Listen Inside - Daily book previews from Readers in the Know by Simon Denman

Synopsis

The Sangre de Cristo Mountains, The Blood of Christ, provide the backdrop for Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves, a tale of murder, revenge and redemption. Jack Sloan, businessman, gambler, casino operator, and tough guy is trapped by two con artists and kills them to escape.  Three years later, he’s built a new life with his new love, Darlene, but knows payback is on the way. It comes in the shape of two hard cases bent on avenging their partners’ deaths. The beautiful Mattie is the brains behind the crew, while Irvine, a psychotic who wields a knife, plays her main muscle.

The two track down Jack and plot their attack. Jack and his enemies weigh the risks of confrontation and then prepare for the battle of their lives. But no matter how carefully they plan, it’s still a crapshoot, and the outcome is in doubt until the end.

Excerpt

Rain pelted my thin tee shirt.  It chilled me through in five heartbeats.  No sense in trying the fancy Leica field glasses.  Water dripped from my eyes and obscured the lenses.  The storm surprised me.  Nothing to do except hunker down and pull my hat over my ears.  

I could make out my rancho without binoculars.  The arroyo behind the barn roared with runoff.  Twenty-six acres looked small from here, marked off by the barbed wire and coyote fences that crisscrossed the property.  Someone ran from the casita to the main house with an umbrella.

The rain stopped after fifteen minutes.  I took off my tee shirt, wrung it out, worked my arm and shoulder muscles, and put it back on.  The dampness would feel good once the sun came out.

Movement to the west made me look up.  Too awkward for a coyote or stray dog.  I wiped the lenses and adjusted them to the new distance.  I focused on a shadowy figure in a poncho.  Short and skinny, he looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him.  I stretched out on the level rock I’d selected for an observation post and hoped no rattlers wanted to come out and take the sun.

The man carried a battered leather satchel over his shoulder and what looked like a scoped .223 rifle in his right hand.  A bush hat shaded his eyes, and a pair of binoculars hung around his neck.  He placed his paraphernalia on a rock and stripped off his rain gear.  He spread the poncho on a flat shelf and disappeared.  What the fuck?  I stared through my Leica’s for a full five minutes before I picked up an outline.  His clothes made him blend into the landscape.  The storm had caused him to move, otherwise, I wouldn’t have spotted him.  Once detected, his image became sharper.  He’d assumed the position, flat on his belly, propped on his elbows, field glasses trained on the main house.

I checked the load in my Glock, shoved it into my shoulder holster and crab-walked to a boulder twenty feet back from my position and out of his line of sight.  Once I felt safe, I stood and stretched.  Way too old for this kind of shit.  I peeked over the rock, shaded the binoculars with my hat, and checked to make sure my man hadn’t moved.  I wouldn’t feel so alone if Mike, my old collie, were with me.  Bile rose in my throat when I thought of the moron who ran him down.

The familiar terrain belonged to me.  I worked my way several hundred yards downwind and around the backside of the slope until I judged I stood behind his position.  My running shoes may not have been official western wear, but they didn’t make noise on the rough surface.  If he spotted me from a distance, the rifle would give him a huge advantage, but close quarters would give the edge to my pistol and

Synopsis

Trapped in a web of deceit & confusion spun by her father from the age of 11, the author shares her true story of incest in the hopes that by coming out from under years of sexual abuse, other victims will be encouraged to do the same. This is an important, no-holds-barred book complete with graphic scenes and language because "that’s the way it happened and that’s how it must be told. Victims’own voices are the best weapons against child sexual abuse." This 291-page story comes with a "trigger warning advisory" as it details the mental, physical and sexual abuse inflicted on the author by her biological father. Victims of similar abuse need to realize this story could cause flashbacks of their own as they identify with scenes and language that mirror their own experiences. Those who have never suffered sexual abuse may be shocked by what the author's father put her through and the utter control he had of all areas of her life until she finally got away. 

This book will frighten and enlighten readers as to what goes on behind the closed doors of too many homes and is rarely talked about or acknowledged, or worse yet, is even denied by family members who know it is going on. 

