Volume 7 of student produced writing from grades K-12 in the Twin Lakes School District of Monticello, Indiana. See the progression of our kids' abilities and interests as they grow. All proceeds go to a scholarship fund for student writers or towards publishing a physical version of the book.Our Voice is a student written and edited ebook produced by the students of Twin Lakes School Corporation in Monticello, Indiana. It is a crosscurriculur, inclusive writing project that seeks to raise interest in creative writing amongst K-12 students in our district. It may not be the only student magazine out there, but it goes two steps beyond by creating an entrepreneurial opportunity for students interested in digital media, publishing, marketing, and entrepreneurship as well as offering the chance for student writers to get published. All proceeds from sales go into a scholarship fund for students or towards publishing a physical version of the ebook. Views: 495
When Pa Peachey becomes comically ambitious about entering a town baking competition, family dog McTavish wisely cooks up a plan to rescue him from himself.Pa Peachey has gotten it in his head that he is going to be the baker in the family, and the Peacheys and their dog, McTavish, are more than a little surprised. Stunned, in fact. Ever since Ma Peachey declared herself free of the cooking responsibilities, Betty, Ava, and Ollie have taken turns making inventive and delicious meals. But Pa thinks he can do better, even though his cakes are as flat as manhole covers and his cookies turn to charcoal. When the town announces a baking competition with a big prize, Pa is convinced he will enter an absolute masterpiece. Now the Peacheys have to decide: should they be honest with Pa and tell him his confections are contemptible, or should they support his high-flying dreams? Or could McTavish have a last-minute option at the ready? Views: 495
Kabyl's family has run a careful supply business, keeping the essentials in stock in order to help her town and the villages around it survive the long, dark winter.Rumors of beasts beyond the standard shifters are beginning to surface, and when regulars don't show up for their fuel rations, Kabyl has to brave the dark and the cold to find out if natural death has taken her family's friends or if there is something darker than death in the land of snow.A wellness check turns into a fight for survival, and Kabyl has to dig deep to stay alive. She had no idea she was going to find a dragon. The dragon was just as surprised. Views: 494
Tormented by those who should have protected her, Olivia has one chance at an actual life, and she just has to give herself with no reservations.
Born to blossom into an omega, something in Olivia’s life went wrong. Instead of having her heats and looking for her own alphas, she is defective. Her body gives her pain, and she wants nothing to do with the thought of a sexual liaison with anyone.
Her sister follows her father’s footsteps and keeps her on their property and running the bed and breakfast, which is a boring existence for Olivia until her heat is due and her rule against taking reservations during that time is broken by her greedy sibling. There is an emergency, and they are going to be hosting a guest.
No one said the guest would be an alpha.
What follows is a meeting, a realization, and a rescue that changes not only Olivia’s life, but that of her pride as well. Argus is just going to a family wedding rehearsal when he begins hearing the phrase defective omega. He has researched a lot of omegas, and there is no such thing as a defective one. When he realizes that these words are describing the dainty little woman who helped his panthers get settled, he has a quick discussion with his pride mates, and they head off to rescue the omega in question. With any luck, she will choose them. If not, they will have to charm her. Either way, Olivia is theirs. Views: 494
They've done the crazy, the stupid, and the impossible. Established a secret base behind enemy lines. Stolen a sector supply vessel, a scout, and a pocket warship. Now Phil Kosnett and his crew set their sights on something really ambitious. Liberating an entire prison planet, all by themselves. Part of the Alexandria Station universe and the culmination of the CS-405 trilogy, our heroes face their greatest challenge yet. But Phil Kosnett's crew aren't about to stop now. Also be sure to pick up the other novels in the trilogy: Queen Anne's Revenge and Packmule. Views: 494
A new adventure about a girl who is fated to wash the bodies of the dead in this companion to Furthermore.
Our story begins on a frosty night…
Laylee can barely remember the happier times before her beloved mother died. Before her father, driven by grief, lost his wits (and his way). Before she was left as the sole remaining mordeshoor in the village of Whichwood, destined to spend her days washing the bodies of the dead and preparing their souls for the afterlife. It’s become easy to forget and easier still to ignore the way her hands are stiffening and turning silver, just like her hair, and her own ever-increasing loneliness and fear.
But soon, a pair of familiar strangers appears, and Laylee’s world is turned upside down as she rediscovers color, magic, and the healing power of friendship. Views: 494
If the biblical plagues of Egypt truly happened--could they happen again--on a global scale?
Two years after vanishing into the Sudanese desert, the leader of a British archeological expedition, Professor Harold McCabe, comes stumbling out of the sands, frantic and delirious, but he dies before he can tell his story. The mystery deepens when an autopsy uncovers a bizarre corruption: someone had begun to mummify the professor's body--while he was still alive.
His strange remains are returned to London for further study, when alarming news arrives from Egypt. The medical team who had performed the man's autopsy has fallen ill with an unknown disease, one that is quickly spreading throughout Cairo. Fearing the worst, a colleague of the professor reaches out to a longtime friend: Painter Crowe, the director of Sigma Force. The call is urgent, for Professor McCabe had vanished into the desert while searching for proof of the ten plagues of Moses. As the pandemic grows, a disturbing question arises.
Are those plagues starting again?
