Caroline O’ Connell is here to tell us about her contemporary romance The Champagne Crush, Les Femmes Series.
There's also a great giveaway.
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The Champagne Crush
Caroline O’ Connell
(Les Femmes Series)
Publication date: August 20th 2026
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Perfect for fans of Emily in Paris—with the sophistication of the wine world and a slow-burn, opposites-attract love story. A glitzy PR expert and a traditional wine president clash on a high-stakes global launch—where rivalry, reinvention, and romance collide.
AUDIOBOOK PRODUCTION DETAILS:
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Performance: Single Narration by acclaimed British stage actress Karen Gundersen
Audio Features: Fully voiced character accents and deep emotional range
Audiobook Vibe: High-tension with a romantic, high-heat fade-to-black intimacy level (the intense build-up is on the page, but the camera pulls away before explicit details)
(Dinner after an all-day TV shoot in the vineyards)
When they were finishing the fig tart dessert with freshly whipped cream from their dairy, his dad leaned over to Chris. “Why don’t you show Catherine our current operation? It’s not much yet, but she’ll be able to say she saw a world class winery in its early stages.” He stood up and grabbed his plate. “I’ll help Maura clear the dishes. You two can take off.”
Chris didn’t need prompting. He was feeling inexplicably drawn to Catherine. The temperature outside dropped quickly, so he bundled her up in one of his warm leather jackets. It was three sizes too big, which only made her look more adorable.
They stepped onto a moonlit path and walked a short distance to the temporary winery: an aluminum-sided structure that held rudimentary winemaking equipment next to cases of empty bottles. A walk-in cooler held samples of the wines they’d already produced laid horizontally on racks. On the far end of the room, a partial wall separated the “office”—an old metal desk, a long table with office equipment and a computer, one file cabinet, shelves brimming with books and magazines, and a large bulletin board with articles and graphs clipped on it.
“I know it doesn’t look like much yet,” Chris said. “But it’s the genesis of our dream. My dad and I have been working toward this moment for many years, the chance to create our own family wine.”
He held out his hand. “Let’s go sit outside. It’s such a clear night, we should be able to see the stars.”
They sat on hay bales near the barn, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders to keep her warm. He pointed up to the sky. “Most nights you can see the constellations and major stars, unless there’s cloud cover.” He pulled her closer. “There’s Venus . . .”
“Named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty . . .” Catherine chimed in.
Seems the beauty is right here, sitting next to me. “How about you, Catherine Reynolds? What are your dreams?”
She tucked her hands into the jacket pockets. “Unlike you, my dreams have changed over time. When Vanessa and I were teenagers, we went into modeling.” She made a face. “It’s not as glamorous as people think. Now, I’d like to pursue a career in the hospitality sector.” She sighed. “Still working that out.”
“I’m sorry I doubted you in the beginning. I think you’re a wonderful asset to the company.” And to my life.
He stood up and silently offered his hand, pulling her up to face him. An owl hooted nearby, momentarily jarring him from his intent to steal a kiss. He took a deep breath and gazed into her upturned face. Her long-lashed eyes blinked as she looked into his questioningly.
“We’d better get going.” He turned her around and draped his arm over her shoulders as they walked back. When they reached the guest cottage, he gave her a warm hug and walked off. She’s too appealing. I’m falling fast.
Author Bio:
Caroline O'Connell is the author of numerous travel guides, including Affordable Paris Hotels. The Champagne Crush is the first novel in the Les Femmes Series. In conjunction with the launch of the audiobook version, the ebook is discounted to $1.99 (from $9.99) on all platforms. Her website is https://carolinestraveltips.com/.
Ashley Mansour is here to tell us about Dark Ugly Places, psychological thriller, domestic suspense.
There's also a great giveaway.
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Some wounds don’t heal. They take over.
A Beverly Hills psychological thriller about grief, female
rage, fractured identity, and revenge.
Dark Ugly Places
by Ashley Mansour
Genre: Psychological Thriller, Domestic Suspense
Some wounds don’t
heal. They fester. They whisper. They take over.
In Dark Ugly Places, trauma isn’t something you
survive — it’s something that survives you.
