Maura Riley learns this the hard way after a fateful first contact with an alien being that literally fell from the stars. She finds herself thrust into a world of shadowy government operatives, vengeful alien factions, and mutated human beings that suddenly have the ability to act on their darkest, most deprave desires. War is coming to Earth. War in the form of an invading alien horde known as the Anisari, that is bent on dominating or destroying our planet. They are seeking their lost property, the very being that fell to Earth and caused the massive genetic changes occurring on our world. After first contact, human beings are evolving into something that can either save our world, or hasten its destruction. Maura and her friends have to decide if they want to be Earth's defenders or give into the savagery and lust that their newfound mutation allows them to explore. Book one in the dark and gritty science fiction series Earth's First is not to be missed. All three books in the Earth's First saga are available for purchase, or read for free in Kindle Unlimited!

    This was an unplanned book: The Great Game was supposed to be a stand-alone story. Then questions about a sequel started coming in. The last words in The Great Game are “This is not the end.” I meant it philosophically, meaning that the struggle between good and evil, quest for power vs. individual liberty will continue as they did through the centuries. But I was being too cute by half and the readers called me on it.And somewhere in the process of working on a sequel I have taken a turn into the past. Events in The Great Game are based on the financial crisis which in turn is rooted in a financial warfare between the US on one side and China and Russia on the other side. I wanted to go back in time and show the beginning of that warfare, show that the seeds have been planted and carefully cultivated prior to the events in the story. And something else started happening. Some of the events “predicted” in The Great Game began to materialize much sooner than I expected, particularly rising tensions between the U.S. and Russia and growing rapprochement of China and Russia. The characters of The Metronome are made up but the backdrop of the events is real and factual. The main protagonist Pavel Rostin is a regular, very flawed man who faces difficult circumstances. I know that the ending of The Metronome will upset some of the readers but I felt it was the only honest way to conclude the first part: the larger context was not Pavel's immediate fate or his flaws, but the moral choices he made at the end and their impact on others. Because “even the smallest person can change the course of the future.”Pavel Rostin has taken too many chances. Once a promising physicist, he abandoned science for finance and risked everything on a speculative venture. Careless and rogue, he gambled with his personal relationships. As Pavel tries to pick up the pieces of his life, a call from Russia informs him that his father is dead.When Pavel follows his father’s footsteps trying to solve the mystery of his death, he turns up some inexplicable clues. The investigation draws him deeper and deeper into his family’s past – and his country’s future. From starving 1941 Leningrad to free-wheeling Moscow of the mid-1990s to bubbly 2006 Wall Street, Pavel uncovers a web of money, murder, revenge and evidence of a plot involving the world’s superpowers. The choices of right and wrong don’t look as clear cut as in newspaper headlines. But is he just a pawn in someone else’s game?

    Trained in the arts of the woodsman, they became the ultimate hunting, fishing, surviving and killing forces that Uncle had designed them to be.However, Uncle knew he was leaving this world and that the twins would be okay with the world. What Uncle could have never known was if the world would be okay with the twins.When changing lives is not an option, the twins must begin to take lives. Enjoy this fast paced, thrilling outdoors adventure novel as the Twins battle against the society that wants to end their woodland way of life.Twins of Prey is W.C. Hoffman's first novel in the Twins of Prey series.

    When that peace is threatened by a corrupt sheriff, and the ruthless drug dealers he’s protecting, they’ll have to stand together with their friends and some unlikely allies if they hope to survive. Jake Dillon has come to Misty Hill looking for answers about his missing brother; who’s been working undercover for the DEA. He finds the Sanders standing alone against the people connected to his brother’s disappearance. He also finds the family that he’s always wanted, and the love he’s never had. The odds are stacked against them surviving, but Laura and her family won’t back down, and Jake won’t back off, until he finds his brother and his new friends are safe. In the Great Smoky Mountains, people have their own brand of justice. It’s been passed down from generation to generation. It’s called a reckoning, and it’s coming to Misty Hill.

    The Ordinaries of the lost colony—Earth—are about to encounter something that will change their world forever.

