Nolander


Book Description

Beth Ryder knows she's different. In a tiny rural town, being an orphaned and perpetually single amateur photographer crippled by panic disorder is pretty much guaranteed to make you stick out like a sore thumb. But Beth doesn't understand just how different she really is. One day, strange things start cropping up in her photos. Things that don't look human. Impossible things. Monstrosities. Beth thinks her hateful sister-in-law, Justine, has tampered with her pictures to play a cruel joke, but rather than admitting or denying it, Justine up and vanishes, leaving the family in disarray. Beth's search for Justine plunges her into a world she never knew existed, one filled with ancient and terrifying creatures. Both enemies and allies await her there—a disturbingly sexy boss, a sentient wolf with diamond fur, body-snatching dinosaur-birds. Separating the allies from the enemies is no easy chore, but in this strange new world, allies are a necessity. A plot is afoot, and Beth—whose abilities no one seems able to explain—may well hold the key to solving it. Nolander is the first novel in the fantasy series Emanations. The second novel, Solatium, and a short story, "Theriac," are also available. The Emanations Series Of all the beings that have lived on Earth, what if just a few had the power to make new realities, according to their desires? What would they create? The Second Emanation: a shadow world where ancient creatures persist, where humanity's dominance is far less certain, where wonder competes with horror. A world like an autumn forest, its realities as multiple and layered as fallen leaves. The world that gives us our gods. In Becca Mills's Emanations series, this strange and magical world crosses paths with a seemingly ordinary young woman from the American Midwest. It'll never be the same again. Reviews "This is among the best of the urban fantasy genre, and it is a wonder why a major publisher has yet to pick it up. Mills has given us such a dynamic world with vibrant characters and multiple plot lines that really bring it all to life." - Twisting the Lens "I simply loved Nolander. I'm going to put it out there and say that this is one of the best debut fantasy books I've read this year! It was that fantastic." - scifinerdsare.us "Nolander was a highly entertaining read. Each time I thought I had a handle on what was going on and what was going to come next the plot would take a turn to something completely unexpected. Becca Mills has created a very vibrant world full of unique creatures and happenings where just about anything you can imagine is possible." - The Dragon's Inkpot Series keywords: fantasy, urban fantasy, contemporary fantasy, fantasy series, speculative fiction, hard fantasy, dark fantasy, paranormal, female protagonist, female main character, science fantasy, action, adventure, monsters, deities, gods, demons, dragons, dying earth, action, fantasy action, magic, alternative history, parallel world, free, freebie







Time Exposure


Book Description

Private investigator Alo Nudger of St. Louis beguiles the reader again in another of Lutz's droll, deftly-plotted mysteries. Timid Nudger, determined to be a mensch, gives new meaning to fighting city hall on an assignment from Adelaide Lacy. Her sister Mary and Mary's boss, Virgil Hiller, are missing from their government posts, along with $500,000 in public funds. According to Adelaide, Mary and Virgil despised each other so much, they would only be found together outside the office if they were dead. Which is how Nudger believes he and Adelaide could wind up, as he picks up slim clues and dodges the armed stalker hired to mark the case closed.




Hearings


Book Description




Hearings


Book Description




The Dying of the Light


Book Description

A young homeless man begins helping in a retirement home. By living and working there, he is confronted more and more by the problems of aging. When asked to interview some residents for a paper he records lonely depressed men, a woman afflicted with Alzheimer's, and men and women highly alert into their nineties but physically handicapped. All residents are glad somebody is listening to them. Through their talking, Jacob realizes that to become old is hard work and his life is changed forever.




The Ghost of the Wicked Crow


Book Description

From grade school to junior year, Ian Wilder’s heart belongs to one person – his next-door neighbor and best friend Penelope Archer. To him, they match like the last two puzzle pieces across an infinite, jigsaw universe. Together, they spend every free moment in the outgrown treehouse adjoining their yards. There, under the dull glow of dying flashlights, Ian scribbles the words and Penelope paints the worlds from their imagination. From western shootouts with kooky outlaws or surviving a horde of alien zombies aboard a space station, their stories have always been more vivid than reality. But junior year hits harder. Their stories take a back seat to make out sessions under the sleeping bags of that old treehouse. And as these two puzzle pieces jostle closer to completing the universe, something changes. Tragedy strikes. Ian cracks and succumbs to a walking state of catatonia. When Ian finally returns to school, a strange substitute teacher tells Ian that infinite realities exist across a multiverse. Stranger yet, he needs Ian’s help to prevent a similar tragedy in an alternate reality filled with blood-thirsty pirates. The Ghost of the Wicked Crow is a story about a teenager using his overactive imagination to cope with trauma. Can you solve your problems with the multiverse at your fingertips? Or does it fracture your psyche and family even further?




The Piano Lesson


Book Description

SOON TO BE A NETFLIX FILM STARRING SAMUEL L. JACKSON! Winner of the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, this modern American classic is about family, and the legacy of slavery in America. August Wilson has already given the American theater such spell-binding plays about the black experience in 20th-century America as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fences. In his second Pulitzer Prize-winner, The Piano Lesson, Wilson has fashioned perhaps his most haunting and dramatic work. At the heart of the play stands the ornately carved upright piano which, as the Charles family's prized, hard-won possession, has been gathering dust in the parlor of Berniece Charles's Pittsburgh home. When Boy Willie, Berniece's exuberant brother, bursts into her life with his dream of buying the same Mississippi land that his family had worked as slaves, he plans to sell their antique piano for the hard cash he needs to stake his future. But Berniece refuses to sell, clinging to the piano as a reminder of the history that is their family legacy. This dilemma is the real "piano lesson," reminding us that blacks are often deprived both of the symbols of their past and of opportunity in the present.




August Wilson's The Piano Lesson


Book Description

It is 1936, and Boy Willie arrives in Pittsburgh from the South in a battered truck loaded with watermelons to sell. He has an opportunity to buy some land down home, but he has to come up with the money right quick. He wants to sell an old piano that has been in his family for generations, but he shares ownership with his sister and it sits in her living room. She has already rejected several offers because the antique piano is covered with incredible carvings detailing the family’s rise from slavery. Boy Willie tries to persuade his stubborn sister that the past is past, but she is more formidable than he anticipated.