Charlotte Wolfe knows precisely what is important in life … she is. Her life is going exactly the way she planned until her selfishness costs her everything. As she struggles to put her life back together, Charlotte must confront the truth of herself and the true nature of love through her encounters with an eclectic group of people and one adoring dog.Charlotte Wolfe knows precisely what is important in life ... she is. Her life is going exactly the way she planned until her selfishness costs her everything. Charlotte has spent a lifetime molding her reality to suit her and her alone. A chameleon, she adapts in each situation to present a carefully constructed image. She manipulates those around her to ensure she gets her way, something she's been successful at until she goes too far.Charlotte's life comes crashing down when her boyfriend leaves, taking his money with him. As she struggles to put her life back together, Charlotte must confront the truth of herself and the true nature of love through her encounters with an eclectic group of people and one adoring dog.

“Very funny, very unique… Ingenuity was really fresh.” – Lia London, Founder, Clean Indie Reads Winner of Readers' Favorite Five Star Award!The Afterlife... Unclaimed Baggage department. Unfinished Business office. Soul music plays... Imogenia unexpectedly finds herself in the Afterlife, having to navigate between the Unclaimed Baggage department, the Unfinished Business office, and other governmental agencies. Against a backdrop of soul music, she encounters all manner of new experiences from black, frothing, arsenic-spiced drinks, to guest services personnel, and more. However, Imogenia has never forgotten the cause of her early arrival in the afterlife...her brother, the former prince, now king, and she plots revenge. How will her proposed Beta test be received? Will she realize the justice denied her? Grab your copy now. Scroll up and download it today!

A flash fiction about saying goodbye. Set in the future where death may not be the end.A young man tries to climb out of a seemingly endless pit deep inside the Earth which represents his depression and loneliness. He can see far above the people who put him down there. He feels rage towards them. As he climbs, a demonic entity tries to encourage his rage and fuel his depression. The entity tries to encourage him either down the path of vengeance, or to simply let go and fall to his doom below. No more feeling. No more pain.A parallel story running alongside this one, set in the real world, focuses on a wannabe actor named Christian Anderson. All alone, without a purpose in life, and used to rejection by others, he seeks his dream because he feels it will be the key to ending the stagnant and lonely state that is his life and help him find happiness and fulfillment. By becoming successful, he will validate himself and be able to rub it in the faces of those who scorned him. His encounter with a particular group that reaches out to him, however, causes him to question the way he's always viewed others' actions towards himself, and the way he remembers some of the hurtful experiences from his past.

A young man tries to climb out of a seemingly endless pit deep within the earth which represents his despair and loneliness. As he climbs, a demonic entity tries to convince him to take own life or give in to his rage to take vengeance on those who put him there.A young man tries to climb out of a seemingly endless pit deep inside the Earth which represents his depression and loneliness. He can see far above the people who put him down there. He feels rage towards them. As he climbs, a demonic entity tries to encourage his rage and fuel his depression. The entity tries to encourage him either down the path of vengeance, or to simply let go and fall to his doom below. No more feeling. No more pain.A parallel story running alongside this one, set in the real world, focuses on a wannabe actor named Christian Anderson. All alone, without a purpose in life, and used to rejection by others, he seeks his dream because he feels it will be the key to ending the stagnant and lonely state that is his life and help him find happiness and fulfillment. By becoming successful, he will validate himself and be able to rub it in the faces of those who scorned him. His encounter with a particular group that reaches out to him, however, causes him to question the way he's always viewed others' actions towards himself, and the way he remembers some of the hurtful experiences from his past.

The truth behind the old legend! The honest story of the King, the Monster and the Hero; the real Beowulf revealed in a tale that puts the darkness back in the dark ages!The truth behind the old legend! The honest story of the King, the Monster and the Hero; the real Beowulf revealed in a tale that puts the darkness back in the dark ages!Colonial King Lars builds his imperialistic Beer Hall on the ancestral swamp of the Trolls causing a conflict that (quite literally) rips apart the feudal world. He is forced to send for the sinister Beowulf in order to defeat his nemesis, the revolutionary Troll, Grendel. Beowulf, however, has plans of his own. As the forces of Man and Nature collide friends and foes are not all they seem. Except for Gareth, the Royal Dog; he is exactly what he seems.Beowulf, Grendel and King Lars battle for control of the Biggest Beer Hall There Has Ever Been; and, although we all think we know the story, the outcome is very far from sure.Beer, Blood, Fire, Death and Danger are all out there as the struggle for power begins!

