Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Sapphires in Snow Book Blast

 


Title: Sapphires in Snow
Author: Amy Schisler
Publisher: Chesapeake Sunrise Publishing
Pages: 406
Genre: Sweet Romance/Cozy Mystery
 
The little white house on Main Street in Buffalo Springs, Arkansas, is the only home Jackson Nelson has ever known. With college behind him and both his sisters back in town to look after their aging parents, Jackson knows now is the time to make his big move. All he’s ever wanted is to move to New York and lead the high-stakes life of a real estate investor. He’s determined to leave town right after Christmas and never look back. 
Cindy Kline has never had a real home or a real Christmas. Abandoned by her father and raised by an unfit mother, Cindy thought she had finally found the family she always wanted when the man of her dreams asked her to marry him; but when his Navy SEAL helicopter went down in a fiery crash before their wedding, Cindy had nothing left to keep her in sunny California. Packing her meager belongings into her old, beat-up car, Cindy drives straight to Buffalo Springs and to the only real friend she’s ever had – Andi Nelson. With Christmas around the corner, Andi, Jackson, and the whole Nelson family convince Cindy to stay through the holidays even finding her a job that may turn out to be a real career.

Just when Cindy is beginning to get into the Christmas spirit, her life is once again up-ended – this time by a series of break-ins and the news that her dangerous father may be lurking nearby. Cindy has no idea that her father’s mysterious past will put her life in jeopardy, and Jackson has no idea that the bright lights of New York are but a flickering flame when it comes to the sparks of the heart.

Release Date: November 11, 2022

Publisher: Chesapeake Sunrise Publishing

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3VsSVst 

Target: https://bit.ly/3uEJVop 

Walmart: https://bit.ly/3UuxwOe 

Barnes & Noble: https://bit.ly/3B5L8IX 

Books2Read: https://books2read.com/u/mZEXgR

Book Excerpt  


And unto you a child is born!” The child actor belted out the play’s most robust line with all the enthusiasm he could muster. 

It was all Cindy could do not to jump to her feet and applaud. She laughed and clapped along with the rest of the audience. When the play was over, she went with the Nelson family to the town drug store that boasted an old-fashioned ice cream parlor and soda fountain in the back of the store. The proprietor had kept the doors open late to welcome the theatergoers.

“What would you like?” Jackson asked as Cindy eyed the many choices written on the blackboard.

“There are too many to choose just one.”

Jackson laughed. “Andi is partial to anything with peanut butter, and Helena always goes for something super sweet and fruity like cherry or raspberry. Mama likes plain old chocolate.”

She looked at Jackson. “And what do you like, Jackson?”

She saw his expression falter for just a moment, and a curtain of pink danced across his features, reminiscent of the curtains that closed at the end of the show. He blinked and just as quickly as the odd look appeared, it disappeared, and he broke into a wide grin. 

“I always go for a good, old-fashioned root beer float with vanilla ice cream.”

“Would you believe, I’ve never had a root beer float?”

The look he gave her was one of exaggerated shock. “What? That might be the most un-American thing I’ve ever heard.” He clutched at his chest. “A shot to the heart.”

Cindy laughed, and Andi inserted herself between them to grab some extra napkins from the top of the ice cream display case. 

“Is this guy bothering you?” she asked with a mock scowl.

Cindy shook her head. “Not at all. This has been one of the best nights of my life, and I’m going to top it off with my very first root beer float.”

Andi smiled. “I think that’s a great idea.”

On their turn, Jackson ordered for them both then reached for his wallet to pay, but Cindy put her hand on his arm.

“Jackson, no, I can’t let you do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can pay for my own ice cream. You all have been so generous already.”

“Sorry, Cindy, but my daddy would skin me alive if he heard that I allowed a female to pay for her own ice cream.”

She frowned and said in a firm voice, “Jackson, this isn’t a date. I can pay for my own ice cream.”

Again, she saw his face redden. “I never said it was a date, and you should accept an act of kindness when presented with one.”

The cashier cleared her throat, and Cindy realized they were holding up the line. Embarrassed for drawing attention, she said, “You’re right. Go ahead and pay, but I owe you.”

“That’s fair. On the next family outing, you can buy me ice cream.”

Cindy accepted her root beer float from the young girl behind the counter and took a sip. She didn’t know how to respond to Jackson. She wasn’t part of the ‘family’ and didn’t know if she’d be there for the next outing. Rather than agree, she concentrated on her float and sat quietly while listening to the rest of them banter about Christmas and New Year’s and the June wedding. She couldn’t help but wonder what she would be doing by then and where she would be.

As she ate, Cindy felt a peculiar tingling on the back of her neck. She looked around, peering up and down the streets. Other families hovered nearby, eating ice cream, and several couples walked along the sidewalk. It looked like everyone in town had come out to see the play. None of the other theater goers paid any attention to Cindy or the Nelsons, and Cindy had no reason to be paranoid, but she could not shake the eerie feeling that she was being watched. 

More...
 




About the Author

Amy Schisler is a novelist, poet, children’s book author, spiritual writer, blogger, reader, and avid traveler with years of professional experience in all manner of writing-related endeavors. Whether she’s writng novels filled with faith and inspiration, books that children will love, or her weekly blog devoted to family life and faith, she loves connecting and resonating with her readers. Amy’s first novel, A Place to Call Home, a romantic suspense, debuted in 2014, and her much-loved Chincoteague Island Trilogy has won numerous literary awards.

