It’s a helluva job, but someone has to do it, and for Rhune, it’s a small price to pay for his past sins. He’s taken a new name and a somewhat normal life. Except at night, when he transforms into a hellhound to take souls to Gehenna, the City of the Dead, for purgatories legions to deliver them to Hell where they belong. For fifteen centuries he’s lived in happy solitude, until a paralegal, with the most amazing eyes, rear ends him in the small town of Rio Morden. He’s seen those eyes before, but it’s been years since the last time. Now she’s all grown up and involved in a murder trial that has its sights set on her becoming its next victim. What’s a hellhound to do? Surely not fall in love—and certainly not with a Dreamwalker.
Mix in a diabolical lawyer and his lover, some Voodoo magic, and it’s a recipe for mayhem and murder. Can Rhune keep Hanna safe, or is she destined to be Hellhound Bound?

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​Rhune studied Hanna from the corner of his eye as she drove. Whenever she scrunched her forehead to see into the distance, like she was doing now, it created the loveliest creases between her eyes.
Those eyes.
She transfixed him. Fascinated him. He could stare at her face all day and never tire of her. Her scent was a mixture of sweet 1625 brandy and early morning dew on freshly cut grass; so poignant that he wanted to roll himself all over her and keep her close forever.
She hadn’t said a word since they’d left the garage, but the stiffness of her body spoke volumes.
Still, uncertainty coiled in the pit of his stomach.
Her eyes.
He’d seen them time and time before—but their intensity then wasn’t like it was now.
Through the mutilated flesh and fountains of blood, he’d sensed those eyes watching him; always filled with fear; always traumatized and swimming with tears. Their unique colors had struck him dumb each and every time he’d seen them. They reached for him; touched him; and quelled the viciousness of his beast. An unquenchable need to protect her had always followed. Now in living flesh, that hadn’t changed in the least.
He now knew for certain what she was. Does she know? he wondered. Unease parked itself deep inside him and took residence.
He pushed aside his misgivings and gave her directions to the outskirts of North Bend. Soon, a parking lot lined with eighteen wheelers darkened the horizon. After she parked, he jumped out and rushed to the driver’s side to hold open her door. Easing his hand into the small of her back, he guided her inside to a booth by a window overlooking the highway. She said nothing as she walked stiff-legged to their table.
Some restaurant patrons shifted in their chairs, but paid them no more attention before returning to their steaming plates of food.
He waited for her to sit first, then he slid into the booth across from her. As soon as his rear made contact with his seat, a sudden rush of something sent icy shivers down his spine, but it disappeared before he could figure out what it was, and why.
She peered out the window, her complexion pale, and her features haggard from sleep deprivation, which darkened the delicate skin beneath both her eyes.
He placed his elbows on the table and pushed forward slightly, but still far enough away as to not invade her personal space. She was a frightened deer looking down the barrel of a gun. And he was that weapon. She was either going to fight—or flee. He prayed for the latter.
“Tell me what you think you saw,” he asked softly.
She turned to him. “Who are you? I mean, what’s your name?”
“Rhune. With an ‘h’. And you?”
“Hanna. Hanna Carmichael. What’s your last name?”
“It’s just Rhune.”
“Like Prince?”
“I was. A long time ago.”
Her face etched with puzzlement.
“What case are you working on?”
“The Drysdale murder.”
“Adam Drysdale? That famous lawyer?”
“Yes. Roger’s deposition was vital to our case.”
“Perhaps the two are connected?”
“Then explain to me why some mutant Fido is out there right now digesting him.”
He flinched at her description and chose his next words carefully. “Maybe it was time to pay the piper for his sins?”
“That’ll read great on a police report,” she snapped.
He leaned back and crossed his arms. “Do you believe in the afterlife?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Everything.”
She leaned back like him. “I believe there’s places we go after we die.”
“How do you think we get there?”
“Some follow a white light. Some fall into flames. I don’t know. I’ve never died before.”
“How do you think souls travel to their final destinations?” He sensed the wheels turning in her head.
“To be honest, I’ve never given it much thought.”
There were rules against sharing what he was privy to, and he’d never broken one before. So why did he harbor such a compulsion to do so now? I have to make her understand, that’s why.
He took a deep breath and began. “What if I told you that some people can walk between the veils of light and dark, often in dreams, like you?”
“Me?”
“You know how some people can read other people’s thoughts? Or move objects with their minds?”
She nodded.
“Those people have extraordinary skills. They use parts of their brain that usually lie dormant in most. Depending on how they use them, they’ve been touched by either the hand of God—or Asmodeus, the devil. There’s a reason why they’re chosen.”
Her one eyebrow inched up. “Really? What does this have to do with last night?”
“You said you’ve seen that animal before in your dreams, correct? Perhaps you were peering through the veils.”
She threw up her hands. “What veils?”
The customer closest to them lifted his head, his lips shiny from a strip of bacon dangling between them. When Rhune shot him a glare, he was quick to dig back into his eggs with a corner of his toast, more intent on consuming his meal than on eavesdropping.
He lowered his voice. “What do you believe, Hanna?”
Pursing her lips, she glanced out the window again. “I don’t know. I thought you just got sucked into the earth or something.”
He patiently waited until she looked his way again. Then he asked, “What if that thing you saw was delivering Roger to Hell?”
“Like a, a...?”
He nodded, carefully watching her every reaction.
She leaned closer to the table and hissed, “A hellhound? Are you certifiably insane?”
“No.”
“You’re telling me that...” She stopped and shook her head. “I’m not going to say it again.”
He tried another approach. “Why was that creature you saw the same as in your dreams?”
“Because I was a kid, damn it! Kids dream about monsters.”
This time two different heads swiveled their way. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea coming here. He’d hoped that if she was in a somewhat normal setting, she’d feel more comfortable. Safer.
He lowered his voice to a whisper. “What if I were to tell you that hellhounds are real? That they deliver souls to Hell? That they work for God, contrary to popular folklore.”
Her cheeks paled to the color of milk as she mumbled, “Bullshit.”
The waitress happened to pick that inopportune time to stop at their table. “What’ll you two be having?” she asked in between the snapping of her gum.
When he forced a smile her way, a flush of pink stained the woman’s leathery cheeks. Yeah, he had a way with women, but, apparently, not with the one sitting across from him. “Give us a few minutes more, please?”
The waitress grinned and batted her false eyelashes. “Sure thing, sugar. Just give me a holler. I’ll be right over there by the counter.” She strolled away with several backward glances.
Hanna hadn’t noticed. She’d turned her attention out the window again.
“What if you have the ability to see, and even travel, between these veils?” Let’s hope that’s all she can do.
“All I know is that I don’t know what I saw, but I have to explain it to my boss. And the authorities. Your theory doesn’t cut it in the real world. Can you see their faces when I tell them, ‘Oh, not to worry, Mr. Police Officer. Roger tried to kill me, but a big, bad hellhound showed up and ate him. Now he’s where he belongs. But wait. When, and if, I sleep tonight, I’ll drop by and ask him all about it’.”
Her sarcasm was thick enough to cut with a chainsaw. But Rhune had a plan already formulating. “What if you don’t have to?”
Those stunning eyes of hers leveled on him again. “What do you mean?” she asked testily.
“You go back to the city and say nothing.”
“What?”
“No one knows you went to meet Roger, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“After you took his statement, you went and checked into your hotel, and then left to grab a bite to eat, but everything was closed.”
“Dal’s Diner is open all night, or so Roger told me.”
“No, it’s not. When you returned, no one was at the front desk, so you left. At that moment, I happened to come by to drop off your car. I drove you back to my place.” The more he thought about, the more he knew it would work. Judging by the scowling skepticism on her face, he still needed to convince her. “People saw us together yesterday, including Ben Hardy. You could say I asked you out for dinner and—”
“You think pretty highly of yourself, do you?
He gave a sheepish shrug.
She scowled. “And just how stupid does that make me look?”
She had a point. “How about I wooed you off your feet?”
Her face turned fiery red. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
“Look,” he continued. “We return to Rio Morden after breakfast and grab your bag. We trash your room and head straight to the Sheriff’s office and tell them your room was vandalized. All you’ll be doing is reporting a break-in. With Roger missing, they might assume it’d been him, and he took off out of town afterwards.”
She was quiet for so long, he feared she’d get up and walk out. Where would she go?
“Okay, just Rhune, I can believe that, but what happens when Roger is called to testify? What am I supposed to do then? What do I tell my boss?” Hysteria edged into her words.
“No one knows about his phone call to you. You met with him yesterday afternoon, took his statement, went to your hotel, and that’s the last you saw of him. Even if they trace the phone records, they’ll know he called you at the hotel, but you weren’t there. Believe me. No one’s going to find him.”
“But that’s lying! Wait. How do you know no one’s going to find him? Forensics—”
“There’s nothing to find. Not a drop of blood. Not a splinter of bone. He never existed. Would you rather explain what really happened?”
“But I don’t know what happened! Holy shit! My briefcase!”
This time, every head in the restaurant turned toward them. Tears brimmed in her eyes before she wiped them away with an angry swipe of her hand.
He inched his hand across the table and took one of hers. Through his touch, he injected her with a sliver of his magic. Her head jerked up. Her eyes widened. She immediately pulled away as if he’d singed her.
“How did you do that?”
He smiled. “It’s a gift.”
“Are you always, um, this warm?” Her face was now fire hydrant red.
He didn’t answer.
“We have to find my briefcase. I dropped it in the alley.”
“Then we’ll go there first and retrieve it.”
“This changes everything. You know that, right? I’m trusting a man I’ve just met. I’ve been a witness to a murder that I can’t tell anyone about. And even if I did, who’d friggin’ believe me? I’m a horrible liar. I won’t be able to pull this off. I can’t. Jesus, what am I going to do?”
“I’ll help.”
Hanna leaned into the cushions of the booth and studied him for the longest time. “Why are you doing this? You don’t even know me.”
“I believe you, Hanna. You shouldn’t have seen what you did.”
Her brow arched. “Really?”
He knew he was stretching the limits of his oath, but he couldn’t help himself. “Because I’ve seen them too.”

  Absolutely captivating! I was completely enthralled from the very first page and found myself quite unable to put this book down! Hanna has suffered nightmares her entire life without ever knowing the true meaning behind them until chance crosses her path with Rhune, a hellhound who devours souls and delivers them to Hell. What follows is an entrancing journey with nonstop action with tons of mystery, intrigue, love, loss and truly spine tingling glimpses into the underworld. I was completely taken with this story and was left thinking about it for days after I finished! The flawless writing with exquisite details sent my imagination to new heights and my heart was set aflutter with the sweet and spicy love that bloomed between Rhune and Hanna. This is an absolute must read for anybody who likes Urban Fantasy, paranormal romance or just a good chiller with dark undertones! 

D. Thomas Jerlo’s novels inexplicably draws readers deep into mystical worlds where magic rules and battles between good and evil are forever constant. Blending reality and illusion that leave indelible impacts, readers are riveted to the spellbinding plots and unforgettable characters.


“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” -Albert Einstein


www.dthomasjerlo.com
www.dawnedominique.com

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Twelve noblebright fantasy novels of beauty and wonder!

Noblebright fantasy characters have the courage to risk kindness, honesty, integrity, and love; to fight against their own flaws and the darkness of the world around them; and to find hope in a grim world.

This boxed set includes novels by:

C. J. Brightley -
The King's Sword: A disillusioned soldier. A spoiled, untried prince. And a coup that threatens the country they both love.

Lindsay Buroker -
The Emperor’s Edge — A law enforcer being hunted for a crime she didn’t commit must work with a cold-hearted assassin to save the only person who can clear her name.

Sabrina Chase -
The Last Mage Guardian: Most thought the Mage Guardians simply a myth, but their old enemy knows better--and of their number only one remains to thwart his plan of magical domination and revenge.

Francesca Forrest -
Pen Pal: It starts with a message in a bottle and ends with revolution.

Kyra Halland -
Beneath the Canyons: A bounty-hunting wizard and a rancher's daughter with untrained powers must stop a renegade wizard who is tampering with dangerous magic.

Angela Holder -
Into the Storm: A massive hurricane will destroy Elathir unless Larine and her fellow wizards sacrifice everything to stop it.

Ronald Long -
On the Shores of Irradan: Ealrin Belouve and his friends travel to a new land and face new dangers in search of a tree that may restore magic to one of their own.

Mike Reeves McMillan -
Hope and the Patient Man: A talented young mage must overcome a curse to be with the wounded hero who loves her.

T. A. Miles -
Six Celestial Swords: The dragon Chaos threatens the magical world of Dryth. Xu Liang sets out on a quest to unite the only six magical blades that can save it.

Christina Ochs -
Rise of the Storm: When a renegade priest prophesies an imminent apocalypse, a conflict is sparked which will tip a continent into war.

Sherwood Smith -
Lhind the Thief: Lhind enjoys life on the run, taking what she wants, until her secrets are uncovered one by one.

Emily Martha Sorensen -
The Keeper and the Rulership: In a world where mathematics and magic are forbidden, Raneh's growing magic and can't figure out how to stop.


Most books in this set are appropriate for ages 13+, but several books are appropriate for ages 16+.


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C. J. Brightley grew up in Georgia. After a career in national security, she turned her attention to writing. She lives with her husband and young children in Northern Virginia. She blogs at CJBrightley.com, where you can find sneak peeks of upcoming books, deleted scenes, background material, thoughts on writing, and books she enjoys.

She also runs the Noblebright.org website dedicated to highlighting the best of noblebright fantasy. Noblebright fantasy characters have the courage to risk kindness, honesty, integrity, and love; to fight against their own flaws and the darkness of the world around them; and to find hope in a grim world.

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​Following the Intergalactic Singularity War, Dekker Knight, mercenary and collector of arcane artifacts, works for the highest bidder—but he doesn’t take just any job. One in particular, transporting Austicon, the assassin who stalked his family for generations to a max-lock detention, was supposed to close a dark chapter of Dekker’s life. 
After the constables botched Austicon’s incarceration, Dekker’s team is forced to hunt down the galaxies’ most heinous criminal all over again when a mysterious man claiming to be an ancient, time-traveling prophet intrudes on them. Ezekiel claims Dekker will soon annihilate of all reality—and he knows all of Dekker's secrets: that he wields an ancient, celestial weapon, was once married to a terrorist, and is the last member of the Watchmen—an ancient secret society with roots tracing back to Solomon. 
Following the Austicon’s theft of a superweapon, Dekker and his team must do the unthinkable to prevent the Earth’s annihilation. Worse yet, a demon-possessed tree is attempting to bring "the divine engines of reality" to a grinding halt—destroying all of existence with the death of the planet—annihilating all that is, will be, and ever was! 
Steampunk time-travel, cyborg ninjas, deep space unicorn zombies, ghostly rocket-ships, and star destroying Hassidic super-weapons converge in one epic story! How long can The Dozen escape death? How far can Dekker go in defiance of fate and pursuit of love before his actions break the universe? 

​...also download the FREE prequel to this story on Kindle--Dekker's Dozen: A Waxing Arbolean Moon

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A Waxing Arbolean Moon
The demon Dione existed before the dawn of time. Surely she was created alongside the very Divine Machine she came to loathe so much. From Dione’s seduction by Asmodeus and imprisonment at the hands of King Solomon to her release by an unwitting archaeologist, the timeline is punctuated with the baal’s influence and its counters by the time-traveling Ezekiel who repels the Arbolean invasion during the infancy of the Akkadian Empire with the weapons of an ancient Greek tinkerer.
Spanning the dawn of creation and the planting of the Circle of Seven to the day Dekker Knight meets Vesuvius Briggs, A Waxing Arbolean Moon fills in all gaps in the fractured timeline of Dekker’s Dozen: The Last Watchmen and functions as either Prologue or Epilogue depending on how you choose to look at it.
Before the chaos of steampunk time-travel, cyborg ninjas, plant-spore-controlled unicorn zombies, ghost warships, and Hassidic superweapons of The Last Watchmen, A Waxing Arbolean Moon pulls back the curtain on the galactic and celestial backstories.
A Waxing Arbolean Moon is best read in conjunction with The Last Watchmen as a companion piece and may be difficult to follow without familiarity with the full novel.