A young girl that is mistreated by the popular girl in her class falls in love with the popular boy.A young girl that lost her mom from cancer is bullied by the popular girls in school. That all changes when she is tricked into going to a party and is asked by the most popular boy in school. Little did she know it was all a joke and that the girls just wanted her there to play a trick on her.

What would the story of Aladdin be like if he were a girl? What would it have been like if the protagonist then fell in love with the genie instead? Aliah is my version of Aladdin with those questions in mind. In this Refurbished Fairy Tale you learn a little more about the world I made for Annan as well as my own take on where genies, djinn, came from.Aliah is the third book in my Refurbished Fairy Tale series. These stories are my take on classic tales such as Beauty and the Beast and the Little Mermaid. For my version of Aladdin, I wanted a female protagonist fighting a man’s world only to find a love she never expected. What the reader really gets is a back-story to a future character, which will be in Alice as well as in at least one book from the Cases of the SIA series. A big OMG for readers of my Annan books … Nico’s dad is Cesair’s brother! Read the book to understand what that really means.This story finds Aliah in Babilli, an ancient town on the verge or ruin. Falling further each day from its once splendid glory. Living on the streets is hard, but even more so for a woman in a world where they are property of some kind. When a poster gives her the chance for a life off the streets, if she is willing to risk her life that is, she knows she must take it. When Aliah finds the bottle she was requested to gather and bring back to the self-proclaimed prince, she also finds a treasure more wonderful than any wish that could be granted.

Issue #37, Neon's first issue of 2014, features the work of Paul Bavister, Shanalee Smith, Noel Williams, Christopher Owen, Tracey S Rosenberg, Erric Emerson, Meg Eden, and Joe Evans. The cover image is by Timur Cetintas. In its pages you will find guns and knives, nightmarish exam days, a story about Facebook friends and some excellent concrete poetry.Bullies, the bullied, and the bystander can all learn from this modern day fable about flying insects who bully crawling bugs.Bullies Bee Buggin’! is an anti-bullying children's book series written to teach children that no one and no thing is here by accident, that everyone has something uniquely important to offer the world, and we all deserve respect based on that alone.The characters in this three part series symbolize three groups found in every schoolyard, in every neighborhood, in every country. They are: The Flyers, who represent the bullies;The Crawlers, who represent the bullied; andThe Hoppers, who represent the bystanders (Introduced in Book Three).Through the Flyers, the Crawlers, and the Hoppers, children will learn how to interact effectively with the people in the world around them.

Isadora trains war horses for the Alliance until she steals a stallion to save his life. Hunted by government troopers and rogue berserkers she befriends a mute man who seems crazy. Yet he holds the key to the survival of the last free living people, a tribe of nomadic horse herders. John must use the Mirror to regain his speech, Is might be the only one who can help him survive that encounter.Isadora Drey, a citizen of the Alliance, a corrupt, totalitarian state, has been raised to do only one job— train the war horses to be ridden into battle by genetically engineered men, called berserkers. Horse and rider never return from these battles. Unable to face losing another one of her beloved horses, Isadora steals her favorite stallion and flees into a wilderness area, the Boundary. Hunted by government Troopers and rogue berserkers called Blueskins, she falls in with a mute man who seems crazy, yet he holds the key to the survival of the last free living people on the planet. But first he must regain his speech. To do that, he must face the Mirror, an Alliance-made monstrosity designed to kill any human or horse who approaches. Isadora, on her stolen war horse, might help John survive his encounter with the Mirror where everyone else has failed.

Black holes, an anthology of heart felt poems, will take you to another dimension where lyricism and consciousness make one; through memorable sonnets and proses, an alternative, yet realistic world view is revealed to enhance moral reasoning in our society.In this riveting and revolutionary anthology of poems , Ochi offers his personal reflections on a wide array of subjects ranging from globalization and self-awareness to the nature of good and evil in modern societies. Through indelible sonnets and proses, the importance of introspection, moral reasoning and of questioning authority and societal norms to enhance personal growth is revealed to the reader. Black Holes, a lyrical journey through emotions experienced in human life, breaks all barriers of individualism to voice the pain of the unfortunate, it also glorifies the beauty of unconditional love; the language simplicity conveys its message to people from all walks of life.

