About the Author
Self -help
Date Published: 20.4.20 20th April 2020
Publisher: Change Empire Books
F-Bomb Affirmations is the self-help book for people who are fed the f•ck up with the same old stories keeping them from reaching their dreams and goals.
In this insightful and entertaining book, self-proclaimed affirmation queen Natalie Stokell breaks down the brain science of why we achieve some of our goals but not others. In 11 easy-to-read chapters, you’ll learn:
• How beliefs are formed from a neuroscience perspective and how these beliefs filter your view of the world
• How to discover what stories are keeping you from reaching your goals, so you can push through these blocks and make some epic sh•t happen in your life
• How your brain works so you can start rewiring it for success and reach your goals faster
• What goals trigger your ‘not good enough’ stories and how to shift this so you can begin to feel worthy to receive
• Why swearing is actually good for you and how you can use it as an effective mindset tool
• How to create affirmations that actually work, so you can use them with confidence and create the life you were meant to live
By the end of F-Bomb Affirmations, you’ll understand how your brain works and how to work it. You’ll have five keys to supercharge your affirmations – and you’ll discover how to immediately start applying these keys to the things you want to be, do, and have in your life.
Everything is possible. Your dreams are within your reach. And you’ve got what it takes.
You are one f•cking incredible human.
About the Author
Natalie Stokell lives and plays on the Sunshine Coast, Australia, with her partner, their two children, nine chickens, and seven alpacas. She has a master’s degree in psychology and has used affirmations for years to create the life of her dreams. Her affirmation recordings on SoundCloud have had over 219,317 plays. In this kickass book, she shares all her tips so that you too can change your life. You can find out more and connect with her at www.fbombaffirmations.com.
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![]() Unveiled
-- EXCERPT: Warm streaks of sunlight broke and radiated through the luscious looming oak and elm trees, the harmonious melodies of hummingbirds gliding mid-air dancing with butterflies, an array of multi-colours swirling around. Straight ahead, high above on a branch an owl hooted, its wide eyes wise enough to know this was a twisted world of danger under the guise of beauty. Luxor was sucked back into a world she dreaded and submerged wholly. She inhaled a sharp breath and puffed out her cheeks. She twirled around and wondered aimlessly, refusing to inhale the polluted air, all too aware of the fate which behold them. No, no, no! Not again! It was a repeat performance. The Forest. The Hunt. The Fall. This isn’t real, it’ll be over soon. Since the accident, the night terrors were her reality. Night after night. Luxor wanted to run to wake up, but it was futile. She was a prisoner inside her own nightmare. A low hiss echoed from one of the low branches. She cradled herself and shivered as she peered up, but she couldn’t see anything. She curled her barefooted toes into the dirt and moved forward. For the first time it was a new addition. Ready. Luxor changed a bit of the game to gain control, she couldn’t keep going the same way. Sixteen years was enough. Set. “What do you want?” she said into the void. It was the same question she always asked, hoping for an answer. A rumble shook underneath, a sign of a muted answer, followed by a melodious laugh echoing through the trees. But it didn’t offer a reprieve. The chase was about to commence. Go! Luxor played the part and lifted the hem of her ivory dress and clutched the chiffon tightly. She glanced over her shoulder and dashed into the distance to nowhere. She dodged any obstacles in her way, her arms scratching against rough bark. Twigs snapped and leaves crunched under her bare feet as bugs were squashed mixing in with a gritty residue of burnt dirt which stuck between her toes. As usual nobody was there, but a deep sense of foreboding awaited her and a deep chilling presence arrived which ultimately welcomed her. A gust of wind whooshed in and brought a frosty chill, a telltale sign of ominous danger, just as the flash of a violet lightning bolt ahead lit up the sky. The environment transformed, and the wildlife scampered away in all directions, leaving a mess in their wake. The lush foliage died and transformed to black, stripped of all its beauty as oak trees extended their branches, knocking the grand apple tree beside it. Apples rained down and cast her surroundings into darkness. Nobody was in sight, but that meant nothing, this was