Thirty-four-year-old Nicola Holiday loses everything in a
hit-and-run: her husband dead, her body broken, her fourteen-year-old daughter
Emmy forever changed. With no one held accountable, she spirals into grief,
panic attacks, and financial ruin — awakening a hereditary darkness she’s spent
her life trying to outrun.
That darkness has a voice now. Her name is Martha, and she
aches for revenge.
As Nicola’s grip on reality loosens, Martha slips into
another life — one of wealth, glamour, and moral rot. When she crosses paths
with the wife of a famous actor, Nicola’s suspicions ignite.
Pulled between vengeance and annihilation, Nicola and Martha
collide with a woman whose secrets may be the key to everything — or the thing
that destroys them both.
Dark, provocative, and deeply unsettling — a haunting
psychological portrait of female rage, obsession, and the terrifying lengths
the mind will go to survive unbearable pain.
Because sometimes the most dangerous place isn’t the past.
It’s inside your own head.
“A suspenseful and relentless tale of troubled
Californians.”
– Kirkus Reviews
“A tense, viciously readable psychological thriller about
the violence that lurks beneath polished surfaces.”
– BookLife Reviews
“With fast-paced thrills and gripping psychological drama,
Ashley Mansour’s Dark Ugly Places serves up vengeance for morally complex
characters.” - Indiereader
In the dark, everything is murky, even the Los Angeles sky.
But the day of Nicola’s accident, I had a pretty clear view of
things. It tends to be that way—clear—when Nicola isn’t.
Nicola, Ben, and their daughter, Emmy, were walking holding
hands, something the three of them hadn’t done since Emmy was a little kid. I
felt the itch in Nicola’s palm, like she didn’t want to hold hands. But Emmy
insisted. She was between them, arms outstretched, making that little humming
sound she sometimes made when she was nervous or lost in thought. Ben walked on
slightly ahead, his head down, eyes focused on the phone in his hand. I could
almost hear his teeth grinding.
Up ahead, the road was clear. The sun covered everything in
butter-yellow light. Crows perched in the bare-barked trees and made long,
scratchy cries like a group of smokers laughing. They rustled leaves and
crossed the pavement before them. But the trees were still, like the air had
been sucked out of the city. Up ahead, the road was clear.
The three of them approached the corner, Emmy and Nicola
chatting aimlessly. Ben narrowed his eyes and squinted at the screen as if the
sky was too bright. He stepped out into the road first. Emmy, next. She skipped
slightly—braids flying—and pulled her mom’s arm.
Nicola looked up and saw one of the crows overhead, its beak
open, making a dreadful sound. When she looked back at the road, her gut pinged
with a horrible dread she couldn’t place.
Then she—we—saw it.
From the middle distance, something large and hurtled into
view, its body glinting in the sun. Emmy screamed. Nicola tried to pull her
back, but one by one, her fingers slipped out of her grasp.
It was too late.
Nicola’s body collided with the big, thing, and in the
next moment, she was airborne, tumbling through the air as if she had been
taken by a tornado. Her thoughts spiraled with her, spinning out of control.
I’m going to die.
I’m going to live.
Don’t let me die.
I’m going to die.
She kept spiraling, around and around, until I stopped her with
a simple suggestion: Breathe, Nicola. Breathe. We have this power, those of us
who live in the darkness.
The asphalt grated her spine. It must have hurt, but Nicola did
not cry. Perhaps because the air was too full of Emmy’s screams.
She rolled to her left, her left arm pinned against her chest
like a piece of limp fabric. Her left leg lay stretched out before her
perfectly straight, but dead. Cold. Frozen in place. She rolled to her side and
saw Emmy, blood coating half of her face as though she were wearing a mask.
Five feet away, Ben lay in the road unmoving, his body contorted, his face
turned away.
Overhead, the stretch of blue sky angled down Beverly Boulevard
and went on forever. Cars passed, some honking, others slowing to stop and help
or to get a better look. Nicola grunted and heaved herself along the ground,
her jaw gritting with pain. She reached for Emmy, reached for Ben.
