Meet one of our newest authors, Tracie Provost!

Her first book, Under the Blood Moon, is available now!

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. As a little kid I would write stories when I wasn’t devouring every book I could get my hands on. I started my first novel, a pirate romance, when I was in high school. I wrote around 250 pages in it. It was horrible. I still have it, but it will never see the light of day.

Sometime in high school, somebody told me that I couldn’t make a living as a writer and I foolishly believed him. I decided that I would become a professor instead. Luckily, no one told me how hard it was to get an academic job until it was too late and I was committed to getting my PhD in history.

I managed to get a tenure-track position and have been at the same small Southern University for about 15 years. For the most part it is been great – except for the year and a half I spent in administration. I was miserable. I missed my students and I spent a lot of time crying in my office. But it was out of this that Under the Blood Moon was born.

I’ve been kicking around the idea of a vampire novel in my head for a number of years. I had even written a little bit, but it was during my administrative stint that the bulk of the book was created. I wrote through much of my frustration and anxiety. I typed “The End” on the first draft and returned to the classroom at about the same time and I felt like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

I’m currently working on the second book in the series Under the Harvest Moon and hope to have it done by late summer.

Learn more about Tracie here: http://www.tracieprovost.com/

Under the Blood Moon by Tracie Provost

A supernatural war is brewing in New Orleans, threatening to expose the existence of vampires, werewolves, and Gatekeepers to the wider world . . .

Ritually staked and hidden for two hundred years, Juliette de Grammont, voodoo priestess and vampire, is found and revived. Just days after she is freed, still coping with a world she could never have imagined, she loses her sire and vampire coven in a fire. Confused and alone, Juliette seeks the help of the city’s powerful Grand Master, but dark elements within the city are conspiring to topple that regime. Soon Juliette’s struggle for survival places her in the middle of a supernatural war for control of the city.

Josh Bouchard, former Texas Ranger now vampire and coven lieutenant, is drawn into the conflict and appoints himself Juliette’s protector over her objections. They must enlist the help of both the city’s werewolf pack and the Gatekeepers—a shadowy group dedicated to keeping the paranormal world secret from humans—to forge a coalition to save New Orleans from the powers that seek to destroy it.

Of Spies and Slaves

Become acquainted with the brave heroine from Jane Singer’s novel, Alias Dragonfly!

When teenage Pinkerton spy, Maddie Bradford, lands in the seething, pestiferous broth that is Washington, D.C. during the Civil War, slavery is legal and will be until April 16, 1862.

Her boss, Alan Pinkerton, a known abolitionist who aids escaping slaves, as well as using them as invaluable helpers and spies, exposes Maddie to a network of black operatives working out of her aunt’s boardinghouse. She forms an especially strong bond with her aunt’s cook, Nellie, and her son Isaac, a young man who hides escaping slaves in the cellar.

The grim doings of slave catchers become all too real for Maddie. Death and the specter of death haunt this heroine as she must find a way to help her friends while risking her own life. She is still a spy in training and must prove her worth.

Alias Dragonfly by Jane Singer is on sale for $0.99 until February 15th!
   

The Test of Time,

 But That Was Yesterday

by Kathleen Eagle

The popularity of e-books has given multi-published authors the chance to offer their best previously-published books to readers in a medium that wasn’t available when the book first came out. Wow! It’s a whole new century, new millennium, new technology . . .

But is it a new ball game? Readers tell me that they love the portability, the convenience of storing a whole library in a gadget that fits in a pocket or purse. I celebrate the chance to make improvements before the book goes into the gadget.

Every writer who’s experienced the thrill of getting that box in the mail knows the feeling. The box contains the story she’s lived with for months in physical book form. She’s poured sweat and tears into this baby. Blood? Metaphorically, maybe. But definitely sweat and tears. Writing is hard work. And here’s the reward. It’s a real book. She takes a copy out of the box, pets the cover as if it might return her affection at last with some kind of contented sound, turns back the cover, and joins in the act of conjuring up images from the words on the page.

Wait a minute. Did I write that? I love it. I can’t believe it came from me. It has its own life. It belongs to readers now. It’s on its own. And it’s good. It draws me in. It’s as if . . .

Wait a minute. Did I write that? Can I grab it back one more time and change a few words? Right here, it’s just one sentence too many. Or too few. I can do better.

So the e-book—the whole new medium—that’s my chance. I’ve written many books since I finished But That Was Yesterday, and even though I won praise and awards for the book years ago, I know I’m technically a much better writer now. Am I a better storyteller?

