Annabelle Kennedy is a normal sixteen year old unaffected by the craze of internationally famous Xavier Matthews. Annabelle won't let an eighteen year old pop star distract her for her ambitions of being a musician. Xavier Matthews doesn't know who he is anymore. His management has taken control of his very soul, so much so he doesn't like the music he makes. Organised by his management (AKA. His dad), Xavier Matthews is the star of 'his' reality TV; The Search for Cinderella. 100 completely random school girls will come to sunny California to the mansion where the games will begin. The aim; to be Xavier's date to the grand ball. He thought it's going to be just another crappy TV show, until Annabelle Kennedy gives him a rude awakening.' (JUST A FRIENDLY REMINDER that i wrote this however many years ago when I was 14 years old lol. Prepare yourself for a cliche filled, poorly edited book). I

A genius analyst has to leave her desk behind and team up with the sour Agency hothead to track down her missing partner. ----- Quinn O'Reilly doesn't belong in the field. She's better off as the brilliant intelligence analyst behind some of the Agency's biggest arrests, and more than comfortable surrounded by her screens. Special Agent Cameron Kent, Agent Quinn's primary partner, is the pro carrying out the plans formulated with Quinn's brainpower. She's the closest thing to family Quinn's ever had. She's also missing, having dropped off the map in the middle of an undercover operation. There is no one better suited to find Cam than Quinn. There is no one better suited than Gavin Locke, agency hothead, to protect her in the meantime. With clues left all around the world, this unlikely pair will have to pick up the pace to find Cam in time - and avoid killing each other in the process. It's time for Special Agent O'Reilly to step forward - and into the field. ----- standalone, 150k words completed

Lily Morgan knew she was different, but that had nothing to do with her supernatural abilities. In a world of abnormal creatures she was an outcast. With no idea what species she is, Lily keeps her head down throughout school; juggling boring and unusual subjects and research in the library for the lost records of the supernatural. Until a rainy day when her creature unleashes - the calm before a brutal war of a storm. Wolves catch her scent. Vampires crave her blood. Witches curl their magic in fear. Fairies tremble on fractured wings. For Lily Morgan, school was the least of her worries. Typhoon is part one - completed at 110,000 - 120,000 words Tempest is part two - completed at 100,000 - 110,000 words Typhoon: Watty Awards 2019 Contender (c) Elizabeth H. Blake

Electra Jaeger is a dagger wielding, gun flashing huntress, hunting down the creatures of darkness. When it comes to the paranormal she's not picky--werewolves, ghouls, vampires, witches. It's all in a night's work. The Jaeger children were brought into the life after their mother's death at the hands of a werewolf, and it's all they've known since. Now, Electra's the only one who finds peace in the hunt. She hunts for her mother and herself, turning into a closed off, carefully guarded young woman. It's the routine that works for her until one person changes it all. He's new, he's straight-forward, and oh so confident, and for some reason his sights are set on Electra. She never expected to fall for anyone, let alone someone who didn't know about the paranormal world, but Jared's closer to the subject than she thinks. Electra realizes that the world of the paranormal is more complex than she'd thought, and she's forced to make a decision: to risk her life as well as the life of the man she loves, or to turn away and never look back. She must decide what she can live without. Who will she betray? Her family or herself? Find out in, The Huntress.

❖ QUEENKILLER, KINGMAKER Book 1 ❖ Feudal Southeast-Asia filled with magic, daemons, and a royal conspiracy. This is Isla's quest for the truth, and her slow spiral into becoming her very own worst nightmare. When the gods ascended thousands of years ago, they left behind the divine gift of theurgy. Its powers still echo amongst men, but run fiercer yet in the blood of kings and queens. And one of them will stop at nothing before Isla is dead. A betrayal lures her out of refuge and into her journey home, where she must unmask her enemies before they unmask her. The theurgy that she has had to keep hidden for many years can be her greatest ally or her most lethal foil. Only her wits can guide her through the dangerous politics of the Surikh court. But amidst the plots and schemes bubbling around her, she uncovers something far more sinister than the identity of her enemies. Something that can change her entire life; indeed, entire kingdoms. ↝ this work contains violence, profanity, and sexual references ↜ ↝ Winner of Wattys 2016 HQ Love Award ↝ Winner of FANTASCI's first Chosen One ↝ Winner of The Cryptic Awards 2018 ↝ Featured in Fantasy as of 18-01-2017 ↝ Wattpad Editor's Pick January 2021

