Coming of age

Journeys: the Archers of Saint Sebastian

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A barracks full of beautiful boys. A girl in disguise, living among them.

It’s the 14th century, and the longbow is king. But in the northern European principality of Ardennes, archery isn’t just the nation’s defense. It’s the national obsession.

MEET THE JOURNEYS
12 young Journeyman archers, the best in the country
2 years of public competitions, in which looks count almost as much as ability
6 will win a coveted membership in the Archers’ Guild of St. Sebastian
1 will become the prince’s new Guardsman

MEET MARIEKE
15-year-old Marieke is as obsessed with St. Sebastian’s as everyone else in Ardennes. Only it’s the middle ages, and girls just don’t become elite archers. Except Marieke’s prospects as a girl aren’t promising either, after a well-timed kick from a mule has left her with a face that’s badly scarred and ruined for marriage. But when circumstances force her to leave her old life behind and flee to the guild for refuge, there are only two things Marieke really knows about the place. One is that a mysterious accident ended her own father’s time as a Journey. The other?
There are no women allowed inside St. Sebastian’s.
Marieke knows disguising herself as a boy and infiltrating the guild means embarking on a dangerous deception. But it may be her only chance to find out the truth about her father’s past and to stop a murderous plot from coming to fruition. When the dashing young Journeyman Tristan takes her under his wing as his squire, she’s got to stay – at least long enough to help him beat out his brutal arch-rival to win the competitions.
Keeping her identity a secret will be hard. Living in close quarters with a pack of gorgeous boys? That will be harder still. But the hardest thing of all will be keeping the vow she makes for herself: to see Tristan become the next Guardsman, without ever letting him find out she’s a girl – a girl, who loves him.

Part Robin Hood and part Princess Bride, with a pinch of Mulan and a dash of Cyrano de Bergerac in the mix, TheArchers of St. Sebastian I: Journeys is a humorous action and adventure saga inspired by late medieval/early Renaissance Belgium and packed with romance, wit, and longbow archery. Perfect for adults who love young adult themes,Journeys is an escape into the past that reads more like romantic historical fantasy than pure historical fiction.

Unrequited love? Ugly heroines who stay ugly? Friendship, coming of age, romance, adventure, and plenty of archery competitions? A unique setting inspired by the glorious city of Bruges, with a richly imagined, immersive world set within the walls of a male-only archers’ guild?Journeys: The Archers of Saint Sebastianhas it all, so if you’re looking for a great escape, don your disguise and join Marieke as she enters the forbidden world of Saint Sebastian’s, and prepare to fall in love with the Journeys – that is, the twelve best and most beautiful archers in all of Ardennes, the Journeyman archers of St. Sebastian’s.

Meet Jeanne Roland

Roland hails from Davis, California, where she spent most of her youth lounging at the pool, soaking up the sun, and daydreaming. She had a key ring that read ‘I’m running away to join the circus,’ and her favorite moment of the day was when the local movie theater went dark, and the slogan ‘escape to the movies’ appeared on the screen. As an adult, her passions include all things melodramatic and beautiful — everything from classic movies, British romantic poetry, ancient tragedy and epic, to Italian opera. She is now a professor of Classics in a small midwestern town, where she lives with her Greek husband, her fraternal twins, and a Bernese mountain dog named Franco Corelli.

Wrestling with Bullies

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Bullying, friendship, dedication and hard work run rampant in this coming of age pro wrestling novella. Tibo walks into a new school. When he sees a kid getting bullied, he intervenes. A shared passion for pro wrestling quickly binds them together and a strong friendship starts to blossom. Tibo and his friend start training in pro wrestling and immediately want to reach for the stars. But the bullies do not take humiliation lightly and are plotting revenge. Will Tibo and his new friend be able to overcome the bullies and become the best pro wrestlers on the planet? For fans of The Karate Kid and pro wrestling.

Meet Thibault Busschots

Thibault Busschots is a dreamer. He grew up in Belgium, mostly staring through the window and making up stories in his head. After a while, he started to put his pen to work and made those stories in his head a reality. He earned two consecutive writer of the year awards on MMATycoon for his previews and reviews. After watching and learning from Brandon Sanderson’s writing class on YouTube, he felt confident enough to write an actual book and wanted to share it with the world.

A Perfect Mess

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I know what you did last summer.

Aubree Walker, the perfect girl most likely to succeed, is sure there’s only one person who knows what she did

Booker Outlaw, one of the three Outlaw brothers–all identical, all gorgeous, all from the wrong side of the tracks, and all pure bad boys. He was always the unpredictable one, the one who would be brash enough to make it big self-publishing horror novels on the internet. He promised never to tell, but everyone knows you can never trust an Outlaw.

