#blogtour Love On the Line Love by Kirsten Fullmer

Andrea takes a job building a pipeline through the mountains
of West Virginia. 

Cold, mud, family drama, and an all-male crew, are only a few
of the problems she encounters.

Love On the Line 1

Women At Work Series Book 1

by Kirsten Fullmer

Genre: Women’s Fiction, Coming of Age, Small Town Romance

Her dad always
said A little dirt never hurt anybody. He was wrong.

Andrea’s excitement about her first job engineering a pipeline through the
mountains of West Virginia turns to disaster when she faces grueling work,
harsh weather, and crushing homesickness. If she can’t pull herself together
and keep up, she’ll be sent home.

When she dropped out of grad school to work on the line with Grandpa Buck, her
parents were disappointed, widening a bitter family divide. If she goes home
now, she’ll miss the opportunity to know Buck and lose his respect
as well.

There’s one worker, a foreman, who might offer comfort and support, but when
Andrea finally trusts him, things get even more complicated.

Fans of In Five Years, Reminders of Him, and Regretting You, are devouring
Kirsten Fullmer’s imaginative, gritty, coming-of-age romance.

One-Click Love on the Line
to start the uniquely engaging journey today!

 

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 Nick
and Rooster’s conversation lagged as they both paused to watch Andy and Buck
approach. The afternoon had grown warm, the hottest so far, and the men waved
at dust and bugs that crawled and bit, making them miserable.

            Buck stopped and bobbed a nod at the
two foremen. “Men.”

            “Sir,” both mumbled in reply.

Buck
grunted, then headed on past the men with Andy at his heels. As she hustled
pass Rooster, her eyes met his and she couldn’t help but notice the intensity
there.

She
tripped over a rut and ran several steps ahead to regain her balance. Stopping
to readjust the stake bag on her shoulder, she waved away a sweat bee. “Go
ahead, Andy, trip and fall at his feet,” she muttered under her breath.

Two
steps later she lurched to a halt and dropped the bag to clutch at her underarm
where something, more than likely the sweat bee, stung her with a vengeance.

Shouting
curses, she danced and twisted in a circle, yanking at her safety vest and
shirt and grabbing at her sports bra in an attempt the stop the burning sting.
Finally, she ripped one arm out of her shirt and vest. Shoving her fingers up
under the tight sweaty bra, she scooped out the bee and jumped back as its body
fell to the dirt.

She
stomped on the bee and kinked her neck, trying to examine her armpit area, but
then she remembered where she was. She froze with one hand still up the side of
her bra. Her head came up, only to find every man on the right-of-way,
numbering well over thirty, staring at her in amazement.

“Need
a hand?” Nick called out with a grin.

“It
was a bee—” she started, then with a snort of disgust, she yanked her hand from
her bra. Hefting the heavy bag, she realized her shirt and safety vest were
still bunched up around one side of her neck, leaving her arm and her stomach
half exposed. Three more cuss words escaped as she dropped the bag and fumbled
back into her clothing, with all eyes watching her every move.

The
sting continued to burn as she grabbed the stake bag and stomped past Buck,
with her cheeks red and hot.

“What
was that all about?” the old man asked as she passed.

Ignoring
him, Andy continued up the right-of-way.

***

            Rooster smoothed his fingers down
his beard trying to hide a laugh as he watched Andy and Buck retreat. Nick
hooted by his side, cackling with the other hands as they regaled Andy tearing
off her shirt. Rooster’s hand dropped and he frowned, wondering how bad the
sting was. He’d had a sweat bee trapped in his pants once, and it was a pain he
still remembered.

Love on the Line 2

Women at Work Book 2

Andy could only
stare, wide-eyed, at the keys in her hand. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think.
Only foremen got a company truck.

Andy is pleased to work with Grandpa Buck again, even though the long hours
limit her time with Rooster. But her contentment is cut short when a serious
on-the-job accident tips the scale of leadership, throwing Rooster and Andy
into conflict.