Excerpt

The years following that traumatic day are actually quite a blur, even more so than the ones that preceded it. All that sticks out in my mind now are incidences that cemented the hopelessness of my situation. Each event convinced me I would never escape this role my father had selected for me: I would be his mistress forever. I fantasized about escaping but I was too terrified of him to even try. I completely believed that if I were to try, that other mound of dirt in that cellar in my dream would indeed be my body and he would have put it there. 

He also very cleverly began brainwashing me. He knew how to talk, how to manipulate my feelings and fears: if I were to tell anyone, who would believe me? After all, everyone who met him found him handsome, friendly and quite charming, a father who cared greatly about his wife and daughter. To all the world he looked like a model father, albeit a strict one. So who would believe me? 

He'd reach for a cigarette after his morning dose of sex with his daughter, and before he'd let me go and get ready for school, he'd deliberate a little more about the psychology and morality of incest: 

"After all, what is so wrong about what we are doing?" he'd muse. "This is just a man and woman having sex, right?" Was he trying to convince himself or me? When I wouldn't respond one way or another, he'd try another angle: 

"Don't you realize what a wonderful thing you are doing for this family, for your mother and me? If it weren't for you, I'd probably be out having affairs with other women. And what might happen then? You would be the cause of our family breaking up if I fell for someone else." 

This soother was his justification for what he was doing. He'd drum it into my head that I was just being a really good daughter to mom and dad and keeping our family together. Wasn't that a great thing? I had no reply. The way I felt, I just wished that he would indeed find another woman and leave me the hell alone! 

As for his argument as to why I shouldn't tell my mother, I bought into it, not just because I reasoned he was right i.e. who would believe me ... but also because I simply wouldn't and couldn't hurt my mother with the truth. Furthermore, what would she think of me? Would she believe, as he insisted she would

Synopsis

Jeanne Le Page is lucky to be alive … 15 years ago she was almost killed in a boating accident which brought heart-breaking family tragedy. Now 31, Jeanne is returning reluctantly to the Island of Guernsey following the death of her beloved Grandmother. Struggling for breath as the ferry nears the Island, Jeanne feels a dark foreboding overwhelm her as hazy memories of that terrible day resurface.

Only back on the Island to sell her inheritance - her Grandmother’s old cottage - she has no intention of sticking around to pick up her old life. But the cottage holds a secret, dating back to World War II, and Jeanne becomes drawn into discovering more. Then ,shortly after her arrival, a chance meeting with an old teenage crush leads her to thoughts of love.

Jeanne is forced to face her demons, reliving the tragedy as her lost memory returns.

The truth is finally revealed, endangering Jeanne’s life for a second time…

Dangerous Waters is a heart-warming contemporary romance that captures the reader’s imagination, written in a style compared to that of Maeve Binchy.

Excerpt

Jeanne stepped out on deck as the spring sun broke through the clouds. A warm glow spread across green and gold jewel-like Herm and its big sister, Guernsey, patchworked with fields and granite buildings.   

The salt-laden air enveloped her like an old, trusty coat. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and was a child again, playing on the beach with her parents. The image was so powerful that tears formed and she blundered, unseeing, towards the railings. 

As her vision cleared she found herself staring at Herm and, without warning, was overwhelmed by such a strong feeling of fear that she had to hold onto the rail. Jeanne’s heart began to race, blood pounded in her head and her breathing came in short, painful gasps. Oh my God, what’s happening to me? After all this time, please, not again! Struggling to breathe she was on the verge of passing out. Letting go of the rail she stumbled, crashing into a man walking past.

‘Hey, steady on! Look where you’re going!’ he shouted, grabbing hold of her to stop them both falling. ‘Overdid the dutyfrees, did you?’ 

Stung by his accusation, she took a deep breath before replying. ‘No…no. I just lost my balance.’ His hands gripped her arms so hard that she could already imagine the bruises.  ‘Hey, that hurts!’

His grip loosened and he guided her back to the rail. She clung on, filling her lungs with sea air.

‘Sorry, didn’t mean to hurt you. Okay now?’ 

Jeanne nodded. As the man stepped back she took in, through a still blurred gaze, dark brown hair, deep blue eyes and the muscled arms of a man unlikely to be a pen-pusher. Responding to his warmer tone, she managed a tight smile before straightening up and walking, unsteadily, to the starboard side.

