Melissa F.

Jake O’Connell causes quite a stir by showing up in Port Townsend for his brother David’s wedding. The twin of country heartthrob Joe Bob Blade has upended his enviable life by resigning as CEO of the family business. In North Bend, he dressed to the nines, dazzled associates, and resided in an architect’s showplace. But he bore a grudge against the brothers who left him to hold down the fort while they gallivanted off to follow their bliss.

Eve Sawyer is ready to wave goodbye to summer. Fresh off helping solve a puzzling beach crime, the inquisitive college student can’t wait for fall classes to start. But her newfound fame has attracted an anxious mom’s cry for help to track down a classmate who never returned home. Eve soon learns that the girl’s boyfriend is also missing.

When David O’Connell joins his family in Port Townsend, Washington, for his sister Teresa’s wedding, they wonder why their normally outgoing, cheerful brother has become subdued and secretive. He balks at discussing his last four years as a surgeon in Africa or his fiancée, Sylvia, who is coming to visit. Family friend Maddie Leftwood is a serious actress in a sex kitten’s body. The air crackles between David and Maddie from the moment their eyes meet. But over Christmas at the O’Connell Compound, David is fully preoccupied with appeasing his prickly fiancée.

Struggling to reconcile the man he once was with the man prison made him, Ian Troy emerges from captivity to an unfamiliar world gripped with fear. In the wake of his fall, those he cares for suffered their own grim fates, leaving friends endangered and scattered. His old enemy, Draken of Langor, seized control of Mirra’kelan and named himself High King.

She was a business hotshot back in the day. Decades later, can this empty nester return with a vengeance to save her beautiful town? Durango, Colorado. Sue Cleary worries she’s lost her mojo. Leaving the workforce as a high-powered forensic accountant to raise her four boys, the now 50-year-old fears all she has to look forward to is boredom. But when she discovers her idyllic community is about to be sullied by a New York developer with big plans for a tasteless tourist trap, she leaps into the fray to defend her picturesque hometown.

Amid the chaos and fear of an apocalyptic virus, a mother fights to protect her daughter from the rotting remains of society. Navigating a frightening new world where survival is paramount and trust is a gamble, infection is only a misstep away. Despite her doubts and imperfections, Amy’s love and resolve are without question. But are they enough? Can she shield her daughter from the violence and savagery and keep them both alive another day? For, at the end of the world, there’s no second chance. With a single bite, necrosis will set in.