Decades of deception rule a land built on mystic traditions, shrouded fables, and heroic legends. A village bent by the tyranny of an oppressive Overlord rallies behind the single, strong-willed man who can save them from complete destruction.Decades of deception rule a land built on mystic traditions, shrouded fables, and heroic legends. A village bent by the tyranny of an oppressive Overlord rallies behind the single, strong-willed man who can save them from absolute destruction. His name is Ralic, the son of Ralic the 11th and chosen liberator of his people. Armed with the Sword of Destiny, the only weapon powerful enough to destroy the evil Overlord, Ralic seeks the hidden, dark castle tucked away in the furthest recesses of a forbidden forest. A battle of brawn and wits ensues, quickly descending into chaos and madness for Ralic, his wife, Tenay, and the people of an imagined island. Nothing is as it appears, as years of treachery are set ablaze, destroying their world. Still, the people learn the value of holding fast to that which is true, honest, and sacred – the written word. In this fun, empowering short story discover the real meaning behind ‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’ Explore a blend of science fiction and fantasy, weaved through the illusionary words of writer Kell Inkston. Visit the website kellinkston.wordpress.com for free downloads and more magical tales of heroes, villains, and cherished lands. Views: 727
Recruited to help hunt for a serial killer who has gone without capture for forty years, her second week in Homicide Detective Beck Nash already finds herself at odds with veteran detective Mick Bishop, the original lead on the case. Instincts pulling Beck one way, Bishop’s experience leads them in another, and Beck will learn what it means to be the new blood on the case.Recruited to help hunt for a serial killer who has gone without capture for forty years, her second week in Homicide Detective Beck Nash already finds herself at odds with veteran detective Mick Bishop, the original lead on the case. Instincts pulling Beck one way, Bishop’s experience leads them in another, and Beck will learn what it means to be the new blood on the case.Meanwhile, at home, Beck’s brother has come to crash at her apartment under troubling circumstances, stirring demons from their past they would both rather forget.21 Weeks is a fast-paced police procedural thriller series that ramps up in intensity with each victim that falls until its explosive final week.Warning: This series is about a serial killer. There will be violence. There will be language. There will be other adult things. It is intended for a mature audience. Views: 726
Can a camp change your life? Drew liked his fine just the way it was. Jake was miserable and knew camp would make it worse. Dara was chasing her life’s dream…or was it someone else’s dream? Camp brought them together, along with others. A challenge, an act of kindness, a simple question, or something else entirely would set change in motion. And then there would be choices to make.Can a camp change your life? Drew liked his fine just the way it was. At almost 15, he would probably be the oldest kid there, and he didn’t plan on wasting any part of summer break paddling a canoe or making lanyards. He would chill and sleep and do whatever he liked. Now, that’s a plan! Jake was in trouble. One of his teachers said he was trouble. His mom was forcing him to go, his dad was long gone, and there was no one he could turn to…or so he thought. Dara was chasing her life’s dream…or was it someone else’s dream? Who wouldn’t want to be in the Olympics, right? But her dad pushed and pushed, and it would be a relief to get away from home for just a little while. There were other kids, different people, different lives, and camp would bring them together. A challenge, an act of kindness, a simple question, or something else entirely would set change in motion. And then there would be choices to make. Views: 726
Phyllis Lund is a lawyer with her own firm out of Minneapolis. She also has a night job, as it were, fighting for environmental causes.This time around, she and her retired investigative reporter friend have found a story much bigger than they're used to...one that involves a military secret, and a trap they can't see. A trap built specifically for them.Mae and Ben are polar opposites. They live and work on a cotton plantation in the deep South of Georgia. Mae is thought to be nameless, and commands high respect, while Ben is clumsy and a coward. But when Mr. Martin shows up, Mae and Ben are thrown into a whirlwind of decisions. The risk of death and recapture, hang over their heads. Will they run to freedom, or will they stay, where their stories are. Views: 726
