Giacomo Giammatteo

I’ve often been asked which character of a particular book or series is my favorite. I can usually respond quickly with not only a choice, but a reason. But when asked that question about this book, I was caught off guard.

It’s tough to list your favorite character when the story is true and the characters are real, even if they are animals.

You’d think being real would make choosing a favorite character easier, after all, you like certain people, one more than the other. Why not dogs?

I gave that some thought, and I came to the conclusion that after twenty-four years of running an animal sanctuary, I can say, without hesitation, that these dogs were a cut above the rest—truly amazing. That’s what makes it so difficult to decide.

Like all living creatures (and others), they were unique. Each had their own personality and their own quirks.

Bear all but refused to sleep inside at night, but he was happy to oblige during the day. He seldom ate dog food, preferring to catch his own meals in the woods. And while he wouldn’t let an adult stranger come near him, he allowed children to do almost anything.

Whiskers wasn’t the opposite of Bear, but she was different. She also refused to sleep inside, but her refusal was not restricted to night; during the day, she curled up in a hole she had dug or a pile of hay. It’s wrong to say she was bashful when it came to cameras; she took off as soon as you pulled one out. Unlike Bear, she would eat dog food, but not with the other dogs, preferring to go solo and to eat it outside. Lastly, while Bear would attack anyone who trespassed on his territory, Whiskers wouldn’t bite anyone if you begged her.

Despite the differences, she was the best lieutenant Bear could have wished for. She was the true right-hand man we’ve all read about.

Together, they were Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello and, at times, the Lone Ranger & Tonto. They were inseparable.

That’s why it’s so difficult to pick just one; they were both special. I guess you’ll have to decide. Read the book and see who you like best.

This picture of Bear shows the repercussions of one of his nightly excursions (a run in with a raccoon CM).

Below is a picture of Whiskers (one of the few pictures we have) after one of her adventures.

So pick up the book and read it, or read it to your kids, or give it to a friend. No matter what you do, it’s for a good cause. The animals will thank you for it.

Giacomo

Synopsis:

Read an excerpt:

Purchase Links:

Check out my review HERE.

And don’t forget to enter the giveaway. Click on WHISKERS & BEAR (in the sidebar) for a chance to win.

I am offering a $20. GC, either Amazon or B&N, whichever the winner prefers. Just a suggestion….if you enter the giveaway, please consider purchasing WHISKERS & BEAR. Thank you.

Giacomo will be back on April 22nd….Don’t miss the 4th installment for Author Of The Month

Lisa Brunette

I’m a ten-year veteran game writer, and right now I’m working on two unannounced projects for Daily Magic Games and Magic Tavern/Dreamics, and I’m in talks with G5 Entertainment about a third. So these projects will keep me busy for awhile, but on the side I’m working on a standalone novel, and I’m really excited about it.

The novel is based on an actual news report for an alleged murder committed in a town close to the one where I now live. A woman called 911 to report that she shot her husband in self-defense. At first, it looked like the evidence supported her claim, since both spouses’ guns were out. But then things began to look fishy. The husband was shot in the back, and someone cleaned the crime scene. I’m riveted by this. How does a woman with no priors or history of mental illness get to this point? That’s the question I’m attempting to answer in the novel.

Here’s the opening scene:

She pulled the bullet out of wall with Ron’s tweezers. They were big enough to reach in and grasp it. When she let the bullet drop into a pie tin she pulled from the pantry, it looked like a gold nugget. Dust billowed up when it hit the tin. Anna couldn’t remember the last time she’d baked a pie.

Good thing the spackling hadn’t dried out. She dug a finger in, scooping past the hardened surface, to the gooey mix underneath. She filled the hole, patting it with her finger like a kiss, the way Ron showed her once. That must have been when they remodeled the bathroom themselves. The upstairs bathroom, the one the two of them used, not the frilly pink one downstairs that the girls once adored and then came to make fun of when they were older.

She got the idea for the upstairs remodel from a magazine she bought at the convenience mart. Her coworker Kim would have stolen it, walked out with it under her jacket, which she did all the time, but not Anna, who’d been raised better than that.

