Or… When the code breaks down, fate just might take over. Eleven of your favorite gay romance authors have joined forces to light up your Valentine’s Day with a collection of sweet, sexy, silly, and hot short stories, featuring a wacky cast of characters chosen from your reader suggestions! Morticians and magicians, superheroes and spies, lawyers and lobstermen, will all learn that love has nothing to do with algorithms… and sometimes you find it in the least-likely places. And the best part? All proceeds from this collection will go to the authors’ favorite LGBTQ charities, to ensure that love in all its incarnations will be celebrated and protected every single day of the year! Titles included in the collection:The Magician and the Mortician by E.A. Wasp The Professional Gamer and the Paranormal Photographer by Alison Hendricks The Assassin and the Dog Walker by Charlie Cochet The Criminal and the Sommelier by Chris Owen The Superhero and the NSA Agent by Hailey Turner The Tattoo Artist and the Writer by Lily Morton The Uber Driver and the Phone Sex Operator by Lucy Lennox The Baker and the SEAL by May Archer The Event Planner and the Electrician by Poppy Dennison The Lawyer and the Lobsterman by Ruthie Luhnow The Florist and the Lawyer by Sloane Kennedy

    This Valentine's Day, prepare to have your darkest desires and hottest fantasies realized in one explosive anthology as four dark romance and four contemporary romance authors join forces to bring you eight all new tantalizing tales.From a deranged stalker to a sweet-talking matchmaker, immerse yourself in this pairing of scorching hot romance and depravity in an action packed experience certain to satisfy all of your delicious and dark desires.

    Ranging from tiny sketches and prose poems to longer, more conventional narratives, the stories included here are:A Country Doctor - In the Gods - An Old Folio - Before the Law - Jackals and Arabs - A Visit to the Mine - The Next Village - An Imperial Message - A Paterfamilias Perplexed - Eleven Sons - A Fratricide - A Dream - Bucket Rider - Of Metaphors - The Silence of the Sirens - Gracchus the Hunter - The Knock on the Courtyard Door - Advocates - The Vulture - At Night - A Little Fable.This e-book has a total length of around 16,000 words.

     A rustic get-away turns into a life or death dash through an East Texas cypress swamp. They encounter a victim of camo clad hunters that classify sport in a whole different way. A head start is as fair as it gets as Hap and Leonard are thrown in the woods and must run for their lives. Their wise-cracks may be sharper than the hunter's arrows, but not as deadly.

    Meeting reclusive finance genius Zach Hubler should be a stroke of good luck—he has the power to sway public opinion. But when Election Day comes around and things don’t go as expected, Veronica has to know: just how shady is the man of her dreams?DEEP THROATby Dakota GrayHe's an escort, but that's not his biggest secret. She’s a maid at the hotel he uses “for business.” When their worlds collide, everything is put on the line. But indulging every secret desire comes at a cost, and the sins of the past won't be forgotten.RESISTANCEby Amy Jo CousinsAll Kaz Shamsi wanted to do was get his college students to and from the DC protest without losing any of them. Getting caught up in the fringes of anarchist violence was not on the agenda. Neither was a motorcycle escape, messing around with a bandanna-masked antifa protestor, or figuring out that guy was one of the students he was supposed to be chaperoning. Now he's got a ten-hour bus ride back to campus ahead of him, with a stupidly cute student who makes terrible decisions trying to talk Kaz into making one more.KISSING AND OTHER FORMS OF SEDITIONby Emma BarryWhen a global crisis threatens to go nuclear, the world tips upside down and spills out Graham Wilcox’s unspoken feelings for Cadence Martel. Cadence is equal parts shocked and delighted by his confession, but one night of passion isn’t enough. So the new lovers set out on a road trip to save the world.TRUTH, LOVE AND SUSHIby Stacey AgdernWhen First Daughter Caroline Crosby finds herself in possession of the one document that can bring her father and his administration down, she turns to a real life social justice warrior for help. Max Wilcox isn't sure what to make of Caroline: is this an elaborate hookup or a political conspiracy? But he has to make up his mind fast because the information and their chemistry could change the world—or break their hearts.MY DELIGHT IS IN HERby Jane Lee BlairWhen Leonard West chose the pastorate, his college girlfriend chose a life without him. But not wanting to be a pastor’s wife didn’t mean Kim Jones didn't want to work for the greater good. Now, her resistance work has led her back to Leonard, and they must grapple with their old pain. Can they trust God and each other enough to try again?PERSONAL DISASTERby Ainsley BoothMarcus Dane left the tech world and joined the National Park Service a decade ago. Now an intrepid reporter has tracked down the park ranger-who-could-have-been-a-billionaire and, even worse, she has a theory that could blow his quiet life to smithereens. He needs to send her packing. But he’s already tumbled head-over-heels in insta-lust with her flippy ponytail and smart mouth, and he just can't seem to let her go.LIFE, LIBERTY AND WORSHIPby Tamsen ParkerPaige Robinson has been working out her angst about the new administration in spin class, until a handsome stranger with maddening politics harshes her mellow. Now she’s determined to get even…in the bedroom. Always awkward Carter Cox is shocked when his crush propositions him, but there's no way he's turning her down. Will their filthy assignation provide the catharsis Paige has in mind, or can they truly cross the aisle to find more?

    An unnamed young man lives in a tower at the edge of the world, content with the orderly rituals and freedom to study that his lot--or he is content, until one day he discovers something in a bird's nest outside the tower window, and his efforts to reach it discover far more than he expects.

