A Smile For The Lizards

When the Price of Freedom is More than You Can Afford…
Fourteen-year-old Gilbert (Gib) Evans is caught in the anti-communist hysteria of 1953 when he writes an essay for his English class calling for loyalty oaths. His teacher is so impressed he sends the essay to the local paper.

The essay by a ‘concerned child’ is printed and becomes a catalyst in the decision to require all teachers to sign loyalty oaths that are known to be a trap for future perjury accusations.

Gib fears that his favorite teacher and his Quaker parents will refuse to sign the oath and lose their jobs. When local leaders use threatening tactics to force people to take the oath, Gib struggles to understand the powerful manipulation of emotions that creates public fear.

As panic about communism grows into hatred and rage, can Gib and his friends undo the disaster he has helped create?
But Gib learns that turning off, or even deflecting mass hysteria is nearly impossible — and very dangerous.

Scapegoat: The Price of Freedom is the first book in the Scapegoat Coming of Age Political Thriller series.

A billionaire cowboy with a huge crush on an intriguing store owner in need of his help… can West help Genna find more than she’s asked for, with true love and a future with him?

Genna Barry grew up traveling the world with her parents but dreamed of settling down in a small town and making a life of her own. Now, as an adult dropped by the man, she thought she loved she’s found Lone Star, Texas and opened a real store to go with her booming online store. She’s loving her life, a life that involves no dating since she’s not willing to sacrifice the happiness she’s found by being rejected ever again.

West Buckley admires the beautiful store owner and is highly infatuated with her, but word is she’s not interested in dating anyone. So, he’s trying to hide how he feels and just be her friend — a hard task when his interest is so strong even his brothers see it.

When one of Genna’s online clients wants to come to town and bring her single daughter to shop and hopefully meet some cowboys, West is pulled in to help. And hiding his feelings for Genna gets tougher.

But though he keeps the books for his family’s huge ranch and likes raising cattle he lives at his grandparent’s old homestead and raises lots of goats, keeping his grandmother’s favorite hobby alive — little does he know it’s also a dream of Genna’s… can it be a lead into the two of them finding love together?

Welcome to Lone Star, Texas: in this fun, inspirational, heartwarming romance series, you’ll watch as each of the Buckleys find love in the small town, surrounded by wonderful… meddling people eager to see all of them happy.

Latin was a dead language-until the aliens arrived.

Out-of-work Latin teacher and borderline alcoholic Austin DeSantis is determined to spend his final days in the arms of a prostitute-that is if the aliens don’t exterminate humanity first.

But when the aliens land at the Vatican, begin speaking Latin, and reveal themselves to be Catholic, the world turns upside down.

Pressed into service as a translator and thrust into the center of humanity’s first contact with a cryptic alien race, Austin must uncover their true intentions before religious turmoil rips the planet apart. But with Austin caught between the Catholic Church, the US military, and an enigmatic alien AI, he’ll have to decide where his loyalties lie as the fate of humanity hangs in the balance.

PILGRIMS is a sci-fi retelling of Augustine’s Confessions, mixing a high-concept premise à la Children of Time with the ceaseless pacing and rich characterization of Red Rising.

Get it now!

Who would kill a hundred-year-old man at his own 100th birthday party?

That’s what cupcake truck owner Isabel Addington is left asking herself when she’s hired to cater a birthday party where the guest of honor dies before he can even taste her cupcakes.

But it’s none of her business. She needs to focus on preventing her abusive husband from finding her and on keeping her struggling food truck afloat. When the police declare the dead man’s death a murder, neither of those goals seem likely. Her fingerprints were all over the murder weapon… if you can call a bottle of ketchup a weapon.

Now the woman who hired her is refusing to pay, a nosy reporter is putting her true identity at risk of discovery, and the dead man’s handsome grandson wants to prove she killed his grandfather.

Her future holds either a casket or an orange prison jumper unless she can find out who really went to all the trouble and risk of killing a hundred-year-old man.

Sugar and Vice is the first book in award-winning and bestselling author Emily James’ Cupcake Truck Mysteries. If you love cozy mysteries with found family, amateur sleuths, and food, then you’ll want to sink your teeth into this story today!

Cupcake recipe included!

An ordinary girl. A rare power. A deadly game.

Lie low.
Don’t draw attention to yourself.

Fifteen-year-old Asha Olinger has abided by her sister’s rules her entire life. Every day, she works relentlessly as a cleaner to put food on the table, scrambling in the dredges of Althuria. Every day, she wonders about a life where she no longer struggles for a few measly coins.

But after discovering she wields a rare and destructive power, her quiet life is turned upside down. Her older sister gives her a mysterious warning. Lex Sylvester, with his fame, wealth, and stupidly charming looks — that she certainly never, ever noticed — starts flirting with her. And to top it all off, she receives a letter from the famed Luminus Academy, declaring that she got accepted through the lottery system. The terrifying probabilities quickly turn into incredible opportunities, and suddenly controlling her power doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

What is this darned ability of hers? Why does everyone keep telling her to stay away from the Queen of Althuria? And more importantly…
Who the heck is murdering girls at the Academy?

If she doesn’t find out soon… she might just be next.