new friend. How kind they were being to her. She followed Emma out of the room, and then out the front door into the glorious, sunny June day.
June 17, 1813.
She could hardly believe it. She, Janet Roberts, writing her master’s thesis on nineteenth-century English social customs and manners and how they were reflected in the literature of the period, was now walking around Bath on June 17, 1813. This was a dream come true. How her fellow students and scholars would envy her, if only they knew.
But would they ever know? Would she ever return to her twenty-first-century life to complete that half-finished thesis, the one she needed to finalize by next May? Would she return to finish her Austen seminar? She’d agonized endlessly over her father controlling every aspect of her life—her studies, her career, her choice of a husband—yet here she was, a few days later, and her life was one giant question mark.
Emma slipped her arm through Janet’s, and the two women walked along the green of The Crescent, then continued the short distance to The Circus. This was the very same route Janet jogged with Siobhan only a few days earlier, on the morning of the accident that changed her life.
The streets were a riot of sights, sounds, and color. Women in their elegant dresses, servant girls in their coarse, functional smocks and aprons. In Janet’s world, it was not always easy to distinguish the classes by fashion. A twenty-first-century internet billionaire might work daily in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, just like the worker cleaning the streets. But here, in this new world, class and privilege were prominently displayed in one’s dress and carriage. There were no blurred lines. No room for ambiguity.
Children wandered the streets, carrying heavy parcels and buckets in their delicate, tiny hands. Janet longed to relieve them of their loads. How on earth could such young creatures be working so hard, carrying burdens that must weigh as much as they? Surely they should be in school, or enjoying their brief childhood, or accompanied by an observant adult, someone to ensure that they were vigilant and would not risk being run over and killed by a passing horse and carriage in a careless moment of childish distraction. Goodness, her modern sensibilities found this far too difficult to digest.
As she and Emma promenaded, elegant men stepped aside to allow them to pass. The men smiled and tipped their hats to the passing ladies.
The smell of horse manure was overwhelming. It hung so thickly in the air that Janet felt a wave of nausea wash over her. She saw a few men braving oncoming traffic, shovels in hand, attempting to clear the streets, only able to eliminate a small portion of the mountains of accumulated horse droppings.
Hadn’t the automobile been touted as the ideal solution to eliminate pollution? Janet, alongside her middle school classmates, had laughed smugly at the absurdity of that premise. How easy to have been smug in her clean and hygienic modern world. But now that she was actually living in the time period and breathing in the overwhelming odor that must have permeated every major city, she felt more sympathy for those who had welcomed the technology as a possible liberation from the nauseating stench that blanketed cities and towns.
Janet tried in vain to compose her face, but she couldn’t help but stare at the sights and sounds all around her.
Emma laughed at her friend. “You must remember to close your mouth and not gape at your surroundings. It looks as if you are out in the world for the first time, my dear Jane. Surely, you have not forgotten in this brief time what the world looks like beyond the confines of the sick bed.”
You would be surprised, Emma.
Author Bio:
Kimberly grew up in the suburbs of Boston and in Saratoga Springs, New York, although she now calls the Harlem neighborhood of New York City home when she’s back in the US. She studied political science and history at Cornell University and earned her MBA, with a concentration in strategy and marketing, from Bocconi University in Milan.
Afflicted with a severe case of Wanderlust, she worked in journalism and government in the US, Czech Republic and Austria, before settling down in Rome, where she works in international development, and writes fiction any chance she gets.
She is a member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association (WFWA) and The Historical Novel Society and has published several short stories and two novels: Three Coins and Dark Blue Waves.
After years spent living in Italy with her Italian husband and sons, she’s fluent in speaking with her hands, and she loves setting her stories in her beautiful, adoptive country.
Soulstealer: Steven Shane Boulware (Soulstealer, #2) Publication date: May 20th 2022 Genres: Adult, Supernatural
The Soulstealer’s greatest power is that no one believes it exists…
…except Steven Carpenter. One of the last remaining members of the Ordo Solis—a thousand-year-old order sworn to kill the ancient demon—even his faith has begun to wane. But when he witnesses the return of the Soulstealer with his own eyes, belief quickly turns to grim reality.
With the souls of the world at stake, Steven knows what he has to do—expose the Soulstealer. There’s just one problem, it knows it’s been discovered … and so do the nefarious cults sworn to the demon’s cause. In a race against time and evil, Steven will have to find help. But will it be enough? Or will they be too late?
