Urbantasm: The Dying Cityby Connor Coyne

Urbantasm is a magical teen noir serial novel inspired by the author’s experiences growing up in and around Flint, Michigan.

Thirteen-year-old John Bridge’s plans include hooking up with an eighth-grade girl and becoming one of the most popular kids at Radcliffe Junior High, but when he steals a pair of strange blue sunglasses from a homeless person, it drops him into the middle of a gang war overwhelming the once-great Rust Belt town of Akawe.

John doesn’t understand why the sunglasses are such a big deal, but everything, it seems, is on the table. Perhaps he accidentally offended the Chalks, a white supremacist gang trying to expand across the city. Maybe the feud involves his friend Selby, whose father died under mysterious circumstances. It could even have something to do with O-Sugar, a homegrown drug with the seeming ability to distort space. On the night before school began, a group of teenagers took O-Sugar and leapt to their deaths from an abandoned hospital.

John struggles to untangle these mysteries while adjusting to his new school, even as his parents confront looming unemployment and as his city fractures and burns.

The Rental Sister: A Novelby Jeff Backhaus

A “masterpiece” (Robert Goolrick) about a withdrawn husband, a desperate wife, and the young Japanese woman who is hired to break down the walls between them.
 
Thomas Tessler has cloistered himself in his bedroom and shut out the world for the past three years. His wife, Silke, lives right in the next room, but Thomas no longer shares his life with her. He leaves his hideout only occasionally, in the wee hours of the night, to pick up food at the grocery store around the corner from their Manhattan apartment. Unable to cope with a devastating loss, Thomas has become isolated and withdrawn. The Japanese have a word for this phenomenon: hikikomori. They also have a solution for it: the “rental sister.”
 
Desperate for one last chance to salvage their life together, Silke hires Megumi, a young Japanese immigrant, to lure Thomas back into the world. Fleeing from her own shattering experience, Megumi has buried her pain in a fast life spent in nightclubs with nameless men. Now she will try to help Thomas and Silke as a rental sister. At first Thomas remains steadfast and sequestered, but as he grows to trust Megumi, a deepening–and increasingly sensual–relationship unfolds.
 
The Rental Sister is a taut, “serenely beautiful” (The Wall Street Journal) novel that packs a big philosophical punch and asks: What are the risks of intimacy? Can another woman ever lead a husband back to his wife? And what must we surrender for love?
 
“[A] quiet but poignant exploration of loneliness and self-discovery.” —USA Today
 
“A mesmerizing debut at once sorrowful, intimate, and optimistic . . . an enthralling success.” —Booklist, starred review

Wheel Powerby Sigal Adler

♥ Wheel Power ♥

Little Wheely rolled round and round, 
all on his own he spun on the ground. 
Wheels had a purpose, except for him, 
which is why he felt sad and so grim. 

All his friends were wheels too, 
yet they all had something to do. 
He watched them roll all night and day, 
all very busy – rushing on their way. 

A Talnarin Novel Complete Boxed Setby D.E. Chapman

This book contains the first five books in the Talnarin Novel Series, including the prequel told from Malik’s POV.

Alanna isn’t sure what she is anymore. She’s gone from being an innocent and curious village girl to … something else entirely.

After the experiments that destroyed everything she knew, she’s cursed with a power she can’t control. While on the run from the horrors haunting her past, she quickly realizes her own kind has turned against her. Now, Alanna must seek out the very species that ruined her life; the talnarins. These creatures are capable of doing things no human can do, but she’s desperate for their help.

As Alanna tries to navigate this new life, it soon becomes clear that her very existence is a threat. Now she needs to prove her innocence or she stands to lose her entire life’s purpose – revenge.

In this frightening new world, will Alanna survive long enough to destroy the nightmares from her past? Or will she find herself a step too far behind?

**Warning: this series contains profanity, dark themes, sexual tones, and violence. Slow burn romance, kicka** heroine, and enemies to lovers tropes.

A Talnarin Novel Complete Boxed Set Includes:
Veiled Threats
Fractured Past
Spilt Secrets
Broken Pieces
Memories Forged

Looking Real Goodby C. Morgan

I’m the guy every woman wants to go home with at the end of the night.

One problem though. I don’t have time for romance.

