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But Fredericton is a long way from the shores of Lake Ontario, and
schemes for power will bring together three extraordinary young
warriors.

Savannah

A desert girl who came to Trana looking for refuge but has never found
a home

Kieran

A privileged city boy dreaming of rebellion and hardened
by cruelty

Kyle

The disgraced heir to the throne desperate to win back his place in his
father’s heart

Sworn enemies or reluctant allies, they all have one thing in common: an
incomplete half of the legendary fighting skill known as the
Triumvirate sword art. They fight for glory, for power, for the
monsters lurking beneath the streets, and for the mysterious society
moving in the shadows of Trana—the Black Trillium.

 

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Simon McNeil is
the author of The Black Trillium, a story of revolution and martial artsset in the ruins of Toronto. This novel is published by Brain Lag Publishing.

SOMETIMES, WHEN THE WALLS of the ancient city press around too much and I feel a yearning for
the open spaces, I like to climb up to the highest tower I can find and just sit with my feet dangling
over the edge, watching everything below me. The sky seems bluer than it does on the ground, almost
as blue as it does in the lands of the red-brown dust that were my home.
I miss home but I can never go back. There is no home to go back to, not anymore. It’s all dust, bones
and broken dreams now. No crops grow in the lands of endless dust. The rivers are dry. All they
produce is refugees and lots of refugees end up in Trana. I don’t have to like it. I don’t like it. The
buildings make the places all too narrow.
When I tell people I hate the tall buildings they look at me strangely. They ask me, “Didn’t I see you
sitting on the edge of the 390 building just the other day?” I just smile and explain that it’s OK being at
the top of the buildings. I don’t mind it when there is just the sky above and the streets below. I’m not
afraid of high places even though I come from the flattest land. It is the narrow places I don’t like, the
tunnels and the streets.
It’s better in the districts a bit farther out from the center. Kensington is nice, though too crowded, the
same with Queeneast. I like Blasted Port; it’s nothing but open spaces. The problem with Blasted Port
is that it’s not a good place for a girl to be all on her own with no family. I’d almost rather be out there
anyway. The bandits are mostly in it for a profit, and there’s no profit in harassing a girl with nothing
but the clothes on her back.
I guess if it wasn’t for Boyd I’d probably have left Broken Tower by now, would have left behind the
skeletons of buildings with their ribbed rebar showing through the crumbling concrete.
But at least I felt like I had a place in Boyd’s court, even if it was as unstable as the ancient towers.
I crossed Confederation all on my own. I had to stick a man with a knife once when he tried to force
himself on me. These city people all think desert girls are easy prey; we’re loose girls they say, we’re
asking for it. They learn fast that trying to force a desert girl is asking for it. I was hunting scorpions for
food while most of the two-penny bandits in Trana were still playing games in their parents’ yards.
Boyd respected that. He came from out west too, even farther off, in the lands beyond the mountains
and I’ve always suspected that he thought the same of city folk that I did. Too soft, too weak, too
coddled.
Boyd calls me the Scorpion Girl and leaves me right the fuck alone except for when I come to his
court. I’m welcome there. He sees to it that I have food if I’m hungry, somewhere to sleep when it’s
cold. He never tried to force himself on me or nothing either. We have an understanding, a mutual
respect, and if somebody needs watching, he knows I’m good at sneaky.
I thought about Boyd, about being a sneaky refugee girl, dependent on his patronage to make my way
while the chill of early winter bit into my bones. I hugged a ragged old hide coat closer and hunched
my shoulders against the cold.
“LePine’s up to something, follow him,” Boyd told me the last time I saw him.He had a good point. LePine, the Under God-damned high minister of Confederation in Trana, was up
to something. Boyd was sure of it and if I had read the signs correctly he was probably right. It all came
down to Bart MacMillan and his fucking wars. The king of Confederation. It had been his damn wars
that drove me to Trana in the first place—they drove the ’Tobans west and the ’Tobans figured they’d
return the favour, pushed my people into the Great Desert. And then I’d ended up here, far from home.
Now MacMillan had his eyes on the Southlands and Boyd was sure that LePine wanted to involve
Trana. Like it or not, Broken Tower was the closest thing I had to a home. I was damned if I was going
to sit idly by doing nothing while Confederation drove me out of this one too.
I was sitting in my favourite spot, looking north at the boundary between Broken Tower and
downtown, wrapped in my thoughts as tightly as my winter clothes, when I heard a scrabbling behind
me. Nobody ever came up high like this. The scavengers stayed away because they couldn’t tear any
more rebar out of the walls without risking pulling the ceilings down on their own heads. The smiths
and the merchants never had cause to come up this high and nobody bothered living up at the tops of
the towers; at least, nobody sane.
Nobody sane except me, that is. I don’t think I’m insane after all. I turned to look and said, “Hello, is
there anybody there?”
The response I heard couldn’t really come from a human throat. The best I could describe it would be
as a nasty chuckle, a noise full of mirth and viciousness, a clicking sound that promised pain. I reached
into my jerkin and found my knife there. A girl had to be ready for trouble.
“Come out where I can see you,” I said and I tried really hard to sound bored, like I wasn’t impressed
by Mr. Crazy-laugh in the shadows at all. I was scared sick.
Just another one of those clicking little chuckles answered me.
“I don’t want to have to go looking for you,” I said and I wasn’t lying at all.
In the gloom of the building behind me I saw somebody, some thing, moving. It was shaped like a man,
naked and hunched over, almost crawling. I knew what that meant.
Trana didn’t have the Broken, not like Edmonton did or some of the other towns that survived in the
desert. This one had probably slunk here from Cleveland. I couldn’t think of any closer nests. I hated
and feared the Broken the same as everybody. They were cannibals, freaks; twisted and deformed into
something less than human by whatever had been done to them, whatever they had done.
They also rarely travelled alone. I was trapped and facing an unknown number of horrible enemies.
There was no need for pretence any longer. You can’t reason with one of the Broken and you can never
scare one into submission. I drew my knife and prepared to show them why I was called the Scorpion
Girl.

