WELCOME FLORENCE STRANG & SUSAN GONZALEZ

Florence Strang, B.A., B.Ed., M.Ed., is a Registered Psychologist with more than twenty years of experience in the fields of Education and Psychology.   Through her counseling practice, she has taught people to use the power of positive thinking to heal their troubled minds.   After being diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, Florence began to blog “The Perks of Having Cancer”, as a way to help her stay positive through difficult cancer treatments.  Little did she know when she began this blog, that she would be helping thousands of others to find hope and inspiration.  Florence’s story of battling cancer with an unwavering faith and an unbeatable positive attitude is told in Woman’s World Magazine (April, 2012), and Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Power of Positive (©2012.)

Florence lives in scenic Lewin’s Cove, Newfoundland, with her daughter, Kaitlyn, and sons, Donovan and Ben.

Susan Gonzalez, R.N., BSN, earned her nursing degree in New York in 1986 and has been helping people “get well” ever since.  But no matter where her nursing career path led her, it was empowering patients with knowledge that she loved the most.

Diagnosed with cancer in 2005, Susan had a unique perspective on the disease, being a nurse in the patient’s role.  (something nurses are terrible at, by the way) She took that knowledge and her passion for finding natural cures to fight disease and started writing a blog for those who wanted to make simple changes for healthy living with an emphasis on avoiding cancer.   With 100 Perks of Having Cancer plus 100 Health Tips for Surviving It, Susan hopes to reach many more people with the message that making small lifestyle changes can lead to achieving optimum health and happiness.

Susan currently lives in Atlanta with her husband and two daughters

Connect with Florence and Susan at these sites:

On January 20th, Susan and Florence were interviewed on “Because Hope Matters Radio”.  To listen to the broadcast, click HERE.

ABOUT THE BOOK

How often do you hear the words “healthy”, “happy” and “cancer” mentioned in the same sentence? That is precisely what gives 100 Perks of Having Cancer (Plus 100 Health Tips for Surviving It) its unique character. Its authors not only “talk the talk” of living a healthy lifestyle with a positive attitude on the cancer journey, they also continue to “walk the walk”.

Florence’s perks, which are a combination of inspirational and humorous anecdotes, have made her audiences laugh and cry. Susan’s tips are sought after because of their educational content with a witty twist. Together they provide a valuable resource which will inspire and motivate their readers, while keeping them smiling.

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BOOK DETAILS:

Paperback: 500 pages
Publisher: Basic Health Publications; 1st edition
Publication Date: August 2, 2013
ISBN-10: 1591203562
ISBN-13: 978-1591203568

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WELCOME TILIA KLEBENOV JACOBS

TILIA KLEBENOV JACOBS

Tilia Klebenov Jacobs holds a BA from Oberlin College, where she double-majored in Religion and English with a concentration in Creative Writing. Following an interregnum as an outdoor educator with the Fairfax County Park Authority in Virginia, she earned a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and a Secondary School Teaching Certification from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Tilia has taught middle school, high school, and college, and has won numerous awards for her fiction and nonfiction writing. She is a judge in the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition, and she teaches writing in two prisons in Massachusetts. Tilia lives near Boston with her husband, two children, and two standard poodles.
Connect with Tilia at these sites:

Guest Post

Without Burt Lancaster, Wrong Place, Wrong Time would not exist.

Let’s start with the basics.  I am mad for Burt Lancaster, whether I am drooling over him in his early roles (so manly and heroic!) or sighing at the depth and grace of his later performances (Field of Dreams, anyone?).  So perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised when he helped me write my first novel.

It all started with The Flame and the Arrow, a jolly, Robin Hood-esque movie starring Burt Lancaster as Dardo, a hunky guy in tights who kidnaps a woman in order to rescue his son, who is being held by Count Ulrich, the evil Hessian overlord.  (Film buffs will not be surprised to know that the hostage is played by Virginia Mayo, a lovely blond who is reliably in peril by the second reel of any movie she appears in.)

