psychedelish

An arsonist is having a heyday setting local businesses aflame, and the Vandersons, newcomers to the small resort town of Mountain Springs, Colorado, wonder if Clay Vanderson's structural engineering firm will become a target. At twenty-five, Ellie Vanderson, an insecure millennial and the youngest mom in the PTO, is desperate to win the approval of the other mothers while inconspicuously combatting her debilitating puke phobia, all for the benefit of her kindergarten son. Unable to muster anything resembling affection for her much-older husband Clay, she orchestrates an affair between him and the face-saving PTO president. To complicate matters, Ellie's grown stepson, an ex-heroin-addict and the childhood best friend she doesn't realize still has feelings for her, comes to live with her and his father, where his presence feels like a mud print on her pristine white carpet. As the arsonist's flames grow larger and the Vanderson family unravels, their origins become a topic of interest among the backstabbing PTO moms. Lana Clark, Ellie's frenemy-turned- nemesis, hires a local PI to dig up the Vandersons' buried secrets and discover who's behind the crimes that are ripping apart the fabric of the community, implicating Ellie's stepson in the process. The Vandersons scramble to figure out how to control their narrative, fearful of another ruined reputation in the town they hope to make their forever home, and even more fearful of the criminal who haunts their steps. This a domestic suspense novel / mommy drama of trainwreck proportions, a BIG LITTLE LIES meets LITTLE CHILDREN starring new neighbors with secrets to hide in a town with a reason to investigate.…

psychedelish

MILKED follows a group of lower-middle-class millennial-aged college students--two sugar-babies and a porn star--as they navigate rising college expenses and campus life in Phoenix, Arizona, surrounded by sex, drugs, and trauma. A modern-day, sympathetic THE RULES OF ATTRACTION meets EUPHORIA/SKINS. ***College loans and interest rates have been raised again, and Skylar, Meg, and Loren are just trying to stay afloat. While Skylar and her roommate Meg have joined a website that pairs struggling students with sugar-daddies for the purpose of "companionship," Loren lives a double-life: gay porn star on the weekend, closeted bisexual during the week. Skylar, whose traumatic past has resulted in extreme levels of attachment avoidance, battles her developing feelings for her companion, and must come face to face with her own worst enemy: herself. Meg, a fourth-generation immigrant who desires to one day be as wealthy as her companion, finds herself compelled to say yes to all of his requests after he pays for her entire semester of college. Loren, whose fame is rapidly rising, experiences increasing difficulty keeping his identities separate, and when he is recognized as a porn star on campus, he is caught up in a blackmailing scheme that he can't escape. As these three students' entangled lives deteriorate around them, they cling to their beliefs that the American Dream will prevail and that acquiring their college degrees won't bankrupt them of everything, including their personal morals, their dreams of brighter futures, and their sense of hope. This book explores the place where hookup, porn, and rape cultures meet: a place where intimacy feels foreign, where sex is commodified, and where power structures leave little room for equality in bed. Content/trigger warnings: this books contains depictions of sexual assault and rape, as well as alcohol and drug use and abuse. Discretion advised.…

psychedelish

More than a decade after Order 66, Darth Vader remains completely disassociated from Anakin Skywalker, yet he is suddenly plagued with Anakin's memories of an old combatant: former-Darth Maul. Upon learning that Darth Sidious has allowed Maul to stay alive despite having had multiple opportunities to kill him, Vader suspects that the manipulative Sith Master might intend to replace him with his former apprentice. On Coruscant, he concocts a plan to take preventative action.Meanwhile, on Dathomir, Qi'ra trains for combat. After killing her former master, deceiving Han Solo, and becoming both an apprentice to the fearsome Maul and the public figurehead of the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate, she struggles to accept the choices she's made and the motivations behind them. While Maul is pleased with Qi'ra's training progress and with the thriving of Crimson Dawn, he grows impatient with the lack of progress of his ultimate revenge plot. He's no closer to locating Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he knows he'll never be able to take down the Sith without another force-wielder, for Qi'ra, despite her many talents, cannot manipulate the force and has little hope of besting Sidious, Vader, or any of their inquisitors. When Qi'ra discovers an untrained force-wielder, a female human trapped on a the tourist-destination planet Niamos, she decides to deliver the woman right into Maul's hands. With another force-wielder by his side, along with Qi'ra, Maul concocts a plan to finally take down the Sith. First order of business: eliminating Darth Sidious's pet, the much-feared Lord Vader...**This book intends to bridge the events of Maul's story in Solo: A Star Wars Story with those of Star Wars Rebels, using mostly Canon content but also some Legends content that could still feasibly fit into the Canon timeline.…

psychedelish

For her senior project, Dallas Delaney starts Girls Shit Too, a series of vlogs inspiring girls to ditch the constraints of femininity and adopt the perks of masculinity. That's when another girl in her English class, Adree, uses her own online platform to accuse Dallas of unfairly condemning femininity and all that's great about it. Since Dallas plans to use her vlogging efforts to win a college scholarship, she stands her ground against Adree, and their online feud goes viral. Then the principal discovers Girls Shit Too originated at his high school, where vulgar language and inappropriate actions are prohibited. He tells Dallas to terminate the project and start acting like a lady...or face expulsion.Although Dallas has been trying to win her fight against Adree, she begins to wonder if the two of them should join forces to combat the sexism of the world. But her heart tells her she wants to do more than just join forces with Adree. With college on the horizon, finding a scholarship should be more important than finding a girlfriend.…

psychedelish

Izzy Belvin, a famous genetic engineer, is about to blast off to the "final" frontier to join the second Martian Colony, where she'll continue creating nutrient-robust insects for farms that will feed the colony and increase its sustainability. For Izzy's remaining days on Earth, her psychopharmacologist best friend, Nakomi, begs her to complete a bucket list before leaving as a means of honoring their friendship. The first bucket list item: going to one of Portland's psychedelic centers together and taking Vivectica ™, a potent psychedelic drug (synthesized by none other than Nakomi) that has become a popular form psyche-therapy. Izzy reluctantly agrees, and when she encounters a hyper-intelligent reptilian entity on her trip, she can't convince herself that he wasn't real. The days are ticking down until her trip, but Izzy, becoming obsessed with the creature, can't get over her feelings that either 1) she's given herself drug-induced psychosis right before her journey to the red planet, or 2) there's something out there, something beyond space...This novel is a wacky trip with some sprinklings of HORTON HEARS A WHO and ANT-MAN, along with lots of palatable metaphysics. ***This is my entry for the 2022 Open Novella Contest.…