Flying Into the Sun


Paul Ogier - 2018
    Cows, burros, dead animals or broken-down cars might be just around the bend—even bandidos. Tonight, the danger is crazed, drug-running gringos flying down the mountain, blowing past anything threatening their rhythm.”~Flying Into the SunIn 1979, a Mexican army truck and a small U.S.-registered airplane race toward each other on a remote airstrip in southern Mexico. Their game of chicken marks the end of a young surfer’s true-life smuggling odyssey involving midnight powwows with indigenous Zapotecs of Oaxaca, paddling kilos of marijuana across the Rio Grande on surfboards, learning to fly, and a stint in the Oaxaca State Penitentiary.Narrated by the main character, Flying Into the Sun is not just a true-crime adventure memoir. It is an introspective, coming-of-age tale that weaves through a secret Mexico and chronicles the fast-changing 1970s in the U.S. with its emergent culture of long hair and drugs, rebellious youth versus hostile law enforcement, and the music and pop themes of the times.The author worked his way up through general aviation to become a pilot for American Airlines, where he flew twenty years and retired as captain. Previous literary endeavors include publishing the insubordinate aviation tabloid Houston Air News, as well as writing stories for national and regional publications such as General Aviation News, the Portsmouth Herald and the Texas Flyer.Chapters* Prologue (Chicken)1 Mexico2 El Salvador (Bandidos)3 Costa Rica (The Brotherhood)4 Oaxaca (The Zapotecs)5 The Rio Grande6 Solo Run7 Oil Initiative8 Learning to Fly & Rainbow Weed9 Saga of the El Camino10 A New Era11 Pop12 La Carcel (Jail)13 Kilos14 La Casa Grande (The Big House)15 Escape16 Kilos Again17 The Judge18 You Will Be Free19 Disco Sucks20 What’s Your Purpose?21 Southbound with Our Ears On22 Cocaine All Around My Brain23 Volcan Orizaba24 Flying Home* Epilogue* Thanks* About the AuthorPRAISE FOR FLYING INTO THE SUN“This is fantastic!! It's going to be BIG! I see a movie!”~Chris Cantara, pilot & owner of Seaside Aviation, LLC“So many great parts in the book. Magical Mystery Tour down the mountain was excellent. The book reveals a Mexico that tourists never see.”~Eric Knight, semi-pro surfer“F****** awesome!!!!!!!!!!!”~Dave Bicknell, guitarist and software engineer“I think it's great. You are a very accomplished storyteller. As a US expat living in Mexico I found the Mexican details to be quite accurate.”~Tom Bailey, retired expat living in the Yucatán, Mexico"I just finished this book. It’s killer. I loved it. 5 stars. A true story about some wild, crazy times in the 70’s. I really felt like I was there with you. I got a bit nervous a few times. Great Read. Hate that it ended."~Sandi Syndergaard, moderator of the Original Over the Hill Hippies FB groupYup, I love books. And I'm always happy to find out about a surf/ travel book that takes me back to places I've been to, or back to a time I've missed. Flying into the Sun is a mix of both...a time before smartphone navigation in rental cars or even planes, and what more a surfboard can be used for than just riding waves...Worth a read.~thefreesurfer.com

I Am Gypsy: Proceeds Go To Hurricane Michael Relief


Cap Daniels - 2018
    I Am Gypsy explores this remarkable relationship from the unique perspective of the sailboat. This is the heartwarming and heartbreaking tale of how one sailboat comes of age, realizing her potential, while watching her families fall in love, grow, falter, and sometimes fail. Gypsy’s perception of the world blossoms from the innocence of her childhood, through the adventures of her rebellious adolescence, and finally, as she confronts her mortality in the face of a mighty hurricane. Hold on to the rail as Gypsy takes you on the unforgettable and emotional voyage of a lifetime. The proceeds of this book will directly go to aid the individuals, families, and small businesses of the Emerald and Forgotten Coast regions of the Panhandle of Florida, who were so devastatingly affected by the ravages of Hurricane Michael that made landfall on October 10, 2018.