Part of what makes this movie so much fun is that Mayo’s character, Anne of Hesse, is never afraid of Dardo.  He is unquestionably bigger and stronger than she; but she stands up to him at every encounter, and during the course of her durance vile she never stops trying to get away.  Reluctantly, Dardo finds himself respecting her, and the film ends on a kiss and a fade-out.

Alas, however, the movie is very much a product of its times, and although Anne refuses to be cowed by Dardo, she also never effectively fights back.  The kidnapping scene is particularly egregious in this regard:  removing her from her bedroom presents all the mechanical and logistical challenges of hoisting a sack of potatoes.  Watching the movie (repeatedly), I wanted her to hit him!  Hard!  Even if she  lost, I wanted her to fight.

Which got me thinking.

What if she did fight back?  And actually knew how to?

What if she didn’t fall in love with him?

What if instead she were married, and loved her husband very deeply?

What if she had a couple of kids?  And were fortysomething instead of twentyish?

What if she were Jewish?  Popular culture only knows two kinds of Jews:  Woody Allen-style neurotics and Holocaust victims.  Neither of these lives in my neighborhood.

What if this happened in real life?  I’d have a thriller with a happily married fortyish Jewish mother of two young children at its heart, that’s what. I know a lot of women like that  in real life, but I don’t see them in fiction.

So I named my heroine Tsara, and set to work.

The next piece of business was Burt’s character, Dardo the mountain man, an antihero morally superior to Count Ulrich, the ostensible keeper of law and order in the wilds of Lombardy.  In Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Dardo morphed into Mike, a former Marine with a criminal record.  Mike is a bruised soul, a man’s man who will risk all to do what’s right.

Mike is a good guy.  But he’s not always a nice guy.

Mike and Tsara have a lot in common, much more than their movie counterparts.  Both are fighters.  Both are parents of young children who are about the same age.  Most important, they share an unwavering moral compass.  These are not people who take ethical shortcuts.

And yet, they are on opposite sides of the law.  That creates a tension between them that fuels the book even as Mike and Tsara bond through joining forces against a mortal enemy.  This tension is the rocket fuel for the book—any scene with Tsara and Mike in it is my favorite, because even when they’re on the same side, they are enemies with a common goal.

And that was the font of my inspiration.  I started with The Flame and the Arrow with its jolly, irreverent tone, and ended up with a high-stakes thriller.

Thank you, thank you, Burt.  I owe you so much.

ABOUT THE BOOK

When Tsara Adelman leaves her husband and two young children for a weekend to visit her estranged uncle, she little dreams he is holding several local children captive on his lavish estate. Mike Westbrook, father of one of the boys, kidnaps her to trade her life for the children’s. Soon Tsara and Mike are fleeing through New Hampshire’s mountain wilderness pursued by two rogue cops with murder on their minds.

BOOK DETAILS:

Number of Pages: 406 pages
Publisher: Linden Tree Press; 2 edition
Publication Date: October 1, 2013
ISBN-10: 0989860116
ISBN-13: 978-0989860116

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DISCLAIMER
I received a copy of this book, at no charge to me, in exchange for my honest review. No items that I receive are ever sold…they are kept by me, or given to family and/or friends.
ADDENDUM
I do not have any affiliation with Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. I am an IndieBound affiliate. I am providing link(s) solely for visitors that may be interested in purchasing this Book/EBook.

WELCOME MARGARET BARNES

MARGARET BARNES

Margaret Barnes is a retired barrister who splits her time between Notting Hill in London and Exton in Devon. During her career Barnes represented many defendants in high-profile cases including the death of fashion designer Ossie Clark, who was murdered by his lover Diego Cogolato in a drug induced psychotic state of paranoia. Barnes also represented Janet Griffiths who abducted a baby from St Thomas’s hospital. Retirement moved Barnes to study for an MA in Creative Writing course at Exeter University, where she was encouraged to write crime novels. Barnes is also a member of a local writing group which has published a book of short stories called Rammblings, inspired by items in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter. She also organises a regular literary supper book club which invites a writer to speak about their work; past guests have included Philip Hensher and Frances Fyfield.
Connect with Ms. Barnes at these sites:

