On a dark Kentucky night in 1952 exactly halfway between her fifteenth and sixteenth birthdays, Annie Holleran crosses into forbidden territory. Everyone knows Hollerans don’t go near Baines, not since Joseph Carl was buried two decades before, but, armed with a silver-handled flashlight, Annie runs through her family’s lavender fields toward the well on the Baines’ place. At the stroke of midnight, she gazes into the water in search of her future. Not finding what she had hoped for, she turns from the well and when the body she sees there in the moonlight is discovered come morning, Annie will have much to explain and a past to account for.It was 1936, and there were seven Baine boys. That year, Annie’s aunt, Juna Crowley, with her black eyes and her long blond hair, came of age. Before Juna, Joseph Carl had been the best of all the Baine brothers. But then he looked into Juna’s eyes and they made him do things that cost innocent people their lives. Sheriff Irlene Fulkerson saw justice served—or did she? As the lavender harvest approaches and she comes of age as Aunt Juna did in her own time, Annie’s dread mounts. Juna will come home now, to finish what she started. If Annie is to save herself, her family, and this small Kentucky town, she must prepare for Juna’s return, and the revelation of what really happened all those years ago

    Not a good home, but at least there she can find food and shelter for her sisters, Lily and Tory.To the powerful Making Perfect corporation, however, the Slump is a gold mine, a source of unending test subjects. Once a month, squads of company officials invade the ruins to capture orphans for their facilities. What happens to the kids they take is unclear—none of them ever return.Then Summer herself is taken.Forced into a series of grueling experiments, she soon discovers that Making Perfect’s ultimate goal is far darker than anything she imagined. As she fights to get back to the Slump and her now-defenseless sisters, she begins to understand why once you enter Making Perfect, you never get out.

    In this peeled-paint coal town deep in Appalachia, Kevin quickly falls in with a half-wild hollow kid named Buzzy Fink who schools him in the mysteries and magnificence of the woods. The events of this fateful summer will affect the entire town of Medgar, Kentucky. Medgar is beset by a massive mountaintop removal operation that is blowing up the hills and back filling the hollows. Kevin's grandfather and others in town attempt to rally the citizens against the "company" and its powerful owner to stop the plunder of their mountain heritage. When Buzzy witnesses a brutal hate crime, a sequence is set in play that tests Buzzy and Kevin to their absolute limits in an epic struggle for survival in the Kentucky mountains.

    But the islands and hidden coves hide something more sinister. Illegal immigrants and drugs are being smuggled in for the escort services in Halifax. Special Constable Garrett Barkhouse has spent twenty years fighting these twin scourges, but now he’s burned out and planning to retire. However, his boss, Deputy Commissioner Alton Tuttle, has other plans. He entices Garrett to return to his old home town and establish a police presence on the Eastern shore. What he expects will be light duty—Garrett quickly discovers—is anything but. An unexpected murder of four young girls leads him into a thick web of interconnecting drug pushers, illegal immigrants, and prostitution.While he tries to get a handle on events, Garrett is sucked back into many of the relationships from his childhood. The cast of colorful characters includes Roland Cribby, a scallop fisherman and all around unpleasant character, old man Publicover who has just married his fifth wife, beautiful reporter Kitty Wells, and Garrett’s cousin, a giant of a man who is an enforcer for the Longshoremen on the waterfront in Halifax.An offshore oil rig, conveniently outside Canadian territorial waters, becomes the focus of the investigation. Global Resources CEO Anthony DeMaio has developed a nice sideline to the oil business. When Kitty Wells—the beautiful reporter—tries to investigate, she is swept up by the machinations and kidnapped into sex slavery. As a series of hurricanes push in from the North Atlantic, Garrett and Lonnie find themselves fighting not only drug lords and CEOs but also the elements that threaten to topple the oil rig and kill everyone on board.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

    With no one reported missing, no apparent motive and no obvious suspect the investigation proves to be far from straightforward.As suspicion falls upon those associated with the privately-owned woodland, it soon becomes clear that there are sinister secrets they are determined to hide.Detective Inspector Jemima Huxley is put in charge of the case. But Jemima has dark secrets of her own…Can Jemima lay her personal demons to rest? Or will the case threaten to overwhelm her?And can she catch the killer before more women turn up dead…?REVENGE is the first crime novel in a new British detective series featuring DI Jemima Huxley - a chilling serial killer thriller with a dark twist.

