Kate Anderson, a girl from a small farming community in Glendale, Wisconsin just got the break of her life -- she was accepted to Chicago's University of Illinois College of Medicine. Ready to take on the Windy City, nothing can stand in her way. Except for one thing -- the night she accepts a 'friend request' on Facebook from a Pete Peterson. ***Updated Regularly***

After an incident three months ago and her parent's divorce, Reina Caverly finds a way to cope: cutting herself. Her mother's a workaholic, her sister is an out of control teenage girl, and her dad disappeared from the face of the planet. She can't even tell her two best friends, Joshua and Megan, about her problems. Then she meets young and mysterious Calvin Young about to commit suicide by jumping from her school's rooftop which surprised Reina. He's rich; he's handsome for his age, and does well at school, so why? Why would someone who has everything want to kill himself? Everyone has a dark secret, even Calvin who seems to have the world. Can Reina and Calvin learn to speak up about their issues? Can they find their reasons to live? ______ "One day you'll leave me. You don't want a girl with a rape story," I said as I desperately tried to stop my sobs and hiccups. "You deserve someone who is prettier and more stable then me." "Mon ange ," he whispered to me lightly as he held my tear-stained face. I looked at him and my breath shortened as I met his intense look. "I don't want anyone else," he said, "because I just want you." ______ WARNING: Story contains rape, self-harm, and suicidal ideation.

Jasslyn Brookside has always harboured a curiosity for her childhood friend. She can't be blamed: Jacoby Harold is constantly trailed by flowers and plants, the occasional balloon or firework. He isn't the only one. From the day Jasslyn could form the thought that this was out of the ordinary, she has seen others like him. Men who stand like statues, as if hoping no one would see them. Women who walk around pretending nothing is wrong while vines as thick as pythons slither after them. After a chance encounter with two reportedly "missing" people, Jasslyn realizes that her past and future are more entwined with Jacoby's than she ever imagined. When she finds out the extent to which their paths cross, a message becomes clear to her: to delve too deep into Jacoby's world would mean unearthing secrets she would be safer without.

[NOTE: This book was written in 2010, a time of long-distance phone cards, weight-loss obsessions, and searching for a man as a solution to life's problems-what a messy time to be alive! In other words, I hope you enjoy this throwback, and while this book does end on a cliffhanger of sorts, the sequel addresses any unanswered questions (which is hopefully fair, given that book 1 is free, ya know?] An awkward family homecoming at Christmas. A humiliating public weigh-in, with two judging parents as the audience. The announcement of a deadline for arranged marriage doom. And that's just the first two chapters. In "Year of the Chick," Romi Narindra must find love before her parents find her a husband. Easy to say, less easy to live through, as this book takes you deep inside "awkward Indian living in the West." To escape her fate, Romi wades through the waters of secret-dating, where self-consciousness is at an all-time high, and experience at an all-time low. It's the sort of thing that would turn almost anyone into a man-crazy freak with romance tunnel-vision, and that's exactly what ends up happening. All the while, a lack of inspiration in her corporate job leads Romi to her love of writing, in what quickly becomes a man-quest play-by-play. From whiskey-breath scum bags to uni-brow creeps and everything in between, Romi and her wingmen come up empty time after time. And that's when she meets a fellow writer. On the Internet. So will it be arranged marriage doom, or an Internet affair that's not as creepy as "To Catch a Predator"? Time will tell in the "year of the chick," a twelve-month quest to find love. Tick-tock. --------------------------------------------- "Year of the Chick" is book one of a series, and book two is available at Amazon! LENGTH: 75,000 words or 285 pages DISCLAIMER: this book contains profanities, blunt accounts of the dating scene, and many awkward family moments. Enjoy!

“We’re lethal, dangerous and most importantly, we belong the Academy. We’re their property.” I'm Gabby Brookes, I'm sixteen years old and training to kill. So I wouldn't get on my bad side if I were you. I live at Saint Hadwin’s Academy, a school for – if you be it – Super Heroes. Spies. Agents. Whatever you want to call it. We’ve trained our whole lives to protect the good from the bad. But there’s something special about us kids (aside from the fact we know how to kill a person in more than thirty different ways) each one of us has the ability we call a Major. A major is the element we can control: Fire, water, earth and air. I control air. Anyway, we don't do all this stuff for nothing, we get sent on missions, some low key and fine, but some highly dangerous. Yeah, you can guess which one I'm about to go on ... Let's just say the previous agent went missing and now It's my turn.