What on earth was that? Is this what I can expect now? Perhaps I shouldn’t have come back. Not that I had a choice…The thoughts whirled around her pounding head and she shuddered as she leant against the railings as Guernsey came into full view. While the ferry headed towards St Peter Port harbour, it seemed as if she were approaching a strange, unknown country rather than the land of her birth. The whole of the northern sea front, from Les Banques into St Peter Po

Synopsis

No sane airshipman will fly near a storm, but the cover of storm edge offers effective concealment for airship pirates who can strike quickly from above before anyone knows a ship is near. With the protection of Aide, the goddess of air travel, one airship defies the elements to seek fortune for the rag tag aerialists who make up the pirate crew.

The elements are the least of their problems when they find themselves saddled with an airsick clerk, a crewmember suspected of working for the East India Company and a love sick farm girl whose headstrong misconceptions compel her to seek adventure where no decent woman would wander unescorted.

Battling businessmen, mechanoids and villagers armed with torches and pitchforks, Captain Bonny must decide who to trust, and if the only rational course of action is one of apparent madness.

Synopsis

In this unsettling and mysterious vision of the future, animals are almost extinct and humans are subjugated by the sinister and secretive Agros; nothing is as it seems. And 17-year-old Adara must use all her courage and power battling against evil forces to save herself and those she loves. 

This is a coming of age tale with a difference. The inventive slang-derived language creates a fresh and dynamic style to create a truly compelling world inhabited by characters such as Clonies, Nearlymen, and S.A.N.T.S.

Excerpt

Eadgard walked to where we stood. He reached out and touched the sleeve of my dress, then shook his head and stepped back. “Adara, your dress is far from suited to this terrain. Do you have other garments?”

I looked down at my torn and flimsy frock. The small holes and rips obtained from clambering along the tunnel had become larger. In places there was more flesh than fabric on view. I tried to pull together a vast rip that let my thigh through, but failed.

“I do indeed have more suitable attire.”

“Good. When we are at a safer place, you must change your garb to something more fitting.”

“That I will gladly do, for in this flimsiness I do feel more at risk than I should.”

As if to rub said vulnerability in, a low deep growl grew from out of the unnerving darkness. I looked down at my stomach and waited to see if the noise was just an empty tummy grumble. It was not. The growl became a snarl of such magnitude that I near jumped with fright. Wirt let out an “Eh? Wha was that?” and almost drew blood so tightly did he force his fingers into my skin. The growl again, joined by another.

“Wolfies?”

“Yes no doubt. But not as you know them. Bigger, hungrier and faster than those once-owned you will be familiar with. Out here are strewn the outcast Clonies of every type of creature.”

I held my breath and felt Wirt press himself closer into my side. Becoming somewhat relieved by the sight of Eadgard’s shadowy shape as he moved nearer. And more than a little grateful that he came to stand next to us, for I could think of no other more suited to saving our lives, if it came to that. The snarls continued, gaining in volume with every sec that passed.

We stood in the dark not able even to see our own limbs if we were to lift them to our faces. I turned my head skywards and saw nowt, no moon and no stars. I heard Wirt take a gulp and I too felt a dryness creep up my throat. I remembered the last encounter with Wolfies had been in daylight and with some sort of diversion for us to make our escape. Out here in pitchy blackness, I feared for us all and shuffled nearer to Eadgard.

“Shhh! Quickly stand back to back in a circle and do not move, or make a sound. Do not turn on a torch or any source of light. The darkness now is our only protector. These hounds, although fierce to be sure, are about as bright as a black hole and will only attack when they see movement. Again I urge you to be as still as still and quiet as quiet. Now let me feel your hands.”

The grumbling, rumbling noise grew louder and I smelled a pungent wetness waft across my face. The darkness seemed to thicken around us and I saw red dots appear here and there. They winked and burned and I knew they were the soulless eyes of the Cloniewolves that Eadgard had described. A dagger like voice slashed

Synopsis

Kings of Brighton Beach Series 

In Brighton Beach, the largest Russian immigrant community in America, criminals and spies live among hardworking immigrants. The mafia rules with an invisible hand that reaches from beyond the former Iron Curtain. Ruthless men vie to reign as kings over their profitable corners of Little Odessa, and no one can be trusted. Not even family. 