Rooster must prove he is unbiased toward Andy and her work, or lose his
promotion. When her parents show up, Andy has to deal with Rooster, her
mother’s interference, and her own insecurities to keep the job going. If she
can’t cope she’ll lose her job, and worse yet, she’ll let down Buck.

If Andy and Rooster can’t find a way to work together and complete the
pipeline, their relationship is over.

Fans of In Five Years, Reminders of Him, and Regretting You, are devouring
Kirsten Fullmer’s imaginative, gritty, coming-of-age pipeline books.

One-Click Love on the Line
2 to continue Andy’s exceptional journey today!

 

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Rooster forked a pork chop onto his
plate and dug in, cutting off a big bite. He popped it in his mouth and watched
Andy as he chewed.

She tried not to squirm, but he
could see her discomfort. One of his brows quirked up.

Andy dished a helping of salad onto
her plate, careful not to look up at him.

He cut another bite off his chop.
Silence filled the room, tense and palpable, like the room was too small.
Reaching for his glass, he caught her sneaking a peak at him.

After several gulps of water, he
settled his glass back on the table, took his fork in one hand and his knife in
the other, and waited. She was only demure when she knew she was in the wrong.

When she realized he wasn’t eating,
her eyes met his. “What’s wrong?” she asked innocently. “Is the pork okay?”

“Why do you want to go to some gas
station on the only night we don’t have to go to sleep at eight o-clock? You
usually want to…” He intentionally let the sentence drop and waggled his
eyebrows to make her blush. She was so cute when she was timid.

“We won’t need to stay late,” she
backpedaled, “I was talking to Nick about it and—”

“Oh, here we go,” he interrupted.
“This is about Nick isn’t it?”

She put her fork on the table.
“What’s your problem with Nick?”

He shook his head. “You told him
you’d invite that new coating girl, didn’t you?” He wasn’t asking, it was a
statement.

Andy’s chin came up. “She happens
to be the coating foreman.”

“Whatever,” he snorted, and went
back to cutting his meat.

Andy grinned wickedly. “She could
demand that you all address her as foreperson,
you know.”

Rooster snorted at her dilutional
comment.

Andy pursed her lips, knowing full
well that the pipeline was still in the 1950s when it came to women’s rights.
But she adjusted her train of thought and continued. “Why do you think this has
anything to do with me talking to Nick?”

His chewing stopped and he gave her
an oh please, look.

She cleared her throat and looked
away, poking a bite of salad onto her fork. “Okay, her name may have come up.”

Rooster took another long drink of
water.

“Would it kill us to be social?”
Andy retorted. “We never go anywhere but work.”

 “We work eighty hours a week!”

“That’s beside the point,” she
huffed, sticking the forkful of salad in her mouth.

“Is it?”

She chewed and swallowed. “You just
don’t want to bother,” she said with a flounce.

“This is overcooked,” he muttered,
sawing away at his pork chop. It was dry and chewy, he’d done a poor job of it.

Dinner continued in silence with
both parties casting glances at the other, but neither one spoke. When they
finished eating, they stood and carried their dishes to the sink. Rooster ran
hot, soapy water as Andy scraped their scraps into the trash and returned to
the table for the rest of the dishes.

Silence reigned, leaving only the
sound of plates clinking and water running as Rooster washed and rinsed the
dishes, and Andy dried. When the dishes were washed, he drained the water and
watched as Andy put the last plate in the specially designed drawer. When she
turned back to him, he took up the end of her dishtowel, pulling her to him.
His hands circled her waist. “If you’d like me to take you out Saturday night,
just say so.”

Andy didn’t meet his eye.

But Rooster knew her well, and
still very much enjoyed her attitudes. He tilted her head up with an index
finger under her chin. “You’re something else, you know that?”

Losing all track of thought, Andy
fell under his spell. Her pupils dilated and her lips parted. She didn’t need
to say anything, he knew he had her.

Leaning down, he teased kisses
along her jaw, causing a moan to slip from her lips. Her arms came up to circle
his neck and his kisses wandered to her cheek, then her mouth.

Eagerly, she kissed him back,
deepening both the kiss and his desire. He scooped her up and carried her
toward the bedroom.

