The Lost
Crow City #1
by Cole McCade
Genre: Dark Adult Romance
The first book in the new Cole McCade: After Dark erotica imprint; a
darkly haunting erotica with the taboo appeal of V.C. Andrews.
"If the romantic character study is a genre, this fascinating
contemporary novel is its exemplar." - Publishers Weekly
There's something wrong with Leigh.
She's known it her whole life. She knows it every time she spreads her
legs. Every time she begs for the pain, the pleasure, the heat of a
hard man driving deep inside. She's a slave to her own twisted
lusts--and it's eating her alive. She loves it. She craves it. Sex is
her drug, and she's always chasing her next fix. But nothing can
satisfy her addiction, not even the nameless men she uses and tosses
aside. No one's ever given her what she truly needs.
Until Gabriel Hart.
Cold. Controlled. Impenetrable. Ex-Marine Gabriel Hart isn't the kind of
man to come running when Leigh crooks her pretty little finger. She
loathes him. She hungers for him. He's the only one who understands
how broken she is, and just what it takes to satisfy the emptiness
inside. But Gabriel won't settle for just one night. He wants to
claim her, keep her, make her forever his. Together they are the
lost, the ruined, the darkness at the heart of Crow City.
But Leigh has a darkness of her own. A predator stalking through her
past--one she'll do anything to escape.
Even if it means running from the one man who could love her...and leaving
behind something more precious to her than life itself.
The Fallen
Crow City 1.5
Reconnect with Gabriel, Gary, Maxi, and Crow City in this companion novella
telling the story of THE LOST‘s Gabriel Hart before Leigh entered
his life – and get a sneak preview of the sinister Priest, hero of
THE FOUND.
Gabriel Hart is a broken man.
And everyone close to him dies.
His military unit. His sister. His parents. Everyone he’s come to care
for has been taken from him, leaving him with nothing but a crippling
war injury, a Vicodin addiction, and a scraggly, chewed-up rag of a
cat. It’s enough to make anyone want to check out. And when he
holds his service pistol in his hand and presses it against his
temple, for the first time in a long time the world feels right.
But he’s not as alone as he thinks. And when grizzled bar owner Gary
challenges him to honor his sister’s memory by repairing her
houseboat before he gives up on life, he discovers she left more for
him than her belongings. And her letters lead him on a trail through
discovering himself, discovering what he truly wants…and
discovering that he has the strength to choose his own path.
The Found
Crow City #2
Witness to a murder. Kidnapped by a monster. Life hanging on a whim. Willow
Armitage’s world was already falling apart; between getting fired
and caring for her chronically ill father, she’s had little room
for anything but survival. But that survival hangs in the balance the
night she stumbles into a back alley – and watches a stranger die
at the hands of the most beautiful man she’s ever seen.
The Saved
Crow City #2.5
For it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. – Leviticus
17:11
Before he was a mysterious, silent killer stalking the streets of Crow City,
the strange man known as Priest (THE FOUND, Crow City #2) was a lost
and broken soul—and part of Willow Armitage’s world in ways she
could never have imagined. Shattered by the Afghanistan War, left
with no companions other than fellow survivor Gabriel Hart (THE LOST,
Crow City #1), ex-Marine Priest turns to his lost faith for answers
when his life has lost all meaning…but in searching for his God, he
finds a new religion. A religion of blood. Of pain.
Of vengeance.
And from that religion rises a mission to replace everything he had lost,
to set right just a few of the small wrongs in the world…and to
ease the constant bleeding of his broken heart, filled with sins
without number.
Revisit Crow City and meet Priest as he was before the fateful night that
brought him into Willow’s life…and reconnect with beloved names
and faces as we discover what—and who—set him on his dark and
merciless path.
Autumn
Crow City #2.75
There are worse things in life than loving a man who hates you.
Unfortunately, Walford Gallifrey can’t think of many.
