Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Tear the City Down by Andre Hardy, which releases on September 1st 2026.

Coltrane Davis is at once a knight and a hustler. He has risen to wealth and success, graduating from San Diego’s back alleys to the halls of power through his partnership with Saul Sollman, a crooked kingmaker among the city’s elite. Running multimillion dollar scams with Saul, he has been Saul’s fixer, but now he wants out of the hustle so that he can focus on his teenage daughter’s burgeoning tennis career and finally be the dad he has always wanted to be.

But when the Los Angeles Chargers’ star running back vanishes one evening before a big game, Coltrane is drawn into an investigation of what happened by Saul and his protégé, the player’s agent; the stakes escalate with a gut-punch when the trail leads into San Diego’s underworld of drugs and prostitution and reveals clues to the disappearance of his daughter’s best friend, whose loss has haunted him.

Torn by the unreconcilable demands of the life he can’t seem to quit and the fierce desire he has to protect his own, Coltrane brings himself and his loved ones to the brink of destruction in his quest to free himself once and for all of Saul’s control—and focus on what really matters: family.

EXCERPT

Upward mobility needs a surgeon general’s warning label. Something to the effect of “Brothas, best beware: Social climbing is dangerous. Known to infect us with greed, leading to the adoption of the lifted class’s behaviors and prejudices, resulting in delusion, moral dilemmas, neglect, identity crises, self-hatred, and, in extreme cases, death.”

Reposed in Saul’s oxblood leather chair, I wasn’t thinking anything that eloquent. I’d fallen into a hustler’s lament. Running the tape back in my mind’s eye. Searching for the moment I should’ve recognized sooner—the signal I’d missed, buried under the sound of the cash register ringing.

I’d known better.

Hustlers supposed to get in. Stack some bread. Get ghost before it goes bad. Because it always does.

The library held its familiar golden hue, a brass lamp on Saul’s mahogany desk casting our shadows like ghouls on the floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with Plato, Homer, Machiavelli, and Sun Tzu. I sipped my WhistlePig rye, then puffed an Arturo Fuente cigar, blowing smoke toward the artisan ceiling tiles. Turning my eyes toward the view out the tall arched windows whose red velvet drapes were tied to iron hooks, I gazed vacantly at the brewing storm.

Somewhere on the horizon, there was trouble with my name on it. Exactly what kind of trouble, I wasn’t sure. But I’d been feeling a sort of paranoid disenchantment as of late. There were a number of contributing factors, but all of them were tributaries of the same river: moral bankruptcy amplified by cognitive dissonance.

All I’d ever known was hustle. I’d graduated from nickel-and-dime plays on the concrete blocks of San Diego (hustlers say Daygo) to Churchill chairs in Saul’s La Jolla Farms estate. And while I might have seemed out of place in his underworld of hedgefund maneuvering, bribery, kick-backs, and good ol’ fashioned usury, Saul understood something: White men don’t see brothas. And that’s not some metaphorical aside. Unless I get close, like in an elevator, or I catch the eye of one of their women, white men don’t see me. And I’m built like a reason to cross the street: cast-iron black, six foot three, 235 pounds of mostly muscle. Their miss goes back to colonization, African adventure stories, Jim Crow, and shit I’ll leave right here. The point is, I’d hustled my way out the mud. But now there were strong reasons to change.

My daughter played in her first International Tennis Federation tournament in Boca Raton three months ago. She didn’t win, but goddamn, she hit some incredible shots. I grinned as the crowd side-eyed each other in amazement. There is pride, which I know well, but this thing in Florida hit different. Something warm swelled in my chest—and suddenly I saw my daughter in a new way. If my feet touched the ground after that, I don’t remember.

We spent three extra days in Florida, touring tennis academies and boarding schools, meeting with private coaches. As I walked the grounds of IMG Academy, it landed profoundly: Naima is a pro. This tennis thing is real.

Putting my hustle down went from someday to now. It felt right. And I’d been thinking about it for a while.

Which was why I wasn’t keen on being here.

The ritual of jazz, cigars, and fingers of high-end whiskey, which I took neat, was foreplay. Lubrication before Saul and I drew up new plays, reviewed those in progress, and graded those that had borne fruit. Occasionally, like now, the ritual was about finesse. Saul easing into an ask I wasn’t gonna like.

“Your bankruptcy attorney better be good,” Saul said. He was on the phone bullying my mark, Alexander Bradshaw. “Because if you don’t execute, the bid numbers are going to NASSCO,” he said, referencing the navy’s shipbuilding contractor. “I’m playing golf with their CEO on Tuesday.”

Man, I wished he would shut up so I could enjoy the music. I would have said something if he had not been on the verge of a mood.

Saul was a psychopath. I mean, honest-to-god, dropped-on-his-head-when-he-was-a-baby disturbed. When I first got on, I noticed his team of Ivy Leaguers—which I renamed The Weenies—tiptoeing around him, trying not to break the eggshell of Saul’s soul. Then came his over-the-top tantrums when deals didn’t go as planned. I’d look at him, thinking, Bro, relax. Let me do what I do. His behavior was a head-scratcher—until I plugged his superficial charm, grandiose sense of self-worth, con man fast-talk, and zero remorse into a Google questionnaire. There it was: He was fuckin’ crazy.

My hood was rife with brown-skinned people with damaged psyches. So his crazy wasn’t nothin’ to me. I was there for the money. It was coming fast in large chunks. And he reminded me of my Day One homeboy, Bobby.

