Fighting Destiny series # 1 Reissue originally published 2012 Set in a dark and crumbling near-future... Navy SEAL LT Shane Laughlin was dishonorably discharged and blacklisted—for being too honorable. Desperate for work and down to his last ten bucks, he takes a job as a test subject—a human guinea pig—at Boston’s Obermeyer Institute, a fringe scientific research facility. Shane’s skeptical when he finds out that OI’s focus is to find and train certain exceptional people, usually young girls—called “Greater-Thans”—whose skill-sets include telekinesis, telepathy, rapid self-healing, and super-human strength. And he’s even more surprised when he discovers that Mac, the mysterious woman who rocked his world in an epic one-night stand, is part of an elite team of kickass OI operatives who use their G-T skills to rescue and protect innocents. Because OI’s not the only organization trying to find Greater-Thans—and the other guys are out to exploit them. An illegal drug called “Destiny” is being made from the blood of young, untrained, and powerless Greater-Than girls. Addictive and dangerous, it gives its wealthy and reckless users instant G-T powers—including eternal youth—at a lethal price. Dr. Michelle “Mac” Mackenzie and her OI team are at war with the shadowy corporations who enslave girls to meet the rising demand for Destiny, and Shane wants to join them. He may not be a G-T, but as a former Navy SEAL, he’s got talents of his own. Still, Mac’s got powerful reasons to keep her distance from Shane. But when one very special little girl goes missing, Mac’s ready to do anything—including accept Shane’s help—to find and save her. Mac’s used to risking her life, but she now faces sacrificing her heart... Originally published in 2012 (170,000 words, original hard cover edition was 513 pages)

Revealing the central yet intentionally obliterated role of Africa in the creation of modernity, Born in Blackness vitally reframes our understanding of world history. Traditional accounts of the making of the modern world afford a place of primacy to European history. Some credit the fifteenth-century Age of Discovery and the maritime connection it established between West and East; others the accidental unearthing of the “New World.” Still others point to the development of the scientific method, or the spread of Judeo-Christian beliefs; and so on, ad infinitum. The history of Africa, by contrast, has long been relegated to the remote outskirts of our global story. What if, instead, we put Africa and Africans at the very center of our thinking about the origins of modernity? In a sweeping narrative spanning more than six centuries, Howard W. French does just that, for Born in Blackness vitally reframes the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in the West, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe’s dehumanizing engagement with the “dark” continent. In fact, French reveals, the first impetus for the Age of Discovery was not—as we are so often told, even today—Europe’s yearning for ties with Asia, but rather its centuries-old desire to forge a trade in gold with legendarily rich Black societies sequestered away in the heart of West Africa. Creating a historical narrative that begins with the commencement of commercial relations between Portugal and Africa in the fifteenth century and ends with the onset of World War II, Born in Blackness interweaves precise historical detail with poignant, personal reportage. In so doing, it dramatically retrieves the lives of major African historical figures, from the unimaginably rich medieval emperors who traded with the Near East and beyond, to the Kongo sovereigns who heroically battled seventeenth-century European powers, to the ex-slaves who liberated Haitians from bondage and profoundly altered the course of American history. While French cogently demonstrates the centrality of Africa to the rise of the modern world, Born in Blackness becomes, at the same time, a far more significant narrative, one that reveals a long-concealed history of trivialization and, more often, elision in depictions of African history throughout the last five hundred years. As French shows, the achievements of sovereign African nations and their now-far-flung peoples have time and again been etiolated and deliberately erased from modern history. As the West ascended, their stories—siloed and piecemeal—were swept into secluded corners, thus setting the stage for the hagiographic “rise of the West” theories that have endured to this day. “Capacious and compelling” (Laurent Dubois), Born in Blackness is epic history on the grand scale. In the lofty tradition of bold, revisionist narratives, it reframes the story of gold and tobacco, sugar and cotton—and of the greatest “commodity” of them all, the twelve million people who were brought in chains from Africa to the “New World,” whose reclaimed lives shed a harsh light on our present world.

Sexy vampires with attitudes, a strong female hunter who holds the key to their demise, and a vampire race who knows her very life is a threat. Things would be easier if she didn't love them. By day, I'm an emergency room nurse--normal enough. By night, I stalk the streets, hunting serial killers that the police can't seem to catch. Less normal, but way more fun in a twisted kinda way...until one of those serial killers turns out to be a freaking vampire. The only thing standing between me and certain death is a handsome stranger who also happens to come with fangs. Twisted or not, even I didn't see that one coming. But vampires aren't supposed to kill their own, and worse, my new friend did it for a human--it won't be long until the dead vampire's clan catches up to us. And though his hive of motorcycle riding alpha warriors each come with their own merits, not all four are friendly--some would rather throw me to our enemies than help me. It makes them especially nervous that their powers don't seem to work when I'm nearby. But it soon becomes clear that we'll need each other to get out of this alive. Are my fighting skills any match for the supernatural? Can my hive of monsters defend me, and themselves, against the wrath of a species already on the verge of extinction? Why am I so drawn to all of them? And why choose just one? The Born of Darkness series is high heat reverse harem paranormal romance that features one badass female hunter, her four fated vampire mates, and provocative MFMMM scenes.

Imagine the darkest, most evil, and empty places of the mind and soul that can be reached, then imagine yourself on this dark journey . . . Follow me, if you will, to see just how dark the abyss really is . .