Author: mariacatalinaegan

By Derra Nicole Sabo

Genre: Biography

How do you dream? Are your dreams in color or black n’ white? Do they feel surreal or all too real?

Well, I’d like to introduce you to my little slice of bittersweet. These subconscious woods hold every fear and my anxieties masked are as wolves. Nightmares that play on a loop for weeks, even months at a time. Symptoms of waking in cold sweats and shaking. The only moments of peace are found in the sporadically studded dreams that happen every now and again. These woods house every past demon as well as certain past versions of who I once was. This place is worse than death, yet it inspires. So…

…Before my alarm clock goes off, before I take the last train out of here, I take one last glance back, one last glance at all of the Polaroids pinned to every tree branch, polaroids of every dream and nightmare that have stolen my nights since ’95…

These dreams…these woods…this place…it’s my upside down…

This is my Slumberland…

Reviews:

“I enjoyed ‘Slumberland.’ It is a poetic, dark, abstract look into Derra Nicole Sabo’s dreams. I was reminded of many odd and repetitious dreams.

I really liked Sabo detailing how the unfamiliar and the familiar can offer both comfort and terror to the dreamer. I’ve always known the fact, but had never thought about it in those terms before…”

“I enjoyed weaving through every retelling of the author’s remembrance of her dreams and nightmares. How she explains their importance through reflection of them is an eye-opener too…”ﾟﾟ

“there was something about Slumberland that resonated with me. It is, in essence, a collection of short dream stories that are weaved together in an inexplicable way. The author goes kind of dark, but her phrasing is beautiful. It is abstract and poetic…”

(the little widgets after the reviews are supposed to be butterflies…if you can get them to be them? lol)

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My name is Derra Sabo…I am California born and raised. I spend my days writing, sipping on coffee and listening to music. When I’m not busy typing away, I love spending time with my family and friends. Days spent at the beach ended by burgers at In-N-Out. Growing up I wanted to become a fashion designer/ drummer, but somewhere along the way writing grabbed ahold of me and I’ve never looked back. Over the years writing has aided in healing from my past. Being born and living with a rare disorder led to being bullied throughout life as well as surgeries growing up. Writing and music are my sanity.

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Dare to Cross the Threshold …

Ravencrest Manor is the most beautiful thing new governess, Belinda Moorland, has ever seen, but as she learns more about its tangled past of romance and terror, she realizes that beauty has a dark side. Ravencrest is built on secrets, and its inhabitants seem to be keeping plenty of their own – from the handsome English butler, Grant Phister, to the power-mad administrator, Mrs. Heller, to Eric Manning himself, who watches her with dark, fathomless eyes. But Belinda soon realizes that the living who dwell in Ravencrest have nothing on the other inhabitants – the ones who walk the darkened halls by night … the ones who enter her dreams … the ones who are watching … and waiting …

Welcome to Ravencrest …

Who is the man digging in the garden beyond Belinda’s bedroom window? Who – or what – is watching her from the vents? From ghostly screams and the clutching bony fingers of death in the indoor pool, to the trio of gliding nuns in the east wing who come at Belinda with black blazing eyes, to the beckoning little girl in the red dress who died more than two centuries ago, Belinda is thrust into a world of waking nightmares where there is no distinction between the living and the dead, and there are no limits to the horrors that await. Witchcraft is afoot at Ravencrest and as unspeakable terrors begin to unfold, Belinda realizes that her beautiful new home is a keeper of tragedy, a collector of souls. And it wants to add her to its collection …

Dark and Unnatural Powers

In a remote part of California just above the coastal town of Devilswood, Ravencrest Manor, imported stone-by-stone from England more than two centuries ago, looms tall and terrifying, gathering its dark and unnatural powers, and drawing those it wants as its own.

Murder Lurks in the Shadows

Governess Belinda Moorland has settled into life at Ravencrest and, as summer gives way to autumn, romance is in the air. She and multi-millionaire Eric Manning are falling in love … but powerful forces will stop at nothing to keep them apart. And as the annual Harvest Ball is set to begin, evil abounds at Ravencrest. Murder lurks in the shadows, evil spirits freely roam the halls, a phantom baby cries, signaling a death in the mansion, and in the notoriously haunted east wing, three blood-soaked nuns, Sisters Faith, Hope, and Charity, tend to the demented needs of a maid gone mad.