Amy lives on the Eastern Shore of Maryland with her husband, Ken, their daughters, Katie and Morgan (and sometimes their daughter and son-in-law, Rebecca and Anthony), and their dogs, Rosie and Luna. When she’s not writing, Amy can usually be found on a boat in the Chesapeake Bay or hiking in the Rocky Mountains, most often with a good book in her hand.

Website: http://amyschislerauthor.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/amyschislerauth

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/amyschislerauthor 

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/amyschislerauthor 

 

 



Wednesday, December 14, 2022

OPERATION DFC BOOK BIRTHDAY BASH & GIVEAWAY

 



We're thrilled to announce the release of Ashley Fontainne & Janelle Taylor's Operation DFC today! To help celebrate, we are asking our readers if you can please pretty please pick up a copy at Amazon and come back and tell us how you liked it or leave a review at Amazon? And don't forget to enter the giveaway at the bottom of this page. Good luck! 


Congratulations, Ashley & Janelle, on your espionage military thriller new release, Operation DFC!












Arriving in Thailand for my first black-op, Operation DFC, as part of an elite team ready to act on recent intel that over a thousand men and/or their remains are still behind enemy lines, Bangkok is our last stopping point before slipping into Vietnam and extracting as many American prisoners as possible.

For me, this is personal. From 1971 to 1973, I was a POW; and now, ten years later, I work for the CIA under the fake identity of John Sims, Field Expert for Crop World, an international firm run by the agency.

While in my hotel room, the unthinkable happens. Bangkok may end up being my greatest challenge as my courage, patriotism, and honor are on the line, and I find myself in the toughest physical and mental battle of my life, wondering if Operation DFC will be my first, and last, covert mission.

Release Date: December 10, 2022

Publisher: Georgia Girl Press

Paperback: ‎ 979-8366909396; 360 pages; $15.99; Kindle $5.99

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3BKSodF 

You can also purchase at these retailers: https://books2read.com/u/mg1pBq
 
Book Excerpt:

Rescuing American soldiers out of grimy pits in Vietnam is my life’s mission, yet I’m fully aware it is also a sensitive issue for both governments. Bartering for their return costs money, and the source of the rescue funds and the intent of the mission are both unknown to the American public. They will remain a secret until someone with a higher paygrade releases the information.

No one wants to endanger this crucial operation with loose talk or create an uprising against the VC that could lead to another invasion. If anyone outside the circle of trusted players learns what we are attempting, it will create a stink bigger than Watergate or the Pentagon Papers. Worse, leaked knowledge of our covert op could blast the whole deal to smithereens, and those brave, broken men might never taste freedom again. They would vanish permanently, just as I could have a decade ago if someone hadn’t risked his life to liberate me.

I will not let that happen.

The soldiers, and their loved ones, deserve better.

Pulling out the next piece of paper, irritation rushes over me as I read the typewritten words:

When WM meets with RL and supplies the code, RL will then give LAT/LONG coordinates to the exchange location near Paracel Islands to WM, who will return to BK and page team leader, RD, at 202-555-1717, and send LAT/LONG intel. Ocean transport of the rescued cargo will begin the journey, and the cargo ship, Triumph, which contains the physical funds, will head to location. Exchange of cargo and funds will take place on board.

“What the hell? Now we’re giving these monsters cash? Why did they tattoo the banking code on me? Why did the plan suddenly change this late in the game? I’m bypassing Carter and giving info straight to RedDog? I don’t like this. Not at all.”

On instinct, I re-read it twice, imprinting RedDog’s pager number before flicking the lighter. The ashes flutter to the floor. Rubbing the remains out with my foot, irritation morphs into anger at this last-minute shift of important details.

Reaching inside the bag again, my fingers touch a familiar object—the grip of a pistol. Before I can make sense of why a firearm was provided and how I can sneak it on the plane without getting arrested, burning pain shoots up from my palm and straight to my brain. Dropping the gun, I look at my hand, noticing several tiny needle pricks in the palm milliseconds before my vision blurs.

The room spins as my throat locks up.

Collapsing to my knees, I gasp for air, wondering what kind of poison courses through my veins as a vortex of dizziness overtakes my mind, followed by ebony darkness.


About the Authors


Award-winning and International bestselling author, Ashley Fontainne, has written over 25 books, including the short thriller, Number Seventy-Five, which took home the BRONZE medal in fiction/suspense at the 2013 Readers’ Favorite International Book Awards. The paranormal thriller entitled The Lie won the GOLD medal in the 2013 Illumination Book Awards for fiction/suspense. An indie film based on this book, entitled Foreseen, is currently available on video-on-demand. Ruined Wings is about a young woman’s descent into drug addiction and is currently a short film. The movie is free to watch and share with others in hopes of starting a positive dialogue regarding addiction. https://ruinedwings.com/

Fatal Agreements won the 2019 Independent Audio Awards for best female narrator, Andrea Emmes.