Andy leaned into his shoulder,
filled with anticipation. She nibbled at his neck, ran her fingers through his
hair, and a dreamy smile settled over her face.

He
placed her on the bed, certain that somewhere in that woman’s brain of hers,
she was already wondering what she’d wear on their Saturday night date to the
gas station.  


Kirsten is a writer with a love of art and design. She
worked in the engineering field, taught college, and consulted free lance. Due
to health problems, she retired in 2012 to travel with her husband. They live
and work full time in a 40′ travel trailer with their little dog Bingo. Besides
writing romance novels, she enjoys selling art on Etsy and spoiling their four
grandchildren.

As a writer, Kirsten’s goal is to create strong female
characters who face challenging, painful, and sometimes comical situations. She
believes that the best way to deal with struggle, is through friendship and
women helping women. She knows good stories are based on interesting and
relatable characters.

 

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the tour
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#blogtour Field of Purple Bonnets by Dave J Brown

 

Speculative Fiction, Literary Fiction

Date Published: May 21, 2026


You’ve been standing in the field your whole life. You just couldn’t see
it yet.

 

If you’ve spent any time in Texas in spring, you know the bluebonnets. Now
imagine a pair of glasses that shows you what you had been missing: every
ultraviolet the flower had been wearing all along, a field suddenly purple, a
world you had been standing inside without seeing.

That is love, for Richard Smith. That is Zin. Richard is the kind of man who
learned early how to disappear. Quiet. Careful. Brilliant in ways he rarely
lets anyone witness. He writes poetry in notebooks no one is allowed to open
and gives his best hours to work that asks nothing of his heart.


Then Zin walks into his life
—sharp, guarded, beautiful, and impossible
to reduce—and does the thing he never prepared for.

 

She sees him.

All of him.

 

And instead of flinching, she stays. Together, they help bring a technology
into the world that does for millions what Zin did for Richard: it lets people
see what was always there.

 

Hidden color.

Hidden beauty.

Hidden power.

 

A cheap, wearable lens that reveals the spectrum just beyond ordinary sight.
For a moment, it feels like freedom. But a world that profits from keeping
people blind does not celebrate new sight.

 

It studies it.

Owns it.

Sells it.

Weaponizes it.

 

What began as wonder becomes surveillance.

What began as intimacy becomes empire.

And as the device they helped create starts tracking faces, movements,
desires, and private lives, Richard and Zin are forced to confront the
difference between being seen, being wanted, being protected, and being
controlled.

The world Richard wanted to open is becoming a machine that watches everyone.
And the woman who first opened him may be the only person brave enough to tear
it down.

 


The Field of Purple Bonnets is a literary speculative love story about being
seen versus being watched. About a man brave enough to be soft, a woman wise
enough to know what that costs, and a country slowly forgetting the difference
between freedom and possession.

 

 

About the Author

 

 Dave J. Brown writes fiction about love, technology, consciousness, and the
strange systems people build to survive themselves. Field of Purple Bonnets is
his most ambitious work to date.

He pays his bills helping organizations navigate enterprise technology
rollouts, building small applications, and consulting on the kinds of complex
implementations that make most people’s eyes glaze over. The technical fluency
shows up in his writing… not as exposition, but as texture. When
Richard designs BeeVision, the engineering feels real because it comes from
someone who thinks in systems.

He lives just south of Austin, not far from a field of bluebonnets that looks
exactly the way you’d imagine.

Contact Links

Website

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#blogtour Slapshot Summer by G.K. Brady 

A jilted bride.

A
wrecked goalie.

An unexpected kiss that changes everything.

Slapshot Summer

A The Playmakers Series Novella

by G.K. Brady

Genre: Steamy Fake Dating Hockey Romance

A jilted bride. A
wrecked goalie. An unexpected kiss that changes everything.

I came here to reset.

After a season that pushed me to my limits, I needed sun, quiet, and
space—somewhere I could shut out the noise and get my head back under control.

Then Lexi Campbell sat beside me at the bar and asked for my help flirting with
another guy.