Not physically, of course. Saul Sollman was pudgy, balding, five seven, tops, with skin a shade of white you get from living inside. Bobby was a classic ectomorph. And, I should add, was sort of like King Solomon, as street niggas go. Kind, benevolent, a deep thinker who would blow your candle out if the scales tip that way. Saul and Bobby’s match came in their brown eyes, which never stopped probing for leverage. It was the first thing I noticed about Saul. So it wasn’t unreasonable to expect he’d handle stress as well as Bobby.

But handling stress wasn’t happening that late Saturday night. Or early Sunday morning, if we’re being exact. Which was irritating because I craved silence. Coltrane was now playing “Naima.” My daughter’s name. And like her smile, the ballad’s dulcet melody had the power to chase my troubles away. If only he would shut up and let me listen.

Saul would finish his threats, then put between thirty and fifty racks of cash on the table for me to fix this emergency with Bradshaw. I don’t travel for less than thirty. The extra twenty thousand would be for getting me out of bed on date night.

Perhaps it’s better said: I’d left my woman in bed on date night because I can’t stop picking pennies off the ground.

No matter that I’d hustled more dough than I could ever spend; memories of hunger, cold, and mattress springs kept me answering Saul’s calls. It felt sacrilegious to turn down the bag. But that’s what I planned to do—which would be a first.

I closed my eyes as Wynton Kelly finished his piano solo, an ethereal meditation on its own. Now my namesake, Coltrane, was blowing those five declarative notes, which made me feel weightless as they climbed the scales into a crepuscular sky.

“I don’t give a shit what Coltrane said. He works for me!” Saul shouted. “If I were in your shoes, I’d be in Chicago tomorrow.”

Now it was clear why he’d insisted I leave my beautiful, naked woman. He wanted me in Chicago for the meeting. I shook my head with a tinge of sorrow. Saul was aware the coming days would be especially hard for Naima and me. To ask me to travel? It felt like, I don’t know, inhumane.

I wasn’t going anywhere but home.

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘Tear the City Down’ by Andre Hardy appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Some Kind of Haunted by Hazel Beck, which releases on August 25th 2026.

Home is where the haunt is.

Lexi Darling has always been a city girl through and through. New York is loud, crowded, and just chaotic enough to keep her mind off everything she’d rather not think about—especially the eerily realistic nightmares that have plagued her all her life. So when she and her twin brother, Logan, are summoned to the postcard-perfect town of Midas, Iowa, one golden October to handle an inheritance from the grandmother they never knew, Lexi figures it’ll be a quick detour: sign a few papers, snap a fall foliage selfie, and catch the next flight home.

But Midas has other plans.

The town has been waiting for the Darling twins, and it’s not about to let them leave. Their arrival stirs up a centuries-old curse, one that promises something dark and hungry will rise again by Halloween night. And the key to stopping it might just lie in their family’s mysterious past. Now, trapped in Midas with the shadows closing in, Lexi has to team up with a group of stubborn locals to save the town…including Jack, the grumpy-but-unfairly attractive diner owner who drives her crazy in all the wrong ways.

As the nights grow longer and an uncanny evil creeps closer, Lexi must uncover the truth behind the curse before Midas—and everyone in it—is consumed. Because in Midas, some secrets refuse to stay buried—and some nightmares never end.

Loading…

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘Some Kind of Haunted’ by Hazel Beck appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Quetzal’s Labyrinth by Karla Arenas Valenti, which releases on September 1st 2026.

Diego never believed his abuelo’s stories of gods and monsters and the ancient magic woven through Mexican history. Not until he finds himself sprinting down a dark hallway, chased by a beast straight out of lore—its fur as coarse as iron and five human hands clawing furiously at his throat.

Turns out, the myths are real, and their magic is erupting into Diego’s world. As shadowy creatures besiege his apartment, abuelo’s dog Cholo fixes Diego with a human gaze and speaks. Cholo reveals they’ve been unwittingly ensnared in a centuries-old rivalry between the great God Quetzal and his ruthless brother Tezca. Tezca is rising, summoning an army of minions, while Quetzal, the only one strong enough to stop him, has vanished.

Humanity hangs by a thread, and Diego has no choice but to enter Quetzal’s labyrinth—accompanied by his friends Violeta and Cholo, a sassy rubber chicken, and a bloodthirsty kitten—to face a power older than civilization itself.

The stakes are legendary, but maybe, deep down, Diego is too.

Loading…

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘Quetzal’s Labyrinth’ by Karla Arenas Valenti appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from To All The Men I’ve Killed Before by Katy Brent, which releases on August 27th 2026.

If a man hurt your best friend – like, really hurt her – what would you do?

Key his car? Or hunt him down and chop him into little pieces? Tough decision, I know.

I’ve tracked this lowlife to LA and brought my little sister Antoinette along for the ride. I’m trying not to be irritated that she’s found a taste for murder and is leaving body parts all over our hotel. Because this girls’ trip needs a Hollywood ending.

And of all the men I’ve killed before, this one will be the sweetest…

Loading…

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘To All The Men I’ve Killed Before’ by Katy Brent appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from But I Hate Him by Page Powars, which releases on August 25th 2026.

Rory is academic royalty.

As the heir to the most successful tutoring company in the world, he can be nothing less than perfect if he wants to gain his parents’ approval. So it’s simple. Rory studies harder than anyone else. He does not make mistakes. And he never loses.

Except to Luca Melendez. The infuriatingly good-looking hockey player who wins every academic competition without even trying.

When Rory has a very public meltdown, throwing a smoothie at Luca and shattering his own public image in the process – it feels like one more thing Luca ruined.

To salvage his reputation, Rory has his sights set on winning the most cutthroat academic camp in the country, BRAIN. There is nothing standing between Rory and the final medal.

