Madam Mayhem by Marilynn Rockelman

What do a decoy prostitute, bank robber’s wife, swinger, Madam Mayhem and police dispatcher have in common?

Me.

The steamy underbelly of Salt Lake City, in the gasp-and-drop-dead years of the 70s and 80s is the backdrop for my memoir. In my various public personas, I got the inside scoop on Congressman Alan Howe, Ted Bundy, and Gary Gilmore. Working with the masculinized Salt Lake City Police Department, I arrested johns and sometimes the women they victimized. I heard first-hand when the Prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) got the revelation that righteous “men of color” could hold the Priesthood. I suffered, as did all first responders, in the aftermath of the Do-Drop-Inn. I learned about bottomless popcorn and what a Mormon Temple Recommend was really for.

In my personal life, I struggled with being adopted. Dirty little secrets crawled beneath my skin, and like Madam Mayhem, my live spun out of control. My first marriage, to a squeaky-clean Mormon Missionary police officer, ended in a nightmare when I discovered he wanted to use me as trading material in his swingers group. My second husband was a convicted bank robber.

Through it all, I discovered truths about myself—truths that took me into the depths of my soul, to the arms of Jesus and the depths of hell. Secrets uncovered became secrets forgiven.

Come with me on the wild and wacky ride of my life.

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Across the Sea by Jeni Paltiel

Instead of finishing her senior year of high school in Kansas, Ellie is risking the trip across an Atlantic already at war to join her missionary father in Africa. August is a Boston Brahmin taking a break from Harvard to chase adventure as a volunteer ambulance driver in the war in North Africa like his hero, Ernest Hemingway.

Thrown together on board the Egyptian passenger liner Zamzam, Ellie finds herself drawn to the dashing August despite their different backgrounds and her family’s disapproval, as conflict brews between the pious missionaries and the boisterous ambulance corps. But unbeknownst to most of its passengers, the Zamzam is actually transporting supplies to the Allied forces in North Africa. When their supposedly neutral ship is sunk by a notorious German raider, Ellie and August find themselves facing a far greater danger than a disapproving mother.

Plucked from the ocean, stashed on a German prison ship, and forced to run the British Blockade to reach land, the couple is ultimately separated in Occupied France, as Ellie is shipped back to the States while August remains a German prisoner. Do they stand a chance of being reunited?

Based on true events from the author’s family history that grabbed headlines in 1941, Across the Sea blends The Nightingale’s war-time adventure with a sweet travel-inspired YA love story reminiscent of Field Notes on Love and moments of surprising humor, as experiences force Ellie to grow up fast and question her sheltered upbringing and what she wants from life.

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The Exchange by Dominique Jolly

 Hunting Valley Middle School is cursed. Every 7th grader is doomed to trade in their personality for their exact opposite. Teacher’s pets are smoking. Outgoing kids have stage fright. And best friends, Fiona and Zara, are thrust into a world of exclusive parties and boys. While Fiona can barely speak to her crush, Zara is thriving. The more Zara cancels plans and forgets to coordinate outfits, the more Fiona fears that she’s destined for a human recycling bin. Fiona decides that the only way to save their friendship from The Exchange is to sabotage Zara’s popularity. Sometimes to be the hero, you have to play the bad guy.

Lizzie McGuire meets The Clique in this 32,766 word middle grade fiction about growing up and sometimes growing apart.

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The Secrets of Tengu by Evergreen Lee

THE SECRETS OF TENGU, complete at 105,000 words, is Spinning Silver meets The Kiss Quotient. 

Lisa is an autistic college student with a twenty-year plan and a determination to prove her birth parents wrong: that she is worth something. She’s also a witch, despite being too logical to believe in magic, and occasionally casts spells without knowing it. 

When Lisa heals a bird, her magic attracts the attention of two Tengu, a race of supernatural avian-humanoids. The Tengu are drawn to her adoptive sister, Kestrel, and realize that Kestrel is one of them. Tengu Dorian uses Glamour to force Kestrel through a dangerous transformation ritual, then whisks her away.

Lisa gives up the life she’s rebuilt and begs Tengu Erik to bring her to his world. Once there, she must learn to use her magical powers, avoid falling in love with Erik, and determine if Kestrel even wants to be rescued. Can Lisa prove her worth in a world where any human is considered expendable?