    Ten years later, she has an ideal job and a wonderful fiance, Christian. She is building the life of her dreams-until the day Richard resurfaces out of the blue, abducts her from her San Francisco apartment, and returns her to his mansion where he holds her captive. Cadence can hardly believe her ears when Richard professes his undying love and reveals his plans to build a life together. Terrified to fight back for fear he will have Christian murdered, Cadence must determine how to reason with a mentally unstable man who is obsessed with making her his forever. But even if she manages to escape, will she ever really be free of the man who hunts her heart?In this psychological thriller, a young woman must rely on perseverance, courage, and inner strength to survive after she is kidnapped by her deranged ex-boyfriend."

    Bob Dylan sings about a journey ‘all the way from New Orleans to Jerusalem…’ as way of apotheizing, scrutinizing, and recognizing the world we live in. Laura Scott is on the way.”—Alan Cheuse“A story as hot, sticky, and dangerous as Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, seen through an imagination as kaleidoscopic as Kelly Link's.”—Steve Himmer, The Bee-Loud Glade“Something hazy is happening in Fat City. Laura Ellen Scott dials up loads of laughs amid the local color and NOLA cuisine in this madcap romp of a novel where last wishes come true, Elvis is back under newly orange clouds, coffee cups are bottomless, and street punks wear capes.”—Richard Peabody, editor Gargoyle MagazineWhat if your most fervent wish could come true, and all you had to do was…die first. Recovering from a bitter divorce, middle-aged Victor Swaim wants nothing more than to live a carefree, drunken existence in New Orleans, making capes and corsets, and lusting for Pebbles, the girl who lives across the street.But, after a series of deathbed wishes come true—including the curing of cancer, the elimination of cats, the return of Elvis (1967 vintage), the clouds turning orange, mothers growing third eyes and cups of coffee becoming bottomless—the hysteria that grows around “Death Wishing” forces Victor into action. Along with his entrepreneurial son Val and his libertine friend Martine, Victor must battle the apocalyptics who have seduced Pebbles away from her true vocation of singing the blues (very badly) while at the same time confronting his mortal identity: just what would he wish for the world without him in it?

    So when a secret agency operating outside the law recruits him for his special operations skills his team leader Tally, a tough, attractive computer genius, is ordered to keep him on a tight leash. But a tight leash is the last thing Mac wants. His intent is to use the agency’s massive resources to track down Sophia, a close friend’s daughter, who has been kidnapped in Mexico. From the beginning, sparks fly between Mac and Tally. Mac sees Tally as an office worker, not qualified for field operations. For her part, Tally views Mac as little more than a cold-blooded killer. The conflict escalates as the two are forced to play at husband and wife in order to get close to their next target.Ignoring orders to stay out of trouble, Mac enlists the help of Scotty, a British soldier, and Jog, a Lebanese fixer. They follow the kidnappers’ trail to Paris, where events lead them to suspect Sophia is a captive of Sheik Khalid, a billionaire Saudi exile who is suspected of supporting terrorist groups by shipping weapons, drugs and slaves on his luxury vessel, Princess Aliya.Mac and Tally discover they have feelings for each other, but events lead Mac to question whether Tally is working to another agenda. With time running out, the group dodges assassins, corrupt generals, evil medicos, Mossad agents, corrupt bureaucrats and sharks. But they cannot anticipate what is waiting for them on Khalid’s fortress island of Andaran, or that there’s much more at stake than Sophia…

    When it becomes evident that her mother has been murdered, Amanda sets out to discover her mother’s killer. Her quest takes her to Wollongong to find the man who she thinks holds the answer to the killer’s identity. While visiting this man, she has to run for her life as a hail of gunshots pockmark the walls and shatter the windows. Someone will stop at nothing until she is dead. If she thought things were bad enough, they are about to get much worse...

