Libby Kay lives in the city in the heart of the Midwest with
her husband. When she’s not writing, Libby loves reading romance novels of any
kind. Stories of people falling in love nourish her soul. Contemporary or
Regency, sweet or hot, as long as there is a happily ever after—she’s in love!

When not surrounded by books, Libby can be found baking in
her kitchen, binging true crime shows, or on the road with her husband,
traveling as far as their bank account will allow.

Libby cohosts the Romance Roundup podcast with Liz Donatelli
where they recommend romance books and interview authors, influencers, and
publishers. Check it out for your weekly dose of romance!

 

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February. Freezing. Snow everywhere. A surveillance
stint in Oswestry. At least, it was supposed to be surveillance. Well,
surveillance and persuasion. Piece of piss job, frankly, and as it was just
Liam and me, holed up in a cottage for an unspecified time, I’d looked forward
to it. We didn’t often get to work together so when we did it was a bonus. We’d
been a pair for nine months, engaged for two. Secretly engaged, that is,
certainly as far as the service went. Married couples were absolutely not allowed
– there was an idea it could lead to agents being compromised – but they were
realistic enough to understand they could do little about more casual hook-ups:
everyone knew that being in a relationship with someone not in the
service was fraught with difficulties.

So, the only people who knew about the
engagement were my parents, enjoying their retirement on the Gold Coast in
Australia – Liam’s were both dead, killed in a car crash when he was a teenager
– and our immediate boss, Catherine Spencer, a splendid old battle-axe with a
heart of gold. Catherine was probably in the wrong job. She was far too
concerned with the mental wellbeing of her charges, who she tended to treat as
though they were the family she no longer had. Unlike Sarah Brook, she’d not
been a field agent so hadn’t had her softer, more human edges knocked off her.
I loved her to bits.

                Anyway, as I say, it was a simple enough
job. Keep an eye on two young Russian dissidents, a married couple with the
assumed names of Grigori and Polina Mironov. They were journalists in Moscow who
had caught the eye of the Kremlin in the sort of way that was likely to end very
badly very quickly, so they’d been spirited out via Estonia and brought to
Birmingham. MI5 had no real thoughts that the Mironovs could be of any great
help after their initial debrief; I genuinely think the overriding plan was to
keep them safe. Good guys one, bad guys nil sort of thing. Not that the service
was expecting the Russians to bother sending assassins to Birmingham to knock
them off; it’s not as touristy as Salisbury for one thing. So the watching
brief I had on the Mironovs was near the bottom of my extensive list of
responsibilities.

                Until
it wasn’t.

                Completely
unexpectedly, after two years in Birmingham, Grigori and Polina upped sticks
and moved sixty-five miles west to Oswestry, about as close to the Welsh border
you can get without being a sheep. No one knew why. They certainly didn’t tell
their local handler. Five weren’t keen on that. Black mark for the handler and
a blacker one for his supervisor: me. It’s a lot easier for a couple of
Russians to stay under the radar in Brum, surrounded by a million ethnically
diverse people, than it is in a small rural town like Oswestry. No matter how
fluent their English was, Grigori and Polina would soon become the subject of
gossip and MI5 is distinctly anti-gossip.

                So
that’s when Liam and I got involved. It was my job anyway and Catherine
Spencer, told to send someone after them, watch them, befriend them, try and
find out why they’d disappeared into the back of beyond, keep them safe and,
one way or another, persuade them back to civilisation, decided that Liam
should go too. If the friendly approach didn’t work and we had to do it
forcibly, I’d find it difficult by myself. Liam riding shotgun was fine by me
as Catherine well knew, although I didn’t think force would be needed. We were
both good at striking up random friendships and we were a similar age to
Grigori and Polina. Two young couples both new to the town. Nothing could be
easier. So we were given fake jobs, installed in a small house around the
corner from the Mironovs’ rented flat and told to get on with it.

                To
start with it was straightforward. First of all, I arranged to bump into Polina
in the local Co-op. She was thin, pale, drawn, with washed-out blonde hair tied
back in a loose ponytail. Obviously struggling to find a particular item on the
shelves. Black tea, it turned out. I helped her look but it was a small store
and we had to settle for Earl Grey. That got a conversation going. As we were
both new to the town, I invited her and her husband to join us for a drink in
the pub. Two pairs of outsiders united against the Welsh, of whom there were
many. She laughed. The first warning sign was that they’d reverted to their
real names, Marat and Natalya Panarin, which only added to Five’s concern. It
was the first indication that the job might not be as uncomplicated as Liam and
I had expected.

