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Skyscraper of a Man


Michael Bowe - 2019
    Rooted in the homogenous suburbs of the 1970s, the novel explores the American propensity to pursue great ambitions, regardless of upbringing, that can result in lives that are larger than life. The four main characters meet at college and forge such lives, each achieving remarkable success in their chosen pursuits while condoning the choices that enable their success. The main character, Benjamin Franklin Matthews, the son of a printer and avid Revolutionary War buff, believes deeply in America, its founding principles, and “by the people, for the people” government. Inspired by the grand ideals of the Founding Fathers, Ben starts a newspaper and runs for political office, efforts aimed at righting a nation he perceives as falling short of its potential and promise. His three college friends, a writer who is also his business partner, a television news anchorwoman who was his lover, and a former college football star, play contributing roles in his rise to national prominence. In the end, Ben learns that grand ideals are elusive, difficult to maintain, and better left to the perfect among us.

The Ghost of Normandy Road


John Hennessy - 2015
    The other cover editions are here and here.Could the stories about the house on Normandy Road be real? When a young boy ventures into the infamous dwelling, he learns the terrifying truth behind the urban legends… Evil wakes in this bone-chilling horror novel!AWARD: YA HORROR - SILVER (AWARDED BY READERS FAVOURITE, 2016)Three Legends. One True Horror.An old house stands on Normandy Road, uncared for and uninhabited for years, until one day, believing an urban legend that no-one dares to live there, a young boy decides to cross its threshold.Yet the house is far from empty - within its walls, a terrible evil has been disturbed. It will take one brave soul three of the longest nights of his life to unlock its secrets, but will he live to tell the tale?***Although told as a work of fiction, this tale really is based on a true story.Part of the Haunted Minds series of books. I: The Ghost of Normandy RoadII: Clara's SongIII: The Girl Who Collected ButterfliesIV: Children of the Dark LightV: The Seamstress Who Worshipped Beelzebub

Boy on Hold


J.D. Spero - 2019
    The traditional night of pranks takes a disturbing turn when a violent crime rocks a small Adirondack town. Even more so when the only witness is a seven-year-old boy. Hen Trout, who had hoped to catch a pet hedgehog that night, instead sees his beloved Miss Sally become a victim.Single mom Marcella Trout is blindsided when Tyler, her seventeen-year-old, is arrested for the very crime Hen witnessed. Now Tyler's eerie mood swings seem dark and frightening and rooted in a family history Marcella has desperately tried to bury. As the criminal investigation churns on, the tenuous fabric of the Trout family begins to unravel...and even Hen begins to question the truth."JD Spero's Boy on Hold provides an especially poignant, compelling, and beautifully written update on the tale of the troubled child who witnesses a shocking event. Hen Trout and his off-kilter fascination with the world will steal your heart. Equally unforgettable are his stoic mother and all-too-teenaged brother, whose concern for Hen, even as they push through their own daily struggles, is equally moving. This family, under extreme duress, demonstrates how wisdom, kindness, and concern for one another can overcome even the greatest challenges. An utterly impressive novel that reveals incredible promise from this gifted writer." - David Corbett, award-winning author of The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday

The Fixer's Daughter


Hy Conrad - 2020
    “The Fixer’s Daughter” pits a powerful Texas lawyer against his idealistic daughter in a twisted tale of murder, politics and family loyalty.

The Perfect 10: A Palm Beach Murder Mystery


Eric O'Keefe - 2020
    IT’S A BLOOD SPORT IN THE PERFECT 10.The final of the US Open is just days away, and Juancito Harrington, the world’s best polo player, is found dead in a posh Palm Beach hotel suite.The good news is that Palm Beach P.D. quickly identifies the trophy wife of Juancito’s team owner as the primary suspect. The bad news is that everyone in polo knows that Kelly Dick doesn’t murder her lovers. She recycles them.Only one man can crack the case: Rick Hunt, a West Point graduate currently assigned to the White House. Hunt is no detective, but he’s a lifelong polo player who needs no introduction to the world’s top pros. Or his ex-fiancée. Or her new boyfriend, an old teammate with a score to settle.

