Curious (3 novels
in 1) by D L Richardson
Series: Not part of a series
ISBN: 9781311944474
Book Length: 536 pages
Publisher: self published
Buy Links
DESCRIPTION/Blurb
Three
full length novels in one supernatural collection.
In THE BIRD WITH
THE BROKEN WING, a guardian angel finds herself trapped in Purgatory with a
young soldier she was assigned to watch over. She knows the terrible secret
that's keeping him trapped in limbo, but can't understand why she's stuck with
him.
In FEEDBACK,
three teenagers receive the organs of deceased CIA agent and inadvertently take
on the task of completing the mission the spy died midway through, that of
deactivating bacteria bombs threatening millions of lives.
In LITTLE RED
GEM, bad advice from a ghost, magic courtesy of an unsuspecting half-sister,
and a televised music talent show see this teen make more of a mess in death
than she ever made in life.
That's over 500
pages of action, drama, adventure, teen issues, and romance in one unputdownable
book.
Feedback
A spy’s job is to
infiltrate an environment, gather intelligence, and report back to the
government. The CIA was aware that Hank harbored secrets, but what those
secrets were continued to elude them. Three weeks ago, I’d been given the job
of uncovering them. Yesterday, I’d had a breakthrough when I’d discovered the
stockpile of chemical weapons that Hank’s company manufactured.
Without waiting to
report back to the government, I’d set about removing the bombs from their
original locations—The Coliseum, Disneyland, and Universal Studios—and I’d
hidden them in unpopulated areas instead. In the unlikely event that my plan
failed and the bombs went off, the damage would be minimal. The CIA wouldn’t hang
me out to dry for minimal damage, so my unblemished career would remain
intact—mostly.
Concealing the bombs
offered only a short-term solution. Ahead lay the challenge of hacking into
Hank’s secure computer system to uncover the deactivation codes.
Retrieving data from
a secure computer system wasn’t as easy as TV made it look. Secret documents
were usually given file names like Birthday Pics or Phone Bill. Only an idiot
gave the documents their real file names such as Bomb Locations. Hank Miller
was an evil madman, but he wasn’t a stupid evil madman.
I’d located the file
containing the manual deactivation codes, but without first disabling the bombs
with an overriding code, sort of like a booby trap, the manual codes were
useless. I had fifteen days left to find the codes. After that, boom.
Little Red Gem
… “You all right?” Leo said.
“You look a little shaken.”
I stared at him and thought to
myself: No, I am not all right.
Two weeks ago I’d skipped my
period. Since then I hadn’t been able to look at anything the same way. A
burger was no longer a tasty lunch; it was an animal that had once lived. A
black bear was no longer a pest who broke into trash cans; it was a product of
a species that placed material objects above that species’ home. All of my
innocent and inept teenage philosophies about life and death and everything in
between had come barging towards me demanding I set down some new rules. The
top of the list of discussion points was: When did a boyfriend stop being a
boyfriend?
I hadn’t yet decided on the
answer but the top two contenders were, 1) when he became a father, and 2) when
he found out his girlfriend was pregnant and became an ex-boyfriend.
Why did the first adult decision
of my life have to also be the biggest? And why, despite the two smiling faces
captured in the photos stashed deep in my bag, did it feel as if this decision
was mine alone to make?
Overwhelmed, I burst into tears.
Leo slipped his arms around me and hugged me tightly to his chest.
“Hey, it’s okay. We weren’t in
any kind of danger. Those cars were way off. But babe, if it makes you feel any
better, I promise not to drive and talk on the phone at the same time. You know
I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy.”
As Leo led me back to the car I
let myself believe that our souls and hearts were like grafted plants or
symbiotic life forces, too deeply entwined to let anyone or anything threaten
to destroy us. But something already had.
The Bird with the
Broken Wing
“I have a bad feeling about this, Ben. This is suicide. It’s also stupid, morally wrong, and pointless.
And did I mention suicide?”
Ben wasn’t listening. He was reaching a hand inside the open neck
of his shirt. She’d spent enough time with him to know he was touching the
cross on the necklace that had once belonged to his dad.
“Detached, that’s how you make me feel, Ben. Like I’m watching
your life through a window.”
Striking up an old conversation was hardly creative, yet the
feeling of not belonging with him was just as strong now. She gave a heavy,
audible sigh but Ben wasn’t taking the bait. “A bubble. I live in a bubble.”
“Relax.” Ben closed his eyes as he sucked up a deep, dusty red
breath like he was meditating on Mars. “Everything will be all right.”
As well as a chronic worrier and a touch melodramatic, she was
also an eternal optimist. So she looked around in case she was missing
something, but all she saw was proof to the contrary. She, Ben, and a few
hundred others were in a convoy, crossing a desert that appeared to be empty,
yet the drivers had dodged gun and mortar fire since they’d passed over the
border an hour ago.
What this land must have looked like when it’d been fertile with
lush, green trees and wide, blue rivers was hard to imagine, but she tried. Her
eyes had closed for a second when a burst of gunfire to her right jolted them
wide open again.
“We signed up for non-combat jobs, remember?”
Music first captured the creative interest of D L
Richardson. She got her first acoustic guitar at age ten, and in high school
she sang with the school band. When she left school she helped form her own
rock band where she sang lead vocals, played bass guitar, and wrote all the
lyrics.
At age 26 she realized she wanted to write novels
for the rest of her life, or die trying, so she sold her equipment, quit
pursuing a music career and began writing instead. She now have six books
published and is working on an urban fantasy series a second short story
collection.
She lives in Australia on the NSW South Coast
with her husband and dog. When she’s not writing or reading she can be found
practicing her piano, playing the guitar or walking the dog.
She is currently writing a serialised four book
novel and working on a second volume of short stories.
Website: www.dlrichardson.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/DLRichardson1
Thank you so much for sharing this release with your readers Cindy, Margie, Anna, Satarupta, and Carrie. I'd like to also extend warm wishes to everyone and a merry Christmas to all. D L
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