Kate's Valentine: Single with no plans,
Kate Dixon agrees to fill in for her best friend at Thistle Do. With
everything organized on to-do lists for the week, Kate doesn’t see
anything that could be a challenge.
But within a couple of days, Kate not only realizes she has a brown thumb, but there’s something wrong with the flowers. With
less than a few days before Valentine’s Day, and not wanting to
interrupt her friend’s vacation, Kate makes a last minute decision.
She has to do whatever it takes, even if that means calling on her best friend’s competition.
Walker Callaghan doesn't know what happened to her. One minute she was living her teenage life in suburban Chicago...and the next minute, she was in a strange place and in a brand new school with absolutely no homework, no rules, and no consequences. Walker Callaghan, 17, is dead. She doesn't go to heaven or hell. She lands at The Academy, a middle realm where teenagers have one thing in common: They were the morning announcement at their high schools because they died young.
These high school kids are now caught in a strange “in-between” zone where life hasn’t changed very much. In fact, this special teen limbo looks a lot like life in a quaint Michigan town complete with jocks, popular girls and cliques. "There are even cheerleaders in death," Walker observes. It's not a coincidence that the music teacher is a guy named Kurt who "used to have this band." The drama teacher, Heath, is crush worthy because back in his life, he starred in some superhero movie. Principal King explains the rules -- there are none. Why? You can't die twice. There is no homework. No tests. No SATS. You're just there to learn because the human brain isn't fully formed until you're 24.
By the way, you can't get hurt physically, so race your Harley off that hillside. But falling in love is the most dangerous thing you can do ...because no one knows how long you'll stay in this realm or what's next. "Losing someone you love would be like dying twice," Walker says.
* * * * * *
Walker Callaghan has just arrived at the Academy after a tragic car accident. “Is this heaven or is this high school?” she asks. She finds out her new life is a bit of both as she falls in love with tat-covered, bad boy Daniel Reid who is about to break the only sacred rule of this place. He's looking for a portal to return back to the living realm. He needs just one hour to retrieve his younger brother who strangely never arrived at The Academy. Bobby is an Earth Bound Spirit, stuck at a plane crash site that took both of their lives as their rich father piloted his private jet nose-first into a cornfield on Christmas Eve. Walker loves Daniel and risks it all to go with him. Have they learned enough to outsmart dangerous forces while transporting a young child with them? Can their love survive the fragmented evil parts of themselves that are now hunting them down as they try to find a way back to the middle? At the Academy, you learn the lessons of an after-lifetime.
Blurb:In the Midst—a place for those who die young—there are no rules except one. And Walker Callaghan, dead at seventeen, just broke it. She briefly revisited her earthly life . . . and the punishment is eternal. Longing for her rebel love interest, Daniel Reid, Walker finds an ally in Cass, whose attraction to her is as alive as he is. “Life is short,” he tells her. “I’m banking on eternity. With you.”In the second book of the Ascenders Saga, a realm-jumping journey takes Walker and Daniel back to life again when they search for something buried in history. They team with students from several other schools in the middle realm including a place for teens born with oddities. It’s home to the Claires . . . beautiful, ruthless, and quite dead seventeen-year-old quads who each have a different clairvoyant gift.
Can Walker survive another adventure of an afterlife-time—or will she find herself on the downside of eternity?
CL GABER is the author of ASCENDERS, the first book in the ASCENDERS saga. She's also the co-author of the YA book JEX MALONE and the sequel due in 2016. Muggletnet.com, the world's largest Harry Potter site, did a rare review of a non-Potter book and called Ascenders, "a book we wish we could read over and over again." Book 2 in the Ascenders Saga will be published in spring, 2015. A trailer for the book series contains original music by Roger O'Donnell of the iconic rock band The Cure and was produced by Orian Williams ("Control," "Shadow of a Vampire."). As Cindy Pearlman (her maiden name), Cindy is a well known senior entertainment journalist for the New York Times Syndicate, with stories appearing worldwide, and the Chicago Sun Times. A pop culture expert, her work has appeared in Entertainment Weekly, People, TV Guide, Elle and National Geographic, and many other publications. Cindy has co-written over 40 books for actors, musicians, athletes and wellness experts including several New York Times best sellers. She is the author of her own film anthology book "You Gotta See This." A native of Chicago, Cindy lives outside of Las Vegas. Author Links: Amazon: http://amzn.to/1KgEUkHFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorclgaber
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CLGaber
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7854535.C_L_GaberWebsite: http://ascenderssaga.com/Buy Links:Ascenders - http://amzn.to/2iSgzAjPaperback - http://amzn.to/2k5Ibi6SkyPunch - http://amzn.to/2jOhotd
I was there. And then I was gone.
