Michael’s Hospital. Here the young doctor and his colleagues are introduced to the reality of community medicine, in a bucolic valley replete with provincial character. Phil draws the coveted assignment to the Tuckett Orthopedic Institute, a self-proclaimed Center of Excellence, where joint replacements are performed under the direction of the renowned Dr. Ian Tuckett. Dr. Tuckett is a local prodigy, having garnered fame in the development of the Tuckett Cup, a revolutionary surgical implant for hip replacement surgery. Phil is immediately awed by the grandeur and spectacle of the Institute, seemingly awash with good fortune, or so it seems. The young doctor soon becomes involved in the complex social web of the valley, privy to disturbing information concerning Dr. Tuckett and his ex-wife, Anastasia. News of a popular socialite gone missing triggers Phil’s deeper involvement into a series of troublesome events, highlighted by the peculiar arrival of a powerful United States Senator. The sudden disclosure of Phil’s developing relationship with a nursing student ignites a firestorm that rapidly spreads throughout the rural community. In short order Phil Drummer is compelled to make decisions that will affect the rest of his life, fully aware that something is not only amiss in the valley, but also at the great Tuckett Orthopedic Institute. The Center of Excellence is book two of a trilogy following Doctor Philip Drummer through his surgical training. It is the sequel to Pennsylvania’s Finest, which chronicled Phil’s internship year.

    Wynner loves Qua. Easy enough, right? But Wynner came with two brothers who couldn't stand Qua with their baby sister. Qua couldn't stand not having Wynner with him, even if he didn't have his life together. With faith, his word and love, he grabs his love's hand and marries her at the court house. Flash forward five years, and all the promises that Qua has made Wynner he has come through on them. To stay true, secure the bag & be her ace through all her pain. With Wynner always being sick, everyone babies her and is always worried about her. As a wife, she supposed to nurture and cater to her husband, but always being sick, she feels less than a wife. When Qua's childhood friend comes to the city, she's sure to shake things up between the couple. Will they take their vows to heart? Or will Uzi be making his baby sister a widow? Uzi is feared by everything with a beating heart in New York. He and his brother's name ring bells in the New York City streets. If you and the Mcknight brother's name are mentioned in the same breath, you know you won't live to speak about it. With no time for a woman, Uzi usually slides in women and dip after. But, when a smart talking bartender at his favorite strip club catches his eyes he chases her like a lion does an antelope. Remi is so over men wasting her time & spitting game that she doesn't want to play. Working two jobs, she doesn't have time for games. When Uzi approaches her at work, both their words collide at full force. In a situationship, she continues to ignore Uzi until it becomes too much to handle. Will Uzi eventually shoot a arrow in her heart? Girl, take it all off cause I know you extra, Future's words couldn't ring truer for Remi's younger sister, Tweeti. Being the heavier of the two, she's was always overlooked as a child. Until now, where all the boys that played her for being plus sized, are same men chasing her. Tweeti doesn't know what she wants to do with her life. One week she wants to save lives then the next she wants to take them. When Jahquel rolls into her life, she's taken back. Never being with a man in a wheel chair, she shuts him down. What happens when Jah eventually captures her heart? Jahquel used to run the same streets his older brother now owns. A gun shot to the back stopped that, but it didn't stop his ruthless and rude demeanor. Being paralyzed limits some things, but when he runs into Tweeti, he feels like the sky is the limit. Tweeti couldn't be less interested than being just friends. Never being one to give up, he continues to pursue Tweeti. Will he eventually wear her down? In New York where you gotta go hard, these kings need to reign with an iron fist, but will they do it with or without queens?

    Little did she know money had changed hands for her and the man she was going to work for was the sadistic self-appointed crime boss, Nick Orphanides. Worse still, was when Maria realised the very people she loved and trusted had known the nightmare she was entering? After living with, deprivation and sadism at Nick’s hands for three years; she believed her prayers have finally been answered when Jimmy Dixon wins her in a poker game. Despite Jimmy being one of Nick’s crew, it soon becomes apparent that Nick wants her back and a feud soon develops between the two men. She knows too much, including Nick’s secret links with the Russian Mafia. If Nick can’t buy her back he’ll silence her permanently, along with Jimmy and anyone who stands in his way. Maria finds herself falling for the charms of bad boy Jimmy. However, it isn't long before she realises that he too has a darker side. A deep rooted sadistic uncontrollable anger connected to his childhood Jimmy's Game is the first book in the RUTHLESS Series 1.

