❀New Mystery Book Alert❀: Is Truth Stranger Than Fiction? You Decide...by JB Miller

 

Embark on a witty and mysterious exploration with J.B. Miller in 'Is Truth Stranger than Fiction? You Decide,' where the lines between reality and imagination blur, and every story whispers a hidden truth that challenges you to discern fact from fiction.

Title: Is Truth Stranger Than Fiction? You Decide...

Author: JB Miller

Publication Date: April 3, 2024

Pages: 145

Genre: Mystery

In Is Truth Stranger than Fiction . . . You Decide, J.B. Miller takes readers on a captivating journey through the world of storytelling. The three stories in volume one explore the fascinating intersection of fact and fiction.

With her trademark wit, Miller poses thought-provoking questions about the nature of reality, the power of imagination, and the enduring appeal of a well-told tale. 

Each story is a mystery for the reader to decide. Is it truth or is it fiction?

Hint: There is truth in every story.

Challenge: If you can figure out how the stories connect you can be acknowledged in volume two for being spot on. 

Email miller.jody@icloud.com to enter your answers and your name. By doing so, and if you are correct, you agree to have your name mentioned in volume 2.

Whether you’re a fan of literature, film, or simply mysteries of human experience, this book is sure to enlighten and entertain. A must-read for anyone who has ever wondered where the boundaries of truth and fiction truly lie.

Buy Links:

Amazon:  https://tinyurl.com/yfj5yk5j

Book’s Website: http://www.truth-or-fiction.com 

 

Book Excerpt:

1.Fired

Bill had no clue he was about to be fired. 

He was sure that his job as an Institutional Salesman at a leading Investment Bank was secure. After all, he alone was responsible for the largest investment funds the bank dealt with and had spent the last ten plus years cultivating those relationships.

Bill thought nothing of jumping on a red eye from New York to San Francisco, just so he could arrive in time to take the head of a Hedge Fund out to breakfast, and then fly back the same day to do dinner with Global Investments, the bank’s largest client. 

A go-getter and dedicated employee described Bill perfectly. 

Bill loved his job and knew that sacrifice was required for success. 

He willingly signed up fifteen years ago (after getting his undergrad from Columbia and MBA from Wharton), with the hope that he would run his Father’s global fund someday.

At 42, Bill took on the look of most investment professionals; slightly overweight, thinning hair, a few wrinkles. He was not as good as he once was, but overall, he could still turn a head now and then. 

He used to get up at 3 a.m., workout at the New York Athletic Club in midtown and be at his desk by 5. But over the past few years, what with all the extra responsibilities that come with being a top biller, a father of growing children and making sure he paid adequate attention to his wife, the exercise slipped away.

That’s when the weight sneaked in. But hey, he got an extra hour of sleep instead, so he accepted the tradeoff.

Bill’s wife quit her job as an Attorney when the first of their three children was born and did a superb job raising them. 

Now she volunteered at the kids’ school, headed up the annual fundraiser and played tennis four days a week at the indoor tennis club on the westside waterfront.

Bill didn’t mind that his wife wasn’t working anymore; he liked being the sole provider for a family he could be proud of. 

All three kids got accepted into Doty Day School, the top private school on the Upper Eastside, which caused his chest to puff out a bit more at neighborhood parties. The founder named the school after some relative of his who came over on the Mayflower. 

Luckily for Bill, he was a Mayflower descendent too. That, combined with a very successful job in a top industry made his kids a shoe in.

All in, tuition only put him back $180k a year, which included a substantial donation to the annual fund. His bonus more than covered it, even though this year projected to be a little less.

Rumor on the street was that machines (something called AI) were fast replacing sales traders and institutional salespeople at large banks, which, he admitted, made him a little nervous. 

But Bill knew he brought value to his employer and pushed the worry out of his mind.

At 9 years old, his oldest boy was a natural pitcher. Bill knew it because he hired a private pitching coach who said so and who worked out with his son three afternoons a week to shape his skills. 

The coach promised that a top ten college scholarship would be in the future, even if he had to pull some strings (wink), so Bill willingly forked over $300 a session. 

His first-grade daughter could sing like a lark. She took private lessons from the top voice coach to the Broadway stars. Seeing his daughter’s name in lights was as much his dream as it was hers. 

The youngest boy hadn’t developed a particular talent or passion yet (he was only five), so Bill and his wife opted for educational augmentation to ensure some sort of advantage over the rest of the pack. 

Raising a family was expensive, but in Bill’s mind, definitely worth it. 

Like everyone else in sales on Wall Street, he lived on a pithy monthly base and used credit cards to cover the rest of it. When the bonus came, a big sigh of relief followed.

It happened on a Friday. 

Bonus numbers were due the following Monday and Bill was edgy with anticipation as to what his number would be when it came out of the firm’s big black box of subjectivity. 

If he made his traditional third of revenues, he would bring in low to mid seven figures if he impressed the head of the division enough – something he tried to do whenever he could.

The bonus covered his mortgage, kid’s tuition, private lessons, vacations, and the down payment on the summer cottage in the Hamptons he and his wife had their eyes on. He knew it would all work out like always and he could breathe for another year.