Author Shane Boulware ramps up the action in his hair-raising second entry in the Soulstealer series. Burning the boundaries between urban fantasy and suspense thriller, this grim-dark stomach-churner will leave you as breathless as the characters trapped within its pages.
Though she didn’t believe him, Jeff promised Sara he’d read to Trista tonight, taking no more than two hours reviewing surveillance. He worked his schedule to spend the first hour watching the Gatekeeper in real-time as he arrived, and the second hour emailing and speeding through the day’s feed.
The Gatekeeper came into view as Jeff’s doorbell rang. Jeff stepped out of his office and got to the door in time to see Sara peering through the peephole. She scowled at Jeff as she opened it, revealing Steven dressed in a Star Trek t-shirt, leather jacket, steel-toed boots, jeans, and a ridiculous purple bandanna around his neck.
Steven waved. “Hi, Sara.”
“Steven.” She glared at Jeff. “Two hours, Jeff, and not one minute more.”
Steven grinned and made a whip-cracking motion with widening eyes as Sara returned to the living room.
“Yeah,” Jeff muttered, “I’m lucky I’m still in the house. Come on in. I’m watching the Gatekeeper.”
“Sweet!” Steven followed Jeff back into the office, setting his backpack down and pulling up a stool while Jeff returned to his chair. They huddled around the television. “Man, we haven’t done this in a while.”
Jeff cracked a smile. “Yeah, it’s been months since we’ve had a good ole fashioned sit-down. Aren’t you supposed to be out cruising the wild?”
Steven shrugged while glancing about the office; empty wrappers and gadgets strewn about. “I was in the neighborhood. I’m still on my vacation time though, so I’ll be headed back out for parts unknown.”
Jeff nudged him. “You were feeling guilty.”
Steven tilted his head. “Yeah, maybe a little. But I was serious when I said that I needed some time away from all this s***. The open road is the open road, and I got an urge I need to satisfy.” Steven pumped his fists and rocked his hips.
Jeff laughed while tucking away some unpaid bills on his desk.
“I decided to go south to the Carolinas,” Steven continued. “Through Tennessee and Missouri, then Ohio and back here. Tomorrow I’ll head out north, possibly all the way to Canuck-land. Who knows? I’ll figure it out when I get there.”
“Meanwhile…” Jeff began.
“Meanwhile, you’re fightin’ the good fight,” Steven added in a southern accent while eyeing the television. The Gatekeeper lounged in a brown leather chair, watching the fire as he did every day. A small table stood to his immediate right and another leather chair on the other side. His black leather fedora rested on the middle table.
Forty minutes into the video, a young man approached the Gatekeeper. Jeff leaned forward, snatched a notepad and mini pen from his back pocket, and scribbled notes on the paper.
Steven scrutinized the unfolding scene. “Easy, killer, just watch.”
The young man tried to sit before jerking still. He stood back up.
“I wish we had audio,” Jeff muttered.
“Shhh, just watch.” Steven strained to read their lips. The camera angles shot out both ways from the fireplace, giving them the perfect view. The Gatekeeper and his new friend began a conversation. Then the young man grabbed hold of the fedora and set it on his head, tapping the edge.
“Holy s***,” Jeff said. “That’s the Gatekeeper’s hat. He either knows exactly what he’s doing, or he has a death wish.”
“Mmmhm, we’ll see.”
They knew what would happen after the Gatekeeper verified the Soulstealer’s identity. They had learned about the procedure back when a much stronger Solis America infiltrated the Raptor’s former headquarters in Boston. Still, they could only guess at what words the two exchanged. The Raptors guarded the secret with a foolproof method: memorization.
The young man sat in the chair, back erect, and continued their dialogue. He took the Gatekeeper’s hat off and returned it to the table, tapping it again. The newcomer said something else, prompting the Gatekeeper to snatch his fedora, stand, and stride toward the VIP section.
The young man made no motion to follow, which they knew wasn’t part of the procedure unless the exchange failed. When the Gatekeeper left the room, the young man exited the bar the way he came.
Steven frowned. “That’s different.”
“What just happened?” Jeff asked.
“Looks like a failed attempt.”
“Yeah, but the guy knew what to do.”
“Or he was just a dumb drunk. It’s probably the Raptors messing with us again.”
“How could they know we’re still watching them?”
