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The brew is hot and bubbling over with romance and terror in this twistedly beautiful anthology that welcomes the darkness of horror and the temptation of love’s veiled promises. Six remarkable tales from six incredible authors fill this book of dark shadows and ancient whispers.
Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble – by Jennifer Patricia O’Keeffe: Enchanted pastries and spell-brewed coffee make Esmerelda’s sugar-dusted counter the city’s most coveted haunt—until a dangerously charming newcomer slips into her shop, immune to her magic and unraveling her carefully guarded world. As his witch-hunter heritage threatens to burn her legacy to ash, Esmerelda finds herself torn between the threat of revenge from the witch hunter’s ancestors and the intoxicating truth of the connection that they share.
Silverwood – by Lynn Hubbard: A lonely rancher’s daughter finds her isolated Wyoming homestead upended when an amber-eyed stranger ignites a mud-splattered passion that defies reason—until his supernatural secret and the vengeful ranch hands hunting her force her to choose between the man who saves her and the monster who might destroy her. Torn between fierce protectors and forbidden desire, she must trust the very darkness that could shatter her world to survive the wild frontier’s deadliest threats.
Ivy, Lichens and Wallflowers – by James Ryan: Marketing executive Hilda finds solace from her stifling corporate life and overbearing past in the quiet companionship of Miriam, a mysterious 19th-century marble statue in a city micro-park, only to discover their connection transcends stone when Miriam begins answering her handwritten notes through cryptic poetry left in return. As their forbidden connection deepens into an intoxicating dream-bound romance, Hilda uncovers Miriam’s supernatural secret: she’s a cursed thaumaturge sustained by stolen life force, forcing Hilda to confront whether love can survive the devastating cost of keeping her alive.
A Mirror to Die For – by Cindy Lewis Smith: A desperate woman finds solace in an antique mirror that whisks her nightly to 1880s Arizona, where a charming outlaw named Johnny Ringo fulfills every fantasy—until her jealous fiancé shatters the glass and vanishes, leaving her trapped in an asylum screaming that he is the real monster, a man who shouldn’t exist: Dr. John Henry Holliday, the gambler who killed Ringo a century ago. Now, with “MPR” carved into her cell walls and time itself unraveling, she’ll stop at nothing to prove her sanity by proving time travel is real—even if it means unleashing the very darkness that destroyed her.
Flight 1031: Cosmic Turbulence – by Julian Christian: Diplomatic courier Sarah Martinez boards Flight 1031 expecting routine turbulence, not a Halloween dimensional rift that strands her at Germania International Airport—where the Greater German Reich has ruled since 1943 and perfected technology to harvest souls from parallel realities through consciousness-scanning machinery that pulses with seventeen-beat rhythms. Now trapped in a terminal that breathes like a living organism, Sarah must navigate a world where every passenger hides a secret and her resistance could either save her timeline or doom infinite versions of humanity to eternal enslavement in a Reich that spans all dimensions.
Dream a Little Dream – by Jae El Foster: After a near-death car crash rewires her brain, Sarah’s nightmares bleed into reality: sugar on the counter forms glyphs, bats appear out of nowhere in broad daylight, and her own hands betray her—while the velvet-eyed stranger from her dreams appears in her waking hours, his urgency growing as Halloween’s veil thins. Now, with her reality twisting into something surreal and an ancient language hijacking her voice, she must confront a dark truth: her soul isn’t hers to keep, and the man who saved her in death is the very entity hunting her in life.
Read an Excerpt From ‘Ivy, Lichens and Wallflowers’ by James Ryan
It was the wind that made Hilda look at Miriam.
Not directly, of course; it happened because the breeze blew Hilda’s bookmark out of her hands as she tried to put away her latest acquisition from the bookstore. She had to stop reading about Amaria and Muston, just as Muston’s plan to bluff their way into the Temple of the Hungry Goddess fell apart and Amaria was about to take on a score of angry cultists with a dislodged curtain rod. But Hilda was dangerously close to not getting back to the office before lunch was over, and needed to leave her book of fantasy for the mundane craziness the GFL campaign immersed her in.
She chased after the bookmark across the micro-park, a corner of the block where the building next to it had put in trees and benches in order to get permission to add another six stories on top. The breeze kept the bookmark from going into the pitiful fountain in the middle of the park, the surface under the cover of the golden leaves that had fallen off the honey locust trees early. It danced over the stone bench, past the planters holding the trees, and landed at the feet of the statue near the ivy-covered side of the building the park abutted.
Hilda looked up from where her bookmark fell, and for the first time noticed the life size marble nude, her hair in a braided bun. Her left hand covered her right breast, the crook of her arm not able to hide her left one. Her right hand had better luck hiding her privates.
For a woman trying badly to cover herself with her hands, the statue had a very comfortable pose, even inviting in the way its head turned to look to her left, accenting the fine angle of her nose.
Hilda had to take a moment to break her eyes off the art work to pick up her bookmark, which came to rest at the statue’s feet. When she raised her head, she saw something under the leaves of ivy. She cleared them away and found the object label for the piece, encased in a thick piece of Lucite bolted to the wall:
“Miriam”
Unknown, 19th Century?
Gift of Sophia Nathaniel
Hilda looked the statue straight in its blank marble orbs and said, “Thanks, Miriam.” She started to smile at how silly it was to say that, looked at her phone, then rushed off back to the office.
“Hilda.”
Cameron called out to Hilda as she came down the hall, stopping her a mere three feet from her office. Hilda took a deep breath and turned around to face Nu-Vu’s Chief Marketing Officer, hoping that they were in a good mood today.
Cameron was wearing a purple blazer; Hilda knew that when they wore that, they were likely speaking to their higher-ups. It was hard to tell how the meeting went, as Cameron used so much foundation that no clues could be read on their face.
“Girl, you sent the list for the talent you’ve got for GFL?”
“I thought I’d sent that to you yesterday. Did you not get my note through Slack?”
“I got it, I saw it, and I got to ask: Them again?”
“I thought we agreed on the talent for the campaign. These three influencers have the reach and impressions that GFL asked for, and then some.”
“Hilda, can’t you find some fresh faces? I swear, Sunshine Molly is looking long in the tooth, girl.”
“She’s twenty-three.”
“And she’s just looking so tired.”
“She’s still got the numbers GFL wants. Unless you’ve got someone I can add to the team without throwing the entire campaign out the win-”
Cameron held up their phone in Hilda’s face. A young woman with a short purple pageboy haircut and wild wide eyes that you’d expect to see on the face of an axe murderer who’d just chopped up an entire dorm was staring at her.
“The fu-” Hilda replied, defensively.
“This is Pippy. She’s got millions of followers across five platforms. And she owes me; she won’t bust the budget.”
“Can she get along with others? Getting Sunshine Molly, Jeff D’Angelo, and Blok-Boy to share and swap to keep on message has already been a challenge.”
“If you have to, dump one of their asses.”
“But has Pippy ever promoted a retail brand? It’s not that easy to get an influencer to stay on message over the campaign.”
“Hilda, honey, you manage the influencers. You can manage. You can manage, can’t you?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” was the best Hilda could respond before she nodded and went to her office, trying to stay professional and not let her impulse to rip Cameron and their damned purple blazer to shreds…
Buy the Book
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FS7DXSXX
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1849875
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/toil-and-trouble-jae-el-foster/1148244179
Apple:https://books.apple.com/us/book/x/id6752260026
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/toil-and-trouble-17
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