This is the second edition of the free short fantasy, sci-fi and horror story e-zine Bad Moon, this month featuring dragons, near future antics in a broken Europe, a special featurette excerpt from the excellent gaslight romance novel Berlintoxication, another reworked Grimm tale, a sci-fi love story, seeing as how it's just been Valentine's Day and everything, and more!Evan has a good job, good friends, and very little to worry about. In fact, none of the people who live in the village have much to worry about, really. When was it then, that the impulse to shake the tree became so pervasive? Was it really a sense of social responsibility? Was there really a debt owed to those who had no voice? Aren’t they the same people who don’t care enough to speak up? He has too much at stake to take overt risks or public positions on the proposals for new development projects, it is too hard to pluck the ones that will really hurt from the ones that are really needed. His position as a biologist with the US Fish & Wildlife Service’s endangered species division gives him an insight to the upcoming plans. He knows what’s coming, and he knows who is behind it - he just needs a champion to fight for the cause. The village is a tight knit group, they have known each other for along time, long enough to know each other well, long enough to know what each other is capable of, and what they are capable of tolerating. Evan knows very well what Desmond cares about, and what he doesn’t. He understands what his best friends want and what they feel obligated to do, and he understands the difference. But this time it may be worth pushing the line, it may be worth risking friendship for principle. What he needs is a fresh candidate, what they all need is someone who cares enough to step up. . . or someone who really doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks- that might work just as well. Since they don’t have the perfect candidate, they will have to create one. Goodenough for Government!A humorous and honest peek into the real lives and relationships of modern men, Boiled Frogs with Mock Toast is about taking the time to notice what is going on in the face of the overwhelming boredom of responsible living. It is the story of what happens when we squeeze leadership from reluctant friends, ask for them to express opinions that we know we will disagree with, and create expectations where they never existed. It is the story of those who care, and their influence on those who don’t. Views: 670
A war is raging amid the unknown. Both sides, light and dark, are gathering their warriors to do battle.The Warrior’s Beckoning is a two-part horror thriller with an allegorical storyline.Connected by a dream, a team of ghost hunters is gathered and sent into a mysterious forest. Once a town, it is now inhabited by only darkness and sorrow.After finding himself at the mercy of the shadow creatures, the team leader is rescued by men he does not know, men who were called by the same dream. But as the ghost hunter plays his camera footage, a priest reads the diary that unleashes the Spirits of Decay. These cloaked figures surround them, their scythes sapping the team of their spiritual energy.Told through a series of diary entries, The Warrior’s Beckoning is an evocative story about the epic cosmic battle between light and dark. The first part of this chilling tale chronicles the awakening of the mysterious forces, while the second part tells of the arrival of the Warrior.A thrilling page-turner filled with unexpected twists and turns, author Patrick Howard’s haunting paranormal narrative will keep you enthralled from the first sentence to the last. Views: 670
BIG NUMBERS, an Austin Carr Mystery by Jack Getze. 1st in series. "Darkly comic, with an engaging protagonist." — T.J. MacGregor, Edgar Award winner, author of The Tango Key Mysteries.Who wants to kill Austin Carr? Everybody. After all, he's a stockbroker.About to be ingeniously murdered — snatched off a private fishing yacht by a live, six-hundred-pound giant bluefin — a down-on-his-luck stockbroker recalls the events and bad choices that precipitated his gruesome end. His killer — Mr. Blabbermouth — might be any of a dozen suspects, including a steroid-crazed wrestler angry over Austin's poor investment recommendations, a jealous sales manager often the target of Austin's jokes, and a widow with long red hair, sexy curves, and plenty of secrets. Or could there be another suspect Austin overlooked entirely until he stepped on board that yacht?Praise for BIG NUMBERS …"Darkly comic, with an engaging protagonist." — T.J. MacGregor, Edgar Award winner, author of The Tango Key Mysteries"BIG NUMBERS is a gritty, sexy, violent, and funny book." — Liz Clifford at Reviewed by Liz"Wonderful characters … well-written, entertaining … a good read." — Connie Anderson for Armchair Interviews"Indiana Jones has his whip and Luke Skywalker has his light saber, but for Austin Carr, his full-boat grin is the weapon of choice." — Melissa for Lou Reads"Jack Getze started his career as a newspaper reporter. As a result, BIG NUMBERS is lean and mean, with not a word wasted. A truly fun, genuinely funny read." — Lisa Guidarini for Bluestalking Reader"Served up with an edginess reminiscent of good noir, sprinkled with a salty dash of pulp fiction plot twists, and delivered in a sardonic voice that bites like the afterburner of a Herradura Gold shooter, Jack Getze hands us a new series it's impossible to ignore." — Susan Goodwill, author of Brigadoom Views: 670
The genetic secret to all life in the universe revealed, and so begins the countdown to Armageddon.For over seven hundred years the harvesters had been voyaging into deep space, but each journey was becoming longer, because suitable planets were getting fewer and more difficult for the scouts to discover. Terrillia was a dying planet and nothing could be done to prevent the inevitable.The genetic secret to all life in the universe revealed, and so begins the countdown to Armageddon.For over seven hundred and fifty years the harvesters had been voyaging into deep space, but each journey was becoming longer and more dangerous, because suitable planets were getting fewer and more difficult for the scouts to discover. Terrillia was a dying planet and nothing could be done to prevent the inevitable.Master Maulik carried the responsibilities of feeding his race with pride, and he performed his harvesting duties with diligence and compassion... yet his heart longed for adventure.But it is often dangerous to long, for sometimes the heart receives that which it desires most, and Maulik finds himself plunged into a game of political intrigue and brinkmanship that could alter the balance of power in his galaxy as rival species form an uneasy alliance.For the ultimate doom approaches.And as opposing factions draw together he finds himself a pawn in the great game, his only true ally, his new found friend, the Kressa.Discover how the story begins, the preparations for war, deceit and double dealing, plans within plans, the strangest of friendships... and an entire race reduced to the status of livestock. Views: 670