I write from character, and I love the characters in this story. Sage Parker still breaks my heart and then puts the pieces back together. I love the story—the setting, the plot, the themes—all still there. I remember doing the research on how to build roads—Sage’s job. The wonderful friend who worked for the ND Department Of Transportation has since passed away, but the inspiration he gave me lives on in a book that I’ve revised more for style than for story. I didn’t change the setting. Every story is a moment in some time, lives lived in some place.

When the storyteller brings the audience to that time and place, the game isn’t new. It’s timeless.

But That Was Yesterday is on sale for $1.99 until January 31st!

BRING ON THE BUBBLY

by Arlene Kay

I know nothing about wine although I love the term oenophile. Like my protagonist Eja Kane, I have expertise in only three liquid substances: coffee, bottled water, and champagne. Espresso is the brew of the gods—rich, potent, and oh so satisfying. It seeps down into my soul, awakening my senses and enlivening my being. Needless to say, the inferior dreck offered in so many establishments simply will not do. I abstain until a superior blend arrives.

Bottled water is even more problematic. NEVER have I or will I sip from a plastic container. My drink of choice (like Eja’s) is Pellegrino although in a pinch or when in France, Perrier will do. Eschewing plastic happens to be ecologically sound but frankly taste is my primary concern. Plastic invades the tongue, wreaking havoc in its wake.

That brings us to Champagne, the gift that seals the Franco-American alliance. Only sparkling wine from France can be called Champagne (take THAT California). I adore the bubbly tingle, and the exquisite, silky sensation as it slides down my throat. Most of us commemorate only very special occasions with Champagne, although the Swanns tend to indulge much more often. Billionaires can afford that, but for the rest of us, toasting the New Year happily coincides with national champagne day, December 31^st

Bottoms up!

MANTRAP is on sale for only 99c through 12/31!

Don’t miss your chance to pick it up!

And don’t forget to grab the rest of the Boston Uncommons Mysteries:

I LEFT OUT THE EVIL ELF

by H.W. Buzz Bernard

Despite there being a warm and fuzzy Hallmark Channel Christmas moment in BLIZZARD—you know, a crackling blaze in a huge stone fireplace, the aroma of gingerbread and German stollen wafting through a warm house, and outside a polar gale rattling the limbs of skeletal trees—the book is a thriller.

I mean who wouldn’t want to go on a buck ninety-nine, wind-whipped, bullet-riddled odyssey in a Mercedes Geländewagen through the worst Southern blizzard on record?  And that’s not to mention the wolf pack escaped from a game reserve, drug-smuggling outlaw bikers hunkered down in a north Georgia “castle”—guys with names like Psycho, Cave Man, and Grizzly—and a pretend cop who carjacks my protagonist.  I probably should have crammed an evil elf into my cast of characters, but alas, I didn’t.

Of course, I had to coat my post-Christmas drama with my trademark pushing-the-envelope meteorological icing.  So I imagined Boston’s “Blizzard of ’78,” (which I experienced) displaced to the Deep South.  That storm, which is still considered Boston’s greatest, shut down the city for a week.  So you can imagine—well, I certainly did—what an event like that would do to Atlanta where even a forecast of snow flurries triggers more panic than a Zombie Apocalypse.

If you’re from or have visited places in northeast Georgia or the western Carolinas, some of the locales the drama sweeps you through, besides the ATL, may be familiar: Clayton, Georgia; Westminster, South Carolina, and Durham, North Carolina.

Like all of my novels, BLIZZARD is meant to thrilling and fun.  After all, as a novelist, I am in the entertainment business.  The book is designed to appeal to both your holiday spirit and your eagerness for adventure, and maybe even your sense of humor here and there.

As the dealer who leant the protagonist the Mercedes over Christmas vacation noted, upon seeing the SUV returned with shot-out windows, crumpled fenders, and a dead teddy bear in the rear seat: “So your Grandma in Durham, she was pissed, huh?  Late with her Christmas gifts?”

Remember, you can find out what this is all about for just $1.99 . . . until New Year’s Eve.

Pick up BLIZZARD for only $1.99 til the 31st!

And don’t forget to grab the rest of H.W. Buzz Bernard’s  Weather Series books!

