Violent Hearts

Elena Zoric, a sex worker and addict, is murdered, her body concealed and left near a stream in North London. Her phone lies nearby, the last number dialled was to a former NCA Investigator, a woman who had saved her from sex trafficking: Met DI, Grace Archer. When questioned by North London police, a devastated Archer has no answer to why Elena would call her moments from her death. Archer wants to lead the investigation but its out of her catchment area and she is warned off it by her new boss, the charmless old school copper, Chief Inspector Les Fletcher.

Devon Mayes thought she was done with the small conservative town she once called home. She fled when she was eighteen after her best friend Summer took her own life, leaving Summer’s twin brother, Keaton, lost in his grief. But when tragedy strikes again, Devon has nowhere to turn but back to the place that first broke her heart. Being back in Arkana means struggling with the old guilt that shrouds her bisexuality and her feelings for Keaton. There’s so much she’s still hiding from him—and so much of their shared past that’s now resurfacing.

They call me a prodigy in the business world. Rich, powerful, and cunning. At 29 years old, I'm running an empire, built from scratch. The political realm is next. I want my voice heard and my name on the ballot. But my character credentials are lacking. I need a woman at my side, under contract. Someone with a pretty smile for the public eye, to make me look like a trustworthy, loyal man. Ann Porter is the woman I want for the job. Her heart is just as violent as mine, her mind sharp and cunning. Her body willing and begging to be broken - ready to bend at my will.

From Lewis and Clark's 1804 expedition to the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, American history has been made in St. Louis. And as Walter Johnson shows in this searing book, the city exemplifies how imperialism, racism, and capitalism have persistently entwined to corrupt the nation's past. St. Louis was a staging post for Indian removal and imperial expansion, and its wealth grew on the backs of its poor Black residents, from slavery through redlining and urban renewal.

It started that cold night spent in the woods, all those years ago. Owen and Chloe had wakened something, something inside them both. But, for a while at least, they’d thought they could live normal lives.…