Bloodmark (The Kingsmen Chronicles #2)

"Spellbinding! Strong development of characters, fully integrated storylines with intriguing plot twists, and deep world building. Takes you on a journey you never want to leave!" – Michelle G., Amazon Review"Like George RR Martin and Joe Abercrombie, Carlson writes in this genre for grown-ups, with flair and elegance. A complex world with characters that develop well, this story reveals as it builds!" - Daniel F., Amazon ReviewerThe nation reels, the throne usurped by a shadowy cabal. But Kingsman twins Elohl and Olea, the last of their bloodline, have done their duty and kept the Queen alive, safe in hiding. As a vicious war rises, one twin is spirited away to a desert oasis, learning the truth of the unstoppable ancient magic behind their enemies. While the other must become the Queen's ambassador, racing against time to cross glaciers and find aid before a slaughter begins.This dark and gritty sword and sorcery series from award-winning author...
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Apprentice in Death

Lieutenant Eve Dallas returns in a fast-paced new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author J. D. Robb.   Nature versus nurture...   The shots came quickly, silently, and with deadly accuracy. Within seconds, three people were dead at Central Park’s ice skating rink. The victims: a talented young skater, a doctor, and a teacher. As random as random can be. Eve Dallas has seen a lot of killers during her time with the NYPSD, but never one like this. After reviewing security videos, it becomes clear that the victims were killed by a sniper firing a tactical laser rifle, who could have been miles away when the trigger was pulled. And though the locations where the shooter could have set up seem endless, the list of people with that particular skill set is finite: police, military, professional killer. Eve’s husband, Roarke, has unlimited resources—and genius—at his disposal. And when his computer program leads Eve to the location of the sniper, she learns a shocking fact: There were two—one older, one younger. Someone is being trained by an expert in the science of killing, and they have an agenda. Central Park was just a warm-up. And as another sniper attack shakes the city to its core, Eve realizes that though we’re all shaped by the people around us, there are those who are just born evil...
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Two Wizarding Tales

Two short stories about wizards. In "Illusions," a young wizard on his first assignment discovers that most things aren't what they seem to be on the surface. In "Concentrating on the Job," a wizardess deals with a curse and her fatal attraction to her client.A new thriller from award-winning best-selling author Robert Stanek! The first book in the series, The Pieces of the Puzzle, was an instant Top 10 Paid Mystery Bestseller and a #1 Paid Fiction Bestseller in Audio. Now former NSA agent turned rogue operative Scott Madison Evers is back in an all new action thriller. Still a man on the outside looking in, Scott Evers is working security onboard the Sea Shepherd, an Island class vessel performing fishery protection patrols in the Mediterranean Sea. No, Scott Evers hasn't become an environmentalist. He's about as far from the pie-in-the-sky happy people he has sworn to protect as any person could ever be. But he's got a job to do. Namely, to keep the yuppies from doing stupid things that will get them killed. With tensions heating up in the Mediterranean Sea and with terrorists afoot, Scott's an instant away from everything going as terribly wrong as he fears. When the dust clears, his world will never be the same again. About the Author Robert Stanek is a dad, husband and author. Robert Stanek finished his first novel in 1986 and has been writing several books a year ever since. Today, he has over 150 published books, which have been read by millions of people around the world. Robert Stanek's books have received many awards for excellence and outstanding contributions to the writing community. Dubbed 'A Face Behind the Future' in the 1990's by The Olympian, he's been helping to shape the future of the written word for nearly two decades. In his fiction writing, Robert Stanek transports readers to imagined worlds, including stories that take place in Ruin Mist and a BIG little place called Bugville. When Robert Stanek brought Ruin Mist to audio in 2005, the books catapulted to #1 on Audible for FOURTEEN consecutive weeks and then stayed on the Kids & YA Top 10 for the next THREE YEARS. Robert Stanek and his books have been featured in and/or recommended by: The OlympianThe Journal of Electronic DefenseThe Publisher's Weekly Cover StoryThe Parenting MagazineVOYABookWireChildren's WriterChildren's BookshelfLibrary JournalSchool Library JournalThe News Tribune Wondering where to start reading Robert Stanek's work? Consider "The Best of Robert Stanek" list from OverDrive's "ContentWire for Libraries"...#1 The Pieces of the Puzzle#2 Keeper Martin's Tale#3 Bugville Collection #1: Visit Mom and Dad At Work, Go to School, Have a Sleepover, Visit Garden Box Farms#4 The Kingdoms and the Elves of the Reaches#5 In the Service of Dragons#6 Journey Beyond the Beyond#7 Stormjammers: The Extraordinary Story of EW Operations in the Gulf War#8 Bugville Critters: Every Number Counts#9 Absolutes & Other Stories#10 Exploring Ruin Mist: Special Edition for "The Kingdoms and the Elves of the Reaches" and "In the Service of Dragons"
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Submitting to the Shadow...Book 27 in the Kindred Tales Series