Until, Luca Melendez shows up.

This means war and Rory has the perfect plan: Make Luca fall in love with him.

And then break Luca’s heart right before the final competition.

Loading…

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘But I Hate Him’ by Page Powars appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Rootbound: A Tangled Novel By Margaret Owen, which is out now.

A cunning king. A devious princess. Best. Week. Ever.

Rapunzel knows nothing about her neighboring kingdom, Astera – and not just because she only left her tower a month ago. The famously reclusive island has limited its contact with outsiders for decades. So when a suspicious invitation arrives welcoming Rapunzel to the Asteran princess’s coming of age ceremony, and offering her a chance to be useful for the first time since she lost her healing powers, Rapunzel accepts – and unwittingly plunges herself and her companion, Eugene, into a tangled knot of political intrigue and magical secrets.

Eugene is just happy to get one last adventure with Rapunzel before his criminal background catches up with him and prevents their happy ending. Yet as they’re drawn further into the country’s problems, they uncover truths about Eugene’s parentage that point to deeper unrest in Astera, and suddenly the fate of their own kingdom, not just their personal dreams, is at stake.

Thrust into a power struggle between Astera’s beloved princess, Verette, its domineering king, Enver, and a mysterious secret society, Rapunzel and Eugene race to protect their home from an unsettlingly familiar threat and discover that the past can either hold them back, or help them blossom.

EXCERPT

When Eugene joins her at the bow, she’s outlined the caravel and is searching for the proper slate gray for the base layer of the hull. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” she says as he leans against the railing next to her.

“Funny thing is, I’d probably sleep right through it if you were stomping,” he admits, rubbing his face. “Sneaking by might as well be an alarm bell. Everything okay?”

“I had a bad dream.” She finds her gray, but can’t make herself set it to paper just yet. “Can . . . can I ask you something?”

“Fire away.”

“Does it bother you that . . .” She swallows. “That if you hadn’t been rescued in time . . . that you almost . . .”

His hand brushes his throat, and she knows he understands.

“Yes,” Eugene allows. A layer of veneer strips off; Rapunzel enjoys his attempts at charm and bravado, but this is the Eugene she likes best. “But also—no. You don’t do things like rob the royal palace without knowing the risks. There’s no rush without them. And a month ago, my life was the only thing I really had to gamble.” His voice catches. “So now the gallows just remind me how much more I have to lose.”

Rapunzel stows her pastel stick as the ship crests a strong wave. Finding the words feels harder than picking the right blue. “It doesn’t feel right,” she says slowly. “You didn’t even get a trial. You were almost killed just for stealing a—an expensive hat that belonged to the wrong family. I know everyone loves my parents. It just scares me that I’m going to have that kind of power to hurt people. That I might make a mistake. Especially since I can’t . . . fix it anymore.”

Eugene’s hand catches hers, and she realizes she was picking at the ends of her hair again.

“I would like to remind you we’re on a ship to fix something right now,” he says, droll. “And the king and queen aren’t liked because they’re perfect. They’re liked because they try to take care of their people, not just rule over them. They’ve opened and funded schools, libraries, clinics . . . even my orphanage would have shut down without the royal grants. You’ve only known you’re a princess for a month. Maybe now is when you figure out what kind of princess you want to be.”

Rapunzel moves his hand to her cheek. “Is this still your dream, Eugene?”

For a moment, he looks—almost like he’s holding something back.

But maybe it’s the kick of the breeze, the shift of the dark, the echo of Gothel sneering Really, Rapunzel?

“All of it and more,” he says. Then he brings his lips to hers, and everything, even the doubt, fades away.

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘Rootbound: A Tangled Novel’ by Margaret Owen appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from My Own Kind of Person by Tim Manley, which releases on September 8th 2026.

Sean O’Brien copes with anxiety by being the funny guy—at school, in his relationships, and onstage at local open mics. But when his stand-up act starts feeling like a performance of someone he’s not, everything changes. As Sean struggles with awkward girlfriend encounters and rising panic, he meets Elijah, a new guy with quiet confidence and an honesty Sean has never allowed himself. Suddenly, Sean’s life, his comedy, and his self-awareness come into sharper focus.

With wit and emotional depth, My Own Kind of Person explores the courage it takes to speak your truth—even when your voice shakes.

EXCERPT

“When I was a kid, a girl would tell a guy she liked him by being mean to him and beating him up.” I hold the microphone tight and plant my feet center stage. “And let’s just say all the girls loved me.”

A couple of people laugh but there’s only a couple of people here, so maybe it counts as the crowd going wild. Maybe I am bringing down the house at the open mic night at McGuinn’s, the comedy club behind the McDonald’s across the street from the airport.

“There was one girl I had a secret affair with. Secret because it was only when the teacher wasn’t looking that she’d kick me in the shins.” I look wistfully at the lights. “That girl struck fear into my heart and urine into my pants.”

A little more laughter.

“She would knock me down and kick at my special area until I was numb. Then she’d roar and go, ‘You had enough?!’ And I’d respond—” I mime removing a cigarette from my pocket, lighting it, and taking a long drag. “‘Give me five minutes. I can go again.’ ”

Louder laughter.

“Thanks very much! My name is Sean O’Brien.”

I fumble to get the mic into the stand and I step down and walk to the back of the dark room.

An old lady turns in her chair. “Great job.”

“Thank you!”

The host, a retired firefighter named Bobby Bingo, takes the stage. He has thinning hair and wears a T-shirt with a bald eagle clutching a fire helmet. All his jokes are about the length of his hose.