Serving Up Holiday Cheer

by Kathleen Eagle

Isn’t it strange that when you’re a kid it takes forever for the holidays to roll around from one calendar to the next, but the older you get, the faster they roll? And the more holiday memories you collect, the more nostalgic you become. You’re driving down the road and you hear the first few notes of your father’s favorite Christmas song. You get all misty. The road better not be the interstate–or the turnpike where I grew up–because misty can turn to waterworks in a hurry, and windshield wipers don’t do anything for eyeballs. When you’re a child, it’s all about anticipation. For an adult, memories become part of the joy. We recreate the look and the sound and the scent of holiday magic the soft, glowing way we remember it and the way we hope it will be for our children and our children’s children.

Which is why we tell stories. We save up, and we shop. We clean, and we cook. We decorate, and we practice our songs and our plays. But without the stories, these traditions won’t be remembered. The storyteller’s gift is precious. During the holidays, it is memory.

THE SHARING SPOON is a collection of three novellas. They’re romantic, of course, and the characters are fictitious, but they’re built on some of my memories. “The Wolf and the Lamb” is a Western. I’ve loved Westerns since I was a child, and guess what: So has my cowboy. One of our theme songs could be “My Baby Loves the Western Movies.” (I guess I’m dating myself, but that’s okay. Memories are never out of date.)  In “The Twelfth Night” some of my Lakota husband’s childhood memories come into play. And in “The Sharing Spoon“–a contemporary Thanksgiving tale–memories of our move to Minnesota helped me create a fun and fanciful story using the American Indian magnet school that recruited my husband. True story: a family walked into the office, and the dad slapped the book that contained the original version of “The Sharing Spoon” on the counter. “Is this the school in this book?” he asked. The secretary carefully, cautiously explained that the story was fiction. “But the author’s husband is a teacher here,” she said. “Sign my kids up,” was the man’s response. The secretary herself told me this story, and she’s sticking to it. Sweet, huh?

I hope you’ll grab “The Sharing Spoon” while it’s on sale. I’ve heard from several readers who say that re-reading it has become an annual tradition for them. That, too. is as sweet as hot chocolate with a peppermint stirring stick. May your holidays taste even sweeter!

Make your Thanksgiving sweet! Pick up THE SHARING SPOON today!

Picture Perfect Meadowfield – 1987

by Howard Odentz

Thirteen-year-old Garrett McCarthy pumps the pedals on his ten-speed bike as he glides through the darkened neighborhoods of bucolic Meadowfield, Massachusetts. He weaves in and out of the shadows cast by street lights, whistling a tune that’s been stuck in his head all day.
It happens to be a song by The Talking Heads released four years prior, but Garrett doesn’t know that. He just thinks it’s strangely appropriate.

His parents aren’t home. Most nights Garrett is left alone. His mother, Maggie, is overly involved in town politics. His father, Gene, works late far too often, or at least that’s what he tells his family.

Garrett’s absentee parents suit him just fine. Being alone gives him breathing room. It also gives him time to work on his hobby, the one that he has been perfecting for a while now but keeps to himself.

Garrett McCarthy likes to watch things burn.

He likes it better than television, and he even likes it better than perusing the collection of old Hustlers that his father keeps stored in plastic bins underneath the basement stairs, supposedly hidden within stacks of Life Magazines.

There’s something about the erratic dance of flames that stokes Garrett’s inner furnace and ignites his passion. Simply put, watching white, hot death devour everything in its path floats his boat.

Most of Garrett’s fires have been small thus far, causing no real damage other than to things that don’t matter. Certainly no one has been hurt in his flames. Still, he is acutely aware that when the heat and light engulf everything and he watches, compelled and engrossed, he is missing something crucial and desired.

He longs to hear what will happen when fire and flesh meet. He imagines there will be frantic squeals like those that permeate a slaughter house when the other pigs realize that they might be next. He wants to relish the sound of screams—the popping of flesh—the crackling of hair.

That’s why tonight Garrett is on a mission. He wants to burn something big.

Last month’s torching of the attendant’s shack by the entrance to the town dump at the end of Miller Road was less than fulfilling.  So was the incineration of Father McQueen’s old Cadillac.

Garrett found the Father’s car in front of the park entrance to Prince Richard’s Maze. Everyone knows why middle-aged men skulk in the Maze at night but no one ever broaches the subject. Garrett lit up the Cadillac while the father was getting busy elsewhere, but the gas tank didn’t blow.

That’s why tonight Garrett McCarthy is after something much, much bigger. There’s a demon coiling inside his belly, demanding to be fed, and Garrett is acutely aware it can no longer survive on meager half-meals. He now must offer it a banquet of heat because that’s the only thing that will sate its ever growing appetite.

