Book picks similar to
The X-Troop by Clay Davis


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The Clockwork Witch


Michelle D. Sonnier - 2018
    Though she descends from a long line of gifted witches she has earned the moniker of a "brown bud" showing no sign of magical talent. When it truly seems her lot can grow no worse, she discovers an unnatural affinity for...of all things...technomancy. Not only are the mysteries of the mechanical world open to her, but her new-found ability allows her to manipulate them, making her the first ever clockwork witch and anathema to the nature of the witching world.How will she come to grips with her new power when she must question if she will survive the judgement of her family and her peers? Or, more daunting yet…The Trials?

I Know Why the Angels Dance


Bryan Davis - 2009
    After all, isn’t it selfish to grieve when the departed goes to a better place? Being in charge of the funeral for his grandmother, Nanna, John arranges for a happy atmosphere, but not everyone understands. Tabitha, his twelve-year-old daughter, who is attending her first funeral, perceives the conflict in a very personal way. During the days before Nanna’s death, Tabitha had been comforted by dreams of the lady’s glorious entrance into Heaven, but she truly misses Nanna’s presence and wonders if her inner yearnings are wrong.    Tabitha has also had dreams about her best friend, Rose Grayson, haunting dreams that showed her friend as lost and in terror in the afterworld. No, Rose is not a Christian. In fact, her father, Phil, is an atheist, a bold atheist. Phil and Rose attend Nanna’s funeral, and when Tabitha claims to see a vision of her departed great grandmother, Phil suggests to John that Tabitha should undergo therapeutic counseling. John decides on another path, but the conflict raises doubts about his daughter’s mental and spiritual stability.

Little Liberia: An African Odyssey In New York City


Jonny Steinberg - 2011
    Most people know one another; if not by name, then by face. And yet neighbours do not ask one another what they did in Liberia, for the question is considered an accusation. Many people here fled Liberia's brutal civil war, a conflict that claimed the lives of one in fourteen Liberians. The question of who is responsible is a bitter one. Jacob Massaquoi arrived on Park Hill Avenue in 2002 limping heavily. Before he had been there a week, a hundred stories abounded about his injury. By this time Rufus Arkoi was the acknowledged leader of New York's Liberians, a man who had sat out the war in America, but who harboured hopes of one day returning home to run for president. Within a year the two men were locked in a conflict that threatened to consume the community. The suspicions and accusations the residents had bottled up for years exploded at once. To observers it appeared that this enclave of exiles was frozen at the time of their flight, restarting a war that had ended back home.Jonny Steinberg spent two years in New York shadowing Rufus and Jacob, eventually journeying to Liberia to piece together their biographies from the people who once knew them. What emerges is a story of a horrific and heart-wrenching civil war, of a deeply troubled relationship between America and West Africa, of personal ambition wrestling with moral responsibility, of memory wrestling with forgetfulness and of the quest to be human in a world losing its humanity. Mixing history, reportage and a wealth of extraordinary personal stories Jonny Steinberg takes up the tale of a fractured African nation and its diaspora to remarkable effect. Little Liberia is a unique and important book, told with clarity and compassion, by one of our best and brightest young writers.

The Wrath of Fate: Book 1 of The Airship Pirate Chronicles


'Captain' Robert Brown - 2011
    Cities are walled, and citizens are chained to round the clock jobs in order to keep them controlled and in the place. Change and progress is outlawed.There will come a time...when clockworks wake up, only to find they are not allowed to be awake. They hide in fear, not daring to break there chains of slavery.There will come a time...when freedom is outlawed. When men must scrape a living in the dirt of the parries, or in the skies above them. These hardened men and women fight for there lives and their freedom against beasts of the field, police in the cities, and pirates in the sky. When freedom is outlawed, only the outlaws are free.This time will come, and it was all my fault. Sorry about that.