Q&A with Margaret Barnes

Do you draw from personal experience and /or current events?
Personal experience plays a big part in my writing. Writers are often told to write what they know about and as I was a criminal defence barrister for many years, I was almost compelled to write about the English Criminal Justice system.  On the other hand there is so much on television and in the newspapers about issues involving the criminal law, that I also can incorporate current events into my writing. Crucial Evidence concerns the question of mistaken identity and the second Cassie Hardman novel will look at the issue of self defence when a shop owner kills a thief. That’s very topical.

Do you start with the conclusion and plot in reverse or start from the beginning and see where the story leads you?
I start with the plot which follows the course of a trial, so that comes first. Then I weave the secondary story line around the first. Having said that, sometimes the characters’ reactions to the trial surprise me, and the story goes off at a tangent.

Your routine when writing? Any idiosyncrasies?
When I was working I was usually in court during the day and did paperwork in the evening and I’ve retained that work pattern. However as I never had fixed routine, I can work virtually anytime and anywhere.

Is writing your full time job? If not, may I ask what you do by day?
I’m retired now and so finally I have the opportunity to write, something I had very little time for when I was working as a barrister.

Who are some of your favorite authors?
It tends to change and I love whoever I’m reading at the moment, but more of that later. I was impressed by and wanted to write a novel like those of Scott Turrow or an early John Grisham and of the UK writers who write about the English Legal system I like Frances Fyfield, who was a solicitor.

What are you reading now?
I’m reading a novel by the journalist and biographer Andrew Wilson called ‘The Lying Tongue.’ It’s a gripping mystery story with an unreliable narrator who wants to write a novel. He gets a job in Venice as a PA to an elderly writer who having written a hugely successful first novel never writes again. The narrator decided he will write a biography of his employer and his research takes him into a very dark place. I will say no more as I don’t want to deny others the pleasure of reading and following this macabre narrator.

Are you working on your next novel? Can you tell us a little bit about it?
Crucial Evidence is the first of three novels charting the career of barrister Cassie Hardman from successful junior into silk. A little like the Martha Costello character in the TV programme Silk. In the second novel she is being stalked by a stranger while she fights to establish the innocence of a shop keeper charged with the murder of a young man who stole from the shop.

Your novel will be a movie. Who would you cast?
That’s really difficult. I think Laura Carmichael, who plays Lady Edith in Downton Abbey would be a good Cassie. She would have to be able to do a soft Lancashire accent. Detective Constable Alex Seymour is a glamorous woman in her mid thirties and perhaps Maxine Peake could play the cop instead of the lawyer.

Manuscript?Note: hand written or keyboard?
Notes by hand and manuscript on the computer. I always wrote jury speeches out in full and by hand, even though other documents I prepared on the computer. I think it was because the address to the jury was to be spoken and everything else was to be read. Writers are advised to always read their work out to check for grammatical mistakes, but there is something about the slowness of reading aloud that enables one to think about the effect of the words, and I think writing by hand does the same thing.

Favorite leisure activity/hobby
I love the theatre and when we are in London we try to get to at least one production. In the country I enjoy walking and as we have a Springer Spaniel so we take him out every day –it’s good exercise for me as well.