As Garrett meanders through the dark streets, riding his bike with no hands and a pack full of fixings on his back, he decides that his initial target, Journey’s End Senior Care, is too big and too well built for arson. Besides, he’s almost positive that there are sprinklers inside that will be activated the moment any smoke is detected.

His mind wanders to a new target—a disheveled old bungalow in a bleak corner of town, two streets in from the Connecticut border. A hundred years ago, the ramshackle eyesore belonged to a woman named Ma Irish who delivered babies and sold pickled eggs from her living room.

An unseemly family lives there now. They display rusted-out cars on cinder blocks in the front yard, and keep more than one pit bull chained in the back. People talk about how such a family doesn’t belong in a community like Meadowfield. Garrett has no opinion about that. However, he does think Ma Irish’s house is a bit of a town fixture. Removing that piece of local history may leave a hole better served un-dug.

Ultimately, Garrett decides on a different target. It is one he has been thinking about for a while now. Folks in Meadowfield will be sad to see it burn because, for some reason that Garrett can’t fathom, most people find fire tragic.

Still, they won’t be too sad.

He leans forward as he pedals, grabbing his handle bars and steering his bicycle this way and that before finally turning onto Sycamore Avenue. There is an old two-story colonial at the dead end, tucked up against the woods, with a handicapped ramp that zig-zags up to the porch.

A very small sign in front read ‘Happy Valley Group Home’ which sounds way cheerier than what lives inside.

The Happy Valley Group Home houses six developmentally delayed teenagers and two full-time staff. Garrett doesn’t know any of them by name, but he has seen the sad, little group at Cinema X before. Some are in wheel chairs and others stand quietly by the ticket taker with their hands on each other’s shoulders so they won’t get lost. After all, there is an ocean of ways one can disappear between the concession stand and the bathrooms.

Meadowfield will mourn the loss of the Happy Valley Group Home, but not really, and when the old colonial and those inside are nothing more than blackened ash, some will even breathe a sigh of relief that ‘those kind of people’ are no longer part of the fabric of town.

Although Garrett McCarthy doesn’t exactly agree with such a harsh sentiment, in some perverted way, he thinks dispatching the building and those inside is somehow performing a kindness. At least that’s what he keeps telling himself as he glides down Sycamore, ever wary that no one is outside in the darkness to see him

At the end of Sycamore, just past the Happy Valley Group Home, Garrett gets off of his bicycle and pushes it twenty feet into the woods.

There, he pulls his back pack off of his shoulder, unzips it and pulls out everything he will need to feed his glitch, even though he doesn’t think of pyromania as a glitch at all.

He thinks of it as magic.

After he gathers together a glass jar full of gasoline, newspaper, and wooden matches that he favors over a lighter, he pushes through the thick foliage until he is standing right inside the tree line. There, he studies the house from the shadows, poking and prodding at it with his deranged mind, seeking the perfect spot to set a fire.

His inner demon offers up a multitude of solutions.

‘Underneath the porch’, it whispers.

No.

‘The back of the carport,’ it prods.

No.

‘The basement.’

Yes.

Garrett’s eyes follow the side of the house to the backyard. There he spies a cobblestone patio with patches of weeds growing through the crisscrossed pattern between the stones, and a metal hatchway.

The patio’s disheveled nature gives Garrett’s inner demon fuel to urge him on.

‘The Happy Valley Group Home is so untidy,’ the demon says. ‘Cleanse it.’

Garrett’s eyes sparkle. Fire always rises, so starting a blaze in the basement might be the perfect way to create a tower of flames so tall that it can be seen from as far away as Skinner Mountain. He smiles, because someday he knows that he will also burn The Summit House on top of Skinner to the ground, hopefully while there is an event going on inside, like a wedding or a sweet sixteen party.

Thoughts of puffy dresses combusting makes his tongue wet. Garrett licks his lips and a slick of saliva drips down his chin.

‘Do it now,’ hisses his demon from deep inside his belly. ‘Feed me. Feed me. Feed me.’

Garrett crouches down low and quickly runs to the side of the house. There is a window there with a partially pulled shade. Slowly, with his fingers splayed and his heart pounding, he stands until just the top of his head and his eyes are over the windowsill.

Inside, some of the residents of the Happy Valley Group Home are watching children’s puppets on television, however, they seem as though they aren’t watching the dancing screen at all.

A boy with milky eyes, confined to a wheel chair, is playing air piano with weirdly jointed fingers that look better suited to a skeleton.

Another has his eyes half-lidded and his chin on his chest.