    Making matters worse, his new love interest, Dianne Lawson, becomes the next target, forcing Bocello to go head-to-head with the most diabolical killer of his career, who has been hiding in plain sight. Unable to trust anyone around him, he tracks the killer who seems to always stay one step ahead of the investigation…until everything comes to a heart-pounding climax as Bocello races against time to reach his love before it’s too late.

    Safe from the crime and congestion of city life, it is the perfect place to raise a family . . . or so they thought.Life as the town medical examiner is relatively unhurried for Dr. Ben Stevenson. With only a smattering of cases here and there-car accident victims, death by natural causes-he has plenty of time to spend with his loving wife and two sons. That is until a teenager's body is discovered in the woods and Ben, as the only coroner in the area, is assigned to the case. But as the increasingly animalistic attacks continue, the case challenges Ben in ways he never suspects.With its eerie portrait of suburban life and nerve-fraying plot twists, this is psychological suspense at its best-an extraordinary debut that challenges as much as it thrills.

    What if you didn't know your own? One young man with latent supernatural abilities plus one street gang hell-bent on recruiting him equals... IA: Initiate. The most important thing in the world to thirteen-year-old orphan, "Naz" Andersen is keeping his little sister safe from the streets of a Chicago/Detroit-like urban ghetto known as the Exclave. Naz tries to stay out of the way at his foster parent's home, but he walks in his sleep. He is unable to keep the fact that he hears voices from his therapist. He attempts to go unnoticed at school and in the streets of the Exclave but attracts the attention of friends and bullies alike. Naz is ordinary, or so he thinks. He harbors a secret of which he is unaware. A seemingly random act of gang violence propels Naz on a path that leads to discoveries about his supernatural abilities, abilities that will ultimately decide whether he lives or dies. Now he must navigate his turbulent surroundings and face the full force of the world around him. The only way he can survive is to discover the supernatural world within. Pure science fiction, IA: Initiate is the first book in a YA supernatural thriller trilogy, an origin story, and a coming of age hero's journey set in the mean streets of America. It's like Anakin Skywalker growing up in a bad urban environment instead of a desert planet. Award-winning author, John Darryl Winston has penned a story about, and for, those living the real story. Pick it up. Pick it up! PICK IT UP ... today!

    A young priest on the other side of the screen is shaken by what he learns. A former college athlete with an MBA from a prestigious university, Father Joe Russo is not your typical man of God. Nine years earlier, his own life took a tragic turn and he gave everything up, committing his life to the church. Now his peaceful existence is being tested, and he finds himself questioning the God he serves, the vows he made, and someone he left behind.In this gripping thriller, a priest and an FBI agent work to uncover secrets and expose hidden crimes, but when it seems they have it all figured out, everything they think they know will be questioned.

    Without even a body to bury, Marxie is left to deal with the sorrow of his abrupt and brutal end. Seeking to start anew, she packs up and moves east to Savannah.But when Detective Grant Carter knocks on her door two years after the accident, Marxie’s carefully rebuilt world turns upside down once more. The grim detective gives Marxie unimaginable news: Evan’s body has been found in a nearby canal.Desperate for answers, Marxie embarks on a fascinating, complex and heart-wrenching journey to find out exactly what happened to the man she loved. And though the intriguing detective may be working under ulterior motives, he puts his whole being into helping the young widow bring closure to a mystery that haunts her every waking moment. Together, Grant and Marxie work to unearth a secret that runs as deep and murky as Savannah’s canals.

    Ironically, recovering from her emotional and physical scars is not her biggest challenge. She is also haunted by Azrael, the angel of death. On the morning of the accident, Alex watches as Azrael takes the souls of her family. And the visions keep coming. A man with oily black hair in a pinstripe suit appears to Alex in the hospital, outside her high school, and in the woods near her campsite. She worries that she’s crazy, though Azrael appears to be just as threatened by her ability to see him. She confides in her doctor and friends and, while they appear to believe her, they are unable to help Alex banish death. Midway through the book, the narrative takes an unexpected twist and Alex’s recovery is overshadowed by the realization that she could bring her family back to life. But Azrael is determined to stop Alex’s meddling and she must enlist the help of her remaining family and friends if there is any hope for success.The Girl Who Cheated Death placed as a Semi-Finalist in the 2018 Faulkner Wisdom Competition