Showing results by author "Matthew Cox" in All Categories

Deputy Marshal Zebadiah Clemens can't die. After the Civil War came to a close, Zeb decided to head west to raise cattle and a family. No sooner did he step off the train in Texas, a stray bullet knocked him senseless. Believing he'd somehow cheated death, he gave up on his peaceful plans and became a lawman. After migrating farther west into New Mexico, he expected to find the usual run-of-the-mill outlaws - not a strange woman watching him from the edge of his dreams. He might be imagining it all - or still unconscious with a head wound - but with his luck, it's probably real.

It started with the insects. Before society realized the danger, the Earth had inexorably begun a transformation into a place where life could not survive. A small group found shelter in the Arc, an underground refuge safe from the toxins ravaging the surface. After centuries of darkness, humanity’s second chance is running out - and Raven Wilder knows it. Her job fixing the machinery in the Arc makes her aware of how close everything is to breaking down. When her six-year-old begins showing signs of oxygen deprivation, Raven refuses to go quietly into oblivion.

Pierre Rausini—in the 1990s—was a 20-something-year-old Los Angeles-based drug trafficker. He and his associates drove luxury European supercars, lived in Beverly Hills' penthouses, and dated Playboy models while dodging federal indictments. Then, two FBI officers with the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force entered the picture. Dirty agents willing to fix cases and identify informants.

Summer is a great time to visit scenic Richmond, Virginia - except during the start of the American Civil War. After her attempt to save a young woman goes disastrously wrong, Samantha Moon has wound up trapped in 1862 with no way home to her children. The great, great granddaughter of the voodoo priestess who hurled her back in time refuses to undo the spell.

God’s will be done. After 11 years as a priest living by these words, Father Antonio Molinari never imagined who would teach his strongest lesson of faith - vampire. A case of possession brings him to the French countryside, where two local clergy offer him the chance of a lifetime...When their monster turns out to be a little girl.. he cannot bring himself to destroy her. Hunted by the Church he once served as well as the fiends he once destroyed, Father Molinari clings to his faith there is still room for him in God’s plan. But God is quiet, and the darkness tempting.

On the way home one day, 13-year-old Keith Croft stops at a neighbor’s yard sale and discovers a book for Crypts & Creepers that the lonely old woman says belonged to her granddaughter who disappeared without a trace. Days after he convinces his friends to try this bizarre game that doesn’t require electronics, strange noises in his closet wake him. His increasing inability to focus on anything other than a girl who vanished before he was born - and his obsession with her NPC ranger - drives him to dig deeper into the past, searching for what really happened to her.

Six months ago, Harper Cody stressed out over finding the right college. Now, she’ll be thrilled if she makes it to her 18th birthday. Unexpected nuclear war destroyed the world she knew, along with her dreams for a future. Violent thugs took away her parents and home, sending her fleeing into the ashes with her traumatized little sister. Following her best hope for survival, she chased a rumor of safety in the mountains.

Kerys Loring hopes an expedition to a distant alien ruin will make her career - assuming she lives long enough to still have one. When Avasar Biotechnology appeals to her unique combination of experience and desperation, she jumps at the chance. At least she’ll be thousands of light-years away from her abusive ex. Within minutes of arrival, her excitement shatters at the sight of her ex already there. Then, on her first day in the ruins, she makes a profound discovery...but something goes terribly wrong.

She saw it coming. She knew it would happen - but no one believed her. Almost a year after tragedy shattered her family, 16-year-old Paige Thomas can’t break free from her guilt. Her mother ignores her, doting on her clingy little sister, while her father is a barely functioning shell. He hopes a move to the quiet little town of Shadesboro, PA, will help them heal, but Paige doesn’t believe in happiness anymore.

Agent Kirsten Wren, a gifted psionic with a troubled past, possesses a rare combination of abilities that makes her a powerful weapon against paranormal threats. Adrift in a society that fears people like her, she feels alone in a city of millions. In 2418, rampant violence and corporate warfare have left no shortage of angry wraiths. Most are little more than fleeting shadows or eerie whispers in the darkness, but every so often, one gathers enough strength to threaten the living. A series of attacks by androids known as dolls leave the normal police baffled.

