Robin Perry’s life is finally on track with her dream job and a promising relationship with Ben Martin, even if his two spoiled children, Amber and Jaden, hate her. But things take a downhill turn when Gloria Reyes, an acquaintance of Ben’s, asks her to admit her young son to a cancer study meant for adults and Robin, heartbroken, must turn her down. But Gloria won’t take no for an answer and begins an insidious crusade to force the issue.
Amber Martin hates living with her crazy mother since her parents’ divorce, but she can hardly live with her dad, who’s too busy with “Miss Perfect” these days. When Amber runs into her mother’s friend Gloria, she’s glad to finally meet an adult who seems to be on her side. But as Amber becomes friends with Gloria’s sickly son, Alex, she begins to think Gloria is not as nice as she first thought, and Alex may be in trouble.
As Gloria’s threatening behavior escalates, Robin must protect the children while finding a way to save her career and her relationship with Ben. But Gloria always manages to stay one step ahead. When a secret comes to light, Robin discovers the stakes are even higher than she imagined.
“Morning.” Robin settled into the chair opposite Gloria’s as a waitress approached. “Just coffee, please.”
Gloria set down her cup. “So?”
Getting right down to business then. Robin braced herself. So much the better.
“I’ve kept my part of our bargain,” Gloria announced.
“Bargain?” Robin’s eyebrows shot up.
“I spoke to Vanessa about the therapy. I managed to be quite convincing. You see, she posted a rant on Facebook yesterday after Amber defaced a library book.” Gloria shrugged. “I seized the opportunity.”
A bitter taste filled Robin’s mouth. Trashed library books, trashed kids on social media. She should be happy Gloria took advantage of the situation, but she wished Ben had persuaded Vanessa.
The woman’s dark eyes fixed on her. “Now, what about your part?”
Robin bristled. She’d made no promises. The waitress appeared with her coffee. Robin didn’t intend to stay long enough to drink it.
“I made a few inquiries yesterday,” she told Gloria. “Formally and informally. I found no new information about Pediatric MATCH. It’s still slated to launch sometime next year.” Robin took a breath. There, I said it. “I’m sorry.”
Gloria shook her head. “Not good enough.”
Robin sat upright. “What?”
“That’s not soon enough. My son’s life is at stake.” Gloria’s eyes bored into Robin’s. “You have kids?”
“A son in college.” Robin didn’t like bringing Sean into the conversation.
“Suppose it were him?” Gloria kept her voice low, and Robin had to lean forward to hear. “What would you do to save him?”
The same question Robin had asked herself yesterday. Anything.
“Or one of Ben’s kids,” Gloria continued without waiting for Robin’s reply. “But that would be different, wouldn’t it?” Her lips twisted in a mocking smile. “Convenient, even.”
Robin sat up and pushed aside her coffee. “I have to go. I’m due at the wrap-up session.” Reminding herself that the unnerving woman had a dying child, she added, “Gloria, if I were in your shoes, I’d be as desperate as you are. Medical research doesn’t always follow the timetable we want, but MATCH will move ahead, and when it expands to include children, it will be safer, on more solid ground.” She hoped she sounded as clear as Will had last night, but either way, she would end the discussion. “I promise I’ll keep my ears open and let you know of any developments.” She pushed her chair back from the table.
“You’ll do more than that, Robin. You’re a very responsible person. I’m counting on you.”
Robin stood, her chair rattling. “Goodbye, Gloria.”
“I’ll be eager to hear what you come up with.” Gloria’s smile widened, revealing her white teeth. “I’ll be in touch.”
Author Info
Freda Hansburg is a psychologist and author of Tell on You, winner of the 2020 Independent Press Award for Psychological Thriller, the 2019 New York City Big Book Award for Suspense, and Thriller Finalist in the 2019 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Her mystery thriller, Shrink Rapt, is now available from Micro Publishing Media and her new psychological suspense novel, Suffer Little Children, will be released by Red Adept Publishing on January 26th, 2021. She is currently working on her fourth psychological thriller, Trick or Treat.
