A Not So Singular World - Patrick Hatt

Jeremiah has spent his whole life searching for his parents with nothing but a faded picture of them to keep him going. His search had hit a dead end until his birthday rolled around and he received a gift, being run down by a car that seemed to have no driver. And that was the best part of his day. 

Jeremiah is just your average loner, content with just his trusty cat, Orlin.  Until a weird guy from the "Brother of Olympus" shows up, and he's told soon after he has cancer.  Or when a weird science dude goes to find him, and a punk Brit reality TV show host is hired to capture him, and well.  Things certainly turn topsy turvy for this fellow.

My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Carpe DiEmily (Part 1) - Riley J. Ford

TRIGGER WARNINGS: SUICIDE AND MENTIONS OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE

Emily Keane has her life organized, filed, scheduled, and color-coded, and now things are looking up:  Her boss, Darren, has a promotion she just knows has her name on it, and her longtime boyfriend, Lenny, is going to propose to her tonight.  Except... not.  Turns out the promotion is for her sleazy coworker, Simone Stevens, and Lenny bought her a break-up gift instead of a ring.  Now her life is in shambles, and decides to end her life.  She doesn't want it to end for nothing, though, and decides to donate her organs when she dies - and that's where Dr. Becker comes in.  Enigmatic and calculating, he gives Emily an offer: One million dollars and one year to do what she wants before he comes to assist her suicide and harvests her organs.  Now, with the clock running down, Emily tries to shake up her methodical lifestyle and do what she's never done before: Live spontaneously.

My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Under the Burning Sky - Olivia Bersell

In 1969 Ex-Marine Ethan Coles, arrives at Stoney Creek, a cattle station in the remote Australian outback to take up his new position as the resident school teacher, and is instantly drawn to the beautiful eighteen-year-old half cast girl, Amarin.

The year is 1969.  Ethan Coles, an Ex-Marine, goes down under, to Stoney Creek, a town in a remote area in the Australian outback to teach.  He is instantly enamored by Amarin, an beautiful half-Aboriginal girl.  They quickly find themselves falling for each other, despite Amarin's mother's disapproval.  As they begin their summer romance, Ethan deals with getting accustomed to life in the Outback and trying to avoid a rival, while Amarin struggles to uncover the secrets to her birth, all while a mysterious murder shakes up the small town.

My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

The Plantation - Stella Samiotou Fitzsimons

A century has passed since they arrived. Human history has been erased. Children are enslaved on Alien plantations. Some have heard whispers of the existence of a rebel band of humans who roam free in the forests. Most slaves dare not speak of the rebels for fear the mutant guards will grab and make an example of them.

It's one hundred years after the fall of humanity. Aliens have taken over the earth, enslaving humanity and putting them on plantations. Not all hope is lost, however, as Freya, Finn, and the band of escapee slaves who call themselves the Saviors are out there, training and waiting for the day they can start a revolution. While every Savior has some sort of superhuman ability given to them by alien testing, Freya is average, making her the weakest one on the team. Tensions rise as leadership is challenged in this struggle for humanity. 

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars.

The Color of a Memory - Julianne MacLean

ER nurse Audrey Fitzgerald believed she was married to the perfect man - a heroic firefighter who saved lives, even beyond his own death. But a year after losing him she meets a mysterious woman who has some unexplained connection to her husband.... 

Audrey Livingston is a nurse who meets firefighter Alex Fitzgerald on just an average day at the clinic. However, she quickly finds herself falling for him. When he dies on the job, she is devastated, and the story follows her in investigating whether Alex was faithful and Nadia, a woman who received Alex's heart.

My rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Seduced By Innocence - Karpov Kinrade

All my life I've been told that I will kill my first love. That the dark power I harbor within myself will destroy him.  Just like it's destroyed others.  Witches take an oath to do no harm, but I broke that oath even as a child, and so I hide within the invisible walls of my strange coven, keeping everyone at a distance.  Until I meet Derek.

Rose is a dangerous girl: she has the power to destroy someone's mind, leaving them an empty shell of what they once were. She's been told all her life by her mother and other members of her witch community that her powers are uncontrollable and that she is doomed to a life of celibacy lest she kills her lover. However, she meets Derek, a man she is inexplicably drawn to, right as her coven prepares to launch an attack on the Druids, their enemy.

My rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Mythical - C.E. Martin

Colonel Mark Kenslir is the last of the Cold War supersoldiers--and he's just come back from the dead. Sent to Arizona to hunt a heart-devouring shapeshifter, Colonel Kenslir and his team of supernatural-smashing soldiers thought it was just another mission. But instead of stopping the monster's murderous rampage, Kenslir and his team became the latest victims in trail of carnage blazed across the southwest. 

It's summertime for Josie and the gang, who ride off in their motorcycles to celebrate having graduated high school.  However, they find a burnt boat and a stone man in the middle of the desert.  Soon, the stone man comes to life as Colonel Mark Kenslir, a supersoldier with general amnesia.  Josie and her friend, Jimmy, soon find themselves on a wild ride as they try to help Mark Kenslir remember his past and complete his mission.

My rating: 1 out of 5 stars.

The Shadow and the Rose - Amanda DeWees

When ordinary high-school junior Joy Sumner visits a graveyard at midnight on a dare, she doesn't expect to end up sharing a kiss with brooding teen model Tanner Lindsey. And she definitely doesn't expect to make an enemy of Tanner's seductive, sinister mentor, the ageless supermodel Melisande--who may not be entirely human--or to find that her sleepy little corner of North Carolina is buzzing with supernatural energy. 

