Herein lies a raw exploration of duality, darkness, and desire. A collection of sonnets, haikus, and free verse that brings to the surface our fractured pieces and celebrates how the light and the dark blend to make us whole. An invitation to embrace the shadow and give it its rightful place as a part of the self.

Welcome to the Lilydale Foundation Center... home of second chances. At least, that's what they tell us it is. It's basically a glorified prison and asylum for the deranged with good alibis. When the police pulled me out of my burning home, along with what was left of my Father, I was deemed broken — even if I was the reason the fire started. So, here I am at my new home. They think they can save us with their fancy facility. But what insane person decided it was a good idea to put a bunch of young, unhinged people together?

I think I always knew I was going to die young. Like I had this… silent, invisible clock ticking down to my final moments plastered above my head. Maybe that’s why I was so reckless, crazy. Why I sought after adventure. Why nothing scared me… Except, there was always this… feeling I couldn’t shake that something was in the darkest parts of every corner, under every bed, closet, or room, like a ghost watching me. Waiting to take me. My own, personal reaper. But it was always only during a lightning storm that I could see the outline of my reaper. No scythe.

Being a member born into a secret society is nothing like what you would expect. Our world is dripping in diamonds and gilded in gold, but it’s also built atop the blood and bones of innocents. The wronged and the shamed haunting this town, this world, this society. Maggie Bartlett had accepted the fact that she would never have control over her destiny. That she would always be a puppet in their play. A queer woman in a Puritan man’s world is one of the most dangerous things to be. But what good is life without a little danger?

I've got everything it takes to make it in Tinseltown: confidence, charisma, and a killer chin. Now all I need is a chance. But Los Angeles is full of hot young hunks, and talent might not be enough to separate me from the cookie-cutter crowd. So I devise a wild scheme to get noticed. Pretend I’m someone I'm not—good-bye Will O’Connell of Cincinnati and hello Liam O’Connell of Dublin. "Liam" and his talent with accents is enough to get my foot in the door, but I never anticipated meeting the woman who has me more worried about keeping my foot out of my mouth.

One look. One touch. One sound of her beautiful voice and I’m hooked. Like a dream I never want to wake up from, she pulls me in and wraps me around her. Consumed. Driven with need. Fueled by an unrelenting desire to make her mine. One night, I take more than she has ever given before, which only leaves me wanting more. Needing more. Craving more. She’s the one I’ve waited for my whole life.

Welcome to Georgian England, circa 1800. Alastair Thorne is a cad and a rake. Even his mother told him so. Pity for her that he cannot bring himself to care, for he relishes his life of debauchery and licentiousness, and is content thinking of no-one but himself. Except Alastair may have just messed with the wrong fair maiden, and his life is about to be cut violently short. That is until he comes face to face with the enigmatic stranger who's been watching him from afar.

Stone was my best friend. My protector. My everything. Until he wasn’t. Kids like us didn’t have the best life, riddled with trauma, bounced around in a system that didn’t want us and couldn’t handle us. In our darkest hours, we had each other. Until we didn’t. We tried to hold on to what little we had. Maneuvering the rough waters of our circumstance. Until I couldn’t.

My name is Madelaine Moneta and I am a survivor. I fought my way up from the streets of Chicago to claim a spot at one of the top-tier criminal defense practices in the city, but when the looming shadow of the local mob threatens to engulf the firm, I make a life-altering decision. Carrying my mother’s ashes, I escape to Ireland, intent on starting anew in my mother’s homeland.

Am I going to get lucky? Maybe if the hunky nerd I met yesterday takes me up on my invite to attend High Five's St. Paddy's Day party …Rachel Wagner, who’s sworn off dating apps, is the last single one in her friend group. Focused on running her thriving cleaning business in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, the thirty-one-year-old is caught off guard when she stumbles upon a bearded nerd while cleaning her biggest client’s lake house.

Protecting him is my duty, but falling for him could be my undoing. I’ve spent five years burying my past, leaving behind the violence and bloodshed of my former life as a Bratva enforcer. Now, I’m just Luca—the quiet guy who keeps his head down, working security for a professional hockey team. I don’t get close to anyone, and I definitely don’t let anyone get close to me. But then I’m assigned to protect Max Ryan, the team’s star defenseman, and everything changes. He's my obsession. My crush.

According to the FBI, I was considered a serial murderer after three kills. What do they call me after fifty-two? They call me the Silencer. One final bullet would have been all it took to stop me from taking another soul, and I would have been doing Meridian City a service by pulling that trigger. An angel crying for help stopped me, and that night, I took three lives for her. Then three turned into eight. Then eight turned into twenty. Twenty turned into twenty-one. Twenty-one turned into twenty-three.

Agent Bradly "Wolfe" Tucker has one case he cannot solve: six murdered women and a cold trail leading nowhere. When bodies with an eerily similar MO show up in Philadelphia, he volunteers to assist with the case. He figures he will spend a few days in Philly, hand the case off, and head back to his life in Seattle. But everything changes when he stops at a local bar, looks across the room, and sees her. Agent Leda Bailey has had a bad week. She has three dead women and no trail to follow. The clues don't add up, and nothing makes sense.

Shea-Lynne O’Rourke is no innocent princess. But she is off-limits. Older. Strong-Willed. Mouthy AF. That doesn’t stop me from wanting to possess this feisty Irish Rose and make the only woman I can’t have mine. She's my last bodyguard gig before I take my place in Quinlan Empire. I'm riddled with scars and past sins, too filthy for an angel. Who surprises me with a savage taste for the forbidden.