Vengeful Spirits

Ravencrest has come to life. In the gardens below, granite statues dance by moonlight, and a scarecrow goes on a killing rampage, collecting a gruesome assortment of body parts from unwilling donors … But Belinda’s greatest danger is the vengeful spirit of Rebecca Dane. Once the mistress of Ravencrest, Rebecca Dane has a centuries-old ax to grind with the powerful witch, Cordelia Heller – and Belinda becomes her weapon of choice.

The Jazz Age

In the 1920s, Henry Manning ruled Ravencrest with an iron fist. He held debauched parties that would have inspired Jay Gatsby himself. From the Manning fortune to a beautiful wife, the silent film star known as the White Violet, Henry had it all … including a loyal cult that worshipped the demon Forneus.

Deal with the Devil

Violet lost her life putting a stop to the demented perversions that Henry and his demonic familiar visited upon Ravencrest … but now that evil has returned.

The Soulless Child

In the night, an innocent maid is seduced by a demon lover. A child is born, but it is not of this earth. Father Antonio DeVargas is summoned as ghostly parties light up the old poolhouse and phantom screams rip open the night. Meanwhile, the White Violet wanders the

halls of Ravencrest warning the inhabitants of death and disaster to come.

And the current master of Ravencrest, Eric Manning, is decidedly not himself.

Midnight. The witching hour. Watery echoes in an empty building. The grand Greek Pool at Ravencrest Manor babbles and gurgles as chlorine-scented water flows like cool blood in veins and arteries. The moon, full and high above the arched glass ceiling, shines its light into the cobalt pool, casting splintered rays across the water.

A spring and thunk from the tall diving board, then somehow, water explodes into the air. The sound ebbs and flows with movement.

But if no human ear is present to hear it, no eye to see it, can these things be real? Or are they merely tricks of light and sound, magic courtesy of Mother Nature?

Soft golden lamps flicker to life. And then, music, faint but unmistakable, rises and echoes. Eddie Cantor. If You Knew Susie Like I Know Susie.

Laughter. The sounds of a party, of voices, of champagne glasses clinking.

Then something white and serpentine slithers and stirs beneath the water like glistening cold silk, there and gone again in an instant.

Tamara Thorne’s first novel was published in 1991, and since then she has written many more, including international bestsellers Haunted, Bad Things, Moonfall, Eternity and The Sorority. A lifelong lover of ghost stories, she is currently working on several collaborations with Alistair Cross as well as an upcoming solo novel. Learn more about her at: http://tamarathorne.com

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by Beena Khan

Genre: Contemporary Romance, Literary Fiction

Two strangers on the same path.

Survivors. Companions.

They will be each other’s salvation.

On a rainy, winter night, a mysterious woman in a red dress seeking shelter comes inside the restaurant Kabir was busy working in —primarily the bar— and night after night, drink after drink, she comes back to the same spot. That is where he sees her for the first time.

Hundreds of patrons around her try to speak with her daily, but she dismisses them. It appears she wants to remain in a blissful peace alone with her booze and books. After seeing the mysterious woman reading a book, and because of his shy nature, Kabir gains entrance into her life by anonymously leaving books with notes for her.

The Name of Red is the story of two strangers, two different personalities who meet on a winter, rainy night who challenge each other. They have a connection which blossoms into a friendship due to their fondness of books. But they both have secrets that can bind them together or threaten their newfound relationship forever.

This can be read as a standalone book.

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Beena Khan is a literary fiction noveliest and poetess. She writes edgy, contemporary romance. She lives in a suburb in Queens, New York in her apartment. She is 27 years old from Azad Kashmir, Pakistan. She is an immigrant who moved to New York when she was five years old. She currently holds a Masters Degree in Developmental Psychology from Cuny School of Professional Sciences. She enjoys reading, writing, and netflixing. This is her debut novel, the duet novel, The Weight on Skin releases on July 15 2020.

Her website is www.beenakhan.com. Sign up for her newsletter where you can subscribe for book news, writing tips, upcoming releases, and exclusive content!