Two Suns at Sunset


Gene Doucette - 2020
    Widely respected, nothing about Linus’s expertise suggests somebody might want him dead.Professor Linus is also Brother Linus, a high-ranking member of an ancient, powerful religious organization known as the House. This makes his murder much more complicated, but no more explicable, because murder on House grounds just doesn’t happen. Not even when one of the last things the victim did was steal something important from the House vault.Finally, Orno is also the younger brother of Calcut Linus, one of the most powerful and criminally dangerous people on the planet. Killing any Linus means incurring the wrath of a man for whom laws very rarely apply.In short, Professor Orno Linus is a highly unlikely murder victim.And yet, somebody killed him.The Cursed DetectiveDetective Makk Stidgeon already knows he’s unlucky. He’s a cholem: an outcast. A bad-luck charm. He was born this way, and has the brand on his wrist to prove it.But in terms of bad luck, the gods have really gone overboard by sticking him with the Linus case.Between a House leadership that seems more interested in retrieving their stolen artifact than in solving the murder of one of their own, the demands of the murderous Calcut Linus, a new partner who seems to know more than she’s telling, and an omnipresent news media constantly looking for an angle on the biggest story of the year, Makk barely has time to just follow the clues.And that’s before an impossible video surfaces that purports to reveal the killer’s identity. What makes it impossible? The person in the video couldn’t have possibly done it.To get to the bottom of the Orno’s murder, Makk will have to navigate between the House and the Linus family, find the source of the video, and figure out what’s missing from the House vault. Even if he can pull all that off, he may discover he’s not at the end of a mystery at all, but at the beginning of a much larger one.Tandemstar: The Outcast Cycle. The journey begins here.

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend


Matthew Dicks - 2012
    . . real or otherwise.Budo is lucky as imaginary friends go. He's been alive for more than five years, which is positively ancient in the world of imaginary friends. But Budo feels his age, and thinks constantly of the day when eight-year-old Max Delaney will stop believing in him. When that happens, Budo will disappear.Max is different from other children. Some people say that he has Asperger's Syndrome, but most just say he's "on the spectrum." None of this matters to Budo, who loves Max and is charged with protecting him from the class bully, from awkward situations in the cafeteria, and even in the bathroom stalls. But he can't protect Max from Mrs. Patterson, the woman who works with Max in the Learning Center and who believes that she alone is qualified to care for this young boy.

Paperback Original


Will Rhode - 2002
    Before dying of a tragic Viagra overdose, Josh's father put a stipulation in his will: Josh cannot claim his fortune unless he writes a bestselling novel in the next five years. The last thing Josh wants is a purpose in life: he's far too busy traveling, taking drugs, and growing his hair. He's very uncomfortably ensconced in a dirty Delhi flophouse, but it's the perfect place to meet drifters and druggies, users and seekers-the kind of people who know how to find Baba.

Cuckoo


Sophie Draper - 2018
    She hadn’t seen Elizabeth in years, but the remote farmhouse offers refuge from a bad relationship, and a chance to start again.But going through Elizabeth’s belongings unearths memories Caro would rather stay buried. In particular, the story her stepmother would tell her, about two little girls and the terrible thing they do.As heavy snow traps Caro in the village, where her neighbours stare and whisper, Caro is forced to question why Elizabeth hated her so much, and what she was hiding. But does she really want to uncover the truth?A haunting and twisty story about the lies we tell those closest to us, perfect for fans of Ruth Ware and Cass Green.

The Book of Air and Shadows


Michael Gruber - 2007
    As he awaits a killer—or killers—unknown, Jake writes an account of the events that led to this deadly endgame, a frantic chase that began with a fire in an antiquarian bookstore.A distinguished Shakespearean scholar found tortured to death . . . A lost manuscript and its secrets buried for centuries . . . An encrypted map that leads to incalculable wealth . . . The Washington Post called Michael Gruber's previous work "a miracle of intelligent fiction and among the essential novels of recent years." Now comes his most intellectually provocative and compulsively readable novel yet. Tap-tapping the keys and out come the words on this little screen, and who will read them I hardly know. I could be dead by the time anyone actually gets to read them, as dead as, say, Tolstoy. Or Shakespeare. Does it matter, when you read, if the person who wrote still lives? These are the words of Jake Mishkin, whose seemingly innocent job as an intellectual property lawyer has put him at the center of a deadly conspiracy and a chase to find a priceless treasure involving William Shakespeare. As he awaits a killer—or killers—unknown, Jake writes an account of the events that led to this deadly endgame, a frantic chase that began when a fire in an antiquarian bookstore revealed the hiding place of letters containing a shocking secret, concealed for four hundred years. In a frantic race from New York to England and Switzerland, Jake finds himself matching wits with a shadowy figure who seems to anticipate his every move. What at first seems like a thrilling puzzle waiting to be deciphered soon turns into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse, where no one—not family, not friends, not lovers—is to be trusted. Moving between twenty-first-century America and seventeenth-century England, The Book of Air and Shadows is a modern thriller that brilliantly re-creates William Shakespeare's life at the turn of the seventeenth century and combines an ingenious and intricately layered plot with a devastating portrait of a contemporary man on the brink of self-discovery . . . or self-destruction.