Steven gave Jeff a long look. “Jeff, they’ve probably been in your house a dozen times this year alone. I’m pretty sure they know.”
Jeff drew back, his voice trembling. “That’s not funny, Steven. I have a little girl in this house.” His eyes darted around the room as paranoia enveloped him.
“C’mon Jeff, they’re the Raptors. They have dossiers on every one of us, down to what kind of ice cream we like. We’ve been playing Spy vs. Spy since we figured out they supported the Soulstealer.”
“Is that your new name for it, the Soulstealer?”
“Catchy, isn’t it? I came up with it on the ride back. Sounds a lot better than ‘Stealer of Souls,’ or ‘Dracula.’ And Satan.”
Author Bio:
Shane Boulware is an unconventional idealist from Orlando, Florida. Naturally, he commissioned as a Contracting Officer in the United States Air Force in 2012, where he promptly got tased, was hit with pepper spray, participated in a mock riot, jumped out of an airplane, and lived in a combat zone. These experiences tempered his creative instinct and led him to publish two music albums, found an innovation company, break a Guinness World Record, and learn over sixteen dance styles.
Having grown up a huge fan of Dune, Star Wars, Stargate SG-1, Warhammer 40K, Harry Potter, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and The Lord of the Rings, Shane always wanted to create and share a world of his own. His imagination set him on a path to write the supernatural thriller, Soulstealer, and its sequel, The Ordo Solis.
When he’s not negotiating contracts or salsa dancing the night away, you can find Shane taking his creative passion out on an unsuspecting keyboard. If you want to know when his next book will be available, visit his website at ShaneBoulware.com, where you can sign up to receive release updates and join a community of savants, swashbucklers, and nerds.
What
happens when your entire identity revolves around a way of life that is
becoming obsolete?
In the 1920s, as Canada
progresses through the Industrial Revolution, horses are still the rural
engines of survival. As a child Adam lives this reality on his family’s farm in
the Ottawa Valley, planning to take over one day and have a family of his own.
When his parents die during the Great Depression, nineteen-year-old Adam is
disinherited in favour of his brother and is forced to move to the city to find
work. Without a formal education his choices are few, yet he finds a place to
use his horsemanship skills in the dwindling forces of the Canadian cavalry
based near Montreal. There he finds pride in being a mounted soldier, and
friendship with his fellow dragoons. But the cavalry units are mechanized by
the beginning of World War Two, and when Adam is sent to Europe, he must
abandon his equine partners for trucks and tanks. In the catastrophic
experience of war, he will lose everything once again.
Broken in body and
spirit, he returns to Canada where he must confront the question of survival in
a world that doesn’t seem to have a place for an injured soldier. Full of
poetic reflections on what it means to work with horses, horse/man is a
powerful story about a man searching for dignity and connection in the face of
a rapidly shifting world.
EXCERPT
“Trot on, Jack! Git up, Pete! Git UP! Good.”
The driver called out orders and sounded gruff, even in
praise. The reins slapped the broad chestnut backs lightly, then loosened. It
was the end of May, and planting had finished. Today, they were going to town.
Freed from their heavy collars and the deep wet soil, the horses danced down
the dirt road, shaking their heads as they pushed through the harnesses. Their
efforts were rewarded with an easy silence.
Seven-year-old Adam sat in the back of the wagon, his skinny
legs anchoring the sacks and baskets his mother had given him for dry goods. He
was small for his age but wiry and strong. His face was still childish,
heart-shaped and snub-nosed, with sandy brown hair and eyes. His father,
Ciaran, was alone on the front seat, driving the horses with his back to Adam.
Adam was grateful for the rest.
The horses picked up speed, and Adam bounced from side to
side on the planks. The percussion of the horses’ hooves and the squeak of the
wagon on its struts was all he could hear. The wind from the wagon’s movement
had a chill. He turned his head to face it, letting the tears from his watering
eyes stream along his cheeks. He inhaled the sharpness of spring, undercut by
the heaviness of soil and vegetation that was not quite yet alive. Travelling
along, further details unfurled — the patches of mud in the potholes, the
freshly tilled soil in the fields, the shades of green emerging from the
ditches and the trees.
AUTHOR Bio and Links
ulia Merritt has been captivated by horses ever since she could see out of the car window. Then she grew up and became a public library CEO and certified animal bodyworker. She lives in Ontario, Canada, with her thoroughbred horses and smooth collie dogs. This is her first novel.
