Omega Beginnings Miniseries (#1 - Alessandra, #2 - Mismatch, #3 - Phoibe, #4 - Lantos)

Series: Omega Beginnings Miniseries

By Lizzy Ford, free (all four books)

#1 - Alessandra
Five-year-old Alessandra is obsessed with Disney movies, tea parties and just wants a real birthday party for once in her life. But normal kids don’t bring their toys to life for afternoon tea or see the colorful threads of magic and energy clinging to everything around them. 

Normal kids don’t know that gargoyles feel pain, either, or invite one to live in their closet. 

On her sixth birthday, Alessandra begins to learn the truth. She’s special, and the men in the black van are coming for her.

#2 - Mismatch
Mismatch hasn’t always been a statue standing guard over the Temple of Artemis. Once upon a time, thousands of years ago, he was a man who led a privileged life. Like the Greek monarchs before him, he fell victim to the family curse: he was turned to stone and forced to keep watch over the temple of a Greek god or goddess. 

Out of the blue, five-year-old Alessandra breaks the spell. Mismatch seeks out the shy, young crown princess next in line to the family curse and warns her about her fate in the hopes of saving her from the living death. 

He returns when Alessandra is in danger, but the powers behind those seeking her are prepared for anything.

Even the grotesque prince.

#3 - Phoibe
With a speech impediment and learning disability, the frail six-year-old Crown Princess of Greece is constantly being told she’ll never live up to the woman her mother was. She’s the only descendent of the sacred Bloodline, the royal family touched by the Greek Gods ten thousand years before, and protected by international law. 

But Phoibe doesn’t care about any of that. She wants to be loved by someone, and that someone is a mysterious shadow named Lantos who talks to her when no one else will.

Before leaving, the gargoyle Mismatch made her promise never to speak aloud again, or she’ll seal her fate, and the family curse will claim her. She obeys him – and faces the wrath of cruel caretakers sworn to ensure the curse comes to pass. 

When Mismatch doesn’t return to save her, young Phoibe must make her first grown-up decision: accept the curse or trust the shadowy creature who tries to help her.

#4 - Lantos
Lantos is a demigod, the orphaned son of the Titan of the Unseen and a human mother raised on the streets of Washington DC. His sole mission in life: to be worthy of his father’s attention and hopefully one day, shed his human weakness and win his father’s love. 

In his haste to help Princess Phoibe, Lantos stumbles upon a discovery that changes his life and destiny forever. Not only does he find someone capable of shoring up his very human weaknesses but he also uncovers a secret he believes will win over his father. 

However, to use both to his advantage, he risks disobeying his father. Lantos is forced to decide how far he’s willing to go to get what he wants in life.

Broken City

Broken City, by D.D. Chant, free

Deeta Richards has never seen the outside world. Before she was born a banking crisis brought civilization to an end and now no one leaves the safety of the compounds unless they need to, but Deeta still dreams of seeing more than the building she was born in. 

Tom is in the guard; this group are the only people that the tribal elders allow to leave the compound and Tom knows only too well that Deeta could never survive the harshness that exists outside. 

Then tragedy strikes and Deeta and her Sister Jan find themselves captured by a hostile tribe. Why does Tom know so much about these people? And, why do they know so much about him? As this mystery draws to a climax, they discover that their friend Tom is not quite what he seems...

Broken City, book 2, Broken Truce, is now available.

The Forgotten and The Wandering, Books 1 and 2 of the Lux Guardians series

The Forgotten, Book 1 of the Lux Guardians, by Saruuh Kelsey, free

The Forgotten, book one in The Lux Guardians series, is a Young Adult Dystopian novel set both in a future wreck of London and London in the Victorian era.

Honour and Horatia Frie are twins living in a world of wreck and ruin. 