                It
didn’t take long for things to go wrong. Badly wrong.

Steve
Sheppard was born and grew up in Surrey before moving to Buckinghamshire and
then to Oxfordshire, where he spent a quarter of a century living in an
idiosyncratic village that was the affectionate inspiration for his fourth
book, Lazytown. He now lives
in Hampshire. He spent forty years starting to write books but not finishing
them, until belatedly realising that the key is not to give up. The other thing
he has since learned is that he should have become a celebrity before writing a
book, as this would have made selling it much easier. 

 False Connections is Steve’s fifth book,
but the first one written as a straight thriller and not primarily as a comedy,
although it does contain humour. He hopes it will be the first of a series
featuring feisty, funny but flawed ex-MI5 agent, Mel Milano. He also has three
spy thrillers with laughs to his name, all published by Claret Press: A Very Important Teapot (2019),
set in Australia, Bored to Death in
the Baltics (2021), not set in Australia, and Poor Table Manners (2024), which takes place in Cape
Town.  These feature an initially fairly
hapless hero, Dawson, and a considerably less hapless heroine, Lucy, together
with varied supporting casts, most of whom are not who they claim to be.
Steve’s fourth book is an out-and-out comedy-murder-mystery, Lazytown (2025).

  

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    “Here
we are, two weeks before the third anniversary and it all goes down the drain,”
went through her mind.

     So much has changed during these three
years. She gave up her work in London, moved to Budapest and started to build a
new life.

     “Was it worth it?” she pondered.

     She realized that she couldn’t put off the
stock taking any longer. She knew that it was necessary to ease the pain.

     “Yes, today is the day,” she said
and took the usual motion of jumping out of bed.

     Suddenly, there was a firm grip on her
shoulders that forced her to stay put. The touch made her shiver. At first, she
could not see the energy, only smelled it. A deep, sweet, masculine, forceful
and sensational fragrance filled her nostrils, carried the promise of an
overwhelmingly satisfying sexual intercourse.

     “Oh, Sweet Creator, aahh, I need to get
up. Really, ahhmmmm.”

     A wet, warm and soft sucking took over her
left toe that spread on, taking the right toe first and finally covered the
feet under the duvet. Zeta focused and let the familiar face taking shape in
front of her eyes. The dark, bushy hair, strong straight nose, lushes, dark red
lips, fiery black eyes and this absolutely perfect, beautiful body with its
strong curves and moving muscles brought a grateful smile on her face. Closed
her eyes in comfort and enjoyed the currents pulsing through her body.

     “My darling brother, you never let me
down. Do you love me?”

     “Very much, sweetest and enjoy your body
even more,” replied the man.

     “You are only saying it because you feel
ashamed for the behaviour of your earthly soul. Why didn’t you teach him, why
didn’t you help him to remember? He is so lost!” continued the woman.

     “Hush Hera, hush…” he said and pressed his
warm lips firmly on hers. His tongue started its way, gently opened the teeth
and disappeared in the mouth. She lifted her arms and tried to caress him.  

     The hands were slowly coming up on the
firm back and dancingly lost themselves in the hair-jungle. The lips opened,
giving full access to the sucking and licking tongue.

     They seemed to forget Earth and all its
pain. The mouth released the tongue and allowed it to make its way down on her
body.

     “I should have taken a shower with a
softening lotion and put some perfume on,” ran through Zeta-Hera’s mind.

     The man noticed the apprehensive tightness
in her muscles.

     “Let it be, my sister, you are Hera now.
You do not need lotions and showers. You can change your body and be anything
you want. Do you understand?”

     “Yes, Hades, my darling brother, I
understand,” replied the woman and with a curving motion helped the tongue to
reach her nipples.

     The gentle and wet sucking made heavenly
sounds while a big warm hand travelled through the stomach and landed on the
navel. The tongue followed it shortly, licking its way deeply into Hera’s soul.
The woman cried out.

Life is an extraordinary journey. It is full of challenges
and unsolved tasks that are put in front of us on the constantly moving and
changing road towards Nirvana, the place that today we refer to as Happiness.

In my journey, I visited 103 countries, lived in 7, on 4
continents. I learned about the interrelated micro- and macrocosm. I became a
REIKI Master-Healer, an Initiated Witch, an Orixa Shamanic Master, and a
Phoenix Initiated Educator to teach the ancient wisdom of Khem, the Royal Art
of Al Khemi.