The body of the car stirred. A door opened. A black
polished shoe emerged onto the asphalt as the driver leaned out, then
disappeared again as the door shut. I heard the engine as the car started and
rolled backwards, slow at first, then picking up speed until it was gone.
Ashley Mansour writes dark, cinematic psychological suspense
and domestic suspense about dangerous relationships, buried truths, and the
chaos waiting beneath the surface of ordinary lives.
Doc Blalock is here to tell us about Justice, Or Something Like It, The Jake Bishop Files Book 2, Noir Paranormal Sleuth Suspense.
There's also a great giveaway.
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A private eye with a badge, a bottle, and a little bit of magic…
Justice, Or Something
Like It
The Jake Bishop Files Book 2
by Doc Blalock
Genre: Noir Paranormal Sleuth Suspense
In Solomon City, everybody keeps secrets. Secrets are Jake
Bishop’s job.
When a harmless old drunk is caught standing over a corpse,
murder weapon in hand, the case looks open and shut—but he won’t say why he
pulled the trigger. Just that it had to be done.
Bishop knows better. Digging deeper, he uncovers a blackmail
scheme, a shadow war in the Irish underworld, and a threat aimed at the one
person his old friend has left to lose—forcing Bishop to bend the law, and his
own conscience, to see something like justice done.
“Secrets.
Everyone has them. Some folks keep them for good and noble reasons, others, not
so much. All kinds of secrets. Personal, professional, valuable, harmful or
embarrassing. People will go to extremes to keep them safe. Some folks have
been willing to die for them. Some will kill to protect them. I’m Jake Bishop,
private investigator. Secrets are my job.”
A Damned Dirty Thing
The Jake Bishop
Files Book 1
The explosion should have killed him . . .
Jake Bishop is back on the streets of Solomon City, ten
months after a mob bombing destroyed his office and murdered his partner and
secretary. But Bishop isn’t just any private detective—he’s a “ditch wizard”
able to step through shadow and bend reality to his will.
When the beautiful and mysterious Portia Vance answers his
ad for a new secretary, Bishop thinks his luck might finally be changing.
Together, they begin hunting Vito Morelli, the mob boss who ordered the hit
that nearly ended Bishop’s life.
Their investigation leads them through the city’s darkest
corners—from strip clubs to shadow banking operations, from corrupt cops to
magical wards. But in a world where bullets and spells are equally deadly, and
where everyone has secrets worth killing for, Bishop discovers that the line
between hunter and hunted is thinner than he thought.
Some cases require a gun. Others need magic. This one
demands both.
In the shadows of Solomon City, justice comes with a
price—and revenge wears a beautiful face.
A gritty noir fantasy that proves sometimes the most
dangerous magic is the human heart.
Christopher “Doc” Blalock is a US Navy veteran Corpsman and retired
counselor. He is a prolific fine artist, illustrator, musician, sculptor and
writer, cursed with the itch to create. He draws inspiration from sources
ranging from JRR Tolkien to Tom Clancy. He additionally draws from his love of
classic black-and-white noir films, infusing their moody aesthetic and
storytelling into his writing. A helpless coffee addict, he lives in the
Atlanta suburbs with his childhood sweetheart and a dog of dubious moral
character.
Thomas LeBrun is here to tell us about his science fiction novel Aurora Rift, A Man Out of Time.
Read on for details...
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Science Fiction
Date Published: July 18, 2026
Dr. Kyle Richards thought he was chasing wonder.
An Evolutionary Anthropologist, respected lecturer, martial artist, husband,
and father, Kyle journeys to Northern Norway in search of the breathtaking
Aurora Borealis and the ancient petroglyphs of Alta. But beneath the dancing
northern lights, something impossible happens. A violent geomagnetic
phenomenon tears Kyle from the modern world and hurls him across the corridors
of time.
What begins as scientific fascination quickly becomes a desperate fight for
survival.
Thrown into the Stone Age among primitive hunters, Kyle unknowingly leaves
behind clues that will survive for thousands of years. He battles Viking
warriors, walks beside Silk Road caravans, witnesses the rise of empires, and
survives civilizations most people only read about in history books. Along the
way, he encounters moments that forever alter him—including an
unforgettable friendship with a young boy who will one day become Genghis Khan
and a journey east with Marco Polo toward the legendary court of Kublai Khan.
