When Doctor Tudor Cornwall, Reader in Criminal Studies at the University of Wessex, arrives for a semester as Visiting Fellow at his old friend's university down under, he is met with a nasty surprise. Indeed the surprises keep coming and they get nastier as the plot unravels. An exotic cast of suspicious academics includes an ecologically-correct axeman, a professor of wine and the world's leading authority on an esoteric form of Australian hedgehog. Then there is the student body to consider, too.This mystery began as a homage to Michael Innes's Death at the President's Lodgings, written when he too was a visiting academic in Australia, but this sparkling novel is emphatically set in the twenty-first century. Views: 66
The Circuit Rider's Rhineland Mail-Order Bride ...Can Practical Nathalie Find Love in the Strong Arms of an Intellectual Dreamer?Nathalie Luxe is a young German girl alone in New York in this sweet historical romance. When her livelihood is threatened, she is ready to put her business sense and work ethic to the test.Silas Jacobson scoffs at her idea. "I don't want your money, or your pledge, Fraulein Luxe. But don't worry; from the goodness of my heart, I've included a few investment recommendations in your paperwork. I'm sure one of them will work out for you."Isadore Maduro is a Jewish American with his head in the clouds and a law degree to finish while he struggles to keep the family business afloat. In debt to Silas and in need of a wife, he requests an extension and an introduction to a bride willing to join him in South Dakota.Will Isadore keep his agreement to stick only to business? How will Nathalie manage when he is unexpectedly appointed to ride the circuit as a temporary judge?When she needs him the most, will Isadore's commitment to justice override the love he feels for her? Views: 66
“Because I’m an inbetweener—and the only one anyone knows of at that—the dead turn to me when something is askew between them and the living. Usually, it’s something mundane like a suicide gone wrong or someone revived that shouldn’ta been.”Carlos Delacruz is one of the New York Council of the Dead’s most unusual agents—an inbetweener, partially resurrected from a death he barely recalls suffering, after a life that’s missing from his memory. He thinks he is one of a kind—until he encounters other entities walking the fine line between life and death.One inbetweener is a sorcerer. He’s summoned a horde of implike ngks capable of eliminating spirits, and they’re spreading through the city like a plague. They’ve already taken out some of NYCOD’s finest, leaving Carlos desperate to stop their master before he opens up the entrada to the Underworld—which would destroy the balance between the living and the dead.But in uncovering this man’s identity, Carlos confronts the truth of his own life—and death…About the AuthorDaniel José Older is a Brooklyn-based writer, editor, and composer. He facilitates workshops on storytelling, music, and antioppression organizing at public schools, religious houses, and universities. He co-edited the anthology Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History and his short stories and essays have appeared in Tor.com, Salon, BuzzFeed, the New Haven Review, PANK, Apex and Strange Horizons. Views: 66
The TESS series continues with Admiral Bear McMoran continuing to fend off people and organizations bent on destroying the fledgling Terran Exploratory Space Service he founded with his teammates. His former Q-Kink team are now wrestling to control the burgeoning structure of a true space organization capable of moving mankind further and further off planet. McMoran along with Admirals Wong and O'Hara are discovering that doing so means dangers from larger and larger enemies who desperately want TESS secrets - ultimately embroiling TESS in a Chinese Civil war just to rescue their test pilot, Colonel Jeeter. The TESS secrets they guard are themselves growing too...as an unexpected player within TESS discovers a new use for the Petrovski Effect that is beyond the space drive - a critical tool which if leveraged soon enough may turn the tide in a final, climatic battle of survival. Views: 66
RetailSara Blaedel--Denmark's "Queen of Crime"--brings her #1 bestseller THE FORGOTTEN GIRLS to North America.THE FORGOTTEN GIRLSFour days later, Louise Rick still had no answers.The body of an unidentified woman was discovered in a local forest. A large, unique scar on one side of her face should have made the identification easy, but nobody has reported her missing. As the new commander of the Missing Persons Department, Louise risks involving the media by releasing a photo of the victim, hoping to find someone who knew her.Louise's gamble pays off: an older woman phones to say that she recognizes the woman as Lisemette, a child she once cared for in the state mental institution many years ago. Lisemette, like the other children in the institution, was abandoned by her family and branded a "forgotten girl." But Louise soon discovers something more disturbing: Lisemette had a twin, and both girls were issued death certificates more than thirty years ago.Aided by her friend journalist Camilla Lind, Louise finds that the investigation takes a surprising and unsettling turn when it brings her closer to her childhood home. And as she uncovers more crimes that were committed--and hidden--in the forest, she is forced to confront a terrible link to her own past that has been carefully concealed. Views: 66
Book 10 in the Bestselling Mellow Summers Cozy / Paranormal Mystery Series.
The Candle Shoppe has been robbed!