    Jules possesses the street smarts, the hustler's mentality, and the ruthlessness that it takes to come to an unknown city and take over blocks. It doesn't take long for Jules and his crew to start shining, but the more money they accumulate, the more drama that begins to unfold. The locals don't take too kindly to the Baptiste boys’ sudden arrival, and things begin to heat up in the streets. Lyric is just getting over the death of her fiancé, and all she cares about is raising her child and being successful in her career. When the charming Jules enters her life, she is smitten as well as torn. Lyric is battling herself on whether to give in to her desires and let Jules love her, or stand firm on the promise she made to herself. Will all of Jules’ drama remind her why she no longer wants a dope boy, and cause her to push him away? Will love conquer all, or will Jules’ lifestyle cost him the woman that he's fallen deeply in love with?

    Survival. Love?As far as Joy was concerned a day at the spa with her spoiled sister-in-law, Grace, was as bad as things could get…That was before the nail tech turned into a zombie while Joy’s feet were in the pedicure tub.The zombies are only the beginning of what Joy will face as she races to get to her brother on a military base in Florida. Just as she gets a grip on how to survive, a run-in with a group of armed survivors leaves her starting over.Questions form as fast as relationships as she seeks safety in the arms of people more dangerous than the zombies. Is it possible to find love in a world where monsters are real and not all of them are zombies?

    In a post-apocalyptic world where season of birth determines power — spring healers, summer mages, fall shapeshifters, and winter shields — a man and a woman emerge from tragic childhoods to lead humanity on opposite sides of an interrealm war.▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀There is a hole in the sky. They call it the Rift. A portal to the gods. The scar of a suffering world. Through it, the gods rule the last scraps of civilization, harkening war. As chaos beckons, two leaders emerge from the ashes of a dying planet.Julian Kyder is the son of an abusive rape victim who compensates for his abandonment through psychopathy. Sira Rune is a cancer survivor who dedicates her life to living free and fearless while experiencing the taboo and the unorthodox. Rune is the only one unafraid of Kyder, and that terrifies him, because he only knows how to function through fear. Even though she gives him more chances than he deserves, how much violence can she forgive? When is a person beyond redemption? While he struggles to control his demons and she struggles to find purpose, the gods drag the ruined world into war. Amazon #1 Top Free Bestseller LGBT SF Amazon Top 10 New Releases LGBT SF Amazon Top 25 New Releases LGBT Fantasy CONTENT WARNING: The Rift Cycle is a highly graphic series intended for mature audiences.TAGS: science fiction, fantasy, grimdark, horror, LGBT, mental illness▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ READ AN EXCERPT Chapter 1: Pain Made a Man Kyder, Age 9 - July 7, 7009Her body is stone. Her eyes glass. She doesn’t see me. Doesn’t want me. Yet her blood runs through me, a river of pain.I call her mother, but she calls me nothing. She hopes to forget me. Hopes I will disappear. Conceived in violence, I am a constant reminder of the crime that made me.“Come,” she orders me. Like a dog. And I jog at her heels, obedient.She won’t use my name. It’s a reminder I exist. The meaning behind it is empty, anyway. She refused to name me, so the hospital staff did. Julian Kyder — Julian after the doctor who delivered me and Kyder after the hospital. Forever marked by the circumstances of my birth.She tried to abort, but I survived. She put me up for adoption, but no one took me. She tried to release me into the system, but they were already at overcapacity. We’re trapped. Stuck together as two halves of misery. The doctor told me I am a miracle. She told me I am a curse.“This way.”She leads me along the edge of the Shelf toward the market. With each step, my feet crunch along the parched gravel. To our left, cliffs drop hundreds of meters into the Ruined Sea, a toxic cesspool that encircles the island. In the distance, Mount Erebus puffs ash into the blanched sky, a grandfather smoking the last bit of a cigar.We mutilated our world, bombarded the planet for centuries with nuclear weapons until we ran out of missiles, until Earth flipped upside-down. The only habitable continent is Antarctica, now the North Pole, and even here, the war melted the desolate wasteland into a scorching desert. Humans near extinction, huddled near the top of the planet like exiles. But we deserve it.Sweat trickles down my back. I pull my robe tight around myself, hoping to block out the sun. It’s summer, so there’s no respite from the heat. The days are endless. They bleed into each other like ink on a page, no distinction between the lines. Night won’t come for another few months, and soon after it does, it won’t leave till winter’s done.Some call it balance. Day and night. Light and dark. Sun and stars. Birth and death. People look for meaning when it’s only chaos disguised as order…▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ WELCOME TO THE BREACH.

