Literary Fiction

Flawedby Claudia Burgoa

Hunter
Given a choice, I’d date a woman who doesn’t know who I am. Like the green-eyed woman I meet on sidewalk, tears streaming down her cheeks. The one who triggers what my overprotective older brothers call my “Everhart Complex”–the uncontrollable urge to erase someone else’s pain.

This little character flaw could shred me if I let it. That’s why I don’t do family law. But it’s who I am. Who I became after my parents died.

Willow
Nothing says “successful adult” like living with my grandfather and having my little sister as my boss. But with my acting career stalled and my checking account in single digits, playing receptionist at Beesley Enterprises is a bearable humiliation.

Until he walks into the office. The man I met on the sidewalk on the worst night of my career. Mr. I’m-Going-To-Fix-Your-Life–as if I’d let him. Because just for a moment, I felt safe. I felt something besides numbness. And dammit, if I let my ice queen façade crack, I’ll be worse than back to square one. I could fall off the edge entirely…

Blankby Matt Eaton

Stone Luckman knows he’s expendable. When he’s sent into the desert to stop a nuclear war, he knows he’ll be blamed for starting one if he fails. Because the world has gone mad.

In most cases, literally. A new and unique sort of madness caused by a massive solar storm. Like some cosmic neural hack, it wiped most people’s minds and left them blank.

It’s no coincidence the oceans rose that same day. So now Chinese and US leaders have fingers poised above the red button, each blaming the other for what’s gone down.

Oblivious to the fact humanity has already become an endangered species.

But in the desert heart of Australia, it’s as if nothing has happened. Everything in Alice Springs is normal, bar one crucial fact — nobody has any idea about the twin catastrophes that have brought the world to its knees.

A madness of an entirely different kind… and it’s doing Luckman’s head in.

Blank is a remarkable mystery thriller. When you take this trip, you’ll never forget it.

Stone Luckman is a compelling combination of Jack Reacher and Fox Mulder from The X-Files.

Set the Night on Fireby Weston Parker

Trouble. That’s all I am, and I get into it far too often.

My last misstep took me off Search and Rescue and landed me in a f*cking ambulance.

With a guy that would make the nerds cringe.

If it wasn’t for the cute nurse at the hospital making life interesting, I might give up entirely.

But she’s got my heart racing, my hands sweating, and my mind dipping into the gutter each and every time I see her pretty face.

Her past haunts the hell out of her, but I’m going to help her heal and forget all of that shit. If she lets me.

And she hates my guts. With good reason, of course.

Too bad for her. Once I lock onto something I want, I’m relentless.

The world can burn down around us, but I’m not stopping until I make her mine.

And when I do?

We’re going to set the night on fire. Every night.

Every Good Girl Deserves a Bad Boy. ~ Weston

The Vampire’s Masqueradeby Kiersten Fay

A chance meeting…
In a world still recovering from the vampire/human wars, Kasima Wilder is glad to live in the safe haven of Riverstone, a town founded by vampires and populated by both mortals and immortals.

Largely, Kasima has avoided the town’s vampire-run establishments. Until one night her wayward boyfriend ditches her at Ever Nights Annual Masquerade Ball.

An unforgettable night…
As head of security, Lex Stirling’s job is to ensure the safety of those within Ever Nights’ club walls, especially on the night of the Masquerade, a night where lust reigns supreme and limits are tested.

After rescuing a woman from the unwanted attention of a persistent guest, he finds himself enamored with the little mortal. Soon, their chemistry turns combustible, and they are engulfed in a night of unforgettable passion. A passion that could consume them both as Kasima’s ex conspires against them.

Mind Machinesby Dima Zales

From New York Times & USA Today bestselling author Dima Zales, an intense new techno-thriller that pushes the limits of what it means to be human.

With billions in the bank and my own venture capital firm, I’m living the American dream. My only problem? A car accident that leaves my mother with memory problems.

Brainocytes, a new technology that can transform our brains, could be the answer to all of my problems–but I’m not the only one who sees its potential.

Plunged into a criminal underworld darker than anything I could’ve imagined, my life-saving technology might be the death of me.

My name is Mike Cohen, and this is how I became more than human.

Please note: This book was formerly titled Human++.