Giltek, a reptilian robotics engineer on the technical planet Ban Zaadan, receives an unwelcome visit from a man carrying a troublesome item.The book is a mixed bag of satire, mordant and/or playful wit as well as other forms of non-realistic fiction. One has an upper class man obsessed with propriety and decorum who gets his comeuppance; one, exploring a major problem with democracy, is in the form of a gothic chiller; another takes the form of a medieval tale; two are bird fables roughly in the tradition of Aesop; another a satiric take-off on literary interviews. The title piece satirizes American ethnic identity and its unawareness of history. Most are humorous in spirit, though of course they have an underlying seriousness. There’s even one about an alcoholic, mentally ill street person and a man who had a near-death experience that is structured as a dialectic with a thesis, antithesis and synthesis. And so on. The poet and editor Sonja Skarstedt said in a review of the book when published in 2000 that the collection is “a witty, humorous and enthralling blend of tales” and that the “stories have a distinctive, even sharp-edged narrative tone, with undercurrents of the recognizable, rich tradition.” Arnold Skemer in a review in ZYX #24 (2001) observed that “I've been accustomed to Burnham's essays in THE LONG STORY but hadn't realized that he turns out fables and satires, and has a nasty little wit.”

The book is a mixed bag of satire, mordant and/or playful wit as well as other forms of non-realistic fiction. Targets include American historical blindness (The Guy in 3C”) , obsessive social correctness (“A Breach of Decorum”), greed (“The Reminder”) and literary pomposity (Litbiz Magazine Interview)The book is a mixed bag of satire, mordant and/or playful wit as well as other forms of non-realistic fiction. One has an upper class man obsessed with propriety and decorum who gets his comeuppance; one, exploring a major problem with democracy, is in the form of a gothic chiller; another takes the form of a medieval tale; two are bird fables roughly in the tradition of Aesop; another a satiric take-off on literary interviews. The title piece satirizes American ethnic identity and its unawareness of history. Most are humorous in spirit, though of course they have an underlying seriousness. There’s even one about an alcoholic, mentally ill street person and a man who had a near-death experience that is structured as a dialectic with a thesis, antithesis and synthesis. And so on. The poet and editor Sonja Skarstedt said in a review of the book when published in 2000 that the collection is “a witty, humorous and enthralling blend of tales” and that the “stories have a distinctive, even sharp-edged narrative tone, with undercurrents of the recognizable, rich tradition.” Arnold Skemer in a review in ZYX #24 (2001) observed that “I've been accustomed to Burnham's essays in THE LONG STORY but hadn't realized that he turns out fables and satires, and has a nasty little wit.”

In a world where danger hides in plain sight and no one aspires to more than what they were born to, Inga must find the courage to break the oppressive chains she’s been bound with since birth. Inga and her English soldier may end up like so many citizens of ancient Russia: nothing but flesh and blood mortar for the stones of the Kremlin wall.In a world where danger hides in plain sight and no one aspires to more than what they were born to, Inga must find the courage to break the oppressive chains she’s been bound with since birth. As a maid in the infamous Kremlin, life in 16th-century Russia is bleak and treacherous. That is, until Taras arrives. Convinced that his mother’s death when he was a boy was no mere accident, he returned from England to discover what really happened. While there, he gains the favor of the Tsar later known as Ivan the Terrible, the most brutal and notorious ruler ever to sit upon the throne of Russia. Up against the social confines of the time, the shadowy conspiracies that cloak their history, and the sexual politics of the Russian Imperial court, Inga and Taras must discover their past, plan for their future, and survive the brutality that permeates life within the four walls that tower over them all, or they may end up like so many citizens of ancient Russia: nothing but flesh and bone mortar for the stones of the Kremlin wall.

Long Shot, Colorado is a magical place. It's just a matter of looking at it the right way.Long Shot, Colorado is a magical place. It's just a matter of looking at it the right way. According to Janie's Aunt M, the warren of tunnels under the old Long Shot hotel lead to a cavern of wonders and a trove of buried treasure. Eighteen years old and newly orphaned, Janie struggles to shake off her charismatic and manipulative Aunt M while she searches for a job, so that she can afford to keep her childhood home.Desperate, Janie accepts a position with the mysterious business run out of the old Long Shot Hotel. As she finds herself sucked more and more deeply into the creepy dealings of her new employer, she learns that the company is, in fact, controlled by the dreaded Aunt M.

Imagine being dragged from your bed in the darkest, coldest hours of the night, and taken to a place you believed only existed in nightmares.Imagine being dragged from your bed in the darkest, coldest hours of the night, and taken to a place you believed only existed in nightmares.That is what happened to Helena, and the rest of the haunted souls in Krakow's Podgorze Ghetto. She had heard the rumours. They all had. But with half of her family already dead or missing, hope was all that Helena had left. But hope can be distinguished as easily as a candle in the wind. Nazi liquidation wasn't just a nightmare. It was real. And it was happening to Helena.