Book picks similar to
Incendiary by Carl Rackman


contemporary-fantasy
contemporary-fiction
spy-thriller

Devil's Bargain


R.L. King - 2019
    A suburban mom with two young children, her life revolves around her family, her job, and the comforts of home. So when her estranged, wild-child sister comes to her, begging for help and claiming a witch murdered her husband and wants to steal her baby daughter in payment for a long-ago oath, Tamara thinks she’s gone crazy. Until she turns up dead, and the baby vanishes without a trace. If Tamara’s going to get her niece back, she’ll have to expand her worldview fast. She’ll also need some expert help. But where can a normal, practical woman find help dealing with an evil witch? Fortunately for her, aid is closer than she thinks. Who better to give button-down Tamara a crash course in things that go bump in the night than Stanford occult studies professor Dr. Alastair Stone? At least he can offer some tips, even if she’s sure he can’t help her any other way. Because magic isn’t real…right? Welcome to the spooky side of the street, Tamara. Hope you survive the experience. Devil's Bargain is a short, standalone novel in the world of the Alastair Stone Chronicles urban fantasy series. Don't miss the rest of the series: Stone and a Hard Place The Forgotten The Threshold The Source Core of Stone Blood and Stone Heart of Stone Flesh and Stone The Infernal Heart The Other Side Path of Stone Necessary Sacrifices Game of Stone Steel and Stone Stone and Claw The Seventh Stone and two standalone novellas: Turn to Stone Shadows and Stone

With You and Without You


Deborah J. Wolf - 2003
    That changed on the day a tragic accident ripped her husband away from her - and shattered everything.

Inshallah


Alys Einion - 2014
    Her new life is strange and confusing and sometimes frightening. Amanda can barely understand Arabic and the treatment of the women of the family seems wrong to a girl raised in Wales. To add to her problems, Mohammed proves to be verbally and physically abusive - especially once they have their own flat away from the protection of the wider family. Somehow Amanda must escape, but not without her children.

Future Mage


R.H. Nolan - 2019
     17-year-old Max has spent almost his entire life in the Wastelands, an endless desert littered with the burnt-out hulls of spaceships. In the final battle of the Interstellar War, aliens released a wave of radiation that killed half the human population and turned the rest into horrific mutants that stalk the desert dunes. But the aliens are dead and gone. Now humans are the only monsters left. All Max wants to do is survive day-to-day and provide for his mother and little brother. But when Gestapo-like guards from the walled fortress of Neo Angeles corner him, Max falls into an underground cavern… And finds an alien spacecraft undiscovered by humans. Something inside it is alive. Something that could grant Max unimaginable power. But the corrupt governor of Neo Angeles will do anything to possess that power first. Now Max is in a race against time. He must learn to use his new abilities… Level up and gain new ones… Make allies inside the futuristic city of Neo Angeles… And stop Governor Saris before he kills millions of innocents in his quest to rule Earth. It’s said that sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic. If that’s true, then Max must become a Future Mage to save the human race. This book contains LitRPG elements and violence. No sex, no harems, mild profanity.

Code of the Forest


Jon Buchan - 2012
    Wade turns for help to Kate Stewart, a young lawyer who has left a large law firm for a fresh start on her own in Georgetown. These two fiercely independent souls form a wary alliance for the legal battle that follows. It s a fight that shows them the power of connections good and bad to change their lives forever.

Past Forward-A Serial Novel: Volume V


Chautona Havig - 2013
    Jerked from a life of isolation with her mother, Willow learns what alone really means when she finds her mother still in her bed, never to awaken again in this life.From the moment Willow arrives in the police station with her startling announcement, Chad Tesdall fights the friendship he knows he can't avoid.This collection includes episodes nineteen through twenty-three of Past Forward. In this volume, Chad and Willow embrace the joys of parenthood. Challenges surface as they adapt to new work loads and changes, but when Ryder presents a new opportunity, their life takes yet another turn.