Part 1: Gangsters with Guns

At fourteen Vlad escaped his violent father and the criminal soup of Brighton Beach. Now, twenty years later, he will reclaim his father’s place in the Russian mafia if he can survive.

Episode #1

Vlad plans to ingratiate himself with his father’s former partner, Artur, learn the “business,” and commit a hostile takeover. But Vlad isn’t the only one interested in claiming Artur’s slice of Little Odessa. Vlad’s rivals have no code of honor, and Artur’s daughter, Inna, is discovered in her brother’s own nightclub, raped and drugged, with a gun in her hand and a dead mobster sprawled on top of her. The dead man’s comrades want retribution, blood for blood, but Vlad is convinced Artur's mafia princess is innocent and that the real killer has ambitions to start a war in Brighton Beach.

Excerpt

The door slammed open and Detective Saul Hersh stalked in. “I don’t fucking believe it,” Vlad blurted as one of the few men who could blow all of his plans to hell strutted into the room.

“Believe it,” Saul said. He was short and on the slight side for a cop, but his threat wasn’t in his physical strength. The man was clever, sneaky. He used to have a reputation as a hardcore interrogator, the kind who always got his answers. Sharp was only the warm up. The real deal had just arrived.

Another test, Vlad thought, as dangerous as the others. Artur had eyes and ears on the police force.

Saul placed scarred hands on his narrow hips, and the circular marks drew Vlad’s eyes, just as they had the first time he had met Saul. Ivan’s abuse hadn’t left visible scars on Vlad, other than the cleft in his eyebrow from where his head had hit the corner of a coffee table. Saul had told him his own father used to burn cigarettes on his hands. “I had a choice,” Saul had said, “to be like him, or go another way. You have that choice too. What will you choose?”

“Never thought I’d see you here again. On that side of the table,” Saul said now. “Thought I’d scared some religion into you. Guess I was wrong ’cause here you are. Playing your father’s favorite role—gangster with guns.”

“Stuff it, Hershey. We both know you’re the one who tried to play my father’s role,” Vlad said. “You thought if you saved Nadia from Ivan she’d shower you with … gratitude.”

“Does your mother know you’re here? That you’re gunslinging for Koslovsky—just like your old man?”

“I don’t talk to Nadia. The worthless whore,” Vlad said. He made a spitting sound for extra effect.

Saul got up in his face, grabbed him by the collar. “Don’t talk about your mother that way.”

“You’re defending her?” Vlad couldn’t hold back a mirthless laugh. The poor fucking sap, sucker punched by love for a woman who would never love him back, who would never love anyone save Ivan, even her own son. Ivan had beaten Nadia so hard she couldn’t stand and then turned his rage on Vlad,

Synopsis

The young painter Karla Bocelli is all too familiar with loss. When she was five years old, her mother died in a car crash in the south of Switzerland. Her Peruvian father lives at the other end of the world, and a year ago her aunt and guardian passed away. Now, at age twenty-four, Karla almost gets hit by a speeding car. As if this wasn’t fateful enough, Andreas, the driver, turns out to be a sculptor and carver of tombstones. In spite of his profession, Andreas is anything but morbid. Quick-tempered and intense, he exudes a rough-and-tumble energy. After a tumultuous start of their relationship, Karla comes to see in Andreas the “rock” in her life, the perfect antidote to her fears of abandonment and bouts of depression. Andreas, however, wrestles with his own ghosts: an alcoholic father who abused him as a child and his own fits of anger. Together, the two artists must confront the demons that haunt them.

LOVE OF A STONEMASON is a story about the struggle of two artists with their past, their families, their creativity, and their love for each other. It takes the reader on a journey full of sights, smells, tastes, and sounds from the south of Switzerland to Italy and the Peruvian Andes.

Excerpt

Karla Bocelli hated the painting. She had worked at it off and on during the past year and never managed to finish it. But no matter how much she disliked it, she couldn’t convince herself to destroy it. It seemed to haunt her. It was warm and muggy in early June in the south of Switzerland. Patches of mist hugged the mountains behind Lago Maggiore. Karla clasped her artist’s portfolio under her arm and brushed a strand of hair from her damp forehead. She was on the way to the old part of Locarno, thinking, once again, of the troublesome picture. She saw the car just as she stepped into the crosswalk. An old beat-up Fiat screeched to a stop a few inches away from her. Karla jumped back and dropped her portfolio, spilling its contents onto the pavement. Her heart thudded and she took deep breaths, trying to calm the queasy feeling in her stomach. That smell. Burnt rubber. A young man got out of the car and stared at her, stunned. “Are you all right?”

