If you could speak to the dead, what would you say?

A story of mystery, power, and the paranormal

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On the dark streets of Chicago, dark spiritual energy is growing and Turning ghosts faster than ever before. Can a homicide detective and her ghost partner team up to rid the city of the emerging menace?

For a special sneak preview, click “Start Chapter 1” to begin reading Burner – the thrilling first novel in The Affinity Series.

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A World Where the Dead Don’t Always Leave

Mediums are the gateways to the afterlife

Homicide detective Kim Phillips isn’t like the other officers of the Chicago Police Department. She’s quiet, isolated, and she can speak with the dead. Born with the ability to see into and interact with the afterlife, she is a Burner: a person tasked with hunting down dangerous spirits and sending them to the other side.

Kim, Priya, and Cross from Burner - Book One of the Affinity Series

When Kim exorcises the ghost of a young girl, she’s dragged into a new and unsettling case, one where people like Kim are being killed. The only problem? There’s no connection between the victims, and no proof that they were murdered in the first place. Kim has to catch the killer before he finds his last victim and unleashes an unknown evil on the world.

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Read & Explore the Book – Free

We want you to step into the exciting world of Mediums in Chicago and are giving you the opportunity to do so for free. Click now to read the beginning of Burner – the first book in the Affinity Series from author J.S. Lenore.

The Affinity Series

Burner - Book One

Homicide detective Kim Phillips isn’t like the other officers of the Chicago P.D. She’s quiet, isolated, and she can speak with the dead. Born with the ability to see into and interact with the afterlife, she is a Burner: a person tasked with hunting down dangerous spirits and sending them to the other side.

When Kim exorcises the ghost of a young girl, she’s dragged into a new and unsettling case, one where people like Kim are being killed. The only problem? There’s no connection between the victims, and no proof that they were murdered in the first place. Kim has to catch the killer before he finds his last victim and unleashes an unknown evil on the world.

Burner, the first book in the Affinity Series, is a dark exploration of how life and death are only separated by a single breath and how even those with power can be powerless.

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Reader - Book 2 of the Affinity Series

Reader - Book Two

Warning! Minor spoilers below if you have not read Burner!

After nearly dying at the hands of an uncontrollable ghost, Detective Kim Phillips is finally back to work with the Chicago Police Department. Sure, she’s shackled to a desk, sifting through cold cases, but it’s better than being stuck in her apartment.

It lets her focus on something other than her unreliable powers, the sudden influx of Turned ghosts in the Windy City, and the continuing tension between her and her old partner, Detective Riley Cross.

That all changes when she finds the case file of a missing girl and is sucked into a vision from thirty years ago. Caught between the present and the past, Kim struggles to find answers about the case and herself. Can Kim solve the mystery of her changing powers and find the girl, or will her grasp on her powers and the investigation spiral out of control?

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Healer - The Affinity Series Book 3

Healer - Book Three

Warning! Minor spoilers below if you have not read Burner or Reader!

After solving one of Chicago’s coldest cases, Homicide Detective Kim Phillips is back on the murder beat when she’s assigned a double homicide. The two unidentified victims are found in an abandoned home, surrounded by blood and a dark energy that seems to be invading Chicago.

Meanwhile, Detective Riley Cross’s burgeoning powers continue to confuse and fascinate Kim. Combined with the simmering attraction between the two of them, he’s just another problem she can’t seem to figure out.

Torn between solving the murders or the supernatural mystery, Kim has to use all of her skills — Mundane and Medium — to find the killer and stop the afterlife from invading.

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Speaker - Book Four

Warning! Minor spoilers below if you have not read this far!

After months of dancing around each other, Detectives Kim Phillips and Riley Cross have finally become something more than partners. But before the afterglow has time to wear off, they're thrust into a vicious murder case where a confidential informant has been killed to keep a dirty cop's identity secret.

Tasked with finding the killer without giving away their investigation, Kim and Riley dig into the underbelly of Chicago, all while Riley struggles with his new powers and Kim tries to find answers about her own abilities.

But when another body is discovered, everything comes crumbling down around them. Now it's up to Riley and Priya to save a powerless Kim from the grips of a Turned ghost and the biggest challenge they've ever faced.

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Keeper - Book Five

Warning! Minor spoilers below if you have not read this far!

After being dragged from the wreckage of a collapsed building, only to be faced with the realization that something is seriously wrong with Riley, Kim Phillips - homicide detective and Medium - is forced to confront a looming disaster she barely understands.

With Riley growing weaker and Priya seemingly Turning, it's up to Kim to save them both and, maybe, save Chicago at the same time. In the exciting conclusion of The Affinity Series, join Kim as she tackles her greatest challenge yet.

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Meet the Characters

Kim Phillips

I think I get along better with ghosts than I do with living people, sometimes. Ghosts, at least, I can tune out. Drop out of Second-Sight, and they're gone, or at least the quiet ones are. People, though, they're harder to avoid. Doesn't mean I don't like them, just that they're complicated. Messy.

Being a cop makes it a little easier. There are expectations for police. To protect and serve, right? I know what people are going to ask of me, what they need me to do. And that's to catch bad guys, to find killers and lock them up. I'm good at it. My case closure rate is consistently high, I get most of my paperwork in on time, and I get along fairly well with the rest of the department.

And when I'm not working a case, I hunt down ghosts that are Turning, and I Burn them into the afterlife. Sure, there are other Mediums out there, other Burners, but I feel like I need to do my part. I've been given a gift. A difficult and sometimes burdensome one, sure, but a gift nonetheless. And if I can stop a ghost from tearing a place up or burning it down, then I've paid that gift back, at least a little.

Doesn't leave me much time for a social life, but that's overrated. I've got Priya, I've got my work. What else do I need?

Priya Rachamalla

It's been a long time since I was alive. Nearly as long as I was alive, now that I stop and think about it. But that's okay. Everyone dies, even Mediums. As a bonded partner, I've been given a second chance. I strengthen Kim, bolster her powers, and she stops me from losing my humanity, from Turning. It's a partnership, an equal exchange between the two of us. I should know. I nearly Turned, once. All I remember is darkness and an unrelenting anger that nearly drove me to murder.

But then came Kim, and an offer to become her partner. She saved me. And now, I do what I can to save her.

No matter what the cost.

Riley Cross

I don't know, Phillips is okay, I guess? We worked together before. She's a little messy, a little unorganized, but she gets shit done. She works hard, cares an awful hell of a lot. So yeah, she's a good cop.

Now that Medium stuff? I've never really gotten it, you know? I'm completely Mundane, no connection to the afterlife whatsoever, so it's all been kind of, I don't know, like a card trick to me. Some people can do it, it looks cool, but it's not real. With murder investigations, you need something real to catch killers. It takes elbow grease, putting shoe leather to pavement. Solid evidence, not someone walking in, talking about mystic energies and ghosts and bullshit.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Phillips is like that. She's got her head on straight, does the hard work and uses that mystical crap. It just makes her a little weird, is all.

J.S. Lenore is an emerging author in the fantasy genre

From an early age, J.S. Lenore has always been passionate about books and storytelling, but it wasn’t until high school that she started writing her own stories. Starting with fan fiction, Lenore found some minor success writing under the handle p1013. Burner, the first book in the Affinity Series, is her first foray into novel-length fiction. Set in Chicago, where Lenore was born and raised, it’s a dark tale about life and death, the ways that people define themselves, and how our histories can impact our futures.

J.S. Lenore now lives in Indianapolis with her husband, two children, two cats, and zero ghosts.

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