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Christopher D Schmitz is an author of fiction and nonfiction as well as a regular blogger. He lives in Minnesota with his family. He writes as often as possible in his spare time.
Earlier works: following completion of his first fantasy novel, he began to work on lots of short fiction in order to refine his craft and went on to publish many pieces from 1,000-15,000 words in a variety of genres as writing exercises. Putting fiction away for a while, he pursued post-graduate work where he received a new appreciation for nonfiction, and then returned to his love for fiction after that, churning out more novel-length stories at much improved rates.
Education: Schmitz attained a Biblical Studies degree and a Youth Ministry minor from Trinity Bible College in 2003 and went on to gain a Masters of Arts in Religion from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary in 2014.

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After merging with her copy from an alternate reality, Claire must work with an interdimensional soldier in order to stop a warlock from shattering the laws of existence. As they flee his wrath, she must decide if these romantic feelings for her guardian belong to her or the alternate-self whose soul suddenly inhabits Claire's mind.
Zabe, the only remaining member of the royal Guardian Corps escaped the warlock's conquest of the Prime Dimension and wages a one-man resistance. As he sneaks through an enemy camp he discovers they plan to use their sorcery to annihilate all the aligned planes of reality. To stop it, Zabe must break the forbidden dimensional barriers, reach Earth, and hide the key to the dimensional rifts. If he fails and the Warlock acquires the prize, it could spell the end of all existence.
After a dimensional shift, Zabe discovers the key is really a human woman: a college student named Claire Jones whose blood holds the ability to unlock cataclysmic power. The enemy seeks her desperately, yet Zabe and Claire fight--knowing that her blood could rip open a cosmic fissure if even the slightest detail of their plan goes awry.

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The brutal murder of his fiancée drives Rashnir, the leader of the Ranger’s guild, to utter madness! His lust for revenge, finally fulfilled, ultimately leaves him hollow and cast off from society. Now, devoted to a newfound cause, he finds himself befriended by an outcast werewolf clan which cannot shape-shift, a pair of angels, and a mute orphan.
But his cause spurns the demon-worshipping prophet and his deadly acolytes. With the ranger and his friends at the center of a whirlwind of conflict, the arch-mage sends a kill squad led by his Wyvern Rider to collect the heads of Rashnir and his loved ones.
How long can the growing band of outcasts grow in the face of temptation and bloody assassination attempts by their secretive enemies. What is the significance of Tartarus, and how did Kelsa reach out from beyond the grave unless other, unknown players have hands they are playing from the dark?
***
The Kakos Realm is a place of mythology and magic, governed by dark and evil powers. Cut off from the Earth realm, one man is sent through: a messenger sent to rescue a lost tribe trapped here since ancient days. But this world grows ever more dangerous: cosmic forces work to upheave this reality; but even the mysterious Watcher can barely remember the prophesy of coming ash and flame. Now, the messenger and his small band of followers must survive the machinations of the dark prophet Absinthium and his deadly acolyte assassins. As a new power shatters the old ways, adherents to the Luciferian Order forge even darker alliances in efforts to eradicate this one inescapable truth: fire and judgment are coming.

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​

Christopher D Schmitz is an author of fiction and nonfiction as well as a regular blogger. He lives in Minnesota with his family. He writes as often as possible in his spare time.
Earlier works: following completion of his first fantasy novel, he began to work on lots of short fiction in order to refine his craft and went on to publish many pieces from 1,000-15,000 words in a variety of genres as writing exercises. Putting fiction away for a while, he pursued post-graduate work where he received a new appreciation for nonfiction, and then returned to his love for fiction after that, churning out more novel-length stories at much improved rates.
Education: Schmitz attained a Biblical Studies degree and a Youth Ministry minor from Trinity Bible College in 2003 and went on to gain a Masters of Arts in Religion from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary in 2014.

Website * Goodreads * Amazon * Facebook * Twitter * Wattpad

This value bundle brings together all four novels of The Rys Chronicles – Union of Renegades, The Goddess Queen, Judgment Rising, and the stunning conclusion The Borderlands of Power.
The sprawling epic covers seven years in the lives of the main characters, whose charms and exploits have won Falbe fans around the world.
The story begins in Union of Renegades, when Dreibrand Veta, a disgruntled and disgraced officer in the Atrophane Horde, strikes out on his own into a mythic Wilderness. He partners with Miranda, an escaped slave, and they’re compelled to enter an empty land guarded by the ghosts of an ancient genocide.
Here, they enter the world of the rys, a magical race whose all-powerful Queen Onja subjugates a whole civilization. For thousands of years, she has reigned, but, when Miranda dares to defy her, the status quo disintegrates.
Through ambition and desperation, Dreibrand and Miranda trigger events that will change the world. One empire will be tested to its limits. Another civilization will erupt into rebellion and civil war. And ultimately the Wilderness will be reclaimed, and new visions will shine on the horizon.
For terror, triumph, and true feelings, The Rys Chronicles delivers on all fronts.


At the fan feedback page at her website, readers have declared:
“You have just passed George R. R. Martin and Anne McCaffrey as my favorite writer.”
“I cannot put your books down once I've started. Some of the greatest writers that I have read include Raymond E Feist, Lee Child, Clive Custler and Jenifer Fallon to name a few and to which I now add your name.”
“This series is one of the best that I have ever read! Your character creation is fantastic.”
“I am on the last novel in the The Rys Chronicles fantasy series. I have read the series non-stop since I purchased it.”
“I love your books! The human characters are so real, my heart really goes out to them. In good times and bad. The Rys are unlike any characters in any other fantasy books I've ever read, and believe me, I've read a few!”

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In this opening novel of The Rys Chronicles you'll meet a man scarred by bad deeds who answers the call of a heroic cause. An unconventional heroine will tug at your sympathies as she bravely faces adversity with all the strengths and vulnerabilities of her womanhood. And overarching it all are the rys. Their magic makes them superior to humans, but they are not above employing humans in their deadly schemes.
Union of Renegades begins the love story between Dreibrand Veta an ambitious military officer and Miranda an escaped slave. They’ll become a power couple that rules a vast realm but only after grim struggle and terrible sacrifice.
The Rys Chronicles is a completely published fantasy quartet that continues in:
The Goddess Queen
Judgment Rising
The Borderlands of Power

FREE on Amazon

​Four smooth crystal orbs mounted on thick marble pedestals radiated a swirling blue light. Placed in each corner of the chamber, the orbs were almost as large as a human’s head, and except for their largeness, they were identical to the small orb that Dreibrand carried.
This marvelous room exceeded anything Miranda had ever thought possible. The place was a dream become reality, and the surreal light of the throne room caressed her senses like a gentle spring dawn waking her out of a terrible nightmare. She wanted to be lulled by the magnificent power around her. It was so far above her difficult life of poverty, that if she embraced it, she thought that she would never go back.
But she could not trust this power. She recognized the power and remembered that it had taken Elendra.
The guards urged the humans forward, and Taf Ila strode toward the dais at the far end. Dreibrand’s thick-booted footsteps thudded loudly in the calm chamber that seemed too outside of the world to be disturbed by the mundane noise.
At the base of the dais stood a tall blue being with bold streaks of white shot through his black hair. With folded arms, he regarded the humans with intense interest. The humans glanced at him briefly, as they took in all the strange sights, but both of their gazes quickly rose toward the figure high on the throne.
A female of the blue race lounged upon the golden throne. Her features were softer and rounder than the other beings present and pure white hair flowed around her shoulders. A wondrous cloak of ermine pelts fell over her simple black gown, and great diamonds dangled from the black tail of each animal skin.
She was both beautiful and terrible. Power radiated from her like heat from a fire. Bowing to his wondrous monarch, Taf Ila stepped aside without a word.
The knowing gaze of the blue female drilled into Miranda for a long spell, and Esseldan squirmed. Finally, the blue female spoke in the halting words of an unfamiliar language.
“I am Queen Onja.”
Her voice drifted around Miranda’s mind like a memory. Slowly she found her tongue and asked weakly, “Where is Elendra?”
The Queen did not reply, but a door beside the dais clicked open. Miranda looked to the door in an agony of hope, and Elendra actually ran out toward her. The little girl stretched out her arms happily and cried out a joyous greeting to her mother.
Miranda crumpled to her knees to receive the embrace of her daughter. They joined in a tight hug, and relief and happiness spilled tears down Miranda’s face. The little girl beamed with pleasure and had never looked healthier. Elendra wore a black dress with lovely silver embroidery. Her black hair shimmered, and she looked like a dark princess inside the twinkling light of the throne room.
Swallowing a sob of joy, Miranda asked, “Elendra, did that flying monster bring you all the way here?”
Matter of factly, Elendra replied, “Yes. It is the Tatatook.”
Puzzlement twisted Miranda’s expression. In this bright magical place everything seemed like nonsense.
Elendra continued, “Oh Mama, I am so glad you made it. And Esseldan too! It is so wonderful here. You will love it.”
Miranda squeezed her daughter thankfully. The torment of seeing her daughter carried off by the flying monster finally released her body, and she could feel joy.
The return of Elendra relieved Dreibrand as well, but he was not distracted by maternal joy. The Queen had spoken in Miranda’s language, and he wanted some answers.
“Queen Onja, why did you take a daughter from a mother?” he asked.
The azure Queen, who had been intent on the little girl with her mother, turned unfriendly eyes upon the human male. She contemplated him briefly and decided not to speak with him. In her own language, she apparently gave orders because the guards moved toward Dreibrand.
The tall blue being with white-streaked hair suddenly spoke up, making the guards hesitate. He turned and seemed to engage the Queen in a very brief argument, which she ended quickly with short stern words. The guards resumed their mission, and Dreibrand stepped back to draw his sword.
Taf Ila pulled a small peculiar weapon from his jacket. Its handle curved down to be cradled in his palm and his forefinger curled around a trigger device. A spring-loaded snap sounded and Dreibrand felt a sting. A small dart lodged in Dreibrand’s arm when his blade was only halfway out of his scabbard.
Dreibrand’s look of surprise turned to dismay as his hand fumbled uselessly with the sword. A paralysis spread rapidly through his body. He tried to grab the dart with his other hand, but that hand did not work, and he fell over helpless.

​

Queen Onja has called for Shan's head. Her Kezanada agents stalk him with enchanted weapons. For Dreibrand Veta, his growing list of victories has increased his influence in circles of power, but his fame has not endeared him to everybody. The rebellion proceeds slowly for Miranda who cannot rescue her children until Shan defeats Onja. Shan has learned much since beginning the rebellion. His powers are growing. He has used his magic to kill, and, when the spring comes, his armies will fight the armies loyal to Onja. Despite Shan's mounting confidence in his battle magic, Onja will tenaciously defend her throne, and Shan will discover that he does not know the powerful secrets of the Goddess Queen.

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Continue the saga of The Rys Chronicles or join the story at this point as new adventures and challenges confront Shan and Dreibrand.
To the victors go the spoils, and Shan and Dreibrand have flourished for five years as the leaders of their respective kingdoms. Allied by friendship, they greet the future with excitement and grandiose plans. Dreibrand counts on his relationship with Shan to protect him from the encroaching Atrophane Empire as he carefully avoids direct confrontation with his former countrymen, now under the undisputed leadership of his old rival Sandin Promentro.
But a greater malice than imperial ambition threatens the new lords of the Wilderness. The long dead civilization of Nufal, where Dreibrand and Miranda nurture their fledgling kingdom, has not forgotten the brutal genocide of its ancient war with the rys. The ghosts of Nufal may have been extinguished but their avengers remain. The inheritors of Onja’s wealth and lands will now battle the nightmare of their judgment rising.

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Nufal is invaded and human warriors fight alongside their rys and tabre champions in a grueling clash of muscle and magic. Grim struggles smash strategy into chaos, and loyalties degenerate into desperate choices for survival. Tempet and Alloi, driven by their desire for revenge upon the rys, push King Shan deep into the violent reservoir of his power.
Still reeling in the aftermath of battle, Dreibrand Veta scrambles to assert his authority upon the remaining forces of the Atrophane Empire if he is to defend his land and overturn the censure that disgraces his name. Rebellion on the imperial frontier complicates these goals as does Shan's sudden unpredictability as an ally. Miranda braves the snows of the Rysamand Mountains to demand that Shan pay his debt to her by helping Dreibrand. Only ambition keeps despair at bay as forces vie for dominance in the borderlands of power.

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I am the author of 10 novels, including The Rys Chronicles and Rys Rising epic dark fantasy series and the historical fantasies Werelord Thal: A Renaissance Werewolf Tale and Journey of the Hunted: Werewolves in the Renaissance 2.
I was born in Michigan in 1972 and grew up in Mount Pleasant. It’s called the “Mountain Town” but there is no mountain and it’s debatable about whether it’s pleasant. They say it’s a party town and based on extensive research as a young adult I can concur.
Because I always had the childhood fantasy of running away and joining the circus, I moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1995 and lived there until 1997. Those who only stay a week are wimps, but I will say that it’s the second year in Vegas that wears you down. Then I realized the pioneers were trying to get to California, so I moved to Chico, in Northern California and lived there until 2009.
In 2000, I earned a journalism degree from California State University, Chico with the conscious ambition of becoming a fiction writer. With the rapid demise of the newspaper industry and journalism in general, novelist is not such a daft pursuit after all. It’s not like I’m actually going to get a job that values my education. Luckily I’m cursed with the impulse to write in a popular yet competitive genre.
My wandering has circled back and I’m currently residing in Battle Creek, Michigan, and for now my existence within the post-apocalyptic Rust Belt is suitably fascinating.

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Irina Proffer leaves mundane small-town life behind when she experiences visions inspired by a strange deck of tarot cards. To get answers, she travels from her northern British Columbia home to the province’s coastal capital. She quickly discovers a world of fringe genetic science and supernatural mystery.
Working for Innoviro Industries, Irina is drawn in by a powerful first love and compelling, yet dangerous questions about the nature of the company’s business. Meeting other 'variants' brings Irina closer and closer to the dark truth about her origins. She finds herself at the heart of two overlapping love triangles as she scrambles to escape her employer's grip. Before she leaves the city, Irina realizes she has merely scratched the surface of a frightening conspiracy on a global scale.

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Irina and her renegade variant friends are scrambling to pick up the trail of their former employer, Ivan, and his globally catastrophic scheme. After strategically sharing their story with the media, the group heads south from Vancouver to Seattle hoping to recruit more experienced—and lethal—variants to their cause.
Their attention develops a laser focus on an engineered disaster mere days ahead of them. Ivan is using what staff and resources remain of Innoviro Industries to set off a violent earthquake in San Francisco. While they fight to stop the earthquake, Irina pushes the love of her life Jonah as far away as she can, trying to keep his unstable genetic degradation in check.
Irina’s friends think they’ve seen the worst that Innoviro could bring forth by the time they reach a secret facility in the Mojave Desert. As they near the property, the group uncovers a horror none of them had ever imagined.

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The end of humanity and an unrecognizable future Earth are now days away. After their first glimpse of the Terra Nova virus, Irina and her variant friends know their former employer's plans are almost at hand. Their failed attempt to publicize Ivan and Innoviro Industries' horrific activities has left them utterly reliant on their own wits and weapons.