    But instead, I entered a world of magic that saw me fighting for my life.” Layne Vayris has lost the two most dearest people to her. Her mentor and her Uncle Niklas. Each have tasked her with delivering their last requests. Layne’s mentor requires three letters to be delivered on specific dates and specific times. Whereas her Uncle Niklas has asked that she deliver an unusual book of his, to an unworthy previous student called Goter. To complete their dying wishes she must leave her peaceful and tranquil village of Wolverdell to enter a bustling city of magic and depravity. There she meets a young homeless boy called Remi, who guides her through the city. Their friendship spurs her on to find the first addressee of the three letters, a Master Sharrez. But Master Sharrez is aloof and spends his time in whore houses, making an audience with him near on impossible. Layne realizes that the only way to fulfill her promise to her dead mentor is to join the Academy of Magic, where the warlock Sharrez teaches the Faculty of Dark Magic. Except this decision comes with its own demons and Layne finds herself setting off on a path she never envisaged. A path that leads her to discover her own dormant magic, which becomes all consuming and more powerful than anyone has ever seen before. But with power comes enemies. And in trying to deliver her second letter, she finds that not all ‘old’ friends are friends, and things take a turn for the worst. Layne finds herself having to fight for her life with some unlikely friends to boot. Will Layne be able to deliver the third letter in time? Will she pass on her Uncle’s book to the unworthy Goter? Or will the power of magic end her before she's even begun?

    As the Ten Plains King lays siege to the mysterious kingdom of the Riln, the Healer realises that if he is to survive, he has to think and fight like a soldier. But Chalos isn't a soldier. He doesn't even own a sword. To make matters worse, the famed Wielder of Aphazail, a mage of extraordinary power, has come to the aid of the Riln... and is slaughtering the invaders in droves. Empires clash, gods walk, kingdoms tremble and sorcery carves a bright and blazing path across an ancient and mysterious land... a path that leads to HEALER'S RUIN.

    Adrienne is spirited, passionate, and impulsive... all of the things Oz is not. Oz is drawn to her in a way that is inexplicable to him, and deeply concerning to those who know him. Amidst her father’s threats, Adrienne makes secret plans to run away with Oz. Before they can act on them, Adrienne and her family are involved in a tragic accident that takes the lives of the entire family. Adrienne’s body, however, is not found in the wreckage. Oz is devastated and unable to move on when an extensive investigation fails to solve the mystery of Adrienne’s vanishing. Three years later Oz has made a life for himself as an attorney at his family’s law firm. However, the predictability and peace of his quiet life is shattered when Adrienne is discovered, alive and well…but with no memory of anything before the accident. Oz is conflicted: grateful that she is alive but still damaged from her disappearance and hesitant to get involved and re-open a wound that never fully closed. Yet, Oz finds himself unable to resist helping when Adrienne’s desperate attempt to flee the confusing and dark influences in her life instinctively finds her on Oz’s doorstep. Unable to turn her away, but equally unable to get too involved, Oz keeps from her the truth of who he was and what they meant to each other before she disappeared. Against his better judgment he finds himself enmeshed in the mystery of what happened to her when she was sixteen. The more he learns, the less he understands, and as the story unfolds and Adrienne’s memory slowly returns, everything they thought they both knew gets called into question.

    But the carnival’s newest act, a peculiar young woman with latent magical powers, may hold the key to defeating it. Her time has come.Abandoned by her family, alone on the wrong side of the color line with little to call her own, Eliza Meeks is coming to terms with what she does have. It’s a gift for communicating with animals. To some, she’s a magical tender. To others, a she-devil. To a talent prospector, she’s a crowd-drawing oddity. And the Bacchanal Carnival is Eliza’s ticket out of the swamp trap of Baton Rouge.Among fortune-tellers, carnies, barkers, and folks even stranger than herself, Eliza finds a new home. But the Bacchanal is no ordinary carnival. An ancient demon has a home there too. She hides behind an iridescent disguise. She feeds on innocent souls. And she’s met her match in Eliza, who’s only beginning to understand the purpose of her own burgeoning powers.Only then can Eliza save her friends, find her family, and fight the sway of a primordial demon preying upon the human world. Rolling across a consuming dust bowl landscape, Eliza may have found her destiny.