In what could only be considered taboo, this Star Wars FanFiction takes us to planet Earth! Where, Jacob, a young human in Chicago, is befriended by a Sith, Darth Harest. Her hopes of adding him to a new struggle of the Sith against the Jedi Order is confronted by Jedi Salvitor; whom is also on his own mission to recruit humans to fight an emerging Sith power on Earth!Lynda Lassiter is eighteen years old, she has been hired by the CIA as an Operative Agent. Her very first assignment is to act like a sixteen year old girl on a cabin cruiser. She is to help another Agent in getting information out of Arab teenagers. When this assignment goes bad and everyone is killed but Lynda, she is upgraded to a Field Agent eventually ending up with her being assigned to Afghanistan. There she notices that young girls as young as eight are being taken from their families and sold into prostitution. She vows to end this practice and uses the U.S. Army to help stop the practice. This assignment also blows up in her face.Lynda marries another Agent so that she can adopt one of the small girls and her life seems to straighten out. But things go well only for so long. When her husband is killed in a shoot out she begans a new campaign to free missing young girls in Aruba. It isn’t long until she realizes that she is pregnant with her dead husbands baby. This doesn’t stop her for long. The only problem is, someone is trying to kill her. She finds out that a Sheik in Iran is after her for killing his son. The climax of the book occurs with her meeting the Sheik and his security team and Lynda finds herself in a deadly gun battle. Views: 726
After receiving three new patients at the mental institution he runs, Dr. Bradburn is immediately visited by an agent of the Tyranny who insists one of the men is a radical. Only by asking each patient a series of questions will the supposed threat be identified. But the questions Dr. Bradburn is told to ask will make him rethink everything he knows about the world around him.After receiving three new patients at the mental institution he runs, Dr. Bradburn is immediately visited by an agent of the Tyranny who insists one of the men is a radical. Only by asking each patient a series of questions will the supposed threat be identified. But the questions Dr. Bradburn is told to ask will make him rethink everything he knows about the world around him:- Do you believe in time travel?- Is the world a better place today than it was a hundred years ago?- If you could go back in time and change any event, what would you change?A Theta Timeline short story. Views: 725
Stuntman Adam Campbell returns home to Riverbend, Texas, after being seriously injured in a movie stunt gone wrong. He settles in to heal at his family's ranch, where his four brothers, famous trick riders, train horses.
Adam is stunned to find Bailey Farrell working there—she was the shy girl who'd helped Adam graduate high school so he could run off to Hollywood. Except the budding Bailey, with whom Adam had a brief but intense affair, has blossomed into a beautiful woman. Now the sparks that had once ignited between them threaten to explode.
Adam is beaten-up, broken-down, and has lost his nerve—the stunt that injured him also killed his best friend. The only one he can turn to is Bailey, but will Bailey, who has come back to Riverbend to lick her wounds after a painful divorce, be willing to help him again?
Book 1 of Riding Hard. A 230-page (approx) novel—20 chapters, plus bonus sneak peek at Grant's book and a recipe for Mrs. Ward's Harvest Pie. Views: 724
When a young troll named Hawthorn is stolen from Fairyland by the Red Wind, he becomes a changeling – a human boy -- in the strange city of Chicago, a place no less bizarre and magical than Fairyland when seen through trollish eyes. Left with a human family, Hawthorn struggles with his troll nature and his changeling fate. But when he turns twelve, he stumbles upon a way back home, to a Fairyland much changed from the one he remembers. Hawthorn finds himself at the center of a changeling revolution--until he comes face to face with a beautiful young Scientiste with very big, very red assistant.
Time magazine has praised Catherynne M. Valente's Fairyland books as "one of the most extraordinary works of fantasy, for adults or children, published so far this century." In this fourth installment of her saga, Valente 's wisdom and wit will charm readers of all ages. Views: 724
The Five Stages of Falling in Love is a Contemporary Romance.
Elizabeth Carlson is living in the pits of hell- also known as grief.
Her husband of eight years, the father of her four children and the love of her life, died from cancer. Grady's prognosis was grim, even from the start, but Liz never gave up hope he would survive. How could she, when he was everything to her?
Six months later, she is trying to pick up the pieces of her shattered life and get the kids to school on time. Both seem impossible. Everything seems impossible these days.
