Important Note: This post is dated Friday, March 9, 2012, and the titles mentioned here may remain free only until midnight PST tonight.

“Like Stephen King, he knows how to summon serious scares.” -Bentley Little

An omnibus edition of three supernatural novels by bestselling author Scott Nicholson. DRM-free.

THE RED CHURCH: A young boy and a sheriff must solve the mystery of a haunted Appalachian church after a strange preacher returns to town. A 2002 Stoker Award finalist.

DRUMMER BOY: One misfit kid is all that stands between a mountain town and a chilling supernatural force when the past and the present collide.

SPEED DATING WITH THE DEAD: A paranormal conference at the Blue Ridge Mountain’s most haunted hotel goes haywire when ghost hunters accidentally stir up demons.

In the middle of the night, Thelma Hardy gets a 10 second call from her father: her mother’s dead. She must fly to Palm Beach. The company jet is waiting.
Thelma has little time for sorrow. The stock of Wise Woman Inc. is plummeting, and the eyes of the financial world are watching and waiting. Her father has appointed a male CEO, Steve, breaking with the firm’s tradition of female leadership and enraging the members of the board.
To make matters worse, Thelma’s best friend Lauren manages to miss the funeral, and her longtime friend Cindy decides this is a good time to confess her love for her.
Lauren, an MIT computer wizard, has in fact been there all along. Hours after her mother’s death, there is a mysterious hacking of the company’s firewall. The source is untraceable and the timing dangerous. The firm’s main rival is suspect, and Lauren has come to help identify the attacker.
As Thelma becomes more involved in the business, she finds hints that her father and Steve may be part of a scheme to rob her of her inheritance, and that her mother may not have died of natural causes. Steve realizes Thelma is onto more than he expected and has her followed.
When Thelma mistakenly kills and innocent man, jeopardizing the firms future, Steve decides to take care of the cover-up, and of Thelma as well: he sends her to oversee some factories in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, from where she is not meant to return. She tricks her way out of the trap and returns to Palm Beach, determined to discover the truth about her mother’s death and save her legacy.
With her wits, which many think she is losing, as her only guide, Thelma ventures into a maze of dark family lies and financial intrigue. As she searches for a way out, she will revisit her mother’s struggle for empowerment, transform her idle socialite toys into weapons, and take ownership of her life.

An adventurous lizard gets the ride of his life when he hops on a spacecraft headed for the moon.

Important Note: This post is dated Friday, March 9, 2012, and the titles mentioned here may remain free only until midnight PST tonight.

Livie Saunders is fluent in the language of flowers; she taught the meanings to her fiancé, Cotton O’Dell, but then Cotton vanishes without explanation on their wedding day forcing Livie to learn the language of desolation. Heartbroken, she buries her wedding gown beneath a garden pond and resolves to move on, but there are nights when she slips . . . into a sequined red dress and a pair of stiletto heels, a stranger’s bed, a little anonymous oblivion that is not without consequence. Still, she recovers a semblance of ordinary life and imagines she is content. But then, six years later, Cotton returns and her carefully constructed world shatters. The old questions bite like flies. Questions that Cotton O’Dell prays he can answer. He prays that Livie, whom he has never stopped loving, will be moved to forgive him. But there is more than Livie to be concerned about. There is Cotton’s act of cowardice that caused him to become a fugitive in the first place . . . that crime he committed for which the legal clock is still ticking. That thing he did that will shock Livie to her core once she learns of it. Livie is desperate to trust Cotton, but then he goes missing again. Time telescopes, avenues of escape close, and as lives hang in the balance, choice dithers between mercy and revenge. And a decision that will take only a moment will carry the consequences of a lifetime.

THE NINTH STEP is a story of redemption, of being brought to your knees in the sober light of day to face a monstrous error and yet somehow finding the strength to stand up, to try and make it right. Even if that decision breaks your heart, endangers your freedom and ultimately threatens your life.

Remi Austin is a fundraiser for the African Peace Collaborative (APC), a conflict resolution nonprofit founded by her late mother. Frustrated by her inability to raise funds and faced with the imminent closure of the APC, Remi turns to a life of crime to keep her nonprofit afloat. From Sydney, to Tokyo, Geneva and Cape Town, Remi transforms from a fundraiser too shy to speak during staff meetings into a daring international art thief who must stop a war from breaking out and figure out how to save herself from a life behind bars. With the help of her best friend, a designer and inventor who creates gadget-packed gowns, Remi eludes a dashing insurance agent and a terrifying stalker, all while redistributing the wealth of the world, one work of art at a time.

As a court-certified expert on ballistics and firearms, Michael Cole is accustomed to unusual cases and bad clients. But when the beautiful wife of a Scottsdale millionaire arrives at Cole’s door with a sniper rifle and a problem, he finds himself between a rock and a dark place. Before the day is through, Cole is beaten, robbed, arrested for murder and threatened with death. That’s just the start of his bad week.

Accompanied by love-interest Sonia Tomei, Cole must battle vicious Russian criminals, Wall Street mavens, the local police department and the US Army Criminal Investigation Unit. Everyone wants Cole’s head and the rifle he finds himself possessing. It happens to be a rare Steel Violin, a unique weapon with unparalleled accuracy. The rifle’s destiny is to put a bullet in the heart of the nation’s financial system by killing the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, but not before aiming at Michael Cole and the one he loves.