The carnage on the second floor made even Deve blanch. He walked past the bodies of Humans, Centauri and a Feydan, recognizing his crew mates, three civilians in suspiciously expensive clothes and armor, and a few strangers. “That’s my boss,” he said wincing. “Used to be my boss. What a mess.”

He crouched beside a Human and, after a brief search, enriched himself with a fine rail gun and a large sum of currency accepted on a number of planets, if you shopped in the right places. “This one’s rich.”

“Vanguard officer,” Lep Ako said.

Deve recoiled. “You could have said something before I touched him.”

“Another over there. The female.”

Reluctantly, Deve walk

Synopsis

Dian Parker, 53, lives on her own land and is hardworking, talented, spiritual, and happily alone. Until she falls deeply in love. Everything she thought about herself crumbles in the wake of this new passion. She had thought she was successful, an independent strong woman, and confident. Instead, unresolved fears erupt from her past and doubt permeates her newly found bliss. In the midst of this powerful love, one woman faces herself head-on, determined to sustain the ecstasy she is experiencing, every single day for the rest of her life. 

A tale of courage and transformation, a modern-day Song of Songs and a bedside book for lovers, Sustaining Ecstasy fills you with gladness knowing extraordinary love really does exist as a possibility for us all. From the stages of London to the rugged coast of the Isle of Aran, from the desert sands of Syria to a yurt in the Pacific Northwest, Sustaining Ecstasy is one woman’s journey into the territory of ecstatic love.

Dian Parker is a freelance writer for a number of New England publications. A passionate gardener, oil painter and graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, she worked professionally in theatre for 25 years as a director and teacher. She lives in Vermont with her husband, her sustained love, and is working on a novel.

Excerpt

We flood one another with presents. Every night on my coffee table I pile ribboned packages for him: a book, candy, a piece of marble where I write a dream come true on the back, shiny black obsidian, a packet of blue poppy seeds. He brings his wrapped in newsprint. A Scarlatti CD with the wrapping in green and pink crayon with “my favorite music for my favorite being” in blue. A box of sparklers — “for sparkling moments.” A framed photograph of the Hourglass Nebulae, a little screwdriver set, a journal. All these gifts collected from around the house; we had bought none of them. I hold the screwdriver for a long time and only allow myself one lit sparkler a day. But I play the Scarlatti over and over, drinking the staccato notes and the flurry of galloping runs as if I were dying of thirst and had walked across the desert in a windstorm.

The intensity I now feel reminds me of the

Synopsis

There's no slavery in the Yorkshire Dales, not in 1887, not ever. But loving families use artful schemes to enslave the innocent. Twenty nine year-old Tizzie is such an innocent. She has worked herself down to skin and bones as a dairymaid on the farm of her dear brother, Jack, his gracious wife, Maggie, their three boys and one girl, Agnes. Expert at many things, though not in spotting conniving entrapment, Tizzie longs to see that young Agnes will not suffer her spinster fate. In trying to help Agnes find an education and avoid a life of drudgery in their male-dominated world, Tizzie begins to suspect and then uncover Jack and Maggie's treachery, and the family's plots to enslave and use up Agnes too. With only her wits to guide her, Tizzie tries to right years of wrongs and set Agnes free.

Excerpt

Monday, February 28th 1887.

“Never a moment,” Tizzie muttered, hurrying to the lambing pens, “always summat to do and no time to think.”

A mild couple of days followed by rain and freezing wind brought on the lambs. The boys guessed correctly, many more multiple births than the previous year, even old Tuppence had twins. Twins a ewe could manage if you watched her carefully, a job Jack gave to Tizzie. “A woman’s more patient than lads, and slow to interfere.”

Tizzie enjoyed the work. It warmed her heart to see a nervous ewe settle to two young ‘uns suckling, tails shaking, wig-wagging like poplar leaves in a breeze. It were a pleasure to hear a young ewe call to her lambs, see her nuzzling and licking both spotted faces and tucking them in close to her side. Now, as she worked, Tizzie’s thoughts wandered. Why did she feel guilty, scolding herself even, for thinking badly of her family. And how would she ever know the truth about Sam’s letter and about Johnnie Oldsby?

