The Loop

Helen Ross is a 29-year-old biologist, sent into a hostile place to protect the wolves from those who seek to destroy them. She struggles for survival and for self-esteem, embarking on a love affair with the 18-year-old son of her most powerful opponent, brutal and charismatic rancher, Buck Calder.
Views: 279

Unmaking Grace

Family secrets run deep for Grace, a young girl growing up in Cape Town during the 1980s. Her family secrets spill over into adulthood, and threaten to ruin the respectable life she has built for herself. When an old childhood friend emerges after disappearing a decade earlier during a clash with apartheid riot police in the Cape Flats, where South Africa's coloured community makes its home, Grace's memories of her childhood come rushing back, and she is confronted, once again, with the loss that has shaped her. She has to face up to the truth or continue to live a lie—but the choice is not straightforward. Unmaking Grace is an intimate portrayal of violence, both personal and political, and its legacy on one person's life. It meditates on the long shadow cast by personal trauma, showing the inter-generational imprint of violence and loss on people's lives.
Views: 278

Plastic Tulips

The town of Portis doesn't fault Sophie Carter for gunning down Samantha Tosh in the local grocery store. Knowing that a copy of a younger, more beautiful you walked the streets around your home would drive anyone to murder. Nor was Samantha a person. She was only a synthetic, and Franklin Tosh should've known better than to think a clone could substitute for a human wife.Sophie Carter shakes after killing Samantha Tosh in the produce aisle of Diekemper's Grocery and Goods. She bakes cookies for town functions. Everyone in the community loves her like a grandmother. Sophie had never believed murder could germinate inside her. Yet she gunned down Samantha Tosh between the onions and avocados without hesitating. Franklin Tosh should not have ordered a clone made to match the young Sophie Carter he had fallen in love with so many lost years before. Sophie might have broken Franklin's heart so long ago, but she did not deserve to be haunted by that synthetic person whose never-aging beauty reminded Sophie of what she had once been. So Sophie Carter trembles as the world descends upon her small community of Portis, determined to decide if a synthetic's blood should be valued as much as any woman or man's.
Views: 276

The Courage of Captain Plum

The Courage Of Captain Plumb by James Curwood - is a fevered and high-pitched adventure story about a young man, Nathaniel Plum, battling against a colony of Mormons. The story takes place within 48 hours and includes many intense and graphic scenarios. Any profits made from the sale of this book will go towards supporting the Freeriver Community project, a project that aims to support community and encourage well-being. To learn more about the Freeriver Community project please visit the website- www.freerivercommunity.com
Views: 272

The Fledgling

Not typical parents, Orion and Elizabeth D'Capilla begin the important training of their son Marcus, late at night in the seedier parts of New York City. On the same night, Marcus by chance meets a classmate, Michele Smith. Marcus and Michele each have an important secret to protect. The chance meeting could prove dangerous for both Marcus and Michele, or perhaps lead to..?The Fledgling is the story of a 52-year-'young' vampire, receiving his first instructions in hunting from his parents, during a night out in New York City. But vampire is not actually the race of young Marcus D'Capilla; rather he is of the Sangrinista, more educated and civilized than the beastly lower class of vampires. After hunting, the family celebrate by attending a night club, where they will seek additional snacks before returning to their Manhattan apartment. By chance, young Marcus runs into a classmate, discovering she has her own secret to hide. An unlikely friendship develops.
Views: 267

Guarded Keepsakes

Jay Logan's fortune takes a turn for the better when he purchases the old Turner manse for a bargain. For Jay knows that the decaying Turner home, and its outbuildings in the surrounding acreage, brims with antiques that promise to put more than a little gold into his pocket. Only, Jay learns too late that so many collectibles have been gathered about that old, forgotten home for a reason.Jay Logan is an avid collector of the old and rare. From vintage toys to custom furniture, there is little that escapes Jay's attention so long as it is old. Jay pounces on opportunity when the decaying home of the Turner family is set before the auction block, and he purchases the estate, complete with all of the antiques that crowd the inner rooms, for a bargain. For the Turners were never known as a friendly kind, and many a rumor had been whispered about the lifestyle that family practiced behind all the scrap iron and car carcasses they gathered upon the yard. It seems no one wants to call that Turner manse home no matter the bargain. And so Jay Logan travels to his new estate with an empty trailer waiting to haul antique treasures back home, unaware that one last collector keeps his eye on all the keepsakes heaped upon the old Turner family's property.
Views: 267

Help the Witch

Inspired by our native landscapes, saturated by the shadows beneath trees and behind doors, listening to the run of water and half-heard voices, Tom Cox's first collection of short stories is a series of evocative and unsettling trips into worlds previously visited by the likes of M. R. James and E. F. Benson. Railway tunnels, the lanes and hills of the Peak District, family homes, old stones, shreds fluttering on barbed wire, night drawing in, something that might be an animal shifting on the other side of a hedge: Tom has drawn on his life-long love of weird fiction, folklore and nature's unregarded corners to write a collection of stories that will delight fans old and new, and leave them very uneasy about turning the reading lamp off.
Views: 265