I said yes because it was supposed to be fake. A distraction. Something with
clear lines and no consequences. I’m good with pressure. I know how to stay
focused, how to hold my ground when everything’s coming at me fast.

What I didn’t expect was how easy it felt to want her.

One kiss blows past every boundary I set. Suddenly, I’m not playing defense
anymore—I’m all in, and I don’t know how to pull back. Lexi’s on a honeymoon
she’s taking alone, guarding a broken heart she pretends doesn’t still hurt.
I’m standing at my own crossroads, unsure where my future leads or if I’m ready
to risk wanting something real again.

It was supposed to be a fling. But wanting her is the one thing I can’t seem to
control.

For fans of fake dating, opposites
attract, and swoony NHL players who actually like to dance, Slapshot
Summer
is a heartwarming romance with plenty of spice … and, of
course, a guaranteed HEA.

**PLEASE NOTE: This story was originally published as Sunsets,
Stick Saves, and a Honeymoon in the Love in Destiny Series. The content
has not changed. If you’ve read that version, then you’ve read this one as
well.**

 

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* Goodreads

 

Since childhood, all sorts of
stories and characters have lived in G.K. Brady’s imagination, elbowing one
another for attention, so she’s finally giving them their voice on the written
page.

 An award-winning
writer of contemporary romance, she loves telling tales of the
less-than-perfect hero or heroine who transforms with each turn of a page. She
also writes historical fiction under the pen name Griffin Brady.

 G.K. is a wife and
the proud mom of three grown sons. When she’s not writing, she might be
reading, traveling, drinking wine, listening to music, or gardening—sometimes
all at once! She currently resides in Colorado with her very patient husband.

  

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the tour
HERE for special content and a giveaway!

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#blogtour Borrowed Child by Marguerite Welch

 

A haunting and suspenseful cautionary tale, Borrowed Child is
about what happens when a well-meaning inclination toward “salvation” goes
awry.

Borrowed Child:

A Story of Parenting
Across Two Cultures

by Marguerite Welch

Genre: Multicultural Contemporary Fiction, Drama

For fans of Little
Fires Everywhere
, a novel that explores the ambiguities of motherhood and
salvation through the anguished relationship between a troubled, undocumented
Mexican teenager and the grieving, upper-middle-class mother who takes her in.

After the drug overdose of her teenage son, Helen, a privileged white woman,
takes in Mia, a troubled and undocumented Mexican teenager.

Although they initially fill each other’s voids, Helen’s lofty expectations of
Mia eventually test that bond and Mia, tortured by guilt and starved for
affection, runs off with Diego, an MS13 gang leader. While Helen, bereft over
losing another child, tries to reconstruct her life, Mia’s life with Diego
spirals into a nightmare: Just after she has his baby, he goes to jail for
multiple murders. As each woman moves forward through her own challenges, Helen
confronts her deep-seated prejudices, while Mia battles her own demons in
search of self-identity and meaning in her life.

A haunting and suspenseful cautionary tale, Borrowed Child is
about what happens when a well-meaning inclination toward “salvation” goes
awry.

 

[A] detailed and occasionally heartbreaking portrait that
pays special attention to the physical and emotional struggles of a young
undocumented immigrant.” —Kirkus

 

“With the grace and complexity of The White
Album by Joan Didion, Borrowed Child examines how intention and
action, especially for white people, might misinterpret the complexities of race
and power in the United States. With gorgeous writing, Welch subverts
expectations and gifts us a nuanced view of prejudice.”—Melissa Scholes Young, author of Flood and The Hive

  

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CHAPTER
1: HELEN

 

For
more than a week I could not make myself open the door to Mia’s room. When I
finally raised the shades, light illuminated the space like a stage set: the
rumpled bed, the hot pink lipstick on the dresser, the closet door agape,
revealing the outfit I gave her for church. Gray wool slacks dangled awkwardly
from a plastic hanger, the silk blouse discarded in 
a
dusty corner along with one dirty sock—all clues, remnants of a life lived on
this stage. But was it the beginning of the play or the end?

