One of her debts is with the owner of a landscaping company. Could she pay him back in services? He seems nice enough...Excerpt:As soon as Jeff walked into his office, he knew something was amiss because it was Monday morning and Todd and Alan were all smiles. When he stepped in, Mitch seemed to come out of nowhere, slapping him on the back and telling him what a glorious Monday morning it was.In his seven years working with Todd and Alan, Jeff had never seen them smile; he didn’t even know they could smile. And as for Mitch ... he must have smelled too many of those weeds they were taking out of their clients’ yards.Completely dumbfounded, he turned the corner into his office and immediately realized it wasn't weeds or weed. The reason behind the smiles on and the cheery disposition of these clowns on this glorious Monday morning took another shape altogether.Stumbling into his office after being caught off guard and slapped on the back, he was immediately greeted by the most gorgeous, ass-thetically pleasing tush in tight jeans he had seen in a long, long time.He wondered what the face looked like and quickly decided it didn't really matter as he focused on her assets while she was bent down shuffling through some papers and totally unaware of the eight eyes boring through her. Four pair of eyes who should have been working on something, but couldn't disengage.The fact that she was rummaging through his papers didn’t immediately register.The woman turned around without looking up and carried a stack of papers to a file cabinet that had come with the building and had never been used. As far as he could recall, the cabinet had never been opened, and so far, had been used as a shelf for a silk plant his mother gave him as a gift when he started the business.To his dismay, the plant was now in the trash bin next to the file cabinet. That hurt.The woman was oblivious to the attention she was getting and after depositing the stack of papers in a neat pile in the top drawer of the file cabinet, she turned around to see a gaping Jeff standing before her.The first thing Jeff thought before hinging his jaw back into place was that the woman's front-side was just as pretty as her backside. She looked to be in her early thirties, and not only wore the jeans very well, but the white t-shirt she had on was filled out in all the right places and looked like an advertisement for trouble.She was petite, but disproportionately bigger where it really mattered. Her hair was tied with one of those elastic fabric bands his nieces always wore, and her eyes were as green as the silk plant had once been.Jeff gave himself a few seconds before giving in to reason. Regretfully, he decided it was time to put an end to his enjoyment - nice tush or not. After all, this was his office, he was the boss, and he had no idea what the hell was going on.“What did you do to my plant?!” was somehow the first thing that came out of his mouth. As if realizing how stupid his remark was, Jeff rather forcefully shoved his amused employees out of the way and out of his office.She looked down at the trash bin he was pointing to, and she suddenly seemed very confused when she looked up to see his expectant and slightly flushed face.“It’s dead. I don't think it can be saved, so I threw it out." Bending down to get it, she added, "I can put it back up he ..."Now that really hurt. Not to mention the fact that her bending down again completely disarmed him.“How can silk be dead?” he snapped.“That was silk?" she replied smiling. "Wow, I never met anyone who could kill silk before.”Jeff tried to ignore the chuckles coming from the room next door, but just as he was about to snap at them, the intruder...

    When the system begins to misfire under the workload, the ill-equipped representatives of God and the Devil tasked with managing the process are given an ultimatum. Fix The Afternet or go back to your previous afterlives. They begin an odyssey through the hordes of souls awaiting judgement and the oblivious living in search of a solution. Rich in comic detail and populated with characters real and imagined from throughout time, their quest is never going to be straightforward…

    Just a down home girl, she enjoys driving her truck, listening to country music and, oh yes, the occasional brew.This witch just wants to enjoy the quiet life. When her no-good, hipster husband cheats on her with a trombone player, she moves back to take over the family farm in rural Eastern Kentucky. Here, she's expecting some peace, content to play in her garden, restore the dilapidated farmhouse, and throw her money away at the town auction house every Friday night.But the town of Kudzu Valley just won't let a witch rest. From the high school basketball coach looking for a charm to help the team win the big game to Lola Ellen Pearson who wants to hex the local Pizza Hut for giving her food poisoning the night before her fourth wedding, everyone wants SOMETHING from the town's resident witch!When Cotton Hashagen's dead body is found, though, all eyes turn to Liza Jane. After all, hadn't she JUST accused the local librarian of a terrible crime? With the townspeople and police turning their eyes to Liza Jane, it's going to take a lot for her to prove that she didn't put a "whammy" on him AND solve the mystery to find the real culprit!