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 Located on BC’s beautiful West Coast, I write from my suburban Burnaby home staring at North Vancouver’s iconic Coast Mountains. I love writing about places and spaces with rich history and visually fascinating elements as a backdrop for the surreal and spectacular.
In addition to my undergraduate degree in writing and literature, my background also includes corporate communications and design. I am a current member of the Federation of BC Writers and SF Canada.
When not writing, I have a habit of breaking stuff and making stuff – in that order – under the guise of my Etsy alter-ego Sleepless Storyteller. I share my eclectic home and lifestyle with my husband, baby daughter and preschool son.
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Tired of Cookie Cutter Fiction?
Meet The Love Brothers!
WARNING: Do NOT read if you prefer your romance predictable and/or conventional.
Love Garage is open for business! In Book 1 of this compelling family saga-style romance series meet the Love family and see how oldest brother Antony deals with getting his girlfriend stolen by the baby brother Aiden. Hint: Not very well.
Set in horse country near Lexington, Kentucky, The Love Brothers Series is a saga of family devotion that runs as wide and deep as the Ohio River--except on Sundays when brothers Antony, Kieran, Dominic and Aiden work out their frustrations on the basketball court, Love brother style.
The Love Brothers: A family saga with humor, heat and heart...Not to mention beer, bourbon and basketball.
Meet the family:
Antony: The Big Brother
Kieran: The Athlete
Dominic: The Bad Boy
Aiden: The Baby
Angelique: The Sister
˃˃˃ The San Francisco Book Review gives it 4 Stars
Love Garage is a fabulous story of family, loyalty, and how much small town life, and all of the baggage that is history, can become engrained in your character. This is a complex story with many characters...the storyline was engaging, and the personalities were developed in a way that not only makes them likeable, but they will also be easy to follow into subsequent books in the series.

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Formula-Free Fiction Guarantee!
It's time for Kieran's story....
WARNING: Do NOT read if you prefer your romance predictable and/or conventional.
Over the course of a few tumultuous months, middle son and peacemaker, Kieran Love is plunged back into life at the center of the family, where he must cope with one self-destructive brother, one ill-timed reconnection to an old flame and a series of bad choices that land him in more trouble than he’d ever known existed.
COACH LOVE, book 2 of The Love Brothers, a family saga of sibling loyalty that runs as deep and wide as the Ohio River...at least until Sunday, when Antony, Kieran, Dominic and Aiden work out their frustrations at the weekly Love brother pick-up basketball game.
The Love Brothers: A family saga with humor, heat and heart...Not to mention beer, bourbon and basketball.

˃˃˃ "Liz Crowe has an uncanny ability to reach into the heart and soul of her characters and make her stories come to life in gritty realism that hits all the emotions"
International Best Selling Romance Author, Desiree Holt
˃˃˃ “I’ve learned to expect the unexpected with any Liz Crowe novel...along with 3-dimensional characters and well-written, realistic plots.”
USA Today Best Selling Author, A.M. Hargrove

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WARNING: Do NOT read this book....
....if you're looking for a sweet, fairy-tale romance.
Every family has one: the black sheep, the problem child, the prodigal.
Dominic Sean Love could teach all of those guys a lesson or two and really should come with his own warning label.
Stuck in the middle of a boisterous group of siblings, he’s given “acting out” a new meaning from the day he drew his first breath. When he shows up at his on-again, off-again girlfriend's farm, she's inclined to shoot first and ask questions later. She doesn't. And their lives entwine once more, for good, bad and ugly.
LOVE BREWING, book 3 of The Love Brothers, a critically acclaimed family saga with humor, heat and heart...Not to mention beer, bourbon and basketball.

˃˃˃ "Liz Crowe is my drug of choice for unconventional romance that pushes the envelope of my comfort zone."
Best Selling Author of the Enigma Series, Ditter Kellan
˃˃˃ "If you want a story that will grip your heart and bring all your emotions into play, then do not miss a Liz Crowe story.”
International Best Selling Author, Desiree Holt

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Amazon best-selling author, mom of three, Realtor, beer blogger, brewery marketing expert, and soccer fan, Liz Crowe is a Kentucky native and graduate of the University of Louisville currently living in Ann Arbor. She has decades of experience in sales and fund raising, plus an eight-year stint as a three-continent, ex-pat trailing spouse.
Her early forays into the publishing world led to a groundbreaking fiction subgenre, “Romance for Real Life,” which has gained thousands of fans and followers interested less in the “HEA” and more in the “WHA” (“What Happens After?”).
With stories set in the not-so-common worlds of breweries, on the soccer pitch, in successful real estate offices and at times in exotic locales like Istanbul, Turkey, her books are unique and told with a fresh voice. The Liz Crowe backlist has something for any reader seeking complex storylines with humor and complete casts of characters that will delight, frustrate and linger in the imagination long after the book is finished.
Don’t ever ask her for anything “like a Budweiser” or risk bodily injury.



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Society starts to crumble, in this science fiction mystery! #1 bestseller by this award-winning author. ‘When you wake up in the morning, you never know where the day will take you.’ For Alex Cave, the day can become exceptionally intense.
When his wife was murdered during a mission, Alex Cave quit the CIA for a less stressful life as a geology instructor. At least, that was his plan until he is drawn into a situation where he is the only person who can save society from total collapse.
While on vacation sailing the waters of the Puget Sound, Alex sees a brilliant flash of light from an oil tanker and changes course to help, but there was no explosion, no one on board, and the oil has mysteriously vanished without a trace. When oil supplies begin to vanish, society starts to crumble, pitting human against human.

Frustrated with domineering boyfriends trying to control her life, Cali Wooley married the spineless wimp Harold, knowing he would do whatever she asked. When society starts to crumble, she realizes only a real man, not her sniveling coward husband, can save her and their children from the sadistic leader of a group of survivalists in central Idaho. Can Alex find a solution for this dire situation?

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“5-stars! A science fiction mystery/thriller, with intriguing scenarios, exhilarating situations, and nail-biting suspense. The action doesn't stop until the last page!” (Amazon top-500 reviewer).
Geology instructor Alex Cave receives the urgent message from a friend in Northern Canada. “The polar ice sheet is mysteriously expanding by thousands of square miles in a matter of minutes!”
He begins a desperate race to find the cause, and joins the crew on board the high-tech research ship Mystic, but Captain Dieter has other plans for the stealthy craft and changes course to an unknown island in the Bering Sea. What Alex discovers is even more incredible than he could ever imagine.

The ice sheet continues expanding at an alarming rate, trapping anything in its path, and will cover the planet in a matter of days! Can Alex find a way to stop the world from entering a new ice age?

“A fantastic ride from this bestselling and award-winning author. A great sequel to Dead Energy!”

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A science fiction mystery, with nail biting incidents, adrenaline surging episodes, and breath taking scenarios.
Geologist Alex Cave thinks his mission in the Bering Sea is over, but it’s only the start of a very long and hauntingly tragic day.
Alex discovers a 180-million-year old alien artifact of incredible power inside a dormant volcano in the Bering Sea, but before he can take it to a safe location, the device stolen. He knows that in the wrong hands, the artifact could start a chain of events that will lead to the demise of our civilization.

Alex wonders if he can ever fall in love again, and then he meets Fala, a Native American woman and cousin of his best friend, Okana. Just when his life regains some semblance of normalcy, she and her daughter suffer a brutal death because of his mistake. In desperation, he volunteers to travel back in time to change the circumstances that caused their demise, but the outcome is the same. Each time he goes back, he must re-live their horrific deaths, and he realizes that the only way to save them is to sacrifice his life, which will seal the fate of our society.
On this emotional roller coaster, Alex feels the weight of the world on his shoulders as he is torn between saving his loved ones, or saving humanity from extinction. Can he find a way to save both?

​“Another fantastic ride from start to finish by this bestselling and award-winning author”.

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“A science fiction mystery, with intriguing scenarios, exhilarating situations, and nail-biting suspense. This award-winning novel will keep you sitting on the edge of your seat until the last page!”
(Amazon top-500 reviewer).

Geology instructor Alex Cave receives an urgent message about an unusual event in Iceland. What he discovers is an alien artifact more powerful than a nuclear weapon. An anti-gravity device, which begins changing the orbit of our moon.
Alex knows he must somehow find a way to return it to its original orbit, but he can’t tell his girlfriend and her daughter his reason for leaving, even though she already considers him just another adventure junkie, disappearing without any concern for her feelings.

The adventure doesn't end when a huge emerald asteroid with a mass of solid gold is on a collision course with Earth, and will impact in six days. His only chance of changing its trajectory is with the ancient artifact, and he’s running out of time. Can he find a way to save humanity from extinction?

“A fantastic ride from this bestselling and award-winning author. A great sequel to Red Energy.”

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What if the color of your eyes will determine whether you live or die?
Geologist Alex Cave had discovered four alien artifacts that seemed designed to destroy all life on our planet. He thought they were locked up at a secret facility in Nevada, away from unscrupulous industrialists and scientists, but two of the devices have gone missing, and one of them is in orbit over our planet.
John Essex had good intentions when he modified one of the stolen artifacts. His plan was to collect and recycle the space debris orbiting our planet, but when he turns it on, a powerful artificial intelligence named Pandora detects the signal from deep inside the Earth.
Pandora returns to the surface and informs Alex that our world belongs to her race of humans, which have been in stasis for 180-million-years. She threatens to destroy our race unless we abide by her laws.
Law-1: Humans with brown eyes are genetically inferior and prone to aggressive behavior, and will not be allowed to occupy her planet or she will annihilate our entire species.
Can Alex find a way out of this no-win situation?

“A fantastic ride from this bestselling and award-winning author. A great sequel to Gravity!”

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Hello. I’m James M. Corkill, a Veteran, and retired Federal Firefighter from Washington State, USA. I was an electronic technician and studied mechanical engineering in my spare time before eventually becoming a firefighter for 32-years and retiring. I’ve since settled into the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina, and I have a fantastic view from my writing desk.
I began writing in 1997, and was fortunate to meet a famous horror writer named Hugh B. Cave, who became my mentor. In 2002, I rushed to self-published a dozen copies of Dead Energy so my wife could see my book before she was taken by cancer. When my soul mate was gone, I stopped writing and began drinking heavily.

“When you wake up in the morning, you never know where the day will take you.”

In 2013, I met a stranger who recognized my name and had enjoyed an old copy of Dead Energy, except for the ending. When she encouraged me to start writing again, I realized this chance meeting was just what I needed to hear at the right moment. I quit drinking and began the rewrite of Dead Energy into The Alex Cave Series, and guess what? Now I’m a bestselling and award-winning author, and I’m thankful for that fateful encounter.
I’ve always been an inventor with an overabundance of imagination, and I’ve been fascinated by unusual rock formations for most of my life, so let me introduce you to my alter ego, Alex Cave. These are his adventures.

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Discover a lost magic, long buried and forgotten...
Without a rune marking his role in society, Brock is doomed to a life below the lowest rung of the social ladder. Unwilling to accept his fate, the teen risks his life to obtain a fake rune that marks him as a member of the Empire's ruling class. He then embarks on a quest to join an institution where the Empire's future leaders are trained.
As a student of the Academy, he soon uncovers a chain of secrets kept hidden for centuries, secrets that expose cracks in the foundation of Empire society. Among his discoveries is a powerful magic, long buried and forgotten.
Brock's compassion and sense of justice are seeds that sprout tight friendships and a blossoming romance. An unwillingness to be bullied earns him a dangerous enemy, growing into a feud that escalates to a climactic showdown.

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 A thrilling epic adventure that had me completely enthralled! This is seriously one of the best fantasy books I have ever read! With flawless writing and vivid descriptions, you're immersed into the realm of Issalia, where almost everybody is marked with a rune of their vocation on their forehead. For some mysterious reason, the Unchosen- people who were not chosen to receive a rune, are looked down upon as the underbelly of society and are denied the civil and humane rights that everybody else gets. After suffering through loss, young Brock takes his own destiny in his hands and illegally obtains his own rune. He then embarks on a perilous journey to enter the Academy where he takes the place by storm. Along the way, he discovers his latent talents, gains some true friends and uncovers secrets that have been hidden for centuries that were never meant to be revealed. I was completely entranced and absolutely enjoyed this book! There were times I was sitting on the edge of my seat at perilous times, grinning in delight at some incredible magic displays, and other times, my jaw almost hit the floor as I seethed in anger at the injustices and trials some of the other students put him through. I was left with quite a few unanswered questions as the book delved into some hidden mysteries that I am sure will be answered in the sequel! I can't wait to get started on it and live in Issalia some more! This was an absolutely epic book that anybody who enjoys fantasy and adventure will be sure to love!   

Journey on a magical quest to save the world

As they strive to become Masters within the Ministry, Brock and his friends resume their training at the Academy, an institution founded on magic, science, knowledge, law, and combat. They soon discover an expansive web of conspiracies and deceit within the Ministry, hidden behind a veil of benevolence and piety. The exposure of one of those secrets forces Brock and his friends to flee the institution with their lives in the balance.
Joined by a fierce Tantarri warrior, the group embarks on a quest to locate a mysterious throne that has been lost for centuries. Guided by the cryptic words of an ancient prophecy, and backed by a forbidden magic that they are still learning to wield, they journey across the continent to save humanity from extinction.

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 Once again, the author outdid himself! This book is even better than the first, which I thought wasn't even possible! Once again we enter the epic adventure to travel with Brock and his friends. After unsavory circumstanced force the group to flee the Academy, they embark on an exciting adventure into unknown lands wrought with mystery, intrigue and adventure that will leave you sitting on the edge of your seat! Experimenting with Chaos along their journey, they discover new talents and encounter centuries old prophecies that foretold of their coming. Loaded with adventure, this fast paced adventure had me eagerly devouring the book as fast as I could as more and more secrets were unveiled. All unanswered questions from book 1 were answered along with many more that popped up along the way and I can't tell you how many "ah-hah" moments I had that pleased me to no end! I absolutely completely enjoyed this book and feel like I actually lived through the book with Brock and his friends! This series is an absolute must read for any fantasy or adventure lover of any age!!

Jeffrey L. Kohanek grew up in rural Minnesota where comic books sparked his young imagination, inspiring fantasies of heroes with super-powers saving the day. His tastes later evolved to fantasy epics featuring unlikely heroes overcoming impossible odds to save worlds born from the writer’s imagination.

Now residing in southern California, Jeff uses that imagination to weave tales of engaging characters caught in fantastic plots to inspire young adults and the child within us all. His debut book is The Buried Symbol, an epic fantasy novel released in May 2016.

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Greetings, fellow adventurers! This is epic (high) fantasy author Jeffrey L. Kohanek, sharing a bit of background about me and my first book.

From a young age, I’ve felt driven by an internal desire to create. With an early love for heroes with super powers, I found my childhood-self creating my own comic books. In 4th grade, I stepped through the wardrobe and never looked back, eschewing comics for journeys to wondrous lands such as Narnia and Middle Earth. In my teens, my love for epic fantasy grew to a crescendo with the Belgariad and Riftwar series both capturing my imagination, leaving me enthralled with the idea of discovering magical abilities and learning to harness them. When I finally decided to write my own epic fantasy series, it was with the desire to instill that same sense of wonder in my readers.

The Buried Symbol is the first book in The Runes of Issalia trilogy. It is a zero-to-hero story wrapped within a world where runes have inherent meaning. Citizens are marked at birth, assigning them their vocation and caste status for life. The main character is among the 1% who receive no rune, leaving him without a place in society. When he illegally obtains a fake rune, he journeys to a school for the elite, entering under a false identity. There, he begins to uncover secrets long-hidden, including a lost magic that he learns to harness. With the reader sharing in the discovery process, the magic system is well defined and logic-based. Being a trilogy, there are underlying plot lines and conspiracies throughout, with only the tip of the proverbial iceberg becoming exposed in book one.

