Spotlight: Royal Mayhem by Samantha Jayne Grubey

Publication date: April 15th 2026

Genres: New Adult, Romance

Part one of a duet.

Melinda Brown doesn’t want much in life, graduate university and survive.

Prince Alexander has everything, surrounded be riches and spoilt to the core. Everything he’s ever wanted has been at the tip of his finger due to his prestigious status as future King of England.

Despite coming from two different worlds, they share the same university. One day everything changes when the two crash into each other’s lives, literally.

As they both enter each other’s worlds, they’re forced to make compromises for the sake of their growing attraction.

Will Melinda and Alexander be able to win people with their love, especially when it becomes clear that they both hide secrets? Or will Prince Alexander by denied for the first time by the first woman that he truly wants? Not everything is as it seems in Royal Mayhem.

Excerpt

Rolling onto my side, I was met with thin air falling to the floor letting out a groan as I hit the floor. 

How did I fall out of bed? 

I opened my eyes seeing I was in the living room. The memories of last night finally came rushing back to me. We had been binge-watching my favourite reality television show and fell asleep. 

Looking behind me, Alex was still fast asleep. He looked so peaceful. With him asleep, I had time to admire him without him knowing it. It had taken a bit for Alex to get comfortable after the incident again. I could tell he was fighting with himself. There must’ve been a huge part of him that wanted to run and hide, whilst the other part of him wanted to stay. 

What scared me the most is that I wanted to know both of those parts of him. The good, the bad, and the ugly. I wanted to know it all. I wanted to know him. 

Then, there’s the secret. 

Could I cope with not knowing what his secret was? 

It was obvious he had one, no adult had a grown babysitter without a reason. The security that had suddenly appeared around the campus, it all coincides with when Alex started at university. 

I couldn’t figure out what the reason was. 

Did he have a famous and important family? 

Was he secretly a political figure? 

Would I end up hurt?

I wanted to google him so bad. I reached for my phone, opening up the browser and stared at it. 

Could I break my promise? 

I told him I wouldn’t. 

I let out a groan, throwing my phone back on the sofa.

I stood up, made my way to the bathroom, and showered quickly. I wrap the towel around me heading to the bedroom changing into some clean clothes. My body ached so much. Sleeping on a small sofa with someone else was not the best way to sleep. 

After finishing getting ready, I made my way downstairs, Alex was still asleep on the sofa, and into the kitchen. I grabbed a can out of the fridge, opening it and taking a small sip. 

Maybe I should prepare some breakfast. 

I know Alex brought breakfast things I couldn’t believe he went shopping for me. I don’t think anyone would top what he did for me. I walked into the living room and saw he was sitting up looking confused. 

“Hey.” 

“Hi,” he said. “I was really confused about where I was then.” 

“Do you often wake up at random houses not knowing who you’re with?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“Not happened in a few years,” he admitted. “Do you have plans today?” 

I shook my head. 

“Do you want to go on that date?” 

“I’d love to.” Butterflies filled my stomach, this was my first real date. 

“Great,” he smiled. “I’m going to go home and then I’ll come pick you up” he looked at his phone “around midday if that’s alright with you?” 

“Yeah, that sounds good,” I said. He stood up, stretching his arms out. 

I made my way over to the door and let him out. “I’ll see you soon.” 

“Yes, you will. Just so you know, I had fun last night,” he said. 

“Me, too.” 

He got into his car and drove off. 

I headed into the living room, grabbing my phone. 

Megan answered straight away. “If this isn’t life or death, I’m going to fucking kill you, Melinda,” she mumbled. 

“Does Alex asking me on a date count?”

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About the Author

Samantha Jayne Grubey is an author of new adult romance. 

When she's not writing or reading, she will be playing sims or doing some diamond art and if she isn't doing any of that she could be pole dancing or most likely working. 

Connect:

https://www.samanthajaynegrubey.com/

https://www.tiktok.com/@samanthajayne_x?lang=en

https://www.instagram.com/samanthajayne_x/

https://www.facebook.com/SamanthaJayneGrubeyAuthor

https://x.com/SamanthaJayne_x

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19226582.Samantha_Jayne_Grubey

Royal Mayhem Blitz

Spotlight: Woodstake by Darin S Cape and illustrated by Felipe Kroll

Woodstake is a wickedly clever spin on the Dracula legend set during the iconic Woodstock festival of 1969. When a vampire descends on the summer of love, a generation of hippies must survive three days of peace, music and blood in this darkly funny, genre-bending thrill ride. A razor-sharp blend of satire, horror, and ‘60s nostalgia, “Woodstake” is a must-read for fans of classic rock, genre mashups, and blood-soaked fun.