Modern-day Daniel is forced to go back to the early 1900s. Then he must assume the identities of six very different individuals in different decades and in different geographic locations in the world in order to work his way back to his own starting time and place.Time. Most would admit they find it at least somewhat intriguing. And many would confess they are utterly fascinated by it. You have probably been at a gathering of friends and heard someone pose questions like, “Where would you go, or whom would you want to meet, if you could go back in time?”Interesting questions, indeed. But, what if they were not questions? Or, even options? What if you were forced to go back in time? And, what if you didn’t get to choose where you would go, or whom you would meet?One evening, Daniel finds himself in that very predicament when he discovers his only option for continued existence is to walk through Sarah’s kitchen door and go back in time.For Daniel, time is no longer an option. In order to find his way home, he must first temporarily assume the identities of six very different people in different geographic locations in the world while traveling forward in time through the twentieth century. Join Daniel in his rare opportunity to experience life as a young Austrian man at the turn of the 20th Century, a teenage Polish servant girl in the 1930s, an Arab orphan boy in Syria in the 1940s, a blind middle-aged black man in the 1950s African Congo, a young battered mother of two in 1960s USA, and an elderly Southeast Asian farm woman in the 1970s. His life, and yours, will never be the same.And, of course, there are a few love stories that tie the entire adventure together. Views: 670
Rescuing a human child from the wreckage of a car crash is the beginning of a strange and exciting adventure for Mawei, a yeti who lives in the wilderness of Northern California. But the little human is not just in danger from the cold. Mawei finds out that there are other yetis who would stop at nothing to keep their world secret from even the smallest of humans…When a yeti named Mawei hears a car crash on a mountain road in Northern California, she decides to investigate. The wheels are still spinning on the half-crushed, upside down car at the bottom of the gorge. A man and woman have been killed in the wreck, but there is a child, alive and unharmed, hanging from a car seat in the back. Her name is Helena, she is six years old. With a snowstorm on the way, Mawei knows that the little girl won’t survive on her own. Mawei is breaking an ancient rule of yeti culture that forbids contact with humans, but she takes the child. Getting Helena back to the world of the humans turns out to be a lot harder than Mawei thought it would be, and when the wrong yetis find out what she's up to, the race is on to get the little human to safety before they can catch and kill her... Views: 670
For fans of Katie Flynn and Sheila Jeffries, Angel's Secret is an uplifting novel from the Queen of family saga, and author of Bicycles and Blackberries, Sheila Newberry.Suffolk, 1924.After the death of her fiancé in the field hospitals of France, Angel becomes nurse to the MacDonald family in the small village of Uffasham.Taking residence at the appropriately named Angel Inn, she is met by many new faces - and old ones, too. Edith, a fellow nurse from the war, while taking great interest in Angel's new life, refuses to let her forget her old one.As Angel grows closer to her employer, Robert, Edith threatens to expose a secret that could ruin everything . . .Can Angel ever be free to move on with her new life and her new family, or will the secrets of her past finally be revealed?'Reading a Sheila Newberry book is like having dinner with your mother in her warm and cosy kitchen. You can feel the love and care put into every juicy... Views: 669
Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox. Royal Tudor blood ran in her veins. Her mother was a Queen, her father an Earl, and she herself was the granddaughter, niece, cousin and grandmother of monarchs.
Beautiful and tempestuous, she created scandal not just once but twice by falling in love with unsuitable men. Fortunately the marriage arranged for her turned into a love match. Views: 669
In the spirit of Gretchen Rubin's megaseller The Happiness Project and Eric Weiner's The Geography of Bliss, a journalist embarks on a project to discover what it takes to love where you liveThe average restless American will move 11.7 times in a lifetime. For Melody Warnick, it was move #6, from Austin, Texas, to Blacksburg, Virginia, that threatened to unhinge her. In the lonely aftermath of unpacking, she wondered: Aren't we supposed to put down roots at some point? How does the place we live become the place we want to stay? This time, she had an epiphany. Rather than hold her breath and hope this new town would be her family's perfect fit, she would figure out how to fall in love with it—no matter what. How we come to feel at home in our towns and cities is what Warnick sets out to discover in This Is Where You Belong. She dives into the body of research around place attachment—the deep sense of connection that... Views: 669
In the work that has been judged the finest of his later novels, (printed here in Bennett's corrected version) Arnold Bennett gives us an unfogettable portrait of a miser and his wife. Henry Earlforward is a second-hand bookseller with a passion for money. He marries Violet Arb, a widow with a fortune of her own, yet he is eaten up by fear and greed. Set against the dark forces of avarice is the Earlford's maid, Elsie, whose love of life, generosity of spirit and warm humanity give Riceyman Steps a fine balance between hopelessness and optimism.'I closed the book at seven in the morning after the shortest sleepless night of my experience ... there I had "Bennett triumphant" without any doubt whatsoever' – Joseph Conrad Views: 669