    Set in the Windy City of Chicago and in rusty, industrial East Chicago A bizarre kidnapping case leads FBI Special Agent Jasper Wilde into the mysterious world of a strange religious cult and even stranger criminals. At the scene of the kidnapping itself, a frightening apparition is seen. Then, a hideously-mutilated corpse is found nearby. Something wicked has come to the nornal-seeming Chicago suburbs. It doesn t take longbefore the FBI agents realize that something truly extraordinary is unfolding in northwest Indiana and that, whatever it is, the area s huge steel industry is somehow at the center. Jasper is joined by Supervisory Special Agent Temple Black.Blackhas recently been put in charge of a new unit, the Scientific Anomalies Group, created to analyze and handle peculiar cases which might be on the periphery of national security. Another cult is discovered, although this one seems to be opposed to the criminal activities taking place. Further investigation, however, just produces more in the way of mystery. The agents consult with scientists and theologians, but no one has any idea what might be producing the situation. Until, finally, the cults erupt in open warfare. As the FBI agents race to intervene and finally put a stop to the horrors, they come to understand and accept that something very ancient and very evil has surfaced in the world or, perhaps, something that is very, very alien. About Eric Flint: Another engaging alternate history from a master of the genre. Booklist . . . an old-style police-procedural mystery, set in 17th century Germany. . . . the threads . . . spin together . . . to weave an addictively entertaining story. . . . a strong addition to a fun series. Daily News of Galveston County This alternate history series is a landmark Booklist [Eric] Flint's1632universe seems to be inspiring a whole new crop of gifted alternate historians. Booklist reads like a technothriller set in the age of the Medicis Publishers Weekly"

    Other than that things are just peachy.Someone has stolen the Grim Reaper's head and Blunt has been told to find it. In a new city where the rules of the living don't apply Blunt's up to his neck in the brown stuff and he's never been much of a swimmer. With the aid of a woman who keeps turning involuntarily invisible, a journalist who hasn't written an article since she died, and a bureaucrat who can't say no to anyone, Blunt's got to stop whoever is stealing the heads of the city's elite.As he begins his investigations he finds things aren't all they seem. Who are the Gloomwood Youth Order? What do you call the murder of someone already dead? Why are people having their heads chopped off? And what is in the hot dogs? With time slipping away he needs to learn what makes the city tick before there's no city left.

    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!

    Assaulted, framed and sent to prison to ensure her silence, Sarah discovers a fierce will to live and a startling capacity for violence that enables her to survive the harsh prison environment. On her release, Sarah learns her father died alone and her old life is gone forever. Heartbroken and enraged, Sarah devises a chilling revenge for the men who destroyed her world. As she prepares, she meets Paul Taylor, an ex US navy seal, who teaches her the skills she needs; but also shows her love and the promise of a new life. As Sarah begins her hunt, the cops’ disbelief turns to terror as they realize they are being stalked and killed by a librarian.

    Have you ever wondered how an attorney would feel if that same recently acquitted client kills a second time? Again, I have, and these very questions prompted me to write a dark mystery/thriller about just such an attorney…I call it DEFENDING EVIL.Travis Knight is an extraordinary Criminal Defense Attorney winning high profile cases in Atlanta. One of his recently acquitted clients kills again, which has Travis and his wife Julie, questioning what he does for a living. Travis is shaken to his core, but being a consummate lawyer, he is able to move past his feelings of guilt; Julie isn’t. In a bizarre twist, a mysterious vigilante begins executing Travis’ clients after he wins them an acquittal. This righteous vigilante decides that the clients Travis is helping to put back into society are guilty, and don't deserve to live--the vigilante delivers ultimate justice.The police only half-heartedly search for the vigilante-off the record, they are glad someone is cleaning-up after the hot-shot attorney.The vigilante's attention turns to the source, and sends Travis an ultimatum--stop defending guilty clients or he will be the next to be executed. Risking his life, and his marriage, Travis refuses to be intimidated, and continues to defend clients accused of murder. This story chronicles the labyrinth of high-speed twists and turns of a deadly cat-and-mouse game…a game that can end with only one winner.Buckle-up and enjoy the ride!Best Regards,Charles Shea - Author of DEFENDING EVIL

    Anxious to start a new life, Samantha decides to open up a business of her own, and throws herself into making the dream a reality. But along the way, there are plenty of obstacles popping up to make life a little more challenging than she expected - nosy neighbors and cranky in-laws, attractive men and pretentious sisters, a gossipy mother, mysterious hate mail, and ghosts from the past that threaten to destroy everything she's worked to achieve. And just when Sam thinks things couldn't possibly get worse, there's a murder on her property that the local detective seems mighty determined to pin on the newest resident of Peabody. Suddenly Sam is overwhelmed with troubles she never imagined, and she knows the only way to get through any of it is by keeping her sense of humor and trusting that God really does know exactly what He is doing.

