But before Meg can take her first steps into the unknown alone, she must look to her past. Why, she wonders, did her mother wear a wedding ring but never marry? Why, for instance, does the tallyman never call at No. 3 Tippet's Yard to collect any rent? He does everywhere else. With Ma gone, Meg must go back to her roots to uncover her 'family tree'. However, the process of simplfying her life leads to unforseen complications. But there's always Kip, reliable and loving, to pick up the pieces of her unsolved life and love.

    Hephaestus Books represents a new publishing paradigm, allowing disparate content sources to be curated into cohesive, relevant, and informative books. To date, this content has been curated from Wikipedia articles and images under Creative Commons licensing, although as Hephaestus Books continues to increase in scope and dimension, more licensed and public domain content is being added. We believe books such as this represent a new and exciting lexicon in the sharing of human knowledge. This particular book is a collaboration focused on Alex Cross (novel series).

    A highly unlikely menage a trois unites a brilliant, handsome, and ambitious lawyer, a smart, curious, and sexually inventive American woman, and an ingenious thief named Thirst, in this dark and erotic psychological thriller reminiscent of Josephine Hart's Damage.

    He has plenty to do, being the head ranger of the Tahoe National Forest, but living alone in a cabin in the middle of the woods isn’t exactly the most riveting life. He’s known excitement, too. For many years he served as a sniper in the marine corps, but a devastating shoulder injury has reduced him to civilian duties. These days, a walker’s twisted ankle or a trapped raccoon is about as exciting as it gets. Nothing can prepare him, though, for the day he comes across a man lying in the middle of a lonely forest road. The man is alive, but he’d certainly been left for dead. When he wakes up in the hospital, it becomes obvious that he’s suffering from amnesia. With nothing to identify him save for the huge angel tattoo that spreads across his shoulders, the hospital staff name him Gabriel, and tell Hopper that with nowhere else to send him, once he’s recovered from his injuries he’ll have to be sent out into the world. Against his better judgement, but always a sucker for swarthy looks and piercing blue eyes, Hopper agrees to allow Gabriel to stay with him. Perhaps, together, they can work at finding out who this mystery man is, why he was left lying in the forest, and who could possibly have attacked him so badly. What Hopper can never prepare himself for is how deeply he will fall for this handsome stranger, and how he will be able to let Gabriel go when the past, as it always does, comes to catch up. Please Note: This book contains adult language and steamy adult activities, it is intended for 18+ Adults Only. Novel, approximately 82,000 words in length. HEA (happy ever after ending). Does not end with a "cliffhanger." Themes include: Forest Ranger, Amnesia, Angel tattoo, Lake Tahoe, Falling in love, ex-marine

    Tucker claims to have been alone at a job site at the time, but he needs Lauren to lie for him so that he won't become a suspect in the murder. She refuses; now as a prime suspect, Tucker disappears without a trace. Years later, she sees him at an antique fair, and worried that Lauren will reveal his carefully constructed life, he forces his into her hotel room and tells her that he's trying to find evidence to clear his name. As Lauren tries to help Tucker, she questions her ability to judge character as she uncovers a labyrinth of deceit, putting her very life in danger."Karen Young has written an exciting thriller with the second chance romantic subplot enhancing the suspense. Readers will root for the embattled lead protagonists caught in the crosshairs of a ruthless diabolical killer. . . . Lie For Me is a gripping one sitting read." --Harriet Klausner (5 stars)

    In this free collection of excerpts, enjoy a taste of all of Vince Flynn’s thrillers starring CIA superagent Mitch Rapp.

    Wry, laconic, and more than a little world-weary, Tatum pursues a savage killer through the rural Virginia uplands with the hot-headed assistance of Special Agent Kate LeComte. Warwolf is by turns hilarious and deeply unsettling, and T.R. Pearson’s gift for capturing the true voice of the new south is on conspicuous display. The mountains of Virginia have never seemed so dangerously alive, and there remains no better company in the southern highlands than Deputy Ray Tatum.Ray Tatum also appears in Cry Me A River, Blue Ridge, and Polar -- written to be read in no particular order.