My mother gave me no notice that we were relocating.
Suddenly, we had just moved without all that annoying planning and packing. Somehow my clothes were thrown into boxes with shoes that were missing mates. Someone had packed my books and CDs, and had even reached under my bed into that secret hiding place I counted on to protect my treasures; like the iPod loaded with the best and worst of everything from Nirvana to the Stones, plus my lucky green rabbit’s foot—because you just never knew when you would need a little extra luck.
My mother must have remembered the family photo album because there it was on our brand-new living room coffee table that I passed on the way to my very own bedroom and a bed I had never slept in a day in my life.
It was strange because we could barely afford to pay the rent each month, let alone buy something as nice as a hand-carved oak table imported from someplace far, far away. When I had looked, the tag didn’t say from where. It was just imported.
It was one of those times when you go from A to Z so fast that you hardly remember any of the in-between. Or as I—Walker Callaghan—senior at Kennedy High School in suburban Chicago and news editor of the school paper the Charger liked to say, “Maybe it’s not about the happy ending. Maybe it’s about the story.”
Flopping onto my new, handsome, four-poster bed with lovely little tulips carved into the wood, I thought it was so unlike my mother, the master planner, to do something this off-the-cuff. My mother was a woman who made a battle plan to go to the local 7-Eleven for almost-expiration-date milk. Even weirder was the fact that we had moved farther away than anyone imagined. A lot farther.
“So run this by me one more time, Mom,” I shouted. “I must have been heavily medicated or feeling really sorry for myself. We moved? You pulled the trigger. Bang-bang—relocation?”
I didn’t give her time to answer.
“A new school in my senior year of high school?” I called out to her on a murky, cold winter morning on Burning Tree Court.
Even though I was letting the heat escape and Mom had always said we didn’t live to “support Commonwealth Edison,” our old electric company, I still opened my bedroom window wide and found that the air drifting in was stun-your-senses Arctic cold. It smelled green and fresh outside and those dense marshmallow patches of white fluff in the sky could only mean serious snow because they were roasted dark on the bottom.
I tried to shiver, but couldn’t. I was perfectly warm despite the window and the fact that I was wearing faded jeans and a well- washed blue cotton tank that read: Normal People Scare Me.
In true dramatic fashion, I couldn’t resist needling the one 12
person responsible for our fate, our new house, and everything in it that was unknown and strange. “Mom, new school. Senior year. I’ll have no friends here. Are you trying to kill me?”
Without knowing how or why, I was now enrolled in this elite- sounding new school called the Academy, which sounded quite upscale and serious to a girl whose educational pursuits consisted of a generic public-school education outside of a big melting-pot city, where you were either rich (if you were lucky) or you were normal (if you were like everybody else). Our family worked hard at being desperately normal.
“Great, it will be a bunch of rich, stuck-up snobs who will hate me—and cheerleaders. There are always cheerleaders. They’re like cockroaches. You can’t get rid of them,” I concluded, yelling from my new room to hers, which was somewhere down a hallway that I had never really navigated before.
“I hear it’s quite fancy,” Mom called from her room. “A Callaghan going to a private school. Imagine.”
I didn’t have to imagine it as I was living it. Of course, I didn’t know it at the time, but when I had asked that question, Madeleine Callaghan, my mom, the mover and shaker in my life, had cringed and then cried hard into a brand-new washcloth she didn’t recognize—the thick kind we could never afford. The weeper was the one who had given me the odd-for-a-girl first name, which was her maiden name before she married my father, steel worker Sam Callaghan. We weren’t just blue-collar, but faded blue-collar from clothes that had far too many seasons of washings. In our family, the rule was “Don’t throw it out unless it’s dead-dead.”
Running my finger along the smooth wood of my expensive new dresser with the intoxicating just-cut-tree smell, I ducked down on the ground to read the label on the bottom. Imported from R-19877. Really? Did we win the lottery? And what was with the secret spy code?
“Honey, please, I’m begging you,” Mom answered after appearing in my doorway. “For once, let’s not do the Diane Sawyer investigation act. I can’t do twenty rounds of questions. Not today.” Her voice sounded thick like she had a cold, so I closed the window.
