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Feb 10, 2017 | Editors' Blog
Brae MacKenzie, a successful San Francisco painter, is a woman who seems to have it all but who's felt a sense of loss and longing since childhood. Her artistic passion hasn't filled that void, and with the untimely death of her charismatic husband, the old pain resurges.
Brae's father senses his daughter's pain and before she embarks for an exhibit in England he hands her a family heirloom hidden away for years…a letter: “Since you are still among the living, your heart is not broken…follow the map,” Brae reads, “to Scotland.”
As the ceremonies surrounding their engagement unfold, the future seems bright for Kirthi and Aditya. Together, they unearthed the corruption infecting Sharma Industries and found love.
But Kirthi is still a widow, and her remarriage flies in the face of Indian tradition.
Can their relationship survive protests, death threats, and an accident that threatens to destroy Aditya’s future?
Adam de Guirande owes his lord, Roger Mortimer, much more than loyalty. He owes Lord Roger for his life and all his worldly goods, he owes him for his beautiful wife – even if Kit is not quite the woman Lord Roger thinks she is. So when Lord Roger rises in rebellion against the king, Adam has no choice but to ride with him – no matter what the ultimate cost may be. England in 1321 is a confusing place.
Edward II has been forced by his barons to exile his favourite, Hugh Despenser. The barons, led by the powerful Thomas of Lancaster, Roger Mortimer and Humphrey de Bohun, have reasons to believe they have finally tamed the king. But Edward is not about to take things lying down…
‘A Rip in the Veil' is the first book in The Graham Saga, Anna Belfrage’s time slip series featuring time traveller Alexandra Lind and her seventeenth century husband, Matthew Graham.
On a muggy August day in 2002 Alexandra Lind is inexplicably thrown several centuries backwards in time to 1658. Life will never be the same for Alex.
Cassie Brighton, devastated by the death of her husband, flees to a remote homestead in the rugged Texas Hill Country. Alone in a ramshackle farmhouse steeped in family secrets, Cassie wages a battle of mind and heart as she struggles to overcome the sorrows of her past, begin anew, and confront the possibility of finding love again.
Hidden Shadows by Linda Lucretia Shuler is the Winner for Original Soft Cover (Mass Market and Trade) Category in the 2016 WILLA Literary Competition, a finalist in the NERFA contest (National Excellence in Romance Fiction Awards), sponsored by First Coast Romance Writers, for “Novel with Romantic Elements” and also a Finalist for the Will Rogers Medallion Award in the Western Romance category.
Trapped
“What's happened? Why can't I move… or even talk? Nothing works! Og, God! What's happened to me?” A tragic surgical accident, resulting from an auto crash, leaves beautiful, vibrant Jackee Maren in “Locked-in Syndrome,” completely paralyzed, able to move only her eyes.
Jackee’s physical therapist, Kevin, seems more invested in her well-being than her husband, Phil, and teaches her to communicate by blinking her eyes. Soon she discovers she can sense others thoughts, but hides this talent from everyone but her young sons, not knowing whom she can trust.”
Ethan Phillips is a successful hedge fund manager with the perfect wife. He's convinced she is the only woman meant for him. However, his faith in her proves unfounded as he discovers her treachery has no limits. Inconsolable from his pain, he abandons love and relationships and believes he has become impervious to love's reach.
Ethan discovers though, that a higher power and two extraordinary men would not allow him to abandon love so easily. He is then led on a journey of true connection, raw and unbridled passion, and a love beyond measure. But can Ethan trust this new path and is it too good to be true? Will this relationship disappear just like the first?
From Scratch
Maggie McKitrick loves everything about her new life in Gibson’s Run, Ohio—her charming bakery, her quirky customers, her distance from the past. Yes, she loves everything…except her new landlord. Police Chief Sean Taylor is like a piece of sand in an oyster—irritating, but with the promise of something beautiful.