Regards,
Jeffrey L. Kohanek
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A clone who usurps his own destiny--and with it, the power of Time. A time travel romance that would defy death, and an alluring agent from the future hunting her prey...
Imaginative and heart-pounding stories are woven into the fabric of this time travel short story collection. From adventure to loss, hope and sacrifice, each tale touches upon the precious value given to Time, and what we'd do with it, if we were its masters.
The Masters of Time sci-fi/fantasy time travel anthology is presented to you by USA Today bestselling author Samantha LaFantasie, Amazon bestselling authors Alesha Escobar and Devorah Fox, Hugo Award nominee Timothy C. Ward, B.R.A.G Medallion honoree H.M. Jones, and author Alice Marks.

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Either the wondrous or the perilous awaits us when we play a hand at magic.
A hard boiled detective chases the supernatural, unveiling a frightening world right alongside modern man's. A mother, able to grant wishes, shows us we must be careful what we wish for. An African Orisha might just pass you in downtown Los Angeles, eager to siphon some of your energy so that he will not fade out of existence.
From heart wrenching, ghostly goodbyes to relatives, to discovering sparks of otherworldly magic permeating contemporary society, these nine tales of magical realism and paranormal fantasy come together to form this enchanting and gripping anthology.
Magic Unveiled is presented to you by USA Today bestselling author Samantha LaFantasie, Seattle Times and Amazon bestselling author Raven Oak, Amazon bestselling authors Alesha Escobar and Devorah Fox, NIEA Finalist H.M. Jones, Alice Marks, Jayme Beddingfield, Ronovan Hester, and Keith Goodno.

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Who am I? I'm a lover of good stories, of biting sarcasm and chocolate. I write fantasy and science fiction, with a dash of romance and humor mixed in.
I'm the author of the Gray Tower Trilogy: The Tower's Alchemist, Dark Rift, and Circadian Circle, as well as the short story Logan 6 in the "Masters of Time" anthology.
Please connect with me via Facebook and my website (www.aleshaescobar.com) to receive updates and access to special offers

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A young girl is brutally murdered.
Two rival crime bosses fight for dominance on the streets of South Africa’s capital city.
The city’s underground film industry is set ablaze.
An angry spirit bent on revenge is on a murder spree.
And Alice, a university student, is caught in the middle of a bloody battle for survival.
Their fates all intertwine in this tale of vengeance and fury.
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  This book was amazing! It fulfilled all my dark needs for some twisted and horrific gore with an splash of torture. After an innocent virgin is brutally, tortured, raped and dismembered, her angry spirit is set out to get some payback. What follows is a horrific whirlwind of death and destruction as she avenges herself, one tormentor at a time. Some of the methods of death were quite unique and had me grinning in sadistic pleasure! I was completely obsessed with this book from beginning to end and was eagerly lapping up the thrills. With no holds barred, the author delves into the deep underbelly of human depravity which will shock and horrify you. What makes it even more terrifying is the fact that these sordid affairs are really happening all over the world.....right now...
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A troubled detective A tormented serial murderer Sundays in Pretoria are dangerous for selected women. A murderer plagued by his childhood, has found a distinctive modus operandi to salve his pathological need to escape the domination of the person who was supposed to cherish him. As The Bathroom Strangler’s frenzy escalates and the body count mounts, Nico van Staaden, the lead detective on the case, finds himself confronting his own demons as he struggles to solve the murders of the seemingly unconnected victims. The lack of evidence in the sequence of deaths and pressure from his superiors are challenges he must overcome. The resolution is bloody, savage and merciless.

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  This was one helluva murder mystery! You get to piggyback a ride with The Bathroom Strangler as he takes out his anger on women who remind him of his abusive mother. You also get to see the flipside with Nico, the detective on the case, as he deciphers the crime scenes and works to catch the gruesome murderer. With quite a few unexpected twists, some truly gritty cops and murder scenes that will slice right through you, this was one compelling read! Finally an author that will get close and personal with a serial killer inside his insane head! The ending will quite catch you by surprise and had me gripping my tablet with white knuckles and sitting with my back against a wall! Absolutely splendid!
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What would you do if you thought you were losing your mind?
What would you do if all those nightmares you thought were in your mind, were real?
Out of the shadows comes a nightmare feeding on fear.
Out of the shadows comes a demon bent on torment and death.
Could you survive a demon bent on driving you to suicide?

“If you’re open to reading a book that is genuinely disturbing, in some cases distasteful, and creepy as hell, then I’m pretty sure you’ll ‘enjoy’ Shadows.” – Dave de Burgh, author of Betrayal’s Shadow
“Dark, twisted and creepy, Shadows will take you out of your comfort zone and keep you glued to the pages of the book, regardless of whether or not you want to.” – Tammy February, Women24.com
“Frankly, the psychological horror that is found in Shadows will make any person feel ill at ease, which means I loved it.” – Monique Snyman, Tentacle Books

“If you like your horror as warped as it gets, you’ll love this genuinely scary page-turner. I’m looking forward to reading what she does next – although I suspect I’ll be reaching for the sominex afterwards.” – Something Wicked

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 Wow - this book took my mind, twisted it and shut it in a box screaming! I loved this book! Starting off with an immediate plunge into insanity, this fast paced thriller sinks it's claws into your mind and just will not let go. Just when you think you're leveling out, the author throws another insane twist at you over and over again, keeping you on your toes as delicious horror runs up your back in cleats. I found myself quite unable to put this fascinatingly lunatic book down and stayed up late into the night reading it! If you like to be surprised with your mind being ripped out and your boundaries pushed, then this is the book for you! Absolutely awesome!
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Joan De La Haye writes horror and some very twisted thrillers. She invariably wakes up in the middle of the night, because she’s figured out yet another freaky way to mess with her already screwed up characters.Joan is interested in some seriously weird stuff. That’s probably also one of the reasons she writes horror. Joan is deep, dark and seriously twisted and so is her writing.

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Megan Blackwood has just lost her son in an accident. Now she has come to Moonlight Creek with her teenage daughter, Jenna, hoping that a change of scenery might help to put their lives back together. But something odd is happening in Moonlight Creek. When rain falls over the village, its inhabitants commit grisly murders, leaving the village deserted again with the first rays of sunshine. Beneath the lake's surface, something watches... and waits... Waits to reveal a tragic past drowned in mystery and fear. One that doesn't bode well for visitors. By the time Megan realizes that her daughter's life is in danger, it may already be too late.

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Vanessa Morgan is an author, screenwriter, and blogger. Two of her works, The Strangers Outside and A Good Man, have been turned into films. Her short film script Next to Her is currently in pre-production. When she's not working on her latest book, you can find her reading, watching horror movies, digging through flea markets, or photographing felines for her blog Traveling Cats. She lives in Belgium.

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Some cats need nine lives to make a difference. Avalon only needed one.
From Amazon bestselling author Vanessa Morgan, Avalon is the heartwarming and once-in-a-lifetime love story of a girl and her neurotic Turkish Van cat.
With humor, the author details how Avalon made other creatures cringe in distress whenever he was around, how he threw her dates out by means of special techniques, and how he rendered it almost impossible for her to leave the house. Avalon was so incorrigible that even her landlord ordered her to get rid of him. But beneath Avalon's demonic boisterousness, Vanessa recognized her own flaws and insecurities, and she understood that abandoning Avalon would be the worst she could do to him. Thanks to her unswerving loyalty, Avalon transformed into a tender feline, and even landed a major role in a horror movie. In turn, Avalon made it his mission to be there for his human companion.
By turns jubilant and deeply moving, Avalon is a memoir for anyone who has ever been obsessively in love with a pet.

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Vanessa Morgan is an author, screenwriter, and blogger. Two of her works, The Strangers Outside and A Good Man, have been turned into films. Her short film script Next to Her is currently in pre-production. When she's not working on her latest book, you can find her reading, watching horror movies, digging through flea markets, or photographing felines for her blog Traveling Cats. She lives in Belgium.

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Centuries ago ten powerful vampire gods first walked the earth; their blood thirst knew no boundaries. The destruction of mankind was inevitable. Recognizing their weakness, they selected twelve wise human beings to transform with their godly blood. These twelve, known as The Old Ones and The Council, govern The Ten. A blood lottery appeasing The Ten’s hunger was set forth into the human world and passed down every fifth generation, continuing into the present day.
All of Beth Ryan’s life a mysterious mist watched over her, a mist she believed to be a vampire. On a cold winter night, she comes face to face with Philippe Delon, a 700 year old vampire with a human soul. Beth is certain Philippe is the vampire behind the mist. She is drawn to him, accepting his immortality without question or fear.
Beth and Philippe cannot deny their love for each other, nor do they try to fight it. Within days of their encounter, Beth accepts Philippe’s invitation to move into his mansion. The mansion unlocks the door to the vampire world and exposes secrets from Beth’s past. Within its walls, she learns the true identity of the mist, her link to the blood lottery, and betrayal of her loved ones. Surrounded by lies, Beth stands before The Council begging for resolution. 

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 One of the best vampire books I've ever read! I was completely under the author's spell from the very first page and found myself quite unable to tear myself away from this gripping book! Full of intrigue, we meet Beth, who's always had a mysterious and loving mist visiting her nightly. On a turbulent night, she meets vampire Phillipe and believes he is finally her mist in physical form. As she delves into the vampire world, she soon discovers there's much much more at stake and must face her past, present and future before she can resolve her love triangle. Full of mystery, intrigue, love, loss, deceit, and a world she never knew existed, this book took me on a roller coaster of palpable emotions and I truly felt for the characters as if they were real people. The writing was beautifully done with vivid descriptions that really set the mood, causing exquisite pictures in my mind as I read along. There was a bit of a cliffhanger at the end that made me gasp in anticipation and I can't wait to sink my teeth into the sequel! This is an absolute must read for any vampire lover or paranormal romance fan! 

​Five years crawled by at a painfully slow pace for young vampire, Beth; each year more agonizing than the next. The powerful unyielding spell which masked Amon’s whereabouts showed no signs of weakening. Influenced by the binding ritual and Amon’s blood surging inside her, Beth will stop at nothing, and risk everything, to find him and turn the tables on Osiris, Isis, and Hathor. In foggy streets of London, lives are threatened by a new breed of hunter, and nothing is what it seemed. Beth once again finds herself surrounded by betrayal. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between Philippe and Amon – knowing that her decision will change one life forever. But whose?

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  Yet another absolutely amazing vamp book to follow the first! Picking up 5 agonizing years after the first book ended, we meet a more mature and emotionally weathered Beth as she pines for her lost love while still trying to make things work with Philippe. Drinking herself into a stupor with both blood and wine, she tries to cope with her daily life and mend her torn heart. After a huge surprise at a gala thrown to cheer her up, she must finally choose who to love and is out for vengeance against those who wronged her. Teaming up with the most powerful vampire gods and a feared fire demon, they travel to London where her past comes back to haunt her in a wholly unexpected way. The emotions ran high again in this book as Beth battles with loss, love, undecisiveness, betrayal and trying to find a glimpse of happiness in all the fog. The descriptions were absolutely exquisite and I could just about hear the blood splatter in some scenes. The journey into the realm of the vampire gods again was amazing and a certain ritual at the end had my heart pounding and aching in sympathy and excitement! This series is absolutely amazing and I just can't wait to see what the author may bring in the future! Rivaling Anne Rice, these books are absolutely original, absorbing and amazing! A definite must read for any vamp lover, paranormal romance fan or thriller lovers!

Finals are over, and twenty-year-old Claire Matthews can hardly wait to begin summer break until…she arrives home to an army of police swarming her parents’ front lawn. Detective Reynolds delivers the dreadful news that the man and woman inside the home are dead, and Claire is forced to identify their mummified bloodless bodies. Her world comes to a grinding halt when she learns that it is her mother and father who are the deceased, and her younger brother, JJ, is nowhere to be found. The predator accused…a vampire.

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 A stunningly captivating paranormal murder mystery! Set in an alternate time where vampires are accepted in the normal world under a vow that humans and vampires do not harm each other and vampires go to "blood banks" to get intravenous feeding instead of feasting on unwary humans. After Claire's parents are horrifically slaughtered, all the clues point to an unknown vampire as the murderer, and her brother JJ is missing. Claire believes the detectives aren't gaining enough ground on the case, so she is forced to befriend a vampire and goes sleuthing herself. Avoiding a persistent detective, she journeys into the dark underground world of vampirism and finds out some stunning secrets about her family's past while searching for her missing brother.
   With tons of excitement, plot twists and quite a few unforeseen events that will punch you in the stomach and leave you breathless, this book was one amazing ride that will not let you go for a second! Completely original, the characters and intricate settings are completely believable and will completely suck you in. This book is a new take on vampires, as they exist with humans and has both good and bad vamps for you to love and despise. The characters were well built with palpable emotions and you get to really feel a connection with Claire. There's horrific times, stunning times, tender new love and even some hilarious yet macabre moments that left me thrillingly delighted. I thoroughly enjoyed every second of this book and am left thinking about it days after finishing it! If you want to try a new flavor of vampire fiction or murder mystery, this book would be perfect for you!

Brandon Cass is not your average teenager. He has a taste for blood, human blood. For sixteen years, he stumbled through life without a hitch until…the enigmatic aroma of blood awakened something dark within him. Visions of a beautiful young woman with chocolate-brown hair and ocean-blue eyes haunt his mind. He finds himself hopelessly in love with her; yet, her identity is a puzzling mystery.
The hunger for blood strengthens, and his cravings are too powerful to control. No one is safe, not even his family. To safeguard all he once found dear, Brandon sets out on a quest for answers. In a foreign city, he comes face to face with the young woman he so desires, learns of the dark force which controls him, and most importantly, what he must endure to reclaim his soul.

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I was born and raised in Sunny San Diego, California. A creative writing class in junior high sparked my desire to tell stories; however, Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles was my true inspiration to sit down a write a novel. Interview with the Vampire was published in 1976 and has gone on to become one of the best-selling novels of all time.
After reading the chronicles of Vampire Lestat, the driving passion to write my own vampire legend tingled in my fingertips. In 1996, I completed and copyrighted Immortal Kiss. It sat patiently on a shelf for 14 years. In 2010, while packing to move, I stumbled upon it tucked away in my closet. I dusted it off and sat down to read. I fell in love with the story all over again; though, being 14 years old it needed some modernizing. I set forth on the journey of reviving Immortal Kiss.
In 2013, 3 years later, Immortal Kiss was off to the publishers and agents. In 2014, it found a home with World Castle Publishing, and 1 year later, Immortal Kiss, was hot off the press and available to the public.
At present, my published works are Immortal Kiss, Bound by Blood, and The Vow. My current project is The Vampire Within and in the queue are The Soul Collector, The Ten, The Old Ones, and Vampire Amon.
The Vow is the first book published under my publishing company, Story Bound Publishing, LLC, a fresh new voice is the supernatural realm of ebooks and tradition print.
When I'm not writing, I hang out with my 3 Basset Hounds, Stuart, Morgan, and Dexter. I love pizza and shoes. Can't live without either.

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Together Forever...
until the day Abigail dumped Hal, after he left for university, back in 1983. Hal was so devastated that he went home less and less until, in the end, he didn't go home at all. And he never got over her, even after he married the wealthy Julienne. Their marriage was doomed from the start; it was just a case of who caved in first.
Abigail had a secret; one she had kept from Hal, and it had defined her life for fifteen years. She was glad he never came back to learn it. That was all about to change.
Hal was on his way home. Nothing would ever be the same again...

