Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Hexy Beast by Avery Flynn, which releases on September 8th 2026.

As the eldest daughter of the magical Sherwood family, I’m supposed to have everything together. Well, joke’s on them—I, Effie Sherwood, am chaos incarnate, and you’ll never be able to guess my next move.

Like jumping on the back of Darius Aetos’ motorcycle. Not only is Darius grumpy, gruff, and hot, he’s also the head of the Aetos werewolf pack.

My spur of the moment decision has quickly become a much bigger commitment, because a pack elder is convinced this hunk of a man (or wolf, depending on the hour) is my fated mate.

Even though I’m a witch and he’s a werewolf, we’re stuck together until we can find our way out of the tricky pack politics. But under the light of the blue moon, it’s almost starting to feel like Darius doesn’t want to stay away from me. And I’m not sure if it’s my magic going haywire or the starlit skies, but I can’t imagine leaving his arms either.

EXCERPT

There is nothing worse than lusting for the guy who kidnapped you.

I mean, it doesn’t happen to me a lot. This is the first time I’ve been held for ransom, but I have to believe that full-throttle come-and-get-me-you-sexy-tatted-up-muscle-bound-werewolf isn’t the appropriate reaction to the moment. Shouldn’t I be saving all my oh-my-what-deliciously-big-thighs-you-have dirty thoughts for someone who isn’t holding me magically hostage? There is a certain sense of logic to that, don’t you think?

But then again, when do I ever do what’s expected? Pretty much never.

However, I’m getting ahead of myself, which is not a surprise to anyone who knows me or follows me on WitchyGram, where I post all my escapades (much to my family’s dismay about my wild behavior).

I’m Effie Sherwood, the oldest daughter of the magically badass Sherwood family, one of, if not the most powerful in all of Witchingdom. As the eldest Sherwood child, everyone expected me to inherit our family magic and become the head witch in charge of the Sherwoods, because that’s how the world works.

Every witchy family has their own stream of magic that flows through the head witch and out to all the other members like water in a river out to its tributaries. Magic binds everyone together and empowers them. Then, when the firstborn of the next generation hits their thirties, they move from being the heir to the family’s magic to the head of the family.

That’s the way everyone’s witchy family magic works in Witchingdom, going from firstborn to firstborn like clockwork—boring, never varying, watching-paint-dry clockwork.

Until I came along.

The story of my birth hit legendary status before I was even old enough to understand the whispers.

It was a dark and stormy night. Kidding! It was a bland and sunny Tuesday morning when I came into the world.

Sherwood magic, tangible as electricity in the air, filled the room in anticipation of my birth. My magical matriarch mom went through labor without a hair out of place while my shifter dad had fully morphed into a literal bear because of the stress.

I came out bald as a troll and screaming my lungs out—I never have liked being woken up before noon.

The family magic flew around the three of us, going from invisible force to a sparkling purple stream of pure power. It swirled around the room in a circle that tightened and tightened until it resembled a glittering wreath small enough to sit on a newborn’s head and thus bestow status as the family’s magical heir.

The thing is, with me, it didn’t.

Oh, it got close. If I would have had any of the thick, wavy, light auburn hair I have now, the magic would have touched it. But instead of coming to rest on my slightly pointy head, it poofed out of there, leaving behind a thick dusting of honeysuckle-scented sparkles that landed on my cheeks in the exact spots where today I have a bazillion freckles. A few sparkles ended up on the inside of my wrist, forming a weird splotch of a birthmark that looks like a constellation of stars if you squint and tilt your head just right.

And just like that, without saying a word, the Sherwood family magic had declared me not the chosen one.

That outcome was not expected—unless you’re me, because I don’t do what’s expected.

Not as a newborn.

Not as a grown-ass witch.

I’m a free spirit. The wild one of the family. The one who always tells her stories out of order and always eats dessert first. I’m the Sherwood who’s been voted most outrageous on WitchyGram five years running. I’m sure there’s a reason why I’m not the heir to our family’s magic nor am I destined to be the family matriarch.

I just wish I knew what it is.

The best reason I can come up with for the whole glitch in the oldest-child-becomes-the-heir thing is that I’m just not that witch. My sister Leona (the second-oldest Sherwood sister) is, and she’s fantastic at it, and that’s why when she was born, the wreath landed on her infant head without a second of hesitation. Yeah, it’s a little weird and can be kinda (read: so fucking very) awkward when people start giving me pitying looks and wondering aloud just what’s wrong with me that would result in what ninety-nine percent of Witchingdom sees as a demotion. But it is what it is.

It hardly ever bothers me.

And when it does? What do I do when some nosy nixie slides into my DMs to ask what it feels like to be passed over, or when a concern troll (not an actual troll; they’re really pretty cool, if bloodthirsty) wants to make sure I’m all right considering how my life didn’t turn out as (society) expected?

Well, that’s when I double down on bringing the shenanigans to Witchingdom, like when I hosted a Lucky Charms eating contest with the winner getting their body weight in cereal marshmallows. The catch? Participants had to do it while dressed in rainbow tutus and balancing on floating surfboards. That one totally got me trending on WitchyGram.

It’s not the life anyone expected of the firstborn Sherwood sister, but it’s mine, and I love it just how it is.

So I’m the family bon vivant, showing my four younger sisters how to live their best lives (and kicking the ass of anyone who tries to stop them). I’ve got a big mouth, a big attitude, and big thighs—all of which, for the record, I love about myself. The first two definitely get me into big trouble of the societal snubs kind, but the third gets me all the good kind of trouble I can handle—and believe me, I can handle a lot.

You may be asking: Does that mean things just seem to spin out of control when I get involved?

Fine.

Yes, it does.

But I roll with it. I embrace the chaos. What fun is life if there’s not any adventure?

And that’s why I wasn’t surprised to find myself on a Tuesday (why is it always a Tuesday?) being accidentally kidnapped by Darius Aetos, the alpha of the Aetos Werewolves and the man with the best ass in Witchingdom.

Don’t get distracted by that last factoid. Trust me.

Just look at his glorious gluteus maximus, appreciate the ten out of ten smackable-and-squeezable roundness of it, and then go on about your day, because his butt may be glorious, but it’s not enough to distract from his bossy personality.

Believe me, getting a peek at all six foot seven inches of muscular, tatted-up Darius can give you full-on fantasies about how he’d lift you up so high you could rest your legs on his shoulders as he went downtown, uptown, and all over town until you were wrung out, turned out, and possibly blacked out from pleasure. There’s a reason I can’t seem to stop myself from lusting after the big ol’ grump, so really, I do understand why you might have that reaction to him.

But again, do not become distracted by his hotness or begin to wonder if maybe the Fates have something in store for you with the thick-thighed, long-haired, grumped-up werewolf. The man has a personality disorder called head-up-the-ass-itis. It’s true! Darius Aetos is a tightly wound accountant inside the body of an MMA fighter.

Okay, so you’re probably wondering how I ended up being kidnapped by Sir Sexy and Surly. Well, it all started when I

*ahem* borrowed Darius’s motorcycle without his full written consent.

Fine.

I stole his motorcycle.

In my defense, though, at the time he was in the process of trying to steal the biggest, baddest, most coveted spell book in all of Witchingdom from my sister Leona and her secret husband, Erik.

There was no way I could let Darius get away with pulling a stunt like that.

Firstly, no one steals from the Sherwoods.

Secondly, no one takes something from one of my sisters without me getting all in their face about it.

Thirdly, I was sorta bored.

Therefore, I didn’t have any choice but to take dramatic action to retrieve The Liber Umbrarum from him. It’s only the most powerful spell book of ancient charms and hexes in Witchingdom, and if it falls into the wrong hands, it would be devastating. Yes, a pack of lawless werewolves who’d probably sell it to the highest bidder qualifies as wrong hands, but so does the Council.

Who’s the Council? Just an evil coven determined to drag Witchingdom back to the Middle Ages, lock everyone into rigid roles, and snuff out any flicker of fun, originality, or not being an awful, horrible, judgmental witch with a hard-on for fascism. They were the last people in the world who should possess The Liber Umbrarum, and they’d definitely be willing to pony up the most cash for a black market deal with the Aetos pack for the spell book.

Hence, when Darius the uptight alpha followed my sister and her secret husband to the edge of the pixies’ Killjoy Forest, I didn’t take time to think—I acted.

Why wouldn’t I?

I knew what needed to be done—the totally unexpectedly expected, an Effie Sherwood specialty.

One second Darius was about to get away with stealing the spell book, and then—abracadabra—I’m on his lap, ready, willing, and able to steal The Liber Umbrarum right back from him.

If only it had gone to plan (or as much of a chaotic, slapdash plan as someone like me can make)—but I’m getting ahead of myself again. Hey, don’t say I didn’t warn you about that.

Okay, let’s take a step back and start at the moment when I first spotted Darius on the edge of the Killjoy Forest and decided that no werewolf—not even one with the best ass in Witchingdom—was going to fuck with my sister.

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘Hexy Beast’ by Avery Flynn appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Dating Game by Ally Zetterberg, which releases on September 8th 2026.

The friendship game. The dating game. The end game. For board game designer Tilda Smith they’re all necessary steps on the path to finding happiness. And by structuring her life according to a set of rules, just like in the games that she loves to create at her job, Tilda can finally win.

The only problem? The other players don’t know they’re playing by Tilda’s rules. She’s fair. Very fair, in fact. But then one night her date pushes her too far and she gets just a bit carried away. Any player who disappoints must face consequences, right? But as Tilda finds herself transporting a body in a laundry bag, she has to question how to make the punishment fit the crime.

And now someone is watching Tilda and playing a game of their own. Will they turn the tables on her, or can she figure out a way to best them? The game is never really over until she says it is.

Game on.