“There is no need to insult Diane who probably doesn’t even have a dresser this nice,” I replied.
“Walker, let me make you some breakfast,” Mom said. “Everything is always better after a little oatmeal and orange juice. You’ll see.”
2.
Back home in suburban Chicago, Principal Amanda Stevens was toying with the loudspeaker at Kennedy High School. It was time to make an announcement that drifted across her desk once or twice a year (every year)—and it always pulled her heart right out of her chest. She couldn’t dwell on herself, but had to think of her students. Many of them knew this girl from her work on the school newspaper. What would she say about her? Principal Stevens went through the usual lines in her head: It was a terrible shame. A waste. A tragedy. It was all those sentiments that meant nothing really because they were just words.
a
This was a heart ripper—dead at seventeen. Good night, Irene.
Ms. S knew that she better just do it. So she clicked the on button on the PA system, took a deep breath, and said what needed to be said. Nothing more. Nothing less.
“I regret to tell the student body that we lost one of our own last night. Walker Callaghan, a well-respected senior and news editor of the Charger, has died.”
She released the on button and grabbed for a bottle of extra- strength aspirin, wishing there was something stronger. Then she clicked the PA back on again. “Of course, counselors are available,” she added.
After 18 years of being sheltered by my dad and brothers, the only thing I
want is to go off to college and experience life like any other girl my
age. I’ve spent endless hours dreaming of ditching dad approved clothes and
brother approved social events.
I want to make my own friends and explore...relationships.
I wasn’t prepared for my dad and brother to embrace Steve, the tattooed man
who was hanging out shirtless in my dorm room on move in day. How can I
explore friendships much less relationships when Steve has taken over as my
primary protector? Acting like my brothers used to, only the feelings he
invokes are nothing brotherly.
I just want to explore...Steve Morrison, the alpha male who happens to be
my roommates overprotective brother.
Steve
All that is left of my family is Curtis, my fraternal twin brother and
Sierra our younger sister. My mission is to protect Sierra with everything
I am. I will be there to prevent her from being sucked into the typical
college experiences including dating and partying. No way will I let her
fall for the stupid guys on campus.
I won’t let her be distracted by anyone…even her roommate.
I have reasons for needing to protect Sierra. Most guys my age wouldn’t
understand, but most guys haven’t experienced what I have. I don’t care
what people think about me. My mission is clear.
I won’t be distracted by anyone...even her roommate.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I’m MF Isaacs, I live on an island in Southeast Alaska with my husband and
our handful of kids. I grew up in a family of four sisters, living in the
Seattle area. My parents proved over and over that I was the favorite
child; my dad secretly took me to breakfast on Saturday mornings and my mom
taught me the art of ignoring children while trying to finish reading the
next chapter.
I live for vacations, a good book and the Seahawks. I’m a sucker for
beautiful sunsets and hot book boyfriends.
My father put down his spoon and looked at me thoughtfully.
"Why'd you ask, Princess?"
"I heard you talking yesterday and you said 'one more white lie isn't going
to make a difference.' I just want to know what you meant."
"You heard that, huh?" My father tilted his head to study me. "It's just a
small lie you tell when you don't want to hurt someone's feelings. It's
nothing for you to worry about."
My eyes grew wide. "Like when you told Aunt Rena that her pie was good even
though it tasted icky?"
"Exactly." He smiled.
"Or when you told the man last week that you hadn't seen Uncle Bruno and
you had?"
The Smile fell from his face and he straightened in his chair. "No,
Princess, that was a different kind of lie."
Scrunching up my nose, I asked, "What kind of lie was that?"
My father swallowed hard before replying. "That's the kind of lie where you
have to have a real good memory."
As an inquisitive child, the woman known as Clarissa Solano, could never
have imagined how significant those words would become. That she would
spend years twisting the truth: hoping and praying that she would not
contradict herself and expose the secrets she keeps locked inside. Most of
the people in her life don't really know her at all. She forces them to
swallow her lies, but she is the one who feels the bitter aftertaste of
deception. When Lane Hunter sweeps into her life, she finds herself opening
up in ways she never thought possible. He sees beyond the façade to the
woman beneath and knows instantly that he wants her. However, all is not as
it seems and when secrets and lies are exposed, it threatens to destroy
them all. This is the first book in a series of standalone HEAs
EXCERPT
Kerr gave me an inquisitive look. “What’s this girl mean to you, Lay?”