Connect with Ashley to learn more about all her works:

Website: https://ashleyfontainne.net 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ashley.fontainne/
 


Janelle Taylor has 9 NY Times Bestsellers and many awards along with over 65 million copies in print worldwide, plus ebooks. She is known as one of the “pioneers of the romance industry,” and one of the “legends of romance.” She is also listed on the Top 100 most famous Georgians. She has won many awards for her books.

Follow Janelle on Twitter @TaylorJanelle6 and Facebook.

Check her out on Amazon Author Pages: https://www.amazon.com/author/janelletaylor

Make sure to visit her official website https://www.janelletaylor.com/ to learn more about all her amazing titles!

 
 

Ashley Fontainne and Janelle Taylor are giving away two Kindle copies of Operation DFC!

Terms & Conditions:

  • By entering the giveaway, you are confirming you are at least 18 years old.
  • Two winners will be chosen via Rafflecopter to receive one copy of Operation DFC.
  • This giveaway ends midnight December 15.
  • Winner will be contacted via email on December 16.
  • Winner has 48 hours to reply.

Good luck everyone!

ENTER TO WIN!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 





Wednesday, December 7, 2022

❀New Mystery Holiday Book Alert❀: Christmas in Newfoundland by Mike Martin

 




Title: CHRISTMAS IN NEWFOUNDLAND
Author: Mike Martin
Publisher: Ottawa Press and Publishing
Pages:141
Genre: Mystery

From the author of the Award-winning Sgt. Windflower Mysteries including Christmas in Newfoundland: Memories and Mysteries Book 1, comes another welcome addition to the Sgt. Windflower family of books.

Come sit by the fire of the woodstove in the kitchen and listen to stories of Christmas long ago in Grand Bank and Ramea and tales of great adventure and Christmas magic in St. John’s in the 1960s and onward. Have Christmas dinner with Sgt. Windflower and Sheila and their two little girls. Then wait and see if any special visitors show up to entertain them.

Sing along with the choir or have a drink with old friends to celebrate Tibb’s Eve. Follow along as Eddie Tizzard has a special mission in the middle of a snowstorm and Herb Stoodley becomes an unlikely Christmas hero.

Christmas in Newfoundland is always a time for good food, good friends, and good cheer. And there’s always another chair at the table.

Release Date: September 26, 2022

Publisher: Ottawa Press and Publishing

Soft Cover: 978-1990896033; 141 pages; $16.95; eBook $4.99

Amazon: https://amzon.to/3fSJoL

Book Excerpt

Christmas Memories

It was their very first Christmas together and while it was so exciting to be in love and together during this magical season, it was also a little bit awkward as they tried to develop their own holiday traditions.

Their memories and celebrations of Christmas had been very different growing up. Windflower’s holidays in Pink Lake, his northern Alberta birthplace had been full of love but also tinged with sadness and a healthy dash of chaos. His parents had given him everything they had, which meant he got all the most favourite toys that they could order from the Sears catalogue.

His parents were no longer with him and that made him sad sometimes this time of year. He missed his mother especially. She had been so kind to him and everyone around him. He missed his dad, too, but not in the same way. His dad had worked as a logger most of his life and that meant he was away a lot, clearing brush and hauling raw lumber down to Edmonton.

Christmas Eve was his favourite time when he was little. Maybe the same even today. He loved the feeling of expectation. That something really good was going to happen. He always got new pajamas and slippers on the night before Christmas and there was a special meal of venison stew and bannock with dark fruitcake for dessert. Santa didn’t play a big role in a Pink Lake Christmas, everyone knew their parents were bringing the gifts. But that did nothing to dampen their enthusiasm. Certainly not Windflower’s.

He liked Christmas Eve, too, because that was the one night before the parties began. Before the drinking began. Everything really was calm and bright and full of hope. The next day some of his relatives would arrive with their Christmas stash and over the following days his father’s friends would also pop by. It was great fun at the beginning but as the night and the drinks wore on, it became louder and a little frightening for a little boy. Sometimes his mother would take him to be with Auntie Marie and Uncle Frank. He liked that and loved his aunt who would make him special treats and tell him stories of the old days and their Christmas around a large community fire. 

Sometimes his father would go away with his friends and he and his mom would be left waiting for his return. It could be later that evening or a few days but eventually he would come home, most often drunk, and spend the next day recovering. Windflower knew to be very quiet around those times. His mother had warned him not to wake the sleeping bear.

Those were all but passing memories for Windflower now and he was looking forward to spending time and celebrating Christmas with Sheila, the light and love of his life.

Sheila loved, loved, loved Christmas. Everything about Christmas. She had taken out all the old ornaments weeks before Christmas so she could look at them and pressured Windflower to go out early in December to get their tree. The first Sunday in the month they drove to the woods on the outskirts of town and walked in to get their tree. They didn’t have far to go. About five minutes in, Sheila found the tall balsam fir she was looking for. 

“Perfect,” she announced.

“Okay,” said Windflower and he sawed the tree near the bottom and tied it to the top of her car. They drove home and while he made them hot chocolate, Sheila laid out all the decorations that she wanted to use.

About the Author

Mike Martin was born in St. John’s, NL on the east coast of Canada and now lives and works in Ottawa, Ontario. He is a long-time freelance writer and his articles and essays have appeared in newspapers, magazines and online across Canada as well as in the United States and New Zealand.

