What kind of shadow does a family secret cast over the child?
Mark Aherne is a middle-aged, married man living in Chicago. He's estranged from his parents in Boston, his father having bullied and belittled him throughout his childhood.
One Sunday he receives a desperate phone call from his sister who has been caring for their parents for many years. She needs help: his parents are sick and have started drinking again. Mark soon finds himself back with his sister dealing with their parents' loss of independence.
While caring for his parents, he remembers the past when he dealt with his father's emotional effect on him and the family. His memories include many childhood events that filled him with guilt and a sense of separation.
As he slowly comes to understand his family's dysfunction, he discovers secrets in his parents' lives that led to their own unhappiness. With his mother's dementia and his father's stubborn isolation, Mark fears his own aging as he learns to lay to rest the experiences of his childhood.

It’s the summer of 1953. Calvin Jefferson Coolidge is thirteen years old when the ghost of Joseph Stalin appears to him in his Aunt Evelyn’s cluttered Cleveland attic and wants to dictate his memoirs to him.
“I want to tell my side of the story,” Uncle Joe tells him. “They’re giving me one year to set the record straight, so we need to get started right away.”
Calvin’s life is falling apart at the seams. He’s a misfit and loner whose only friends are famous dead people. He loves polka music and Westerns and sometimes wonders what it would be like to kiss a girl. His con man father is in Florida looking for his bipolar runaway mother. His cousin Buck is abducted and experimented on by aliens. The lady next door wants to coach him in the ways of love. His pastor thinks he’s headed straight for Hell. His English teacher thinks he’s a savant. The school psychologist wants to have him committed. His shrink thinks he’s just plain nuts. Sometimes, Calvin believes it too.
Everybody’s trying to figure out what makes Calvin tick in this quirky, fast-paced metaphysical romp through the heart and soul of 1950’s America.

When LA social worker Anabel Medina sees a heavily armed gunman open fire at a shopping mall in Malibu, she almost snickers at the cruelly ironic fact that, after everything she’s managed to survive throughout her violent childhood in El Salvador, she's now about to die. Here. In Malibu.

Soon thereafter, while being interviewed on live TV—and asked how she was able to subdue the shooter with such unfazed bravery, as has been seen by millions on a viral video—Anabel demurs. She doesn’t want to talk about how she had spent her adolescence fleeing from marauding death squads in the Salvadoran hinterlands, and how a childhood in such constant close proximity to death begets a kind of callousness that’s difficult to grasp for people from the North. The hero worship fluff piece she’s expected to partake in comes entirely undone when Anabel—instead of giving some redundant play-by-play of the ordeal, or leaving it at yet another feckless argument for stricter gun control—opts to speak about the deeper reasons for the ceaseless stream of violence in, and from, America while giving an articulate assessment of a western system rife with corporate greed, extreme iniquity, perpetual wars, and smoldering rage.

Days later, Chris Heller, a disenchanted war photographer who’s visiting his hometown of Los Angeles, meets a woman by the name of Anabel who, as it turns out, has recently made waves in Malibu. Two damaged souls begin to bond and for the first time in god-knows-how-long, feel close to someone else.

When Anabel faces calls to use the platform she's unwittingly achieved, Chris, afire with a newfound sense of purpose in her wake, encourages her to run for office as an independent candidate. What follows is an unrelenting media smear campaign against the former ‘Heroine of Malibu’ who, through her enormous popularity, rises to become a threat to the establishment.

New York playwright Noah Miller had it all–a supportive wife, a precocious daughter, a promising career. Then, suddenly, all is lost.

Still mourning his family, Noah reluctantly agrees to oversee the summer production of his play on Cape Cod. There he befriends a woman who sympathizes with his grief. But her true objectives run deeper–into his very soul–and Noah becomes an unwitting victim of her deception.

Immersed in his production, he begins an affair with one of his actors but the guilt from their relationship leads to tragic consequences. Then, on the anniversary of his wife's passing, Noah discovers the harrowing mystery behind her unexpected death and the part he played in it.

Harboring this devastating secret, his show about to open without one of its lead actors, and a dubious figure harassing him, Behind the Fourth Wall is a story of hope and redemption, forgiveness and second chances, and ultimately, the courage to face one's darkest fears.

He either lives or dies, no more in between. The line can’t be straddled any further.

The Turners have been rocked by their oldest child’s spiraling depression and self-destructive behavior. It’s torn the family apart and drained their limited finances. When the psychiatrists have exhausted all treatment options with no success, they recommend an in-patient facility the Turners cannot afford. Life altering decisions must now be made.