Favorite meal
Virtually anything that’s cook by somebody else.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Retired successful barrister offers chilling but revealing insight into the English Criminal Justice System in fast-paced courtroom drama. ” Lenny Barker is standing trial for the murder of a call girl. Unfortunately, his own barrister, Cassie Hardman, believes he is guilty. That is until the weekend before the trial, when Cassie discovers there may be a witness who can provide a compelling alibi for Barker, testifying that he was, in fact, somewhere else at the time of the murder. Ambitious but cautious, Cassie is reluctant to do anything that might jeopardise the case or, more importantly, her career; no barrister in their right mind would go chasing after a key witness. Cassie’s overriding sense of justice stands firm, and she begins an almost forensic search for the missing witness, a man known only as ‘Hinds’. Cassie’s search for Hinds leads her to a seedy night club where she is unceremoniously arrested during a police drugs raid. Facing the prospect of major professional embarrassment, Cassie calls in a favour from DC Alex Seymour, a recent social acquaintance from a friend’s dinner party. Cassie learns that DC Seymour is also on the hunt for Hinds, and the two women form an unconventional alliance to track him down. But things don’t run smoothly and the trial hangs on a knife’s edge. With both women putting their lives, and their careers, at risk, will they get their hands onto the crucial evidence that is needed to give Lenny Barker the fair trial he deserves?

BOOK DETAILS:

Publisher: New Generation Publishing
Publication Date: January 14, 2014
Number of Pages: 352 pages
ISBN-10: 1910162396
ISBN-13: 978-1910162392

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WELCOME CHRISTOPHER MEEKS

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS

Christopher Meeks was born in Minnesota, earned degrees from the University of Denver and USC, and has lived in Los Angeles since 1977. He’s teaches English and creative writing at Santa Monica College, and has taught creative writing at CalArts, UCLA Extension, Art Center College of Design, and USC. His fiction has appeared often in Rosebud magazine as well as other literary journals, and his books have won several awards. His short works have been collected into two volumes, “The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea” and “Months and Seasons,” the latter which appeared on the long list for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. He’s had three plays produced, and “Who Lives?: A Drama” is published. His focus is now on longer fiction. His first novel is “The Brightest Moon of the Century,” and his second, “Love At Absolute Zero.”
Connect with Chris at these sites:

Q&A with Christopher Meeks

Do you draw from personal experiences and/or current events?
Truth springs from the personal. Other people’s stories that I’ve loved have felt naked and truthful, and their points thundered home. Perhaps I first saw that as a teenager reading the poetry of Richard Brautigan and then Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Even though both authors used humor, I felt their truths. As I writer, I needed to be the same. My short fiction was always based on personal experiences, and I aimed for emotional truth.

My first two novels, The Brightest Moon of the Century and Love at Absolute Zero revolved around situations I’d been in. One example is when I did everything I could to take my junior year abroad in Denmark to live with my Danish girlfriend. When I arrived, she was living with another guy. It seemed funny years later—just not at the time.

Once I ran out of major events in my life, I thought of things that could happen. Blood Drama is a “What if?” It came from my correcting student papers daily at a Starbucks in the lobby of a bank. The elegant and comfortable setting enveloped me, but then I thought, “This bank could be robbed. What if I were taken hostage?”

Do you start with the conclusion and plot in reverse or start from the beginning and see where the story line brings you?
In writing short fiction, I never know where a story is going, but if I go off course, I’ve only lost ten or twenty pages at the most. A novel is different. You don’t want to write 300 pages of a novel and say, “Whoops. I took a wrong turn on page twenty,” and then throw out 280 pages. A novel takes planning.

What’s great is that thinking is far faster than writing. I see scenes in my mind in fast motion.

I start at the beginning but quickly consider what the arc of the story might be. Where will it go? Then I spend a lot of time considering all the possible steps. The great thing about this approach is an outline may be as little as a few pages. Once I have something down on paper in terms of structure, I can push things and consider other possibilities.

Plenty changes when I write, but an outline is not etched in copper. My outline changes as I write. When I take an interesting left turn, I return to the outline, imagining how this new event might change things down the line. If the change isn’t good, I don’t need to keep pursing it. If I like the new event, I change the outline so that I know where I’m now going.