Wrapped in the old shepherd’s coat and her knitted bonnet, a worsted scarf covering her cheeks, wool gloves under homemade sheepskin mittens, Tizzie scrunched over iced cobbles, squelched in the mud and through grass, to the sheep barn five and six chilly times a day. Every lamb had been spared this year and eight ewes had a treddle lamb, a third lamb they could not feed, that meant eight lambs to hand feed. At least it were warm in the barn, and the mixed smells of sheep, lamb, milk, straw and cold stone pleased her nose better than the byre. There Jack h

Synopsis

Japan’s horrific tsunami in March of 2011 was seared into the minds of TV viewers worldwide, but few had any idea of where the tsunami hit on that fateful day or to its long-term impact. This book answers many of these and other questions with maps, photos, and text providing a sense of those coastal towns. There are links to videos also, with one showing the tsunami surging into Central Otsuchi, the author’s adopted home town.

Excerpt

As Fate Would Have It

Earthquake…tsunami…fire…the triple whammy that destroyed Otsuchi caught everyone by surprise on the 11th of March, 2011. That town in Iwate Prefecture was only one of many on the Sanriku Coast to be shaken to the core by the Great East Japan Earthquake, then engulfed by huge walls of seawater followed by flames consuming what remained. For us the loss of Atsuko’s hometown had triple consequences—the loss of our home, of the community chosen for our retirement, and of family members. Bad things come in threes, it seems.

As fate would have it, we were not there on that unfortunate day. For the first time since making Otsuchi our primary residence in 2004 we had decided to spend the winter in our Tokyo condo. Located in Ayase, a community in Adachi Ward on Tokyo’s north side, the two-bedroom apartment had been our home since our marriage and one we kept even after moving to far-off Sanriku. From 2004, our yearly travel schedule had included a short visit to Tokyo in April to coincide with cherry-blossom season, followed by a trip to Honolulu for a month, a return to Tokyo for two weeks or so to catch up with friends and colleagues there, and then in June back to the tranquility of Otsuchi.

Synopsis

A GIFTED BOY forced to grow up too fast... A father who will do anything to protect him... A madman bent on destroying them both.

In Amsterdam, a visionary scientist is laying the groundwork for a cybernetic life-extension project that will transfer individual consciousness to a personalized avatar. Halfway around the world, his brilliant grandson is secretly planning to use the same technology to infiltrate the world’s most secure networks.

But the scientific advances necessary to perfect the brain-to-computer interface are slow in coming, too slow for the aging founder of the Everlast foundation—who may die before realizing his dream of immortality—and too slow for his ruthless grandson, who will stop at nothing to attain the recognition that is his birthright.

Caught in the middle are Jake Bronson and his seven-year-old son, Alex, whose combined mental gifts might provide the key to leapfrogging the impasse.

When Jake’s family and closest friends are simultaneously abducted in a globally coordinated kidnapping scheme, Jake is thrust into a frantic race that takes him from the canals of Amsterdam and the cobbled streets of Rome to the back alleys of Hong Kong and the South China jungles, where he must lever every scrap of his failing abilities to rescue his loved ones and crush a madman’s plans to bring the world to its knees.

Excerpt

[From the point of view of 7-year-old Alex Bronson, set in the jungles of South China where he crash-landed along with his brother and sister]

We were about to set off when I heard a rustle in the bushes behind us.

“No move!” a deep voice shouted.

Synopsis

Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. How did one crazy night of excess end up with 25 years behind bars? 

Convicted for the brutal murder of an ex girlfriend, JD Smith is back on the streets a bitter and broken man. Now in his fifties, the once good looking, carefree, former musician in a post punk R & B band is left to reflect on the bizarre events that led to his long incarceration without right to appeal, where, despite maintaining his innocence, all the evidence continues to point to his guilt. 

Out on licence, Jack Smith is determined to find the real killer and bring them to justice. But before he can pursue the quest to clear his name, he first has to assuage the demons that reside inside his head and haunt his nightmares; rid himself of the darkness that continues to taunt, torment and test his sanity.

Other distractions come in the shape of a sultry female lawyer whose practice methods aren’t always entirely ethical. And a trip to India in search of an elusive butterfly, the daughter he hasn’t seen since she was two.

Mistrusting of a legal system that has already failed him, Jack decides to take the law into his own hands, but unbeknown to him, someone else is on a mission to catch a killer...

Scrapyard Blues is a pulsating story of one man’s quest for redemption and reconnection with a life lost.

Excerpt

At the end of the corridor the kerlunk-kerlunk stops abruptly, and the accompanying rhythm inside my head fades into the ether. I casually swing my bag of meagre but precious belongings over my shoulder and patiently watch the screw punch numbers into an electronic keypad on the wall. Patience is a virtue. He takes a key card, which is attached to a chain, which is, in turn, fastened to his belt, and swipes it in another machine. LED’s twitch and beep, electronics click and whirr and metal bolts slide neatly back into their hollow shafts with satisfying clunks. A green light above the door flashes. He pushes it open and ushers me through.