He is the author of the award-winning Sgt. Windflower Mystery series set in beautiful Grand Bank. There are now 12 books in this light mystery series with the publication of Dangerous Waters. A Tangled Web was shortlisted in 2017 for the best light mystery of the year, and Darkest Before the Dawn won the 2019 Bony Blithe Light Mystery Award. Mike has also published Christmas in Newfoundland: Memories and Mysteries, a Sgt. Windflower Book of Christmas past and present. And now Christmas in Newfoundland: Memories and Mysteries 2.

Mike is Past Chair of the Board of Crime Writers of Canada, a national organization promoting Canadian crime and mystery writers and a member of the Newfoundland Writers’ Guild and Ottawa Independent Writers and Capital Crime Writers.

You can follow the Sgt. Windflower Mysteries on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TheWalkerOnTheCapeReviewsAndMore/

Website: www.sgtwindflowermysteries.com

Twitter: @mike54martin

Wednesday, November 2, 2022

❀New Medical Thriller Trilogy Alert❀: Erica Rosen MD Trilogy by Deven Greene l Giveaway!

 



Title: UNNATURAL
Author: Deven Greene
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Pages:289
Genre: Medical Thriller
 
Dr. Erica Rosen is perplexed when she sees a young Chinese girl with blue eyes in her San Francisco pediatrics clinic. The girl’s mother, Ting, is secretive, and Erica suspects she has entered the country illegally. Later, Erica encounters Ting’s son and discovers he has an unusual mutation. Erica learns that Ting’s children underwent embryonic stem cell gene editing as part of a secret Chinese government-run program.

The Chinese government wants to murder Ting’s son to prevent others from learning about his unusual mutation and the secret gene-editing program. At Ting’s urging, Erica heads to China to expose the program and rescue the infant Ting was forced to leave behind, all while attempting to evade the watchful eye of the Chinese government.

Release Date: January 7, 2021

Publisher:  Black Rose Writing

Soft Cover: 289 pages; $4.53; eBook $4.65; Free with Kindle Unlimited

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3wv8hlN  

Black Rose Writing: https://www.blackrosewriting.com/thrillers/unnatural?rq=deven%20gree

Title: UNWITTING
Author: Deven Greene
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Pages:281
Genre: Medical Thriller

Dr. Erica Rosen’s world is turned upside down after a suicide bomber explodes amidst a large crowd entering Oracle Park baseball stadium, near her San Francisco home. Many are killed or injured, and police have no leads in solving the case.

Erica becomes involved after a teacher of young autistic men contacts her. The teacher believes her students are involved in the bombing but is afraid to contact law enforcement. She reaches out to Erica, who has experience with special needs children. 

Erica arrives at the school but finds the police already there and a young autistic man doing a jigsaw puzzle, oblivious to his murdered teacher on the floor. The young man has information about the mastermind behind the bombing but has limited ability to speak. Erica is determined to protect him, prevent further bombings, and find his missing classmates.

Release Date: October 21, 2021

Publisher:  Black Rose Writing

Soft Cover: 281 pages; $17.38; eBook $4.99; FREE on Kindle Unlimited

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3qe4zJP 

Black Rose Writing:

https://www.blackrosewriting.com/thrillers/unwitting?rq=deven%20greene


Title: Unforeseen
Author: Deven Greene
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Pages: 332
Genre: Medical Thriller

Pediatrician Erica Rosen is stymied when two of her patients don’t respond to medicine as expected. When other patients later develop strange, unexpected illnesses, she is determined to get to the bottom of it.

Meanwhile, the department’s newest pediatrician, Dr. Nilsen, appears to be trying to steal her patients. Erica suspects he is after her job as the clinic director. She also discovers Dr. Nilsen has become romantically involved with her trusted assistant, Martha. One evening, while looking for patient information on Martha’s desk, Erica comes across a list with the names of some of her patients. A boy who recently became ill with a mysterious malady is on the list and has an asterisk by his name. What does that mean?

Erica is convinced something nefarious is underfoot, and Dr. Nilsen, rather than simply being after her job, is engaged in a dangerous scheme involving her patients. Unable to recruit the help of law enforcement in a timely manner, she realizes she must take matters into her own hands. As she proceeds with her investigation, she is unaware of the dangers she is about to encounter.

Release Date: August 18, 2022

Publisher:  Black Rose Writing

Soft Cover: 329 pages; $21.95; eBook $6.99; FREE on Kindle Unlimited

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3Tp8u3J 

Black Rose Writing:

https://www.blackrosewriting.com/thrillers/unforeseen?rq=deven%20greene

GIVEAWAY!

Deven Greene is giving away autographed copies of the whole Erica Rosen MD Trilogy to one lucky person!

Terms & Conditions:

  • By entering the giveaway, you are confirming you are at least 18 years old.
  • One winner will be chosen via Rafflecopter to receive the set of books
  • This giveaway ends midnight December 30.
  • Winner will be contacted via email on December 31.
  • Winner has 48 hours to reply.

Good luck everyone!

ENTER TO WIN!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Fiction writer Deven Greene lives in the San Francisco Bay area. Ever since childhood, Deven has been interested in science.  After receiving a doctorate in biochemistry, she went to medical school and trained as a pathologist. She worked for several decades in that field before starting to write fiction. Deven incorporates elements of medicine or science in most of her writing. She has published several short stories. Her debut novel, Unnatural, is the first book of the Erica Rosen MD Trilogy, and was released in January 2021. Unwitting, released in October 2021, is the second Erica Rosen MD novel. Unforeseen is the final book in the Trilogy.

