Married to a man she doesn’t love, Lisa lives a lie to saved her widowed mother from poverty. When she meets Owen, a steelworker from the wrong side of the tracks, heat sizzles between them, a passion that grows stronger with each stolen moment together. Lisa finds herself torn between her darkest desires and her family obligations.

Owen wants to better himself and escape the grinding brutality of the mill. But labor troubles–and love–intervene. After he meets Lisa, all he can think about is this woman whose image haunts him night and day. A woman whose husband will not release her from a loveless marriage.

There are two things that happen when you graduate university:

1: You realize you’ll be working for the next forty years…a realization that requires alcohol

2. You start to wonder when you’re supposed to fall in love

Somewhere in between all of that, you’ll find: office friends, office dimwits, good days, bad days, and a Human Resources manager that’s out to get you.

You also might find an attractive guy from an office transfer, and that’s when things start to get complicated…

This short story is a prequel to “Year of the Chick,” and it tells the tale of a semi-normal main character, before she became all crazy and obsessed with finding love to avoid arranged marriage (that’s what “Year of the Chick” is about).

Length: 10,100 words
DISCLAIMER: this story contains some inappropriate language. Like f-bombs.

Marika Christian’s PHONE KITTEN introduces an absolutely unique, first-time-ever kind of female sleuth—a totally lovable, intelligent, downright hilarious down-home girl who happens to earn her living as a phone sex worker.

Shy, slightly overweight Emily would die if she had to talk dirty face-to-face—especially to her hot cop boy friend. She sure didn’t set out to do phone sex—she wanted to be a writer. But when her BFF framed her for plagiarism, she got in a tiny financial hole and saw this ad for “phone actresses”… Hey, it’s not nearly as bad as it sounds. No pantyhose or pantsuits, no regular hours, you’re your own boss, and lots of people to talk to. Guys, that is.

But here’s the odd thing—lots of them want to talk about more than Emily’s imagined attributes; they start to think of her as the best friend they’ll never have to meet. Next thing you know, one of her customers gets killed and Emily knows a lot more about it than she should. But she can’t tell the nearest cop, who’s also her own true love, because then he’ll find out about her secret life. What’s a phone kitten to do? Solve the murder herself, of course—because wouldn’t it be a great story for the newspaper that wrongly fired her?

Somehow, first-time author Christian manages to handle a potentially smokin’ subject with such sly wit, authentic detail, and clever writing that you’ll wonder why this subject was ever considered taboo.

All her life, Breena had always dreamed about fairies as though she lived among them…beautiful fairies living among mortals and living in Feyland. In her dreams, he was always there the breathtakingly handsome but dangerous Winter Prince, Kian, who is her intended. When Breena turns sixteen, she begins seeing fairies and other creatures mortals don t see. Her best friend Logan, suddenly acts very protective. Then she sees Kian, who seems intent on finding her and carrying her off to Feyland. That’s fine and all, but for the fact that humans rarely survive a trip to Feyland, a kiss from a fairy generally means death to the human unless that human has fairy blood in them or is very strong, and although Kian seemed to be her intended, he seems to hate her and wants her dead.

This edgy tale about beautiful and dangerous fairies, based on Dutch lore, will leave you breathless…