Buy on Amazon | Bookshop.org

About the Author

Founded by SHAWN HAINSWORTH, SHP Comics launched in 2021 as an independent publisher aiming to deliver daring, intelligent, genre-bending comics and graphic novels. Hainsworth began his creative life as an award-winning experimental filmmaker before telling stories on the page under the pseudonym Darin S. Cape. The publisher, author and producer lives in Western Massachusetts with his wife, two kids and a hound dog mix. Learn more at shpcomics.com, and follow SHP on Facebook: @shpcomics and Instagram: @shpcomics.

Spotlight: Nocturne by Tricia D. Wagner

Publication date: April 14th 2026

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

In NOCTURNE, sixteen-year-old Livi learns the truth of who she is—a Siren, her people known only to legends. She must learn to master her powers of influence, strength, and destruction to stop a warmongering Admiral from drafting her best friends, capturing and killing her people, and decimating her homeland of Nocturne.

Excerpt

Livi stood before the tavern’s bleak threshold, its heavy door cobbled of wrecked ships.

She peered through its ragged window, quieting the wiser part of her, an inner voice calling for her to turn back. And truly, she was stunned that she’d mustered the daring to try this.

There were dozens of men here—sailors all brooding over their flagons, many looking to be harboring grudges. 

The tavern’s splintery walls were studded with trophies—toothy payaras, dry in their death throes, tacked beneath golden portraits of infamous Korps Mariner ships and their dread captains. 

The men frequenting this sand-dusted, fish-pongy tavern—The Orphic, were the sun-beaten sailors and damaged soldiers of Merritaine, mercenaries and relieved fighters who’d reached the shore of old age still breathing. 

No one dared step a toe in The Orphic unless he bore epic tales—bloody acts of acclaim on the baleful blue seas. 

Many here had killed. Some for honorable causes in noble wars, yes. But they’d killed.

For all their savagery, though, they were brave. 

Livi had heard enough stories to understand them as uniformly dauntless and skilled. If anyone could help her skip Merritaine’s coast and reach Nocturne, he’d be drinking here.

Through the brume of pipe smoke, she measured each face for hints of affability. Or at least for traces of good humor—signs that someone might consider her offer. If she could just single out one sailor more approachable than not, perhaps she could move to him unnoticed.

But that wouldn’t happen. Women scarcely set foot here, and sixteen-year-old girls certainly didn’t. 

A few of the sailors came across as jovial—but even they harbored an undercurrent of trouble in their looks, their ease striking like a gusty southerly bathing the seaside, forecasting a typhoon’s assault. 

The afternoon seemed all at once to grow late, a shaft of misted sunlight sluicing through the windows and casting the place in watery relief. 

In fixing on that panorama of ocean, Livi could almost see Nocturne’s peaks in the deep west, its moonstone shores marbled with the shadowy ash given by its volcanic chain. 

Those heights, she had to reach. For it was said that Nocturne’s high places were hived with sea caves—chambers shining with waters rumored to have healing properties. 

Some believed those springs could stave off even death.

Livi eased from her jacket a small jar of pearls, each perfect, as plump as a blueberry—these a mere sampling of the trove she’d collected. They ought to be more than enough to buy passage to Nocturne from someone here bearing the skill, and the gall, and the ship, and the time to set sail for the Isles, along with some assurance that he could ferry her through storms, over waters where lurked sharks and killer whales and squids that tore up boats, and finally beyond the dread Maelstroms.

Livi had imagined this moment many times—making her bold approach in The Orphic, striking a deal. She’d imagined that arriving at this brink would feel like the onset of her escape. 

But in finally standing here, readying to approach men alleged to be the most barbarous in Merritaine, the idea seemed beyond reckless. 

Célian, her best friend—maybe more—would be sick at the thought of her here. And truly, in darkening this threshold, she felt she was skimming the rim of the Maelstroms, those great whirlpools unceasing in their churning, twisting what strayed near straight down in a tempest, claiming ships and seafarers alike as a part of themselves. 

The bright Merrow Ocean glinting in, though, delivered some steadfastness. For at the sight of its rolling, Livi could gather a sense of what it might feel like, teaming with someone here, cruising on his scabrous ship to the treacherous west.

A man seated at the tavern’s back corner stood out a touch. 

He looked a decade younger than the rest, and he had all his limbs, which was saying something. He seemed not resentful, or affable, or angry—just somber. His solemnity made it clear that he wanted to be left to himself.

