Answers…that’s all Arabella ever wanted. Answers about how to vanquish the recurring nightmares that plague her…or where her mother came from and why she disappeared so many years ago.
To fifteen-year-old Arabella, the answers must lie in the books her mother left behind when she vanished.
But the books are written in an ancient language shrouded in mystery—the language of magic. And in the conquered land of Atruria, magic is forbidden.
Instead of answers, the books offer only more questions—and a death sentence when her brother discovers her secret.
Arabella is resigned to her fate, until late one night her cell door bursts open.
For though magic has been forbidden in Atruria…it has not been forgotten.
Author’s Biography
T. M. Becker, called Steph by her friends and family, is the author of the young adult fantasy, Full Moon Rising. Always a fan of second breakfasts, hobbits, and Grimm’s fairytales, she spent her childhood afternoons buried in a book or acting out scenes from her imagination in the woods beside her house. In high school, she discovered a passion for theatre and even began a recording of The Hobbit for her younger siblings, complete with different voices for each character.
She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and nine children in a log house full of books, soccer gear, and perpetually mismatched socks.
One of her favorite things about writing is how a single image or idea can blossom into an entire series. In her spare time, (what is that?!) she enjoys teaching, cooking, trail running, and watching her sons and daughters play soccer.
Welcome to England’s beautiful Lake District, where a reluctant reunion forges a new bond between a daughter and her wayward mother….
Abby Rhodes is just starting to get her life on track. After her fiancé’s unexpected death, she returned with her young son to the small village where she grew up and threw herself into helping her ailing grandmother run the town’s beach café. Then one evening, her mother, Laura, shows up in Hartley-by-the-Sea and announces her plan to stay. After twenty years away, she now wants to focus on the future—and has no intention, it seems, of revisiting the painful past.
Laura Rhodes has made a lot of mistakes, and many of them concern her daughter. But as Abby gets little glimpses into her mother’s life, she begins to realize there are depths to Laura she never knew. Slowly, Abby and Laura start making tentative steps toward each other, only to have life become even more complicated when an unexpected tragedy arises. Together, the two women will discover truths both sad and surprising that draw them closer to a new understanding of what it means to truly forgive someone you love.
About the Author:
Kate Hewitt is the author of over 50 novels of romance and women’s fiction. A former diehard New Yorker and American ex-pat, she now lives in a small market town in Wales with her husband and five children. She loves telling an emotionally compelling story whatever the genre. Learn more about her at kate-hewitt.com.
Trading the urban pace of Edinburgh for a tiny village overlooking a breathtaking blue loch was a great move for budding photographer Sylvie Carmichael and her artist husband, Seamus—until a dangerous crime obscures the view . . .
Sylvie’s bucolic life along the heather-covered moors of the Highlands is a world away from the hectic energy of the city. But then a London buyer is killed after purchasing a long-lost Scottish masterpiece from Seamus’s gallery—and the painting vanishes. As suspicion clouds their new life, and their relationship, Sylvie’s search for answers plunges her into an unsolved mystery dating back to Cromwellian Scotland through World War I and beyond. And as she moves closer to the truth, Sylvie is targeted by a murderer who’s after a treasure within a treasure that could rewrite history . . . and her own future.
Release Date: September 5, 2017 Available for pre-order now! Links to purchase listed below.
About the Author
Amy M. Reade is a cook, chauffeur, household CEO, doctor, laundress, maid, psychiatrist, warden, seer, teacher, and pet whisperer. In other words, a wife, mother, and recovering attorney. But she also writes (how could she not write with that last name?) and is the author of The Malice Series (The House on Candlewick Lane, Highland Peril, and Murder in Thistlecross) and three standalone books, Secrets of Hallstead House, The Ghosts of Peppernell Manor, and House of the Hanging Jade. She lives in southern New Jersey but loves to travel. Her favorite places to visit are Scotland and Hawaii and when she can’t travel she loves to read books set in far-flung locations.
Announcing the Launch of
Murder at the Bijou — Three Ingredients I
Introducing the second “three things” serial, in novel form — Murder at the Bijou — ThreeIngredients I.
Yes, that’s the cover. (I love making covers!) I kept it similar to the one for the first serial,The Three Things Serial Story, but with different 1920s photos.
For those of you who are not familiar with my blog serials…
Ages ago I developed a writing exercise. I asked friends to give me three completely random things. Then I would write until I had mentioned all the things. I brought that exercise to my blog (Teagan’s Books), but I had the readers send me their things. I let the random things drive every detail of a serial story, setting, plot, and characters. That resulted in The Three Things Serial Story, which gave birth to this culinary mystery. However, this time the “things” are food related — or ingredients.