Ron was getting blood all over the floor, making a mess. Anna could smell it, metallic and brassy hitting the back of her throat. Maybe that’s how the bullet would taste. But Anna didn’t have time for that. She’d have to let the spackling set while she cleaned Ron up, too. Luckily, the rug in the living room would work. She’d never liked it anyway.

I’m in the very early stages at this point on this new work, so I don’t yet have a publication date. Since indie-publishing the Dreamslippers Series over the last two years, I’ve had interest in my work from both Hollywood producers and literary agents. So rather than set a date on this new manuscript, I’ll be exploring traditional options. But first I have to finish it!

Readers can check back on my blog at www.lisa-brunette.com for excerpts and news on the book’s progress in the future.

By the way, I’ve used independent editors and a whole crew of BETA readers in the past, but this time, I’m a member of two different writing groups, both comprised of professional writers who take the craft seriously. One is entirely online; we share twenty pages each per month and send comments by email. The other is as small, with four or five of us again, but we meet in each other’s homes once per week, sharing five to seven pages at a time.

I’m looking forward to pushing my skills further with their help.

Author Bio:

Lisa was born in Santa Rosa, California, but that was only home for a year. A so-called “military brat,” she lived in nine different houses and attended nine different schools by the time she was 14. Through all of the moves, her one constant was books. She read everything, from the entire Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden mystery series to her mother’s books by Daphne DuMaurier and Taylor Caldwell.

A widely published author, game writer, and journalist, Lisa has interviewed homeless women, the designer of the Batmobile, and a sex expert, to name just a few colorful characters. This experience, not to mention her own large, quirky family, led her to create some truly memorable characters in her Dreamslippers Series and other works, whether books or games.

Always a vivid dreamer, not to mention a wannabe psychic, Lisa feels perfectly at home slipping into suspects’ dreams, at least in her imagination. Her husband isn’t so sure she can’t pick up his dreams in real life, though.

With a hefty list of awards and publications to her name, Lisa now lives in a small town in Washington State, but who knows how long that will last…

Lisa publishes a bimonthly newsletter. Sign up and receive a free book!

You can also visit Lisa on her Website 🔗, on Twitter 🔗, & at Facebook 🔗.

Click on titles below for synopsis via GR:
CAT IN THE FLOCK (Dreamslippers #1) Check out my review here.
FRAMED AND BURNING (Dreamslippers #2)
BOUND TO THE TRUTH(Dreamslippers #3)

Praise:

“A fascinating tale of mystery, romance, and what one woman’s dreams are made of. Brunette will keep you awake far into the night.” — Mary Daheim, bestselling author of the Bed-and-Breakfast and Emma Lord/Alpine mysteries

“Already hooked, this reader intends further sojourns in Cat’s dreamslipping world. Highly recommended.” — Frances Carden, Readers Lane

“Gripping, sexy and profound, CAT IN THE FLOCK is an excellent first novel. Lisa Brunette is an author to enjoy now and watch for the future.” — Jon Talton, author of the David Mapstone Mysteries, the Cincinnati Casebooks and the thriller Deadline Man

“A little Sue Grafton and a dose of Janet Evanovich… is just the right recipe for a promising new series.” — Rev. Eric O’del

“The launch of an intriguing female detective series… A mystery with an unusual twist and quirky settings; an enjoyable surprise for fans of the genre.” — Kirkus Reviews

Read an excerpt:

Purchase Links: Amazon 🔗 | Barnes & Noble 🔗 | Goodreads 🔗

Lisa Brunette

I wrote Cat in the Flock, the first book in the Dreamslippers Series, around an incredibly demanding full-time job as a game writer, with twelve-hour days spent sitting at a computer, either playing through or writing and editing games. To counteract all that chair time, I kept up a yoga practice. And that practice crept into the story I wrote in Cat in the Flock.