“She’s just a case.” I confirmed as casually as I could.
“I call bullshit, Brother. If we are going to continue working on this, I
need to know what she means to you. Really, means to you,” he pushed.
What does she mean to me?
It was a valid question; one I wished I knew how to answer. I had only
known her a short time, but she had come to mean a fuck of a lot to me. The
thought of anything happening to her made me want to rip my heart out of my
chest. Knowing now that she was living a life that was not her own, made me
want to claim her in a way that she would never be lost again. I decided to
choose my words carefully. The last thing I needed was shit from my brother
and another lecture from my dad.
“Remember when I was in my freshman year, and I was going out with Molly
Anderson? You offered to drive her home for me and you…”
“Okay, Lay. I know where this is going,” Kerr groaned and rolled his eyes.
“Well, you know how I didn’t speak to you for over a month? ”
Kerr cringed a little and began to sway back and forth on his heels,
looking just as fucking guilty as he did back then.
“Yeah, of course I remember, how the fuck could I ever forget?”
“Well, if you so much as lay a finger on her, you are dead to me.”
Kerr sucked air between his teeth. “You mean like dead, dead?”
“Dead. Dead.” I reiterated, grinding my own teeth just in case he was
somehow missing the point.
“Fan-fuckin-tastic,” Dad groaned. “I’ve been waiting nearly three years for
you to get your head out of your ass and start living your life again, and
the one fuckin’ girl you shouldn’t be anywhere near is the one you want.”
The room went silent as all the air was sucked clean out of it. I closed my
eyes and fought the burn. I could not believe my father would choose to go
there. Kerr cleared the emotion from his throat and placed his hand on my
shoulder.
“Well, it looks like we’ve got a job to do,” he told me with a soft smile.
AUTHOR BIO
S E Cooper lives in Scotland with her husband, their two boys, a crazy cat
and a bonkers bunny. She has always loved to read and write stories but it
wasn't until she discovered the wonderful world of self-publishing and
became inspired by some of her favorite Indie Authors that she decided to
take the plunge herself. Her hobbies include photography, spending time
with her family and daydreaming.
Chelsea
I’ve always loved those books where the younger sister falls for her older brother’s friend. Those stories have played a key role in my fantasies since my divorce six years ago. Unfortunately, I don’t have an older brother. I have a younger brother, and his best friend, Luke, has always been more annoying than attractive. At least, that’s how I’d seen him in the past.
Since Luke has walked back into my life, he is far from the awkward teen he was the last time I saw him. He is a walking temptation that I know I should avoid. Luke, on the other hand, has no doubts about our future, a fact he’s made clear from the moment we reconnected. He’s everything I could want in a man, which leaves me wondering if it’s really his age that bothers me, or if it’s my trust issues.
Love Without Batteries Series
Following their disastrous marriages, Brook, Chelsea, and Delaney swore off men. After years of being on their own, these ladies have decided they want more. At the age of thirty, the three friends make a pact to re-enter the dating world. Little do they know they are all destined to find love in the arms of younger men.
***Each book in the Love Without Batteries series can be read as a standalone novel.
So far, my attempts at online dating had been a complete failure. I hadn’t even met with any of the women from the site. It was nice chatting and looking at profiles first, because it made it easier to pass on women I knew I wouldn’t be compatible with. That had probably saved me from a bunch of horrible first dates. I’d been chatting with this one woman for the last twenty minutes, and so far, she seemed pretty normal. When I’d mentioned my original intent to major in marine biology, she’d told me how much she loved the Monterey Bay Aquarium. This was the first woman I’d felt any sort of connection with since I’d signed up for an account. I was about to ask if she wanted to meet for a drink when a new message popped up on the chat screen.
VIV1990: Are you cut or uncut?
Luke2160: Huh? What do you mean cut?
VIV1990: I’m talking about your winky. Is it cut or uncut?
What the fuck? Had she seriously asked if my dick was circumcised? I didn’t even know where she’d come up with winky as a name for my dick, but I was not happy with that one at all. I figured I might have misunderstood what she was asking, so I decided to ask for clarification. It seemed pretty obvious, but it was also a big shift in our conversation.
Luke2160: Are you asking if I’m circumcised?