Before Director Crowe can investigate, a mysterious group of assassins leaves behind a fiery wake of destruction and death, erasing all evidence. With the professor's body incinerated, his home firebombed, Sigma Force must turn to the archaeologist's only daughter, Jane McCabe, for help. While sifting through what's left of her father's work, she discovers a puzzling connection, tying the current threat to a shocking historical mystery, one involving the travels of Mark Twain, the genius of Nikola Tesla, and the adventures of famous explorer, Henry Morgan Stanley.
To unravel a secret going back millennia, Director Crowe and Commander Grayson Pierce will be thrust to opposite sides of the globe. One will search for the truth, traveling from the plague-ridden streets of Cairo to a vast ancient tomb buried under the burning sands of the Sudan; the other will struggle to stop a mad genius locked within a remote Arctic engineering complex, risking the lives of all those he holds dear.
As the global crisis grows ever larger, Sigma Force will confront a threat born of the ancient past and made real by the latest science--a danger that will unleash a cascading series of plagues, culminating in a scourge that could kill all of the world's children . . . decimating mankind forever. Views: 494
From the Foreword by J.A. Konrath: "Crouch is one of the best thriller short story writers I know. He uses words like an artist uses a paintbrush; to hurt, to stun, to shock, to provoke, to touch. This collection also features my very favorite short story of all time. Not just my favorite by Crouch, but the best one I've ever read by anyone. It's called "Unconditional." It is flat-out brilliant and unforgettable, and that one tale is worth the price of this entire collection." From the author of DESERT PLACES and LOCKED DOORS comes this complete collection of short stories and novellas. *69 - Tim and Laura West receive a bizarre voicemail on their answering machine that seems to have unintentionally recorded a brutal murder. But what happens when the killer realizes their mistake? This story develops over one terrifying evening, and this young couple will never be the same. REMAKING - Tragic events unfold in a snowy, sleepy Colorado town. From the first scene, in which a man sits alone in the cold, watching a father and son in a diner, you know something is about to go horribly wrong. You may think you know what's happening, but in this thrilling, heartbreaking story, nothing is as it seems. ON THE GOOD, RED ROAD - A group of four hard men trying to reach a remote 19th Century mining town become stranded in an early blizzard and resort to drastic, terrifying measures, to stay alive. SHINING ROCK - An older couple encounter a strange and menacing visitor during a camping trip in the North Carolina mountains. Friendly at first, this stranger seems to know them, seems to know their secrets, and as things escalate, they become convinced that they may never leave these mountains alive. PERFECT LITTLE TOWN - Ron and Jessica Stahl are a power couple from California, on a Christmas holiday in Colorado. When they stop for the afternoon in sleepy Lone Cone, they're charmed by the quaint tourist town. But the folksy hospitality will vanish as the sun drops behind the mountains. The Stahls couldn't have picked a worse night of the year to get snowed into this perfect little town with a dark, dark secret. SERIAL - The classic horror short I wrote with J.A. Konrath, in which we turn our attention to the twin golden rules of hitchhiking: # 1: Don't go hitchhiking, because the driver who picks you up could be certifiably crazy. # 2: Don't pick up hitchhikers, because the traveler you pick up could be a raving nutcase. So what if, on some dark, isolated road, Crazy #1 offered a ride to Nutcase #2? THE NEWTON BOYS' LAST PHOTOGRAPH - At 25 words, the shortest story I ever wrote. But it packs a wallop. THE METEOROLOGIST - Peter, a disgraced meteorologist and chronic wanderer, has traveled the country for years in his Winnebago, in search of the only thing that gives his life meaning. He's just arrived in the middle of nowhere-Hokie, Kansas-for the same purpose, but when he meets a waitress named Melanie, another sufferer, he's faced not only with his first real human contact in years, but perhaps someone who can save him. UNCONDITIONAL - A conversation between two people-devastating, tragic, and beautiful. THE PAIN OF OTHERS - Letty Dobesh, a gorgeous, degenerate thief, is fresh out of the clink and back to her old tricks-in this case, burglarizing suites at a luxury hotel in Asheville, North Carolina. But when she's surprised by returning guests on her last room of the day, she's forced to hide in the closet to avoid getting caught, and inadvertently overhears a hitman being contracted to murder the wife of a wealthy lawyer. This 60,000-word short story collection also contains a foreword by J.A. Konrath and introductions to each story by the author. BLAKE CROUCH is the author of four novels and numerous short stories, including "Serial" which he co-wrote with J.A. Konrath and has been downloaded more than 300,000 times. He lives in southwest Colorado, where he is at work on a new book. His website is www.blakecrouch.co Views: 494
A short story about Online, the incredible supercomputer who runs all the city's services. Joel is on his first day as a Junior Assistant Operator for Online, and Joel is hoping for a quiet day. But Online has a plan, a plan which starts with letting Joel know about a secret rule, a rule that Online is determined to break, ensuring that Joel's day will be anything but quiet.A memorable collection of epitaphs and obituaries for the age of digital confession. Artists, athletes, activists, entertainers, evil-doers, rich widows, philosophers. . .40 poems from eight years in a lesbian novelist's on-line diary salute the famous dead—and tackle onslaughts of the ambition, desire, daydreaming, self-berating, fear of aging, loneliness and faithless women common to contemporary America. Sharply observed, often humorous, Dug for Victory also offers an anti-war record of existence in Brooklyn, New York during the days and years following the attacks on nearby Lower Manhattan. Views: 493