    At a deluxe medical spa on a nameless Caribbean island, a middle-aged woman hopes to revitalize her fading youth with grotesque rejuvenating therapies that combine cutting-edge medical technologies with holistic approaches and the pseudo-religious dogma of Zen-infused self-help. And in a rinky-dink mill town, an adolescent girl is unexpectedly inspired by the ravings and miraculous levitation of her fundamentalist friend’s weird grandmother. These are only a few of the scenarios readers encounter in Julia Elliott’s debut collection, The Wilds. In these genre-bending stories, teetering between the ridiculous and the sublime, Elliott’s language-driven fiction uses outlandish tropes to capture poignant moments in her humble characters’ lives. Without abandoning the tenets of classic storytelling, Elliott revels in lush lyricism, dark humor, and experimental play.

    He needs more freedom than is given to the average citizen in Edin. He needs to win the next protectors' apprenticeship. Without it, he can't be with Matilda. And what is a life, no matter how safe, without love? Spike Johnson has enjoyed the freedom and safety of a youth living in Edin. The diseased hordes outside the city’s walls might as well be on the other side of the planet. He spends as much time as he can with his best friend, and the girl he loves, Matilda. But all of that’s about to change. Tomorrow, Spike turns eighteen. In two days' time, he has to go on national service and fight in the war against the diseased for six months. Only half the cadets come back alive. But he needs to do more than survive. Matilda is due to go on national service at the same time. Faced with the prospect of losing her life and her love, she also has to leave behind a little brother who needs her. A lot can go wrong in the six months she’ll be away for. For the average citizen, national service marks the end of freedom. For those who survive, their life becomes one confined to their home district. They work in their district, live in their district, and fall in love with someone from their district. Matilda is from a different district to Spike. Falling for someone from another district is the pursuit of protectors, politicians, and fools. Spike isn’t a fool and has no desire of becoming a politician. His only route to freedom is to win the next protectors’ apprenticeship. With just one cadet from every national service cycle being picked for the program, Spike is going to have to be better than all of those around him to stand a chance. Without it, he can't be with Matilda. Without Matilda, he has nothing. And with Matilda needing to get back to her brother as soon as she can, she can't increase their chances of success by fighting for the apprenticeship too. The battle for Spike's and Matilda's future happiness rests squarely on his shoulders. But before they get to that, they both need to make sure they survive ... Protectors is the first gripping book in the Beyond These Walls post-apocalyptic series. If you like breath-taking action with high-stakes, and characters who risk everything for freedom, then you’ll love Michael Robertson’s thrilling novel!!!

    Endless rides and alcohol help her manage her grief over the death of her twin brother, Osiris, who was murdered and dumped in the Anacostia River.Unknown to Nephthys when the novel opens in 1977, her estranged great-nephew, ten-year-old Dash, is finding himself drawn to the banks of that very same river. It is there that Dash--reeling from having witnessed an act of molestation at his school, but still questioning what and who he saw--has charmed conversations with a mysterious figure he calls the "River Man," who somehow appears each time he goes there.When Dash arrives unexpectedly at Nephthys's door one day bearing a cryptic note about his unusual conversations with the River Man, Nephthys must face both the family she abandoned and what frightens her most when she looks in the mirror.Creatures of Passage beautifully threads together the stories of Nephthys, Dash, and others both living and dead. Morowa Yejidé's deeply captivating novel shows us an unseen Washington filled with otherworldly landscapes, flawed super-humans, and reluctant ghosts, and brings together a community intent on saving one young boy in order to reclaim themselves.

