The heir to Martina Cole’s crown with a story of murder, the underworld, violence and treachery.

It’s 1983 and Stephanie Crouch’s life is dull. She is desperate to escape the run-down, pokey council house she shares with her overbearing family, but at fourteen years old she has nowhere to go.

When Stephanie meets East End wide-boy Barry, his cockney charm and quick tongue soon have her head over heels in love. Finally Stephanie feels like her dreary life is on the up. But too young to control their fate, Stephanie and Barry are torn apart when he is whisked away to Spain by his family.

Lonely and heartbroken Stephanie turns to Barry’s childhood friend Wayne for comfort, and their friendship soon blossoms into romance, leaving Barry fuming and promising revenge…

Ten years later Barry returns to England. Within one month Stephanie’s happy world with Wayne is turned upside down. People immediately start to point the finger of accusation at Barry, but is he the one to blame?

The Demon King still lives, stronger than ever, devouring souls in search of immortality. Against him stands the scholar Taron, a newly-minted warrior of Lemuria, and Willow, a woman of unearthly loveliness, born of mist…Taron must pass through the waterfall of molten gold that shields the secret portal to his beloved land. His brilliant mind and the speaking sword called CrystalFire are his weapons against evil. But nothing can protect him from the power of love. Willow, whom he once knew as a sprite who could dance in his hand, has been changed by a master stroke of magic into the form of a beautiful, highly sensual woman, desiring a thousand pleasures that she insists he alone can give her. Innocent and eager, Willow arouses his deepest needs and sexual hunger – and his love. He will risk all to save her, even if it means a battle to the death with the ultimate foe…

Unleashed by Hitler in 1942, the German Tiger tank was by far the most powerful tank ever built at the time. The 60-ton monster could destroy any Allied tank from more than a mile away, and it soon became the most feared tank in the world. Desperate to discover the secret technology used in the Tiger’s manufacture, Winston Churchill close a brilliant young army engineer, Major Doug Lidderdale, as his special agent. In a late-night briefing in the subterranean War Rooms under Whitehall he ordered him: ‘Go catch me a tiger’. Doug did not hesitate and by February 1943 was facing Rommel’s desert army. After several unsuccessful and hair-raising efforts to bag a Tiger on the battlefields of Tunisia, Doug and his team put their lives on the line in a terrifying, close-hand shoot-out with the five-man crew of a Tiger, capturing the tank intact. The morale boost to the Allies was such that both Churchill and King George VI flew to Tunis to examine the Tiger first hand. But the Germans were not finished with Doug. They did not want the secrets of the Tiger benefitting the Allies’ sabotage attempts, and constant attacks by the Luftwaffe and U-boats pursued Doug and his men on every step of the journey back to England. But eventually, by October 1943, the Tiger – number 131 – was delivered to London and gifted to Churchill, who had it placed on London’s Horse Guards Parade. Lidderdale went on to use some of the Tiger technology to develop war machines for the D-Day landings and was promoted to Colonel. Tiger 131 is now kept at Bovington Tank Museum and is the only working Tiger in the world.

Looking thru as I do I found a list of free chapters going as tasters. I haven't reproduced them in full here as I haven't the room. Full credits are show below. Sara A Hoyt is well worth watching. The same goes for Baen Books. Follw the more reading for er… more reading

Darkship Renegades
Sarah A Hoyt
Baen – December 2012

Out of the Frying Pan

I was a princess from Earth and he was a rogue spaceman from a mythical world. He saved my life three times. I rescued him from a fate worse than death. We fell madly in love.

We married and lived happily ever after.

Ever after comes with an expiration date these days. We’d been married less than year when Kit got shot in the head.

It started with our return from Earth. No. Wait, what it really started with was my meeting Kit, in the powertrees which are biological solar collectors in Earth orbit. They were put up way back when bio-engineered rulers governed the Earth. And ever since the turmoils sent the bio-engineered rulers – you probably know them as Mules so called because, of course, they couldn’t reproduce – fleeing the Earth in a ship called Je Reviens, the powertrees have been haunted by legends of darkship thieves.

Which is all anyone ever thought the darkship thieves were. After all, even if the mules really had left in an interstellar ship, and of course, there are doubts that the ship ever existed, why would they come back to harvest powerpods from the powertrees – the biological solar energy collectors in Earth orbit?  And why would no one else see them but powerpod collectors?

I found out the legend was less legendary than advertised when a mutiny aboard Daddy Dearest’s space cruiser sent me fleeing in a lifeboat into the powertrees. Where I met Kit who rescued me and took me to his homeworld, Eden.

#     #     #     #

ConSensual
Kate Paul
Naked Reader Press – June 2012

1. Consensual Encounters

Nothing says you’ve left normal reality like walking into a hotel lobby and seeing a Clone Trooper chatting with a Sith Lord. The sign on the back of the Clone Trooper’s armor, ‘Come to the Dark Side. We have cookies. Tonight. Room 1226′, was really just corroborating evidence.

The lure of Dark Side cookies notwithstanding, I took myself to the reception desk and got myself signed in. I’ll give them this: the staff didn’t seem at all upset by the strangeness manifesting in their hotel. Maybe it’s a southern USA thing, but none of the southern con hotels I’ve been in have ever been anything less than welcoming.