EXCERPT

A letter is an unusual occurrence, and so I carry it with two hands, like you would a fragile baby chick, as I wait for the lift, alight, press the fifth floor with my elbow, and finally get out and open up the door to my quiet apartment. I regularly receive prototypes of board games from my publishers, yes. Games that are being sent out for play testing. I also receive boxes with an agreed-upon number of finished copies for me to keep, as part of the contract. I often get mail that are packages. But letters in brown envelopes that look like they contain words rather than items are not commonplace. I kick my sneakers off, not bothering to place them on the shelf. Who cares? I live alone and never have any guests. If I have a Zoom call, I can face the opposite direction of any mess.

The letter has been returned once and re-sent, and the brown en-velope is worn and thin when I squeeze it between my thumbs. My throat is dry after my walk, but I ignore its call for water and carefully peel the flap open with my naked nail.

Then the tears come. Or they would have, had I been able to cry like other people. Now the only hint I get that it’s sadness I’m experi-encing is the fiery burning behind my eyelids as my tear ducts try their best to release something, in vain. I rub at them, alleviating a burn similar to that of hay fever. Then I read.

Tilda,

I’m awfully sorry to unsettle you like this. I have had this forwarded in agreement with the firm handling my estate. I know how you hate being unsettled and for life to be stirred. Tilda, my girl, happy thirtieth birthday! I wish I could have been there to celebrate it with you. We would have had a Colin the Caterpillar cake, wouldn’t we? Like we always do. All those fancy cakes from bakeries can’t beat Colin. With some prosecco to wash it down. I hope you did something nice to celebrate yourself.

Now, if you have reached the point in your life where you’re happy, then do toss this letter in the paper bin, will you, and forget all about it. Off you go to enjoy your day. But if you are not happy, if you are still alone, still in the place you were when I left you, then continue reading.

Tilda—get yourself together. Life is more than work and board games. I always said one day you’d believe me, and I’d like you to make that day today. Life is more fun if you aren’t lonely. Now, this might come as a surprise to you. Considering we spent all our time with one another. I always wanted you close, didn’t I, my girl? Was quite happy with your predisposition and loyalty to me. I only wanted to protect you and steer you on the right path in life. Maybe that was wrong and maybe one day you’ll judge me for my selfishness. But you’re still young as I leave you, and can turn your life around. Please do that—turn your life around. Work less, see the sun more, swim in the ocean, and drink sweet cocktails even if they’re just empty calories. Because before you know it, you might be fifty years old and in a hospice saying goodbye to your only daughter.

Think of it as a game if that helps. Taskmaster, perhaps? I won’t design it for you because that’s your area. I’m simply your contractor telling you to design the game in which Tilda completes tasks and ends up less lonely and bitter than her poor old mum.

Promise me?

Bye, my girl. I trust that you’ve said your goodbyes and moved on from my untimely death by now. That you kept the promise to move somewhere sunnier than Bristol for me. Spain? Portugal?

Australia? I can only imagine the place you picked and the things you get to see. I hope you chose a therapist like I told you to. Someone to help you make sense of the world and control your emotions now that I’m gone. If you did, you’ll be ready. I’ll leave you with this list. It’s short but please take it seriously. This is what I’ve learned—if only too late—and I’d like you to try.

• Find a Everyone needs friends. Look for one in a place you normally wouldn’t look and approach someone you normally wouldn’t think is for you. Keep an open mind. When you find a friend, you need to do anything to keep them.
• Find love. There is someone out there for you. You just have to trawl through the woods and find him or A nice young man or woman who gets you and supports you being you. Do not settle.
• Finally, be That’s the endgame here. Just be happy.

Please try for me, darling.

If all this confuses you, then simply do this and the rest will follow:

Go make a difference in the world in your own special way.

Love always, Mum

I fold the letter up, more times than necessary, into a tiny little square, as if I’m attempting origami. I think I miss the voice the most. Her slow, calming tone. Dark and sweet, like wine. It’s like she’s here with me. I feel like I am important again. A daughter, a loved one, someone’s little girl. Not just a woman alone in a town where every-one knows someone except her.

Mum was right. I am still lonely. When I needed to burn some bad cells off my cervix a year ago I put a made-up name on my next of kin form and my own phone number below it. If they ever called it they’d end up in my voicemail. My thirtieth birthday was spent alone with a glass of prosecco, no Colin, because the English aisle at Carrefour doesn’t stock them—just tin after tin of Heinz baked beans, as if that’s what an expat really craves. The only wishes I received were from my publisher, Grant, on a work Zoom and from Asos telling me my gift was 25 percent off a full-priced item of my choice.

If Mum were still here I could explain to her that she was never selfish. She was my most beloved mother, and nothing gave me as much joy as staying close to her, in our own little world. Of course, I did fulfill her first wish—I moved abroad. I fulfilled her second wish, too—I found a therapist. If only I could explain that I’ve tried all the things she suggested and in the end I gave up because it just doesn’t work.

I let the instructions take space in my mind, turning them around until they look like games, just like Mum said. I like games; I always have. They are easy to understand, and you know exactly what to ex-pect. If the dice says three, you take three steps. Games are a haven in a world where people say one thing but think another and then end up doing something else completely.

Three games. Three missions. The Friendship Game, the Dating Game, and the End Game, where I will have the perfect, happy life. I’m not sure about it one bit, but then you should listen to your mum, shouldn’t you?

I’ll go and make a difference in the world in my own special way

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘The Dating Game’ by Ally Zetterberg appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Writer in Residence by Rhonda McKnight, which releases on September 8th 2026.

Alexandra Chambers is a writer who has run out of words. Struggling with writer’s block and the pressure to secure a new book deal, she wins a week in a writer-friendly cabin through a drawing held at a Lowcountry literacy center.

What she finds is far more than she expected–a vibrant community brimming with inspiration, a past steeped in history and culture, and a man who both intrigues and unsettles her.

Gabe Scott, a bestselling author and the former writer-in-residence, is everything Alex feels she’s not–acclaimed, award-winning, and unshakably confident. When their paths cross at the center, his literary brilliance and dedication to helping struggling Gullah students stir feelings Alex isn’t ready to confront. Though undeniably attracted to him, Alex wrestles with the fear that her books pale beside his celebrated work.

When a surprising family connection unearths long-hidden truths about her past, Alex is forced to confront a lie that has shaped her life. Guided by the quiet wisdom of Ms. Kate, an elderly Gullah cleaning woman with losses of her own, Alex finds the strength to forgive truths long withheld, embrace her voice, and write the story only she can tell.

Writer in Residence is a rich and layered choice for book clubs eager to explore themes of identity, family secrets, creative reinvention, and the power of place. McKnight’s lush Lowcountry setting and unforgettable cast of characters spark meaningful conversation about Gullah Geechee culture, the stories we inherit, and the courage it takes to tell our own truth. An included discussion guide makes it easy for groups to dig deeper into Alex’s journey of rediscovery–and perhaps reflect on the hidden roots in their own lives.

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The post Read An Excerpt From ‘Writer in Residence’ by Rhonda McKnight appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from This Changes Everything by Danielle McKechnie, which releases on September 8th 2026.

Ellie McCain has always dreamed of a bigger life, so when she’s accepted into a prestigious acting school in New York City, she packs her bags—even if it means leaving her family, her friends, and Rory Campbell, the boy who held her heart for years, behind.

At first, life in New York is even better than she’d dreamed it would be—she loves her classes, she gets a position at a fancy production company, and she’s even falling in love with her classmate-turned-roommate-turned-best friend, Ben. But soon the shine starts to wear off: her boss has made it clear that the only role he’ll be casting her in is “Unpaid Intern #3”, and while she’s happy that Ben’s career is starting to take off, she’s struggling to stay afloat. And it doesn’t help that everyone around her seems to be passing her by—even her childhood sweetheart, Rory, is living out his dreams as a Professional Golfer. But when she runs into Rory for the first time in ten years, she starts to wonder what exactly it is she’s running from, where is she going, and who is running with her.

Told in alternating timelines of the past and present and moving between Vancouver, New York, and Los Angeles, This Changes Everything is the story of love—first love, one-that-got-away-love, and true love—and asks if maybe, just maybe, all of those loves can be one and the same.

PROLOGUE

Vancouver
20 years old

“Ellie, what did we do?” Rory’s head was on my shoulder. His face was buried in my collarbone. His loose dark curls plastered against my cheek, clinging to my skin in the same mindless, desperate hold that my limbs were clinging to him.

I stopped breathing, and my eyes flew open. I must have misheard him.

Rory’s hot breath steamed my neck. We were in the passenger seat of his musty, old black Jeep Cherokee, and it dawned on me that all my parents needed to do was look out my sister’s second-story bay window to find me and Rory Campbell, tangled up and naked, perfectly lit under the streetlight that loomed at the end of our driveway. The passenger seat was reclined all the way down, and I didn’t know how he wasn’t suffocating as he pushed his face even further into my neck. Our thrashing heartbeats bashed against each other in unison.

“What did you say?” I asked. He didn’t answer, so I repeated myself. “Rory, what did you say?” He didn’t move, but I felt his lips tremble against my skin, and I had to actively stop myself from filling his Jeep with vomit. Why wasn’t he talking to me?

“What’s going on?” Tears started materializing in my eyes. “Look at me,” I pleaded. I could hear my voice getting weaker the longer he hid his face.

When Rory eventually lifted his head, his pained expression burned through me. My eyes trailed over the faint freckles across the bridge of his nose and the tops of his cheeks. I called it his Summer Skin and had obsessed over his soft, subtle freckles, which multiplied under the summer sun, since we were twelve. In eight years, I could count on one hand how many times Rory Campbell and I had purposefully touched each other, and touching him so intimately now, with what we had just done, combined with that look on his face, felt like both a dream and a nightmare. He kept his eyes closed and lightly touched his nose to mine.

“Look at me. Please,” I begged.

He opened his sad, coffee-brown eyes, which I had memorized long ago, and then quickly squeezed them shut again as tears rolled down his cheeks. He kissed me softly. I assumed the kiss was to stop his bottom lip from quivering, but it didn’t work. When I heard him inhale a choppy breath, I asked more urgently, “What’s wrong?”