Your routine when writing? Any idiosyncrasies?
My idiosyncrasies have changed. Do you know the short story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut? In a future world, everyone is equal. To make that happen, really great dancers have to dance with lead weights attached so that they lumber like regular people; smart people have a little beep go off in their heads about every twenty seconds. The beep makes them forget their train of thought. Now I feel I’m in that world. My cellphone will vibrate or ring, and it instantly knocks off my train of thought. In fact, it’s ringing now…

I’m back. Where was I? Oh, right. My routine now is to NOT look at email the first thing in the morning, to NOT answer the phone necessarily when it rings. Staying focused is a challenge today for most people. It is for me. It takes focus to write. Now, late night and early morning are my best times. I usually aim for the latter.

Is writing your full time job? If not, may I ask what you do by day?
I have a wonderful balance in my life. I teach creative writing and English, which helps force me to read. Each semester, I always teach new stories or books. I feel challenged and refreshed teaching new things. In my creative writing classes, I also offer new exercises in my continual search to find what inspires. The students’ writing and our discussions feed me.

In turn, as I write new stories, I can relate some of my challenges to their challenges. An interesting thing is my students are almost always nineteen or early twenties, while I keep aging. Yet, I get to stay current with our culture through my students. I couldn’t do that always holed up at home. Also, my teaching schedule makes me be efficient with my writing time.

Who are some of your favorite authors?
Margaret Atwood, Kurt Vonnegut, Tim O’Brien, Lorrie Moore, Raymond Carver, Mark Haskell Smith, Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, and, since last year, Stephen King. I always eschewed King’s novels as I don’t like horror, but then I read 11/22/63 and Joyland—great stuff.

What are you reading now?
Pete Townsend’s biography, Who I Am. I never liked memoirs until a friend recommended Patti Smith’s Just Kids, and now I’m hooked. I taught Smith’s book last semester along with David Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day.

Are you working on your next novel? Can you tell us a little about it?
I just finished my next novel, A Death in Vegas. It’s about a man who sells beneficial bugs such as ladybugs to organic gardeners, and when he wakes up one morning in his hotel at a convention, he finds a naked dead young woman in his room. He’s in trouble—and his wife isn’t happy either.

I’m about to start my third collection of short stories, which follows The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea and Months and Seasons.

Your novel will be a movie. Who would you cast?
Scarlett Johansen. She should be in every one of my novels. Anyone from the cast of American Hustle should, too. Man, that film offers stunning acting.

Manuscript/Notes: hand written or keyboard?
Ask my ghostwriter. Actually, I was once a ghostwriter. Keyboards.

Favorite leisure activity/hobby?
Drinking hard and shooting guns. (No. That’s my answer after my telephone rang again.)

I like skiing, watching mesmerizing movies, and taking and printing photographs. This was always a question for Playboy Playmates. I’m glad to see we’re all equal now.

Favorite meal?
If you haven’t learned it yet, as you age, your metabolism gets more efficient. At fifteen, I could drink chocolate malts and eat Oreos and never gain weight. I was incredibly thin. Now if I breathe the smell of baked beans, I gain a pound. Gaining weight is so much easier than losing weight, so I try to stay away from favorite foods all in one spot. Thus, favorite meals are more to be dreamed about than eaten.

I love a great steak, such as the filet mignon that Café Beaujolais makes with blue cheese. I love artichokes with hollandaise sauce. I soar with a great French Onion soup or Thai Tom Kah soup, the one with coconut milk.

ABOUT THE BOOK

“Blood Drama is wildly entertaining with fast-paced dialogue and plot twists caroming like a steel ball in a pinball machine.” -Linda Hitchcock, BookTrib

In the crossover thriller BLOOD DRAMA, graduate student Ian Nash, after losing his girlfriend, gets dropped from a Ph.D. program in theatre. When he stops at a local coffee shop in the lobby of a bank to apply for a job, the proverbial organic matter hits the fan. A gang of four robs the bank, and things get bloody. Ian is taken hostage by the robbers when the police show up. Now he has to save his life.