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​In the beginning...
…there was Hal and Abigail and they should have lived happily ever after…
everything in their story shouted that to the world.
Hal’s mother knew it. Their friends had no doubt about it. Hal and Abigail were the perfect pair. Having grown up together from infancy, there were no secrets, no hidden agendas; just love. All that was missing were the church bells and the first flat with the second-hand furniture and the gas fire that didn’t work, and even that would be okay because they’d cuddle up in bed to keep warm until summer. 
Then Hal blew it all wide open by getting a conditional offer to study at Cambridge – in the Department of Veterinarian Medicine.
To be honest, it was a total shock to everyone, but most of all to Abigail. She had supported his idea to apply, but had secretly thought that he would be out of his depth and have second thoughts. He didn’t.
It was all he thought about and planned for. He locked himself away in his bedroom to study, and suddenly two people, who had been inseparable from the first moment they had met, were wrenched apart. Hal’s mother, Diana clucked about nothing else; anybody would think he was marrying into
royalty. Anyone foolish enough to ask, ‘How’s the family, Di?’ soon found themselves wishing they’d kept their mouths shut.
Hal and Abigail limped through the spring, and dragged themselves into the summer. His hard work paid off and he attained the required grades then received positive confirmation that, come the autumn, he would be going up to Cambridge. There was one last night, camped down at the Bay, Hal on
his guitar and the old crowd avoiding talking about what was happening, as if by doing so it may go away. And that was it. The beginning of the end of Hal Bartlett and Abigail Markham.
Except, for Abigail it was the start of something new, something so big, so life changing – and its
outcome would resonate down the years…
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Born and raised in the town of Dover in Kent, Lisa chose to make the protagonist of her debut novel a fictional contemporary and set Dover as Hal's home town. She weaves into the story of Hal's homecoming her own memories of the town she left in 2000. Since You've Been Gone was adapted from a feature script of the same name which was nominated to go into competition in the 2011 BAFTA/Rocliffe New Writers Forum.
Aside from writing, Lisa enjoys history, museums, historic houses and punk music.

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The title, Midnight’s Edge, comes from the time of night where the veil between the living and the dead disappears and, for a brief moment in time, the dead can return to the mortal world and live again. It is a story of a vile, evil man named Jeremy Wickcliff, whose wife, Lucy, arranged his death years ago to save the town from his wrath of destruction. In present time, he has been plotting from the spirit realm, a place of purgatory, to return to the mortal realm to seek revenge on those who wronged him and reclaim the life ripped away from him.

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​Chapter 1
 
It would soon be Midnight’s Edge or ME as the witches call it, a time of the night when the veil between the living and dead disappears.
My name’s Shelly Hawkins-Wickcliff, and I live in the Wickcliff mansion, which sits on a hill overlooking the small town of Sleepy Meadows where I’ve lived for all of my 24 years.
I didn’t know much about ME, but Jeremy Wickcliff did. He was dead, but that didn’t stop him from reaching across the realms into the mortal world. You see, although he was gone, he found a way to get inside my head, to manipulate my thoughts and actions, to make my will his own. I’ve been hearing his voice cajoling me and taunting me for years and on this night, approaching ME, his plan to return to the mortal realm was about to become a reality. I didn’t fully understand how ME would factor into it, but to him it didn’t matter. To him, I was a pawn in his sick, twisted game.
On this night, I wandered in a daze through the shadowy hallway of the eerie mansion I inhabited. I had heard Jeremy’s voice in my head all day as usual, and as usual, he was just as cruel and heartless as ever. This night had been different; I had grown tired of the game. I was no longer able to fight him, no longer able to block out his voice. He had been with me every moment of every day for as long as I could remember. I was tired of the fight to banish him from my mind. I was losing the last grip on sanity that I had.
I was blinded by tears as I reached the staircase that led to the attic. As Jeremy’s voice commanded me to ascend the staircase, I wondered why he had wanted me to go there.  As I reached the top of the landing to the attic, I heard him call out to me.
“I know you’re in pain, and I know how to make it stop. Just be an obedient girl and do what I tell you.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” I said. “Why are you torturing me? Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
He chuckled. “Oh, it’s almost unbelievable how naïve you are. Do you think it was a coincidence that your perfect fairy tale life turned into a living nightmare? Oh no. I was responsible for it all, princess. I’ve used the powers bestowed upon me from the other side to pick your precious life apart piece by piece, taking away everything you loved until you were so broken that you were no longer able to resist my will.”
“Why me? Why did you target me?”
He ignored my question as he so often had. “Open the door and go inside.”
I grasped the knob of the attic door. Unable to stop myself, I opened it. The air was dusty, thick. I could hardly breathe.
He was right. Once beautiful and full of life, I was now meager and weak. I had lost all control of my body and mind, and it was all thanks to him. He’d made my life miserable. He’d convinced me that I was a burden to all that I loved and that my life was meaningless to the point where I started to believe him.
I put my head down recalling the events of the last five years. I thought about everything I had lost because of Jeremy. My husband, my sanity, my life. Even though I tried not to show it, I couldn’t control the flood of tears that blinded me. Jeremy knew that my losses had become too much to bear, and he knew he’d beaten me.
“You got what you wanted,” I said, scanning the room. “I’m broken. Are you happy now? Why don’t you just leave me alone?”
“Destroying your life was just for fun,” Jeremy said. “Watching you squirm, cry, and beg were just things I used to amuse myself until Midnight’s Edge was upon us, and I was finally able to return to life. That time is upon us, my dear, and soon you’ll understand my true motivation. You should be honored, you’re an essential part of my plan.”
“How? Tell me. Enough with the games. What are you going to do to me?”
“I’m going to help you. I told you I could make your pain stop. The pain of a lonely, empty, meaningless existence.”
I felt the warm tears on my cheeks, and my breath grew heavier. “It’s that way because of you and only you. If you can make it stop, then do it.”
“First there’s something you must do for me.”
I felt as if he were suffocating me; as if he were holding a pillow against my face as I slept. 
“I’m not going to do a thing for a sick bastard like you. Not anymore. The influence you had over me is broken. Do you hear me?”
He cackled. “I don’t believe that, and neither do you. I wouldn’t waste my last few precious breaths with a lie if I were you.”
I put my hand on my chest. “Last breaths? What do you mean?”
“I’m going to live again. You’re not.”
“You plan to kill me?”
“Not exactly. Think back to what I said to you earlier. Think back to what you said to your daddy dearest when you were in hysterics on the phone with him a while ago. You can remember.”
I tried desperately to block out his voice. “No. I won’t listen to this anymore.”
“You don’t have a choice. You never did. I’ll never stop tormenting you until I get what I want. You have to know that by now. Try to resist me if you want, but I promise you I won’t give you a moment’s peace. Now let’s get started. Look at what you’re holding in your hands.”
I glanced down at my hands realizing that I had been clutching a rope. His goal was finally clear to me. Jeremy hadn’t planned to kill me. He wanted me to kill myself. “I’m not going to die because of you. You may have taken everything else from me, but I won’t give you the satisfaction. I won’t take my life. I’ll never do it you sick son of a bitch. It doesn’t matter what you do to me.”
“You have two choices. You either do what I tell you to, or I’ll drive you even more insane. You won’t even know your name after I’m through with you. What kind of life is that?”
I realized that he was right. I’d known Jeremy was ruthless, but it was clear that his cruelty had no limits. I tried to be strong, to face him head on, but in the face of my death, I’d become just as scared as a little girl.
“I don’t want to die, Jeremy,” I said, wiping the tears from my face. “Please.”
He ignored me and continued to give commands. “Throw the rope over the beam above you.”
“No!”
“You can pretend that you aren’t afraid, but I know you’re weak. You don’t have the will to resist me. If you did, I wouldn’t be inside your head now. Stop prolonging the inevitable and just do it, damn you.”
I clutched onto the rope tighter. “I have a family, a son. I’m not going to leave them.”
“They’re better off without a pathetic loser like you. You can’t even be a mother to your son, always pawning him off on your parents and the help.”
“That’s not true.”
“He’s not here with you now, is he?”
Freddy Wickcliff was my five-year-old son. I’d asked my parents if he could stay with them for a little while. I couldn’t tell them why. I couldn’t tell them that I couldn’t care for my son because a psychopath that was inside my head was driving me slowly insane. I hadn’t wanted Freddy to see me this way. I thanked God he hadn’t.
“That’s your fault, not mine,” I said. “It’s your fault that I’m like this. That I don’t have a normal life anymore.”
“Is that so? You can’t even take responsibility for your problems.  You’re a sad, pathetic waste. Everyone’s sick of always having to tiptoe around you, always covering for you.”
I wiped the tears from my cheeks. “Shut up!”
“You’d be doing everyone a favor if you put an end to this. If you truly loved them, you’d take the burden off.”
“You can’t control me anymore. I won’t let you.”
“Oh really? Look at what you’ve done.”
I looked around me. Without even realizing it, I’d fashioned a noose from the rope and threw it on the beam above where I stood. I’d also moved a chair underneath and stood on it.
“See?” he said. “You know I’m right. For your sake and for the sake of those you supposedly love, end this now.”
I stood there, finally defeated. Long soaked strands of my dark hair drenched with sweat and tears dangled in my face. I had thought that if my life were over, I’d never have to listen to him again. Maybe he was right; maybe my family was better off without me. Maybe I could find peace if I were dead, and so could they, no longer having to deal with my problems.
With no more will to fight, I slipped my head into the noose and took a deep breath.
“Good girl,” were the final words I heard as I stepped off the chair.
Within a few moments, everything went dark.
The darkness only lasted for an instant. I opened my eyes and couldn’t breathe. The noose around my neck was suffocating me. I clutched at the rope with both hands, frantically trying to break free, fumbling with it fruitlessly.
I realized that I only had a few precious moments before it would be too late, and Jeremy would get what he wanted. I couldn’t let that happen. I thought of my parents, brother, son, and everything I would leave behind if I were to go through with this. I knew I had to keep fighting for them even more than I did for myself.
With one last gasp of air and one last ounce of strength, I undid the knot and slid my head out of the noose.
I fell to the floor without a thump, which I thought odd. I gasped for air and clutched my throat. It took me a moment to get my breath back, but once I did, I felt a sense of relief that I’d never before felt. I was alive and so immensely grateful.
I got up quickly, surprised that I wasn’t hurt in the fall, thankful I hadn’t succeeded. More tears formed in my eyes. They were tears of joy, relief, and frustration for even considering Jeremy’s sick request. I didn’t want to waste time thinking about him. Instead, I wanted to focus on my son, whom I had almost left an orphan. He’d already lost his father, and I knew that I couldn’t allow him to lose me too.
I glanced around the room, chuckling triumphantly. “It didn’t work, Jeremy! Do you hear that? It didn’t work.”
Jeremy. Why hadn’t I heard his voice any longer? He hadn’t given me a moment’s peace before. I stood there wondering why he wasn’t goading me on anymore. Maybe it meant that I’d won. Maybe since my suicide had failed, I’d conquered him.
Maybe it was finally over.
I took in a deep breath, turned around and glanced up at the ceiling. My relief soon turned to horror when I saw that the noose I had fastened wasn’t empty at all.
There, still hanging from the rafters, was my body.

Successful in his plan to return to the mortal realm, Jeremy Wickcliff believes he’s found his son, whose body will allow him to continue to live, and he has brought back his sister, Rachel, as part of his resurgence plan for the Wickcliff family. However, the son that he thinks is his isn’t, and Rachel isn’t exactly his ally. Trapped in the Wickcliff mausoleum in the spirit realm, the Wickcliff ancestors have their own plan to return to life in the mortal realm, with or without Jeremy’s help.
As the witches begin to piece together Jeremy’s plan after a visit from his wife, Lucy, in spirit form, they realize that they must band together in an attempt to stop him from bringing his family back and to banish him back to the ghost realm. With a battle between good and evil takes place on the grounds of the Wickcliff cemetery, the outcome will change the lives of the residents of Sleepy Meadows forever. 

