An escape from a life of abuse and hardship in the form of a ticket on a
ship set for Honeycomb. Taken from a dead woman’s purse, it’s a one
way ticket to a new pristine planet, to heaven.

Will she be able to pull it off and get out alive?

Or will two rabid cops, a zombie AI and a level full of monsters in
her way keep her escaping?

And what about that bio-engineered murderer dogging her steps. He wants out
as bad as she does!

Reclusive writer from the Pacific Northwest.

Hates peanut butter loves Mojitos (sin alcohol, por favor). Sometimes found around 60 feet (ca. 18 m) underwater in the Puget Sound or at about the same depth in the blue and clear waters of Cozumel hovering over a coral reef and hoping to see a shark or a large majestic green turtle.

“I love thinking of the intersection of new science and horror, the future haunted houses could be space stations or our own scientifically enhanced and hacked bodies,”

 

The Stories We Live

“A Divided Mind” started with a phone call. It was the day before a major college kickoff event I had helped plan for more than a year. I was crazily finalizing last-minute details when my son, Kyle, called saying he needed to talk. I still remember my exasperation from being bothered at work. What? What could it be now? With four children to support, I was finally getting my boots on the ground as an adjunct professor. My placement on the planning committee was a huge step forward in my career. An interruption at work meant a disruption in what I was trying to build.

When I pressed Kyle for an answer, he started to back away from the conversation. That’s when I knew. I knew it was more than a phone call. And suddenly, I couldn’t breathe or stop my mind from racing – pregnant girlfriend, drugs, failing a class? What I heard in reply wasn’t at all what I expected.

“I’m hearing voices.”

I didn’t understand what was happening to my son. I only knew I wanted it to go away. The campus event no longer mattered. In trying to build “something,” I let what truly matters – family, children, home life – break down. As I sat in the waiting room at the counseling center while my son saw an emergency intake specialist, my only focus was on my little boy. At, 6’1 my 18-year-old was far from little. He was my gentle giant, my brave heart. Together we navigated the world of mental health without any clue what was ahead. During this time, the journalist in me surfaced. I asked a lot of questions, which I wasn’t always sure I wanted to know the answer.

By delving into the darkness, Kyle shared with me demons I never knew he battled. It was heartbreaking and heroic. The story we lived became the story we told – with a twist. What started out as a quest for answers, turned into a fictionalized, chilling story of what could happen if a divided mind was left untreated.

The book wrote itself. Yet, the manuscript for, “A Divided Mind” stayed on my desktop for four years. Kyle wanted the book published the minute we finished, but I wasn’t as brave.

It’s taken me four years to allow this story to be released into the world. I wasn’t about to just place it in anyone’s hands. Every member of the publishing team at Tangled Tree is family to me and my son. They get it. I have been included and have had a voice in every aspect of this process.

So when I considered authors I’d approach for a cover quote, I was equally as selective. Two authors, whose work I have long admired and have met personally, which only heightened my respect for them, topped my wish list.

I knew it was a big ask. But it was one I was willing to make.

Tiffany Reisz and Nina McConigley answered my request with kindness, heart, and professionalism. It’s more than I asked for and nothing short of awesome.

The first person I shared their generous endorsement quotes with was Kyle, who texted back, “Hell yeah!”

Four years later, my son is set to graduate from the University of Wyoming in May. I’ve never known anyone who has worked harder for their future than Kyle. In July, “A Divided Mind,” the story we wrote during the darkest period in our lives will take flight.

I’ll let Tiffany and Nina’s advanced praise do the rest of the talking.

 

“A Divided Mind is a raw emotional drama about a mother’s worst nightmare… A gripping page-turner, I couldn’t put it down until I read the final gasp-inducing line.”

—Tiffany Reisz, USA Today Bestselling Author

 

“This tightly crafted thriller tricks you – it carefully assembles everything you think you know, and then reveals what you didn’t see coming. Taut and deftly rendered, Billiter delivers a smart, searing novel. This well-paced story skillfully shows a mother’s love and the levels we will go to protect our families. The narrators keeping you reading, and questioning everything we hold true in our own minds. This book is an uncompromising view of the bond between mother and child, and the stories we tell each other in order to survive.”

— Nina McConigley, author of Cowboys and East Indians, winner of the PEN Open Book Award

 

www.mbilliter.com

 

A hundred years ago, it was the Trial of the Century. A young woman
stood accused of brutally murdering her father and stepmother in a
crime so heinous that it became a benchmark in human tragedy.

A hundred years later, the Lizzie Borden case still resounds in the
imagination. There are those who staunchly defend Lizzie’s
innocence while others vehemently declare that she did it, and that
the murder was justified.