Zombies Earning Their Hunger

Ollie Turner vows to ensnare the entire population of the small town of Beckmire into his servant ranks. He will lure them beneath his sway through the boxes of chocolate cakes and the pizza slices sold from his general store's register. Those remaining to claim Beckmire home are listless, lazy and dim, and so they present little challenge to a boneshaker working to multiply his zombies.Rose Pilger wakes every morning before the crack of dawn to peek between her window’s curtains upon the zombies who shuffle down the road running passed her home. She hates the zombies, for their limping souls represent the ruin that has befallen her town of Beckmire. If Rose had her way, she would forever hide in her home’s shadows, where she could gather amid all the treasure and trash her life has accumulated upon her floor, where she could whisper to her husband’s ghost. Only Rose runs dangerously low on food, and she is forced to make her own journey along that road that runs passed her home to reach ugly Ollie Turner’s general store. There, hunger forces Rose into a transaction that will reserve her own spot in that parade that each morning shambles by her home.
Views: 265

Mary, in Need of Belle

As the oldest of Kay's daughters, Mary feels it her obligation to protect her sisters who crowd the tight hallways of the trailer they call home. Mother Kay's husband regards Mary and her sisters with dangerous eyes, and Mary feels the footsteps of Belle creeping up behind her. Mary knows that if she cannot protect her sisters that Belle will discard her spirit to make whatever stand Mary cannot.Mary cannot deny that danger crowds whatever space in her trailer not occupied by one of her many younger sisters. She is old enough, and weary enough, to recognize the terrible appetite burning in the eyes of her mother's most recent husband. Mary might wish to ignore the peril, but old dame Queenie burns Belle's favorite, clove cigarettes, plays Belle's favorite songs, decorates the children in Belle's favorite costume jewelry. Mary understands that Queenie has no faith that she can protect her younger sisters, and Mary knows Queenie follows all the steps to summon Belle. And Mary knows there is no room for the both of them. For if Belle arrives to fight where she cannot, Mary understands how her soul will be cast outside to flutter in the chill wind.
Views: 260

Rooms Without Furniture

The stoning sickness has entered Mark Pence's home, banishing his father into the attic's secluded shadows. Stiffening as his limbs turn heavy and his skin morphs into stone, Mark's father warns not to open their door to the knock of that fool who travels the land promising healing. Only, Mark cannot forget how is father languishes in the attic, and his family's faith has never been so tested.Mark Pence serves as the head of the household after the stoning sickness falls upon his father, who suffers, isolated and hidden, in the family attic while he morphs into stone. With a stiffening tongue, Mark's father warns not to open their door to the fool who walks the land offering healing to anyone meek enough to accept such charity. Mark easily makes the promise, but the keeping of it proves difficult as his family's unity collapses. Mark struggles to respect the home his father built, struggles to find the true value in the homes of neighbors that surround him. Only Mark fears that all his father strove to build will crumble when that fool arrives to knock upon their front door.
Views: 259

The Messy Meerkat

Zoe loves living at her uncle's rescue zoo because there's always something exciting going on. And Zoe also has an amazing secret... She can actually TALK to the animals! Max the meerkat loves to dig tunnels and go exploring, and so do his baby brothers and sisters! With the big treasure hunt coming up, can Zoe find a way to keep the messy meerkat family out of trouble?
Views: 250

Witches Knickers

Life is a bit mad sometimes,what with weird witches,bonkers characters visiting their friends and the animals leaving me Christmas lists. But I've got my secret powers to help me - and do you like my new beard ?He comes back to stand in my closet sometimes, a shadow in the open door. He tells me stories. There was a boy. He lived at the lake, and he was Dad's friend."What was his name?" I ask him.Dad doesn't look at me. He looks anywhere else, and finally he says, "Franklin.""What happened to him?"Dad looks down at me and smiles, his eyes the color of the lake at night, dark and bottomless. "I don’t know.""Come on, Dad. I want to know.""No you don't," he tells me, and he tucks me in. But this time, he doesn’t go away."Dad, why did you go away?""You're tired," he says, and I can't stay awake anymore. I wake up a couple times, and he's still sitting there, holding down the corner of my mattress.
Views: 248

A Handicap of Shades

Lyle Davenport golfs for memories instead of birdies. The old course's clubhouse has vanished. His arms and back turn too stiff for a graceful swing, and Lyle realizes more tee drives arc behind him than fly in front of him. Still, Lyle keeps to his weekly rounds. He shares tee-times with ghosts, and Lyle would never traverse the narrow fairways of his memory from the comfort of a cart.Lyle Davenport's golf game has not changed for years. He shares his tee-time each Tuesday and Thursday morning with Ken Sutton, and the numbers penciled upon their scorecards never delineate from one round to another. Birdie always fall on the same puts as before. Water hazards and rough claim their sacrifices on the same swings as ever. But though Lyle's rounds hold a terrible measure of sorrow and pain, those rounds hold ever more exhilaration and joy. For in all his years flaying at a small, white ball, Lyle has never witnessed a swing as graceful as Ken Sutton's. And the memory is enough to keep Lyle coming back to those manicured and cruel fairways of grass.
Views: 247