Despite Maggie’s self-imposed man-fast, she wonders what kind of treasure she and the lawman could create together. Sean Taylor likes to keep the peace, but his new tenant is making it nearly impossible to keep anything on an even keel—including his heart.
Allen and Elaine are graduate students in Nebraska, and love each other very much. Their life should be idyllic, but Elaine's past includes rape, neglect, and abuse from those who should've loved her—but didn't, because from childhood, Elaine identified as transgender. When Elaine tells Allen right before Christmas, he doesn't know what to do.
He loves Elaine, loves her soul, has heard about transgender people before, but didn't think Elaine was one of them—she looks and acts like anyone else. Now, she wants to become a man and is going to leave.
“The Yeshua and Miri Novel Series” is a historical-fiction novel series that follows Jesus and Mary Magdalene during the so called “missing years” and throughout their lives. The introductory novel, “Miriamne the Magdala”, explores the deeply personal relationship between twelve year old Miriamne and her long lost cousin Yeshua bar Joseph.
Their tale begins with an unexpected reunion of two Jewish Houses and goes on to explain how a family brought together by a seeming circumstance is ultimately tied together by Destiny. “
Once In Love With Lily
Fans of Emily Giffin will appreciate Once in Love with Lily, the fresh, romantic dramedy from Cathryn K.Thompson. If you could recapture the past, would it be worth risking the future? Lillian Josephson is a choreographer living in L.A. with her long-time husband, movie mogul C.S. George. She has settled into a comfortable, predictable, and fabulously wealthy lifestyle.
But Lillian’s carefully maintained equilibrium is upset when a desperate call from her brother lands her back on Broadway and brings her face to face with Tony, the one man she never expected to see again. Will this chance meeting unravel Lillian and the cloak of stability she pulls so tightly around her?
Secrets to Shine Through the Noise: GPS to Amplify Your Brand and Find the Path to the Life You Want
Author Akasha Lin Garnier presents Secrets to Shine through the Noise, A compelling journey from starving artist to mentorship, world travel, award-winning branding and a travel thriller series. In this cinematic guide, the author shares how to create an actionable plan and how to make a brand distinctive to rise above the noise.
Cannoli for the Cop Next Door: Corsco Family Series
Lily and Adrian are building the perfect life together. Lily works on transforming their home into a place of peace, love, and comfort for Adrian to return home to after his overseas deployment. She does her best to push away the nagging fear that haunts all military spouses waiting stateside.
Then she gets the call. Devastated and afraid, Lily has to fight for optimism in the days following Adrian's death.
At That Moment (The Eyes of March) (Volume 1)
Cara Mears has a good life…simple, satisfying, and safe.
She owns a successful company, has loyal friends and a decent relationship, and has convinced herself that this is enough.This is a life she knows how to navigate.Enter Dylan Madigan, her long-time movie-star crush, devastatingly handsome, arrogant, and famous.
At that moment, everything changes. Their seductive and romantic journey begins, exposing their vulnerabilities, testing their resolve, and leaving them both emotionally naked.
Hotline To Heaven
Darrell considers Hotline To Heaven one of his best books, and quite different from anything else he's ever done. Humor, chicanery, sex, betrayal and romance, along with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing until the end. It has such a fun plot that it will even have you wondering who you should be cheering for, the rascally villain Ed Tanner, or the innocent young Violet.
“Bain's characters march across the pages to his fast paced drumbeat to conquer and charm, despite their very human faults and foibles. Hotline to Heaven is a story peppered with the special wit and humor author Darrell Bain fans have come to expect, and spiced with the unexpected that is sure to have new readers joining the fan club.” — Charlene Austin, Writers and Readers Network.
Two of Scottish romance’s most loved authors have joined pens to write a thrilling new time travel series filled with passion, danger, and intrigue.