I've always been a tough North Shore girl. Fighting is in my blood, survival in my DNA. But two years ago, Caden King broke me, and he has proof of it. Now he wants to blackmail me into doing a job for him. The kind that puts my chance of escaping the North Shore at risk. The kind that means betraying my own crew.

Herein lies a raw exploration of duality, darkness, and desire. A collection of sonnets, haikus, and free verse that brings to the surface our fractured pieces and celebrates how the light and the dark blend to make us whole. An invitation to embrace the shadow and give it its rightful place as a part of the self.

I've got everything it takes to make it in Tinseltown: confidence, charisma, and a killer chin. Now all I need is a chance. But Los Angeles is full of hot young hunks, and talent might not be enough to separate me from the cookie-cutter crowd. So I devise a wild scheme to get noticed. Pretend I’m someone I'm not—good-bye Will O’Connell of Cincinnati and hello Liam O’Connell of Dublin. "Liam" and his talent with accents is enough to get my foot in the door, but I never anticipated meeting the woman who has me more worried about keeping my foot out of my mouth.

I live for the pain; it's what drives me to keep moving. I thought I was ready to finally live. Until...my brother, Alex; he throws me into the fire - right into the place I could never control myself, the one place I never want to be again. When I put my hands on people, they get hurt. Things happen that bring me back to that night. The one that will forever torment me. I'm doing fine, keeping to myself in order to ensure no one gets hurt by me. Then along comes Lyric, and all I want to do is touch her, to put my hands in places that I know will only lead to her being crushed by me.

When my father passed away, I assumed my grieving would be as simple as closing a book and starting another. Only he had other plans. Leaving me his beloved tattoo shop, I’m stuck to figure out what exactly to do with it, all while being constantly reminded of him.

After losing her husband in a tragic accident, Julia Gentry is barely surviving. Raising her young daughter alone takes everything she has—and that’s not enough. She’s barely making ends meet. And then tragedy strikes again. Julia’s only hope lies in the last place she wants to look—in Crew Gentry. Her husband’s brother is broody. Irresponsible. He’s broken her heart more than once and let her down every time she’s needed him.

One look. One touch. One sound of her beautiful voice and I’m hooked. Like a dream I never want to wake up from, she pulls me in and wraps me around her. Consumed. Driven with need. Fueled by an unrelenting desire to make her mine. One night, I take more than she has ever given before, which only leaves me wanting more. Needing more. Craving more. She’s the one I’ve waited for my whole life.

I'm Matt Hadder. I've been called ruthless, savage - even brutal - by the men and women who work for me. And I've earned my reputation. Wonderland Inc., a party planning organization for every major player in the world, is Oz, and I'm its Wizard. I can make anything - drugs, prostitutes, deals - appear for a night and disappear just as quickly. This doesn't make me good or bad - it makes me essential. Wonderland Inc. was my life, until a beautiful contradiction of innocence and impurity, obedience and rebelliousness named Alex Little stepped in.

Welcome to the Lilydale Foundation Center... home of second chances. At least, that's what they tell us it is. It's basically a glorified prison and asylum for the deranged with good alibis. When the police pulled me out of my burning home, along with what was left of my Father, I was deemed broken — even if I was the reason the fire started. So, here I am at my new home. They think they can save us with their fancy facility. But what insane person decided it was a good idea to put a bunch of young, unhinged people together?

I always knew darkness crept through this city; like a shadow, it never really goes away, always watching, always waiting. People sin and people kill; it's a way of life. I just never expected to be thrown into the middle of a war I had no hope of surviving. Alexander Silver is as brutal as he is beautiful. A devil in disguise. The man destined to end me. I didn't go looking for trouble, and yet it found me, nonetheless. I could either join it or let it crush me.

I didn't think answering someone else's cell phone would change my life. But the stranger with the low, deep voice on the other end of the line tempted me, awakened my body, set me on fire. He was looking for someone else. Instead he found me. And I found a hot, secret world where I felt alive for the first time.

Three unforgettable full-length steamy, suspenseful, small-town romance novels from NYT and USA Today bestselling author A.L. Jackson....

He's a troubled young actor, Hollywood's newest heartthrob, struggling with fame as the star of the latest superhero franchise. Through scandal after scandal, addiction on top of addiction, a flurry of paparazzi hunt him as he fights to conquer his demons. She's a single mother, assistant manager at a grocery store, existing in monotony with her five-year-old daughter. Every day when she goes to work, lurid tabloids surround her, the face of a notorious bad boy haunting her from their covers.

Maximo and I, we were definitely a fairy tale. Not the cleaned-up, sanitized ones where life’s problems are solved with a smile and a song. We were the old-school kind. A twisted tales packed with murder, violence, and tragic beginnings. Okay, so maybe we weren’t a traditional fairy tale. After all, Maximo was more villain than prince. He was scarily sexy. Devilishly charming. Controlling, possessive, and dangerous. Especially when it came to me. His little dove. And heaven help anyone who tried to free me from my gilded cage.

Ever since I was a little girl, I've taken care of everyone around me, including my self-centered older sister, Anna. When her poor choices make us targets of the Devil's Rejects Motorcycle Club, I grab her, and we run like hell. A new city, a new job, a new life. It's almost perfect - and then I meet Ryker. He's gorgeous, rugged, and too cocky for his own damned good. But he's a biker - exactly the type of man I've been running from. I have no business getting involved with a man like him. Too bad I can't get him out of my head.

Micah Beck is the last thing I expect to find wandering around my brother's beach house, naked, only wearing an acoustic guitar, but he's the first thing that has ever had me craving for just one "anything goes" night. Micah is tempting, talented, and addictive to the last drop. Not to mention, he's completely confident in all that he does. Especially with those fingers, and I can't deny that it's such a turn on.