Douglas Todt

Corrie is the perfect girl. She lives in a nice middle-class home, gets perfect grades, dresses perfectly, and never causes trouble. She acts perfect and looks perfect. But perfection is in the eye of the beholder. In reality, Corrie hides horrible secrets about her family, and her perfection simply covers a shattered girl with no self-esteem. As a result, she's the idea target for bullying from a group of girls in her school, ruining her one escape from her abusive home life. Now even that avenue of escape is stripped away. As the bullying and abuse intensifies, Corrie realizes she is hopelessly trapped with no one to turn to and no way to escape. Only the aid of a friendly teacher and a strange dog can give her hope.

The Society of Jack-O'-lanterns is old, secret, and powerful. Their stated goal is to take women and men who have been abused and downtrodden and raise them up by giving them cash and power in exchange for a time of limited servitude to the upper echelon of members. To some, it's a sex club. To most, it's a powerful entity seeking to change the shape of the world for the better.For Amy Dayne, a victim of repetitive sexual abuse as a child at the hands of her brothers in small-town Illinois, the Society saves her from a life of prostitution and drug addiction.Or so it seems for a time. But as Amy settles into her life of servitude, she comes to realize there are consequences for disobeying the demands of the Society . . . severe consequences.

Masochism. Just a word in a book, but for quiet high school student Alicia Porter, it has drastic ramifications for her life. If there's a word to explain her self-abuse, then maybe she isn't alone. And as she starts college, she discovers this is true. Her new friends, Tabitha and Monica, seem to understand the drive that Alicia has to hurt herself. But what they don't understand are the agonizing and sinister secrets that drive Alicia to such behavior. As Alicia's relationships with her new friends deepen, the secrets held in her subconscious begin to escape. No longer is her masochism and self-abuse a form of relief, but a trigger for horrible memories of torture and abuse. Even worse, her father is somehow involved. As her life falls apart, Alicia must battle not only the collapse of her current relationships, but also the secrets that threaten to undermine her relationship with her father.

In 1908, Lexx, the starfish-shaped alien, crashed in Siberia. Until 2016, he worked at gathering alien artifacts from other ships that had crashed on Earth, seeking to cannibalize them to obtain the materials to return home.Special Operations, the division of the government that deals with the paranormals, stopped Lexx and turned him over to Queen Marrina. Marrina is the leader of the ancient kingdom of Atlantia, which moved from Egypt to a location under the Artic Sea centuries ago. The Mind of the Gods, the sum total of their knowledge, wants to monitor Lexx's activities.And help him. For as Ops and Marrina discover, Lexx's return isn't a bad thing. Other aliens come from space, including Jaye's race . . . which had a hand in destroying a research complex in 2004 and turning Jennifer Saunders into a 'soul' survivor.Yes, it's in everyone's interest to return Lexx home and see what else is brewing . . . in space.Unfortunately, this effort is going to be fatal for one member of the team.

For several years, twenty-seven-year-old blonde Heather Taylor was an entertainer for the Empire in Las Vegas, a company that catered adult entertainment to the rich and famous. But after breaking up with the woman she loved, she relocated to the LA area, a coming home of sorts for the San Fernando Valley native.Wealthy from her work at the Empire, she's basically retired and enjoying life helping a casting service and volunteering at an abused woman's shelter.That is until she meets Alexis Smythe. The dark-haired woman of 41 is intriguing to Heather, and vice versa. Of course, this is all part of Alexis' plan. One weekend leads to a complex terrorism scheme requiring Heather to perform what's known as . . . the vanishing act.

All football fans know a great game when they see it. But some remain great longer than others. Everyone remembers the Ice Bowl, Super Bowl III, the Tuck Rule Game, the Music City Miracle, and so forth. But there are plenty of great games that get lost in the mists of history . . . supplanted by newer and greater moments. But you shouldn't forget them. These games are important, many in ways that reach far beyond the simple contest on the field. This book is about how teams and the league were changed forever by the outcome of a single game, a game that now is lost to the mists of history.

Manning. Brady. Montana. Marino. Namath. Unitas. We all know these names. These are the names of the greatest of the great, the men that have defined the position of quarterback in the National Football League, the NFL, the world's greatest sports league. All of us spend endless hours debating their greatness. We analyze every movement, every play, every decision of these men to find out what makes them so special, so exceptional. But . . . what about the rest of 'em? What's interesting is the truly unheralded quarterback in America . . . the journeyman. The journeyman quarterback is the man you think is the answer, you desperately hope and pray is the answer, is the man you think will take his spot in that first line, maybe between Namath and Unitas . . . but instead never really does much of anything except maybe finish 9-7, bouncing from team to team in hopes the next one is the right fit. Like Goldilocks, he has to try all the chairs . . . before getting eaten by the bears. So prepare yourself for an amusing review of the last sixty years of bad NFL football, great NFL football, and just about everything in between.