Books
State of Grace : John R. Phythyon, Jr.
State of Grace
When his friend and colleague in Urland’s Shadow Service, Sara Wensley-James, is murdered in the elf nation of Alfar, Wolf Dasher’s mission seems simple: track down her killer and bring him to justice. But nothing is going to be easy about this case.
Sara named Sagaius Silverleaf, Alfar’s ambassador to Urland as the culprit, but he couldn’t have done it. He was in Urland at the time of the murder.
Sent to Alfar under cover as Urland’s new ambassador, Wolf begins the most difficult and dangerous mission of his career. The once-lush and magical land of the elves is decaying. Its once-verdant countryside is putrefying before its citizens’ eyes. Some blame the presence of human occupiers – Urlish military units present to keep order and support Alfar’s shaky coalition government. Some blame losing the message of the great prophet, Frey, and turning away from God’s plan. But many think it is simply the schism in elfin religion that spawned a civil war and daily acts of terrorism by fundamentalist martyrs.
Wolf must navigate this nightmarish environment to find Sara’s killer. Could Silverleaf have been responsible? If so, why? His investigation leads him into an intricate web of assassination, betrayal, and zealotry. With the help of Aflar’s Elite Guard captain, May Honeyflower, Wolf uncovers piece after piece of a sinister puzzle: a psychotic killer, a mad general bent on conquest, an ancient, evil artifact, and a terrorist organization planning a grand act of devastation. But how do they all fit together? What did Sara discover that got her killed?
As the Feast of the Revelation, the holiest day on the elfin calendar, approaches, Wolf and Honeyflower find themselves in a race against time to unravel a plot that could topple Alfar’s government, plunge it into war, and change the balance of power in the world forever.
STATE OF GRACE is the first in a series of fantasy-thriller mashup novels, blending magic, super spies, and politics in an exciting brew of action and adventure. From the chilling opening scene to the pulse-pounding climax, STATE OF GRACE takes the best elements of an espionage thriller and a court intrigue and weaves them into a world both familiar and fantastic.
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The Derailment of the Sunset Limited : Neal Hallford
The Derailment of the Sunset Limited
On October 9, 1995, Amtrak’s Sunset Limited derailed in southwestern Arizona.
With their train sabotaged by a shadowy organization calling itself the Sons of the Gestapo, the passengers found themselves stranded in a remote, snake-infested desert.
Passenger Neal Hallford provides a candid account of the night’s events, leading us from the moment of impact through his later discovery of the chilling messages left by the terrorists.
Painting a portrait of both the incident and the ironic circumstances surrounding it, he gives us a deeply personal snapshot inside the most investigated act of domestic terrorism between the Oklahoma City bombing and the tragedy of September 11, 2001.
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Flesh Worn Stone : John A Burks Jr.
Flesh Worn Stone
Steven Alexander awakes from a drug-induced coma in a cage on a pristine tropical beach, his head covered with a burlap sack and numbers tattooed on his right arm.
Besides his wife, Rebecca, he doesn’t know any of the four other people in blue prison-style coveralls. As the others come out of their own stupor, he remembers the masked and armed men breaking into his suburban Houston home and the murder of his two sons. The group has nothing in common besides the location and the manner of their brutal kidnappings.
Unbeknownst to Steven, he and his fellow prisoners are now part of the Cave, a Colosseum-sized cavern populated with savage cannibals. And they are about to play the Game.
The Cave is a prison like no other–a prison run by the prisoners, and the rules must be strictly adhered to, less one find themselves as the evening meal. The Cave dwellersí lives revolve around the Game, a modern-day rendition of the Colosseum of ancient Rome, where they must compete in acts of murder, rape, and self-mutilation for the amusement of those who watch from behind one-way mirrors, people they never see or hear. Refusal to participate means the dinner pot, and losing means a fate literally worse than death.
Steven soon learns the true meaning of not just slavery, but of abject and relentless hopelessness as he struggles to not only survive, but escape the horrors of the Game.
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Transcendental Basketball Blues : Mike Pemberton
Transcendental Basketball Blues
Jack Henderson, a star basketball player, has it all. Loving mother, Mary Lou, is a great musician, father, Sam, a local hero.
But when Jack starts high school, Mary Lou disappears. Diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic, she spends Jack’s adolescence on the run, escaping imagined tormentors. Confined to a mental hospital, then released home, she skips her medication and the cycle repeats.
By Jack’s senior year, love of music and basketball intertwine as mother and son seek solace within the transcendent moments yielded by their twin passions.
Set in the late 1970’s in basketball crazy Illinois, “Transcendental Basketball Blues” brings to life the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate days where racial integration took tentative first steps, stagflation simmered, disco fever raged and Top 40 radio ruled. Yet the themes of love, forgiveness, humor in the face of hopelessness and acceptance of others for who they are ring true for readers from all eras.
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A Perfect Husband : Douglas Wickard
A Perfect Husband
An abandoned cabin… a diabolical killer… a hidden cemetery. A deadly secret is about to be uncovered.