“This was a mistake.” He dropped his head as if he had lost all the muscles in his neck.

“What?” I blinked. There was no way he could possibly have said—

“This was a mistake,” he said again.

“What do you mean?” My heartbeat filled my head, clouding my hearing with its heavy thumping.

“We shouldn’t have done that . . .”

“You’re still inside me, Rory.” I swallowed, entirely unable to comprehend what was happening.

With a sudden surge of energy, Rory tore himself off me and quickly shuffled over to the driver’s seat. He leaned down and pulled on his underwear, then his pants, then his black T-shirt over his head. I tried to do the same, but my fingers stopped working, my hands, my legs, my brain, everything.

Rory wiped his tears with the back of his hand and looked out the window, facing away from me. He looked down the dark street I grew up on.

“What did I do?” I asked, staring blankly at my sleepy house.

“Nothing. You did nothing. That was . . .” He ran both hands through his floppy hair. “You did nothing.”

“What’s happening right now?”

“Please. Ellie.” He sucked in a shallow gasp. “Stop.”

“Rory, what did I do? What is going on right now?” I must have asked one too many times, because he then slammed his hands into the steering wheel.

“You’re leaving!” Rory practically shouted at me, rocking me back in my seat with his unexpected burst of fury, lighting a fire under my ass to get my clothes on. “Tomorrow. You’re moving away tomorrow, and I feel like I’m dying!”

“It’s only two years.” I fumbled with my shirt. I couldn’t look at him.

“It’s not. You’ve wanted to leave for as long as I’ve known you. I knew it would happen, it’s finally happening, and you’re not coming back.”

“I’m coming back,” I insisted.

“No, you’re not!” Rory yelled. He closed his eyes, trying to control himself.

“It’s just school. This is my home. I will come back.”

“We both know that’s not true. I know you, Ellie. You’re leaving, and I’m going to be left with nothing.”

I could feel my body recoil even though I didn’t move a muscle.

“I . . . I can’t do this,” he finished.

“But we’ve already done it . . .” My eyes were stinging. I swallowed the last of the air inside the Jeep, and my stomach fell to my feet. I could still feel him inside me. I could still feel his mouth, and tongue, and breath, and teeth all over me. I could still feel him digging into my skin and hair.

“So, what, then?” I choked. “Did you come here to finally fuck me, then send me on my way?”

“I can’t believe you just said that,” he answered quietly, sounding sickened, unable to meet my eyes. “Is that what you think?”

“How can I not?” I was in disbelief.

“I came tonight to say goodbye . . .”

A lost memory of Rory when we were fourteen surged through me. I had walked through the front door of the busy juniors’ lounge at Juniper Golf Club. He was sitting with his hands clamped behind his head, and he was leaning back comfortably. He had flipped his black hat backward, and his eyes widened, then darted away from mine the moment they connected. I watched his chest lift, and his breathing pick up. An empty seat sat next to him with his rain jacket hanging over the back, and I didn’t have to ask to know he was holding it for me. It was always for me.

The Jeep Cherokee was steaming up, so Rory turned on the engine and rolled down his window.

“I haven’t been able to think since you told me about New York. Whatever you and I have ever been, that’s when it all ended. It’s over, and it didn’t even start.” Rory could barely get the words out as he white-knuckled the steering wheel.

I stopped recognizing my own reality. I looked carefully at my house. Had my sister’s bedroom light been on this whole time?

“This is it, Rory. It’s us. We’re choosing each other. I choose you, and you choose me.”

“I can’t do this . . . I won’t. I’m not choosing this. I’m not choosing you.” He started hyperventilating, burying his face in his hands. “I can’t spend the rest of my life—” He inhaled sharply, having lost his words. “None of this is real, Ellie. You. Me. Us. None of it. We’ve never been anything real.” Rory heaved, and his voice sounded like it came straight out of his gut.

“Rory . . .”

“I can’t love you, Ellie! I’m not doing it!”

I sat back in my seat. Finally, totally, and entirely composed. I grabbed my shoes and opened the door. With my hands full, I stepped outside the Jeep. I looked up at my sister’s window, overlooking the driveway, and saw her blinds move.

“What was I thinking?” Rory said quietly to himself as I slammed the door.

I sobbed with my sister throughout the entire night. I finally stopped the next morning when the plane took off, the wheels were up, and I got the fuck out of Vancouver.

Excerpted from THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING by Danielle McKechnie. Copyright © 2026 by Danielle McKechnie. Reprinted here with permission from Harper Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Lucky 22 by Ashley Eckstein and Samantha Chase, which releases on September 8th 2026.

Twenty-two was just a lucky number. Until it wasn’t.

Ella Rose Holt believes in magic. Not always the fairy-tale kind, but the quiet kind that shows up when you least expect it. On the brink of her golden birthday, chasing acting dreams in Los Angeles, Ella’s life feels full of possibility…and just a little unfinished.

Christian Lucas has built his world on discipline, dedication, and the game he loves. As a professional baseball player, his life is carefully scheduled, a bit guarded, and rarely spontaneous.

When a chance encounter, a lucky number, and a not-so-blind blind date bring them together, neither is prepared for the connection that follows.

What starts as an unexpected meeting quickly becomes something deeper—an easy friendship, a steady trust, and a romance that grows quietly but undeniably. As their worlds collide under bright stadium lights and red-carpet flashes, Ella and Christian must decide whether love has a place in lives already full of ambition, sacrifice, and dreams in motion.

Because sometimes, the most extraordinary love stories aren’t loud or dramatic.

They’re built on faith. On timing. On believing that when the moment comes, you’ll be brave enough to say yes. And a little bit of luck.

Excerpt

Prologue

The stadium roars with life around me—an electric, relentless hum of cheers and chants. It’s almost deafening, but you can’t help but get caught up in it. Bright lights bathe the diamond in a surreal glow, catching every glint of sweat, blade of grass, and nervous twitch of the players. In my head, I’m cheering just as loud as everyone else. It’s like I’m trying to telepathically say, “You’ve got this.”

But sitting in the stands, in a pocket of solitude amid the chaos, I am alone.

Literally.

My husband is mere seconds away from winning the World Series, and minutes ago, security came to get all the players’ friends and family to bring them down so they could run onto the field when the big moment arrived.

But I stayed behind.

I never should have looked at my phone.

Heck, it should have been turned off. But I’m in the middle of shooting a movie here in St. Louis, and I already know I need to be on set in the morning. The producers were kind enough to work around the World Series schedule, but I need to be aware of any schedule changes.

Hence, the phone being on.

My heart races, and my hands feel clammy as I clasp my cell to my ear. I’m watching what’s happening on the field, even as I listen to my agent presenting the biggest role of my career. This is what I’ve been working toward since I was a kid. If ever there was a dream part, this is it. Unfortunately, her timing couldn’t be worse. Everyone knows I’m here to support Christian.

This is his moment.

I wish she had considered that and waited until tomorrow to call.

A tiny voice in my head reminds me, “It’s Christian’s moment,” but this is important, too.

Not that anyone understands that.

My husband does. Truly. But the looks I got as the rest of the friends and family were ushered away—and the snarky comments from some of the players’ wives—told a different story. Words like selfish, self-involved, and rude were whispered.

I’m an actress, and things like that aren’t anything new. But this time, the words stung quite a bit more than they usually do.

I look down at my free hand—at my wedding ring sparkling in the stadium lighting. It represents the promise that Christian and I made to each other.

So many promises.

So many sacrifices.

I hear the exuberant announcement. “And the Archers have won the World Series!”

“Ella? Ella, are you listening to me? This is an incredible opportunity. They want an answer from you tonight.”

Everyone’s running onto the field, laughing, cheering, hugging their loved ones. I should be down there. But I’m not.

“I’m going to have to call you back,” I say. “I need to run.”

I hear a loud sigh on the other end. “Seriously? This is the chance of a lifetime. What is there to think about?”

“We’ll talk tomorrow, okay?”

“Jeez, Ella.” Another sigh. “Are you sure he’s worth it?”

* * *

Chapter One

Three years ago…

Today was supposed to be a great day.

Personally, I think every day offers an opportunity to make it great, but today was supposed to be a little extra dazzling because I’m flying back to Los Angeles for an audition. I had a great time visiting my family in Tennessee, and knowing I was heading back home for a potential role made leaving a little easier. I’ve been living on my own for a couple of years now, but I truly believe this is my time.

The year of Ella.

I giggle to myself because it’s kind of silly. But I have worked so hard to get where I am as an actress, and I’m ready for the next step.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re sorry for the delay,” our captain announces. “We are currently waiting on a couple of passengers on their way from their connections. They’re running to the gate as we speak. Once they arrive, we’ll be ready for takeoff. Thanks for your patience.”

Great.

Delays are totally normal, but I was psyched when it looked like everything would be on time. I’m a nervous flyer—always have been—and sitting here on the ground waiting just gives my anxiety more time to kick up a notch. My flight from Memphis to Dallas was completely uneventful, and I hoped my good luck would continue on through to LA.

Sighing, I give the empty seat beside me a cursory glance—another thing I was psyched about. The empty middle seat means I can stretch out a bit and relax. And believe me, if there’s ever been a time for me to relax, this is it.

Because my ex is sitting in the row directly in front of me.

With his new wife.

And their baby.

Luckily, they didn’t see me. I boarded first, and I’ve got on my favorite baseball hat pulled down low to hide my face a bit. But I saw them. I hear them cooing affectionately to their baby, and the whole thing makes me feel like an awkward voyeur.

So not my day…

With nothing to do and in desperate need of a distraction, I pull out my journal and decide that a bit of mindless doodling might work. I could watch a movie or play a game on my phone, but I feel like I need to be actively doing something. With my notebook open in my lap, I draw my favorite number.

Twenty-two.