The Witches of Dark Rootby April Aasheim

"There are some secrets darker than witchcraft." – Dora Maddock Deep in the forests of Oregon is a small town called Dark Root, a town steeped in magick, mystery, secrets, and witchcraft. But for Maggie Maddock, Dark Root is also a prison – a place where she is forced to work in her mother's Magick Shoppe while the rest of the world moves forward without her. When a mysterious stranger offers to take Maggie away from it all, she leaves without looking back.
Seven years later, Maggie is called home. There she is confronted with a renewed sibling rivalry, a mother suffering a mysterious illness, and a town that's lost it's literal magick. Now Maggie must decide if she will use her newly discovered abilities to aid those she loves or run from her responsibilities once again.

In the tradition of Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic and Rebecca Wells' Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, The Witches of Dark Root seamlessly weaves the past with the present, the magickal with the mundane. It is a tale of family, forgiveness, and the healing power of love that will leave readers believing in magick long after the story ends. Magick, mayhem and heart-racing paranormal mystery await you in this supernatural suspense series featuring real-life witches. Welcome to Dark Root. We've been expecting you.

The Archivistby Christy Sloat

With the whimsy of Alice in Wonderland and the romance of Outlander, dive back into the next installment in the Librarian Chronicles.

Savannah Preston has a rare and precious gift: The ability to time travel through books. She, and others who share this unique ability, are faced with the insurmountable task of preserving history. They are known collectively as The Librarians.
While researching infamous Scottish outlaw Sir Malcolm Wash during the raging conflicts of the 14th Century, Savannah loses the only thing that tethers her to her own time. She must rely on her knowledge of both the present and the past to survive long enough to find a way home. Along the way, she enlists the help of a misfit named Eoin. With his guidance, she might just get home. It’s a risky and dangerous adventure, but then, so is Eoin…

The Gospel According to Yeshua’s Catby C. L. Francisco

The Gospel According to Yeshua’s Cat

What if a cat told the story of Jesus of Nazareth? 



Maybe you’d listen. Cats don’t often share their thoughts.

What if a cat’s memories preserved a picture of Jesus lost by the early church long ago in its struggles to survive?

You’d find no dogma, only a cat’s simple love–and that’s a new story altogether.

Here’s what readers are saying:

“Imagine if the author of Watership Down had written The Shack!”

“For the first time, I finally understand what the point, the power, and the beauty of “he is risen” is about – hey, it only took 50 years and a cat to translate!”

“I know of one person who would have loved this book–and that is C. S. Lewis . . . A delightful combination of simplicity and deep theological insight.”

“The words left the pages and entered my heart, soul and spirit. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful.”

The story of Yeshua’s CatMari is a cat living by her claws on the fringes of the Judean desert. Yeshua ben Yosef is a man with healing hands, seeking solitude in the wastes beyond Qumran. 



Their paths cross when Yeshua drives away a pack of wild dogs and rescues the wounded cat, carrying her in his arms to a wadi where he settles to pray. An unusual friendship grows up between them, deepened by Yeshua’s ability to speak with animals, and when he leaves the wilderness, she rides with him, hidden in a sling beneath his robe. More than any other, she is Yeshua’s companion in the quiet times. 



Mari narrates the life of Jesus of Nazareth from a cat’s eye-view, frequently losing the thread of his teaching as she drowses, focusing instead on their times alone. When crowds press close for healing, she withdraws behind the folds of his robes. On her own, she pursues a friendship with Mary Magdalene,and looks on as Yeshua transforms the very elements of Earth in his miracles.




Mari loves Yeshua beyond the wont of cats. But in loving him, she discovers loneliness and fear of loss. How can a cat who lives in the eternal Now cope with sudden awareness of the future, with all its uncertainty and pain? 



Still, in the end, all roads lead to the Passover festival in Jerusalem, where Mari experiences depths of wonder unsuspected by those caught up in the tumult around her. 


The Cats of Rekemby C. L. Francisco

“We are the cats of Rekem, descended from the sacred cats of the Egyptian temple of Bast . . . gathered here to honor Yeshua ben Yosef, friend of cats–He Who Brings Life to the Earth . . .”

The Cats of Rekem opens in the fabled city of Rekem (Petra, Jordan), capital of ancient Nabataea. Francisco brings Rekem to swirling, glittering life, in a kaleidoscopic pageant of exotic characters from a lost culture that reached its peak during the days of Jesus of Nazareth. On the fringes of Rekem’s urban clamor, cats quietly sun themselves, eavesdropping and speaking their thoughts into human minds as the need arises.

25 years have passed in Rekem since the child Yeshua’s rescue (in A Cat Out of Egypt) by Zaidan, a powerful caravan master, and Tikos, an Egyptian priestess fleeing Egypt with a pregnant temple cat from Bubastis. Tikos and Zaidan have married. The Egyptian cats have interbred with wild cats from the hills, and their descendants settled throughout the city with their chosen humans.