    Hutchins invited the biggest names in podcast fiction — and 7th Son fans across the globe — to contribute to 7th Son: OBSIDIAN, an innovative audio and video fiction anthology set in the 7th Son universe.OBSIDIAN, an innovative “in world” addition to the 7th Son trilogy, tells the tale of the nationwide blackout seen briefly in 7th Son: Destruction. More than 100 authors and fans contributed content to this project. OBSIDIAN was a history-making experience; it was the first time in podcast fiction where the lines between author and audience were fundamentally blurred in this way.While these tales of survival were crafted as stand-alone stories, J.C. Hutchins recommends listening to the 7th Son trilogy in its entirety before experiencing OBSIDIAN.

    Doc Morrison, a renowned geologist, is called in to help investigate what could be the collapse of the largest cavern known to man. Doc and his graduate student protégés, Libby and Peter, join a team from Brazil to explore the site. Deep in the remote jungles of South America, the team, including an elite unit of Brazilian soldiers, is soon set upon by creatures none of them could have ever imagined. Separated in small groups, they must face their fears and summon the strength to fight for their lives in the hope of getting a warning out about this terrifying new threat to mankind.

    She was unaware of his lifestyle. A man of his caliber was way out of her reach, yet he chose her anyway. Christian Knight was a man that people only dreamed about in their sleep. Petty hustlers admired him off the strength of stories they heard in the hood. You could walk past Christian Knight in the mall and not know that he was “The Connect." Real men moved in silence. Wealth is quiet, rich is flashy. Christian Knight was more than a man that supplied the streets with the work. He was a mogul, a self-made billionaire who found comfort, peace and joy in the arms of Farren, a woman almost ten years younger than he was. Many people never expected him to settle down or to be so open with his affection. Despite what he heard about her, he chose her to wear his last name and to become, “The Connect’s Wife."

    Approximately 530 pages total. Until Morning Comes, Volume 1 Secret Service Agent Carlie Simmons began her day surrounded by trusted colleagues in an inter-agency shooting competition in Tucson. It ended with a staggering body count as the world around her unraveled from a deadly virus. With her mission to extract the President’s daughter from the University of Arizona gone awry, she must choose between her sworn duties and her moral obligations to others as the city is overtaken by roving packs of flesh-eating mutants. If she and her small group are to survive the night and find a way out of the ravaged city, she will have to summon all of her training, mental prowess, and tactical abilities. In Too Deep, Volume 2 After narrowly escaping from the undead hordes in Tucson with the president’s daughter and her small band of survivors, Secret Service Agent Carlie Simmons is finally headed to safety in New Mexico. As new information emerges on the global pandemic, she and her team of operators have to leave their secure military facility to track down the origins of the virus before more people die. Crossing the country and international waters while plagued by the growing menace of flesh-eating zombies, Carlie finds herself in a race against time on a mission that exposes a secret experiment borne from the Cold War. But the greatest danger may not come from the emerging legions of putrescent creatures as tension within her group threatens to undermine her leadership. The Way Back, Volume 3 Carlie, along with Shane, Jared, and the rest of her eclectic group endure a nightmarish struggle to survive in the Caribbean on a grueling trek that will test their fortitude, battling zombies and hostile bands of humans along the way. Eliza Huntington, the president’s daughter, has her own harrowing journey to make after Air Force One goes down in Idaho and she is forced to adapt in ways she never imagined. Eventually the fates of both parties intertwine in an explosive battle where tactics and firepower may not be enough to defeat the unspeakable horrors that await them. About the Author: JT Sawyer is the pen name for the author who makes his living teaching survival courses for the military special operations community, Department of Homeland Security, US Marshals, FAA, and other federal agencies throughout the US. He has over 25 years of experience testing long-term survival skills in the desert, mountains, and forest. JT also served as a technical consultant for the film Into the Wild.