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

A passing train pulling two yellow cabooses guarantees a promising future. So says the local legend. Though Mickey's mom witnessed the rare occurrence when she was a senior in high school, life for the two of them is anything BUT. No man in the home. Welfare. No car. Clothes from the local Methodist mission. A dumpy trailer in a trailer park. And all the labels and stereotypes that come with life at the poverty line for white folks. At school, twelve-year-old Mickey is nameless, powerless, and invisible.

Every member of the Prescott family struggles with identity issues when the father, Hailey Prescott, leaves the family to live life as a woman, sending them all tumbling into emotions so violent they threaten to tear the family fabric to shreds. When Dr. Cotton Barnes, a happily married psychologist from Raleigh, North Carolina, signs on to treat the family, she is challenged to the edges of her own fragile boundaries as cracks in the veneer of the Prescotts' lives become craters.

Ever felt like chucking it all and moving to an island paradise? Award-winning journalist David Haldane and his Filipino wife, Ivy, met on an international dating site. Ten years later, with David laid off from his dream job at the LA Times and frustrated by mounting costs in America, they made the bold decision to move to the Philippine island of Mindanao, where Ivy grew up.

Few people in life are lucky enough to fulfill their destiny. And even fewer have the privilege of recognizing it as it happens. An evil warlord is wreaking havoc across England. His trail of destruction razes the land and decimates people left and right. He must be stopped. At all costs. When young Judith is recruited to vanquish him, she uses her beauty and her charm to get close. But once he's within her reach, all is not as it seems. His magnetism and alluring promises weaken her. And she begins to question whether she's on the right side of this war.

The discovery of a dead body is nothing new for Detective Simon Grave, but when the body and the murderer are both invisible, well, that's another matter entirely, even in the futuristic town of Crab Cove. The question is whether he and his human and android team are up for the challenge, which also remains to be seen. Making his job even more difficult is the sudden retirement of Captain Henry Morgan, who taps Grave as acting chief.

"Where is my son?" Asher's mother screamed as they loaded her husband's body into the ambulance. Five miles up the trail, Asher was going deeper into the wilderness. His compulsive need for routine, hike to the lake at the same time on the same trail with the same gear, is now amplified by his father's last wish, to find their friend and deliver supplies. In Lincoln, Wyoming, fourteen-year-old Caleb is stunned when the sheriff asks him to urgently bring search dog "Boo" to find Asher. When they find Asher near the lake, the adventure is just beginning.

Claire and Gary, college sweethearts, married for decades were at an impasse. They had been together forever, and started taking each other for granted. When faced with problems they would normally tackle together, they turned elsewhere and struggled to find their way home. Gary finds his biological family, Claire struggles with identity issues, and their son is forced to become an adult.

Everyone feels stuck now and then, right? At least, that's what Kristen tells herself. The problem is that all her usual tricks for getting out of a funk aren't working. What she needs is a really big change, and as a single woman with a remote career, her options are wide open. So she decides to spend a year in the small town of Riverton where her dad recently relocated. The people in Riverton are warm and welcoming, and Kristen quickly finds herself a part of her new community in ways that she didn't expect.

Stephen Detals played professional baseball before flaming out in whiskey-fueled catastrophe. His father and grandfather killed themselves on their 39th birthdays. Stephen is 38. He battles alcoholism, abandonment, suicidal tendencies, and lethal family history to survive his impending birthday. This novel chronicles the final eight days before Stephen Detals' 39th birthday. His relapse into addiction forces Stephen back to the Neches River and the Piney Woods of Southeast Texas.

Mike O'Shea and Andy Cotto knew each other their entire lives. Born days apart on the same block, baptized in the same water, the two friends were inseparable growing up and into adulthood. After celebrating their 40th birthdays together, Mike falls ill and dies shortly after. The impact on Andy is enormous, and he spirals into a depression that threatens everything he holds dear.

Nina, a new graduate from fashion design in college, gladly accepts the offer to have her palm read as a graduation gift. Smiling, the palm reader tells Nina that she has a long lifeline, as she traces it on her hand. As soon as the words are uttered, the palm reader’s facial expression turns to one of fear. In broken English, she whispers, “Break – very bad break in middle of life. Maybe you die.”

Thirtysomething Leigh Fortune never thought she’d make it this far. Emerging from the ashes of a traumatic childhood, she’s managed to plant her flag on Terra Normal. But under the surface she’s unsure—of herself, of her fiancée, of everything. A letter informing her of her estranged mother’s death tips her from uncertainty into emotional upheaval and sends her on a journey that will take her from the dunes of Cape Cod to Las Vegas and back.

In the simpler times of 1971, Inspector Philip Steele, recently transferred to Fredericton, takes a well-deserved holiday visiting his beloved, elderly godmother in her quaint village nestled in the gently-rolling Appalachians of Atlantic Canada. But when a bank robbery and the murder of a teenage boy initiate a string of even more shocking events which wreak panic in the quiet community, Phil must return to long days of investigation with his oft-misquoting, black sergeant Zareb Woodbridge, who struggles with questioning some of the more racist locals.

When the head of a hovercycle club inexplicably calls in news of his own murder, Detective Simon Grave and his team are drawn in to Crab Cove's hovercycle underworld, a world of loyalty, betrayal, greed, and-yes-irony. As if murder weren't enough, the bombing of an election debate stage has the mayor pressing for a quick resolution to both crimes. It becomes increasingly clear that the crimes are connected, and that the solution will require the unraveling of an elaborate criminal scheme-and more.

McBride is an aging Boston private eye. Sylvia is his threatening and seductive partner. Gray hires them to find his brother before his brother finds him. The only clue is an unsourced photo of the twin in the stands at a Bruins game — or is it Gray himself? Increasingly convinced their client is either insane or playing a double game — or both — McBride and Sylvia chase dead-ends across Boston, New York, and hockey — and when Gray's doppelganger finally turns up (with the equally colorful name of Brown), Gray vanishes.

Isabella wants to come home—a rather innocuous request—unless you're the king and Isabella is the aunt whose mental instability led her own father to banish her from the kingdom. Her arrival, unbidden, on the steps of the castle opens old wounds and forces Alfred to examine his grandfather's decision.

Twelve-year-old Georgia believes her toothless rescue dog is psychic. With a spin of a Magic 8 Ball, Chester predicts the future with a high degree of probability. He assures Georgia the "outlook is good" for her parents' troubled marriage. He wows her math class by predicting heads or tails with every coin toss. But when the stakes are life or death, Georgia must learn the difference between magic and probability and find her own powers to increase the likelihood of a happy ending.

Twyla’s been living in hiding on Earth, hoping to leave her past behind. But when her mother, Madam Cassiopeia DeConnett finds her and kidnaps her back to the Paraxous Star Cluster, she expects her daughter to take her rightful place within the family business. The DeConnetts are Dashia—a group of genetically- engineered telepaths who use their powers to control some and ruin others. Their criminal organization is rich, powerful, and spans The Cluster.

A demon hound haunts Crab Cove, taking its victims as they come. When a mutilated corpse is found in the marshes, Detective Simon Grave rises to the challenge. Everything points to the hound, but it is quickly apparent that the body has been stabbed repeatedly, in a way that suggests serial killer Chester Clink also may be involved. Or maybe not.

Joe Slade is a detective with a hot lead and an existential crisis. Still seeking to escape his fictional existence, he and his mentor, Ellodrine, a wizard who suffers from reinterpretation, hunt for the artifacts that will open a way to the World Where the Books Are Written. The trail has taken them to the rugged frontier of the Old West. There, they will discover twisted plots and dangerous foes, who will launch them into a blurring journey through the genres.