Hell, I can barely squeeze in a one-night stand here and there.

As a self-made billionaire in the tech space, my work is my life.

Unfortunately, my reputation as a rich jerk precedes me and isn’t entirely off.

Thankfully, my sister is a successful public-relations consultant and has an idea, a way to soften my image a little.

Her best friend is the answer.

But the woman that shows up to help me with philanthropy looks nothing like the girl I remember.

She’s rocking her jeans and T-shirt in ways that leave me wanting far more than I should.

Pretty soon, the lines are blurred between me wanting to help my company and me wanting to help myself to another serving of her.

I’m all for looking like a good guy to help my profits soar, but I’ve got bad boy things on my mind.

This woman is stealing my attention. She’s looking real good.

God help us both.

Love Your Movesby Weston Parker

From executive assistant for a billionaire to a candy dancer.

Those are just the breaks, right? Wrong.

Not when the sexy-as-sin boss that fired you decides he’s a little more than interested after he’s already taken your job.

If he thinks for one minute he’s getting into these candy panties, he’s wrong.

But I’ll give him a run for his money. This girl’s going down with a fight.

The drunk video that was made with me calling him out for being the villain he is went viral. I’m both impressed and appalled.

He’s far too smooth for his own good, and way too hot for mine.

All is fair in love and war until one night we both lay down our weapons and concede.

For one night. Besides, one night of passion has never hurt anyone, right?

From enemy to lover.

But it’s all a little too fishy. Maybe I’m being juked too?

An extravagant date? Check.

Steaming-hot guy who might not be the jerk I thought he was? Check.

Gorgeous ex-wife with a shiny new rock from him on her finger? Check and check.

And all of that on Valentine’s Day.

Like cupid got drunk and stumbled around laughing himself into a tizzy while he jacked up lives.

Like mine. But it’s my fault. I never should have dropped the enemy defense.

Unfortunately, I gave my heart to a guy who happens to be missing his.

Every good girl deserves a bad boy. ~ Weston

Being Authentic: A Memoirby Morhaf Al Achkar

Our existence is fragile. I learned that in many intricate ways, so I do not take today for granted. I do not know what tomorrow will bring. I do not even know if tomorrow will come.

On the eve of Thanksgiving 2016, I received the diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer. Next to dying, I fear the spread of cancer to my brain and losing my ability to think, speak, or write. This loss would be devastating to me.

The fragility of our life made me want to be authentic. Therefore, I am writing this memoir to be authentic–we become our true selves when we author who we are.

I am afraid of being forgotten. Death does frighten me. But more than dying, I am scared of having no one remember me or, even worse, of being recognized differently from who I was. At the same time, I have never thought that I was entitled to ask others not to forget me. But, not to be forgotten is precisely what I yearn for.

While I am writing for the other, I am simultaneously writing for myself. I am one of the readers and will test the subject as it gets written. My criteria are stricter. I want to say, “This is my narrative.”

I need to be able to say, “This is my narrative.”

ROADS TO MEANING AND RESILIENCE WITH CANCER: Forty Stories of Coping, Finding Meaning, and Building Resilience While Living with Incurable Lung Cancerby Morhaf Al Achkar

The book tells the stories of 39 patients with incurable lung cancer. It aims to help patients, families, and healthcare providers understand the experience of living with cancer. It also invites reflections on the essential questions of meaning, resilience, and coping with adversity in life. The author is a family doctor, teacher, and researcher who is also a stage 4 lung cancer patient himself. He is patient #40.
Patients with cancer often have an urgency to find meaning in life. They struggle with the illness, its emotional impact, and the consequences of treatments. However, with time, reflection, and support from others, they develop resilience. Cancer patients often are not passive. Instead, they choose different strategies to maintain and restore their health. They also leverage a variety of approaches to cope better with their struggle.
The book is for cancer patients who are tarrying at the limits of time. It is also for those who live around patients with cancer: caregivers, families and friends, and health care providers. People who struggle with other illnesses will also find aspects of their story reflected here. Also, the ones who have experienced a crisis of identity will discover elements of their story here as well. By sharing the experiences of the forty authentic individuals, the book opens the space for them to teach others. This book is about the essence of the human experience at its limits. It is for every reader.