But it also lent an impression of patience. Maybe he’d listen.

She edged open the tavern’s door and crept in. She eased behind a column in the entryway and held still.

She’d have to get to the somber man quick. If she drew too much attention, the barkeep—a tall man, his eyes sharp to check all the action, his manner busy and swift with his bottles—would cast her out before she could lay down one word of her offer. 

Or worse—he’d let the men handle the disruption.

Livi stepped from the shade, into the amber light of the tavern.

Buy on Amazon | Bookshop.org

About the Author

As a young reader, writers were like gods and goddesses to now author Tricia D. Wagner. She never could have imagined weaving tales like her favorite storytellers, until a fateful April dinner conversation with her husband about a lecture he attended got her mind whirling. By the end of that summer, she’d written 400,000 words: a speculative fiction trilogy. Wagner felt as if she’d emerged from a cocoon as some new sort of creature. She was hooked.

It was important to Tricia to sharpen her skills, and she immersed herself in workshops, guides, and writing communities, learning from editors how to hone her craft. She did this for years, and the result is her newly released novella The Strider and the Regulus, two independently published novelettes, four soon-to-be published novellas, and five as yet unpublished novels. She found writing to be a method for becoming the person she felt she was born to be. Wagner finds that writing inspires her to be a better person, truer to herself. 

The ideas and substance of Tricia’s writing comes from a very deep place that is strongly stimulated by setting. Often, when she has completed a story, she feels as if she’s been to her story world, whether it’s on the map or not. She likes to believe all the places she writes about exist somewhere, somehow.

In writing her stories, Wagner was surprised and delighted to discover how real the characters become to an author; that for many writers, their characters end up as their most treasured friends. She loves to delve into them to mine their natures, secrets, and desires—to tell their stories with the legitimacy they deserve. In studying her characters, she finds she has the opportunity to shape herself, inching closer to the person she wants to become.

Wagner believes revision is magical in its power to make a good book great, and early drafts are only the beginning of a story’s journey. Any idea can wind up a good story, but with reflection and time and improvement, it can become art. Once Wagner completes a revision project, it feels miraculous how many fresh approaches have manifested and how much truer the story feels.

Wagner hopes her readers feel enchanted when they read her stories; that after completing one, it seems they’re drifting out from under a spell. This is exactly how she feels when she finishes writing a story. She hopes to that her writing might expand their minds, spirits, and worlds a bit, and she hope they fall in love with her characters and are moved by her artistry of language. 

When she isn’t writing poignant works of literary fiction, Wagner is a Director of Adult Education – ESL Programs at a community college, a job and staff that she loves. In her spare time she enjoys refining her writing craft to discover new angles and landscapes that might enrich her writing palette. One such example is a recent course she took in learning to read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, something that’s sure to end up in a story at some point. Wagner lives in Rockford, Illinois, with her husband and three darling cats.

Connect:

https://x.com/WagnerAuthor

https://www.triciawagner.com/

https://www.facebook.com/TriciaDWagnerAuthor

https://www.instagram.com/triciadwagnerauthor/

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16522263.Tricia_D_Wagner

Nocturne Blitz

Spotlight: The Counterfeit by Ralph DeFalco

In the near future, China wins the Pacific War that leaves the United States vanquished and bankrupted.

Beijing is plotting to make a puppet of the next US President, in command of a corrupt and hypocritical government that has created two Americas: one of ease, affluence, and influence; and one where people struggle to survive.

Now paroled military officers and ordinary Americans are beginning to fight back.

Their plan is to put a spy into the highest reaches of government.

Philip Nolan agrees to infiltrate the Internal Security Division--America's Gestapo--and replace his look-alike brother as the head of a vast secret police network built to intimidate, arrest, and imprison the government's critics.

Nolan risks capture, torture, and death as he works undercover to aid the rising Resistance.

This is a gripping dystopian thriller that explores the themes of loyalty, identity, and the struggle for freedom in a world where truth is a rare commodity and courage is the ultimate weapon.

Excerpt

Chapter 4

On the Streets of Chicago

Nolan put the palms of his hands on the gangway wall and let his head sag into his folded arms for a long while. He was tired, and he felt it deep down. He gathered himself and stood stiff and erect. He rolled his shoulders to ease the pain in his neck and back, then turned again to the street and walked mechanically.

His thoughts drifted to the suspension of his parole. This year, in the summer, maybe fall, he could start. At the latest, he would be ready to bicycle into Canada and seek asylum by next spring. He knew he could be ready. Then he pushed those thoughts aside. Once more he was on his guard.