How far will a parent go to save a child? At what cost to the rest of the family? How do you save someone who doesn’t want to be saved?

Karen Turner ignores the damage left from her son’s path and isolates everyone, including her two teenage daughters. She believes more money is the only solution. Larry works non-stop and sacrificed everything only to watch his son deteriorate further. With the Turners’ survival at stake, he takes an unthinkable and shocking approach to resolve their dilemma he may ultimately regret. And the family will never be the same.

"A promising new literary voice." –Kirkus Reviews

For aspiring indie filmmaker Kevin Stacey, it's another day on the set of his first film, but when his estranged father, a failed Hollywood actor, arrives unexpectedly with a bundle of cash, a gun, and a stolen capuchin monkey, he's propelled toward the journey that will change his life.

The monkey, Henry, has been liberated from a research lab by animal rights activists. Inspired by his friend Veronica to reevaluate his relationship with other species, Kevin learns about the pain and suffering inflicted on lab animals as he forges a bond with the capuchin. When father and son embark on a road trip with Henry, Kevin is caught between the egocentric father who abandoned him and the temperamental monkey whose fate is in his hands. With both the FBI and his mother's ghost watching, will Kevin risk his career and his father's freedom to bring the stolen monkey to safety? Meanwhile, Veronica's encounter with an eccentric Catholic priest triggers her own journey toward change.

A heartbreaking yet comic family drama, A Better Heart examines the human-animal bond and the bonds between fathers and sons, challenging readers to explore their beliefs about the treatment of non-human species.

Inspired by Amelia Earhart’s heroic flights, young Winona ‘Nona’ Williams tenaciously clings to the desire to become a pilot even after her father, with dreams of his own, dismisses the idea. When he quits his job in the Chicago stockyards to join other homesteaders settling the Great Plains, Nona finds herself torn between supporting her father’s vision for their future and her mother’s struggle to adjust to life on a desolate prairie.

Initially, things look up for the family as they settle into life in Dalhart, Texas. The wheat boom is in full swing, and it appears her father’s dream of providing his family with a home of their own is coming true. Too soon the effects of the depression impact her family. Then the rains stop. Before long, Dalhart is the epicenter of the Dust Bowl.

Like Dust, I Rise transforms poverty into pride and reflects the heroism of endurance.

"Imaginative and often beguiling, like a mashup of Platoon and Gremlins scripted by William S. Burroughs." -Kirkus Reviews
"Nikolich's story shimmers with intersecting layers of identity and fantastical complexities." -Authors Reading
Finalist: 2021 Next Generation Indie Book Awards
A suicidal former platoon sergeant, sole survivor of a Vietnam War jungle ambush, is haunted by what he perceives as his cowardly past. Debilitated by guilt and mourning the death of his wife, small town newspaper publisher Stan Przewalski lives in a PTSD-fueled world where it is impossible to distinguish reality from fantasy.
Returning from a Vietnam sightseeing tour, his suppressed memories resurface with a vengeance as he deals with a murder and a raging wildfire that threatens to destroy his hometown of Bull River Falls, Colorado. The overly medicated vet meets a magical creature who wears paratrooper boots and rock band tee shirts and commands a subterranean army that believes Stan is the answer to their fight against unscrupulous real estate developers.
While they sabotage cell phone towers and government buildings, these supernatural friends provide an unlikely path to Stan's redemption.
What could possibly go wrong?

Our lives are all drawn together as an infinite series of intersecting stories, paths that cross, divide, and double back again. Sometimes the foundations from where they begin can enslave our minds or set them free, with the only difference between destinies tied to how we see the world around us.

Two runaways cross paths in a Tennessee bus station with only one ticket between them. Who has the better reason to leave town? A middle-aged man in Illinois eyes the daily grind of a young basketball player who never boards the school bus. Does he have the wherewithal to turn this life around? A family sees looters racing toward their home as they escape an Oregon wildfire. Does it matter what the thieves steal before it all burns?

These and 47 more stories make up a debut collection of shorts, with each one or several easily read within a single sitting. Many of these stories have already been expanded for inclusion in a second collection and several are being considered for longer intersecting works.

An American Family. A World War. A First Love. A Small Hotel.

It’s the summer of 1941. Europe is at war, but New York's Thousand Islands are at the height of the tourist season. Kennet Fiskare, son of a hotel proprietor, is having the summer of a lifetime, having fallen deeply in love with a Swedish-Brazilian guest named Astrid Virtanen. But the affair is cut short and the young lovers permanently parted, first by Astrid’s family obligations, then by America’s entry into the war.