Far from the neon blur of Manhattan—the dizzy buzz of restaurants, theater openings and one too many cocktails—located seventy-two miles outside the City in the sleepy, rural township of Montague, New Jersey, Sami Saxton is looking to rebuild her life. A rebirth, one might call it. And, she intends to do this spiritual resurrection in a small, abandoned fishing cabin, built over forty years ago by her now deceased father.
Not quite…
A lethal serial killer has taken up residence in the basement of Sami’s remote cottage, using her father’s carpenter table for a hobby far more sinister than woodcutting.
Sequestered deep within forty-two acres of tall pine trees, bristling brooks and fresh water lakes…
Sami Saxton is about to fight for her life…
The hard truth… nobody will ever hear her scream!
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Centauri Midnight : CA Woolf
Centauri Midnight: a sci-fi romance (Centauri Series) (Volume 3)
Kitari ‘Kiti’ Dolana is a Tensign in the Dragonera, the most elite force of soldiers in the galaxy. She wants justice for her murdered brother. She’s trailed the man responsible to a distant planet where swords outmaneuver blasters. A planet where secrets are kept that can destroy all that Kiti knows and believes.
Garrick Marcus, Spaceship Captain and Dragonera, is on a mission to hunt down a ruthless killer. The same man Kiti is after. Garrick will do anything to help Kiti find peace and find the way to his bed.
But Kiti and Garrick discover an explosive attraction that makes it hard to keep their minds on their goals. As they try to bring down the killer, they find that love and vengeance are a volatile mix.
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Gate of Tears : James Marinero
Gate of Tears
Gritty and realistic action, setting a psychopathic Serbian female terrorist against an ex-Royal Marine. In the up-to-the-minute context of the politically volatile Red Sea region, it reflects political expediency and high level betrayal in Government and the Intelligence Services.
Driven by genetic technology and a monstrous manipulation of world gold markets, it culminates in confrontation between NATO and Israel on one side, and China and the Yemen on the other. Alaska to Australia, Britain to Djibouti, this is an illuminating look at Chinese Superpower ambitions – their worldwide Golden Shield Intelligence Program – humint, elint and cyberwar, together with their rapidl building nuclear-powered blue water naval capability.
‘A lover of the genre couldn’t ask for more or better’ – novelist Lee Holz.
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Silki, the Girl of Many Scarves – Summer Of The Ancient : Jodi Lea Stewart
Silki, the Girl of Many Scarves – Summer Of The Ancient
SILKI, A YOUNG NAVAJO GIRL, thought she’d made up Wol-la-chee, the Ancient Ant Man, on one of her horseback rides with her best friend Birdie.
When Wol-la-chee shrieks into her life one summer day on Concho Mountain, Silki’s world turns upside down. With her family pushing her toward more responsibility and respect for her heritage, how can Silki find the time to solve this new and frightening mystery? And if Birdie thinks Silki has gotten her real and unreal mixed up, will that push the two girls apart or bring them back together?
Woven with Navajo language, tradition, and lore, Silki, the Girl of Many Scarves: SUMMER OF THE ANCIENT is the first book in a series of one girl’s adventures in the American Southwest.
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She’s Not There : Marla Madison
She’s Not There
Women are missing . . .
Is the rising number of abused women who’ve gone missing a statistical anomaly? Or is a predator targeting this vulnerable group of women?
Psychologist Lisa Rayburn discovers that abused women are disappearing at a rate too high to be a coincidence. When one of her own clients goes missing, Lisa reports her concerns to the Milwaukee police and is told with no physical evidence of foul play, they cannot open an investigation.
Forming an unlikely alliance with a former policewoman turned security consultant, Lisa and TJ Peacock embark on their own investigation into the disappearances by interviewing friends and relatives of the missing women. Two husbands of the missing women, men who may be murderers themselves, join the hunt.
After TJ is attacked, and a woman looking remarkably like Lisa is murdered, she knows they are on the right track.
Someone is willing to kill to protect his secret.
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Willow Pond : Carol Tibaldi
Willow Pond
The Roaring Twenties crumble into the Great Depression, but Virginia Kingsley, New York’s toughest and most successful speakeasy owner, is doing just fine. Now that the world is falling apart, bootlegging is a flourishing business, and she’s queen of that castle.
Then her infant nephew is kidnapped. Her niece, Laura, and Laura’s philandering movie star husband, are devastated. The police have few leads, and speculation and rumors abound in the media circus that follows the celebrity abduction.
Only one reporter, Erich Muller, seems to care enough about the child’s welfare and the parents’ feelings to report the case responsibly. Over the course of the investigation, Erich Muller and Laura fall in love, but their relationship is doomed to failure since he suspects her beloved aunt Virginia is behind the kidnapping. Laura, jaded when it comes to men, sides with Virginia.
But Virginia has figured out the truth, and she can’t tell anyone for fear of losing her niece’s affections and having the police ransack her life. So she pursues her own investigation, shaking down, threatening, and killing one petty crook after another during her search.
Little Todd’s absence shapes everyone’s lives. When he is finally found, the discovery will bring disaster for some and revelation for others.
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