Cakewalk
Socially conservative Texas is the backdrop where success and nonconformity cannot coexist for Bryan, a Black divorced father of two kids, Lindsey, the athletic golden child, and Lance, the unorthodox queer thespian. Bryan’s mother is prideful, domineering, homophobic, and loves bragging to her high-society girlfriends about Bryan’s accomplishments and promotion to VP at a large multi-national oil/gas company. Bryan vigorously steers clear of conversations with his mother about more grandkids and eligible Black women because Bryan has been secretly dating Nadia, a white transgender woman. With authentic insight, Douglas Bell reveals the harm we do to each other when social and family standards keep us from authentically loving or being loved. Cakewalk is a timely story of a man’s journey to find long-lasting love as he fights through contemporary racism and maligned sexual and gender identity constructs as his biases are revealed while parenting a queer child.
One Night Billionaire
My steamy hot one-night stand and now he is my Boss. One last trip before looking for my next dream job. And there he was a stranger, Brian, extremely sexy with his pepper gray hair. We had one mind-blowing night together. Turns out, I landed a new job but, Brian Kerrigan is the CEO of the company and my new grumpy boss. The steamy romance between us picks up right where we left off, after spending the night at his huge penthouse and sleeping in those strong muscular arms. Now we are having this completely sexy office affair. He desperately wants this romance between us to continue, but I know this is unprofessional and the outcome can be disastrous. I’m afraid this will get out. We can’t continue working together but there is an undeniable attraction between us. I have a plan to stop this but he can never find out, otherwise, there will be no escaping this passion burning deep inside of me.
Sole Brethren
Cordelia Tanner never intended to cause such a ballyhoo when she invented Footloose, an ingenious holographic technology that gives the magical illusion of a person wearing wondrous shoes when underneath they have on their comfy slippers. Talk about unintended consequences! Suddenly storm clouds gather over her perfect life of beauty and culture with darling twin brother Rex and adorable friends. Dastardly footwear mogul Richard ‘Call Me Rich Because I am’ Nailer is intent on wreaking revenge for Footloose destroying the global shoe business. Fortunately for Cordelia she can periodically escape the shenanigans through her mind-blowing psychic ability that permits her to enter historic realms and visit, amongst others, the charming Lancelot, 18th century superstar Master of Ceremonies to High Society. When she realises that performing psychomatricks with her best friend, the enigmatic Elodie L’Archambeau, multiplies the effects, this presents them with opportunities and adventures they could never have imagined.
Surfing with Sharks: Madness and the Tumultuous Summer of 2020
Like so many during the summer of 2020, writer Seve Verdad felt he was watching America, and the world, go mad. In his new novel, Surfing with Sharks, Verdad relives events of that summer and examines universal questions: Has the world gone crazy or am I crazy?…Both? The result is a poignant critique of America’s political and cultural wokeness and COVID-era policies through his main character, an entrepreneur driven to extremes within a universe of extremes. “While a struggle against madness is a timeless literary theme, the book’s narrator is uniquely contemporary,” Verdad says. “Surfing with Sharks reflects both the absurdity and gravity of life itself through a lens focused on the summer of 2020, and the struggles of that summer persist today, may indeed be timeless”….. In Surfing with Sharks, we learn that Colton Candide has done time in prison and rebounded, only to find his efforts thwarted when his burgeoning Fisherman’s Shore Bait and Tackle business is declared nonessential and fails under oppressive pandemic lockdowns.