My Goodness: A Cynic's Short-Lived Search for Sainthood


Joe Queenan - 2000
    The man all editors turned to when they needed a book, film, or tv program savaged was tired of being so mean. He wanted to be more like Susan Sarandon. Or Sting. Determined to mend his ways, Queenan embarked on the most difficult task of his career: he decided to become a nice person. Now available in paperback, My Goodness is the side-splitting result of Queenans attempted transformation: from his use of animal-friendly Body Shop goods to his letter of apology to Jackie Collins after a scathing review of her latest book; from his quest to save the whales to his quest to save Linda Tripages.

Behind the Computer


F.L. Jacob - 2015
    There have been so many rumors going around about my model, Caleb Allen, and I that I can’t see straight. So, instead of sitting back on my hands like I’m told I need to do, let it blow over, and kill everyone with kindness, I’m going to do what I do best, I’m going to write a book about our relationship. So here it is, our story. The real story. Now if you have anything to talk about, you can shove it because this is the truth. This is the story from behind the computer.

Not Bad For A Human


Lance Henriksen - 2011
    He's best know as the empathetic android Bishop in Aliens and the intuitive criminal profiler Frank Black in the TV series "Millennium," but he has also played gunfighters and gangsters, an astronaut, a vampire, a sadistic monk, Charles Bronson and Abraham Lincoln. He's mentored Tarzan, Evel Knievel and the Antichrist, and fought Terminators, Aliens, Predators, Pinhead, Bigfoot, Superman, the Autobots, Mr. T, Jean Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal. He's worked with directors James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Kathryn Bigelow, Walter Hill, Sidney Lumet, Francois Truffaut, John Huston, David Fincher, John Woo, Jim Jarmusch and Sam Raimi... But this is just skimming the surface.Henriksen is a true artist - a painter, a potter and a creative collaborator who brings complexity and humanity to all of his work by drawing on real life experiences that are often stranger than fiction. His biography not only celebrates the actor's screen persona, film by film, but also recounts the chaotic upbringing and early life experiences that shaped him, revealing the man behind the image. As Lance so candidly states, "This isn't just a book about me becoming an actor. It's about all the people I've crossed paths with over the years who have helped me flourish in spite of the chaos in my early life. It's about a lifelong process of becoming a human being."

Steel Lily


Megan Curd - 2013
    No, more than a commodity. Her existence is guarded at all costs.She’s a water Elementalist, the strongest of her dwindling kind. She creates steam to provide energy to fuel Dome Four: the only thing standing between humanity and an earth ravaged by World War III. No steam, no Dome. No Dome, no life.Or so she thinks.That is, until a mysterious man offers her a way out of having to donate steam. A way to escape the corrupt government of Dome Four. While the offer seems too good to be true, Avery is intrigued. But when she arrives to her new home, she realizes the grass isn’t any less dead on this side of the fence. Instead, the lies are just hidden better.…Which means digging deeper.When Avery enlists the help of her friends to uncover the truth, she learns that while some secrets are better left concealed, humankind was never meant to live in a cage. And when you can control the most sought after resource, you can learn to control anything…including the fate of your world.

The Halloween Legion


Martin Powell - 2011
    Suddenly, mysteriously, a small group of extraordinary visitors arrives to save them, coming from a place where orange, gold, and crimson leaves follow you in the autumn breeze. A place of eternal October, where imagination is magic, monsters are real, and pumpkins are more than they seem. They know what scares you, and only they can stop it. Evil—beware, the World’s Weirdest Heroes!Created and Written by Martin Powell

Texas Witness Threat (Love Inspired Suspense)


Cate Nolan - 2021
    Now someone wants her dead, and Texas Ranger Blake Larsen is the only one who believes her. For Blake, protecting Christine must stay more important than their growing feelings for each other. But can he keep her safe from an unknown enemy who wants her silenced?Mills & Boon Love Inspired Suspense -- Courage. Danger. Faith.