‘This is as far as I go, Smithy.’ He offers me a look that says he’s sad to see me leave, like we’ve been best mates for years, and like he’s about to burst into tears and give me a hug. But the guy’s a virtual stranger, hardly knows me. The walls know me better; I’ve been here longer, a hell of a lot longer. My eyes show the same sentiment as the walls: fucking none. He passes me my release papers with one hand and offers me his other. I shake it loosely. ‘You take care now, and make sure you stay out of trouble. You hear?’ He gives me a condescending slap on the back as I turn away, and for the millionth time a voice inside my head screams out in protest, because the fact is I’ve never done anything wrong in my life, not criminally wrong anyhow, but no one has cared to listen for these

Synopsis

Samuel Prite introduces you to thirteen tales of ghostly encounters, supernatural events and rather unfortunate happenings. As he leads you along this meandering path, it will become clear that Prite is not merely a guide, but someone, or something far more sinister.

Excerpt

Synopsis

When he begins searching for answers, an assassin begins his own search--for him!

Trained in lies, a covert agent learns the truth 

Veteran CIA officer, Titus Ray--on the run from the Iranian secret police--finds shelter with a group of Iranian Christians in Tehran. While urging Titus to become a believer in Jesus Christ, they manage to smuggle him out of Iran to freedom in Turkey.

Will it help him deal with his past?

Returning to the States, he discovers his Iranian mission failed because of political infighting within the Agency. In a hot-tempered outburst, he delivers a scathing indictment against the Deputy Director of Operations, and, as a result, the deputy forces Titus to take a year's medical leave in Oklahoma.

How will it change his future?

Before leaving Langley, Virginia, Titus learns he's been targeted by a Hezbollah assassin hired by the Iranians. Now, while trying to figure out what it means to be a follower of Christ, he must decide if the Iranian couple he meets in Norman, Oklahoma has ties to the man who's trying to kill him, and if Nikki Saxon, a local detective with an intriguing past, can be trusted with his secrets.

Excerpt

In far northwest Iran, a few minutes after clearing the city limits of Tabriz, Rahim maneuvered his vehicle onto a rutted side road. When he popped opened the trunk of the car to let me out, I saw the car was hidden from the main highway by a small grove of trees. In spite of our seclusion, Rahim said he was still anxious about being seen by a military convoy from the nearby Tabriz missile base.

For the first time in several hours, I uncurled from my fetal position and climbed out of the vehicle, grateful to breathe some fresh air and feel the sunshine on my face. As my feet landed on the rocky terrain, Rahim handed me a black wooden cane. I wanted to wave it off, but, regrettably, I still needed some help getting around on my bum leg.

Rahim slammed the trunk lid down hard.

“You can stretch for a few minutes,” he said, “but then we must get back on the road immediately. Our timing must be perfect at the border.”

Rahim and I were headed for the Iranian/Turkish border, specifically the border crossing at Bazargan, Iran. He was absolutely confident he could get me out of Iran without any problems. However, during the last twenty years, I’d had a couple of incidents at other border crossings—Pakistan and Syria to be precise—so I wasn’t as optimistic.

While Rahim was tinkering with the car’s engine, I exercised my legs and worked out the stiffness in my arms. As usual, I was running through several “what ifs” in my mind. What if the border guards searched the trunk? What if the car broke down? What if we were driving right into a trap?

I might have felt better about any of these scenarios had either of us been armed. However, Rahim had refused to bring along a weapon. Carrying a gun in Iran without a special permit meant certain imprisonment. Imprisonment in Iran meant certain torture, so I certainly understood his reasons for leaving the weaponry back in Tehran.

Still, a gun might have helped my nerves.

Synopsis

From flooded refugee camps in Thailand to posh gourmet restaurants in Maryland; from corporate boardrooms to cholera camps in Bengal; from US Naval bases to Maya ruins in the jungles of Central America; Vampire Chimeras carries you along on its tense roller coaster plot. How will Dr. Diana Rigsby, a seasoned medical researcher and physician, stop a rampaging hemorrhagic fever threatening the lives of those she loves… especially if it arose out of something she may have created.