River of Ashes Alexandrea Weis & Lucas Astor (St. Benedict, #1) Published by: Vesuvian Books Publication date: August 2nd 2022 Genres: Adult, Psychological Thriller
“A psychological portrait akin to Lord of the Flies.” ~Midwest Book Review
SOME TRUTHS ARE BETTER KEPT SECRET. SOME SECRETS ARE BETTER OFF DEAD.
ALONG THE BANKS OF THE BOGUE FALAYA RIVER, sits the abandoned St. Francis Seminary. Beneath a canopy of oaks, blocked from prying eyes, the teens of St. Benedict High gather here on Fridays. The rest of the week belongs to school and family—but weekends belong to the river.
And the river belongs to Beau Devereaux.
The only child of a powerful family, Beau can do no wrong. Star quarterback. Handsome. Charming. The “prince” of St. Benedict is the ultimate catch.
He is also a psychopath.
A dirty family secret buried for years, Beau’s evil grows unchecked. In the shadows of the haunted abbey, he commits unspeakable acts on his victims and ensures their silence with threats and intimidation. Senior year, Beau sets his sights on his girlfriend’s headstrong twin sister, Leslie, who hates him. Everything he wants but cannot have, she will be his ultimate prize.
As the victim toll mounts, it becomes clear that someone must stop Beau Devereaux.
Andrea leaned away from him, listening. “What’s that?”
Beau nuzzled her neck. “Wild dogs. They live on The Abbey grounds. There’s a couple of legends about them.”
“What legends?” She stepped out of his embrace.
He watched her hips beneath her coat. “They say the dogs stay around The Abbey waiting for the lady in white. She was a gamekeeper for the seminary school and a lover of one of the monks. She died on the grounds, betrayed by the man she loved. Her dogs were kept to manage the varmint population. The wild dogs are said to be their offspring.”
Beau slipped the coat from her shoulders. “The gamekeeper was found hanging from a tree in a white hooded cloak. It was all kept very hush-hush at the time. After the woman’s death, the dogs roamed the grounds and lived off the land. They’re said to only appear when death is near.”
Beau looked at Andrea to see if she was sufficiently unnerved.
“That’s just creepy.” She glanced at his hands as he tugged at her jeans. “But a guy who brings girls to these abandoned cells is into creepy.”
He liked the image the cells portrayed. It was his laboratory, like he’d read about in Frankenstein, where he could experiment and create his own monsters.
Author Bio:
Alexandrea Weis, RN-CS, PhD, is a multi-award-winning author of over twenty-seven novels, a screenwriter, ICU Nurse, and historian who was born and raised in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Having grown up in the motion picture industry as the daughter of a director, she learned to tell stories from a different perspective and began writing at the age of eight. Infusing the rich tapestry of her hometown into her novels, she believes that creating vivid characters makes a story moving and memorable. A member of the Horror Writers Association and International Thriller Writers Association, Weis writes mystery, suspense, thrillers, horror, crime fiction, and romance. She lives with her husband and pets in New Orleans where she is a permitted/certified wildlife rehabber with the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries and rescues orphaned and injured animals.
Lucas Astor is from New York, has resided in Central America and the Middle East, and traveled through Europe. He lives a very private, virtually reclusive lifestyle, preferring to spend time with a close-knit group of friends than be in the spotlight.
He is an author and poet with a penchant for telling stories that delve into the dark side of the human psyche. He likes to explore the evil that exists, not just in the world, but right next door behind a smiling face.
Photography, making wine, and helping endangered species are just some of his interests. Lucas is an expert archer and enjoys jazz, blues, and classical music.
One of his favorite quotes is: “It’s better to be silent than be a fool.” ~Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
Love’s Last Kiss Sharon Wray (a Deadly Force Novel) Publication date: May 17th 2022 Genres: Adult, Romance, Suspense
Is love worth risking everything for?
Rose Guthrie, a reluctant erotic dancer, hasn’t trusted anyone since her parents’ death. Yet, to make money for her brother’s heart transplant, she agrees to deliver a sealed box to a mysterious buyer. Until the box—and the seller—disappear. Not surprised by the betrayal, her situation becomes more dangerous when she learns that a brutal arms dealer, known as the Prince, also wants the box and will kill everyone she loves for it. With one clue left, she breaks into Doom—Savannah’s violent, illegal fight club. Unfortunately, Doom’s referee—the sexy, ex-Army Ranger, Kade Dolan—stands in her way. Although she harbors a secret attraction to Kade, she can’t let him stop her. If she doesn’t deliver the box on time, she’ll lose everything. Including her own life.