Freda is also co-author with Mel Silberman of the self-help books, PeopleSmart: Developing Your Interpersonal Intelligence - a bestseller translated into a dozen languages - and Working PeopleSmart. She has the good fortune to live on beautiful Hilton Head Island. There, she takes refuge from her fevered imagination by sitting on her dock and watching pelicans and dolphins fishing on the intracoastal. Freda is an avid Pickleball player who has spent her entire adult life being mistaken for Carol Burnett.
BLURB Billy Jakobek has always been different. Born with strange and powerful psychic abilities, he has grown up in the laboratories of Thorne Century, a ruthless megacorporation that economically, socially, and politically dominates American society.
Every day, Billy absorbs the emotional energies, dreams, and traumas of everyone he meets—from his grandmother’s memories of the Holocaust, to the terror his sheer existence inflicts upon his captors—and he yearns to break free, so he can use his powers to help others.
Natalia Gonzalez, a rebellious artist and daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, lives in Heaven’s Hole, an industrial town built inside a meteor crater, where the poverty-stricken population struggles to survive the nightmarish working conditions of the local Thorne Century factory. Natalia takes care of her ailing mother, her grandmother, and her two younger brothers, and while she dreams of escape, she knows she cannot leave her family behind.
When Billy is transferred to Heaven’s Hole, his chance encounter with Natalia sends shockwaves rippling across the blighted landscape. The two outsiders are pitted against the all-powerful monopoly, while Billy experiences visions of an otherworldly figure known as the Shape, which prophesizes an apocalyptic future that could decimate the world they know.
“So,” Roseanna
said, “according to my superiors, young Billy came to the attention of Thorne
Century due to his long medical history.” She opened her folder and riffled
through. “Dozens of child therapists, doctors, prescriptions, treatments… wide
range of disease symptoms and ailments as well as wild mood swings but no
evidence of any physical illness or precise mental disorder. The word
psychosomatic is bleeding from these papers. I don’t buy it.” Roseanna leaned
forward. “I think it all fits a certain pattern.”
“The doctors
don’t understand.” Tzeitel bit her lip, paused, then spoke again. “Neither do
his parents, though I love them. No. They merely say that he imagines things.
Hallucinations, they claim.” She glanced at her frail grandson still shivering
in the humidity. “I disagree. He often gets sick, but the sickness comes not
from him.”
“Can you
explain?” I think she gets it.
“As a baby, he
constantly changed personalities, like this”—Tzeitel snapped her fingers—“depending
on who held him. Smiling or shrieking, it flipped constantly, and whenever he
cried, all of us cried with him for no reason. Not like a normal baby. His
brother was not like this, either.”
“I see.”
“It was not so
extreme when he got older. But when others are sick…” She knotted her fingers.
“He goes to them, touches the place it hurts, and the pain goes away. It goes
inside him, instead, until it fades. Very strange.” She frowned. “When people
are sad? He walks into a room, makes himself smile—poof, no one is sad anymore,
except he becomes sad. Sometimes, I catch him sneaking out across town to help
people who are troubled.” She eyed him. “I don’t like it when he does that,
though it is very nice of him.”
“He senses things?”
“Doctor, my grandson
has a gift. Yes, he senses things. He feels things. He does things to people…
things that, perhaps, the world is not ready for.”
Despite the
heat, Roseanna felt chills. “I believe you.”
Author Info Nicholas Conley is an award-winning Jewish American author, journalist, playwright, and coffee vigilante. His books, such as Knight in Paper Armor, Pale Highway, Intraterrestrial, and Clay Tongue: A Novelette, merge science fiction narratives with hard-hitting examinations of social issues. Originally from California, he now lives in New Hampshire.
The Book Junkie Reads . . . Interview with Nicholas Conley . . .
