On your bedside table: Blue, brown, green, white, thick, thin, worn, brand-new.
(Stacks hidden under your bed…)
On your desk: Red, black, brown, white, yellow, sci-fi opera-style, young adults frolicking.
(Stacks lurking on your Kindle…)
On the bookshelf: Purple, green, brown, white, good guys, bad guys, good bad guys.
(Stacks hiding where most people keep their dishes…)
On the back of the toilet: Gold, pink, blue, green, happy, sad, happy sad, sad sad.
(Stacks that you’re saving for a rainy day…)
Stacks and stacks everywhere, infinite universes contained in these makeshift towers that are Babel-esque in their scope but minuscule in their physical proportions.
(On the bus, in the car, on the bed, in the kitchen, on a plane, in the bath…)
We make our home inside these stacks–a home away from home, a home closer to our heart’s true beat.
(Come, add to your stacks…)
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The Heir of Hawksclaw: A novella of Victorian gothic mystery by Amanda DeWees
Some families will do anything to keep their secrets… In this short novella of about 85 pages, when governess Medora Yates sets out for mysterious Hawksclaw House in the dying days of 1856, she has no idea what is in store. Hired to care for her employers’ young son, she arrives in Yorkshire to find the boy too sick to meet her or Gerard Redfern, the new tutor. While the child’s mother prattles endlessly about young Louis, the surly father is interested in little beyond the contents of a bottle. When Mr. Hawksclaw abruptly announces the next day that his son has died, Medora and Redfern know that there is far more to the matter than he is telling them.
Was the child a victim of foul play, perhaps even by one of his parents? Or is the story of his death a lie to conceal something else just as sinister? Medora and Redfern set out to discover the truth, but their task is a difficult one. The boy’s fragile, grieving mother is in no position to help them, and the servants are unwilling to help the newcomers, especially Mrs. Hawksclaw’s loyal maid, Constance, whose fate is entangled more closely with that of her employers than anyone knows. Along the way their investigation will unearth dark family secrets, past tragedy, and the true fate of the heir of Hawksclaw… which all culminate in an astonishing act of redemption.
Readers who enjoy the Victorian mysteries of Anne Perry and Barbara Michaels, as well as those who have come to love DeWees’s Victorian romantic suspense novels such as With This Curse and Sea of Secrets, will relish The Heir of Hawksclaw.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Award-winning author Amanda DeWees received her PhD in English literature from the University of Georgia and likes to startle people by announcing that her dissertation topic was vampire literature. Amanda’s novels of historical romantic suspense include With This Curse, winner of the 2015 Daphne du Maurier Award for excellence in historical mystery/suspense, and the acclaimed historical gothic romance Sea of Secrets, winner of the 2012 RONE award in mystery. She is also the author of the Ash Grove Chronicles, a young adult paranormal romance series set in modern-day North Carolina. Besides writing, Amanda’s passions include theater, classic film, costume design, and the preservation of apostrophes in their natural habitat. Visit her at http://www.amandadewees.com for book extras and other delightful diversions.
You can grab The Heir of Hawksclaw here (clickity-click)!
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AGE OF THE HYBRID SERIES by Debra Kristi
Saving a life shouldn’t come with so many complications.
Saving Marcus’s life should’ve qualified as a good deed. Except, that’s not why Kyra saves him. She’s pulled to the deed by something supernatural. But then Marcus sees Kyra’s hybrid dragon and she finds herself bound to protect him. A bond already causing tension between Kyra and her best friend, Sebastian. Only, Kyra will find it is not easy defying Death. Yet, she is determined―even at the cost of her own life.
Bad things happen in the blink of an eye.
Sebastian has built his life around his tarot cards, more so since taking refuge at Mystic’s Magical Carnival. Trying to include Kyra in that part of his life goes all wrong. Now Kyra’s interest in Marcus stands between Sebastian and Kyra, and places Kyra in emanate danger. Sebastian needs to make her see, needs to steer her away from Marcus, needs to save her from the consequences of her decisions before it’s too late. If he needs to, Sebastian will bare his most guarded secrets to protect her.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born and raised a Southern California girl, Debra Kristi still resides in the sunny state with her husband, two kids, and three schizophrenic cats. Her love for the fantastical began at a very young age, when her imagination magically transformed the backyard swing set into the U.S.S. Enterprise. Since then she’s had a lifelong love of science fiction, fantasy, and creative storytelling. Unlike the characters she often writes, Debra is not immortal and her only superpower is letting the dishes and laundry pile up. When not writing, she is usually creating memories with her family, geeking out to sci-fi and fantasy television, and tossing out movie quotes.
Debra Kristi’s books have been awarded Reader’s Favorite 5-star reviews. Additionally, her Young Adult fantasy novel was a 2015 finalist in both the Indie Excellence Award and the IAN Book of the Year Award.
You can pick up the first book of the series, The Moorigad Dragon, by clicking here!
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Happy reading! And as always, loads of love,
Myndi Shafer 
Thanks so much, my dear!!
Of course!