Nolan lifted his head and scanned the street. Something wasn’t right. He felt as if he were being watched; not just watched but followed, and if he were being followed, he dared not make any sign that he knew it. Not until he had the advantage of position, a place he knew well enough from which to fight or run. This thug would not be another desperate parolee he could talk around.

Nolan listened behind him for the echo of footfalls and heard nothing. He searched for a patch of sun so he might see a moving shadow and saw nothing. He glanced to his left and caught a reflection in the darkened store window across the street. A hooded figure. Long, heavy coat. Hands in pockets. Tall. A man keeping to the shadows and thirty-five, forty yards behind. Quiet.

Nolan knew where he was. Two years of long rambling walks had made him familiar with every street, every intersection, every building. The next corner would take him to an alcove if he turned left. A large space once open to both crossing streets had been partially walled off. He turned left and pressed himself against the wall. He would take down the shadow man as he passed by.

Nolan slipped the knife from its hidden pocket, wrapped his fingers around the handle, and eased the blade free of his sleeve. The shadow man passed and hesitated. Nolan stepped forward. In one smooth motion he took the man from behind and spun him into the wall. Nolan shoved the full weight of his body onto his left forearm, jammed it into the man’s chest, and swiftly brought the tip of the knife up to the soft flesh of the exposed neck. The man threw back his head instinctively.

Nolan gasped.

The man’s hood had fallen away, and a thick scarf had come loose in the violence of Nolan’s attack. Now he stared at half a face. No ear, scattered tufts of hair on the seared left side of the head, a milky unseeing eye, and raw pink and white burn-scar tissue ran from the temple, down the cheek and jawline, to the throat he held at knifepoint. Nolan lowered the blade and stepped away.

The hood flew back up, and a thin, scarred hand reached for the tangled scarf.

“Too ugly to rape?” she asked in a voice that failed to hide her fear in sarcasm.

He swallowed hard and stared at her. “I’m not a rapist,” he snarled. “You were hiding. You followed me.”

She hid her ruined face with one hand and turned her good eye toward him. “You pulled a knife on me.”

He slipped the knife back into his sleeve. “Why were you following me?”

“I wasn’t,” she said through clenched teeth. “It’s not like that.”

“Then what’s it like? I might have killed you.”

She pulled the tangled scarf over the side of her face. “If you must know, you were headed the same way I go. I saw no harm in just walking behind you. Can I go now?”

She leaned back against the wall and folded her arms across her chest. “I saw—no that’s not right—I mostly heard what happened back there.”

“Back where?” Nolan demanded.

“In the gangway. I was hiding in the doorway next to it, facing the street. I heard everything you said to those two men. You were shouting. I didn’t think anybody still felt that way. Not after all that has happened, and—”

“And what?” Nolan asked. But his voice had softened. It all fit together. 

“And I thought if there were trouble, if I needed help, you… you would help me.”

Nolan stared at her. She stared back.

“It’s been so pleasant to meet you,” she finally said. “We must do this again sometime.”

Nolan shook his head. “Let’s just walk together. You said you were headed the same way. So where is that?”

“Forty East Grand,” she said. “I am in residence in the Homewood Suites.”

This excerpt is from Ralph DeFalco’s new novel, “The Counterfeit.” Reprinted with permission from Lost Coast Press.

Buy on Amazon Kindle | Hardcover | Paperback | Bookshop.org

About the Author

Ralph DeFalco is a historian, writer, and national security intelligence professional with a career that spanned five decades and five continents. Retired from a 25-year career in the rank of Captain in the U.S. Navy, he also served as a civilian intelligence professional on the Pentagon staff of the Director of Naval Intelligence. He is a distinguished graduate and former faculty member of the National Intelligence University. He graduated, with highest distinction, from the U.S. Naval War College and later served as Fleet Professor on the college’s faculty. DeFalco writes about history, world affairs, national security intelligence, strategy and policy, and geopolitics. His essays, articles, commentaries, and reviews have appeared in a variety of publications and online. His current work is online at Law & Liberty. 

When he is not writing, DeFalco will be tooling around Amelia Island, FL, in his 1976 Cadillac Eldorado convertible, or on cruise ships where he is a featured speaker presenting the maritime history of ports of call or his insights on world affairs.

Spotlight: The Analyst and the All-Star by Mel Walker

AVAILABLE IN KINDLE UNLIMITED 

She knows the stats. He knows the game. Together, they're about to rewrite the rules of love.

