Showing results by publisher "Black Rose Writing" in All Categories

"I'm only telling you in case the police contact you. Esme was arrested, but I'm handling everything, and she doesn't want to hear from you." That email from her ex-husband is almost the only information Alice Wilson has had about her twenty-three-year-old daughter, Esme, in the six years since Esme abruptly ended all communication.

Chester Clink, serial killer extraordinaire, has struck again, dumping the body of a young blonde woman in the town square to tease Grave into action—and distraction.

While Detective Kim Brady is in Bermuda recovering from depression, an aid of the mayor's arrives with a summons to return to New York to investigate the assassination of Sabrina Dunn, a long-time critic and political opponent of the mayor's. Although the mayor pledges his full support, Kim can't ignore the mayor's potential motive. But she soon learns of others with a potential motive, including Sabrina's estranged father and a group of investors pushing a major redevelopment project that Sabrina opposed.

Moments after Kim Brady finishes her first half-marathon, shots ring out, and three of her fellow detectives, all African-American, are hit, two fatally. With no one from Brooklyn South available, she commences the investigation, finding a witness who identifies where the shots came from but who also claims to be descended from a Knight Templar. The media immediately speculate that the shooter is a white nationalist, but Kim refuses to jump to conclusions, and the description provided by her witness leaves room for doubt.

Courtney Morgan is a female knuckle-ball pitcher trying to break into professional baseball. Parker Westfall is an aging slugger with one last chance at the ultimate carrot—a spot on a major-league roster. She’s gorgeous, and he’s having the season of his life. Together, they’ll try to change a losing team’s fortunes on their way to the big show. But when tragedy strikes, will their dreams still matter?

When 14-year-old Mitch Graves, bored with festivities at a Memorial Day block party in 2006, decides to ride his BMX to a set of train tracks near his home, he discovers something that would tattoo the fear of God into any ordinary child's memory-a wayward drifter hiding in the shadows of an abandoned railcar in the midst of taking another man's life. Where most kids would be terrified beyond belief, Mitch finds himself intrigued.

In Broken Pieces of God David B. Seaburn returns to the domestic arena to explore the complex and extraordinary lives of an ordinary American couple, Eddy and Gayle Kimes. Eddy, a supervisor for a cable company, loses his job. Gayle, a tax accountant, is recently diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Unemployment, failed chemotherapy, and no insurance bring them to life’s precipice. Desperate, Eddy turns to a statue of Jesus, seeking a miracle, while Gayle dives deeper into a scheme she has been concocting for twenty-five years.

The Dunwhitty family is flying high until their carefully choreographed life falls apart during the 2008 Great Recession. Lisa's firm goes belly-up while Michael's shuts down after selling faulty heart valves. Desperate, Lisa insists they regroup by seeking refuge in rural Central Texas on land she inherits from a distant relative she barely knows.

Timothy is a serial killer. He's also very lonely. He's a walking contradiction, and his psychological predicament doesn't escape him. Lynnette is a vampire. She's also a nurse. She, too, is a walking contradiction. When she unexpectedly answers his desperate call for company, they realize they could be perfect partners in crime, engaging in a few kinds of bloodwork at once, bringing out the worst and the best in each other.

Kayla Covo is a child piano prodigy. In mid-1970s New York City, she vaults to fame, holding audiences in awe with her uncanny musical ability and warm smile. But deep within her lie the seeds of destruction—the paranoid fear of being stalked by a murderous fan. The Music Stalker closely examines how genius and love might survive in a close-knit family torn by trauma, insanity, and jealousy.

One could understand why Liam was angry. He was orphaned at the age of two by a group of giant carnivorous insects called the chitin. Taken in by High Councilor Marcus and his wife, Lidia, Liam was raised with their older son, Randolf, in New Olympia, the last remaining city on the planet Etrusci.

In Heaven, there is a gated community for those who end their lives by choice. This is a complete surprise to 43-year old Hope, who ends her life one morning on the banks of the Fox River in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Hope has always dealt with deep sadness. From childhood on, she visited therapists, doctors, alternative medicine practitioners, Reiki artists, etc., to no avail. In Heaven, God reassures her that he knows what caused the sadness, but he won't reveal it yet.

Jesse Carter is a brilliant law school dropout who can't move on with her life after the death of her twin brother. Philip Raymond was once a high-level political consultant with a happy family. Now he lives alone in a penthouse apartment hooked on Ativan and tortured by memories of scandal. Together, Jesse and Raymond find new purpose: an exposé of the secret life of reclusive billionaire Lee Fletcher. On mega-yachts, luxury jets, and in Hamptons mansions, Fletcher invites his closest friends to parties where they get "high" on a drug that induces a near-death experienc

After three long years of war and disruptions, Alfred hopes for a time of peace and tranquility. A time to devote his energy to bettering the lives of his people, to focus on what the future holds for his children, to nurture his alliances, and to see his previous endeavors bear fruit. But even the home front has bumps in the road. The campaign to suppress Teuton aggression has been costly, Lord Meriden's threat to disrupt the kingdom shows no sign of abating, and Nerrick's growing negativity casts a shadow over the mutual defense plans with the Territories.

Joe Slade is a detective with a hot lead and no idea where he is. Fallen from the world of fiction, Joe journeys through a hellscape of conflicting happy endings. There, he must confront the story–and the life–he left behind. His last chance to escape his fictional existence is to navigate an impossible labyrinth of genre tropes and reunite with his mentor Ellodrine, a wizard who suffers from reinterpretation. Their quest will take them through genres dark and deadly: Treacherous Spy Fiction, Gothic Horror, Gritty Cyberpunk, Urban Fantasy, and others too terrible to tell.

With these words we are launched into the exploits of an exceptional group of children as they play out through the Texas Hill Country and across the Blackland Prairies. Are they within the realm of science-fiction, or are they all simply due to drug-induced hallucinations that resulted from government- funded experimentation by a private laboratory, the University of Texas Psychology Department and the U.S. Air Force?

As Parul grows older, she becomes increasingly unhappy and resentful with her lot in life. Mohini struggles with their relationship as well, never sure whether to treat Parul as a sister or a servant. When Parul has a passionate, secret affair with Rahim, a radical Muslim, the careful order the Sens have maintained is thrown into chaos.

A hidden world waits, a dark society schemes, and a ship sails to protect that which cannot be lost. Salem Swan knows none of this as he arrives in Easterly. He knows only that he misses his recently deceased mother, that his new guardian, his uncle Ulysses is unique, and that the boat which will now be his home is unlike anything he has ever seen. Fearful of this new reality, Salem starts to ask questions that uncover the truth about his distant uncle, his long-gone father, and the true nature of the ship.

Ronnie Callahan's rise to police chief is her ultimate achievement. Nothing or no one will ruin that, especially her handsome, down-to-earth ex-husband, Officer Tony Lombardo. She can handle working side-by-side with him. Outside of the station is a different story. Tony certainly isn't making it easy on Ronnie with holiday invitations to his parents' house and spending the night at her apartment. Through a series of unexpected encounters, Ronnie and Tony are forced to come to terms with the tragedy that tore them apart.

In Twenty Mile Bottom, Mississippi, a grandmother mysteriously disappears. Her 18-year-old grandson, Roy Gene, smells a rat and launches his own investigation. Unbeknownst to him is a domestic terrorist plot masked by a renegade religious cult run by a gypsy fortuneteller and his alcoholic evangelist grandfather. The grandfather's infamous Halloween service, The Devil Walks at Midnight is the emotional lynch pin to a corrupt theology of fear that keeps everyone in line... except Roy Gene's grandmother... and Roy Gene.