Rose doesn’t trust disgraced Army Ranger, ex-con Kade Dolan, but that’s okay—he doesn’t trust himself either. Why? Because he lies to everyone about everything, including his time in Leavenworth and his job as an illegal fight club referee. Then there are his two side gigs. The first as an informant for the Prince, the leader of a secret, two-thousand-year-old private army. The second, loving from afar the beautiful, secretive Rose Guthrie. After the Prince discovers Rose is the courier of a lost 18th century artifact, he orders Kade to help her find the box before their greatest enemy does. If they succeed, Kade must return it to the Prince. If they fail, Kade must kill her.
Betrayal or death. When faced with an impossible choice, Kade can’t lie anymore, at least not when it comes to what he’s about to do the woman he loves. But when Rose uncovers Kade’s lies, they learn a terrible truth—the 18th century box holds a secret far deadlier than they imagined. A secret that could destroy them all.
Kade rubbed his forehead with his fist. How could he have made such a terrible mistake?
Since meeting Rose, he’d been unable to stay away from her, even when he’d barely known her. And now that they’d made love, he wasn’t sure he could leave her.
Yet, while he’d admitted his growing love for Rose, he’d also left out the most important details of his life. And Rose wasn’t stupid. She had to suspect he was hiding things. It was probably why, despite the passion she’d shown in his arms, she hadn’t spoken her own feelings aloud.
He couldn’t blame her. He was neither a prince nor charming. He was a man in an impossible situation. A man in love with a woman who had trust issues. A man who rarely asked for help because it made one beholden to others. A man about to commit the rest of his life to a murderous cult that dated back centuries.
He opened his eyes, determined to crush his pity party. Rose needed him, and they still had work to do. They had twenty-eight hours to meet the Prince’s deadline, and they still had no idea where to find that box.
When he saw the cup of hot coffee on his bedside table, his throat closed up. He’d never get enough of her sexually, but her inherent thoughtfulness was what made his heart brim with other unfamiliar emotions. Emotions he struggled to understand, much less define.
Yes, he loved her. But his feelings for her were so much more intense than he’d expected. Then again, other than Nin and his mother, he had little experience in loving women. Infrequent sex with random females from the club didn’t count.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and moved slowly, testing each tight muscle group before standing upright. Unfortunately, King George, who’d been guarding the bathroom door, decided Kade had committed an Act of Aggression. The cat bared his teeth.
Kade held out his hands and backed up. “Whoa, kitty.”
He hit the edge of the bed and fell onto his naked ass. The pillow flew across the room, and King George pounced after it. A moment later, Rose emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her body. Wet strands of hair hung past her shoulders.
He drew the throw blanket over his lap and tried not to stare at her bare thighs. The towel acted more like a short, strapless dress, exposing way too much soft, bare skin.
The cat hissed at him again, and she shooed him away. “King George, be nice!”
The cat left the room with his back arched and his tail high in the air. As if to say to Kade, kiss this.
“I’m sorry.” Rose clutched the towel, keeping it tight around herself. “I’d like to say King George isn’t normally this nasty in the morning, but that would be a lie.”
Actually, Kade wasn’t thinking about the cat at all. He was too distracted by the drops of water that rolled down the curve of her neck and slipped between her breasts. His body hardened with one part in particular becoming almost painful. Needing a distraction, he took the mug and inhaled the scent of roasted beans. “I don’t mind King George. Nin had a cat like that once. It took a while, but I eventually won her over.”
She took a step forward. “How long is ‘a while’?”
He sipped his coffee and sighed. It was perfect. Hot, black, and not too bitter. “Seven years.”
She laughed and shifted awkwardly, her hands grasping the towel. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“Never.”
Author Bio:
Sharon is a librarian who once studied dress design in the couture houses of Paris and now writes of novels of suspense, adventure, and love. A caretaker of Donut the one-eyed rescue dog, she’s addicted to snapping photos and eating Oreos.
She writes the bestselling Deadly Force romantic suspense series where smart, sexy women teach their alpha males that Grace always defeats Reckoning.
Roni Wright thought she had everything; huge home, successful husband, kids, and a brilliant career. That is until the worse pandemic in 100 years swept away the shallow façade of her life and she nearly lost it all.
