Played: A Jack Gilbert Slow Burner Thriller

Tales from the Texas Timberlands, Volume 2: Texas Porch Short Stories

In the Texas timberlands, people didn't survive because life was easy. They survived because quitting was never an option. In the years after World War II, East Texas became a battleground of ambition, survival, love, and legacy. Sawmill owners fight to build a future from nothing. Families struggle to hold themselves together. And strong-willed men and women are forced to make choices that will shape generations. In Tales from the Texas Timberlands, Volume 2. J. Andrew Rice delivers five gripping stories filled with grit, heartbreak, faith, danger, and quiet moments of humanity that feel painfully real. A young businessman risks everything to build a sawmill empire while powerful enemies close in. A widowed mother enters the violent world of professional wrestling and becomes the feared "Red Hammer." A city manager returns to the town he once loved... and discovers some ghosts never stay buried. Inside this collection, you'll find: * Postwar East Texas is brought vividly to life. * Fierce family loyalty and generational struggle * Powerful women fighting for survival and identity * Small-town politics, ambition, corruption, and sacrifice * Emotional conflicts that cut deeper than violence * Characters you won't forget * Southern historical fiction * Character-driven storytelling * Multi-generational family drama Perfect for readers who love: Some stories entertain you. Others stay with you long after the last page. Start reading Tales from the Texas Timberlands, Volume 2 today.📖 Available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4eHZDW4 [https://amzn.to/4eHZDW4]

Fall of the Assassin: Book 6 of the Dark Photography Folio

I am going to tell you something I have never told anyone. My name is Haiku. You know what I do. What you do not know is where I came from. What made me. And what it cost. The streets of Bombay made me hard. The Shinobi made me lethal. And a girl with violet eyes who should have died in a Tokyo alley made me into something I had no training for. Human. For here is the Truth: I let her parents die though I could have intervened. Because I wanted her. For myself. I am Haiku. How could it be otherwise? But everything has a price. And now that price would be shared by two. Because the Shinobi do not forgive and they never forget. They are coming with everything they have. Including the one person I never wanted to face again. And what of Saxon Payne? I... do not know. Something happened to Charlie and I and we returned to the place we called home. But now it isn't. I have had dreams. Of Saxon. And they are terrifying. In Fall of the Assassin, Book 6 of The Dark Photography Folio, everything converges. You never had a choice. You never wanted one. So what are you waiting for?📖 Available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4v8IwmP [https://amzn.to/4v8IwmP]

The Swing Time Soda Emporium: Coming of Age in the 1940s

The Swing Time Soda Emporium is an adult level coming-of-age story set during the 1940s. It follows a coterie of friends from kindergarten through college, marriage and beyond: Poppy Jablonsky is the sort of girl who you just wanted to kick off your shoes and join her in the creek panning for gold with a broken dinner plate-or in whatever deviltry she was up to. She collects broken friends and puts them back together. Swing-dancing queen, Cinderella Killian, neglected by her parents, has adopted Sly Willy James, proprietor of the titular Swing Time Soda Emporium, as a surrogate father, but she relies on Poppy for what her mother fails to provide. Trixie Brindle, the sex kitten and abuse victim, just needs a family to call her own. Until she meets Doctor Lotsa Bucks, she must rely on Poppy. And awkward and inept Throckmorton Dalrymple Pennington-Jones has loved Poppy since kindergarten. Now what will he do if he has to do without her?📖 Available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4bfbvOo [https://amzn.to/4bfbvOo]

You're Dining Me Crazy!: 101 Discourteous, Inconsiderate, Thoughtless, and Annoying Dining Situations! (My Crazy Books)

Dining out should be simple: you sit, you eat, you enjoy. But anyone who has ever worked in a restaurant — or observed humanity in the wild—knows that the moment people cross a host stand, something strange happens. Common sense loosens its tie. Manners take a personal day. And suddenly, the dining room becomes a stage for every flavor of chaos imaginable.This book is a sharp, witty, and deeply relatable tour of the full spectrum of restaurant misbehavior — from the mildly irritating to the truly baffling. With dozens of bite‑sized chapters, it exposes the habits, quirks, blind spots, and outright catastrophes that diners bring to the table: the phone addicts, the plate stackers, the allergy inventors, the musical‑chair shufflers, the “I see open tables” truthers, the birthday‑song enthusiasts, the PDA overachievers, and the customers who believe the laws of time, physics, and steak‑doneness should bend just for them.But it’s not just the guests. The book also shines a light on the staff side of the equation—those moments when service goes sideways, communication breaks down, or the kitchen and waitstaff appear to be operating in separate dimensions.Equal parts humor, catharsis, and gentle education, this guide invites readers to laugh at the absurdity, recognize themselves (even reluctantly), and walk away with a clearer sense of how to make dining out better for everyone. Whether you’re a seasoned server, a frustrated host, a long‑suffering bartender, or simply someone who enjoys a meal without unnecessary drama, this book offers a front‑row seat to the comedy of errors that unfolds every night in restaurants everywhere — and a roadmap to being the kind of diner people are actually happy to see walk in.📖 Available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4oVo2Mx [https://amzn.to/4oVo2Mx]

Children of Eternity: Being the First Part of the Apocalis

Thirty years ago, an impossible transmission pierced the cosmos. Hidden within it were instructions for a device no one fully understood—an extragalactic Telegraph built to answer the call. On a distant world in neutral space, humanity and its former enemies resolved to build the device, a rare moment of unity and a calculated gamble that shared purpose might overcome politics. The answer is not what anyone expected. The colony is devastated. Reality fractures. Technology fails. People vanish without a trace—among them soldiers, citizens, and voices no civilization can afford to lose. Aboard the warship Banterra, Captain Heron Agathon is dispatched into the unknown to search for survivors and the truth behind the signal. Beyond the galaxy’s edge, something older than civilization is observing humanity’s first steps into the uncharted—measuring what it will become when fear, power, and principle collide. The answers lie in the dark between stars. And the truth behind the signal is older—and nearer—than anyone suspects. There is no going back. The human adventure is about to begin. 📖 Available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4au0hW3 [https://amzn.to/4au0hW3]