And when a face in the mirror confronts her with a dire warning, she realizes her life is at risk. Has she awakened a curse—or been struck by madness? “Queen Joanna” presents a haunting twist on the legend of Bloody Mary. This short story originally appeared in the From the Indie Side anthology.

    WARNING: Side effects may include the ability to catch a killer...FBI Agent Maggie Allen had a gift for catching serial killers.Now, following the death of her husband and son, she can barely get out of bed.Desperate, Maggie agrees to take part in a drug trial--a last-ditch effort to find something that might help her cope.The drug helps.However, it also carries several unpleasant side effects, not the least of them being an exceptional heightening of all her senses...just the kind of thing her old partner could use to help the FBI track down a prolific serial killer who is proving impossible to catch.

    He reports violent incident confidentially to the local Sheriff...who is murdered the next day. Storme believes there's a connection and starts asking questions, unraveling a deadly conspiracy of corruption, drug-trafficking and organized crime... and making himself someone that just about everybody wants dead.

    Now an ordinary wife and mother, she hides a terrible secret someone is determined to expose to the world. Who is Polly's mystery stalker? And what do they know about the events that occurred in the woods that long ago July day?

    Nearly a century later there are those who still report seeing the children swimming beneath the surface like elusive dolphins. After losing her husband in a violent car crash, Rachel King and her two young sons venture to Arrowhead Lake to heal. When Rachel discovers that Great Woods Timber is planning to clear-cut this beautiful wilderness she enlists the help of Lilly Bowman and her mysterious father, chief and shaman of the Wabanaki nation. But dark events have been set in motion and Arrowhead Lake is under siege by a sinister force of mercenaries. When Chief Neptune vanishes, Rachel and Lilly call on Seth Ferguson, the local deputy sheriff for help. Together they discover an astonishing truth; a shadowy cabal that will stop at nothing to obtain the secret of Arrowhead Lake, a secret that if unearthed could have far-reaching consequences. When one of Rachel’s sons vanishes in the Lake, she and Lilly embark on a harrowing journey to find him. What they discover is a mind boggling truth that will change their lives forever. *

    But when she and her all-female crew answer a mysterious distress call during a tropical storm, they stumble across an abandoned yacht worth millions. It seems like a dream come true, the Lotto, the Big Ticket to all their dreams... Until they discover what's waiting for them inside the ship... DERELICT A horror novella by Todd Travis

    A young man finds out from a fortune teller that there’s always a price to be paid. A rich man doesn’t quite have the 25th high school reunion experience he expected. Beware of strangers on a train. A dog may not be man’s best friend. An aging hitman takes a trip down memory lane.

    Amant has been crowned Rex, King of Carnival. But his day of glory comes to an abrupt and bloody end when a parade-goer dressed as Dolly Parton guns him down. AXEMAN'S JAZZ What's the perfect killing field for a murderer? A place where he (or maybe she) can learn your secrets from your own mouth and then make friends over coffee. A supposedly "safe" place where anonymity is the norm. The horror who calls himself The Axeman has figured it out and claimed his territory—he's cherry-picking his victims in the 12-Step programs of New Orleans. JAZZ FUNERAL Skip Langdon just happens to be on hand when Ham Brocato, director if New Orleans Jazzfest, is discovered dead on the kitchen floor in the middle of his own party the evening before the Fest. To complicate the already murky case, the victim's sixteen-year-old blues musician sister has disappeared, and Skip suspects that if the young woman isn't the murderer, she's in mortal danger from the person who is. DEATH BEFORE FACEBOOK It’s a chilly November in 1994, and thirty-one-year-old Geoff Kavanagh surreptitiously splits his time between science fiction novels and cyberspace in his parents’ dilapidated, overgrown, uptown New Orleans mansion. Until his mother finds him dead from a suspicious fall off a ladder. Maybe he should never have posted about seeing his father murdered … HOUSE OF BLUES Sugar Hebert arrives home from a ten-minute errand to find her husband shot to death and the rest of her family missing—including her daughter Reed, heir apparent to the Hebert restaurant dynasty, and Reed's eleven-month-old daughter. THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS Politics makes the strangest bedfellows of all and in New Orleans, a psychopath’s running for mayor. Not just the usual harmless megalomaniac—a murderer and a monster. CRESCENT CITY CONNECTION Sure, New Orleans is known for corruption, but suddenly the good guys get a break—an honest police chief. And then someone guns him down. When a terrifying organization called The Jury takes out the cop-killer, Detective Skip Langdon’s on the case. And she suspects The Jury’s the brainchild of her old nemesis, self-described preacher Errol Jacomine 82 DESIRE It seems Councilwoman Bebe Fortier has misplaced her equally prominent husband, United Oil VP Russell Fortier. Across town, part-time detective/poet Talba Wallis has a simple wish--to find out what Russell Fortier's disappearance has to do with her.

