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...

Magic: the side effects are painful, if not fatal...Two months after the explosive and unexpected ending to A Sudden Outbreak of Magic, Jeroan learns all about magic at Dr. Azure's mysterious training center. Meanwhile, Kelley can't even leave her hotel room in Dubuque without a chaperone.When people they care about start disappearing, and people they didn't think they should care about—like Dr. Azure—get attacked by rogue magic-users, Jeroan and Kelley mu...

A hunt for ginseng takes a dark and dangerous turn...Ozzy immediately regrets taking his hapless brother Harry on his hunt for ginseng in the woods. But he forgets all about his brother when he finds the mother lode of 'sang plants.Unfortunately, his brother finds something even more sinister and problematic in the same woods. Decisions must be made, and both brothers must what the right thing to do is when there's nobody watching...A prequel story to the F...

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 connection to a ...

Try not to listen to those who whisper...Tommy Roling has a great freelance job, a healthy daughter, and a new city to call home. Plus he's finally comfortable with the fact that he's a werewolf. So why isn't he happy?Could it be his daughter's "terrible twos," which seem even more terrible because she chooses to stay in her wolf body most of the time? Or is it his growing distance from his family and Nina, his on-again, off-again girlfriend?Those questions...

First contact between a priest and an alien...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.When communications break down between the military personnel of the humans and the leaders of the Wannoshay, Father Joshua McDowell gets a chance to make first contact with the aliens.And just as he thinks he ha...

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...

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 ...

An unlikely team of misfit players, and the coach fighting to hold them all together...In the 1910s, the All Nations team barnstorms across America, fielding players from around the world, white and black and Native American and more.As the newly named head coach of the All Nations team, former slave George Grunion contends with racist crowds, low team morale, and… the ghost of the previous head coach.And if George can't hold the All Nations together, he lo...

When the prodigal returns, what happens to the one that stayed?Three generations of Koopmans live—uneasily—under the same roof of a farm house twenty miles from the center of Holy Cross, Iowa.Thirty-year-old William Koopman needs to move out. But Dad wanted him on the farm after Grandpa died, so William stayed, married his girl Marcy, and even brought her to the farmhouse to live. The poor girl made it a year before she bolted at the end of a rough winter.A...

A haunted romance. An unsolved mystery. And a centuries-old curse at the heart of it all.Off the rough coast of North Carolina's Outer Banks, Ella Simon tracks down one man—the infamous pirate Blackbeard. Her goal is to ID a shipwreck off the coast of the island… But she and her divemaster Mitch Thompson discover much more than that.During their time working together, Ella overcomes her bad first impression of him and falls for him. And he does the same for her. Li...

Aliens crash-land in snowy North America, attempt integration, and fail—violently.In the near future, over thirty black ships containing the aliens known as the Wannoshay crash-land onto 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 are suspected of causing a series of deadly explosions at their new jobs.A handful ...