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BOOK DETAILS:

Genre: Thriller/Suspense
Published by: White Whisker Books
Publication Date: June 1, 2013
Number of Pages: 240
ISBN: 9780983632962
NOTE: Graphic Violence

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DISCLAIMER
I received a copy of this book, at no charge to me, in exchange for my honest review. No items that I receive are ever sold…they are kept by me, or given to family and/or friends.
ADDENDUM
I do not have any affiliation with Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. I am an IndieBound affiliate. I am providing link(s) solely for visitors that may be interested in purchasing this Book/EBook.

WELCOME AILEEN G. BARON

AILEEN G. BARON

Aileen G. Baron has spent her life unearthing the treasures and secrets left behind by previous civilizations. Her pursuit of the ancient has taken her to distant countries—Israel, Turkey, Jordan, Greece, Britain, China and the Yucatan—and to some surprising California destinations, like Newport Beach, California and the Mojave Desert.

She taught for twenty years in the Department of Anthropology at California State University, Fullerton, and has conducted many years of fieldwork in the Middle East, including a year at the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem as an NEH scholar and director of the overseas campus of California State Universities at the Hebrew University. She holds degrees from several universities, including the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Riverside.

The first book in the Lily Sampson series, A FLY HAS A HUNDRED EYES, about the murder of a British archaeologist in 1938 in British mandated Palestine, won first place in the mystery category at both the Pikes Peak Writers conference and the SouthWest Writers Conference. THE TORCH OF TANGIER, the second novel in the Lily Sampson series, takes place in Morocco during WW II, when Lily is recruited into the OSS to work on the preparations for the Allied invasion of North Africa, Operation Torch. In THE SCORPION’S BITE, Lily is doing an archaeological survey of Trans-Jordan for the OSS.
Connect with Ms. Baron at these sites:

Q&A with Aileen Baron

Do you draw from personal experiences and/or current events?
For A FLY HAS A HUNDRED EYES, I drew on my own experience as an archaeologist and on my passion for the mystique of Jerusalem. The story is based, in part, on an actual event. During the British Mandate of Palestine, in 1938, a famous British archaeologist, James Starkey, was murdered on his way to the opening of the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem. He was noted, incidentally, for his stinginess, his surly disposition, and lack of sympathy for his workers. The British police never bothered to find out who killed him, and the story going around was that he was so nasty that nobody cared. Eventually, failure to look into his murder became a standing joke among archaeologists. In the field, students working on sites in the Near East would sometimes say to their professors, “Don’t work us too hard, or we’ll pull a Starkey on you,” and start laughing. So for my first mystery, I had a ready-made murder to solve.

Jerusalem was in chaos in the summer of 1938. Terrorists roamed the countryside, the British were losing control of the Mandate of Palestine, and the atmosphere was fraught with conflict, as Europe prepared for World War II. With this backdrop of Palestinian and international tension, I changed the name of the murdered archaeologist, and let my imagination take off from there.

Do you start with the conclusion and plot in reverse or start from the beginning and see where the story line brings you?
I usually start by leading up to a critical incident, like Starkey’s murder, and try to find a satisfactory resolution, weaving in scenes, going back and forth in my mind until a story takes form.

Your routine when writing?  Any idiosyncrasies?
When I am into writing a book, wonderful words and phrases tumble into my head while I’m in the bathtub. Sometimes by the time I get out of the tub and dry off, the words and phrases are gone, or not as wonderful as I thought. On the other hand, I do my best thinking while on the freeway. I sort of zone out and drive automatically, just following the car in front of me.  Once I followed a car into someone’s driveway in Pasadena. I felt like a fool, looked around and said, “Where am I?” like someone coming out of a blackout.

Is writing your full time job?  If not, may I ask what you do by day?
I began writing mysteries after I retired from my full time job as an archaeology professor at Cal State Fullerton.

