Stories

Ash is a modern cowboy on a large cattle ranch in Oklahoma. He lives a fairly simple life and has found his place on Nasser Ranch, along with his friends and fellow cowboys (and girl). Things begin to change soon after their new hands arrive. And one of those new hands turns Ash's world upside down.

When Travis Buck becomes famous for playing golden boy Jackson Pryce in the TV hit Palisades, the role begins to consume him. Off screen, he hides trauma, addiction, and a secret relationship with his best friend, Will Schluter — while his co-star Ken “Kendo” Dolan lures him deeper into self-destruction. As Travis’s real life mirrors Jackson’s unraveling, fame, love, and control collide. Forced into isolation to survive, he must decide whether to keep performing the perfect life everyone expects — or risk everything to be real.

Travisty is a story about identity, survival, and the cost of being seen.

Having crashed and burned after early success as a composer, Alex has managed to rebuild his career and his life. Carpenter Neil is between girlfriends, and his knowledge of music is limited. Yet despite their differences the two come together, and each spurs the other on to explore life further and to take risks. Add in a pair of mothers who are friends and Neil’s fragile younger brother—as well as a manipulative rich uncle and some lively friends—and you have a dynamic mix.

Martin is still feeling the effects of an acrimonious divorce and more recently the death of his mother.

He receives an email that could be a scam. It triggers events that upend just about everything Martin believes about himself. His path forward is not going to be smooth. Can he navigate this new life to make friends, find love and reestablish a family?

The French Revolutionary War is finally coming to a conclusion, and after eight years of conflict, George Granger is going to have to adapt to a world at peace. While the conflict with France may be at an end, George has his own challenges to face. He has returned home to find himself richer, but estranged from his wife. His best friend and lover, Francis Calvert, has been wounded in the Caribbean and has not yet returned to England. Join George as he navigates this fraught era, which may be even more dangerous than when England at France were at war.

Cwtch is a Welsh word, translated into English it means a hug, but the meaning is deeper and more profound than a simple hug. When you give someone a cwtch you also give them a safe place and this is what twenty something Londoner Harry gives Welsh farmboy Aled. The story tells how two souls find each other, and recognise one another immediately. It is attraction, but also love at first sight, although true love is never easy.

This story is also published under the title Eighteen Years by E K Stokes.

Special Inspector Kellen McAdams could do with a break, but duty is calling him to Barlow Bay, where mummified corpses of illegal immigrants are causing some headaches. With a battlemage scared of himself and a bubbly druid as supports, this should hopefully be an easy one…

Even on good days Damien is a neurotic bundle of nerves. He might be a freelancer for the Barlow Bay Police Department, but getting called in makes for a decidedly bad day. And a frustrated SI and an overly sexy druid are not exactly helping…

Robbie and Mark are young Irish musicians, on the brink of massive worldwide success. Robbie is secretly in love with Mark but hides both his feelings and his sexuality to protect their friendship and the band they’ve built together. When Mark begins to suspect that Robbie might be gay, their friendship begins to shift and Mark is forced to confront feelings he never anticipated and question everything he thought he knew about himself.

Spanning more than ten years, the story follows their lives, their rise to fame, and the complicated evolution of their relationship as love, friendship, and ambition become impossible to separate.

Sky is a young actor, son of two of Hollywood's finest and most respected television stars, and an out gay man with a few small roles to start his career. When he auditions for a small indie film, he learns his co-star would be the hottest up-and-coming male star of the year: Brant Kimber. Sky is auditioning for the role of Brant's gay lover, but Brant is quite heterosexual. Sky can barely imagine filming sex scenes with this masculine sex-symbol but he is also very excited about the opportunity. The role would be the best one he has had so far and extremely exciting. Will Sky land The Role of a Lifetime? What will happen if he does?

Every town has a history. Every town has stories that have been handed down through the ages . . . stories that tell of people or events that may, or may not, be real. Thompsonville is no different. In fact, this town probably has more than most. Here’s another one of them!