Visit her website at www.devengreene.com or connect with her on Twitter and Instagram.

Monday, October 24, 2022

❀New YA Paranormal Supernatural Book Alert❀: The Atlantean Horse: The Feathers of the Phoenix Book 1 by Cheryl Carpinello

 


Title: THE ATLANTEAN HORSE: THE FEATHERS OF THE PHOENIX BOOK ONE
Author: Cheryl Carpinello
Publisher: Silver Quill Publishing
Pages:149
Genre: Young Adult Paranormal Supernatural

Ancient Mystery…Mystical Prophecy…Biblical Horsemen

One Epic Task

The Task: Retrieve the Five Feathers of the Phoenix to raise Atlantis so its people can return home.

The Chosen: Cousins Rosa & Jerome embark upon a perilous and personal quest to retrieve the first Feather. Rosa’s special gift, kept far in the Past, will be revealed, and Jerome will discover his.

The Opponents: The Four Deadly Horsemen of the Apocalypse will stop at nothing, not even murder, to possess the Feathers.

Join Rosa & Jerome as they risk all in their search for the First Feather!

Book Information

Release Date: September 23, 2022

Publisher: Silver Quill Publishing

Kindle: 149 pages; $5.99

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3eHdTmT

Book Excerpt

Taking a deep breath, I wonder—for the first time in two years—at the ties that bind me, ties I now think of as a gift rather than a curse.

She said you would help. She said you could help because you walk in two worlds.

“What…what do you want?” Idiot, I tell myself. You know better than to ask that question.

This time the man speaks out loud. “The time is now.”

I finger the ankh again, squeezing it, absorbing the warmth. “Time for what?”

“It is time for Atlantis to rise again. It is time to gather the Feathers of the sacred Phoenix bird to set the island in motion.”

I blink as images of a sunken island and fleeing people, animals, and birds fill my head. “What…what do you want from me?”

“You are the one who must gather the Feathers on the Sun Days and bring them to the Atlantean Horse so that my people and my land can once more be united. It’s been too long, and our people wish to come home.”

“Me?” My eyes widen in disbelief.

The man nods. 

Putting my hands around my head, I try to block out the hundreds of voices from the visions running rampant through my brain. Voices crying out for help. 

A shiver travels down his body shaking me out of the trance. His hands vigorously rubbing his arms prompt me into action.

“Get inside. You have no business being out in this weather dressed as you are.” I open the screen door and move to the side to let him pass. No, don’t start. Don’t say a word. She sent him here. She wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. I know what I’m doing. I hope.I glance around the neighborhood to be sure no one else, especially Jerome, is around. Maybe I’m the only one who can see him, like Tut. 

“Thank you, Rosa,” he says, continuing to briskly rub his arms. “She didn’t tell me that your world is wrapped in ice.”

About the Author

I’m a lover of mythology, myths, legends, and tales from the ancient/medieval worlds. I enjoy exploring how these have transcended time/space to influence our world today. Myths and legends don’t fade away; they are just repackaged for a new audience.

As a high school English teacher, I continually challenged my students to find connections between today and times long gone by. Some took more digging than others, but the connections were always there. One of my favorites, Star Wars, borrows several concepts from the Legend of King Arthur. The Star Trek series goes even further back into the mythology of ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt as well as others.

I write Arthurian Legend for young readers and teens (I never refuse to let mature readers enjoy my stories!). These stories exhibit what I consider to be cornerstones of that Legend: Courage, Honor, Loyalty, and Friendship.

My tales from Egypt and my new series Feathers of the Phoenix meld the ancient/medieval worlds with today. The Atlantean Horse (Book 1 of Feathers of the Phoenix) also brings the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse out of the Bible and into the modern world. They and my main characters are after the feathers of the Phoenix in order to bring Atlantis alive again.

P.S. I believe in magic and Unicorns!!

Website Link:  https://www.cherylcarpinello.com

Blog Link: http://carpinelloswritingpages.blogspot.com/

Twitter Link:  https://twitter.com/ccarpinello

Facebook Link:  https://www.facebook.com/cheryl.carpinello1

Goodreads Link:    https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2924554.Cheryl_Carpinello

Instagram Link: https://www.instagram.com/ccarpine1/



Monday, October 10, 2022

❀Book Cover Review❀ LATER BY COLETTE R. HARRELL #BookCoverReview

 I can't wait to show you this cover. This is a historical fiction / interracial / supernatural / paranormal fiction titled Later by a talented author, Colette R. Harrell.


Simply a stunning cover!

In 1859, Junie Benson was a twelve-year-old genius and enslaved. His older sister, Sari, had her own difficulties, including being auctioned to the highest bidder. She was also beautiful, flighty, and had a repetitive dream about a hazel-eyed white stranger. 

Everybody with the good sense God had given them knew even her dream was forbidden. 

In the present, three things troubled ex-Special Forces Lt. Colonel Zachary Trumble . . . his new job as director of security for Burstein Labs, his loveless marriage, and the green-eyed siren who won’t let him sleep in peace. 