Then a year later, in the middle of the night, she receives a phone call at Tulane. Her aunt, who took her in after her mother’s death, is in a coma under suspicious circumstances. Now she has to face that one person who knows all about what she did that summer–sexy Booker.

Returning to Hope Parish to be with her aunt, stirs up all those ugly memories. When Aubree starts getting threats, she can’t help but wonder if what she did last summer was tied to her aunt’s “accident.”Afraid, she turns to the only person who knows the truth and Booker doesn’t hesitate to offer his broad shoulder for her to lean on. But Booker has a secret of his own that could crush their fledgling relationship.

As the hot, sultry summer days move on, she finds that even a perfectly smart girl can lose her heart to a perfectly bad boy. What is she going to do when someone starts asking questions Aubree doesn’t want to answer? She’s knee deep into a terribly dangerous, wholly life changing, who-can-she-really-depend-on perfect mess. Don’t miss the new full length novels, Resisting Samantha and Handling Skylar!

Hope Parish Novel Series:
A Perfect Secret Series
Three Perfect Girls. Three Perfect Secrets. One Unholy Trinity

BOOK 1: A PERFECT MESS (Booker and Aubree)
BOOK 2: A PERFECT MISTAKE (Boone and Verity)
BOOK 3: A PERFECT DILEMMA (Braxton and River Pearl)

Hope Parish Novellas

BOOK 4: FINALLY AGAIN (Evie and Win)
BOOK 5: BEAUTY SHOT (Deke and Minnie)
BOOK 6: MARK ME (Rory and Savannah)
BOOK 7: A PERFECT WEDDING (Booker and Aubree)
BOOK 8: A PERFECT HOLIDAY (Boone and Verity)
BOOK 9: A PERFECT QUESTION (Braxton and River Pearl)

Resisting the Fall Series
Three broken girls, three horrible pasts, one set of bad boys to guide them home
 
BOOK 10: RESISTING SAMANTHA (Chase and Samantha)
BOOK 11: HANDLING SKYLAR (Jake and Skylar)
BOOK 12: SHELTERING LAWSON (Ethan and Lawson)

Check out all the books: bit.ly/hopeparishnovels

Meet Zoe Dawson

Zoe Dawson lives in North Carolina. She discovered romance in her teens and has been spinning stories in her head ever since. Her heroes are sexy males with a disregard for danger and whether reluctant, gung-ho, or caught up in the action, show their hearts of gold.

Her imagination runs wild with romances from sensual to scorching including romantic comedy, new adult, romantic suspense, small town and urban fantasy. Look below to explore the many avenues to her writing. She believes that it’s all about the happily ever afters and always will be.

Picasso’s Motorcycle

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France, 1940.
An unexpected gift of an old motorcycle with a tragically romantic past hurls a young orphan into the thick of things as war breaks out and his life changes forever. Half-French/half-German Daniel must find a way to survive in a world that mercy seems to have abandoned. This book transports the reader to Nazi-occupied France, where Daniel unwittingly and unexpectedly finds himself working for the Resistance, and ultimately to the Russian Front in a twist of fate so startling that no one can see it coming. In turn quirky, heartwarming, beguiling and uncompromising, author Marc Sercomb weaves together many moods and colors to tell young Daniel’s story. Beyond engaging, Picasso’s Motorcycle has been hailed as a genuine “page-turner” by those who have so far encountered it.

If you like “The Book Thief” and “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,” you’ll love this book!

Meet Marc Sercomb

Marc Sercomb was born in Salinas, California. He grew up in Southern California and attended California State University, Northridge, where he studied Journalism and English Literature. He currently resides in the foothills of Los Angeles with his wife, Robin. He has been a teacher for 23 years.

He wanted to write a book about the miraculous resilience of the human spirit and the unexpected kindness of strangers and enemies during dark and dangerous times. Of “Picasso’s Motorcycle” he says, “This story kind of haunted me for a while. That’s how I knew I had to write it.

Living in Cleveland with the Ghost of Joseph Stalin

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It’s the summer of 1953. Calvin Jefferson Coolidge is thirteen years old when the ghost of Joseph Stalin appears to him in his Aunt Evelyn’s cluttered Cleveland attic and wants to dictate his memoirs to him.
“I want to tell my side of the story,” Uncle Joe tells him. “They’re giving me one year to set the record straight, so we need to get started right away.”


Calvin’s life is falling apart at the seams. He’s a misfit and loner whose only friends are famous dead people. He loves polka music and Westerns and sometimes wonders what it would be like to kiss a girl. His con man father is in Florida looking for his bipolar runaway mother. His cousin Buck is abducted and experimented on by aliens. The lady next door wants to coach him in the ways of love. His pastor thinks he’s headed straight for Hell. His English teacher thinks he’s a savant. The school psychologist wants to have him committed. His shrink thinks he’s just plain nuts. Sometimes, Calvin believes it too.
Everybody’s trying to figure out what makes Calvin tick in this quirky, fast-paced metaphysical romp through the heart and soul of 1950’s America.

