Excerpt from A STROKE OF LUCK by Andrea Pickens The Duke of Prestwick was brought back to consciousness by yet another cold wave splashing over his face. How deucedly odd, he thought. Surely he shouldn’t be feeling such a sensation if his lifeless body was lying at the bottom of the sea.“W-what the devil!” he sputtered, groggily aware that the taste on his lips was not that of salt but of brandy. And a rather decent brandy at that.Before he could say anything more, another slap—this one a good deal more solid than mere liquid—hit against his cheek, the force of it causing his eyes to water.“Hell’s teeth!” he sputtered“That did it, Zara! Looks like he’s finally coming to!”The duke unscrewed his eyelids enough to catch a peek at the face hovering over his.Good Lord. With windspun tresses framing her delicate features, the young lady appeared as ethereal as a Nereid. However, she certainly packed the wallop of an Amazon.A quick flinch allowed him to narrowly avoid a third blow.“Finally awake, are you?” She leaned back slightly, her sea-green eyes studying his dripping features and bedraggled locks with an unsettling intensity.“S-Stump,” he choked out between coughs. “S-Stump.”“If you are referring…

Already school supply sales are in full swing and picked over. I snagged multicolored markers, just because. Are Halloween costumes far behind? I remember when school started after Labor Day. Yes, I’m that old. I never liked school at any level, as in ever. I lived for summer vacation. Time to be far from the grind and play, read, or do nothing. In high school, I had summer jobs to get some cash. My mom didn’t underwrite my fun. One summer, during college, I had mononucleosis and couldn’t work. At the beginning of the semester, my mom gave me one hundred dollars. I still appreciate it. I live a few blocks away from an elementary school. Children are always enjoying themselves at the playground. I’m a swing girl myself. In the morning, before school starts, little ones, who get up way too early, arrive with their parents to get some uninterrupted time. The schoolchildren run around during recess. Their laughter rings so true. After school, children ride their bikes to meet with their friends. How their day is going inside school, I don’t know. Hopefully, well. Outside is pure joy. As adults, we would love to recapture that youthful spirit….

Each Monday the Smashwords store lists the top ten most highly anticipated indie fiction ebooks based on the previous week’s preorder accumulations. Each title on the list is scheduled to release within the next week. To help the talented authors on this list accumulate even more preorders, click the title of the book. The hyperlink will bring you to a Books2Read page where you can order from your preferred ebook retailer. If the preorder is part of a series, click the hyperlinked series title to learn about the other books in the series. Be sure to check back Friday for a list of the Top 25 Bestselling Indie Ebooks.

Excerpt from THE MEANING OF MURDER. Text copyright © 2025 by Walter B. Levis. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission. Not raindrops—blood. Blood falls from the black sky. Head back, neck craning, she strains to see, wincing as the drops hit her face. Thick red drops, pasty, mixed with white dust, the pulverized concrete of the fallen towers. This blood-and-dust mush—it swirls. Fat flakes swirling over the street, over the rubble, over the New York harbor, swirling like a shaken snow-globe model of lower Manhattan, sticking to the strange grotesque almost-unrecognizable human body parts that hang in the air: a blown-off hand, a stump of leg, a headless torso oozing a gelatinous trail of red-and-grey. Cheshire-style, the parts drift past, a floating parade. She feels nauseous and her throat hurts and she wonders why she must watch this—why? Why her? The thick dust gleams red-and-white and the sheer size weight and volume of it—a crazy, blood-streaked fog, it so attenuates the sunlight that she stands in utter darkness. Like inside a movie theater before the show starts, but darker. No faint glow from the screen, no emergency lights from under the seats, nothing. Where are all the people? There should…

It’s not always easy to say where the idea for a book came from. Sometimes it’s as nebulous as an overheard conversation or a fleeting feeling. But for my new book, MRS. ENDICOTT’S SPLENDID ADVENTURE, I do know what created the spark for the idea. I have always drooled over villas in Europe. My husband and I have stayed several times on the French Riviera, and I’ve gazed with envy at those pastel-colored buildings amid their lush grounds, sometimes overlooking the blue Mediterranean Sea. How much I’d love to come out onto a terrace like that and stare down the coastline, watching the yachts sail past. Sigh. All a lovely dream until I was on Lake Maggiore in the north of Italy, actually researching another book, called On Her Majesty’s Frightfully Secret Service. It is a beautiful area of small lakeside towns, and the hills are dotted with magnificent villas. In the years before WWII these would have been populated by rich people, some of them British aristocrats. People who didn’t have to work for a living and who could spend time admiring the lake scenery. As we walked along the lake shore we came to an abandoned villa. It…