How would you describe you style of writing to someone that has never read your work? Character-focused science fiction, just one footstep outside the real world, which tackles big issues and wears its heart on its sleeve. To be honest, I don’t really think about “genre” much when I write something, but the stories that compel me tend to be grounded, mostly realistic affairs with a startling undercurrent of otherworldliness. One of my earlier novels, Pale Highway, starts out being outright literary fiction, almost, until the trippy, sci-fi elements slowly weave themselves in. Knight in Paper Armor is a dystopian novel, but even then, it depicts a dystopia that’s within breathing distance of the world we live in today, and thus deals with issues such as wealth inequality, hate crimes, capitalist exploitation, and so on. Do you feel that writing is an ingrained process or just something that flows naturally for you? Both. I think that, for whatever reason, I felt a natural passion for storytelling – and writing – from a very young age. As a little kid, I was always dreaming up vivid fantasy scenarios to play games in. The first time I tried writing, I immediately loved it more than I’d ever loved doing anything else. That said, I think that when it comes to succeeding at writing, you can’t just rely on raw talent. That’s only one part of the puzzle. Perseverance is another. Luck is certainly another. What isn’t mentioned enough, though, is practice. The more you do it, the better and more natural it becomes. What mindset or routine do you feel the need to set when preparing to write (in general whether you are working on a project or just free writing)? Well, I write every day, so just my regular mindset will do! When it comes to fiction, though, I need to get into a space wherein I can feel completely vulnerable. For me, the best character moments come from tearing into my own heart, finding the rawest places, and putting that right onto the page. Do you take your character prep to heart? Do you nurture the growth of each character all the way through to the page? Do you people watch to help with development? Or do you build upon your character during story creation? Absolutely. 100 percent. I feel a deep sense of friendship, almost, with most of my characters. Or, well, the likable ones, but you get the idea. For Knight in Paper Armor, the characters of Natalia Gonzalez and Billy Jakobek feel so real to me, it is as if they’re people I know. While I was busy writing this book, I felt so protective of them … which is ironic, considering that, as the writer, I’m also the one causing all their problems! But, you know, writer life is weird. What are some of your writing/publishing goals for this year?
Right now, my creative senses are fully, utterly engaged with Knight in Paper Armor. I’ve been working on this book for a long, long time, so it feels deeply cathartic to finally have it out there.
Framed for the murder of a high ranking member of the Unseelie Court of Fae, Steve Dore–also known as Diomedes, Guardian and protector of mankind–goes on the run. He’s determined to uncover the real culprit and clear his name.
But the assassination may be the beginning of a more sinister plot that involves not just the Fae and Humankind, but all the races of the world. And what if the real assassin is a boogeyman even the Fae don't believe is real?
Selkies. Thirty-five miles offshore in the Pacific Ocean, and I’m dodging freakin’ selkies in my fishing boat. It’s like they’re seagulls, and I’m dropping French fries at the beach. Man do they screw up the fishing. Worse, when they appear, bad things tend to follow. And it’s just my luck. Of all fae to show up randomly, it had to be these shapeshifters—the kind that could transform into seals and even into sea lions, which scare the crap out of the fish. Every pile of floating kelp we’d fished around so far had one of these fairies under it. Every kelp except the paddy right in front of the boat.
“Captain Dore, look! Another seal,” the woman said, reaching for her camera.
And that selkie made it a perfect five for five.
I couldn’t help but hang my head. My clients—a simple Midwestern family of Mom, Dad, and Teenage Son—considered it endearing to see a seal poke its head up from inside the kelp, but I could see their true bulbous heads, seaweed-like hair, and pudgy gray-green humanoid forms. Their giant, shiny-black eyes fixed on me as if they knew exactly who I was.
The creepy shapeshifters were part of the Unseelie Court—fairies that are decidedly unfriendly to humans—and the fact that we kept encountering them was starting to unnerve me. Encountering one in the Pacific was rare. In fact, I couldn’t recall one off Southern California since an entire tribe of them showed up around Catalina Island in the 1980s. That appearance had led to a spate of unidentified submerged object and alien sightings, not to mention a few mysterious plane crashes around the island and a heap of sunken boats.
“Hey what’s that big fin?” the father asked, pointing at the rapidly approaching triangular object sticking out of the water and heading straight at the paddy from the opposite side.
