Monkey Beach

Jack Saunders wanted one last hurrah before taking the mantle of DS Oil & Gas, the billion-dollar company that his father founded. His friend, Owen, let him borrow his mansion on a tropical island so that he could throw a final party before “marrying” the business that would dominate the rest of his life. He brought his secretary, Brandy, hoping that he could kindle a relationship that would last through the long days and nights of running a company. However, while the party was great, the gold digging woman he brought was not, and Jack resigned himself to a lifetime of loneliness. That was until he took a walk down the beach and met her. A woman who didn’t recognize him from the tabloids and only saw him, the man behind the money. Of all the women Jack had ever met, there was nobody like Emma LaRue. With one pretend marriage ceremony, she would change his life forever, and become the only one he ever wanted to give his saltwater kisses to. This novella is the first half of Saltwater Kisses written from Jack’s point-of-view, with a few bonus scenes thrown in as well.

For twins Ethel and Elise, the line between dream and nightmare was always thin—and on Paron Island, it has been completely erased. Their idyllic gap year, a sun-soaked mosaic of beach bonfires and reckless abandon, is shattered in an instant. A "project," as the panicked news reports cryptically call it, has gone horrifically wrong, releasing a pathogen that reanimates the dead with a singular, gruesome purpose: to feed. The sisters' bond, once defined by shared secrets and sibling rivalry, is now their only anchor in a world drowning in blood. Driven by a raw, primal instinct to protect each other, they join forces with a few other fortunate—or unfortunate—souls who survived the initial onslaught. Together, this makeshift family must navigate the ruins of their former paradise, where every shadow hides a potential threat and every human sound could be a lure. Ethel, the more cautious sister, finds a hidden strength in strategy, while Elise's impulsive nature becomes both a weapon and a liability. But their fight against the decaying hordes is only the surface of the terror. Whispers of a coordinated presence, of supplies that go missing too conveniently, and of strangers who seem to know too much, point to a more insidious truth: the island's collapse was not a random tragedy. They are being hunted by something that thinks, that plans, that wears a human face. As their hope for rescue dwindles, Ethel and Elise are forced to confront the ultimate horror—that in the midst of an apocalypse, the most monstrous creatures of all are still human.