Valiant Hearts, Book One: The Academy

Valiant Hearts, Book One: The Academy

Kathleen King

Food and Drink / Cookbooks / Cooking

Stephanie is a graduating combat student of North Amber Academy with the special ability of bending water and is preparing for her final examination. But the exams are the last things in Stephanie’s mind, rumors have it that Moah has invaded the city of Aechor and soon will declare war. Will Stephanie’s abilities be put to test to defend her country even before she graduates from the academy?Each student at the North Amber Academy had an element they specialized in. Every student fit in one of four categories: water, fire, earth, and air. The abilities each received all depended on what each was born with. For Stephanie Asheron and her friends, that was a love for water. Final examinations are coming up for the graduating students like Stephanie which will have her compete with her classmates and the top tier will go on to battle the other classes. But the exams are the last things in Stephanie’s mind, rumors have it that Moah has invaded the city of Aechor and soon will declare another World War. Are there truths to the claim of war? Will Stephanie’s abilities be put to test to defend her country even before she graduates from her academy?
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Family Sins - A Short Story

Family Sins - A Short Story

Linda Johnson

Food and Drink / Cookbooks / Cooking

This story reveals the dark side of a mother’s controlling love. As much as Sarah adores her son, Michael, she detests the woman he marries. When her daughter-in-law forces Michael to choose between them, Sarah refuses to back down. As her desperate actions unfold, her family’s deadly secrets are revealed.Nameless is a city. A country within borders. A boundless space of ideas. A cosmos with realities, stark and painful, quiet and loud. A space crippled by fears. Nameless is populated. West African. It is in the minds of its people, black and proud. Sometimes Nameless is human. An idea. Sometimes it is in the past. Often times is the now. Other times, it is the future. It remains Nameless. The oldest residents know its dreams, its origins, beginning in a major stream and ending in a clear deep pond. The youngest residents know its pulse, feel its heat, its blood coursing through the veins of the country the history they know is happening right before them, good and bad and ugly. Everyone knows its hopes.Afele is the heart of Nameless. The market place of items and ideas; the Centre where all things meet, where the blood of Nameless converges and gets pumped out into homes and heads and souls. It is the meeting point. It feeds Nameless and starves it. Nameless is ambitious. And in the third world. In darkness. With in adequate infrastructure. Darkened by the lack of electricity. Nameless is in light. Brightened by the hope in the eyes of its inhabitants. Slowed down by the pot holes on the roads. Sped up by anticipation of change by desire. Nameless is rich. And poor. And in between. Nameless is oppressed. Under surveillance. Nameless is free. To dream. Of change. Free. To dare. To live. To express. To break open the boxes in which sexuality and gender and tribe exist. Stifled and stifling. Free. To love and not to take oppression in the garbs of love. Free from the dubious bonds of religion and tradition, disguised as law. Nameless is many things. It is the present we loathe. It is the past that haunts us. It is the future we want.Nameless is what we own, the things we are ashamed of, the hurt that binds us, the leaders who stain our pre sent. Nameless is the clarity we have. It is the knowledge that things can not remain the same. The hope that our children will only know our tears as history. It is all we must do to move us from the things that cage us to being able to fly free to a place beyond where nothing can stop us.We are nameless.And Nameless is usA collaborative book convened by Heinrich Böll Stiftung Nigeria, facilitated by booksprints.net. Nameless strives to inspire change in Nigeria. Eight budding Nigerian writers; Rafeeat Aliyu, Fola Lawal, Kalu Aja, Chioma Agwuegbo, Pearl Osibu, Yas Niger, Elnathan John, and Azeenarh Mohammed, reflect a common vision for their nation's future. Nameless is about the complexities that is Nigeria.
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The Billionaire's Mermaid

The Billionaire's Mermaid

Amberlee Day

Romance / Food and Drink / Cooking

Inspired by Charlotte Bronte's classic novel, Jane Eyre. A billionaire, a professional mermaid, and a secret that will either bring them together or forever keep them apart.Van Rivers needs a mermaid, and he needs one fast. When mermaid lessons are the only thing his niece—and ward—wants for her birthday, she's going to get it. Now he must find an instructor willing to travel to his estate in Canada's Banff National Park.Cleo Willey enjoys her life donning a tail as a professional mermaid and working with children, but she's lonely. Though she dreams of having a happy family, she has no idea how to make it happen. When an unusual offer with a high salary attached comes her way, she leaves her native Florida for two wintery months at Eagle Hill, Van's isolated Canadian estate. What she isn't prepared for is an attractive new boss who can be both dark and brooding, and lovingly sweet.Just when things begin to heat up for the complex billionaire and his mermaid, mysterious happenings bring out Van's darker side, and their budding romance comes crashing down. Can Cleo convince Van that everyone has it in them to change, and will he finally open his heart to the possibility that sometimes love does win, after all?
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Redemption – A Short Story

Redemption – A Short Story

Linda Johnson

Food and Drink / Cookbooks / Cooking

Ben Hawkins blames his father for a psychologically abusive childhood and for triggering his mother’s suicide. The two men have been estranged for years. But when Ben is falsely accused of murder, he has no other option than to turn to his father, a retired homicide detective, for help.As Ben languishes in jail, the noose growing tighter, his father desperately searches for the real killer.Ben Hawkins blames his father for a psychologically abusive childhood and for triggering his mother’s suicide. The two men have been estranged for years. But when Ben is falsely accused of murder, he has no other option than to turn to his father, a retired homicide detective, for help.As Ben languishes in jail, the noose growing tighter, his father desperately searches for the real killer. The evidence continues to mount against Ben until the case takes an unexpected turn.
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Silicon Facades

Silicon Facades

Cory Richardson

Food and Drink / Cookbooks / Cooking

How our online presence in the early 2000′s evolved into the government’s digital social tool of the 2130's to pigeonhole citizens into social classes and control their every activity, even where babies come from.Silicon Facades: How our online presence in the early 2000′s evolved into the government’s digital social tool of the 2130's to pigeonhole citizens into social classes and control their every activity, even where babies come from.In 2133, Darren and his pregnant wife, Amber, a smart, drop dead stunning brunette, desperately seek ingenious and mostly criminal methods to raise their status, having dropped to the lowest social class because of circumstances affecting their government issued Score. Take the roller coaster ride with the exploits of Darren and Amber and their shocking nonconformist ways of playing against the system’s outrageous rules.
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My Atomic Angel

My Atomic Angel

G.L. Miller

Food and Drink / Cookbooks / Cooking

Ricky Barnes is a young mechanic who happens to have a crush on a 300 foot teenage girl with an atomic bomb for a heart. Her name is Jenny, and she's Earth guardian angel against the giant beasts called Titans. But for Ricky, she's the girl he loves more than anything else in the world. But how could he ever get up the courage to tell her?For almost sixty years, Earth has faced an unprecedented menace from the giant monsters known as Titans. Whether spawned from atomic radiation, extraterrestrial spores or awakened due to environmental upheaval, these behemoths are dedicated to eradicating the human race from the face of the Earth. Their one and only hope for survival rests with the Atomic Woman, Earth's guardian angel, and the courageous men and women of the elite task force known as A.T.O.M. Together, they have battled the Titans for three generations, but the burden weighs heavy on them all. For Ricky Barnes, a young mechanic, the weight is two-fold, as he struggles to do his job, and deal with the complications of being in love with the latest Atomic Woman, Jenny. When the girl you love is 300 feet tall and has an atomic bomb for a heart, do you dare risk breaking it?
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