Books

An android walks into a church and all hell breaks loose.

The android informs a young priest that he would like to confess his sins, be absolved and receive communion. The priest is open to the idea, but his foul-mouthed superior is outraged. They decide (or are maneuvered into) a meeting with the bishop and even the cardinal. Their conclave also includes the inventor of the technology and, just to even things out, a rabbi. Finally, even the pope gets involved...

"A lively, fast-paced, well-written gem." "...very creative, delivered with wit!"

Imagine getting a second chance to make things right.

A thirtyish man wakes up one morning and discovers he's in his preteen body, but he has all his adult memories intact. Stunned at first, he soon realizes he's been given a chance to undo the many things he regretted. To act on those opportunities he missed. What personal tragedies would he act to prevent? Given this alternate science-fictional universe, what might he change about his life--and the world?

"Outstanding novella! I loved it!"

"The writing -- that's what grabbed me." 

"Five stars!"

Sometimes there's more at stake in a game of Scrabble than just victory.

In this short story, Vera’s marriage has been dead for years. So when she reconnects with a childhood sweetheart, she seizes the chance to re-ignite her heart. But the comedy-of-errors affair she stumbles into leads to unspeakable consequences. Humiliation should have been punishment enough. But the arrival of “good news” during a board game is sending her straight to hell. Yet in the end, she achieves a small but significant triumph.

"I loved this!"

"A heart-wrenching tale"

"Sad and funny and sad again, with a nice kicker at the end!"

He probably shouldn’t have borrowed that Trailways bus while under the influence, but he had to get down to Texas to find Alma and take back all the things he said, because he loved that girl with all his pickled heart.

A detective is hot on the trail of a lowlife who skips town with a check that doesn’t belong to him. But with the help of a stray bulldog, he tracks the miscreant down in a case of obstructed justice.

At the best of times, your twin boys are a double handful. But when the family gathers for a turkey dinner and one of the guests inopportunely decides to pass, the kids’ antics are almost enough to wake the dead.

Just because you live with a cop doesn’t mean you’re a police dog!Fred is just a family dog, but since the head of the family is a cop, Fred pretends he’s a police dog. He’s always making up heroic tales to impress his next-door buddy, Bitz, a scruffy little poodle. It’s all fun--until Bitz's family’s new cat, Fritz, disappears. And the family blames Bitz! If Fred doesn’t find Fritz, Bitz could be sent to the pound. So Fred agrees to take the case, even though he hates cats so much they make him sneeze. He questions all his doggy pals, but they’re no help. Now Fred faces his greatest challenge yet: he will have to talk to cats! In the end, Fred not only gets over his allergy,...

Parents don’t like it when a genetically enhanced chimp is smarter than their own 5th Graders. Some people just have no appreciation for progress. When Darwin, the most famous chimp in the world, entered the 5th Grade, his human brother Scott had mixed feelings. And a band of older kids didn’t like it. Worse, a band of parents decide this walking, reading, thinking and even talking chimp--thanks to a really cool electronic keyboard--has no business attending a public school. So they’re suing the school district to have him booted out. Now Darwin’s fate rests on the outcome of a trial that finally asks the question: what is a human, anyway?“A wonderful book--both funny and heart-bre...

Follow the misadventures of Art Kassel, ad copywriter, dreamer, idealist and rule-breaker as he navigates an unlikely relationship with a beautiful starlet, has the nerve to try using [gasp!] humor in the TV spots of an extremely conservative client, and butts heads with an ambitious, unscrupulous exec over an assignment of dubious morality. As if things couldn’t get any worse, he goes and submits his ten-years-in-the-making, hopelessly overwritten novel to the dubious gaze of an unhappily-published author.

“A funny & refreshing look at life in the Mad Men era!” 

“I hate to say it, but I really identified with the poor schnook!” 

“Hilarious, sad and finally, moving!”