Joy Sumner, a junior attending Ash Grove, an extremely competitive performing arts high school, ventures out to a graveyard at midnight because of a dare.  What she doesn't expect to find is teen model Tanner Lindsey, an old student at Ash Grove.  She finds herself at odds with the new big celebrity in town, the beautiful Melisande, and works through her year to survive high school and uncover the mystery behind Melisande and Ash Grove.

My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Investigating the Hottie - Juli Alexander

When Amanda spends a week with her aunt, Christie, she learns that her aunt is a spy. Christie admits that Amanda has security clearance and has already started her training. When her aunt asks her to investigate a teenage hacker, Amanda thinks that spending time with a nerd should be doable despite her social ineptitude. Unfortunately for Amanda, the hacker is a hottie.

Amanda Peterson, super spy. At least, that's the temporary occupation this high school sophomore takes when she spends her fall break at her aunt's place. Her assignment? To investigate a hacker who has promised something big come next Monday. So far, the top suspect is Will Middleton, who attends school near the area. Unfortunately for Amanda, the hacker is, in her words "yummy".

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

Remember This (A Romantic Comedy) - Shae Buggs

Lucy, a hard working shenanigan queen, finds evidence that her husband, Mason, cheated on her. In a heated moment, she throws a wine bottle at his head leaving him unable to remember anything from his past. Since she is responsible for her husband’s amnesia, it is her responsibility to get his memory back. Motivated by revenge, Lucy plans a way to get Mason back to normal while having a little fun in the process. This story unveils her comical attempts to sabotage him and how he tries to win her back.

Clumsy and hardworking Lucy Harper has lately found herself growing apart from her husband Mason.  However, one day she finds compelling evidence that he has cheated on her, and in a moment of passion chucks a wine bottle at his head, inducing a case of amnesia.  Now, she needs to get his memory back so they can finally get to divorcing.  However, Lucy soon finds herself falling for this amnesiac Mason, like the first time around.

My rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Arrival (The Maddy Young Saga) - Nick Pirog

Maddy Young is dead. Or at least that's what they tell him. Imagine that when you die, you have a 1 in 3 chance of having another life; same body, same age, same place as when you died. But for Maddy, everything is not making sense. He was just a week away from his Bar exam and starting his life as a Public Defender, when he made a grand entrance into this second life of his—a place they call Two.

TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THIS STORY:  Mentions of death and various ways to die throughout; brief rape mention, lesbophobic language and general homophobia

This story is about Madison "Maddy" Young, a young man who has died jerking off in the shower before the story has even begun.  But he doesn't find himself in your typical afterlife, but instead a facility with other people, who all have died too.  They've found themselves in a rehabilitation center in a place called Two, a world were one in three people arrive to in the afterlife.  It's just like the living world, Maddy finds, only with people who have died.  However, some things are not quite as they seem.  They surround the conspiracy of the 'Borns', people who are supposedly born in Two.

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars.

Botanicaust - Tam Linsey

After genetically altered weeds devastate Earth's croplands, Dr. Tula Macoby believes photosynthetic skin can save the human race. Her people single-mindedly embark on a mission to convert the cannibals roaming what's left of Earth. But when Levi, a peaceful stranger, refuses alteration, Tula doesn't think the only options should be conversion or death.

It's a futuristic, crapsack world. The earth has experienced the Botanicaust, in which foreign weeds have overtaken almost all plantlife, leaving no crops or the like for humanity. Most have resorted to cannibalism in order to survive; other humans have found a way to survive without much sustenance: by inserting chloroplasts into their skin and photosynthesizing like plants do.

In Levi's case, his community does neither. A heavily religious, tightknit town, using electric fences to keep out the dangerous weeds and the cannibals, the Holdout has been able to survive the Botanicaust. However, his son, Josef, has cystic fibrosis, and there is no way of curing it, except for maybe contacting the Fosselites, advanced people who have also survived the Botanicaust and have discovered eternal life. His journey begins when he searches for them.

Tula is a Haldanian doctor, a Conversion Psychiatrist who aids cannibals in converting to Haldanians, people with chloroplasts implanted in their system.  However, when the Burn Ops capture a person who might not actually be a cannibal, Tula takes off on an adventure that will change her life.

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

In Your Dreams - Amy Martin

Sixteen-year-old Zara "Zip" McKee lives for three things: basketball, books, and bailing out of tiny Titusville, Illinois, where the junior high and high school are in the same building and everyone's known everyone else since birth. But when Kieran Lanier moves to town and passes out on her desk on his first day at school, Zip's life gets complicated in a way she never dreamed. 

Zip McKee is just a junior trying to get through school in the sleepy, small town of Titusville, Illinois.  However, the arrival of a new family in town shakes up her small world.  She finds herself growing closer to Kieran, the new boy with narcolepsy. However, she soon finds out that his narcolepsy isn't exactly normal - sometimes when he dreams, he dreams of the future. Together Zip, Kieran, and his family try to piece together why that happens. 

My review: 4 out of 5 stars

Styrofoam Throne - David Bone

Coastal California, 1984…with school season just ending, sixteen-year-old Donovan wants nothing more than to work inside Castle Dunes, the seaside haunted attraction that his mom wishes him nowhere near.

 School has just ended for the sixteen-year-old, macabre weirdo Donovan.  This year, he has his sights set on Castle Dunes, a horror attraction nearby.  The only problem?  He's broke, and his mom won't help whatsoever.  However, after getting out of working with his mom, he finally finds himself at Castle Dunes.  Before he knows it, he's now in, an employee at Castle Dunes.  There, he makes friends and tries to make the most out of his dream for the summer.

My rating: 3.5 out of 5