Excerpt from BAD GIRL PIE by Marilyn Horowitz Chapter 1 I stopped talk therapy when Aunt Cindy fell and broke her hip last year. She’s my mother’s sister and my godmother. She’s tall and slim, with stormy ocean eyes, and wears her silver hair in a flapper-style bob with bangs. In the ambulance, I asked her, “What happened?” She looked at me in disgust and said, “You’re always so effing morbid. Just like your mother, may she rest in peace. If you want the gory details, go read the report. If I repeat it, I’m making it happen again.” After that, I stopped talking about my own past and asking people for details about their current tragedies. Soon, my tendency to create a worst-case scenario out of every event dwindled and I began to sleep more. But between me and myself, I clung to my story like it was a life preserver, because if I didn’t, I’d lose my identity, such as it was. Why we had to begin life in this format of birth had always baffled me. Where was the upside? Why not just be born later in the first place, maybe at eighteen, so that there was…

Excerpt from LIKENESS by Samsun Knight April 11th Trying to figure out on the day after whether you did something accidentally humiliating the night before has to be the worst feeling in the history of human emotion. Possibly it’s wrong to call it a feeling. The worst constellation of feelings, the worst spiritual condition. The worst kind of thought to hear echoing over and over and over inside your head. Of course it’s not truly the worst. But part of the feeling, the constellation, the condition, is this sense that it is. The dinner was really nice, to start with. Sebastian showed up only a few minutes after I got in from work and I was still nursing Bobby when I opened the door for him, so he took it upon himself to do pretty much everything: he unpacked the groceries he’d brought, cleared off and wiped down the kitchen counters, chopped up a tomato and a red onion and a head of broccoli and a ball of mozzarella and arranged it all on the pizza crust he’d picked up from the store and then he did the dishes and asked interesting questions while the pizza cooked. It took real…

What is the title of your latest release?THE ALCHEMY OF FLOWERS What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?When Eloise Bourne finds a mysterious job as a gardener at a chateau in Provence, she hopes to escape reminders of children, but soon discovers an enigmatic little girl who needs her help. This debut adult novel is an enchanting, modern-day take on The Secret Garden, sprinkled with magic. How did you decide where your book was going to take place?I had the joy of living in Provence for a year in college. I’ve stayed close with my wonderful French host family—I go back for visits every chance I get. I find this region to be a magical, sensual delight in all ways, and I wanted to transport readers there. Within Provence, I imagined a mysterious refuge of healing gardens within locked castle walls… paradise with a deliciously eerie edge. Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?Yes—Eloise and I would make flower potions together! We have lots in common since her journey was inspired by my own. I understand her fears and insecurities inside and out—and I’d love to give her a big hug! In creating her character, I…

What is the title of your latest release?ASYLUM HOTEL What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?Aubry, a photographer, meets a fellow trespasser while exploring an abandoned hotel; when he’s found dead the next morning, Aubry feels compelled to find out whether his death could have been caused by the hotel’s alleged “curse” – and if she might be next. How did you decide where your book was going to take place?I spend a lot of time in a small town called Gualala, a former Russian fishing village about three hours north of San Francisco. The area is truly beautiful, with a rugged, wild coastline on one side and redwood groves and cow-dotted meadows on the other. It’s a remote area, accessed by a very windy highway which is often closed due to dramatic weather, so the locals tend to be self-sufficient, and have a culture of helping their neighbors. There’s a historic hotel in Gualala, and I often wondered what life must have been like back in the 1920s and 30s…and then I dreamed up a big old hotel up on the mountainside! Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?Oh, definitely! I’d love to see Aubrey’s…

What is the title of your latest release?THE MARSHAL & MRS. MORGAN What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?Tresia Morgan has a plan, and it doesn’t include falling in love with Serenity’s new Marshal, but that’s only until Lucy Hart practices her Matchmaker Mischief. How did you decide where your book was going to take place?THE MARSHAL & MRS. MORGAN is the second book in the Matchmaker Mischief series, so I made up a town in the first story. It’s called Serenity and it’s somewhere that I would like to live. It’s just full of interesting people who are looking for love (although they might not realize it). Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?Yes, I most definitely would. Devlin Goodrich is a very good man. I’d hang out with Tresia Morgan, too! They make the sweetest couple. What are three words that describe your protagonist?Honest. Kind (kindness is a really big thing for me). Loving. What’s something you learned while writing this book?What did I learn? That sometimes you have to let the characters take the lead. They know where they’re going and sometimes, it’s a surprise to me (in the best way possible). I…