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​Chapter One


The concept of time is different in the spirit realm than it is in the mortal one. It’s not measured by hours or even minutes. Although time has gone on, it feels like I’ve been trapped in one long, endless nightmare since my suicide and transition to the spirit realm. I can’t gauge how long it’s been now, but that doesn’t matter. All that matters is I’ve found myself trapped in the attic of the Wickcliff mansion, where I ended my life, with no apparent way out.
In an instant, I, Shelly Hawkins-Wickcliff, the younger sister of Ethan Hawkins and daughter to Carol and Jeffrey Hawkins, ceased to exist. I can still connect with my family and friends in my mind. I can see the events of the mortal realm unfolding like a movie. I’ve seen my father murdered by Jeremy Wickcliff, the same evil, vile spirit who’d gotten inside my mind and coerced me into taking my life. He’d returned to the mortal realm using Midnight’s Edge, a time of night where the veil between the living and the dead ceases to exist and inhabited the body of Reed Withers, who soon became trapped in the spirit realm with me after his mind and body were possessed. At the age of twenty-five, the same age as me, it appeared that his life was over just as mine was.
Reed’s a fighter who refuses to accept that his life as he knew it is over. Having him in the spirit realm with me has helped me realize that like him, I can’t sit back and let Jeremy get away with what he’s taken from me. Reed’s determination to reclaim his life has reignited the fighter in me, the person who no longer wishes to be a victim. I’ve become determined to make Jeremy pay for the suffering he’s inflicted on me, my late husband Rory, and the rest of my family, although I’m still figuring out how.
The one connection I still have to the mortal realm is through Kasey Menze, one of my closest friends and my brother’s lover. While no one in the mortal realm knows of my presence there when I go there in my mind, Kasey’s the exception. He has special abilities, psychic abilities. He can hear me when I speak to him. I’ve also been able to give him visions, visions of my death and turmoil that I now face. While he’s doing his best to shut me out, afraid of what I’ve shown him and desperate for a normal life with my brother, I know I’ve got to keep trying to connect with him. He’s the only hope I have of warning my loved ones of the impending danger they face as a result of Jeremy’s presence in their world.
I turned to look out the window, peering out at the town below, before shutting my eyes and attempting to make contact with the mortal realm. I saw Kasey outside his mother Gracey’s house, who’d just encountered Jeremy, who he thought was Reed. He thought the encounter odd, as he couldn’t figure out why Reed was there or why he’d left as suddenly as he’d appeared. He hadn’t known that Jeremy had shown up to coerce Gracey into telling him who his son was, the son he’d blamed her for helping his wife, Lucy, keep from him his son’s entire life. He wouldn’t even have known about his son’s existence if it hadn’t been for his paying off an old gypsy woman that Lucy once knew to tell him the truth.
Kasey hadn't realized the extent of the danger his mother was in as he went up to her kitchen door and entered the house without knocking. She’d told him to come over in a hurry, and while Kasey was only five years older than me, the worry I saw as I studied his face made him appear much older than he was.
 “Mom, I got here as quickly as I could. You sounded so strange on the phone. I could tell by the tone in your voice that something’s wrong. What is it?”
Gracey stood up slowly and pointed to Hilda. “Kasey, this is an old friend of mine, Hilda. You remember her.”
Kasey gave Hilda a nod, acknowledging that he did remember her. Hilda was one of Gracey’s dearest friends, but he hadn’t seen her in fifteen years. No one had until recently after she’d taken an extended absence from Sleepy Meadows. Much like his mother, he’d noticed that she hadn’t aged well. Her gray eyes still showed the kindness he’d always remembered she had, but now the shade of her hair, pulled back in a bun, matched. Her skin had withered, and while he hadn’t known what happened in her life while she was away, it was obvious that her experiences had weathered her. She appeared weaker and more frail than he remembered.
“Yes, I do,” Kasey said, smiling. “Mom talks about you all of the time. It’s nice to see you again.”
“I haven’t seen you since you were a teen,” Hilda said, her voice lower and not as feminine as Gracey’s. “I didn’t expect you to remember me at all. Your mother didn’t tell me what a handsome young man you’ve become.”
He blushed. “Thank you.”
“Please sit down,” Gracey said. “I need to talk to you.” He sat. “Would you like something to drink?”
“What I’d like is for you to stop stalling. I know that something’s bothering you, I always know. Just tell me what it is.”
Gracey smiled. “We do have a special connection, don’t we, son?” She lost her smile and winced.
“Are you alright?” Hilda asked.
“My leg’s bothering me,” she said, sitting down. “I’ll be fine.”
Kasey began to stand up. “Where’s your pain medication, Mom?”
Gracey put her hand on his arm, and he sat down again. “Don’t worry about that now. It makes me groggy. I need to talk to you clearly about this. All those years I spent taking care of you as a boy, I never expected that the roles would be reversed. You take such good care of me.”
He patted her on the knee softly. “I figure I owe ya one...or two...or fifty. When Ethan left, and I started drinking more, you were the one that was there for me.”
She rubbed his hand that was still on her knee. “I know what a burden I’ve become.”
He shook his head. “No, you haven’t. I do what I do because I love you.”
“And I love you, son. That’s why I need to tell you the truth now, for your sake.” 
He removed his hand. “The truth about what?”
“About your biological parents, and how I became your mother.”
His eyes widened. “I’ve asked about them before, and you never gave me a straight answer. Why do you want to talk about them now?”
She sighed. “I’ve kept the truth from you because it’s what your mother asked me to do. When you were born, she made me promise to take you and keep you safe. However, you’re a man now, Kasey, and you can protect yourself. To do that, you need to know where you come from.”
He turned to Hilda. “Did you know my biological mother too?”
She nodded. “Let your mother finish, Kasey.”
He looked back at Gracey. “What were you keeping me safe from?”
She took his hand. “Not from what. From whom. Your mother was afraid of her husband.”
“Who was she? Why was she so afraid of my father?”
“Your mother’s name was Lucy Sheldon. She married a Wickcliff. He was ruthless.”
“I know the story of Lucy Wickcliff.” He took his hand back, exhaled sharply, and looked away from the women for a moment. He ran his hands through his dark hair, remembering the story he’d heard as a child about how she’d died. “She was married to Jeremy,” he said, meeting eyes with them again. The next thought he had sickened him. “Are you telling me that he’s my father?”
Gracey shook her head. “You aren’t Jeremy’s son. That’s why your mother was afraid for your safety. If Jeremy had discovered that, he would’ve killed you. He would’ve never accepted that his wife had a child with another man.”
He sat back in his chair, relieved. “That’s how I ended up with you?”
She nodded. “Your mother was pregnant with you when she married Jeremy, but he didn’t know that. He went away to Europe for several months and so he never knew about her pregnancy. When she had you, she told no one. I was her midwife, and she asked me to keep you and raise you as my own.”
“Why would you do that for her?”
“I did it for both of you. Lucy, Carol, Hilda and I were sisters in a coven. Lucy was taken in by Jeremy’s charms, but it didn’t take her long to discover what a mistake she’d made in marrying him. She soon realized how despicable he was. Your mother loved you, and she gave you up to save your life.”
“Ethan’s mother was part of your coven?” He looked back and forth between Hilda and Gracey, who gave him another nod. “She’s a witch?”
“You care about Carol’s son a great deal, don’t you?” Hilda said. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“Never mind that now. I want to hear the rest of the story. Did Lucy die in a car accident as the legend says?”
“Our coven was trying to help rid the town of Jeremy’s evil,” Gracey said. “We were unsuccessful. He tried to eliminate us all, and we fought back. That’s how I hurt my leg. Lucy took it upon herself to end his life, but in the end, she lost hers too. They were both killed when their car went over Lover’s Bluff.”
“If he really loved Lucy, he wouldn’t have hurt me. She would’ve had to know that.”
“Jeremy doesn’t know the true meaning of the word. If he finds out that Lucy’s your mother, the ultimate revenge on her would be to have you killed. I’m sure he blames her for the accident that caused his death.”
He rubbed his forehead. “Wait a minute. You’re talking about him as if he were still alive.”
Gracey’s face fell. “We believe that he’s used Midnight’s Edge to return to the mortal world. You must remember the stories I used to tell you about it.”
“That’s exactly what I thought they were. Stories.”
“You have abilities, Kasey. You inherited Lucy’s gifts. You understand that there’s more to this world than what we can see, that’s beyond all logic.”
“And you believe he’s coming after me? How do you know this?”
“Your mother came to Hilda in a vision with a warning. That’s why Hilda’s here.”
He turned his attention to Hilda. “You’ve seen her?”
“I see many spirits,” she said. “It’s part of my gift.”
He stood up. “If Jeremy’s here, it could explain a lot.”
Gracey’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that?”
He sighed. “I told you about the terrible vision I had in the bar, but that’s not all. After I left you, I had another one about Ethan’s sister, Shelly.”
“What sort of vision?” Hilda asked, intrigued.
“I went up to the Wickcliff’s to check on her after I’d heard that she wasn’t returning any of her family’s calls. I heard her call out to me, and suddenly, I was in a vision. I went up to the attic in the mansion and saw her hanging there. She was dead, and it looked like she’d committed suicide.”
Hilda gasped. “Good heavens. Are you sure?”
He nodded with a grim and remorseful expression on his face.
Gracey turned in her chair to face him. “Oh, darling, how terrible for you. Did you tell anyone else what you saw?”
“I went to Sheriff Withers. I saw his son, Reed, on the Wickcliff grounds with Pit Bowen. They were carrying what looked like a body toward the mausoleum. He said he’d investigate, but I think he thought I was off my rocker, or at the very least drinking again. I don’t blame him.”
“That can’t be. I’ve spoken to Carol since Jeffrey’s wake,” Gracey said. “She mentioned that Shelly showed up and explained her absence.”
He shook his head. “When I touched her, I could feel that she wasn’t the same. I can’t explain it, but she was different. I feel it in my gut. I don’t know who that is, but it isn’t Shelly.”
“That’s quite possible,” Hilda said. “If the real Shelly’s gone, she may have been inhabited by another force, just as Jeremy’s inhabited a mortal.”
“So he’s back, but he couldn’t come back in his own form?” Kasey asked.
“Only his spirit’s remained alive,” Gracey said. “He has no mortal body to come back to, so he had to find a mortal host that he could possess.”
“Reed,” Kasey said in sudden revelation, his eyes shifting away from the ladies.
“I beg your pardon?” Gracey said.
He paused before meeting eyes with her. “Reed’s been acting so strangely. First, I find him creeping around the Wickcliff cemetery in the middle of the night barking orders at Pit Bowen. I thought that strange enough. Then I just ran into him outside right before I came in here. He acted as if he’d never seen me before. What if Reed’s the one that Jeremy’s possessed?”
Hilda turned her attention to Gracey. “If that was Jeremy outside, he may have heard us. He may know that Kasey’s Lucy’s son. I fear that you’re both in more immediate danger than I thought.”
“If Jeremy’s possessed the Withers boy,” Gracey said, “I suppose he was here to seek revenge on me for my part in his destruction. I’m not surprised. I knew it was only a matter of time before he came looking for me. If he heard us, he knows you’re here too, Hilda.”
Kasey rubbed his mother’s arm. “Don’t worry, Mom. I won’t let him get to you as long as I’m still breathing.”
“That’s my greatest fear,” Gracey said, her eyes searching his. “I’m not worried about myself. I’m not without my powers. Even if he did come after me, I’m an old lady, and I’ve had a good life. I wouldn’t hesitate to give up my life if it meant saving yours.”
They hadn’t realized that although Jeremy had overheard their conversation that he’d misunderstood it. He’d assumed he was Kasey’s father because Lucy was his mother. This didn’t keep Kasey out of danger, but Jeremy needed him alive as he needs to inhabit someone of his own bloodline if his spirit’s going to remain in the mortal realm permanently.
“Don’t say that,” Kasey said, holding his hands in front of him as if to stop her. “Don’t even think it. I’ll protect you from him. I promise.” He exhaled. “I’m not even sure that Reed’s the one Jeremy possessed, but it makes the most sense given his behavior. My first instinct is to warn Sheriff Withers about his son, but he’d never believe me, not now that he thinks I was wrong about Shelly’s death. It’s too fantastic of a story.”
“Sit back down,” Gracey said, gesturing to the chair he’d sat in before. “There’s more to the story.”
He sat, and grabbed her hand for emphasis. “Mom, do you know who my father is? Did Lucy tell you?”
She nodded. “Your father was a friend of ours, a mystical teacher named Damon Shields. He was working with us to try to bring down Jeremy as well. Your parents were very much in love.”
I felt that Damon Shields was the same Damon I’d heard my mother talking about. Had Lucy and my mother been in love with the same man? If he’d been in love with Mom, why was he involved with Lucy? I suddenly remembered the bald man in the monk’s habit that Kasey had seen in his vision at The Hook. My instincts told me that the man was Damon reaching out to Kasey. I continued to listen to their conversation, hoping for answers.
“You said he was a friend,” Kasey said. “Does that mean he’s dead?”
“I believe he’s alive,” Gracey said. “But he’s been in seclusion.”
“My father just left me?”
“He doesn’t know about you. He’s a good man. If he’d known about you, things would’ve been different.”
“If he’d known about you,” Hilda said, “he would’ve wanted to be part of your life. He probably still would want to be.”
He stood up, unable to take it all in. He didn’t know if he should be thankful or angry. The woman he’d trusted the most had kept everything about his parents from him. He was silent for a moment before meeting her eyes.
“You should’ve told me who my parents were a long time ago. I had a right to know.”
“As I told you, Lucy asked me to keep your identity secret for your sake. I saw no reason to cause you any more pain by telling you your mother was dead. Things are different now that Jeremy’s back.”
“If this is true, if he’s back, I’ll kill him myself. I swear it.”
“You can’t,” Hilda said. “If you destroy him, whomever he inhabits will parish as well whether it be the Withers boy or another. Our only hope is to exorcise him back to the darkness from where he came.”
“I want you to promise me that you won’t seek him out,” Gracey said. “You don’t know what you’re up against, son. He’s more powerful than you realize.”
He took a deep breath, trying to maintain his composure. “So now what? I can’t stand by and do nothing.”
“You can and you will. I’ve fought him before. I know what to do. You don’t.”
“Mom, you aren’t in any shape to confront him, and you know it.”
“Your mother isn’t alone,” Hilda said. “She has me, and she has Carol. We’re family, and we’ll protect each other just as we always have.”
He bent down so that he was at Gracey’s level and touched her cheek. “You’re the only mother I’ve ever known. If anything were to happen to you, I’d never forgive myself.”
She looked into his eyes. “You have to trust me, Kasey.”
He sighed. He was upset with Gracey for keeping the truth from him, but he understood. In his heart, he knew how much she loved him, and he was convinced she’d done what she thought was best.
He didn’t verbalize it, but he made a vow that he’d stop Jeremy before he could do any damage to anyone he cared about. Gracey had protected him his whole life, and now that she was withered and broken, it was his turn to protect her.
I was worried for Kasey’s safety. Gracey was right, he didn’t know anything about Jeremy. He had no idea of the cruelty that Jeremy was capable of.

David Chappuis was born in Waterloo, Iowa, the fifth child of six, and grew up on a farm outside of Madrid, New York. He received a bachelor’s degree in English/Writing and Art/Studio from Potsdam College and later took professional development courses in Interactive Multimedia at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
He has made a living as a professional web designer, designing Radio Station websites across the U.S. He designs, develops, and hosts his own websites and blogs for his writing endeavors.
As well as web design, he co-writes fan fiction blogs for the defunct daytime serials, Another World and Dark Shadows, and runs Facebook groups for readers to actively participate in the stories. He also interviews the real-life actors from the shows as well as other talented people.
He is the co-author of “Midnight’s Edge: The Secrets of Sleepy Meadows”, a supernatural book series, that will be published by Melange Books, LLC in September 2015. He also pens his self-published mystery series called “Jenny’s Not Dead” which is currently available in all popular ebook formats.
He works from home as a full-time writer and graphic artist in southern Virginia.
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Michael Klinger - Co-Author of Midnight's Edge, Jenny's Not Dead
Michael Klinger was born in Niagara Falls, New York. He received an associate’s degree in human services from Niagara County Community College and a bachelor’s degree in human services management from the University of Phoenix. He has made a living as a professional benefits specialist.
He co-writes fan fiction blogs for the defunct daytime serials, Another World and Dark Shadows, and runs Facebook groups for readers to actively participate in the stories.
He is the co-author of “Midnight’s Edge: The Secrets of Sleepy Meadows”, a supernatural book series, that will be published by Melange Books, LLC in September 2015. He also pens his self-published mystery series called “Jenny’s Not Dead” which is currently available in all popular ebook formats.
He currently resides in southern Virginia.
​

…Like the Wild Geese of Old Ireland, five boys grew to manhood despite hunger, war, and the mean streets of New York…
An army doctor, Declan Morrissey fought for the survival of every wounded soldier, rejoicing when they recovered, mourning bitterly when they died.
Valerie Stanton was his beautiful battlefield nurse, strong, courageous, and dedicated.
He never dreamed she was an heiress, or that she’d break his heart in a desperate gamble to save the life of another man.
Now that they’ve found each other again, can they overcome past deception and claim the happily ever after they dreamed of?

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​“Val? Where are you?”
The hoarse whisper jerked her from her light slumber. Valerie Stanton brushed the tangle of dark brown hair from her eyes and jumped stiffly from the chair, hurrying to the figure tossing restlessly on the bed.
I must have fallen asleep. Searing guilt swamped her as she reached a hand to smooth Edmund’s tousled hair from his damp forehead. Warm, but not feverish. Oh, thank you, God!
The last thing Edmund needed was a physical illness.
“Valerie?”
“I’m here, love.” Tenderly, she picked up his hand—such a firm, strong hand, the nails clipped short, the back lightly dusted with golden brown hair. The convulsive way that hand gripped her fingers belied that strength and brought a rush of tears to her eyes.
Oh, my darling Edmund, what did they do to you?
“I was afraid.” His broken murmur tore at her heart. “Afraid…you’d gone away too.”
“Never!” She squeezed his hand, brought it to her lips. “I will always be with you, darling.”
He opened his eyes, the blazing indigo blue a mirror of her own, and smiled at her in a moment of pure clarity.
“Would that that were true. I know I only have you for a little while.” His eyes drifted shut.
He heaved a great sigh, and she knew he slept again.
But he didn’t cease his constant tossing.
Valerie sighed. Edmund’s covers had slipped halfway off the bed.
Moving automatically, she righted them, tucking them around his taut shoulders, noting the anxious lines bracketing his eyes and mouth.
What horrors did he relive in his dreams? She never knew, because he never spoke of them.
Refused to speak of them.
How could she help him if he shut himself away from her?
He groaned, jerked to one side and began to mutter frantic syllables she only half understood. “No…please…please don’t…I’m not a spy.” Raw anguish bled through his tone. “I’m only a soldier …a
common soldier…no…don’t—don’t.”
Valerie blinked back tears. Merciful heaven, the pain in his voice! What had those damned Rebs done to him?
“No! No, not Gage…he’s just a boy. Keep your hands off him. No!”
“Edmund!” The helpless whisper tore itself from her throat even as she caught his flailing fist in a vain attempt to calm him. “Oh, Edmund, it’s all right. It’s all right, my dear, you’re safe. You’re home
and safe, I promise you. Don’t be afraid.” The words dissolved into tears, and she swiped impatiently at the moisture on her cheeks.Edmund needed her. She must be strong for him, as he’d always been for her.
​

I believe I was destined to be interested in history. One of my distant ancestors, Thomas Aubert, reportedly sailed up the St. Lawrence River to discover Canada some 26 years before Jacques Cartier’s 1534 voyage. Another relative was a 17thCentury “King’s Girl,” one of a group of young unmarried girls sent to New France (now the province of Quebec) as brides for the habitants (settlers) there. My passion for reading made me long to write books like the ones I enjoyed, and I tried penning sequels to my favorite Nancy Drew mysteries. Later, fancying myself a female version of Andrew Lloyd Weber, I drafted a musical set in Paris during WWII.
A former journalist and lifelong Celtophile, I enjoyed a previous career as a reporter/editor for a small chain of community newspapers before returning to my first love, romantic fiction. My stories usually include an Irish setting, hero or heroine, and sometimes all three!
I am a member of the Romance Writers of America, Hearts Through History Romance Writers, and Celtic Hearts Romance Writers. A lifelong resident of Montreal, Canada, I still live there with my own Celtic hero and our two teenaged children.