WHEN YOU'RE A BRAIN WITHOUT A BODY, CAN YOU STILL BE CALLED HUMAN?Marc Gregorio wakes up paralyzed. He can't feel his own body. Accident? Stroke? Did someone slip him an overdose of Botox? The answer, he discovers, is much, much worse. He's only a copy of Marc, a digital brain without a body, burdened with all Marc's human memories, but without access to human sensual pleasures. Now he has to find a reason to keep on, um, "living." Adam the Mindclone meets the real Marc Gregorio--and his new girlfriend Molly Schaeffer. Adam loves her, too. But how does a digital entity experience love? He can't even experience pizza. His one compensation: a powerful digital brain. At Molly's urging, he appli...

The leading candidate for US President is certain God has chosen him to bring on The Rapture by launching nuclear war. His march to the White House is unstoppable. Journalist Dan Jessup has finally unearthed the candidate’s virulent past, but if he reveals it, his pregnant wife and son, now being held hostage, will be murdered. Meanwhile, Lt. Greg Pangborn, a tech officer in a rogue military faction, is beta-testing how the US might survive a nuclear exchange with a resurgent Russia. While gaming the outcome of a US nuclear decapitation strike against the Kremlin, he makes a terrifying discovery: what he’s working on isn’t really a game: it’s a rehearsal.

17 year old Margot McClain used to be witty, talented and popular, but ever since a certain incident, she’s used her smart mouth like an insect-repellent to keep boys off her. But when a lost-looking new kid enrolls at her school and Margot learns he can’t remember his own name--or anything else about his past, her resistance weakens. She offers friendship as he grapples with bad dreams and shards of painful memories. His history catches up with him when a trashy former girlfriend shows up with two thugs. They demand he help them rob the bookstore where he works or they’ll tell the cops where he lives. Why would the cops be interested, he asks? “Don’t you remember? You killed your ...

Welcome to Mordora. It's a dark place with secrets so powerful they trigger a double abduction and a murder. And so toxic that revealing the truth would be worse than the crimes themselves. It begins with a murder that isn’t a murder, followed by a strange double abduction. To Police Detective Jacob Zaag, it feels wrong from the start. Who would kidnap a developmentally disabled teen and his adult sitter? A random grab? A sex crime? Zaag falls hard for Andrea, the boy’s single mom, 30, so damaged by her parents’ rejection. Running out of other angles, he reaches into the murky depths of Andrea’s past and uncovers a thicket of possible suspects and motives. When the truth finally emer...

Charlie Novak has been making a very nice living staging fatal accidents and splitting the insurance payouts with his partner. The victims? His partner's many wives. But when one of those wives is slain 6 months ahead of schedule by someone else, Charlie needs to find out who did it, and why--before a homicide investigation unravels their entire history of serial insurance fraud and serial murder. But there are complications. Disfigured as a child, Charlie has never known love. So he's in way over his head when he falls for the woman who found the body, and whose involvement in the crime is a deepening puzzle. He's helplessly drawn to this woman despite knowing she has dark secrets of her ow...

Set in the early ‘90s when cellphones were a new thing, wounded soul and single dad Nick Clayborne uses a radio scanner to listen in on private conversations--virtually his only adult contact. He fills notebooks with what he hears. He’s not totally weird though: he has a book deal based on his earlier article in Rolling Stone. His life changes when three of those strangers he listens to are brutally murdered. His life changes again--for the better-- when he finally meets one of the women he’s been listening in on. But when the police learn about Nick and his strange hobby, he becomes their prime suspect. Especially when three more victims turn up in his notebooks. Now all the cops need...

Charlie Novak has been making a very nice living staging fatal accidents and splitting the insurance payouts with his partner. The victims? His partner's many wives. But when one of those wives is slain 6 months ahead of schedule by someone else, Charlie needs to find out who did it, and why--before a homicide investigation unravels their entire history of serial insurance fraud and serial murder. But there are complications. Disfigured as a child, Charlie has never known love. So he's in way over his head when he falls for the woman who found the body, and whose involvement in the crime is a deepening puzzle. He's helplessly drawn to this woman despite knowing she has dark secrets of her ow...