But every jump through time comes at a cost.
As Kyle struggles to survive brutal landscapes, ancient warfare, and the
terrifying instability of the auroral corridor itself, the man he once was
slowly begins to disappear beneath scars, grief, and centuries of memory.
Meanwhile, back in present-day Pennsylvania, his wife Samantha refuses to give
up hope. Alongside archaeologists and scientists searching for answers, she
uncovers ancient carvings, unexplained historical anomalies, and evidence
suggesting Kyle may still be alive somewhere… in another time.
AURORA RIFT: A Man Out of Time is an epic blend of historical adventure,
science, survival, and emotional human drama. Spanning thousands of years of
civilization from Stone Age Norway to the Persian Empire of Xerxes, from
Viking seas to the vast Mongol world the novel asks a haunting question:
If time itself opened before you… Would you ever truly find your way
home again?
About the Author
Thomas LeBrun began his martial arts training in the early 1970s, inspired by
Bruce Lee and Joe Frazier. He formally studied Judo, Tae Kwon Do, and Okinawan
Kenpo, later expanding into Yoshitsune Ju-Jitsu under Sensei Michael
DePasquale Sr. and Jr., as well as Aikido, Arnis, pressure-point applications,
and boxing. His dedication earned him rank in multiple disciplines.
LeBrun’s path led him to the Close Protection field, where his martial
arts knowledge evolved into specialized training in defensive arts,
non-traditional weapons, and personal security. He has protected high-profile
clients such as Bill Gates, Elton John, and Whitney Houston, working in more
than 45 countries. In 2009, he created LeBrun’s American Combatives, a
modern system bridging traditional martial arts with real-world application,
later authenticated by Grand Master Ron Van Clief and Shidoshi Glen Perry.
A recognized authority in defensive arts, LeBrun earned his 10th dan in
Hogoshin-Do in 2022 and has been honored with multiple awards, including
Security Expert of the Year (2021) and induction into the Ultimate Warrior
Class (2022). He is also a multi-award-winning, #1 international best-selling
author of Hiding in Plain Sight and the Cameron Stone series, and was named
Best Action & Thriller Author in Alabama, United States of 2025.
Rose Titus is here to tell us about Key 13: And Other Stories, dark fantasy, fantasy, horror.
There's also a great giveaway.
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Key 13: And other Stories
Rose Titus
Publication date: October 6th 2017
Genres: Adult, Dark Fantasy, Fantasy, Horror
Rose Titus, author of The Vampire Next Door Trilogy, now brings together a collection of her best short stories. Here in this book you will find tales of vampires, werewolves, witches, ghosts, space aliens, and even a few angels. These stories answer questions such as where do we go after we die? What is the future of this planet? And what is the future of humanity? There are also stories of young runaways, old hippies, worried mothers, troubled families, love gone horribly wrong, selfish billionaires, people who find themselves suddenly homeless, old men with their recollections of days gone by, and girls gone wild! There may even be a murder or two.
Rose Titus resides somewhere in cold, dreary New England with two manipulative cats and a very out of date computer with which she creates horror and fantasy fiction. She also has a restored classic Buick to ride around in while in search of adventure.
For travel she has stayed the night in an allegedly haunted castle, has taken a boat ride on Loch Ness, and has visited the Bermuda Triangle -- without getting lost.
Her work has previously appeared in Lost Worlds, Lynx Eye, Bog Gob, Mausoleum, Weird Terrain, Descend, The Dead River Review, and other literary magazines. She also writes regularly for Blood Moon Rising Magazine.
When she's not working or writing or messing with her old car, she waits by the mailbox for her Fortean Times to arrive.
Nick Haskins is here to tell us about his Dark Waters series, Black & African American mystery, thriller & suspense fiction.
Read on for details...
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Black & African American Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Fiction
Date Published: 06-06-2023
Publisher: KCIN Entertainment Group, LLC
Books 1 & 2 (Book 3 releases September 8, 2026.)