This is the story of how a broken family navigated the most difficult year of their lives and found hope in the middle of so much loss. You will recognize many of the things that nearly broke us all as we struggled with pandemic restrictions and the new normal. But you will cheer as they work their way out of darkness into a better world.
Book Details
Genre: Family & Relationship, Biographical Fiction
Published by: Fossil Creek Press
Publication Date: May 2022
Number of Pages: 170
ISBN: 978-1-7362417-2-1
Purchase Links:Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Read an excerpt:
April 2020 – When It Rains, It Pours
On April 1, I picked up my calendar, as I did at the beginning of every month—usually to see what we had coming up and to schedule more—and started crossing off everything. I had already crossed off the March trip to Paris. Now I crossed off this month’s planned trip to the banking conference in San Francisco. I slashed through the conference in New York. And with a little more pain, I crossed off the two Broadway shows to which I had tickets. An old college girlfriend was going to go with me to one and Dan the other. Broadway closed. New York closed. All crossed off, as was the St. Louis Symphony concert to which we had tickets. Canceled. Hockey, canceled. Three birthday parties, canceled. My appointment at the nail salon, canceled. Hairdresser, canceled. Canceled, canceled, canceled. April was looking so gloomy.
The only exercise I was getting was walking through one of our beautiful parks with the kids. Sometimes, we took bikes and rode a trail. But with April came gloom and rain and even that little bit of escape became impossible. Then the St. Louis County Executive closed all county parks. We were now required to wear a mask if we were out in public, especially indoors, and to stay six feet apart wherever we were. The gloom was growing daily. My life had no order. We were in free fall.
On April 9, we got a big shot in the arm, as it were, when $2,400 appeared in our checking account—a gift from the U.S. government. Officially the money was part of the Economic Impact Payment, but the payments were more often called stimulus checks. We just called it salvation. Like many families, we weren’t sure how we would make ends meet. This money was a gift from heaven—or the government, depending on your point of view.
By the second week of April, our school district was making an effort at learning. They asked parents to pick up “home learning packets” from the school. When I drove up to the school, someone handed me the packet for our kids’ grade levels. But when I got home, there was little explanation about the work. It was terribly disorganized and made little sense to me. Katlin wanted to learn more, and Oliver wanted to learn less. I just wanted more alcohol. Lots more. I decided hard times called for hard alcohol. Wine was OK now with lunch, but by dinner time, I needed a cocktail.
I set up a place in the basement family room for the kids to study. I tried hard to make Oliver work on letters and sight words. He would work with me for maybe thirty minutes, then he’d start disrupting everything I did. He’d rip papers and run away. Meanwhile, Katlin was trying to figure out her lessons with great frustration. She didn’t know what was wanted of her, and I couldn’t figure it out either. Oliver did everything in his considerable ability to disrupt our efforts. Most sessions ended with all three of us crying.
Not only was I failing at trying to teach my kids, I was failing at keeping them out of Nathan’s living room office. Every time Oliver ran away from me, he ran right into one of Nathan’s meetings. No order. No peace. No joy.
—
Excerpt from Finding Light in a Lost Year by Carin Fahr Shulusky. Copyright 2022 by Carin Fahr Shulusky. Reproduced with permission from Carin Fahr Shulusky. All rights reserved.
Author Bio:
Carin Fahr Shulusky was born and raised in west St. Louis County. She attended the University of Missouri, Columbia, where she received a B.J (Bachelor of Journalism). After college she worked in advertising for GE and Monsanto. She was the first professional woman in her division of each. After 25 years in Marketing, she created her own firm, Marketing Alliance. She was president of Marketing Alliance, from 2002 – 2014. She is a past-president of the Business Marketing Association of St. Louis. Carin Fahr is married to Richard Shulusky. They have two grown children and one marvelous granddaughter. Grandma Carin has a life long love of cooking, even writing her own cookbook. In 2014 Carin retired to devote full time to writing. Her first book, In the Middle was inspired by her own battle to care for her beloved mother, Dorothy Fahr. Many of the stories Carrie Young’s mother tells her in In the Middle came from Carin’s mother. Carin is a lifelong member of Pathfinder Church in Ellisville, Missouri, where she volunteers in early childhood.
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If you have been coming to fundinmental for a while, you probably know how much a cover can influence me. That is why I invited Barbara Casey here to tell us her thoughts. Take it away Barbara.