Mia had just started her senior year in high school. I knew
she was intimidated by all the college visits and apprehensive about submitting
the applications, but I had convinced myself that she was ready to say goodbye
to her old life and start anew. Sure, we’d experienced difficulties and
detours, what family doesn’t? But I believed all was resolved; believed, that
is, until one random Wednesday in late September when she never came home. No
one saw her—not her teachers, the office staff, or her counselor. No one knew
where she was.

At first, I thought Mia had gone off with friends and simply
forgotten to call. She would have called, wouldn’t she? Maybe she had gone back
to her birth mother’s home. But that seemed unlikely. I pulled out my cell
phone every few minutes to see if I had missed a text. By 8:00 p.m. I called
her mother.

“Maybe she go off with drug dealer boyfriend,” Carmen said
in broken English.

What drug dealer boyfriend? I wanted to cry out, but knew it
was pointless. I couldn’t understand her rapid-fire Spanish and our adversarial
relationship over the years had made meaningful communication impossible.
Carmen’s lack of concern for Mia’s welfare had always mystified and infuriated
me.

“You no call the police, okay?” Carmen added. It had been my
experience that people in the Hispanic community often panicked when they saw a
uniform. It wouldn’t do any good to get the police involved and might make it
worse.

“Okay, but please call me if you hear anything,” I
pleaded.She never called.

I cried on my husband’s shoulder. “How could Mia do this?
Something must be very wrong.” Don was upset too, but couldn’t resist giving me
that “I-told-you-so” look, patting my hand with a restrained sense of
obligation rather than genuine concern, or so I read it at the time. Now I
understand how needy and unfair I was. He had always been so loving and
supportive no matter how crazy my schemes and passionate my interests, whether
he understood them or not.

The saying “opposites attract” could not have been truer in
our relationship. He was a man of science. I was a dreamy artistic type. He
read Naval Institute Proceedings. I read poetry. He liked spaghetti. I liked
sushi. He couldn’t tell a petunia from a daisy. I was a gardener. And yet, life
together was better than apart. When our boys came along, he was an involved,
loving father who disciplined with love and loved unrestrainedly. But, at that
moment, if I could have gotten beyond my own conflicted feelings of hurt and
worry, I could have seen by the way his hand shook as he picked up his Maker’s
Mark on the rocks and took a couple of quick gulps that he was genuinely
concerned about Mia’s absence.

It was too hard. Both of us felt the stab of an old, only
partially healed wound, for which Mia had been a temporary anesthetic. Don
banged his drink down on the table, half surprised by the noise, and hugged me
silently, afraid to say a word, one pain masking another. An image swam to the
surface: Sammy’s grin and tousled mop of blond hair. How could we have been so
unaware of the troubled waters beneath that sunny smile? The dark, anxious
place that became his secret home beyond our reach and knowing. Now, clueless
again, we had let another child slip through the cracks and I was left
clutching her abandoned lipstick until my palm bled.


Marguerite Welch is a writer, artist, photographer and
sailor whose essays and reviews on fine art photography have been published in
the NEW ART EXAMINER, WASHINGTON REVIEW OF THE ARTS, AFTERIMAGE and other local
and national art publications. Short personal essays and travel pieces have
appeared in BAY WEEKLY, WANDERLUST and CHESAPEAKE BAY MAGAZINE. Her travel
memoir, WATERBORNE: A SLOW TRIP AROUND A SMALL PLANET, published by Seaworthy
Publications in September 2019, documents a 14-year world circumnavigation
undertaken with her husband in their 38-foot sailboat Ithaca. In her spare time
she tends her garden on the banks of the Severn River in Annapolis, Maryland
where she and her husband have lived for 40 years.

#blogtour Bitter Honey by Yona Katz

 

An MM contemporary romantic suspense story of an abusive
relationship, lost love, crime, trauma healing, and a HEA. 

Bitter Honey

by Yona Katz

Genre: MM Romantic Suspense

Christopher, a young yet well-regarded deputy district
attorney, has seen his dream come true. With loving parents, an ideal job, a
thriving career, and a flawless boyfriend, his life feels like a perfect fairy
tale.