the perfect setting. Luxor stopped dead in her tracks as an iridescent glow hypnotised and blinded her. Shielding her eyes with the back of her hand, she squinted. Even if she wanted to look away, she couldn’t. The glow was utterly alluring. A large root bulged up from a towering tree and long blades of grass sprouted into weeds, curling about transforming into vines. Luxor stumbled to her knees, the spell she was under momentarily broken. After blinking three times, she noticed the vines shackled her ankles as mud covered her feet and stones lacerated them with navy blue liquid oozing out. She rid herself of the constraints and low crawled. Whispers murmured in the air, incomprehensible like static through a telephone wire. A choking mist, tasting of sulphuric acid, clouded from above just as long canopy leaves blanketed and closed her in. The suffocation phase began. It was always the same—beauty, dying, suffocation, and the promise of death. The further she ran, the louder the whispers became until it was all she could hear. The hissing joined in and she expected at any moment for a lethal boa constrictor or python to make an appearance, but nothing did. “Stop changing the game,” she cried out, her lips chaffed from the toxic air. Luxor could handle the night terrors, but this was something unfamiliar, and she hated it. While concentrating on blocking out the recent additions of the whispers and hissing she had forgotten all about the next phase. One by one, hummingbirds rained down on her until it had become a full-blown down pour, their hums replaced by caws. She peeked upwards and released the lush foliage hadn’t turn black because of death, the crows had covered them like a blanket. She ducked and covered her head and crawled to find shelter. “Bloody psycho,” she grumbled, squeezing through a hole and underneath a harsh log to hide. Pushing aside scorched, prickly pine needles, her hands brushed against mountains of hummingbirds with snapped necks and broken wings. She was exhausted, more emotionally than physically. Luxor stifled back the urge to throw up, tucking her knees to her chest, becoming rigid. Not long now she would wake up. It couldn’t change the game that much. Silence. Another round of laughs, this time darker with not a hint of a song. Luxor shivered and scratched her arms, chilled to her bone, but not because of the weather. Peering down, mosquitoes had nibbled at her skin creating navy blue spots before being glued on with her blood. “The game has just begun,” the crows cawed out in a high pitched screeched, their beaks peeking the eyes of the wise owl. “And you better get ready.” ![]()
GIVEAWAY!
Short Story, Crime thriller & Romantic suspense
Date Published: 1st July 2020
Publisher: Happy London Press
I am a Gigolo
He’s gorgeous, cool and slick. Small wonder those wealthy American dames are falling over themselves to taste his flirtatious skills, just where it counts. Seduction is the name of his game, and he knows how to keep
a secret. Trouble is, our Gigolo is also a mischief maker, a man with a mission - to make a killing. So he’s got a secret of his own. But, can he keep it that way?
Deliciously sensual, with a touch macabre, the opening tale, I am a gigolo contains ten startlingly original and provocative short stories, that you’ll need to be brave to read at bedtime.
My inspirations have come from real people, events or situations that have presented themselves. Titles like, I am a Contract Killer, I am a Gigolo, Death Zone, License to Kill, are all based on my own lifetime experiences, questions asked, incidents occurring.
Let me be reassuring, thus-far, nobody has been murdered on my watch. But the notion gave rise to the impetus to write my first murder mystery, The Lyme Regis Murders. Could I make the jump after years of writing macabre short stories to a full length drama? That familiar beating in the gut, said, ‘Yes, try it. Give it a go.’
And so to that cosy coastal town where nothing untoward ever happens. Or perhaps it does. The author seeks to shatter notions, change people’s perceptions, spoil long held views. That was my intention in entering into the world of crime thrillers. I’ve found that ‘nice’ people are not always what they seem. The helpless can be transformed into the most dangerous, the most dangerous become the most harmless. It’s all up to the writer and what they’re hoping to achieve.
For me there have been 10 children’s books, 4 books of short stories and so far, three novels, with a fourth in the mixer.
Whilst a short story might be written with a flurry of adrenalin in the space of a few hours, a book will need more than just a flash of creativity. It will need perseverance, discipline and dogged determination.