That may seem juvenile to some people, but it’s very calming to me. The number twenty-two makes me happy and gives me hope whenever I see it. Call it my lucky number or just a positive sign from the universe, but the number seems to randomly find me wherever I go. You see, I was born on September 22 and am turning twenty-two in a few weeks. It will be my golden birthday—when the date of your birth coincides with your age. In fourth grade, my teacher explained that concept to me—well, to the entire class—and said that something special would happen on that day. And I’ve basically been waiting for thirteen years to find out if that’s actually true.

It is, I tell myself. It has to be.

Just thinking about it and all the possibilities makes me giddy.

* * *

Excerpted from Lucky 22 by Ashley Eckstein & Samantha Chase.

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘Lucky 22’ by Ashley Eckstein and Samantha Chase appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Stalkers Anonymous by Dana LeeAnn, which is out now.

Cole Matthews definitely isn’t a stalker. Probably.

Sure, he used company resources and crossed some lines to “have a conversation” with his sister’s abusive ex. But that was a one-time thing. Now, Cole has to attend a group therapy program with a long, clinical name…but the participants? They call it Stalkers Anonymous.

Hailey Brigham is definitely dating the perfect man. Probably.

She’d love to focus more attention on Cole, the smoking hot, ex-military sweetheart whose idea of a casual second date is tandem skydiving. But a drug-seeking patient at the ER where she’s a second-year resident knows too much about Hailey’s personal life, and his fixation on her is getting harder to ignore.

When threats against Hailey escalate, Cole’s protective instincts go into overdrive. To keep her safe, he would do anything—even if it means becoming the monster he’s kept so carefully locked up inside.

EXCERPT

Chapter One: Cole

“My name is Cole. And… I’m a recovering stalker.”

The words feel like sandpaper in my throat, rough and uncomfortable. Six pairs of eyes stare back at me with a mixture of boredom, understanding, and judgment. The fluorescent lights of the Fort Collins community center basement buzz overhead, casting everyone in an unflattering, sickly yellow glow.

“Thank you for sharing, Cole,” says Tracey Doyle, the group’s therapist. She sits perfectly straight in her metal folding chair, clipboard balanced on her knees, pen poised like she’s ready to document my every breath. Her blunt-cut bob and cardigan scream “I have multiple degrees in analyzing your bullshit, and I’ll see straight through you,” but her eyes are kind. Something in my gut tells me it’s a dangerous combination.

“Since this is your first meeting with us, would you like to share a bit about what brought you to IBSG—Interpersonal Boundaries Support Group?” she asks, her voice neutral but expectant.

A tall, well-built man two seats down from her coughs into his hand, choking out “Stalkers Anonymous” like he’s correcting her. Several of the other group members chuckle, shit-eating grins plastered across their amused faces.

I don’t miss the way Tracey immediately rolls her eyes, like she’s heard this a few too many times. “This is serious, Tyler. You don’t encompass the full scope of the group’s issues by boiling it all down to one word. You’re people with boundary issues. You don’t always know when you’ve crossed a line, but that doesn’t mean you’re stalkers.” Tyler lets out a defeated sigh and sinks down into his chair, and Tracey quickly pulls the group’s attention back to me. “What brought you to us, Cole?”

What brought me here?

Simple. I got caught.

“My new employer felt it was a necessary precaution,” I say casually, keeping my answer as vague as I can. “I’m in security.”

I don’t mention Emma or her piece-of-shit ex-boyfriend.

“And how do you feel about being here?” Tracey presses, her pen scratching against her clipboard.

“Honestly? I think it’s overkill.” I lean back in my chair, its metal legs creaking beneath my weight. “I’m not some obsessed ex who can’t take no for an answer. What I did wasn’t far outside the scope of my profession.”

HR at NextGen Security was pissy about “inappropriate surveillance techniques” and “invasion of privacy” when I used company resources to track down Emma’s ex, Stephen—or, as I prefer to call him, Shitbag Steve. That fucker had the audacity to lawyer up, then sue NextGen for their part in what happened. As part of the settlement, they traded his signature on an NDA for my resignation.

One of my buddies from my army days reached out when he heard through the grapevine that I’d lost my job. Jack Morrison owns Fortress Security Systems—a smaller outfit than NextGen, but a solid company with a good reputation. We served two special ops tours together in Afghanistan, so Jack knows I’m not the type to go off the rails without good reason.

He understood what I did. Why I did it.

“Look, Cole,” he’d said over drinks at Tallon’s Pub three weeks ago, “I’ve got an opening for someone with your skillset, but I’m going to be straight with you—if you want this job, there are going to be conditions.”

Jack had already talked to his HR director prior to meeting with me. They’d done their homework, looked into what happened with Shitbag Steve, probably ran deep background checks, dotted their i’s and crossed their t’s. I can’t say I blame them.

I’d have done the same, and then some.

The job offer came with strings attached: minimum six months in a support group for people who struggle with “boundaries.”

“You get help, you get the job,” Jack said, sliding the business card for IBSG across the sticky bar table. “You don’t, and we part ways. Your choice.”

It wasn’t really a choice, though, and Jack knew it. We both did. He was sticking his neck out for me in ways that could blow back on his business to throw me a lifeline when no one else would even return my calls.

So here I am, sitting in a circle of metal chairs that screech against the linoleum floor every time someone shifts their weight, trying to figure out how to explain all of this—any of this—without sounding like I actually belong here.

A jacked guy with tousled red hair and full tattoo sleeves throws his head back and laughs. “Man, that’s exactly what I said my first day. ‘I’m not creepy, I’m just passionate about my art.’”

He leans forward, extending a gentle hand. “I’m Grant, by the way. Professional photographer.”

He leans on professional, like we both know he’s taken some distinctly unprofessional pictures, too. If having his name on a business card makes him feel good about how he uses a telephoto lens, who am I to judge?

We shake hands, though I’m unsure how to perceive him.

“We don’t judge here,” Tracey explains, practically reading my mind, “but we do hold each other accountable. Everyone in this room has crossed boundaries in ways that felt justified at the time.”

She gestures around the circle. “Why don’t we go around and introduce ourselves briefly so that Cole can learn a little bit about us? It’s been a while since we’ve had a new member. You’ve met Grant. Next to him is Tyler.”

Tyler nods at me, his light-brown face clean-shaven, his medium-brown eyes alert. “Hey. I own Elevate Brewing downtown. This is my sixth month in the program.” He doesn’t elaborate on his offense, and no one presses him. They already know, and with time, I’m sure I will, too.

“Austen,” says the next man, clearly the tallest of them all, even from a sitting position. His tweed jacket and wire-rimmed glasses give off strong English-professor vibes. “I…became invested in a student’s life.” His mouth twists. “It’s a long story.”

I bet it is.

Next is a lean guy in athletic wear who, like me, looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. “Zachary. Zach. Whatever you want to call me. Fitness coach.” He glances at Tracey, who gives him an encouraging nod. “I got fired for tracking a client’s workouts when he wasn’t with me. And for showing up on his jogging route to make sure he was running when he said he’d be. And I went to his new gym.”

He crosses his arms defensively as he shrugs. “I was just trying to help him reach his goals, but I took it too far. I needed to take a step back and realize that fitness isn’t that serious. So here I am.”

The lone woman in the group gives me a smile. She’s small compared to the men seated around her. Even Tracey towers over her. “I’m Jessica. You can call me Jess.” She tucks a thick strand of dark hair behind her ear. “I may have taken it too far trying to protect my abusive ex’s new girlfriend. I didn’t know when to quit and way overstepped.”

I nod, taking them in one at a time. They’re all normal people with normal jobs. People who blend in with everyday life.

People like me.

“The thing we all have in common,” Tracey says like she’s one of us, “is that we convinced ourselves we had valid reasons for our behavior. Protection. Artistic expression. Academic interest. Professional commitment. Love.” She lets that sink in, pausing for a longer-than-necessary dramatic effect, before she continues. “Part of recovery is recognizing that our intentions don’t justify actions that violate others’ autonomy and privacy. We have to be careful not to overstep boundaries. It doesn’t matter if they’ve already been put in place or not. Our goal here is to recognize when we’ve pushed too far, then step back without hesitation.”

I shift in my seat. “With all due respect, there’s a difference between stalking an ex and monitoring someone who’s an actual security threat.”

“Is there?” Tracey asks, her eyebrows rising just slightly. “In both cases, you’re appointing yourself the arbiter of someone else’s life without their knowledge or consent. You’re deciding what information about them you have the right to collect and what actions you’re justified in taking based on that information.”

I open my mouth to argue, then quickly close it. I can’t be argumentative. I have to be here if I want to keep my job. Nothing I say will change that. It’s better to play along and get through the required twenty-six weeks of this shit than risk losing the only job I can get right now.

“One of our core strategies here is our buddy system,” Tracey continues, licking her finger and flipping a page on her clipboard. “Each member is paired with another for check-ins between our weekly meetings. It helps with accountability and provides support during vulnerable moments when you might be tempted to fall back into addictive behaviors.”

Great. Stalker buddies. I hope we get to wear matching T-shirts.

“Tyler, would you be willing to partner with Cole?”

Tyler gives me an appraising look, then nods. “Sure. I remember how it feels to be the new guy. I’m sure I can help him fit right in.”

“Excellent. Please exchange contact information after the meeting.” Tracey glances at her watch. “Now, let’s move on to our progress reports for the week. Grant, at our last session you mentioned a situation that was triggering you. How did you handle that?”

As Grant launches into a story about a wedding he photographed, I zone out, my mind documenting details about the room and its occupants.

Because old habits die hard.

The exit door’s hinges are slightly rusted. Jessica’s keychain has a pepper spray canister and a small tracking device disguised as a decorative charm—an interesting choice for someone in recovery. Austen’s phone screen lights up three times with notifications he pointedly ignores. Tyler keeps his keys organized with a system of colored rings.

I force myself to stop, blinking several times. What am I doing? This is exactly the kind of hypervigilance that will only continue to get me into trouble.

“Cole?”

I snap back to attention. Once again, six pairs of eyes are trained on me. From the look on Tracey’s face, I get the impression it’s not the first time she’s said my name.