  Who are some of your favorite authors?
It’s hard to say. I like to read. If the book is well-written, I can get lost in it. I like Mark Twain, read everything he ever wrote. When I was a child, I adored Alice in Wonderland, and Through the Looking-glass and laughed and laughed when I read them. I still love them. The first book I read all by myself was The Last of the Mohicans, and said nothing but Ugh! for the next two weeks because I was Chingachgook. After that, I read all of Cooper’s Leather-Stocking tales. Natty Bumpo became my hero, although I sometimes conflated him with Robin Hood, because both were heroes, were extraordinary marksmen, and lived in the woods. I seem to be the exception to the rule about woman mystery writers. Nancy Drew mysteries were not my favorite reading. The mysteries I read were in the pulp magazines that my father read on his commute into the city. The Shadow knows!

My favorite mystery writers from the golden age of mystery are Raymond Chandler, for his skill with words, and of course, Agatha Christie, because she is the patron saint of archaeologists. Of current writers, I like Lawrence Bloch and Ken Follett and Daniel Silva and Rhys Bowen and others too numerous to mention.

What are you reading now?
I  just started reading Dark of the Moon, a Virgil Flowers book by John Sandford.

Are you working on your next novel?  Can you tell us a little about it?
I just finished working on Return of the Swallows, the next book in the Tamar Saticoy series, in which Tamar, part-time archaeological consultant for Interpol, becomes mired in the devious world of museums and the antiquities trade, ranging from Thailand to California. Tamar was first introduced and recruited by Interpol in the mystery, The Gold of Thrace, published by Poisoned Pen Press in 2010.

In Return of the Swallows, Tamar finds a burnt body while working on the salvage excavation of a burnt mud-brick wall at Mission San Juan Capistrano. Tests reveal that the body is that of a contemporary murder victim, probably a native of the Khorat Plateau in Thailand, where an archaeological site is being looted. Tamar becomes embroiled in a labyrinth of deception and danger in her attempts to identify the body of the victim at the Mission and, working with Interpol, his link to the looted Thai site.

The looting of archaeological sites can be lucrative, and has resulted in murders, as well as connections with international contraband activities. The plot of Return of the Swallows is based, in part, on a real occurrence. I was personally aware of all the details, and knew all the principals, from the archaeologist whose site had been looted to the curators in the museums that received the stolen goods.  A Red Notice by Interpol involving the tie-in between the looted Thai site and several museums in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas resulted in Federal indictments.

ABOUT THE BOOK

In the summer of 1938, Jerusalem is in chaos and the atmosphere teems with intrigue. Terrorists roam the countryside. The British are losing control of Palestine as Europe nervously teeters on the brink of World War II.

Against this backdrop of international tensions, Lily Sampson, an American graduate student, is involved in a dig—an important excavation directed by the eminent British archaeologist, Geoffrey Eastbourne, who is murdered on his way to the opening of the Rockefeller Museum. Artifacts from the dig are also missing, one of which is a beautiful blue glass amphoriskos (a vial about three and a half inches long) which Lily herself had excavated. Upset by this loss, she searches for the vial—enlisting the help of the military attaché of the American consulate.

But when she contacts the British police, they seem evasive and offputting—unable or unwilling either to find the murderer or to look into the theft of the amphoriskos. Lily realizes that she will get no help from them and sets out on her own to find the vial. When she finds the victim’s journal in her tent, she assumes he had left it for her because he feared for his life.

Lily’s adventurous search for information about the murder and the theft of the amphoriskos lead into a labyrinth of danger and intrigue.

This impressive historical mystery novel has already won first place in its category at both the Pikes Peak and Southwest Writers Conferences in 2000.

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BOOK DETAILS:

Genre: Mystery
Published by: Aileen Baron
Publication Date: September, 2013
Number of Pages: 217
ISBN:
Mobi: 978-0-578-12887-0
epub: 978-0-578-12888-7
POD: 978-0-578-12956-3

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DISCLAIMER
I received a copy of this book, at no charge to me, in exchange for my honest review. No items that I receive are ever sold…they are kept by me, or given to family and/or friends.
ADDENDUM
I do not have any affiliation with Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. I am an IndieBound affiliate. I am providing link(s) solely for visitors that may be interested in purchasing this Book/EBook.