Bill’s phone rang at 4:35 p.m., shortly after the market closed. He was getting ready to head out for a weekend in the Hamptons.

“Hi Bill, it’s Susan in HR. Can you stop by for a minute before you leave?”

That’s weird, he thought. Why would Susan want to see me? 

He remembered that he pinged Susan about coverage for glasses for his youngest. That could be it.

Bill made his way up the elevator to HR and waited outside Susan’s office as she finished up a call. 

He watched her through the glass and noticed that she appeared particularly somber. She must be dealing with a problem, he thought. It went with the territory. Bill brushed it off and settled in to wait his turn.

“Hey Cal,” Bill called as the Head of Capital Markets walked by. 

Cal nodded briefly, as though preoccupied with something else, and moved on. Cal was usually so jovial.

“Bill, come on in.” 

Bill didn’t hear the door open but was glad he didn’t have to wait a long time to be seen.

“Hi Susan, how goes it? Were you able to find out if the Vision Plan covers glasses? My little guy must have gotten his grandfather’s eyes, which sucks for him.”

“Have a seat, Bill,” Susan replied. “We need to talk.”

An overwhelming sense of dread sent shockwaves through Bill’s ears to the edge of his Cole Hahn loafers. 

Have a seat could only mean one thing.

Bill’s phone vibrated. He glanced at the text.

I hope your bonus is big because I’m pregnant!

– Excerpted from Is Truth Stranger Than Fiction by JB Miller, JB Miller, 2024. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author

JB Miller is a best-selling author of many books of fiction and non-fiction. Miller has a background in television, is a TEDx speaker, top podcast host and writer of numerous articles and blogs. She resides in Oregon and California.

The MISOGI Method

From Drift to Shift

Hired!

No Time for Love

The Perfect Gift

The BIG Little Book of Happiness

The BIG Little Book of Work Happiness

Psyche (coming soon)

Nike (coming soon)

Victory (coming soon)

Praise for J. B. Miller’s work

“Miller is a master storyteller, weaving together complex characters and compelling plot lines with ease.” – NY Book Reviewer

“Miller’s writing is intelligent, engaging, and always thought-provoking.”      – Online Book Review

J.B. Miller is an accomplished author, TEDx speaker, thought leader, podcast host, and founder of Reel Media Agency. Contact her at: miller.jody@icloud.com

Visit JB Miller on the web:

Website: www.truth-or-fiction.com and www.jodybmiller.com

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

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JodyBMillerAuthor

 

❀New Scifi/Mystery Book Alert❀: The Edison Enigma by Thomas White

 

Title: The Edison Enigma

Author: Thomas White

Publication Date: February 29, 2024

Pages: 196

Genre: Scifi/Mystery 

Edison, a Chicago physicist, manages to successfully transport an object through time. Almost immediately following this success Dr. Edison is shut out of the facility and told by benefactor Raphael Barrington, to take a vacation. He is contacted by Don Rivendell, a grizzled old man with a secret. Rivendell explains to Tom that he is not the first person to discover time travel. Someone else went back and changed history by saving a young girl from dying in an internal combustion engine explosion.

Dr. Edison is tasked with going back and fixing history. He travels back to 1904 to find the younger version of Rivendell and stop him from saving the girl. 

You can purchase your copy of The Edison Enigma at Amazon at https://t.ly/_NOoo.

Book Excerpt:

Tom, Lori, and Jerzy entered the lab and stood on the landing, looking over the commotion. There was a hustle and bustle of frenetic activity as lab personnel moved from station to station, checking data, preparing modules, and entering critical information.

“Every time I come in here, I expect to see tables with bubbling test tubes and old, toothless women sweeping the floor,” Jerzy said.

Lori laughed. “Well, it would be hard to explain what bubbling test tubes have to do with this project, but I get your drift. We are kinda like Dr. Frankenstein with this whole thing.” Tom vaulted down the stairs and skipped to the control area on the opposite side of the room. He high-fived everyone he passed and crossed to an older, balding man with a semi-circle of gray hair around the fringe of his scalp. A short gray mustache covered most of his upper lip. The man had a slow gait caused mainly by forty straight hours on his feet. Tom hugged him. 

“Bruce! This is it! I feel like tap dancing!”

“Well, I’ve put up with worse from you. We’re just running the final check-down now; almost complete. The data you just sent down is perfect.” Bruce had a New Jersey accent highlighted by a Yiddish lilt that caused his mustache to bounce when he spoke. 

The retrofitting of the building was designed specifically for this project. Constructed like a sports arena with a high domed ceiling, the lab was ten thousand square feet open from wall to wall. Three levels encircled the room starting at the floor. Each subsequent level rose above the one below and contained a series of computer stations lined up like the NASA control room, collating, interpreting, or generating data. The entire room was connected, hardwired, and air-gapped to The Quint's central motherboard. The Quint was the fastest and most potent AI computer known to man and contained the most significant elements of learned behavior and artificial intelligence. More significantly, it could determine and pinpoint a specific moment in time. 