    Small for his age and in his first year of high school, Justin's only friend has become a bully and harasses him at every turn. But Justin has a secret. He feels no pain from the punches and shoves that come his way and, at his mother's request, must pretend to be normal even though he wants to fight back.A mysterious message on his computer sends him in search of knowledge about the legendary Titans. While at the local library, he is confronted by a frightening group of men who follow him and attack his home.Justin must escape, but there seems no way out and leaving his ailing mother behind is something Justin does not want to do. But Justin's mother and a family friend urge him to get to a place of safety; a sanctuary where he may, perhaps, learn more about his strange gift and it's connection with the long-dead Titans.

    In other words, she’s got it all. Who Peed on My Yoga Mat? peels back the curtain on family life to show that happiness is really a matter of perspective. Between watching adorably annoying toddlers transform into text-obsessed teens, and facing inevitable moments of marital “for worse,” a girl’s got to carve out time for inner peace. As she did in Blacklisted from the PTA, Davidson shows us once again that laughing at yourself and your family is the surest path to tranquility–or at least the most fun.

    Cherry Paget's is a Chihuahua.Cherry was young, beautiful and rich-just golden enough to imagine that she had the world by the balls. Death was the furthest thing from her mind. But even a morbid obsession with the afterlife could not have prepared her for what happened.Chihuahua Karma chronicles the horrendous consequences of Cherry's bad choices. She trades love for a Black American Express card. She dumps veterinarian, Richard Preston, to marry gangster, Larry Finkelstein. And, when a smudge of magenta lipstick confirms that Larry is cheating she washes down a fist-full of Vicoden with a bottle of wine for breakfast. That mistake is the beginning of her problems.In an inebriated attempt at tanning, Cherry plunges from the terrace of her penthouse to the street below. She escapes extinction only to encounter a more complicated fate. Cherry regains consciousness trapped inside the body of a very tiny dog.Cherry's diminutive prison is a mini Chi named Sugar. The Lucky Dream Dry Cleaners is her dismal new home. With the unwitting assistance of her former housekeeper, Cherry escapes the dirty clothes and cotton dust. Once again ensconced in Larry's luxurious penthouse, she becomes his girlfriend's prized purse-buddy.In her diminished state, Cherry finds new perspective. She yearns for Richard. And she forms an unlikely alliance with Don Paco Fernandez, a temperamental ghost with a taste for tequila and pretty ladies. Through Don Paco, Cherry discovers that only she can save an orphaned child from her impending adoption by a sinister couple. The cast of off-beat characters collides, and Cherry meets her destiny at a casino night Christmas party.Chihuahua Karma could easily share a shelf with humorous fiction like the Devil Wears Prada and the Nanny Diaries. Sugars fans include women who love fashion, passion and small dogs and any reader who enjoys unraveling a quirky plot to its surprising conclusion.Debby Rice is a writer from Chicago. She has spent time in Mexico City, San Miguel Allende, New Orleans and San Francisco, and her experiences in those cities color her work. Rice blurs the distinctions between fantasy and reality and immerses her readers in a vividly imagined new world.

    It was every smuggler's dream, the "Big Score," and they find themselves filthy rich as a result. But their good fortune attracts exactly the wrong kind of attention: the Alliance of Free Worlds has been trying to infiltrate Ur Voys without success, so they conscript the only man who has: Grif Vindh. The Radiant Throne, desperate to know how their security was so easily thwarted, send one of their best to track him down and learn the truth... by any means necessary. Grif and his crew must perform the impossible a second time: break into Ur Voys, steal something so secretive their employers don't really know what it is, and get away clean. Along the way they'll have to deal with deadly spies, psychotic telepaths, vicious cyborgs, inconvenient family ties... and a hyperintelligent bug who always bets against its captain.

    He's lost everything - his wife, his dreams, his future. He finally enters the death chamber at the famous 'Walls' prison in Texas. He's strapped to a gurney and given an injection of lethal drugs in front of witnesses. Minutes later he's pronounced dead. But that's not the end of it. After the execution comes the shocking revelation - Jordan is still alive. And to stop him talking he has to die all over again - before he brings down the entire American justice system.

    Three years into a twenty year mission to a new solar system, the colony ship Magellan and its ten million residents sent their last pulse message… "Peace with the Navereen is at an end." Trapped in Cargo Bay 37, fighter pilot Fristion Nash and twelve hundred others lived through the Magellan apocalypse. They have survived for a decade under Frank Block's exacting leadership. Now survival isn’t enough. Nash wants answers. Frank Block wants only control and obedience.Praise for Map Runners: “I found the book funny and exciting. I can't wait for the rest of them to come out.”