    He has been accused of a reprehensible crime and up until this moment everything she thought about him and their life together could well be a lie. When she digs into his whereabouts, Ava comes face to face with her own past indiscretions and realizes that her past may be coming back to haunt both of them.Inside V is a novel of trust and deception, a dark look inside of a marriage that started as an affair, and the deep distrust that evolves from that initial infidelity. A must read for fans of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train.

    Over 1,000 pages of action and adventure from San Francisco’s top special agent. The Peyton Brooks, FBI series follows the career of Special Agent Peyton Brooks and her team, the Ghost Squad, as they tackle crimes around the world. This compilation includes titles: Zombies in the Delta, Mermaids in the Pacific, Werewolves in London, Vampires in Hollywood, and Mayan Gods in the Yucatan.

    And so when she meets and falls in love with Daniel Fallow, son of a successful businessman, she's quick to accept his proposal of his marriage. His family, though, are against the match, and so the young couple marry in secret. Grudging acceptance follows, and as the Depression worsens Daniel is persuaded to join the family business, unaware of his father's dodgy dealings. Tragedy is just around the corner, and worse is to come when war is declared in 1939: as Daniel leaves to fight and her children are evacuated, Hope wonders if she will ever have all her family around her again...

    This set contains Girl Jacked, Jack Knifed, Jacks are Wild and Jack and the Giant Killer. The Jack Stratton mystery collection that has 500+ Five-Star reviews with over 200,000 eBooks and paperbacks in distribution. If you love mysteries with action, humor and a dash of romance, try the Jack Stratton Collection today. Girl Jacked Police Officer Jack Stratton is hiding. Hiding from the world. From pain. From the memories of losing his best friend, Chandler, in Iraq. Suffering from PTSD, and isolated from those he cares about, the last thing Jack expects to hear is his foster sister Michelle is gone – Chandler’s sister. The words cut straight to his core. Although the police think she just took off, he knows Michelle would never leave those she loved behind – like he did. Now he must take action, find Michelle and bring her home... or die trying. The first novel in the Jack Stratton Mystery Collection introduces us to handsome rogue, Jack Stratton, and his dark past. With a debt of honor to his dead foster brother, Chandler, Jack’s guilt drives him into a world of deception and lies. As Jack’s walls begin to crumble, he must navigate the quirky characters that seep into the mystery of his foster sister’s disappearance. And in the sleepy community of Darrington, like so many things in this world, nothing is as it appears to be. The hidden mysteries that often go unnoticed begin to emerge as Jack and his new unpredictable sidekick begin to turn over the rocks. Following a trail that has grown cold, Jack must tread carefully to protect his job, his family, and his own life… Jack Knifed Handsome Police Officer Jack Stratton is the “hometown hero cop with a heart of gold.” Constant nightmares have forced him to seek answers about his rough childhood, and the dark secrets that lay hidden there. With Replacement by his side, Jack travels to Hope Falls to solve a murder that occurred before he was born. Everyone in the small town remembers the unsolved murder of Steven Ritter, but after 27 years, no one thought that someone would look into it – They don’t know Jack. Jacks are Wild Handsome, white-knight, Police Officer Jack Stratton is back in this action-packed, thrilling adventure. When his sexy, old flame disappears, no one thinks it’s suspicious except Jack and one unbalanced witness. Jack feels in his gut that something is wrong. He knows that Marisa has a past and if it ever caught up with her – it would be deadly. Determined to buck the critics, and listen to his instincts, he and his young, feisty sidekick plunge ahead and start to track down leads hoping to find Marisa in time. The trail leads them into all sorts of trouble – landing them smack in the middle of an all-out Mob war between the Italian Mafia and the Japanese Yakuza. When evidence surfaces that Marisa was kidnapped, Jack must navigate between the warring parties, assassins, and cold-blooded hit men to outwit the cunning kidnappers before it is too late. As the body count rises, the stakes in this game are life and death – with no rules except one – Jacks are Wild. Jack and the Giant Killer Jack Stratton is back in another action-packed, thrilling adventure. While recovering from a gunshot wound and the loss of his job on the police force, Jack’s romance with feisty Replacement continues to develop. When Replacement gets a seemingly harmless private investigation job—locate the owner of a lost dog—Jack begrudgingly assists. Little do they know that it will place them both into the cross hairs of a merciless serial killer.