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**A TERRIFYING NOVEL OF UNRELENTING SUSPENSE FROM AUTHOR BRYAN ALASPA**

Abe Yates is a successful true crime author. He makes a living writing about the crimes and deaths of others, but that living has allowed him to provide a great house and life for his wife and two kids. His latest novel is about a vicious hit-man and serial killer known as The Saint. It is already destined to become a runaway bestseller with a movie option at the ready. Life is good.

Until the morning he reaches for his cell phone and finds a mysterious video text. A text that shows something horrific. A video that appears to show something that hasn't happened yet.

Now Abe and his family may only have days to figure out who created this video and who wants to do them harm. How far would you go to protect your family? For Abe, he may find that his own desire to protect his life and his home may take him to darker areas in his own heart than he ever thought possible.

A tight-knit supernatural thriller from the author of RIG, Gone, The Man From Taured, Sapphire and the Deklan Falls detective series comes an edge-of-your-seat look into terror and suspense - TEXT.

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​Sure enough, there were some texts from friends and people who knew Spencer and whom Spencer had probably called about the party last night. Most of them Abe knew only tangentially and he could not recall most of their faces and most of them expressed regret at not being able to attend. He mused that they could have shown up or just not shown up and he would never have known the difference. That was the thing that happened when you were a reliable bestseller at the agency and publisher. People felt they had to bow down to you even if you had no idea who they were.
Delete. Delete. Delete.
He came to a final message, near the bottom of the list, from a number that he did not recognize. In fact, it was an impossible number to start with.
0000000000
Abe remembered getting weird phone calls from a number like that years ago when he had first gotten a cell phone. They had finally come down in price and the phone companies were finally offering decent deals on them and he had bought one of those obsolete flip phones.
He would find that he had a voicemail from a number that was all zeroes and when he listened to it, it was just a bunch of weird noises. He hadn't gotten a call like that in ages.
Abe opened up the message and saw that there was a black box in the middle of a white field. There was a white arrow, pointing to the right, in the middle of the black box.
He frowned.
Who the hell would send him a video text? No one he knew was the type to do that.
Abe was not a video taker himself and he rarely even texted over photos. If he had a good photo, he was told that social media was the best place to put that.
It was probably just someone who was at the party last night. Perhaps someone who stayed later and maybe things got crazier after he and Shari had left. Hell, it was probably a video from Sam or Spence trying to show him the fun he missed out on. 
Abe hit play.
At first he was not sure at all what he was a looking at.
It was a weird video, shot poorly, that kept pixelating. It was dark and it was shot with some nightvision
setting on the camera or cell phone, so everything had a weird greenish/white glow. The colors were all inverted, too, so the black pants looked white. He saw legs and arms and torsos, but the camera was mostly pointed at the ground.
There was sound, too. Men's voices, from the sound of it, but the sound was tinny and Abe couldn't make out any words. Someone was yelling.
Then there was screaming.
The camera swung up and suddenly Abe was looking into a face that he knew all too well. Whoever was holding the camera was wearing a Henry the CrossEyed Lion mask. One of the cheap plastic ones that came out every year and sold at the large discount store around the corner. The eyes, hidden behind that mask, looked empty and dark. There was just the smiling lion and the areas around the eye holes had been painted to look comically crosseyed.
It was surreal.
Abe sat up straighter on his chair, absently licking his lips. He was distantly aware of the fact that his throat was dry.
The camera swung around and now he could see that they were in someone's house.
He could make out a large staircase and a hardwood floor. It was familiar. He could see at least five other men. They were wearing suits, but all of them were wearing animal masks. Plastic animal masks based on the characters in Shari's books.
​

Bryan W. Alaspa is a Chicago born and bred author of both fiction and non-fiction works. He has been writing since he sat down at his mother's electric typewriter back in the third grade and pounded out his first three-page short story. He spent time studying journalism and other forms of writing. He turned to writing as his full-time career in 2006 when he began writing freelance, online and began writing novels and books.
He is the author of over 30 books of both fiction and non-fiction and numerous short stories and articles.
Mr. Alaspa writes true crime, history, horror, thrillers, mysteries, detective stories and tales about the supernatural.

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Volume 1 of 6 begins in 1689 Port Royal, Jamaica, where Atia Crisp is imprisoned, awaiting trial, while refugees from Strangewayes's plantation seek their new home. Guided by Capitaine la Roche, they face pursuit by the pirate hunter Big Dick and the perilous terrain of Bocas del Toro. Their future home of Sérénité hangs in the balance, complicated by the outbreak of war with France.


Series Description:
Ye be warned - this series contains sexual situations, drug usage, foul language, crude humor, and beaky parrots.
In 1689, Atia Crisp finds herself imprisoned in the wickedest city on earth, Port Royal, Jamaica, while the refugees from Strangewayes’s plantation in the Blue Mountains are on the run and seeking a new home, deep in the Caribbean. Captain Jean-Paul la Roche must get them to safety and find a way to liberate the woman he loves while waging a war against the English with the pirate Laurens de Graaf.
While besieged people suffer and starve, a group of women form a secret and illegal society deep from within the bowels of the city called: WENCH. A network that deals with smugglers, merchants, cutthroats and thieves. Dragged into the struggle for supremacy of the Caribbean, the women are divided and find themselves engulfed in bloodshed. The pirates of Port Royal and former enemies may be their only hope of escape.
Hell hath no fury like a cross wench! 

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Ye be warned - this series contains sexual situations, drug usage, foul language, crude humor, and beaky parrots.
Volume 1 of 6 begins in 1689 Port Royal, Jamaica with Atia Crisp and her sister Livia shipwrecked and sold into slavery. They are separated and Atia is used as a pawn in a deadly card game at the Swiftsure Tavern until she is liberated by sugar merchant Capitaine la Roche. Hunted at every turn, they take refuge at Cherry Red's Boutique (brothel) and meet up with allies including the medication loving Dr. Strangewayes.



Series Description:
Against the political stage of 1689 Port Royal, Jamaica, the unswerving Atia Crisp is thrust into the world of bondage, violence, beauty and love. Shipwrecked and sold into slavery with her sister Livia, the pair are soon separated and Atia is used as a pawn in a card game. Captivated by her beauty, Atia is swiftly liberated by sugar merchant, Capitaine la Roche (also known as the pirate, Gator Gar), whose past is stained with blood and grief. La Roche works with a network of friends and allies including local strumpet, Cherry Banks, Theodore Binge the card shark and the kindly, medication loving Dr. Strangewayes. Soon Atia and la Roche are ushered away to safety after a mysterious outbreak of scarlet fever wreaks havoc on the city.


Within the luxuriant tropical confines of Dr. Strangewayes's plantation at the foothills of the Blue Mountains, bonds of friendship are formed and the fierce love between Atia and Capitaine la Roche becomes absolute. Atia is reunited with her sister, piratical father and unexpected old friends. However, nowhere is safe as spies seek out both Atia and la Roche for the bounties on their heads. Neither of them can escape the shadows of their former lives and must rely on each other’s strengths for survival. Their journey leads them to an inevitable conflict that threatens their world, but inches them closer towards freedom.

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MJL Evans is an Indie Author/Publisher and co-author of the 6-part series, No Quarter: Dominium. Future endeavours include co-authoring the books No Quarter: WENCH and No Quarter: The Dirge. She also hopes to have her books translated in various languages including French.
MJL Evans is also a writer of romance and relationship articles featured in publications like Monday Magazine in November 2004 and again in February 2006, she writes fiction, historical fiction, erotica and humour. Published in the November 2014 issue of Flash Fiction Magazine, Red Dragon is vibrant piece of micro-fiction that delves into Victoria BC in the 1860s, when it was the opium capital of the New World.
A native of Victoria, British Columbia, MJL Evans studied English at Victoria School of Writing and Camosun College. Not only is she passionate about her written expression, she is enthusiastic about her visual art masterpieces she has created over the past 20 years and has over 60 paintings to her credit. MJL Evans is also a lover of film, independent, foreign, and cult. Her favorites include: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Nymphomaniac, Secret Window, The Brood, Le Pacte des loups, Mesrine: L'Instinct De Mort and many others.
Her visual artist website can be found at: http://art-profiles.com/mjlevans/
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In an age ruled by iron men, in a world of new discovery and Spanish gold, a young Irishwoman named Mary rises from the ashes of her broken childhood with ships and men-at-arms under her command. She and her loyal crew prowl the Caribbean and prosper in the New World for a time until the ugly past Mary has fled from in the old one finds her. Across the great ocean to the east, war is coming.
The King of Spain is assembling the most powerful armada the world has ever seen - an enormous beast - to invade England and depose the Protestant "heretic queen." To have any chance against the wealth and might of Spain, England will need every warship, she will need every able captain. To this purpose, Queen Elizabeth spares Mary from the headman's axe for past sins in exchange for her loyalty, her ships and men.
Based on true historical events, this is a tale about war, adventure, love and betrayal. This is a story about vengeance, this is a tale of heartbreak...
This is a prequel to Gather the Shadowmen (the Lords of the Ocean), Prince of the Atlantic and Nampoleon's Gold.

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​My lads forced the big man down to his knees before me. They stretched his arms out taut and held him firmly in place for me.
“Why, Captain Dowlin,” I said and laughed, “you’ve gone and pissed yourself I see! You’ve gone and soiled my deck! And my crew scrubbed these planks down with holystones just this morning. They put their backs into it let me tell you. They scrubbed this deck down clean.”
“Please,” Dowlin pleaded, whimpering with spittle and snot running down his long beard. His eyes were nearly swollen shut from the good drubbing my men had given him. “Please, please, please...” he repeated over and over again.
“Please?” I asked. “Is that all you can say? How pathetic. I pray you can beg far better than that, especially when it is your own, pitiful life hanging in the balance. Come now, I know you can do better and I promised my lads a bit of entertainment tonight before supper.”
“Please, my lady, please spare my life. For mercy’s sake. I have gold. I have much gold!”
“For mercy’s sake?” I asked. “No, I think not for mercy’s sake. But for gold you say? Well now, you’ve piqued my curiosity there. And how much glittering gold is your miserable life worth to you, Dowlin?”
“Anything, name your price!”
I looked over at what was left of Dowlin’s bloodied and beaten crew herded around the main mast in a tight circle. They were bound in chains, intently watching my every move, soaking in my every word. After today they would be my men.
My own lads knew the drill. They forced Dowlin down lower, exposing the back of his soft neck to me.
I stood to the side and drew my sword. “The price Dowlin - is your head!”
“Nooooooooooooo…” Dowlin screamed just before I cleaved my way through flesh and bone. With one, clean stroke, his severed head rolled grotesquely across my deck until it came to rest at the feet of his defeated crew.
And then I pointed my sword at them, the bright, steel blade now dripping with Dowlin’s fresh blood. “As my men will vouch,” I told them, “I’m no purveyor of lies and because I do not lie I cannot say to you that killing gives me no pleasure. Your master was a wretched pig and it gave me great pleasure to kill him. Now you know why some call me Bloody Mary. Now you serve me and this ship - or not. You are free to choose.”
The upshot of my touch of drama was grand. The prisoners all at once dropped to their knees and groveled at my feet. They all at once pledged their undying loyalty to me.
“Master Gilley!”
“Aye, Madam?”
“Introduce the new lads to our ways.”
“With pleasure, Mum, with pleasure!”
Thomas Gilley was my rock. He had been with me from the beginning. For nearly two years we had crisscrossed the vast and perilous oceans together. For the past year we had sailed under Dowlin’s cruel shadow.
“And our course, Mum?”
“The new lads will tell you - gladly now I should think - what our new heading is to be.”
And by that of course I meant that Dowlin’s men would tell us where Dowlin’s gold was stashed away, or pay the awful price for their silence.
As my men went about their labors, securing the heavy guns and making repairs to shattered planks, to torn lines and sail, I went below to my great cabin, content with a good day’s work. Dowlin had thoughtlessly, and without good purpose, brutalized any who had crossed his path. Men, women, children, he cared not. Yes, Dowlin was a wretched, stinking pig who often killed for sport. I had done mankind a favor by dispatching him. But in my world, Dowlin had also been a lord and master, a prince. His death I knew could not be cheaply bought.
“An inspiring performance, Mum!” a voice called out, startling me as I stepped into my great cabin. The voice popped out from behind the door, closed it quickly and slid the bolt back inside the socket.
I would not give the intruder the satisfaction of knowing that he had, for once, caught me unawares. “I’m glad you were amused,” I told him flatly.
He slipped an arm around my waist and pulled me close against him. “Do you,” he asked with a smile, “despise all men?”
“All but one or two,” I replied and kissed him lightly on the lips. Then I reached down between his legs and grabbed him by his privates. He was already stiff and eager. I couldn’t help myself and moaned with anticipation.
“Only one or two?” he inquired. “Dare I ask who?”
“Ah, you are safe for now my dearest,” I answered, batting my eyes flirtatiously. “Well, at least for a night or two. You have skills, remarkable skills worth keeping.”
“Aye, it was a splendid day indeed. I’ve always been exceptionally good at fighting, equally talented with sword, knife, a musket or explosives. I suppose one could say I was born to it.”
“You are a great warrior, James Hunter,” I replied honestly and squeezed him even harder. “But those are not the skills that interest me tonight. I dare say you have other skills that I’ve taken quite a fancy to, skills I wish to test.”
“Ah, now, that is why I’m here my lady,” Hunter replied and flashed his brilliant smile for me. “Not too tired from all that killing?”
“Shut up and take me you fool. Ravish me - I am hot for your wicked touch…”
Hunter obliged me gladly, with all he had to give.
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Born in 1954 in Indiana, Mark McMillin has lived in a number of states throughout the U.S. as well as overseas. He attended Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, focusing his studies mostly on military history, and served as a cadet in Canisius's nationally recognized ROTC program. After graduating in 1976, Mark was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army and was stationed in Bad Kissingen, Germany where he served with the elite 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment.
In 1986, Mark received his J.D. degree from The John Marshall Law School in Chicago, Illinois and began his legal career with a law firm in White Plains, New York focusing his attention on general corporate law. In 1994, Mark moved to Virginia and ventured out into hazardous world of litigation where, in 1999, he won what was reported to be at the time one of the largest and longest federal criminal trials in Virginia's history. Mark thereafter moved to Georgia where he resumed his general corporate practice and served as general counsel for several companies, including a $1B publicly-traded airline.
Mark has been a life-long student of military history. And he has always had a passion for reading and love for writing and wanted to someday write his own book. But write a book about what? Mark had no desire to write about some subject that 100 authors before him had already delved into. And then, almost by accident, this fascinating, little known story of Captain Luke Ryan fell into his lap. It was an opportunity was too good to pass on and so Mark began the long and tedious journey of researching, writing and rewriting. The twelve year project ended in 2011 with Gather the Shadowmen (The Lords of the Ocean), Prince of the Atlantic and Napoleon's Gold.
Mark currently lives in the Southeastern part of the United States.
A few of Mark's favorite books include: Robert Fagel's two brilliant translations of Homer's Odyssey and the Iliad, Tolkien's wonderful Lord of the Rings trilogy, Table in the Wilderness by Norton S. Parker, Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy, Herman Wouk's The Winds of War, Tom Clancy's The Hunt for the Red October, Vincent Bugliosi's riveting And The Sea Will Tell and Steven Pressfield's beautifully written Gates of Fire.
Please visit Mark's website at wwwPrivateerLukeRyan.com for more information.

