Blood
for blood. Her family killed my brother, so I’ll take their princess.
I’m
Quinn Lyons, Irish Mafia King, a man known for getting what he wants, and I
want her, Aria Byrne. I’m going to make her pay for her family’s sins.
I
didn’t intend to snatch her from her fancy engagement party, just kill her
rival mobster father, but plans change in the heat of the moment. Now she’s
mine to claim and possess, because what better bargaining chip could a Mafia
boss have than the beloved princess of a rival family?
Until
I decide I don’t ever want to let her go.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt One:
Quinn
My brother and partner-in-crime knocked then strode into my
office at my bark to enter. “The Cullen brothers are wanting a word.” A slight
twitch under Devlin’s right eye told me the story. “You want me to keep them
waiting?”
The Cullens were in deep shit for thinking they could get
away with stealing from my family. I should keep them cooling their heels all
night. But hell, it might be more fun to torture them. I could use a good
workout.
“Give me five and send them up.”
Devlin nodded and looked like he was about to say more
before changing his mind and exiting. I shifted—the Irish king, ready for
action.
Stepping up to the one-way glass overlooking the main venue
of the Emerald Club, I scanned the crowd, alert for possible signs of trouble.
Our family hadn’t risen to the upper echelons of Montreal’s crime families by
turning a blind eye. No, we’d done it by an eye for an eye, the golden rule.
“Power isn’t handed to you. It’s seized, by whatever means
necessary.”
Amen, Dad. Rest in peace.
I was a true son of my father. To everyone else, I was a
monster, mob boss, a killer, king of the underworld, a man who took what he
wanted. One exception to the rule—I don’t hurt innocents. But for clarity’s
sake, innocence was a rare commodity in my world.
I glanced over at the huge oil painting of my father painted
at the height of his power, his posture stern on the straight-backed chair, his
eyes dark and shadowed, a man never to be crossed. My mother stood behind him
and his four sons lined up by his side.
“Family. Honor. Security. Protecting everything we had
struggled for over the years—that always comes first, son.”
I honored his words with a nod. We might have arrived on the
shores of North America starving and in rags, but since then we’d fought tooth
and nail to rise and take our proper place in society, aligning ourselves with
people and places that mattered.
“Never forget where you came from, Quinn…or what you will
die for.”
I will find his killer, Da, I promised both my father and my
baby brother, Mikey.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
January Bain
has wished on every falling star, every blown-out birthday candle, and every
coin thrown in a fountain to be a storyteller. To share the tales of high
adventure, mysteries, and full-blown romances she has dreamed of all her life.
The story you now have in your hands is the compilation of a lot of things
manifesting itself for this special series. Hundreds of hours spent researching
the unusual and the mundane have come together to create books that features
strong women who live life to the fullest, wild adventures full of twists and
unforeseen turns, and hot complicated men who aren’t afraid to take risks. She
can only hope her stories will capture your imagination and touch your heart.
GENRE: Geo Political Thriller crossed with a Young
Adult Urban Fantasy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
A
GIFT AWAKENING. A LEGEND REVEALED.
In
a remote corner of the Arctic, unexplained phenomenon haunt an isolated
community. Several people have disappeared, and somehow young Erika Holstrom
knows why. Still reeling from the loss of her mother, she escapes to
university, only to be followed by unsettling visions of the future.
When
a Russian submarine vanishes in the far North, Erika's nightmares suggest the
answers lay buried deep in her family history. Now, just as the melting polar
ice releases its sinister secrets, Erika and her friends are in a race against
time to convince the sceptical authorities what is really happening in her
Arctic homeland, before it’s too late.
Will
they succeed, or is the frozen North lost forever...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt One:
Erika moved to
the music, allowing the rhythm to guide her. She watched Michelle from the
corner of her eye, trying to process what had just happened and how she felt
about it.
Danger.
Erika hesitated
while the others kept dancing. Something terrible was about to happen, but
what? She scanned the room. Erika could see Sandra and Nicole had moved towards
the corner of the dance floor with their French-Canadian boys. She looked up to
see a giant speaker hanging from the ceiling by silver chains. Erika
desperately tried to clear her head.
She shuffled
towards Sandra, Michelle following her with a dance move.
Danger.
Erika’s senses
honed in on the speaker chains. They were going to give way. She had to act
now. Masking her actions as a drunken stumble, she slammed into Sandra, sending
them both into a row of chairs beside the dance floor. As they hit the ground,
the chains holding the dangling speaker broke, sending the huge piece of
equipment crashing to the ground. Sparks flew from the massive box. Several
people nearby screamed, pushing themselves away from the electrical calamity.
