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Indie Crime Fiction of the Month for November 2018

Welcome to the latest edition of “Indie Crime Fiction of the Month”.

So what is “Indie Crime Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up of speculative fiction by indie authors newly published this month, though some October books I missed the last time around snuck in as well. The books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. So far, most links only go to Amazon.com, though I may add other retailers for future editions.

Our new releases cover the broad spectrum of crime fiction. We have cozy mysteries, hardboiled mysteries, small town mysteries, culinary mysteries, historical mysteries, Jazz Age mysteries, Gold Rush mysteries, paranormal mysteries, crime thrillers, psychological thrillers, spy thrillers, legal thrillers, noir thrillers, police procedurals, private investigators, amateur sleuths, lawyers, corporate spies, strippers, serial killers, kidnapped heiresses, missing children, missing reindeer, dark family secrets, wrongful convictions, crime-busting witches, crime-busting vampire madams, crime-busting cockroaches (yes, really), Sherlockians, artisanal bakers, opera singers in danger, murders in Hawaii, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Las Vegas, Paris, Philadelphia, Hollywood, the Jersey Shore and the Caribbean, the Deep South and the Midwest, murders in circusses, at wedding receptions, in brothels and cupcake shops, in veterinary clinics, on college campuses, aboard cruise ships and luxury trains and much more.

Don’t forget that Indie Crime Fiction of the Month is also crossposted to the Indie Crime Scene, a group blog which features new release spotlights, guest posts, interviews and link round-ups regarding all things crime fiction several times per week.

As always, I know the authors at least vaguely, but I haven’t read all of the books, so Caveat emptor.

And now on to the books without further ado:

No Police Like Holmes by Dan Andriacco:

The Investigating Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes Colloquium and donation of the third largest private collection of Sherlockiana in the world were supposed to produce a weekend of great publicity for tiny St. Benignus College in Erin, Ohio. But when theft and murder come to campus, college public relations director Jeff Cody finds himself knee-deep in Sherlockian suspects, besieged by an aggressive reporter he loves but no longer dates, and competing with his eccentric brother-in-law, Sebastian McCabe, to solve the crimes first. The mess worsens when Jeff and his ex-girlfriend, Lynda Teal, themselves fall under suspicion of murder – and with good reason, for they have something to hide. This satirical romp takes Sherlock Holmes seriously, but not Holmesians. A witty and engaging spoof sure to delight not only the deerstalker set but mystery fans in general.

[image error] The Assistant by Cheri Baker:

How far would you go to get the life you’ve always dreamed of?

High up in Seattle’s most luxurious office tower, a powerful woman conceals a dangerous secret. As the CEO of a prestigious staffing firm, Dana Duke offers exquisitely trained executive assistants to the city’s business elite.

In corporate America, where the winner takes all, talent isn’t enough to guarantee a victory. That’s why Dana offers a unique set of services to her most ambitious clients: corporate espionage, psychological manipulation, and blackmail.

Meet Jessica Warne, a recent college grad determined to succeed on her own terms. Stuck in a dead-end job and drowning in student loan debt, she’s eager to climb the corporate ladder. When Dana offers her a chance at a better life, it seems her troubles might be over. But are they?

The Baker by Nicholas Burrows:

That artisan bread roll you’re having for lunch? How fresh do you think it really is?

The Food Standards Agency’s most unfortunate inspector, Emily Underwood, is finally doing okay at work. Apart from finding the odd dead customer in a kebab shop that is. When she has an expected brush with a Bishop, things start to go downhill fast.

Rupert Graves is the leader of the smallest cult in East Anglia. Although his motley crew of militant vegetarians are primarily focused on sex and drugs, they’re also determined to highlight the suffering of animals — by fair means or fowl. They’re just not very good at it.

Amateur baker Hannah’s attempts to fund her boyfriend’s cult by selling her produce start off well, and her artisan bread rolls made from organic flour are soon in demand. The only problem is that Hannah’s kitchen will need to pass a Food Standards Agency inspection or be closed down. And there’s something rather nasty in the flour…

Reindeers and Robberies by Hope Callaghan:

The Christmas Season is in full swing on board the cruise ship, Siren of the Seas thanks to Andy Walker, the ship’s cruise director who is all in on his new holiday theme, “The Reindeer Games.”

Millie and her co-worker, Danielle, are tasked with taking charge of the holiday theme and everything is running smoothly until one of the reindeer comes up missing. But the missing reindeer is the least of the security staff’s worries after a string of thefts are reported.

Millie jumps in with an investigation of her own that soon turns south when a stalker surfaces, determined to make her life miserable or worse yet.

Despite escalating incidents from the deranged stalker, Millie sorts the clues and discovers a possible link between the mysterious thefts and her stalker that hits close to home.

Can Millie survive the holiday season…or even more terrifying…make it out alive?

[image error] Toxic Tech by Sam Cheever:

For Blaise Runa, a job working the front desk at the local veterinary clinic is a fun but temporary diversion…a chance to spend every day with Miss Ivy, her adorable fur baby, while she continues to search for a career.

Unfortunately, the fun is soon sucked right out of the job when Blaise discovers one of the veterinary technicians poisoned in the kennel. The attack is quickly labeled the work of an activist group that resents the medical and financial resources “squandered” on pets.

But is there something less obvious…and possibly more sinister…at work?

Working alone and swimming against the tide of general opinion, Blaise soon suspects that she and her yummy fiancée, Dolfe Honeybun, might be fighting for more than justice for the vet tech. They might actually be battling to save a whole clinic full of beloved pets from someone who would be happy to see them dead. And if they’re not very careful, sweet little Miss Ivy might take her place at the top of a killer’s list.

Tina and the Big Bad Wolf and Other Stories by Jason Ryan Dale:

Just past the Philadelphia city limits there are a cluster of neighborhoods no one on the outside pays much attention to. It’s a nice place to live, with ballfields and takeout joints around every corner. The people who’ve raised their families for generations in the rowhomes and brick houses teach their kids to work hard and keep out of trouble.

But some people aren’t interested in staying out of trouble. There are fortunes to be made in the backstreets and shady barrooms, if you can stay alive long enough to get your hands on it. Here are four stories about the restless souls who have struck out from the safe path and traveled down a long, dark road.

The Devil’s Run

Gaetan was one of the kids that neighborhood parents warned their children to stay away from. He and his friends hung out in the woods by the little creek that cut through town, the one they called the Devil’s Run. Away from prying eyes, they had the fun that only bad boys can know.

But Gaetan isn’t a kid anymore. He’s a veteran of a hundred shady deals, a gangster with skills you only learn from years on the streets. He should be off somewhere enjoying his easy money, but instead he’s back in the old neighborhood. Of all the dark secrets in Gaetan’s past, the one that may destroy him is the one that began when four friends went into the woods for some fun.

The Dead Pond

Sunshine Sam’s was the hottest joint on the Jersey Shore. The rich and powerful partied side by side with bus drivers and soda jerks, all of them moving to the outlaw music called “rock and roll.” To Marty, a poor kid from a farm town, Sunshine Sam’s was more than just a playground. It was the only school he would ever need.

Then one day, Sunshine Sam’s closed it’s doors. Nobody knew why.

Fifty years later, Marty has returned to the Jersey Shore. Now an old man, he is the only one left who knows the secrets of Sunshine Sam’s. The spilled blood and broken dreams follow him around like ghosts. Gorgeous women. Jealous boyfriends. Mafia bosses. The skinny kid survived them all, and today is the day Marty tells the story. (This story was originally published as a standalone.)

Tina and the Big Bad Wolf

Tina is a good stripper, but she has plans. Taking sports bets off her regulars seemed like the perfect way to make some real money. Of course, a petite young woman in a g-string just isn’t intimidating enough to make the troublesome customers cough up the cash, so Tina gets her ex-boyfriend, Joshua, to help her out. In one night, the two of them will try to collect on Tina’s debts without driving one another crazy. (This story was originally published as a standalone.)

The Tarleton Way

Alexander has noticed strange things occurring in the park near his house. Odd people are going in and out of the woods at all hours, driving big trucks and acting in ways Alexander doesn’t understand. That park is the scene of his favorite memories, when his young family had their happiest days. It is also, Alexander hopes, a gift to the future of Tarleton, his struggling hometown.

Things get stranger when Alexander gets a knock on the door from Bobby, a kid from the neighborhood who has returned from an absence of almost thirty years. Now a grown man, Bobby assures Alexander that everything is fine. It’s all being done “the Tarleton way,” under the code of conduct which Alexander and the old folks taught the kids when they were young.

But Alexander is right to worry. In fact, the old man is about to learn that the park, and the past, contain more than he could ever guess. (This story was originally published on the author’s website.)

Swamp Spook by Jana DeLeon:

When black cats roam, and spooks are seen,

Come celebrate, it’s Halloween.

Sinful, Louisiana, really knows how to throw a party, and it goes all out for Halloween. The weeklong celebration kicks off with a maze of horror in the park built of hay bales. And Fortune has the perfect assignment—the executioner. Her scene comes complete with a head block, a hatchet, and a fake body with removable head. It’s the perfect setup…for a crime.

When Fortune returns from break and realizes the body in her scene is a real one and not the prop, she knows trouble is coming. Before she can shake a broomstick, Celia Arceneaux has raised the alarm and the state police show up to take over the investigation. With Carter on the sidelines and Fortune the prime suspect, Swamp Team 3 sets out to catch a real monster.

Mr. Smith and the Roach by J.J. DiBenedetto:

John Smith has a problem. He’s a retired cop whose pension just got wiped out, and he doesn’t know why or how. Now he needs to find a roommate to help pay the bills.

Sam has a problem. He’s a six-foot-tall talking cockroach and he doesn’t know who created him, or why, or how. Now he needs a place to live.

Thrown together as roommates and amateur detectives, Mr. Smith and the Roach realize their problems might be related.

But those problems are far more complicated than they imagined, and before all is said and done, they’ll run afoul of a Russian gangster, an imprisoned Mafia don, a crooked Wall Street banker, a mad scientist and, maybe worst of all, Mr. Smith’s baby sister.

Can they get to the bottom of an unbelievable plot before someone exterminates the Roach – and Mr. Smith – for good?

[image error] The Shoeless Kid by Marcelle Dube:

Kate Williams hopes her new job as a small-town police chief will be a welcome change from the nasty internal politics she dealt with in Toronto. She should have known better. Even after a few months, she’s still dealing with a police department angry that an outsider was picked over their local candidate.

When a homeless man turns up at the department claiming he witnessed a six-year-old boy’s abduction, she has to decide if the child really is missing, or if the homeless man imagined the whole thing. But even as the evidence suggests his story may not be true, the case triggers Kate’s own nightmare past.

Then she discovers that a boy really is missing.

Now Kate must investigate the disappearance while transforming a station full of deeply resentful police officers into a solid unit. When the boy’s mother also disappears, Kate will have to put the pieces of the puzzle together—with her team—in time to save the boy and his mother.

Flagstaff Station by John Ellsworth:

Climb aboard the justice train and let Thaddeus keep you up all night in Flagstaff Station

An FBI chase through the streets of Phoenix leads to an epic firefight and the fatal shooting of an important member of the Vittini mob. As a result, Special Agent Donnie Francisco faces an enraged crime family bent on payback. They come for Donnie, they come for his family.

Donnie seeks out Flagstaff attorney Thaddeus Murfee. The young lawyer agrees to defend and exonerate the agent, but he runs afoul of the mob himself. The body count rises as warfare erupts in the court and in the dark streets and back alleys and small towns of Arizona.

A young Indian boy seeks out Thaddeus for help. The boy, Thaddeus and Donnie travel to reservation lands and meet with the elders of the Indian Court. Watch from the front row of the jury box as Thaddeus and Christine, his wife, tangle with Indian culture and twenty-first century technology. Then, Turquoise Murfee, Thaddeus’s police detective daughter, makes a discovery at Flagstaff Station that could trigger sudden death–but she doesn’t know what she has and could inadvertently kill hundreds of innocent men, women, and children if Thaddeus doesn’t stop her in time.

Here is the book many have clamored for. Thaddeus, Christine, Turquoise, and Henry Landers are back. Come meet the man Thaddeus calls “brother,” Donnie Francisco, the FBI agent you will never forget.

[image error] Wedding Cake and Woes by Agatha Frost:

Julia and Barker’s wedding day is finally here, but will everything go to plan? There’s murder afoot once again in Peridale, and this time all fingers seem to be pointing to members of the church choir!

 

 

 

 

Secrets of the South by B.M. Hardin:

Who are you pretending to be?

Savannah thought that running away from her past would change her life. And for about fifteen years, she was right. Until her happy marriage goes down the drain and she’s left with no one but herself to blame. On a quest to become the world’s next best-selling author, to find her voice, Savannah makes a difficult choice.

She has to run—again.

She quits her job and packs a bag. And then she sets out to find the inspiration that she’s never had. Only she finds herself in the one place she never expected to be. Home—in the South; reminded of pain and secrecy. A sin is still a sin, even if no one knows. And a secret is still a secret even if no one told. Bonds are broken, truths are spoken, and no one around her can be trusted.

Who killed her mother?

Who is her father?

Who knows the truth about the small-town barber?

Savannah discovers that ‘Southern Charm’ is just for show. What really matters in the South are the lies you tell and the secrets you know!

Big Top Treachery by CeeCee James:

Christmas at the Circus!

What if the holly berry meant more than a cozy Christmas tradition? When Trixie, billed by the Concello circus as the world’s smallest Lady Godiva, finds a large ruby on the circus grounds, she thinks she’s one of the luckiest people on earth. Until she learns the stone’s past is stained as holly-red as the jewel itself. ??

When the police get involved, suspicion is cast not just on Trixie, but on her other friends at the circus. ??The pressure is on with Trixie getting threats from an anonymous source. When the calliope player is murdered, Trixie knows the threats she has been receiving aren’t just to scare her… she’ll be the next to die if she can’t find out the truth about the stone and unmask the murderer?

Doubt in the 2nd Degree by Marc Krulewitch:

In Chicago, some neighborhoods explode in gunfire and others in gentrification—but the real money built the skyline alongside sparkling blue Lake Michigan. In one such luxury high-rise, auto-parts heiress Jackie Whitney has been bludgeoned to death, her body found neatly wrapped and tucked away on a closet shelf. Jules Landau has been hired by the public defender to get her client off the hook. The police are convinced they’ve got their killer, but Jules isn’t so sure. The lawyer doesn’t care who killed Jackie Whitney. She just wants to stir up a reasonable doubt . . . but there’s nothing reasonable about this case.

While balancing a relationship with a sexy baker who keeps unholy hours—and dodging a crooked cop who wants to break his bones—Jules digs deeper into Jackie’s final days. Soon he unravels a web of friendships, affairs, and money, all connected to an unlikely site for a murderous conspiracy. How can a single building hide so many secrets? For Jules, justice isn’t only about the presumption of innocence. It’s about the truth, and stopping a killer who will no doubt strike again.

[image error] Witch Interrupted by Amanda M. Lee:

Things have been quiet in Hemlock Cove. That means the Winchesters are due to find trouble.

This time, the trouble comes in the form of a dead radio doctor who calls himself Dr. Lovelorn and fixes relationships in distress. Unfortunately for the Winchesters, if he can’t help his normal patients, he’s going to help them … whether they want it or not.

Love seems to be the topic of discussion, because in addition to searching for a murderer, Bay Winchester has her hands full dealing with another surprise. It seems Chief Terry, her favorite father figure, is dating … and he’s not opening his heart to her mother as she expected.

Bay is trying to be mature, but she always thought Terry would officially become part of her family once the barriers were lifted. To make matters worse, Terry’s new girlfriend wants to be friends … something Bay can’t quite wrap her head around.

Thankfully for Bay, she has a murder to focus on. Since Dr. Lovelorn had his fair share of enemies – and a rather unattractive habit of getting too involved with his patients – there are numerous suspects to focus on.

Her expanding magic is also an issue, because she can’t quite get a handle on the ghosts that keep popping up … mostly because they’re mouthy and prone to fighting her efforts.

Basically, it’s going to be a busy week … if everyone survives to see the end of another convoluted case, that is.

It’s all witches on deck for this one, and things are about to get weirder than normal.

The Girl Who Cried Too Much by Susan Lund:

THREE COLD CASES CLOSED

With the closure of the oldest cold case in Paradise Hill, and the potential closure of two more, amateur sleuth and crime reporter Tess McClintock continues to work with FBI Special Agent Michael Carter. When doubts about the killer’s identity arise, Tess and Michael to dig deeper into the cases, with help from members of The Missing – the internet sleuth group Tess belongs to.

A KILLER ENJOYING THE MAYHEM

While they get closer to the truth, Tess and Michael also grow closer, and their budding romance complicating the investigation. The real killer continues to target Tess, toying with her and Michael while he plots his next move.

NEW EVIDENCE POINTS TO A NEW SUSPECT

New evidence suggests another suspect may have been involved and police and FBI Agents rush to investigate, struggling to separate fact from fiction.

THE GIRL WHO CRIED TOO MUCH, the second book in the McClintock-Carter Crime Thriller Series, follows Tess and Michael as they fight to stop a ruthless killer before he strikes again.

[image error] The Abducted Heiress by Al Macy:

Alex Booker is sixty going on sixteen. Literally. A genetic experiment de-aged his body and turned him into a teenager. Because of his wise old mind, he’s cautious and thoughtful. But adolescent hormones don’t do “cautious.”

Although he’d been an accountant in his “former life,” impetuous young Alex has chosen to become a private investigator. Bad idea. Business is slow—who would hire a detective who looks like he belongs in high school?

When heiress teen Misty Langwell disappears, the police wait for a ransom demand that never comes. Desperate, Misty’s parents turn to Booker and Associates for help. Alex is perfect for the job. He’s just the man—or kid—to go undercover.

Her disappearance turns out to be much more sinister than a simple kidnapping, and Alex soon finds himself stuck in a prison camp deep in the Amazon jungle. Is he in over his young head?

If he can’t find a good balance between wisdom and impulsiveness, Misty will never be seen again. And neither will Alex.

The Abducted Heiress may be read as a standalone book or as Book Two in the Alex Booker series.

The Passing of Pascal by Annette Moncheri:

Running a high-class brothel in 1920s Paris would be challenging enough even if Madame weren’t also a vampire. But to make matters far worse, a young man has the audacity to try to kill Melodie – one of the brothel’s ladies – and then fall over dead.

At first the police rule the death an accident, but then they find poison in the body. And Madame also finds a note that implicates a jealous wife in the attack on Melodie – but then who poisoned the attacker? It’s all very confusing… And worse yet, is Melodie still in danger?