However, Christopher’s impeccable world is not as immaculate as it seems from
the outside.

Worse, his paradise is shattered when he agrees to take over a colleague’s
case. The past he long buried resurfaces, and the pieces of himself he
carefully rebuilt begin to fall apart.

Faced with the toughest decisions that could change his life forever, he must
choose his path without endangering himself and his loved ones.

 

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A citizen of the universe, Yona Katz is a financial director
during the day. But as soon as night falls, numbers and reports are chased away
by the stories that live in the stars. One day, Yona decided that she was brave
enough to share these stories with the world. Yona loves exploring the themes
of diversity and inclusivity. She wants to reach her readers to show them that
love is universal, that even heroes are flawed, and that everyone has the right
to make mistakes. Yona is Canadian but Antigua and Barbuda is her current home.

#blogtour Mystics in Hell by Janet Morris

 

No heaven can save them from their
own twisted visions—

welcome to a side of the underworld you have never dared to
imagine.

Mystics in Hell

A Heroes in Hell Anthology

compiled by Janet Morris

Genre: Dark Fantasy Anthology

Mystic
Madness!

Join the doomed on their vision quests in eleven stories by
the damnedest writers in Perdition: Janet Morris; A.L. Butcher; Joe Bonadonna;
Andrew P. Weston; Gustavo Bondoni; Seth Lindberg; Tom Barczak; Michael H.
Hanson; Louis Antonelli; Christopher Crosby Morris.

 

Mystics in Hell is the latest volume in the notorious
Heroes in Hell series of anthologies and novels created by Janet Morris.

 

A Frame of Mind by Janet Morris & Chris Morris

Kit Marlowe treks back from exile, where he has encountered
three witches. Carrying a skull which he found on a blasted heath, he arrives
at the Globe, where Satan and the angel of death accost him. At their
displeasure, he’s banished once more, this time to return instantly via the
powers of the Fates. Satan meets him at a cast party and decrees that Kit not
only will spy for him, but play Banquo, beheaded in each subsequent performance
of Macbeth.

 

The Come Right Inn by Andrew P. Weston

Where we meet up with one of Satan’s most secretive agents. A
charming woman with a finger—and most other body parts—in every pie. She’s
bewitching, beguiling, and bedeviled to be sure, but won’t think twice about
skinning you alive if you cross her.

 

Abode of Woe by A.L. Butcher

When the self-proclaimed anti-messiah builds a temple on
their doorstep and ruins business, Calchas and Cassandra look to some devious
means to bring down the walls. Dueling mystics and misinformation bring mayhem
to the underworld.

 

Fool’s Gold by S.E. Lindberg

A tale of the Egyptian god of mysticism, Thoth, who seeks
conspirators to retrieve the Philosopher’s Stone; with it, Thoth could usurp
Satan’s control of the realm of Duat. Taking up the charge is Howard Carter,
infamous antiquarian and tomb raider, and the disgraced evolutionist Ernst
Haeckel. They discover that King Midas’s alchemical ability to transmute flesh
into gold relies on the stolen stone, and Midas is producing Hell’s new
gastro-currency: buttcoin. They infiltrate the Mortuary Mint and sabotage the
currency’s production. Instead of returning the stone to Thoth, the duo uses it
to build up their own fortune. The auditors of Hell, namely the First and
Second of the Sibitti, police the matter.

 

The True Believer by  Lou Antonelli

Few national leaders of the 20th century had as much of a
negative and controversial impact on history as Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, prime
minister of South Africa from 1958 to 1966, when he was assassinated. Commonly
referred to in South Africa as “Dr.” Verwoerd, he had a PhD in psychology, and
went down in history as The Man Who Invented Apartheid. Now in Hell, Dr.
Verwoerd refuses to acknowledge his infernal fate and gets a special visit to
set him straight.