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​"Truman’s storytelling shines throughout..." -- Kathleen Rice Adams, Western Fictioneers

“Red Lands Outlaw: The Ballad of Henry Starr is a well-conceived yarn about one of the last of Oklahoma’s horseback-riding outlaws. A good read.” -- Dusty Richards, a Spur and Wrangler Award winning author

“Author Phil Truman captured a slice of Indian Territory history and has woven it into an interesting period novel. Anyone who loves the history of the West will enjoy Red Lands Outlaw: the Ballad of Henry Starr.” -- Tammy Hinton, author and winner of the Will Rogers Medallion Award for Unbridled


In the last years of the tough and woolly land called Indian Territory, and the first of the new state of Oklahoma, the outlaw Henry Starr rides roughshod through the midst of it. A native son of “The Nations” he’s more Scotch-Irish than Cherokee, but is scorned by both. He never really wanted to journey west of the law, yet fate seems to insist. He’s falsely accused and arrested for horse-thieving at age sixteen, then sentenced to hang at nineteen by Judge Isaac Parker for the dubious killing of a deputy U.S. marshal, but he escapes the gallows on a technicality. Given that opportunity, the charming, handsome, mild-mannered Henry Starr spends the rest of his life becoming the most prolific bank robber the West has ever known.

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​Bill Tilghman slowly brushed the whisker tips of his mustache over and over with his left thumb and forefinger, moving each from the middle of his upper lip outward, as he stared down at Henry. In all his law enforcement days, he’d never known so audacious, so brash, so prolific an outlaw as the man lying there in that bed.
Henry floated in and out of a morphine-induced haze while Tilghman stood there looking at him. Lewis Estes, his neck and shoulder and chest wrapped in bandages, in a bed across the room, lay there out cold.
“Henry,” Tilghman said in a firm voice. Getting no response, he called out the bank robber’s name again, this time a little louder.
Henry’s eyes fluttered open. He blinked several times, squinting to get his eyes and mind focused on the form standing beside his bed.
“Well, hello, Bill,” Henry slurred. “What the hell’re you doing here?”
Tilghman stopped stroking his mustache, and hooked both his thumbs in his vest’s watch pockets. “Come to arrest you, Henry.” He jerked his head to his right in a pointing gesture. “You and that other fella over there.”
Henry raised his head a little, and looked over at the bed where his patched up colleague lay. “I believe that there is Lewis Estes,” he said. “Guess he caught a little lead, too.”
Tilghman nodded. “Soon as you boys are able to travel, I’m taking you back to Oklahoma City to await trial. And it’s a good thing I come, too. Folks here in this town are callin’ to lynch you.”
“Why, hell, Bill, I’m crippled,” Henry responded.
“Yeah, you are that,” Tilghman said. “But Doc Hanson said he didn’t think it’d be permanent. Boy named Curry shot you in the butt. Bullet broke up your leg bone there, but the doc set it back as best he could. He thinks it’ll heal awright, but figures you’ll probably have something of a limp from here on out.”
Henry took Tilghman’s prognosis in with a solemn expression. “First time I ever been shot,” he said. “And by a damn kid to boot.”
“He’s used to shooting living things,” said Tilghman. “Butcher’s kid, I hear. Shot your partner over there, too. Some pretty fair shootin’, considerin’ what he had to shoot with.”
Henry considered all this, scrunching his eyebrows in a look of puzzlement. “I thought you’d quit marshalling, Bill. Ain’t you a politician, or something, now?”
“State senator,” Tilghman said. “But I’m also Chief of Police over in Oklahoma City. Town marshal here is an old friend of mine, so he called me. What you and your boys did was a federal crime, so you’ll have to stand trial in a federal court.”
Henry nodded. “Yeah, I reckon so,” he said.
Tilghman snorted and shook his head. “I swear, Henry. You just about beat anything I ever seen in an outlaw.”
“Why, thank ya, Bill.” A pleased smile creased Starr’s face. Coming from as renowned a lawman as Bill Tilghman, Henry considered the man’s comment a supreme compliment.
“I didn’t mean that as a tribute, Henry. I meant you’ve had several chances to straighten yourself out. When I arrested you down in New Mexico back in oh-eight, you promised me you’d never rob another bank. But in the year since you got out of Canon City Prison, there’s been a whole passel here in Oklahoma with your brand on ’em. And now you pull this double dutch.” Tilghman shook his head and laughed quietly. “I hear you were a model prisoner in Canon City. Warden even made you a trustee; sent you out as a walkin’ boss on the road gangs. But you just keep reverting back to your old ways. How many times have you been in prison? Two? Three times? This here’ll make one more.”
Henry stiffened a little. “I reckon I’ve robbed more banks than ever anyone did,” he said with pride.
“Yeah, I suppose that’s true,” Tilghman said. He pulled a chair out from the wall and sat down on it, crossing his legs. He removed his derby and wiped the sweat from the inside headband. “The question is why? You sure ain’t got nothing to show from it. And look at you now; your future prospects ain’t too bright.”
Henry stared back at Tilghman, but he didn’t have a good response. The lawman had pretty much nailed it. A reason existed as to why Henry kept on committing bank robbery after bank robbery, but he didn’t exactly know what it was, didn’t know how to express it. All he knew, he couldn’t stop doing it. He had quite a few acquaintances and relatives who drank alcohol, and the more they drank, the more they wanted. Finally, they just couldn’t do without it. Henry didn’t drink; didn’t smoke, either, but like the effect of alcohol on some of his red brothers, that’s exactly what bank robbing had done to him.  
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I'm a native Oklahoman, born in the small town of Miami in 1945. I earned my bachelor's degree in English from the University of Tulsa in 1970. As a Vietnam Era veteran, I served with the U.S. Army's 7th Infantry Division near the Korean DMZ from 1967 to 1968. Fresh out of college I worked as a teacher and coach, but transitioned into the business world after a few years where I morphed into an IT geek. My wife and I live in the Tulsa suburban city of Broken Arrow where we've spent the past 30 years raising our family. Now a full-time writer, my books include GAME, a '70's era sports inspiration novel; Legends of Tsalagee, a novel of mystery, romance, and adventure in a small town; and Red Lands Outlaw, the Ballad of Henry Starr, a historical novel set in the turn of the 20th Century Indian Territory.
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This collection contains EIGHT episodes of the West of the Dead Line series.

1 – Bringing in Pike Cudgo
2 – Freed Men
3 – Runaway
4 – Redemption along the Red
5 – The Getaway of Cross-eyed Jack Dugan
6 – The Reluctant Posseman
7 – Dupery at Corncob Forks
8 – Last Will for an Outlaw

West of the Dead Line
The Dead Line, as it came to be called, was a railroad, the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas, cutting across the middle of Indian Territory. It ran straight south from Caldwell, Kansas to Fort Reno, I.T., then on down through the Cheyenne and Comanche and Kiowa lands, crossing the Red River into Bowie, Texas. It was a line on the map, a demarcation. West of it there was no law, only outlaws. On trails out there, notes would be put up on trees and posts, sort of reverse wanted posters, letting lawmen know they’d be killed if they continued their pursuits west of the Dead Line.
Throughout the 225 years of the U.S. Marshals Service, over 200 deputies have been killed in the line of duty. Of those, more than 120 lost their lives in the Indian and Oklahoma Territories between 1850 and Oklahoma statehood in 1907.
In the storied history of the American West, no place comes close to matching the dangers and mortality these federal officers faced doing their jobs. Their courage, resolve, and dedication to duty were beyond reproach... for the most part. Those who survived became titans in the legends of the West, particularly one man called Bass Reeves.
These stories are fiction, but the encounters this lawman faced, and The Dead Line, were not.

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​The Yankee watched Bass eat. “What’s your name, boy?” he asked.
“My momma name me Bass after her daddy. Las’ name Reeves, same as my massuh. All us belongs t’him called Reeves.”
The man nodded, still looking at Bass with his coal-black eyes. “You like bein’ a slave, Bass?” he asked.
Bass chewed another bite of jerky and put his hands out toward the fire again, thinking about his answer.
“On’t know,” he said with a shrug. “Alls I ever know. Marse Reeves, he don’t treat me bad. Give me food t’eat, place to sleep. Give me clothes. Ain’t nevuh whip me much. He mistress good to my momma and sistuh, too. They works in the house.”
“That all you ever expect to do? Ain’t you ever wanted to get free; do things you wanted to do yourself, go wherever you want to go without nobody telling you when and where?”
The Yankee waited for a response, but none came. Bass looked into the fire and chewed the jerky.
After a bit, his captor added, “Wouldn’t you like to take a piss without gettin’ another man’s permission?”
Bass looked up at him, jaw muscles moving; he turned his gaze back to the fire.
The Yankee let it go, changed the subject, shifted his weight on his butt. “’Spect there’s gonna be a fight here tomorrow. Mess of Rebs up north. Looks like old Van Dorn’s trying to get ’em around behind us. Them Texas boys of your’n look to be comin’ down the road yonder to meet us.” He gestured with the gun barrel through the dark trees. “We’ll be ready for ’em.”
“Where you from, Yank?” Bass asked.
The man stared at Reeves squarely before looking into the fire. “Kansas, mostly,” he said. “Rode with General Lane’s Jayhawkers. He didn’t much cotton to secessionists… or slave owners. Called himself an ‘abolitionist.’”
“That why you rode with him? You uh…ab-bol-lishnest?”
The Yankee threw back his head and laughed. He stood and walked out to the edge of the firelight to take his own piss, chuckling to himself as he did so.
When he came back to the fire, he sat again opposite Reeves, stirred the coals with a stick, threw on another piece of wood.
“You even know what that means, boy? Abolitionist? “
“Sho’ I does,” Bass answered, a little indignant. “It mean freein’ slaves.”
“Seems to me the only freed men is the dead ones,” his captor said. He paused to stir the fire some more, looked at Bass. “I’ve personally freed a few myself,” he said with a grin and a wink.
“Naw, I rode with Lane because he offered me the job,” he continued. “Pay wasn’t much, but it kept me out of jail. I needed that more than money at the time.
“Still, sayin’ it’s legal to own a man don’t seem right to me. Sure as hell don’t believe I’d put up with anyone claimin’ they owned me.”
Silence fell between the pair again. The haunting sound of a harmonica drifted in with the cold night air. Men’s voices echoed through the black forest; voices in calm conversation and some laughter, distant but clear like coming across a still river at night.
“”Whas yo name, then?” Bass asked. Another long pause followed before the Yankee answered.
“I got several names. Go by Haycock in this here army, William Haycock. Back in Kansas some folks called me ‘Wild Bill.’ Called me that because of the shape of my nose, made fun of how it swoops out sorta like a duck’s bill. I didn’t much like it at first, made a few callin’ me that pay. But now I believe I like it…yes sir, believe I do. You can call me Wild Bill.”
Bass nodded, and grinned back at the man. “Wild Bill,” he repeated.
“You realize I’m only telling you this ’cause you’ll be dead before sundown tomorrow.”
Bass looked cold-eyed at Haycock. “You gone kill me, Wild Bill?” he asked.
Haycock laughed again. “Naw, I ain’t gonna kill you, Bass. I’m gonna let you go. But boys see a nigger runnin’ free through these here woods, I figure one side or t’other’s bound to shoot your ass. Ain’t that what we’re fightin’ for? To set your likes free?” He cocked an eyebrow and grinned at his captive.
Bass stared back at Haycock. After a bit, he said to him, “You frees me, Wild Bill, how you know I ain’t finds myself a gun an’ free yo’ ass?”

I'm a native Oklahoman, born in the small town of Miami in 1945. I earned my bachelor's degree in English from the University of Tulsa in 1970. As a Vietnam Era veteran, I served with the U.S. Army's 7th Infantry Division near the Korean DMZ from 1967 to 1968. Fresh out of college I worked as a teacher and coach, but transitioned into the business world after a few years where I morphed into an IT geek. My wife and I live in the Tulsa suburban city of Broken Arrow where we've spent the past 30 years raising our family. Now a full-time writer, my books include GAME, a '70's era sports inspiration novel; Legends of Tsalagee, a novel of mystery, romance, and adventure in a small town; and Red Lands Outlaw, the Ballad of Henry Starr, a historical novel set in the turn of the 20th Century Indian Territory.

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Fairy Eyeglasses
Fairy Senses- Book 1
By Emily Martha Sorensen
Genre: Children's, Middle Grade Fantasy

About the Book
When Cassie finds a magic pair of glasses that allow her to see fairies, she has to figure out where they came from . . . and what the fairies want her to do with them.
A 12,000 word children's fantasy story.

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Fairy Compass
Fairy Senses Book 2


About the book
Daisy wanted to be able to see fairies. But when she comes across an old compass, she gains the ability to sense them magnetically instead.
A 12,000 word children's fantasy story.

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Fairy Earmuffs
Fairy Senses Book 3


About the Book
Amanda doesn't think she's slow, but everyone else seems to. When she finds a pair of magic earmuffs that allow her to hear fairies, everything changes.
A 12,000 word children's fantasy story.

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Fairy Barometer
Fairy Senses Book 4

About the Book
When Maricela's grandmother comes to stay, she finds a magic barometer that gives her the sense of fairy pressure. But more might be going on than she realizes.
A 12,000 word children's fantasy story.

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​Fairy Pox
Fairy Senses Book 5

About the Book
Bianca thinks she has the worst fairy sense ever. But when she decides to brave her task, she starts to learn the incredible power of itch.
A 12,000 word children's fantasy story.

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Fairy Slippers
Fairy Senses Book 6


About the Book
Sunflower's always been good at everything. But her brand new gymnastics slippers are throwing everything off, because they give her the sense of proprioception.
A 12,000 word children's fantasy story.

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Fairy Lunchbox
Fairy Senses Book 7


About the Book
When Georgina finds a magical lunchbox, she thinks she's going to get the sense of fairy taste! But instead, she gets hunger.
A 12,000 word children's fantasy story.

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Hi! I'm Emily Martha Sorensen!
I'm a huge fan of science fiction and fantasy, and I write clean books that are intelligent, optimistic, and happy. I write for all age levels. Picture books? Got one. Chapter books? Got a series. Middle grade? Sure thing. Young adult? Most definitely. New adult? Working on a series right now. ALL of them, no matter what the age of the main character, are both intelligent and clean. I believe that children deserve smart books, teenagers deserve fun books, and adults deserve imagination, a sense of wonder, and books aimed at them that are G or PG.
I have two comics: A Magical Roommate, which is complete (it's actually G-rated new adult, and was always intended to be that way: I started it when I was eighteen and couldn't find clean stories about people my age), and To Prevent World Peace, which is currently ongoing (think a magical girl series from the point of view of the villains).
I'm a bit of an oddball. I refuse to write what's popular: I write the stories I believe should exist. If those happen to become popular, I would be delighted. I won't change what I write just because the crowd's doing it. I'm pretty flexible about which forms my stories take, though.
My husband is Benjamin A. Sorensen, who writes fantasy. His first book is Prophecy, and it's pretty awesome. He's a wordsmith, and he usually writes standalone epic fantasy.

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