Stories by @mudkipskip

The Mystery of the Blue Train

A royal jewel—the famous Heart of Fire diamond—vanishes from a speeding luxury train, and the theft occurs under seemingly impossible circumstances. Hercule Poirot, the world's greatest detective, boards the Blue Train to investigate, finding himself surrounded by suspects with compelling motives: a wealthy American heiress, a Russian countess, a mysterious valet, and others whose secrets run deeper than mere theft. As the train hurtles through the French countryside, Poirot must unravel a complex web of deception, blackmail, and hidden identities to recover the jewel and expose the true culprit. With his characteristic attention to psychological detail and logical deduction, Poirot navigates the confined world of the train's passengers, where no one is quite who they seem and everyone has something to hide. The case becomes a battle of wits between the detective and a criminal mind equally determined to outwit him.

The Big Four

The story begins when a dusty, terrified stranger stumbles into Poirot's bedroom and scrawls the number "4" repeatedly before collapsing. This dying clue pulls Poirot and his loyal friend, Captain Arthur Hastings, into a high-stakes global conspiracy. They learn about a ruthless criminal syndicate known as the Big Four, which aims to destroy world order and seize global economic control. The syndicate is led by four powerful masterminds: Number One is Li Chang Yen, a Chinese political mastermind; Number Two is Abe Ryland, an American millionaire; Number Three is Madame Olivier, a French scientist; and Number Four is an elusive English master of disguise known as the Destroyer. To fight this deadly quartet, Poirot fakes his own death to work in secret. He and Hastings track the villains across multiple international encounters before trapping the remaining members in an Italian mountain hideout. The cartel is ultimately destroyed in a massive explosion, allowing Poirot to emerge from hiding and restore safety.

Ask, Tell

Ask, Tell by E.J. Noyes is a contemporary military romance novel centering on Captain Sabine Fleischer, a skilled U.S. Army surgeon deployed to a combat hospital in Afghanistan. Driven and focused, Sabine faces the grueling physical and emotional toll of war, including severe sleep deprivation, constant exposure to mortality, and deep isolation. Compounding her stress is the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which forces her to hide her sexuality and serve in silence while her long-term civilian relationship back home falls apart.Amid the chaos of the medical unit, Sabine finds herself drawn to the unit's commander, Colonel Rebecca Keane. Rebecca runs the hospital with calm precision and respect, though she wears a wedding ring and remains strictly off-limits. As subtle, unspoken cues and shared glances pass between them, Sabine struggles with the intense professional and personal risks of falling for her superior officer. The novel explores the collision of duty, hidden identity, and unexpected passion under the intense pressure of a combat zone.

Falls from Grace

Nashville megastar Savannah Grace’s career is in freefall after a high-profile public divorce from her co-writer husband. Desperate to reinvent her music and find peace, she retreats to a snowy Vermont cabin with indie songwriter Noah Lyman. Brynn Marshall—a medical school dropout and "black sheep" of her family—joins them under the guise of being Noah’s wife in a reverse fake-dating scheme. ​In the secluded, quiet isolation of the woods, the world-weary superstar and the kindhearted med student find an unexpected connection. As Savannah navigates the pressures of fame and the challenges of raising her young son, Tucker, she finds a grounded companion in Brynn. Their staged arrangement slowly evolves into a profound, slow-burn romance that forces both women to confront their past traumas and insecurities. Together, they discover that falling from grace might be the only way to find their true selves and a love that feels like home

The Enchanted April

Feeling profoundly unhappy and trapped in their lives, two dissimilar London housewives—the mousey Lotty Wilkins and the pious Rose Arbuthnot—answer a newspaper advertisement to rent a small Italian castle on the Riviera for April. To afford the trip, they recruit two other solitary women: the stunning but world-weary socialite Lady Caroline Dester and the elderly, rigid Mrs. Fisher. ​The four women arrive at San Salvatore, a beautiful, sun-drenched haven promising wisteria and peace. Initially, their clashing personalities cause tension. However, the castle's enchanting, atmosphere acts as a subtle magic, forcing each woman to relax and shed her English inhibitions

The Book That Broke the World

The Library spans worlds and times. It touches and joins distant places. It is memory and future. And amid its vastness Evar Eventari both found, and lost, Livira Page. Evar has been forced to flee the library, driven before an implacable foe. Livira, trapped in a ghost world, has to recover the book she wrote—one which is the only true threat to the library’s existence—if she's to return to her life. While Evar's journey leads him outside into a world he's never seen, Livira's path will taker her deep inside her own writing, where she must wrestle with her stories in order to reclaim the volume in which they were written. The secret war that defines the library has chosen its champions and set them on the board. The time has come when they must fight for what they believe, or lose everything.