 

By Any Means Necessary by Gustavo Bondoni

Umberto Eco knows he’s in Hell; the suffering and multiple
deaths that never kill him permanently are more than enough of a clue for a man
of his learning.  But when he gets forcibly recruited by Nazi Commando
Otto Skorzeny to prove the theories of one of history’s greatest charlatans, he
thinks things can’t get any worse.  He’s wrong.  Hell can always get
worse.

 

Excalibur by Tom Barczak

When dealing with the harsh reality of the Afterlife: Hell
can be hard. But Rasputin has something even harder, and Lafayette Ronald
Hubbard desperately needs it if he is going to pull off the greatest magic
trick Hell has ever known.

 

On The Run by Michael H. Hanson

Tells of Sufi mystic Rumi, Zen Buddhist Dōgen, and Charlatan
Spiritualist Mina Crandon using their new-found magics on the grandest of all
quests, to find powerful talismans that will allow them to escape Hell itself.

 

The Sorcerous Apprentice by  Andrew P. Weston

Daemon Grim learns new tricks from an old dog. And just as
well. There’s a fallen saint to bring to heel, and she’s not known for playing
ball . . . crystal or otherwise.

 

The Colossus of Hell by Joe Bonadonna

Doctor Victor Frankenstein and computer scientist Alan Turing
want to build a cyborg. Quasimodo wants to win the hand of the French fortune
teller, Marie Anne Lenormand. Rasputin and Cagliostro want to open an
exclusive, private club. And a mysterious damned soul, known only as the Orange
Ogre, wants revenge against anyone in Hell who ever cheated or betrayed him,
laughed at and humiliated him, or even ignored him—especially His Satanic
Majesty himself.

 

Strange Arts by Janet Morris and Chris Morris

In a Tower cell, Marlowe’s head struggles to regain
consciousness and rejoin his body. Here he finds his Elizabethan spymaster,
Walsingham, waiting with J the Merciful and three mysterious Sisters. After
painfully stitching together his body and soul, the five entreat him to join
their most secret conspiracy.

  

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From The Abode of Woe
by A.L. Butcher

 

Paradise’s
dim light grew ever dimmer as the hell-lights began to glare with the blue glow
of sulfur. It was an unforgiving light for the unforgiven. Word had got around,
and crowds had begun to gather for the evening’s entertainment. Calchas had
started a book on the outcome of the battle, and the diablos were rolling in.

“Two to One
for the Pig Man!” yelled a grifter clad in the sharpest suit of the evening.

“Seven to
Four for the Prince!” bellowed another voice, shrill in the crowd.

Kevin the
fiend grinned. He was having the time of his unlife; he’d read the small-print.

“Are they
ready?” Calchas asked, eying the large and sinister cloth-covered mounds on
opposing sides of the temple.

“Yep. Ready
for mayhem, master.” A smiling fiend is not something to stir the heart with
confidence or joy and Calchas sobered. He wondered if he should feel guilty,
but he had enough of that to last a thousand lifetimes and these New Dead had
brought it on themselves. At least that is what he told himself and Cassandra.

“Ego fighting
ego will bring no good for either. A temple built in haste to honor mere vanity
and lies will surely fall to dust.” Cassandra stared at the mounds, hoping
these fire-spiting death machines would not bring them all to the Undertaker’s
door. Were they too close? She closed her eyes and let her mind wander.

“Will we be
punished for this venture?” He’d asked, thinking too late they may have erred
and voicing both their fears. He hoped nothing would backfire; plans in hell
oft went awry. And he knew that sooner or later he’d pay the price for this
deceit.

“This is
Hades. Punishment is inherent. But I think not . . . at least not on this day.
‘Rue thy former life, and revel in thy afterlife, for thou art damned.’ Is that
not the advice you once gave me? We are the damned. We must survive as we may.
But those infernal and wicked weapons of the new-dead — Surely the walls of
Ilium would have fallen on the first day.” She paused, “Would we have fought
with such demon-weapons of war?”

Calchas gazed
over to the two looming cloth-bound shapes. “Probably. Priam and Agamemnon
would have found some means to destroy one another, no doubt. Man’s capacity
for war outweighs his capacity for reason — and this place is full of the
testimonials to that.”

