411 on Books, Authors & Publishing

Worse Than Any Bullet
Felicia Watson
(Fidelia Mysteries, #2)
Publication date: August 25th 2026
Genres: Adult, Mystery, Thriller

Everyone thinks their mother is murder but for mafia-family renegade Lucia Scafetti, that’s the literal truth.

When she laid her hitman father to rest, PI Lucia Scafetti thought she’d finally escaped her family’s criminal clutches. Ten years later, her estranged mom blows into Philly for a short visit and within days a friend’s dad is brutally murdered and Lucia is being menaced by her cousin and his fellow mafiosi. After her mother disappears, everyone: foes, friends, and free agents, descends upon Lucia in search of the thumb-drive her mom stole from a Caribbean drug lord. Lucia learns the hard way that the criminals besieging her will gladly kill to get their hands on that thumb-drive.
With the help of an intriguing ex-soldier, Lucia employs her skills, both detective and deadly, to solve the murder and unlock the secret of that enigmatic thumb-drive before it claims another life, be it her own – or that of her recently re-discovered son.

Goodreads / Amazon

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EXCERPT:

“Someone’s in there.”

Lucia snapped into action, ordering Robbie to stay in the car with the dogs and retrieving her Glock from the secret compartment in the back seat of the Chevelle SS 454. She shook her head, indicating to Robbie he wasn’t getting an immediate explanation about the compartment and then stealthily approached the house.

Lucia decided to go around back and enter from the kitchen. The deadbolt had been defeated and there was no sound from the alarm system. This was no ordinary burglar.

Weapon ready, she crept into the living room where she could discern the muffled footsteps of someone descending the stairs. Lucia pointed her gun at the source of the noise and at the opportune moment, flipped on the lights. A hefty, masked and armed man froze on the fourth step as he realized he was facing a cocked gun.

Lucia warned, “If you’re thinking of trying anything, you better be a better shot than I am. Which is…unlikely.”

The man held his right hand out to his side, his gun loose. In a weirdly thick voice, he rumbled, “Hey, I’m not looking for trouble.”

“Breaking into my house armed with a military-grade semi is a really strange way to prove that.”

He chuckled and moved the gun slightly in a non-threatening manner. “Military grade? Nah, this is just a—”

“A Beretta Cx4 Storm. Which means you are definitely prepared for trouble.”

Rather than refuting her point, he urged, “I just want the thumb-drive, the real one. The one your mother stole from me.”

Not recognizing the term ‘thumb-drive’, Lucia silently contemplated whether this guy could possibly be looking for a body-part from someone her mother had killed. “You worked with my mom? Who are you?”

“I’m not wearing this mask ’cause I’m ugly. Who I am is none of your business. Just hand over the drive and no one gets hurt.”

“Seeing as I have the drop on you, that’s a toothless threat,” Lucia declared. “And I don’t know what it is you’re looking for, but you’re not gonna find it here.”

“For your sake, lady, I hope you’re lying.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I’m not the last person who’s gonna come looking for that thumb-drive. And I’m sure as hell not the most dangerous.”

Nodding at his gun, she countered, “Hard to believe. And I don’t even know what a thumb-drive is let alone—”

“It’s a computer thing,” Robbie announced from somewhere behind her back, his presence until that moment completely undetected. “You use it to—”

“Robbie?!” Her eyes remained trained on the masked man as Lucia barked, “What the hell! What are you doing here?”

“I was worried about you so I came to check. Don’t worry, I left the dogs in the car. You know, so they won’t get hurt.”

“But it’s okay if you get hurt?!”

Taking advantage of the momentary distraction this argument provided, the man on the stairs suddenly leapt over the banister and dashed towards the kitchen.

Lucia followed but he was too quick for her. Standing on the back deck, listening to his footsteps retreating into the darkness, Lucia briefly considered giving chase. She quickly discarded the idea. Not only was there Robbie to think of, but Lucia was loathe to incite a gunfight that might frighten Mrs. Schwartz, the elderly widow who occupied the twin house attached to her own.