Karla, still dazed, nodded. She bent down and began to pick up her drawings. A few pedestrians stopped, but when they realized that nothing major had happened, they walked on. The driver’s dark voice rose to an angry pitch. “Jesus Christ. What’s the matter with you? You practically threw yourself in front of my car. I could’ve killed you. Are you suicidal or what?” “I’m sorry, I wasn’t watching.” Karla slid the papers back into her portfolio. “Yeah, well, that’s obvious. Wake up, for heaven’s sake.” His belligerent voice angered Karla, who was gradually regaining her composure. She stood up, flipped her long dark hair back over her shoulders, and faced him. “I said, I was sorry.” He was tall, broad-shouldered, and sturdy, with longish dark tousled hair and green eyes, which now glowered at her. He must have been her age or a little older, perhaps in his midtwenties. As Karla continued to pick up her drawings, he approached and bent down to help her. “You’re an artist?” he asked in a friendlier tone as he looked at one of the charcoal sketches. “Yes.” Karla snatched the paper out of his hand. “I hope your pictures aren’t ruined.” “What do you care? Why do you have to drive like a maniac?” “Great,” he shouted. “Now it’s my fault?” “This is a pedestrian zone, in case you haven’t noticed.” Karla grabbed her portfolio and stepped back onto the sidewalk. Her heartbeat had slowed to almost normal, but her knees still felt wobbly. “Do you always jump in front of moving cars without looking?” He turned around and walked away. “Airhead,” he

Synopsis

Jacob Cotter survives the Civil War to finish Yale Medical School and confront two more battlefronts–one in Connecticut as a medical student and one in Texas as a surgeon. In 1868 Cotter is financially solvent for Yale from banking two-year’s worth of bounty hunter money. Post-Civil War medicine is exciting. Cotter experiences advances in anesthesia and antisepsis enabling surgery and medicine truly saving lives. He finds pseudoscience–phrenology–laughable. However, he must confront his siblings who disowned him after his father was killed in the war alongside him in 1864. His brother and sister want him dead.

After graduating Yale, Cotter finds private practice in Endura Texas with a colleague as also being under fire trying to establish the first hospital in the area. Cotter faces a ruthless land baron extorting and killing opposing citizenry. He also finds his father’s murderer part of the lethal lot. Dr. Cotter is forced to combine his stethoscope and his sixguns. 

Excerpt

Cotter always wore the same clothes when confronting his opponents. He wore tan buckskin from head-to-toe. The sweatband on his hat had a single polished silver concho off center to the right but clearly sparkling to the person facing him. His buckskin blouse had bib buttons forming an upside down “L”. The buttons on the down stroke of the L on the right side of his chest were also highly polished silver conchos. The horizontal buttons were tan buckskin and almost invisible. His two Colt revolvers were the same models but his right gun was highly polished nickel. It glinted like the hat’s concho. His left hand gun had an unobtrusive matte gun-metal finish. Cotter’s tan buckskin pants had a row of polished conchos on the outer right leg seam only. His tan buckskin boots gave him almost silent under-footing. He had his photograph taken to help get the outfit just right. To anyone confronting Cotter, the man was off center. The bib buttons and the shiny silver conchos directed an opponent’s vision to the right. When Cotter drew his guns he moved slightly to the left. Even if his adversary was faster than he, the bullet usually missed and went off to the right. Usually, on two occasions he was shot superficially, once in the in the right shoulder and once in the right thigh. Every man who drew on him had died.

Cotter adjusted his hat and checked for the weight and balance of his two-gun holster. He went into the saloon.

“Morely.” Cotter spoke the name with a penetrating tone. He didn’t shout. He didn’t have to. Cotter’s baritone voice caromed around the saloon and could be heard above the voices at the bar and over the dialogue from the two card game tables. Cotter’s back was to the swinging saloon doors and the dirt street.

