American Metaphysical

After discovering her purpose and the secrets of the worlds she must live between, Tali’s abilities have grown to new levels which far surpass anything she could have dreamed. But while helping spirits navigate from death to their new lives, she struggles to find who she really is - and why she does the job she was destined for.

Mexican author Rubirosa is attending a book fair in Tangier when he reconnects with an old acquaintance, a Moroccan artist who asks one favor of his visiting friend: to access the puzzling files on a memory card. It could help fulfill the destiny of his son Abdelkrim. It could also unwittingly draw both men into irreversible events already in motion on distant shores. In America, Abdelkrim, a brilliant aspiring astronaut deemed “too Muslim” for citizenship, has teamed up with an equally gifted young prodigy, a witness to the plight of Syrian refugees.

It's 30,000 BC. Hiding in a giant mimosa tree, Maru watches her father meet with the leader of a treacherous Andean tribe. Her father, furious that she's followed him, tells her that if he is killed - something he fully expects - she must warn their people to flee. The people are prepared, but Maru, at age seven, is not. Her father places heavy responsibility on her because she followed him.

In this spare novelette, acclaimed flash-fiction writers James Claffey and Tara Lynn Masih collaboratively create an original tale of loss and love, as The Bitter Kind deftly alternates between Stela, the daughter of a ship’s captain, burdened by her family secrets, and Brandy, a Chippewa orphan, haunted by ghost wolves and spirits. The authors cross genres and borders between historical and contemporary, speculative and realistic, presenting two unforgettable characters on a journey toward their inevitable, fateful destination.

These are the first two episodes of the serial The American Fathers. It involves four dynasties, a Lebanese-American journalist, an impassioned college professor, a security contractor, a flamboyant hitman, a rebel hacker, a megalomaniac, and a smart, idiosyncratic heiress. There are nine episodes in season one. Sheila's point of view is central in Swept Away, Dinner Invitation, and Visitors.