When she got back in the house Robbie held up his backpack. “I got it.” He took a deep breath and then said, “Wow, that was….”

“Terrifyingly dangerous?” she offered, while surveying the wreckage around her. The intruder had obviously conducted a very thorough search.

“Nah, exciting! I knew it was safe when I heard you handling that guy like a pro. Otherwise, I would’ve stayed in the kitchen. I swear.”

Lucia sighed heavily and impulsively put her free arm around his shoulder. “Rule number one, Rob? When guns are drawn? The situation is never, ever, safe.” She pulled him to face her and stared intently into his eyes. “Capish?”

Author Bio:

Felicia Watson started writing stories as soon as they handed her a pencil in first grade. She’s especially drawn to character driven tales, where we see people we recognize, people who struggle with their mistakes and shortcomings, acknowledge them, and use that knowledge to grow into wiser human beings.

When not writing, Felicia spends her time chasing after her not-so-brilliant, but darling and beloved dogs, is chased by her truly brilliant, darling and beloved husband, is known to friends and family as an amateur pastry chef, and still finds time for swimming and her day job as a scientist.

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Instagram

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A Strange & Terrible Wonder
Nichole Louise
Publication date: August 18th 2026
Genres: Adult, Historical

Eleanor Dare, daughter of Roanoke’s Governor John White, has no choice but to accompany her overly ambitious husband Ananias and her idealist, yet inexperienced father to England’s new colony. Manteo of Croatoan wants nothing more than to cast off his association with the English and return home. Haunted by memories of an unexplainable event, he sets out to find the truth about what was brought to Roanoke by the English two years before as a weapon against the Spanish.

Based on real people who vanished from history, Eleanor and Manteo form a taboo friendship as they work against unseen forces to end the violent and otherworldly attacks upon the settlement. In the midst of this survival scenario, both Eleanor and Manteo—once powerless and marginalized in England, emerge as unlikely leaders of the ravaged colony.

Blending 16th century science, occult, and the impacts of early colonialism, A Strange and Terrible Wonder reimagines what became of the Lost Colony.

Goodreads / Purchase

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EXCERPT:

Prologue

“All down the church in midst of fire, the hellish monster flew, and passing onward to the quire, he many people slew.”

– Rev. Abraham Fleming, 1577

August 4, 1577
Bungay, England

At first, the congregants believe the slight rattling is only wind insisting upon the church door. A sudden summer tempest. Rain begins to patter above the nave, the sound not altogether unpleasant—soothing, even. A woman closes her eyes and exhales the stress of the morning as she focuses on the rhythm. Her peace is soon jilted by the growing tempest above, for the rain is now a wonderful force with no less violence than abundance. Her eyes snap open and roll to the vaulted ceiling. The great, forceful torrent empties above in what she imagines as glassy sheets pouring from the eaves. A low grumble of thunder. A child presses close to his mother. The two men kneeling at the altar do not flinch in their prayer; one for an abundant harvest season to pay his debts and another for a wife ailing in childbed.

Lightning flashes in brilliant brightness through the clouded, stretching windows. Silhouettes are carved out of the pews. A gust through the crack beneath the front door snuffs out the altar candles as if the tempest is compelling the congregants to sleep. They are all at once aware of the palpable darkness, so much so that one person cannot perceive another. The only light discerned by the congregants is not from the god hanging above them, but from the intermittent great flashing of fiery bolts.

The roar of the storm is so powerful now that the congregants shift with discomfort. A chill tightens the base of their spines as sweat springs on brows with each fearful heartbeat. The men kneeling in prayer do not relinquish their positions, though they see little, and their knees begin to ache against the flagstones. Instead, they press their eyes and hands tighter and pray now for the light to return. The only answer they receive is a terrible crack of thunder with such force and might that the congregants begin to believe doomsday has come.

The doors are thrown open as if by a blast of gunpowder. Lashing wind explodes down the nave, spraying hot rain onto the necks and backs of the congregants who dare not turn from the cross. The woman who had before held a moment of peace, presuming a gentle patter could not turn tempest, winces at the scalding sensation of boiling water against her bare skin. The church seems to quake and stagger as the scent of glowing iron, not unlike a blacksmith’s shop, permeates the darkened church.