This is an #OwnVoices story in that Lisa has a form of Asperger’s based on my own.

My short fiction has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Factor Four, and has been translated into Vietnamese for SFVN. I am a member of SFWA, Codex, and Treasurer/Board Member for Dream Foundry (a nonprofit aimed at assisting newbie speculative writers and artists).

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West by  LJ Farrow

Weston wears low-top Converse sneakers, loves Fall Out Boy and Muse, and never met an Oreo Blizzard he didn’t like.  He never lets these idiosyncrasies get in the way of his day job as an exorcist.

And whenever he looks in the mirror, he sees the Devil looking back.

For Father Weston is no ordinary priest.  He is the half-demon child of a revivalist minister corrupted by the Morningstar, a diabolical being and the architect of all that is evil in the world.  Weston’s ability to attract demons is useful to the Catholic Church. Will it also provide a pathway for the Morningstar to carry out the ultimate destruction?

From a trailer park in the bayou of Louisiana to the libraries of the Vatican, Weston endures the knowledge of his own profane inheritance while struggling to overcome it.  It is never clear which battle is worse, the one against the demons within himself or the one against those that occupy the innocent. Weston’s future seems predestined. But is it? 

In this genre-bending story that blends fantasy and dark fairytale, Constantine meets Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in an apocalyptic metaphor about what it means to be human, and the enduring power of redemption.

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SPIRITED TO THE WEST by Pauline Chow

Modern life collides with spirits from the 1860’s western frontier, when a dormant evil awakens during an investigation into a family’s past, in this contemporary ghost story with a historical western twist.

Freya discovers that her ancestors’ immigration story is a mystery that she must solve. Over two generations ago, Freya’s relatives, the Locke sisters arrived in the United States during the California Gold Rush in search of freedom and opportunity. Their lives however, are changed by chance and discrimination they faced in the new world. As Freya digs into her family history, she connects with the spirits of the Locke sisters, just when she needs them the most. Freya, who is a new mother and estranged from her parents, finds deep meaning in the search for answers. She weaves through digital archives, antique books, and California ghost towns looking for clues. Freya’s metaphysical powers and connection with the sisters transports her to the boomtowns of the 1860s, like Bodie and Diamond Springs. In another time, she bears witness to death, murder, and frontier justice. The sisters’ stand against injustice entangle their bloodline with a depraved gang of outlaws. Now Freya must work with the spirits of her ancestors to save her daughter and husband from the wrath of the past.

SPIRITED TO THE WEST is JOY LUCK CLUB meets Stephen King’s BAG OF BONES with a splash of BLOOD MERIDIAN. Pauline Chow, the author, is Chinese American and a former lawyer and civil rights activist.

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ChainLinked! Book 1 in the Moccasin Cove Mystery Series by Liz Boeger

CHAINLINKED! is a 77,300-word cozy mystery with romance and tinges of southern humor.  

Ana Callahan is blown off her trailbike when a houseboat explodes killing a security contractor. Then a friend is charged with the murder. Ana came home to Moccasin Cove to turnaround her childhood elementary. While she knows a thing or two about flipping failing schools, she soon discovers the learning curve on solving a murder is steep. 

As Ana performs triage on the troubled school and chases clues to the murder, she finds herself suffering fools in a nightmare of bad press and amateur local politics. After a suspect charter school corporation targets her school for a takeover, she teams up with the school district’s disarming security chief to solve the crime. The losses pile up—her friend’s innocence, her career, the school, and possibly, her heart. In the end, a vindictive killer forces Ana to admit she has a lot to learn about murder.

Set in an industrial beach town on Florida’s Gulf coast, CHAINLINKED! tests the bonds of loyalty among friends, pits unyielding grief of lost love against a reawakened heart, and of course, murder. 

My stint as a bikini model peaked in kindergarten. My fallback career as a mystery writer didn’t kick in until I hit the mid-century mark. Thirty-years in between, I’ve wrangled children, adults, a Florida panther, and gators and snakes as teacher and school administrator. Don’t ask me about my work with the U.S. Secret Service, I’ve sworn myself to secrecy.

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