Word Count: 91000
Summary: She barely survived the last round. As the Red Dog Gang closes in on her Family, can she survive the next? After the devastating events of our last chapter, all private eye and mafia wife Jacqueline Spadros wants is to get her life back. Then a missing person she thought she'd never track down falls into her lap. Jacqui is thrown into a series of events which not only puts her and everyone around her into danger, but changes her life forever. Warning: on-screen murder, major consent issues, smoking, language, infidelity, betrayal, description of injury, gore, on-screen suicide, child injury This is chapter 9 of a 13-part serial novel. Please read these books in order: * The Jacq of Spades * The Queen of Diamonds * The Ace of Clubs * The King of Hearts * The Ten of Spades * The Five of Diamonds * The Two of Hearts * The Three of Spades * The Knave of Hearts <-- you are here Book 10 coming October 2023
- Horror
- Horror - New Adult
- Horror - Noir
- Horror - People of Color
- Horror - Psychological
- Horror - Young Adult
- Sci Fi
- Sci Fi - Clockpunk
- Sci Fi - Decopunk
- Sci Fi - Dystopian & Post-Apocalyptic
- Sci Fi - LGBTQ+
- Sci Fi - New Adult
- Sci Fi - People of Color
- Sci Fi - Pulp
- Sci Fi - Social
- Sci Fi - Steampunk
- Sci Fi - Young Adult
Word Count: 54000
Summary: A young magic user who wants desperately to live. A jaded recluse who has forgotten what living means. They’re each other’s only chance. Toby’s wild magic is killing him. The mage guilds have given up on him, and it’s only a matter of time before he dies in a spectacular, catastrophic bang. His only hope is an exiled wizard who lives in seclusion—and is rumored to have lost his mind. The years alone on his hilltop estate have not been good for Darius Valstad. After the magical accident that disfigured him and nearly drowned Pittsburgh, he drifts through his days, a wraith trapped in memories and depression. Until a stricken young man collapses on his driveway, one who claims Darius is his last chance. For the first time in fifteen years, Darius must make a choice—leave this wild mage to his fate or take him in and try to teach him, which may kill them both. The old Darius, brash and commanding, wouldn’t have hesitated. Darius the exile isn’t sure he can find the energy to try.
Word Count: 100000
Summary: They say, “Never work with androids or children.” Quirk had one job to do, deliver papers to a Milan mafia boss, before leaving Earth for his home in the asteroids. But that was before being tailed, poisoned—oh, yes—and hijacked into raising foulmouthed fourteen-year-old convent girl Angelika Moratti, aka Moth, who'd rather see him asphyxiate in space. Fleeing assassins, Quirk, Moth and her syRen® android S-0778 ride the space elevator to the Moon, where Quirk hires on to hunt an ex-terra-former who somehow used an android to murder his doctor. But which android of the two hundred under Lunaville’s dome? The trail of bodies grows, time is running out; the only way they can save the dome and the two thousand souls beneath it is to solve The Mandroid Murders. Genres: Science Fiction / Thriller / Mystery / Adventure / LGBT and Non Binary Market: Adult
Word Count: 106100
Summary: Faelen, cousin to the prince and son of a diplomat, has finally come home to Tournai after years away. The pull to return was almost tangible, and the sense of rightness at being back is absolute. He wants nothing more than to put down roots and build a life among family while pursuing his linguistic studies. Becoming involved in magic meant to protect Tournai isn’t part of his plans…and falling in love is even more unexpected and unfamiliar, but he finds himself doing just that as his friendship with Maxen deepens into something more. Maxen, second son of a wealthy merchant family, longs to leave Tournai and visit everywhere he can. All his life, he’s found places on maps and dreamed, planning out routes to get to them. For now, he’s tied to Tournai’s capital city by family obligations and his position in their shipping business. Someday, though, he’ll be able to travel. His sudden attraction to Faelen shocks him, but their friendship soon becomes a necessary part of his life. Love, however, has no place in his plans, especially not love for a royal cousin with secrets who wants nothing more than to stay in one place. For Faelen and Maxen to build something real between them, they must resolve their differences, but when magic goes awry and all Faelen’s secrets are revealed, will Maxen remain at his side?