    Untold treasure. Can she uncover the secret of her inheritance before dark forces claim another victim? Graysie Castellanos is ready to take her final bow. When the traveling singer inherits a rundown mine, she thinks it’s her golden opportunity to provide her adopted daughter with a happy childhood and a prosperous future. But their bright new beginning crumbles underfoot when the townsfolk of the Sierra Nevada mining town start dropping dead of mysterious causes. If Nathan Russell had listened to his gut, he’d have cleared out of Grass Valley before the first corpse turned cold. But the Aussie-born adventurer refuses to abandon the gorgeous singer and her young child to their doom. And when his old rival arrives in town looking to stir up trouble, he only gets pulled deeper into the mystery of the dark forces taking control. With no choice but to press forward, Graysie and Nathan must solve the riddle of the deaths before the shadowy culprit adds their names to the tombstone. Poisoned Legacy is the first book in the absorbing Of Gold & Blood historical mystery series set on the California frontier. If you like accurate details, edge-of-your-seat suspense, and a glimmer of romance, then you’ll love Jenny Wheeler’s sparkling saga.

     From NY Times Bestselling author, Win Blevins, the story of legendary mountain man, Sam Morgan, comes to a roaring climax, filled with narrow escapes, a search for peace, and a home for his mixed-race family. “Blevins has painted an epic saga of life in the early West on a huge canvas of vivid colors. –Tony Hillerman.” “Through clever storytelling, and the seamless insertion of important background information, Blevins has made sure that readers unfamiliar with the series can follow each book on its own.” – Booklist ….... HEAVEN IS A LONG WAY OFF Sam Morgan faces the most daunting task of his adventuresome life. It is 1827 and he, with the trapping brigade commanded by Jedediah Smith, has been expelled from Mexican California. Sam must make a trek to the Wind Rivers for the sake of his Crow wife and their infant daughter, Eperanza.Nursing a broken heart, and in need of income, Sam rides to Santa Fe—and there he meets a beautiful widow. Soon after leaving, the herd of horses belonging to Sam and his companions are sold for a healthy profit. He returns to California to reunite with his daughter only to learn she has been taken captive in an Indian raid.Sam's desperate mission to rescue his daughter, their escape in a frail craft down a rampaging river, and their long trek home, is a harrowing tale told by a master of the historical novel. "Win Blevins's novel about venturesome Sam Morgan, and the fur trade and mountain men, is both authentic and entertaining!" —Dallas Morning News. A LONG AND WINDING ROAD A decade has passed since Sam Morgan took up the rough-and-tumble life of a mountain man in the Far West. In those ten years, Sam has made his mark as a trapper, fighter, and survivor.Sam has also endured tragedy.Distraught, Sam finds a mission for himself when he determines to find and rescue two Mexican girls, Lupe and Rosalita. They have been kidnapped from their village by Navajo raiders and spirited off into the New Mexico wilderness.The search for the captive girls takes him deep into Navajo, Ute, and Blackfeet Indian territory, to Bent's Fort in Colorado, near death at the hands of a companion, and finally to a surprise at the end of the trail, involving the missing girls and a trapper called Pegleg Smith. “The glory years of frontier life, fresh and rich.” — Kirkus Reviews DREAMS BENEATH YOUR FEET Eighteen years have passed since Sam Morgan came West from Pennsylvania and learned the perilous business of trapping in the Rocky Mountain wilderness.Now, in 1840, the world has changed. The fur trade has played out, and he must find other means to make a living.Sam decides to return to California with his daughter Esperanza and start a new life. The great golden land holds a harsh memory, but friends convince him that his destiny, and that of his mixed-race family, lies on the Pacific shore.Meadowlark's uncle, Flat Dog, his family, and Hannibal MacKye, the half-Delaware Indian mountain man, join Sam and Esperanza for the journey west, where they hope to trade for a herd of Appaloosa horses to sell at a profit in California.