Samantha Grey is in deep trouble—someone is stalking her and he's getting closer every day. Desperate to escape, she goes to the one place she knows she can't be followed—the Kindred Mother Ship. But she needs a job to stay aboard and the only one available in her field is...strange to say the least. When Sammi interviews with her new boss, she can tell that Commander Roark is an Alpha male who will be a challenge to work with. But she has no idea that he will demand her complete submission...or that she will give it willingly.Commander Roark knows that he wants Sammi the moment he sees her. She's an Elite—her lush curves call to his deepest desires. But a bad experience with a human woman in the past has made him wary of love. He and Sammi grow closer and closer but when she reveals an unthinkable truth, he sends her away, vowing to never love again.Heartbroken, Sammi flees back to Earth...and straight into danger. Can Roark rescue her from a...
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The Seven Sorrows of Mary

The angel had promised her that her son would become ruler in Judea . . . but instead he became a traveling preacher. Now she feared that she was losing his love. This is a portrayal of the most famous mother and son relationship in history in a new but all too familiar light.An implacable family of criminals. A detective at the bottom of his career. An investigation that will lead him to unpredictable consequences. Silvana, the mistress of the mafia’s big boss, went to Vico pleading for help, but now she is dead. The most evident explanation is suicide, but detective Vico is not convinced. In the course of the investigation, Vico will end up in the grip of the Italian mafia, in a war against Chinese drug smugglers for the control of the power in the city. In a corrupted and violent world, where Vico can trust no one, will he be able to solve Silvana’s death? Will he survive in this fight against ruthless criminal organizations?
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The Goldfish Pond

Short fantasy story about a boy who disappears while sailing across a goldfish pond on an old barn door.How far would you have to be pushed to take another life? What is the cost of having to make such a decision, even if it is to defend yourself? A woman in an abusive relationship confronts these questions in a final act of defiance.A short sample - For some reason all she could hear was ringing in her ears. She could not understand why she smelled fireworks in the living room or why her arms were so heavy. Through a haze she could see him look at her with a look of shock, a growing stain spreading across the faded shirt she had given him for a birthday years ago. His lips formed two words before he fell face first on the floor. “I’m sorry.” As she looked at him on the floor she realized that the growing pool coming from under his body was his blood. She watched as the blood slowly spread across the floor like a lava flow threatening to burn all in its path. Reality seeped in further as she saw that a small pistol was in her hands even as she could not recall how it got there. A small voice in her head told her to leave and run but she could not. The world turned into shades of gray, everything in black and white. Everything but the crimson pool slowly spreading across the floor."A moving story that I enjoyed reading. I found it quite sad, but it mirrors countless real lives, so makes one sit back and think long and hard about the world we live in and our choices.""Was drawn in from beginning to end. I hate reading short stories for this reason, I WANTED MORE, wonderfully told. True gift he has with words.""Wonderful story. It's an age old tale retold in a fascinating and surprising way. The writer has a true gift for storytelling. I was spellbound from the beginning to the end.""I enjoyed reading I'm Sorry. A insightful yet emotional take of a young girl who fell onto an abusive relationship. Reading this short story was like viewing a abusive relationship right from the inside instead of hearing about one."
Views: 659

Troublemaker

15 years ago, my mother made a deal with the devil.Only, she didn't tell me she made it.She said I was going to live with an aunt and an uncle. She said I'd be safe. She said this was the life she wanted for me.Now I'm 18, but the debt my mother owes is far from paid.There's only one person who's able to wipe the slate clean and erase my debt, but I have a problem because Harrison O'Conner isn't the type of person who's going to have a change of heart when he realizes what the terms of my mother's agreement were or where I really came from.Or what his father planned for me.Harrison's dad has raised me, groomed me, to be the perfect wife for him one day, but I don't want to marry Harrison. I don't want to be his trophy. I don't want anything to do with the O'Conner family legacy.Even if he is handsome.Even if he does take my breath away.Even if he is...A troublemaker.TROUBLEMAKER is the second book in the BULLIES OF CRESCENT ACADEMY series. This is a panty-dropping, page-turning series that's going to knock your socks off. This story includes sexual situations and graphic depictions of bullying and aggression. All characters are over 18. Not for the faint of heart.
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Universal Love