When Ben Tyler moves in next door, she is drowning in sorrow and pain, her children are acting out, and the house is falling apart. She has no time for curious new friends or unwanted help, but Ben gives her both. And he doesn't just want to help her with yard work or cleaning the gutters. Ben wants more from Liz. More than she's capable of ever giving again.
As Liz mourns her dead husband and works her way through the five stages of grief, she finds there's more of her heart to give than she thought possible. And as new love takes hold, she peels away the guilt and heartache, and discovers there's more to life than death. Views: 724
A free short story that preludes to the "The Prometheus Cycle: The Star, the Sword, and the Mirror," this first person narrative details a slave's life in the northern provinces of the Realm.This free short story is a prelude to the novel "The Prometheus Cycle: The Star, the Sword, and the Mirror" and details the origins of a character from the novel. This story takes place a few years before the events of the novel, and is the only first person narration of any of the short stories, which centers on a slave's life in the Realm. Views: 724
The first of his family to go to college, Anil Patel, the golden son, carries the weight of tradition and his family’s expectations when he leaves his tiny Indian village to begin a medical residency in Dallas, Texas, at one of the busiest and most competitive hospitals in America. When his father dies, Anil becomes the de facto head of the Patel household and inherits the mantle of arbiter for all of the village’s disputes. But he is uneasy with the custom, uncertain that he has the wisdom and courage demonstrated by his father and grandfather. His doubts are compounded by the difficulties he discovers in adjusting to a new culture and a new job, challenges that will shake his confidence in himself and his abilities.
Back home in India, Anil’s closest childhood friend, Leena, struggles to adapt to her demanding new husband and relatives. Arranged by her parents, the marriage shatters Leena’s romantic hopes and eventually forces her to make a desperate choice that will hold drastic repercussions for herself and her family. Though Anil and Leena struggle to come to terms with their identities thousands of miles apart, their lives eventually intersect once more—changing them both and the people they love forever. Views: 724
My mind is more than I have left.I’m not alright,But I’m okay.You’re gonna leave me alone,Anyway.The air is dry, the heat unbearable, and Lord Malspire Ronsteim is being flogged. Fractious and rebellious they say, yet he considers himself just craven and weakly, the crippled son of a Lord Admiral and pale twin to the heroic Ajator. His bent body is tied to the frame where he is lashed to within an inch of his life. The spiteful and bitter Captain Crosp, wants Malspire's life.His wounds heal and Malspire befriends the crew who teach him the ways of the sea. Crosp is enraged and seeks yet another opportunity to rid himself of the cripple. Malspire is called upon to rescue a merchant from pirates. The fight is desperate and Malspire can tell that they are losing when he spies the enemy captain. He challenges the man to a duel. Although vastly out-skilled, Malspire is lucky or fate has a greater plan, for he survives and saves the beautiful Veinara with whom he falls in love. He knows he is bent and ugly but she seems to like him and offers him the hope. Malspire is not to win her heart however as his brother, Ajator, is awaiting him at port. When the perfect Ajator and Veinara's eyes meet, Malspire knows he has lost her. Out of loyalty and pride, the heart broken Malspire keeps his feelings to himself.The Wraith Deep is the name of the steam frigate taken as prize and given to the now newly promoted Captain Malspire. The ship is a wreck and the ragtag crew he is given hardly enough to even set sail let alone fight the rebellion, yet Malspire is elated and high on dreams of adventure and discovery.Malspire puts to sea in his new ship. The rebels are amassing a fleet for an attack on the Empire’s western most port, but the Empire needs more intelligence. Malspire plans to take a rebel codebook. With the ship of a privateer the plan is simple: Sail into a rebel port in disguise and snatch one from under their very noses. Madness perhaps, but Malspire has little to lose and much to prove.Through cunning and luck, Malspire and his ship make it to the rebel port where he tricks a rebel officer, assumes his identity and steals aboard a rebel battleship. Here Malspire is forced to kill in order to take the book. Trapped and out of options he climbs over the side of the ship and swims for safety and comes within only a single breath of drowning. He has a copy of the codebook, so the Wraith Deep makes full speed for home but not before witnessing the rebel armada about to launch