    Clues and taunts left by the killer along with the knowledge held by the teenager cause the three characters to intersect in a dangerous game of cat and mouse.

    Assigned to the case is Detective Chief Inspector Alistair Fitzjohn. Fitzjohn is a detective from the old guard, whose methodical, painstaking methods are viewed by some as archaic. His relentless pursuit for the killer zeros in on Alex’s brother, James, as a key suspect in his investigation. Compelled to clear himself of suspicion, James starts his own investigation and finds himself immersed in a web of intrigue, ultimately uncovering long hidden secrets about his brother’s life that could easily be the very reasons he was murdered. This gripping tale of murder and suspense winds its way through the university’s hallowed halls to emerge into the beautiful, yet unpredictable, Blue Mountain region where more challenges and obstacles await James in his quest to clear himself of suspicion and uncover the truth about his brother. MURDER AT THE ROCKS When Laurence Harford, a prominent businessman and philanthropist is found murdered in the historic Rocks area of Sydney, Detective Chief Inspector Fitzjohn is asked to solve the crime quickly and discreetly. After barely starting his investigation, uncovering a discarded mistress and disgruntled employees, a second killing occurs. Meanwhile, Laurence’s nephew, Nicholas Harford, has his certainties in life shaken when he becomes a suspect in his uncle’s death, and receives a mysterious gold locket that starts a chain of events unravelling his family’s dark truths. ONCE UPON A LIE Little did, businessman and entrepreneur, Michael Rossi know that the telephone call he answered on that fateful Friday would be the catalyst for his death, and the subsequent recovery of his body from the waters of Sydney Harbour the following morning. Recalled from leave to take on the case, Detective Chief Inspector Fitzjohn confronts the first of many puzzles; how Rossi spent the unaccountable hours before he died. This leads him on a paper-trail into a tangled web of deception, jealousy and greed that unravels the mystery surrounding Michael’s death. Unaware of her nephew’s fate, Esme Timmons retires for the evening, unsuspecting of the events about to unfold; events that will, ultimately, expose a grim lie, buried deep in the past.

    Victoria is Queen. Charles Darwin’s son is Prime Minister. And steam is the power that runs the world. At 17, Claire Trevelyan, daughter of Viscount St. Ives, was expected to do nothing more than pour an elegant cup of tea, sew a fine seam, and catch a rich husband. Unfortunately, Claire’s talents lie not in the ballroom, but in the chemistry lab, where things have a regrettable habit of blowing up. When her father gambles the estate on the combustion engine and loses, Claire finds herself down and out on the mean streets of London. But being a young woman of resources and intellect, she turns fortune on its head. It’s not long before a new leader rises in the underworld, known only as the Lady of Devices . . . When she meets Andrew Malvern, a member of the Royal Society of Engineers, she realizes her talents may encompass more than the invention of explosive devices. They may help her realize her dreams and his . . . if they can both stay alive long enough to see that sometimes the closest friendships can trigger the greatest betrayals . . .

    Nath Dragon and company are called upon to recover them, but this quest will have dire consequences. Long ago, Nath and Brenwar crossed paths with a dangerous foe, Corzan the Necromancer. The goblin-like magic user has been simmering for decades and plotting vengeance on Nath Dragon. Now, harnessing the power of the Thunder Stones, the evil mage unleashes a trap that should dispatch Nalzambor's greatest hero forever. New adversaries surge in the world of Bish … Suffering one great loss after the other, the underlings unleash a drastic plan. Using their lethal arcane powers they attempt to summon a monster of incalculable power from the mystic realm beyond. Instead, Nath Dragon, with black scales from his arms to his neck, emerges from the portal, but without his memories. The underlings deceive Nath and turn him loose and send him to hunt down and kill the legendary Darkslayer. What will happen when these two titans of battle finally clash? Who will triumph in the end? Only one thing is for sure, this will be an awesome, unprecedented, one-of-a-kind adventure that you will never forget!