Forgotten London is a dismal place of containment, rationing, and a four-family-per-house regulation. Twenty five years ago the world was set ablaze when solar flares obliterated three quarters of the Earth’s population and wiped out whole continents in one blow. The flares brought with them The Sixteen Strains: agonizing and fatal diseases that plague each of the forty one zones of Forgotten London and the rest of the world. The only places that escaped fatal damage were two countries now known as The Cities – States and Bharat. The rest of the world – The Forgotten Lands – is contained within borders for the people’s protection against even deadlier Strains outside the barrier. But fifteen year old Honour thinks differently. He thinks that they’re kept inside the fence for other, more menacing reasons. He thinks that States are planning to kill them. 

Branwell and Bennet Ravel are twins living in a world of danger and secrecy.

In Victorian London, years before the solar flares hit, the Ravels’ world has just been turned upside down. Their father, poisoned by something even genius Branwell can’t determine, has passed away. His dying words were unnerving orders to keep each other safe no matter the cost, and to hide everything he has ever invented. When one of his creations goes missing – a device named The Lux that can generate unlimited energy – the twins are shocked to discover that their very own government has stolen it and, according to their father’s journals, are planning to use it to create unfathomable explosions to destroy their world.

The Wandering, Book 2 of the Lux Guardians, by Saruuh Kelsey, free

Honour and Horatia Frie are twins living in a world of wreck and ruin.

Branwell and Bennet Ravel are twins living in a world of danger and secrecy.

Miya and Yosiah are friends trying to survive in a world that wants them dead.

In this second book in the high stakes Lux Guardians series, the twins and friends continue their impossible quests. Faced with unimaginable struggles, they must work together to halt the utter devastation intended for all of their worlds. With a dangerous journey to Bharat and a plot to overthrow States’s Ordering Body, The Wandering will wrench everyone to their breaking points.

The Roses Garden and the Sea

The Roses Garden and the Sea, by Jackie McCarthy, free

Everyone in Illiamna knows the Tale of Benson Rose, a bedtime story beloved by adults and children alike, but few know the story behind their national hero. Would they be surprised to learn that Benson Rose did, in fact, live? Would they be surprised to know he was actually a woman? 

Raised as a fisherman's daughter in the crumbling Kingdom of Illiamna, Rose knows nothing of magic, secrets, spies, or sailing ships—she is content playing pranks on her neighbors with twin brother Benson at her side. Her idyllic lifestyle is not to last, however, and her tiny village is destroyed, thrusting upon her young shoulders responsibility for her helpless family. In order to protect her mother and sisters in unfriendly lands (fending off thieves, thugs, and an uncle who intends to sell them for gold), Rose must dress as her missing brother. In this disguise, she receives the help of Fenric, a mysterious scribe from the merchant ship Turnagain, and the charismatic Captain Kaille, a man to whom she feels drawn by fate. Little does she know that, with these interactions, she begins the journey that will sweep her into Illiamna's most clandestine intrigues and endear her to time as Benson Rose, the man who saved the kingdom in its darkest days.

This is the first in the Rose's Garden and the Sea series.

Stitch (Stitch Trilogy, Book 1)

Stitch (Stitch Trilogy, Book 1), by Samantha Durante, free for a limited time (June 7-11 only)

Her heart races, her muscles coil, and every impulse in Alessa’s body screams at her to run… but yet she’s powerless to move.

Still struggling to find her footing after the sudden death of her parents, the last thing college freshman Alessa has the strength to deal with is the inexplicable visceral pull drawing her to a handsome ghostly presence. In between grappling with exams and sorority soirees – and disturbing recurring dreams of being captive in a futuristic prison hell – Alessa is determined to unravel the mystery of the apparition who leaves her breathless. But the terrifying secret she uncovers will find her groping desperately through her nightmares for answers.

Because what Alessa hasn’t figured out yet is that she’s not really a student, the object of her obsession is no ghost, and her sneaking suspicions that something sinister is lurking behind the walls of her university’s idyllic campus are only just scratching the surface…

The opening installment in a twist-laden trilogy, Stitch spans the genres of paranormal romance and dystopian sci-fi to explore the challenges of a society in transition, where morality, vision, and pragmatism collide leaving the average citizen to suffer the results.

