M.C.V. EGAN ❧Defining Ways❧

by  Barton A. Stewart

 

 Psychological Thriller

Date Published: 03/25/2024

Publisher:  Great Whale Books

 

 

The wedding was weeks away for two young lovers, who had counted themselves lucky to have found one another. Then, it was over, as one of them abruptly disappeared. Audrey was not abducted. Not exactly. She was not taken against her will. Rather, her will itself had been taken. Coerced and controlled. Deceived and derailed. Matthias cannot walk away from the catastrophe, though he has nothing to go on, and is in the dark beyond all personal darkness he has ever known . . .

The Contraption is a novel that deals with the challenges faced by a woman who has been recruited into a dangerous, coercive religious cult. Her fiancé is left not knowing even where she is. Her name has been changed and she has been relocated to another state. The cult, Church of the Mountain of Radiance, is an all-controlling psychological prison.

About the Author

The author, Barton A. Stewart, is a long time student of the cult phenomenon, and literary fiction. The Contraption marries together his two long time interests. Stewart has lived all over the United States, is presently single, and currently calls Metro Boston home. His book will be among the most realistic fictional depictions of the kinds of things that can happen in cases like this. Avoiding the sensationalism of so many novels on this subject, Stewart offers a look into another world, which unfortunately exists in the here and now.

 

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Horror, various subgenres

Publication Date: October 30, 2024

Publisher: Dragon Soul Press

 

 

Ghosts, demons, and more monsters.

In a world where so many dark things go bump in the night, terror awaits around every corner as these authors take horror stories to the next level. Discover ghosts, demons, and your worst nightmares. Read at your own risk.

Featuring twenty-nine stories by Joshua Williams, Stephen A. Roddewig, Joseph Hirsch, Max Blood, Paul Lonardo, Matt Spencer, S.J. Walker, Kelly Barker, Gregory Scott Matics, Gaetan Battaglia, Fred Phillips, Cassandra Jones, Barend Nieuwstraten III, Sean E. Britten, Larry Hodges, Donalee Moulton, Arlo Z. Graves, C.L. Hart, Robb T. White, Kelly Piner, Benjamin Curt Unsworth, Trixie Nisbet, Jennifer Papillo, Justin Jones, Diana Parrilla, Jared Thomason, J.M. Bengtsson, Caleb James K., and J.E. Feldman.

 

Full Cold Moon

 

Story Genre: Shifters, werewolf

 

Wolf shifter Roza Van Rompaye awakens in a basement filled with Christmas decorations with a silver manacle around her ankle. Her captor spiked her drink with silver nitrate, and now he wants her to be his mate and to turn him. Roza isn’t about to do either. She warns her captor that he will die if she is still a prisoner when the full cold moon rises.

 

 

Excerpt

 

No matter how I struggled, I couldn’t get free of the chains I was bound in.

“You’d better hope they hold when the full moon comes out, you silly shit,” I snarled.

The cadaverous young man with the watery green eyes, blemished face, and greasy disconnected fuchsia pompadour presented me with a rectangular box wrapped in metallic celadon paper.

“I don’t want presents from you,” I snapped, turning away. “If you think holding a woman captive on Christmas Eve is seduction, I guarantee you’ll die a virgin. Gavril Kuroki, president of GrassHopper Green Construction and renowned seducer of both men and women, would be horrified to learn his son was holding his favorite architectural consultant prisoner in a dungeon that looks like Santa’s elves got hammered and puked all over the walls while he tries to win her affections with cheesy lingerie. What the hell is wrong with you, Yair?”

“Roza, please, just look,” Yair insisted. He eagerly unwrapped the box, revealing a silky puce nightgown. “I’m not trying to turn you into a sexual object, and I’d never force myself on you. I know you’re not like those easy women who ride the cock carousel any chance they get. This negligee is elegant and ladylike, like you.”

“I’ll never be the fawning captive princess of your pathetic fantasies.”

“My love, it pains me to keep you prisoner, but until you accept me as your alpha, I must.”

“Being chained to a concrete wall in a windowless basement stuffed with Christmas decorations like a holiday goose full of apples and bread pains me. This plot to make me fall in love with you by forcing a full-blown English Christmas on me is insane. We’re in Cresval, South Dakota, for Krampus’ sake, not jolly old London town. I’m the thirty-five-year-old spawn of a Dutch-American agnostic farmer, not the demure daughter of flipping Bob Cratchit.”

About the Author

C. L. Hart is an editor who writes or a writer who edits. She primarily writes Lovecraftian fantasy and horror with the occasional sweet romance thrown in to upset the cosmic apple cart. This is her second year participating in the annual For the Love of Winter anthology from First Coast Romance Writers. She is a member of ACES Editing Society, The Denver Horror Collective, First Coast Romance Writers, The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, Passionate Ink (writing as Lil DeVille), Regency Romance Writers, and Rocky Mountain Romance Writers.

 

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Courts in Conflict Book 2

by Elisa Rae

Genre: Light Fantasy Romance 

 

 Someone stole Azulin’s true name and now he’s trapped in a labyrinth with a human woman to protect.

But could she be more than a hindrance? Could she be the key to his freedom?  

 

The Fortress, Book 1 

A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller

Date Published: August 29, 2023

 

 

We are the fortress, and the fortress is us.

 

Sim was a teacher in his old life. Now he’s the savior of orphans.

He isn’t their father. God knows he has already failed in that role. But he is their guide. And the kids? They are his penance. His redemption.

For three years Sim has prepared his orphans for the hard realities of life after the plague that wiped out most of the global population. Theirs is a life without laws or creature comforts. He has trained them to forage and grow their own food, to be vigilant, and to protect themselves and each other by any means necessary. In building a fortress of brick and mortar, they’ve become a fortress of flesh and blood.

