When Walter misses the bus, he decides to walk to school. Along the way he encounters Mortimer, old Ben and his friend Erle, and Codger.The adventures he has this day as he tries to make his way to school will be one that he will not forget.

It's been six months since Ashlyn Daniels was kicked out of her home. Six months since she stood up to her abusive stepfather and got a busted rib-and seeing all her things set ablaze in a backyard bonfire-for her trouble. Never going back. She doesn't need trouble...especially if trouble is tattoo artist Lane Garrett, who's six-feet-plus of tattooed hotness and a complete ass.Lane has spent the last decade fighting to support his family. To protect them. There's no room f...

After a life-altering setback destroys Rebecca Mackenzie's career, she jumps at the chance to start over as a real estate appraisal trainee in her uncle's office. Although a job change had been in order, being the new kid did have some downsides, including being forced to do a rush appraisal in the small town of Alpine Grove over Thanksgiving weekend.Map reading has never been her strong suit, and Becca's navigational skills are pushed to the limit in a town that doesn't believe in...

Winner! 2017 Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence.How can you imagine forever with someone who's leaving everything behind?Callahan, a former army sniper, wants to make an escape from his past and everything he experienced at war, but most of all, just not feel. Feeling leads to pain and he’s suffered enough. When he inherits a house on South Carolina’s Kiawah Island, he packs his bags, lured by the peace and seclusion he thinks it will bring....

Prince Nicholas of Montovia only wants one thing—some peace and quiet. When he buys a ranch in Firebird Falls, Montana, he’s looking for an escape from the drama caused by his royal siblings. Out here, he’s just Nick Smith—a happy loner just looking to blend in with everyone else.Clara Weaver is looking for her own escape. When her car runs out of gas in Firebird Falls, she sees it as a sign. Even though she’s never set foot on a ranch before in her life, she decides to answer a jo...

Timothy Hallinan brings Bangkok, Thailand, to life in all its exotic, seedy, dangerous glory in Breathing Water, his third novel of unrelenting suspense to feature expatriate American travel writer Poke Rafferty. A breathtaking thriller in which innocence and evil, power and poverty collide on neon streets and in palatial Asian mansions, Breathing Water is Hallinan's finest work yet, capturing the raw excitement and perilous uncertainty of the Thailand that screams from t...

In this story for readers of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and A Man Called Ove, when all seems lost, he finds what matters most.Walter Lavender Jr. is a master of finding. A wearer of high-tops. A maker of croissants. A son keeping vigil, twelve years counting.But he wouldn’t be able to tell you. Silenced by his motor speech disorder, Walter’s life gets lonely. Fortunately, he has The Lavenders—his mother’s enchanted d...

Daniel Reid, recluse, mountain man, and ex-special forces considers himself a beast. Ever since his closest friend died because of Daniel, he considers himself unfit for human company. With only his animals for company, he lives high in the Black Hills of Wyoming and trains horses for a living.Then Rebecca (Becca) Adams moves onto his mountain.He would avoid her, but she's unprepared for the Wyoming winters and he can’t turn his back on her. Besides, he senses a deeper need...

The “quiet emergence from despair rings true” (Kirkus Reviews) in this resonant debut novel about retreating from the world after losing everything.Wren Wells is hiding out. Though she lived through the accident that killed her boyfriend Patrick, the girl she used to be didn’t survive. Instead of heading off to college as planned, Wren retreats to her father’s studio in the northern woods of Maine. All she wants is a little quiet, a place where she can be ...

Florida reporter Brandy O'Bannon is intrigued by a classified ad that asks an unidentified woman, who has been missing for twenty years, to come forward. The young mother and her two-year old daughter disappeared as Hurricane Agnes swept into the historic Gulf coast village of Cedar Key, although no fatalities were reported. When Brandy learns that a woman's skeleton was found a year later in the basement of one of the state's oldest and Cedar Key's most charming hotel, she begins a search...

Six year old Nicki finds an old doll in the attic. Soon she is behaving oddly, spending most of her time alone in her room. Her mother worries that she is having trouble dealing with the death of her pet cat, while her father thinks she will be fine and will learn to deal with the loss. The truth is far worse than either imagine. Nicki has been cutting herself to feed the doll, who has an insatiable appetite for blood.Terrorized by her new 'friend', Nicki is trapped in a nightmare, unable ...

Poetic Justice at its best. An abusive husband learns the hard way "What goes around, comes around" with a grizzly twist.A short story.