Dying Citi

Spying from her window in New York City with high-powered binoculars, conspiracy theorist Zoe spots a man and woman on a park bench. Zooming in, she finds she can read the texts on the woman's phone. Her initial excitement turns to alarm when the woman's texts outline a plan to murder the man she is sitting next to. The police department is trying to manage a pandemic and catch a serial killer who has murdered six women. So, when Zoe reports the conspiracy to commit murder, the police have little time or patience for her theories.

For centuries, people who died destitute or alone were buried in potters’ fields—a Dickensian end that even the most hard-pressed families tried to avoid. Today, more and more relatives are abandoning their dead, leaving it to local governments to dispose of the bodies. Up to 150,000 Americans now go unclaimed each year. Who are they? Why are they being forgotten? And what is the meaning of life if your death doesn’t matter to others?

Dr. Sampson Davis looks at the health-care crisis in the inner city from a rare perspective: as a doctor who works on the front line of emergency medical care in the poor urban neighborhood where he grew up. He also offers practical advice for those living in such communities, where conditions like asthma, heart disease, strokes, obesity, and AIDS are disproportionately endemic. As someone who has struggled with many of the issues troubling his patients, Dr. Davis is able to write with empathy.

When she’s having sex with her boss, Iris likes to have the lights on so he can see how much younger she is than his wife. She likes watching her colleagues eat unhealthy lunches at their desk while her stomach aches with emptiness. She likes coasting at work knowing she’s going to land a big promotion anyway. So why when it arrives does she find herself sprawled on her hallway floor, crying uncontrollably? Why, instead of a sense of triumph, does a crippling depression threaten to overwhelm her? Why does the support and stability of her family and friends feel so suffocating?

Education provides an escape from poverty. Paying for it makes her a mom. But the resulting child may end her life. The impossibility leaves Lacey stunned. She’s never been pregnant and didn’t sell eggs to a fertility clinic. But the teenager standing in front of her has proof of parenthood and bears an undeniable resemblance. He also possesses differences that must come from his father. Whoever that might be. Lacey knows nothing about being a mother. But she immediately recognizes the gut punch of animal magnetism when she meets her son’s handsome, widowed father. He runs a wildly ...

What would the city of the future look like if we tried to build a better life from the ground up? And would anyone want to live there? Here, Des Fitzgerald takes us on an urgent, unforgettable journey into the future of urban life, from shimmering edifices in the Arizona desert to forest-bathing in Japan, and from rats in mazes to neuroscientific studies of the effects of our surroundings. Along the way, he reveals the deep-lying and often problematic roots of today's green city movement, and offers an argument for celebrating our cities as they are.

War, persecution, natural disasters, and climate change continue to drive millions around the world from their homes. In this “tender, intimate, and important book—a carefully reported rebuttal to the xenophobic narratives that define so much of modern American politics” (Sarah Stillman, staff writer, The New Yorker), journalist Susan Hartman follows 3 refugees over 8 years and tells the story of how they built new lives in the old manufacturing town of Utica, New York.

This is an intriguing and remarkably original novel that is both timely and relevant, set as it is during the COVID pandemic. At its core, it is a family drama surrounding a dark and dangerous secret, one based in blood going back hundreds of years. The story shows how far a family is willing to go to hide the truth from the world and one another, using a profoundly unique gift to clear a path on their way to fame and fortune. As the chapters evolve, readers get an intimate glimpse into the characters' motivations and moral boundaries. With the added twist of inexplicable powers, this ...

It's taken four years, but Harold has finally got Sharyn and the kids out of the city. Not quite on his own, it takes a special heavy metal fireworks party, and then it’s time to run silent for the hills. The escapees burrow deep, where even a drone won't find them. Behind, they leave a city where more and more are realizing the end game: annihilation. Their fate is clear as soldiers are taken away to assault the largest of the enclosures, London. Preparations are made, and both the London Committee and the Last Prophet have extreme methods of recruitment.

Dark Bites® is a horror short story collection focusing on the classic creatures we love to fear: zombies, vampires, werewolves, ghosts and more. Crow needs to get out of the Windy City fast with just her wits and any weapons she can find. But between her and escape are hordes of brain-chomping zombies spreading their plague across the city and through her condo building. 52 floors to go... Events in this book are further explored in my new horror ebook "Dead Woman's Curve" (ASIN: B0061XDCV4). Check out my latest horror ebook "The Vengeance": http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007KWELJW