Diego's Brooklyn by Adrian Del Valle (49 Reviews)    Price verified 4 hours ago

Joe Barnes' home is a 9X12 room on a quiet tree-lined street near Downtown Brooklyn. He borrowed $10,000 from the Irish Mob in "Hell's Kitchen", a lot of money in 1961. The first payment is well over due. He's late by three months and now they want it all back. That's why he's hiding out across the river with no plans of going back to Manhattan. Joe is biding his time while he waits for a good tip on a fast horse at the Trotters. He still has all of the money he borrowed and believes he has hidden it well. Below, in a two room, first floor flat, 14 year old Diego lives with Ana, his handicapped mother. Money is hard to come by. A welfare check barely puts food on the table, so the boy hustles the streets to buy milk, bread, or anything else they need. He befriends Bill Jackson, an elderly black southerner from the Carolinas who lives one block over on Bergen Street with Beulah, his warm hearted, matronly wife. Though not on welfare, they scrape by on the little they get from Social Security, and lately, they have come up short for the electric bill. "And old Geezer the cat needs to eat, too. Momma been feedin' him scraps, but thems cats got to have their meat." Diego shows the older man how to fish for spare change in the subway gratings of the Lexington Avenue line. To earn more money, they deliver groceries in a modified baby carriage, but the venture fails from the start. "So you think this business went on belly up like a shot up gator?" says Bill. "Now, don't go selling your cow to buy a mule." 'Though streetwise and school-smart, nothing prepares Diego for what lie ahead when the Irish mob finally finds Joe Barnes. The once, quiet building is thrown into turmoil as it becomes witness to intimidation and murder. And the cops are of no help, either. One of their own wants that money, and he's willing to kill for it.

Genre: Humor & Satire

Dreams from the Slumber Yard by Christopher Mertic Lewis (Hovering Giraffe Press) (33 Reviews)    Price verified 5 hours ago

Richard Blake runs The Slumber Yard, a struggling mattress store in small town strip mall. A bitter, misanthropic recluse with no friends or family to speak of, Richard whiles away his boring, monotonous life by tormenting customers and producing a series of low budget TV commercials. Determined to make a change and find meaning in his life, Richard meets a beautiful young woman named Kathy. He quickly falls in love, but after a lifetime alone, Richard doesn't know how to reconcile his own anger and self-loathing with his newfound affection for another person. At times dark and funny, sweet and unsettling, Richard's story is one of love, selfishness, fame, humiliation, and the kind of excitement that can only be found in reasonably priced furniture.

Genre: Humor & Satire

God Plays Favorites by Charlie Carillo (203 Reviews)    Price verified 6 hours ago

An Ivy League graduate who grew up on Park Avenue takes his first job at the most sensational tabloid newspaper in New York City - and soon finds himself writing promotional stories about a cash giveaway contest intended to keep the paper alive! Jack Stone is not your everyday reporter, and his real education doesn't begin in earnest until he hooks up with streetwise photographer Vinnie Corcora to do stories about the contest winners - a cast of characters who bring new meaning to "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." It's a wild ride that defies expectations and stereotypes, and along the way Jack earns a Ph.D in the human condition - while learning the true meaning of love, loyalty and friendship.

Genre: Humor & Satire

When She Was Bad (Barclay & MacDonald Book 1) by Neil Bailey (Dexter & Kirby Press) (110 Reviews)    Price verified 10 hours ago

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 'WRITE HERE RIGHT NOW' PRIZE JUST HOW FAR WAS TOO FAR? Life was passing 25-year-old Claire MacDonald by. Okay, so she had a steady office job (but paying barely minimum wage), a too-perfect steady boyfriend (a 'keeper', as Mum constantly reminded her) and a roof over her head (albeit in Deptford), but surely there had to be more in life for her than that? Then she found a bag, an expensive Prada rucksack abandoned at Waterloo station. She couldn't believe her luck. Not just expensive but ridiculously so, a little ray of luxury on that cold winter morning. And she'd been looking for a new bag and the overdraft was growing out of control. So she took it. And, once she'd met the bag's owner, the enigmatic Barclay, Claire's predictable, routine life became more thrilling and deadly than she had ever dreamed it could be as she embarked on a career as the getaway driver for a man seemingly out of control.

Genre: Humor & Satire