But then, isn’t that what is required of every ambition?
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![]() The Gladiator’s Downfall
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![]() Shadow’s Lyric
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo -- EXCERPT: Draven was waiting for me in the hall when I exited my quarters. Something about the way he was casually leaning against the stone, with his arms and legs crossed, made him look especially yummy. His nostrils flared right as his silver eyes took on an ethereal glow. I turned into a startled rabbit, frozen in his high beams. The oxygen between us heated, increasing in weight. Suddenly I felt hot, my mouth dry. “I know how we can wet it,” he rumbled, pushing off the wall and crowding my personal space. Stupid shield! In my defense, it was hard to concentrate on anything when Draven was looking at me like he was about to eat me alive. “Do you have any idea what you did to me out there?” he accused. “I didn’t do anything to you.” Draven grabbed my hand and flattened it on his crotch. My fingers reflexively squeezed, like they had a mind of their own. A dirty, naughty, whorish little mind of their own. A thrill shot through me and my adrenaline kicked in. Well, hello there, nipples. Are you trying to tear through my shirt? Looks like. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to watch you best them again and again, but that’s exactly what you’ll do, isn’t it, Angel?” “You—you liked that? It was just me losing my temper.” Squeeze. I was somebody else at that moment. Someone whose hand had no problem fondling big packages. “No, it was so much more,” Draven contended. Squeeze. This time he released a satisfying exhale. I was affecting him. I liked—scratch that—I loved how I was affecting him. I felt powerful. Desired. Despite any misgivings over the Shadow Lord’s intentions, I wanted him with an irrational craving bordering on obsession. I wanted this male I hardly knew. Wanted him enough that I was standing in the hallway, after getting pissed on by a gargoyle, stroking him through his leathers. We were having a conversation about what I did on the archery range while I was giving him a handy. Damn if I could get my stupid fingers to let go. I knew Draven wanted me. I didn’t understand it, but he’d made it very clear. The proof was throbbing in my palm. The question was, what was I going to do about it? Probably what I always did when someone pushed me. I was going to push back. “Did you follow me up here for a quickie, Draven?” Ohmysweetjesus, I seriously just said that out loud. Another person was inhabiting my body. Probably a prostitute’s ghost. “What would you do if I said yes?” My heart sped up, thinking of the answer, picturing it vividly in my head. “Shield, Lyric. My control around you is tenuous at best, and the images you’re projecting are telling me you’d be more than okay with me locking us up in your room for a few hours while I take up residence in the cradle of your thighs.” I bit my lip, which I guess was code for go ahead and do me because Draven had me pinned to the wall with my legs around his waist faster than I could blink. So distracted by this exalted male, I hardly noticed the discomfort of my swords getting sandwiched between my back and the cool stone. “Maybe just a taste, then,” he bade, his mouth so close to mine I was breathing his exhale. I waited, then quickly realized he was waiting for me to decide. My sensitized skin felt tight. My core ached. I hungered. Gods, how I hungered. These stirrings had always been dormant in me. One second in Draven’s orbit had awoken the carnal side of my being, the demon side which should have always had an appetite for pleasures of the flesh. Mateus and the other demons in our clan had no issue finding a warm body for just a night. Getting naked with the humans whose names they’d not remember was commonplace. I’d grown into adulthood believing I was lacking in this, convinced my halfling chromosomes had dampened those instincts. I had lived in the presence of hundreds of males my entire life and not one of them made me feel any amount of sexual desire, not even Mateus. Only Draven made me feel this way and had since the second I’d stepped into his world. “Lyric,” he growled. I involuntarily tilted my pelvis, groaning at the faintest touch of sweet friction. Draven shook, holding himself in check. For me. He was holding back for me. It was heady stuff having any sort of power over the biggest and baddest Shadow in the land. My soul pushed energies out and when his magics pushed back, I was lost. I could no more stop this than I could stop a rising tide. My hands flew to his hair, grabbing two fistfuls. I yanked him the rest of the distance, holding him to