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Sol Limitis by James Collins  367 AD - A battle-hardened soldier is sent to the frozen north of Britannia on a personal mission from the Emperor. Conducting a desperate investigation from a hostile garrison on the crumbling frontier of Hadrian’s Wall, Atellus must struggle to survive in a wild and lawless land torn apart by the death throes of an over-stretched empire. Set in Roman Britain in 367 AD – a time when the far provinces are sliding out of the Empire’s control, and the division between ‘Roman’ and ‘Barbarian’ is almost non-existent – Sol Limitis (‘Sun of the Frontier’) is the prelude to a series of events which led to the historical ‘Barbarian Incursion.’ Atellus - a troubled campaign veteran and close friend of the emperor Valentinian - is sent to Britannia to investigate the disappearance of children from Aesica, a garrison fort on Hadrian’s Wall. Arriving in the midst of a frozen winter to a hostile reception, Atellus uncovers a plot that threatens t...

Mercury Striking by Rebecca Zanetti My rating: 5 of 5 stars I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Rebecca Zanetti is one of my favorite authors. She creates compelling, action-packed stories with well-developed characters that will have you on the edge of your seat and crying for more when it ends. Have I mentioned the swoon worthy Jax? He will have you wishing you were his leading lady despite the Post-Apocalyptic setting. Jax Mercury has always been a fighter: first as a gang member, then as a solider in the military, now as a survivor of the plague, Scorpius. Scorpius has decimated the United States. Technology is down and those who survived the initial outbreak are struggling to stay one step ahead of the plague. Jax has made it his mission to help others. He commands the strong to care for and protect the weak. Lynn Harmony has been working on a cure, but she needs Jax's help. They both have skeletons in their closets and secrets they w...

Estranged by Alex Fedyr  Kalei hates touching. Especially if it is a hug. After all, her mother was killed by one. Kalei was born and raised in Celan, the first city to have an Estranged problem. It was seventeen years ago when they appeared, and the citizens learned the hard truth: that it only takes a bit of skin-on-skin contact to turn their loved ones into corpses, or Estranged. No one really knows why some people turn and some people die, they just know that anyone touched is gone. And Kalei wants them to stay gone. But, being a police officer in the city, she witnesses every day the damage done by Estranged. Black nails mark these harbingers of death. Seeking the high they get from every piece of skin they touch, the Estranged crush the lives of Celan's citizens with alarming ease. They killed her mother for a high, and now Kalei wants to wipe them out of existence before they can seek another. But she can't. Only the Wardens are equipped to do so, ...

Population by Elizabeth Stephens  Lawlessness, violence and desperation are all that is left of the world following the coming of the Others. Abel exists only within the boundaries that her rules allow -- rules that she created to keep her alive. But when her best friend's daughter is taken by the Others, she can't keep playing by the rule book. Instead, she must begin a life defining journey that will test her survival techniques and challenge her ability to find what she has always feared: hope.  Kindle Edition, 248 pages Published April 15th 2015 by NubiTales  Find it on Goodreads Amazon   Barnes & Noble Read It & Reap:   February 18, 2016 Though writing has been her unrelenting passion since the age of 10, POPULATION is Elizabeth’s first published novel. She has a repertoire of short horror publications under her belt and has worked as a political correspondent and travel writer across the US, the Middle E...

"A wonderful retelling of the Pinocchio story…I simply couldn’t put this book down."   Rysa Walker, bestselling author of TIMEBOUND Strings Written by David Estes Sometimes the strings that tie us down are the same strings that set us free. Sixteen-year-old Pia has always lived in a mysterious facility where mechanical strings control her existence. She plays apprentice to her father, Gio, in performing nanotech designs for the Company, and she soon suspects there are diabolical human forces behind the manufactured reality of her world. Though her childhood memories and the origins of the strings remain strangely elusive, she begins to find solace with the introduction of two unlikely friends: daring, irrational Sofia, and calm, tender Marco. As the truths of the past and present unravel together, Pia must find a way to free herself from her strings and escape the facility before facing the wrath of the unstable head of security, Mr. Davis. But to gain her freedom, she mu...

Blue Karma by J.K. Ullrich  Water. It covers almost three-quarters of the planet, comprises more than half the human body, and has become the most coveted resource on Earth.  Amaya de los Santos survived the typhoon that left her an orphan. Now she scrapes by as an ice poacher, illegally harvesting fresh water for an always-thirsty market. But when she rescues an injured enemy soldier, she's pulled into a storm of events more dangerous than any iceberg. After years of relying only on herself, she must learn to trust another...or risk losing all that's left of her family.  Logan Arundson should be dead. After a mysterious attack destroys his military unit, he abandons his Arctic post for his native California, where droughts have made water a religion and a resource worth killing for. But when the water wars follow him home, he must face his frozen demons if he wants to save his town...and the girl he loves.  Paul Hayes is heir to an empire. But bei...

Demorn: Blade of Exile  The Asanti Series #1 by David Finn  Obsessed with her lost lover, Demorn seeks vengeance for the destruction of her home world, Asanti. She remembers the Fracture event that tore apart reality and is haunted by dreams of Firethorn, the magical fantasy dimension where her girlfriend was assassinated. Stranded with her brother in the dark, dazzling future city of Babelzon, Demorn sells her burning sword and her pistol to the highest bidder, doing missions for the Innocents, a Clubhouse of mercenaries and assassins based deep inside the city. On a Club mission Demorn uncovers a terrifying conspiracy of multi-dimensional, corrupted gods hiding in plain sight, infecting the timeline. Torn apart from the Innocents and forced to flee into the Grave Dimension filled with undead hordes, Demorn must face the horror of a reality virus gnawing on the bones of the universe itself, an Ultimate Fate destroying alternate dimensions and worlds. Dem...

Porchball by Michael Bronte  We had just come off one of the most memorable years in American history. Our boys were dying by the thousands in the jungles of Vietnam and the war protests were rocking our world. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy rocked it even more. Our cities were being torn apart by riots, and then 1969 slung off ‘68 like a skater in a roller derby. The Mets and Jets won their respective titles in 1969, two unbelievable victories almost impossible to imagine. Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick happened in 1969, as did the SDS campus takeovers at Columbia and Harvard, along with the Charles Manson murders. Most memorably, our boys were still coming home from Vietnam in body bags, and the new President Nixon talked peace while the hippies stoned themselves out on pot and LSD while positioning the counter-culture as the alternative to “The Establishment.” Brownie wrote his own history in 196...