The rigors of military life help dull his heartache, but when Kennet’s battalion reaches France, he is thrown into the crucible of front line combat. As his unit crosses Europe, from the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium to Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, Kennet falls into a different kind of love: the intense camaraderie between soldiers. It's a bond fierce yet fragile, vital yet expendable, here today and gone tomorrow. Sustained by his friendships, Kennet both witnesses and commits the unthinkable atrocities of warfare, altering his view of the world and himself. To the point where a second chance with Astrid in peacetime might be the most terrifying and consequential battle he’s ever fought.

With her signature blend of soul-stirring prose and emotional complexity, Laqueur takes readers on a journey through events that shape an American family’s weakest moments and finest hours. A Small Hotel illuminates the experience of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary circumstances, and their once-in-a-generation camaraderie, courage and resiliency. It’s a novel for the world, a heartbreaking, uplifting story of family, love and human endurance.

From the author of IR Discovery Award finalist Learning to Haight comes the next great punk rock novel.

Wally, a neurotic, self-depreciating sales rep in San Francisco, somehow wins the heart of Julie, the drummer for a rising punk band. She’s everything he isn’t—cool, brash, confident in her own skin—and Wally never feels he’s able to live up to her public persona.

Complicating matters is the fact that Wally is convinced he will die young and has taken weirdly precise considerations to make sure his affairs are taken care of after he is gone—even going as far as to pick out a potential mate for Julie to step in after his death.

When tragedy tears them apart, Wally spirals into a tailspin involving booze, strippers, old wedding videos, a Jack Russell named after Joey Ramone and a dramatic rescue on the Golden Gate Bridge. Eventually, it’s his circle of friends that act as his de facto family as he deals with a devastating loss.

Above all, Polk Gulch is a startlingly honest story about love and grief that allows readers to enter the brain of someone who is haunted by the impending specter of death.

During Dust Bowl days in west Texas, a country doctor with shaky credentials delivers a baby, a so-called “monster,” acceptable parlance of that era indicating a newborn with multiple birth defects.

Later, Ivy Pettibone is mistakenly thought schizophrenic due to her garbled speech, landing her in a mental institution. There, she weaponizes one of her unusual birth defects, allowing her to emerge as an alpha female among the inmates.

In a parallel story merging decades later, Chase Callaway, grandson of Ivy’s delivering “doctor,” enters medical school planning on a career in psychiatry. While working as an aide in the mental institution, he strikes up a friendship with Ivy whereupon their lives become intertwined. After observing a surgical procedure with its instantaneous success, Chase alters his path toward specializing in general surgery. There, he ignores warning signs that he might be headed in the wrong direction. As Chase builds his shell of emotional protection to combat the “sins of commission” that are encountered in surgery, his armor includes one rusty bolt – his relationship with a distant physician-father who never finished his surgical residency.

Relationships shift and coincidences abound, raising the question of metaphysical explanations. Is the Callaway family haunted by a 13-generation curse? Is Ivy a designated guardian angel for Chase? Or, is the saga a simple tale made complex by quirky events?

PRANKS. OIL. PROTEST. JOKES BETWEEN NEWLYWEDS. AND ONE HILARIOUS SIEGE OF A MAJOR CORPORATION.

Remmy grows up with Beth in Bellhammer, Illinois as oil and coal companies rob the land of everything that made it paradise. Under his Grandad, he learns how to properly prank his neighbors, friends, and foes. Beth tries to fix Remmy by taking him to church. Under his Daddy, Remmy starts the Bell Hammer Construction Company, which depends on contracts from Texarco Oil. And Beth argues with him about how to build a better business. Together, Remmy and Beth start to build a great neighborhood of "merry men" carpenters: a paradise of s’mores, porch furniture, newborn babies, and summer trips to Branson where their boys pop the tops of off the neighborhood’s two hundred soda bottles. Their witty banter builds a kind of castle among a growing nostalgia.

Then one of Jim Johnstone’s faulty Texarco oil derricks falls down on their house and poisons their neighborhood's well.

Poisoned wells escalate to torched dog houses. Torched dog houses escalate to stolen carpentry tools and cancelled contracts. Cancelled contracts escalate to eminent domain. Sick of the attacks from Texaco Oil on his neighborhood, Remmy assembles his merry men:

"We need the world's greatest prank. One grand glorious jest that'll bloody the nose of that tyrant. Besides, pranks and jokes don't got no consequences, right?"