About the Book
As with the first serial,Murder at the Bijou — Three Ingredients Iis a spontaneously written, pantser story. I wrote by the seat of my pants and let the “ingredients” readers sent each week drive a new serial story. This is the “bookized” version of that serial.
This time the Jazz Age setting is Savannah, Georgia where our flapper, Pip, is “sentenced” to live with her grandmother and learn to cook. Pip gets caught up in a layered mystery that includes bootleggers, G-men, and the varied challenges of being a young woman in changing times. She meets new friends, including some animal characters.
If you have not read The Three Things Serial Story, be warned. This adventure contains a bit of a spoiler, but does not go into detail about it.
Murder at the Bijou — Three Ingredients I is available through and Amazon and Create Space. If you don’t have a Kindle, Amazon also offers a free app that will let you read Kindle books on your computer or other device. The purchase links are below. But first, here’s a snippet.
In my imagination, a young Lucille Ball would play Pip.
Excerpt
Rutabaga Limbo
Either I woke up feeling horribly nauseated, or the queasiness woke me. I’m not sure which. I opened my eyes to complete darkness. There was no light, no sound. The way my stomach tossed reminded me of a small boat on the ocean. It was as if I sailed in a lightless limbo.
Oh… that was a bad train of thought to have with an unsettled belly.
Think of something else! Anything else, I told myself.
I stood unsteadily. The sound of a cricket came to me. Good. The utter silence had been very disturbing. I became aware of the cool moist earth beneath my palms.
Where the Sam Hill was I?
I sat back on my heels, focusing all my senses. My eyes might as well have been closed — it was that dark. Bare ground was beneath me. The air had a musty odor. A sickly sweet scent clung to my bobbed hair.
The cricket’s chirping was the only sound. Still sitting, I turned. My eyes widened and strained, trying to see in that heavy darkness. When I looked up I was rewarded with the sight of a thin line of pink light.
The faint glow allowed me to see vague outlines a few feet away. I stumbled over something and stooped down to let my hands figure out what it was. I felt a burlap bag and round lumps. Rutabagas? I felt around and found another bag. That one felt like potatoes. I moved closer to the wall and a tall shape. Yes, a ladder, my questing hands confirmed for my still foggy brain.
Gazing up at the line of pinkish light I realized I was in a root cellar.
Teagan Ríordáin Geneviene, a southerner by birth, was “enchanted” by the desert southwest of the USA when she moved there. Now a resident of a major east coast city, she longs to return to those enchanting lands.
Teagan had always devoured fantasy novels of every type. Then one day there was no new book readily at hand for reading — so she decided to write one. And she hasn’t stopped writing since.
Her work is colored by her experiences in both the southern states and the southwest. Teagan most often writes in the fantasy genre, but she also writes 1920s stories and Steampunk. Her blog “Teagan’s Books” contains serial stories written according to “things” from viewers.
Sarah, a student at Northwestern University Law School, returns to her apartment after a trying day to find two telephone messages. The first informs her that she has not been chosen for a coveted summer internship, a position for which her father had arranged an interview. The second is from her mother, with the news that Sarah’s best friend in high school, JoBeth Ruland has murdered her own son and daughter. To mislead her father about her failure to be chosen as a recipient of the internship, Sarah decides to secure a position on JoBeth’s defense team. Against her father’s vehement protest, she leaves Evanston, Illinois at the end of the term and returns to Eight Mile Junction, South Carolina, a small town in the Appalachian foothills, determined to convince him that the experience will contribute to her future.
To make the best of the situation, Sarah sets out to become a vital member of the defense team and to regain favor with her father. But she is not well-prepared for the shock of leaving her sheltered academic life and working in a community rife with chauvinism, malice, and betrayal. Her struggle is met with the benevolent amusement of the senior law partner, John-Two who, despite her objection, insists on calling her “Little Lady.” The criminal trial expert on the team, Al, a tense, disciplined young attorney, resents the intrusion of what he believes to be a know-nothing law student, and treats Sarah as if she is incompetent. The folks of Eight Mile Junction close ranks in the face of Sarah’s inquiries, hiding the town’s complicity in JoBeth’s degradation from the eyes of “outsiders” by finding her guilty before the trial begins. And finally, her father, on whose judgment Sarah has relied her entire life, rejects her efforts to placate his ill-humored response to her decision that summer.
In the end, Sarah discovers the underlying issues that precipitated her friend’s murderous act. Through interviews with JoBeth, her mother, her former lover, and her work associates, her ex-husband’s mistress as well as the testimony given during the trial, the horrifying events that shaped JoBeth’s life are revealed, helping Sarah understand how a person can be driven to extremes that defy ordinary reasoning. Sarah and her friend, it is the betrayal by those they love and believe in that changes their lives forever. Ultimately, it means disgrace and imprisonment for JoBeth. But for Sarah, who decides against returning to law school, it is the beginning of a life in which she, not her father, manages her future.