These never-before-published novels will sweep you to Scotland’s Highland Heatheredge, where magic is real, time is relevant, and there is no escape from desire…
What if life as you know it was turned upside down? Would you still be the same person? When Chloe is forced to leave behind her cosmopolitan life in London to move to a small island in the Irish Sea, she is faced with a myriad of challenges.
How will she and her family adapt to island life? Will she find new friends? What about her career? Most importantly, will the love of Chloe and her husband survive their amorous adventures?
No amount of counseling can bring Josh Harris back to his old self.
After a tragedy that changed his life forever, eighteen-year-old Josh has lived in a year-long fog of medication and confusion.
It’s all he can do to not think about his dad—a culinary genius who raised him in the kitchen. Thankfully, Josh inherited his golden palate and sixth sense for cooking, which is the only thing that makes sense anymore.
Who says you must be young and beautiful to find a suitable husband? Dowager Laura is still beautiful, even if she has aged. She still has a strong heart full of love and wants to share it with a good man.
She and her two dowager friends, Sarah and Deborah, make a pact to help each other find love, and the rules be dashed. She is a mother, a grandmother, a friend and a poet, but she is determined to be a wife once more.
Kirkus Reviews about “Enchanting”: “A lively composition…In Schwartz's (Some Women I Have Known, 2014 etc.) novel, a passion for music brings together a young couple, though they discover that the path to true love can hit quite a few dissonant notes.”
Starting at the College of William & Mary in Virginia, the novel swoons to Brussels, Geneva, the Swiss Alps, New York and Long Island in a whirlwind of deceit, jealousy and despair, and longing for redemption in music and love.
A handsome blond stranger shows up at Kimi Wicker’s place of work claiming to be her mate. But he also claims to be from another world. She does what any sane woman would do in her situation.
She runs. Tagging along are her two best friends and a feisty tabby cat. No one could anticipate the second stranger showing up, one with a completely different agenda.
Loving Bear
Should you ever date your boss? Jess Bevan doesn’t have time to worry if Mr Right will ever show up. She has enough to deal with studying, working, and helping her mom raise her kid brother.
Love and romance was never really her thing anyway. She couldn’t cope with the inevitable heartache.
All of Cate’s problems are in her head. That may be her greatest strength. Cate Duncan is a promising young therapist, dedicated to her work. But after her mother’s suicide, she is seized by a paralyzing depression. To save her job, Cate agrees to enter a program with Dr. Angeline MacGregor, run by her stern son, Ben, and housed in a repurposed church.
Cate doesn’t quite understand what the program entails, but she soon learns that the skills she will develop there may not only help her learn how to cope with her own problems, but will also lead her to a much greater purpose.
Can love survive the thrill of the chase? Petite driver Susan James has to learn to trust her feelings, her man and her judgement. Her unfathomable co-driver, Conor, must separate himself from the desires which threaten to drown him, his career and his future.
Trust is a two way street but Sue is hiding something from him.
Kate Johnson has made it to mid-level management in the IT group of a pharmaceutical company. Her intelligence, technical competence and easy-going personality are among the keys to her success.
When Kate watches a television interview of one of her ex-boyfriends, her demons of over 30 years ago are awakened. Over the coming weeks, she cannot shake the resurrected feelings of betrayal and injustice, and vows to confront the men she once loved. She methodically conceives and carries out
When Olivia Villalobos finds a bloodstained love letter she endeavors to deliver it before Chief Inspector Sedeño finds it in her possession. A city along the southern coast of Puerto Rico emerges in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War.
Olivia, daughter of a drunkard police investigator who never knew the truth behind her mother’s disappearance, finds a bloodstained love letter in the hidden compartment of her father’s coat.
A charmed life just turned into an avalanche of problems. Bobby Tremain’s the first in his family to have a shot at college, also the first to head north of Louisiana.
An early snow calls his Bear to hibernate a week before finals, but he needs to pass or he flunks out of Providence Paranormal College.