:: PRAISE FOR LANCELOT SCHAUBERT AND BELL HAMMERS ::



"Schaubert recounts a mischievous man's eight decades in Illinois's Little Egypt region in his picaresque debut. Remmy's life of constant schemes and pranks and a lifelong feud with classmate Jim Johnstone and the local oil drilling company proves consequential. This is a hoot."

— Publisher's Weekly



“BELL HAMMERS is written in a style not unworthy of John Kennedy Toole and William Faulkner – the vivid characterization of Southern ethnography commingled with stark, episodic spectacle breathes with the spirit of quintessential Americana. It is a text I would happily assign in an American Novel class and would expect it to yield satisfying discourse alongside works in the canon, whether beside the sardonic prose of Mark Twain or the energetically painful narratives of Toni Morrison.”

— Dr. Anthony Cirilla



“Schaubert’s words have an immediacy, a potency, an intimacy that grab the reader by the collar and say, ‘Listen, this is important!’ Probing the bones and gristle of humanity, Lancelot’s subjects challenge, but also offer insights into redemption if only we will stop and pay attention.”

— Erika Robuck, national bestselling author of Hemingway’s Girl



“Myth, regret, the lore of our heritage and the subtle displays of our castes — no one so accurately and imaginatively captures the joys and sorrows of life in the Midwest as Schaubert does here. BELL HAMMERS is a Tree Grows in Brooklyn as told by Gabriel Garcia Marquez if Marquez lived in rural Illinois and only told stories to his grandkids. Seriously a delight to read.”

— Colby Williams, author of the Axiom Gold Medal winning book Small Town, Big Money



“Loved BELL HAMMERS because Lancelot wrote about people who don’t get written about enough and he did it with humor, compassion, and heart.”

— Brian Slatterly, author of Lost Everything and editor of The New Haven Review



“I’m such a fan of Lancelot Schaubert’s work. His unique view and his life-wisdom enriches all he does. We’re lucky to count him among our contributors.”

— Therese Walsh, author of The Moon Sisters and Editorial Director of Writer Unboxed

The International Bestseller!

Recommended by Oprah Magazine ∙ Cosmo ∙ PopSugar ∙ SheReads ∙ Parade ∙ and more!

An epic saga from New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Dray based on the true story of an extraordinary castle in the heart of France and the remarkable women bound by its legacy.
 
Most castles are protected by men. This one by women.

A founding mother...
1774. Gently-bred noblewoman Adrienne Lafayette becomes her husband, the Marquis de Lafayette’s political partner in the fight for American independence. But when their idealism sparks revolution in France and the guillotine threatens everything she holds dear, Adrienne must renounce the complicated man she loves, or risk her life for a legacy that will inspire generations to come.

A daring visionary...
1914. Glittering New York socialite Beatrice Chanler is a force of nature, daunted by nothing—not her humble beginnings, her crumbling marriage, or the outbreak of war. But after witnessing the devastation in France firsthand, Beatrice takes on the challenge of a lifetime: convincing America to fight for what's right.

A reluctant resistor...
1940. French school-teacher and aspiring artist Marthe Simone has an orphan's self-reliance and wants nothing to do with war. But as the realities of Nazi occupation transform her life in the isolated castle where she came of age, she makes a discovery that calls into question who she is, and more importantly, who she is willing to become.

Intricately woven and powerfully told, The Women of Chateau Lafayette is a sweeping novel about duty and hope, love and courage, and the strength we take from those who came before us.

What if I am the very darkness that I fear?

I’ve made a lot of bad decisions, like getting myself arrested and saying “I do” to an irresistible drug dealer. Even still, I managed to make some good ones, too. But when shadow-ridden nightmares encroach upon my waking life, my world flips upside down.

I search inside myself for answers, unleashing a powerful force from within that can face the shadow’s depths.

But those depths hide grave secrets within the very establishment sworn to protect us. Will I be able to save not only myself but countless others? Or is this all part of a greater delusion?


Content Advisory: Story contains mature themes and is intended for readers 18+

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What Amazon readers are saying:

★★★★★ 'A suspenseful urban fantasy adventure, unlike any I have ever seen'

★★★★★ 'I could not put this book down, and stayed up all night to finish!'

★★★★★ 'The dream sequences were written so well, they pulled me in, left me with the surreal feeling of having experienced them myself.'

About the Author
Rossana's inspiration comes from a variety of authors and genres, including McKenzie Hunter, Margaret Atwood, K.F. Breene, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Arturo Perez-Reverte, Paolo Coehlo, Sarah Maas and so many more.

