Tales of Chills and Thrills: The Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Novels) (65 page)

Praise for the Portal
Arcane Series...

"This is a great start for what
promises to be an engaging, intense series."
Scott Nicholson, Author of the #1 Amazon Best Selling Horror Novel, The Home
"It's all about the journey, about the creeping horror of individual moments,
the long wait, the brief moments of terror, and then more waiting. It was... a
fascinating read, and I will definitely be interested in following this
series.."
K. Sozaeva, Amazon Vine Voice, Top 500 Reviewer

Reversion: The Inevitable Horror
(The Portal Arcane Series - Book I)

With a noose around his neck, Samuel
arrives in a forest littered with caution tape and artifacts of the deceased. He
struggles to regain his memory while fending off a pack of wolves and the
mysterious visitors who seem to know more about this dying world than he does.
Major, Kole, and Mara, new companions also trapped in the strange locality,
realize they must outrun the ominous cloud eating away at reality. As their
world collapses upon itself, Samuel must find a way to escape the
Reversion
.

The Law of Three: A New Wasteland
(The Portal Arcane Series - Book II)

The Reversion plucks Samuel from a
dying world and drops him into another, a decaying desert wasteland of darkness
and peril. As his memories return, Samuel finds himself in another cycle of
destruction, and he leads newcomers Jack and Lindsay towards redemption in the
mountain stronghold of the mysterious one known as Deva. Finally, as the
locality collapses behind him, Samuel realizes his only escape from the
Reversion will be putting his faith in
The Law of Three
.

The Portal Arcane Series - Book III
- COMING IN 2014

To get all the latest news and announcements as well as a
free novel of your choosing, join my mailing list. Go to
http://jthorn.net
, enter your
email address and then hit submit.

If you are still reading, you must be a hardcore fan. Please visit
http://www.authorgraph.com/authors/JThorn_
where I will personalize and autograph your digital book for free. Please do not hesitate to get in touch. I respond personally to every message. My phone number is 216.245.8476 or if you appreciate creativity on the dial pad, 216.24J.THRN. Seriously, that’s my phone number. Call and leave me a voicemail with your name and number and I promise to call you back. Did a scene in the book trouble you? Call me. Did you love the book and want to shower me with praise? Call me. Do you want advice on writing or publishing your own book? Call me. Do you want to order a large pepperoni with mushrooms and cheese? Can’t help you there. I want you to have the best reading experience possible because we all have limited time on this planet. If you weren’t completely satisfied with my book, or if you loved it, or if you simply want help; please call me. I would love to hear from you.
And if you want to be part of an exclusive group of horror and dark fantasy
lovers, you have to check this out:

http://jthornwriter.blogspot.com/p/the-keepers.html

Other works from
J.
Thorn

Browse the entire J. Thorn catalog
at
http://bit.ly/JThornBooks
.

About the Author

Healed by the written word
Want a story that's rooted in a fundamental
aspect of being human?

I believe reading dark fiction can be healing. My overriding mission is to
connect with you through my art, and I hope to inspire you to do the same.
I’m a word architect and driven visionary. I’m obsessed with heavy metal,
horror films and technology. And I admire strong people who are not afraid
to speak their mind.

I grew up in an Irish Catholic, working class family and was the first to
go to college. I didn't have expensive toys, so I used my own imagination
for entertainment. And then I abused alcohol for entertainment. I spent the
first thirty years of my life convincing myself I wasn’t an addict and the
last ten worrying about all the potential threats the substances hid from
me.

Anxiety and depression are always hiding in the corner, waiting to jump
me when I start to feel happiness.

I had to break through family programming and accept the role of the
black sheep. In my 30s I started writing horror and formed a heavy metal
band while my family rolled their eyes, sighed and waited for the “phase” to
end.

I spent years paralyzing myself with self-loathing and criticism, keeping
my creativity smothered and hidden from the rest of the world. I worked a
job I hated because that’s what Irish Catholic fathers do. They don’t
express themselves, they pay the damn mortgage. I may have left my guilt and
faith behind long ago, but the scars remain.

My creativity is my release, my therapy and my place to work through it
all. I haven't had a drink in a long time, but the anxiety and depression
are always lurking. Writing novels and songs keeps it at bay. I scream over
anxiety with my microphone and I turn my guitar up loud enough to drown out
the whispers of self-doubt.

I hope to leave a legacy of art that will continue to entertain and
enrich lives long after I'm gone. I want others to see that you don’t have
to conform to the mainstream to be fulfilled.