Of course, Madame is determined to find out what has happened in her maison and set it straight – without revealing her powers or upsetting the very attractive Monsieur Inspector Thibauld Baudet who is appointed to the case.

This is the first story in Madame’s Murder Mysteries, a historical cozy series with a sense of humor, a taste of the paranormal, and a touch of romance. Perfect for fans of Posie Parker, Ginger Gold, or Lady Katherine.

Wired Courage by Toby Neal:

Paradise is stalked by a relentless evil.

What would you do if your family was threatened?

Sophie just wants to settle down with her unusual family—but a powerful presence sweeps in to steal her joy. At her most vulnerable physically and emotionally, Sophie must rise up to hunt down those who would take what’s most precious to her. The boundaries of love and friendship are tested as the men in her life grapple with their roles, each trying to help—but in the end, it’s Sophie who must face the darkness from her past and vanquish it.

[image error] Her Final Word by Willow Rose:

Rather be the hunter than the prey.

Inspired by a true story.

Ella Maria Chauncey walks home after a night out with her friends, hurrying to get back before her parents realize she’s been out with the boy they don’t want her to date. Living in the gated community of Lyford Cay, in one of the world’s wealthiest neighborhoods, she believes it is safe.

Ella Maria never makes it home. She is found the next day floating in her family’s pool, her tongue cut out.

Seven months later Jack Ryder is visiting the Bahamas with his adopted daughter Emily. They’re trying to find Emily’s relatives, but it turns out to be easier said than done.

The only living relative they can track down is a woman…in jail. She’s doing time for murdering Ella Maria Chauncey, but as Jack digs into the case, he starts to wonder if she was wrongfully convicted and the murderer is still out there, hunting for his next prey.

As the shocking investigation unfolds, and secrets are revealed, no one in in the lucrative Lyford Cay can be trusted.

Dark Justice by Rachel Sinclair:

An A-List actress murdered. An innocent boy accused. A shocking discovery that changes everything…

Emerson Justice’s topsy-turvy Los Angeles life is about to become even crazier when she’s assigned to defend Carter Dixon for the murder of Addison Wentworth. Addison was one of the top actresses in Hollywood – two Oscars, a $40 million mansion and a $20 million asking price for films. When she’s murdered, Carter is fingered for the crime, plunging him into the middle of the story of the century and turning his life into an inescapable media fishbowl. He insists he didn’t do it, yet his hair was found at the murder scene and it was discovered that he had written threatening and profane messages about Addison on an Incel community message board.

As Emerson gets into the case, she discovers many things that don’t add up, and she’s unable to put the pieces of the puzzle together in time. She’s convinced that her client is innocent, but there just is no way to prove it. Everything seems to be against Carter, and it’s inevitable that he’s going to spend the rest of his life in prison for a murder that he didn’t commit.

Then a shocking discovery changes everything and throws the entire case into a chaos that Emerson could not have anticipated.

Murder Aboard the Flying Scotsman by Lee Strauss:

Mayhem All Aboard!

One blustery day in October of 1924, newlyweds Mr. and Mrs. Basil Reed travel aboard the recently christened Flying Scotsman, a high-speed steam engine train that travels from London to Edinburgh, for their honeymoon. With only one short stop at York, Ginger anticipates time with her new husband will fly by.

She’s wrong. Something terrible has happened in the Royal Mail carriage, which forces the train to stop dead in its tracks. There’s been a death and Chief Inspector Reed has been asked to investigate.

It’s a uniquely disturbing murder and Ginger and Basil are eager to puzzle it out together. What do the first class passengers have to do with the dead man? With another crime shortly discovered, Ginger and Basil soon realize they’re not dealing with a run-of-the-mill killer—they’re dealing with a mastermind who’s not done playing with them yet.

[image error] Smoldering Flames and Secrets by Anne R. Tan:

Smoldering flames are still deadly.

Raina Sun is in San Francisco, preparing for her cousin’s upcoming wedding…to her ex-boyfriend. Even though she is a reluctant bridesmaid, she understands duty to her family. When the bridegroom shows an unusual interest in her fiancé, and a dead body drops in during the rehearsal dinner, Raina is drawn into another murder investigation.

She must prove the bridegroom’s innocence, or he will reveal a secret that could change her beloved fiancé’s life…and not for the better. As things heat up, she learns all families have skeletons, and some are more deadly than others. Among the hundreds of guests, could she find this heartless killer before she becomes the next victim? And will this secret stay hidden?

Double Jeopardy by Jenny Wheeler:

He’s haunted by war. She’s searching for her twin. When a mysterious murder brings them together, can solving the case heal their broken hearts?

California, 1868. Isabella Wilmington’s dream of taking center stage feels empty without her long-lost twin brother cheering her on. When a bullet cuts through the crowd, she’s convinced the murderous act is a warning shot against her search for her missing sibling. Determined to crack the case, she tags along with a rugged ex-soldier who’d rather keep her out of harm’s way than put her on the frontlines of a dangerous investigation.

Union vet Sebastian Russell longs to put the bloody memories of war far behind him. But his plan to mend his heart in sunny California goes up in gun smoke when his employer tasks him with solving a murder and guarding his feisty daughter from a second strike. Along the trail of clues, his feelings for the young actress grow stronger the closer they come to untangling the twisted truth within the shadow of dark memories.

Before the next victim falls, can Isabella and Sebastian solve the mystery of their painful pasts or will the next bullet shatter their chance at a new future?

Las Vegas Crime by Leslie Wolfe:

Detectives Laura Baxter and Jack Holt are members of the elite: Las Vegas Metro PD, one of the toughest and most respected law enforcement agencies in the United States. In the middle of a city with two million residents and 43 million annual visitors, they’re searching for a missing girl and the ruthless killers who snatched her.

The girl: gone

When a teenage girl is daringly kidnapped from her school, minutes after being dropped off, a frenzied search begins, involving the entire police force of a city that never sleeps. But for Detectives Baxter and Holt this isn’t a crime like any other; it is personal.

The crimes: terrifying

A bold and merciless serial killer preys on young girls and leaves them out to die in the cold and dreadful expanse of the Mojave Desert, unable to move, to scream, to fight for their lives.

The choice: impossible

Now Detective Holt is faced with an agonizing decision: he can sacrifice all that he holds dear or jeopardize the life of an innocent girl, his own flesh and blood. The man holding all the cards in this game of life and death isn’t willing to negotiate; he’s only willing to kill.

In Las Vegas, few things end well.

Two mavericks form an intriguing team. Baxter and Holt trust each other with their lives, just not with their secret plans.

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Of Time Travel, JFK and Cheap e-Books (with Bonus Turkey)

Yes, I know that it’s been a while since I blogged here, but the past month was very busy. Plus, I’ve been writing, so expect a couple of new releases in the run-up to the holidays.

Besides, I’ve been blogging elsewhere. For as some of you may know, I occasionally contribute to Galactic Journey, a science fiction fanzine with a twist. Namely Galactic Journey takes place fifty-five years in the past, which means that as far as Galactic Journey is concerned, today is November 25, 1963.

Now if you know a bit about history, you’ll know that late November 1963 was a very significant time in history. For on November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Both C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley also died on November 22, 1963, and probably got far less attention than either of them deserved. And for a bright spark, Doctor Who premiered on November 23, 1963.

Since Galactic Journey is right in the middle of these events, they are of course covering it. My piece about (West) German reactions to the Kennedy assasination ran today. You can also follow the full timeline of the events of late November 1963 on Galactic Journey in the contributions of Gideon Marcus, Victoria Lucas, David Rome, Erica Frank, Jason Sacks, Lorelei Marcus, Gwyn Conaway and Jessica Holmes. No Doctor Who yet, but we’re getting to that.

I also just realised that I forgot to link to my last post for Galactic Journey in late October, where I introduced a beloved classic of German children’s fantasy, the Jim Knopf duology by Michael Ende, who will go on to pen Momo and The Neverending Story, to American readers.

Meanwhile, back in 2018, it’s Thanksgiving weekend, which normally doesn’t impact us in this side of the Atlantic all this much, beyond the fact that the Internet is less busy than usual, since most Americans are busily cooking and eating turkey, not to mention shopping. Though in recent years, plenty of German stores have started holding Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, not to mention absurdities like “Black Week” or “Cyber Monday Week”. Apparently, there’s also “Small Business Saturday”, but that one hasn’t made it to our shores so far. Not that I mind sales, but Black Friday and Cyber Monday only make sense in a US context, where this weekend is a long holiday weekend. It doesn’t make sense in Germany, where today is Eternity Sunday and the Christmas season officially starts tomorrow.

Of course, there are also a lot of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales in the e-book world. And today, I want to direct your attention to two of them:

J. David Core of the Thrills and Mystery podcast has organised “Cheap Quickies”, a 99 cent/pence sale of short fiction collections in various genres. There are more than forty short fiction collections for sale from November 22 to November 26, so check it out. And listen to the podcast, while you’re at it.

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Meanwhile, the good folks at Drive Thru Fiction are also holding a Black Friday to Cyber Monday sale, where you can get 30% off on lots of e-books, including all of mine.

Coincidentally, I did have turkey on Thanksgiving, though that was something of an accident, because I had a pack of turkey breasts. So I made turkey mole poblano with Mexican rice. It came out really well, too, and you can see the result below:

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Turkey mole poblano with Mexican rice

And because I had several tortillas left and they don’t keep very well, I made some huevos rancheros yesterday:

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Huevos rancheros to use up the remaining tortillas.

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Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month for October 2018

It’s that time of the month again, time for “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”.

So what is “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up of speculative fiction by indie authors newly published this month, though some September books I missed the last time around snuck in as well. The books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. So far, most links only go to Amazon.com, though I may add other retailers for future editions.

Once again, we have new releases covering the whole broad spectrum of speculative fiction. This month, we have epic fantasy, urban fantasy, historical fantasy, YA fantasy, cozy fantasy, paranormal mystery, paranormal romance, fantasy romance, science fiction romance, space opera, military science fiction, science fantasy, space exploration and colonisation, dystopian fiction, LitRPG, horror, Steampunk, weird western, time travel, alternate history, writing advice, dragons, robots, dragons versus robots, alien invasions, galactic empires, cities on the moon, restaurants in space, waking starships, intergalactic crime lords, bounty hunters, superheroes, myth seekers, gnomes, elves, crime-fighting ghosts, wild west mages and much more.

Don’t forget that Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month is also crossposted to the Speculative Fiction Showcase, a group blog run by Jessica Rydill and myself, which features new release spotlights, guest posts, interviews and link round-ups regarding all things speculative fiction several times per week.

As always, I know the authors at least vaguely, but I haven’t read all of the books, so Caveat emptor.

And now on to the books without further ado:

Invasion by Jay Allen:

War…like none that has come before.

The Hegemony has launched the invasion Tyler Barron and his Confederation comrades have feared, and all the Rim is ablaze with the fires of war and destruction.

The Hegemony has brought its vast fleets, its advanced technology, and its endless legions of grim cyborg warriors to impose its system of rigid genetic hierarchy over all humanity on the Rim.

The Confederation fleet is outnumbered and outmatched, but they will fight nevertheless, struggling and dying to hold back the onslaught any way they can, even as the Marines they leave behind dig in and prepare to defend worlds swallowed up by the advancing battle lines.

Barron and his people will fight, they will fight like demons unleashed, and Jake ‘Raptor’ Stockton will lead his wings of strikefighters in one desperate attack after another into the teeth of the enemy armada, but time is running out…even as the enemy pushes relentlessly toward the Confederation’s Core and final victory.

The Myth Seeker by Cory Barclay:

A banshee who just wants to sing.

A leprechaun with a gambling problem.

A sex-addicted succubus in recovery.

Vampires who want a sunny day at the beach.

And then there’s Steve, the regular Joe who inadvertently brought these flawed mythical beings to our world. But he has no idea how he did it, which is a problem, because it’s his job to bring them home.

All this responsibility is putting a serious damper on Steve’s directionless lifestyle. Then he finds out a dark force is trying to kill him and his friends. And he might be falling in love with one of his charges…

Steve realizes he must get his act together, before it’s too late…

No Kitten Around by R.J. Blain:

Warning: This novel contains excessive humor, action, excitement, adventure, magic, romance, and bodies. Proceed with caution.

The last thing Reed Matthews needs in his life is a kitten, but when an orphaned tabby suckers him into becoming her caretaker, he’s in for the ride of his life. Add in an angel determined to meddle in his affairs, a devil with an agenda, and a bucketful of bad omens, and he’ll count himself fortunate if he survives the clash between heaven, hell, and his ex.

In this anything goes romp, there’s no kitten around: if Reed wants to survive and regain control of his life, his only hope lies in the hands of an elf and his ex, a woman he’s sworn to never see again.

Rookie by S.J. Bryant:

Freedom has a price.

Thugs, thieves, urchins – and they’re the good guys.

Nova is tough as steel and as sharp as a switchblade. She thought she’d finally found freedom when she bought a ship and flew away from her home planet, but she soon realizes that freedom doesn’t come cheap.

With crime lords, gangs, and rival bounty hunters chasing her, Nova has to fight just to keep what little she has.

But there’s more at stake than her beat-up ship.

Nova has never needed anyone; she’s a loner, a maverick, a renegade. But now she has to make the ultimate choice; fight in a team, or die alone?

Life is hard, but Nova is harder.

You’ll love this space adventure, because everyone enjoys a gritty hero with a plasma pistol who’s trying to save the Universe.

The Taste of Home by Cora Buhlert:

Once, Anjali Patel and Mikhail Grikov were soldiers on opposing sides of an intergalactic war. They met, fell in love and decided to go on the run together.

Now Anjali and Mikhail are trying to eke out a living on the independent worlds of the galactic rim, while attempting to stay under the radar of those pursuing them.

Mikhail is on his way home, an anniversary present for Anjali in his pocket, when he suddenly finds himself irresistibly drawn towards an unremarkable storefront and comes face to face with his past.

Meanwhile, Anjali is preparing a special anniversary dinner for Mikhail, only to find that he is late to come home.

This is a novelette of 9300 words or approximately 32 print pages in the “In Love and War” series, but may be read as a standalone.

Fractured Stars by Lindsay Buroker:

McCall Richter finds criminals, con men, and deadbeats better than anyone else in the empire.

She’s proud of her success and that she owns her own spaceship, especially since she struggles to understand human motivations, can’t tell when people are lying to her, and is horrible at recognizing faces. Being autistic in the empire is frowned upon—and there’s a handy normalization surgery to correct it—but she’s managed to prove her worth and avoid irking the tyrannical regime.

Except for one thing.

Two years ago, she liberated the android, Scipio, from an imperial research facility where he was treated worse than a slave. He’s become her business partner and best friend, but if the empire finds out she has him, a “normalization” surgery will be the least of her worries.

When her ship is confiscated by a cyborg law enforcer needing to transport prisoners, McCall knows she and Scipio are in trouble. Worse, the enforcer’s pilot is a former bounty hunter and business competitor she beat to the prize many times in the past.

Soon, he’s snooping all over her ship and questioning her about her past.

And there’s something strange about him. He knows far more about what she’s thinking than any human should.

It’ll only be a matter of time before he discovers her secret. And then what?

Elven Fury by Lindsay Buroker:

Jev Dharrow is trying to convince his father to cancel his arranged marriage so he can wed Zenia, the woman he loves. But when elven assassins arrive in the city, all his personal problems must be set aside.

They are after his good friend, Lornysh, an elf who has saved Jev’s life a dozen times over the years. The assassins consider Lornysh to be a traitor to their people, and they’ll kill anyone who stands at his side. They wield great magic as well as their swords, and they have the power to destroy half the city as they chase after their target.

With the arranged marriage looming and elven assassins on the warpath, Jev is running out of time to save his friend—and his own future.

The Kingfisher’s Debt by Kura Carpenter:

Magic isn’t real, right?

Within the small coastal city of Dunedin, local translator, Tamsin Fairchild has a reputation she hates. People think she’s psychic…

Always hovering around and interfering in Tamsin’s life, part father-figure, part thorn in her side, Detective Jackson, is an old-school cop. Childhood friend to her deceased mother, Tamsin wonders could her mother have let an outsider in on the truth?

Newcomer, rookie cop Scott Gale is forced to team-up with Tamsin when they investigate the disappearance of a newborn baby and a bizarre crime scene–satanic ritual or hoax?

More and more the blame starts to point towards Tamsin…

Tamsin must uncover who’s framing her, find the baby before it’s too late, unravel the mystery behind her elder brother’s disappearance, and stop Scott from entering a world not meant for human eyes.

But Scott has family secrets of his own and Tamsin doesn’t know who to trust.

But can you trust Tamsin? What if the person who saved your life is about to frame you for murder?

Enter the Shroud by Killian Carter:

When Captain Grimshaw and Lieutenant Evans go renegade, the crew of the North Star must enter the Shroud. Vessels that dare travel into the infamous nebula never return to tell about it, but Taza Arkona claims to possess a key that will grant them safe passage.

With the Galactic Alliance coming undone at the seams and a long forgotten enemy looming on the horizon, Grimshaw, Evans, and Arkona must learn the secrets hidden behind the Shroud. If they fail, invaders will ravage the Galaxy unimpeded while it burns from within.

Defiance by H.G. Chambers:

The void gathers, and shadows deepen.

The terrifying truth has finally been revealed—New Arcadia is a city-sized weapon, poised to destroy the entire planet. Now Oren, Clementine, Anzien, and Ryland must join forces and fight, if they hope to rescue the millions of civilians within New Arcadia, and stop the apocalyptic weapon from activating. But to do so, they must overcome not only their enemies, but also the demons within themselves.

Oren’s memories of Clementine have been burned away, leaving an empty chasm between them. Determined to melt his cold despondence, Clementine returns a precious gift he gave her long ago. Will it be enough to bring them together, or will the contradiction in his memories divide them further?

As the Ko’jin rebels prepare to march on New Arcadia, Anzien discovers that General Graves has been feeding her lies and cannot be trusted. With millions of lives in the balance, Anzien must make a choice—subvert the general’s plans and face charges of treason, or follow orders and risk trading one tyrant for another.

Ryland has finally begun to accept his role as the voice of the resistance. There’s just one problem: after his encounter with the Patriarch, he’s no longer sure that his mind is his own. Now, not even he can say with surety whether he will aid in the evacuation efforts, or sabotage them completely.

Humanity’s final hour approaches, and it appears all may be lost. Those who would fight must now band together in defiance if they hope to beat back the darkness, and save humanity from oblivion.

Defiance is the final book in the award winning Aeternum Chronicles sci-fi fantasy trilogy. If you like heart-pounding adventure, compelling characters, and expert world building, then you’ll love H.G. Chambers’ epic series.