Tall, Dark & Deadly
Chloe Hunter can't seem to stay out of trouble. Incarcerated by The Bureau after running amok for a century with a gang of vampires, grifting and terrorizing humanity, she's ready to make up for her dark past. Luckily, when The Bureau would rather see her at the end of a wooden stake, in comes her new straight-laced boss, Ethan Raines who's got other plans for the enthralling ex-con.
An enigmatic vampire who finds Chloe's hybrid blood and sexy street prowess too irresistible to pass up, Ethan requests The Bureau to release her into his custody to protect the streets of New Orleans. Now, her debt to society is to punish other supernaturals who break the law and bring them to justice.
Jan 3, 2019 | Editors' Blog
The Antiquities Dealer (A David Greenberg Mystery)
I am among the least of these, of whom our Master often spoke in parable. I am not of sound mind because of the horrors I have witnessed in these last days of my life. And surely a man as sickly as I am, on his best day, navigating through life with three limbs defective by nature, cannot be called of sound body on his deathbed.
The least of these, yes. Women and children are more swift than I. And even my brother Jacob says everyone is smarter than I, which I cannot dispute. It is true; ideas do not stick easily in my head. I never learned the trick to reading and writing, so these words I speak to you will have to serve as my Last Bequest. Not that it matters, of course, for all our earthly possessions are held in common anyway.
What is indisputable, though, is no one loves our Master more.
He truly gave me my life; a helpless, crippled beggar on the street. Women and children spat upon me with impunity. And with a gentle smile, He told me I was not a beggar, not a cripple, but a carpenter like He was. And taught me His craft. To honor Him, I have dedicated every day since to making the adze and saw and chisel sing with my good hand and my twisted one; to making cabinets that families entrust with their heirlooms and silver treasures, their menorahs and goblets for the wine blessing; to making tables upon which they light their holy candles and break bread to thank the Lord on the Sabbath. As the Master Carpenter poured life and beauty into dead wood, so did He make a man from this pitiful creature.
Death will be a blessing for me, an end to suffering this madness. I averted my eyes because I could not bear to see the pain on His sweet face. But though I covered my ears, I could not shut out the pounding, pounding, pounding of the mallet driving the nails into his flesh, could not silence their foul Roman laughter from beating upon my ears.
Suddenly, I was enflamed by the need to scramble to His rescue on my shriveled legs, to combat them with my good arm. If the Lord gave strength to little David to defeat mighty Goliath, surely He would give me strength to slay these soldiers. I could envision us carrying our Master back to the bosom of those who adored Him, who would treat His wounds and dry His tears. And even if I failed, He would know I had given my life to save His. I shouted and started forward, intent on seizing one of their swords, determined to take as many as I could with me into the darkness. But Samuel, seeing my intent, held me firmly with his great arms. Struggle and flail as I might, I could not break free and grew quiet.
Then before our eyes, for sport—sport!—one of the Romans, sneering derisively at our Master, jammed a spear into His side, twisting and cutting. From this ragged wound, His life poured like a flood, down His bare stomach and legs unto His feet, to the rocks and soil below.
Our Master tried to teach us that we would gain the whole world by loving our enemies. And I do believe He saw far beyond others, far into the future. But with all the trouble and sorrow I have known and seen—and now this!—let me say, it is easier for a crippled hand to smooth the grain on a splinter than for a wounded heart to love a Roman soldier.
Why, I ask myself, through all of time, has the Lord allowed savages like these, with their shining armored shells and fearsome weapons, to hold sway over His own hardworking, modest worshipers? Why allow the brutal hordes to enter a peaceful village and put to the sword and to fire the innocent and loving? All slain and burned, fathers and mothers, babes and children, holy men and scholars! All faithful Jews, Samaritans, people of so many races whose sins cannot possibly warrant such an ignominious demise. Why does He permit cruelty to prosper, while the pious are crushed?
To a fool like me, such ratiocination as “turn the other cheek” makes no sense. But He saw so much further than I, perhaps believing the Romans could be taught to turn their cheek. I know He must be right, but to my last breath I will so desire to strike a Roman cheek.