Then time’s fickle hand brewed a recipe for a miracle . . . Stir in three runaway slaves, an avalanche, one mad scientist, and an unhappy, in-love hero to create a dish for revenge best served . . . Later.

To me, this looks like two lovers descending upon heaven. I'm sure I'm way off key, lol.  It truly is a remarkable cover, though. I love the colors and can't find anything to negatively critique it about. At first, the cover says to me it's a fantasy and I don't see fantasy in the description, but all in all this is one beautiful cover.



Monday, September 19, 2022

❀New Adult Literary Fiction Book Alert❀: Eternal Graffiti by Peter Marlton

 





Title: ETERNAL GRAFFITI
Author: Peter Marlton
Publisher: The Story Plant
Pages:352
Genre: Adult Literary Fiction

“I don’t know if this is a confession or a purge, a scream or a lullaby,” begins twenty-seven-year-old Owen Kilroy’s journal, in which he writes about the remarkable women—friends and lovers—who’ve come and gone and who have shaped his life, as well as the many varieties of heartbreak he’s experienced.

Owen revisits himself as a seventeen-year-old guitar player, songwriter, and drug dealer in a small, fictional California desert town. He relives being arrested, violently, by half the town’s police force and sent to juvenile prison. He faces the pain of being disowned by his mother and having his father disappear. And he re-experiences inadvertently killing his girlfriend by providing her with drugs.

After escaping from juvenile prison, ending up broke, desperate, and homeless in Venice Beach, he eventually meets Kiera, a nineteen-year-old Irish student at UCLA. She is the great love of his life, a love that he knows would cripple him if he were to lose her. Now, ten years later, Owen discovers that writing about her and all that came before isn’t enough. If he is to move on, he realizes he must go back to California and face his ghosts directly.

“Marlton’s prose mixes lyricism with grit, which often results in evocative images. The author has an eye for nuance and detail, and he manages to evoke the era and the youth culture of the time.” ― Kirkus Reviews

Book Information

Release Date: September 6, 2022

Publisher:  The Story Plant

Soft Cover: ISBN: 978-1611883329; 352 pages; $16.95; eBook $7.99

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3brycU7 

Barnes & Noble: https://bit.ly/3oOBns2 

Indigo: https://bit.ly/3zVhXbf 

Indiebound: https://bit.ly/3OZeLPY 

Book Depository: https://bit.ly/3BIRLlo 

Chapters: https://bit.ly/3QfBpVt

Book Excerpt

On the Monday after the long Thanksgiving weekend in 1970, I came home for the last time to the little rented house my mother and I lived in. Two bedrooms, one bath, tiny living room, washer and dryer on the covered back porch. A typical low-rent box in Rockville Flats, California, an all but forgotten, end-of-the-road, jerkwater town on the southwest ass-cheek of the Mojave Desert. It’s bordered in all directions by a barren landscape probably not so different from the one Christ wandered into as a would-be savior.

I remember walking into the house excited and a little afraid (which I never would have admitted at the time). My best friend Shooky and I were running away to Venice Beach early the next morning. It was something we’d been planning for months. Steven Gregory, our high school principal (at his core a simpleton, a gray suit with a head on it), told us earlier that day that because we were such fuck-ups we’d have to repeat our senior year. That sped up our departure date by months. No way were we going to stick around for that.

I found my mother sprawled out on the couch, unconscious. She worked the counter at Winchell’s, selling donuts and coffee to truck drivers all night long on the graveyard shift. She must’ve traded with somebody to be home at that hour. I could smell the bourbon from ten feet away. I was probably as high as she was drunk. Shooky and I had been getting stoned for the last few hours. The hash had taken me to a magical place — an otherwise inaccessible neighborhood in my mind, one that was free of existential angst, uncontaminated by any form of law enforcement, where Rockville Flats’ fossilized, infertile hills were uncharacteristically alive with the sound of music.

But there she was, my one and only mother, bringing me down again. She lay there in her white blouse, her nametag slightly askew (Janet), her black polyester slacks, and her fat little brown shoes rounding out an ensemble of hopelessness. Her whiskey-soaked brain was surely submerged somewhere on the edge of eternity, her I’ve-smoked-for-twenty-years-and-I-ain’t-quitting-now-and-you-can’t-make-me lungs sounding, as usual, like the tired engine of a battered old train desperate to make one last trip to Clarksville. I had grown so accustomed to seeing her in that condition that it hardly fazed me. I felt nothing. No, that’s not true. I felt pity, which is worse than feeling nothing. 

So it was another one of those days when everything in and around and about the house was redundant and stale, bereft of soul, devoid of hope. I wish now I had a happier memory of that last day with her, maybe just a tiny moment, maybe just her asking me to pass her the TV Guide so she could do her crossword puzzle and me saying OK, but then everything would have had to be so different. I was out of control back then and embraced it fully — the perpetually stoned-out peace-and-love poster-boy hippie kid who, underneath it all, was consumed with rage and hurt and resentment. Why that was will, I hope, become clear. No wonder my mom was a drunk. I stood and watched her wheezing, and chose not to think about the “good ol’ days” when she and I got along. This time I was leaving. There was no point. 