A third boy looks all wrong, like he’s been drawn by a third grader with poor anatomical skills. His head is misshapen and lopsided.

The three of them sitting there, dull and dim-witted, make Garrett a little angry.

They all look so off that he’s not even sure that they will scream when the flames begin shooting through the wooden floor. The residents of the Happy Valley Group Home might just stare at the fire with their vacant manatee eyes and not do anything, even when the deadly flower finally reaches them—searing their skin—making it bubble and burn.

‘Oh, they’ll feel it,’ whispers his inner demon. ‘They’ll feel it but good.’

A pleasant chill runs up Garrett’s back as he agrees with the monster inside. A fire will surely coax the residents of the Happy Valley Group Home out of their stupor.

That’s what fire does.

Without hesitating, he sprints to the back of the house and across the weed-filled patio to the metal hatchway.

Garrett holds his breath as he reaches for the handle, praying that it isn’t locked. Thankfully, his prayers are answered. He pulls open one side and gingerly descends the wooden stair case while holding the hatch open, then quietly lowers it back into place so no one will know that he’s there.

The basement is dark, but Garrett McCarthy is used to the dark. He stands still for several minutes, waiting for his eyes to adjust. He knows they eventually will.

Once they do, he sees shadows of boxes, storage containers, several wheelchairs and a workbench. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a chubby, unscented votive he has taken from his mother’s holiday closet. Then he strikes a wooden match and lights the candle. Immediately, the rest of the basement turns color and he can see. There’s a washing machine and a dryer against the far wall. There’s also an extra refrigerator and a freezer chest. Scanning the room, he sees separate cage-cubbies like in the nether regions of an apartment building, each with a name on it and a padlock. They appear to be filled with suitcases and trunks.

Garrett rightly guesses that these are the storage areas for each of the residents. It’s where parents have dumped the belongings of their family embarrassments, relieved that their burdens are someone else’s problem now and they can finally forget.

Garrett McCarthy smiles to himself. Once he has cremated the Happy Valley Group Home, the people of Meadowfield, Massachusetts, will forget, too. He knows he’s right to have chosen here. It’s an easy target. He can’t wait until he is back in the woods, watching the flames reach higher and higher until the whole place is blazing in glorious death.

Garrett walks across the room and puts the candle down on top of the freezer chest. Then he quickly surveys the rest of the basement to find exactly the right spot to start his work. Above him he hears the television blaring away and maybe the creak of a wheel chair slowly rocking back and forth.

He smiles again as he unscrews his jar of gasoline and splashes the floor with the acrid liquid. When he’s through, he bunches up wads of newspaper and wets them with what’s left in the jar, stuffing clumps between cardboard boxes and other things that look like they will burn easily.

Finally, with his heart pounding in his chest out of sheer anticipation, he strikes a match and drops it to the floor.

Immediately fire erupts and races across the cellar, hitting wet newspaper as it goes. Each damp pile bursts into life in front of Garrett’s gleeful eyes. Scant seconds after the fire begins, an alarm pierces through the basement so loudly that Garrett hears someone scream up above and footsteps running through the house.

‘Excellent,’ hisses his demon. ‘More.’

Garrett, however, is transfixed. He can’t help but watch his newborn masterpiece devour everything in its path, regardless of the alarm and regardless of the movement over his head. His inner demon devours each image alongside him as fire ignites wood and debris. Little beads of sweat start to pop out on his forehead.

Garrett pays no heed to anything but the flames and the delicious screams of Happy Valley panic in the rooms above.

Soon, very soon, the heat starts becoming too much for Garrett and he knows he has to leave. Reluctantly, he backs away from the flames and returns to the hatchway stairs, the alarm blaring, and the good residents up above panicking.

Unfortunately, the hatchway door is locked. He doesn’t know how and he doesn’t know why.

If he were older and smarter he would have studied up on safety precautions for residential facilities such as the one he is now burning. In doing so, he would have learned that all doorways and windows in places like the Happy Valley Group Home automatically lock from the inside to keep the residents from wandering away, or that the trained staff makes sure that everyone is out of the house and on the front lawn in less than a minute after an alarm is set off.

Unfortunately still, the path to the basement stairs leading to the first floor is now blocked with flames, and Garrett can’t exit that way either.

He can’t exit at all.

So while the residents of the Happy Valley Group Home watch their colonial go up in flames, one still nodding and another playing air piano, no one hears the screams of a fourteen-year-old boy locked in the basement, his skin crackling and splitting and his clothing melting onto his body.

No one that is, save for the hungry creature that Garrett McCarthy carries around in his gut.