Not just a medical thriller, Vampire Chimeras is filled with cutting edge science, backing plausible plot twists, spun out as a multiply layered moral play, providing lots of points of debate. Its metaphors force the reader to ask, who/what are the real Vampires? The Chimeras?

Excerpt

"Mortal beauty often makes me ache, and mortal grandeur can fill me with that longing..."

- Anne Rice, Interview with a Vampire 

After that seemingly endless journey of airport layovers and connecting coach seat flights from Dulles to Miami to Guatemala City, Victor realizes he is aching all over.  But it's that pounding throbbing behind his eyes, which almost blinds him.  He can barely get through customs inspection, and now finds he is stuck waiting impatiently for the bus to arrive that will take him on yet another day long trip, to his family's rural mountain hacienda in Boca Grande.  Will I ever finally get there?

When it is not pouring down rain, it is steam coming up from the hot buildings and puddled walks.  The humidity oppresses so.  Having come from a cool spring in the States, he's not yet used to this clammy climate closing in on him.  And mosquitoes are everywhere, relentlessly biting.  Finally his bus arrives, crowded as usual.  He elbows his way on board and displaces a chicken from a seat, grabbing it quick, stowing his gear in rare free space.

Ahh last leg of the journey.  Just this one bus ride and then I will be home and back with my family.  They must be so worried.  This year's dengue came on fast and hard.  Can only get worse now with all this endless rain.  Damn.  Really hope this vaccine makes a difference.

Looking out the bus window, he watches as the remaining petals on the white star flowers of the hillside's Arabica coffee trees, drift away like a snowflakes, revealing their green coffee fruit berries beneath.  Further in the distance he can see fields of spiky bushes, where stalks, heavy with ripe pineapple fruit, sway slowly with the growing wind.  Oh how he has missed this, his homeland.

He sees yet another storm is brewing on the east horizon, dark clouds condensing, ominously.  Will it hold off long enough to let me get home before it hits?

Finally his stop arrives.  He gets up to get off the bus and grabs his gear.  Shocks of pain shoot up his arm, neck and back, forcing him to stop and catch his breath.  The chicken and a bleating kid, seize this opportunity to jump quickly behind him and fight to occupy his emptied seat.  An entropic chaotic mass exodus moves him off the bus and out on to the road -- the road that he must walk up, to finally reach his home.

Touching ground, the bus pulls away behind him, belching black diesel smoke.

In the falling twilight the shadows cloak the Maya Acropolis ruins off a ways on the hillside, peeking out fro

Synopsis

CONNECTED is a speculative fiction thriller with touches of science and philosophy, which reached No.1 in Amazon UK's Bestseller lists for both Thrillers and Science Fiction within 5 days of release.

Beginning with the funeral of a renowned classical violinist in a sleepy rural hamlet in the Lake District, a former theoretical physicist tries to make sense of his brother's suicide. Across the country, a university student, enjoying the unexpected attentions of an enigmatic seductress, is disturbed when his best friend falls to his death from the thirteenth floor of a neighbouring campus tower block.

As each tries to unravel the mystery behind the apparent suicides, they are drawn into an obsessive search for a computer-generated fractal video sequence, with startling effects on human consciousness, and which might just pave the way for discovery of the ultimate Theory of Everything. 

However, they are not the only ones to have seen the potential of this mind-altering video, and soon find themselves in a desperate race against time with gangsters from the shadowy worlds of sex, drugs, cyber-crime, and massively multi-player on-line gaming.

Excerpt

As the coffin was lowered, the sky darkened and a gust of wind ripped through the churchyard, stirring the ancient trees and momentarily lifting the masks of reverent solemnity gathered

around the open grave. Peter studied the faces with a detached sense of curiosity. How well, he wondered, had these people really known his brother? His gaze came to rest on Isabelle. Even now - even through the tears - she looked beautiful. He tried to imagine the feelings welling behind those big brown eyes: anguish tinged with guilt, denial, loneliness - perhaps even anger. He shivered. His own feelings were somehow suppressed. His brother was in a box, about to be sealed away for an eternity in the damp, peaty earth beneath his feet, and yet he felt strangely calm, the whole service having washed over him like a dream from which he might awaken at any moment.

The call had come last Saturday as he and Abigail had been leaving for dinner. Isabelle had just returned home from visiting her parents in Paris to discover Martin’s lifeless body slumped before the PC with his headphones on. The initial appearance of sleep, supported by the half bottle of scotch on the desk, had faltered at the sight of an empty container of tranquilisers, and finally shattered at the touch of her husband’s cold, dead skin.