The child clutches tightly to his mother when, amid twin lightning strikes, a great shape dashes down the nave toward the altar. The drops of rainwater on the flagstones sizzle as the thing passes in a hot rush of a blacksmith’s bellows. And with another flash of fire, the child sees it—they all see it: a great black dog with one ember glowing eye running with incredible haste. The woman muffles her scream as others bend beneath the flimsy pews as if a mere board of wood will save them from this devil.

The praying men feel great heat against their backs as if a bonfire has been lit before the altar. A sacrifice. Liquid fear runs down their legs, and still they dare not open their eyes nor pry their rigid hands apart. In another crack of thunder and lightning, the great black dog wrings both men’s necks backward in one clean instant. Its movement is so violent, so swift, that the dead men still kneel in prayer.

The child gasps when the lightning illuminates the whites of dead eyes in the heads bent unnaturally back. He buries his face in his mother’s skirts as her nails dig into his narrow shoulders. The beast turns on the congregation, its low growl indistinguishable from thunder, like a thousand carts moving across cobblestones. It stalks down the aisle, its bellows as hot as the summer sun’s rays. The congregants close their eyes against the darkness, press their slick palms together, and pray for their god to save them in his very house.

The beast chooses a man who dares glance up, for he believes he can slip out the door and escape this hell. Instead, the beast’s shining obsidian claws grip the man’s back in so forceful a manner that it is as if his entire body becomes drawn together and shrunk, as if it were a piece of leather scorched by hot fire. Wordless, he topples over with limbs trailing smoke.

The beast shifts into shadow, and the woman sitting next to the burned but still living man stumbles away from the charred flesh and wheezes for help. The rector, who has finally slid out of the shadows, catches her as she falls from the pew. He prays over her—whispering first, then increasing to test the roar around them. He exhorts the terrified congregants to prayer, and in their extreme distress, do so in darkness. The hot wind and scalding rain lash them, for the tempest has now fully invaded their sanctuary. Some congregants are frozen in terror, save their lips flapping desperate prayers, while others try in vain to crawl for the door.

In a flash, the beast materializes on the main beam above the congregants. Its searing talons set the old oak to smoldering as if coaxing a fire. Its ragged back chars the angel carved into the ceiling. The demon swings down through the church. Three lightning bolts follow the dog jumping from one man to another, then a lad, killing all three instantly. The dog dashes from the crumpled boy, and a deafening crack as if the earth has split in two cleaves the roof, and with it, the steeple. The cascade of stone rumbles down the side of the church, and for one striking moment of terror, a woman cries out that hell has opened to swallow the church whole.

The dog bounds for the next man. He dives away, yet not before his hand is burned by the scalding creature’s touch. In shock, the man lifts his charred hand to the burning sensation where his ear used to be. The creature blasts through the church doors, leaving a trail of scorch marks in the wood. The mischief thus wrought, the beast flies with wonderful force out of the churchyard in a hideous and hellish likeness.

Like a decimated forest in the aftermath of a windstorm, the congregants are left quivering. It’s clear to the man with the burned hand and missing ear that there are forces at work mightier than God, who could not protect his devout followers in His own house. Dazed, the man staggers out of the ruins with his compatriots. He looks to the rapidly clearing sky and resolves to find someone with knowledge of these unseen forces—and how to master them. A conjurer with the influence to pursue the arcane unhindered. What other reason could there be for such hell if not as a path to Providence for England? He will accept no other explanation.

Author Bio:

Nichole Louise is a speculative historical fiction writer and book reviewer (NicholeLouise.com). Raven Rock (2023), a prequel to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, was recognized by Writer’s Digest, the Historical Fiction Company, and the CIBAs. Her articles and book reviews have appeared in the Journal of the American Revolution. Her second title, A Strange and Terrible Wonder (2026) is a historical folk horror tale exploring the Lost Colony of Roanoke. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading, gaming, and volunteering at Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society.

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