“Shark,” I said with a sudden smile. “Damn big one, too. Great white, from the looks of it. Rare for us down here in San Diego.”
“Oh, swim, seal! Swim!” the mom said as all hell broke loose around the paddy.
“Wow, really,” the kid said. “It’s like a real National Geographic moment.” He whipped out his phone to video the event.
I was the only one on the boat rooting for the shark. If they’d known what that shark was really chasing, they probably would have thought it was more like a National Enquirer moment.
Knowing the selkie-shark conflict would ruin the fishing within a mile of that paddy, I pushed farther out, always on the lookout for signs of life other than selkies. As long as we could avoid them, we found lots of small football-sized yellowfin tuna while we trolled, and I’d even managed to convince the anglers to release the little guys, in hopes of finding bigger ones. The small fish kept me blissfully busy until we made it back to the dock at around four in the afternoon—so busy, in fact, that I forgot about how screwy the presence of selkies was until I realized my buddy Ned was storming down the dock toward my boat as I pulled in.
As usual, Ned was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt with colors usually reserved for Las Vegas neon. The fact that he resembled a derelict version of Santa Claus usually drew people’s attention. It was either that or the fact that he always smelled like beer-soaked seaweed washed up on a beach. It could be worse given that Ned was in fact the Titan God of the Sea, Nereus, in self-imposed exile.
As I secured the boat to the dock, my cellphone, stashed inside my captain’s bag within the console, chirped the unique ring my buddy Geek had helped me assign to Sarah Wright. I felt guilty for avoiding her over the past two weeks. Despite scrambling to reach the annoying device before the call went to voice mail, I wasn’t quick enough. I tossed the phone on the console, thoroughly disgusted with my wishy-washy-ness regarding our relationship—or whatever we had. I was pretty sure we both wanted to take things to the next level, but I was conflicted about what that would mean for both of us since my situation wasn’t exactly normal.
I’ll call her back as soon as I can. I sighed, watching my three clients stumble off the boat, trying to adjust to sea legs on land after a full day on the water. They chatted excitedly about sharks and sea lions as they went. Ned stood down the dock, waiting, staring intently at me with his hands on his hips and one flip-flop-clad foot tapping away. The trio barely managed to get past him before he charged the boat.
“Diomedes, dude, glad to see you made it back okay.” Ned’s shoulders dropped a bit as he exhaled heavily. “Now get yer ass off the damn boat and back onto land.” He dipped his head slightly and glared over his sunglasses at me, his brow deeply furrowed.
I stopped taking rods out of the rod racks under the gunwales and stared back at him. Something had him on edge, and that was saying something. Normally, he made people on Prozac appear edgy. In over a thousand years, I’d never seen him like this before.
“Now, dude. Now!” he said, raising his voice and gesticulating wildly.
The myriad of seagulls and pelicans gathered around the boat awaiting leftover bait and fish carcasses took off in a sudden deafening and chaotic commotion.
“Whoa. Relax, Ned. What’s got your panties in a bunch?” I said, getting back to my after-charter chores. “Sheesh. Besides, I think the dad left a few beers if you want them.”
Normally, Ned’s first question to me would have involved the possible presence of abandoned beer. Instead, he fixed me with a withering stare. His hands were back on his hips, and his foot again tapped on the dock. When we’d first met a few thousand years before, he’d naturally emanated an aura of power. Though he’d since willingly given up most of his other-dimensional essence, the preternatural blue glow was now visible.
“Dude, which part of ‘now’ ain’t you understandin’?” He spoke through a clenched jaw and pointed at the dock forcefully, like a parent demanding a child’s immediate presence. Over his sunglasses, his eyes darted everywhere, keeping watch around us.
“Okay, okay,” I said, eyeing my fish-slimed gear and all the sardine scales and scuff marks marring the deck. “Who’s gonna clean all this up? You know if I let it sit, it’ll be even harder to clean later.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Ned replied. “Just get yer ass off the water. Right. Now.”
“Fine.” I kicked at my rods like a petulant child. “Let me get my damn gear bag, and I’ll leave.”