Today, I have an established philosophy – I call AKIA – that
explores the interrelations between earthlings and nature, and Earth and the
universe. I have 12 books published and many faithful students. I am an
Intimacy & Family coach and help people to find their purpose. The joy of
seeing them succeed gives me the strength to find new adventures and learn from
new experiences.

I believe that learning is the only way to understand life
and the self within. This unique knowledge makes us or breaks us in the end.

I am British and living in London.

 

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How much would you
wager to save a dragon? Your safety, your friends, your people? How about your
life?

Skye, an alitur—elf as the small-minded humans would degrade her—is a gambler
hiding in the skin of her enemy to escape capture, her past and her true
identity.

However, her fragile safety shatters when she’s caught cheating. Thrown into
the corrupt world of gambling, where animals and creatures are pitted against
one another for sport, Skye witnesses something she thought long extinct:
dragons.

Determined to save and connect with the dragons, Skye is drawn into a web of
deceit, loyalty, and love, impelling her to face her past and reclaim her
heritage.

With unlikely allies, Skye must confront the soul-devouring priestesses and
their ruthless general, One-Eye-Nic, before the last dragons—and her own
soul—are lost forever.

This is an enthralling tale of lies, rebellion, and the price of freedom…

**NEW RELEASE!**

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The girl showed up with their tankards and a jug of homebrew.
The man’s attention went straight to her cleavage. The hairy man pinched her
behind for good measure before tipping her. Skye used the distraction to nick a
card from the pack, a prince, hiding it in her coat sleeve. She waited for the
girl to leave before dealing. The cards were soft, faded, and stained from
nights of gambling.

Skye watched the three players as they scrutinized their
cards. ‘Stupid’ smiled, Sid’s left eye twitched. The hairy man downed his
tankard of homebrew.

Skye looked at her cards, she had two of pawns and a prince.
On the table were a five and a seven of shields, a castle, and a three of
pawns. Skye wasn’t sure what ‘Stupid’ thought he had, but Skye was pretty sure
Sid had a castle, giving him the highest pair from the table.

Skye’s attention turned to the hairy man. The more she
watched him, the more he seemed a ‘Stupid’ and in that case, no threat to Skye.
He was only lucky with the previous hand.

Skye had the winning hand if she switched her two of pawns
for the prince in her sleeve. ‘Stupid’ started the bets, throwing half his coin
in, four silvers. Sid saw the bet and the hairy man added a silver.

She didn’t want to chase away Sid, so she also raised with
only a silver coin. Keep it modest,
keep it moving.

As the bets evened out around the table, Skye shifted her
weight slightly and slid one hand under the edge of her sleeve. A quiet motion,
a simple flick. She switched her cards—replacing a dud with a prince. Now she
had two.

But just as her fingertips closed over the edge of the second
card, a hand clamped down on her shoulder.

Steel. Not touch. Not pressure. Just steel.

“That is enough. We know what you are,” a male voice said.
“Good call, Jim, you will get your reward. And you,” the man’s grip tightened
slightly, “Finn Skylar, just won yourself a meeting with the gambler’s guild.”

Her heart jumped. Breath caught halfway up her throat. The
hairy man had a smug cat-smile. He’d caught his mouse.

Her gut twisted. A setup. She should’ve seen it. Should’ve felt it. No wonder he was unreadable—he wasn’t here to play. He was here for her. Cold
flooded her limbs.

What did they know? That she was a
cheater? A woman? An alitur?

Or all three?

She relaxed her face into neutrality, but her mind raced.
Could she run? No. Not yet. Too many eyes, too close to the table. No one had
drawn steel, which meant they still wanted her alive—questioned, not killed.
Yet.

“What? You have nothing to say?” the hairy man–Jim–said. He
leaned over and took Skye’s tankard of homebrew and downed it. “Cheers.”

Skye didn’t answer. She reached down, slow and measured, and
picked her tricorne up off the floor. Her hat was just fabric—but it made her
feel armed. Steady. Like herself.

She rose to her feet.

“I don’t know what this guy told you,” Skye gestured towards
Jim, “but I didn’t cheat. I haven’t seen him before in my life.” She truly
hoped that was the only reason they were confronting her.

The house-muscle behind Skye chuckled, or that was what she
assumed the rumbling noise was.

“We have been watching, and you have an appointment with the
gambling guild.”

“No one told me,” Skye said with a shrug.

“I did. Just now.”

