Showing results by author "C.A.L." in All Categories

Presley and Cooper are permanently back in Hunter's Hollow, where she is taking over her mother's flower shop, Petal Pushers. Her biggest concern is how little she knows about flowers. One day, as she walks through the town square to the Uptown Café, she finds the mayor's face planted in a bed of snapdragons, and he's not moving.

Outwardly, the Lawrenson’s life looks picture perfect: two beautiful children, financial security, and a newly renovated home in the Yorkshire countryside. Carly and Fletcher have promised each other a fresh start. However, their marriage is still plagued with tension, mistrust and jealousy.

From the age of seven, Jack Harper is raised by the leader of a mystical cult, Cyrus Harper. Through Cyrus, Jack receives a full education in all usual subjects - economics, literature, mathematics, history - as well as one unique skill useful to a person in Cyrus's position: assassination. With the help of Roland James, a man incapable of dying, Cyrus hones Jack into the perfect weapon to use against all who oppose him.

A group of teenagers work as camp counsellors at a recently reopened summer camp. A camp that hides a sinister secret. It's home to an undead killer. A monster that picks them off one by one, until there's only one girl left standing. For Ellie Cartwright, that's not how the story ends. That's how it begins. Because Ellie's not the only girl to have faced evil and survived. There are others. And now, they've sworn to protect those in danger. They've sworn to fight back against the creatures that lurk in the darkness.

Urban fantasy offers a diverse playground for some extremely powerful stories. Professional writer and editor Kerrie L. Hughes pulled some fantastic tales out of 14 top writers for this fifth installment of Fiction River. Set in urban lands from modern Portland, to a future Detroit, to a wild Washington, D.C., and ending the tour in London, these top writers take the idea of "Hex" and stretch and twist it into stories with a magickal grip on the imagination.

Women with A.D.H.D. have a Neurodivergent brain. You can't change that, but you can change the angle and the filter you use to consider and experience your life to thrive.

Murder most foul has struck peaceful SeaBreeze Island once again - and it's up to Maud Baxter and the intrepid ladies of the Murder Club to catch the killer! When the boyfriend of chess streaming sensation Leah Mors turns up dead, Maud finds herself drawn into a sinister web of blackmail, drugs, and deception. As Maud and her best friend Krysteen dig deeper, they uncover the dark side of social media stardom. But the ruthless mastermind behind it all will stop at nothing to protect her empire. To crack the case, Maud must rely on her keen instincts, quick wit, and the unshakable bonds of ...

Kidnapped from dying Earth by the heinous Tonan race, Piper is locked in a small cell, deprived of light and human companionship, and tormented on a daily basis. When the door to her hell opens unexpectedly, Piper is blinded by the light and walks headlong into a massively built creature. She is tossed over a shoulder, taken on the wildest ride of her life, then placed into a healing pool.

Julia Ross's nomadic adventures take a sinister turn when what seems like an innocent birdwatching trip to Charleston, South Carolina, becomes entangled with a mysterious film project and a centuries-old treasure hunt. Along with Toby, her rescue dog, and her quirky friends, Dottie and Penelope, Julia finds herself drawn into a web of deception surrounding a man calling himself Dr. Poe, who is looking for Captain Kidd’s buried treasure as described in the classic tale, The Gold Bug by Edgar Allan Poe. As Julia and her companions dig deeper, they uncover dark secrets. When a body is ...

Serial killer Herbert Mullin terrorized the Santa Cruz, California, area at the same time the infamous Co-Ed Killer, Edmund Kemper, was active. Unlike Kemper, Mullin killed anyone. Young, old, men, women, children, and even a priest in a confession booth. He didn't adhere to a particular MO. The deadly voices told him to kill...and he killed.

You'd think that remaining young and beautiful forever would be wonderful, wouldn't you? For Sarah, it really wasn't. She'd been blood-bonded for nearly 100 years to a powerful vampire, where taking small sips of his blood daily kept his blood-bonds healthy and young. While she was like family to him, there comes a time in a human beings life when just existing isn't enough. There needed to be purpose and achievement and something to strive for.

Amy Mackenzie is on the up. Her florist business is thriving, with a roll call of wealthy clients. And none are more glamorous than architect James Elliott and his beautiful wife, Eleanor. But try as she might to become part of their world, Amy is always on the outside looking in. Hired by the couple to provide the flowers for a lavish party, Amy sees an opportunity to have the kind of lifestyle she's always dreamed of. But when a guest suffers a violent and shocking death, the finger of blame is soon pointing at Amy.

Detective Inspector Arthur Gredge of Scotland Yard is a changed man, and not for the better, it seems. The prime suspect in a terrible crime he did not commit, Gredge launches an impassioned defense. The problem is that he does not know if he is guilty or innocent. Midnight Gunn must uncover the cause of Gredge’s unsettling behavior before the inspector loses his mind, his job, or very possibly his life. It is a task that must be conducted with the utmost caution, as Midnight’s own conduct comes under close scrutiny from all directions, putting him and those he loves at risk.

Evinn Eaglefriend’s boyhood was filled with stories of the free eagles that used to roam peacefully behind his people’s citadel, of Roftome the Untamable, whose fiercely sought allegiance had only been given to one man. Now, at 16, near the end of rigorous battle training that had once turned youths of the realm into Eaglemasters, he regards these accounts as little more than fanciful children’s tales. There are no free eagles, only Pyrnaq, the rattle of their chains a prelude to the blood they shed, their screams icy with insatiable wrath.

Mudita, Wheel Publicaton No. 170, contains several short essays, one by the editor, Ven. Nyanaponika, and three by lay practitioners on one of the lesser known and too-little practiced sublime states of mind. Mudita, usually translated "sympathetic joy", was designated one of the brahma-viharas by the Buddha, one of the sublime, noble states of mind. How is it to be practiced, and what are the implications of mudita on the spiritual path? These essays address those questions.

At 14 years old, Shep was writing a suicide note, but God tore it up and wrote a survival story. After nearly two decades of taking light and love to the world through speaking events and chaplaincy, Shep is changing the game again with this collection of inspirational, challenging, and hope-filled reflections. Built on his trademark "keep it real" communication style and unique way of reaching the heart of diverse audiences, Get Out of That Bed! takes us through the book of John in a way that can radically transform how we approach every day of our lives.

Fear is universal—a shared human experience that provokes awe, curiosity and terror. It feeds our anxieties, elevating our heartbeats and driving the instinct to survive. But what are we afraid of—and why? Each story in this anthology seeks to answer that question, blurring the boundaries between horror and fantasy fiction.

Loathed by many, feared by more, Doss has spent the last 700 years alone, shunned by the Tonans on his planet. He prefers it that way until a nude female rider on a huge, black stallion, fleeing for her life, catches his eye. If left alone, both beast and human would be killed by their pursuant, an enraged Tonan warrior. When the scent of the female invades his nostrils, Doss is captivated. He must have the female human and will go to great lengths to secure her safety.

On the wall before him, in the dimness of the room, a great circular screen glowed opaquely, awaiting his touch: a doorway into time and space, a doorway to beauty and deadly peril and everything that made livable for him a life that had, perhaps, gone on too long. The shadows leaped backward into three-dimensional vividness that wavered for a moment and then sharpened into focus upon a desert landscape under a vivid crimson sky.

On a stormy night, by a violent sea, Donovan meets a stunning woman who touches something in him he would have sworn died a long time ago. One night of incredible sex leaves him wanting more. But she's disappeared, and he has no idea who she is or how to find her.