History's most peaceful race created one of its deadliest weapons.Forged in the Living Flame by a long-extinct alien race, The Gem of Notna is the stuff of legends, on par with Pandora's Box or the Holy Grail. But once archaeologist Dr. Jack Corbett stumbled upon the crystal deep in the jungle, he triggered a whirlwind of events and found himself neck-deep in a centuries-old holy war. The Divine and the Underworld have been locked in a virtual stalemate for the past three hundred y...

Millions of years ago, the Gem of Notna was created. A race renowned for its peace birthed the ultimate weapon—and it paid the ultimate price.Eons have passed. The gem found its way to Earth, leaving a path of bloodshed and destruction in its wake. From ancient Greece to the Vatican through the Civil War to more recent events that saw the gem tucked away in a little-known tomb in the Amazon, there is no shortage of legends related to the Gem of Notna.Building on the mytholo...

Jill Andersen is one of Baltimore’s best and brightest detectives, but she harbors a dark secret — a secret that threatens to come out when the body of Dr. Trent Roberts is pulled out of the Chesapeake Bay. Dr. Roberts’ connection to Jill reveals a past that involves a tour in Iraq, a secretive cybernetic experiment, and a conspiracy that involves a native son.Can Jill solve the case while still keeping her secret? Will her partners at the Seventh Precinct find out what she’s so de...

Summer Rhoades kills people for a living. Except the one time she didn't.She promised a wealthy, well-connected man she would take out his target, only to have a change of heart once she realizes the mark is not who she was told. Instead of confronting Hunter Bailey on his duplicity, though, Summer sends the target away and makes a break for it herself.Which is fine, until Hunter Bailey finds out and comes after her. But only in the way overly rich men who ...

Sometimes, it feels like everyone's got some advice for how to write.But what about how to read?A full library can be a writer's best friend, and reading plays a far bigger role in the creative process and a writer's productivity than you might think. Stephen King, international bestseller and uber-productive wordsmith, said it best in his book On Writing, when he argued for the importance of reading, and The Art of Reading dives deeper into just why that is.J.D. Cu...

Someone is killing Baltimore's heroes.The ones with badges. The ones who put out fires. The ones who debate laws designed to make the citizens' lives better. None of them are safe, and their deaths amount to little more than public spectacle. A mysterious band of militants called The Collective takes credit for the killings, but the origins and identities of its members are unknown.Jill Andersen now has an FBI badge on her hip. She is tasked with bringing down the cult, and...

For Jill Andersen, being part of the Baltimore Police Department has always been both a tremendous honor and a serious responsibility. Her father, before his fall from grace, had instilled in her a great respect for police and the work they do day-to-day. But when a teenage boy winds up dead on the outskirts of downtown Baltimore, Jill finds herself once again faced with those who would abuse their badges to fulfill personal agendas and uphold biases.Jill still has a job to do, but...

It’s hard to be a hero when everyone’s out to get you.Once upon a time, Jill Andersen considered herself a hero. Not just because of the badge handed to her by the city of Baltimore and the pledge she once made to protect and serve. Her secret life, as the vigilante Bounty, had allowed Jill to protect her native Baltimore in ways her day job never could.But all that has gone to hell now. One case pushed Jill past her limits, to the point where she made choices she can’t tak...

Endgame is near.David Gregor has upped the stakes by subjecting himself to the same cybernetic procedure that eventually turned Jill into Bounty. It's become clear that Gregor will never face traditional justice, throwing everything Jill thought she knew into question. Emboldened by his newfound physical prowess, Gregor raises the bar yet again.Mourning her father for a second time, Jill becomes further isolated from those closest to her – including her par...

For as long as Jill Andersen could remember, her father was a hero.But heroes don’t commit murder, do they? The state of Maryland said Paul Andersen did just that, three times over, and was set to execute him for it. But Jill and the rest of her colleagues at the Baltimore Police Department come across the murder of a law student that leaves her hopeful that she can clear her father’s name.While Jill and her colleagues work against the clock to clear her father’s name, new ...