Word Count: 166000
Summary: Antuniet Chazillen lost everything the night her brother was executed. In exile, she swore that treason would not be the final chapter of the Chazillen legacy in Alpennia’s history. A long- hidden book of alchemical secrets provides the first hope of success, but her return to the capital is haunted by an enemy who wants those secrets for himself. Jeanne, Vicomtesse de Cherdillac is bored. The Rotenek season is flat, her latest lover has grown tediously jealous and her usual crowd of friends fails to amuse. When Antuniet turns up on her doorstep seeking patronage for her alchemy experiments, what begins as amusement turns to interest, then something deeper. But Antuniet’s work draws danger that threatens even the crown of Alpennia. The alchemy of precious gems throws two women into a crucible of adversity, but it is the alchemy of the human heart that transforms them both in this breathtaking follow-up to the widely acclaimed Daughter of Mystery.
Word Count: 31144
Summary: Vikash Soren, the perfect police officer except for his odd paranormal ability, never seems to lose his temper. Always serene and competent, he’s taken on the role of mediator in a squad room full of misfits. But on the inside, he’s a mess. Unable to tell his police partner that he loves him, Vikash struggles silently, terrified of losing Kyle as a lover, partner and friend. But life in the 77th Precinct doesn’t leave much room for internal reflection. A confrontation with a stick-throwing tumbleweed in Fairmount Park leads to bizarre consequences involving pill bugs, statues and…time travel? If Vikash manages to survive the week and stay in one point in time, he might be able to address normal things like relationship problems. He just needs Kyle to have a little more patience. Maybe a few centuries’ worth.
Word Count: Information not available
Summary: For six lifelong friends, it was supposed to just be a simple game night. But when they break out a new, classic high-fantasy style game—half tabletop RPG, half dungeon-crawling board game, simultaneously familiar and unexplored—for a test run, they find themselves transported into the game’s setting, living the lives of their made-up characters, where the dangers, and the monsters, are deadly serious. Left with little choice but to jump headlong into their roles, Cordelia, Morgan, Jack, Eriko, Tamsin, and Tobias will have to become the heroes they were just pretending to be to stop a nightmare creature’s reign of terror… or find out if life and death in this fictional setting is as real as it seems. Ranger and cleric, barbarian and thief, bard and magician: they'll have to combine all of their new-found abilities to stop a creeping evil and to survive in this strange new world.
Word Count: 75000
Summary: She just wanted an easy case ... Private eye Jacqueline Spadros, recovering from her harrowing experiences the week prior, wants nothing more than a simple, straightforward case - preferably one the Spadros Family won't find out about. Aristocratic jewel merchant Dame Anastasia Louis, aka "The Queen of Diamonds," seems to be offering the perfect arrangement. But Jacqui can't leave the madman "Black Jack" Diamond's crimes unpunished. And the more she learns, the more she begins to believe that this particular job wasn't such a good idea after all ...
Word Count: Information not available
Summary:
Music and magic. Steampunky science. The Dissolution is coming.