Yesterday’s Tears by Sam Cheever:

It might be a murder from decades ago, but it still has its claws in the present…and someone seems determined to drag Anna into it.

It’s never a good idea to spend too much time in a haunted mansion, and Anna’s favorite cowboy ghost does his best to talk her out of it. But the opportunity to pick from the beautiful antiques left to her in a Crocker resident’s will is just too tempting for Anna and Pratt to pass up. So they’re going in…

They’re prepared to deal with a few cold spots. Maybe the occasional flickering light. But what Anna and the boys weren’t counting on was bumping up against the ghost of Josiah Baumgartner, a contemporary of Joss’ from the 1800s. And when Josiah claims the old woman who lived in the house hid his bones around the place, Anna agrees to help him find them. But something much darker is at work there. And, unfortunately for our happy little gang of antique hunters…Anna seems to have unwittingly stepped right into the middle of it.

Plato Crater by Carleton Chinner:

The independent European base at Plato Crater is the Earth’s only hope for an end to the Helium-3 crisis if they can’t persuade Yesha Chen, Empress of the Moon, to trade. Every other Earth power will stop at nothing to seize control of the Moon’s lucrative energy supply.

Jonah Barnes would rather have stayed on the Moon with Yesha, the love of his life, than be back on Earth negotiating a Helium-3 deal that might leave him being something other than human.

Yesha thought it was hard to lead a rebellion. Now she must subdue one, but her stolen battle droids have other ideas. To survive, she will need to choose between the man she loves and the woman she must become before it is too late.

Tales of Peavley Manor (Or, Macalley Gets It Together) by Robert Dahlen:

Alice Peavley, young heiress, had hoped life would be simple once everything surrounded her inheritance had been settled. However, life had other ideas, and Alice keeps running into touchy situations and absurd adventures! From book thievery to motorcar mayhem, riding flightless birds to outwitting mad scientists, Alice must face them all…and will hopefully triumph with the help of her eccentric and loyal friends, her brainy gnome valet Macalley, and a good cup of tea. Blending comedy, steampunk, and fantasy, Tales of Peavley Manor is an entertaining and delightful collection!

(The material in this book has been previously published in e-book format as the novelettes “Book Fair Frenzy (Or, Macalley Turns The Page)”, “The Thorn Harbour Road Rally (Or, Macalley Takes The Wheel)”, “The Missing Mallard (Or, “Duck, Macalley! Duck!”)”, and “The Rebellious Rooster (Or, Macalley Gets Cocky)”.

In the Vanishers’ Palace by Aliette de Bodard:

From the award-winning author of the Dominion of the Fallen series comes a dark retelling of Beauty and the Beast.

In a ruined, devastated world, where the earth is poisoned and beings of nightmares roam the land…

A woman, betrayed, terrified, sold into indenture to pay her village’s debts and struggling to survive in a spirit world.

A dragon, among the last of her kind, cold and aloof but desperately trying to make a difference.

When failed scholar Yên is sold to Vu Côn, one of the last dragons walking the earth, she expects to be tortured or killed for Vu Côn’s amusement.

But Vu Côn, it turns out, has a use for Yên: she needs a scholar to tutor her two unruly children. She takes Yên back to her home, a vast, vertiginous palace-prison where every door can lead to death. Vu Côn seems stern and unbending, but as the days pass Yên comes to see her kinder and caring side. She finds herself dangerously attracted to the dragon who is her master and jailer. In the end, Yên will have to decide where her own happiness lies—and whether it will survive the revelation of Vu Côn’s dark, unspeakable secrets…

Crossover by Timothy Ellis:

Jon Hunter is back. Whether he likes it or not!

Be careful what you ask for. A higher being might be listening.

It’s been 2 days since Jon Hunter reset the timeline, by locking the Darkness away forever.

2 days of grateful rest. For him.

For the rest of the team, it feels like a year has passed, and they’re stuck in a limbo they cannot escape.

Jane wants Jon to get back to work, and a higher power seems to want the same thing.

But Jon isn’t ready yet, and Jane thinks he only needs a wakeup call.

But when has anything Jon Hunter related ever been as simple as a wakeup call?

Weird is normal for this team, but this is Crossover, and all you can say is…

…It’s a Jon Hunter thing!

Belief’s Horizon by I.W. Ferguson:

Treachery at home. Otherwordly visitors. What else lies beyond belief’s horizon?

Happen Fell lives on an isolated farm deep in the rainy woods on the magical planet Grith. It’s past time for him to go to the annual trade fair to begin his rites of passage, but one untimely trouble after another keeps him from exploring further than his home and the tiny school he attends with his cousin.And one person seems to lurk behind every trouble: Osgar.

Once Happen finally leaves on his journey, he fears his father’s loyal employee will turn up any moment. But when a stranger claims that Grith could be facing a threat from beyond the stars, Happen’s coming-of-age journey becomes much more treacherous—and mysterious.

That looming threat is the Lightfeeder Menace, and it could destroy everything. Almost no one on Grith—Happen included—believes it could be real. But what they don’t believe might kill them.

Belief’s Horizon is the first book in The Lightfeeder Menace series, introducing the world of Grith, where every river deep enough has its naiad, and every sea worth its salt has its dragon.

Pecan Pies and Dead Guys by Angie Fox:

Sometimes Verity Long would like to forget that she lives with the ghost of a 1920s gangster. But the reluctant housemates must once again work together when a dead detective blackmails Frankie into helping him solve a Great Gatsby-era cold case. Before she can say “bathtub gin,” Verity is dragged straight into a raging, otherworldly house party. Worse, every guest is hiding something.

Meanwhile, Ellis Wydell, Verity’s living, breathing boyfriend needs Verity’s help with a police case of his own. After a dead body is discovered near the pecan orchard, Verity gives her insights, thinking her job is done. But when mysterious pecan pies start arriving at her house, she wonders who might be thanking her…or stalking her.

Between hard-living ghosts and sugar-laden desserts, Verity has her work cut out for her. But will she uncover the secrets behind the pecan pies and dead guys? Or has she stumbled upon a recipe for disaster?

A warm and witty paranormal cozy mystery!

Starship Waking by C. Gockel:

On an icy, barren world, a starship dreams of doom…?

Throughout the galaxy, the reclusive alien race known as The One are incapacitated by terror.

On the planet Luddeccea, wolf-human hybrid Volka harbors a terrible secret…a secret that must explain her nightmares.?

Trapped on a luxurious asteroid, pleasure ‘bot 6T9 struggles to find purpose–until he receives a message from an Unidentified Caller.

The worlds of The One, Volka, and 6T9 are about to collide.

The galaxy will be shaken to its core.

The starship is waking.

The Concordia Deception by J.J. Green:

Sabotage at Homecoming

After a hundred and eighty years in deep space, the colony starship Nova Fortuna has reached its destination and long-awaited Arrival Day.

Many have sacrificed everything for this moment. Leaving her life and family on Earth, genetic specialist Cariad has spent the trip in cryonic suspension, while colonist Ethan carries the hopes of six generations of volunteers who knew they would never see their final goal.

A devastating attack on the new settlement forced Cariad and Ethan together, and now they must locate and defeat a deadly foe determined to sabotage humanity’s first deep space colony.

Isolated and alone, a fractured crew of colonists struggle for survival on a planet where the enemy could be anyone.

The Concordia Deception is book one in the compelling, provocative space colonization series, Space Colony One.

Mages’ Home by Kyra Halland:

Once, they were hated and hunted by mage hunters and Plain folk alike. Now, former bounty hunters turned renegade mages Silas and Lainie Vendine finally have the life they dreamed of – a home and ranch of their own where they can live in peace and raise their family, and the friendship and respect of their non-magical neighbors.

When a company from across the western sea comes to Prairie Wells, bringing marvelous new inventions, Silas and Lainie figure it only means more prosperous times ahead for the town and for them – until an old and vicious hatred of mages rears its head.

As troubles stirred by unseen enemies divide the town, many of Silas and Lainie’s neighbors turn on them. When danger strikes at the heart of their home and family, Silas and Lainie must fight to protect everything they love, everything they’ve worked for, before it’s all destroyed.

If you love fantasy filled with romance and adventure in a unique setting, come join Silas and Lainie Vendine in this new tale from the Wildings.

A Butt of Heads by Simon Haynes:

Events are unfolding at a breakneck pace in the Old Kingdom!

Laugh as your favourite characters spit in the face of danger … then run for the hills.

Admire the verbal jousting and witty wordplay … or is it the other way round?

Gasp as kings and queens lose their heads.

‘Enjoy’ the groanworthy puns and suffer the slings and arrows of poorly-trained archers.

But that’s not all …

Prepare to be amazed as you learn exactly what Clunk’s building in his makeshift workshop!

A Butt of Heads is book two in the Robot vs Dragons trilogy. A Portion of Dragon and Chips is book one, and it must be read first to maximise your enjoyment and my royalties.

Orbit by Leigh Hellman:

Ciaan Gennett isn’t green, despite the brand of light hair that betrays her heritage: an Earth mother. A mother she remembers but doesn’t know, who left one day and never came back. Ciaan’s as metal as her home planet—cold and hard and full of so many cracks she’s trying to ignore that she doesn’t have time to wonder about questions that don’t get answers.

After one too many run-ins with the law, Ciaan finds herself sentenced to probation at a port facility and given an ultimatum: Prove that your potential is worth believing in. With help from her best friend Tidoris, Ciaan stays away from trouble—and trouble stays away from her. But when a routine refueling turns into a revelation, Ciaan and Tidoris find themselves forced into an alliance with an Earth captain of questionable morality and his stoic, artificially-grown first officer. Their escalating resistance against bureaucratic cover-ups begins unraveling a history of human monstrosity and an ugly truth that Ciaan isn’t so sure she wants to discover.

Now they all must decide how far they are willing to dig into humanity’s dark desperation—and what they are willing to do about what digs back.

RiftWorlds Online: Space Opera Insertion by Brian D. Howard:

In 2028 RiftWorlds Online is the most popular virtual reality MMORPG game ever. A week after its release, millions are playing in a game that spans seven unique universes. But now people can’t log out. And when they die in the game, they die in real life.

In prison for manipulating real-world currency through VR-MMORPGs, gamer Rick Danburg just wants to serve out his sentence in peace. But the President’s daughter is trapped in the game. Secret Service agents drag Rick before the President who offers him a deal: a full pardon for finding her and keeping her alive until people on the outside get RiftWorlds back under control.

That will be much harder than he is prepared for.

Warrior’s Touch by Deb E. Howell:

Once upon a time, the last Immortal lost his powers to an Aenuk Healer and her tree. Nine hundred years later, he learns that an Immortal child is going to be born, and with it, the chance to regain his lost magic…

The Kara and Aenuk races have been enemies for centuries, but for Llew and Jonas, love won out. Now Llew faces an uncertain future: one nation wants her to breed their future army, and the other wants her dead. Her Healing talent also means she is feared – and the child she carries makes her a target.

Jonas has returned to his people, but he is torn. The woman he loves is being kept away from him, his superiors want him to carry on his bloodline with an appropriate mate, and he’s being expected to fit back into a role he doesn’t want. He is meant to be a hero, but the only champion he wants to be is Llew’s and their child – a child who might change everything.

But for their enemy to regain his powers, Llew’s child must die; and in order to retain them, every Aenuk must be destroyed.

In Warrior’s Touch, loyalties will be tested, lives torn apart and magics rejoined.

Fantastic Tales of Terror: History’s Darkest Secrets, edited by Eugene Johnson:

Discover the lost supernatural stories behind some of the most famous people and events in history.

These Fantastic Tales explore the secret history that has been hidden in the shadows of the world, and even alternative histories from other worlds. Tales such as a young man seeking the secret of immortality from none other than Bela Lugosi. The tragic story of how the Titanic really sank. The horrifying lengths the people of New York city would go to raise above the Great Depression, rather in seeking fame or trying to feed the city. And many more Fantastic Tales of Terror.

Lineup:

Introduction by Tony Todd

“The Deep Delight of Blood” by Tim Waggoner

“Unpretty Monster” by Mercedes Yardley

“The Tell-Tale Mind” by Kevin J. Anderson

“Topsy-Turvy” by Elizabeth Massie

“Ray and the Martian” by Bev Vincent

“The Girl with the Death Mask” by Stephanie M. Wytovich

“On a Train Bound for Home” by Christopher Golden

“The Custer Files” by Richard Chizmar

“Red Moon” by Michael Paul Gonzalez

“The Prince of Darkness and the Showgirl” by John Palisano

“The Secret Engravings” by Lisa Morton

“Mutter” by Jess Landry

“La Llorona” by Cullen Bunn

“The London Encounter” by Vince Liaguno

“Bubba Ho-Tep” by Joe R. Lansdale

“Gorilla my Dreams” by Jonathan Maberry

“Articles of Teleforce” by Michael Bailey

“Sic Olim Tyrannis” by David Wellington

“The Washingtonians” by Bentley Little

“Scent of Flesh” by Jessica Marie Baumgartner

“Rotoscoping Toodies” by Mort Castle

“Lone Wolves” by Paul Moore

“The Great Stone Face vs. the Gargoyles” by Jeff Strand

“The Return of the Thin White Duke” by Neil Gaiman

Proudly represented by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.

HYPO: Appetence by D.L. Jones:

Chauncy was introduced to the experimental drug called HYPO when trying to escape from abduction. This drug gives him extraordinary physical abilities. He decides to use those abilities to catch the burglars that has robbed his store. What he doesn’t know, there are mind altering side affects. Those side effects come into play in a bad way once he finds out about a secret his wife, Becca, has been keeping from him. Tre, his childhood friend once again shows up to lend a helping hand and and try solve the problem.

This is the second book in the HYPO Series. Make sure you read HYPO: Exordium first, as this is a continuation of that story – Part 2 in a 3 part series.

Only the Lonely by Amanda M. Lee:

Isabella “Izzy” Sage spent her formative years on Belle Isle in Detroit, playing next to the gate that separates the living from the dead as her parents drew a paycheck from the grim reaper council.

Then the impossible happened, tragedy struck, and Izzy found herself an orphan. Her grandfather took her away and raised her among the Bruja in New Orleans, although her heart always longed to return to the gate … which felt so much like a part of her.

Now, as an adult, Izzy has worked her way up to gatekeeper status and she’s back in the place her childhood ended. She’s the one in charge now … although things don’t go how she hoped. On her very first day, the gate is breached, and the wraith that crosses over is not only murderous but enhanced.

Izzy wants to be in charge, but the local reaper council needs help so they send back-up in the form of a magical reaping family.

The Grimlocks are loud, boisterous and used to a good fight. The men are also handsome, something Izzy doesn’t want to acknowledge, even when the flirting gets out of control. In addition to all that, they’re also protective, and whether Izzy wants it or not, they’re going to infringe on her territory if they think they can keep her safe.

The past might be haunting Izzy, but she can’t look forward to the future until the danger is behind her. Those around her know more than they’re letting on, and the magic she’s been trying to hide is about to take over.

The fight is on … and Izzy is loaded for bear.

Machineries of Mercy by Tim Major:

It’s a beautiful day in the village of Touchstone.

The birds are singing. Everyone is happy.

Everyone except Ethan.

The England he knows is broken and dangerous.

But perhaps Touchstone is more dangerous still.

 

Blaze by Monique Martin:

London, 1904 – All Artemis wants for her 16th birthday is a fancy new dress and maybe a few stolen sips of champagne. What she gets is a fiery sword and an inescapable destiny. She’s the Blaze—fated to protect the city from Darkness. With all of two days training, she must strike back against a rising evil. But her new powers come at a cost, and the truth behind them is more terrifying than any monster.

Cinch your corset and strap in for a wild ride through turn-of-the-century London. Don’t miss the next books in the Blaze Series.

Victoria Marmot and the Meddling Goddess by Virginia McClain:

Victoria Marmot is just an average teenage girl… if by “average” you mean an orphaned, multi-lingual, martial arts expert who owns her own home may or may not have magical abilities.

When Vic is told her parents didn’t die the way she thinks they did, her world is turned upside down and she’s left with the task of finding out what really happened to them. But when her quest to uncover the truth reveals a massive conspiracy by a corrupt magical government, will her efforts save the world or take the whole universe down with her?

Rick or Treat by Jaxon Reed:

Rick Strickland hasn’t flown a plane since he died over three centuries ago. But after being sucked into the vortex during a fae attack on Headquarters, he lands in the back of a doomed airliner bound for London crowded with helpless passengers and a poisoned crew.

He soon discovers this world is strangely different from the one he’s used to. The American Revolution failed and territory east of the Mississippi remains colonized. The Republic of Texas controls land to the west and is the dominant hemispheric power. Nazi Germany controls most of Europe, but despite the date there has been no Second World War . . . yet.

Now, a plot by the Nazis on All Hallows’ Eve appears imminent. Rick is alone with no outside help, and fae influence on this alternate is increasingly obvious. The Texans are locked and loaded, but they’ve never faced a fae before. Then, a coded message from their rarely used embassy in New York City arrives . . . and it’s addressed to Rick. Can he foil the Nazi plot and turn their Halloween trick against them?

The Queen’s Pardon by J.A. Sutherland:

Allies and enemies are not always what they seem.

Trapped on a hostile world, hunted by pirate bands and abandoned by her fellow captains, Alexis Carew must lead her small band to safety, even though it seems every hand is set against her. Stalked by pirates in the skies above and shadowy, alien figures on the planet below, Alexis must convince former enemies to trust her even as she discovers where the tendrils of her true enemies lead.

 

Heist by James David Victor:

It was supposed to be an easy job, but it just might take the heist of the century to get out of this one alive.

The Mercury Blade and its crew are always looking for an easy profit. When presented with a simple heist, they are all-in for easy profit. When things go south, they are faced with a dilemma that could mean life or death. Can Eliard, Val, and Irie pull of the heist of the century or will the crew of the Mercury Blade lose everything?

 

The Dead Stage: A Journey From Page to Stage by Dan Weatherer:

“The Dead Stage – the period of time between completing the working draft of a stage play and placing it with an interested party.” – Dan Weatherer

Dan Weatherer, an author turned playwright, learned quickly that there are practices playwrights can implement to dramatically increase the appeal of their work.

Inside, you’ll find advice that will enable you to better tailor your work to the needs of the theatre industry, without having to compromise on style, content or subject matter. Dan discusses his early mistakes, and presents the advice of notable theatre professionals including the award-winning playwright, Deborah McAndrew, noted actor Matthew Spence, and London Horror Festival producer, Kate Danbury (along with many, many more!).

