Henry Carter Hull

A wrong number from a sultry-voiced siren takes an unexpected turn. A grieving young couple discover a strange inhabitant in their spare room. An orphaned boy discovers not all wishes should come true. And unsuspecting souls face the terrible and mysterious powers of the Universe. Together, this Devil's Dozen anthology promises not just tingles down the spine and a touch of magic, but the mysteries and wonders hidden in the corners of our lives.

Far in the future, 60,000 light-years from Earth, a loose confederacy of Terran exiles is locked in battle with the enigmatic Protoss and the ruthless Zerg Swarm. Each species struggles to ensure its own survival among the stars in a war that will herald the beginning of mankind's greatest chapter-or foretell its violent, bloody end. Danny Liberty was a good reporter…too good. When his investigations struck too close to the heart of the corrupt...

Karen Whitaker promised herself she'd never trust another man. So when a castaway shows up at her island hotel claiming to be a hotshot billionaire, she's not falling for it. She's caught off guard by his good looks, muscular build, and natural charm, but with no way to pay, he'll have to work for his room & board. When billionaire businessman Mike Collins set out to buy a piece of paradise, he never dreamed a storm would leave him shipwrecked on...

"The Lion's Skin" is a romp through the upper classes during a time of political turmoil. Justin Caryll is the illegitimate son of the Earl of Ostermore who has been raised in France by a friend of his mother's, Sir Richard Everard. Caryll is honorable, intelligent, educated, well-bred, loyal...in short, the typical, "perfect" Sabatini hero. Lord Ostermore is self-centered and cowardly, but not the main antagonist. That is left to his son, Viscount...

Excerpt: "Casey Ryan, hunched behind the wheel of a large, dark blue touring car with a kinked front fender and the glass gone from the left headlight, slid out from the halted traffic, shied sharply away from a hysterically clanging street car, crossed the path of a huge red truck coming in from his right, missed it with two inches to spare and was halfway down the block before the traffic officer overtook him. The traffic officer was Irish too,...

We have two cowboys who have gone to the gold fields and had the good fortune to make a bundle from their mine. Dade Hunter is the quieter, steady one; Jack Allen is the firebrand who is always getting into trouble. They decide to spend the winter in a very young and raw San Francisco. Jack loves the gambling life there, but Dade gets tired of it all pretty quickly and rides out exploring, ending up in Palo Alto, where he makes friends with Don Andres,...

This is an interesting twist on a Western, where an author returns to the land where he was born to get some "local flavor" for his novels. He gets much more than he expected, going on long trail rides and nearly freezing the end of his nose off in the winter shacks. Something-it couldn't possibly be the beautiful Mona-could it?-keeps him on the range all year. (Goodreads)

The People of the Black Circle is one of the original novellas about Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in Weird Tales magazine in three parts over the September, October and November 1934 issues. Howard earned $250 for the publication of this story. It's set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan kidnapping an exotic princess from Vendhya (prehistoric India), while foiling a nefarious...

The Tavern Knight is set in the age of Cromwell and the conflict features in the story. The protagonist is a debauched man, living without much care for ethics or honor - he's living just for revenge that he doubts he'll ever get. Then, opportunity presents itself. He begins to make decisions that will result in his long desired revenge, but he'll have to burn some folks to do it. And, the remnant of his sense of ethics reawakens. It is interesting...

In Thorne Manor there is one locked door. Behind it lies a portal to the twenty-first century, and nothing is going to stop Miranda Hastings from stepping through. After all, she is a Victorian writer of risqué pirate adventures—traveling to the future would be the greatest adventure of them all.

 

When Miranda goes through, though, she lands in Georgian England…and in the path of Nicolas Dupuis, a privateer

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