August 7th, 2026
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On Top Shelf
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Fresh Fiction for August Is Here

Cowboys, castles, and shiftersβ€”this month has it all.

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Hotter than a Tuscan summer.


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Some promises cost you the one you love.


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Only she can pull him back from the darkness.


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One golden retriever knows this is love.


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Trust is the fiercest transformation of all.


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From Himalayan stargazing to the London Blitzβ€”one love endures.

Running on Empty by C. J. Darlington

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Also by C. J. Darlington:

Running on Empty, December 2015
Paperback / e-Book
Ties That Bind, May 2013
e-Book
Thicker Than Blood, January 2010
Paperback

RUNNING ON EMPTY
By: C. J. Darlington

Thicker than Blood #4
Mountainview Books, LLC
December 2015
On Sale: December 8, 2015
Featuring: Del Mangini; Callie; Natalie
ISBN: 1941291287
EAN: 9781941291283
Kindle: B01959QOF6
Paperback / e-Book
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Fiction

When you’re running on empty, sometimes you do things you later regret.

Del Mangini is a lonely, down-on-her-luck young woman who can barely afford her next meal. When a private investigator blindsides her with the revelation that she was adopted and has a birth mother named Natalie he is looking for, she doesn’t know whether to believe him. How could her parents, who died heroes when she was a teenager, have kept this vital piece of her identity from her?

Then eight-year-old Callie shows up on her doorstep claiming to be her half sister. She can’t bring herself to turn the girl away, yet how can she possibly provide for a kid when she’s already three months behind on her rent?

Del and Callie soon find themselves living out of a car in the small town of Elk Valley, Colorado. Who can they trust, and why is someone following them? The only person who might have answers is the one woman they can’t findβ€”their mother. But secrets, lies, and a political machine could destroy them before they discover the truth about their mother’s past and their own future.

Running on Empty is Book #4 in the Thicker than Blood series. All books stand alone entirely and can be read independently of each other, but for the best reading experience, we suggest reading them in order:

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