The Dark Waters series follows the rise and fall of one of Philadelphia's most powerful families.
Judge Keenan Waters and his family have spent decades building a legacy of power, influence, and respect. But behind the perfect public image lie buried secrets, betrayal, and deadly consequences that threaten to destroy everything they've built.
As loyalties are tested and relationships crumble, the Waters family is pushed closer to the edge of ruin. With shocking twists and intense family drama, the Dark Waters series keeps the readers turning pages until the very end.
Perfect for fans of Black & African American Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Fiction, the first two books are available now, with the shocking conclusion, Dark Waters 3, arriving September 8, 2026.
About the Author
Nick Haskins is the author of the Dark Waters series, as well as novels She's Obsessed, Betrayed, My Husband's Wife, and On the Edge of Heat.
Known for his suspenseful storytelling and unforgettable characters, Haskins has spent more than a decade building a catalog of contemporary drama and suspense that has attracted readers across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
Born and raised in Toledo, Ohio, where he still resides, Haskins began his publishing career in 2011 and has remained committed to independently producing professional, reader-focused books. In addition to writing novels, he is creating film and visual media projects based on his work.
Haskins continues to connect with readers while developing new stories to expand his publishing catalog.
Nichole Louise is here to tell us about A Strange & Terrible Wonder, historical.
There's also a great giveaway.
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A Strange & Terrible Wonder
Nichole Louise
Publication date: August 18th 2026
Genres: Adult, Historical
Eleanor Dare, daughter of Roanoke’s Governor John White, has no choice but to accompany her overly ambitious husband Ananias and her idealist, yet inexperienced father to England’s new colony. Manteo of Croatoan wants nothing more than to cast off his association with the English and return home. Haunted by memories of an unexplainable event, he sets out to find the truth about what was brought to Roanoke by the English two years before as a weapon against the Spanish.
Based on real people who vanished from history, Eleanor and Manteo form a taboo friendship as they work against unseen forces to end the violent and otherworldly attacks upon the settlement. In the midst of this survival scenario, both Eleanor and Manteo—once powerless and marginalized in England, emerge as unlikely leaders of the ravaged colony.
Blending 16th century science, occult, and the impacts of early colonialism, A Strange and Terrible Wonder reimagines what became of the Lost Colony.
“All down the church in midst of fire, the hellish monster flew, and passing onward to the quire, he many people slew.”
– Rev. Abraham Fleming, 1577
August 4, 1577
Bungay, England
At first, the congregants believe the slight rattling is only wind insisting upon the church door. A sudden summer tempest. Rain begins to patter above the nave, the sound not altogether unpleasant—soothing, even. A woman closes her eyes and exhales the stress of the morning as she focuses on the rhythm. Her peace is soon jilted by the growing tempest above, for the rain is now a wonderful force with no less violence than abundance. Her eyes snap open and roll to the vaulted ceiling. The great, forceful torrent empties above in what she imagines as glassy sheets pouring from the eaves. A low grumble of thunder. A child presses close to his mother. The two men kneeling at the altar do not flinch in their prayer; one for an abundant harvest season to pay his debts and another for a wife ailing in childbed.
Lightning flashes in brilliant brightness through the clouded, stretching windows. Silhouettes are carved out of the pews. A gust through the crack beneath the front door snuffs out the altar candles as if the tempest is compelling the congregants to sleep. They are all at once aware of the palpable darkness, so much so that one person cannot perceive another. The only light discerned by the congregants is not from the god hanging above them, but from the intermittent great flashing of fiery bolts.
The roar of the storm is so powerful now that the congregants shift with discomfort. A chill tightens the base of their spines as sweat springs on brows with each fearful heartbeat. The men kneeling in prayer do not relinquish their positions, though they see little, and their knees begin to ache against the flagstones. Instead, they press their eyes and hands tighter and pray now for the light to return. The only answer they receive is a terrible crack of thunder with such force and might that the congregants begin to believe doomsday has come.