The plot centers on Cat McCormick, a recent college grad with a unique psychic ability: to slip into other people’s dreams. Her grandmother shares the ability and has used it as a private investigator. Cat enters into an apprenticeship with Grandmother Grace, but this means more than honing her dreamslipping skill; Grace is a lifetime practitioner of yoga, meditation, and other disciplines as well and uses them in tandem with her psychic ability.

At age 77 when the series opens, “Granny” Grace is a master on the mat:

Cat followed her grandmother in a series of sun salutations: downward dog, a lunge forward with one leg, and a standing salute to the sun. Then Granny Grace moved into crow pose, crouching forward till her knees touched her upper arms and then lifting her legs so her whole body was balanced on her arms. Cat couldn’t do that pose yet, so she sat in a wide-legged squat, watching her grandmother with admiration.

If you think this is pure fiction, think again. The inspiration for Grace came from the real-life examples I’ve read about and witnessed in my own life of women who’ve chosen movement practices that give them impressive longevity and vitality.

Grace draws upon the moving meditation of yoga when seeking insight into their criminal cases as well. In Framed and Burning, the second book in the series, she experiences a foreboding vision while practicing yoga on the beach in Miami:

And there, holding that pose, it was as if an energy whispered to her. She closed her eyes to hear it better, tuning it in. The energy was dark and red, vibrating to some frequency that wasn’t positive. She thought she heard the sound of large wings beating. Her eyes flew open. Breathing hard, losing her ujaiyi breath, she carefully extracted herself from the pose and took a resting pose on her knees, her hands in her lap. The place where her heart chakra should be ached.

Spiritfire came over to her and whispered, “Are you okay?”

Grace nodded. “I need a minute.”

“Ustrasana, camel pose, can reveal so much,” he said. “And it’s not always pleasant.”

She nodded again, rubbing the space that ached. It was an emotional ache, not a physical one. And it had to do with whoever set that first fire. The energy there was intensely negative, not accidental.

I loved writing about yoga in this way as much as I enjoyed the practice itself. But by the time I began to write the third novel in the series, I’d suffered a yoga heartbreak.

After a lifetime battle with scoliosis that often brought me pain both on and off the mat, I had to stop practicing yoga. Because yoga so often relies on arm-balance poses based on the classic downward dog and more advanced poses, I found it tough to modify around severe pain in my left shoulder. Since writing takes such a toll on the body, I felt bereft, not having a practice I could count on to undo the damage of sitting, typing, and using the mouse for long stretches at a time.

The experience forced me to acknowledge limitations, as well as the need to heal. While we all want to be Granny Grace showing up the twentysomethings at age 77, the fact is that conditions like scoliosis present challenges that can lead to frustration and chronic pain if pushed, or ignored.

I decided to try a different movement practice, one that promised to focus on self-healing and the joy of movement. Nia is a barefoot, non-impact dance that can be done by anyone at any level of fitness or with virtually any condition. The healing was slow and utterly worth it. Which is not to say that my spine miraculously straightened or I can do backflips, but I have better strength, flexibility, and mobility, as well as a growing awareness of what my body really needs.

With this experience as my inspiration, I challenged myself to confront the body’s limitations and ways of healing in my writing, within the “Amazing” Grace storyline.

So in book three, Bound to the Truth, our master yogi suffers an injury.

It’s one that would be considered “debilitating” by most. But like me, Grace discovers the healing aspects of dance. In the end, it becomes life-changing for her, in the most positive ways imaginable, bringing her a new movement practice that will carry her through the rest of her life as well as a love unlike any she’s ever experienced before, over a lifetime of fleeting romances.

Author Bio:

Lisa was born in Santa Rosa, California, but that was only home for a year. A so-called “military brat,” she lived in nine different houses and attended nine different schools by the time she was 14. Through all of the moves, her one constant was books. She read everything, from the entire Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden mystery series to her mother’s books by Daphne DuMaurier and Taylor Caldwell.

A widely published author, game writer, and journalist, Lisa has interviewed homeless women, the designer of the Batmobile, and a sex expert, to name just a few colorful characters. This experience, not to mention her own large, quirky family, led her to create some truly memorable characters in her Dreamslippers Series and other works, whether books or games.