In the main staging area, in the center of the room, was the masterpiece of the entire project - The Time Tube. The Time Tube was a four-story, transparent tube made from indestructible acrylic conducive to energy absorption. As energy swirled through the Time Tube, it created the power needed for time travel. It stood 18’ tall with an eight-foot diameter. A raised platform ran halfway around and had six steps that led up to a full-size door allowing access to the Tube. 

The lab's roof was six stories high and supported a series of lighting instruments, air conditioning units, and safety mechanisms.  Among the other things that lived in the ceiling was a series of tubing that wrapped around the room like a tornado and converged from the roof to the lab's centerpiece. This series of tubing was called the Cyclone. Air was pushed through the Cyclone at incredible speeds, producing centrifugal force. That energy transitioned to Euler acceleration, creating a variation in the angular velocity. Theoretically, this opens a window in time and allows the object to pass through.

After years of research, study, and failed experimentation, Tom finally understood that time is, in fact, parallel, meaning that time moves through us rather than us moving through time. In essence, time is an ever-evolving moment. We move from one plane to the next as we move forever forward. The wonder is that it is infinite, never-ending, so we will never reach the edge of time as time continues to build moment next to moment. Once Tom accepted that theory, the means of moving through time began to evolve. 

With enough energy, we can freeze ourselves in a moment, thus staying still as time moves on. The challenge became moving through thousands of moments to move back in time, or more accurately, let a specific moment of the past catch up to you. It had taken Tom and his crew almost five years to reach this point. They believed they could generate enough energy to move back and forth within their time sphere to moments that have happened or will happen and return to their own designated moment and survive. 

One of the most daunting challenges the team had to overcome when sending something through time was having the entire entity arrive in the same moment. Any portion of an entity that arrived a millisecond later than any other part of that entity would be split in two by the paradox of time. Using an optical lattice clock allowed the team to calculate to a precise moment. When coordinated with The Quint, the top or bottom, front or back, the side to side of any entity would arrive at the same exact moment in time so as not to be split apart. 

Subsequently, above the main control area, against the back wall, was the read-out of an optical lattice clock, accurate to one second every 400 million years. It was this technology that allowed Tom and his staff the ability to pinpoint a single moment in time. The optical lattice clock uses laser beams instead of atoms to calculate the second. The light from the laser excites the strontium atoms and increases the accuracy of determination of time.

With The Quint’s exceptional calculation ability, Tom could capture moments within a zeptosecond, one trillionth of a billionth of a second, targeting specific areas of history or periods of time, with phenomenal accuracy.  Projecting these moments into the future would allow them to move forward in time as well. Theoretically, at least. 

That theory would be tested this afternoon.

About the Author

 

Thomas White began his career as an actor. Several years later he found himself as an Artistic Director for a theatre in Los Angeles and the winner of several Drama-Logue and Critics awards for directing. As Tom’s career grew, he directed and co-produced the world tour of “The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coming Out Of Their Shells”. The show toured for over two years, was translated into seven different languages and seen by close to a million children. Tom served as President and Creative Director for Maiden Lane Entertainment for 24 years and worked on many large-scale corporate event productions that included Harley Davidson, Microsoft, Medtronic Diabetes, and dozens of others. The Edison Enigma is Tom’s third novel following up Justice Rules which was nominated as a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association 2010 Literary contest, and The Siren’s Scream.

Author Links  

Website | X (Twitter) | Facebook 1 | Facebook 2 | Goodreads

❀New Nonfiction/Writing Book Alert❀: Mastering Your Scenes by J.A. Cox

Title: Mastering Your Scenes
Author: J.A. Cox
Publisher: J.A. Cox
Pages: 78
Genre: Nonfiction/Writing

Mastering Your Scenes was written with one main purpose, to help give authors and writers a creative boost in their scene writing and toss writers block into the oblivion of the abyss. In order to accomplish this each chapter is written in a workbook like format so that the steps provided can easily be implemented after they are explained. For each element of scene writing that is presented J.A. Cox explains the How, Why and When of its use along with his own description so that the information is easy to assimilate. He provides copious examples from his own writing of these elements in action as well as from shows and movies.

You will be given an anatomical look of what composes a scene and understand what goes into creating scenes that are engaging, seamless, and bristling with activity without any fluff. Mastering Your Scenes gives you the practical advice you need to keep your readers turning pages and falling in love with your characters. With the steps you will learn there will be no more question of if that scene fits or seems out of place.

“A slim, concise and well focused treatise on how to write and master scenes and how writers can become authors by mastering scene writing. The various elements of a scene are discussed with well known examples and the key facts of each element are presented in depth, with a well laid out structure. The focus on the when, why, how, and the practical application tie up the various aspects of an element neatly and are very well explained. The author’s observations based on experience in each area further adds to the utility of the treatise.”

– The International Review of Books

Buy Links:

Amazon | Kobo

 

Book Excerpt

Since this book is all about writing a scene, it would be a good idea to discuss what it is before we begin talking about how to build one.  I am sure that you already have many ideas on how to answer the question above, but please humor me for now.  

Let’s look at a scene in this manner:

• As an episode.

• As a segment of an episode.