VIV1990: Yes. I’ve never been with a guy with an uncut winky. What would I even call a winky with a hood?
Maybe something more manly than winky, I wanted to say.
VIV1990: How about Lord Vader.
Luke2160: Vader had a helmet, not a hood.
VIV1990: The Grim Reaper?
VIV1990: No, it’s probably best not to think of death when we're having sex. Unless we're talking about La Petite Mort.
Luke2160: La Petite Mort?
VIV1990: You know. The little death. So, I guess you are uncut. I’ll have to see your cute little guy to know how I feel about that.
This was fast becoming the craziest chat I’d had with any woman on this site, and she’d seemed like the sanest when we’d started talking. I knew I should just end the chat, but for some reason, I continued on with the insanity.
Luke2160: It is never okay to use the words cute or little when talking about anything related to my dick.
Now, I felt like an idiot. We weren’t having sex. She wasn’t going to get a personal introduction to Excalibur. Yes, I’d named my dick Excalibur. I’d always been kind of nerdy, and I wasn’t about to apologize for it.
VIV1990: I can’t wait to meet your Wee Willy Winky and see his hood. This will be an adventure. Just make sure you clean the little guy first. I’ve heard they can be dirty.
Luke2160: I don’t think this is going to work out.
VIV1990: Why not? Is the sweet winky being shy and doesn’t want to come out? Mommy can coax him out.
Nope. There was no way in hell she could coax him out. I was circumcised, something Excalibur was still angry with my parents for, but I didn’t feel the need to share that with a complete stranger.
Luke2160: Sorry, but I don’t think we’re compatible.
VIV1990: Okay. Hope you find the right woman. It was fun talking to you.
That was the best thing about online dating. Awkward conversations usually ended on a positive note. The women I turned down had other profiles to look at. The bad part was that I was beginning to wonder if I was the problem. How could it be that I’d chatted with so many women, yet I hadn’t been willing to meet with even one of them? This one I had good reason to avoid. Excalibur did not approve of her.
When my phone buzzed, I was tempted to ignore it, figuring it was another notification from the dating site, but I decided to check it and found a text from my stepmom, Brook.
BROOK: MissFixIt.
ME: This must be my day for strange conversations. Care to tell me what you’re talking about?
BROOK: I found the perfect woman for you on your dating site.
ME: Are you looking at women’s profiles to find one I’ll like?
BROOK: Just check her out. She’s exactly what you’ve been looking for.
ME: Thanks. I’ll check. Love you.
BROOK: Love you, too.
Opening the site up again, I typed in the profile name to search for MissFixIt and nearly swallowed my tongue when I saw the hot blonde standing in front of an impressive workbench with a tool belt around her hips. The picture made it obvious this woman liked to work with her hands, and she didn’t need a man to change a light bulb for her. Her well-worn jeans and tight black t-shirt hugged her sexy curves, making my dick throb with arousal. She was hot as fuck, and she was also my best friend’s older sister, a fact Brook already knew.
The last time I’d seen Chelsea, she’d been so drunk, she’d thought my name was Jake. Since I’m not the type to get turned on by intoxicated women, I’d been in no way interested. There had been this part of me that had assumed my adolescent crush on her was over when I’d had no reaction to her that night, but seeing this picture proved I was far from over Chelsea. I was definitely going to spend more time around MissFixIt.
Cassandra Lawson is an author of paranormal romance and contemporary romantic comedy from the San Francisco Bay Area. She has always had an active imagination and enjoyed making up stories from a young age. A hopeless romantic, she loves a happy ending. When she is not writing, Cassandra enjoys baking, spending time with her family, listening to music, or curling up with a good book.
KD Robichaux wanted to be a romance author since the first time she picked up her mom’s Sandra Brown books at the ripe old age of twelve. She went to college to become a writer, but then married and had babies. Putting her dream job on hold to raise her family as a stay at home mom, who read entirely too much, she created a blog where she could keep her family and friends up-to-date on all the hottest reads. From there, by word of mouth, her blog took off and she began using her hard-earned degree as a Senior Editor for Hot Tree Editing. When her kids started school, and with the encouragement from her many author friends, she finally sat down and started working on her first series, The Blogger Diaries, her very own real life romance.
Kate's Valentine: Single with no plans,
Kate Dixon agrees to fill in for her best friend at Thistle Do. With
everything organized on to-do lists for the week, Kate doesn’t see
anything that could be a challenge. 
