The Jir have sent starships many times to destroy the cities of Earth and stifle its technological advancement. Empires are dust. Only nomadic cultures thrive.

Born a princess, Arixa gave up palace life to ride the plains of Scythia at the head of a war band, the Dawn. When a chance alien encounter leaves Arixa with knowledge of an impending Jir devastation, there is no question of whether to fight back. The only question is how, when the most advanced weapons known in Scythia are made of iron.

Luckily, Arixa’s will is also iron. With a loyal war-band at her back, she will seek a way to save her homeland and make the enemies of humanity pay. She will equip her warriors to face a new foe on a new battlefield.

Always wanting to be a writer, but not having much experience with men or romance, Aubrey sets out to find her inspiration with the help of her best friend. Just when she thinks all hope is lost, she meets Alex Logan. He’s beyond handsome, well dressed, and is known to be a player—perfect for the role.

The unexpected happens and Alex becomes more than just an inspiration to Aubrey, but a misunderstanding leaves her heartbroken. Before an opportunity arises to straighten things out, tragedy strikes, and Aubrey’s world is turned upside down.

While Aubrey is trying to cope with her new life, a new chance at love arises. Can she find it in her to trust again? Will Alex be able to win her back? Or will she take this new unexpected chance at love?

Trina had spent the last three years in a perfect relationship with Brandon. Now after planning the perfect wedding with the man of her dreams, everything she had hoped for their lives together was on the brink of coming true.

That is, until the day of the wedding when a very important guest didn’t arrive… the groom himself, Brandon.

Now Trina is left to pick up the pieces of her life and figure out what went wrong. Why did Brandon leave her at the alter after everything they had been through? Trina wants answers and she won’t rest until she finds them. Her heart won’t let her.

Can you get by for an hour without talking? A day even? What about a month? Or nine?
Rebecca Marley sets herself a nine-month challenge with only one rule: She isn’t allowed to communicate with anyone. She is to become mute. How hard could it be?

Yet, what starts as a challenge, soon becomes a journey of self-discovery as Rebecca has only herself for company. Will this time be the peaceful respite she so desperately seeks? Or will she confront aspects of herself that a noisy world hides so well?

Faced with love and heartache, she soon learns to find solace in silence.

When the U.S. Air Force decided to create an elite “special tactics” team in the late 1970s to work in conjunction with special-operations forces combating terrorists and hijackers and defusing explosive international emergencies, John T. Carney was the man they turned to. Since then Carney and the U.S. Air Force Special Tactical units have circled the world on sensitive clandestine missions. They have operated behind enemy lines gathering vital intelligence. They have combated terrorists and overthrown dangerous dictators. They have suffered many times the casualty rate of America’s conventional forces. But they have gotten the job done–most recently in stunning victories in the war on terrorism in Afghanistan, which Carney calls “America’s first special-operations war.”

In a remote, enemy-held valley in Afghanistan, a Special Forces team planned to scale a steep mountain to surprise and capture a terrorist leader. But before they found the target, the target found them…

The team was caught in a deadly ambush that not only threatened their lives, but the entire mission. The elite soldiers fought huddled for hours on a small rock ledge as rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-gun fire rained down on them. With total disregard for their own safety, they tended to their wounded and kept fighting to stay alive. When the battle finally ended, ten soldiers had earned Silver Stars—the Army’s third highest award for combat valor. It was the most Silver Stars awarded to any unit in one battle since Vietnam.

In 2116, it is against the law to live beyond the age of twenty-one years. When the crystal flower in the palm of your hand turns from red to black, you have reached your Lastday and you must report to a Sleepshop for processing. But the human will to survive is strong—stronger than any mere law.

Logan 3 is a Sandman, an enforcer who hunts down those Runners who refuse to accept Deep Sleep. The day before Logan’s palmflower shifts to black, a Runner accidentally reveals that he was racing toward a goal: Sanctuary. With this information driving him forward, Logan 3 assumes the role of the hunted and becomes a Runner.

Assimilating ain’t easy. Eddie Huang was raised by a wild family of FOB (“fresh off the boat”) immigrants—his father a cocksure restaurateur with a dark past back in Taiwan, his mother a fierce protector and constant threat. Young Eddie tried his hand at everything mainstream America threw his way, from white Jesus to macaroni and cheese, but finally found his home as leader of a rainbow coalition of lost boys up to no good: skate punks, dealers, hip-hop junkies, and sneaker freaks. This is the story of a Chinese-American kid in a could-be-anywhere cul-de-sac blazing his way through America’s deviant subcultures, trying to find himself, ten thousand miles from his legacy and anchored only by his conflicted love for his family and his passion for food.

For weeks that fall, the body count of sexually violated, brutally murdered young women escalated. With increasing alarm, Los Angeles newspapers headlined the deeds of a serial killer they named the Hillside Strangler. The city was held hostage by fear.

But not until January 1979, more than a year later, would the mysterious disappearance of two university students near Seattle lead police to the arrest of a security guard—the handsome, charming, fast-talking Kenny Bianchi—and the discovery that the strangler was not one man but two.

Story Engineering starts with the criteria and the architecture of storytelling, the engineering and design of a story–and uses it as the basis for narrative. The greatest potential of any story is found in the way six specific aspects of storytelling combine and empower each other on the page. When rendered artfully, they become a sum in excess of their parts.