Some episodes are short, and some are long, it really all depends on how they are made.  Also, an episode is the medium in which a portion of a series plays out.  A scene can also be viewed in the same manner, as a medium in which a portion of your story plays out.  On that notion, some may be short, and some may be long, but they still fulfill the same purpose.  They provide the boundaries to contain all of the myriad of things that will take place at a certain point in the story.

Consider that within an episode that there are segments in which very particular things happen, such as a robbery at a bank, a high-speed chase along the highway or even a ship being boarded by pirates on the high seas.  All of these segments placed into a written format would actually be the scene itself.  I hope I am not confusing you but am just trying to convey the fact that a scene in a story fulfills the purpose of both episode and segment combined.

The purpose of this book is to look at the pieces that go into creating the segment so that you can create the most dynamic episode possible.  Another very important factor about a scene, is its continuity.  Whether one scene directly spills into the next or it is briefly interrupted as you transition to something else for a few scenes and pick back up where you left off, you still want things to be seamless. One of my goals is through the use of these elements to empower you with the ability to do so with ease. You can think of each element as a layer on which to build each scene in your story and as your story evolves your use of each will shift as some may not be needed and others will be essential.  I will help you to realize how they all tie together to bring out the best in your scene creation.

– Excerpted from Mastering Your Scenes by J.A. Cox, J.A. Cox, 2020. Reprinted with permission.

 

About the Author

J.A. Cox is a husband, father and disabled veteran. He is passionate about Jesus Christ and has a desire to allow God to use his writing to bring glory to his name and reach others for him. His other passions lie in: 1) Empowering people by teaching about things that he is knowledgeable in in a simple and fun as well as interesting manner. 2)Inspiring others that they may realize how the true potential to overcome their perceived dilemma lies right between their ears and how they allow it to manipulate what their eyes behold. 3) Helping people to realize that being healthy truly begins with realizing how important it is for them to be intimately acquainted with their own body in order for others to help them resolve its maladies that beset it. Along with those, he enjoys entertaining with fiction based on the concept that fact is stranger than fiction and then stretching it just a tad to create some memorable page turning moments that you will likely recall for some time to come.

Author Links  

Website | LinkedIn

❀New Business & Careers Book Alert❀: How To Be Resilient In Your Career by Dr. Helen Ofosu

 Title: How To Be Resilient In Your Career
Author: Dr. Helen Ofosu
Publisher: Routledge
Pages: 196
Genre: Business/Careers

How To Be Resilient in Your Career: Facing Up to Barriers at Work shares vital career advice to help professionals navigate common "internally disruptive" career experiences such as harassment and bullying, imposter syndrome, membership in an underrepresented group, toxic workplaces, discrimination, and more.

Dr. Helen Ofosu draws on twenty years of helping employers acquire talent and coaching professionals through difficult career choices to unpack these layered and complicated issues in an easy-to-follow way. Dealing with the dark side of management, the book outlines various issues that can occur in the workplace, or during a person's career journey, and offers practical advice on how to overcome these obstacles and setbacks. Using her considerable HR experience, Dr. Ofosu also offers coveted insights from the employer's point of view. For people who have already tried other options to resolve their complicated career issues, this book offers an essential guide that equips readers with a knowledge base to make informed decisions around building and sustaining a thriving and resilient career.

How to be Resilient in Your Career: Facing Up to Barriers at Work is a reliable resource presented with nuance, depth, and specificity. Psychologists, psychotherapists, social workers, and HR professionals who are looking for effective advice when supporting people struggling with these issues, will greatly benefit from this book, as will early career professionals, and established earners looking to resolve their career issues.

You can purchase your copy at Amazon at https://t.ly/_rspc. 

Other Buy Links:

Audible | Barnes & Noble | Indigo

Book Excerpt

As a Work and Business Psychologist, I have seen the immense value of using psychometric testing to support my clients’ efforts. Psychometric tests provide test-takers with objective feedback about themselves. Depending on the test, it can give insights into someone’s personality and how that may impact their relationships with their peers, subordinates, superiors, clients, etc. In terms of personality tests, I prefer those that measure or are linked to the "Big Five" Factors or traits of personality sometimes known by the acronym OCEAN or CANOE. Regardless of the preferred acronym, the letters stand for Openness to experience (intellectually curious, imaginative, and spontaneous vs. practical, confentional, and preferring routine), Conscientiousness (discliplined, dependable, and careful vs. spontantaneous and disorganized), Extraversion (warm, sociable, and emotionally expressive vs. reserved and thoughtful), Agreeableness (trusting, helpful, and empathetic vs. critical, suspicious, and uncooperative), and Neuroticism (anxious and prone to negative emotions vs. calm, even-tempered, and secure). Each of us will fall somewhere on a continuum for each of these traits and these qualities are stable across our lifetime.

About the Author

In good times and bad, resilience is one of the major keys to success – including career success. Dr. Helen Ofosu believes this applies to employees and entrepreneurs, individual contributors, subject matter experts, leaders, and executives.

That’s why her approach to career and executive coaching is to help people get ahead in a way that insulates them from future setbacks – or recover if things have gone sideways. This is also why, as a consultant, she helps organizations become stronger and more resilient, so they are ready for both the anticipated and the unexpected challenges that all organizations face at some point.