The Holdouts (Detective Buddy Lock #2)


James Tucker - 2018
    Homicide cop Buddy Lock knows there isn’t a chance in hell that this is some tragic accident. But as soon as his investigation begins, so do the warnings to back off. They’re not only coming from within the NYPD; they’re hitting close to Buddy’s heart: his new family has become the killer’s target.When people start disappearing from Chinatown, Buddy finds himself on the trail of a killer whose motives are more twisting and far-reaching than the detective imagined. A killer who knows just how to get to him—by pursuing everyone he loves. Now Buddy can trust only himself—even as his relentless pursuit of justice plunges him into the most brutal waters of his career.

The Color of Rock


Sandra Cavallo Miller - 2017
    Abby Wilmore, attempts to escape her past by starting over at the Grand Canyon Clinic. Silently battling her own health issues, Abby struggles with adjusting to the demands of this unique rural location. She encounters everything from squirrel bites to suicides to an office plagued by strong personalities. While tending to unprepared tourists, underserved locals, and her own mental trials, Abby finds herself entangled in an unexpected romance and trapped amidst a danger even more treacherous than the foreboding desert landscape.Sandra Cavallo Miller’s debut novel transports readers to the beautiful depths of Arizona and weaves an adventurous and heartwarming tale of the courage and strength it takes to overcome personal demons and to find love.

Impermanent Universe: A Sci Fi Thriller


Vern Buzarde - 2021
    I highly recommend it to Sci-Fi fans." - Pikasho Deka...Readers' Favorites.When NASA computer scientist Tess Carrillo watches Ryan Quinn die in a spaceship seventy million miles away, her life becomes a blurry web of misery and vodka.But when a mysterious visionary recruits her to lead a team of eccentric experts in a top-secret effort to create the mind of the first sentient artificial intelligence, her life starts to change in unfathomable ways.And now the machine is waking…But there’s a problem.It’s networking… With another dimension.As the AI evolves, dimensional lines start to blend and fray, opening a door to another world… One with him. Only in this reality, Ryan is in a rock band, and Tess is an artist, both on the cusp of fame.As Tess finds herself moving back and forth between separate realities, she starts to question if either is real. And if so…which one?The answer lies in secrets more terrifying than anything she could imagine.Equipped only with clues scattered throughout her consciousness, time, and space, she struggles to make sense of the separate realities that seem to be colliding.As the puzzle pieces fall into place, a terrible threat is revealed, and she’s forced to face a shocking truth before both worlds end.If you love face-paced page-turners with unforgettable characters and real science, Impermanent Universe will keep you reading well beyond your self-allotted time.Join the adventure.“Outstanding Science Fiction....one of the best things I’ve read in a long time. And I read a lot." - Amazon Reviewer"Both Impermanent Universe and The Navigator are exquisitely crafted novels that will keep you reading well beyond your self-allotted time. Creative beyond belief, they give one a sense of truth regarding the immortality of Being through multifaceted forever-regenerative Consciousness." - Amazon Reviewer"This book is a treasure for those who love in-depth philosophical science fiction material" - Amazon Reviewer

Scars Do Heal


Shilpa Menon - 2015
    She fights a paradoxical battle between her responsibilities at work and her only family there - her mother. And caught in between these is a story of Sonal's past - a terrible event that got her to flee India. Scars from her troubled past continues to manifest in multitude of ways, reminding her constantly about that horrific event. Serendipity happens when Dr. Ryan Percy enters her life and Sonal is challenged in ways she had never imagined. Ryan turns out as everything from Sonal's quintessential definition of the man of her dreams - BUT, Ryan too comes to the party with his own baggage from the past. A pivotal piece in the jigsaw of their lives appears to be missing. Could their puzzling lives be ever completed by each other? Do they complete or destroy each other?

Into the Suffering City


Bill LeFurgy - 2020
    The city is jumping with danger and excitement. New thrills are everywhere: cars, cocaine, ragtime music, moving pictures. Old troubles also thrive, including murder, corruption, and the painful divisions of gender, class, and race.Dr. Sarah Kennecott is on the autism spectrum—a trait that is unidentified and unappreciated at the time. Her passion is justice for murder victims, and after getting fired for looking too closely into the killing of a showgirl, she refuses to back down from the investigation. Sarah forms an unlikely bond with Jack Harden, a tormented, down-on-his-luck private detective. Jack pushes the case into Baltimore’s seedy underworld, a vitally corrupt realm of saloons, brothels, and burlesque theaters. When Sarah and Jack pull the pieces together, they discover a stunning pair of secrets, each of which is worth killing to keep. "Into the Suffering City" is a fast-paced, emotionally immersive story that combines originality and historical detail to explore the lives of people living in Baltimore during the early 1900s.