I grabbed a box of Cocoa Puffs, a carton of milk, a mixing bowl and a spoon, and took them into my room. I ate my chocolate breakfast food like I thought a gladiator would eat chocolate breakfast food, and felt like a Roman emperor when I was done. 

I picked up the beautiful Gibson Hummingbird guitar I’d bought with drug money and practiced a few songs I’d written. I put the first stack of records on my little stereo, cleared off my “homework” table, set up my scale, took out the block of hash and the two pounds of weed I’d scored in Anaheim the day before and started to work. I had to weigh and cut as many grams of the hash as I could by the time Shooky came by to pick me up at five the next morning. Whatever I didn’t finish I’d do in Venice. I didn’t mind staying up. I loved the work; it took me out of myself. I bagged the thirty-two ounces of Michoacán first and set them aside to be ready for packing.

Two or three hours after starting in on the hash I realized that the last record had ended, and I heard nothing in the house except the mousy squeak of the dope scale. It must have been around midnight or later. Something was wrong. No wheezing. I walked out into the dark little hallway and looked into my mom’s room. It smelled of stale cigarettes and dirty laundry. Piles of clothes were everywhere. Her bed was a sad, concave, spoon-like thing supporting a sheet-sculpture of the Alps. The bathroom was right across from my room. She wasn’t in there either. 

It was only three or four steps to the living room, which was still and dark, except for the slow sweep of a car’s headlights moving across the walls and the cottage-cheese ceiling. I flipped on a light. Mom had not moved since I’d gotten home. She always screamed at me if I ever woke her, so I tiptoed up to the couch and leaned over to look at her face, which was turned inward toward the wall. I lifted her eyelids and saw a frightful mackerel stare. I put my head to her chest and couldn’t hear a heartbeat. That was as close to her as I’d been since my father Harry left when I was eight. She’d clung to me for a short while after that.

Yelling her name, shaking her, slapping her, nothing had any effect. The fear I felt flipped my otherwise pleasant and mellow hash high for a loop. I wasn’t sure what to do. I headed into the kitchen to get a pan full of water to throw on her, but then somehow I realized that the idea came out of anger rather than from an effort to try and save her (this had happened more than once before), so I decided I’d better call 9-1-1.

It seemed like the ambulance was there before I hung up the phone. The medics went to work. From my stoned-out perspective it looked like they were performing open-heart surgery. My mother moaned and threw up on the weird brown suburban shag carpet. Two cops parked outside and came sauntering in. I paid no attention to them. I was fixated on the unfolding drama. Mom passed out again. “Fuck!” one of the ambulance guys said quietly. They made their magic orange gurney spring to life. They flopped her onto it and then shot out the door as if she were a time bomb that might blow up the whole block.

I noticed then that one of the two cops was Officer Beatrice Walls, whose new blond bowl cut surprised me for its radical unattractiveness. We knew each other from a previous idiotic skirmish. Most of the cops in Rockville Flats knew me. I hated all of them. About a year before, Walls busted me for shoplifting. I’d stolen a Penthouse and dropped it accidentally on the way out of the store. I was the catch of the year for the store rent-a-cop, but a routine bust for Walls. This all happened while I was cutting school. The judge dismissed the charge if I agreed to do twenty hours of community service. So I spent a little time digging around in a county irrigation ditch for a couple of weekends. Big deal. The school suspended me for five days for truancy. Suspending a kid for cutting school is like punishing a masochist. I was thrilled.

I could feel Walls’ eyes on me. She whispered something to her partner, an Officer Duke, a tall, tanned rookie trying very hard to look menacing. He nodded. She seemed to be his mentor. He stood by studying everything she did. 

“Sorry about your mom, Owen.”

Walls sounded like she was teetering on the edge of sincerity. I said nothing. I was trying to appear as though I wasn’t high. We were standing by the open front door. The ambulance backed out of the driveway and screamed its way to the hospital. Walls’ squad car was parked like nobody else would ever park, diagonally, on the lawn. The obnoxious, manic, red and blue twirling lights exacerbated my disorientation. 

“I guess I have to go to the hospital?” I asked her.

“Sure,” she said, closing the door. “But first I’d like to know what’s gone on here tonight.” She took out a flip notebook and a pen and stood there poised to write.

 “Nothing has ‘gone on’ here tonight.” 

“Your mother just got hauled away in an ambulance.”

“You’re blaming me for this?”

“Well, what happened?”

“She doesn’t need an excuse to get shitfaced, does she? She and Romeo have been having problems. Maybe that’s what it’s about this time.”

“Romeo?”

“Her boyfriend.”

Walls squinted. “Oh, come on!”

“Hey, it’s not my fault that that’s his stupid name.”

She turned to Officer Duke. “See what I mean?” Then back to me. “What kind of problems have they been having?”

“They can’t agree about where to retire on the French Riviera.”

“Watch it, pal.”

“I am watchin’ it.”

“What are your mother’s drinking habits?” 

What a stupid question! What an idiot!  “You saw her just now. What’s the mystery? She’s a goddamn raging alcoholic. The whole police department knows that.”

She scribbled all that while looking at me and not at the notebook, as if that were supposed to impress me. 

“Where’s the attitude comin’ from, Owen?”

“East Berlin.” 

She snorted. “That’s just dumb. That’s it for now.” She barked at the rookie: “Let’s go.”

