Fancy Little Bench

Charlotte Madsen’s whole world came crashing down six months ago with the words, “I met someone else.”

Thirty-seven, recently divorced, and childless. That’s Charlotte when she disembarks from the plane in Getaway Bay. She wants to get away, that’s for sure. She thought the best way to do that was to buy a run-down house overlooking the bay, knowing she’ll need all her fixer-upper skills to get it in shape. Which is just fine. She’s hoping as she overhauls the house, she’ll get a life makeover too.

She was not expecting a tall, handsome man to be under the kitchen sink when she arrives at the supposedly abandoned house. She wasn’t expecting to get drenched when the non-plumber twists something the wrong way. And she certainly wasn’t expecting her heart to be well enough to feel anything for anyone.

But former Air Force pilot, Dawson Dane, has a charming devil-may-care personality, and Charlotte could use some carefree laughter in her life. But everything with Dawson isn’t sunshine and unicorns. He’s estranged from his family, though he does speak to one of his brothers. And he’s never committed to anything except his career, even choosing flying over an engagement years ago.

Can Charlotte navigate the healing process as she renovates the island house? Can Dawson finally make a commitment to a woman? Or will he and Charlotte decide a relationship is just too hard?

Meet James Hoak, a rising college senior whose zany escapades jeopardize his future as a national sportswriter. Can his arch-enemy football star and a legendary beach club owner save his career?

Recommended by TV sports commentator Tony Kornheiser on his podcast.

It’s the month of May at Blue Ridge University, a bucolic campus nestled in the mountains of southwestern Virginia. As his friends prepare for their senior beach trip, rising senior James Hoak lands a coveted summer internship at a national weekly magazine, Sporting America — a guaranteed pipeline to a full-time sportswriter career — if he graduates next May.

But in a crazy mishap involving BRU’s football star, Marvelavious Hall, Hoak loses every cent of his tuition money.

And Hall — injured in the accident — wants revenge.

Running for his life, Hoak, now broke, can’t pay for his fifth year of college. And with no degree, he has no pipeline to a full-time job. He must raise eight thousand dollars in four days, before the internship begins, or his career is wrecked.

What better place to raise the cash than the coolest beach hangout on the East Coast — with the help of his arch enemy?

While it targets young adults, this first book in the rollicking James Hoak series will satisfy all readers who enjoy binge-worthy shows like Apple TV’s Ted Lasso and book characters like Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar and Gregory Mcdonald’s Fletch.

AMAZON BEST SELLER

One look in a criminal’s eyes and she witnesses their crimes.

Grace McKenna is not your average police officer.

She is haunted by the unsettling images she sees when she locks eyes with a criminal, her vision flooded with clues that force her to solve cases on her own.

A sullen boy, a tormented woman, a breathless man, a thousand pieces of shattered green glass.

On a missing persons case in a small Massachusetts town, Grace comes face to face with an unlikely criminal. Armed with only a handful of clues, she sets out to unravel a local family’s deathly secret.

Sharing the streets with someone only she knows to be a killer is unsettling to say the least, but when her off-the-books investigation generates more questions than answers, the list of people she can trust grows dangerously short.

It’s a race to solve the mystery before the trail goes cold and a killer walks free.

Join the hunt for an elusive killer who’s primed to strike again.

Tony Minetti believes in self-improvement, and takes jobs to support a gym habit designed to get his body into shape. He hates when other guys make more gains than he does, and the last straw arrives in the form of his scrawny friend Steve, now sculpted like an action figure.

When Steve credits his bodybuilder physique to a compound from an unknown company on the dark web, a compound available to anyone prepared to pay the price, Tony has a choice to make. The whole thing might be a bogus sales pitch, or it just might be Tony’s best way to finally get swole. And being swole is something Tony wants, whatever the cost.

Swole is a standalone novella taken from The Angel’s Gate And Other Mysteries, also available now.

Before the Trojan War, there was the Theban War.

To the heroes beneath the walls of Troy, the heroes of the Theban War were peerless and unattainable role models.

Diomedes, son of Tydeus, so prayed to his goddess Athena:

Hear me, o daughter of Zeus! Stand by me, as you had once stood by my father, divine Tydeus, when he went to Thebes!

And King Agamemnon jeered him:

Woe to thee, son of brave Tydeus, the horse-tamer! Why do you tremble with fear? Why do you glance around, looking for a route of escape? Your father Tydeus was not wont to retreat in fear when he led bronze-clad Argives against the walls of Thebes!

What was the Theban War? Who fought it? What remains of the Homeric epics which described it? What can archeology tell us?

Aleksander Krawczuk’s books on Greece and Rome have shaped three generations of antique lovers in Europe.

They have been huge best-sellers because of their unassuming style: reading him feels like taking part in a pleasant chat after a nice dinner by the fireside, with a glass of sherry in hand.

His topics are important and may at first seem forbidding, but the good professor finds a way to talk about them in an unassuming way without dumbing them down in the process.

Pick up this book today and escape into… intelligent pleasure.

For Gus O’Grady, thirteen years of fighting and killing as a soldier has taken its toll on him. Cheap whiskey has been his only escape from the demons that haunt his nights. But that escape has come with a heavy price. He’s lost his sergeant’s stripes and his good name, due mostly to a hard-nosed Lieutenant named Welch. How much should a man be expected to take? It’s tempting to desert and leave it all behind, but would life be any better? He’s about to find out.

Her new B&B could save her… if it doesn’t kill her first.

Empty-nester Phoenix has the perfect plan to build a new life: Use her savings to turn a run-down property into a cozy B&B. But when you buy a fixer-upper, there are some things you can’t fix. A dead body is one of them.

Now her not-quite-perfect retreat has three big problems: An intruder, an arsonist, and a killer. And she hasn’t even opened for business yet.

She’d rather not live up to her name. How will she find the culprits before her dreams go up in smoke?

Find out why readers can’t get enough of the Tiny House Mysteries. Cozy up to Phoenix and her quirky friends for some mischief and mayhem.