Blog Tour: THE FRACTURED ARCANA by Steven J. Morris

 

Two series, one shattered universe: 

an ancient war that forged magic, 

and the modern invasion that it made possible.

Mother of Trees

Thaumatropic Roots Book 1

Part of the Fractured Arcana Universe

by Steven J. Morris

Genre: Epic Fantasy

A dying goddess. A fractured prophecy. A magicless elf who shouldn't exist.

Elliah has spent her entire life being told what she is—bereft, wrong, a mistake the world would prefer to correct. Drifting from town to town with a mother who won't explain why they keep running, she has no magic, no place, and no future. Then a single misstep draws the attention of those who've been looking for her, and everything her mother was hiding comes apart.

She isn't ready for what she learns. But ready was never an option.

Mother of Trees is the thrilling first book in the Thaumatropic Roots epic fantasy series. Enter a world of dangerous magic, ancient powers, and one impossible girl who refuses to stay down.

 

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Elliah ~ 1

My mother told me many times that all adolescents feel like they don't belong, but… I really didn't. So I spent my free time away from other elves, on my own but for the animals… they didn't understand how broken I was. And I was quite pleased with my current find, so I snarled when a noise behind me scared away the drakeling that had settled in my hands. Black with a pattern of red scales along its spine, its body the thickness of my finger, it took flight with a flurry of thin leathery wings and disappeared behind a massive brown trunk.

"The real ones are much more intimidating," said an unfamiliar voice.

Time slowed as I tensed to run, shocked that I'd let my guard down so much that anyone had gotten that close. How many lurked behind me? On the outskirts of town, in the thick of the woods near the river, I had expected solitude.

"Stay, Bereft. I am not afraid," said the voice. His words provoked me.

"No one's afraid of me," I blurted. Bitterness stained my words as surely as the pollen of the bloodcups had stained my ragged clothes.

I turned away from the vanished drakeling to focus on the intruder who'd scared it away. A man. No, I corrected myself, someone my age. Someone not quite old enough for adults to consider one of their own, but too old to call a child.

But not Bereft. No other elf shared that with me.

The newcomer was slightly taller than me with a thin frame, his light hair hanging long, wild, and tangled. He was new to the village—I would have noticed an elf with skin so light. I'd heard whispers of him at school. Kethryllia had called him Salt-kissed, and I'd wondered what that meant, but his light skin answered that question. He'd undoubtedly caught whispers about me, heard of my… condition. Bereft. Yet at that moment, I thought only of the hours of coaxing I'd spent to draw the little drakeling into my grasp, and that the stupid elf had scared it away. I wanted to punch him.

"Maybe they should be," he said, taking a step back, though it would have taken me two leaps to get to him, and he'd have me pinned in one, if he had any skill with magic at all. But I'd prepared a leap already, only not in his direction. As I sprung away, he continued, raising his voice, "And you're right, they're not afraid of you."

I landed with a tree between us. His magic wouldn't be able to snag me there. Unless he was very good at it.

"They're afraid of what you represent."

Continue the Thaumatropic Roots Series

Magic is as natural as breathing in Elliah's world — except to her. Born without a single spark in a war that runs on it, she has nothing but her will and her refusal to accept the limits everyone else has already decided for her. This is what happens when the world writes you out of the story, and you refuse to leave.

 

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Mother of Trees

Bones of Cenaedth

Secrets of Deara

Shepherds of Truth

The Guardian of the Palace

The Guardian League Book 1

Part of the Fractured Arcana Universe

by Steven J. Morris

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Magic isn’t real.
Red Hernandez is very sure of that.

She wants a quiet life after Special Forces—just a steady security job at a half-finished Manhattan skyscraper.

But then a sister tower implodes in a way physics can’t explain.
Witnesses report creatures in the smoke.
And something hunts her in the tunnels beneath.

Red wants answers. What she gets instead is an elf with a sword, a troll with a wry sense of humor, and a dwarf who believes every battle requires an audience. They insist an ancient enemy has crossed into our world—and Red becomes an accidental gatekeeper simply because she’s standing on the fault line when it cracks open.

As a hidden war erupts in the shadows of New York City, Red must decide: run from the past that nearly destroyed her… or fight for a world she’s only just beginning to believe in.

A veteran with nothing left to lose.
A threat born of magic and shadow.
A team she never saw coming.

The Guardian of the Palace launches the action-packed Guardian League series—perfect for fans of urban fantasy, modern-world magic, found family, and heroines who refuse to back down.

 

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Prologue

Corpses patterned the ground as far as my eye could see, a patchwork quilt of death.

I stood atop a skeletal tower, overlooking the broken ruins of an ancient civilization, so very far from home. I envisioned the beauty that the soaring arches once held, the bridges between the constructs reaching out with broken arms, buildings leaning against one another like ancient lovers in a final embrace. Crumbled remains powdered the bases of former statues, and, everywhere, all of it was littered with the dead.

Like a phoenix, I stood, bathed in fire. An Angel of Death. Not the Angel of Death—he was an ass.

A part of me wanted to go down and see for myself. Maybe just to make sure… to make sure I had done my job… and killed everyone that used to inhabit that world. The magic I was wielding should have destroyed them all—something inside of me could feel that it had—but I wanted to see it.

Yet I knew that was unrealistic. I didn't have the time. There were other worlds that needed my infection, and Earth was on my shortlist.

  

Chapter 1

Red - Day 20, Sunday, the day after the attack

"Ms. Hernandez?" a muffled voice called from a distance, accompanied by a gentle rapping on a door. My consciousness registered the interruption as a nuisance and pulled me back under.

What seemed like seconds later, the rapping came again, more insistent. "Ms. Hernandez."

Ms. Hernandez was my mom… why were they bothering me?

Then a scraping sound, and an alarmed voice. "Ms. Hernandez! Are you okay?"

Some scrambling, some grunts, more scraping… shit, I was going to have to wake up. Why couldn't they just let me sleep?

I tried to answer, but my throat was dry and nothing came out. Coughing, I attempted to sit up, not wholly returned from my trip to dreamland. "I'm here. I'm okay." Was I though? I wasn't sure.

I was in my flat. Not the desert. My door was partway open, and a slightly overweight man had paused in the act of pushing his way in. I recognized him, but his name escaped me. Swinging my legs off my cot, I did a quick modesty check. I was fully dressed, though rather tragically, in some semblance of civilian fatigues—muddied, disheveled, and a little bloody.

The reason came screaming back to me. There had been creatures, unearthly monsters, in The Palace. They'd done things I could not explain by any of the rules I knew. And they'd beaten the hell out of me and then patched me back up in a matter of seconds. I'd blown the head clean off of one of them and fled the scene.

Not my smartest move.

Continue The Guardian League Series!

Earth, through its technological advances, supports nearly eight billion souls; from a cosmic perspective, that makes it ripe for the picking. 'Red' Hernandez, trying to put a questionable military life behind her, finds herself caught in the middle of stopping an apocalyptic invasion of Earth. But to do that, she has to figure out who the good guys are, and how she can combat forces in which she does not believe.

 

Get them:

The Guardian of the Palace

Stars in the Sand

We’re Going On An Elf Hunt

The Song Unsung

Get the Box Set Here

Steven J. Morris writes fantasy where magic runs deep and the consequences run deeper. By day he's an engineer and father of three in Austin, Texas. He's the author of eight novels across two completed series — the epic Thaumatropic Roots and the urban Guardian League — both set in the shared Fractured Arcana universe. Find him at sjmorriswrites.com.

 

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Blog Tour: The Reed Lavender series by Ashley Capes

 

If you love snarky heroes, twisty mysteries and plenty of magic,

delve into this urban fantasy series set in Melbourne, Australia!

Graves Robbed, Heirlooms Returned

Reed Lavender Book 1

by Ashley Capes

Genre: Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Mystery

 He can speak to the dead. But will giving them justice get him killed?

Reed Lavender lives two lives—one as a detective and another as a reaper. Hearing the last words of the dead is a handy skill in his line of work, but magic can’t solve all his problems. While investigating the case of a teen runaway, he learns his cousin is missing. Racing against the clock, Reed soon finds himself trapped in a vast conspiracy.

A cult is capturing reapers to siphon their powers and his current case is somehow connected. But the deeper he digs, the more dangerous and convoluted the trail becomes. As his two lives get tangled, Reed realizes if he can’t solve the case and save his cousin, the man who listens to the dead will end up joining them.

Graves Robbed, Heirlooms Returned is the first thrilling urban fantasy novel in the Reed Lavender series. If you love snarky heroes, twisty mysteries and plenty of magic, delve into Graves Robbed, Heirlooms Returned!

 

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Graves Robbed, Heirlooms Returned (Reed Lavender: 1)

 

Chapter 1

 

In the bright moonlight, Reed Lavender inserted his best crowbar into the pine box where the top met the sides and wrenched the steel down. Wood squeaked and he shuddered. Worse than fingernails on a blackboard. He lifted the lid free, resting it against the freshly turned earth – which, unlike the sound of an opening coffin – was an almost pleasant thing. A pungent scent, but real. Honest. Worms and bugs, minerals and secrets lived in the earth; when you got right down to it, grave dirt wasn’t really any different to regular dirt.

And he was certainly down to it now, about to be elbow-deep in a coffin.

Again.

But for what they’d given Elise, the word ‘coffin’ was a stretch. A pine box wasn’t much of a final resting place – dignity hardly came cheap in Rikerton’s funeral home and unclaimed bodies were lucky to avoid the incinerator. Or maybe that would have been better. Dust to dust and all that.

“But then you’d be out of work,” he told himself.

Elise the runaway – that’s what the police thought she was – lay in her dirty jeans and the same faded Pink Floyd t-shirt she wore when she walked into the cafe two days back. Her arms lay at her sides, cuts on her palms mostly hidden. Her face had been covered... by a used napkin. “Jesus, Jennings, that the best you could do?” Reed growled. At least the napkin was in one piece; the undertaker had been known to be far more slipshod at times.

Reed lifted the napkin... and ground his teeth.

She’d been beaten blue. Deep bruises swam across her cheeks, one eye swollen shut and the other just as blackened, torn skin at her temple. Jennings had cleaned her face up well enough but there were still leaf fragments and dried blood in her hair. The pallor of death had washed out Elise’s freckles, mere suggestions crossing her bent nose. God, what is she, fifteen? She looks so small.

Reed tossed the napkin aside and unwound his scarf, folded it and placed it over her face, standing still a moment, shaking as he blinked. The night air ran chill fingers across his now-exposed throat and the back of his neck. Finally, he took a breath and leant over the coffin, where he lifted her arm. “Sorry, sweetheart,” he said softly, twisting her silver bracelet up to the moon. Only the letters ‘Elise’ engraved there. Really, there was little he could learn from a perfunctory glance at her clothing and jewellery that the police wouldn’t have already catalogued. He’d check that later, of course – but Elise deserved more.

No, he’d have to wake her up – sort of.

Her last words would maybe be enough of a clue. Most folks didn’t have much to say, right before the end. Sometimes it was a scream or a grunt if he was unlucky. Other times, they addressed their killer. Or a loved one, perhaps, if the death was peaceful. Not that I’ve heard a lot of those in my time.

There’d been a man out west, he couldn’t recall where - so many cities and towns blended together - whose last words had been an apology for burnt toast. After that, the poor guy hadn’t said a thing before being t-boned at an intersection by a bus an hour later, two blocks from his office.

But sometimes, a person’s last sentence held a clue.

“Come on, Elise, tell me something I can use.”

If she didn’t, he had no other supernatural tricks up his sleeve either, since he couldn’t simply call upon her spirit. It would have made things much easier and allowed him to stop violating peoples’ graves but sadly, he wasn’t that lucky.

Reed removed the scarf a moment, took her cold hands and closed his eyes, sending his awareness down through her mute fingertips, pushing his way along quiet veins until he reached her chest, still echoing with the memory of a million heartbeats, then at last up the throat to the tongue; the tongue which remembered everything.

But it would move only once more.

“In the name of Mors, speak any that you might,” he whispered. “I’ll help you if you can.”

Her body resisted.

Not unusual. It meant reliving the pain and shock – why wouldn’t her body want to fight that? It was at rest now, if not at peace. But he had to know. Reed pushed harder, pouring both his hope and anger into the request. “Please, Elise.”

A flicker, a tiny sound as her jaw shifted.

He opened his eyes and leant close. Would it be a scream? A clue? Nonsense? Her voice was little more than a rasping whisper, such as might easily be mistaken for a breeze, but he caught the words.

“Wow, what a beautiful view. This is some place; you can see half the city from here.”

Then silence.

“Shit.” Poor girl, she probably never saw it coming.

Reed lowered Elise’s hands. Half the city. That hardly narrowed things down – there were only hundreds of such high points available. But it probably put the owner in a certain tax bracket at least. He shook his head. No assumptions. It was his first rule. And that went for murder too – maybe it was an accident. Still, something happened to bring Elise’s life to an unjust end.

He had to find out; no-one else was looking and Elise’s grandmother deserved answers. Even unpleasant ones, he supposed.

Reed placed the scarf back over the girl’s face and reached for his shovel.

The Radiant King

Reed Lavender Book 2

Things aren’t exactly getting easier for Reed Lavender.

Old obligations and new cases are piling up but in the aftermath of Feronia’s defeat, answers are still too thin on the ground. But one clue – his father’s knucklebone – might just lead to something big.

To learn the truth about his parents’ disappearance, Reed will have to take the fight to whoever is behind the growing turmoil in his city. And if the rising number of Spirit-Worms, needy Gods, vindictive lawmen and only somewhat-helpful cousins don’t stop Reed, then his sense of duty might do what the others cannot.

Because Reed now finds himself caught between two goals – solving the murder of Elise or chasing down whoever stole the Goddess’ hand, an unfathomable thief who might hold answers about his parents…

 

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Summer in the City

Reed Lavender Book 3

Reed is about to snap - and this time, nothing is going to stand in his way when it comes to getting answers for Elise, not even a supposedly long-vanished Sumerian God. 

Or so Reed thinks.

But summer in the city isn't going to be like the others. The city itself isn't quite the same either, and even if you're lucky (or cursed) enough to count the children of Gods among your friends, nothing is ever simple...

 

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Ashley is a poet, novelist and ex-teacher living in Australia.

He taught English, Media and Music Production, he ‘sang’ in a metal band, worked in an art gallery and for a few years, slaved away at music retail. (For a few years, he was also a legal secretary).

Aside from reading and writing, Ashley loves (indoor) volleyball, Studio Ghibli and Magnum PI.

 

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Blog Tour: HEIDENRÖSLEIN THE LITTLE ROSE ON THE HEATH by Christopher Whittaker

 

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Christopher Whittaker will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Two men. Two worlds.

One war that will remake them both.

Peter Schiller, a disciplined officer from privilege, is trained to lead—but not for what war truly demands.

Günther Klein, a working-class recruit, is thrown into the trenches and forced to learn fast or die.

In the mud and ruin of the Great War, rank and class begin to dissolve. Orders blur into instinct. Honour bends under necessity. What remains is survival—and the thin, unspoken bond forged between two men who should never have met.

But war does not end when the guns fall silent.

Heidenröslein is a powerful, unflinching story of war, brotherhood, and the quiet, irreversible cost of becoming what the battlefield demands.

Read an Excerpt

1914

The kitchen was small, but it carried the quiet dignity of people who owned little and cared for everything.

Against one wall stood a heavy sideboard of dark timber, polished by years of careful hands rather than luxury. Fine China sat arranged behind glass doors, each piece positioned with deliberate precision. The plates were reserved for Sundays, feast days, or visits important enough to justify the risk of using something fragile. Crystal wine glasses hung above them, catching the weak morning light and holding it in muted amber reflections.

Nothing in the room was fashionable.

Everything in it was treasured.

In the center stood a small round table worn smooth at the edges where elbows, plates, and years of conversation had rubbed away the varnish. The stove and icebox stood side by side beneath the far wall, black iron beside chipped white enamel, both old enough to have become part of the family itself. Beneath the kitchen window ran a long washing trough, damp to the touch, carrying the faint scent of soap, starch, and boiled cabbage that seemed to linger permanently in the wood.

At it stood Frau Klein.

She held a cup beneath the water, slowly moving the cloth around its rim although it had already been cleaned twice over. Her hands worked from instinct now, broad and reddened from years of labour, fingers thickened from kneading dough, wringing cloth, hauling water, carrying coal, and doing every invisible task required to keep a household alive.

She had once been handsome in the soft, rosy-cheeked way of country girls.

Now life had settled heavily upon her.

About the Author: Chris lives in Perth, Western Australia with his wife Dianne.

Amazon: https://amazon.com/dp/183454193X

Blog Tour: THE WEIGHT OF COLD THINGS by Lisa Towles

 

While searching for her missing boss, a Wyoming Deputy Sheriff accidentally discovers a secret facility and conspiracy of silence surrounding a series of mysterious deaths in Deadhorse, Alaska. 

The Weight of Cold Things

by Lisa Towles

Genre: Psychological Thriller, Arctic Noir

Wyoming Deputy Sheriff Gree Gooding has one mission: find her missing boss. The trail leads four thousand miles north—to Deadhorse, Alaska, an oil-drilling outpost clinging to the edge of the Arctic Circle. A place where daylight is rationed, where the cold can kill in minutes, and where her husband AJ, a petroleum geologist, vanished six months ago.

The clues don't just point to her boss's disappearance. They reach back into Gree's own past— to the Wyoming ranch she left behind, to the family secrets buried in its soil, and to the grief frozen like permafrost inside her.

When the investigation cinches around a decades-long cover-up — a black ops program called Arc Dominion — Gree realizes someone's been waiting for her. Someone knew she'd follow the thread. This was never about a missing sheriff. It's about the conspiracy AJ died trying to expose — and whether she can finish what he started.

The cold doesn't forgive.
It doesn't forget.
And it's about to give up its dead.

For fans of Yellowstone and The X-Files — where neo-Western grit meets a decades-long government conspiracy buried beneath the Arctic ice.

 

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Prologue

Winter, 1974 - Prudhoe Bay, Northwest Alaska

 

They gutted an iceberg with two sticks of dynamite, forty years ago when the shabby construction camps rose on the iconic Dalton Highway. Oil was struck in Prudhoe Bay in 1968, setting off an irreversible string of events: an ecological nightmare, an eight-billion-dollar pipeline transporting crude oil 800 miles south from the North Slope to Valdez, and passage for seventy thousand oil workers to the most menacing outpost on earth: Deadhorse.

A stolen scrap of bread. Chronic insomnia. Drug abuse. One worker snapped, nicking dynamite from the munitions depot, flailing his arms, all the while forgetting how fast the detonating cord burns to the quick. The shock wave bulleted shards of ice in every direction, thrusting the assailant twelve feet in the air in a whirl of fire and black smoke. He became the first prize, the Number One. His victim, the second man, escaped.

It took two days for the particles to clear the air, finally revealing an exquisite, dome-like crevasse in the ice the depth of five residential garages — one after the other in a long, hollow train. Except this garage had no yard outside because nothing grew in this place but resentment. No gas grill on a redwood deck, no family huddled in the adjacent house. Only the unrelenting cold and ice: on the floor, walls, ceiling. He loved it that way, the Caretaker, the exclusivity of his access and the singularity of his dark secret.

That spring, the suited men came in droves sporting fine clothing and city shoes to explain the gravity of their problem, which later evolved into their pitch. Well, their problem had just solved itself, hadn’t it? No one knew about this place and nobody but him would ever find it. Some secrets were just not for sale.

 

 

Chapter 1

Present Day December 18 - Inglewood Ranch, Cody, WY

 

I could feel it in my bones, this unspeakable energy of change. Not a buzz, it was more like a low hum I could almost hear when I closed my eyes and got real still. I’d woken with it today, of all days, this visceral knowing that despite the regularity of my errand, it would have a disruptive impact on my life, such as it was. My work in Jackson, a five hour drive from our family ranch in Cody, was an odd arrangement to begin with, and the two-bedroom condo I rented near the Teton County Sheriff’s Office was uninhabitable without AJ. Even still, there was something else in the air today. Cholo, our ranch hand and my lifelong friend, sensed something too, though it wasn’t his way to articulate his thoughts. Instead, he put cinnamon in the coffee, his quiet way of offering comfort. I could smell it the whole way in from the barn.

I’d gone out before first light, watching the fluff of gray dawn cover my beloved Inglewood, hoping to shake the image of a recurring dream and to brush AJ’s quarter horse, Rain. At first, it was to console him, knowing horses had unique and profound ways of grieving. Lately, though, the cold vigil seemed more about me. Rogue, the word had been coming to me since AJ’s death — a blurry dream-hand opening to a tiny piece of paper on which a single word was written. Was it him reaching out from his watery grave? What did it mean?

Cholo passed me a cup when I reached the kitchen, shutting out the ten-degree wind chill behind me. I unzipped my coat and sipped quietly just inside the door, letting the hot coffee slide down my throat, waiting for whatever his face was preparing.

“Been three weeks now.”

I nodded, three weeks since Sheriff Peter Barrett disappeared — my boss, mentor, now another silent ache in my heart.

“I heard about the fire,” he added. “How many is that now?”

“Does it matter?” I asked him. “Seven.”

“You think they’re connected. Don’t you?”

I shrugged, pretending. But any sane person would. “I’m not an arson investigator. Bryce at the State Fire Marshal’s Office is looking into it.”

“Really?”

 I laughed. “Come on. Bryce has a good team working for him. I know two of those guys.”

“They haven’t been out here since Thanksgiving.” Cholo stared back, thick brows angled over large, black eyes.

“I know, okay? What do you want me to do? I’m not the sheriff.” The words caught in my throat.

“You never know about people,” he said with that quiet wisdom I’d never seen in anyone else, like he understood the longings in my heart for answers that hadn’t yet come. Peter Barrett, Jackson’s most beloved sheriff, vanished three weeks ago today.

 Cholo was right about Bryce, too. Interagency politics aside, I’d need to call and follow up on the arson investigation they said they were running. Add it to the growing list.

He took a long sip, still watching me.

“Well, spit it out already,” I said.

“I can’t take you to the airport.”

“It’s alright, I’ll get an Uber.”

 Cholo’s jaw was set tight but his eyes were uncertain, like he was trying to think of an excuse but couldn’t do it.

“What’s the big deal?”

“Woody’s gonna take you.”

“Woody!” My voice cracked like a whip. I set the cup on the counter with a clunk and rezipped my coat. Ah…the cinnamon. Son of a bitch.

“He wants to talk to you.”

“Does he now?” I grabbed the warm mug for reinforcement and sucked down the last three gulps. “Does he want to talk about how he stole two of our horses, stole money from me? He robbed us, Cholo, all of us. And by doing so, he broke something precious.” I didn’t like the sound of that word, precious. Made it seem like Woody was important to me, and despite the intrusive logic of that truth, there was no place for Woody here anymore.

“He says he’s sorry.”

“Not to me he didn’t. Besides, sorry’s just a word.” Already mad at seven in the morning, great. I zipped my coat and turned my back to him, facing the door. “A real apology is a change in behavior.” My eyes were wide as I waited for him to take my challenge. To come to Woody’s rescue, explain how the drugs made him do it or the excuse-of-the-day.

Still fuming, I left via Uber at 7:30 a.m. without another word to either Cholo or my dad. Woody could kiss my ass as far as I was concerned. I’d have to pay for my cold heart, of course. The world has a quiet way of keeping score.

 

***

 

By 3:00 p.m., I was standing on the corner of Wave and McClellan Streets in Monterey, California. Eleven hundred miles away in historic Cannery Row, a sliver of sea was visible between the brownstones on Lighthouse Avenue. The sun felt warm on my face and bare arms. Mid December in California, I’ll be damned. A premonition, I couldn’t put my finger on it, made me take notice, warning me to be careful. Something bad was coming.

Ash was right, I was loath to admit. There were holiday decorations and tacky music everywhere, but it just didn’t feel like Christmas in a hilltop penthouse overlooking the ocean, waves beneath me reflecting a cloudy sky. The beauty of California’s coast was unmistakable, but in my heart, Christmas was indelibly marked by snow.

“Is that you?” Cholo asked me later, answering his mobile on the third ring.

“I guess. Some version of me, anyway.”

“What are you doing out there, Gree? You hate California.”

He knew, of course; we’d discussed it back and forth for weeks. Why go now, why go at all? After being on and off the market for ten years, my mother’s condo had finally found a buyer. I came here to sign papers, to once again acknowledge the sting of her death and bring my feet one step closer to the present. But that wasn’t what he was asking. Like all Cholo’s questions, they were part real world and part spirit world. I knew what he meant. I just wasn’t sure I was willing to answer yet.

“How’s Dad?” I deflected.

“He’s concerned about how it will look to the community, you leaving town after Peter’s disappearance.”

“I don’t recall asking his opinion.” He was right, though. It was too sudden, but it would be a short trip. Besides, everything was broken right now anyway.

“No, but he’s always willing to share it, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” I laughed.

“He’s splitting wood right now,” Cholo said.

“Great idea for a man who just had a heart attack.”

“Come on, it was a mild one. He didn’t even know he was having it. Besides, it’s gonna be zero tonight. We’ll be using that wood.”

I guess I shouldn’t complain. The fact that they were staying in the same house, after such a long standoff, was nothing short of miraculous and I had nothing to do with it. Maybe the rock of resentment got too heavy to haul around anymore. I was dying to know who thawed first, but I’d never ask. You didn’t do things that way out here. Not in Wyoming, not in this family.

 

“Could you make sure he’s got a jacket on? For God’s sake keep an eye on him. If left to his own devices he’d chop wood in a—”

“Gretchen.”

It was my dad’s voice now, Ash Gooding, former Sheriff of Park County, who to this day insists on calling me by my birth name instead of the nickname my mother gave me.

“How’s sunny California?”

It was meant as an insult. Everyone in town got lots of mileage from the fact that I wasn’t a native of Wyoming, even though I’d lived there since I was five.

“It’s midnight, Wyoming time. What are you doing up this late? Do you miss me that much?” I joked to an awkward silence. I rambled on for a while, telling him about the dark orange sunset I’d seen from the balcony after signing a four-inch stack of papers. Hadn’t they ever heard of digital copies? Apparently, this mortgage company insisted on paper-everything. Ash listened. I heard the clinking of ice in his glass. Would this be his third or fourth by now? I decided not to mention the wood chopping.

“You didn’t tell her?” he mumbled to Cholo. “Mmm.”

“Tell me what?”

A murmur of conversation in the background. Maybe his hand was covering the phone. And maybe this was what Cholo was hiding from me this morning.

“Dad, what is it? Tell me.”

“I can’t. Gotta show you. Guess we’ll have to wait till you get back.”

 

 

Sonofabitch. I knew my dad, and that meant no manipulation or psychology would wriggle out of him whatever he was keeping from me. After signing over ownership of what had been my mother’s dream home, I left the key with the bankers and took with me a cedar box of my mother’s mementos, which I would undoubtedly squirrel away somewhere and forget about for the next decade. All the better, right? Avoidance, since AJ’s death six months ago, had become a sort of new religion. Didn’t avoidance almost always turn to cancer somewhere down the road?

When I got back, I didn’t bother going home first before looking for Ash. He’d planted an evil seed of dread and apprehension, and he knew it too. Maybe punishing me for something; he’s a Gemini after all. I flew into Cody from San Francisco instead of Jackson, where I’d worked for the past twelve years as deputy sheriff under Peter Barrett, one of the kindest men I’d ever met. Why did I feel like Ash’s secret had something to do with him? The buzzing in my bones this morning...maybe that was the warning. Jesus, no. Not that. The vague comfort of the word missing was too hard to give up.

Three in the afternoon to Ash Gooding meant five o’clock somewhere. There's this ratty bar on the edge of town called Stagecoach, Ash’s favorite. Drafty as hell with dusty floors, swivel stools, and random darts scattered on the floor looking for their board, threatening tetanus. Weird part about it was that the owner isn't a wrinkled prune of a man but someone belonging on the cast of Below Deck, a body intended for board shorts, tanned legs and a white polo shirt hauling up ropes with three-ply triceps. He was trying to be unassuming in a plain brown t-shirt stretched out at the neck, pretending he didn't care about his looks. His artificially whitened smile betrayed the deception - laughing eyes with something sinister behind them, a joke no one knew about but him.

“How’s it going?” the guy asked.

I exhaled. “G&T, please. Been a long day.”

“Coming up.”

When Runway Model set down the glass, I suddenly didn’t feel like talking. The weight of air travel, of the milestone I’d crossed and today’s sad anniversary, burned behind my eyes. They watered as I took the first swallow. I turned on the stool to look around. Ha, I knew it.

“Ash,” I said, walking across the creaking floorboards. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.”

“Drinking here alone, that’s what.”

“What's wrong with that?”

“You can come to my house in Jackson and drink with me. Wouldn't that be nicer?”

He laughed. “Not necessarily. Besides, too long a drive.”

“Look, you can stay here and punish yourself for Mom's death all you like. I know what day it is.”

The slap of the men’s room door distracted us from the tension. It was a sad old story with no ending. I smelled Cholo’s Irish Spring soap behind me. I turned, my left arm involuntarily reaching for him, tugging the frayed edge of his Carhartt jacket.

“Well.” I stood back a ways. “You two got real chummy in the one day I left town.” They were looking sideways at each other in some silent communication. Ranchers at a bar in the middle of the afternoon; it didn’t make sense. “What’s the deal?”

Cholo nodded. “You’d better sit down.”

 

Lisa Towles believes stories hold the world together - and the best ones expose what we hide even from ourselves. She builds that belief into her main characters - Mari Ellwyn, Angus Mariner, Kurt Farin - each one drowning in dark secrets, running from unthinkable truths. The award-winning author of 14 mystery thrillers, her books pull readers into worlds of global espionage, fringe technology, and shadow governments. Her titles include Terror Bay (NYC Big Book Award), Codex (BookFest First Place), The Ridders (American Fiction Award), and her E&A Series thrillers Hot House and Salt Island both reached Amazon Kindle #1 Bestseller. Her next thriller, The Weight of Cold Things - described as Yellowstone meets The X-Files - publishes in August 2026. When she's not writing, she interviews authors on her Story Impact Podcast and coaches writers on how to be visible and memorable to readers. Follow her to get notified of new releases.

 

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Blog Tour: PISMO BEACH SNIPER by Topper Jones

 

A sniper.

 A surf contest. 

A father with everything to lose.

Pismo Beach Sniper

A Thad Hanlon/ Bri de la Guerra Mystery Book 3

by Topper Jones

Genre: Private Investigator Mystery 

When sniper fire erupts at the Central Coast Surf Trials at Pismo Beach, private investigator Thad Hanlon is thrust into every parent’s worst nightmare. His eleven-year-old son and two teammates are shot while surfing—one critically injured—plunging the contest into chaos and terrorizing the tight-knit Five Cities beach community.

The shooter disappears, torching his hideout, leaving only questions in his wake. Random attack—or the first move in a deadly game? Why target young surfers? And is the marksman finished…or just getting started?

Urged by desperate parents, Hanlon and his sharp-witted partner, Bri de la Guerra, race to protect the kids as they train for the upcoming West Coast Championships. But as the detective duo close in on the sniper, they uncover a chilling truth: the surf team isn’t his ultimate target—and the nightmare is far from over.

This gripping thriller will keep you turning pages late into the night.

 

What Critics Are Saying

“Engaging characters, wit, and suspense elevate this rip-curling page-turner.”

— Kirkus Reviews

 

“Pismo Beach Sniper is a tense and fast-moving mystery with real emotional stakes. The target audience is readers who enjoy mystery, private investigator fiction, crime thrillers, action suspense, coastal noir, and family-driven detective series. Readers who like Robert Crais’s Elvis Cole and Joe Pike novels may appreciate the same mix of banter, loyalty, and wounded-hearted heroism, though Jones swaps Los Angeles grit for Central Coast surf and spiritual undertow.”

— Literary Titan   

 

“It felt like I was reading something akin to James Patterson: fast, frighteningly imaginative, and furious with action. Pismo Beach Sniper is a deftly plotted story of a man doing everything to keep his child safe in a world where not only waves can kill.”

—R. Oserio, Readers’ Favorite Reviews

 

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Chapter 1

I was sitting under a beach canopy in the spectator section of the California Central Coast Surf Trials, watching the first heat of the semifinals, when I heard the sonic crack of a large firearm. Something long-range like the scoped high-precision rifle my business partner, Bri, uses to qualify at the Five Cities Shoot’n Center.

“What was that?” my son’s surf coach asked. Gev Burian was sitting on my left. “Sounded like it came from behind us.”

Bri de la Guerra, on my right, stood to check things out. “Cityside, yeah. I’m thinking .30 cal. Maybe three-oh-eight.”

I swiveled to scan the low-rise buildings of downtown Pismo—the seafood cafes, souvenir shops, and beach rentals. Clumps of tourists meandering down narrow Pomeroy Avenue stopped. Some gazed skyward, herd-like, examining the highest roofline—the old Hotel Pier Vista. Others rushed indoors.

When a second blast didn’t happen soon after, I saw pedestrians raise their palms in the classic “what’s up” shrug before continuing their weekend saunter. Some, trailing well-groomed dogs on leashes, took refuge in their smartphones.

I turned to face the Pacific as Bri sat in her folding chair. Coach Gev got out his binocs and we rejoined the hundreds of other parents, friends, and supporters along the beach to watch the tournament.

Three junior surfers, ages eleven to twelve—”grommets” in surf jargon—were perched on their boards 100 yards offshore in the chilly morning waters north of Pismo Pier. The contestants wore different colored jerseys over their wetsuits. Red jersey had priority takeoff; the next wave was his. As the kids waited for the sets to roll in, they bobbed in the mushy surf like sitting ducks.

“Yellow’s down!” Coach Gev shouted. He handed me his binoculars. “The kid’s slumped sideways off his board.”

“Cramp, maybe?” I pressed the field glasses to the bridge of my nose, fiddling with the adjustments. “January water temps are cold, fifty-three, fifty-four degrees. These temps? He should have worn a 5/4/3 mm instead. Maybe even a—”

There was a second sonic crack. I watched Yellow’s board splinter into pieces. Chunks of the foam core ringed the downed contestant as he struggled to keep his head above water.

Red jersey, closest to Yellow, dropped prone and paddled with fury toward him. Just as he was about to grab Yellow’s arm, I heard shot three. There was a splash near the tail of Red’s board.

Red turned turtle, flipping his tri-fin surfboard over so the bottom faced the sky. Only his hands, gripping the sides of the shortboard, were exposed.

Shot four took out Red’s middle fin. Shots five and six took out the two outer fins. Red let go of his board and sank out of view.

That left the eleven-year-old in the light blue jersey as the only contender sitting on the water. My son, Zael, was in full competition mode, hyper-focused on The One Thing—a wave with his name on it. A wave built by the sea gods just for him, for his performance, his tricks, the ones he’d stick. The 10-rating he’d be awarded by all three judges. That perfect ten.

Zael was in the zone, tunnel vision his ally. Chaos bending to will. He had no clue what had happened to Red and Yellow.

I popped out of my beach chair, sprinted from our shade canopy to the shoreline, and screamed as I waded in. “Duck and cover, Zael! Get down! Now!” I waved my arms, zigzagging through the shallows.

My son wasn’t hearing me, wasn’t seeing me, wasn’t even attuned to my panic despite his gift for sensing things unspoken. Zael paddled hard for takeoff, slid into the three-foot wave breaking off the pier, and dropped into the curl. He drove down the line, pumping his board to build speed, then bottom turned, and angled toward the lip to launch into his signature 360-degree air rotation and—

Blam.

Shot seven.

Zael’s right leg buckled. He lost balance and angled into a dive as far away from his board as his leash would let him. When he didn’t come up for air...

Oceano Beach Bedlam

A Thad Hanlon/ Bri de la Guerra Mystery Book 2 

Hanlon & de la Guerra have gone full service. In this second book in the surfing crime-fighter mystery series, Thad Hanlon and his martial-arts-obsessed partner, Bri de la Guerra, hang out their shingle as newly licensed private investigators. Now in addition to fraud-busting, the two detectives do it all. Background checks. Surveillance. Even finding lost souls. Just about anything that requires sleuthing or going undercover.

All they need is a client.

That’s when a former exotic dancer from Bakersfield CA shows up looking for her surf prodigy son who’s gone missing in the wake of cult violence terrorizing the California Central Coast.

 

What Critics Are Saying

“A crunchy detective novel set in the world of California surfers. Jones delivers a proper beach read, both in form and content.”

-Kirkus Reviews

 

“Honestly, I had a blast with this one. Oceano Beach Bedlam is a smart and entertaining read. If you like your mysteries with surfboards, sass, and just enough heart to keep you caring, this one’s for you. It’s a great pick for fans of offbeat detectives, fast dialogue, and sun-drenched noir with a brain and a soul. I’d recommend it to readers who enjoy Janet Evanovich, Robert Crais, or the beachier edges of Elmore Leonard.”

— Literary Titan  

 

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All That Glisters

A Thad Hanlon/ Bri de la Guerra Mystery Book 1

When the facts don’t add up in his surf buddy’s bizarre death, forensic consultant (and daddy-to-be) Thaddeus Hanlon investigates, volunteering to go undercover to pick up where best friend Rafi Silva left off in a secret probe of the U.S. gold stockpile—every last bullion bar.

Rafi’s spunky fiancée, Bri de la Guerra, has suspicions of her own and soon joins Thad on the hunt for answers. Together, the two amateur sleuths delve deep, stumbling onto a financial a-stock-alypse in the making, triggering a brutal manhunt along the Eastern seaboard meant to silence anyone looking to set the ledger straight.

 

What Critics Are Saying

“Jones’ action-packed murder mystery...is tension-fueled with plenty of twists and two appealing sleuths. In this detective series opener, Thad Hanlon, a 27-year-old forensic accountant, becomes the target of a murderous cadre when he accepts a new assignment that takes him from Los Angeles to the East Coast center of power. Woven into the gripping plot are sensual, detailed descriptions of Thad’s adventures riding the waves, which should please the surfer crowd and afford others a visceral sense of the experience.”

—Kirkus Reviews

 

“All That Glisters by Topper Jones is well-written with not a single dull moment. I liked the way the author included elements of action, mystery, and even some cyber investigating. Overall, I found this book to be an amazing read.”

—Sefina Hawke, Readers’ Favorite Reviews

 

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Writing as Topper Jones, award-winning author Christopher G. Jones, Ph.D., delivers detective fiction with a dash of romance, plenty of action, and memorable characters. His Thad Hanlon & Bri de la Guerra Mystery Series has earned Readers’ Favorite Five Stars and the Literary Titan Gold Book Awards.

 Before writing full-time, Jones taught financial reporting and business systems development at the university level and worked in public accounting and consulting. He is a member of The Private Eye Writers of America and International Thriller Writers, and an affiliate of Mystery Writers of America.

 To stay close to family, Jones now lives in the southwestern desert rather than his native California. But when the surf’s up, he’ll make the 450-mile trek to the coast for a little “water therapy.”

 

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