These allegiances and ideals are put to the test when a man named Zagan, who believes himself to be on a mission for the devil to bring about the destruction of civilization’s remains, gathers hundreds of marauders and confronts Sim and his orphans in a merciless siege.

Will the fortress hold… Or will it collapse under the pressure of evil?

About the Author

T.A. Styles earned his B.S. in Elementary Education and Mathematics and his M.S. in Developmental Reading. He taught in elementary and junior high schools for twelve years before launching his own childcare enterprise, TSL Kids Crew, which he has operated since 2009. He has had a passion for writing stories since he was a teenager, as it was a hobby and skill for which he realized at a young age he had a knack for and loved. He has two grown children and has traveled extensively including to Iceland, Australia, Greece, Italy, South America, and many other places nationally and internationally.

 

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by Russell Rothberg

 

 Horror

Date Published: September 16, 2024

 

Try not to wonder what secret darkness your neighbors or classmates hold in their hearts for you. 

It’s about the hidden dark thoughts that we all think daily; we’re not sociopaths, but what if there was a circumstance where,. Most of us would never act on them, we’re not sociopaths, but what if there was a circumstance where through supernatural intervention, you couldn’t help but act on those hidden desires? That’s what IN DARKNESS is about, the lethality in those hidden, benign shadows that some of our thoughts live inside.

Dark thoughts, like cream, will always rise to the top at the wrong moment.

About the Author

Russell Rothberg has worked in television as a writer and Executive Producer for the Peacock series, Long Bright River, based on the bestselling novel, as well as for the Paramount+ series The Offer.  Before returning to his roots as a writer, Russell was the Executive VP of Drama Development at Universal Television, where he developed series such as Bates Motel, Chicago Fire, Shades of Blue and Emerald City.  Russell started his career as an actor-writer-director with an original play, Life After Death, at the Intar Theatre in NYC. Born and raised in New York City, Russell currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Vera. In Darkness is his first novel.

 

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The Inspiring Story of a Business You’ve Never Heard of

Business Memoir

Date Published: September 10, 2024

 

 

This is a story for the rest of us. Those who want to grow their companies but can’t find relatable inspiration, or guidance, in current business literature. It’s a story about a company that you’ve never heard of, but one that used computer algorithms to save the American taxpayer over $60 Billion in government pandemic relief fraud. And it’s about an unlikely founder who takes the risks and inspires his team to go from an idea to a nine-figure exit in less than 9 years.

In A Ten-Year Overnight Success, Pondera Solutions founder, Jon Coss, takes you with him on his journey through what he describes as the four stages of a typical startup. You’ll share his raw emotions through the “rise and fall of enthusiasm”, his months of desperation in the “desert of despair”, his tempered confidence through “wiggles of hope”, and his immense relief and sense of accomplishment marching toward the “Promised Land”.

Jon’s story-telling narrative combines soul-searching truths with self-deprecating humor to provide you with an inside look at what it takes to achieve the success that less than 1% of businesses ever will. Along the way, he offers practical, nuanced lessons that you won’t find in the typical business book. Lessons learned in the trenches. Lessons that may not make you the next Tesla but are sure to grow your business. Lessons that apply to the rest of us.

About the Author

Jon has provided strategic consulting to many of the world’s largest technology companies, a nationally recognized expert in government fraud, and an active mentor for aspiring entrepreneurs

 

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What started off as a simple book blog that posted the personal reviews of the site owner has grown into a site where authors and readers can connect. Since then, we’ve given away books, gift cards, reviews, tours, and free promotions to authors.

 

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Volume Two

Genre: A Collection of Holiday Romances

with stories by

Leah Miles, Vickey Wollan, C.L. Hart, Sara J. Walker, Erika Kilmer Freidly,

Marie Morton, Sally Ann Murphy, Elizabeth Edgar, Vanessa Victoria Kilmer

 

Warm your heart with nine enchanting tales of love.  

 

 Historical Fiction

Date Published: Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Publisher: Peanut Butter Publishing

 

 

In rural Radford, Tennessee, in the 1950s, a white family is killed in an automobile accident.

Upon hearing the news of her parents’ and grandfather’s deaths, Jessa runs away with her dog, creating problems for her town, especially for the sheriff, her parents’ friends, and the Black community that falls under suspicion. Racial distrust shapes the town’s response to Jessa’s disappearance, and as the weeks stretch out, the weather poses increasing challenges for Jessa as she shelters in a hollow tree while attempting to provide for herself and her dog, Cassie. Help appears from an unexpected source as a family mystery is revealed.

The Missing Girl and the second book, Jessa Is Back, are placed right in the midst of “the good old days” and serve as a reminder of the unabashed nature and danger of white supremacy in the 1950s. These provide us an opportunity to examine the parallels in events unfolding today

 

Also in the Series

Historical Fiction

Date Published: Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Publisher: Peanut Butter Publishing

 

Jessa is a different person when she returns to her hometown.

The integrated schools in Oregon allowed her to form a friendship with a Black girl, and now she sees the local Jim Crow practices in Tennessee with new eyes. Supported by her Oregon relatives, she becomes an advocate not only for the inclusion of music throughout the school system of Radford, but also for friendships that cross racial lines. While she becomes a gadfly to the school board, her interactions with other members of her town precipitate crises that uncover support for her position as well as staunch opposition.

In the South, and also in the rest of the country, a long road stretches from the 1950s to the present, and we must judge how well we have lived up to the vision that Jessa’s discovery of interracial friendship revealed to her.

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The Missing Girl on Amazon

Jessa is Back on Amazon

 

 

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