Eighteen year old recluse Sam van Oen lives with his aunt, takes online college courses, works in technical support, and tries not to remember the freak storm that killed his parents ten years ago. But anxiety and reclusion bring up memories he doesn’t want. Just as Sam gathers courage to send in his application for college away from home, the temperature drops and the sun goes dim. Ice forms in August, and a portal opens in his fireplace. This time, Sam can't run. This time he's sucked in. Now Sam must survive in the flourishing capital of ten alien species, home to thousands who can change the Symphony underlying the universe and alter reality. Sam’s anxiety attacks and fear of crowds transforms the Nether into a frightening, expansive city. To find his home again, Sam must learn to control the music inside him, while devastating voids threaten to destroy the Nether and everyone he has grown to love. "Simply Put, This is a Brilliant Book. Read it Now." -Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words Blog If you're looking for an awesome ride across multiple homeworlds filled with magic, science, music, and diverse alien species, don't miss the first book in William C. Tracy's Dissolution Cycle! The Dissolution Cycle (Epic Space Opera, LGBT): Book 1: The Seeds of Dissolution Book 2: Facets of the Nether Book 3: Fall of the Imperium Book 4: Tales of the Dissolutionverse (Novella collection)
- Fantasy
- Fantasy - Heroic
- Fantasy - LGBTQ+
- Fantasy - New Adult
- Fantasy - Steampunk
- Fantasy - Weird Fantasy
- Fantasy - Young Adult
- Sci Fi
- Sci Fi - Alien Races
- Sci Fi - Aliens
- Sci Fi - First Contact
- Sci Fi - Galactic Empire
- Sci Fi - LGBTQ+
- Sci Fi - New Adult
- Sci Fi - Science Fantasy
- Sci Fi - Space Opera
- Sci Fi - Steampunk
- Sci Fi - Young Adult
Word Count: 111,309
Summary:
Word Count: 85000
Summary: The fate of Lida looms. Agetha thought her fate was sealed, pushed to the edge of the colony to die. But with the revelation that the biomass is not only intelligent, but sentient, changes to colony are accelerating, threatening its very existence. Those who were controlled by the biomass once again have free will. Now, the human colonists are raising their voices and for the first time really influencing their new home. The planet-wide consciousness is slipping into a crisis of identity, when it doesn’t even have a sense of self. The wilds surrounding the colony are becoming increasingly unstable, and the colonists find themselves divided into those who have been touched by the biomass and those who are still wholly human. Can one small colony survive its inner conflicts as well as the titanic might of an entire planet?
- Sci Fi
- Sci Fi - Alien Invasion
- Sci Fi - Aliens
- Sci Fi - Colonization
- Sci Fi - Distant Planet
- Sci Fi - Dying Earth
- Sci Fi - Dystopian & Post-Apocalyptic
- Sci Fi - First Contact
- Sci Fi - Generation Ship
- Sci Fi - Hard Sci Fi
- Sci Fi - Human Evolution
- Sci Fi - LGBTQ+
- Sci Fi - Space Exploration
- Sci Fi - Space Opera
- Sci Fi - Terraforming
Word Count: 107100
Summary:
Word Count: 75000
Summary: Be careful what you wish for … After eleven years trapped in the Spadros crime syndicate, 23-year-old private eye Jacqueline Spadros is an independent woman, free to run her investigation business. But her problems are only beginning. Deeply in debt, Jacqui is in danger from both the rogue Spadros men calling themselves “The Ten of Spades” and the ruthless Red Dog Gang — who may be one and the same. Jacqui is determined to find Black Maria, the key to the identity of the Red Dog Gang’s secretive leader. To survive long enough to do that, Jacqui needs a paying case. The one she's offered may put her in the most danger of all …
Word Count: 81000
Summary: As a private eye closes in on her city's secrets, there are those who will go to any lengths to stop her. After the horrific events of our last chapter, Jacqui's in a medical predicament. If she wants to stay free from the Spadros crime syndicate, she has to find the cure for her condition - and time's running out. But just when Jacqui thinks she's found what she's after, she finds herself instead in a much bigger - and deadlier - situation. She's getting closer to discovering what mechanisms really lie beneath the city. And the Red Dog Gang isn't the only one who wants her stopped. Warning: on-screen death, captivity, child murder, terror, blood, bad language, smoking.
Word Count: 70000
Summary: Jacqui faces her biggest mystery yet - and her greatest fear. A drive-by shooting leaves Jacqueline Spadros with little remaining support for the life she's built apart from her estranged husband Tony. As evidence grows that the Hart Family is behind the attacks, which up to now have been laid on the doorstep of the notorious Red Dog Gang, Tony brings formal charges against the Harts before the Commission. Jacqui wants to stop the Red Dog Gang and learn the truth about Charles Hart's obsession with her. But the truth is stranger than she ever imagined. And what she learns changes everything. This is chapter 7 of a 13-part future steampunk noir series. Please begin with The Jacq of Spades and read the books in order.
Word Count: 74000
Summary: 1881: The electric lights of Paris have been extinguished. The Naturalist revolution is over. Adelaide was on the losing side. Once the Royal Scientist Doctor for the now-dead cyborg monarchs of France, she's now a fugitive, hiding from the new king's Police Sécrète. Pregnant and alone, she seeks refuge in a Parisian hospital but things have changed there too. What was once a cathedral of Science is now a bastion of ignorance and superstition. The battlefield veterans whose Augmented prosthetics she once created are shunned by the new regime and come to the hospital for her help. But her nemesis, the father of her child, has returned to France and threatens to reveal her illegal activities to the authorities. Can Adelaide repair her Augmented patients without losing her freedom ... or her life? The Vitruvian Mask continues the story of Adelaide Coumain, the Roboticist of Versailles, that began in The Archimedean Heart.
