Free from the author via KDP Select @
Amazon (linkage for the lot):
The Shell Collector a creepy small-town happenings novella by much-published sfnal TV tie-in author Christopher Golden (
ISFDB,
Wikipedia). This was originally a chapterbook from Cemetery Dance in 2006 and there's a favourable quoted blurb review from Booklist.
It's October in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where Richie Feehan was born and raised and has lived his whole life. He's a part-time lobsterman and full-time painter who sells his art at galleries in Rockport and Newburyport. Between the two jobs he makes enough money to get by, living in an in-law apartment in the family home owned by his brother Jim. Jim runs Feehan & Sons Funeral Home, a business started by their grandfather in 1921.
All in all, despite the tension with his brother, and despite the grumbling of his friends, whose business has suffered because of a lengthy red tide and a spectacularly bad overall fishing season, Richie enjoys his life very much. He's content, and believes that's pretty much all a man can ask from his life.
That is, until a horrible mystery begins to unfold in Gloucester.
Mischief by Christopher Golden & Ford Lytle Gilmore, 3rd in their Sleepy Hollow High series of YA supernatural adventures based upon literary horror classics, for which we've previously been given the first two free upthread, originally out from small press Razorbill in 2006.
Mark Hyde’s bad temper has darkened his life with moments of violence and troubles with the law, but he’s tried very hard to put all of that behind him, tried to be a better friend and a better person. Most of the time he seems to succeed, but even Aimee and Shane Lancaster, the new kids in town, have seen what Hyde is like when things go wrong for him.
After a string of violent incidents — when Hyde gives Shane a brutal beating, or when he mouths off to the local authorities, or when he vandalizes a few lockers at the high school — even the people who care most about him begin to worry that he’s falling back on his old ways. But Hyde’s best friend Jekyll swears that there are other reasons for his behavior and that he will calm down soon enough.
When someone starts pulling dangerous pranks and causing thousands of dollars in damage and inflict grievous injury, it’s Mark Hyde that the authorities are looking for. And when the problems get worse, when the vandalism escalates to theft and the pranks lead to deaths instead of a few injuries, it’s Mark Hyde the police intend to take down for the crimes, unless Aimee and Shane can find the real culprits.
ETA: also free from the author via KDP Select @
Amazon:
Monochrome Circus by Mary Borsellino (
ISFDB), who's had a few things out from small press Drollerie, who were a previous Read an eBook Week participant before they folded, a self-explanatory short.
When young acrobats Gemma and Merry are invited to visit the mysterious Monochrome Circus, is it the start of a brand new life for them or a lethal trap?