Meet the Author
Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, Dorothy M. Place now lives and writes in Davis, California. A principle investigator of a research group at Sacramento State College, she began creative writing, first as a hobby then as a second career, ten years ago. Since 2005, ten of her short stories have been published in literary journals and magazines, two of which were selected for prizes. At present, she is putting together her first collection of short stories, Living on the Edge, and working on her second novel, The Search for Yetta
THE HEART TO KILL is a novel about love, murder, and small-town politics. Sarah, a second-year law student, returns home to serve on the team defending her high school girlfriend who has murdered her two children. The story is an immersive dive into the human psyche, peeling back layers of deceit and shame until the unvarnished and terrifying truth is revealed. Titan Book Awards gave this novel a gold, the San Francisco Book Review gave it five stars, and Train of Thoughts book reviews named Sarah one of the five best heroines of 2016. To read about the book, learn how it came to be written, and to take a virtual tour of Eight Mile Junction, the town in which the story takes place, please visit the author’s website www.dorothymplace.com. To order the book from Texas A&M Press and take advantage of the 30% discount they are offering, click on this link: www.tamupress.com/Basket/ShoppingCart.aspx. The discount code is 3B.
Sarah Keller is convinced that her Mr. Right is stuck in traffic…in another country…on another planet. ‘Thirty-one and still single’ isn’t how she wants to be introduced by her dad. That’s why she’s on five dating websites, posing as anything from an avid gardener to a crazed thrill seeker.
Sam Turner is a single dad, workaholic, who owns his own company. Long-term relationships have never worked out for him. That’s why he needs a nanny.
When a mutual friend suggests Sarah take the job temporarily, everything changes for them both. Sarah begins falling for the man who meets almost none of her online criteria. And when strange things start happening—things that jeopardize the safety of Sarah, Sam is the last person she would imagine is hiding something.
Julieann lives in Virginia, yet longs to live everywhere else. It doesn’t come as a surprise that along with her gypsy soul, comes an active imagination. That’s why she loves to write and invent worlds and people, so that she can formulate their happily ever after. Hobbies include cooking new recipes, sewing, and spending time with her cute boyfriend/husband and five fabulous children. Vacations happen in Nantucket or the Carolina beaches—anywhere there is inspiration for her next book. One day she hopes to travel to Italy, drive one of those little cars around the countryside, and speak the language fluently!
Check out Janice Spina’s blog post for summer reading tips for the children in your life.
Pre-School – Grade 3 – Written in rhyme with life lessons – stories encourage children to behave, to respect others differences, to listen to your mother, show kindness to others, it’s okay to be different, love one another, be kind to animals, family and friends are important. Purchase links: Amazon Author Page for all Jemsbooks Barnes […]
John Howell is an amazing writer and blogging friend. Not only does he write thrillers, but he is a fabulous photographer (see his posts – Views of the Neighborhood) and writes hilarious fiction posts (see his 10 Things Not to Do posts). His Thursday posts are titled A Little Personal and his Wednesday Story Day – AKA – Hump Day posts are sure to entertain. Check out his blog and discover these posts and others. You can find him over at Fiction Favorites.
John has just re-launched the first book in the John Cannon trilogy,My GRL.
The cover is new and the book edited once again to enhance the experience. What is really nice is the price has been cut for the introduction. You can buy the kindle version for a special introduction price of
$0.99
Here’s the blurb.
John J. Cannon successful San Francisco lawyer takes a well-deserved leave of absence from the firm and buys a boat he names My GRL. He is unaware that his newly purchased boat had already been targeted by a terrorist group. John’s first inkling of a problem is when he wakes up in the hospital where he learns he was found unconscious next to the dead body of the young woman who sold him the boat in the first place. John now stands between the terrorists and the success of their mission.
Check them out and read the first few pages on Amazon.
Also, you can check out John Cannon’s other two adventures, as well as, the new My GRL at John W. Howell’s Author Page
Author Bio
John began his writing as a full-time occupation after an extensive business career. His specialty is thriller fiction novels, but John also writes poetry and short stories. His first book, My GRL, introduces the exciting adventures of the book’s central character, John J. Cannon. The second Cannon novel, His Revenge, continues the adventure, while the final book in the trilogy, Our Justice, launched in September 2016. All books are available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.
John lives in Port Aransas, Texas with his wife and their spoiled rescue pets.
Book Blurb
