A collection of stories by Darcia Helle, free for all subscribers to Quiet Fury Books News.

Meet Samantha McGregor She seems like your average teen, but Samantha is unusually gifted. God gives her visions and dreams that offer unconventional glimpses into other people's lives and problems. It's a powerful gift with a lot of responsibility... Bad Connection: Book One Kayla Henderson lives on the edge. She likes to break the rules, considers partying an extracurricular activity, and can't stand her parents. So, most people aren't surprised when she goes missing. Like everyone else, Samantha McGregor assumes Kayla has run away. But then she has a vision where Kayla is tied up with duct tape over her mouth. Freaked by the image, Samantha wonders, Is Kayla alive or dead? Was the vision real or just a silly dream? Most important, can Kayla be found before it's too late? If God Gave You a Vision, Would You Trust It? Samantha McGregor knows that Kayla Henderson likes to break...

May Bird has always been a bit. . . different. While most of her classmates were riding their bikes, she was running around the West Virginia woods, dressed as a warrior princess with her hairless cat at her side. And while most of her classmates were spending their summer vacations going to birthday parties, May was discovering a mysterious lake hidden among the trees -- and stumbling into the land of ghosts, the Ever After. A fearful and fantastic realm located among the stars, the Ever After is full of phantoms and poltergeists, ghouls and goblins, and all manner of things that go bump in the night. And if May is to find her way out again, she must reach the mysterious Lady of North Farm, who lives in a cold, forbidding land that even the spooks find spooky. With her courageous (yet melancholy) kitty and a ragtag group of spectral friends she's picked up along the way, May is determined to escape the Afterlife. But her travels will bring her face-to-face with her...

Benworden is a fictional story about Dylan, a young boy who attends a boarding school in a small country town steeped in gold mining history. On his first day at the boarding house he is approached by a year twelve boy who offers him membership into a secret club, a club that established itself long before his arrival and continues to develop during his stay. Benworden holds many secrets, some good some bad, and there are those trying to find the club so they can expose and destroy it.

In this thrilling conclusion to The Immortal Descendants series, a life has ended, the future is lost, and a war has just begun.An explosion has split Time and Archer has paid the ultimate price, leaving Saira heartbroken and desperate to repair the rupture. But the blast has trapped Saira in an alternate future where Mongers are cornered predators and Death is the ultimate judge. If Saira and her larcenous friend Ringo ever want to see Archer alive, they must pull off the impossible – alter history at a moment in time to which they cannot return. But saving Archer will restore a timeline where Mongers have complete control, mixed bloods are hunted prey, and the Descendant world is spiraling into chaos.As Saira uses her Clocking skills to prevent her worst nightmares from coming true, she travels from the dirty streets of Victorian London to the secret archives of the Vatican. She seeks a purpose that is greater than smashed hope, greater than lost love, greater than the prophecy...

Welcome to a thrilling new world. First in a bold new fantasy series. Brought to the world of Kerith by an unknown cataclysim, the Vaelinar race is both magical and arrogant, considering themselves far superior to the natives whose own magic has been shorn away by a civil war. As hated as they are revered, the Vaelinars have claimed lordship over the native races, and have anchored their magic to the new world by a series of Talent-wrought Ways-passages of power-always hoping that one day they will create the Way back to the world they lost. Two young people, one broken of soul and the other broken of mind, find their fates intertwined as their mixed bloodlines both curse and bless them. Can a river-borne slave and a street-savvy half-breed find their own personal truth in time to avert another civil war?From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Sevryn Dardanon is not your typical elf. In fact, the world of Kerith is not your typical elf world. In this spectacular series debut, the pseudonymous Rhodes (a prolific YA author) plays fresh variations on the standard epic fantasy tropes. Her elves, the Vaelinars, are outsiders, propelled by a magical cataclysm into an unfamiliar and somewhat hostile new environment. For Sevryn, a half-breed Vaelinar, life is especially difficult as he's neither of one world or the other. Meanwhile, human Dwellers take in the orphaned Rivergrace, an escaped slave of Vaelinar heritage, and raise her as their adopted daughter. Both Rivergrace and Sevryn struggle to survive as quietly as possible, until, by chance, their paths cross and they must help each other battle an unknown evil that's infecting Kerith. Sevryn and Rivergrace possess not only undeveloped magical powers but mysteries in their respective pasts that promise to keep the excitement level high in the next installment. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistThe first book of the Elven Ways series introduces the very detailed and well-drawn world of Kerith, in which four different peoples coexisted since the end of a devastating war, until a magestorm from another world brought a fifth people, the Vaelinars. Their powers, once they got over the shock of transition, proved great enough to rule the four established peoples. Now, after generations of rule, feuds are breaking out among the Vaelinar lords, and the discontented among the conquered peoples seek to overthrow them all. As hostilities escalate, fate throws up Grace, rescued from a river and with no memory of her past, and Sevryn, who has also had 20 years of his past wiped out. The two youngsters just may be formidable enough to deal with the land's foes, if their memories can be healed. Rhodes' use of detail will please those who like richly drawn settings and intricate plots but may confuse others whom the appended glossary and character list will help. Frieda MurrayCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

The day my father agreed to testify against Terrence Randall, one of the most ruthless drug traffickers in North America, was the day I became the target of the drug lord’s enraged vengeance. I was the one thing that stood in the way of Daddy’s testimony, and the one thing that could save Randall. The man would stop at nothing to get his hands on me. I was prepared for what was coming — as prepared as one could be when vanishing into the U.S. Marshal’s Witness Protection Program. I just wasn’t prepared for him. For ex-Navy SEAL turned mercenary Lake Freeman, escorting Lily Cross into the Witness Protection Program was just another job — until a better offer came along. Lake couldn’t have cared less about the life he’d been hired to protect. After all, she was a part of the very organization that had cost him so much already. At least he never expected to care. But when forced into a decision he never thought he’d have to make, the mission became one of survival for himself and his beautiful charge. Lake knew that in order to protect her, he’d need to bring the feisty and unpredictable Lily to heel — he couldn't keep her safe if he couldn't keep her under control. But that protective urge quickly turned into something else, something dark ... and his need to conquer, to claim, overrode all else. He would keep her safe. He would keep her protected. But he would make her his, as well. Now, all he had to do was figure out how to keep them both alive long enough to do it... Publisher's Warning: Intended for mature readers. 18 and over only! This is a MF BDSM romantic suspense. Themes include: graphic sexuality, pervasive D/s, exhibitionism, spanking, bondage, anal play and other BDSM activities. If such content might offend you, please do not purchase this book. Word count: 66,328 wordsPage Count: 200 pages

SHORT STORY / 5500 Words Suz was a good girl. She gave up her dreams of adventure to remain in her Massachusetts hometown to care for her ailing mother. Suz's husband, Hank, wasn't the sexiest man on the planet, but he kept a roof over their head. And then the dreams began. Dreams of Boston in the dark of night. Dreams of a strange man, always out of reach. Dreams which would change her life...

Lily's dreams have always been haunted by a mystical stranger with green eyes, until the day comes that she unexpectedly meets that stranger in a club. He's an archangel turned outcast, has wondered Earth for eons, unable to belong in either Heaven or Hell. As soon as Lily meets Samael, her life is irrevocably altered. She herself is the secret at the heart of the war between angels and demons.