 

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Hunting a killer is easy. Learning to love is hard. 

Josephine ‘Jo’ Rayburn has no luck with love. Between the demands of her job as a homicide detective, finding the perfect yarn for her knitting projects, and her nosy family, she doesn’t have time to find her happily ever after, nor does she really believe it exists. Until she’s assigned to the Gravedigger task force where she meets Rhysian ‘Rhys’ Harrison, the sexy Coroner’s assistant.

Rhys Harrison thought he had found love with the perfect woman. But his parents’ deaths forced him to choose between his fiancée and caring for his brother, he chose his brother. His only regret, the medical degree he abandoned to work in the Coroner’s office. When the Gravedigger leaves his latest victim at the gates of a cemetery, Rhys and Jo are thrown together, her prickly personality interests him, but it’s her deeply hidden romantic side that captivates him.

After one of the task force members is shot, Rhys’s fears of losing Jo, like he’s lost so much already, threaten to rip them apart. Can she convince him that love is worth having no matter the risk? Or will he play it safe, leaving before his heart becomes too attached?

CeeRee Fields currently lives in Groningen, the Netherlands with her husband and cat. Since she was
born in Alabama and moved to the Netherlands, Dutch is not her first language which gets her into
mischief in various stores around town when she tries to speak it.
She loves writing, building worlds that her characters can explore and break if they feel the need. Action,
adventure and love are her favorite things. And when stuff gets blown up who says the guy is the only one
who gets to do it?

They rounded the corner and Jo released a startled gasp when Rhys led her to another booth. “And this is
the reason I wanted to bring you here.”
Her gaze bounced from all the colorful yarn in front of her, to him. She narrowed her eyes. “Did Sullivan
talk? Because if—”
“Sullivan knows?” Rhys held his palms up, shaking his head. “No, I kind of spied on you . . . sort of.”She took a careful step back. Could she have read him wrong? God, she had the absolute worst luck with
men.
“Get that look off your face. I wasn’t following— Wait, I kind of . . . Dammit.”
It was the first time she’d seen him at a loss for words and had heard him curse. He took a deep breath,
then released it as he rubbed his palms across the sides of his pants. Nervous was good . . . maybe.
Rhys’s gaze tangled with her and she read the sincerity in it. “I take my brother to the library on
Wednesdays. They sponsor a reading program, and I like him to have real books. Borrowing the books
teach him to take care of items, especially if he’s responsible for turning them back in or paying for
damages out of his allowance.”
“I thought I saw you on the escalator, but . . .” she trailed off unsure if she wanted him to know she’d
almost followed to see if the man really was Rhys. Jo hadn’t followed though, not wanting to embarrass
herself if she were wrong.
“Yeah, probably. I followed you—”
“And saw the knitting books. Crap.” Jo stepped into his space, jabbing a finger at him. “No telling
anyone. Sullivan knows, but I have enough blackmail video of him that he won’t ever spill.”
“I’m not going to tell anyone, Jo. I mean I don’t get why it’s a big secret—” Rhys’s hand caught hers,
linking them together again.
People who didn’t work in law enforcement rarely understood the weird sense of humor and pranks that
occurred because of it. “If any of my coworkers know, I’ll get orders showing up on my desk for knitted
speedos, with sizes I’m sure—”
“Are you kidding?” Rhys’s mouth fell open when she shook her head.
“With just the Digger case, Sullivan and I have gotten three different adverts for zombie apocalypse
survival kits. Not to mention a few axes, and tons of emails with videos on how to survive a zombie
attack.”
“I thought cops had more important things to do.”
Jo snorted. “They do, but they also know levity keeps you from sinking into the deepest darkest hole you
can find. We see the absolute worst humanity has to offer. Grandmothers killing grandkids because they
were high. Or parents selling their kids. Kids shooting parents or other family members. If someone can
dream it up, we’ve seen it.”
He gently pulled her close, cradling her in his arms. Safe. His chest was solid under her cheek. His heart a
steady beat in her ear, she stifled a gasp at how right he felt.
“I know. I’ve only worked for Jim for a few months and I already know I’m not cut out for it.”