“Give it up for Sean. For someone with such skinny arms, that kid has big balls.” This gets a lot of laughs. “Monthly showcase is next week. Top up-and-coming comics. Catch them here before they get big and have to be careful what they say.”

The house lights come up. The performers greet friends with handshake-claps and half-hugs. At the center table, my best friend Tony carefully removes his phone from the little tripod he used to film me. Beside him my other best friend Andi takes out a stick of gum and folds it into their mouth. You need to bring two paying guests to get onstage, and Tony and Andi dropped everything the second I asked.

I wasn’t planning on coming tonight at all, but when the rest of the night with Christy didn’t go as I dreamed it would, or reasonably hoped it would, or feared it possibly could, I felt so ashamed that I couldn’t stay in my bedroom. I couldn’t stay within a ten-mile radius. There was still time to make it to the open mic, so I begged Tony and Andi to attend as a not-yet-belated birthday present.

I’d rather not think about it, but suffice to say that instead of losing my virginity I had a minor, casual, extremely severe panic attack.

For some comics, getting onstage is a way to speak the truth and process what’s happening in their lives. They turn their tragedy into comedy in real time. I’m the opposite. I don’t want to process how spectacularly I just failed to have sex. I don’t want to ever tell anyone about it. And there is no feeling like making a room of strangers laugh. An hour ago I was a complete failure. Now I can do anything.

I take out my phone to send Christy a quick message, but my breath catches and my thumbs stop. Maybe I can’t do anything.

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘My Own Kind of Person’ by Tim Manley appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Shadow Friends by Tess Gerritsen, which releases on August 25th 2026.

When a renowned disease expert and Russian defector dies mysteriously during a global affairs conference in Purity, Maine, the tight-knit band of former spies in the Martini Club once again sees their quiet coastal retirement interrupted by international intrigue. And when a waitress at the conference hotel is found murdered, Ingrid Slocum sees chilling links to a disastrous mission that nearly killed her three decades ago.

Desperate to uncover the truth, Ingrid’s drawn back into the game by a magnetic ex-CIA colleague—and former lover—who was with her on the long-ago doomed mission. He convinces her to join him, and together they head to Amsterdam to track down her would-be killer.

Ingrid’s frantic husband Lloyd and Maggie Bird are close behind, but a clandestine network of assassins is intent on stopping them. Forced to question every allegiance, the Martini Club must rely on the skills they tried to leave behind. Because in this game of revenge and deception, the past never dies—it just hides in the shadows.

CHAPTER ONE

INGRID

Her life was not supposed to end this way. Then again, in her profession, one never knew how it would end. She had hoped her final exit would happen many years in the future, and it would be painless, perhaps while she dozed in a rocking chair with a fire gently crackling in the hearth and a cat purring on her lap. Or perhaps the end would be heralded by a crushing pain in her chest after one last triumphant climb up a mountain. She had not expected it to come today, with so many years of life still ahead of her, and not in this old stone house, amid the fields of blooming lavender. It was a breathtakingly beautiful place to die. Through the window, framed by ancient wooden shutters, she could see the hills of Provence, cloaked in the golden haze of summer. The air that wafted in through that window was perfumed with the scent of flowers. This was a day that should be savored, a day to sip pastis in the nearby village and nibble on olives and peanuts.

Instead, she would die trapped in a bedroom with a wounded young woman who was bleeding to death beside her. Ingrid had locked the door and had desperately shoved furniture against it to stave off the invaders, but those pitiful barriers would not hold them off for long. Already, the men were battering against it, and while the door was solid, made of centuries-old oak, eventually the attackers would burst through. For Ingrid, death would probably come swiftly, with two merciful bullets in the head.

But for Sophie . . .

“Cannot—cannot breathe,” Sophie whispered.

Ingrid looked down at the woman she had been assigned to protect. Sophie was barely a woman, really, only twenty-two years old, but blessed—some would say cursed—with the courage of a warrior. She had trusted the Agency to keep her alive, had believed all their assurances that Moscow would never find her in this safe house, tucked away in a quiet corner of Provence.

And for weeks, they had kept Sophie safe. While Ingrid’s colleagues in Paris and Marseille had worked to dismantle the Russian syndicate, Sophie and Ingrid had felt secure enough here to venture outside every morning to pick flowers and sip coffee in the garden. Who would think to look for Sophie in this old stone farmhouse at the end of a private dirt road? To even access the road, an attacker would first have to contend with Ingrid’s two Agency colleagues, stationed in the gatehouse at the top of the road. With these safeguards in place, and their location classified, no one should’ve been able to find them.

But somehow, they had been found.

Their first warning had been a curl of dust spiraling up in the distance, kicked into the air by the tires of an approaching vehicle. All vehicles first had to be cleared by Simon and Gordon, the two agents in the gatehouse, but Ingrid had received no heads-up from her colleagues about a visitor. She’d radioed the men to confirm.

No one answered.

She’d called out to Sophie, who was crouched in the garden, snipping a bundle of lavender stalks. With her straw hat and summer-streaked blond hair, Sophie looked like a winsome country girl, happily flushed from the sun, without a care in the world. The way a young woman should look while spending her summer in France. Contented. Unafraid.

“Sophie, go in the house,” Ingrid had said.

Sophie looked up, and when she saw Ingrid’s face, she quickly rose to her feet. Now she, too, spotted the fantail of dust rising from the road. “Who is coming?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Go inside.”

At once Sophie dropped the bundle of lavender stalks that she’d so lovingly harvested and she retreated into the house.

Again, Ingrid radioed the gatehouse. Again, there was no response.