Mel has just returned from her romantic getaway with Greg, but all is not well in the college town she lives in. When opening the Candle Shoppe the next morning, she finds that it has been ransacked, but nothing is missing. While investigating why someone would break into the store, but not take anything, Mel learns of a secret that goes back 20 years.
To add to her troubles, someone tries to murder Detective Shorts and an up and coming journalist, who does not believe in mediums or ghosts, plans on exposing Mel as a fraud.
Can Mel solve this head twister of a mystery, and save her reputation, before it claims her as well? Views: 66
Sometimes the past bleeds into the future. Bess, a wild party girl running from herself, literally falls victim to her demons when she collapses in the most unexpected of places.Lane, a tightly wound, up-and-coming CEO who can’t seem to stop enabling his brother, doesn’t know what hit him when Bess falls at his feet and into his life. It was a night she doesn’t remember, and one he can’t forget. But rather than stay and help the needy college coed, Lane decides to teach his brother a long overdue lesson––a decision that later comes back to haunt him and only adds fury to the transgressions of his past he is already fleeing from. Years later, Bess and Lane meet again. She doesn’t know him, and he doesn’t share that he knows what happened on that ill-fated night when she almost died. After all, he has a web of complicated lies from his own youth to protect. Both are seeking salvation in the arms of others and ignoring the truth—that the only road to redemption lies in confronting your past. When the past and present collide, is there any chance at redemption? Views: 66
In this collection of spine-chilling tales, a doll comes to life and haunts a little girl, a young writer only has one hundred words to let others know about an approaching danger, and a boy is trapped in an underground bunker with spooky people who have been missing for years and years. Views: 66
This is the first book in a series. Each installment will revolve around 20k words. This is also a dark story. There is no HEA planned for this. Mature audiences only. Nero 'Swing' Rader thought that doing the club's wet-work would be easy. He got to do what he loved best and the way he wanted; alone. Never one to turn down the club president's request to take out a mark, he finds himself at odds when the next mark is Alaska Winslow. No women and no children was a code he always lived by. But when the Tidals & Anchors MC has unanimously voted to take her down, he'll have to do what he does best. What he doesn't know is that this is just the beginning. Someone has set him up and a masked assailant seems to be hellbent on inflicting as much pain on him as he has on others. Can the most feared outlaw in the club figure out who he’s wronged in time to save his own life? One thing he knows for sure; whoever set him up will have hell to pay if he can find a way to keep himself alive.** Views: 66
*Dear Author,
Mateo is the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen. He lives in my building, but I didn’t think he would ever notice me. I’m shy, I’m a geek and I’m probably too old for him. The other day he passed me in the hall and winked at me. Of course I completely clammed up, blushed and rushed by him. I can’t even say hi to the man without being completely flustered. But I can’t get him out of my mind.
*
**Photo Description:**
A guy with golden skin, washboard abs and a scruffy, sexy grin is staring off into space. He looks like he’s thinking about something hot as he lifts up his sleeveless shirt.
This story was written as a part of the M/M Romance Group's "**Love’s Landscapes**" event. Group members were asked to write a story prompt inspired by a photo of their choice. Authors of the group selected a photo and prompt that spoke to them and wrote a short story.
This story may contain sexually explicit content and is **intended for adult readers**. It may contain content that is disagreeable or distressing to some readers. The M/M Romance Group strongly recommends that each reader review the General Information section before each story for story tags as well as for content warnings. Views: 66
Andy Sommerville seems no different than others in his rural Virginia community, but what sets him apart is that his best friend is an angel. The angel is God's answer to a childhood prayer Andy offered to a twinkling star that his deceased mother once called "the door to heaven." The first angelic proclamation instructs Andy to find the wooden keepsake box in his grandparents' attic. Over the years, he directs Andy to fill it with apparently meaningless objects from twelve people with who Andy randomly crosses paths. Andy's world is turned upside down when a brutal attack leaves Andy burned and the boy he loved as a son dead. At this crucial juncture, the angel abandons him to loneliness and pain. All that remains is the wooden box Andy has always kept safe, and a new angel, who will use its contents to reveal truth to him as a result, he discovers the defining truth of his life, new hope in the community he loves, and... Views: 66
Amish country in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, has always been a place of quiet beauty—until a shocking murder shatters the peace, and leaves a troubled detective picking up the pieces...After her husband is murdered, Detective Elizabeth Harris turns in her NYPD badge and moves back home, hoping that a quiet life in remote Pennsylvania Dutch country will help her overcome the dark memories of her ten years in New York. But when a beautiful, scantily clad "English" girl is found dead in the barn of a prominent Amish family, Elizabeth knows that she's uncovered an evil that could shake the community to its core.Elizabeth's boss is convinced this was the work of an "English," as outsiders are called in Lancaster County. But Elizabeth isn't so sure. All she's missing is an actual lead—until another body is found: this time, a missing Amish girl. Now Elizabeth must track down a killer with deep ties to a community that always protects its own—no... Views: 66