Daria Holloway is the baseball world’s best-kept secret. By day, she’s an overlooked analyst in a male-dominated world that refuses to hear her voice. By night, she is "The Oracle"—an anonymous blogger whose predictions are gospel to the very men who ignore her in the daylight.

Enter Isiah "Crush" Crawford, the All-Star of a rival team who is as famous for his intensity as his talent. He's complicated, private, and the one sports figure Daria knows she must stay far away from. But when his career stumbles, the cheering crowds turn into a suffocating cage. He doesn’t need a fan; he needs someone who sees beyond the superhero cape to the man beneath it.

When Daria risks her anonymity to help Isiah find his swing, a forbidden romance ignites. But as Isiah battles his demons and Daria fights for her place at the table, they realize the hardest pitch to hit isn't a fastball—it's the curveball life throws when you fall in love.

Sometimes love means stepping out of the shadows and into the spotlight.

A heart-stopping sports romance about finding your voice, ambition, recognition, breaking the rules, and finding someone who sees the real you - dreams, fears, and all.

Buy on Amazon Kindle | Paperback | Bookshop.org

Meet Mel Walker

Mel Walker is an award-winning contemporary romance author who brings a distinctive male perspective to small-town love stories. His emotionally rich narratives have earned multiple accolades, including the RRAW Man of Action Award and EMMA Award for Best Contemporary Romance. Mel was the 2023 RWA National Conference Opening Night Keynote Speaker. A native New Yorker who finds inspiration in urban cycling and Mets games, His authentic storytelling and genuine approach have earned him a devoted readership seeking romance with heart and soul.

To find out about Mel Walker’s upcoming releases sign up for his newsletter https://authormelwalker.myflodesk.com/nlsignup

To learn more about Mel Walker & his books, visit here!

Connect with Mel Walker: https://www.authormelwalker.com/newsletter 

Spotlight: The Purpose of Getting Lost by Tracy Smith

The Purpose of Getting Lost is a reflective memoir about identity, belonging, and the courage to question the life you’ve carefully built. As Tracy Smith enters midlife—navigating the end of a long marriage, children growing up, and a growing sense of disconnection—she realizes she has spent years performing for expectations rather than listening to herself.

Through solo travel across more than thirty countries, Tracy doesn’t search for reinvention or escape, but for clarity. In unfamiliar places and quiet moments in between, she begins to notice her patterns, longings, and the stories she’s lived by—some worth keeping, others ready to be released.

Told with honesty, warmth, and insight, The Purpose of Getting Lost explores what it means to stop waiting to belong and start building a sense of home from the inside out. It’s a book for anyone who has ever felt out of place, questioned who they are becoming, or sensed that getting lost might be an essential part of finding their way.

Excerpt

I was looking for something before I even had the words to know what it was I was looking for. Most of us start searching before we recognize the question driving us—the question that drives every journey. Mine was this: Where do I belong? 

It wasn’t a question I could answer from my couch in Chicago. So I went looking for answers—and found them in movement. I danced in mosh pits in Doha and sank in quicksand in the Amazon. I drank rice wine with the Hmong and laughed with strangers. I swam naked in the Caribbean and got lost in the streets of Reykjavík. 

The geography shifted, relationships rose and fell, and my body broke and healed. Through it all, belonging never announced itself—it only whispered. Not after the divorce that left me untethered, the kids who were growing up and away, or the friendships that faded when I stopped playing the part. 

For most of my life, I’d looked for belonging in other people—in marriage, in motherhood, in the opinions of friends and family who always seemed just out of reach. I bent myself into shapes I thought would make me acceptable. I smiled when I wanted to scream. I stayed when I wanted to run. 

What I’ve learned is that belonging isn’t something we wait for. It’s something we build—from the inside out.

Buy on Amazon Kindle | Paperback | Bookshop.org

About the Author

Tracy Smith, Ph.D. is a writer exploring the intersection of travel, identity, and belonging. Her work focuses on the small, often uncelebrated moments when women begin choosing themselves—sometimes quietly, sometimes far from home.

Through personal narrative and place-based storytelling, Tracy examines what happens when certainty loosens, expectations fall away, and life is allowed to remain unresolved. Her writing is less about escape and more about attention: noticing how freedom, acceptance, risk, and community take shape in everyday lives across cultures and landscapes.

She is the author of The Purpose of Getting Lost and the creator of The Geography of Connection, an ongoing project that follows these themes through travel, essays, and lived experience. Tracy’s work speaks to readers navigating reinvention, midlife change, and the courage it takes to live without a neat ending.

Connect:

Substack: https://substack.com/@tracysmithauthor

Website: https://tracysmithauthor.com/