Part of what sets her apart from many career and executive coaches is her experience on the inside, as an HR and professional development professional, within large corporate workplaces and her intimate knowledge of typical HR processes and systems.

Clients come to her when the stakes are high. They can count on her to share insights and customized services that few others can deliver. They love that she has developed countless hiring tools and helped to resolve many HR problems over the years.

Her “insider” experience gives her clients an edge in getting hired and promoted in the public (and private) sector, and in managing their careers as they progress.

And as an Industrial/Organizational Psychologist (her field is more commonly known as Work and Business Psychology), she takes an evidence-based approach by using the latest research and best practices to increase the odds of her clients’ success.

Author Links  

Website | Brainz Magazine | Podcast Interviews | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Goodreads | Instagram

❀New Women's Fiction/Historical Fiction/Mystery Book Alert❀: The Golden Manuscripts by Evy Journey

Title: The Golden Manuscripts
Author: Evy Journey
Publisher: Independent
Pages: 360
Genre: Women's Fiction/Historical Fiction/Mystery

A young woman of Asian/American parentage has lived in seven different countries and is anxious to find a place she could call home. An unusual sale of rare medieval manuscripts sends her and Nathan—an art journalist who moonlights as a doctor—on a quest into the dark world of stolen art.  For Clarissa, these ancient manuscripts elicit cherished memories of children’s picture books her mother read to her, nourishing a passion for art.  When their earnest search for clues whisper of old thieves and lead to the unexpected, they raise more questions about an esoteric sometimes unscrupulous art world that defy easy answers.   Will this quest reward Clarissa with the sense of home she longs for? This cross-genre literary tale of self-discovery, art mystery, travel, and love is based on the actual theft by an American soldier of illuminated manuscripts during World War II.

 

Buy Links:

Amazon | B&N | Apple Books

Book Excerpt

November 2000

Rare Manuscripts

I sometimes wish I was your girl next door. The pretty one who listens to you and sympathizes. Doesn’t ask questions you can’t or don’t want to answer. Comes when you need to talk. 

She’s sweet, gracious, respectful, and sincere. An open book. Everybody’s ideal American girl. 

At other times, I wish I was the beautiful girl with creamy skin, come-hither eyes, and curvy lines every guy drools over. The one you can’t have, unless you’re a hunk of an athlete, or the most popular hunk around. Or you have a hunk of money.

But I’m afraid the image I project is that of a brain with meager social skills. The one you believe can outsmart you in so many ways that you keep out of her way—you know the type. Or at least you think you do. Just as you think you know the other two.

I want to believe I’m smart, though I know I can be dumb. I’m not an expert on anything. So, please wait to pass judgement until you get to know us better—all three of us. 

Who am I then? 

I’m not quite sure yet. I’m the one who’s still searching for where she belongs. 

I’m not a typical American girl. Dad is Asian and Mom is white. I was born into two different cultures, neither of which dug their roots into me. But you’ll see my heritage imprinted all over me—on beige skin with an olive undertone; big grey eyes, double-lidded but not deep-set; a small nose with a pronounced narrow bridge; thick, dark straight hair like Dad’s that glints with bronze under the sun, courtesy of Mom’s genes. 

I have a family: Mom, Dad, Brother. Sadly, we’re no longer one unit. Mom and Dad are about ten thousand miles apart. And my brother and I are somewhere in between.

I have no one I call friend. Except myself, of course. That part of me who perceives my actions for what they are. My inner voice. My constant companion and occasional nemesis. Moving often and developing friendships lasting three years at most, I’ve learned to turn inward. 

And then there’s Arthur, my beautiful brother. Though we were raised apart, we’ve become close. Like me, he was born in the US. But he grew up in my father’s home city where his friends call him Tisoy, a diminutive for Mestizo that sometimes hints at admiration, sometimes at mockery. Locals use the label for anyone with an obvious mix of Asian and Caucasian features. We share a few features, but he’s inherited a little more from Mom. Arthur has brown wavy hair and green eyes that invite remarks from new acquaintances. 

Little Arthur, not so little anymore. Taller than me now, in fact, by two inches. We’ve always gotten along quite well. Except the few times we were together when we were children and he’d keep trailing me, like a puppy, mimicking what I did until I got annoyed. I’d scowl at him, run away so fast he couldn’t catch up. Then I’d close my bedroom door on him. Sometimes I wondered if he annoyed me on purpose so that later he could hug me and say, “I love you” to soften me up. It always worked.

I love Arthur not only because we have some genes in common. He has genuinely lovable qualities—and I’m sure people can’t always say that of their siblings. He’s caring and loyal, and I trust him to be there through thick and thin. I also believe he’s better put together than I am, he whom my parents were too busy to raise. 

I am certain of only one thing about myself: I occupy time and space like everyone. My tiny space no one else can claim on this planet, in this new century. But I still do not have a place where I would choose to spend and end my days. I’m a citizen of a country, though. The country where I was born. And yet I can’t call that country home. I don’t know it much. But worse than that, I do not have much of a history there. 

Before today, I trudged around the globe for two decades. Cursed and blessed by having been born to a father who was a career diplomat sent on assignments to different countries, I’ve lived in different cities since I was born, usually for three to four years at a time. 