Naked Ambition (The NAKED City Series Book 1)


Rick Pullen - 2016
    Suddenly the roles are reversed and he is the hunted. Someone is watching, threatening to uncover his most embarrassing secret.As he digs into the sordid past of a presidential candidate, Beck finds nothing is quite as it seems—not his sources, not his curious new love interest, and especially not his investigation. And just when he thinks he’s solved the riddle, Beck realizes he hasn’t.Why is a top Justice Department official setting up clandestine meetings to feed him explosive information? For the first time in his career, Beck may have a story too dangerous to handle—but too important to walk away from. A trail of murder runs from Canada to the Caribbean, but all signs point to Pennsylvania Avenue.With a presidential election weeks away, Beck realizes he is nearly out of time to save the nation—and maybe even himself—from a cleverly executed plot.

Guardian of Deceit


William H. Coles - 2015
    He is excited and afraid; he wants to recapture the love he knew with his parents before they died and become a doctor like his father. But in his new home of celebrities, crooks, untrustworthiness, and excessively wealthy deviants, lust and want thwart his search for selfless caring love, and in his quest to become a doctor, he discovers the altruism of health care and scientific discovery riddled with profit motivation and deficient moral standards. A finalist in the 2012 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition.

In Times Like These


Nathan Van Coops - 2013
    How do you break time? Can something so bad happen that you fracture the world?" Benjamin Travers has been electrocuted. What's worse, he and his friends have woken up in the past. As the friends search for a way home, they realize they're not alone. There are other time travelers, and some of them are turning up dead. When Ben meets an enigmatic scientist and his charming, time-traveling daughter, salvation seems at hand, but escaping the dangers of the past may lead to a deadly future. If he hopes to save his friends, Ben must learn to master space and time, and survive a journey where past and future violently collide.

Crackanory: Series 1 and 2


NOT A BOOK - 2015
    What twisted, funny tales would it unleash upon the world?Each episode of Crackanory contains two 15-minute tales and is a master class in storytelling, combining some of the UK's best comedy writers and performers.Full author list: Nico Tatarowicz, Toby Davies, Kevin Eldon, Ali Crockatt, David Scott, Laurence Rickard, Jeremy Dyson, Simon Judd, Alex Carter and Holly WalshFull narrator list: Jack Dee, Sally Phillips, Rebecca Front, Kevin Eldon, Harry Enfield, Sarah Solemani, Sharon Horgan, Charlie Higson, Richard Hammond and Jessica Hynes.

Call Down the Hawk


Maggie Stiefvater - 2019
    . . and so do the dreamed. Those who dream cannot stop dreaming – they can only try to control it. Those who are dreamed cannot have their own lives – they will sleep forever if their dreamers die.And then there are those who are drawn to the dreamers. To use them. To trap them. To kill them before their dreams destroy us all.Ronan Lynch is a dreamer. He can pull both curiosities and catastrophes out of his dreams and into his compromised reality.Jordan Hennessy is a thief. The closer she comes to the dream object she is after, the more inextricably she becomes tied to it. Carmen Farooq-Lane is a hunter. Her brother was a dreamer . . . and a killer. She has seen what dreaming can do to a person. And she has seen the damage that dreamers can do. But that is nothing compared to the destruction that is about to be unleashed. . . .