You’ll also be able to read several of Dan’s completed stage plays, which are presented in a preferred industry format, and often contain side-notes detailing the success (and failures) of said pieces.

From budgets to set design, run-time to cast size, if you ever felt the desire to write for the stage, following the advice presented in this book will help improve your chances of pairing your script with an interested party, hopefully making The Dead Stage pass almost unnoticed.

Proudly represented by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.

Past Lives by R.J. Wolf:

THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH…

What would you do to save the one you love? Would you go to Hell…twice?

Eric Strange was once a psychic detective that solved cases normal humans wouldn’t dare touch. Supplanted firmly between two worlds, he kept one foot in the shadows and one in the sun. After uncovering a dangerous conspiracy, that reached the highest levels of government and intertwined the magic and non-magic world together, Eric was possessed by an ancient demon and dragged to hell.

When Eric wakes up four years later inside of a grave, everything he loves is gone. But even worse, he has no memory of who he is or the people he’s lost. Fate takes him to a police station, where an old friend finds him and sets out to help restore his memory. The secrets behind his murky past are tearing him apart, but the truth cuts much deeper.

Possessed by Demons, touched by Angels and surrounded by darkness and a powerful magic, Eric doesn’t even know what he is. But as the fog clears, his memories slowly start to seep through the shadows and a path to even darker places is illuminated.

Welcome to Hotel California…We’ve been waiting for you

Chaos in the Countryside by Astoria Wright:

Looking for a unique paranormal cozy mystery series that’s lighthearted and fun?

Settle into the cozy countryside of Moss Hill, where house-elves rent rooms, sprites live in gardens, a leprechaun is the best tailor in town, and a half-elf/half human named Carissa Shea owns a pharmacy known as The Seelie Tree Apothecary shop. Life couldn’t be more idyllic for Cari, but healing humans and fae folk proves challenging at times, especially when secrets unfold in The Faerie Apothecary Mysteries.

About Chaos in the Countryside

The quiet town of Moss Hill would be in trouble if not for one daring nature faerie: a sprite known as Chaos. Though she is little, she is…fierce isn’t the right word. Spirited is more accurate. She’s traveled far and wide to warn the half-human, half-elf Carissa Shae about a danger that’s coming to the countryside. Carissa’s Seelie Tree Apothecary shop is no stranger to faeries, but with this new arrival, its owner, and Moss Hill, will never be the same. Is this cozy town ready for a little Chaos?

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Indie Crime Fiction of the Month for October 2018

Welcome to the latest edition of “Indie Crime Fiction of the Month”.

So what is “Indie Crime Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up of speculative fiction by indie authors newly published this month, though some August books I missed the last time around snuck in as well. The books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. So far, most links only go to Amazon.com, though I may add other retailers for future editions.

Our new releases cover the broad spectrum of crime fiction. We have cozy mysteries, hardboiled mysteries, small town mysteries, culinary mysteries, animal mysteries, historical mysteries, Regency mysteries, Gold Rush mysteries, paranormal mysteries, crime thrillers, psychological thrillers, action thrillers, adventure thrillers, legal thrillers, pulp thrillers, men’s adventure fiction, romantic suspense, private investigators, amateur sleuths, lawyers, vigilantes, small town sheriffs, serial killers, terrorists, crime-busting ghosts, crime-busting cats, historians, opera singers, pimps and their henchmen, murder in Hawaii, Florida, New Zealand, New Orleans, the Appalachians and the California Gold Rush, in circusses, historical societies and tearooms shops and much more.

Don’t forget that Indie Crime Fiction of the Month is also crossposted to the Indie Crime Scene, a group blog which features new release spotlights, guest posts, interviews and link round-ups regarding all things crime fiction several times per week.

As always, I know the authors at least vaguely, but I haven’t read all of the books, so Caveat emptor.

And now on to the books without further ado:

The Pimp’s Henchman by Andrew Allan:

Butch the Henchman—ex-military, ninja-trained, mob-refined muscle ready to break legs, faces, and bodies on command. And with a turf war going on, Slide the pimp has him enforcing overtime. So, forget Sally.

That hooker keeps mouthing off, shorting the take, and bragging she’s got a fortune squirreled away. And, she’s still tricking for Slide? Please. That’s crazy trouble. So, why’s Butch intrigued? And, how much will that cost him? Distractions can be deadly in the criminal underground…where savages lurk, sin is religion, and the wrong move could flip Butch from trusted henchman to dead traitor faster than a jack shack romp.

The Pimp’s Henchman is an entertaining blast of hard-boiled crime, pulp thrills, and grindhouse movie mayhem. Download your copy now.

Snowed Under by Rickie Blair:

A crazy crossword conspiracy. A chilling murder. Will a green PI solve the clues without finding a deadly answer?

With Leafy Hollow in a deep winter freeze, landscaper Verity Hawkes is all out of funds. Setting up a private investigator business seems like the best way to indulge her fantasy and make a few bucks. But she never expected her first case would turn the whole town against her.

As she investigates a shady, million-dollar crossword competition, even her detective boyfriend sides with her neighbors in thinking it’s legit. But when the contest seems to connect with scruffy dog walkers and a missing investment advisor, Verity hopes she can solve the clues before the whole town descends into a scammy word-smithing frenzy. Between vegan food scandals and a village hoarder biting the dust, the landscaper-turned-PI has her hands full.

With time running out, can Verity discover the phantom killer before the culprit makes it two down?

The Kingfisher’s Debt by Kura Carpenter:

Magic isn’t real, right?

Within the small coastal city of Dunedin, local translator, Tamsin Fairchild has a reputation she hates. People think she’s psychic…

Always hovering around and interfering in Tamsin’s life, part father-figure, part thorn in her side, Detective Jackson, is an old-school cop. Childhood friend to her deceased mother, Tamsin wonders could her mother have let an outsider in on the truth?

Newcomer, rookie cop Scott Gale is forced to team-up with Tamsin when they investigate the disappearance of a newborn baby and a bizarre crime scene–satanic ritual or hoax?

More and more the blame starts to point towards Tamsin…

Tamsin must uncover who’s framing her, find the baby before it’s too late, unravel the mystery behind her elder brother’s disappearance, and stop Scott from entering a world not meant for human eyes.

But Scott has family secrets of his own and Tamsin doesn’t know who to trust.

But can you trust Tamsin? What if the person who saved your life is about to frame you for murder?

Yesterday’s Tears by Sam Cheever:

It might be a murder from decades ago, but it still has its claws in the present…and someone seems determined to drag Anna into it.

It’s never a good idea to spend too much time in a haunted mansion, and Anna’s favorite cowboy ghost does his best to talk her out of it. But the opportunity to pick from the beautiful antiques left to her in a Crocker resident’s will is just too tempting for Anna and Pratt to pass up. So they’re going in…

They’re prepared to deal with a few cold spots. Maybe the occasional flickering light. But what Anna and the boys weren’t counting on was bumping up against the ghost of Josiah Baumgartner, a contemporary of Joss’ from the 1800s. And when Josiah claims the old woman who lived in the house hid his bones around the place, Anna agrees to help him find them. But something much darker is at work there. And, unfortunately for our happy little gang of antique hunters…Anna seems to have unwittingly stepped right into the middle of it.

Peril By Post by Sheri Cobb South

A letter… a secret… a murder…

The eighth book in the series finds John Pickett bound for England’s scenic Lake District, where an unsigned letter has summoned him for an unspecified reason. Posing as a honeymoon couple, Pickett and his wife Julia, the former Lady Fieldhurst, take a room at the Hart and Hound as the letter instructs him. Once installed there, however, Pickett can do nothing but wait for the anonymous contact to identify himself. A midnight search of the inn’s register seems to identify the innkeeper, Ned Hawkins, as his man, but before Pickett can discover the reason for his summons, Hawkins is pushed from a cliff—surviving the fall only long enough to call Pickett’s attention to the letter in his pocket.

With his contact dead and his only clue a letter containing nothing more than a rambling account of family news, Pickett knows he’s on his own. But that isn’t the worst of his problems: Julia saw the crime being committed, and although she can’t identify the murderer, there is every indication that the killer knows he was seen—and intends to eliminate any possible witnesses.

Amidst a quirky cast of characters including a host of holiday-makers, a bucolic love triangle, an aspiring poet in the Romantic vein, and an old friend of his magistrate, Mr. Colquhoun, Pickett must discover the secret behind that urgent summons before a second, and far more personal, murder is committed.

The Perfect Lie by Adam Croft:

What if you were framed for a murder you didn’t commit?

Amy Walker lives the perfect family life with her husband and two young sons. Until a knock at the door turns their lives upside down.

It’s the police. Her father-in-law is dead and they’re arresting her for his murder.

The evidence against her is overwhelming. Forensics and witnesses place her at the scene. But there’s only one problem:

She didn’t do it.

With her family destroyed and a murder sentence looming, Amy must discover who murdered her father-in-law — and why they’re so hell-bent on framing her as the killer.

Everything is Broken by Anthony DeCastro:

A Girl. A Private Eye. A World of Hurt

Private Investigator Fuzzy Koella likes working the infidelity trade in Myrtle Beach. Taking pictures of cheating spouses provides enough income to support his spartan existence.

But when an old friend hires him to peep on the seductive, young Marisol Rodriguez, Fuzzy finds himself caught in an impossible situation. Does he do his job? Or does he try to save Marisol from the violent men she attracts?

The simple path always appeals to Fuzzy, but Marisol needs him more than he or she knows.

Can a decent man save all that he holds dear? Or will he find Everything is Broken, including himself? If you love hard-boiled detective stories, meet Fuzzy Koella in his debut adventure, Everything is Broken.

Flagstaff Station by John Ellsworth:

Attorney Thaddeus Murfee is called upon to defend a young nurse accused of murdering a public official. She calls Thaddeus, who signs on and then begins his investigation. He learns of another possible suspect, but the man is a federal agent with a clean record–the last person Thaddeus would’ve suspected. Still, there are unanswered questions.

When his client’s young son disappears, Thaddeus uncovers a dark side to the local political machine that extends from coast-to-coast. Thaddeus is left with no choice except to wade into the middle of the corruption that threatens to consume his client and her son and, in the end, even his own family.

Then he learns the terrible truth about Flagstaff Station and the stakes skyrocket.

Thaddeus Murfee is back like a raging storm in this Book 1 of the Thaddeus Murfee Justice Series.

Urgent Justice by John Etzil:

A small-town sheriff will catch a predator come hell or high water…

Nothing raises Sheriff Jack Lamburt’s hackles like a child in danger. After a local orphaned teen disappears under suspicious circumstances, he vows to bring her home safe. And there’ll be no escape from the world of pain he’ll leave in his wake…

To track down the missing girl’s abductor, Jack teams up with the only resident who can spot the culprit out of a crowd—a feisty 90-year-old with a taste for rye whiskey and revenge. But what was supposed to be a recon-only road trip soon takes a treacherous turn. And the two traveling companions find themselves fighting for survival in a crooked town overrun with the vicious disciples of a sexual predator and self-proclaimed prophet.

To save the girl, Jack will have to bring the entire unholy criminal network to its day of reckoning…

Time Lost by Peter C. Foster:

He hasn’t seen her in over forty years, not since she dumped him and married his nemesis. Now she’s asking for his help to find the man who murdered her daughter. He loved her then; despite everything, he loves her still. Against his better judgement, he is drawn into the homicide investigation.

At the same time, he must deal with the ghosts of the past, and the events which bound them together and tore them apart in the days which followed the Summer of Love.

TIME LOST is a fast-paced mystery and a love story. It is also a look back at the Sixties and the passions of a generation searching for truth and justice amid the turmoil of racism and war.

Pecan Pies and Dead Guys by Angie Fox:

Sometimes Verity Long would like to forget that she lives with the ghost of a 1920s gangster. But the reluctant housemates must once again work together when a dead detective blackmails Frankie into helping him solve a Great Gatsby-era cold case. Before she can say “bathtub gin,” Verity is dragged straight into a raging, otherworldly house party. Worse, every guest is hiding something.

Meanwhile, Ellis Wydell, Verity’s living, breathing boyfriend needs Verity’s help with a police case of his own. After a dead body is discovered near the pecan orchard, Verity gives her insights, thinking her job is done. But when mysterious pecan pies start arriving at her house, she wonders who might be thanking her…or stalking her.

Between hard-living ghosts and sugar-laden desserts, Verity has her work cut out for her. But will she uncover the secrets behind the pecan pies and dead guys? Or has she stumbled upon a recipe for disaster?

A warm and witty paranormal cozy mystery!

The Dough Must Go On by H.Y. Hanna:

Showbiz comes to Oxford in the form of Britain’s hottest new talent show and tearoom owner Gemma Rose gets a peek behind-the-scenes when she’s asked to cater for the event. But with the Old Biddies entering the contest as England’s first “granny band”, and her little tabby, Muesli, taking part in one of the acts, Gemma soon ends up with more than she bargained for… and that’s before she comes across a frozen dead body!

Now, she’s on the trail of a murderer, with four nosy old ladies giving her a helping hand, while also dealing with her embarrassing mother, her workaholic boyfriend—and even a mouse invader at her tearoom!

Murder in Cottonwood Springs by Dianne Harman:

Sheriff Rich got the call every lawman dreads – a relative’s murder. And it’s even worse when it’s your sister.

Brigid moved back to Cottonwood Springs to be with friends and family when her marriage and her publishing company both ended. When her best friend’s murdered, she’s determined to find the killer.

A new romance and an adopted big Newfoundland are pretty comforting at times like these.

Recipes included!

Cirque de Slay by CeeCee James:

Concello Circus is crowded with unforgettable characters- trapeze artists, sword swallowers, clowns, not to mention the famed Ringmaster. Working at the circus is exactly what Trixie expected. What she didn’t expect is to find a dead body…with a dark apparition rising up from it.

Claudette Barbarosa, the beautiful bearded lady and rumored girlfriend of the Ringmaster, has been murdered and suspects are everywhere.

Trixie is desperate to catch the killer before she is caught herself. Even more, she wants an explanation for what she saw the spooky, rainy night that Claudette died.

Were her eyes lying to her…or was everyone else lying?

Last Gasp by Howard Levine:

Frank Tedeschi’s niece is dead, one of thousands of victims of a terrorist attack, which has been laid at the feet of “Islamic radicals” by a right-wing US government. Frank—based on a chance encounter—is one of the very few people who question the government’s explanation. He’s a Vietnam veteran who wants nothing more than to live without further controversy or conflict. Can he and his grieving brother Rob, a detective with the NYPD, obtain the necessary evidence to uncover the truth in the face of scorn and incredulity? Can they overcome their long-term estrangement to work together, given that they are putting their lives in danger?

In Last Gasp—a novel that resonates with today’s politics—the answers to these questions unfold in a way that mingles personal and societal issues and intertwines the past and present while moving relentlessly forward.

Message for Murder by Jerri Kay Lincoln:

The first book in the Rutledge Historical Society Cozy Mystery Series.

Lorry Lockharte’s first day on her new job brings her a big surprise: a dead body. Two sisters dead in a week’s time—one murder, one accident. Lorry thinks the so-called accident seems a little too convenient. Is it really an accident as everybody believes? Sassy and irreverent, Lorry plans to prove otherwise and solve the murders. One recipe included!

 

Wired Fear by Toby Neal:

Paradise is haunted by betrayal.

What if you discovered that those closest to you were not who they seemed?

Tech sleuth Sophie Ang, her lovable dog Ginger, and her partner, Jake Dunn, tackle a new case involving a famous hula festival on the Big Island–but that’s only one of the hot situations demanding Sophie’s attention. Repercussions from the past and the return of a deadly relative threaten to tear apart the fragile life Sophie’s trying to build. Everyone around her seems to want more from Sophie than she can give, and one of them plans to take her life.

In the midst of a volcano of conflicting agendas, Sophie must find a way to truth, victory and freedom.

The Krewe by Seth Pevey:

Living up to the family name comes with a price.

When Felix is told his big brother committed suicide by throwing himself under a train, his gut screams foul play. But as the Mardi Gras season descends on the Big Easy, no one is interested in the conspiracy theories of a drug-addled rich kid.

Except, perhaps, one Carnival organization in particular…

A krewe that hasn’t been heard from in decades.

Felix will need the help of a police detective long past his prime, the family’s honor-obsessed butler, and a massive pork fortune, all in order to find justice for his big brother.

His name, his family, and his very life may hang in the balance.

Girl Next Door by Willow Rose:

He came in the morning when they were still making lunches and getting ready for school and work. He killed them all. Mother, father, children. Brutally slaughtered them in the comfort of their own home.

They called him the Monday Morning Killer.

That was forty years ago, but now it is happening again. A mother and her daughter are brutally murdered in their house, on a peaceful Monday morning in Cocoa Beach, Florida.

Home alone with six children while his wife – country superstar Shannon King – is on tour, Detective Jack Ryder gets the most terrifying case of his career, chasing a deranged serial killer unlike anyone he has ever seen.

No one feels safe, especially not the girl next door, who just bought the house where the first family was killed forty years ago.

Who is capable of such cruelty? And why?

Could one person be responsible for these brutal killings of entire families so many years apart? Or is Jack dealing with a copy-cat?

Cold Country by JD Salyers:

When a wild and free paradise becomes the devil’s hunting ground…

ALONE IN THE WOODS

Quinn Galloway is in danger. Her husband has disappeared from their secluded cabin, the biggest snowstorm of the season is moving in, and she’s alone in the dangerous expanse of the Appalachian Mountains.

OR IS SHE?

There is a dark stranger on the mountain, and he’s set his sights on Quinn. By the time night falls the sweet, cozy cabin has become a snowbound prison, surrounded by plenty of predators. For Quinn Galloway, isolated and defenseless, winter is now the enemy. Over the course of a single spine-chilling night she must face all of her nightmares come true, and she might not make it off the mountain alive.

Brother Betrayed by Jenny Wheeler:

A mysterious death. A missing partner. Can an opera singer and a businessman catch the culprit before he strikes again?

New Zealand-born Pania Hayes has won the hearts of her Californian crowds. But after her husband’s untimely death, the opera singer realizes fame and fortune mean nothing without loved ones to share it with. So when her closest friend gets caught in a web of mysterious deaths and disappearances, she vows to find the real culprit and clear his name… even after he turns his back on her.

Hong Kong-born John Russell prides himself on building his business empire from nothing. But after his beloved mentor’s death and business partner’s disappearance, he realizes the company is slipping out of his control. Within the ranks, tensions have turned deadly. And a shameful secret from his past threatens to unleash even more destruction. Without knowing who he can trust, he sets off alone to find his missing partner and piece together his broken legacy.

United in their grief but unable to reach out, Pania and Sir John must learn to work together to solve the mystery before more blood is shed.