THE ARTFUL EXPRESSION OF BOOK COVERS
One of the things I am most pleased about in
writing The F.I.G. Mysteries is the fact that my publisher is also a
professional and extremely talented artist. From the beginning when she first
published Book 1 – The Cadence of Gypsies
– she sensed the emotional tenderness underlying the story. The cover she
designed – an obscure symbol found in the Voynich Manuscript – expressed that
emotional tenderness perfectly. At that time, I wrote The Cadence of Gypsies as a stand-alone novel. After it was published,
however, my publisher convinced me to expand it into a series. The original
cover metamorphosed into something different that was perfect because it now
tied in with the other covers on The Wish
Rider, The Clock Flower, The Nightjar’s Promise, and now, The Seraphim’s Song.
Each cover symbolizes the main underlying
theme of the book in a beautiful and sensitive expression. Books 1 through 4
have focused on the personal emotional journeys of Carolina and the females of intellectual
genius as they search for answers to explain why they were placed in an
orphanage and who their biological parents were. With those answers for the
most part found, The Seraphim’s Song elevates
Carolina and the F.I.G.s to another level of understanding. There are new
questions; more answers are needed. This involves an ancient artifact that, in
fact, is a key to all knowledge in the universe that has been hidden in a cave
in China for as long as the planet Earth has existed. The cover shows a “key”
surrounded by colors of the universe. It is beautiful, and it is perfect.
It is really nice to visit with you again. Thank you for inviting me and for your continued interest in my books. All best to you and your bloggers. ~Barbara
I am so happy to have you here and look forward to ‘seeing’ you again soon, Barbara.
The Seraphim’s Song by Barbara Casey
GENRE: Fiction/Mystery
BLURB
Book
5 – The F.I.G. Mysteries
Many changes have taken
place at Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women while Carolina and
Larry were on their honeymoon in Frascati, Italy, on the Granchelli farm. The
newlyweds have been given a larger bungalow; Ms. Alcott, niece of the founder
of Wood Rose, and Mrs. Ball, assistant to the headmaster, have moved into a
bungalow together; and Jimmy Bob, caretaker and night watchman at Wood Rose has
moved from his family home down the road a bit into a small bungalow on the
orphanage property with his hound dog Tick, as well as his new cat and her
litter of kittens. Most important, thanks to the persuasive powers of Ms.
Alcott and Mrs. Ball, the F.I.G.s have been given a forever home at Wood Rose.
Summer is coming to an
end and the F.I.G.s will soon return to the universities to complete their
special projects. They are starting to feel anxious, and the coping mechanisms
they have used their entire lives are starting to work overtime. Dara’s
thoughts turn to an unknown language, possibly from another world; Mackenzie
focuses on the relationship of math to music; and Jennifer keeps hearing the
note of B flat minor and is drawing dark swirls on her canvas board.
Deadly forces and
natural disasters are unleashed into the world when Milosh, the evil young man
who placed a curse on Carolina when she searched for her mother, steals an
ancient artifact—a “key”—from an archaeological site near Puli, China on the
Yellow Sea where he is working. This artifact, when paired with a certain
note—B flat minor known as the Seraphim’s song—opens a portal that enables man
to communicate with the gods.
When the key gets lost
in a storm, Carolina comes into possession of it through Jimmy Bob’s dog, Tick,
and when she does, she hears Lyuba, her gypsy mother, tell her that time is
running out. The F.I.G.s and Carolina must go to the forbidden cave on the
Yellow Sea, the place where the early gypsies are believed to have settled
before travelling into Europe. For it is there where the key must be returned
before all is destroyed.
EXCERPT
As she usually did in the early, pre-dawn hours, Lyuba was
digging roots, in the dark of the crescent moon, and every so often replanting
a good piece of a root to grow next year.
The day before she had picked herbs, during that time when the essential
oils are at their strongest, before they could get evaporated by the midday
sun. Where she searched was her favorite
place, the place where the energies were strongest. Surprisingly, it was the old church graveyard
built on a slight mound just outside of the rural Italian village of Frascati,
which is why the other gypsy women stayed away.
Unlike Lyuba, they feared being so near the dead. They believed that
being near death would hasten their own, therefore they refused to go there.
Lyuba, however, saw death as the natural and necessary progression of life, in
another form, in a different dimension. She found comfort and solace in its
nearness.