 “I gotta use the bathroom,” he said. 

I stared at the couch, which still retained a vague but discernible outline of my mother’s body. I was thrown off-kilter by how rotten I felt after hating her for so long. 

“Do you have any other family?” Walls asked. 

 “There’s nobody else.”

“What’s your dad’s name?”

“Harry Kilroy.”

“Where is he?”

“Hey!” Officer Duke shouted. “You’d better come check this out!” 

She made a serious tactical mistake by not keeping an eye on me — a fuck-up that maybe could have put her back on a motorcycle, standing on the street in ninety-eight-degree heat, pointing a ray gun at passing cars. I’ll never know. All the stuff on her utility belt shook as she jogged toward my room. In my emotional hash-infused fog I’d completely forgotten that I’d left my door open — a fuck-up that was far worse than hers.

I took off running, winding my way around the black and white and off into the night. But there was nowhere to run. I knew I was finished. The cool desert night air was my last taste of freedom. Walls and Duke were chasing me now, demanding that I “halt.” I asked myself, for what? To give myself up to whatever horrors were in store? Was Walls going to shoot me if I didn’t stop? Part of me hoped so. 

I ran so fast and so hard that she was forced to slow down — she was out of shape — and I didn’t know where the hell to go at first. I thought about going to Shooky’s but it would be a big mistake leading the cops there. I could hear sirens screaming. 

A few houses were already decorated for Christmas, some festooned with bright, colorful outdoor lights. I’d seen them earlier, and on that sad night they looked more cheerful than ever. Santas, elves, sleighs, candy canes, and reindeer all congregated on the front lawns. Christmas trees decorated with more lights and glittery ornaments and topped by golden stars and golden angels stood in the windows of those houses. All this made the undecorated houses look like tombs. 

I crossed Rockville Flats Boulevard and looked behind me and there was Duke, stopping, turning around and running at full speed toward the sound of the sirens. I couldn’t figure out what the fuck that was about. He was running away from me. Walls was getting up off the ground. 

I threw myself over the fence that separated the boulevard from the no-man’s-land I’d spent so many afternoons and nights getting stoned in and headed to Manderley, a special little spot where Shooky and I always hung out. I took a second to rest and breathe. It was pitch dark. I could see flashlights, lifeless eyes not blinking, coming over the fence. I shimmied down a steep pitch into a ravine. It was even darker there, a pool of octopus ink. A minute later about a dozen of those dead flashlight eyes appeared around the perimeter. A cop shouted a blistering command to a police dog. It was Duke! So he was the K-9 cop. He’d gone for the dog. I was impressed. His command cut into the night air like a bayonet. I couldn’t understand what he was yelling but there was no doubt it sounded like deep trouble. I was Lee Harvey Oswald. I decided that if those bloodthirsty bastards were going to catch me I was going to make them work for it. They were in my backyard. I ran west, toward the Pacific Ocean. I’d always wanted to live by the ocean. So what if it was more than a hundred miles away? I could hear the wind, my breath, my feet landing on the hard uneven ground, the crazy dog barking viciously. 

Beatrice Walls shouted, “Owen, Owen!” in the loudest fake-friendly voice she could muster. “Everything is gonna be OK if you just stop running and show us your hands!”

No way out. No hope. I was the fun they were going to have that night. But I kept going. All the king’s soldiers were relentless in their blitzkrieg, but they were taking the long way around because they knew nothing about where they were or what they were doing. The flashlights moved across the ravine, the beams getting bigger, brighter. I found myself in a large open area that a science teacher once said had been a lake in ancient times. My only hope was to get across the lake and climb up to a ridge that a million years ago probably served as a platform from which cave men practiced their swan dives. From there I might stay free a little longer. I scrambled up the hillside and after a few attempts I pulled myself up onto the ridge. But the not-very-well-regulated militia was closing in. They knew more about where we were than I thought. I started running and slipped and fell into a ditch, eating the dry dirt, scraping my hands on the little bastard rocks. I crawled like a wounded diamondback under a big gooseberry bush. The cops were converging on me now, no more than thirty feet away. I heard one set of footsteps approaching, crackling on the rocky ground.

Walls said, “Owen, we know you’re under there. Show us your hands and come out! Unless you prefer to be dragged out by the dog.” Another command from Duke and the dog went crazy, as if he hadn’t been fed in weeks and wanted to crack my skull with his teeth. 

I looked behind me and saw nothing but a cluster of flashlights and the ominous silhouettes of the Flatvillian soldiers behind them. Above me, through the branches of the bush, the spectacular panorama of useless stars. There was a sudden violent rustling sound. In what she probably thought was a career-restoring move, Beatrice Walls dived under the bush and pointed her deputy cowgirl six-gun an inch from my temple. I looked at her in shock — she knew me better than that — and then I turned to face the ground and waited to die.

“Don’t be stupid,” she said.

About the Author

Peter Marlton is a pseudonym for Pete MacDonald, both as a fiction writer and as a musician and songwriter. He was born in San Francisco and has lived in Los Angeles, New York City, Seattle, and in three European countries. He’s published short stories, a novella, and essays in various literary magazines and The New York Times.

His latest book is the adult literary fiction, Eternal Graffiti.

You can visit his website at www.petermarlton.com or connect with him on Twitter.