Always a vivid dreamer, not to mention a wannabe psychic, Lisa feels perfectly at home slipping into suspects’ dreams, at least in her imagination. Her husband isn’t so sure she can’t pick up his dreams in real life, though.

With a hefty list of awards and publications to her name, Lisa now lives in a small town in Washington State, but who knows how long that will last…

Lisa publishes a bimonthly newsletter. Sign up and receive a free book!

You can also visit Lisa on her Website 🔗, on Twitter 🔗, & at Facebook 🔗.

Lisa will be back on March 29nd….Don’t miss the 5th, and final, installment for Author Of The Month and get a sneak peek for what’s next!!

Click on titles below for synopsis via GR:
CAT IN THE FLOCK (Dreamslippers #1) Check out my review here.
FRAMED AND BURNING (Dreamslippers #2)
BOUND TO THE TRUTH(Dreamslippers #3)

Praise:

“A fascinating tale of mystery, romance, and what one woman’s dreams are made of. Brunette will keep you awake far into the night.” — Mary Daheim, bestselling author of the Bed-and-Breakfast and Emma Lord/Alpine mysteries

“Already hooked, this reader intends further sojourns in Cat’s dreamslipping world. Highly recommended.” — Frances Carden, Readers Lane

“Gripping, sexy and profound, CAT IN THE FLOCK is an excellent first novel. Lisa Brunette is an author to enjoy now and watch for the future.” — Jon Talton, author of the David Mapstone Mysteries, the Cincinnati Casebooks and the thriller Deadline Man

“A little Sue Grafton and a dose of Janet Evanovich… is just the right recipe for a promising new series.” — Rev. Eric O’del

“The launch of an intriguing female detective series… A mystery with an unusual twist and quirky settings; an enjoyable surprise for fans of the genre.” — Kirkus Reviews

Read an excerpt:

Purchase Links: Amazon 🔗 | Barnes & Noble 🔗 | Goodreads 🔗

Synopsis:

A brilliant composer and coder goes undercover to trap a cybercrime syndicate that has hijacked her website—to traffic blood ivory. She must survive impossible physical, virtual and cultural obstacles and choose between the opposing forces of privacy and responsibility.

Allison is stunned when the CIA leaves her no option but to go undercover to surreptitiously modify the code she wrote to protect her symphony. She is deployed from New York with a savvy street vendor to Tanzania, where he is from—and where the cybercrime trail goes dead. Their guarded love affair is sidelined when they are abducted by a trafficker who poaches elephants on a massive scale. To avoid betraying each other they abandon their CIA handlers and return to New York City. Allison must find a way to bring down the syndicate knowing that she might have to sacrifice her symphony, her loved ones and her privacy—for a greater good.

To raise awareness of the world’s wild fauna and flora,
I am pleased to offer my ebook at no charge to anyone on
World Wildlife Day, March 3rd, 2017.

Here is the download link: http://dl.bookfunnel.com/ltn8rnj5pp

The United Nations has stated that endangered wildlife trafficking is the 4th largest illegal business in the world. Almost everyone agrees that this is not acceptable. This day will pass by millions of people who will think it’s “nice” to have a day for wildlife. And it is, but there’s more to it, and its success should be measured by what we homo sapiens do, and what we should stop doing.

The irony of this troubling statistic is that world tolerance is skewed—we blindly tolerate this illegal ivory supply chain, perhaps because it is so complex. Yet, conservationists are intolerant of societies and nations that are responsible for consuming wildlife parts, especially African elephant tusks, but the individual black market operators continue trading under the radar.

The United Nations General Assembly decided to proclaim March 3rd as the day of adoption of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), which “reaffirmed the intrinsic value of wildlife and its various contributions, including ecological, genetic, social, economic, scientific, educational, cultural, recreational and aesthetic, to sustainable development and human well-being, and recognized the important role of CITES in ensuring that international trade does not threaten the species’ survival.”