Straightening in my chair, I lean forward and clasp my hands as I clear my throat. “Sorry, what was the question?”

I don’t know how I’m going to make it through six months of this shit.

“I asked if you’ve identified any specific triggers that lead to you crossing interpersonal boundaries. Are there any situations or emotions that make you feel the need to gather information or track someone?”

When I don’t answer immediately, unsure what exactly she wants me to say, Tyler jumps in. “She’s asking if you know why you’re a stalker. Self-awareness and all that.”

I stare blankly between him and Tracey, who’s looking increasingly annoyed with Tyler and his insistent use of the word “stalker.” I consider deflecting but ultimately decide that a small truth might satisfy her enough to let me slip under her radar.

“Perceived threats. When I think someone might be dangerous or hiding something, I go into information-gathering mode. It’s automatic. Not something I really notice until I’ve gone too far.”

She nods. “That’s a common trigger. For your homework this week, I’d like you to document instances when you feel that impulse arise. Resist the urge to act on it. Just note the situation, the emotions you experienced, and what you did instead of gathering information.”

I’ve got an advanced degree in Intelligence Studies, eight years of military experience, and a security clearance that would make the president’s eyes water. But she wants to give me homework? Perfect.

“We’re almost out of time,” Tracey says, checking her watch after another twenty minutes or so of discussion. “Our closing ritual is simple—each person shares one boundary they commit to respecting in the coming week.”

They go around the circle, each person offering their commitment.

“I won’t look up the bride from Saturday’s wedding,” Grant says.

Only because he’ll be too busy looking up the bride from Friday’s wedding.

“I won’t adjust my brewing schedule to match when certain customers usually visit,” Tyler promises.

He won’t have to, since he likely already set a schedule with those customers in mind.

“I won’t search for my former student’s new publications,” Austen states firmly, like he’s trying to convince himself.

Doubtful. He’s going to look her up before he even gets to his car. The twitch in his fingers makes it painfully obvious how desperate he is to pick up his phone.

“I won’t drive by my client’s neighborhood,” Zach mutters.

It’s a blatant lie. We all know it.

“I won’t check anyone’s social media but my own,” Jessica says confidently. “I should probably just delete it, but…baby steps.”

She’s the only one I might actually believe. Maybe.

They all look at me, and I scramble for something that sounds sincere enough.

“I won’t……run background checks on new people I meet,” I offer, thinking it’s appropriately specific while not limiting my actual work.

Tracey nods in approval, giving me a “good enough but I’m watching you” look, almost like she’s threatening to expose my secrets to the group. She knows the truth about why I’m here—Shitbag Steve, his suit against NextGen, and the way I’m a liability to Jack’s company. She wouldn’t call me out in front of these people, would she?

“Thank you all for your honesty and commitment. Same time next week. Tyler, please connect with Cole before you leave.”

As the group disperses, Tyler approaches, phone already in hand. “Let’s exchange numbers. Fair warning—I take the buddy system seriously. I’ll check in daily, and I expect responses.”

I raise an eyebrow as he hands me his phone. I quickly type my number into his contacts. “Daily? My boss only requires me to attend weekly meetings.”

“Your boss requires you to participate in the program. Daily check-ins are part of that.”

I hand him his phone back.

“Look, Cole, I get it. You think this is bullshit. You’re not like us because you had a ‘good reason.’ We all had good reasons.” His expression turns serious. “The sooner you drop that defense, the sooner you’ll actually get something out of this.”

“I’m just trying to get through it,” I admit, tiredly rubbing the back of my neck.

“Then play the game. Answer my texts. Do the homework. Say the right things to Tracey.” He shrugs. “Or don’t, and risk your boss deciding you’re not complying with the terms of your agreement.”

Put that way, the choice is clear. “Fine. Daily check-ins. Whatever you want.”

“Good. First one’s easy—what’s your plan for the rest of the night?”

I think about it, then choose my words cautiously. “Go home, order takeout, and work on a new security protocol for a client.”

“Anything that might trigger you?”

I almost laugh, but opt for a smile instead. “I’m a cybersecurity specialist. My entire job involves monitoring people and threats.”

“You know what I mean. Personal monitoring. Anything outside of work that might get you in trouble.”

“No, Tyler. I’m not planning to stalk anyone tonight.” The word feels wrong in my mouth, foreign and harsh. I hate it.

I’m not a stalker.

I’m observant.

Protective.

Thorough.

He seems satisfied with that answer. “Good start. I’ll see you next week, Cole. Or sooner, if you need to talk.”

I walk to my car, enjoying the crisp early autumn air—a welcome change from the stifling confines of the basement. I scroll through my phone to delete the meeting from my calendar. There’s no need for a digital reminder of this place.

My thumb pauses over an icon that looks like a weather service app but is actually a monitoring program I developed to track exactly one person: Shitbag Steve.

Recovering, I told the group. It was an easy lie. I checked his location this morning.

And then several times throughout the day, making sure I didn’t miss my hourly check-in. And of course, once more as I walked into the IBSG meeting.

But they don’t know that. They don’t need to.

I stare at the app, Tracey’s words echoing in my head.

Our intentions don’t justify actions that violate others’ autonomy and privacy.

But some people forfeit their right to privacy when they hurt others, don’t they? Some threats need to be monitored. Some people need protection, whether they know it or not.

I close the app without opening it, silently cursing that one small concession to the program. I’ll check tomorrow instead, or when I get home. Whatever feels right in the moment.

Because Shitbag Steve needs to be watched.

Emma needs to be protected.

As I drive home, I map the quickest route between the community center and my apartment, looking for security cameras, traffic patterns, and potential choke points along the way. Know the terrain. Plan for the unknown. Again, old habits die hard—but I’m not convinced that’s always a bad thing. There’s comfort in knowing what’s going on around me, from geographical details to more…granular observations.

The irony isn’t lost on me: leaving a therapy group for people with boundary issues only to mentally document every detail of my surroundings. But that’s not a problem I’m trying to overcome—it’s basic situational awareness. It’s survival.

Isn’t it?

The post Read The First Chapter From ‘Stalkers Anonymous’ by Dana LeeAnn appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Hocus Pocus Handbook by Ann Aguirre, which releases on September 1st 2026.

Thea Winter didn’t choose to be a changeling — stolen from the mortal world as a baby, raised in the wildlands by a hobgoblin named Mudge who taught her everything worth knowing. How to read the weather in a crow’s wing. How to barter with brownies. How to stay alive in a world of capricious fae courts. What Mudge couldn’t teach her was how to stay out of trouble. Which is why she’s entangled in a objectionable marriage of convenience.

Or would be, but her spouse bolted. Now she has to hunt down Devan J. Fenelon, but she’s been saddled with a taciturn, humorless hunter known as Winter’s Hound. He answers only to his cousin, and she’s not looking forward to this quest at all.

Kerboros has survived the Winter Court by being exactly what they made him: relentless, invisible, and careful never to want anything at all. His life is an endless series of ceaseless commands from his reprehensible cousin, Lord Liskaal. Since his father’s failed rebellion, Kerboros has been permitted to survive only as an example to others, an object lesson as to how far one may fall. But traveling with Thea—wild, warm, impossible Thea—is a glorious torment for an enforcer who has never known freedom.

She is sunshine. He is shadow.

Their love is forbidden, but when irresistible force sweeps up an immovable object, the resulting reaction might be magical…

EXCERPT

1

A Spell for Skulking and Skullduggery

There will be times when you need to pass unseen, my gem. Your magic can be a mite irregular, but here’s the working I use to slip away unnoticed. Strongest cast at turning times; add more will as needed. Needs must and all that.

You’ll require:

A bit of black quartz to connect you to the soil

A silver athame to etch the air

Dried chamomile, burdock, and chicory, all steeped in a tea, to salute the sea

Dried dogbane burned in a clay pot to honor the inner flame

You can do these in any order, though it’s strongest to work fire first, then air, earth, and water. There are no magic words, whatever the brownies may try to tell you. I find it’s best to craft your own, as the old magic responds better to sincerity than rote recitation. In a pinch, you’ll do as you must and let your good intentions carry the rest. I trust you’ll do no harm. Even as a little one, you cared for helpless creatures. Countless times, I caught you saving creepies and crawlies, those caught in various snares. And you nearly always had a toad or a lizard somewhere on your person.

Use the sneaking spell to protect yourself and mayhap have a lark, but never to cause suffering. Not that you would, being made of joy and all. Use this knowledge well and carry all my affection with you, wherever you may go.

THEA

Pookas just want to have fun.

They really do.

Which is why it’s a shame that they’ve been rounded up and are confined in the royal stables for a pageant they didn’t consent to participating in. House Winter loves its spectacle. I should know; I’ve spent most of my life fleeing from sparkling diadems and gowns made of gossamer, flower petals, and raven feathers.

Da and I were summoned from Miremorel House, our place in the wildlands, in honor of the Winter Court offering hospitality to the Summer delegation, serving as hosts for the peace talks. Among the fair folk, there’s no greater rivalry than that between Summer and Winter. Though I try to stay out of such matters, sometimes I get dragged in because my presence has soothing properties, even if nobody seems to understand exactly why.

It also means that refusing this “invitation” is impossible. I’m supposed to get dressed up in a fancy gown and stand in the courtyard while the high host assembles, also in elegant attire. Then we’re meant to watch the pookas prance about in their decorative regalia. Someone will sing, and then there will be an impressive display of Winter magic. Then we’ll all proceed to the great hall for boring speeches and for Lord Liskaal to make promises he won’t keep.

Yeah, I won’t let things go according to plan. I haven’t told Da about my intentions because I don’t want to get him in trouble. Not that he disapproves. I learned most of what I know about fomenting trouble from him, but he’s better at not getting caught. I average about 50 percent, and I don’t like those odds, but I can’t ignore how despondent the pookas are. Right now, they’re in horse form, some dark, some pale, and all of them have glowing eyes. If they weren’t locked into this shape, they’d be fleeing as cats or hares.