Meet Marc Sercomb

The Young Gods

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In this post-adolescent coming-of-age story, a depressed millennial uses her new and devastating powers to ensure that she will never be lonely (or bored) again. After grappling with her overbearing family, her suddenly ambiguous sexuality, her deep desire for independence, and her growing cynicism, Estella Edgehill suffers an accidental overdose. In the afterlife, she is informed that the Gods of old are retiring, and she has been chosen as a replacement. Upon returning to life, she leaves home and meets the boy and girl of her dreams. Together, the three embark on several misadventures, from a shoplifting spree aided by their burgeoning powers at a futuristic shopping mall, to attending a lavish forest party hosted by hipster ghosts, to an encounter with a student-devouring, spectral Wraith on their college campus. On top of the supernatural alterations in the world, Estella must contend with her attachment to her writing teacher, an aging literary titan whose bitterness is only outmatched by his cruelty, and her attraction to her forty-something-year-old neighbor, who is unhappily married to her husband. Relationships are tough, and growing up is hard to do, even for the Gods.

Meet Victoria Ruben

Victoria Ruben lives in Clermont, Florida. THE YOUNG GODS is her fourth novel, and it may or may not be part of a series.
Website : http://victoriaruben.wordpress.com

Seven Strengths: A Tale from Turaset

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In a small village on planet Turaset, seventeen-year-old Celeste yearns for excitement. She travels to a vibrant city where folk show her more of the world than she ever knew. But city folk have their reasons to cozy up: Celeste’s family carries a strange power that threatens the oil industry, and the titan in charge wants her dead.

Meet P. L. Tavormina

P. L. Tavormina is a North American middle-aged mammal living during Earth’s Anthropocene. Dr. Tavormina has identified human disease genes at the University of California and catalogued ecological changes in the wake of petroleum disasters at Caltech. Now, she’s writing fiction to make climate science easier to grab onto. Additional short stories are freely available at pltavormina.com.
Website : http://www.pltavormina.com

All That Is Hidden

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“All That Is Hidden is a beautiful novel, the kind of book that sweeps you up in its story, makes you fall in love with its characters, and breaks your heart along with theirs.” — Writer’s Digest

Are secrets worth the price they cost to keep?

Ten-year-old Tina Hamilton finds out the hard way.

She always knew her father had a secret. But all of God’s earth to Tina are the streams for fishing, the fields for planting and harvesting–a world snugly enclosed by the blue-misted Smokies. Other than the seasons, nothing ever changed.

Until the summer of 1968.

Tina’s life changes forever. Trouble erupts when northern exploitation threatens her tiny southern Appalachian town.

Some folks blame the trouble on progress, some blame the space race and men meddling with the moon’s cycles, and some blame Tina’s father.

A past he has hidden catches up to him as his secret settles in like an unwelcome guest. The clash of progressive ideas and small town values escalates the collision of a father’s past and present.

Meet Laura DeNooyer-Moore

Laura DeNooyer thrives on creativity and encouraging it in others. She spotlights creatives of all kinds on her blog, Journey To Imagination, and highlights authors and their novels in her Standout Stories blog. A Calvin College graduate, Laura taught middle school and high school for nine years in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and currently teaches writing to home schooled students. Between those two jobs, she and her husband raised four children as she penned her first novel, All That Is Hidden. An award-winning author of heart-warming historical and contemporary fiction, she is president of her American Christian Fiction Writers chapter. When not writing, you’ll find her reading, walking, drinking tea with friends, or taking a road trip. Visit Laura at https://lauradenooyer-author.com or on Facebook, BookBub, and GoodReads.

A Juvenile Country

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Shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, Lev arrives at the pioneer summer camp, where he’s instantly dragged into an illegal booze-smuggling operation. He finds himself part of the camp elite and meets Nik, the arrogant and ill-tempered gang leader. Against his will, Lev falls desperately in love with the boy who seems to hate him. “A Juvenile Country” is a tender, coming-of-age queer story about the unthinkable romance in chaotic post-soviet Ukraine. A tale of the first generation to grow up after the fall of the regime, learning to survive in the obscure reality of a newborn country. It’s a peek into the life of a pioneer camp, with its head-spinning freedom of the strictly-regulated days of the Shift.

Meet Jane Palash

Jane is a Ukraine-born writer living in Toronto. She’s a tech enthusiast and an LGBTQ-rights activist.
Website : https://janepalash.com/