The dust cloud kept moving closer. She could now see it was a black SUV, and it was moving fast. Something is wrong, she thought. She followed Sophie into the house, barred the door, and issued a Mayday to her backup team in the village.

Then she grabbed the rifle.

Through the rifle scope, she watched the SUV roar closer. She could make out the silhouettes of five heads inside the vehicle. She kept her rifle aimed at the driver, but she held her fire because the situation was still unclear. They could be friendlies. There could have been a comm failure. Her finger twitched on the trigger.

The SUV skidded to a stop in front of the house. Four men stepped out. Armed, dressed in black.

Definitely not friendlies.

She fired and took down one man. The others immediately scrambled for cover behind the vehicle. A barrage of return fire shattered the kitchen window and glass exploded into the room, clattering across the floor.

“Sophie!” she yelled. “Go upstairs!”

No answer.

She turned and saw the young woman, her face pale and contorted in pain, slowly sliding down against the blood-spattered wall.

“Sophie!”

More bullets tore into the kitchen and thudded into the cabinets. Wineglasses and chinaware disintegrated.

As Ingrid scrambled toward Sophie, shrapnel bit into her leg, and warm blood trickled down her skin. Even as she dodged the hail of gunfire, her focus was only on Sophie. Get her out of the room. Out of the line of fire.

She grabbed Sophie around the waist, slung the rifle over her shoulder, and pulled the young woman out of the kitchen. There was no escape route from this house. Their only option was to retreat upstairs to one of the bedrooms, bar the door, and hope that rescue arrived in time. Sophie’s legs had gone limp, and she was little more than deadweight as Ingrid hauled her up the narrow staircase. By the time they reached the second floor, Ingrid was dragging her, leaving a trail of blood on the floorboards.

From downstairs came the sound of pounding, kicking. How long would the door hold?

Not long enough.

Ingrid pulled Sophie into the upstairs bedroom and laid her on the floor. The young woman’s blouse was saturated with blood and she was gasping for air, but Ingrid had no time to attend to her wounds. A blast shook the house.

They had plastic explosives.

She bolted the bedroom door and shoved a dresser and chair against it. Scrambled behind the bed and crouched against the mattress with her rifle aimed at the door. The first one through that door would be a dead man.

“Please . . . help . . .”

Ingrid reached out and touched Sophie’s hand. Already it felt like the hand of a corpse, the warmth of life draining away. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.

Voices shouted downstairs in the kitchen. Russian. They were inside the house. Footsteps thudded up the stairs. Her finger was already squeezing the trigger, ready to fire, as they banged on the bedroom door. Each blow shook the dresser, her last pitiful line of defense. Her heart was banging as well, like a wild animal trying to beat its way out of her chest. It would not take long for them to break through. She could take down the first one or two of them, but there was only one way this would end. The syndicate demanded it. Sophie, who’d dared to betray them, must now suffer the consequences.

As Ingrid leaned into the mattress, her finger poised to fire, she thought about all the pleasures she would never live to enjoy, the breaths she would never take, the sunsets she would never witness. She thought about the man who waited for her at home, the man with whom she could have spent the rest of her life. Gone, those possible futures, all gone. Now it was down to these final moments, the invaders pounding at the door, the sweat trickling down her cheek like a warm teardrop. How many rounds were left in her rifle? She didn’t know, but she would keep firing as long as she was able to, as long as she had bullets. Make them pay dearly. Make them . . .

The blast splintered wood, sent shrapnel flying. The shock wave threw her backward, and her head slammed against the wall. For a moment she saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing. No discomfort, just the black numbness of death. Then, faint and distant, the staccato of gunfire. Men shouting. Footsteps.

They are coming. Here it ends.

“Ingrid.”

She drew in a shuddering breath, and pain stabbed her ribs, sharp as a blade. Pain meant she was alive. Pain meant they weren’t finished with her yet.

“Ingrid!”

She opened her eyes. To her wonder, she saw a face she knew well, a face that was now staring down at her in panic. Rodrigo’s black hair was powdered with a layer of dust, and his cheek was spattered with blood. Not his blood, she realized, but another man’s.

“Help her,” whispered Ingrid. “Help Sophie.”

He gave a sorrowful shake of the head and looked away. She followed his gaze to the body lying nearby.

In life, Sophie had been a pale and luminous beauty, but beneath her seeming fragility was tempered steel. For almost a year, she had gone unnoticed while embedded within a viper’s nest of men who made their fortunes from death and destruction. She had been listening, always listening, as those men talked freely about the deals they’d made, the rivals they’d eliminated. None of those men could imagine that the harmless and insignificant girl they’d hired to serve their drinks, adorn their yachts, would be the Trojan horse that would bring them down. Ingrid herself had been dubious when a troubled Sophie first approached the Agency with information about the syndicate. Damning information that she’d gleaned while she’d hovered silently in the background. To the syndicate, she was just another pretty face, like so many others that could always be found orbiting powerful men. Unlike the others, though, Sophie had been paying attention and taking notes. She had come to understand, with growing horror, who these men were and the brutal violence they were capable of.

I’m sorry. Ingrid reached out to Sophie’s lifeless body. Oh God, I’m sorry.

“Ingrid.” Rodrigo gently tugged on her arm. “There’s nothing you can do here. Come, let me take you to the village.”

“How did this happen? How did they find us?”

“I don’t know.”

“We had no warning. Why didn’t our men warn us?”

There was a silence. She looked up and saw his pained expression.

“What happened to them? Where are Simon and Gordon?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Both of them?”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

“Just tell me!”

“If you really want to know,” he said quietly, “I’ll show you.”

