It's been ten years since Colin Lambert last saw Thomas Sullivan, his former bodyguard. Now Colin's all grown up and Thomas is in Paris for one evening. A sweet short story about second chances.A short story serving as a brief introduction to the Earthborn universe. In the far future a dark fog emerges that threatens the end of humanity. Gil Tungsten, born and raised within a world were mankind has united under a single government faces a decision changing the rest of his life. He and his wife can either flee from planet Earth by joining the Exodus fleet, or become part of those who will go beneath the surface to wait out the dark storm.

In 2012 I began a holiday tradition of writing Christmas codas for some of my — and your — favorite stories. I ran the codas on my blog and left them up there for readers to enjoy all year round.Readers requested that I collect the codas and make them available digitally and in print, and I thought that was a fun idea, which is how you come to be reading this. I decided to add another ten new codas to the collection, as well as some recipes for cocktails and dishes that are either featured in the original works or seem to add some final comment or insight into the era or the characters or their relationship.Happiest of Holidays to you all. May this season be filled with love and laughter, and may the New Year bring you health and happiness.

For sixteen years reclusive mystery writer Christopher (Kit) Holmes enjoyed a very successful career, thanks to the popularity of elderly spinster sleuth, Miss Butterwith, and her ingenious cat, Mr. Pinkerton. But sales are down in everything but chick lit, and Christopher's new editor doesn't like geriatric gumshoes. It's a pink, pink world for Mr. Holmes. At the urging of his agent, Christopher reluctantly agrees to attend a mystery writers' conference at a remote Northern California winery. But no sooner does he arrive than he discovers the pajama-clad body of a woman in the woods. If nearly two decades of mystery-writing are anything to go by, the woman doesn't appear to have died a natural death. With a storm in full force and a washed-out bridge making it impossible for law enforcement to come to the rescue, it's practically like all those classic murder mysteries in isolated country manors that Christopher has been penning for sixteen years! If only Miss...

Happy Birthday, Taylor! Taylor has pretty well recovered from his shooting, but not everyone is happy to see him reach his next birthday. Does a cobra pickled in a bottle of wine means someone cares enough to send the very death — best?

A gay high-society wedding. A stolen book of spells. A love-threatening lie. Can a witch avoid a murder rap without revealing the supernatural truth? Cosmo Saville guiltily hides a paranormal secret from his soon-to-be husband. Thanks to a powerful love spell, uncertainty threatens his nuptial magic. But when he’s suspected of killing a longtime rival, he could spend his honeymoon behind bars… Police Commissioner John Joseph Galbraith never believed in Happily Ever After until Cosmo came along. Falling head over heels for the elegant antiques dealer is an enchantment he never wants to break. But when all fingers point to Cosmo’s guilt, John struggles to trust what his heart is telling him. As Cosmo hunts for the missing grimoire among the arcane aristocracy, John’s doubts grow. With an unseen enemy threatening to expose Cosmo’s true nature, the couple’s blissful future could shatter like a broken charm. Can Cosmo find the lost grimoire, clear his name, and keep John’s love alive, or will black magic “rune” their wedding bells?

It's moving day at Chez Holmes. Somehow, against Kit's better instincts, he and J.X. are setting up house together. But while J.X. is off at a writing conference, Kit unpacks a crate that should contain either old books or new china. It doesn't. Within the mounds of green Styrofoam popcorn is a dead body. A very dead body.There goes the neighborhood.

Special Agents for the Department of Diplomatic Security, Taylor MacAllister and Will Brandt have been partners and best friends for three years, but everything changed the night Taylor admitted the truth about his feelings for Will. But it's complicated...Taylor agreed to a camping trip in the High Sierras — despite the fact that he hates camping — because Will wants a chance to save their partnership. But the trip is a disaster from the first, and things rapidly go from bad to worse when they find a crashed plane and a couple of million dollars in stolen money.With a trio of murderous robbers trailing them, Will and Taylor are on dangerous ground, fighting for their partnership, their passion...and their lives.

Fakes, folk music, and ghost firesWhen legendary folk singer Lara Fairplay agrees to make her comeback debut at Pirate's Cove's annual maritime music festival, everyone in the quaint seaside village is delighted—including mystery bookstore owner and sometimes amateur sleuth, Ellery Page.Better yet, Lara is scheduled to perform a recently discovered piece of music attributed to "The Father of American Music," Stephen Foster, which will hopefully bring large crowds and a lot of business.Several mysterious accidents later, Ellery is less delighted as his suspicion grows that someone plans to silence the celebrity songbird forever.