Socialpunk (Socialpunk #1)

Socialpunk (Socialpunk #1), by Monica Leonelle, free

Ima is just a teenage girl trying to make it in The Dome, an encapsulated, 5-mile radius of downtown Chicago that remains after natural disaster has overtaken most of the earth. When she meets a hooded figure named Vaughn at a party, he takes her on a whirlwind escape that jolts her from her current reality into Silicon City, where humans are upgraded, currency is clout, and bionic eyes are the only way to get information among the glass and metal spiraling buildings that dot the skyline. Oh, and the year is 2198, not 2052 like she thought it was.

But this new city comes with dangers of its own, from degenerates to replications, from hostile hashes to a dictator who seems determined to control the population. To top it all off, Ima has to find some way to get back to The Dome to save her best friend Dash before the powers of Silicon City find a way to destroy it.

Something sinister is brewing in Silicon City, and Ima is determined to figure out how to stop it. Along the way, she will have to give up parts of herself to save the ones she loves. Can she survive the future long enough to fix the past?

Sunset Rising

Sunset Rising, by S.M. McEachern, free on 11/25 only

February 2024: the world is about to devastated by a global nuclear war and a Hitler-like madman has seized control of the only shelter from the bombs. So when a group of civilians come to the Bio-Dome seeking refuge from the nuclear storm, they are forced to make a deal with the devil; submit to slavery or get out. Subjected to the inhumane living conditions of the Pit, the ragtag group of refugees are forced to agree to strict population control laws, including the Cull: execution at the age of thirty-five.

283 years later… Sunny O’Donnell, a slave born in the bowels of the Pit, has reached a breaking point in her life. In the wake of her mother’s execution, Sunny is torn between caring for her grieving father and protecting her own future by marrying Reyes Crowe. At seventeen years old, Sunny is already middle aged and past the time when most girls secure a husband, but she knows her father will lose his life if she leaves him now. 

Through a twist of fate, Sunny meets Leisel Holt, the daughter of the Dome’s insane President, and sees a spark of hope for the future of the Pit. In an effort to fan that spark into a flame, Sunny agrees to pose as the bride at Leisel’s wedding to Jack Kenner in order to save the bride from a possible assassination attempt. But instead of saving Leisel, Sunny unknowingly plays into her political game and ends up marrying Jack Kenner herself. Now on the run for crimes of treason, Sunny and her new husband discover that together they possess the power to raise an army.

Sunset Rising is the first book in a series. It is the tale of how the human spirit can be revived to rise up and fight the bonds of oppression.

Inner City

Inner City, by Scott Norton, free

The cities have gated their walls. Those in rural areas have been reduced to savages. When Callen Carrus, a seven year old boy from the city, faces a personal crises and runs away, he's chased outside the city walls. What happens to him there sets him on a twelve year quest that leads to love and extraordinary adventure. The riddle of Callen's past will require him risking his life to solve. 

Mind Games

Mind Games, a short story by Susan Kaye Quinn, free

Raf, a regular mindreader, is in love with Kira, the only girl in school who can't read minds. Raf struggles to keep his thoughts about her private, but secrets are something that only zeros like Kira can keep. As he works up the nerve to ask Kira to the mindware Games, his friends have other games in mind for him. (Mind Games is a short story prequel to the novel Open Minds.) 

Overcast (The 01:23am Bardo, book 1)

Overcast (The 01:23am Bardo, book 1), by Ryan O'Riordan, free

Rebecca Conner has sleepwalked through life since her older brother went missing while surfing. She frequently escapes into her daydreams where they secretly work together as detectives, in order to keep his memory alive.  When Freddie, a boy she doesn't recognise appears in her class like he has always been there, she realises the world is changing without anybody noticing.  Then one night at 01:23am, her own life changes forever when everything she imagined overwrites the true life she knew.

Overcast is a dystopian detective story. Expect mysteries, action and romance. It is young adult recommended for ages 14 and up.  Overwrite, (The 01:23am Bardo, book 2) has now been published.