*

She should not have asked. Far better to have read the details in some dry autopsy report, or to hear about it second- or third-hand, to put as much distance as she could from this bloody reality. But now that she was staring at the carnage, these images would be forever imprinted in her memory.

Gordon would have been taken down first. His body was lying outside the stone guardhouse, sprawled at the edge of the garden, his blood soaking into the soil. Life’s nutrients, returning to the earth to nourish next year’s blossoms. The instrument of death was still implanted in Gordon’s left orbit. It was a stiletto, an elegant and efficient tool made of stainless steel. Some sort of symbol was engraved on the handle: a small circle with a dot inside. A minimalist design, like the weapon itself. It would have been a mercifully quick death—at least she hoped it was. One stab would have driven the tip of the stiletto through the eye socket and straight into the brain. Gordon would not have suffered long.

The same could not be said for Simon.

He, too, must have been taken by surprise, because his gun was lying off in the corner, where it had probably been kicked during the fight. The room smelled of carnage, the stink of sweat and desperation. The wall was covered with fantails of blood, sprayed there from his severed carotid artery as he’d turned and twisted. From the doorway, Ingrid surveyed the blood, splashed like scarlet streamers around the room, and imagined Simon slip-sliding through those pools. He had been the fair-haired kid on their team, only twenty-eight and happy to have escaped the small and unexciting town in Texas where he’d grown up. Now he’d be returning to that town in a box.

She turned and walked away.

Outside in the garden, she took deep breaths, emptying her lungs of the stench. A hot wind swept down the valley, bringing with it the scent of summer-warmed grass and lavender. She heard Rodrigo’s footsteps crunching toward her across the gravel.

“What about the men who did this?” she asked.

“We’ve secured the location. They’re all dead,” said Rodrigo. “We took care of it.”

“Are you sure?”

“You saw their bodies.”

She thought back to the blood and chaos left behind in the farmhouse. She remembered two men lying dead on the stairs, a third body sprawled on the kitchen floor. And there’d been a fourth one in the yard, where Ingrid had brought him down with her rifle shots. She recalled their black SUV roaring up to the farmhouse, and the view she’d had through her rifle scope of the occupants inside that vehicle.

“There’s someone missing,” she said.

Rodrigo frowned at her. “What?”

“I saw four bodies at the house.”

“Yes. That’s all of them.”

“But there were five people in the SUV.”

“No, we killed them all. There were four.”

“And no one escaped?”

“Trust me, there was no fifth man.”

“But I could swear—”

“Ingrid.” He touched her face, his fingers lingering on her cheek. “You caught the blast from that door. When I found you, you were barely conscious. Can you really be certain of what you saw?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, and clutched her head. It was still throbbing from the blast, and she tried to rub away the ache, the failure. “I just need to be sure. I owe it to Gordon and Simon. And Sophie . . .”

He wrapped his arms around her. “Come. Let me take you back to the hotel.”

Suddenly exhausted, she sagged against him. They had once been lovers, and even though she had ended it a year ago, the contours of his body still felt familiar. They’d seemed well matched in so many ways, the way her head tucked so perfectly under his chin, even the way the rhythm of their breathing seemed aligned. But that was before she’d really known him. Before she’d come to realize that she was just one in a long line of Rodrigo’s conquests. This fire between them, so bright and hot, would inevitably burn out, leaving nothing but ashes.

She stared down at Gordon’s body and thought about all the memories that blade had destroyed as it sank into his brain. All the laughter, all the dreams. All the love. “His son just turned twelve,” she said softly. “Gordon showed me his photo the other day. Told me how rotten he felt about missing the boy’s birthday. And his wife. Oh God, Vicky . . .”

“This isn’t the time to think about it.”

“When is the time?” She looked up at Rodrigo. “Or will there never be a good time? Do we just shove it into the closet and forget it? The way we forget everything else?”

He took her arm. “You need to rest.”

“No. What I really need is to go home.”

“Yes. I think that’s a good idea. You should fly home. Take as much time as you need, and come back when you feel ready.” He caressed her cheek. “But please,” he said with a smile. “Don’t be gone for too long.”

She caught his wrist and gently lowered his hand. “To be honest, there’s another reason I need to go home for a while.”

“What reason?”

She turned and looked up the road at the safe house. At what should have been a safe house but instead had turned into a place of slaughter. “I thought I was going to die there. And that’s when I realized what I want to live for. Who I want to live for. I need to tell him, while I still have the chance.”

“Him?” Rodrigo frowned. “You can’t mean that analyst you’ve been talking about?”

“That’s exactly who I mean.”

“Are you really going home to that—that desk jockey?”

“That desk jockey loves me.” In ways that you never will, she thought.

“And is that enough?”

“Love?” She looked at him and gave a sad laugh. “You really don’t understand it, do you?”

“I understand that you and I have something special.”

“And how long would that last?”

“Long enough.” He tilted up her head and looked straight into her eyes. “Admit it, Ingrid. You’d miss me, wouldn’t you? How long will it take for you to get bored with him? Maybe not this year or next year, but eventually you will be. He has no idea what our world is like. He spends all day at his desk and goes home every night, to what? Dinner and a video?”

“That’s starting to sound pretty damn good.”

“You know what does sound good?” He pulled her closer, so close their bodies were pressed against each other. “A hotel room. A glass of champagne . . .”

She stepped away. “I’ll write my report tonight, and it will be on your desk tomorrow, for the cable. And then I’m going to apply for a transfer.” She looked down one last time at Gordon. Poor Gordon would never have the chance to grow old, but she would. And she didn’t want to do it alone. “Goodbye, Rodrigo. I’ll invite you to the wedding.” She turned and walked away.