I grabbed my captain’s bag and stormed down the dock in a huff, glaring at Ned. I didn’t even bother to take off my grungy gray rubber fishing bibs. He avoided making eye contact as I passed him, which only pissed me off more. Instead, his eyes continued to dart around the marina. Whatever.
I got to my truck, threw my gear bag in the bed, then stripped off the rubber bibs. While hopping around on one leg like an idiot, trying to get the bibs off over my deck boots, I worked myself up from a huff to a tizzy. Who the hell did he think he was ordering me around like that? Athena? Throwing my bibs into the bed with the rest, I glanced over my shoulder, toward the dock.
Just as I was about to get into my truck, a more pressing question hit me: Why? Ned actually yelled at me. In over two millennia, I had never even witnessed him raise his voice. What’d I do to him?
I instantly felt like I owed him an apology, without even knowing what I’d done. I headed back down to the dock.
As I approached the top of the gangway, Ned was in a heated discussion with something in the water on the other side of the dock from my boat. I couldn’t get a clear view of who or what Ned was talking with, or hear what was being said. The only things evident were the loud and freakish sea lion-like barks and Ned’s wild and very uncharacteristic gesticulations. Instinctively, I searched for something to use as a weapon—a boat hook was leaning against the fence next to the gate down to the dock.
Then a putty-colored round female head covered in thick yellow-green hair popped up just above the dock and peered directly at me. Ned noticed me, as well, and all at once, the creature disappeared below the water’s surface creating a wake that tossed the floating dock and rocked the boats tied up nearby. She was definitely one of the selkies I had encountered earlier offshore.
I stopped dead in my tracks. Ned shook his head and stomped toward me, which couldn’t have been easy in flip-flops. His eyes were ablaze—literally. His awakened aura pulsed from white to blue like a lightning storm.
I shrugged and raised my eyebrows as his gaze fell on me. The temperature began to drop, and the water around the dock changed from a drab green to black and turned rough, as if it were about to boil. The disturbance bounced the moored boats against their bumpers and the dock, and the rigging on the sailboats began to clang. Even the remaining birds evacuated—only noiselessly.
“Boy, who did you piss off this time?” he said at me more than to me in a voice that reverberated through my skull. It wasn’t loud, but it was insistent in its tone.
“I… um… I, ah… what?” I asked, vapor trailing from my mouth in the cool air.
I couldn’t recall having done anything to anybody since chasing down that witch, Medea, a few months back, and as far as I knew, everyone I could have pissed off doing that was dead.
Ned continued up the ramp from the dock toward me, somehow appearing larger than normal. His face, especially his eyes, darkened. “Don’t play games with me. You got selkies chasin’ yer ass all over the Pacific, and they had to travel around the world to get here to do it. Nytrocyon herself is here to find you.” He pointed back down toward my boat. “She says Mab wants you. Says you killed Lord Indronivay.”
“Nytrocyon, ruler of the selkies? Seriously?” My teeth started to chatter, and my jaw muscles clenched in the frigid air. “Wait… she said I killed who? Lord Indronivay, Mab’s warmaster? Are you kidding me? Why the hell would I have killed that uptight belligerent asshole?”
I’d never even met him, but his reputation as a jerk was legendary. Even as a Guardian and protector of humanity, I knew him only through stories that suggested he was a giant at nearly eight feet tall and was about as friendly as a shark with a toothache. All I really knew about him was that he personally ran every major war and military campaign Queen Mab of the Unseelie Court had waged for tens of thousands of years. Hell, the guy might have charged into battle against Queen Titania of the Seelie Court on the back of a triceratops.
“You’re sayin’ Nytrocyon is lying?” Ned’s voice boomed through my head, shaking me back to attention.
I shrugged again. “Now why the hell would I do something like that? Honestly?”
Ned’s shoulders dropped slightly, and his pulsing aura faded. Though his face brightened and his bushy beard and mustache split, revealing his white teeth in a broad smile, the rest of him remained rigid. “Good. I didn’t think you were dumb enough to attack a member of one of the fairy royal courts. That’d be grounds for war. Only problem is then, dude”—he slowly slipped back into his normal relaxed and carefree persona—“you gotta ask yerself one question: why does she think you did?”