"A gay man questions Britain's repressive new political regime... Cacoyannis has written a thoroughly gripping novel, using the rhetoric of a real-life pandemic to fashion a chilling vision of an abnormal 'new-normal' to come." Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

London 2030. When a postman knocks on his door, the news he delivers will cause 70-year-old Anthony Pablo Rubens to reflect on all the sadnesses and joys of the past, while he begins to prepare for the surprises of the future.

The past still revolves around the moment in the summer of 1984 when young Anthony first realized he had fallen in love.

The present is a Kafkaesque nightmare worse than Orwell's 1984, "a hideous world where people don't need to be watched by Big Brother." It's a world that Anthony has mostly shut his eyes to, but which suddenly he is forced to confront.

And the future now encompasses the mystery, and excitement, and dread of a day as an exhibit at the National People's Museum.

A dystopian political satire, The Coldness of Objects is also a story of loss, and of different kinds of love.

"An intriguing, timely, and terrifying portent of life after Covid-19." Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"a small jewel, filled with exquisite language, intimate human characters and poignant drama" Casey Dorman - Lost Coast Review

Contains Mature Themes and Strong Language.

Hamilton is crushed by a secret so shameful that it is beyond bearing.
His heir is dead; his daughter has gone insane with grief.
His dear wife, Eliza, now shudders at his touch.

He never intended to send his son to his death. That wasn't in his plans.
And his wife may never forgive him.

As Hamilton struggles to save his marriage and his family, his political opponent, Aaron Burr, threatens to topple the nation. The nation which Hamilton had risked everything to forge.

Burr, impoverished and embittered by a humiliating loss, blames Hamilton. Burr will stop at nothing to regain his lost power and restore his fortunes. If he can destroy and defame Hamilton in the process, he will have his ultimate triumph.

It is a time of honor, duels, political intrigues, and political violence.
It is an age of men.

Torn between his duty to his wife and family, and his allegiance to the country, Hamilton must make his choice.

You know his name, but this is the story that you haven't heard before! If you loved the score of Hamilton, the biographies of Chernow, and the novels of Stephanie Dray - you would love Hamilton's Choice!

Read it Today!

‘Everything happens for a reason.’
It’s 1972. Raymond Mann is seventeen. He is fearful of life and can’t get off buses. He says his prayers every night and spends too much time in his room.
He meets Ernest Gardiner, a gentleman in his seventies who’s become tired of living and misses the days of chivalry and honour. Together they discover a love of sunflowers and stars, and help each other learn to love the world.
Ernest recounts his experiences of 1917 war-torn France where he served as a photographer in the trenches … of his first love, Mira, and how his life was saved by his friend Bill, a hardened soldier.
But all is not as it seems, and there is one more secret that will change Raymond’s life for ever.
Cold Sunflowers is a story of love.
All love.
But most of all it’s about the love of life and the need to cherish every moment.

Find out more about the book and its author, Mark Sippings, at www.coldsunflowers.co.uk.

Kept apart by society, two lovestruck mariners face the forces of time, death, and the afterlife in order to reunite.

At the peak of the whaling boom in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1857, Nicolas Adams and his best friend, Henry Lawton, are living during a time when expressing their true feelings for each other is dangerous. After a prank goes disastrously awry, Nicolas and Henry are sent aboard Henry’s father’s whaling ship, where they experience a rough awakening to the harsh realities of seafaring life.

When Henry is seduced by another shipmate, Nicolas is forced to confront his growing romantic love for his friend. But before he can admit to his desire, the two of them are involved in a fatal accident, the consequences of which send Nicolas to the Realm, where he discovers that he will exist in the afterlife as an assignment angel—one who is sent to Earth to intervene in the lives of the living.

During an assignment, Nicolas returns to New Bedford and decides to seek revenge on the shipmates who were complicit in his fate, including Henry, who is now engaged to a woman. But Nicolas’s actions only lead to endless longing, and he must deepen his search to discover what is truly needed to reunite him with Henry.

Putting the will in willpower.

Josh McCain has two years to reinvent himself. Stripped of everything that made life a swanky, booze and babe-filled breeze, Josh embarks on a grueling and often hilarious two-year regimen of self-discipline that targets his mind, body, and spirit.

Along the way, skeptics mock him; his own past taunts him; and saboteurs resolve to stop him. But Josh is determined to complete his "bucket list from hell," and prove that who he was is not as important as who he can become.

Operating in unfamiliar territory, Josh turns to a cast of quirky characters to aid him on his secret journey; persons he'd have previously shunned. Upbeat and inspiring, The Will is an enthralling story of goofs and grit, of the regenerative power of friendship--and if Josh doesn't blow it--real love.