‘Delicious,’ it wails. ‘Scrumptious. Give me more…more…mo…’

Read more of Howard Odentz’s work today!

Bloody Bloody Apple is on sale for $0.99 until October 31st!

Reflections From My Front Porch

by Lora Lee

Hey there, y’all! Come on up and sit a spell on my front porch. It’s a lovely Fall afternoon, so relax in that rocker over there and let’s visit.

Did you know there’s a Clergy Appreciation Day? You didn’t? Neither did I. I even checked my calendar. Nothing. Zip. Nada. However, I trust the Bell Bridge marketing department when they tell me there is such a day. After all, they’re pretty smart about that sort of thing.

Now, if any of y’all have read Bringing in the Thieves, my cozy mystery in the Joyful Noise Mysteries, you know that the main character is a preacher’s daughter. Yep, Frankie Lou is a PK and her halo is in dire need of polishing. Seems she didn’t appreciate her clergyman father during her rebellious teen years. Hmmm. I wouldn’t know anything about that.

What’s that you ask? Oh, of course, I’m a PK. Always have been, but I’m not at all like Frankie Lou, bless her heart. After all, I’m a lot older and I know better. Life when I was growing up was different for a PK. Frankie Lou’s modern day problems were . . . well, you can read all about her in the book. I’ll give you a brief inside look into my own childhood days and you can draw your own conclusions.

There was one period during WWII when daddy was a Captain and chaplain in the US ARMY that I remember well. That was a worrisome time ‘cause my big brother was in the US NAVY somewhere out in the Pacific during that time, too. Momma shed a lot of tears while both of them were gone.

The time came when Momma and I were able to move where Daddy was stationed. That meant attending a new school where I didn’t know a soul. Can’t say I liked fourth grade that year.

Daddy was so handsome in his uniform. I felt pretty special when we ate in the mess hall with the other officers. But one Thanksgiving, Daddy wanted us to eat dinner with the enlisted men. Momma agreed so that’s what we did. Daddy loved those young men like his own son and did his best to prepare them for what they might be facing if they were sent overseas. I’m pretty sure those men appreciated the clergy because the chapel was always filled every Sunday.

I only had eleven years to appreciate my clergyman father. I didn’t even appreciate God the day Daddy died, but through the years, Momma kept me on the straight and narrow with her unconditional love. My appreciation of the clergy has grown as I’ve matured. And believe it or not, God never gave up on me, either.

Thanks for visiting on the front porch with me today. Y’all come back, ya’ hear.

Lora Lee

Pick up Bringing in the Thieves, the first in the Joyful Noise Mysteries, today for only $1.99!

It’s National Psychic Week!

That means that we have great books

*with a psychic twist*

on sale!

Don’t miss out! The sale ends August 5th!

*sale is for ebook only*

The Manicurist by Phyllis Schieber – $0.99

A magical novel of secrets revealed and a family in turmoil, searching together for new beginnings.

Tessa and Walter have, by all appearances, the perfect marriage. And they seem to be ideal parents for their somewhat rebellious teenage daughter, Regina. Without warning, however, their comfortable lives are thrown into turmoil when a disturbing customer comes into the salon where Tessa works as a manicurist.

Suddenly, Tessa’s world is turned upside down as revelations come to light about the mother she thought had abandoned her in childhood and the second sight that she so guardedly seeks to keep from others.

The Challenge by Susan Kearney – $0.99

Book 1 of The Rystani Warrior Series

Domination. Desire. Destiny.

He rules a future in which women are helpless, obedient, and always willing. She comes from a past in which a woman’s strength, brains, and courage are unquestioned. The challenge between them is timeless.

Secret Service agent Tessa Camen took a bullet meant for the president. She regains consciousness three hundred years in the future on a spaceship, naked in the arms of Kahn, a fierce warlord from the planet Rystan. He’s been expecting her. Tessa was whisked forward in time because her fighting abilities include a psychic talent like none other. Only she can defeat an enemy who threatens Earth. The fate of her home hangs in the balance. Once again, she’s called on to serve and protect her nation.

In Kahn’s world, women are meant to be ruled but also protected. He can seduce Tessa, but can he own her heart and mind? Can he put aside his beliefs about women to help her train for a brutal intergalactic test, The Challenge? If she loses, so does Earth.

Tessa and Kahn are caught in a war of wills set in a future where survival is a skill, power is an aphrodisiac, and love is a challenge that could destroy everything they cherish.