Gathering her composure, Jo kept their hands linked and leaned back. “You wanted to be a doctor? I
thought I heard that.”
“Yes, a pediatrician.” His thin lips softened from the hard-flat line they’d been in. “I planned to go into
practice with a couple of friends I’d met in school. One was studying to be an OBGYN and the two others
were studying general medicine. I wanted to help kids.”
“And what stopped you?”
“My parents died, and I needed to take care of Rian.” Rhys set her away from him. “And this is
depressing. How about we get off these subjects and back on this amazing yarn.”
Deciding to go along with him, Jo turned and fell into her second love. Knitting. Jo wanted to dig into all
the questions she had: why Rhys quit medical school, why he’d taken a job at the Coroner’s office and
why he still drove his father’s car after they’d been dead for two years, she tamped down the urge.
Focusing on his smiles and laughter. But especially the bubbly feeling of happiness he drew so
effortlessly from her.

 

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Caged her whole life, Raz escapes only to find herself caught in a tender

trap created by the Alpha and Beta of the North Woods pack.

A TRIAD FAMILY

If only Raz had kept running, she wouldn’t have wound up on wolf pack
lands putting herself in double danger. A three-hundred pound Bengal
tiger shifter, Raz had been caged for as long as she can remember;
tortured, beaten and used for sport. Finally, she’s escaped, but the
hunters are hot on her heels, and she’s racing against time. When she
heard the wolf pups’ cries, Raz couldn’t help herself; she went to
their rescue even knowing that her trespass could mean her life. Now
she’s wedged between the Alpha and Beta of the North Woods pack, and
they’re insisting she’s their True Mate.

There’s a war coming in the shifter world, a tear in the veil that separates
good and evil, and the reincarnation of ancient goddesses heralds the
preparations for the battles ahead. Rose, a wolf shifter, whose birth
pack nearly killed her, has found contentment as a member of a loving
pack, and that has been enough. When she meets the Alpha and Beta of
a neighboring bear clan and learns these men are her fated mates, her
life changes in ways she never could have dreamed.

CAN SAVE THE WORLD

Brothers Mason and Riker Porda became the Alpha and Beta of their clan
when
their parents were slaughtered, and their lives have been a struggle
ever since. While bolstering the health and safety of their clan is
their life’s work, their hearts are sad and empty…until Rose.
Their mate is everything they thought they’d never have, and when
the threat of collector demons returning to earth invades the shifter
world, the brothers learn Rose is so much more than their mate, she’s
the reincarnation of the Goddess Thorne, the Huntress.

These paranormal romance novels will raise your heart rate and make you

believe in love. Enter this fantasy utopia and let yourself
experience the anticipation of new love and endless thrills. After
all, everybody needs a little romance, excitement, intrigue and
passion in their lives.