Those years of inhabiting different cities in Europe and Asia whizzed by. You could say I hardly noticed them because it was the way of life I was born into. But each of those cities must have left some lasting mark on me that goes into the sum of who I am. And yet, I’m still struggling to form a clear idea of the person that is Me. This Me can’t be whole until I single out a place to call home. 

Everyone has a home they’ve set roots in. We may not be aware of it, but a significant part of who we think we are—who others think we are—depends on where we’ve lived. The place we call home. A place I don’t have. Not yet. But I will.

I was three when I left this city. Having recently come back as an adult, I can’t tell whether, or for how long, I’m going to stay. You may wonder why, having lived in different places, I would choose to seek a home in this city—this country as alien to me as any other town or city I’ve passed through. 

By the end of my last school year at the Sorbonne, I was convinced that if I were to find a home, my birthplace might be my best choice. I was born here. In a country where I can claim citizenship. Where the primary language is English. My choice avoids language problems and pesky legal residency issues. Practical and logical reasons, I think.

About the Author

Evy Journey writes. Stories and blog posts. Novels that tend to cross genres. She’s also a wannabe artist, and a flâneuse. Evy studied psychology (M.A., University of Hawaii; Ph.D. University of Illinois). So her fiction spins tales about nuanced characters dealing with contemporary life issues and problems. She believes in love and its many faces. Her one ungranted wish: To live in Paris where art is everywhere and people have honed aimless roaming to an art form. She has visited and stayed a few months at a time.

Author Links  

Website | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads

❀New Scifi Mystery Book Alert❀: The Edison Enigma by Thomas White

 

Title: The Edison Enigma
Author: Thomas White
Publisher: Independent
Pages: 196
Genre: Scifi/Mystery

Edison, a Chicago physicist, manages to successfully transport an object through time. Almost immediately following this success Dr. Edison is shut out of the facility and told by benefactor Raphael Barrington, to take a vacation. He is contacted by Don Rivendell, a grizzled old man with a secret. Rivendell explains to Tom that he is not the first person to discover time travel. Someone else went back and changed history by saving a young girl from dying in an internal combustion engine explosion.

Dr. Edison is tasked with going back and fixing history. He travels back to 1904 to find the younger version of Rivendell and stop him from saving the girl. 

You can purchase your copy of The Edison Enigma at Amazon at https://t.ly/_NOoo.

Book Excerpt

Tom, Lori, and Jerzy entered the lab and stood on the landing, looking over the commotion. There was a hustle and bustle of frenetic activity as lab personnel moved from station to station, checking data, preparing modules, and entering critical information.

“Every time I come in here, I expect to see tables with bubbling test tubes and old, toothless women sweeping the floor,” Jerzy said.

Lori laughed. “Well, it would be hard to explain what bubbling test tubes have to do with this project, but I get your drift. We are kinda like Dr. Frankenstein with this whole thing.” Tom vaulted down the stairs and skipped to the control area on the opposite side of the room. He high-fived everyone he passed and crossed to an older, balding man with a semi-circle of gray hair around the fringe of his scalp. A short gray mustache covered most of his upper lip. The man had a slow gait caused mainly by forty straight hours on his feet. Tom hugged him.

“Bruce! This is it! I feel like tap dancing!”

“Well, I’ve put up with worse from you. We’re just running the final check-down now; almost complete. The data you just sent down is perfect.” Bruce had a New Jersey accent highlighted by a Yiddish lilt that caused his mustache to bounce when he spoke.

The retrofitting of the building was designed specifically for this project. Constructed like a sports arena with a high domed ceiling, the lab was ten thousand square feet open from wall to wall. Three levels encircled the room starting at the floor. Each subsequent level rose above the one below and contained a series of computer stations lined up like the NASA control room, collating, interpreting, or generating data. The entire room was connected, hardwired, and air-gapped to The Quint’s central motherboard. The Quint was the fastest and most potent AI computer known to man and contained the most significant elements of learned behavior and artificial intelligence. More significantly, it could determine and pinpoint a specific moment in time.

In the main staging area, in the center of the room, was the masterpiece of the entire project – The Time Tube. The Time Tube was a four-story, transparent tube made from indestructible acrylic conducive to energy absorption. As energy swirled through the Time Tube, it created the power needed for time travel. It stood 18’ tall with an eight-foot diameter. A raised platform ran halfway around and had six steps that led up to a full-size door allowing access to the Tube.

The lab’s roof was six stories high and supported a series of lighting instruments, air conditioning units, and safety mechanisms.  Among the other things that lived in the ceiling was a series of tubing that wrapped around the room like a tornado and converged from the roof to the lab’s centerpiece. This series of tubing was called the Cyclone. Air was pushed through the Cyclone at incredible speeds, producing centrifugal force. That energy transitioned to Euler acceleration, creating a variation in the angular velocity. Theoretically, this opens a window in time and allows the object to pass through.

After years of research, study, and failed experimentation, Tom finally understood that time is, in fact, parallel, meaning that time moves through us rather than us moving through time. In essence, time is an ever-evolving moment. We move from one plane to the next as we move forever forward. The wonder is that it is infinite, never-ending, so we will never reach the edge of time as time continues to build moment next to moment. Once Tom accepted that theory, the means of moving through time began to evolve.