Brother Betrayed is the second standalone book in the captivating Of Gold & Blood historical mystery series. If you like accurate portrayals of the Western frontier, fast-paced action, and tales of redemption, then you’ll love Jenny Wheeler’s pitch-perfect saga.

An Appetite For Murder by Lynda Wilcox:

Police researcher Verity Long loves fine food and wine, so she’s the perfect person to re-open the case of a murdered restaurant critic. The original investigation found no motive and no suspects, so solving the mystery of Crompton Carmichael’s death will not be a piece of cake.

With his colleagues at the Midshires Gourmet magazine proving less than helpful and saddled with an assistant whose idea of a gourmet meal is meat pie and chips, Verity begins to roux the day she agreed to take on the case.

Then, when she has the sauce to ask probing questions, her own life is threatened.

Will Verity live to taste Death by Chocolate again? Or will the killer make mincemeat of her?

Chaos in the Countryside by Astoria Wright:

Looking for a unique paranormal cozy mystery series that’s lighthearted and fun?

Settle into the cozy countryside of Moss Hill, where house-elves rent rooms, sprites live in gardens, a leprechaun is the best tailor in town, and a half-elf/half human named Carissa Shea owns a pharmacy known as The Seelie Tree Apothecary shop. Life couldn’t be more idyllic for Cari, but healing humans and fae folk proves challenging at times, especially when secrets unfold in The Faerie Apothecary Mysteries.

About Chaos in the Countryside

The quiet town of Moss Hill would be in trouble if not for one daring nature faerie: a sprite known as Chaos. Though she is little, she is…fierce isn’t the right word. Spirited is more accurate. She’s traveled far and wide to warn the half-human, half-elf Carissa Shae about a danger that’s coming to the countryside. Carissa’s Seelie Tree Apothecary shop is no stranger to faeries, but with this new arrival, its owner, and Moss Hill, will never be the same. Is this cozy town ready for a little Chaos?

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Cozy Space Opera with Food: “The Taste of Home”, a new “In Love and War” story

Yes, I have a new In Love and War story to announce. It’s called The Taste of Home and the post title says it all, really.

The Taste of Home is another tale to come out of the 2018 July short story challenge, where the objective was to write a short story per day in July 2018. Though unlike most published July short story challenge stories, The Taste of Home is not one but two stories written during the challenge, “Tea and Memories” and “Anniversary Dinner”, which turned out to be companion pieces.

Both stories were inspired by the same combination of two of Chuck Wendig’s writing prompts, namely to write a space opera and to write about food. And since food plays a big role in the In Love and War series, to the point that I have started dubbing it cozy space opera as an analogue to the “cozy mystery” subgenre with its focus on food and recipes, that combination of writing prompts immediately sparked an idea for an In Love and War story or three, since the story “Shipbound”, which can be found bundled with Bullet Holes, was also inspired by the same combination of prompts.

“Tea and Memories”, Mikhail’s section of The Taste of Home, was the first of those three stories written. For due to his deprived childhood, Mikhail has food issues, which makes him the ideal protagonist for a space opera story about food. What is more, Mikhail not only lost his home and his family with the destruction of Jagellowsk, he also lost his entire culture and that includes food. Mikhail can never eat his favourite childhood dishes again, because there is hardly anybody left who knows how to make them.

But even though the vast majority of the survivors of Jagellowsk were children under twelve for reasons explained in Evacuation Order, there also were adult survivors, people who were not on Jagellowsk when the planet was destroyed. Natalya Shepkova, whom we meet in Evacuation Order and later briefly in Freedom’s Horizon is one of them. And wherever you have expat or refugee communities, you have restaurants serving the food of the homeland. Therefore, it makes sense that at least some of those Jagellowski refugees would have opened a restaurant somewhere in the galaxy, serving the cuisine of a dead world. And so I decided to let Mikhail stumble upon a Jagellowski restaurant on the rim.

The people of Jagellowsk are the descendants of Russians who left Earth centuries, if not millennia ago. This history would of course be reflected in their food traditions. So I thought back on my experiences with Russian cuisine and remembered a memorable dinner at Restaurant Bellevue, a more than one hundred years old Russian restaurant in Helsinki, Finland, which I visited during WorldCon 75. The food served at Restaurant Bellevue is largely based on the cuisine of Czarist Russia and therefore fits the theme of food from a lost world. And so the Restaurant Demirdova in the story is very much based on the real world Restaurant Bellevue in Helsinki, down to the description of the street where it is located. And yes, the Restaurant Bellevue offers a Russian tea tray very much like the one Mikhail is served. I even took a photo of it at the time.

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The Russian tea tray at Restaurant Bellevue in Helsinki.

Initially, I had intended to give Mikhail a full meal. But describing a full meal takes time and “Tea and Memories” was still a short story written under the time constraints imposed by the July challenge. What is more, Mikhail would not have a full meal elsewhere, while Anjali was waiting with dinner for him at home. And so I settled for just letting Mikhail enjoy a pot of Russian tea. Which is doubly poignant, for while tea is not exactly rare in the In Love and War universe — though more common in the Empire than in the Republic — hardly anybody makes or serves tea in the way Mikhail is used to. And since Mikhail was a child when Jagellowsk was destroyed, getting to eat the pastries and sweets of his childhood again would have a special meaning to him.

The letter-shaped bukwi cookies really do have their origin in Russia, by the way, though nowadays they are much more popular in Germany than in their land of origin. They are called Russian bread over here and are very much a childhood staple. And yes, spelling out your name in cookies, as Mikhail does, is very much a thing.

I wrote “Anniversary Dinner”, Anjali’s portion of the story, a few days later. On that day, I just happened to make turkey biryani, which is a fairly complicated and time intensive dish to make, though mine is simpler than Anjali’s version. And when the time came to write my story for the day, I thought of the food prompt I had used a few days earlier and started to write a story about Anjali making biryani, while reflecting about her relationship with Mikhail.

Now biryani is very much a festive dish for special occasions — not to mention that Anjali even procured some meat, which is a rare and expensive treat in this universe — so I decided that Anjali’s biryani should be a special meal for a special occasion, too. And since I’ve already given Mikhail and Anjali plenty of adventures since they got together (and yes, the story of how exactly they got together will be written someday), it made sense for them to be celebrating their first anniversary.

Of course, a festive meal needs a festive dessert. Now I’m not much of a dessert person myself (I can whip up a dessert, if necessary, I just rarely bother), so I scanned recipe websites for Indian sweets and desserts and eventually came upon ras malai which seemed suitably tasty and festive. I even found step by step instructions how to make it, on which the description of Anjali making ras malai is based.

As I said above, I like to call the In Love and War series “cozy space opera”. And The Taste of Home is probably the coziest of all In Love and War stories. It has comparatively little external conflict and is mainly a story about memories, family and food.

So if that sounds like something you might enjoy, read:

The Taste of Home

[image error]Once, Anjali Patel and Mikhail Grikov were soldiers on opposing sides of an intergalactic war. They met, fell in love and decided to go on the run together.

Now Anjali and Mikhail are trying to eke out a living on the independent worlds of the galactic rim, while attempting to stay under the radar of those pursuing them.

Mikhail is on his way home, an anniversary present for Anjali in his pocket, when he suddenly finds himself irresistibly drawn towards an unremarkable storefront and comes face to face with his past.

Meanwhile, Anjali is preparing a special anniversary dinner for Mikhail, only to find that he is late to come home.

More information.

Length: 9300 words

List price: 0.99 USD, EUR or GBP

Buy it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iTunes, Google Play, Scribd, Smashwords, Inktera, Playster, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Buecher.de, DriveThruFiction, Casa del Libro, e-Sentral, 24symbols and XinXii.

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Photos: Autumn Leaves 2018

This past week, we have been experiencing uncommonly warm and sunny weather for mid October. And so I took the opportunity to drive around and admire the fall colours in the area. Of course, I also took some photos, which you can see below:

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Fall foliage and a late blooming rapeseed field near the town of Kirchhatten.

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A road lined by trees in full autumn glory near Heiligenrode.

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The modernist bell tower of the Catholic St. Ansgar church in the town of Sandkrug

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The Nordwestbahn, a regional train, passes by.

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Another tree-lined road, this one near the village of Steinkimmen

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A red oak tree in the town of Sandkrug

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A closer look at the foliage of the red oak tree

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Agnes, the maple tree, in full autumn glory. I raised Agnes from a seedling I found in my parents’ driveway 35 years ago. This is what she looks like today.

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Because it was warm, I also stopped at an ice cream parlour that was still open and had this tasty peppermint sundae.

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Chuck Wendig, James Gunn, Chelsea Cain and the Silencing of Creatives

The following excursion into the past is going to be long, but bear with me, because there is a valid connection to what is happening today.

Almost thirty years ago now, in 1989, I watched an episode of the German cultural TV program aspekte (coincidentally, I can’t believe that I have been religiously watching aspekte for thirty years now). At the time, aspekte normally focussed on high culture (still does) and social issues – you’d almost never see a feature about popular culture or even the latest Hollywood movies there.

That episode, however, was different, because they had a report about the then newly announced Time Warner merger. The report was very alarmist and worried a lot about Time Warner becoming a media monopoly and how they could determine what we watch, read, etc…, as evidenced by the massive advertising campaign for Tim Burton’s Batman film (which was really inescapable at the time). The spirit of Alfred Hugenberg, Weimar Republic media mogul and Nazi supporter, was invoked. And no, don’t get me started on how bloody offensive it was to compare a media concern founded by Jewish immigrants that gave work and a voice to many refugees from Nazi terror in the 1930s and 1940s and made anti-Nazi movies before the start of WWII in Europe to a Nazi supporter.

That aspekte episode is long lost to the mists of time, which is a pity, because I’d really love to see it again. However, the report about the Time Warner merger deeply upset me, especially since we’d just learned about Alfred Hugenberg and his role in Hitler’s rise to power at school. In fact, I mainly remember this long ago aspekte episode and how it upset me, because I wrote about it in my diary, worried that Time Warner was trying to control what we would get to watch and read (and private television had come to my little village just a few weeks before, bringing with it a sudden influx of US TV shows that the public stations would not show and a breath of freedom I was terrified to lose again). So far, Time Warner were just trying to ram Batman down our throats (and I didn’t much like Batman), but what if they got their hands on Star Wars or Marvel Comics or Disney or something else I liked (and yes, those were my examples)? What if they would try to keep us from ever watching Star Wars or reading Marvel Comics again? What if the children that came after me would never get to watch a Disney film?

I’m not sure what conclusion, if any, aspekte wanted us to draw from their report about the Time Warner merger. Personally, I suspect that someone at aspekte is a Batman fan and was just looking for an excuse to talk about the Batman movie, especially since they ran a very similar piece (“Batman is dark and serious now and no longer cartoony like the previous version”) minus Hugenberg alarmism when The Dark Knight came out. However, I can tell you to what conclusion I came and that was not “Go and watch Batman” (and indeed, I didn’t see Tim Burton’s Batman film, which was actually pretty good for its time, until several years later). Instead, I decided to hold back the media kraken that was Time Warner by staging a one person boycot against them. I also convinced a friend to boycot them as well.

I actually kept my boycot up for a while, which wasn’t that difficult at first, since I didn’t read DC Comics anyway – I was a Marvel fan through and through. Boycotting their publishing arm Warner Books wasn’t much of a problem anyway, since they rarely published anything I wanted to read. The first difficulty I ran into was that I was also a budding cineast and a lot of interesting vintage movies on late night TV bore the hated Warner Bros logo (because Warner Bros was one of the more interesting Hollywood studios of the 1930s and 1940s). I eventually decided that it was okay to watch those, because they were old and it wasn’t as if I was giving Warner Bros any money by watching them on TV. I also wondered why a Hugenberg-like company made so many anti-Nazi films. I also decided that it was probably okay to read Time Magazine, when someone handed me a free issue on a plane and I didn’t pay for it, English language magazines and newspapers being a rare treasure in those pre-internet days. Cartoons came next, because Warner Bros’ vintage Merry Melodies and Looney Tunes cartoons were really, really good in a way I was only just beginning to appreciate once I started getting the jokes. Plus, there was a time in the mid 1990s when Warner tried to rival Disney’s cartoon imperium with new interpretations of their classic characters, a Warner store chain (and I still felt slightly guilty about buying a charm bracelet with cartoon characters there), a Warner movie theme park, etc… Though I still didn’t read DC Comics until I went straight to Vertigo also in the mid 1990s. Besides, by that point it was becoming clear that aspekte had been overly alarmist and that Time Warner wasn’t actually trying to suppress anything and that they also weren’t Alfred Hugenberg. Besides, it was increasingly becoming clear by that time that Rupert Murdoch and News Corp/Fox were the ones we should really be concerned about.

When Disney started its unprecendented shopping tour in the 2000s, gobbling up Marvel, the Jim Henson Company, Pixar and finally Lucasfilm, I sometimes thought, “Looks like I should have worried about Disney rather than Time Warner, because Disney is doing everything I once feared Warner would do. Thankfully, they seem to be benevolent so far and let the companies they gobbled up do what they do best and don’t interfere. And as long as the products are good, who cares who owns the company?”

Yeah, famous last words that.

Because it is becoming increasingly clear that Disney is not so benevolent after all. And no, I’m not saying they’re Alfred Hugenberg reborn for the 21st century, because they’re not, though Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter’s close relationship with Donald Trump, including an unofficial role in his administration is slightly worrying in that context. But Disney and its subsidiaries are definitely using their corporate muscle to muzzle creatives, plus they give in to pressure from hatefilled far right groups. And it’s only a matter of time until it will affect their products, if it hasn’t already.

In July, Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn was abruptly fired from Vol. 3 of the series, after far right provocateur Mike Cernovich dug up some years old offensive tweets by Gunn. I didn’t blog about the firing of James Gunn here, largely because it happened in the middle of the July short story challenge, though I extensively covered the affair in my link round-ups at the Speculative Fiction Showcase.

Now the offensive tweets (and many of them genuinely were offensive, though the ones most widely reproduced were not the worst of the bunch) were years old. And unlike the many shitty people whose careers were dinged in the wake of the #metoo movement, no one who actually worked with James Gunn had a bad word to say about him. Indeed, the cast and crew of Guardians of the Galaxy and every other movie Gunn ever made fell over themselves to express their support for him. Dave Bautista, who plays Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy, even threatened to quit over Gunn’s firing. Nonetheless, Disney – overruling Marvel – steadfastly refused to rehire him and even indefinitely postponed production of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. In short, Disney is willing to risk a multi million dollar franchise over a few ancient tweets that weren’t even news, since The Mary Sue already dug them out before the first Guardians of the Galaxy film even came out.

Worst of all, it was really obvious that the far right only wanted a scalp in retaliation for the firing of rightwing actress Roseanne Barr and the cancellation of her horrible show over current tweets that were massively offensive (IMO worse than anything Gunn said). They’d probably have preferred Kathleen Kennedy or someone else from Lucasfilm, since Star Wars is now a main target of far right hate for daring to present characters who are not straight white dudes in heroic roles, but in the end they took whom they could get and that happened to be James Gunn. Not that those folks cared one bit about James Gunn and his offensive jokes (Remember that the Sad and Rabid Puppies backed Guardians of Galaxy as a Hugo finalist in 2015) until it turned out he was vocally opposed to Donald Trump. Not to mention that Mike Cernovich probably tweets more offensive stuff in a day (and pushed conspiracy theories like Pizzagate and QAnon, which led to various real world attacks by disturbed men with guns) than James Gunn did in his entire Twitter career. All this was totally obvious to anybody who was willing to take a look, including associating their target with pedophilia (a favourite tactic of the far right). And yet Disney not only fell for it hook, line and sinker, but there was also hardly any outrage online that Disney allowed themselves to be pressured by far right shitheads into firing someone who’d done a good job so far. And the fact that they were willing to risk a multi-million dollar franchise to appease some rightwing shitheads was just mindboggling to me.

The reaction in genre spaces instead was a shrug and something along the lines of “Well, it’s Disney. They have to protect their image as a family friendly brand.” And this from Americans who are usually free speech fundamentalists.

My reaction to this was, who the fuck cares about Disney’s brand image? And anyway, isn’t giving in to pressure by far right shitheads a lot worse for Disney’s brand image than a couple of old offensive tweets by someone who works for a subsidiary? Not to mention that the target demographic for the Guardians of the Galaxy movies are not kids or families (even though children can absolutely enjoy the movies), but what is known as Generation X. After all, the Guardians of the Galaxy movies are chock full of references to 1980s pop culture, while the music is from the 1970s. And those are not things you include in a property aimed mainly at pre-teen kids, unless you want to entertain their parents, too. Not to mention that there are plenty of moments in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies that can traumatise young viewers – Peter’s mom dying of cancer, Peter’s biological dad trying to kill him, lots of scenes of prison violence, mass murder and attempted mass murder committed by Ronan, Thanos and Ego, slavery, etc… – so worrying about something the director tweeted long before he ever made the first movie struck me as very odd.

Not to mention that I have never associated even Disney itself, let alone its subsidiaries, with safe entertainment for kids. After all, I cried when Bambi’s mother died, like pretty much everybody else. I cried when Dumbo was taken away from his mother by abusive circus folks. And learning years later about how circus elephants were abused in the early 20th century and publicly executed when they dared to fight back like Topsy and Mary gives Dumbo an even more disturbing subtext. I watched Friar Tuck nearly get hanged in the animated Robin Hood film, I watched the Red Queen threatening to chop off Alice’s head in Alice in Wonderland and cried at the dying dinosaurs in Fantasia (oddly enough, I don’t recall being bothered by “Night on Bald Mountain” at all, which suggests it was cut from the version I saw as a kid). Meanwhile, a live action Disney film whose title I have forgotten (something about a heroic dog) taught me what an electric chair was. During my one and only visit to Disney World as a young girl, I was scared in the Captain Nemo’s Submarine ride and the bloody Snow White ride of all things. I think they’ve since sanitised Snow White and closed down Captain Nemo, but back in the late 1970s both were pretty damn scary. Not to mention headhunters dangling shrunken heads about in the Jungle Cruise ride (which is bloody racist, too) or kidnapped women being auctioned off in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Sorry, but that’s not what I’d call safe and family friendly entertainment. Indeed, if any of it had been as safe and bland and family friendly as Disney tries to portray itself, I probably wouldn’t remember it so well forty years later.