Tigress Excerpt:
The desperate cries of wolf pups echoed through the forest around Raz—terrified shifter wolf
pups. Raz scented she was on pack land, but she had no choice, she had to get away from the
men hunting her. Sure, she may be a three-hundred pound Bengal tiger shifter, but they had
guns.
Claws helped up close, but on way too many occasions she’d seen that bullets always won.
It seemed she had run from her hell right into someone else’s, if the sounds of those cries
were any indication. Razelle had hoped to be well out of the wolf shifters’ territory long before
she was scented. She didn’t have permission to be on their lands, and death was typically the
result of such a trespass—or so it had been explained to her.
Great, just friggin’ wonderful. Not only will I be strung up, I might be left for the hunters to find
and skin.
The pups’ cries grew louder, and she knew she had to answer their calls for help—hell, they
were only pups. Razelle’s conscience always got her into trouble. After all, wasn’t that why
those damn hunters were tracking her even now? She was never going back into a cage; she
would sooner die. Changing direction easily as her four-inch claws dug into the damp forest
floor, she sensed the pups were over the next ridge.
Using her large padded feet, silently she stalked up to the edge of the small ridge overlooking
a ravine, and when she peered over, her breath froze in her lungs. Two wolf shifter pups were
cornered against a wall of jagged rocks by four hyena shifters who were nipping at the pups.
Razelle could scent and see traces of blood on the pups’ fur. Bastards.
Anger like nothing she had ever experienced raced through her, and that was saying a lot
considering she had spent most of her life in a cage, tortured and abused at the hands of her
captors. How dare those mangy hyenas attack defenseless pups? Before she had a chance to
think
it through, Razelle raced down the slope toward the hyenas. She let out a mighty roar and dove
at
the closest attacker, ripping her claws across the hyena’s side and onto its chest, easily sending
him flying away from the pups. The other three hyenas quickly backed away as she placed her
mighty body in front of the pups.
Raz let out another angry roar that echoed through the forest before she slowly backed up,
ushering the two pups closer together, making it easier for her to protect them. She scanned the
area for an escape route, but she could only carry one pup in her mouth, and she wasn’t about
to
leave one behind, so she was going to have to fight her way out of this one. Though she
despised
fighting, it didn’t mean she couldn’t, and she always had plan B, the escape plan. But by the
look
of pure hatred coming off the hyena shifters, plan B was so not happening.
How could someone hate pups this much?
Slowly, the hyenas formed a semicircle around her and the pups, blocking them against the
rock face. As drool dripped from their open, fang-filled mouths, they started in with that
maniacal laughing bark of theirs, which never failed to make her skin crawl.
Not just assholes, but creepy assholes.
Having all that pent-up anger and rage from being trapped in a cage for so many years was
certainly going to come in handy right about now. Normally, wild hyenas would have gotten the
point that taking on a pissed-off tigress was not in their best interests, but these were shifters,
and
by the looks of them, not the sharpest crayons in the box.
The largest of the four hung back slightly, and it was easy to figure out that he was the leader
of this gang, and he was more than willing to let his minions take the pain that Raz was about to
dish out.
The one she had already attacked didn’t look stable on his feet, but he continued to inch
forward. Razelle huffed. Idiot didn’t get enough of his ass handed to him the first time around.He lunged forward, snapping his jaws at her throat, but she easily dodged him, bringing her
massive paw up and backhanding him. Or would that be back-pawing him? She laughed
internally at another one of her lame jokes. Hell, she thought she was funny even if no one else
did.
That hyena now lay sprawled out on the ground like he had been hit by a truck. Another
snicker escaped but came out as a sneeze in her cat form. Either way, the other hyenas didn’t
find
it as funny as she did. In sync, the two remaining minions charged. She pushed the pups into a
slight indentation in the rocks as cover, then Raz brought herself up to her full height and put
her
body directly in front of them. The hyenas would not get to the pups.
One hyena attacked her flank while the other tried to use the distraction to reach their prey.
What was it with these pups that these hyenas wanted them so badly, and where the hell was
the
damn wolf pack to protect them? Raz swiped her claws across the jaw of the hyena who was
trying to get to the little ones, but unfortunately that left her flank open to the other hyena. Pain
shot through her side as its claws ripped through her heavy fur and dug into her flesh. That one
was going to leave a mark. Damn.
Quickly, she adjusted her position, ever conscious of staying directly in front of the pups, and
wrapped her canines around the other hyena’s front leg, tearing through muscle and bone until
she heard a satisfying crunch. The three minions were starting to look a little frightened, and
Razelle thought it was about damn time they came to their senses. Besides, her flank really
hurt,
and she could feel wetness coating her fur. She assumed it was blood. Realizing the hyena
might
have gotten in a really good shot, she chanced a look down and wished she hadn’t. A five-inch
gash was now seeping blood from her side.
Raz knew she had to end this fight soon or she wouldn’t have the strength to protect the pups,
who were now cowering behind her for protection. That damn hyena laugh brought her attention
back to the four assholes—well, really only two now, since the other two couldn’t move any
longer, which gave her a sense of satisfaction. Any sane shifter would suck it up, back off, and
lick his wounds, but by the look in the leader’s eyes, sanity had left the forest long ago.
The last two hyenas began to inch forward, snapping their jaws, sending blood and spit flying
everywhere. A shiver of disgust ran up Raz’s spine, and the realization she was likely going to
have to fight to the death to save these pups seemed definite.
Knowing she couldn’t fight fully and keep the pups behind her and safe, she decided she had
to kill the hyenas before she went down; that would be the only way to save the terrified pups.
Well, what a fine mess, missy. You get your ass free of the cages to die within twenty-four
hours of gaining your freedom. Shit.
With that thought, she opened her stance and crouched low, readying herself for their next
attack when a terrifying howl ripped through the air. It should have chilled her to the bone, but
surprisingly, a different kind of chill rushed through her body and settled in all the right places.
Shaking her head to clear her inappropriate thoughts, Raz realized the pack was on the way to
save their pups, and she had to hold out long enough for them to get there. Lifting her head, she
roared in answer to the howl to give them a direction to track faster, because God knew, she
needed help.