Well, unless the convention was sharing space with one of the more fundamentalist religious conventions.

ConSensual being one of the bigger southern conventions, I doubted that would be an issue. It was held in one of those sprawling southern cities that takes about five times the land area of a northern city to hold the same population, and usually has so many hotels it’s not hard for any one event to make an exclusive booking.

Whatever they do with them outside the convention season isn’t my business.

I can never keep the hotels straight. This one was one of those modernist faux-elegant jobs with lots of shiny metal and glass, a multi-level gallery area where all the ballrooms and convention areas were, the inevitable bar and house of bad coffee, and the tower containing the actual rooms off to one side.

#     #     #     #

SCYTHEMAN
(Book Two of the Jakirian Series)
Chris McMahon
Naked Reader Press – June 2012

Kalyth laid his hands on the cracked battlement of Blackthorne Tower. The wind was furious up here. It numbed his face, bearing all the chill of the waning Storm Season. He blinked against it, his eyes watering.

‘Damn you, traitor.’ His voice was harsh. Raw from disuse.

He kept his gaze on the wide valley below the tower, determined to look anywhere but the stairs that led to the Temple of the Iris. His callused hands curled into fists, squeezing against the pain. Every day it was the same. He would fight the magical Compulsion that drew him to the ruined temple, and the pain would grow until he could no longer resist it. His legs and back were on fire with it, the muscles in his neck twisted with the desire to turn toward the stairs. He fixed his eyes on the overgrown graves of his wife Mari and his children on the slope below, fighting pain with pain. It would take only a single step, a single twitch and the Compulsion would have him.

At first he had been unable to resist it. The spell would take hold and he would run to the Iris like a crazed fool. After twenty-five years he could fight it for almost an hour.

His legs began to tremble. His eyes drifted away from the view. He squeezed them shut.

Would Belin make an appearance today? The man who commanded him to leave his family to die to save the Emperor’s squalling babe? Damn them all. The Empire had fallen. The Eathal were stronger than ever, and his wife and children were still cold and in the ground. If the Emperor’s boy still lived, he would change nothing now.

‘The Scion.’ He tasted bitter bile at the back of his throat.

Dog and Dragon
Dave Freer
Now available from Baen

Back to the sunset bound of Lyonesse—
A land of old upheaven from the abyss
By fire, to sink into the abyss again;
Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt,
And the long mountains ended in a coast
Of ever?shifting sand, and far away
The phantom circle of a moaning sea.
Idylls of the King, Tennyson

 “Who are you?” hissed the lithe, dark-eyed man with the drawn sword.

Meb blinked at him. Her transition from the green forests of Arcady to this dark, stone-flagged hall, had been instantaneous. The stone walls were hung with displays of arms and the horns of stags. Otherwise there was not much to separate it from a cave or prison, with not as much as an arrow slit in the walls—let alone a window—to be seen in the stone embrasures.

In Tasmarin from whence she had come, she had known just who she was: Scrap, apprentice to the black dragon that destroyed of the worlds. You could call her anything else, but that was who she had been. Now…

“Cat got your tongue, wench?” he said quietly. “Well, no matter, I’ll have to kill you anyway.”

He swung the sword at her in a vicious arc.

Moments ago, before she’d made the choice that swept her magically from Tasmarin, from the green forest of Arcady, she’d thought she might be better off dead rather than leaving them behind. Leaving him behind.

Now she discovered that her body didn’t want to die just yet. She threw herself backwards, not caring where she landed, as long as it was out of reach of the sword.

She screamed.

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Rye Crisp
Sarah A. Hoyt & Amanda S. Green
Naked Reader Press – Winter 2012

 Coming Down On The Night Shift

The elevator gave a lurch. Angie Woolsey’s stomach jumped into her throat. Then the doors slid painstakingly open, while she tapped to the rhythm of music only she could hear, grasped the handle of her cleaning cart, and thought, come on, come on. This was the night her husband, Beto, had off and she wanted to hurry home.

Without breaking her rhythm, she pushed her cleaning cart into the corridor beyond the elevator car and stopped. A slight frown creased her broad brow. Something wasn’t right. She could feel it.

You’re just imagining things, she chided silently. The security light mid-way down the corridor cast off a pale pool of light, even if it left eerie shadows in its wake. Everything was fine. Besides, she reminded herself, no one else was there. They never were. That was one of the reasons she liked working the night shift. No one was around to bother her.

More importantly, this was a good job, one of the better ones when you have to clean up after other people. Maybe the accountants who worked here kept things cleaner than most others because they always had clients coming in. Maybe they were those all too rare men who actually cleaned up after themselves without being told. She didn’t care. Whatever the reason, it made her job easier and that was all that really mattered.

As she pushed the cart down the corridor, its wheels squeaking faintly in protest as they rolled over the deep pile carpet, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. 

You can pre-order Darkship Renegades by Sarah A. Hoyt through Amazon and other retailers.

Dog and Dragon by Dave Freer can be ordered through Amazon and other booksellers or the e-book can be ordered through Baen.

