Retirement: it’s not just for the elderly.Thirty-six-year-old JB lives to inspire the old folks at Whispering Pines Rest Home. He listens to their stories, encourages them to get some fresh air, and makes sure they aren’t just sitting around waiting for the end to come.But he’s not a doctor, not a therapist. He’s a resident of Whispering Pines, too.When the finances for Whispering Pines hit the skids, the Home starts to earn the wrong kind of atten...

Sometimes those who can't be found just might not be lost…In the remote mountain town of Boone, North Carolina, Hank “Hanky J” Johnson and Bim Mayer find people that nobody else can. All thanks to Hanky J’s brains and Bim’s ability to psychically connect to other people.Their skills get put to the test when a group of elderly people go missing. All of whom used to teach at nearby Appalachian State University.And each missing person shares a connect...

Magic: more contagious than the common cold…Kelley Strickland and her twin brother Jeroan accidentally step into an ancient battle between a power-hungry Sorcerer—who wants to rid the world of what he calls “renegade” magic-users—and a good Sorcerer who can barely remember his own name.Kelley soon learns that her new-found way of using magic just might save her adopted city, her brother, and her new, magically infected friends.Or it could doom them all....

They’re not gonna grow up without a fight.1974. Ozzy’s going to be a father. Augie’s got a huge house to build. Just a few years out of high school, neither of them want to work this hard. They’d rather live outside the law and stick it to the Man, man.Over the course of this turbulent year, lifelong friends Ozzy and Augie have no choice but to face adulthood.It might take more than a little “hoodoo voodoo”, a surly pregnant wife, a few ghosts, str...

A young woman struggling with drug addiction catches aliens on her digital camera. A man with elemental powers struggles with morality and carrying out the orders of his bosses. The dead leave their graves and take up... surfing?Gunning for the Buddha collects fifteen stories that range from near-future science fiction to historical dark fantasy and contemporary horror, touching on a range of genres in the process.Stories were previously published in magazines such...

Stories of where the normal meets the strange...From the travails of a water-carrying alien on a harsh world.... to the loss of a child by a much-too-young father touched by the were gene. From the plight of a young immigrant painter struggling to get by... to the story of a young man who has to decide whether to help when he comes across a car in the ditch and a family fighting for survival in that wrecked vehicle...And more...Twenty-one stories about the ...

Blow the silver whistle, ring the tarnished bell…Bartolamus the Sorcerer is dying. His days of adventuring and forging new words of magic are firmly behind him. Or so it seems.As his trembling apprentice approaches his bedside with a silver whistle in his right hand and a tarnished bell in his left, the ancient wizard shares his history.He also reveals his plans for one last quest: an attempt to re-open the doors to the barred and mysterious City of All-Wor...

Magic: It can show up in the strangest places…An old man sleeping in a cardboard box in snowy Chicago holds the secret of sorcery in his head.But thanks to the damage done to him by using magic decades ago, he doesn’t realize it. Most days he can’t even remember his own name.When two teens try to jump him in an alley, the magic Words come back to him at last, and he “infects” the kids with magic.And soon Chicago has a wild epidemic of magic on its h...

Magic invites . . .Curses and blessing, sorcerous time travel, shape-shifters, hidden enchantment and corrupted blood.Magic demands . . .Saving those you love, courage, betrayal and fights against unspeakable forces.Magic promises . . .Last best hopes, reluctant and desperate heroes, ancient power unleashed and the compulsion to overcome death itself.Magic risks . . .Forbidden spells and deadly bargains.Here be magic!F...

Contagious magic: good luck trying to find a cure…Two minutes after the shocking end to A Wild Epidemic of Magic, this third book in the series finds Kelley and Jeroan stranded in Dubuque, Iowa, after losing their parents—and all the Sorcerers they met in the past two months—to the vengeful Druid.Apparently, the Druid did not enjoy his 200-year banishment.And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the twins must once again work together to find a way to reg...

In a near future filled with violence from terrorists and suicide cultists, the Wannoshay aliens crash-land on the Great Plains of America and Canada.Less than a dozen years from now, over thirty black ships containing the aliens the world will come to know as the Wannoshay arrive on the frozen earth of the Great Plains of America and Canada.Over the course of a year, the aliens attempt to become part of American society, only to be banished to internment camps when they ar...

We started the fires at dusk.The opening to the title story of this collection by Michael Jasper is a distillation of the mix of danger, disquiet, and determination that runs through all sixteen stories.Whether it’s the return of a prodigal son to the family farm ("The Chicken Project"), the young high school teacher conscripted into refereeing a basketball game with his new school’s rivals from the nearby reservation ("Home Court Advantage"), or the impossible fea...