its strike.Pushing the ship and crew beyond all tolerance, Malspire takes the news directly to the High Admiral aboard the flagship, the Grand Oak, who together with the enigmatic secret agent of the Emperor, Lord Mornight Pavantu, orders Malspire to capture a rebel watchtower so that the Imperial Fleet can ambush the enemy.With the aid of a dainty beauty more deadly than arsenic, Malspire and his men overcome the watchtower. Malspire however is not satisfied, and decides to join the fleet. The night-time, epic battle that follows is a thunderous vision in black and white of hell and fire, and sees Malspire and his men make the ultimate sacrifice by using their ship as a battering ram to stop the rebel flagship from destroying the Grand Oak. Victory is theirs.Malspire, now a hero, and his victorious crew return home where fate twists and turns its unjust course. He is instantly placed under arrest by Lord Mornight Pavantu! The crime however is not Malspire's but his brother's. Ajator has attacked the master of the Secret Servants. Ajator is called a traitor and Malspire is now under the burning scrutiny of the feared Secret Servants. Pavantu however does not suspect Malpire, and helps him escape.Malspire is close to panic. His beloved brother, the great hero, is being called a traitor. Not only this, but Veinara arrives in the hope that Malspire will search for Ajator.Together with his crew and the now pregnant Veinara whom Malspire still secretly loves, they set off in search of Ajator. He must find his brother before the Empire does! Views: 723
This short prequel novella tells the story of James McKenna and Liz Caldera, and how they came to blend their families on the McKenna Ranch near Yellowstone National Park. These sweet to sexy stories give you a glimpse into Montana rodeo and ranch life, and of course, provide lots of contemporary cowboy love and romance.Welcome to McKenna Ranch!Meet Brody, Callie, Mercer and Parker—the four siblings in the clan of James McKenna, a Montana rancher. Growing up on the ranch was a great life, until Callie and Parker’s mother passed away, leaving James a widower. It wasn’t long, however, before he remarried, bringing stepmother Liz into their lives, along with her son, Brody. Soon, James and Liz added a new McKenna to the family, when daughter Mercer was born.Brothers and sisters are prone to disagreements and this Brady Bunch family of step, half, and full siblings is no exception. As they grew up on the ranch, they learned values that stuck with them throughout their lives—even though they may live apart as adults. But there is one thing that will bring them all back together. Their father’s only wish.Beginning with a short prequel novella that tells the story of James McKenna and Liz Caldera, and how they came to blend their families, these stories put you on the McKenna Ranch near Yellowstone National Park. This series leads off with Jan Scarbrough’s Brody, with Maddie James’ Callie to follow, while the siblings begin the long road home. These sweet to sexy stories give you a glimpse into Montana rodeo and ranch life, and of course, provide lots of contemporary cowboy love and romance.The Montana McKennas: Prequelby Jan Scarbrough and Maddie JamesThe Long Road Home:Brody, Book One, by Jan ScarbroughCallie, Book Two, by Maddie JamesParker, Book Three, by Maddie JamesMercer, Book Four, by Jan Scarbrough Views: 723
The life we are faced with situations that become part of our inner selves and become poetry sometimes sweet and gentle like memories of a happy childhood, other painful and sad when we are exposed to the lack of what we hold most dear.The collection of poems Different Times captures these feelings.Enjoy the readingNot much needs to be said about different perspectives on the world. Can, however, an individual truly see things in the light of different suns? There is richness in diversity, and the most wealthy people of all are those who have seen the world as it is shone upon by the many suns. These five poems explore the theme. 470 words. Views: 723
Henry Lytten — a spy turned academic and writer — sits at his desk in Oxford in 1962, dreaming of other worlds.
He embarks on the story of Jay, an eleven-year-old boy who has grown up within the embrace of his family in a rural, peaceful world — a kind of Arcadia. But when a supernatural vision causes Jay to question the rules of his world, he is launched on a life-changing journey.
Lytten also imagines a different society, highly regulated and dominated by technology, which is trying to master the science of time travel.
Meanwhile — in the real world — one of Lytten's former intelligence colleagues tracks him down for one last assignment.
As he and his characters struggle with questions of free will, love, duty and the power of the imagination, Lytten discovers he is not sure how he wants his stories to end, nor even who is imaginary… Views: 723