“They will
fall in dust as vain men are wont to do.” Cassandra told him.

“They won’t
go through with it. It would be suicide. That building will fall down in the
next hell-storm,” Calchas replied, doubtful.

They’d
watched the crowd assemble from a reasonable distance. “Pack up. In case. And I
will try to steer the mayhem from our door to be on the safe side, should the
range of those war-weapons be enough to hit us. Make sure you are careful where
you stand.

“Look there’s
old Assisi. Out for the entertainment, along with everyone else by the looks.
Let’s see — drinks are half-price.” Calchas would not let this opportunity
pass.

Cassandra
nodded, “Where did you get the fire-spitters?”

“Che Guevara
owes me a favor. It might be useful to keep one—just in case. How hard can they
be to use? Look, come there are our two brave heroes.” Calchas separated
himself from Cassandra, still in the guise of the department man, and wandered
over to the two Prophets.

“So,
gentlemen, are we ready to settle this? Remember the winner gets control of
that site, should it still be standing. The loser, or losers . . .will have
more immediate issues to deal with.” Calchas motioned to the nearer of the
covered shapes. “Who would like Big Bertha?”

The Reverend
Henry Prince stared doubtfully at the shape. “That’s not a sword, or a
firearm.”

“Give that
make a Heck-Cookie!” Kevin chortled. He’d been milling and warming up the
onlookers. With a flourish he tugged the cloth away — to reveal a howitzer,
pointing towards the Temple of Woe. It was an evil-looking device, as were many
man-made machines of death. “Humans, they do like to kill one another in all
sorts of inventive ways! Welcome Big Bertha. She’s a friendly girl!”

“And the
other?” Smyth-Pigott asked, his voice tremulous.

They walked
across to a lower-slung shape. “Gentlemen, meet Roaring Meg, the deadly maiden
of the English Roundheads,” Kevin chuckled.

“Not your era, I suppose, but they do the job. They
are primed for combat. Meg has helpers: she fires but one ball at a time, yet
she’s a fiery lass and one of the more knowledgeable operatives of hell has
evened the odds.” Calchas held his palm out, containing dice. “Whoever rolls
snake-eyes gets first choice, but Meg is a little slower, and older, and thus
she fires first.”

“What happens if we refuse this ridiculous plan?”
Henry Prince could not take his eyes from the cannon.

“Refuse? I wasn’t aware that was an option.” Calchas
feigned surprise.

Kevin murmured something in Calchas’ ear, “My
associate says it is an option but if
a refusal is forthcoming then all rights are revoked to build now and for
infernity, Sentence will be the six-hundred and sixty-five years of cleaning
Perish sewers, and you must publicly affirm your rival as the true Chosen One,
the true heir and the ultimate seer. And as both are equally guilty you will
have to work together, and your women too, forever. If both refuse, then it
must be done at exactly the same time. Whomever speaks first is deemed the
greater coward.”


British-born A. L.
Butcher is an avid reader and creator of worlds, a poet, and a dreamer, a lover
of science, natural history, history, and monkeys. Her prose has been described
as ‘dark and gritty’ and her poetry as ‘evocative’. She writes with a sure and
sometimes erotic sensibility of things that might have been, never were, but
could be.

Alex is the
author of the Light Beyond the Storm Chronicles and the Tales
of Erana
lyrical fantasy series. She also has several short stories in
the fantasy, fantasy romance genres with occasional forays into gothic style
horror, including the Legacy of the Mask series. With a background in
politics, classical studies, ancient history and myth, her affinities bring an
eclectic and unique flavour in her work, mixing reality and dream in alchemical
proportions that bring her characters and worlds to life.

She also curates
speculative fiction themed book bundles on Pubshare – for the most part – the
Here Be Series

Alex is also proud to
be a writer for Perseid Press where her work features in Heroika: Dragon
Eaters, Heroika Skirmishers –
where she was editor and cover designer as
well as writer – as well as Lovers in Hell and Mystics in Hell
part of the acclaimed Heroes in Hell series.
http://www.theperseidpress.com/

 

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