The Lightning Charmer by Kathryn Magendie – $1.99

He brought down the sky for her.

The spell was cast when they were children. That bond cannot be broken.

In the deep hollows and high ridges of the ancient Appalachian mountains, a legacy of stunning magic will change their lives forever.

Laura is caught between the modern and the mystical, struggling to lead a normal life in New York despite a powerful psychic connection to her childhood home in North Carolina—and to the mysterious stranger who calls her name. She’s a synesthete—someone who mentally “sees” and “tastes” splashes of color connected to people, emotions, and things. She’s struggled against the distracting ability all her life; now the effects have grown stronger. She returns home to the mountains, desperate to resolve the obsessive pull of their mysteries.

But life in her mountain community is far from peaceful. An arsonist has the town on edge, and she discovers Ayron, scarred and tormented, an irresistible recluse who rarely leaves the forest. As her childhood memories of him surface, the facade of her ordinary world begins to fade. The knots she’s tied around her heart and her beliefs start unraveling. Ayron has never forgotten her or the meaning of their astonishing bond. If his kind is to survive in modern times, he and Laura must face the consequences of falling in love.

Nothing But Trouble by Trish Jensen – $0.99

He’s gorgeous, rich, sexy, super nice, and head-over-heels for her. So what’s the problem?

Her psychic best friend predicts that Laura Tanner is due to meet a prince—the man of her dreams. Not a likely scenario for a hard-working bar owner who’s better at karate-chopping rowdy patrons than hobnobbing with the silver-spoon crowd. When Ivy League lawyer Brandon Prince (a prince!) strolls into her bar, Laura admits he’s hard to resist. Brandon quickly realizes that this lovely, funny, take-no-prisoners woman is the special someone he’s always wanted.

Brandon is an expert at wooing women, and even a tough cookie like Laura can’t help but fall under his spell. Before she knows what’s happening, he’s lured her on a romantic adventure filled with laughter and desire. Dazzled, she begins to believe that she really can have this prince of a man as her own.

One problem: Brandon’s powerful mother is used to women chasing his family fortune, and she’ll do whatever it takes to keep yet another money-grubbing female out of his life. If a man is everything you’ve ever wanted, how can he also be nothing but trouble?

Raging Spirits by Angel Smits – $0.99

Can she break the spell that haunts him?

Clarissa Elgin’s psychic powers have brought her trouble before. This time, her vision shows her a handsome man dying in her arms after being shot in a robbery. The stranger whispers the name Rachel as his killer. She also envisions an embezzlement scheme at a bank where she soon spots the man in real life. David Lorde, a bank vice president, is skeptical when she visits his office to warn him about the future.

Another vision shows her a lovers’ quarrel between David and Rachel—his wife. He suspected her of marrying him for his money and prestige. A shot rings out. Did he kill Rachel?

Clarissa can’t get David out of her mind. As she falls in love with him, she deduces that somehow his late wife’s spirit has cast a spell over him. But an even more sinister evil is behind Rachel’s power. . .

Clarissa must risk her life to save him.

In addition to our amazing sale, we asked our intern, Cody, to write a post for National Psychic Week! He did not disappoint…

Psychic powers have long fascinated me. I am on the fence about whether I think people can actually have psychic abilities. I want to believe they can, but I’ll need a piece of hard proof in front of me before I will completely go out on that limb. That being said, psychics have indisputably had a hand in solving various murders and missing persons cases over the years. They continue to be able to tell us things about people who have passed away that seemingly they should not know if their powers were fake. Cases upon cases of psychic occurrences have been documented, but without being able to actually enter the mind of the psychic, no one has been able to explain or completely validate whether or not psychics are real.

Perhaps the most interesting psychic of all time was Nostradamus. He wrote over a thousand quatrains (a four line block) about events he believed would happen in the future. The poetic nature of his prophesies makes it difficult to pinpoint specific events. However, looking at his writings in hindsight, there are countless events that he might have predicted. One of his most famous predictions was about the coming of Hitler. He wrote:

“From the depths of the West of Europe,
A young child will be born of poor people,
He who by his tongue will seduce a great troop;
His fame will increase towards the realm of the East.

           Beasts ferocious with hunger will cross the rivers,
           The greater part of the battlefield will be against Hister.
           Into a cage of iron will the great one be drawn,
           When the child of Germany observes nothing.”

Many people have interpreted, and with good reason, this to be a direct reference to Hitler. He only missed calling out Hitler specifically by one letter. Also, the two quatrains almost perfectly describe Hitler’s upbringing as well as the political landscape during WWII concerning the Allied and Axis forces.