    They vow to keep in touch, pray for one another, and meet again at next year's conference. What happens in between is an absolute smorgasbord of changed lives, challenged faiths, new dedications and directions, and romantic twists that turn next year's conference reunion plans into reservations for

    After a night out with his girlfriend in one of the country's remote provinces, he wakes to find himself in a pitch-black coffin—and quickly running out of oxygen. With only his cell phone and his own wits to rely on, it's a race against time to escape the claustrophobic death trap. SIX BULLETS The end of civilization arrived in the form of a giant asteroid thirteen months ago. For Burt James, a survivalist, it was not a complete surprise. He'd spent much of his adult life prepping for such a catastrophe. Consequently, while the majority of the population scoured the post-apocalyptic landscape for water and food, regressing into primitive killers, he bunkered down in his fortified hilltop home in a small town in the middle of the Australian Outback. But now he's out of food and down to his last six bullets, and he will have to make the most difficult choice of his life. THE MAILMAN Los Angeles, 1985. Never was the motto sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll more apt than the scene on the legendary Sunset Strip with the arrival of the underground Hollywood glam bands. While Mick Freeman, a record executive with a major label, works tirelessly to sign five toxic rockers whom he believes might flip the entire music world on its head, his wife, Jade, spends her days bored and alone at home, struggling with a midlife crisis that threatens to topple their twenty-year marriage. And then she meets the new mailman. Young and handsome, he sweeps her off her feet—straight into a nightmare the likes of which she could never have imagined. RE-ROLL In the near future, breathtakingly humanoid robots called Mechs are for sale, and they're designed to fulfill whatever role you want: husband, wife, best friend, slave. Manufacturers allow new owners one free "roll" to randomly determine their Mech's three leading characteristics. But as everybody knows, scoring your ideal traits is a crapshoot, though you can always re-roll—at a price.

    All feature her ex-Special Forces soldier turned self-defence expert and bodyguard, Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Fox.In A Bridge Too Far, we meet Charlie before she’s become a professional in the world of close protection. When she agrees to hang out with the local Dangerous Sports Club, she has no idea it will soon live up to its name.Postcards From Another Country has Charlie guarding the ultra-rich Dempsey family against attempted assassination – no matter where the danger lies.A finalist for the CWA Short Story Dagger, Served Cold puts another tough woman centre stage – the mysterious Layla, with betrayal in her past and murder in her heart.Off Duty finds Charlie taking time away from close protection after injury. She still finds trouble, even in an out-of-season health spa in the Catskill Mountains.And finally, Truth And Lies puts all Charlie’s skills and ingenuity to the test as she has to single-handedly extract a news team from a rapidly escalating war zone.Also included: Excerpt from KILLER INSTINCT: Charlie Fox book one, Meet Charlie Fox, Meet Zoë Sharp, info on the other books in the Charlie Fox series.

     A photographer reluctantly agrees to take images of an abandoned manor house on the Dorset cliff tops only to find the building is not completely empty. . .

    This is the hotly anticipated followup to Hyde's critically acclaimed novel FUNERALS FOR HORSES.

    A wave of sinkholes appears on the anniversary of a rural tragedy, and local residents begin to hear the voices of the dead. A woman encounters a predator from her youth—and a chance to turn the tables. A child’s inner beast takes on a sinister life of its own. An undetectable serial killer raises tensions on a college campus. Experimental physics reveals another world, and it might mean the end of ours. Shrouded in darkness, lurking in the shadows, NIGHT TERRORS III awaits you. The third installment of the chilling Night Terrors anthology series includes stories from Jack Ketchum, Steve Rasnic Tem, Dennis Etchison, Taylor Grant, Eric J. Guignard, Aric Sundquist, Jennifer Brozek, John McNee, Simon McCaffery, Patty Templeton, and many more!

    The tale tells of lost love, beauty, and the magic of a foggy Christmas Eve night that leads to an unexpected event. An earlier version of this story appeared about 20 years ago in Lake Superior Magazine. Since then it has only been published in Italian and German.© 2011 Brian Freeman

    Not since Terry McMillan's Breaking Ice have so many African-American writers been brought together in one volume. A stellar collection of works from more than fifty hot names in fiction, Gumbo represents remarkable synergy. Edited by bestselling luminaries Marita Golden and E. Lynn Harris, this collection spans new and previously published tales of love and luck, inspiration and violation, hip new worlds and hallowed heritage from voices such as: Edwidge Danticat , Eric Jerome Dickey, Kenji Jasper, John Edgar Wideman, Terry McMillan, David Anthony Durham, Bertice Berry, and many, many more. Also featuring original stories by Golden and Harris themselves, Gumbo heralds the debut of the Hurston / Wright Legacy Awards for Published Black Writers (scheduled for October 2002), and all advances and royalties from the book will support the Hurston/ Wright Foundation. Combining authors with a variety of flavorful writing, Gumbo will have readers clamoring for second helpings.

    From the whispering corridors of abandoned hospitals to the shrieking dungeons of ghostly castles, this collection of sinister stories further explores the unspeakable evil at large in the Warhammer worlds. Contains the following stories; Lora Gray - He Feasts Forever Ray Cluley - Flesh and Blood Richard Strachan - The Growing Seasons David Annandale - The Hunt Steven Sheil - The Healer Nick Kyme - Stitches Peter McLean - Blood Sacrifice Jake Ozga - Supplication David Annandale - The Summons of Shadows C. L. Werner - A Sending from the Grave David Annandale - From the Halls, the Silence Justin D. Hill - The Confession of Convict Kline