me, unable to get close enough. Unlike our first kiss, this one was raw. Primal. All teeth and tongue and desperation. I loved it. Locking my legs behind his back, I ground against him. “Fuck, Lyric.” His curse added to my impulse to behave badly. I’d bet he was a dirty talker in bed. Not that I had much experience with that, but I did have satellite television in my room back home. One can learn a lot from soft porn. “Have to … make you … come,” he gritted between kisses. Oh, yes, please! Draven’s mouth drifted down the column of my throat. He kept one hand under my ass and the other slid under my shirt, then under my sports bra. I threw my head back when he reached my nipple, pinching and pulling. All the while he continuously rolled his hips into me. Shadows started moving around us. Just like in my dreams, they slithered against my limbs, humming with vibrations. I froze. “Draven?” “Shh. It’s just me,” he whispered, licking my collarbone. “I need your mouth, but I want to taste and touch you everywhere. Let me show you how I can do both.” “Uh—” His lips were on mine again, the tendrils of darkness taking over his scorching kisses below my ear and down my neck. The maelstrom of sensations obliterated any hesitation I might have had. It was like there were three Dravens making out with me against the wall. He dropped his other hand back to my rear. Magics skated under my clothing, across my breasts, feeling like electric fingers. When he started lifting me up and down against his rigid cock, I moaned. The movement was chafing, holding me in that narrow space between pleasure and pain. That foreign storm, the one I’d only ever experienced in my dreams where a shadowy figure played my body like a master, built with the force of a tsunami. Electric currents slithered down my abdomen, under my pants, and settled atop my clit. Holy fucking shit. They increased in intensity, alternating with his jerking hips. Every part of me was covered in his essence. The only place he wasn’t was the one place I knew we both wanted him to be. Conjuring the image of Draven moving inside me, imagining his weight pinning me down as he thrust between my legs, the dam finally broke. I cried out in pleasured shock, unable to hold it in. On and on it went with those electric currents prolonging my ecstasy until I was nothing more than a drooping form Draven had to hold upright. My body went limp, my head dropping to his shoulder. He was still hard and I wondered if we should do something about that, though, maybe not out here in the hall. Draven kissed my neck then straightened. Pulling gently on my hair, he tilted my head enough to see my face. “You’re exactly as I knew you’d be,” he said. “How’s that?” I puffed, still somewhat winded. “Passionate. Wild. A force to be reckoned with.” I blushed hard. Make-out session against wall? No problem. Complement from the Shadow Lord? Total embarrassment. “Yes, well, you’re nothing like I thought. None of this is, aside from the atmospheric differences.” “What did you think I’d be?” “Cold. Scary. Murdery.” He fought a smile. “I’m not sure murdery is a word, but I can be—and often am—all three. Though, not to you, Lyric. Never to you.” Emotions rolled through me, plucking a haunting tune on my heartstrings. I wasn’t sure I was ready to identify what I was feeling. He spoke to me as he might speak to a lover. He showed care for me, concern even. He’d fucking bought me a set of katanas and a personalized flask, things I’d treasure far more than any gift of flowers or jewelry. “Draven …” His lips pressed softly to mine. I knew my shield had been annihilated, so he was catching everything. It was grossly unfair. “It’s okay, Angel. This was all I needed, for now. You come beautifully, by the way.” If I flushed any further, I was going to have an aneurism. Draven lowered me to my feet, brushing back the stray hairs that had fallen out of my ponytail during our hallway tryst. “You might want to shower and change again, unless you want everyone to know what we were doing.” “They’ll still catch traces, anyway, won’t they?” “Probably.” Lamerson’s words about my worth got stuck on repeat in my mind. “I don’t want them to think I’m, that I’m …” “That you’re what?” “That that’s why I’m here, all I’m good for.” I waited for the regret to seep through my pores. When it didn’t, I chalked it up to the endorphins still pumping through me. Surely, I’d regret this by morning. Draven pushed open my door and nudged me inside. “Then go rinse off, get dressed, return to the training area, and kick someone’s ass.” Oh, gods. Draven got me. He sooo got me. How could I possibly keep my panties dry when the Shadow Lord was over there getting me? I was in over my head. ![]()
GIVEAWAY! ![]() Monster Academy