Don’t be afraid of the dark. Embrace it.

Official Website

Facebook

Twitter

Kindle Edition

Copyright © 2012 by Catherine Perkins

All rights reserved

With HONOR CODE, award-winning author Cathy Perkins delivers
a mystery NOVELLA linked to her recent mystery novel, THE PROFESSOR.

In a small southern town where everyone normally knows each
other’s business, veteran detective Larry Robbins must solve the disappearance
of eighty-year-old widower, African-American George Beason.

When evidence arises that Beason may have left town on his
own, it would be easy for Robbins to close the case, but his gut instinct tells
him more’s at stake. As he uncovers clues about Beason’s deceased wife and his
estranged daughter, Robbins must untangle conflicting motives and hidden
agendas to bring Beason home alive.

Includes bonus material – an excerpt from
The Professor
,
a mystery by Cathy Perkins

The old man startled at the noise.

Forehead furrowed, he struggled to place the sound, but
heard only the familiar ticks of the house.

Darkness pressed against the windows, shrinking the pool of
light cast by his reading lamp. Shadows lurked in the corners of the room and
spilled from the kitchen.

He fumbled his glasses on and squinted at his watch. After
midnight. He’d fallen asleep in the recliner again.

Another dull thud.

Wood hitting wood.

A loose shutter. His shoulders loosened.
That’s good. Get
Jarad to fix it. The boy needs a job. Somebody to teach him the value of work.

He moved his Bible from his lap to the side table and pushed
the lever to lower the footrest. It creaked along with his knees. Everything in
the house creaked. The furniture, the floor, him.

He stretched. Pushed long arms and gnarled hands as high as
he could reach.

Dog raised her head and turned eyes filmed by cataracts
toward the kitchen.

“You hear something, girl?”

A tinkling sound of breaking glass answered him.

The old man sat up, his stretch forgotten. A broken window
was a different story.

The back door opened, a familiar rasp.

“Who’s there?” He shuffled toward the rear of the house.

A figure appeared, darker than the kitchen’s shadows.

“What are you doing –”

“Give them to me.”

The old man sighed and shook his head. “We already talked
about this.”

“I ain’t asking. I’m telling.”

Dog growled. A low guttural note that raised the hair on the
old man’s neck. “You go on home.”

“No.” Anger sparked in the rigid set of shoulders.

A long arm rose. Moonlight caught the length.

Not an arm.

A baseball bat.

“You put that down.” The old man took one step back, then
stopped. Wouldn’t do to show weakness.

The figure rushed forward. “Give them to me.”

Dog surged past him, the growl a deep-throated snarl.

The wood bat thumped again.

And again.

Detective Larry Robbins stopped the unmarked in front of a
small wood-frame house. He checked with Dispatch—right house—as if the
Newberry, South Carolina patrol car parked out front hadn’t clued him in. After
working these neighborhood for over twenty years, he recognized the street.
Used to be a nice place. Poor. But nice. Now it was transition houses, sliding
from bad to worse, as the old people died. Scum moving in dragged the area down
even faster.

He wasn’t sure why he was there. No obvious violence. No one
yelling. No one in the back seat of the patrol unit. Dispatch had said the
on-scene officer requested assistance. He’d half expected a domestic or a drug
bust.

The patrol officer, a veteran Robbins recognized named
Ellis, stood on the porch with an older African American woman.

Another person Robbins recognized.

He climbed from the vehicle. “Miz Rose?”

He’d picked up and dropped off dozens of foster kids with
her over the years. ‘Course he’d picked up a fair percentage of them again
later and hauled their asses to jail. But that had been at the bungalow next
door. Not the shotgun house in front of him. A hold-over name, the term
referred to style, not violence. The house’s rooms lay in a straight line, one
behind the other, with a central doorway leading into the next room. Story was,
you could shoot at the front door and the buckshot would fly out the back
without touching the walls. The houses were all over the South, usually in poor
neighborhoods because they were cheap to build.

“Everything okay with…” What was the kid’s name? Child
Services had taken the toddler from her drug-addicted mother. A mother who fed
her addiction before feeding her child. He’d accompanied Child Services,
bringing the little kid, big-eyed and clutching a new teddy bear, to Rose
Nelson’s sanctuary.

“Tasha’s just fine, Detective Robbins. She’s up to the
church at pre-school kindergarten. It’s Mr. Beason I’m worried with.”