Word Count: 63,000
Summary: There are vipers in Arajon, from the Valley to the Bronze. Grace Harrington, the Dowager Archon of Arajon, is approaching her first anniversary on the throne she claimed following the death of her husband, slain at her own hands. But her position is so precarious that even the unwelcome presence of the former assassin Nathaniel Morgenstern, watching over her at her father’s behest, cannot protect her from her enemies. The city’s press has turned against her, the Bronze is rallying behind Odessa White, and her last hope of support from the Druids has gone up in smoke. The lies are adding up. A coup is coming for Grace, and she is running out of people in the city to trust…
Word Count: Information not available
Summary: Forty years after landing on Lida, the colony still isn't finished. Agetha has survived many more battles than she anticipated when she first landed on her new home planet. She's older and wiser, has gained family and lost loved ones. And yet her reward for four decades of service is to be pushed to the colony’s outer edges with the other aging Generationals. But that was only the beginning of her adventure. The biomass has spent years studying the intruders who landed on its surface, carving a new home from its very essence. Never satisfied in its attempt to communicate with this new and invasive species, finally it has found a way to express its intentions. The colonists may never be the same. Discover the fate of the colony in the second book of The Biomass Conflux trilogy!
- Sci Fi
- Sci Fi - Alien Races
- Sci Fi - Aliens
- Sci Fi - Colonization
- Sci Fi - Distant Planet
- Sci Fi - Dying Earth
- Sci Fi - Dystopian & Post-Apocalyptic
- Sci Fi - First Contact
- Sci Fi - Generation Ship
- Sci Fi - Genetic Manipulation
- Sci Fi - Hard Sci Fi
- Sci Fi - Human Evolution
- Sci Fi - LGBTQ+
- Sci Fi - Space Exploration
- Sci Fi - Space Opera
- Sci Fi - Terraforming
Word Count: 118676
Summary: Once upon a time, before the hunts, dragons were plentiful in the world. Now they exist only in legend…except in the land of Ivria. Without the Dragon Talent, Sascha has long been told his only value is his ability to make the best match possible, whether as concubine or husband. He has always done what his family expects of him, cultivating grace and beauty, and when his parents make a match for him, Sascha goes without protest. He never anticipates being contractually bound to a cruel man embroiled in a plot to overthrow the king of Ivria. Or being confronted by the king himself, a man with whom Sascha is disturbed to find himself fascinated. With help from the few people he can trust absolutely, King Lysander is working carefully to uncover the members of a conspiracy to overthrow him and expose the existence of dragons to the world. Apprehending one traitor only complicates the situation further, not the least of which because of the man’s beautiful, intriguing concubine. Who may be involved in the plot and whom Lysander is immediately attracted to. As danger looms, Sascha and Lysander grow closer, but can Lysander trust Sascha with his life and heart? And can Sascha be strong enough to love the dragon king?
Word Count: 78800
Summary: Their marriage was a simple bargain. Love was not supposed to complicate things. When her reputation-obsessed family issues her an ultimatum – get married or be disinherited – Saria seizes upon what seems like a most convenient solution. She strikes a deal with a stranger – marriage and a child in exchange for freedom and security. That her bride is a sorcerer from the mysterious city of Neeth is not a problem. Or so Saria thinks. Taleysin doesn’t expect much from her second marriage. A child and heir to carry on her sworn duty to the city of Neeth, and more importantly, a wife who won’t ask too many questions. The deal with Saria seems to be everything she wants – and nothing more. She will have her heir, and Neeth will remain safe for another generation. But soon enough, their resolve over their practical decision begins to crumble. While Saria grows ever more curious about Neeth’s magical secrets, Taleysin finds herself falling for a woman who was supposed to be nothing more than a means to an end. When a mysterious assailant begins to hunt down sorcerers, Saria and Taleysin must find a way to work through this shift in their relationship – to save both their marriage and the city.