Ever since a ghost from his past kidnapped his niece, Willow (THE FOUND,
Crow City #2), Wally’s life has been nothing but grief, turmoil,
and loss. With no idea if Willow is dead or alive, Wally’s only
comfort is in caring for his grieving brother-in-law and Willow’s
father, Joseph Armitage. For the past twenty years, Wally has never
hoped to be anything but the backdrop to Joseph’s life; between
marrying Wally’s sister and decades of mistakes building walls of
enmity and resentment between them, Joseph has been firmly cemented
in Wally’s mind as unattainable.
But the pain of Willow’s loss forces them to face the demons sleeping
between them, find common ground—and more. Together, they explore
mutual grief. Shared memories. Quiet respect. Warmth. Camaraderie.
The joy of learning to live again.
And an unspoken attraction, buried beneath the scars of hurtful words and
terrible missteps.
Yet even as they work through the thorns and tangles of old wounds,
Joseph has his own struggles to face. The struggle to leave his
ex-wife in the past. To let his daughter go. And to trust Wally to
love him, to see him as more than just his multiple sclerosis, when
so many have treated him as less than a man. The only way forward for
them both is forgiveness. Trust.
And a second chance to discover what it means, to truly be in love.
Note:
This novel, while a standalone, follows in the aftermath of the
events of THE FOUND (Crow City #2), and ties in to the events of THE
SAVED (Crow City #2.5), which detail--respectively--the events of
Willow's kidnapping and Walford’s prior relationship with her
kidnapper, Vincent Manion.
Slender. Angry. (Part) Asian.
Yeah, that about sums me up.
Hi. I’m Cole. Xen. Whatever you want to call me; both are true, and
both are lies. My pen names are multitudes, my nicknames legion.
Tall, bi/queer, introverted, author, and of a brown-ish persuasion
made up of various flavors of Black, Asian, and Native American. I’m
cuter than Hello Kitty, more bitter than the blackest coffee, and
able to trip over cats in a single half-asleep lurch; I’m what
happens when a Broody Antihero and a Manic Pixie Dream Boy fight to
the death, and someone builds a person from the scraps left behind.
Beardless, I look like the uke in every yaoi manga in existence;
bearded or not, I sound like Barry White. About half my time is spent
as a corporate writer, and the other half riding a train of WTFery
that sometimes results in a finished book. Romance, erotica, sci-fi,
horror, paranormal; LGBTQIA and cishet; diverse settings and diverse
characters from a diverse author.
Sometimes I shout about things on the internet. Usually intersectional feminism
and marginalized voices, and whomever’s punching down in those
directions today. Sometimes human sociology, the psychology of sex
and gender, and my own gender non-conforming arse (he/him, by the
way). Sometimes I get really mad at Stephen Hawking and nerd out all
over the place about hairy black holes, and believe it or not, that’s
not a terrible pun or even worse innuendo.
That’s it. I’m a huge dork. My humor’s so dry it could empty oceans. I’m
a native Southerner from the New Orleans area with zero Southern
accent; I’m a mess of multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-lingual
influences; I have two cats. I wake up at daft hours of the morning
to go running. I crochet terrible, lumpy things that never really
turn into anything. I’m older than you think I look. I’m much
more shy than my fury makes me sound (signifying gods only know what,
but probably nothing). Recently I decided, at 36, that I needed to
restart my life and move cross-country, so I tossed 75% of my
possessions in the trash and randomly trucked it to Seattle. I’m in
love with books and music and technology, and they war with each
other for dominance and sometimes come together in a beautiful
confluence. Most of the physical books I own are strange, obscure,
out of print, overseas imports, or any combination of the four. Most
of the physical books I used to own were destroyed in Hurricane
Katrina, and have been replaced with the infinite library on my Nook.
My wallet has a dangerous attraction to anything with pages; it
flirts and teases and gives its all, until there’s nothing left but
emptiness and ruin.
There will always be things you don’t know, and I won’t tell.
But ask me late at night over live music in a seedy bar, and you might
just get an honest answer.
...or you can poke me via:
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