Special Agents for the Department of Diplomatic Security, Taylor MacAllister and Will Brandt have been partners forever and lovers for three months, but their new relationship is threatened when Will is offered a plum two-year assignment in Paris.Will believes the posting only means postponing what they both want. Taylor fears that kind of separation will mean the end of their new and still-fragile relationship.It's a bad time to find themselves in the middle of the New Mexico wilderness responsible for the health and welfare of a suspected terrorist. Especially when everyone else they run into seems determined to see their prisoner — and them — dead.

A murderous fall down icy stairs is nearly all she wrote for Anna Hitchcock, the "American Agatha Christie." The cry for help from his old mentor cuts short mystery author Kit Holmes' romantic weekend with his new lover J.X. Moriarity, and lands him an amateur sleuth gig in an elegant snowbound mansion in the Berkshires. Unfortunately, a clever killer is still one step ahead of Kit...

The decades-old disappearance of twenty-one-year-old teaching student Deirdre O'Donnell is the Holy Grail for true-crime buffs—and Skylar Brennan, the host of the Ugly Town podcast, is no exception. In fact, on the mean streets of the internet, he's considered an expert on the case. (In law-enforcement circles, he's viewed as just another crackpot amateur sleuth.)Every February, the remote New Hampshire village of Woodlark holds a candlelight vigil for Deirdre. Family, friends, and "supporters" of the long-missing girl gather at the spot where she was last seen. This is Skylar's first vigil, and his fans are really looking forward to meeting him—though maybe not as much as the anonymous person who emailed him coordinates to Deirdre's grave.

Something old, something new, something borrowed...something blacker than the darkest night. Antiques dealer (and witch) Cosmo Saville adores his new husband, but his little white lies—and some very black magic—are about to bring his fairytale romance to an end. Someone is killing San Francisco's spellcasters—and the only person Cosmo can turn to—the man who so recently swore to love and cherish him—isn't taking his phone calls. The only magic Police Commissioner John Joseph Galbraith believes in is true love. Discovering he's married to a witch—a witch with something alarmingly like magical powers—is nearly as bad as discovering the man he loved tricked and deceived him. John shoulders the pain of betrayal and packs his bags. But when he learns Cosmo is in the crosshairs of a mysterious and murderous plot, he knows he must do everything in in his mortal power to protect him. Till Death do...

<h1>First in an adorable new series!</h1> Ellery Page, aspiring screenwriter, Scrabble champion and guy-with-worst-luck-in-the-world-when-it-comes-to-dating, is ready to make a change. So when he learns he's inherited both a failing bookstore and a falling-down mansion in the quaint seaside village of Pirate's Cove on Buck Island, Rhode Island, it's full steam ahead! Sure enough, the village is charming, its residents amusingly eccentric, and widowed police chief Jack Carson is decidedly yummy (though probably as straight as he is stern). However, the bookstore is failing, the mansion is falling down, and there's that little drawback of finding rival bookseller—and head of the unwelcoming-committee—Trevor Maples dead during the annual Buccaneer Days celebration. Still, it could be worse. And once Police Chief Carson learns Trevor was killed with the cutlass hanging over the door of Ellery's bookstore, it is.

A gay high-society wedding. A stolen book of spells. A love-threatening lie. Can a witch avoid a murder rap without revealing the supernatural truth? Cosmo Saville guiltily hides a paranormal secret from his soon-to-be husband. And if he can't undo a powerful love spell, uncertainty threatens his nuptial magic. But when he's arrested for allegedly killing a longtime rival, he could spend his honeymoon behind bars... Police Commissioner John Joseph Galbraith never believed in love until Cosmo came along. Falling head over heels for the elegant antiques dealer is an enchantment he never wants to break. So when all fingers point to Cosmo's guilt, John races to prove his fiancé's innocence before they take their vows. As Cosmo searches for the real killer among the arcane aristocracy, John warns him to leave it to the police. But with an unseen enemy threatening to expose Cosmo's true nature, the couple's blissful future could...

The snick of a lock. The squeak of door hinges. The creak of a floorboard... Nothing is more mysterious than footsteps in the dark. Are those approaching steps that of friend or enemy? Lover or killer? Authors L.B. Gregg, Nicole Kimberling, Josh Lanyon, Dal MacLean, Z.A. Maxfield, Meg Perry, C.S. Poe and S.C. Wynne join forces for Footsteps in the Dark, eight sexy and suspenseful novellas of Male/Male Mystery and Romance.