Other People's Books.
The marvelous thing about being an Indie is that no one (well, ok, maybe the First Reader. But only if we talk about it first) can tell me what to do. So if I want to celebrate other authors? I'm going to do it. Doesn't matter what kind of publishing they do, or who they are, or anything other than: can they write?
In no particular order, here are ten books you might enjoy, by names you might recognize, and names you might want to explore. Book covers are clickable links.
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Time and place? The Republic of Texas, at mid-19th century Who and what? Texas Ranger Jim Reade, and his Delaware blood brother, Toby Shaw – tasked with solving puzzles, finding the missing, guiding the clueless, and protecting the innocent! “So,” Toby observed, an hour and a half later. “What have you seen, from this?” The two of them stood, a few steps from a crude scarecrow cross-frame of poles, from which hung an extremely ragged linen shirt, formerly belonging to Elisha Reade – a shirt from which some small patches had been cut to mend items of a newer vintage. But there was enough of it remaining to serve, hanging from the cross-pole thrust through the sleeves, as a target for Jim’s trusty Paterson revolvers … A good few shots had been at close range. As close as the range in which Jon Knightley had exchanged – or claimed to have exchanged – revolver-fire with his wife. “A curiosity which I had already suspected,” Jim replied. He was tired. His shoulders slumped, and his ears rang from the frequent report of his revolvers. “Jon Knightley murdered his wife – his latest wife…”
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Two girls find a dragon like no other—and their lives will never be the same In an alternate Old West, Isabella and Alijandra live exiled with their parents in the high desert. Years before, the girls’ father caught, tamed, and trained dragons for the Emperor’s armies, but now he is an outlaw, blamed for the deaths of thousands. Finding a small dragon gravely injured after a fight, the girls take her home and begin tending her back to health. Alijandra calls the dragon “Pearl,” after her round white eyes. As time goes on and Pearl begins to heal, the family learns more about her and the strange and terrifying abilities she possesses. But time is running out for them, their family, and for Pearl herself. Soon, they will be forced to contend with the native people on whose lands they live. With the ambitious governor whose soldiers hunt the girls’ father. With a man who has no name but wields immense, eerie powers. With Pearl’s yearning to fulfill the journey that accidentally brought her to the girls. And with their own dreams and wishes for a life they once lived—and might live again.
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John Fisher, retired Seal and were-cougar, was having just another day at the office. He is a Park Police officer. His office is a Dodge Durango. The dark legends and creatures have always been around, and after the civil rights movement they're legal. But when someone uses magic or anything else illegally on Federal land, it 's John's job to bring them in. He will use all his skill, luck and connections inside the Supernatural world to get his man, or were, or vampire, or...
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Kestrel's land is scarred in ways its inhabitants cannot begin to understand, built on long-poisoned earth and menaced by twisted plants and animals. Farmers, hunters, and magic-users fight a long battle to create safe havens and reclaim lost ground, but their casualties mount over generations.
Kestrel knows little and cares less about the patterns that shape her world. She's a shapechanger and healer who has spent the handful of years since reaching womanhood cleansing the wildlife of her blighted land with medicine and magic. Sure of her place and confident in her skills, she takes care of her own and doesn't poke at things that don't concern her. But when she returns from a routine journey with her brother to find her home ransacked and empty, Kestrel must gather her remaining family and search for new allies before old magic and older hatred rob her kin of their freedom, their lives, and possibly their souls.
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MARTIN RICHTER, a pacifist history professor specializing in pre-WWII Germany, has two passions in his life—history...and opposing nuclear weapons. ERIC SOBOL, a terminally ill holocaust survivor billionaire, learns of a wormhole that leads back in time to 1938, and he decides to do everything within his power to change the past. Thanks to their efforts, a modernized Russian Typhoon-class nuclear submarine jumps the time barrier and appears in 1938, manned by 21st century multinational experts and equipped with the best technology money can buy. But when a saboteur steals a nuclear warhead and delivers it to the German navy, all of history is at stake. As the crippled Typhoon is ambushed by a U-boat wolf pack, Hitler contemplates how to use his newly acquired weapon to make all of Europe fall to the Third Reich….
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Most customers are extremely satisfied with the job The Green Knight Terraforming Company does to refurbish their planets. However, when there is a problem and a customer complains, then the human Joe called Tiny by his team is the person who is sent to solve the customer's problems. Joe's backup muscle, Donald, is there for those tiny problems like when Joe touches before he looks.
Joe, Donald, the lab animals, and pilot drones are a rollicking bunch of troubleshooters. One hundred percent guaranteed to fix any customer problem or if that doesn't work-- fix the customer.
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John Peters awoke to a normal day. His wife was off with their son, in Dallas, visiting her folks. It was a typically sunny, Central Texas day. By nightfall he was scurrying around, stockpiling supplies for a long siege against an enemy too small to be seen with the naked eye. And before the end of the week he was puking his guts out, wondering if all his plans were meaningless. But John survived the plague - one of a few of the scattered remnants of humanity - and alone he must begin to pull the shattered pieces of life together. Along the path he brings other survivors with him, and they begin a long climb back.
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Viva-3 was built to discover secrets. But they made her too well. She’s the perfect spy: the lethality and persistence of the police clockworks in a body that can pass as human. What the Empire’s police don’t know is that she doesn’t have to obey their orders or her programming. She can think and decide for herself. And she’s doomed if they find out.
Viva is sent undercover with orders to unmask the city’s vigilante hero, Penny Dreadful. She is supposed to stop his one-man war against the criminals of Monte-Ostrum. It will be dangerous, but just maybe Dreadful will be more useful as an ally rather than an enemy…
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Meg Turner has been a vampire for twenty years. Her favorite food is rapists. Which is how she met Andi Donahue, her new best friend/ girl Friday.
And then the nightmares start. And the bodies start showing up--bled out and raped. Just like Meg was. They don't have a whole lot of time to stop the killer before he strikes again, and only one way to stop the killer.
But how can Andi help Meg stop a killer she can't even see?
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The Inari's Children Series: Once magic was plentiful and the world was dominated by a singular empire whose name has long been lost to history. In its time, the great wizard Inari developed his greatest creation: The kitsune. His enemies were quick to copy him, and soon the world was populated with many different types of this remarkable creature. Two thousand years later and these different breeds of kitsune are fighting amongst themselves, and the rest of the human world joins them.
Book I: The Kitsune Stratagem To avoid being used as a political pawn against her father, a young kitsune vixen named Kieras must leave her homeland. She soon gets caught up in the fortunes of Mathis, a vagabond hunter from Ekholm, a once sleepy little town on the verge of becoming a small city. To find a way to return home, Kieras must first help Mathis save Ekholm from threats both inside and out.