In Elizabeth Engstrom’s brilliant novel, the dark psychology of the
Borden household is laid bare. Lizzie, her sister Emma and their
parents Andrew and Abby Borden, are sharply illuminated—as are the
paranoia and concealed hatred that secretly ruled the family.
Domestic violence and dysfunctional families are not inventions of
modern times.

After eight years on Oahu, she moved to Maui, found a business partner and
opened an advertising agency. One husband, two children and five
years later, she sold the agency to her partner and had enough seed
money to try her hand at full time fiction writing, her lifelong
dream. With the help of her mentor, science fiction great Theodore
Sturgeon, When Darkness Loves Us was published.

Engstrom moved to Eugene, Oregon in 1986, where she lives with her husband Al
Cratty, the legendary muskie fisherman, and their Duck Tolling
Retriever, Jook. Liz holds a BA in English Literature and Creative
Writing and a Master of Arts in Applied Theology, both from
Marylhurst University. A recluse at heart, she still emerges into
public occasionally to speak at a writers conference, or to teach a
class on various aspects of writing the novel, essay, article or
short story. An avid knitter and gardener, she is on faculty at the
University of Phoenix and is always working on the next book.

Because anger and vengeance know no bounds and like everyone in the blighted
town they become pawns in a game of retribution.

The contestants become nothing more than live entertainment to viewers
who watch and judge their every move in the town of Prideful as they
race each other to arrive alive to a final flag. The team that makes
will get airlifted out alive and go back home richer for it, the
others walk back to a pittance and if they are not careful. They
won’t get out at all.

I am grateful that I have this opportunity to share my work and
imagination with you. Growing up my head was always stuck in a book
or a comic book (before they got fancy and got the moniker “graphic novels”).

More often than not those books were filled with monsters, werewolves and
vampires.

Then the likes of Godzilla showed up along with their brethren, born from
the very justified fear of the atomic bomb and its consequences.

And that is what I love. Escaping into worlds of monsters and heroes, and
sometimes they are one and the same!

Letting my imagination run along and bring into the narrative what I see
around me everyday.

I hope that you will enjoy my stories. Find in them a temporary and
enjoyable escape of your own.

Misroth’s king has died, and the entire kingdom is in mourning–or so it seems.
After her father is crowned regent in his brother’s stead, Princess
Halia discovers a terrible truth that could end her life. But when
she flees to live in hiding, she discovers that the Royal Guard are
not all she has to fear. Dark creatures stalk her, reports of
oppression and war reach her ears, and her burden to protect her
kingdom–at any cost–will not be silenced.

Lovers of fantasy adventures such as Throne of Glass, An
Ember in the Ashes, and The Remnant Chronicles won’t
want to miss this exciting new series. Filled with heart-pounding
action and thrilling courage, supernatural powers and nightmarish
monsters, readers have trouble putting this book down. Start your
adventure today!

Halia’s fight for her kingdom is only beginning. With Misroth’s rightful king
in danger, Halia is forced to trust her enemy and embark on a
dangerous journey into Toryn to find her cousin. But Toryn is in
ruins, its people plagued by terrors and fighting for survival. As
death stalks them all, Halia must face the darkness in her past and
her deepest fears, until at last she is faced with one terrible
question: How much is she willing to lose?

Lovers of fantasy adventures such as Throne
of Glass, An Ember in the Ashes, and The Remnant Chronicles won’t
want to miss this exciting new series. Filled with heart-pounding
action and thrilling courage, supernatural powers and nightmarish
monsters, readers have trouble putting this book down.

The Witches Protection Program.

His first assignment: uncover a billion-dollar cosmetics company’s
diabolical plan to use witchcraft for global domination, while
protecting its heiress Morgan Pendragon from her aunt’s evil deeds.
Reluctantly paired with veteran witch protector, Alastair Verne, Wes
must learn to believe in witches…and believe in himself.

Filled with adventure and suspense, Michael Okon creates a rousing,
tongue-in-cheek alternate reality where witches cast spells and wreak
havoc in modern-day New York City.

Aeryn Sandman knows the true cause, though. She is a junior agent with the
DREAM Institute, a secret organization tasked with protecting the

world’s population while they sleep, and she’s on her first assignment.

Her mission: infiltrate Nolan’s life—and his dreams—and keep him
safe, all while persuading him to join their protective force.

But recruitment missions are no walk in the park, and Aeryn’s goes
horribly wrong when Nolan’s powers unwittingly unleash two dream
creatures locked away in a restricted area of the dream world. While
Aeryn and Nolan search for ways to contain the escaped beings, they
uncover a much greater conspiracy.

For these dreams can kill, and someone is orchestrating their actions in
the dream world. If Aeryn and Nolan can’t figure out who is behind
it, no dreamer will be safe, and neither will the organization that
defends them.