***
After the soldiers finished their grizzly duties, the most terrible tempest I have ever seen drove them into their tents, which being of the best military stock, withstood the gale. Huge limbs torn from trees flew through the blackened skies, and the very stones seemed alive. While the family of the thief beside Him and the curious crowd ran away in panic, calling out in fright, we hid together in a nearby, just as we had planned, watching and waiting.
So greatly did the heathen soldiers fear the storm that, through the crash of lightning and thunder, we could hear them crying out to their gods for mercy.
Finally, Yahweh’s terrible anger broke, and we were left exposed to the cold, steady rain of His tears.
And our Master’s tormentors? We could hear the soldiers rolling dice in their sturdy army tents, swearing and cursing and drinking and fighting among themselves. And all we could do was wait and have faith, shivering and staring with envy at their glowing fires and listening to their blasphemous revels. My threadbare cloak and tunic were soaked through, like a washerwoman’s rag, and I knew then I would be sick unto my death when our labors had ended. From our hiding place, we could see Him hanging there, so pitiful, so damaged. I cursed the moon that revealed him.
It was late by the time their drinking claimed the last pair, and they were all snoring under their blankets. Joseph gave the signal. My crutch sank into the muddy soil as I stumbled up the rock-strewn slope. In my hurry, I tripped over a fallen branch and, reaching to catch myself, slashed my good hand deeply on a sharp rock. It bled like a torrent.
Finally, I reached the structure where His mutilated body dangled in the chill. The able-bodied went about their tasks. Joseph climbed the sturdy ladder I had built, while those below supported our Master’s body in place. With his great strength, he plucked the nail from His right hand and tossed it aside. I heard it hit nearby and, feeling my way, crawled through the briars, which cut and scraped my knees and palm, until I found it. A good army nail, forged strong and sharp. The Greek merchant no doubt received a handsome sack of Roman coins bearing the Emperor’s likeness for the lot. Oh, that the soldiers can turn such fine implements to such ignominious purposes. God may know everything, as my Master claimed, but I often wonder if there isn’t much in human governance that is kept from Him.
When they lowered Him down, my fingers felt along the nail’s length until they came to the maker’s mark. It was that of our own forge.
“It is our own mark! It is our own mark!” I shouted like a man gone mad, my tears pouring like a river from my breaking heart. “We made these nails that killed our Lord!” I began to furiously slash my wrist with the nail until our friends stopped me and carried me away.
So, here, I bequeath to all of you beside my deathbed—which I made with my own hands—to you who believed in He who took me in from the streets and transformed me, these nails that tore His tender flesh. These good Roman army supplies sold at such a profit by the fat Greek. These nails that bear his precious blood—and my own—and how many others that were condemned to die so horribly on such poor workmanship as the cross. I leave them in trust to Deborah, who has washed my fevered face and given me sips of cool water…and who will prepare and anoint my corpse. And who, I pray, will bestow upon a dying man one last taste of her delicious lentil soup. Unless, of course, there will not be enough for the mourners at my funeral, in which case I will happily forego this last pleasure in gratitude to these beloved friends, and to the Great Soul who saw to it that I would not die a solitary beggar.
Ed Protzel is a former screewriter who worked developing scripts at 20th Century Fox before turning to novels. He has been recognized for excellence by Literary Titan, Readers’ Favorite, Midwest Review of Books, and Missouri Writers Guild. His published novels include the futuristic mystery/thriller, The Antiquities Dealer, and the Civil War-era DarkHorse Trilogy: The Lies That Bind, Honor Among Outcasts, and in 2019, Something in Madness. He has a master’s degree in English Literature/Creative Writing from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He lives in St. Louis.
Find Ed at: http://www.edprotzel.com
Connect with Ed on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ed-Protzel/447378882092561
Connect with Ed on Twitter: https://twitter.com/EProtzel
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