Out of the Shadows


Dana Fraedrich - 2016
    No more deadly creatures or magic to keep the people subjugated in fear. The world today is rife with opportunities for progress. The technologies of the Old World can be rediscovered and built upon, cities are maintained, people have the freedom to forge their own paths, and order is kept by the Enforcers. The light of the Dawn Age has burst forth in a brilliant blaze, illuminating the possibilities of the future. Happy New Year! D1 of the Air Y1 of the New Age Springhaven Newsheet Homeless, orphaned, living in secret as a thief Lenore Crowley just wants to survive, but the city of Springhaven has no sympathy for cases such as hers. She chose her path, and the consequences are hers alone. Being caught would mean certain death; her odds of survival are beginning to look bleak. When she meets the Allens, she s offered a new life. In a world where debts and oaths carry very real weight, however, this second chance comes at a price. Lives entangle, and Lenore soon find that her secrets aren t so secret. Someone is looking for her, someone who knows who she really is. One wrong move and everything around her might fall.

Justified Burden


Lori Matthews - 2020
    His wound has healed and it’s almost time for him to go back to work, but he’s worried. The sixth sense that’s kept him alive so far is MIA. For Scarlett Jones, being in Canyon Springs is her chance at a fresh start after a devastating tragedy. She’s desperate for her design business to be successful. But when things keep going wrong on her latest remodel, panic sets in. Is someone sabotaging the worksite on purpose or is it all in her head?Realizing the distracting Scarlett is in trouble, Rhys puts aside his self-doubt and volunteers to protect her. Watching over the beautiful redhead won’t be too difficult. Or so he thinks until a body is discovered and the mystery surrounding Scarlett turns potentially deadly. Will Rhys be up to the task of keeping Scarlett safe or will the killer get away with murder twice?

The Machine


E.C. Jarvis - 2015
    Their whirlwind romance explodes in her face and leads her down a tumultuous path of adventure, intrigue, love and violence. Airships, pirates, corsets, torture, murder, and more await in the first novel of the Blood and Destiny Series from E.C. Jarvis. The Machine is an adult steampunk fantasy book. Possible triggers are present within the book including but not limited to sex, murder, torture, and violence.

Called To Battle, Volume 1


Larry Correia - 2013
    While these epic figures lead armies and shape the futures of their nations, other powerful individuals, no less skilled, forge their own destinies in steam and steel.Called to Battle is a collection of stories focused on the Iron Kingdoms’ unsung heroes, its skilled mercenaries, and even the horrifying villains who haunt its darker reaches. Track a target through the frozen north with Kell Bailoch, a deadly sharpshooter who kills for the highest bidder; Hunt Down a group of corrupted human magic users with Narn, a merciless Iosan mage hunter; uncover a sinister sabotage plot with Arlan Strangewayes, Cygnar's premier arcane mechanik; and endure a terrifying journey into the mind of General Gerlak Slaughterborn, a monstrous blighted trollkin with a penchant for devouring his enemies whole and screaming. These stories draw you deeper into the wartorn landscape of western Immoren and the Iron Kingdoms, where heroes, villains, and those somewhere in between find themselves Called to Battle.

The Inn at Walker Beach


Lindsay Harrel - 2021
    And working a dead-end job, barely paying her bills, and fighting unrequited feelings for her boss aren’t exactly part of the life she always imagined.With her six children grown and her husband constantly traveling for work, Elise Griffin finds herself utterly without purpose for the first time ever at age sixty-three. But “retirement” isn’t as wonderful as it might sound—it gives her far too much time to think about the affair her husband had a year ago ... the one she’s never told anyone about.When both women are invited into the mysterious Barefoot Sisterhood and asked to help restore an old beachside inn for a good cause, they find themselves supported and encouraged in new and exciting ways. This inspiration leads to dream seeking ... and new romance as well.Discover what happens when women give each other the space to finally dream—and in doing so, make the world a better place.