    

    He may look like your regular ginger flabby tabby, but unlike most tabbies, he can actually communicate with his human, reporter for the Hampton Cove Gazette Odelia Poole. Max takes a keen interest in the goings-on in their small town, by snooping around with his best friends Dooley, a not-too-bright ragamuffin, and Harriet, a gorgeous white Persian. Their regular visits to the police station, the barbershop and the doctor’s office provide them with those precious and exclusive scoops that have made Odelia the number one reporter in town. Purrfect Murder When the body of a bestselling writer is discovered buried in the last Long Island outhouse, and a new policeman arrives in town to solve the murder, it looks like things are about to change in Hampton Cove. Detective Chase Kingsley doesn’t take kindly to nosy reporters like Odelia snooping around his crime scene or interviewing his suspects. And to make matters worse, he’s got a cat of his own in Brutus, a buff, black bully, who, just like his owner, likes to lay down the law. Soon Brutus isn’t just restricting access to the police station, but he’s putting the moves on Harriet, breaking up the band.

 Now it’s all Odelia, Max and Dooley can do to try and solve the murder, in spite of Detective Kingsley’s and Brutus’s protestations, and show the overbearing cop and his bullyragging feline how things are done in Hampton Cove. Purrfectly Deadly When famous eighties pop star John Paul George is found floating facedown in his pool, Hampton Cove’s premier sleuthing tabby Max and his feline friends are on the case. Soon they’re chasing leads and following clues, helping their human Odelia Poole, reporter for the Hampton Cove Gazette, solve the murder.

 Meanwhile, new cop in town Chase Kingsley has his own problems to deal with. An old scandal threatens to get him kicked off the force. And even though Odelia and Chase don’t always see eye to eye, she decides to help him clear his name, even if it means keeping Chase’s cat Brutus, Max’s self-declared nemesis, in town.

 Soon Max is up to his whiskers in drug dealers, boy toys, disgruntled ex-wives and even more drug dealers, all while competing with Brutus for the title of Hampton Cove’s one and only ‘true detective.’ Purrfect Revenge Blorange tabby Max and ragamuffin Dooley are on the case again. This time a world-famous reality star has been found murdered in her own bed, and it looks like the crime just might be terror-related. The Kenspeckles, stars of the well-known reality show Keeping Up with the Kenspeckles, are in town to film a new season of their show, so the case soon turns into a complete media circus, with the Kenspeckles insisting the entire investigation is filmed for their show.

 Odelia Poole, Hampton Cove’s premier reporter, teams up with Detective Chase Kingsley to catch the killer, but with cameras filming their every move, and every Kenspeckle a suspect, they’re not making a lot of progress. Good thing Odelia’s cats Max and Dooley can sneak around undetected, tracking leads and hunting clues. But first they have to pacify Shana’s French Bulldog Kane, who just might be in possession of the clue that breaks the case. And they have to outsmart Chase’s black tabby Brutus, who has his own reasons to find the killer.

    He treads a fine line keeping psychotic hard-man Rab Simpson in check while sleeping with gang leader Billy Tyrie’s beautiful wife on the side. When a bomb claims nine lives, he is given the role of the getaway driver in a planned reprisal killing, a key role in a major operation. But Jackie may not be who he seems... Twenty years later, Jackie returns to the city for his father’s funeral after disappearing in mysterious circumstances. He wants to mourn then leave, but when figures from his past emerge, he is left with no choice but to revisit his violent former life. The first in the Jackie Shaw series, RAVENHILL is a gripping début novel from a brilliant new voice in crime fiction. The second in the series, SEVEN SKINS, is coming soon. ‘Tense, unsparing, compassionate and exceptionally well-written, this brilliant thriller brings vividly to life East Belfast in war and peace, its self-appointed community defenders turned brutal predators, and the security forces who struggled to contain them.’ Ruth Dudley Edwards