One of the perks of being a writer is being friends with other writers. I often get to read novels and stories before they’re published and cheer them on when they are. The writers I regularly chat with about the craft and business of writing are a talented and diverse bunch.
Because I like to share good writing with others, I asked them to share their best stories with me, so I could share them with you. There are bestsellers and award winners in the bunch, so don’t be shy about picking one and downloading it. The links are for eReaders, but the novels typically have a paper version on the link if that’s more your speed.
The e-versions are priced friendly, so if you see a description that sounds intriguing, download a sample and try it out. Who knows? Maybe you’ll find a new favorite author.
Sci-fi short story by Terry Hayman for $0.99
For Howard, it was supposed to be a simple vacation, a long-promised flight to Paris with the family. But then things started to go wrong in ways that made no damned sense at all.
Novel by Russ Crossley for $2.99
In this thrilling, adventure-laden, grease-stained, booze-soaked comedy spanning the galaxy of tomorrow, two unlikely heroes find each other as they struggle to save addiction for all human and alien kind.
Novel by Joshua Graham for $3.99
THE DESCENT INTO HELL IS NOT ALWAYS VERTICAL…
Sam Hudson, a reputable San Diego attorney, learns this when the authorities wrongfully convict him of the brutal rape and murder of his wife and daughter, and sends him to death row. There he awaits execution by lethal injection.
If he survives that long.
In prison, Sam fights for his life while his attorney works frantically on his appeal. It is then that he embraces the faith of his departed wife and begins to manifest supernatural abilities. Abilities which help him save lives– his own, those of his unlikely allies–and uncover the true killer’s identity, unlocking the door to his exoneration.
Now a free man, Sam’s newfound faith confronts him with the most insurmountable challenge yet. A challenge beyond vengeance, beyond rage, beyond anything Sam believes himself capable of: to forgive the very man who murdered his family, according to his faith. But this endeavor reveals darker secrets than either Sam or the killer could ever have imagined. Secrets that hurtle them into a fateful collision course.
BEYOND JUSTICE, a tale of loss, redemption, and the power of faith.
A Monument More Lasting Than Brass
Short story by Steven Mohan, Jr. for $0.99
It is a fact of history that when Neil Armstrong set Apollo 11 down on the moon he was running dangerously low on fuel. This Pushcart Prize-nominated story recounts an alternate history in which the lunar module crashed and man’s journey to the moon ended not in triumph–but tragedy. A decade later, a pair of astronauts finally return to the moon.
And what they’ll find is something no one expects.
Novel by Levi Montgomery for $4.99
When the aliens landed seventy-two years ago, the first thing they did was turn off the power.
Then they ran for the hills.
The aliens themselves killed very few people, but riots, looting, disease, natural disasters and the sheer brutality of a harsh life that no one had lived for generations have reduced the population of Earth to a few tiny handfuls, scattered among the abandoned ruins of a lost civilization. Now word has come to Amarylla’s father, the chief civil engineer of the Federal Republic of New York, that an unknown man in the far northern plains may hold the key to turning the lights back on.
But when Amarylla sets out with her father to find this mysterious man, she is a just young girl whose life has been filled with operas and riding lessons and needlework, a young girl schooled only in the history of fashion, classical philosophers, and the proper navigation of knives and forks at a state diner. A young girl totally unprepared for the raw edges of life beyond the walls, totally unprepared for the closeness of a young guard named Marlowe, totally unprepared for danger.
Can she become what she needs to be? Can she learn what she needs to know? Can she grow up in time, or will this alien dystopia kill her?
Novel by Gerald M. Weinberg for $4.99
How would you live if you lost your hands? Could you feed and clean yourself? Dress yourself, or even tie your shoes?
Orphaned Pamela compensates for her missing hands by developing an extraordinary ability to visualize and predict patterns. When she uses
this ability to pick winning horses, she becomes entangled with bookies and gangs.
When she uses it to save the lives of young leukemia victims, her runaway guardian returns to sell her into virtual slavery to a giant
medical corporation. Now she must choose between new hands for herself or new lives for hundreds of leukemia victims.
Novelette by Douglas Smith for $1.99
The Angels–a race of aliens, enslaved by the Merged Corporate Entity, milked for the Scream they produce, an addictive drug that turns sorrow to joy, pain to pleasure, horror to ecstacy. A soldier on Scream won’t just kill–they’ll revel in it. Trelayne is such a soldier. MCE thinks they control him because they control his Scream. But they never counted on him falling in love with an Angel.
2004 Aurora Award WINNER
2004 Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror honorable mention
The Traveler: Voices and Echoes
Short Story by Randy Tatano for $0.99
In the future fingerprints have been replaced with “mindprints”…brainwaves that are recorded 24/7 by a master computer that tracks your every move. It creates what should be a foolproof justice system. But when Public Defender Will Beckett finds a flaw and threatens to expose it, he becomes a target and is framed for murder. Will he be able to save his life by outwitting the master computer?
Novel by Jill Morrison for $2.99
In the early days of a very close future, where everyone is rigged bionically to the Net, Owen Bland is on his way to Vegas, a place inhabited by the obscenely wealthy and the obscenely poor. He has taken a job as a tutor, escaping his savage boarding school life. His employer, Evelyn Sales, is beautiful, rich and brilliant. As Bland comes to love this complicated woman, he finds himself drawn into the terrible secret she cannot leave behind.
Weird Wild West Short Story by L. M. May for $0.99
Lachlan is tempted to bargain with a lake demon for the gold he needs in order to marry the woman of his dreams. But a demon’s gold always comes at a terrible price. A Weird Wild West short story set in late 1870s Colorado.