The suddenness of the silence was a shock to the Saturday night crowd. Within a second of the lack of noise all eyes turned toward Cotter and then focused on Morely.

“Yes, you Morely.” Cotter stood with hands on his waist. He reached into his bib top and removed a large sheet of paper and waved it at Morely and the general audience. “I’m taking you to the sheriff’s office–‘dead or alive’–just like this poster says.” Cotter was 6-foot-5-inches of fine-tuned muscle. His two-gun holster rig was three-inches below his beltline. Both buckskin-gloved hands went to his sides after he slid the poster back into his bib shirt.

“I don’t know you. Go away and you’ll go alive. The last three bounty hunters are under the dirt.” Morely pushed his slight beer-bellied form away from the bar to face Cotter. The rest of the men at the bar ran away from

Synopsis

One young man dying of cancer.  One struggling journalist.  Six single Londoners.  One night that changes everything.... 

Dan is trying to conceal a stretch in jail, while time is running out for Sanjay, though his specialist can’t say how long he has left.

A 38-year old lawyer is desperate to rewrite her past but, for one single mum, sex is a distant memory she longs to relive. At speed-dating there’s a nice doctor.  There’s also the kind of guy your mother warned you about.  

Journalist Harriet needs a by-line not a boyfriend, but she soon becomes the focus of her own feature.

Is happiness possible when you’re trying to hide a whole carousel of baggage?

Excerpt

In her drawing-room, Dorottya looked past the flowers on the Osborne and Little curtains.

She let out a breath through pursed lips. He was mowing again. What was it with Englishmen and lawns? Roger was so obsessed with his precious expanse of grass that he had even designed a special mowing strip, as he called it, to make cutting easier and to prevent the children from wrecking the edges when they played cricket.

And another thing. Why had he decided to work from home? For years he’d had a perfectly good job in the City, which kept him from under her feet for the whole day, or even, if she was lucky, for days at a time. Now that he was self-employed, he irritated her much more. He was lucky she hadn’t thrown one of his best plates at him.

Still, he had his garden to occupy him while she used her laptop. Dorottya logged onto the site and evaluated her options. Since she never had much privacy these days, it was important to know whom to tick. Oh, she knew it was whom, not who, thanks to the classes she had attended years ago in Paradise Road. Hungarians were far better linguists than the silly English.

“Ah, there you are, sweetie.” Roger had appeared in the doorway without warning.

She snapped her notebook shut, breaking a nail. She would have to delete the history later, for sure. Last week he had spotted a credit card item listed as DMQ. When he queried it, she told him it was a shoe shop. He was visibly pleased that it had only been £30, which showed how stupid he was. What kind of man thinks you can get anything in a shoe shop for £30, except maybe a pair of laces?

“How is your lawn, dahlink?” As an accompaniment to calling him dahlink, a term she used whenever she wanted to charm anyone, she flashed her expensively veneered teeth. How bizarre that people from the UK went to Hungary for cosmetic dentistry when she had done the exact opposite.

“Coming along nicely. Don’t forget the flower show this afternoon.”

He loved plants with the same ferocity that he loved sex. Well, she would use the same tactic. “But I’ve got a headache. I must lie down.”

“It’ll do you good to get out, sweetie. Fresh air and all that. Much better than sitting in a stuffy room hunched over a laptop all the time. I don’t know why you spend so much time indoors. No wonder you have headaches.”

“But you wanted me to study, dahlink.” Fresh air was an idiot British idea. Hungarians never thought fresh air would help. They took patent medicines instead. If your brain needed a boost, you took a Cavinton tablet, not a walk in the country. “Roger dahlink, w

Synopsis

Robert had reached the summit of many mountains. His adventures took him to unimaginable heights, yet his greatest achievements were not in conquering these majestic beauties, but in his ability to reach people in need. That is, until he's the one facing the toughest climb of his life.

Roberto Sanchez is living the dream; one could say the man had it all. He is blessed with a beautiful wife and daughter who complete him. A career that reaches at-risk kids that brings him true joy. Then a tragic accident leads Robert to a chasm of dark despair. Although his interventions have reached many, he found he is incapable of helping himself off the edge of a cliff, jeopardizing his career, his marriage, and himself.

because takes us on a journey of two Roberts as he struggles to find a way to once again Believe.