I always imagined Death's final kiss would be cold. It wasn't. Four years later, I can still remember the exact shade of his skin: a blue so pale it looked like moonlight. I dream of his touch. Mostly, I paint the man under the heavy cowl, including those perfect lips which ruined mine for anyone else. I'm obsessed with him. The doctors say he's nothing more than a hallucination caused by a mixture of head trauma and emergency pain medications. I think he's a really sexy figment of my imagination. I mean, who besides an artist would dream up the Grim Reaper for their hero?Now, something's changed and my drawings are taking on a life of their own. As if college wasn't hard enough, trying to keep this a secret is going to be impossible. Keeping my sanity might be worse. And that's not the worst of my problems.Death is back. He wants another kiss.And he's not alone.The Kiss of Death is a 156,000 word, full-length novel with NO cliffhanger ending. This is a Reverse Harem series which includes multiple love interests, some m/m themes, and graphic scenes of sex, violence, and language. Be warned: everything you thought you knew about the world, religion, and death will be pulled apart, twisted around, and put back together in ways you will not expect.

Disease is a social issue, not just a medical issue. Using examples of specific legends and rumors, The Kiss of Death explores the beliefs and practices that permeate notions of contagion and contamination. Author Andrea Kitta offers new insight into the nature of vernacular conceptions of health and sickness and how medical and scientific institutions can use cultural literacy to better meet their communities’ needs. Using ethnographic, media, and narrative analysis, this book explores the vernacular explanatory models used in decisions concerning contagion to better understand the real fears, risks, concerns, and doubts of the public. Kitta explores immigration and patient zero, zombies and vampires, Slender Man, HPV, and the kiss of death legend, as well as systematic racism, homophobia, and misogyny in North American culture, to examine the nature of contagion and contamination. Conversations about health and risk cannot take place without considering positionality and intersectionality. In The Kiss of Death, Kitta isolates areas that require better communication and greater cultural sensitivity in the handling of infectious disease, public health, and other health-related disciplines and industries.

Chagas' disease has become one of the major public-health problems in Latin America. Current estimates are that sixteen to eighteen million people are infected. It is caused by a flagellate protozoan whose vector is the triatomine or vinchuca bug, locally referred to as the "kissing bug" because of its tendency to lodge on victims' faces during sleep. Although there is no cure for the chronic stage, the disease vectors can be controlled and possibly eliminated through improved hygiene and living conditions. No longer exclusive to Latin America, Chagas' disease is spreading to North America with the migration of infected bugs, hosts, transfusions, transplant organs, and changes in climate. The Kiss of Death is a thorough study of Chagas' disease with analysis of research involving epidemiology, entomology, parasitology, pathology, and immunology.

On a school trip to the plague village of Eyam, Seth is moved by the story of how villagers sacrificed their lives to the dreaded Black Death. Kim and Wes are more interested in what they see at the bottom of the wishing well - money! But when they snatch the coins they also pick up something they hadn't bargained on, and as the hideous consequences of their theft catch up with them all, Seth is forced to face a terrifying truth. Has Eyam's plague-ridden past resurfaced to seek revenge? Historical facts blend with ghosts and ancient curses in the latest offering from acclaimed thriller-writer Malcolm Rose. Ages 10+

While on a school trip to Edinburgh, Scotland, sixteen-year-old Scarlett is reunited with Callum McAndrew, as well as her former St. Tabby's cohorts, providing plenty of suspects when she is targeted in a series of attacks.

Obsessional sexual desire is the common thread running through the stories in this book - tragic examples of how death can come at the hands of a once-trusted lover.

View our feature on Suzanne McLeod's The Cold Kiss of Death. When sidhe-blooded Genny Taylor's friend is murdered and all evidence points to her, she goes on the run. But she's being pursued by some of the most powerful supernaturals in town-and one of them is most certainly the killer.

In the wake of a failed attempt to defeat the vampire Richelieu, Susan and her friends are weakened and divided, but they soon discover that the secrets of the present will only be revealed by solving the mysteries of the past.

The next shot from Cupid's bow may be fatal in USA Today bestselling, Agatha Award-winning author Ellen Byron's hearty and delightful seventh Cajun Country mystery. In Pelican, Louisiana, Valentine's Day has a way of warming the heart, despite the February chill. But the air at Crozat Plantation B&B turns decidedly frigid when celebrity chef Phillippe Chanson checks in. And when the arrogant Phillippe--in town to open his newest Cajun-themed restaurant--perishes in a fiery boat crash, Maggie Crozat's dear friend JJ lands in very cold water. Did JJ, proprietor of Junie's Oyster Bar and Dance Hall, murder Phillippe because he feared the competition? Might Maggie's mother, Ninette, have bumped off the chef for stealing one of her cherished recipes? Or was the culprit a local seafood vendor, miffed because Phillippe was somehow able to sell oysters for a remarkably reasonable price, despite an oyster shortage? Maggie had planned to devote her February to art lessons in New Orleans, a present from her sweetheart, Bo. But now she has to focus on helping her friend and her mother cross a murder charge off the menu. Meanwhile, Maggie receives a series of anonymous gifts that begin as charming but grow increasingly disturbing. Does Maggie have an admirer--or a stalker? And are these mysterious gifts somehow related to Phillippe's murder? Blood may be thicker than water, but this case is thicker than gumbo. And solving it will determine whether Maggie gets hearts and roses--or hearse and lilies--this Valentine's Day.

An original interpretation of the timelessly fascinating vampire myth, and a story of father and son, by award-winning author Marcus Sedgwick. Winner of the Booktrust Teenage Prize and shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. In the bitter cold of an unrelenting winter, Tomas and his son, Peter, arrive in Chust. Despite the villagers' lack of hospitality, they settle there as woodcutters. But there are many things Peter does not understand. Why does Tomas dig a channel of fast-flowing waters around their hut so they live on an isolated island? Why does Tomas carry a long battered box everywhere they go - and refuse to tell Peter of its contents? When a band of gypsies comes to the village, Peter's drab existence is turned upside down. He is infatuated by the beautiful gypsy princess, Sofia, and intoxicated by her community's love of life. He even becomes drawn into their deadly quest - for these travellers are Vampire Slayers, and Chust is a community to which the dead return to wreak revenge on the living. Stylishly written and set in the forbidding and remote landscapes of the 17th century, this is a story of a father and his son, of loss, redemption and resolution.