 

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By night and on weekends, his alter ego writes modern paranormal
fantasy, apocalyptic science fiction, action and adventure novels and
relaxes by handcrafting magic wands from various magical woods and
mystical gemstones. His first foray into fiction is the book Magical
Wands: A Cornucopia of Wand Lore written under the pen name Wolfrick
Ignatius Feuerschmied. He lives in Crafton, Pennsylvania with his
wife Becky, and his son Dane, and varying numbers of dogs, cats, and
birds.

By the final week of October, the tall oaks lining Hawthorne Drive had reached the peak of their
colors, and the first yellow leaves slowly tumbled down to lie on lawns and sidewalks. All along
Hawthorne Drive, the modest one- and two-story houses had been turned into happy Halloween
haunts. Throughout the neighborhood, bright orange lights framed windows and doors, and small
fluttering ghosts hung from the branches of many of the smaller trees in peoples’ yards. Black
plastic spiders sat on the cottony cobwebs that shrouded every bush, while jolly Jack-O-Lanterns
stood silent guard at every porch. Front yards had become grave yards, and the occasional inept
witch hung where she’d crashed headlong into a tree or the side of a house.
Yet the morning of Halloween had arrived with no change to Hawthorne House, making it
appear decidedly underdressed with no sign of Halloween decorations.
“So Gerallt, doesn’t your family celebrate Halloween?” Matt asked as the Hawthorne children
joined Tina and him at the bus stop. “You haven’t put up any decorations, and I haven’t heard
you mention it all month.”
“Of course we observe Halloween, only we call it Samhain,” Gerallt said, exchanging
cautious glances with his sister. Unlike Wiccans, who pronounce the holiday as Sow-in, Gerallt
pronounced the Gaelic word meaning the end of summer as Sahm-wan. “It’s just that for us, the
holiday doesn’t start until dusk and we always wait until then tah decorate.”
“Tonight is very special tah us,” Gwyneth added solemnly.
“It’s our new year,” Gerallt continued. “We have a feast tah welcome the spirits of those who
will be born in the comin’ year and tah celebrate the lives of those who have passed in the
previous year. Tonight, we’ll celebrate the life of our fathah and welcome his spirit when he
visits us from the Spirit World…”
Before Matt could decide how to respond to Gerallt’s unexpected expectation that his father’s
ghost was going to visit him, Gareth said, “Samhain ‘s my favorite holiday. I love trick-or-
treatin’ and all the candy. Can I go with you and Gerallt tonight? Please? I promise not tah be a
bothah or anything. Please, Matt?”

Growing up in a small town, it seems we all have that one house in the the town that has a story.  The haunted house, or the house that seems to be a source of gossip. It seems no one ever really knows the story and there are different versions.   This starts the idea of The Secrets of Hawthorne House.

You can’t help but feel sorry for the main character, Matt, as you read the book. Dealing with bullies, making friends in a new place, and happen to live next to the house that everyone seems to have a story about.  Add in some new Wiccan friends and the story keeps getting more interesting.  You find yourself making your own theories about what the actual story is with the house throughout the book.

 

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