And the Star Wars movies and the Marvel comics and movies have always been full of violence. The Star Wars films, old and new, feature torture, slavery, executions, patricide, force-choking, people thrown into lava pits and whole planets blown up. The Marvel Universe is full of often disturbing violence as well, from Jim Jaspers and The Fury (still one of the most terrifying comics ever) via Weapon X (which traumatised me, when I first read it as a teenager) and of course Dark Phoenix blowing up the planet of the asparagus people, not to mention Galactus having whole planets for dinner in the comics to Daredevil torturing people in the eponymous series, mental and physical rape in the Jessica Jones series and Thanos fingersnapping half the universe out of existence in Avengers: Infinity War. In fact, Avengers: Infinity War, Star Wars: A New Hope and The Force Awakens have the highest bodycounts in movies ever, an inhabited planet each in A New Hope and The Force Awakens and half the universe in Infinity War. And two of those were made under the new Disney regime. Sorry, but family friendly looks different to me.

But then, “family friendly” in a US context usually means no sex and no swearing (even though the Marvel Netflix series have both in spades and Loki did call Black Widow a “mewling quill” on screen, which is a pretty nasty, if old-fashioned slur), while violence, including pretty extreme or disturbing violence, is perfectly fine. This is also why I dislike labels like “clean” or “family friendly”.

The James Gunn uproar has died down by now and Gunn himself has moved on to Warner/DC and will probably helm Suicide Squad 2, so Marvel’s loss is DC’s gain. But the problem didn’t end there.

In mid September, novelist turned comic writer Chelsea Cain suddenly had her Vision series, which had only been just announced, cancelled for reasons unknown. Two years before, the Mockingbird solo series which Chelsea Cain had been writing, was also abruptly cancelled and Chelsea Cain herself harrassed by what is now known as Comicsgate over the cover of the final issue, which dared to mention the word “feminism”. Chelsea Cain left social media over the 2016 harassment, but this time around, she was no longer willing to be silent and indicted Marvel for folding in the face of rightwing bullying and for failing to support her and other creators facing harassment. Chelsea Cain also pointed out that she is now “dead to Marvel”.

What happened to Chelsea Cain is disturbing and I wish I would have paid more attention to it at the time, but again I was busy with other things. Nor was Chelsea Cain the first comic creator basically harassed out of a job. Last year, something similar happened to Aubrey Sitterson, a writer for IDW Publishing’s GI Joe comic series (my first reaction to that story was “GI Joe is still a thing?”), who first enraged the usual suspects for making GI Joe a little less white and male and then enraged them further by tweeting about his irritation with the ritualised rememberance of September 11, 2001, and how the ones who most fervently proclaim “Never forget” were usually nowhere near New York City or one of the other attack sites. Now I dislike ritualised rememberance in general (and have left instructions that should I ever die in the sort of event that triggers ritualised rememberances from people who didn’t even know me in life, I want my name left out of it), so I sympathise with Sitterson’s point. And besides, as someone who actually was in New York City on September 11, 2001, he is allowed to criticise the ritualised rememberance as much as he likes. Still, he skewered a sacred American cow plus he was the writer of a military comic book, which probably had a number of rightwing fans at a time Comicsgate was gearing up, so IDW Publishing bowed to pressure and Sitterson was out of a job.

Then last Friday, it happened again. For Friday evening, when I prepared to settle in to watch Das Literarische Quartett and briefly checked out Twitter, I came across a lengthy thread (summed up here) by writer Chuck Wendig, in which he explains that he had been fired from the Marvel’s Star Wars tie-in comic Shadows of Vader barely a week after the comic had been announced. Now Chuck Wendig has been a target of harrassment by the usual suspects ever since his Star Wars tie-in novel Aftermath, one of the first books in the “new” Star Wars continuity, came out, partly because some folks furious that the old extended universe was made non-canon decided to take out their frustrations on the new novels and partly because some folks couldn’t wrap their head around the fact that there were LGBT characters in a Star Wars novel. Of course, people getting bent out of shape because there are LGBT characters in a Star Wars novel make me wonder whether they have even watched the films, because Ewan MacGregor plays Obi Wan very much as someone who is not straight. But then we’re talking about the sort of folks here who believe that Star Wars, a story that is literally about rebels fighting an authoritaria regime, is unpolitical entertainment.

However, unlike Chelsea Cain, Kelly Marie Tran, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Leslie Jones, Magdalene Visaggio, Heather Antos and other people targeted for harassment by the far right for the crime of existing and daring to be involved in something rightwing white dudes consider theirs, Chuck Wendig wasn’t silent and didn’t quietly retreat from social media. Instead, he found some choice epithets for the people who attacked him. Which apparently wasn’t a problem until suddenly, a newly promoted editor at Marvel decided that he had issues with Chuck Wendig’s tweets, because they were too vulgar, too uncivil, too offensive and too political. Never mind that Chuck Wendig was defending himself against harrassers who say and do things a lot worse than anything Chuck Wendig ever tweeted. Nonetheless, Wendig was fired from the Shadows of Vader comic and another not yet announced Star Wars comic. At Vulture, Abraham Riesman offers a comprehensive overview of the entire affair.

Now I have been following Chuck Wendig’s blog and his Twitter account for several years now and he has always been someone who swears a lot and comes up with some very inventive epithets. Chuck Wendig’s internet persona was already sweary long before Aftermath came out, in fact even long before Disney bought Lucasfilm. Just as James Gunn’s offensive tweets were made long before he was hired to write and direct Guardians of the Galaxy. The fact that Chelsea Cain is a feminist shouldn’t really be a surprise to anybody either. It also apparently wasn’t a secret that Roseanne Barr had gone off the deep end years ago. Never mind that there are plenty of other politically outspoken folks working for Disney/Marvel/Lucasfilm, e.g. Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Mark Hamill, Taika Waititi, etc… So if Disney/Marvel/Lucasfilm really didn’t want to hire someone who swears on social media and/or is politically outspoken, they should really have done their homework.

But it’s not really about that. It’s not really about Disney and its vaunted family friendly image either. Instead, it’s about far right trolls targetting people they consider political opponents and exerting pressure on their employers, social media platforms, etc… to silence their targets. After the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, Chuck Wendig tweeted a rant which got a lot of attention, including from some of the noisier rightwing voices with big platforms, who promptly targetted him. A few days before Marvel fired him, Chuck Wendig reported that Twitter had temporarily suspended his account, following mass reports by those selfsame rightwingers and their followers. Again, Chuck Wendig wasn’t the first person this happened to, because last month Twitter permanently suspended the account of science fiction author Patrick S. Tomlinson after he was targeted by the same sort of rightwing shitheads. And indeed, Patrick S. Tomlinson also speaks out against Marvel firing Chuck Wendig.

In her article at The Mary Sue about the firing of Chuck Wendig, Kate Garner writes the following:

It does hand Comicsgate a big win. It hands people who want to see their media homogenized and reduced down to the same white cishet male stories a massive win. Worse, it sends a message that if you want to work for a big title, keep your mouth shut and don’t talk about politics, even though at this point in the game silence is nearly complicity.

All art is political, and apparently people being angry that politics in certain works are progressive matters more than artists actually standing up for what’s right.

This is frightening. I won’t call it censorship, but it’s pretty close. It’s a big message saying keep your mouth shut and take the abuse, because apparently defending yourself (and others around you) is as bad as being a troll. It’s “vulgar.” It’s not “civil.” Marvel has known about Wendig’s politics since 2015 at the very earliest, but suddenly there’s a problem with him being his usual self and using his platform for good? There’s a whole stunning host of implications there.

She is right. The far right wants to drive women, people of colour, LGBT people and leftwing men out of speculative fiction/films/TV/videogames/comics altogether, because they cannot handle the fact that entertainment media no longer centers only straight white American cis men, but also has room for other voices and stories. We’ve seen it happening over and over again in different sectors of popular culture with movements like Gamergate, the Sad and Rabid Puppies, the Ghostbusters backlash, the Star Wars backlash and now Comicsgate. These movements were the warning signs, the test balloons, before far right ugliness spilled over into mainstream politics. And indeed, there are documented links between the various pop culture -gates and far right politics as this Wired article by Molly McKew shows.

The industries targeted reacted diffferently to far right attacks. The gaming industry pretty much capitulated and threw the women who were being harrassed under the bus to appease the jerks they thought were their audience. Hollywood studios mostly ignored the attacks and just continued making movies. Speculative fiction fought back and drove out the harrassers, until they retreated to play in their own sandboxes. Until now, the comics industry seemed to follow the same tactics as the speculative fiction sphere, namely fight back until the harrassers go off to do their own thing. And indeed the recent influx of crowdfunding campaigns for various alt-right comic books mirrors the flurry of literary movements, small presses, magazines, indie published books and newly established awards that happened after SFF fandom told the Sad and Rabid Puppies exactly what they thought of them. And for the record, I have zero problems with rightwingers going off to do their own thing and create their own media, because it’s a lot more productive than harrassing political opponents and hopefully creates something those dissatisfied with contemporary entertainment can enjoy. In fact, it’s interesting that Gamergate didn’t try to create their own games (though there were a few webcomics and the like to come out of the movement), but then the entry barriers to game design are probably higher.

But the recent firings of James Gunn, Chelsea Cain and Chuck Wendig seem to suggest that Disney/Lucasfilm/Marvel have changed course and are now capitulating to attacks from the far right. Which is a bad idea, because these folks won’t be satisfied until they get exactly the bland, homogenised entertainment focussed on straight white cis dudes they want.

Because the truth is that the far right wants to silence everybody who disagrees with them. And indeed, authoritarian regimes of any political stripe always target journalists, teachers and academics as well as artists, writers and other creatives first before they go after everybody else deemed not in line with the regime. We’ve seen this in Nazi Germany, we’ve seen it in Mussolini’s Italy and Franco’s Spain, we’ve seen it in the Soviet Union and the various Communist states of Eastern Europe, we’ve seen it in other dictatorships around the world. Right now, we’re seeing it happening in Russia, in Turkey, in the Philippines as well as in Hungary and Poland, as they drift further to the right. And we’re also seeing more and more silencing attempts of this sort happening in otherwise democratic countries.

Last week, the far right party AfD made waves in Germany, when they created online portals which parents and students could use to report teachers deemed “not neutral enough”, i.e. teachers who dare to speak out against the hateful xenophobic rhetoric of the AfD. Thankfully, this scheme was widely denounced by parties all across the political spectrum and within a day, the portal was flooded with nonsense reports by white-hat hackers. Though this isn’t the first time that the AfD attacks teachers. According to this TV report, the AfD has been denouncing teachers all over Germany for alleged “leftwing propaganda” to the respective school boards for months now and also tries to shut down school initiatives against racism. The AfD has also been attacking universities, particularly gender studies departments, as well as artists, museums and theatres, particularly in East Germany, for daring to perform plays deemed not German enough, and recently sued a theatre in the (West German) city of Paderborn for alleged libel, because they felt offended by a poster for May Frisch’s play Andorra, a classic play against anti-semitism. And AfD attacks on journalists and public television are pretty much a daily occurrence by now. Indeed, their party program shows only too clearly what art, culture, education and journalism should look like according to the AfD.

This is also why the rise of the AfD scares me. Because I know that I’m one of the people they’ll go after – as a teacher, a leftwing single and childless woman, a writer who writes in a foreign language, as someone who has worked with refugees. I know that I’m a potential target, whereas the people who tell me my worries are hysterical are engineers, nurses, pensioners, i.e. people who won’t be targeted initially.

That’s also why we should all be worried about what happened to Chuck Wendig, James Gunn and Chelsea Cain, whether we actually like their work or not. Because if a major corporation like Disney bows to rightwing pressure and fires creatives – all of them popular and successful, all of them white and two of them men – for their political opinions, it will only embolden the far right to go after anybody whose work and/or politics they don’t like.

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Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month for September 2018

It’s that time of the month again, time for “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”.

So what is “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up of speculative fiction by indie authors newly published this month, though some August books I missed the last time around snuck in as well. The books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. So far, most links only go to Amazon.com, though I may add other retailers for future editions.

Once again, we have new releases covering the whole broad spectrum of speculative fiction. This month, we have epic fantasy, urban fantasy, dark fantasy, cozy fantasy, historical fantasy, paranormal mystery, paranormal romance, fantasy romance, science fiction romance, science fiction thrillers, space opera (cozy and not), military science fiction, near future science fiction, science fantasy, Cyberpunk, Steampunk, horror, time travel, witches, wizards, werewolves, vampires, demons, changelings, assassins, space mages, space marines, space princesses, space rogues, haunted shops, magical circusses, wayward saints, lost girls and much more.

Don’t forget that Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month is also crossposted to the Speculative Fiction Showcase, a group blog run by Jessica Rydill and myself, which features new release spotlights, guest posts, interviews and link round-ups regarding all things speculative fiction several times per week.

As always, I know the authors at least vaguely, but I haven’t read all of the books, so Caveat emptor.

And now on to the books without further ado:

A Princess Lost by Odette C. Bell:

Andalusia is no ordinary pirate – she’s a runaway princess.

She ran to save her people from her betrothed. He intends to use her to start a galactic war, unless she can stay out of his clutches.

When she runs into one of her old guards, she’s pulled back into the life she disavowed.

She can no longer afford to run. It is time to rise up and do what she should have done from the start – go to war.

A Princess Lost is the first instalment of the Rising Princess series. An action-packed galactic adventure, pick it up today.

Collision Course by Cora Buhlert:

Once, Anjali Patel and Mikhail Grikov were soldiers on opposing sides of an intergalactic war. They met, fell in love and decided to go on the run together.

Now Anjali and Mikhail are trying to eke out a living as mercenaries on Metra Litko, an independent world on the galactic rim, while attempting to stay under the radar of those pursuing them.

Anjali and Mikhail are working a routine bodyguard job. But things quickly go awry, when an assassin bypasses all security measures to shoot the wrong target… or does he?

Anjali and Mikhail set off in pursuit, only to find themselves confronted with a figure from Mikhail’s past who could threaten their newfound freedom.

This is a novelette of 8000 words or approximately 27 print pages in the In Love and War series, but may be read as a standalone.

[image error] Duty Bound by Lindsay Buroker:

Crown Agent Jev Dharrow’s good dwarf friend Cutter is missing, as is the city’s master gem cutter. Jev doesn’t know who would want them, but he’s determined to find out.

He hopes his fellow agent, Zenia, can help him locate the missing dwarves. Even though she rejected his offer of a romantic relationship because of their status differences, they have become good friends, and she has years of experience finding criminals.

But this kidnapping is anything but simple. Jev and Zenia find themselves entangled in a snarled plot that threatens the entire kingdom while making them realize their true feelings for each other. If they can’t rescue the dwarves, deter an invasion, and stop an explosive plot to destroy half the city, they may lose everything they love. Including each other.

Demon Fire by Tori Centani:

A witch using demon magic? It’s more likely than you think.

My name’s Dani Warren and I’m a witch with demon magic. It’s kind of a long story but if anyone finds out, I’ll be executed on the spot.

I’ve been keeping my head down working as a PI, doing the dirty jobs no one else wants. But then, to solve a murder, I’m forced to work with Conor Ramsey, a sexy demon hunter who’s with the Council. He may be pretty to look at, but he won’t hesitate to cut me down if he learns my secret.

Soon groups of demon-powered mages start attacking us. On one hand, we’re on the right track. On the other, I can’t use my magic to fight back if I don’t want to get caught.

I’m stuck between a smoking hot demon hunter and a pack of dangerous mages. Today really isn’t my day.

Demon Fire is book one of The Brimstone Magic Series. It’s action-packed, suspenseful urban fantasy with elements of humor and romance. Book 2, Demon Shadow, will be out soon.

The Ruby Heart by Ashley Capes:

Thomas, Mia and Ethan have finally discovered the long-lost rebellion airship Clara – only to learn that it cannot grant them their freedom, since none know how to fly the mighty ship.

A desperate search for a pilot follows but disaster strikes when Thomas falls into the clutches of their old tormentor, Lady Elisabeth; master of the Sand-Hog and lieutenant to the King. Yet Elisabeth has her own plans for Thomas and they do not involve simply handing him over to her liege.

Mia and Ethan find themselves torn between chasing Thomas and following clues to the Clara’s pilot but hounding Mia every step of the way is her own doubts and fears, her confusion over her feelings for Ethan and worse, dark dreams that hide an even greater threat than King Williams could ever pose.

A steampunk adventure set in a slowly dying land where magic clashes with steam and alchemy.

Court of Shadows by C.N. Crawford:

A girls’ night out means three things to me: drinking whiskey with my best friend, trying not to kill anyone, and keeping my magic hidden. A fae gladiator like me isn’t supposed to exist anymore.

But my Friday night takes a bad turn when a lethally gorgeous fae–Ruadan–tries to assassinate me. He’s known as the Wraith, and he’s taken a vow of silence until he’s slaughtered the outlaws on his kill list. Outlaws like me.

Ruadan lets me live on one condition: I have to earn my place at the Institute of the Shadow Fae. As a powerful fighter, I can take the competition.

But things fall apart when I’m given an impossible choice: betray my mentor Ruadan, or my best friend dies. Now, I face a quandary my gladiatorial past did not prepare me for.

This book is from the Demons of Fire and Night world.

Skyblade’s Gambit by Robert Dahlen:

Captain Annabel Skyblade commands the Peregrine, the most feared pirate airship to sail the skies of Aldarre, plundering the rich and powerful. The rulers of the great sky realms have had enough of her, and Victorie Brassfeld, Cerindel’s top Navy intelligence agent, has a plan to capture the pirate, using a lure too strong to resist—a valuable, beautiful sapphire amulet.

But the amulet hides a great secret, and when it is stolen by sinister forces, Annabel and Victorie must join together to retrieve it. And as they face danger and adventure, they also have to face their feelings for each other, feelings they have never had before, when they discover…

Hearts can be stolen too.

Cut to the Bone by Zen DiPietro:

Cut off from her team, Fallon will learn some hard lessons about what it means to be a clandestine operative. She and Minho have been tasked with setting up the security system on a brand-new PAC installation called Asimov Station. It’s a lot of work to get done in a short time, and that’s only their cover assignment. Behind the scenes, they’ll be investigating the station’s captain. Either they’ll get to clear his name, or they’ll get to bring him down. Why PAC command has separated her from her team, she doesn’t know. She also doesn’t know where they are or when she will be reunited with them. All she can do is complete the job ahead of her as well and as quickly as possible, so they can once again be a team.

Mirror Flower, Water Moon by Ameilia Faulkner:

London’s youngest vampire. England’s newest sorcerer. And Ellis’ life is in their hands…

Han Xie had a fatal heart condition, and only the intervention of his best friend Ellis O’Neill could save him. Now Han is an unsanctioned vampire in a city happy to kill him for it, and the one man who could protect him seems to be falling apart piece by piece.