With enough energy, we can freeze ourselves in a moment, thus staying still as time moves on. The challenge became moving through thousands of moments to move back in time, or more accurately, let a specific moment of the past catch up to you. It had taken Tom and his crew almost five years to reach this point. They believed they could generate enough energy to move back and forth within their time sphere to moments that have happened or will happen and return to their own designated moment and survive.

One of the most daunting challenges the team had to overcome when sending something through time was having the entire entity arrive in the same moment. Any portion of an entity that arrived a millisecond later than any other part of that entity would be split in two by the paradox of time. Using an optical lattice clock allowed the team to calculate to a precise moment. When coordinated with The Quint, the top or bottom, front or back, the side to side of any entity would arrive at the same exact moment in time so as not to be split apart.

Subsequently, above the main control area, against the back wall, was the read-out of an optical lattice clock, accurate to one second every 400 million years. It was this technology that allowed Tom and his staff the ability to pinpoint a single moment in time. The optical lattice clock uses laser beams instead of atoms to calculate the second. The light from the laser excites the strontium atoms and increases the accuracy of determination of time.

With The Quint’s exceptional calculation ability, Tom could capture moments within a zeptosecond, one trillionth of a billionth of a second, targeting specific areas of history or periods of time, with phenomenal accuracy.  Projecting these moments into the future would allow them to move forward in time as well. Theoretically, at least.

That theory would be tested this afternoon.

About the Author

Thomas White began his career as an actor. Several years later he found himself as an Artistic Director for a theatre in Los Angeles and the winner of several Drama-Logue and Critics awards for directing. As Tom’s career grew, he directed and co-produced the world tour of “The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coming Out Of Their Shells”. The show toured for over two years, was translated into seven different languages and seen by close to a million children. Tom served as President and Creative Director for Maiden Lane Entertainment for 24 years and worked on many large-scale corporate event productions that included Harley Davidson, Microsoft, Medtronic Diabetes, and dozens of others.   

The Edison Enigma is Tom’s third novel following up Justice Rules which was nominated as a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association 2010 Literary contest, and The Siren’s Scream.

Author Links

Website | X (Twitter) | Facebook 1 | Facebook 2 | Goodreads

 

❀New Historical Fiction Book Alert❀: The Dreaming Team by Chris Wallace

Title: The Dreaming Team
Author: Chris Wallace
Publisher: Round Lake Publishing
Pages: 368
Genre: Historical Fiction

In the 1850s, Australia was a thriving colony of the British Empire, with its own sense of importance and sophistication.  But the people who had occupied this vast land for upwards of 40,000 years didn’t fit well with colonial expectations of the future.  In every way imaginable, white Australia tried to keep its “darkies” in line. It is against this backdrop in the 1860s that the amazing story of an all Aboriginal cricket team, the first Aussie team to do so, played at Lords, the home of cricket in England.  Conventional wisdom predicted that Indigenous Australians would die off by the next generation. The Dreaming Team brings those Indigenous players to life and follows them on an adventure that would appear to be unbelievable if it weren’t true.  They not only changed the minds and perceptions about Aboriginal Australians, they arguably changed the course of Australian history.  Praise for The Dreaming Team: “A beautiful story, beautifully written, about a piece of Australian history that, if you don’t know about, you probably should. Heartwarming, heartbreaking and brimming with relevance for today’s Australia. A poignant example of how far we’ve come and how far we haven’t.” “The Dreaming Team tells the true story of the all Aboriginal cricket team from Victoria who did a tour of Great Britain back in the 1860s and all the drama, setbacks, and cultural divide between the Aboriginals and white Australians involved. Considering the state of affairs for Aboriginal people in those days, the team’s accomplishments are no small feat!” “What an interesting story. It is truly an Australian story about indigenous Australians. The story grabbed me from the first chapter, and drew me further in to where I could not put it down. I don’t want to give anything away, so I will say that the twists and turns makes you want to know what happens next at the end of each chapter. To say it is a sports story is not fair, it is a people story, told from the heart, about the hearts of people who love the land, and their story. I recommend it highly, and look forward to more from the author, Chris Wallace!”

You can purchase your copy at Amazon.  

Book Excerpt

Mr. Buckingham has asked Black Johnny to come into the shearing shed.  They stand together, both uncomfortable for different reasons.  Unaarrimin wonders if he’s done something wrong.  He has always tried to be a good worker.  Never complained about anything.  Was happy just to be there on the station  What could he have done?  In the very back of his mind, he wonders if it has anything to do with Alice but dismisses the thought as soon as it comes.  Mr. Buckingham is uncomfortable because he doesn’t like confrontation.  And especially this one.  He is perfectly happy with Black Johnny, finds him easy going, cooperative and good at his job.  It’s only because of his wife that he is in this position.  After a few more awkward minutes, Buckingham clears his throat and begins.  “You know . . . Um . . . You see . . . If it was up to me . . . Well . . . Er . . . The Missus has a bit of ah . . . Oh, damn it, I’m going to have to let you go.  That’s the size of it.  You’ll have to leave the property.  I’ve arranged some provisions for you, tea and sugar, salt, a blanket, a billy, matches, a good knife.  But you’ll have to go.”  Unaarrimin can only look at this man dumbfounded; this man who has been his guardian since he was orphaned as a little boy.  “What have I done?” Unaarrimin asks.  “Well, that’s just it, you see.  It isn’t that you’ve done anything.  It’s more like . . . um . . . look, Johnny, let’s just leave it that the Missus would rather you weren’t here anymore.  Like I said, if it was up to me, we wouldn’t be having this talk.  But you’ve got to go.  Here, take this letter with you.  It’ll help you get a job somewhere else.  But she wants you off the property tomorrow.  Early.”