Skye looked over her shoulder at the house-muscle looming
over her. Tall. Broad shoulders. A scar cut down his right temple, hugging the
cheekbone like a crack in old stone. His stance was heavy, but not rooted. A
bit off balance. Good.

The short one would be slower, maybe better in a brawl, but
easy to outmaneuver. The tall one could be clumsy. The real problem was her
coat—it would get in the way if she had to move fast. If she had to fight.

But—

She ran through options. Surrender. Fight. Flee. None was
good. She shifted her weight, breath held shallow in her chest.

“Where is this meeting?” Skye asked.

“At the boss’s office, at the pits,” the tall one answered.

Skye scanned the room. No escape. Everyone watched. Waited.
Sid had crushed his cards in his hands. Only Jim kept drinking, he found his
entertainment for the night.

“I don’t go to the pits,” Skye said.

The tall one rumbled again from behind, “I don’t care, you
are going.”

The room inhaled.

Jim smirked at Skye and lifted his tankard off the table.
With a flick and a flash of her hand, a knife plunged into Jim’s eye.

Gasps.

The cup fell, and Jim followed. 

Fran Zuid lives in a village on the outskirts of Cape Town,
South Africa, with two dogs and four parrots (her personal dragons, without the
fire-breathing part—which is a bonus). If she is not submerged in a creative
fantasy world, or playing old games, she is fiddling in her garden, sipping
wine at a vineyard or conquering a hiking trail somewhere—that is, if her
“dragons” allow it.

Where Dragons Are
Captured is her debut novel.

 

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Prologue

Wings

In
one week Allison Anderson will commit her first felony: section 4550 of the
California Penal Code, helping someone escape from a state prison. Almost
everyone who knows her would be stunned with disbelief. For her, it’s the
ultimate realization of who she is.

One autumn evening six years ago, Allison entered San
Quentin Prison as a volunteer tutor. Walking across the prison grounds, she
gazed at the forty-foot walls, the spirals of razor-

wire,
and the imposing guard towers. She wondered how an inmate might escape. It was
her first time in a prison, and the question engaged her problem-solving mind.
She did not know

that
one day she would devise an escape plan. She did not know that she would put
that plan into action. At the time, it was just a thought experiment, a
challenge for a woman whose childhood heroine was Nancy Drew, girl sleuth.

Allison’s most vivid memory of entering the prison that
evening was the birds. When she and her group rounded the hospital building and
walked across the yard, she saw geese and gulls scratching the ground on the
baseball field. It was mere minutes before the October sun would set, and their
white feathers glowed like gold. A single goose stretched his neck, dipped his
thick body, and with a push from his feet and a flapping of his great wings, he
rose from the ground and glided across the field, then soared over the wall.
Other geese did the same, their necks piercing the air like arrows. Sea gulls
followed. The walls and guard towers were mere landmarks below them, like trees
or outcroppings of rock, obstacles they cleared with ease. They didn’t need an escape
plan. They had wings.

The
First Day and the Last

They
say that the two days of prison an inmate remembers most vividly are his first
and his last. Everything in between is a blur. James’ first day was 30 years
ago. His last—maybe—will be in one week. If Hemingway’s character could walk
away from war, James can declare his separate peace from prison. It’s time to
move on, regardless of what the parole board has ruled. It’s necessary. An
absolute must.

For society, James is a statistic, another Black man
languishing in prison, costing the state $75,000 a year. His escape—if it
succeeds—will save taxpayers money. For himself, it will be his personal
exodus, his promised land of another chance at life. If things go according to
plan, no one will know how he did it. He will just disappear, a man become a
ghost. Allison is a smart young lady, and he can’t find any flaws in her plan,
but he is haunted by that old saying: If it seems too good to be true, then it
probably is.

James is filled with yearning and fear. The greater danger
is not that he’ll get caught and have time added to his sentence—though that’s
a real possibility—but that the hope he’s allowed himself to feel will die.
That’s the greater risk. The loss of hope he could not bear.

He lies in his bunk, trying to conjure up positive images.
The thought of freedom makes his skin prickle. The shadows of the bars cross
his body, spill onto the concrete floor. He listens to the cell block tick with
sound, as if the walls are straining to breathe. He imagines a sea gull soaring
on the wind.