Jay Newfield became a sorcerer too late to cure his husband’s heart problem, and now that Ellis is dying it might be too late for Jay to save him, too. His only hope is the son of the last remaining sorcerer in England, the Duke of Oxford.

While Jay races to keep Ellis from turning to ash, Han discovers that his workplace is on another vampire’s territory. Caught up in more than one race against time, Han and Jay need to master their powers fast, before the Council discover – and execute – them both…

[image error] Changeling Magic by Marina Finlayson:

For about five seconds there, my life was perfect. The fae king finally allowed me back into the magical Realms of Faerie, and his arrogant knight, the Hawk, was actually thawing towards me.

I should have known it wouldn’t last. When I get back to my childhood home in Autumn, my mother’s gone, our house abandoned. Not exactly the homecoming of my dreams.

Then an injured stranger turns up in the mortal world, claiming to be my mother, but she dies before I can question her. If I want answers, I’ll have to find her killer. And guess what? The killer is looking for me, too—but not for a friendly chat.

Everyone is keeping secrets, and I can’t even be sure who I am anymore—or how dangerous the truth will be when I finally uncover it. Just as well the Hawk has elected himself my protector. Keeping me alive will be a full-time job.

Vengeance by Jennifer Foehner Wells:

Five years have passed since Darcy Eberhardt left Raub for dead on Ulream.

Darcy and her ragtag multispecies crew have used those years well, searching for her lost love, Adam, throughout the disreputable fringes of galactic society—though the odds are stacked against them. Along the way, they liberate the vulnerable and accumulate allies, some of them dubious. Meanwhile, Darcy continues to master her newfound powers in secret.

A cryptic message raises a ghost from the past to haunt her, forcing her to a crossroads that could lead to a reunion with Adam, or keep him forever beyond her reach.

[image error] Causal Nexus by Dan Harris:

Inauguration Day on Nexus Prime. As Senator Neela Kane becomes the Speaker of the Commonwealth, unseen forces are at work: some seek to control the new Speaker, others would see her term end before it has even begun, and some…

Some just want to watch the world burn.

Yet in times of crisis, help can come from the most unexpected places, and in the galactic capitol, the smallest action can have consequences that no-one could possibly predict.

Bodyguard and politician, urchin and delinquent. Policeman and power broker, assassin and AI. Eight lives, one chain.

Action and reaction.

Cause and effect.

Life and death.

[image error] HYPO: Exordium by D.L. Jones:

Chauncy and Tre were childhood friends. Tre, who works for a pharmaceutical company, is in town on business. Chauncy hadn’t seen Tre since college and decides they should catch up. After picking Tre up from the airport, they are ambushed and kidnapped. Held hostage in an old abandoned house. With hopes of escape, Tre and Chauncy use an experimental drug from Tre’s company that gives them extraordinary physical abilities.

This will be the first book in the Hypo Series. Hypo: Exordium. It is a Serial Short. There are 3 parts of an ongoing story. The second part will be released within 2 weeks of the first, and the final part soon after!

The Imaginary Worlds of B.R. Kingsolver by B.R. Kingsolver:

Three new worlds. Three exciting adventures.

Three first-in-series Urban Fantasy books from author BR Kingsolver. Explore three unusual imaginative worlds. Travel with a sexy telepath in a world that could be ours, a mutant thief and assassin two hundred years in the future, and an Elven witch stranded on Earth.

Contains:

The Succubus Gift (Telepathic Clans #1)

Chameleon Assassin (Award winning first book in the Chameleon Assassin series)

Gods and Demons (Dark Streets #1)

The Succubus Gift – The Goddess blesses Her people with 25 Telepathic Gifts. In addition to Telepathy, the Gifts include command over Air and Fire, Telekinesis and Teleportation. Brenna’s life isn’t the same after she discovers her unusual and mysterious heritage. In addition to being a telepath, Brenna learns she has the Succubus Gift.

Chameleon Assassin – Libby is a mutant, one of the top burglars and assassins in the world. For a price, she caters to executives’ secret desires. Eliminate your corporate rival? Deliver a priceless art masterpiece or necklace? Hack into another corporation’s network? Libby’s your girl. Voted Best Contemporary/Urban Fantasy of 2017 by eFestival of Words

Gods and Demons – Life’s tough as an Elf girl stranded in Earth’s realm. When a jaguar shifter drops in out of nowhere and asks me for help in tracking down an ancient blood-magic statuette, I say no thank you. I learned a long time ago the key to survival is keeping a low profile. But it’s hard to ignore an artifact of the gods powerful enough to blow holes in reality.

[image error] Go for the Juggler by Leanne Leeds:

A jarring homecoming.

An uncertain fate.

To save everyone, one witch must perform the juggling act of a lifetime

When Charlotte returns home with Gunther, Devana, and Ethel Elkins in tow, she doesn’t think her life can get any more complicated. But when one of her parents’ Animal Shelter volunteers turns up dead, her control begins to slip as her old human life and her new paranormal life collide.

While racing to come up with a plan to defeat the Witches’ Council, Charlotte must defend her family against an intrusive police investigation that risks exposing their true nature to the human world—an act which will condemn them all.

Go for the Juggler is the fourth book in the hypnotizing Magical Midway paranormal cozy mystery series. If you like eccentric characters, show-stopping magic, and twisty mysteries, then you’ll love Leanne Leeds’ crowd-pleasing whodunit.

[image error] Beneath the Lanterns by C. Litka:

No good deed goes unpunished.

The historian Kel Cam enjoyed a pleasant life in Azera, the colorful capital of the Azere Empire. In the dark days, he taught classes at the University. In the bright days, he traveled the wide steppes to visit Blue Order communities, seeking clues about the mysterious, long dead civilization of the Elders in their libraries of ancient texts. However, when his best friend, Lefe Sol, the son of the ruler of Azere, discovers that his father has arranged his marriage to Ren Loh, the fourth daughter of the Empress of Jasmyne, Kel offers to stand by and help Lefe deal with his unexpected, and unwanted, bride-to-be. Kel soon finds himself caught up in the intrigues of empires which not only upset his well ordered life – they lay it to ruin.

“Beneath the Lanterns” is an old fashioned novel of adventure and travel set in an imaginary land – a land of colorful cities, sweeping steppes, and lush valleys littered with the ruins of a lost advanced civilization. It is a world of sixteen days of day light under the Yellow Lantern and sixteen days of night lit by the Blue Lantern. And across this wide and wild world under the Yellow and Blue Lanterns, Kel Cam finds that he must flee for his freedom, if not his life.

Things You Need by Kevin Lucia:

“Kevin Lucia is this generation’s answer to Charles L. Grant.” – Brian Keene

The things we want are so very rarely the things we need.

Clifton Heights, a modest Adirondack town, offers many unique attractions. Arcane Delights sells both paperbacks and hard-to-find limited editions. The Skylark Diner serves the best home-cooked meals around, with friendly service and a smile. Every August, Mr. Jingo’s County Fair visits, to the delight of children and adults. In essence, Clifton Heights is the quintessential small American town. Everyone knows everyone else, and everyone is treated like family. It is quiet, simple, and peaceful.

But shadows linger here. Flitting in dark corners, from the corner of the eye. If you walk down Main Street after dark, the slight scrape of shoes on asphalt whispers you’re not alone, but when you look over your shoulder, no one is there. The moon shines high and bright in the night sky, but instead of throwing light, it only seems to make the shadows lengthen.

Children disappear. Teens run away. Hunters get lost in the woods with frightening regularity. Husbands go mad, and wives vanish in the dead of night. And still, when the sun rises in the morning, you are greeted by townspeople with warm waves and friendly smiles, and the shivers pass as everything seems fresh and new…

Until night falls once more.

Handy’s Pawn and Thrift sits several blocks down from Arcane Delights. Like any thrift store, its wares range from the mundane to the bizarre. By daylight, it seems just another slice of small town Americana. But in its window hangs a sign which reads: We Have Things You Need. And when a lonely traveling salesman comes looking for something he desperately wants, after normal visiting hours, after night has fallen, he will face a harsh truth among the shelves of Handy’s Pawn and Thrift: the things we want are rarely the things we need.

Proudly represented by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.

[image error] The New Magic by Joseph Malik:

“Tell me who you ride beside, and I’ll tell you who you are.”

Once dubbed “The Deadliest Man Alive,” Jarrod Torrealday is now Lord Protector of Falconsrealm and a knight officer in the Order of the Stallion. He awakens one glorious fall morning to find his castle under siege and his alliances shattered as a new threat rises in the west: a revolution driven by a sorceress trained to kill and led by an unstoppable swordsman from the world he left behind.

Worse yet, the weapons Jarrod brought with him from Earth are rocking the country on its heels and threatening everything he came to save.

At a candlelit crossroads of dark sorcery and espionage, Jarrod must choose between embracing forbidden ancient magic for the good of the realm . . . or gambling the future of the kingdom in a showdown between profane wizardry and modern steel.

Phyllis Wong and the Waking of the Wizard by Geoffrey McSkimming:

Phyllis Wong, that brilliant young magician and clever sleuth, is faced with a quest which began in the time of her great-grandfather, Wallace Wong, Conjuror of Wonder! He wanted to track down one of history’s greatest magicians … but does the person even exist? To find the answer, Phyllis will have to Transit across thousands of miles and hundreds of years.

While she follows the trail of the master prestidigitator, a sinister figure haunts her every step. What is the Great Whimpering, and who is the dastardly man intent on bringing it about? Can Phyllis find one of the most mysterious figures from history? Can she complete her mission in time to prevent the greatest calamity ever to befall mankind?

Another astonishing mystery starring Phyllis Wong, from the ever-scrawling pen nib of Geoffrey McSkimming.

The third Phyllis Wong: Time Detective Mystery.

[image error] Wayward Saint by J.S. Morin:

The galaxy’s worst bounty hunter just might be its most relentless hero.

Esper may dress the part. She has her own ship. She even carries a blaster—not that she ever uses it.

But she violates the cardinal rule of the galaxy’s most cold-blooded profession: get paid.

At least she’s not alone. Her partner Kubu is an alien who gets mistaken for a dog.

One is a wizard on the run from her past. The other is a lovable eating machine. Between them, they haven’t got a ruthless bone in their bodies.

But when a client hires them, they’ll do whatever it takes to bring a target home safely.

This time, it’s a teenage kidnapping victim, and Esper and Kubu will crisscross the galaxy to track her down and make sure she’s safe.

Wayward Saint is the first mission of Black Ocean: Mercy for Hire. It follows the exploits of a pair of do-gooder bounty hunters who care more about saving the day than getting a payday. Mercy for Hire builds on the rich Black Ocean universe and introduces a colorful cast for new and returning readers alike. Fans of vigilante justice and heroes who exemplify the word will love this series.

Grab your copy and support the cause of justice.

[image error] Cerenovo: The Complete Series by Mike S. Nuckols:

A mind-bending series that questions the nature of reality and the depths of human compassion.

Ridley Pierce is as surprised as anyone when a polymorphic phishing virus becomes sentient. As a plague ravages the world, he desperately tries to communicate with the entity. Upon making contact, he compels the intelligence to create technologies unlike any that have ever existed, pushing the world into a sinister new age. As people rot in immersive virtual reality and dark-matter scans reveal the secrets of the brain, Ridley begins to question whether the entity wishes to help, or to destroy, mankind.

This box-set includes the novels “Emergent,” “Exogenetic,” “Entanglement,” and “Entropy.”

Undertow by Brooklyn Ray:

Port Lewis, a coastal town perched on the Washington cliffs, is home to Crescent Cafe, a slew of micro-breweries, a downtown packed with antique boutiques, and violent, ancient storms. Thunder shakes rooftops and lightning cuts through dark skies, but Liam Montgomery has never been afraid.

Until now.

One night, Liam hears the scream of a kelpie, a Water horse whose cry foretells the beginning of a prophecy. Kelpies have not set foot on shore for decades, but as Liam digs into his magic and his family’s history, he uncovers a mysterious secret that could ripple into the lives of everyone around him.

Liam’s tea-leaves spells out murder. The life of someone he loves is on the line. An unwelcome kelpie speaks in riddles. The Queen of Water demands a sacrifice.

The Montgomery name is soaked in blood and secrets. Liam’s fate is sealed, but he’ll do whatever it takes to change it–even if it risks his circle, his magic, and his life.

[image error] Lost Girls by Shayne Rutherford:

Fin McCrae is a finder, someone who can locate lost things with only the power of his mind. When he was a little boy, he swore to never use his talent. Now fifteen, Fin is about to break his word. Because three girls have been taken. Because the police are looking in the wrong place. And because he might be the only one who can find them before they’re lost forever. But getting to the girls is only half the problem. Saving them from the monster who took them might be impossible. And if Fin’s not careful, this might be the last promise he ever breaks.

LOST GIRLS was previously published in horror anthology DESCENT INTO DARKNESS as “Through A Dark Wood”. It is a novelette of 17,000 words.

Breakout by David Ryker and Douglas Scott:

When a meteor strike unleashes an alien intelligence bent on taking over the human race, only a ragtag band of Marines can stop them. The only problem is, they’re in prison for a crime they didn’t commit. For the next 98 years.

And their prison is two and a half billion kilometers from Earth on a good day.

Oh, and their fellow inmates want them dead…

Hey, nobody ever said saving the world would be easy.

[image error] The Mourner’s Cradle: A Widow’s Journey by Tommy B. Smith:

The tale of a widow’s harrowing journey through grief and peril into the cold remnants of a dead world.

Damon Sharpe had in part found victory, he believed, in his battle to unearth a truth obscured by time. By autumn, he was dead, leaving to his wife Anne a house of unfulfilled wishes, remnants, and the key to the enigma of his obsession, the Mourner’s Cradle.

A journey through grief and peril delivers Anne Sharpe from her home in St. Charles to the faraway skeletons of a long-dead civilization where she will find the desperate answers she seeks…or die trying.

This horror novel is perfect for fans of…

The Silent Corner by Dean Koontz

The Fisherman by John Langan

The Grieving Stones by Gary McMahon

Daphne du Maurier

Thomas Ligotti

Shirley Jackson

Dan Simmons

Proudly represented by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.

Spanish Mission by K.B. Spangler:

Hope Blackwell, the world’s second-worst psychic, is tired of dealing with both the living and the dead. Between wrangling the ghosts of the Founding Fathers, medical school, and dodging the paparazzi, she’s got her own problems (and that last attempt on her life left her more shaken than she’ll admit!). So she packs up her friends and heads to Las Vegas for some high-octane escapism.

Their vacation is cut short when paranormal investigators show up with a story about ghost ships in the nearby Sonoran Desert. A desert is a strange place to search for pirates, but Hope knows all too well that the dead are everywhere. She tags along to make sure nobody will run into trouble if they find a homicidal ghost or two.

Hope wasn’t expecting the long-dead Spanish nun, or her pack of vengeful chupacabras. And they are just the beginning—this desert is full of ancient secrets, and psychics must beware.

Agents of Mars by Glynn Stewart:

An enemy hidden in the shadows

A crack in the armor of secrecy

One chance to find an answer

Captain David Rice and the crew of Red Falcon have spent two years infiltrating the arms smuggling underworld of the Protectorate of the Mage-King of Mars. When the co-opted rebellion on Ardennes reveals a supply chain of weapons intended to fight Mars, this makes them the perfect team to investigate.

His new mission brings him across old friends and old enemies alike, but as his suspects start turning up dead, David realizes he isn’t the only one following the loose ends.

As shadowy enemies move to position themselves for civil war, Red Falcon’s crew must chase an ever-shrinking set of clues. If they succeed, they might just buy the Protectorate peace for their lifetime.

But if they fail…

Emerald Forest by Troy Stone:

The fate of the world lies in the hands of an inexperienced dryad and a war-weary human.

Kiri’s first assignment nearly gets her captured by a group of centaurs. A mishap placing her 600 years of training to become a Warden at risk. The Elder Dryads grant her a second chance to prove her abilities during a more dangerous task. She needs to discover the cause of a series of unauthorized portal openings and bring those responsible to trial. A fresh trail leads her to a planet long since abandoned by the dryads and a conflict tearing the world to pieces.

Johann lost his fiancee to a businessman while he fought to serve his country and watch longtime friends die in the trenches. His luck goes from bad to worse when a new enemy appear on the battlefield. Johann is caught by the group of nymphs hellbent on wiping mankind off the face of the planet. Of all the people, he happens to get rescued by a dryad that hates his guts.

Wardens are impartial but Kiri can’t help the feelings welling up inside. A part of her wants to leave Johann to die in the forest. Not only is he loud and shows a complete lack of respect for the environment, a complete no go by her books, but he’s also dangerously attractive for a human. Kiri’s heard plenty of stories about falling in love with mortals to know she shouldn’t, but teaming up with him to save mankind makes her question how tough her resolve really is.

Heart of a Dire Wolf by Carol Van Natta:

To stay together, they’ll have to escape prison, outsmart wizards, and solve the mystery of a magical sanctuary town.

Skyla Chekal is in trouble. She’s a prisoner in an illegal underground auction house that sells magical creatures. If they learn she’s a dire wolf with free magic, they’ll hold a special high-roller sale just for her. She needs to keep her head down and escape, but she can’t because she smells someone who stirs her in the way only a true mate can. She can’t leave without him.

Siberian tiger shifter Nic Paletin can’t believe he’s found himself in a cage in an auction house run by wizards. As long as he continues to play dumb, he should be able to get out soon. But the intriguing smell of a woman who calls to his tiger has him tied up more than the shackles on his ankles.

As turned on as Skyla is by Nic’s intoxicating presence, she knows they first have to survive long enough to get free. Unfortunately, threats continue to escalate. In their escape, Skyla is sent somewhere else, and Nic has no idea where or what trouble she might be in. He must find her before the wizards do, plus figure out how to work together if they’re going to crack the secrets of a mysterious new-old town.

And they better hurry, because the greedy wizards not only know where they are, they’re after the fabled treasures of this vulnerable sanctuary town.

Continue the enthralling paranormal romance with Heart of a Dire Wolf, the third book in USA TODAY bestselling author Carol Van Natta’s fun, action-filled, steamy-hot Ice Age Shifters series.

[image error] Rogue by Robyn Wideman:

A dangerous warrior, living in hiding, wants nothing more than to be left alone, and occasionally extract a small portion of revenge on the royal family who betrayed him. But when assassins try to kill a young girl he intervenes. Now this betrayed warrior must forget his own vengeance and save a kingdom, a kingdom he once almost destroyed.

 

 

 

[image error] Space Rogues by John Wilker:

Wil Calder was an astronaut testing Earth’s first Faster Than Light engine in an experimental space pod when he ended up stranded on the opposite side of the solar system. Even if NASA could come to get him, they didn’t know where to look.