“I won’t come!” he called.

“Suit yourself.”

“I hate to watch tragedies!”

“Not a tragedy.” She paused and glanced back at him. “A happy ending.”

“Are you sure about that?”

She didn’t answer him. She didn’t know.

Copyright © 2026 by Tess Gerritsen. From THE SHADOW FRIENDS by Tess Gerritsen. Reprinted by permission of Thomas & Mercer, a division of Amazon Publishing. 

The post Read The First Chapter From ‘The Shadow Friends’ by Tess Gerritsen appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

The first two books of The Hemlock Society were originally self-published and have been rereleased by Grand Central Publishing with this brand new installment hitting shelves on April 6th 2027.

Read on to discover the cover, synopsis, and an excerpt, and be sure to preorder your copy here!

Reverie Shaw hadn’t planned on becoming a criminal. But when her boss, Leo, steals from Boston’s most dangerous man and leaves her looking like the culprit, it
becomes her problem. Now she must return what Leo took or pay the forfeit—with her life.

With Leo vanished and the bounty with him, Reverie does the only reasonable thing she can to flush him out: kidnap his brother for leverage.

Lazlo Vega is a paramedic, a hypochondriac, and a man who finds a loaded gun at his chest the best time he’s had in months. What could be more entertaining than
allowing the beautiful, fumbling woman who’s zip-tied him to a warehouse chair to think she has the upper hand?

What Reverie doesn’t know is that Lazlo has a very particular skill set, and it has nothing to do with saving lives. He has no intention of leaving until she realizes she doesn’t want him to.

EXCERPT
Chapter 1

Lazlo

I’ve seen a lot of weird shit in my five years as a paramedic, but coming home to find a beautiful woman pointing a gun at me is a first.

And to make it worse, she looks like every fantasy I’ve ever had since I was old enough to dream.

Blond hair. Green eyes. Full mouth, full breasts, wide cheekbones. And her body, even buried under an oversized sweatshirt that swallows her, is doing things to my pulse rate that would concern me if I didn’t have a gun pointed at my sternum right now.

The sweatshirt hides most of her, but physics can’t be helped. It pulls across her chest when she adjusts her grip.

I want to tell that sweatshirt to go to hell.

The gun in her hands shakes.

Hmm. Classic adrenaline tremor. Sympathetic nervous system in overdrive. She’s not used to this.

I was two seconds away from face-planting on my couch and diagnosing myself with whatever Mr. Henderson in apartment 3C had. Pretty sure it was shingles. Or meningitis. Guess that isn’t happening.

“Don’t move.” Her voice hitches.

My hands drift up slowly, the keys in my hand jangling.

Thank God I’m paranoid.

Every criminal knows someone who’s had their place tossed during an investigation, so I keep nothing at home. No souvenirs, no trophies, no tools that can’t be explained as basic first aid.

She won’t find anything.

I put on a smile. “Okay. We’re doing this. Great. Quick question though, is it drafty in here, or am I developing the early stages of hypothermia? Because I’ve been cold all day and that’s a classic sign of—”

“Shut up.”

“Right. Shutting up.” I pause. “Although, for the record, the safety’s on.”

Her eyes drop to the gun and her face goes through confusion, realization, then something that looks like she wants to sink through my floor.

She fumbles with the safety and clicks it off. The gun steadies, but her jaw’s tight now and her cheeks flushed.

“Sit.” She jerks the gun toward my kitchen chair. “Hands behind your back.”

I move, making a show of compliance. My apartment’s small enough that it takes maybe four steps. I sink into the chair, lacing my fingers behind the backrest.

This is going to be fun.

She approaches me from behind, and there’s plastic rustling. She curses.

Something thin and hard presses against my wrist. She yanks it, and the plastic cuts into my skin before popping loose and falling.

“Fuck this,” she curses.

I glance back. Zip ties. The thin ones you use for organizing cables, not restraining a full-grown man.

“Those are pretty small,” I say. “The hardware store keeps the heavy-duty ones in aisle seven, right next to the—”

“Shut. Up.”

I close my mouth.

She tries another zip tie. This one gets around one of my wrists but won’t stretch far enough to catch the clasp. The plastic digs in, then snaps again.

“Need help?” I ask. “I mean, I’ve got bigger hands if you know what I mean,” I wink, “so maybe if you—”

“I said shut up!”

She moves around to face me. Her eyes are wide. Red-rimmed, bruised with exhaustion.

She’s a goddamn mess. And she’s magnificent.

“What do you want?” The tickle in my throat is a distant annoyance. “Money? Because I’ve got maybe forty bucks and some expired Vicodin from when I thought I had appendicitis. Turned out to be gas, but—”

“I don’t want your money.” She’s behind me again. More rustling. She’s trying to loop multiple zip ties together now, creating some kind of makeshift chain.

I could end this in a second. But this is better than the time Mrs. Breen thought she was having a heart attack but it was just that roasted chicken she ate.

Way better.

“Okay, so identity theft? I should warn you, my credit score’s shit.”

The plastic finally, finally catches my wrists. She yanks it tight. The circulation’s already getting fuzzy. She exhales like she just ran a marathon.

She comes back around to face me. The gun’s still up, but her other hand’s braced on her hip. She looks like she might throw up or pass out.

“There,” she says. “Don’t move.”

I test the restraints. They’re terrible. Uneven tension, wrong gauge, probably wouldn’t hold if I really tried. But I settle back against the chair and give her my best helpful smile.