Pac Heights


Tony Perez-Giese - 2013
    The dot.com boom is in full swing, and it seems as though every twenty-something has become an instant millionaire-except our narrator, who has just arrived from the Midwest without a job. Confronted with the chilling prospect of missing out on the greatest cash grab of the twentieth century, he enlists with a temp agency. That's when things start getting strange.Mistaken by the agency for an urbane homosexual instead of the ex-frat boy he really is, he is assigned to a fully-staffed mansion in the Pacific Heights neighborhood. His new boss? Definitely not the old matron he was expecting.Bailey Phelan is the gorgeous, thirty-year-old wife of an aging billionaire, and her penchant for Prada, recreational drugs, and foreign boyfriends quickly has the narrator running in circles trying to keep her exorbitant spending and romantic misadventures under wraps. But despite all the glitz, what she might need most is a friend.As the narrator gets sucked deeper into the mansion milieu-oversexed nannies, a lovelorn gay chef, the obsessive head housekeeper, the bilious billionaire himself-he's faced with the unavoidable question: will the six-figure salary and over-the-top lifestyle of the rich and infamous corrupt him -- or will he cut and run with his soul intact?

The Unchosen Twins


Imogen Henry - 2012
    Imogen and Chloe had an unbreakable bond that was tested to the very limits. This book is based on a true story, written by memories that Imogen began to remember, shortly after the birth of her son.Imogen's pregnancy was plagued with 'Hyperemesis Gravidarum,' the trauma of that pregnancy brought on some of her darkest memories. Memories that Imogen thought she had long ago buried in the past. You never know what goes on behind strangers doors. Sometimes even the friendliest of people have disturbing and haunting secrets.

The Outsider


Emily Hourican - 2019
    Emily Hourican has always been an insightful, astute writer but this may be her best novel yet.' Louise O'NeillTwo very different families ... One is loud, eccentric, rich and confident. The other is less sure of their place in life. On holidays in Portugal, a near-drowning brings the ten-year-old daughters, Jamie and Sarah, together and a friendship is formed. As the bond between the girls grows deeper, so too do the ties between their families and an unsettling closeness develops between two of the adults. Then, as Jamie begins to feel suffocated by the intensity of Sarah's friendship, cracks begin to show. What will it take to shatter the façade of friendship? The affair? The obsessive crush? And which family will be left whole? The Outsider is the compelling and unforgettable story of the complexity of friendship, marriage, hidden passions and teenage desire.

Rings of Fire: Book IV of The Dressage Chronicles


Karen McGoldrick - 2017
    The rubber snake might as well be a real snake—the nightmare reality—when they elicit the same response. Blind fear will make both horse and rider try to outrun lions, even when those lions are made of paper. Blind fear can send you straight over a cliff, and even if you manage to pull up before the edge, that is no way to live life. It is only through training, training, and more training, and then testing that training, that you learn to turn and face fear, find courage, and welcome the ride, wild though it promises to be. These are the rings of fire, the trials that lie ahead for all of us, whether they be taking command of a spooky horse or navigating more human problems. Once trained, with worthy companions marching with you, shoulder-to-shoulder, you are ready for the ride. Welcome to The Dressage Chronicles IV: Rings of Fire.

The Friendship Tree


Helen J. Rolfe - 2015
    But as she vows to start over, she meets Jake – and life gets more complicated than she could ever have imagined. Jake is the direct competitor for the family business, and a man with a dark secret, and Tamara struggles to fight her attraction to him as she deals with secrets of her own and an ex who refuses to give up. Tamara is soon drawn in to the small community of Brewer Creek where she becomes the coordinator for an old fashioned Friendship Tree – a chart telling people who they can call on in times of trouble. And before long, she realises the Friendship Tree does a lot more than organise fundraising events and working bees; it has the power to unite an entire town. Should you ever try to run from your past? ‘An enjoyable read by a new author. One to watch!’ Katie Fforde 'A fantastic sense of place, a traditional romance, contemporary issues and a nice touch of mystery.' Sue Moorcroft. 'The gorgeous setting, impossible romance and fabulous main characters are making this such a fantastic read.' Librarian Lavender ***Shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists' Association's Joan Hessayon New Writers' Scheme Award 2016***

Snowed In at Jingle Falls


Kaylee Baldwin - 2021
    Even if she has to deal with her ex dressed as Santa and an entire town rooting for them to get back together, at least she's not in her stressful publishing job any more, where one huge mistake sent her running.Nolan Fox hates everything about the current crime series he's writing, especially the lone-wolf detective star of his series whose closed-off personality is feeling a little too biographical. The one bright spot of writing his series had been when Harper was his editor, before she fled New York without explanation.When Nolan arrives in Jingle Falls, Colorado, hoping to convince Harper to come work in New York again, he doesn't expect a blizzard to shut down the only road out of town. Or to get roped into planning a small-town, joy-and-color-filled winter festival with Harper Larson. Or to fall in love.The only problem is, once the road opens up, he can't stay in Jingle Falls. And she'll never leave.