In an age of relentless empire building, the independent Nabataeans stubbornly hold to their own traditions, defying the advancing Roman Empire and Israel’s grasping Herod Antipas. Yet Rekem is increasingly caught up in the tide of strange new religions sweeping through the Roman world. Although Zaidan, Tikos, and their family worship Yeshua’s One God and cherish their ties with Yeshua–both before and after his resurrection–the dark mysteries of Isis seduce their daughter Hinat into the goddess’ temple. When Tikos steps in to protect Hinat, King Aretas is enraged by her insult to the gods who stand behind his throne. All of Zaidan’s clan lie beneath the threat of his simmering wrath.

Into this turmoil stumbles a bemused young Apostle Paul, smuggled out of Damascus by Zaidan’s sons, Yeshua’s cat Mari, and Mary Magdalene. Still reeling from his vision on the Damascus road, Paul is painfully confused about what his new life will mean. But his arrival in Rekem attracts the palace’s attention, loosing a flood of scandal and violence that endangers everyone around him . . . as well as threatening his own future before it can even begin.

Cat Born to the Purpleby C. L. Francisco

Cat Born to the Purple, 4th volume in the Yeshua’s Cats’ series, picks up the story from Yeshua’s Cat of a young woman who had been stoned. Yeshua healed her after sensing her presence, battered and barely alive, in the burning hills near Sepphoris, and named her Eliana, “God has answered my prayer.” He settled her in Cana with his friend Eli to keep her safe from her husband and mother-in-law, who had accused her falsely and incited the mob to stone her. Now she is beginning to put her life back together–except for the memory of her stoning, which she has walled away in darkness. Eli’s wife Rachel encourages Eliana’s extraordinarily gifts for weaving and needlework, hoping Eliana can make a living with her skills. But a year later, Eliana’s husband begins to suspect that she’s still alive, and Yeshua returns to help Eli find her a new place of safety.

Eliana accompanies Yeshua and Mari to the Phoenician coastal city of Acco. There her handwork impresses a prominent merchant of the royal purple murex dye. He offers her an apprenticeship in his workshop under the wing of a devout Jewish widow, sold into slavery after the rebellions at Sepphoris, but now a freedwoman living as an adopted member of the merchant’s family. While in Acco, Yeshua discovers that the merchant’s peculiar devotion to the goddess Bast has twisted the hearts of the many cats living in his house–cats descended from the sacred cats of the once great temple of Bast in Acco–convincing them that they are godlings in their own right. For the first time in his ministry, Yeshua reaches out to deliver non-human creatures ensnared by human wrong.

Eliana–now widowed, and her name altered to the Greek “Aeliana”–prospers in her new home, learning how to harvest and brew the priceless purple dye. A clever speaking kitten with a fascination for looms and a gift for dreaming becomes her constant companion. After meeting a young Anatolian merchant, Aeliana finally begins to believe in the possibility of love, in spite of the constant threat of a co-worker’s violence. Still, although she follows the One’s light as best she can, she is shattered again by the terrifying evil loosed on the world at Yeshua’s death. But together with the whole of Creation, Aeliana’s life is made whole at last in the miracle of the Resurrection.

Shadow Hillsby Ryan Kane

Author Ryan Kane brings his second gripping crime thriller “Shadow Hills” to the attention of all fast-paced crime fiction fans. This gripping, darkly compelling tense mystery thriller will leave readers turning the pages at pace desperate for answers

With endless nightmares about a dead child in addition to a marriage that is falling apart, Lillian Johnson is done with detective work. But, when a desperate man calls her husband, Phil, and asks them to solve two disturbing murders at the motel he owns, Lillian and Phil decide to take on one last case.

When they arrive at the small, ghost-like town called “Shadow Hills”, Lillian and Phil begin to wonder if they have taken on more than they can handle. From mysterious spectrums to noises that come from under the floorboards in her room, Lillian realizes that the Shadow Hills Motel may take away not only her sanity but also her life as she faces not only her worst fears but also the ghosts from her past.

With each mystery that they uncover, more danger seems to make itself known. Soon, it becomes a race against time as the two detectives realize that what they fear may be lurking within the motel itself and those they trust may not be what they seem.

Will they manage to get out of Shadow Hills alive? Or will Phil and Lillian become the victims of a town that seems to swallow up visitors and never let them go?