The Violet Darger Mystery Box Set


L.T. Vargus - 2017
     Start at the beginning of the Violet Darger saga with Dead End Girl: Her body is broken. Wrapped in plastic. Dumped on the side of the road. She is the first. There will be more. The serial killer thriller that "refuses to let go until you've read the last sentence." The most recent body was discovered in the grease dumpster behind a Burger King. Dismembered. Shoved into two garbage bags and lowered into the murky oil. Now rookie agent Violet Darger gets the most important assignment of her career. She travels to the Midwest to face a killer unlike anything she's seen. Aggressive. Territorial. Deranged and driven. Another mutilated corpse was found next to a roller rink. A third in the gutter in a residential neighborhood. These bold displays of violence shock the rural community and rattle local law enforcement. Who could carry out such brutality? And why? Unfortunately for Agent Darger, there's little physical evidence to work with, and the only witnesses prove to be unreliable. The case seems hopeless. If she fails, more will die. He will kill again and again. The victims harbor dark secrets. The clues twist and writhe and refuse to keep still. And the killer watches the investigation on the nightly news, gleeful to relive the violence, knowing that he can't be stopped. A page-turning thriller packed with heart-stopping suspense. Fans of John Sandford, Michael Connelly, Karin Slaughter, and Lisa Gardner should get to know Violet Darger. Grab this discounted omnibus edition now.

Return from the Portal: A time travel story


John Gschwend - 2018
     Sam believes she will soon have to adjust from the slow-paced, farm life of East Arkansas to follow her track scholarship to the University of Arkansas. Her life now is laid-back and predictable just the way she wants it. However, that will soon change as she goes for a morning run down a familiar, rural road and stops for a brief rest at an old, abandoned farm. There at that lonely, isolated place, so peaceful, so familiar, Sam has an experience that will change the course of her life. What will she do and where will she turn as she discovers she is not who or what she thought and this world is not the only one? Are they even her choices to make when a strange, dimension portal proves time travel and other worlds are real? Return from the Portal is the sequel to the time travel novel Portal to the Forgotten. In that story Luke, a reclusive Arkansas Constable, while searching for a missing girl, discovers a time travel portal in the Ozark Mountains that opens to another dimension. He and a reporter are pulled into that world and find it is almost impossible to get back. Return from the Portal is a stand alone novel, but would be better enjoyed by first reading Portal to the Forgotten. Visit John Gschwend at Johngschwend.com to see more of his stories.

Bound by Lies


Gretta Mulrooney - 2017
    The chief character is so well defined and so likeable. The story was intriguing and had plenty of twists and turns. ” Julia Corbett “Swift is a good character, suitable for people who like PD James, the story is believable and comes together well.” “Absolutely loved this book! Extremely well written with believable characters and lots of twists!” E. Boisvert “Excellent mystery, well drawn characters, and a great storyline.” Suki Anne Perfect for fans of Robert Galbraith, Paula Hawkins, P.D. James, or Ruth Rendell. IN THIS THREE-BOOK BOXSET: BOOK 1: THE LADY VANISHED A missing woman holds the key to a valuable inheritance Florence Davenport hires Swift to find her missing stepmother. There are no leads and no suspects, but if the body is found, Florence will inherit half of a very valuable house. BOOK 2: BLOOD SECRETS Fifteen years ago a teenage boy, Teddy Bartlett, went to a woods on the outskirts of London and was beaten to a pulp and left damaged for life. The police never found who did it or why he was targeted. Now, the boy’s father, recently returned from Australia, wants to find out what really happened to his son. He hires private detective Tyrone Swift to investigate the tragic crime. BOOK 3: TWO LOVERS, SIX DEATHS A man stabs his girlfriend to death. Then hangs himself, leaving a note confessing to the murder. Open and shut case? Not for detective Tyrone Swift Dominic Merrell’s estranged wife Georgie doesn’t believe that he could have done it. Detective Swift discovers that Dominic was a reliable, devoted husband and father for eighteen years until he met the beautiful, charismatic Lisa, who he left his wife for. No one can believe that Dominic was capable of murder. But if it wasn’t him, then who killed the seductive but chaotic Lisa? THE DETECTIVE Tyrone Swift is an ex-police detective who now works privately. He’s survived a stabbing and his fiancée running off with another man. Swift's personal life is complicated. He is still involved with his ex-wife Ruth. THE SETTING The streets of London with their vibrant mix of nationalities, cultures, and rich and poor are beautifully evoked. From the quiet suburbs with their veneer of happy family life, to the bustling centre with refugees struggling to survive, to exclusive penthouses where the rich can have anything they want delivered. THE AUTHOR Gretta is a critically acclaimed author of best-selling detective and literary fiction. 'Mulrooney has a real gift for dialogue, the words and phrases ring true and make her characters wonderfully real . . .