    When a group of out-out-town friends investigating the legends are driven off the road by a mysterious hearse, their night of cheap thrills turns to chills as they begin to die one by one. ISLAND OF THE DOLLSDeep within an ancient Aztec canal system on the outskirts of Mexico City lies Isla de las Munecas...a reportedly haunted island infested with thousands of decrepit dolls. While there to film a television documentary, several friends discover a brutal murder. Soon fear and paranoia turn them against one another - even as the unknown killer stalks them throughout the longest night of their lives.

    Missing Persons Detective London McKenna links the killings to a fifteen-year-old kidnapping and uncovers a sinister conspiracy to murder those who would reveal the horrifying truth. Runaway girls are being kidnapped and trafficked as child brides. London races to save the young girls, but her investigation traps her inside a twisted world of perverted religion, bloody revenge, and the nightmares of her own captivity. With time running out and the captors desperate for their next bride, London must risk her own life to save the children and prevent the heinous weddings from becoming a mass funeral... Girls In White Dresses is a gripping, edge-of-your-seat crime thriller perfect for fans of James Patterson, Robert Dugoni, and Liliana Hart. London McKenna is a feisty, take-no-prisoners female detective avenging the evils done to her in the past. With an explosive plot and a twist that will leave you breathless, Girls in White Dresses is an exciting and riveting novel guaranteed to shock you until the very end!

    A police investigation reveals Tim wasn’t quite the son they thought he was. Frantic attempts to find him fail, and when their quest becomes an obsession this causes problems between them. But they never give up, and are determined to find him DEAD OR ALIVE, even though it may cost them dear.

    Renamed Abigail, she is smuggled and hidden away from the sight of predators during her childhood. She grows up into an amazing beauty and a renowned lawyer, who is recruited by the “Mossad”. On her dangerous mission in enemy territory, along with Israeli “Mossad” agent, Judge Adam Ayalon, both are abducted by terrorists and thrown into a living tomb. Trapped and chained up like dogs, beaten and abused, they succeed in... Yes, it is a unique story of abduction with an enthralling twist in the plot... The President of Israel, Mr. Shimon Peres's read this book and wrote to me: "Your book integrates realistic and fictional elements and deals with a complex and painful issue… Its moving plot brings about difficult moral dilemmas, both on the personal level and on the national level, whose solution involves a sensitive performance… In your book, as well as in reality…" (-) Shimon Peres The President of Israel

    But it quickly becomes clear that nothing is as easy as it seems. The bid is quickly undercut as twisted corporate politics and personal vendettas take over. When the buyout becomes all or nothing for the management buyout team, it all spins out of control: marriages fall apart, dark secrets are discovered, life savings are spent on the stock market, illegal insider dealing becomes a matter of fact and blackmail, theft, betrayal and manipulation are the new rules of the game. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity turns into a lurid nightmare. Buyout is a gripping and compulsive page-turner about the power of money to unveil the deepest in human nature. It's also a story about chasing one extraordinary dream. At an extraordinary price. financial thrillers series, legal thrillers best sellers, blackmailed, corruption series, business thriller, financial thrillers, legal thrillers series

    Follow the twists and turns as this thriller unfolds in to a thrilling ride of who done it and why. Four years on from moving away from the dangers of New York and Damien is still drifting through life, with a list of ‘to-dos’ that seemed to get longer with each passing day. With a drunken father and overly dramatic mother, who is always threatening to leave, he often prefers to snatch some sleep on his friend’s couch rather than putting up with them. When an old friend, Christa, unexpectedly shows up, bereft at the loss of her friend and co-star in the Broadway show they starred in, Damien is astonished but happy to see her. But she is far from the confident young girl he remembered. Other deaths follow, all of them close to Christa, and Damien becomes suspicious. Is his old friend in danger? Why are people close to her dying inexplicably? Damien is determined to find out what’s going on, no matter what the personal cost will be. Can he get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding Christa or will he succumb to the Curtain Call?

    She is happily married to Leon and her work is rewarding. But everything changes when she discovers the body of a man and a badly beaten woman, Beth, in the alleyway behind her husband’s pharmacy.Drawn to the young woman she saved, Kat finds herself embroiled in a baffling mystery.When Beth’s house is set on fire, Kat offers the young woman sanctuary in her home and soon the pair begin investigating the murder, with some help from Beth’s feisty grandmother, Doris. But neither the police, nor Leon, nor the criminals want Kat and Beth looking into their affairs and the sleuths quickly find themselves out of their depth… Can Kat and Beth solve the mystery and walk away unscathed? Anita Waller is the bestselling author of multiple thrillers including 34 Days, Malignant and Captor. Murder Undeniable is a gripping cat and mouse mystery which will appeal to fans of authors like Faith Martin, J.R. Ellis, LJ Ross and Betty Rowlands.