The music stopped.
From her
position under a pile of chairs, Erika could hear Michelle calling out to
Nicole. “Gibson, where are Holstrom and Bruster?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
C.R.
Lindström is a debut author with a passion for lore and history.
Some tales don’t want to be told.
They’re shrouded in the dark and cloaked in danger. Sensible people
leave those mysteries well enough alone. But not Debbie Bradley.
After all, that’s how she makes her living.
The Poison Dart
Debbie
Bradley Crime Mysteries Book 2
by
Geri Dreiling
Genre:
Mystery, Thriller
An
overdose. A drug bust. A captive of the cartel. When fates collide,
who will survive?
The
ripple effects of an overdose send shock waves through a community.
A
sweeping drug bust upends lives, exposing the cartel's deep reach
into the Midwest.
A quest for a better life threatens to destroy
a family.
As Debbie Bradley digs deeper into each story,
startling connections emerge. When fates collide, who will survive?
What
readers are saying:
“The
narrative contains the right blend of mystery, crime scenes and
action. It is one of those books that keeps one glued until the very
end.“
“Dreiling relies more on intelligent conversations, on the
proper and strategic use of lies, and on wordplay“
“Grab or download a copy, curl up with a blanket on the couch,
and enjoy this good read and solid, accurate, crime story with
interesting twists and turns.“
“With a talent for plot creation, patiently unwinding the
threads of all angles, and never lacking for excitement, Dreiling is
an author you will want to read time and time again.“
Just seeing the lighter made Caleb’s body
tingle. He’d been dreaming of this moment for sixty days. Even when he was
sitting in group, claiming he was done, he knew it wasn’t true. He’d say
whatever he had to just to get out. There were times that, yes, when his
parents came, he felt bad. His mom would cry. His dad would remain the aloof
motherfucker he always was. But his mom. That was different. Sometimes he
thought he should change for her. But his mom was just no match for heroin.
Caleb
put the brown powder in the spoon from his kit. He opened the vial of distilled
water. If you were going to get high, you might as well do it with style. Caleb
gently moved the flame under the heroin. Slowly, evenly, he applied the heat’s
gentle kisses to the drug, melting it with his slow caress.
Caleb
pulled out a syringe. He put the needle in, pulled the plunger up, then flicked
the side of the syringe to force the air bubbles up. Caleb removed the rubber
tube tied around his upper arm and pushed the needle into his arm. Since he
hadn’t shot up for two months, the purple vein in his arm had ample time to
heal.
Liquid
peace, Caleb thought as his body welcomed its old friend.
Caleb
slumped back on the couch, briefly taking in Macie as she stood on his balcony.
Her back was to them, but he could tell she was jittery by how she rubbed her
hands against her thighs.
“Good
ol’ Mace,” Caleb mumbled. His head, too heavy for his neck, lolled back onto
the couch.
Alex
picked up the spoon, ready to repeat the process with his stash. His attention
focused on prepping his dose. It wasn’t until he’d shot up that he
looked over at his motionless friend.
“Hey,
Macie,” Alex called out, “Caleb’s noddin’.”
Macie
turned around and walked back into the living room. Just in case.
She
noticed Caleb’s lips turning blue. His head was back, gurgling noises coming from his
throat.
Macie
pushed Caleb’s shoulder. “Caleb,” she said firmly. “Cut it out. This isn’t funny.”
Caleb
didn’t move.
Macie
pushed harder. “Caleb!”
She
opened his eyelids. His pupils were no bigger than the needle mark left in his
arm.
“Shit!”
Macie said. “Alex, I think Caleb OD’d.”
Alex,
his voice slurring, said, “Well, that’s why we got the Narcan.”
Macie
grabbed her purse and rummaged through it. She took out the package of nasal
spray and tore it open. She took the cap off and shoved the nozzle up his nose
until her fingers touched the bottom of Caleb’s right nostril.
“You
gotta really push that plunger,” Alex mumbled.
Macie
pushed hard. The foil seal broke with the pressure. The full dose emptied into
his nose. Macie held her breath. It should just be a couple of moments, and
Caleb would pop out of his coma.
Caleb
didn’t move.
Macie
shook Caleb’s shoulders. “Caleb!”
She
grabbed the empty Narcan spray and put it up his left nostril, trying to get
more out of the already-spent antidote.