Alice and Unaarrimin had been inseparable when they were children.  She claimed him.  She taught him to read.  As she learned them, she taught him manners.  They hiked all over Mullagh Station together.  He taught her how to live in the bush, showing her what plants were edible; how to make bread, how to build a proper fire.  They got into all manner of mischief together, stealing honey from Mrs. Buckingham’s cupboard and tobacco from Mr. Buckingham’s pouch.  One time Unaarrimin twisted his ankle jumping from the roof of the shed because Alice dared him.  When they saw that he was alright, they rolled on the ground together in fits of laughter.  He remembers how infectious Alice’s laugh is.  It’s like a melody, like music to him.  He would always do anything to make her laugh.  And she always did.  One day he was teaching her how to throw a boomerang.  “Hold it like this,’ he says.  “Throw from the shoulder”.  Alice cranks her arm for a mighty toss and cracks Unaarrimin in the nose.  She starts laughing her magical laugh.  Even when it starts bleeding, she’s still laughing.  And by now, he is laughing  too.  Alice takes a handkerchief from her pocket and begins dabbing the blood.  Then she gives it to him so he can apply enough pressure to stop the bleeding.  All the while they are laughing uncontrollably.

But there is no laughter now.  Now, he is filled with sadness as he empties the remains of the billy onto the fire and rolls up his swag.  Where is he to go?  What is he to do?  He ambles away from the billabong, no longer conscious of freedom, but thinking of what he has lost, wondering if he’ll ever see her again.

About the Author

Chris Wallace is a creative resource.  

As an actor, he was a regular on the hit daytime drama, All My Children, created the role of The Half-Percenter in Joe Papp’s production, Mondongo, appeared in countless television programs, including The Incredible Hulk, The Mary Tyler Moore Hour and had a starring role in the holiday horror classic film, New Year’s Evil.  

As a producer, he put on New York: A Great Place to Live at Lincoln Center which kicked off New York City’s Diamond Jubilee; for Channel Five in New York, he produced the highly acclaimed Harlem Cultural Festival; at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, he produced Uptown Sunday Afternoon, which was hosted by Harry Belafonte and featured Richard Pryor, Bill Withers, and a galaxy of other performers; for the National Organization for Women, he produced A Valentine’s Day Tribute to Woman at New York’s Town Hall;  was associate producer of the first Ali-Frazier Heavyweight Championship Fight at Madison Square Garden, and produced the gigantic block party, hosted by Gwen Verdon, which named West 46^th Street as Restaurant Row. .

He earned the Silver Award at the New York International Film and Television Festival for In the Balance, a film that advocated sustainability and common sense in wildlife management.  It was also singled out by the Department of the Interior as one of the best films of its kind.  Chris wrote, narrated and wrote the musical score for that film.

He performed on several children’s television programs in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and Jacksonville, singing his original children’s songs.  In Hollywood, he performed them for all denominations of Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America.  He created a musical, A Special Thing to Be, at the Los Angeles Children’s Museum that featured his kids’ songs and the museum’s children’s chorus.

He wrote the songs for two children’s theatre productions in Hollywood, Hooray, Here Comes the Circus and Sleeping Beauty; wrote and performed the songs on Strong Kids, Safe Kids, a video produced by Henry Winkler for Paramount that dealt with the protection of children from sexual molestation and exploitation.  He created his first musical revue, Greatest Hits, in Hollywood, which played several venues, including Carlos ‘n’ Charlie’s on Sunset Strip and The Backlot in West Hollywood.

Upon relocating to Australia, he produced A Helping Hand at the Victorian Arts Centre, a benefit for Quadriplegic Hand Foundation; wrote book, music and lyrics for Nothing to Wear, a musical based on “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” also produced at the Victorian Arts Centre.  He created a one-man show, A Thing of Shreds & Patches, for the Melbourne Fringe Festival; created another one-man show, The Mark Twain You Don’t Know, which toured Australia, then Pacific Palisades, California, and played in New York City on the 100^th anniversary of Mark Twain’s death.  He created several cabaret shows for The Butterfly Club in Melbourne, most notable of which was Les Femmes which featured an all female cast.  He wrote, produced and performed in Huckleberry: A Musical Adventure which premiered in Melbourne.

Which brings us to The Dreaming Team.  This is his second book.  The first, Hollywood Mosaic is written under the pen name, Pete Joseph.

You can visit his website at www.olentangymusic.com.