Kit Reed eBook Sale - Tor/Forge Blog

Four of Kit Reed’s suspenseful, chilling books are on sale now for $2.99! Keep an eye out for her new release Mormama coming in March.

@expectations is a fabulous work of women’s fiction by a writer who has made a career of delving deep into women’s hearts and finding the truth of their feelings and their lives. Reed’s fiction has always examined the female and familial conditions with a sharp eye, a truthful insight, and a unique style that leaves her readers breathless and wanting more.

Jenny is living a typical suburban life, one she’s no longer sure she really wants and doesn’t know how to change. When she stumbles upon an online community where people create their own lives through words, she dives in headfirst, eager for something new.

But soon Jenny becomes so far removed from her life that she can no longer even see the line between reality and fantasy; she’s even got an online lover who insists that he will leave his own family, take her away from it all, and make their virtual life a reality. Eventually Jenny will have to make a choice: return to her husband, her children, her home, her “real life”–or escape into the arms of a fantasy world that may never become truly real.

The world is in chaos: war, plague, global ecological collapse. Parents everywhere seek sanctuary for their precious children, the future of mankind. For those who are rich and powerful enough, safety can be found—for a price—at the Clothos Academy. Run by a mysterious man known only as Sarge, set in a former monastery atop a sheer cliff on a tiny island somewhere in the Mediterranean, Clothos will admit only one hundred students before it is sealed off—perhaps permanently—from the terrors outside.

But all is not as it seems. The pupils are so-called starlets best known for their empty heads and eating disorders; troublemakers one step away from incarceration; and junior royals too embarrassing to be let out in public. And the staff isn’t much better, from the alcoholic doctor to an ancient monk with secrets of his own.

And the dangers from which these castaways are being protected? Prerecorded, ready to be trotted out whenever Sarge needs to terrify his little flock. And yet…

Some dangers are real, as two boys discover when they hack the Academy’s self-contained computer network and connect, for a brief but disastrous moment, to the outside world. Worse, a stranger has entered the Academy. And he has brought Death.

The baby business is booming. Billions of dollars are spent each year on strollers, cribs, and clothing, not to mention assisted reproduction and adoption. With fertility rates dropping precipitously in the US and babies becoming ever more valuable as a combination of status symbol and perfect accessory, there’s clearly a developing market for someone like Tom Starbird. Tom is The Baby Merchant–though he’d never think of himself in such terms. In his mind, Tom creates perfect families by matching famous couples with prime–but neglected–newborns. Tom’s a master of surveillance and secret “pickups”. His small staff is extremely well-paid, especially the doctor who implants the government-required tracking chip into each infant’s developing skull.

Sasha Egan is a talented artist feeling trapped by an accidental pregnancy. Determined to place her child with a loving family, Sasha is jolted by the arrival, at her chosen home for unwed mothers, of the unborn baby’s father. Behind Gary’s insincere protestations of love, Sasha detects the hand of her powerful, wealthy grandmother. Nearly nine months pregnant, Sasha disappears, going to ground at a seedy motel.

Jake Zorn is a crusading TV journalist who has broken some of the biggest scandals of the day. His life is perfect–except that he and his rainmaker attorney wife, Maury, cannot have children. They’ve tried everything; repeated miscarriages drove Maury to a terrible act that makes adoption agencies turn them away. Tom Starbird is Jake’s last chance, but it’s too late–Tom wants out of the baby business. Jake Zorn knows more than a few hard truths about Tom Starbird, and he’s not afraid to expose them to the nation. Desperate to find a baby for the Zorns, Tom Starbird settles on Sasha Egan as the perfect supplier.

Soon Sasha’s baby will be born. And many lives will be forever altered.

In the tomorrow of Thinner Than Thou, the cult of the body has become the one true religion. The Dedicated Sisters are a religious order sworn to help anorexic, bulimic, and morbidly obese youth. Throughout the land, houses of worship have been replaced by the health clubs of the Crossed Triceps. And through hypnotically powerful evangelical infomercials, the Reverend Earl preaches the heaven of the Afterfat, where you will look like a Greek god and can eat anything you want. Just sign over your life savings and come to Sylphania, the most luxurious weight-loss spa in the world, where the Reverend himself will personally supervise your attainment of physical perfection.

But the glory of youth and thinness that America worships conceals a hidden world where teens train for the competitive eating circuit, where fat porn and obese strippers feed people’s dark desires, and where an underground railroad of rebellious religions remember when people worshipped God instead of the Afterfat.

As Annie, an anorexic, and her friend Kelly, who is so massive she can barely walk, find out, the tender promises of the Dedicated Sisters are fulfilled by forced feedings and enforced starvation in hidden prisons.

As middle-aged Jeremy discovers, Sylphania is a concentration camp where failure to lose weight and tone up leads to brutal punishment. The Rev. Earl’s public sympathy for the overweight conceals a private contempt…and, beneath that, a terrible longing known only to a select few.

The inevitable decay of old age is the only thing keeping mankind from reaching perfection. Luckily, Reverend Earl has a plan that will take care of that…

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