“You
got another one?” Alex mumbled. “Sometimes it takes more than one.”
“I’ve
only got the one,” Macie said. “Call an ambulance!”
A
retired police officer still called captain by everyone who knew him, Cap’n Jack
looked more like an aging rock star than a cop. Wavy, shoulder-length silver
hair, a grizzled beard, and a relaxed way of speaking marked him as a
storyteller, not a police officer. He’d been a rookie during the St. Louis mob
wars of the 1980s. His nephew, Detective Daniel Flannery, had suggested Debbie
talk to the man who’d become something of an amateur crime historian and local
raconteur in his retirement.
The
recommendation had been hard won. Detective Flannery hadn’t been
Debbie’s biggest fan when they first met. It had taken time, one brush with
death, and what Debbie suspected was the detective’s crush on her clueless
mother to turn him into an ally, albeit a reluctant one.
The
twenty-eight-year-old host leaned toward the microphone. “Welcome
to Crime Beat, a River City podcast. This
week, we’re looking back at St. Louis and the mafia war in the nineteen
eighties. My guest is retired St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Captain
Jack Flannery. Welcome, Cap’n Jack.”
“Mornin’,
Debbie. Thanks for having me,” he replied.
“So
let’s start with the mayhem that broke out after Anthony Giordano—Tony G.—died
of cancer,” Debbie said.
“Sure,”
Jack replied, his husky voice carrying the mark of the Camels he once, but no
longer, smoked. “What you’ve gotta remember, back in the seventies and early
eighties, St. Louis was controlled by three organized crime families. One was
headed by the mafia, another by a Syrian-Lebanese syndicate with roots in St.
Louis, and the third crime family was out of Illinois with ties to Chicago. All
three groups were embedded into several of the unions here in town. To keep the
peace, the three cooperated, but Tony G. was at the top of ’em all. In late
August of nineteen eighty, everything falls apart after Tony G. up and dies. I
mean, it wasn’t too long before all hell broke loose.”
“Why
was that?” Debbie probed.
“You
see, everyone thought that Horseshoe Jimmy…”
“You’re
referring to James A. Michaels Senior, right?” Debbie interjected.
“Yep,
by nineteen eighty, he was a dapper granddad, thick white hair and a cleft
chin, who had spent his life as part of the Syrian-Lebanese syndicate. He’d
gotten his start in organized crime as part of the Cuckoos, a south side gang
from the times of Prohibition. By twenty-five, he was already in prison after
holding up a railroad office in East Saint Louis. And there’s a great photo of
him from nineteen fifty-nine just before he tried to slug a photographer.”
“I know
the one you’re talking about,” Debbie said. “It appears in the story I wrote
for this month’s issue about the mob war. That picture was taken at police
headquarters after he was nabbed in a liquor raid.”
Crime Beat Girl
Debbie
Bradley Crime Mysteries Book 1
A girl is dead. A boy is locked up.
Can Debbie Bradley discover the truth before more lives are
lost…maybe even her own?
A series of deadly shootings.
An outbreak of stolen cars. When journalist Debbie Bradley returns
home to St. Louis, the summer crime wave has started. And she’s in
the center: A witness, a reporter, a target.
Debbie’s
reasons for leaving behind her promising career in Washington D.C.
were complicated. Her mother, a prominent lawyer, was diagnosed with
cancer. Her engagement was cooling. When she got offered a job in St.
Louis that she hadn’t been looking for, Debbie recognized an
opportunity. Or an escape.
But she didn’t expect to come
home and see a girl die. Debbie never planned to investigate a boy
behind bars. And she didn’t anticipate colliding with hostile cops
and wary politicians.
As her work gains attention, Debbie
gathers enemies. Will her assignment to cover the St. Louis crime
beat be her last?
What
readers are saying:
“Intense crime
story full of unexpected twists and turns” — Readers’
Favorite, 5-Star Review
“Gripping
crime story…with deep themes and highlighting very real problems” —
Readers’ Favorite, 5-Star Review
“A
page-turner, engaging the reader from the first page to the last” —
Readers’ Favorite, 5-Star Review
Geri L. Dreiling is the author
of Crime Beat Girl, the debut novel in the Debbie Bradley
Mystery series, which received seven book awards. She is also the
author of Erasing the Past. Dreiling is an award-winning journalist
as well as professor and lawyer. She lives in St. Louis.
Check
out the St. Louis on the Air interview for Crime Beat Girl!