A creek ran nearby, and a tall, unkempt yew tree grew near
the entrance to the graveyard, poisonous, but giving off positive
energies. It was a place Lyuba knew
well, having discovered it from earlier times when the travelers came this way.
It was there where she found peace.
She would prepare her potions from the roots, bark, and hard
seeds she gathered and make decoctions by soaking them overnight and boiling
them the next day. Some of the
decoctions she would add honey or sugar to; others she would thicken into syrup
or add lard to make ointments and salves.
The freshest herbs she saved for her oils.
Once her potions were ready, she would take them into the
village to sell. Coughs or colds,
rheumatism, cuts and bruises, burns—it didn’t matter. She knew what remedy was necessary to relieve
pain, create lustrous hair, revive the impotent, whiten teeth, cure
constipation, or simply heal the broken spirit.
Unlike others who only pretended, she had the gift.
As she scraped pieces of root and bark, and gently picked
the seeds from the plants she revered, she suddenly paused, aware of something
different in the air around her—an unseen potent force. She stood up and,
closing her eyes, listened quietly as she sniffed the air. There was an
unfamiliar strangeness surrounding her. She felt the slight tremor of the earth
and somewhere very far away, she heard the low-pitched hum.
It was a sound she knew well for it had been given to every
civilization from the beginning of time. Used in all of the major
religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, Zoroastrianism and
Christianity—it was the sacred universal sound.
A single sustained note, a mantra, it was the melody of the angel that
acted as the means of communication between the gods in the heavens and the
humans on earth. It was the seraphim’s song.
But something was wrong; the single note was slightly
off-key. The pitch wasn’t quite right. Then, because she was a choovihni and
had the knowledge of the universe coursing through her veins, a cosmic
consciousness that had been passed down to her from her mother, her
grandmother, and her great grandmothers through all time, she sensed darkness
and evil.
AUTHOR Bio and Links
Originally from
Carrollton, Illinois, author/agent/publisher Barbara Casey attended the
University of North Carolina, N.C. State University, and N.C. Wesleyan College
where she received a BA degree, summa cum laude, with a double major in English
and history. In 1978 she left her
position as Director of Public Relations and Vice President of Development at
North Carolina Wesleyan College to write full time and develop her own
manuscript evaluation and editorial service.
In 1995 she established the Barbara Casey Agency and since that time has
represented authors from the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Japan.
In 2014, she became a partner with Strategic Media Books, an independent
nonfiction publisher of true crime, where she oversees acquisitions, day-to-day
operations, and book production.
Barbara has
written over a dozen award-winning books of fiction and nonfiction for both young
adults and adults. The awards include the National Association of University
Women Literary Award, the Sir Walter Raleigh Literary Award, the Independent
Publisher Book Award, the Dana Award for Outstanding Novel, the IP Best Book
for Regional Fiction, among others. Several of her books have been optioned for
major films and television.
Her
award-winning articles, short stories, and poetry for adults have appeared in
both national and international publications including the North Carolina
Christian Advocate Magazine, The New East Magazine, the Raleigh (N.C.) News and
Observer, the Rocky Mount (N.C.) Sunday Telegram, Dog Fancy, ByLine, The
Christian Record, Skirt! Magazine, and True Story. A thirty-minute television special which
Barbara wrote and coordinated was broadcast on WRAL, Channel 5, in Raleigh,
North Carolina. She also received
special recognition for her editorial work on the English translations of
Albanian children’s stories. Her award-winning science fiction short stories
for adults are featured in The Cosmic Unicorn and CrossTime science fiction
anthologies. Barbara’s essays and other
works appear in The Chrysalis Reader, the international literary journal of the
Swedenborg Foundation, 221 One-Minute Monologues from Literature (Smith and
Kraus Publishers), and A Cup of Comfort (Adams Media Corporation).
Barbara is a
former director of BookFest of the Palm Beaches, Florida, where she served as
guest author and panelist. She has
served as judge for the Pathfinder Literary Awards in Palm Beach and Martin
Counties, Florida, and was the Florida Regional Advisor for the Society of
Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators from 1991 through 2003. In 2018 Barbara received the prestigious
Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award and Top Professional Award for
her extensive experience and notable accomplishments in the field of publishing
and other areas. She makes her home on the top of a mountain in northwest
Georgia with three cats who adopted her, Homer – a Southern coon cat, Reese – a
black cat, and Earl Gray – a gray cat and Reese’s best friend.