Nostradamus’s predictions don’t stop there. He also predicted the Great Fire of London in 1666 and possibly the terror attacks of 9/11 in New York City. He spoke of the terror attacks by referring to the “great new city” where the “sky will burn at 45 degrees.”  Most scholars believe that Nostradamus’s “45 degrees” is in reference to the city’s location, near the 45 degree line of latitude.            

All of that being said, I think we need to take Nostradamus’s prophecies with a grain of salt. The vast majority of his writings are very imprecise and can seemingly only be understood after an event has happened. However, I still believe there is some validity to the psychic argument. Nostradamus, while vague, clearly had a grasp on something a little bit deeper than a basic understanding of the universe. Whether that means he was a genius at deception or a true psychic, only time and more research will tell, but the possibility of a person having a psychic connection to their surroundings continues to fascinate millions of people. I cannot discount the fact that there are people who can discern information in ways that most cannot explain. This phenomenon will remain capable of captivating us for many generations to come.

Check out more of Nostradamus’s predictions:

http://read.bi/2w7z6M2

You can also get your own copy of Nostradamus’s Prophecies here:

 http://amzn.to/2f9zcyC

Happy Reading!

LOOK!!! A Highland Coo!!!

I just came home from a 10-day tour of Scotland. The whole country is beautifully bleak, with rolling hills in the lowlands and towering mountains in the highlands. By a very thin margin, the national asset is arguably the sheep or the highland cow (pronounced coo). The people are friendly. The shops are literally  bursting with tartan, and everywhere you look the ground is covered with heather, which our kilt-clad guide, Ian, described as a ‘disappointing brown’ this time of year.

It’s cold there, which the New Englander in me loves. The history is filled with blood, which the horror writer in me adores.

Still, I have a beef with Scotland, and it’s a big beef, roughly the same size as a shaggy highland coo.

My beef is Nessie.

I’ve literally spent my whole life dreaming of the day that I would stand on the dark shores of Loch Ness and look off in the distance, camera at the ready, to see Nessie rise from the depths in all her prehistoric splendor, just so I could get a selfie with her monstrous, slimy self.

The thing is . . . the locals don’t actually believe that Nessie exists.

Wait, what?

Oh sure, there are little stuffed Nessies at all the gift shops, and salt and pepper shakers shaped like a head and a hump. What’s more, there’s even a place called Nessieland on the outskirts of Inverness, with all the seriousness of the It’s a Small World attraction at Disney. Just the for record, the Disney attraction is far creepier and you all know what I think about creepy kids (See Little Killers A to Z among my recent releases).

Our portly guide on our Loch Ness boat ride giggled when he pointed out the tiny trailer across the loch where the resident crazy has lived for the last twenty-five years, scanning the waters daily for signs of the monster. He practically admitted that most locals cross the street when they spy him because he also believes in Bigfoot, aliens, and the fact that the majority of folks in the US government are really giant lizards intent on taking over the world.

Great. Just great. Go ahead and shatter my entire world view.

I suppose that witches, ghosts, vampires, and intelligent politicians are all fantasies, too?

I’m crushed, Scotland. I guess there’s nothing left for me to do but throw away all my old beliefs and maybe switch to writing romance novels. That, or shore up the walls inside my head and hold fast to the inarguable fact that Nessie is really down there in the depths somewhere waiting for that one person who will get that perfect shot of her.

I can be that person. Why not? I’m booking a trip back to Scotland soon and I’m going to rent a tiny, stucco bungalow near that equally tiny trailer across the Loch. Maybe the man who lives there will give me pointers on where to stalk the waters with my camera ready.

After all, someone has to win the Lottery. Why not me?

Pick up Little Killers A-Z today for just $0.99! This deal will only last until the 15th!

Bad things come in small packages . . .

EPIC Award finalist Howard Odentz has penned twenty-six disturbingly fascinating horror stories about the youngest predators among us.

From Andy and Boris to Yuri and Zina, this eclectic anthology is filled, A to Z, with psychopaths, monsters, and murderers!

So turn on the lights and huddle under your blankets because murder isn’t just for grown-ups anymore. Come meet our gallery of little killers.

After all, they’re dying to meet you!

About Howard Odentz:

Author and playwright Howard Odentz is a lifelong resident of the gray area between Western Massachusetts and North Central Connecticut. His love of the region is evident in his writing as he often incorporates the foothills of the Berkshires and the small towns of the Bay and Nutmeg states into his work.