High fae magic can constrain and compel them, forcing them to wear elaborate harnesses and prance around with braided manes and ribbons in their tails. The visual aspect isn’t the entire point, as there are layers on layers within high fae interactions. No, Winter is demonstrating their dominance in front of their primary rival, and if I were an obedient subject, I’d cooperate.

Instead, I have green and brown paint smeared on my face as I crawl through the garden toward the stables. I haven’t perfected the skulking spell Da tried to teach me, so that leaves me with mundane solutions. I don’t have much time, since I left this to the last minute, hoping they wouldn’t be able to round up the pookas again before the pageant, as they will race from the palace grounds with supernatural speed.

I pop my head up, scanning the area. There don’t seem to be any witnesses, so I open the wide doors and dart inside. Within, the pen is dim and smells muskily of misery. Anyone who could breathe in this much sadness and ignore it—well, nobody ever claimed that the high fae exude kindness and consideration. Knife-sharp beauty, yes, along with vainglorious conceit and gilded self-interest, all those things, but rarely mercy.

One thing I didn’t count on, however, was the pookas being already decked out in finery. I swear softly. It will take too long to remove harnesses and unweave braids and ribbons. Maybe a transmutation spell, but my magic is wild and thready at best. When I was younger, it tormented me, but then as I got older still, I heard the whispers.

I’m not fae at all. I’m a changeling, stolen from the mortal realm.

By that point, I’d eaten far too much fae food. I can’t go back, at least not to stay. I’d survive a visit, but fae magic has permeated my flesh and bones, both a poison that would kill me in the mortal realm and a cure for my mortality while I’m here. Consuming magical food, breathing the air, and drinking the water and wine conveys a certain fae-adjacent magic.

As Da taught me, I visualize the result: harnesses and ribbons shifting to puffs of silvery smoke. The magic dances just out of reach, and the number of targets complicates the process even more. I focus and strain, and—

Boom!

I stifle another curse—silver sparks instead of smoke, and they land on the provender scattered on the floor. I watch, eyes wide, as the flames spread. This is why I don’t try my hand at magic more often. My heart thumps furiously, but panic solves nothing. I race to the doors, opening them so the pookas can escape.

They can’t exit the compound without my help, so I run alongside the first majestic fae, the one known as Ferghus, and call, “With your leave?”

I speak the greeting because it’s rude to touch an elder’s mind without consent, even in urgent situations. There are always hierarchies at play, small matters that could create big problems if one misunderstands their own place in the rankings.

Hurry, comes the mind-sung response.

Now I have permission. To the gates.

I can hear the wild fae as many cannot. The high fae have lost these powers in exchange for more glamour and elevated magic. They can create gemstones and conjure silver and gold, travel through mirrors as well as stone and mushroom circles, make mortals wish to sell their souls for a kiss, but they don’t seem particularly happy about any of these abilities. To me, they seem like they’re starving; no excess or pleasure can ever be enough. They will never touch a pooka’s mind, cavort with pixies, swim in a moonlit brook with the river nymphs, or sit on a lonely beach as a naiad serenades her lost love. I would never trade those moments; I feel at home in the glades and loughs, where the magic is thick as honey and twice as sweet.

Soon, I’ll be back out there, and if I time it right, so will the pookas. This time, I’m careful as can be, and I burn just enough magic to give myself a boost and borrow the bounce to scramble onto Ferghus’s back. He doesn’t break stride, leading the charge through the garden toward the gates.

Fire crackles behind us, an acrid smell nearly unknown in the heart of the Winter stronghold. Everything here is white and silver, apart from the gardens. Those are carefully curated with deep green and icy blue, flashing past in a blur of cool and wintry hues.

We nearly trample several wild fae servants in our ride to freedom, but shouts echo in our wake, and the sentries will be expecting us.

I hunch low, aligning my body against Ferghus’s back, and hope nobody gets a good look at my face. The mud and verdant paste will help obscure my features, but there’s a short list of folk who would dare such an uproar. With magical aid, it probably won’t take them long to hunt me down, despite the precaution of concealing my identity. The reckless ride jolts my spine as we vault the hedge that separates the courtyard from the ward, a common area where guests are made to wait so they understand the importance of those who dwell deeper within the palace.

The gates are closing in response to the smoke or the horns or perhaps even the baying of the coin-shìth, who will be tasked with tracking us. I’m lucky they’re howling and not barking; that would be a death sentence for the pookas and me alike. I calculate our speed and find it will be close, too close, if I don’t stack the odds in our favor.

When I reach for the magic again, it burns, a slipping-slithering badness that creates a dark and fraying thread around the periphery of my vision. The black bleeds red when I insist on pulling taut, holding the gates steady, steady, steady—

Stop.

Stop.

I hold and I hold and I hold until pain is a color, glowing all over my body, brightness and burrowing, a worm made of needles trying to eat my skin. My ears whoosh and pop. We’re through, and the pookas put on speed, a glorious and thundering escape. Behind us, the gates crash closed too late, and the silver metal rings out a peculiarly dissonant tone.

Ahead, the wildlands unfold before us. No easy paths, just light game trails and flora that smells like home. Ferghus trots to a stop as soon as it’s safe, and I slide off his back.

We honor you, he sings. Thea-friend, we are a whisper away. We guard you, always.

We are kin, I sing back. Always, Ferghus-friend.

The herd shifts. Scatters. They’re ravens and cats and goats and hares now, all racing in different directions. It will be impossible for House Winter to provide the scheduled entertainment, and they will lose face before House Summer. Concern for my dad often keeps me relatively compliant, but I have no loyalty to Winter. I’ve seen how they treat the wild fae.

I’m on my own, no regrets. Ferghus has been a good friend, and the other pookas deserved my aid as well. Returning to the palace would be a terrible idea, especially since I don’t like the place at the best of times. Mudge, my da, has a suite in the stable complex, and I’m always welcome in the loft I occupied as a child, but I prefer his sylvan cottage, Miremorel House, a cozy little nest within a hollowed-out mushroom. Da told me that they’re tiny in the mortal realm, but plants and fungi grow to towering sizes here, feeding on the magic.

I have spent my best times at Miremorel. But it might not be wise to show up where they’d expect me to hide, as there will be hell to pay for today’s work.

It might behoove me to go a-roving in the wild, drink with brownies, and barter with hobgoblins, some of my favorite people in the entire world. I’ve read stories that travel across the fairy rings, tatty books left by human visitors, and the writers always get it wrong. Brownies may complete house chores, but they’re not peaceful like the fables say. If I gave a brownie a dish of cream in exchange for housework, I’d be slapped so hard, my ears would ring. And I’ve never been swindled by a hobgoblin. Not once.

I pause, breathing in the sweetness of the air. Inside the palace, it smells…tame, purified by layers of protective magic. Out here, there’s earth and moss and peat and the complexity of so many flowers that there’s a war of enticing scents. Darkly luscious inkberry mingles with the bell ambrosia, marrying the appeal of velvety darkness with a silvery sheen, an aromatic echo of the swirls of scintillating light in the sky. This is where I feel most free, entirely at home. I can breathe out here.

In a luxuriously self-indulgent motion, I stretch, feeling my shoulders ease. More tension trickles away when I pull my shoes off and sink my toes into the loamy earth. The wilds love me back, as brambles never tear at my skin and leaves caress me when I pass by. A dangling strand of ivy shivers in delight when I whisper, “Good day to you, green-friend.”

I set my course in the opposite direction of Miremorel House. Da doesn’t need my troubles to come knocking at his door, even if he’s not in residence. The guards might wreck up the place if they’re aggravated enough.

Hmm. I could visit Macha. She lives a day’s walk from the palace, past the point where the glade becomes fen. Though I know the way in my sleep, she can be cantankerous. I once spent some time as a lizard because I showed up without notice, and I have no desire to repeat the experience. Not Macha, then.

Who else would take me in?

As I walk, I contemplate where I might find refuge. Ordinarily, one’s parents should be their first port in a storm, but Rain and Fen have never been that for me. Nominally, I am their daughter, but not by blood. Their indifference has haunted me my entire life. No one has ever addressed the fact that my presence is a crime that’s received no redress—that the culprits among the Winter Court who stole me from my mortal kin to punish Rain and Fen for their forbidden love have yet to be uncovered. I feel so conflicted because I shouldn’t even be here, yet I love the wildlands with my entire soul.

And that brings me back to the changeling status, a tarnish to my name that I can’t shake, no matter how virtuously I behave.

And I decided long ago that I much prefer to be bad.

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘The Hocus Pocus Handbook’ by Ann Aguirre appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from One for the Road by Elliot Fletcher, which is out now.

Burned-out GP Alistair Macabe never planned to return to his tiny hometown on the Isle of Skye. Especially not to live next door to Isla, a newly single mom with zero time for grumpy doctors.

But when Alistair needs a popularity boost in order to start taking on patients again, and Isla wants to ruffle her smug ex’s feathers, a fake relationship seems like the perfect solution.

And with the pair taking their roles very seriously, they might just forget they are pretending after all …

EXCERPT

Prologue
March
Alistair

I couldn’t say exactly when my life had become a heaping pile of flaming shit. Maybe it was two years ago, when I’d been suspended from my inner-city GP practice for “unpro­fessional conduct”.

Maybe it was months before that, when I’d started riding the Glasgow Subway an extra stop on my way to work every morning, just to hold off the pandemonium that inev­itably awaited me: a backlog of angry patients, mounting paperwork and not enough hours in the day.

Or maybe it was years before that, when I’d dumped my fiancée, Juniper, only weeks after her dad had died. A life-changing conversation I’d handled in a single phone call. Three minutes and twenty-seven seconds was all it had taken to prove to everyone in my life what a selfish arsehole I truly was.

There were probably an infinite number of tiny moments in between those milestones, micro misdeeds adding to the tapestry of a man who wasn’t worth very much. But today really took the cake.