Natalie Rausch said she'd die for a chance to meet DJ Crazy Todd, but she didn't mean to be literal. A bitter divorce shattered her family and turned her into a 13-year-old weapon in the hands of two people who want nothing more than to destroy each other. Once an accelerated student looking at early college, Natalie let anger at her parents lead her down a desperate path of self-destruction. No amount of rebellion gets her mom or dad's attention - or stitches up the hole inside her where love used to be.

Twelve-year-old Piper Bailey wouldn’t trade her friends for any amount of money - unfortunately, when her dad inherits a fortune, she doesn’t have a choice. The unexpected windfall is a blessing for her family, but it comes with a giant house hours away in the woods. Piper finds an unexpected friend in a boy who lives in the next house, and the two decide to explore Grandpa’s giant mansion. It doesn’t take long for creepy things to start happening.

Matthew B. Cox is a con man, incarcerated in the Federal Bureau of Prisons for a variety of bank fraud related scams. Despite not having a drug problem, Cox, inexplicably, ends up in the prison’s Residential Drug Abuse Program (known as RDAP). A drug program in name only, RDAP, is an invasive behavior modification therapy, specifically, designed to correct the cognitive thinking errors associates with criminal behavior.

At 22, she's still slinging coffee at an Amazon Cafe despite having a degree in programming. It's not because she's unlucky, unmotivated, or even that she fancies herself an underground activist crusading against evil corporations. Hunting for a real job would take time away from her game. Axillon99 is the world's most popular multiplayer online experience, with a universe containing billions of planets to explore. Ever since video games broke the screen barrier, plunging players fully into their characters, reality just can't compete.

Most brides have some anxiety over their wedding, but not too many have to worry a dead person might spoil it. Detective Maddy Wimsey is looking forward to her handfasting to Caius. Mostly. She’s simultaneously on edge and can’t wait. About the only thing capable of going wrong is her catching a homicide investigation complicated enough to push back the date.

Life is difficult for the world’s tiniest superhero. Her genius plan to save her parents from supervillainy in one easy step proved impossible - at least not without destroying the Earth. Superpowers, good or bad, aren’t going away any time soon. Mom’s as likely to hug her as trick her into a ridiculous trap, but at least, her dad’s mellowed out a bit. Lately, he seems focused more on being weird than evil.

Cops sometimes rely on hunches to guide them, but Detective Maddy Wimsey takes it a step further: Magic. August opens with the bad omen of a suicide that she suspects is more than it appears. However, before she can even start to find evidence that won't get her a date with a shrink, an even worse case walks in the door. A local nurse claims she suspects one of her co-workers of murdering patients. Unfortunately, the woman has even less evidence than Maddy's belief that a spirit is throwing people off tall buildings. However, something about the story rings too true to brush aside.

In August of 2021, they tried to disprove the adage that violence doesn’t solve anything — by killing everyone. No people, no problems. Fifty years later, humanity has emerged from the ashes. As if nuclear war didn’t do enough, a cruel virus followed on its heels, reducing many survivors to mindless killers. Drivers are the only link between scattered towns. Anyone with the skill to maintain a vehicle (and the balls to hit the road) can seek fortune and glory running jobs for the Roadhouse.

It’s been a few weeks since the Nolmek scattered giant crystals around the world that unintentionally gave some people superpowers. They also nearly eliminated war and shared technology to solve famine, drought, and pollution, so pretty much everyone loves them. Alas, the aliens didn’t visit Earth purely out of kindness. They needed a primitive species to enslave.

For most 12-year-olds, being kidnapped is terrifying. For Althea, it’s only Tuesday. Her powers of healing make her a precious commodity in the Badlands, a place where the strong write the law in blood. For as long as she can remember, she has lived either as a possession or a goddess. Althea contents herself with captivity as long as she can help others, even those who killed to own her. After three whole months in the same village, the friendship of a young warrior makes her feel almost like a member of the tribe rather than a prisoner.