ConVent (book one in the Vampire Con series) and ConFur (a short story in the Vampire Con Series) by Kate Paulk are available for purchase through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Naked Reader Press.

The Calvanni (book one in the Jakirian Series) and Flight of the Phoenix (a prequel) by Chris McMahon are available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Naked Reader Press.

Nocturnal Origins,

Nocturnal Serenade

and Nocturnal Haunts by Amanda S. Green are available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Naked Reader Press.

…More at Pushing Books

Its the weekend so I have the time to look for jems amongst the news. “First Book” always catches my eye at least within the main niches I support. Available here 

Nocturnal Origins is the first book in the Nocturnal Lives series. When I was shopping it around to agents and publishers, I had to try to figure out how to frame it. Was it urban fantasy (now called contemporary fantasy by some)? Was it mystery or suspense? Was it paranormal romance or just romance? In other words, what was it?

The problem was that it was most of those. Like so many books these days, it mixed genres, something that used to be a very big no-no. It didn’t start out that way, but that’s how it ended up.

The basic premise for Origins is that Mackenzie Santos, a detective with the Dallas Police Department, is trying to investigate a series of brutal murders. What makes it personal is that the murders bear a frightening similarity to an attack she survived. Toss in a new partner she really doesn’t want and the fact that she keeps waking up in places she shouldn’t and the fear that she might be losing her mind.

By itself, that could describe a police procedural where the main character is flawed and possibly suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In a way, that’s exactly what is happening. However, there is one more bit of information that needs to be factored in. Mac is not only waking in places where she shouldn’t, but she is doing so nude and remembering running free, hunting prey as a very large cat – a jaguar to be exact….More at Mixing Genres or Genre Mix-up?

Something borrowed something blue… I think we've had the blue so here is a short borrowed. Follow the links for more info on the shorts described below. Review Authors info in the Bio

So, on to the stories…

Summary of Story #1: No Earthly Ship -

This is a simple sci-fi adventure/romance. The action apparently takes place on an alien planet where blood is blue, people come in different colors, and shape-shifters hide in plain sight. There are two different varieties of dragon-like aliens, who serve as the soldiers to opposing forces. When a princess gets caught in the crossfire, her guard risks everything to save her…

Things I Liked -

I loved that the story started out with a note: “Translated from the original Eltaran.”

Even though this story is unfinished, according to the author, it leaves off at a good point.

Summary of Story #2: The Quiet Ones -

Let me just say that I like sci-fi adventure/romances, okay? This story is a twist on the superhero genre. By a miraculous chain of events, a college-age woman gets superpowers. But instead of using them for some noble purpose, she decides to go mess with frat boys. Unexpectedly, one of them softens her heart. But when she hears a gunshot, she runs to help… leading to disastrous consequences.

Things I Liked -

The story was in first person; which actually made it more powerful and compelling.

The dry humor in this story had me laughing hysterically.

Where to Find These Stories -

Like I said, I followed a long and convoluted path to get to these stories. Thankfully, I can provide you with the direct links here:

No Earthly Ship

The Quiet Ones

They are in plain text format, so you might want to transfer them to a Word document if that bothers you.

Author Bio:

Kate Croston is a freelance writer, holds a bachelors degree in Journalism and Mass Communication. She writes guest posts for different sites and loves contributing home internet service related topics. Questions or comments can be sent to: katecroston.croston09 @ gmail.com.…More at No Earthly Ship and the Quiet Ones

The first mention of Bram Stoker’s Dracula in The Guardian came in its Books Of The Week round-up on 15 June 1897. It’s worth quoting in full:

Dracula
by Bram Stoker

Buy it from the Guardian bookshop

Tell us what you think: Star-rate and review this book
A writer who attempts in the nineteenth century to rehabilitate the ancient legends of the were-wolf and the vampire has set himself a formidable task. Most of the delightful old supersitions of the past have an unhappy way of appearing limp and sickly in the glare of a later day, and in such a story as Dracula by Bram Stoker (Archibald Constable and Co, Svo, pp 390, 6s.), the reader must reluctantly acknowledge that the region of horrors has shifted its ground.

Man is no longer in dread of the monstrous and the unnatural, and although Mr Stoker has tackled his gruesome subject with enthusiasm, the effect is more often grotesque than terrible. The Transylvanian site of Castle Dracula is skilfully chosen, and the picturesque region is well described. Count Dracula himself has been in his day a medieval noble, who, by reason of his “vampire” qualities is unable to die properly, but from century to century resuscitates his life of the “Un-Dead”, as the author terms it, by nightly draughts of blood from the throats of living victims, with the appalling consequence that those once so bitten must become vampires in their turn.

The plot is too complicated for reproduction, but it says no little for the author’s powers that in spite of its absurdities the reader can follow the story with interest to the end. It is, however, an artistic mistake to fill a whole volume with horrors. A touch of the mysterious, the terrible, or the supernatural is infinitely more effective and credible.

It must be nice to go back into your archives to its Books Of The Week round-up on 15 June 1897. Good for the Guardian. I’ve said many unflattering things about the Guardian over the years but their book section is coming along nicely… but, who got it wrong then!!

Philip