“Please tell me you didn’t just skip out on our father’s funeral?” The hard voice of Callum, my eldest brother, filled the cab of my rented Land Rover.

My hands tightened around the wheel, the narrow slice of tarmac slipping beneath its wheels. “I stayed as long as I could,” I said. Until the coffin was in the ground, and I’d felt like my chest was ready to explode.

I barely even recalled clambering behind the wheel or tossing the crumpled copy of my dad’s will onto the pas­senger seat before peeling out the cemetery’s car park. I’d meant to drive somewhere that reminded me of him. Anywhere to scrub the image of that wooden box beneath mounds of earth from my brain. Within minutes of driving out onto the main road, I’d realised Dad had spent so much of our childhood working, chained to his desk at Kinleith Surgery, he’d never taken us anywhere. Not a single day trip or even a fucking picnic at the beach.

So, I’d driven the entire length of the Isle of Skye to Neist Point Lighthouse and just sat in my car, the rain lashing the windows, until my body began to tremble from the cold.

“As long as you could? Alistair! This wasn’t a family barbecue. I get that we all had our issues with him but shit – he’s still our dad.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

Our father, Jim Macabe, had been a hard man to grow up with. He’d run his household like an army unit. We were like Scotland’s answer to the Von Trapp family without the genetic predisposition for perfect pitch. Even now, at thirty-seven years old, I couldn’t set foot in my parents’ house without recalling his dad stare, levelled at whichever of his four kids had pissed him off that day. Cold and flat, like he was taking inventory of every bad choice we’d ever made.

He’d been an arsehole, to put it plainly. Short-fused.

Impossible to please. And yet, weeks after he’d died, I still couldn’t shake the urge to try to live up to those unachiev­able standards.

It was like, at some point during my teen years, I’d become an addict and his approval was my drug of choice. With enough effort, I could craft myself into exactly the man he wanted me to be – a doctor, just like him – and in return, I’d gain his affection.

Fucking pathetic.

My hands tightened on the wheel, a sob I’d been holding in for months now working its way up my throat. “Shit, Callum, I – I’m sorry. Is Mum okay?” Had she seen me leave?

“She’s fine. Juniper and I are staying with her tonight.” Maybe I was too numb, because the guilt that should have dug into my chest like shrapnel at the sound of my ex-fiancée’s name was nothing more than a dull twinge.

Callum’s girlfriend, I reminded myself. It had been several months and that revelation was still taking some getting used to.

Talk about fucked family dynamics.

“Good,” I said, absently. “That’s good.”

“Just tell me you’re okay. I can send Mal—”

“No. Don’t bother him.” My younger brother had enough on his plate. “I’m nearly home now anyway.” I turned my car into the blink and you miss it turning toward Kestral Cove and the little cottage I’d started renting back in December. It wasn’t quite a home. But it was quiet. Clean, if not for the smell of fermented cabbage I was still trying to air out of the soft furnishings (I’d come to the conclu­sion that the previous tenant was a hobbyist pickler). Good enough for the few short months I planned to stay here while I sorted my shit out.

“Okay,” he clipped. The shine of taillights in the distance distracted me as he continued, “How about we meet in the morning—”

“Shit!” I cut him off. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” I pointlessly hit my indicator, coming to a stop behind an ancient pink VW Beetle.

“What’s that?” Callum asked.

“Nothing. Just a damn tourist. Must have taken a wrong turn off the main road.” There was nothing down this way except miles of fields and two little cottages perched right by the cliff edge.

My windscreen wipers were working overtime in the downpour, and I flashed my headlights, indicating they should move over – they weren’t even stopped at a passing place. “It’s really coming down out there, I can come out—” Callum offered.

Always the hero, offering a hand no matter how weird things had become between us. Guilt slithered through me. It was more than I deserved. “I’m fine.”

“I don’t think you should be alone.”

But I am alone, I wanted to say. Glasgow. Skye. It doesn’t matter.

My siblings were the only ones who reached out to me now. Family duty and all that. Who knew it only took professional ruination to find out who your true friends were?

If you’re asking stupid questions, you already know the answer. I could hear my dad, his stern voice taking up the empty passenger seat like a spectre.

My Glasgow friends were all ones I’d met in medical school. The kind who stuck together out of habit and circumstance. Frequenting bars from our uni days on the weekends, recounting the woes of our underfunded health service and the weird smell that always lingered in Glasgow’s Royal Infirmary over drams of whisky.

Now I’d become part of the conversational checklist at medical conferences. “Did you hear Alistair Macabe blew up his own life? And how about that new endoscopic platform . . .”

Not that I cared.

I didn’t need friends.

Who had the time or inclination to foster new relation­ships as an adult, anyway? I barely had time to nurture the ones I had. And even those I eventually found a way to fuck up.

From One For the Road by Elliot Fletcher. Copyright © 2026 by Elliot Fletcher. Reprinted by permission of Avon Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Mantras & Minotaurs By Ashley Bennett, which releases on September 1st 2026.

Pam Rollins is ready to date again after spending the last few years alone. Now that her kids have grown up and moved out, she’s committed to changing her life by starting yoga classes and, at her daughter’s urging, joining a dating app. She doesn’t expect much to come from her swiping, especially not a first date with buff, kind, and generous minotaur Alistair.

Alistair Reid is the kind of swoon-worthy monster that every woman dreams of. After one date, Pam is feeling hopeful in love for the first time ever—and Alistair has fallen head over hoof for her. The only problem: they live states apart and have thriving lives of their own.

However, as romance blooms, it becomes harder to envision a future without the other in it. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, after all….

EXCERPT

Tegan snorted, which brought a smile to my face. She was definitely my daughter. “Mom, you’re not old. I really think you should download it and make a profile. If you don’t like it, you can just delete the app, and it’ll be like it never happened.”

I did want to see who was out there . . .

“Fine. I’ll check it out. What’s it called?” I transferred her to speakerphone so I could search for it.

“It’s called Mate Match. It only allows profiles to message you if you’ve already marked them as a match you’d be interested in.” Huh. Well, it sounded like there was a certain level of safety and anti-harassment built into the app. “All right, I’m downloading it now.”

Tegan squealed and I jumped, almost spilling my wine.

“You have to tell me if you match with anyone. Promise me you’ll tell me?” she pleaded.

“I promise, but I doubt I’m going to match with anyone.” “Mom. Seriously? You’re a babe. Besides, some younger men are into older women.”

I tsked. “Oh, no, no, no. No younger men for me. They need to be my age or older—no exceptions.”

“Make sure you set your age preferences on the app, then. Let me know if I need to come over tomorrow and help you with it, okay?”

I knew she was trying to be helpful, but I wasn’t so old that I couldn’t figure out how to set up my own profile on a dating app. How hard could it be?

“Will do, honey. Give Atlas my love.”

“I will. And remember to text me if you match. I’m serious, Mom. I want to see pictures!”

“Pinky promise. Bye, sweetie.”

I hung up the phone before she could get another word in. Tegan seemed confident I’d find a match, but I wasn’t so sure.

I peered down at my phone through my bifocals, the blue light reflecting off my lenses as I scrolled through my photo gallery, searching for a profile pic.

There were limited options. Me with Remi. Me with Reece and Tegan. Me with Atlas.

I didn’t want to give the impression that I was already taken or that my kids were my entire personality. I mean, they were, but that wasn’t the sort of information I wanted to advertise right out of the gate.

Eventually, I stumbled upon a picture Tegan had snapped of me last Christmas. I was wearing a rust-colored sweater I’d knit myself, a tight black skirt, and a pair of pumps that matched my sweater. My ruby red hair was streaked with gray and piled high on top of my head in a messy bun, my freshly cut bangs just barely touching the rim of my glasses. Even though the photo was a year old, it was recent enough that I still looked the same. And in the words of my daughter, like a total babe.

“Let’s see here,” I mumbled to myself as I uploaded my profile picture and scanned the categories.

Employment.

Well, I was retired, which was fairly uncommon at my age, but I supposed it was best not to lie about it.

Education.

That one stung. I always wanted to go to pastry school and get some formal training, but between Don and the kids, it wasn’t in the cards for me. Let’s just go with “some college.” Surely, the pottery class I took at the local community college counted for something.

Location.

Briar Glenn, of course. For the most part, I was well aware of who was available to date here. At my age, there were slim pickings, but with the recent town revitalization initiative and all the growth Briar Glenn had experienced, maybe I’d be pleasantly surprised. To cast a wide net, I selected a radius that would include the three neighboring towns.

About me.

Hmm.

Do you include that you’re widowed in your profile? What kind of vibe does that give off? What if they think I’m some sort of black widow, meeting men on dating apps and murdering them once my name is listed as the beneficiary on their insurance policy?

Gods, I’d been listening to way too many true crime podcasts. I tapped a manicured nail against the glass of my phone, pondering what else to say about myself. This was always so difficult.

Ultimately, I decided to go with:

Widowed. Knitter. Avid reader of romance books. Film buff. Former wedding cake baker and pastry shop owner. Mom to two amazing adult children (and one hairless cat). Looking for companionship with the potential for something more.

Sweet and concise.

Just like me.

Remi popped his head out from under the blanket as I set the age range for acceptable matches.

“What do you think, Rem? Should I open it up to younger men? Is sixty too old? I mean forty is the new thirty, so fifty must be the new forty, making sixty the new fifty. I’m fifty-four, so it’s only a six-year age difference.”

The tiny wrinkled gremlin stared up at me, his wide eyes un-blinking.

“All right, forty-five to sixty it is.”

Was I really one of those people who stayed at home and asked their cat rhetorical questions?

The answer was yes, yes I was.

Once I’d set the parameters for appropriate matches, I watched eagerly as a loading bar flashed across the screen. This was the part I was most excited about. I’d heard about the swiping, and I was anxious to experience it for myself.