Forsaken by Desire (Destiny Book 1)


S. Shekar - 2017
    But fate has other plans. In an ironic twist, five years after his callous abandonment of her, Nikhil Tandon reappears in Megha’s life. He has an offer she is compelled to accept – a marriage of convenience, for a period of six months, at the end of which they will go their separate ways. The stakes are high, and it is imperative for Megha to see the charade through to the end. She is determined to do just that and still walk away from the marriage, unscathed. Yet, close proximity to Nikhil means she will never escape the constant reminders of why she fell in love with him in the first place. Megha’s journey of self-discovery takes her from a virtually sterile existence in Delhi to Toronto, where she’d once loved and lost. And where her life changes, once again, irrevocably and forever...

Relay


Roy Lieberman - 2019
    Russ saw it all and wants to tell Dad. However, Dad is suspicious, since the last incident ended with his slippers being found in the dishwasher. Follow Dad’s keys as a team of strange contraptions airlift into the house to conduct a nightly key-relocation operation. The keys are hoisted by micro cranes, hauled using a minuscule cable car, and are carried upstairs by a three-legged walking machine. But where did the keys end up? Did they go down the drain as Dad suspects?

Ulrich


James WalkerJames Walker - 2018
    On his journey he meets Tau, a freed African slave, Ima, a vengeful German war maiden, and Sigmund, a gentle giant caught between worlds. Together they must ally with the Roman Legion to fight against an evil that threatens all the civilized world and pursue justice for those they have lost. Ulrich is the first novel of a series that explores events in and around the Roman empire of the fourth century A.D. A terrible force of invaders, the Alemanni, throw a continent into chaos on their quest for power and revenge and only a young Caesar Julian stands in their way. Action and adventure combine with historical accuracy to create an epic tale of hate, triumph, love, and loss. Through their actions our heroes raise and topple empires and make choices that shape the course of history.

Road to Antietam (Galloway Series Book 1)


Tom E. Hicklin - 2018
    Hicklin brings readers the story of two brothers and the life-altering events they experience amidst the harrowing backdrop of the American Civil War. Daniel and Christopher Galloway are merely teenagers when they join the Eighth Ohio Volunteer Infantry at the beginning of the Civil War. What starts out as a light-hearted adventure, soon descends into a brutal struggle for survival as they go from training camp to skirmishing with an elusive, deadly enemy to full-blown battle, culminating in the single bloodiest day in American history. Along the way, both brothers suffer from illness, exposure, hunger, and extreme fear, and they soon come to realize that the deadly war they've chosen to fight has less to do with glory and banners, and more to do with hardship and depravity. In this blisteringly realistic tale centered around actual events, it becomes apparent that the overall, larger picture does not always reflect the singular human experience. This is a story of suffering and hope, adversity and compassion. This a story of innocence lost and maturity gained. This is a story of two brothers whose love for one another carries them through the darkest time of their lives-until that fateful, bloody day on the banks of the Antietam when they must face their greatest test, and everything changes forever.

Hope in Paris!


Donnalyn Vojta - 2017
    In this first volume of the extraordinarily unique suspense series (for ages 16+), unexpected, sweet narrators tell how a young educated Chicago woman, Kelly Donovan, must escape from her luxurious home to get away from her sociopath boyfriend, Mark Flannery, before he takes her to a woodsy cabin for a little “anniversary get-way.” She must plot, lie, and pretend to be happy before she can flee her relationship and her own home, alive. Unforeseen obstacles frustrate Kelly's efforts to escape, and her family and friends, strangers to one other, must perfectly work together to help her live a life free from threat. The diverse group includes an insecure drama teacher, a brilliant pharmaceutical engineer, and an international businesswoman with a secret that comes in very handy at one critical point. This story is uniquely narrated by inanimate household teddy bears, which, notwithstanding their immobility, have interesting thoughts and perspectives on the shocking events and intriguing relationships which form before their plastic eyes. These plush bears also get a healthy dose of an entertaining blooming romance when Kelly’s plight takes everyone overseas to Paris. While in France, more scheming, racing to stay steps ahead of Mark, and even physical violence ensue – violence which does not always involve a damsel in distress. To complicate matters further, some of the characters are not necessarily what, or who, they seem. Once the plot’s feverish pace decelerates, the group starts to feel some hope, but is the race really over? The genre-mixing mind-bending narration style makes this novel a sensational ride. Enjoy!