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo -- EXCERPT: Takumi bowed again. “Yes, sir.” He straightened and looked at me. “Are we providing a guard for Tsukiko?” “No,” Grandfather and I said at the same time. Grandfather gave me a glare, and I snapped my mouth closed. My tail swished behind me, but I quickly wrapped it around my leg. “Not at this time,” Grandfather amended. “If the situation worsens before I am able to return and you believe she needs a guard, then assign one to her.” My mouth dropped open. “Even if she tries to argue,” Grandfather finished with fire in his eyes. I closed my mouth and looked down at my shoes. Fine. I got it. I would just make sure that that did not happen. Behind me, Loralie danced from foot to foot. “Grandfather?” she whispered. I looked up and saw his lip twitch again. “You may go,” he whispered. Faster than I had ever seen her move, Loralie cleared the distance between us and the hellhounds. The hounds surrounded her, rubbing their bodies on her and licking her face and hands. She cooed at them while scratching their ears and rubbing the bellies of the ones who had lain down. The ferocious, black dogs had red eyes that reminded me of the fires of the Underworld, fur that resembled shadows and mist, and razor sharp teeth that could tear through flesh and bone with ease. And Loralie loved them. As Death’s daughter, she was capable of controlling the hell hounds if needed, but she had such an affinity for them that they just did whatever she asked. “How long will she do that?” Takumi asked. “Give her at least thirty minutes,” Grandfather said. “She hasn’t seen hellhounds in several months. I’ll leave it to you, Takumi. Take care of my girls…and the rest of the students.” He added that ending like he’d almost forgotten there were other kids here. ![]()
GIVEAWAY!
Contemporary fiction with a speculative element
Date Published: May 14, 2020
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
No one knew it at the time, but April 19, 2011, was the most important day in the history of the world.
After his only friend and colleague, John Manta, disappears without a word, Dave Randall further entrenches himself in the humdrum life of an unenthusiastic lawyer. But once he begins to understand what happened, he embarks on a journey to uncover the deeper meanings and implications of John's fate.
Accompanied by Peaches the cat, Dave uproots his life and reinvents himself in the midst of his search. Along the way, he is haunted by his piecemeal understanding of John's fate and what it means for his existence. Little does Dave know, his journey of self-discovery will have ramifications that extend far beyond the borders of his own little life.
About the Author
When he is not writing, Daniel Maunz works as in-house counsel for a major insurance company. He currently lives in Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, with his wife Lynne, their son Patrick, and their two cats: Admiral Meowy McWhiskers and Captain Cutie (or "Admiral" and "Captain" for short). Questions of Perspective is his first novel.
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Putting out fires was his life's work. This new flame, there's no way he’s extinguishing it.
As a firefighter, Dalton McNeil was accustomed to facing extreme pressure. It came with the job, and his shoulders were broad and strong. Commanding his squad was all in a day's work. Battling fires and rescuing those in danger came naturally. He wouldn't deny that he was slightly jealous of his brother, who recently got married and started a family. It would be nice to have someone to come home to every night.
Anya Graham had been the girl next door growing up. Back then, Anya had been crushing on him hard, but he'd never acted on it because she'd been so much younger than him. But then she'd left for college, and they'd lost touch.
Now she was back and has consumed his every thought. Anya was all woman, and he was determined to make her his. But there's something different about her. She's more guarded, secretive. It's piqued his curiosity, and he swore he would get to the bottom of it.
If only she would put her trust in him before it’s too late. Dalton can't lose her. His skills as a fireman will be put to the test. Will he be able to save her?
It wasn't his job to protect her, but there's no way he's leaving her side.
~ About The Author ~
Peyton Banks is the alter ego of a city girl who is a romantic at heart. Her mornings consist of coffee and daydreaming up the next steamy romance book ideas. She loves spinning romantic tales of hot alpha males and the women they love. She currently resides with her husband and children in Cleveland, Ohio.
~ Connect with Peyton ~
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