But that was years ago.

Now, Wil is a lonely intergalactic outlaw and smuggler, looking for a crew, because space is lonely and boring. He’s got a ship, now he needs some friends or at least people to work with, maybe boss around a little.

What he isn’t looking for, is a plot that would destabilize the entire Galactic Commonwealth. A scheme he and his new crew aren’t remotely qualified to stop, but who looks at qualifications these days? They can’t just turn their backs on the galaxy, can they?

Between epic space battles, a quest for redemption and a daring heist, the crew uncovers a dangerous secret.

Send to Kindle

Indie Crime Fiction of the Month for September 2018

Welcome to the latest edition of “Indie Crime Fiction of the Month”.

So what is “Indie Crime Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up of speculative fiction by indie authors newly published this month, though some August books I missed the last time around snuck in as well. The books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. So far, most links only go to Amazon.com, though I may add other retailers for future editions.

Our new releases cover the broad spectrum of crime fiction. We have cozy mysteries, culinary mysteries, historical mysteries, medieval mysteries, Victorian mysteries, Asian mysteries, paranormal mysteries, children’s mysteries, police procedurals, crime thrillers, adventure thrillers, spy thrillers, legal thrillers, private investigators, amateur sleuths, spies, assassins, lawyers, kipnappings, intrepid reporters, werewolves and witches in 16th century Germany, murder in Tokyo, Hawaii, Korea and Australia, aboard cruise ships, in Hollywood, in circusses and cupcake shops and much more.

Don’t forget that Indie Crime Fiction of the Month is also crossposted to the Indie Crime Scene, a group blog which features new release spotlights, guest posts, interviews and link round-ups regarding all things crime fiction several times per week.

As always, I know the authors at least vaguely, but I haven’t read all of the books, so Caveat emptor.

And now on to the books without further ado:

Homicide on the Hunt by Stacey Alabaster:

When a treasure hunt turns deadly, the hunt for money and a murderer heats up.

The annual Eden Bay treasure hunt is usually a time of great fun. Secrets abound as Alyson and Claire face off, each determined to win the prize. When a dead body interrupts the hunt, the girls must find the killer before they can win the prize. Can their secrets and friendship provide a murder on the treasure hunt?

Homicide on the Hunt is the sixth book in the Hang Ten Australian Cozy Mystery series, a fast paced cozy mystery with an authentic Australian flair. If you quirky characters and unexpected twists, you’re going to love the Alyson and Claire.

[image error] Of Witches and Werewolves Trilogy Boxed Set by Cory Barclay:

Of Witches and Werewolves is a box set containing all three of the historical mystery books listed below in one epic tome.

Devil in the Countryside

It’s 1588 and a killer is loose in the German countryside. Is it the legendary Werewolf of Bedburg or something even more sinister? As the body count mounts and the mystery deepens, an unconventional investigator, a savage hunter seeking revenge, a conflicted priest, and a determined farmer’s daughter all search for answers, against the backdrop of a country reeling in religious turmoil.

In the Company of Wolves

In 1592, amid the chaos of regular witch-hunts and continued religious strife tearing Europe apart, three sets of travelers venture out on their own quests for peace and prosperity: A young thief from the slums, a ship of pirates, a priest and his wife. And as power, greed, and family secrets threaten to destroy them, their seemingly separate adventures converge in a place that may hold the key for them all.

The Beast Within

By the end of 1592, the city of Bedburg is still reeling from the horrific werewolf and witch trials that have consumed the city. Offering no comfort, a despotic lord rules with an iron fist and no one is safe. But an unlikely hero emerges, offering a group of improbable misfits their best hope for freedom: Returning to the chaos and tyranny they left behind to confront the face of pure evil head-on.

Sleepers by Mark Dawson:

When a Russian defector is assassinated in a sleepy English seaside town, Group Fifteen agents John Milton and Michael Pope find themselves in a rush to uncover the culprits and bring them to justice.

Their investigation leads them to Moscow and a confrontation with Directorate S, the agency responsible for seeding Russian sleeper agents around the world. When lies and double crossing mean that no-one is what they seem, the two agents – alone and without backup – struggle to achieve their goals under the most dangerous of circumstances.

Set one week before the opening of The Cleaner, this compulsive thriller turns back the clock to Milton as a barely functioning alcoholic, still tormented by the ghosts of the men and women he has killed in the service of his country.

Milton must fight his own demons as well as the Russian assassin sent to eliminate him. Will he be able to complete his mission and escape with his life?

The Highland Murders by J.S. Donovan:

Rachel Harroway, a homicide detective with the ability to see the dead, balances the responsibilities of being a mother alongside her life’s calling to guide orphaned spirits home. Teaming up with her long time homicide partner Jensen Peak, she hunts for the latest crafty killer to strike in her little corner of the Appalachian Mountains. The investigation gets personal when her adopted daughter enters the crosshairs. How far will Rachel go to protect her own? How much will she be willing to give up?

 

Michael Gresham Box Set by John Ellsworth:

Enjoy the first three Michael Gresham legal thrillers at 50% off!

Grab the first three of this set of international best sellers while you can for one-half off the cover price. These are the books that made Michael Gresham a household name for those who love legal thrillers. But a word of warning: get ready to stay up late, because the Gresham books are known for portraying characters that readers love and want to follow.

Book 1: Lies She Never Told Me

The story of Michael Gresham’s heritage, beginning with his father’s father. The book features mob wars in 1920’s Chicago; World War II invasions and POW camps; romance between powerful men and beautiful women; the most infamous mass murder in 1960’s Chicago; and the complete growing-up story of Michael Gresham himself, from young boy to young lawyer. The book recounts the first meeting between Michael and his famous investigator Marcel in Operation Desert Shield when both young men are soldiers on the track of Saddam Hussein.

Finally, when Michael’s grandmother comes to him with a request that he track down and kill one man, can he refuse? He’s been trained as a lawyer, he believes in the rule of law, and he believes that no man is above the law. But his grandmother won’t let him go. She tells him a certain man must die for his crimes. Michael loves his grandmother with every cell in his body. Can he refuse her dying wish? Will he honor the vow he makes to this most important woman in his life?

And so the hunt begins.

Who will Michael find first: the killer or himself?

Book 2: Michael Gresham: The Lawyer

Michael Gresham is a criminal attorney with a client accused of murdering a judge’s wife. As the story progresses, the judge whose wife was murdered suddenly tries to hire Michael Gresham for himself. New revelations have the judge backed into a corner in this legal and financial thriller. Can an attorney battle the system and win the notorious case other lawyers turned down? Can Michael Gresham turn the tables on those who would see him dead? And who is going to pay for the injury and disfigurement they left him with?

A legal financial thriller that introduces the first in a five-book series about Michael Gresham, the Chicago lawyer who defends hopeless cases everyday. Watch from your front row seat as Michael walks into this courtroom drama a huge underdog. Cheer him on as he uses all his wit and cunning to defend the indefensible.

Book 3: Secrets Girls Keep

Michael Gresham is a criminal attorney whose priest has fathered a son. The boy is now seventeen, acting-out, and suddenly arrested for first-degree murder. A serious question arises as to the boy’s guilt. The priest asks Michael to take his son into his home so he can be released on bail. Michael and his wife agree and the boy, with his snake and mice, moves in.

One young client who looks more guilty with each new death…

The new houseguest gets questioned by the police for yet a second murder. Michael Gresham and his wife become uneasy and, when the young man begins acting out, they finally move him out. The snake and mice move out with him. What follows is the story of a trial for first degree murder. All pertinent witnesses take the stand and are questioned in this book. The tension mounts. A verdict is rendered by the jury, but the crime doesn’t end there. Now it becomes personal to Michael and Danny.

[image error] Murdered By News by Dianne Harman:

He was a Pulitzer Prize winning publisher. She was a celebrity newscaster. Someone hated one of them enough to commit murder.

Kat’s shocked when she’s asked to help solve the murder but it looks like her daughter may be marrying into the decedent’s family. Sometimes you just have to do the right thing. Nice to know there’s a Rottweiler at your back!

 

 

Dangerous Seas by Lily Harper Hart:

Ten years ago, Rowan Gray’s father didn’t return from a routine day at work. The police believed he accidentally drove into a nearby lake thanks to inclement weather, but no sign of him or the car he was driving was ever found.

Now, Rowan Gray is a photographer on a cruise ship. She’s in love with the head of security Quinn Davenport, and living a life she never thought possible. Things are going well … and her father is back. Paul Gray is going by another name but he’s a guest on The Bounding Storm, which happens to be hosting a group of high-profile authors from across the world. And, yes, Rowan’s father is among them.

The reunion process doesn’t exactly go smoothly, especially when the most famous author in the bunch turns up dead. Julia West wasn’t a pleasant woman, but she had a legion of fans.

The problem facing Rowan and Quinn is they can’t figure out who’s to blame. Was it one of the other authors? An errant fan who somehow snuck on board? Or the diabolical enemy that forced Paul Gray to abandon his only daughter a decade before? The stakes are high as the truth comes out. The only thing that’s absolutely certain is that Rowan and Quinn’s lives will never be the same again … if they can hold onto their lives, that. Nothing is a given in this brave new world.

Slash in the Pan by CeeCee James:

Georgie Tanner and her best friend, Kari have known each other their whole lives. Georgie was maid of honor at Kari and Joe’s wedding, so when Joe is accused of a horrific murder, Georgie is determined to learn the truth.

The details look bad- a body was found in the subdivision under construction where Joe is the general contractor. The body has Joe’s favorite knife sticking out of it. To make things worse, the dead man is Devon Walters, Joe’s professional rival.

Joe doesn’t have a good alibi, and the DA quickly discovers that Devon was about to file a lawsuit against Joe. As Georgie finds out when she digs deeper, Devon had a good reason to file a lawsuit. Despite Joe’s underhanded dealings, Kari begs Georgie to prove he didn’t do it… but the more Georgie digs, the worse things look.

Worse, Georgie unearths clues that seem to tie back to her fiancé, who died years ago… this may be one case where the truth is too hard to face.

On Deadline and Under Fire by Amanda M. Lee:

There’s nothing Avery Shaw loves more than a challenge … at least when it comes to tracking down a story. The challenge she’s facing this time is the one thing she might not be able to overcome, though.

Vacation. That’s right, not only is Southeastern Michigan’s busiest reporter off work for a week … but she’s also on the receiving end of a visit from her boyfriend’s mother.

Eliot Kane is tough as nails but he’s obviously nervous about the two most important women in his life crossing paths. The fact that he’s nervous makes Avery agitated … and she worries about very little other than who she can upset and how quickly she can make her enemies cry.

As luck would have it, Avery stumbles on a story when she should be enjoying her time off. A high-rise apartment fire leaves one dead … and ties to organized crime are abundant. The only thing Avery knows about the mob is what television and movies have taught her. That doesn’t mean she’s not keen to learn.

Avery is in a pickle. She has to uncover the motives behind a murder, get her boyfriend’s mother to like her without losing herself, and keep her family out of trouble even though they’re sniffing around and causing mischief. Oh, and she has to pull it all off without melting down or letting Eliot know what she’s up to.

Things are about to get wacky and dangerous in Avery’s world. She wouldn’t have it any other way … even if it ultimately kills her.

[image error] Go for the Juggler by Leanne Leeds:

A jarring homecoming.

An uncertain fate.

To save everyone, one witch must perform the juggling act of a lifetime

When Charlotte returns home with Gunther, Devana, and Ethel Elkins in tow, she doesn’t think her life can get any more complicated. But when one of her parents’ Animal Shelter volunteers turns up dead, her control begins to slip as her old human life and her new paranormal life collide.

While racing to come up with a plan to defeat the Witches’ Council, Charlotte must defend her family against an intrusive police investigation that risks exposing their true nature to the human world—an act which will condemn them all.

Go for the Juggler is the fourth book in the hypnotizing Magical Midway paranormal cozy mystery series. If you like eccentric characters, show-stopping magic, and twisty mysteries, then you’ll love Leanne Leeds’ crowd-pleasing whodunit.

Lady Rample and the Silver Screen by Shéa MacLeod:

When an invitation to a Hollywood wedding arrives in London, Lady Rample and Aunt Butty are living the glamorous life among the rich and famous in California. But when their movie producer host is found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot, they find themselves embroiled in a mystery involving a silver screen starlet, a conniving butler, and kidnapping gangsters!

Suspicious from the start, Lady Rample is determined to prove that their friend didn’t commit suicide. Unfortunately, proving murder might end in another murder…her own.

Lose yourself in 1930s Hollywood with the latest installment of the popular historical cozy mystery series, Lady Rample Mysteries.

Overboard by Dawn Lee McKenna:

Due to a past trauma, Lt. Maggie Hamilton has a paralyzing fear of sharks that has kept her out of her beloved Gulf all her adult life.

When a group of drug dealers dumps the Sheriff’s Office investigator overboard one night, leaving her to her fate, Maggie finds herself in the middle of her most terrifying nightmare, with no hope of waking up safe in her own bed.

To survive, Maggie must not only meet her fear head on, but overcome it, so that she can stay alive long enough to be rescued or make her way back home.

Maggie’s husband, former Sheriff Wyatt Hamilton, and the town’s most notorious criminal, Bennett Boudreaux, join forces in a desperate search for Maggie.

They’re in a race against time to save her before the Gulf, her fear, or the thing she fears most takes her life.

Phyllis Wong and the Waking of the Wizard by Geoffrey McSkimming:

Phyllis Wong, that brilliant young magician and clever sleuth, is faced with a quest which began in the time of her great-grandfather, Wallace Wong, Conjuror of Wonder! He wanted to track down one of history’s greatest magicians … but does the person even exist? To find the answer, Phyllis will have to Transit across thousands of miles and hundreds of years.

While she follows the trail of the master prestidigitator, a sinister figure haunts her every step. What is the Great Whimpering, and who is the dastardly man intent on bringing it about? Can Phyllis find one of the most mysterious figures from history? Can she complete her mission in time to prevent the greatest calamity ever to befall mankind?

Another astonishing mystery starring Phyllis Wong, from the ever-scrawling pen nib of Geoffrey McSkimming.

The third Phyllis Wong: Time Detective Mystery.

Curse of the Poppy by Emily Organ

A woman dies in a burglary in Fitzrovia. A man is murdered in an opium den in Limehouse. Gutsy Fleet Street reporter Penny Green suspects the two deaths are connected, but how can she prove it?

The answer may lie in Whitehall where the India Office reaps the benefits of Britain’s opium trade. But when Inspector James Blakely of Scotland Yard begins investigating, an unforeseen danger looms.

Soon Penny is forced to act alone and is put to the ultimate test when her quest becomes personal.

The Moving Blade by Michael Pronko:

When the top American diplomat in Tokyo, Bernard Mattson, is killed, he leaves more than a lifetime of successful Japan-American negotiations. He leaves a missing manuscript, boxes of research, a lost keynote speech and a tangled web of relations.

When his alluring daughter, Jamie, returns from America wanting answers, finding only threats, Detective Hiroshi Shimizu is dragged from the safe confines of his office into the street-level realities of Pacific Rim politics.

With help from ex-sumo wrestler Sakaguchi, Hiroshi searches for the killer from back alley bars to government offices, through anti-nuke protests to military conspiracies. When two more bodies turn up, Hiroshi must choose between desire and duty, violence or procedure, before the killer silences his next victim.

THE MOVING BLADE is the second in the Tokyo-based Detective Hiroshi series by award-winning author Michael Pronko.

The Tiger Awakens by L.P. Ring:

Senior Inspector Choi only wants to keep his head down and lick his wounds after his latest investigation went horribly wrong. So when he picks up a simple home invasion angle with a ready-made prime suspect, it looks like this will be an easier day than most. Except someone wanted Young-bae Kim to suffer. And Choi can’t shake the feeling than there is more to this than a simple burglary gone wrong.

 

 

[image error] The Tequila Killings by Robert W. Stephens:

A deadly fall. A dodgy past. Can Poe uncover the truth before a match made in paradise ends in disaster?

Edgar Allan “Poe” Rutherford has the luxury of picking and choosing the cases that spark his curiosity. So when his love-struck mother-in-law demands he trail her latest squeeze, he thinks he’s wasting his time. Until a mysterious woman from the boyfriend’s past falls off his balcony to her death.

As he digs deeper, he discovers a chain of underground connections starting with a rising tide of corruption in Miami and washing up on Maui’s white sandy beaches. But Poe’s solved enough cases to know dodgy dealings don’t necessarily make the man a murderer…

With the body count climbing, can Poe protect his mother-in-law and solve the case or will a killer destroy a chance at a happy ending?

The Tequila Killings is the eighth standalone novel in a series of murder mysteries with an island state of mind. If you like charismatic private eyes, lighthearted humor, and tropical-storm-grade twists and turns, then you’ll love Robert W. Stephens’ Murder on Maui series.

You Won’t Find Him by Cyrus Winters:

It’s been 20 long years since a night of horror where Detective Jess Antler’s 10-year-old brother Billy was abducted. Despite Jess seeing the intruder face to face, neither he or her brother were ever found. After enduring a terrifying adolescence at the hands of her abusive Aunt, Jess has learnt to push away her feelings about her brother, and her drive to find him.

As everyone says, Billy’s never coming back. It’s time to move on.

However after uncovering Billy’s secret diary, Jess begins to unravel the mystery further and discovers shocking truths about her family and what Billy was really mixed up in.

False Justice by Larry A. Winters:

A powerful corporation. A legal system bought and paid for. A prosecutor willing to risk everything for justice…

In a courthouse hallway, assistant district attorney Jessica Black runs into an old law school friend. Jessie is excited to catch up with Kelly … until she realizes the lawyer is terrified.

Kelly is representing grieving parents against a large corporation whose failure to meet safety standards caused a child’s death. The company stands to lose a lot of money, and Kelly fears someone is following her, watching her, and preparing to harm her. But without an actual threat, the police won’t help. Jessie offers to talk to her friends in the police department to try to get Kelly some protection, at least temporarily.

But that night, Kelly is found dead in what looks like a random car accident.

Now, Jessie must prove Kelly’s accident was actually a murder, find the killer, and protect the grief-stricken parents from a corporation willing to do anything to silence them. But can she succeed against a corrupt judicial system, an indifferent police force, and a bloodthirsty killer? Or will her fight for justice cost her everything?

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Cora time travels to 1963 again

I’ve got another article up at Galactic Journey. This one is about The Silent Star a.k.a. First Spaceship to Venus, an East German/Polish science fiction film based on Stanislaw Lem’s novel Astronauts. So hop over there and check it out.

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