The first profile suggested for me was a human man in his late forties. He was cute. His black hair was in a tight crew cut that fit his chiseled features, and the beginnings of crow’s-feet formed in the corners of his deep brown eyes when he smiled. According to his bio, he was a mechanical engineer whose hobbies included reading and watching movies, but he was in an open relationship. I admired folks who could do open relationships, but it wasn’t my style. Even though I was looking for something casual, I wasn’t too keen on sharing a partner. Apparently, all those years of monogamy had really done a number on me.

Photo after photo passed on the screen as I swiped left on pretty much every profile. A guy in his fifties who worked as a Rod Stewart impersonator. A gargoyle who owned a cranberry bog. A sixty-year-old naga who performed with a traveling Shakespeare group. They were certainly interesting individuals, but nothing about them really drew me in.

Until a candid shot of a curly-haired minotaur caught my attention.

His hair was a light cream color, full of cowlicks that swirled in all different directions. A set of ridged deep brown horns curled over the top of his head, running across his fluffy eyebrows and connecting above his snout. His dusty pink nose was adorned with a shiny gold ring, the type you’d commonly see on a bull. A buffalo plaid shirt stretched across his barrel chest, with a tuft of hair sprinkled with grays sticking out from beneath the unbuttoned collar.

Gods, he was handsome.

Another photo showed him standing next to an elevation marker on a rocky mountainside. A backpack was slung over his broad shoulders, and a wide grin was plastered to his face as he gave the camera an enthusiastic thumbs-up. It appeared he was quite the outdoorsman.

The third photo showed him sipping from a tiny espresso cup with his pinky out in a display of civility.

So, he was a caffeine guy.

Now that I could get behind.

According to his profile, his name was Alistair.

Alistair.

How distinguished.

He was a fifty-five-year-old divorcé who worked in the agricultural industry. A suspicious maple-like leaf graced that portion of his profile . . . Did that mean he worked in the cannabis industry? Although I’d embraced the whole grunge aesthetic in the ’90s,

I’d never smoked pot before . . . How would that even work?

I mean, not everyone who worked in that industry smoked pot, right? There was no way the investors with their tailored suits were toking doobies in their high-rises.

I was being ridiculous. Weed was legal. I was making a stink about nothing.

His location was listed as . . . right here in Briar Glenn?

He must have moved here recently. I would have noticed him around town, I’m sure of it.

I scrolled to his “About Me” section.

I live in Colorado, but I’m visiting to help care for my daughter. I have a degree in agriculture and work in the cannabis industry. I enjoy the great outdoors, coffee, and good food with even better company. I’m looking for casual, no strings attached fun.

Well, it appeared I should edit my profile. His was much more professional.

My finger hovered over his photo.

He was visiting from another state, but I wasn’t looking for anything serious. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself . . .

“Aw, what the hell?” I said to Remi, and swiped right. Now to wait and see if he’d respond.

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘Mantras & Minotaurs’ by Ashley Bennett appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Keeping Score by Brittany Kelley, which is out now.

Michelle Oxford lives and breathes soccer. After an injury that ended her dreams of going pro, she snagged the next best thing: a position as the director of operations for the LA Aces. And even if it’s not quite what she imagined it would be, it’s still better than cutting out soccer altogether.

The only problem? Carefree, wonder boy goalie, Tristan Gold.

Tristan has wanted more than just friendship with Michelle since the moment he laid eyes on her, but nothing would kill her career faster. When she loses a bet, the team gleefully insists she has to take lessons on “being chill” from Tristan himself.

They couldn’t be more different, but Tristan’s always met her perfectionist tendencies with good-natured goofiness, so she reluctantly agrees. The more time she spends with him, the more she likes what she sees . . . and Michelle starts to think that with him by her side, she could do just about anything—even saying goodbye to the future she thought she always wanted.

EXCERPT

One
MICHELLE

There is not enough coffee in the entire city of Los Angeles to deal with everything on my to-do list.

My calendar sprawls across the dual monitors anchored to the cheap faux-mahogany desk, and every meeting seems to be marked in red.

Urgent.

I’m not sure how to prioritize the list when everything on it has been flagged as important, and I stifle the now-common urge to scream.

I start to rub my eyes, then lower my hands for the tenth time this morning, because I’ll be damned if I’m going to any of my meetings today with mascara all over my face. Plus, I spent fifteen minutes “relaxing” with under-eye patches on this morning, and if social media has taught me one thing, it’s to not tug at my eyeballs if I want to try to keep picture-perfect skin as long as I can.

Here in LA, perfect under-eyes matter more than I wish they did. I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s not just LA, either.

Still, the last thing I want is to give anyone a reason to offer up their skincare routine or dermatologist or cosmetic surgeon unasked. Most of the front office staff are friendly and well-meaning. The rest? Well, they are anything but. If the number of times I’ve had to swallow how I wanted to respond to their blatant disrespect or tiny slights counted toward my nutrition goals, I would never have to eat.

Cool indifference.

That’s what I have to project. I wear it like armor, like a uniform. Sure, it might get me called the ice queen behind my back or, even less original, a frigid bitch.

But I get shit done.

I chant the words to myself mentally, rubbing my fingers over the warm gold heart charm I wear around my wrist. A gift from my mom when I graduated college, it’s one of the few nice things I remember her owning when I was growing up. Wearing it now, even though it’s definitely not stylish, reminds me of how hard I’ve worked, how hard she worked to get me here, and how much I owe it to both of us to keep working hard.

I press at my temples, staring at the calendar and wondering just how this frigid bitch is going to get any of this shit done.

Through coffee all things are possible, of course.

I reach for my forty-ounce tumbler of home-brewed hot coffee, my nails scraping against the LA Aces logo as I grab on to it like a lifeline.

I’ve needed a lot more caffeine since the owners, as shitty as they were, resigned.

The club’s been thrown into chaos.

I don’t do well with chaos.

At all.

I like my life structured. Predictable. Planned in my calendar at least a month in advance, preferably an entire financial quarter in advance.

I definitely do not like all of my meetings being marked urgent. I didn’t have much of a social life before the shit hit the fan and the press got hold of the shady dealings of the LA Aces’ former owners, but now?

Now, I pack an overnight bag when my calendar looks like this, because I never know if I’ll make it home to sleep or not.

A lump forms in my throat and my eye threatens to twitch as I recall all the ways the team’s new owner is keeping me running from task to task. The way he’s second-guessing all of my judgment calls, asking for long written reports about why I do things the way I do them, along with self-evaluations from the last several years of my performance reviews.

Plus the performance reviews of the entire front office staff.

Yeah. I have a lot on my plate, and someone who wants to tell me exactly how to chew and swallow every single bite. And then give me feedback on how I used the damn fork.

I much prefer to maximize my time sleeping, even if it’s on the shitty couch against my office wall. Much better than dealing with traffic.

It makes sense, though. Mark Adely, the new owner, wants to make sure everything is aboveboard and that he’s running a tight ship. But it’s been my ship to captain for so long that it grates to have him micromanage me.

My throat starts to tighten at the thought of another restless night on the faux leather monstrosity, and I chug the scalding coffee to stop the tears that keep threatening to fall.

I’m so damn tired.

I’m not sure how much longer I can take this.

A knock sounds at the door, and I nearly choke on my coffee, covering it up with a cough as the door swings open.

“You okay?” Madison Moore, our marketing intern, stands awkwardly in the doorway, a branded team iPad pressed to her chest, the gold Aces logo peeking out from between her arms.

I nod, pointing at the huge tumbler. “Swallowed wrong.” A tiny cough sells the lie.

Her gaze slips to the couch in the corner, where the fleece throw emblazoned with the LA Aces colors and logo is neatly folded.

All nice and neat and ready for me to toss and turn all night.

Again.

“What’s up?” I ask, slightly harsher than I mean to. It works, though, and her gaze snaps back to mine.

“They need you in the press room.” Madison bites her lower lip, and I sigh.

“They made you tell me because you’re the newest, huh?” I narrow my eyes.

“And because I told them I like you,” she agrees. She lifts her chin, a note of defiance in her voice. “You’re the youngest woman in any professional sports front office. You’re a badass.”

I’m caught between wanting to hug her, so badly needing an ally in this place, and knowing that if I show any weakness now, I’m doomed.

A hug would make me cry for sure.

Crying is definitely not on the schedule.

Especially when I’m supposed to be a badass.

“What’s the press conference about today?” I stand, grabbing my vat of caffeinated gold. “It’s not on my calendar.”

Bending, I squint at my screens, clicking furiously back to today’s view.

There’s no meeting request.

“It’s an emergency one,” Madison squeaks, then clears her throat.

I hate that I’ve intimidated her in my effort not to burst into tears. Overcompensating, again.

I don’t want to be another micromanaging boss here; I don’t want people who report to me feeling like they can’t go home and rest.

A deep inhale threatens to choke me, and I grip the massive tumbler in my hand like it’s a weapon. “Why can’t Briony handle it?” I make myself ask as gently as possible. “Surely our PR director should be the one doing the press conference—”

“She quit.” Madison’s throat goes blotchy, and I squeeze my eyes shut.

I’m not the only one about to cry.

I have to hold it together. For both of us. For the entire organization. For the new owner, who’s depending on me to do things right and won’t be afraid to fire me if he doesn’t like the way I do it.

Out with the old, in with the new.

It feels like, along with the future of my career, the entire future of the LA Aces rests squarely on my shoulders, and I don’t even get to do the part of this job I fell in love with when I was a little girl.

My entire life revolves around soccer, and yet I don’t get to be on the field.

Maybe Briony had the right idea.

I let myself have ten more seconds of pity party. Madison’s terrified stare is like ice on my skin.

“Right,” I finally announce, pulling myself together as much as I can. “Lead on, then. I assume you have talking points prepped? Any press send questions in advance?”

Madison nearly falls over in relief, and I realize she thought she might have to handle the briefing by herself if I’d said no.

Has the Aces front office really fallen apart that badly in the last few months that we’d throw a new intern to the wolves?

I don’t like the answer to my own question, and as Madison begins bombarding me with talking points while we walk, it’s all I can do to keep my chin up and mentally gather my armor for the press room.

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