How would you describe your style of writing to someone that has never read your work? Well, it’s all First Person, like a lot of Urban Fantasy. The only difference in my writing is that it’s limited First Person. You only know what Diomedes, my main character knows. It’s pretty action oriented, washed in fantasy but set in the real world. It’s not for kids. I don’t like to be too serious for too long, either, but I don’t shy from violence or foul language. Like I said—real world as much as possible.
What are some of your writing/publishing goals for this year? Take care of Havoc Rising and Chaos Unbound so they continue to get exposure and prepare Book 3 for publication sometime next year, all while finishing Book 4 and starting Book 5…
Do you feel that writing is an ingrained process or just something that flows naturally for you? A combination of both. I had to learn writing but once I got started it kinda flowed. Stories I can develop easily, but the writing is getting easier the more I do it. The problem is I have written in so many different formats—serious scientific academic stuff and stuff for fishing magazines and now fictional novels. And they are all different. And my English comp professor in my freshman year failed me and said I had no skill. I discovered it was just that I had no motivation or interest. I had to find both.
Do you have a character that you have been working on for a long time that still isn't quite ready, but fills you with excitement to work on the story? I constantly work on ancillary characters for my series. I have three right now that are in Book 4. Not sure where they are going or if they’ll even make it through. One is a minor goddess, one is a mythical figure and one is a guilt-and-angst-ridden vampire.
If you could spend one-week with 5 fictional character, who would they be? Wow. Let’s see. John Clayton, Lord Greystoke. Edmond Dantes. Wade Wilson (yep, Deadpool). Agent A.X.L Pendergast.
Where would you spend one full year, if you could go ANYWhere? What would you do with this time? My first reaction is on a tropical beach somewhere that sits on a bonefish flat with a nice drop-off offshore. That way I could fish in between writing days. Only that’s kinda how I live now. Where ever, it would have to be near the ocean somewhere.
Can you share you next creative project(s)? If yes, can you give a few details? Sure—Book 3 will go into edits sometime later this year for publication next year. Diomedes will be back trying to stop one of the fallen Watchers—escaped from Tartarus—from freeing his brethren. Bad things happen. Book 4 will take up where that one ends. Diomedes will be dealing with guilt and an overriding sense of failure that will drive him into a mindset that’s foreign to him and destructive. Myths and legends will change a bit, or more accurately, will be added to. Book 4 will be a very personal journey for Diomedes. Right now all of my writing is for this series. I’m still way too interested in these characters to do anything else. I have storylines for at least half a dozen more books lined up.
Author Info
Brian S. Leon is truly a jack of all trades and a master of none. He writes just to do something with all the useless degrees and skills he’s accumulated over the years. Most of them have no practical application in civilized society, anyway. His interests include mythology and fishing, in pursuit of which he has explored jungles and museums, oceans and seas all over the world.
His credentials include an undergraduate degree from the University of Miami and a master’s degree from San Diego State University, plus extensive postgraduate work in evolutionary biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he studied animals most people aren’t even aware exist and theories no one really cares about anyway.
Over his varied career, Brian’s articles have been published in academic journals and popular magazines that most normal people would never read. They can be found in The American Society of Primatologists, the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Proceedings of the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums and the like.
His more mainstream work came as an editor for Marlin and FlyFishing in Salt Waters magazines, where he published articles about fishing and fishing techniques around the world. He won a Charlie Award in 2004 from the Florida Magazine Association for Best Editorial, and several of his photographs have appeared on a number of magazine covers—almost an achievement of note, if they weren’t all fishing magazines.
Always a picky reader, Mr. Leon enjoys stories by classical masters like Homer and Jules Verne as well as modern writers like J.R.R. Tolkien, David Morrell and Jim Butcher. These books, in combination with an inordinate amount of free time, inspired him to come up with tales of his own.