“Wasn’t planning on it. But seriously, what do you want? Because I’ve got another shift in twelve hours and I really need to know if I should call in sick. I think I’m developing early-onset carpal tunnel from all the IV insertions today, and—”

“Call in sick.” She shifts her weight. “Text your boss. Tell them you need a few days.”

“A few days?” My voice goes up an octave. “A few days? Do you have any idea what happens when you call in for multiple shifts? The paperwork alone could kill me. Actually kill me. I’m talking stress-induced heart-attack. And Rodriguez already thinks I’m faking half the time because of that incident with the suspected Ebola exposure that turned out to be a regular mosquito bite.”

The gun doesn’t move.

“Do it.”

I stare at her. She stares back.

Christ on a contaminated crash cart.

“My phone’s in my pocket,” I say. “Which is kind of hard to reach with my hands zip-tied behind my back. Unless you want me to dislocate my shoulder, which, actually, now that I mention it, my left shoulder has been clicking lately and that’s a classic sign of rotator cuff.”

She moves closer, her fingers are quick, impersonal, fishing my phone out of my pocket. She comes back around and holds it up to my face. Face ID unlocks it.

Smart girl.

She navigates to my messages, finds my supervisor’s contact.

“Hey Chief, not feeling great. Gonna need a few days. Sorry for the short notice,” she reads out loud as she types. “Okay?”

I think about tomorrow’s shift. Tuesday, six a.m. Peter is going to lose his mind.

Her thumb hovers over the send button. She looks at me as if she’s expecting me to lunge or scream or object.

I just raise my eyebrows.

She hits send. The whoosh sound feels weirdly final.

She disappears into my bedroom. I hear drawers open and slam shut, then she returns with my leather jacket—the nice one I bought after that last kill went perfectly and I felt invincible for about forty-eight hours.

She tosses it at me.

It hits my chest and slides down to my lap because, you know, hands tied behind my back and shit.

We both stare at it.

“Right.” Her jaw tightens. She picks up the jacket, circles behind me, her fingers brush my shoulders as she drapes it over me, tugging it into place.

“Stand up.”

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere else.” The gun presses against my spine. “Move.”

I stand. The zip ties bite into my wrists. “That’s not really an answer. I mean, ‘somewhere else’ could be the corner store. Could be Canada. A grave. Pretty big range there.”

She grabs my elbow, steering me toward the door. She has a strong grip. That’s nice.

“Walk.”

The hallway’s empty. Mrs. Miranda is probably already asleep, which is good because this would be hard to explain. The gun stays pressed against my lower back as we take the stairs. My legs feel weirdly loose. My blood sugar might be dropping. I should’ve eaten something before my shift. Hypoglycemia’s no joke.

Her car’s a beat-up Chevrolet that’s seen better decades. The driver’s door is dented. She pops the back door open with her hip.

“Get in. Lie down.”

I duck into the backseat. The upholstery’s rough against my cheek as I stretch out, and the jacket bunches up under my shoulder. She checks the zip ties.

“This seems excessive,” I say into the seat cushion. “I’m not going to jump out of a moving car. I value my femoral arteries too much.”

The door slams. She slides into the driver’s seat, and the engine wakes to life on the third try. The car lurches forward.

Street lights flash across the ceiling in constant intervals.

My shoulder’s already cramping from the angle, and that’s definitely early-onset rotator cuff syndrome. Or maybe thoracic outlet syndrome.

I flex my fingers. Still functional.

Twenty minutes feels like forty when you’re folded into a backseat with your hands tied behind your back. The street lights stop. The road gets rougher—potholes that jar my spine against the seat.

The car slows. Stops.

She kills the engine and exits.

The back door opens and cold air rushes in. I hadn’t realized how stuffy it was until now.

“Out.”

I twist, getting my legs under me. Sitting up with bound wrists is harder than it looks, but I manage. She’s already stepped back, gun up, giving herself space.

Outside, it’s all broken concrete and rust. Warehouse buildings hulk in the darkness, windows shattered or boarded over. This area’s been abandoned since the textile company went under five years ago.

I know because I brought a kill here once. Guy who ran a trafficking ring out of a youth shelter. He’d screamed for three hours before his vocal cords gave out. No one heard him.

She gestures with the gun. “Inside.”

The warehouse door’s already open, hanging crooked on its hinges. She follows close enough that I hear her breathing, quick and shallow.

One battery-powered lantern sits in the middle of the space. It casts harsh shadows up the concrete walls. There’s a metal folding chair next to it.

“Are you going to kill me?”

The post Exclusive Cover Reveal: To Have and to Hold (Captive) by K.N. Wilder appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Beyond Honor by K.B. Brodsky, which releases on September 1st 2026.

A man forged by war, paramilitary operative Kevin Rhoads is recruited for a solo extraction mission deep inside Siberia. CIA analyst Whitney Skyler’s investigation into a Russian-backed bank on American soil leads to the President of the United States.

Director Cynthia King plays an audacious gambit, leveraging a thirty-year debt of honor to save a captured American agent. But in this world of shifting alliances, even the most careful plans can unravel. Skyler faces an impossible choice: expose her mentor’s dangerous game to protect national security or reveal the truth to Rhoads. Already shattered by loss, Rhoads discovers the devastating betrayal that will transform him into a force of vengeance, leaving death in his wake.

From the war-torn streets of Damascus to the merciless Siberian tundra, from the rugged Kenai Peninsula to the polished corridors of Langley, Virginia, Beyond Honor is a white-knuckled thriller about duty, betrayal, and the impossible choices made by those who serve in the shadows.

Loading…

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘Beyond Honor’ by K.B. Brodsky appeared first on The Nerd Daily.