Oddities KJB

When three children in a Catholic group home are brutally murdered, the survivors are hurried into separate foster homes across Long Island. Robin Hills, a fifteen-year-old who has spent the past several years under religious care, is thrust into a new, dysfunctional family with no spiritual beliefs. No longer protected by the religion and the nun she had come to love, Robin is completely alone and enveloped in fear. As the murders continue and Robin fears she may become the next victim, her faith increasingly falters. However, she finds solace in a budding friendship with Dennis, a boy her age living in her new foster home. Dennis’s kindness, his acceptance of Robin, and his bravery in the face of evil—born of his passion for horror movies— combine to reassure her that she’ll survive the killings. Armed with this new friendship and fueled by a rage she finally discovers within herself, Robin finds the courage and self-reliance to confront the darkest aspects of human depravity.

Terminally diagnosed with Huntington’s disease as a child, Kade gave up on living a productive existence. He spent most of his time preparing for the Primal Age, even though he knew the end of the world wouldn’t happen in his shortened lifetime.

In Kade’s twenties, the United States is being ravaged by the Feline Flu. After the Flu hits pandemic levels, a vaccine is released to the public. Viewed as the last chance to stop the virus, over ninety percent of the population receives the vaccine within a single day.

The vaccine takes on a life of its own and deprives the recipients of their higher functions, leaving them with only their primal urges. These bloodthirsty monsters become known as foamers because of the red foam that forms around their mouths when they hunt.

As the world as he knows it descends into the Primal Age, Kade finds that he is not only useful, but is expected to lead other survivors. His group is constantly assaulted by foamers and a warmongering paramilitary unit. In an unrelenting fight for their lives, his group is forced to redefine humanity in a world without law.

The first in a young adult series from ODDITIES KJB

THE KALEIDOSCOPE SISTERS is the first novel in a young adult series hinging on the indomitable spirit of young women. It centers on fifteen-year-old Quinn and her younger sister, Riley, who is dying from a degenerative heart defect. As the novel opens, Riley is weeks away from her seventh birthday, and her decline is obvious. Years in and out of hospitals has left the family with no support system, but Quinn is determined to save her younger sister. In her quest, Quinn discovers a portal to another realm peppered with characters based in history, all of who appeared mysteriously. Aiding Quinn throughout her journey in the Other Realm is Meelie. Quinn learns that a new heart for Riley can be harvested in the Other Realm, but not without sacrifice. While Meelie helps Quinn come to terms with an impossible decision, Quinn uncovers the truth about Meelie’s disappearance and why she never returned home. The book chronicles Quinn’s journey, focusing on the inevitability of loss and the realization that no matter what Quinn decides, her mother must lose one of her daughters.

Kade and his group of survivors find out the hard way that the end of the world is more populated than they had previously assumed. When two of his friends are captured by a former National Guard detachment in DC, Kade is forced to turn to his greatest enemy for help. But help comes at a price as seeds of distrust are sown through the group, breaking some of the strongest bonds in the family dynamic and threatening to tear the group apart. With new external threats and internal jealousy—not to mention the growing pack of foamers living on the group’s doorstep—the question becomes not just will anyone survive without scars, but will anyone survive at all?

The page-turning sequel to the Amazon #1 best-selling thriller FOAMERS, STRAYS will leave you questioning everything you think you know about surviving in the modern world.

Forthcoming from ODDITIES KJB

It’s the summer of the drought, but thirteen year-old Peter “Nemo” Grady has bigger problems on his mind than the weather. He hates his new home in the exclusive golf club community Willow Creek Landing. His parents are always fighting and he can’t escape the memory of his last seizure – when he flopped around the gymnasium floor like a fish out of water – earning him his dreaded nickname. To top it all off, Peter has no friends but receives plenty of unsolicited attention from Chipper, the boy scout super-bully who also happens to be a resident of Willow Creek. His only companion is his little sister, CJ, who thinks she is Wonder Woman.

Peter is all too aware that you don’t need rain in the forecast to have dark clouds overhead.

Things change when he meets his new neighbor, the mysterious Joshua, who predicts the drought will end with a storm of biblical proportions. Peter looks to his visiting wheelchair-bound Uncle Herb and neighbors, Mr. James and Mr. Terry, for guidance as Josh prepares for imminent doom. With each passing day, Peter realizes that sooner or later he will have to rely on the strength of the lamest, most jelly-weak individual he knows – himself.

Two fourteen-year-old runaways hell-bent on reaching California end up aboard the Tamzene, a mysterious riverboat that runs on alternative fuel. Piloted by the enigmatic Dr. Seabrook, the Tamzene travels the waterways of a bizarre, fun-house image of the US. This is a satire that questions the sanity of our basic principles, as Gulliver’s Travels did for eighteenth-century England.