Ambrose. The name is not only feared, but shunned and reviled. He's a monster sentenced to a life of desolation and loneliness, and no one but his tormentor knows his whereabouts - at the bottom of the ocean. A creature of the sea cursed because of one simple mistake... Mari. Her life was a small happy bubble until it's popped by the finding out that her boyfriend has been cheating on her - just as the cruise ship she's on starts to sink! She's sure that death is near until she drowns upon an underwater cave...and a hulking man with swirling eyes. Seeing a chance to escape, Ambrose forces the terrified Mari to help them both, but not before ultimately changing her life...and her legs. Their worlds turning upside in the matter of minutes, Ambrose is on a mission to clear his name and Mari's on a mission to return to land. But how can she do that when she slowly starts to fall for the dangerous, damaged man who only wants to be free...and heal her own heart in the process? THIS IS A FREE SAMPLE

Aspiring writer Norah Jacobs needs an escape. In the span of two weeks, her corrupt brother has been jailed for murder and his partner has been hovering on her doorstep, threatening to ruin what little peace she has left. Packing her car, Norah flees the city and goes off the grid, finding refuge in the small coastal town of Bellvale. However, Norah's newfound refuge lands her right in the middle of a power struggle between creatures she thought only existed in fairy tales, and she begins to see that no matter how hard you try to run from your troubles, they seem to have a way of catching up with you... Watty 2014 Winner Haven Copyright © Melissa Lucas 2013 All Rights Reserved. No part of this literary work may be reproduced or used without written consent from the author.

--Watty winner-- In Victorian London, monster hunting isn't just a job, it's a way of life. Freddie Westman, a reporter for a paranormal magazine, is one of the best in the business, but now it's personal. His childhood friend, Jim Penderry, has disappeared, and the signs point to sinister forces from beyond the grave. If Westman wants to save Jim, he'll have to face his worst fear. No, not fighting a demon with only a cake to hand. Something far more daunting. Sceptical Sophie Penderry doesn't solve mysteries or go on adventures. She's more at home in the library with her nose in The Botanist's Guide to Plants and Fungi. But she puts the science books away to help Westman find her missing brother, whether he likes it or not. Which he really doesn't. Westman is a loner, reluctant to lead anyone into danger. According to him, the supernatural is not just the stuff of folklore and children's nightmares, and a world of black magic awaits them. Now Westman must decide if he should push Sophie away for her own safety, or take a leap of faith and accept an offer of help and friendship. Either way, time is running out to find Jim, and worse still, they may not make it back in time for tea and biscuits. ~Featured story (Sep 2014 - Aug 2017) ~Selected by R.L. Stine's 'Slappy' (Goosebumps Movie's sponsored reading list) ~Winner of the Wattys 2014 HQ Love Award

Cherry blossom lipstick: check Smokey eyes: check Skinny jeans: check Dead kid in the mirror: check For sixteen year old Mattie Hathaway, this is her normal everyday routine. She's been able to see ghosts since her mother tried to murder her when she was five years old. No way does she want anyone to know she can talk to spooks. Being a foster kid is hard enough without being labeled a freak too. Normally, she just ignores the ghosts and they go away. There's a little glitch this time. The ghost she sees is her foster sister, Sally. Everyone thinks she's just another runaway. Mattie knows the truth, though-she's dead, murdered. Foster kids look out for each other and Mattie feels like she has to help Sally, but she can't do it alone. Against her better judgment, she teams up with a young police officer and together they set out to discover the truth of Sally's disappearance. Now the killer has set his sights on her. It becomes a race to see if she can find the truth before the serial killer finds her.

"It's unlike any paranormal book I've read--very smart, very fresh, and very addictive, and very still in my mind." –And Anything Bookish In 1692, when witch trials gripped the community of Salem, Massachusetts, twenty-six children were accused as witches, exiled, and left for dead. Fourteen of them survived. The Survivors is the first installment of the tantalizing tales of the fourteen ill-fated Survivors and their descendants, who have been content in hiding for over three centuries. Isolated on a Montana mountainside, only Sadie, the rogue daughter, dares to abandon the family’s sacred hiding place. But no matter how far Sadie runs, something always pulls her back. On a muggy summer night in Tennessee, she witnesses a shocking scene that will change her life forever. It is the first in a sequence of events that will drag her from the human world she’s sought to belong to for over a century and send her back to her Puritanical family. Sadie is thrown toward an uncertain future filled with cunning witches, mysterious nosferatu shape-shifters, dangerous eretica and vieczy vampires, millennia-old mythology, and the search for her own mortality. After all… HOW DO YOU KILL A SURVIVOR? The Survivors will steal your heart and invade your mind. Fall into the pages of Sadie’s life, a world so frighteningly similar to your own, you’ll find yourself wanting to go to the Montana mountains to find the Survivors for yourself. And it is only the beginning. "The way Ms. Havard has taken the history of the Salem witches and made it her own is truly fascinating... great debut from a talented writer." –DJ DeSmyter, author of Hunted “[THE SURVIVORS is a…] promising debut and an incredibly unique paranormal romance. Unputdownable, engaging, realistic and dark..." –Fragments of Life Review Blog Can't wait to read the whole story? THE SURVIVORS is available for purchase now through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kindle, the Apple iBookstore, and

Nightingale is human - or would be, had it not been for the manner of her creation. Genetically engineered and grown to adulthood in a lab, she was created, not born. Why? For the sole purpose of the entertainment of rich men as one of the many Inamoratas in the bordello business . Beautiful, elegant, a superb dancer and an even better singer, she is the perfect lover for any man. Perfect, that is, except for her personality - the one thing you can't engineer.

Bliss has always been different. Because of a condition called CIPA, she’s never felt pain–no headaches, no cramps, no charlie horses. She also can’t sweat, cry or even play sports without endangering her life. And the worst part? She knows she has an expiration date, and it is probably fairly soon -- most people like her don't live past the age of 18. So, what's a girl to do? Well, if you're Bliss, you give the world the finger and decide to live life on your own terms. For her, this means training with her top-secret government agent mom in the art of hand-to-hand combat, and convincing her mad scientist dad to invent a special suit that will let her seek out the world's dangers without overheating and biting the big one. She is determined to take the world on, fighting the “bad guys” and leaving her mark during the short time she has. But when an old friend from CIPA camp asks her to help track down others like them who've suddenly disappeared under mysterious circumstances, her reckless lifestyle is put to the ultimate test. Especially when the junior government agent-in-training her mom assigns to help them with the case turns out to be totally hot--and totally into her. Torn between her feelings of anger toward the life she's been dealt and the one she could have if she just let others in, Bliss takes off on a mission that might just be her last.

Seventeen-year-old Scarlett Hayes is living her life by her own rules. Losing her parents at a young age has made her strong and fiercely independent. She knows exactly who she is and nothing is going to change that. Everything starts to change for her when she moves to a new town. She meets Cade Presley. He is domineering and arrogant which makes her detest him at first sight. She learns a secret that will unravel her perfect life and lead her into a world she never knew existed. Embracing her new life is difficult when it pulls her closer to Cade. Finding out you are destined to be with someone forever is hard to handle especially when you want to throttle them every time you see them. The attraction she feels for him is undeniable and there is no fighting destiny. *Please note this is only a five chapter sample of the published book.