A hypnotic collection of speculative fiction about compassion, love, and human resilience in the technological hyper-age, from Alexander Weinstein, author of Children of the New World. Universal Love welcomes readers to a near-future world where our everyday technologies have fundamentally altered the possibilities and limits of how we love one another. In these gripping stories, a young boy tries to understand what keeps his father tethered to the drowned city they call home. A daughter gets to know her dead mother's hologram better than she ever knew her living mother. And, at a time when unpleasant memories can be erased, a man undergoes electronic surgery to have his depression, and his past, forever removed. In an age when technology offers the easiest cures for loneliness, the characters within these stories must wrestle with what it means to stay human in an increasingly cybernetic future, and how love can endure even the most alluring...
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Unchosen

Emily Monroe may be a lot of things, but one thing is for sure, she is NOT the Chosen One. Now that the truth about Emily and the Chosen One has been revealed to them, they are reeling and things will never again be the same for Emily at Big Burger. The Chosen One rebels, learning the truth about her family and the Mayor strips her of the mantle of the champion of Big City. While the new hero of the city, Mega Girl, makes dangerous decisions, the Chosen One must learn to be a normal person and get a new job and a normal life.
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The Initiate

*The Initiate* provides readers with a glimpse into Tobias's Dauntless initiation experience, including an epic game of late-night Dare; his first tattoo; the beginning of his passion for training new initiates; and his nascent understanding of the danger of being Divergent.
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Code Three

FREEWAYS TO HELL Ben Martin and Clay Ferguson have got a tough job. In Car 56 -- "Beulah" -- they patrol the super-highways of a future that might have been. Along with Medical-Surgical Officer Kelly Lightfoot, they help keep an insane road system as safe as possible. Here is a startling and excitingly realistic portrait of regular folks in a future extrapolated from a time when technology was changing at an explosive rate. What if highways just got bigger and bigger, cars faster and faster? How could such be patrolled, when crashes, jams and road rage are the norm? The answer is an elite paramilitary corp. These dedicated officers, trying to keep reign on a crazed vehicle culture with sixty foot long tank-like patrol cars with 25mm cannon, cranes and full medical suites. Nominated for a Hugo Award, Code Three is a gripping tale for all fans of "If This Go On" stories.
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Farthing

One summer weekend in 1949 — but not our 1949 — the well-connected "Farthing set", a group of upper-crust English families, enjoy a country retreat. Lucy is a minor daughter in one of those families; her parents were both leading figures in the group that overthrew Churchill and negotiated peace with Herr Hitler eight years before. Despite her parents' evident disapproval, Lucy is married — happily — to a London Jew. It was therefore quite a surprise to Lucy when she and her husband David found themselves invited to the retreat. It's even more startling when, on the retreat's first night, a major politician of the Farthing set is found gruesomely murdered, with abundant signs that the killing was ritualistic. It quickly becomes clear to Lucy that she and David were brought to the retreat in order to pin the murder on him. Major political machinations are at stake, including an initiative in Parliament, supported by the Farthing set, to limit the right to vote to university graduates. But whoever's behind the murder, and the frame-up, didn't reckon on the principal investigator from Scotland Yard being a man with very private reasons for sympathizing with outcasts… and looking beyond the obvious. As the trap slowly shuts on Lucy and David, they begin to see a way out — a way fraught with peril in a darkening world.
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About Time

Time Travel - three short stories exploring different elements of time travel. Unstuck - When Jason goes off drinking, thinking Rachel might be better off without him, he wakes up after a strange storm with everything changed and gets the opportunity to see if he might have been right. The First Rule - A Tracker, someone who can smell the distinct scent of a time jump, thinking to simply recover a young girl quickly became something different. Now, chasing her as she jumps through the past, he has to catch her before she breaks the agency's first rule. A Life in Flashes - Ray is dying of cancer and is offered the opportunity to make one change before he dies but does he have the strength - and the love - to do it? A story of a father and what he'll do to help his son. **
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