The doors are thrown open as if by a blast of gunpowder. Lashing wind explodes down the nave, spraying hot rain onto the necks and backs of the congregants who dare not turn from the cross. The woman who had before held a moment of peace, presuming a gentle patter could not turn tempest, winces at the scalding sensation of boiling water against her bare skin. The church seems to quake and stagger as the scent of glowing iron, not unlike a blacksmith’s shop, permeates the darkened church.
The child clutches tightly to his mother when, amid twin lightning strikes, a great shape dashes down the nave toward the altar. The drops of rainwater on the flagstones sizzle as the thing passes in a hot rush of a blacksmith’s bellows. And with another flash of fire, the child sees it—they all see it: a great black dog with one ember glowing eye running with incredible haste. The woman muffles her scream as others bend beneath the flimsy pews as if a mere board of wood will save them from this devil.
The praying men feel great heat against their backs as if a bonfire has been lit before the altar. A sacrifice. Liquid fear runs down their legs, and still they dare not open their eyes nor pry their rigid hands apart. In another crack of thunder and lightning, the great black dog wrings both men’s necks backward in one clean instant. Its movement is so violent, so swift, that the dead men still kneel in prayer.
The child gasps when the lightning illuminates the whites of dead eyes in the heads bent unnaturally back. He buries his face in his mother’s skirts as her nails dig into his narrow shoulders. The beast turns on the congregation, its low growl indistinguishable from thunder, like a thousand carts moving across cobblestones. It stalks down the aisle, its bellows as hot as the summer sun’s rays. The congregants close their eyes against the darkness, press their slick palms together, and pray for their god to save them in his very house.
The beast chooses a man who dares glance up, for he believes he can slip out the door and escape this hell. Instead, the beast’s shining obsidian claws grip the man’s back in so forceful a manner that it is as if his entire body becomes drawn together and shrunk, as if it were a piece of leather scorched by hot fire. Wordless, he topples over with limbs trailing smoke.
The beast shifts into shadow, and the woman sitting next to the burned but still living man stumbles away from the charred flesh and wheezes for help. The rector, who has finally slid out of the shadows, catches her as she falls from the pew. He prays over her—whispering first, then increasing to test the roar around them. He exhorts the terrified congregants to prayer, and in their extreme distress, do so in darkness. The hot wind and scalding rain lash them, for the tempest has now fully invaded their sanctuary. Some congregants are frozen in terror, save their lips flapping desperate prayers, while others try in vain to crawl for the door.
In a flash, the beast materializes on the main beam above the congregants. Its searing talons set the old oak to smoldering as if coaxing a fire. Its ragged back chars the angel carved into the ceiling. The demon swings down through the church. Three lightning bolts follow the dog jumping from one man to another, then a lad, killing all three instantly. The dog dashes from the crumpled boy, and a deafening crack as if the earth has split in two cleaves the roof, and with it, the steeple. The cascade of stone rumbles down the side of the church, and for one striking moment of terror, a woman cries out that hell has opened to swallow the church whole.
The dog bounds for the next man. He dives away, yet not before his hand is burned by the scalding creature’s touch. In shock, the man lifts his charred hand to the burning sensation where his ear used to be. The creature blasts through the church doors, leaving a trail of scorch marks in the wood. The mischief thus wrought, the beast flies with wonderful force out of the churchyard in a hideous and hellish likeness.
Like a decimated forest in the aftermath of a windstorm, the congregants are left quivering. It’s clear to the man with the burned hand and missing ear that there are forces at work mightier than God, who could not protect his devout followers in His own house. Dazed, the man staggers out of the ruins with his compatriots. He looks to the rapidly clearing sky and resolves to find someone with knowledge of these unseen forces—and how to master them. A conjurer with the influence to pursue the arcane unhindered. What other reason could there be for such hell if not as a path to Providence for England? He will accept no other explanation.
Author Bio:
Nichole Louise is a speculative historical fiction writer and book reviewer (NicholeLouise.com). Raven Rock (2023), a prequel to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, was recognized by Writer’s Digest, the Historical Fiction Company, and the CIBAs. Her articles and book reviews have appeared in the Journal of the American Revolution. Her second title, A Strange and Terrible Wonder (2026) is a historical folk horror tale exploring the Lost Colony of Roanoke. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading, gaming, and volunteering at Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society.