This high-minded resolution will not change illegal trafficking unless the demand for animal parts is choked off by raising awareness that living wildlife is vastly more valuable than in its dead components.

And, while CITES can define the parameters of value in wildlife manifestos, consumers of animal parts define that value in their belief systems. But to protect wildlife, must traditional societies throw out generations of beliefs based on religion, traditional medicine, personal empowerment and fashion? The intrinsic value that CITES lists pales in comparison to symbolic value that these societies place on animal parts. And so we correctly assume those beliefs cannot be changed. And they won’t. But the representation of those beliefs must change.

In other words, if we want to respect the diversity of value in wildlife, we must respect and tolerate the human belief systems that rely on it, provided they do not use animal parts to symbolize those beliefs. For example, ivory could just as well be marble, jade or granite, and even be shaped into the form of elephant tusks. Rhino horns could just as well be replaced by less expensive ED (erectile dysfunction) drugs—and be more effective.

For me, World Wildlife Day is about the tolerance of diverse world cultures as much as it is about celebrating world wildlife.

I offer my eco/cyber thriller, Atone for the Ivory Cloud to honor World Wildlife Day because it shows the evolution of a character who becomes aware of her own belief systems about elephants.

This story is about Allison, a New York-based electronic composer and coder who must go undercover to trap a cybercrime syndicate that has hijacked her website—to traffic blood ivory. The CIA leaves her no option but to go undercover to set the trap. She must modify the code she wrote to protect her symphony, and is deployed with a savvy street vendor to Tanzania, where he is from—and where the cybercrime trail goes dead. Their guarded love affair is sidelined after being abducted by a trafficker who poaches elephants on a massive scale. To avoid betraying each other they abandon their handlers and return to New York City. Allison must bring down the syndicate or sacrifice her music, her loved ones and her privacy—for a greater good.

World Wildlife Day should be a reminder of how anyone—or, in the case of Allison in my thriller—can go from being unaware of the 30,000 plus elephants poached every year to asserting her conviction about the absolute necessity of bio-diversity and sustainability; because it matters—even in her introspective world of New York.

Book Details:

Genre: Thriller
Published by: Ice Wine Productions, Inc.
Publication Date: February 2017
Number of Pages: 309
ISBN: eBook: 978-0-9981666-0-5, Print: 978-0-9981666-1-2
Purchase Links: Amazon 🔗 | Goodreads 🔗

IVORY TRAFFICKING Trailer for the thriller, Atone for the Ivory Cloud:

Read an excerpt:

Author Bio:

Impressions on a South African farm, boarding school, a father who read from the classics to his children, and a storytelling mother, sparked Geoffrey Wells with a writer’s imagination. Though the piano and drum kits and Mozambique led to his first thriller, A Fado for the River, his career as Art Director in advertising led him to the American Film Institute, and an awe of digital technology propelled him to VP/CIO at Disney, ABC-TV stations and Fox. Wells wrote an award-winning animated film, has visited elephant reserves, and climbed to the tip of Kilimanjaro. He lives on Long Island where he swims the open water and runs a video and design company. He writes thrillers about imperfect characters who, always with a diverse band of allies, fight villains that devastate our natural and virtual ecosystems.

“Atone for the Ivory Cloud is a compelling, fast-paced thriller with an exotic international flavor. Geoffrey Wells takes the reader on an enthralling ride, skillfully entwining cybercrime, music, and the fate of African elephants in a breathtaking tale of danger and romance.”
Pamela Burford, best-selling author of Undertaking Irene.

Catch Up with Geoffrey Wells on his Website 🔗, Twitter 🔗, & Facebook 🔗!

Tour Participants:

Stop by these other great hosts for to learn more about Geoffrey Wells and his book Atone for the Ivory Cloud with inteviews, guest posts, & reviews!

Giveaway:

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours for Geoffrey Wells. There will be 5 winners of one (1) eBook copy of Atone for the Ivory Cloud by Geoffrey Wells. The giveaway begins on February 28th and runs through April 2nd, 2017.

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