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by C.C. Scharon

Genre: Suspense, Thriller

A deathbed promise—a secret kept for decades…

Everything about DEA Agent Jake Castillo’s life is a lie and he doesn’t know it. Seeing two fellow agents killed right before his eyes has left him with PTSD and a thirst for revenge on the drug lord who murdered them. He vows to bring El Toro to justice.

When the enigmatic Gabriella abducts him, Jake wakes up a week later in his San Diego home with no memory of what happened. Convinced his kidnapping was not a random act, he ignores department policy and returns to Colombia to unravel the secrets of his past.

But can he live with the truth?

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A fan of dark and dangerous medieval Scotland, Connie C. Scharon published her first Scottish historical romance in June of 2013. The success of that book led to eight other romance novels, but Connie wanted to mix things up a little.

Her medical background gave her a desire to create stories that wove her hospital experiences, visits to the morgue, and tours of the forensic lab into crime-focused novels.

In 2020, writing as C. C. Scharon, she transitioned from her romance roots into mystery and suspense with the international thriller BLOOD NEVER WASHES OUT.

Connie is a life-long resident of Maryland. She belongs to multiple professional organizations, including Pennwriters, Romance Writers of American, and Maryland Writers Association.

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I was born to hunt. I was born to protect.

But this is the one creature I wasn’t trained to kill.

The fae are sneaking into our little town. They stole my sister. They stole my sight. And now they’re going to steal everything else … unless I stop them. Isn’t that so charming?

I don’t care that they’re pretty. I don’t care that to them lies are truth, power is sustenance, and every action ripples into violence. I’m not going to let their glamor fool me. I’m going to use it to fuel me as I bring them down.

But the town is turning against me, and I’m losing allies one by one. I need a secret weapon to use against them and I need to be brave enough to use it … whatever the cost.

Can one mortal girl stop all of the Faewald?

I’m going to have to try.

Allie Hunter thought all she had to do was make an exchange to buy back her father’s life. She was wrong. Mortals are so often wrong about the Faewald. Usually, that kills them, or mires them in bargains that will suck their life out sip by sip.

With Allie caught in a cage and the Fae she had once tormented her new captor, can she strike the right bargain to save everything she loves?

But though the town she left has changed, some things – the worst things – remain exactly the same.

As Allie battles conflicting loyalties, the censure of the town, and her own broken family, she begins to realize that she might be the only one standing in the way of a war between fae and mortals.

Can she possibly craft a trap good enough to stop the coming fae army?

Allie thought she was saving her own mortality and stopping the Fae incursion when she killed the Balance – one of four Fae roles – and took a particularly essential Fae as her captive.

But Allie didn’t think through the consequences. Now, she has one of the four roles of the Faewald. A role she must fulfill by force of magic.

Worse, the Blood Moon has risen in the Faewald and that means it is the time of the Wild Hunt.

Can Allie find a way to save her people while fleeing the Wild Hunt and fighting against a magic that seeks to control her?

It’s still just one mortal girl against the Faewald, but now the stakes couldn’t be higher.

Allie had an army, allies, and a plan, but with all of those things slipping through here fingers she is being driven further and further toward a path she hadn’t planned to take and a choice she didn’t want to make.

How selfless is Allie, really? Would she give her own life to save her people … and her new husband?

Or will she have to carve out another way forward? And what might that way cost her?

Cowbird Creek has its share of troubled souls. For Tom, a farmer’s son, losing his leg felt like losing his future. Jenny, a young prostitute at Madam Mamie’s parlor house, has never thought she had much future to lose.

But the job Tom is able to get leads him to rediscover a long neglected talent. And both Tom and Jenny have a knack for hitting on new possibilities. Can they, together, find a better path?

This novel, second in a series, returns to the small town of Cowbird Creek, Nebraska, in early 1876, a few months after the conclusion of What Heals the Heart. Several favorite characters from Book 1 make return appearances.

“Truly a romantic tale . . . . Wonderful characters, many with hearts of gold, small-minded characters that truly showed their ignorance and dreams that couldn’t be broken . . . from an author who lets her words feed our imaginations.” – Tome Tender review

“Magnificent story . . . a remarkable historical romance . . . great chemistry between the characters . . . It is always a joy to read this author’s stories.” – Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews