Suspense Genre

Gathering four stories from four best-selling author friends, Invitation is the first collection in the ongoing Harbingers series. In "The Call" by Bill Myers, four strangers are drawn together to help a student at the mysterious Institute for Advanced Psychic Studies. His gifts are supposedly being honed to assist world leaders...but there are some very disturbing strings attached.

It is 1890, and in the days before Christmas, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson are visited at Baker Street by a new client. Eve Allerthorpe, eldest daughter of a grand but somewhat eccentric Yorkshire-based dynasty, is greatly distressed, as she believes she is being haunted by a demonic Christmas spirit. Her late mother told her terrifying tales of the sinister Black Thurrick, and Eve is sure that she has seen the creature from her bedroom window. What is more, she has begun to receive mysterious parcels of birch twigs, the Black Thurrick’s calling card.

And so it begins.... In the United States, the Department of Defense and the NSA computer networks have been hacked. A nuclear-armed CIA drone has lost all flight control. North Korea...Iran...Russia...and soon the gates of Hell will open. Humanity's most terrifying nightmare has become reality. Bombs are detonated, missiles are launched, counterstrikes are ordered, and within minutes, untold thousands of megatons have left countless millions dead or dying. Devastation of biblical proportions has fallen over the land...and the USA has been hit the hardest.

George Holloway has spent his life alone, exploring the treacherous beauty of the Colorado Rockies. He's the best survival expert Search and Rescue has, which makes him the obvious choice to lead Ellie Price through deadly terrain to find her missing father. There's just one problem - Ellie's everything George isn't. She's a city girl, charming, gregarious, delicate, small. And when she looks up at him with those big, dark eyes, he swears he would tear the world apart to keep her safe.

In 1919, Delano, Georgia, appoints its first chief of police. Honest and hardworking, the new chief is puzzled when young men start to disappear. But his investigation is ended by the fatal blast from a shotgun. Delano's second chief-of-police is no hero, yet he is also disturbed by what he sees in the missing-persons bulletins. In 1969, when Delano's third chief takes over, the unsolved disappearances still haunt the police files.

When one Coast Guard officer is found dead and another goes missing, Coast Guard Investigative Service special agent Finn Walker faces his most dangerous crime yet. His only clues are what little evidence remains aboard the dead officer's boat, and the direction the clues point to will test Finn and the Guard to their limits. When investigative reporter - and Finn's boss's sister - Gabby Rowley arrives, her unrelenting questions complicate an already volatile situation. Now that she's back, the tug on Finn's heart is strong.

Inspired by the experiences of a decorated combat veteran and former member of the 82nd Airborne Division, Clear by Fire is a blistering new military thriller about an American hero who, in order to clear his name, must take down a highly classified band of soldiers that has gone murderously rogue.

As a motorcycle club member and firefighter, Ian Walsh is used to riding the line between the good guys and the bad. He may owe the club his life, but his heart rests with his fire station brothers - and with the girl he's loved since they were kids, Rory Sorenson. Ian would do anything for Rory. He'd die for her. Kill for her. Defend her to his last breath - and he may just have to.

What if a death sentence meant you could get away with murder? Claudia and Heather both decide to leave their husbands. Together, they get a flat - but their peace is short-lived when Claudia is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Heather takes on caring for Claudia, but a lethal meeting with James, Claudia’s ex-husband, causes complications. As life for Claudia and Heather begins to unravel, the answer to their problems becomes clear...it’s murder.

In Battlefield Ukraine, all the usual suspects are hard at work: battles over resources, money, and miscommunication. This predictive novel explores a potential war between NATO and Russia over the fate of the separatist regions in eastern Ukraine. Lines have been drawn in the sand, but how firm are they? Will the massive disinformation campaign by the Russians trick the new American administration to do their bidding? Will the new American president back down, or will the world creep one step closer toward global war?

Felix and Lane are trying out their new normal. No more car chases, no more drug lords, and no more kidnapping bad guys. But when Felix's brother wants to repair their relationship, he brings with him a secret that could cost all of them their lives. Lane isn't complaining because the thrills of life-threatening situations are right up his alley. They may think they have a handle on the situation, but what they do not know is that someone has been working them from the shadows. Forcing them to do exactly what he wants as he drives them closer to his sick game of life and death.

After a brush with death due to equipment failure, smokejumper Alexia Allen is ordered to take time off while the incident is under investigation. She makes a last-minute decision to recuperate at her mother's home and attend her high school reunion. Yet trouble seems to be following her, and within hours of arriving home she is confronted with murder, arson, and a handsome detective. But the conflicts ahead are nothing compared to the ghosts of her past.

Ten years ago, Grace saw something that would forever change the course of history. When evil in its purest form is unleashed on the world, she and others from their religious community are already hidden deep in the hills of Tennessee, abiding by every rule that will keep them safe, pure - and alive. As long as they stay there, behind the red perimeter. Her older brother's questions and the arrival of the first outsiders she's seen in a decade set in motion events that will question everything Grace has built her life on.

Before leaving prison, having served 12 years, Harper Kane makes a promise - to find out what happened to an inmate’s missing teenage daughter. But first, she must secure a well-paid job and a place of her own to take back custody of her son. What she falls into is a frightening discovery of human trafficking. Forced to make an inconceivable decision, Harper will use everything she has learned inside to protect her family, even if that means resorting to murder.

The Natchez Trace National Parkway stretches 444 miles from Nashville to Natchez, the oldest town on the Mississippi River. It's the perfect road for a relaxed pleasure drive. Unfortunately for park ranger Luke Fereday, lately it's being used to move drugs. Sent to Natchez to infiltrate the organization at the center of the drug ring, Luke arrives too late to a stakeout and discovers the body of his friend, park ranger John Danvers.

For Hudson, the newly titled Viscount Stildon, moving to England from India where he was born and raised was already an arduous enough endeavor. When he learns the fate of the racing empire he inherited along with his title depends upon him getting in the good graces of another stable owner, he's even more at a loss. The stable at the neighboring estate has been Miss Bianca Snowley's refuge for years, and when a strange man appears to be stealing the horses, she jumps to their protection without a second thought.

In the wake of a devastating hurricane, Special Agent Meg Jennings and her Labrador, Hawk - invaluable members of the FBI’s Human Scent Evidence Team - have been deployed to Virginia Beach. They have their work cut out for them. Amid graveyards of debris, and the buried cries for help, the search and rescue operation begins. The most alarming discovery is yet to come - a teenage girl hiding in the Great Dismal Swamp. Shaken by the storm, she has reason to be scared. But this young survivor is terrified of so much more.

Nicole Berman is determined to find there the first concrete evidence of the biblical patriarch Abraham while leading her first archeological dig in Jordan. During the excavation, Berman discovers a 4,000-year-old complex that includes evidence she believes proves her theory. But a devastating cave-in nearly kills her and she awakens in a Saudi clinic, haunted by visions of what she may have seen - evidence of Abraham and his two sons, the half-brothers Isaac and Ishmael. One discovery leads to another, and Nicole sets off across the region to connect pieces of an ancient puzzle.

On the day before his twenty-first wedding anniversary, David Sullinger buried an ax in his wife’s skull. Now, eight jurors must retire to the deliberation room and decide whether David committed premeditated murder—or whether he was a battered spouse who killed his wife in self-defense.

Kit Kenyon is a first-rate hostage negotiator. Noah Lambert is a good detective with excellent instincts. These new partners have hardly had time to get used to each other when they are thrown into a grisly murder case. As evidence mounts up and more victims are found, Kit and Noah realize that they are on the hunt for a serial killer. The problem is he may be hunting one of them, too.