Aria Silver considers herself relatively lucky - as far as teenagers go. She goes to a good school, has good friends, is on the varsity cheerleading team, and has a family as decent as families get. She's happy and can hardly imagine anything changing. That is, until the week of tequila, the sirens of an ambulance, a new boy, and a funeral. After realizing that life isn't all what it's made up to be sometimes, Aria is left to her own resorts to try to answer some of the worlds longest, burning questions: In a world full of so much despair, how do we find something worth living for? How do we keep fighting, even if we fail to see the silver linings?

A MODERN MEDIEVAL FANTASY #3 in Fantasy |Book 1 of the Fifth Daughter Trilogy| When darkness arises and the world of Fantasy is in danger of being destroyed, the Dragon Riders are the first to show up. Fire and fang, sword and shaft, meet the enemy head on and the wars don't end until the enemy is disbanded. It's not a pretty business, but it must be done to secure the lives of every creature within Fantasy. There are two Rider schools - over thousands of Riders and dragons - and Smoke Green is one of them, no matter how much she dislikes the idea and the heights. Her fate has been chosen, even if she doesn't want it. With a vacant father, a mother who has too many secrets, four older sisters, an older brother, and a three minute older, annoying twin brother, Smoke isn't expected to be much more than a hometown girl of Folklore; who will get a boring desk job and never leave home. But then the Sage of the Burrows proclaims her a Dragon Rider and a Fifth Daughter and Smoke's life changes stories - literally. Moving from Folklore to Legend, Smoke is taught that fears can be conquered and villains do have a hunger for power. She also learns she might just have the power this villain is after. She makes friends: Something she didn't know she could do, she finds her dragon: Someone she didn't know even existed, and she learns her past: Something she didn't know was so complicated. But when rebellions begin to break out across the globe; the world of Fantasy is once again put in danger and the Dragon Riders might not be able to save their home this time around. Especially, when the enemy is from one of their own royal families; once thought incinerated, and his accomplice might just be Smoke's long thought dead father. In this first book of the Fifth Daughter Trilogy, J.J. wants you to forget everything you think you know of mythology and open your mind to a new kind of fantasy. Started: 03.25.15 Restarted: 11.29.16 Completed: 03.01.17

************************************************************************************** An outcast rogue must break a curse put on his fate, or die on his nineteenth birthday. To survive, he'll need the sword of a maiden, the aid of an immortal, and the power of forbidden magic that could cost him the only girl he ever loved. ************************************************************************************ *** THE JACK OF SOULS won a Silver IPPY this year! *** THE JACK OF SOULS won 1st place in the PNWA Competition in Fantasy! * *** THE JACK OF SOULS won 1st place in the Southwest Writers competition! * *** A "Featured Book" on Wattpad! * *** Now a "Staff Pick" on Kickstarter! * *** Available on Amazon in paper, hardback, and ebook ! * *** My contract with Kindle Select won't allow me to post more than 3 chapters here, but... *** Sign up for my newsletter on stephenmerlino.com for alerts when it's free on Amazon! * MY INSPIRATION I wrote this out of pure love of trickster rogues; I love the wit over brawn motif -- Odysseus over Achilles, Raven over Eagle -- so I like to play with it in my stories. In JOS I set the rogue and con-artist Harric against a foil of warriors in a land threatened by magic and civil war. Whenever possible I turn familiar tropes on their heads: instead of a handsome young Lancelot, I cast a broken-down ex-champion addicted to pain-killing herbs; instead of a dashing Squire Brian, the old knight reluctantly takes an ambitious young woman as squire. Similarly, I re-imagine the standard medieval milieu by infusing aspects of two of my favorite historical periods, Elizabethan England, and The American Frontier. Both eras boast a kind of nationalistic arrogance that borders on hubris, and a magnificent spirit of resourcefulness and re-invention that is fun to play with. SERIES The Jack of Souls is first in a series. I am posting parts of the sequel here now (The Knave of Souls), to help me refine the story.