Bill Smoot grew up in Maysville, Kentucky, and attended
Purdue University where he was editor of the campus newspaper, The Purdue
Exponent. Fired as editor by the university president, he was reinstated after
protest from students and faculty. He went on to graduate school at
Northwestern University, where he received a PhD in philosophy. He has taught
for four decades at levels ranging from sixth grade to university students. He
currently teaches courses at Mount Tamalpais College at San Quentin and the Osher
Institute for Lifelong Learning at UC-Berkeley. His essays and short stories
have such publications as Ninth Letter, Crab Creek Review. The Nation, Literary
Review, Crab Orchard Review, Western Humanities Review, Narrative, and
Salon.com. His the author of Conversations with Great Teachers and a novel,
Love: A Story. Mr. Smoot currently lives in Berkeley, California, with his dog
Artemis. His website is https://billsmoot.net

 

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The Uncanny Raven
Winston

The Cassie Black Trilogy Book 2

There’s nothing
like an evil wizard to ruin a perfectly good trip to London.

Ever have one of those weeks? You’ve taken an overdose of
magic, you’ve melted a twelve-year old girl, and Magic HQ has sent a letter
“requesting” you come by to discuss your magic control issues.

No? Just me, then?

I don’t want to go. I’ve got a boss in a wheelchair (my
fault), a zombie cat who demands his treats on schedule, and no interest in
sorting out the quirks of another magical community.

But when someone slips me information tying my parents’
disappearance to HQ, I can’t pack my bags quickly enough.

I’m soon destroying historical displays, befriending
befuddled ghosts, and focusing more on uncovering the truth about my past than
on learning how to rein in my magic. Which, considering what might happen if I
fail the test HQ has for me… Well, best not to think about that.

This second book of
the Cassie Black Trilogy squeezes you through a magic portal, lodges you in a
hidden corner of the Tower of London, and plunges you into a tale of mysterious
mishaps, peculiar ravens, and TV-binging trolls.

If you like
contemporary fantasy with unforgettable characters, snarky humor, and a touch
of paranormal mystery — or if you’ve ever wondered what those garden gnomes
are really up to — you’ll find it hard to pry yourself away from The
Uncanny Raven Winston.

The Cassie Black Trilogy is a fish-out-of-water tale that
takes you from the streets of Portland to the Tower of London. It’s got magic
and mystery, pastries and zombies, sentient gnomes and an evil wizard…because
there’s always an evil wizard, isn’t there?

 

**Get it On Sale at Smashwords discounted for the month of
July!**

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The Untangled Cassie
Black

The Cassie Black Trilogy Book 3

Sometimes taking an
overdose of magic is the least of your problems.

Not only has Cassie Black just lost two people through a
magic portal, but her archenemy, the Mauvais, is threatening to destroy city
after city if Magic HeadQuarters doesn’t hand her over to him…. a proposal HQ
isn’t exactly saying no to.

As the Magic higher ups debate her fate, Cassie refuses to
sit by and watch the grass grow between the toes of the surveillance gnomes.
Biting back her life rule to never get involved, she knows the only way to stop
the Mauvais is to go after him herself.

Which is exactly what he wants. Because the instant Cassie
falls into his hands, the Mauvais will gain the unlimited power he’s always
craved.

So don’t get captured, right? Easy for you to say.

Trouble is, there’s a traitor within HQ who’s proving to be
more devious, more powerful, and with more tricks up the sleeve than anyone
could have ever guessed.

In this page-turning
conclusion of the Cassie Black Trilogy, the curses are flying, the pastries are
plentiful, the bookworms are slithering, and the magical batteries are charged
to capacity.

If you like contemporary fantasy filled with dark humor,
paranormal mystery, and a cast of unforgettably quirky characters, you’ll love
the twists and turns of this conclusion to the first Cassie Black Trilogy.

 

**Get it On Sale at Smashwords discounted for the month of
July!**

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Author of humorous fantasy whodunits full of mythical
misfits and magical mishaps

Many moons ago I was a scientist in a neuroscience lab where I got to play with
brains and illegal drugs. Now, I take wickedly strong tea and turn it into
comic fantasy whodunits full of mythical misfits and magical mishaps that I
hope give you a giggle. 
My tales run the gamut from the ever-expanding Cassie Black Trilogy with its
wryly humorous paranormal mysteries to the comical fantasy whodunits in The
Circus of Unusual Creatures, and from light-hearted novellas celebrating my
love of books to short fiction in which I really flex my myth-loving and
humor-craving muscles!

When I’m not creating worlds or killing off characters, I can be found
gardening, planning my next travel adventure, concocting some sort of mess in
the kitchen, or working as an unpaid servant to one very spoiled cat and some
very demanding squirrels.

 

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