Novella by DeAnna Knippling for $2.99
Ellie can’t see it, but she’s a saint. A good girl who takes care of her Grandie at the nursing home, recycles other people’s trash, and worries about getting her loans out on time so she doesn’t inconvenience her customers.
It’s too much for the Devil to resist: is Ellie good, or is she just boring? He makes her a deal. She can be thin, pretty, and immortal…as long as she doesn’t eat chocolate. Ever. If she does, she’s going straight to Hell.
Except Ellie doesn’t like chocolate, so he better find something—or someone—better to tempt her with. Then the bad boy at the top of Ellie’s sexual bucket list appears. Coincidence? Probably not.
Novel by Ryan M. Williams for $4.99
Brock Marsden. A genetically-modified private detective who solves the toughest cases on a world populated by a mix of humans and aliens.
Like this one. A young woman, Chrissy Winston, murdered in a bizarre fashion that leaves police chasing false leads. A case that needs all
of Brock’s unique abilities and maybe new ones if he hopes to catch the killer.
A Crime Novel by Lauryn Christopher for $3.99
It’s a bad idea to piss off a professional assassin, and Meg Harrison – corporate spy and sometimes assassin – is definitely pissed off. Not only has a new, and very irritating, client hired her to kill her own sister, but to top it all off, Meg didn’t even know she *had* a sister. For Meg, this is a contract that hits a little too close to home.
Novel by Rigel Ailur for $5.99
Fleeing from a death-filled past and hiding from her family, Alex settles in to a low-key anonymous life as a novelist. She even agrees to teach for one semester at a local university. When a particularly tenacious reporter starts to investigate her for a personality piece, the dearth of background information available just makes him dig even deeper. Alex’s best option is to vanish as she’s always done before. But she’s fallen in love with a professor, so running means either leaving him behind or dragging him with her. If he doesn’t run first once he learns her history.
A Grace deHaviland Short Story by David DeLee for $0.99
Bounty hunter, Grace deHaviland and her best friend, sheriff’s deputy, Suzie Jensen have often worked together, but when the bail jumper they’re after is a school teacher charged with sex crimes, the issues they struggle with and the secrets they uncover are both startling, and disturbing; and strike too close to home.
Far West Civil War Novel by Pati Nagle
In 1861, New Mexico Territory is swept by change as the United States erupts in civil war. Federal troops are recalled to the east, leaving the way open for Confederates to invade New Mexico and capture its resources on the way to the ultimate prize: Colorado gold!
Three young people are caught up in the conflict: Alastar O’Brien, a Colorado miner turned soldier; Laura Howland, a young lady from Boston, recently orphaned; and Jamie Russell, a shop clerk from Texas serving as a quartermaster. The maelstrom of war brings them together in a clash of ambition, patriotism, and the simple need to survive.
Novella by Rebecca M. Senese for $1.99
Nadia is an Assassin, designed, built and trained to kill. Running from her owners, the Gemini Corporation, stranded on a space station, she is hunted by a tracker named Devon. The easiest thing would be to kill him. But Nadia is desperate to resist her nature and as Devon closes in, she fights against her overwhelming urge to kill.
Novel by Annie Bellet for $4.95
In an ancient Wales that never was…
Twin brothers Emyr and Idrys are cursed to live as hounds; Emyr by night, and Idrys by day. The twins believe they will be trapped this way forever until they meet the fierce and curious Áine, a changeling woman born with Fey blood and gifts struggling to fit into a suspicious human world.
Áine unravels the fate of Emyr and his twin as all three of them fall in love. To free her lovers from the curse, she embarks on a journey to the realm of the fey where she confronts her own unique gifts and heritage. Ultimately, she must decide where her heart truly lies and what she’s willing to risk to get what she desires most.
But then it turns out a boy really is missing. Now Kate has to turn her dysfunctional detachment into a working police force and find him before it’s too late.
Novel by Joe Cron for $12.99
Rachel Lake’s mother, Suzanne, suffers an untimely death. But is she really gone? An unseen entity launches Rachel on a spiraling descent into horror. It forces her to commit gruesome murders, elements of an ultimate strategy to populate the world with demons. Rachel feels the presence of her mother, reassuring her that everything will be all right. But there’s more – bizarre, terrifying images she can’t explain. On her own now, Rachel’s solitary grieving is shattered by spontaneous episodes in her mind – of a primitive life before civilization, of predatory debauchery, of cavorting with demons. Suzanne is showing her those flashes as well, reveling with twisted glee in the mayhem that has Rachel doubting her sanity. In life, Suzanne kept Rachel and her father, anthropologist Jason Caldwell, from ever meeting. Now, with Suzanne invading Rachel’s consciousness at will, Jason and Rachel discover clue upon clue revealing a plan to plunge mankind into an impending eternity of torture. Cultural legends merge and clash as Jason must decipher an ancient Mayan text and weave it together with Hebrew folklore to unlock the secret of Suzanne’s true identity. As the deadline for catastrophe approaches, can Jason and Rachel stay alive long enough to protect the world from an endless horde of terrifying creatures?
In the secret world of the American Geological Survey, only vellum, ink, and earth power provide protection from terrorists erasing cities and rewriting America.
As an orphan, Vallon Drake learned early to depend on herself. Now an agent of the AGS, she may have a partner, but she remains a lone wolf.
When her ex-partner turns up dead, all the evidence points at Vallon. Forced to ‘go rogue’ and pursued by police, Homeland Security, and a mysterious, sensual man in black, Vallon investigates a case that has too many links to her own troubled past.
Vallon may hold the key to stop a plot to wipe Seattle off the map, but defeating her foe means defeating her past, and not even Vallon can do that alone. But alone is all Vallon knows, in a world where nothing is as it seems and not even the earth is solid.