WELCOME VICTORIA L. TRENTON

VICTORIA L. TRENTON

Victoria L Trenton is an author, freelance writer, and a self-professed dreamer. She is a dedicated student of the BDSM arts, and is highly interested in the inner workings of the criminal mind.
Her tamer pursuits include sailing, horseback riding, traveling, and cooking.
She currently resides in Miami, Florida with her beloved Muse, Mentor, and long time Life Partner, along with her furry feline best friend Z.
Connect with Victoria at these sites:

ABOUT THE BOOK

Live life out loud.

Chrissie Laursen doesn’t date models. Having barely survived her battle with alcoholism and just out of a ten-year marriage that lasted nine years too long, she’s laser focused on her thriving Miami Beach business: promoting erotic photographers in local galleries. She has no time for the ego driven pretty boys that proliferate in that business. For so long she’s wondered if life and love would ever truly touch her that she decides to go it alone. Then she sees the glacial blue eyes and rugged, animal intensity of Nick Jessup, and her resolve begins to fracture.

Irresistibly drawn to him, she begins a relationship with Nick and soon becomes obsessed with his dominant, controlling personality. Even his dangerous past doesn’t scare her. But before their charged sexual energy culminates in passion, the peril of Nick’s past explodes into the present and he is sentenced to thirty-five years in prison for a horrific crime. Faced with the reality that her life can either return to the empty normalcy she’s always known or continue through the terrifying and exhilarating doorway that Nick’s arrival has opened…she makes a decision to do something that will never allow her to go back to the fragile life she’s just rebuilt.

A wild, erotic, and powerful journey of self-discovery, The Outmate shimmers with the intensity of what it means to be human-and the clarity that comes with finding your truth before it’s too late.

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BOOK DETAILS:

Paperback: 388 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Publication Date: September 7, 2013
ISBN-10: 1490313869
ISBN-13: 978-1490313863

PURCHASE LINKS:

DISCLAIMER
I received a copy of this book, at no charge to me, in exchange for my honest review. No items that I receive are ever sold…they are kept by me, or given to family and/or friends.
ADDENDUM
I do not have any affiliation with Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. I am an IndieBound affiliate. I am providing link(s) solely for visitors that may be interested in purchasing this Book/EBook.

WELCOME LORI LITE

LORI LITE

Ms. Lite’s titles are considered a resource for parents, psychologists, therapists, child life specialists, teachers, and yoga instructors. Her Indigo Dreams® audio book/CD series has been awarded the CNE Award of Excellence. Ms. Lite has been interviewed and written articles for several media outlets, including: Family Circle, NY Times, MSNBC, ABC Radio; CBS News; USA Today; Web MD; Stress Free Living; Mind, Body, and Soul; and Job Club with Tory Johnson. She has also been featured in several publications which include Prevention Magazine, Parent Guide New York, Family Circle, Kiwi Magazine, and Aspiring Woman. Lori is a certified children’s meditation facilitator and Sears’ Manage My Life parenting expert. She gained national attention when she appeared on Shark Tank, an ABC/Mark Burnett production.
Connect with Lori at these sites:

ABOUT THE BOOK

Stress management solutions for you and your children!
Kids today are more stressed, overwhelmed, and struggling with anxiety than ever before. Children are not born with the coping strategies needed to navigate today’s increasing demands of technology, bullying, academics, and family dynamics. You yourself might wonder how your own stressed-out lifestyle is affecting your children. Based on Lori Lite’s award-winning series, Stress Free Kids provides relaxation techniques you can use to free your child from stress.

Lite shows you how to apply breathing, visualizations, affirmations, and muscle relaxation exercises effortlessly throughout the day. These parenting solutions to everyday stressors will reduce worries and anxiety while increasing self-esteem. You and your children will gain freedom as you live a more joy-filled life with less stress.

With this complete resource as your guide, your family will create your own collection of stress-free moments that add up to peace and confidence–for you and your children.

BOOK DETAILS:

Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Adams Media
Publication Date: January 1, 2014
ISBN-10: 1440567514
ISBN-13: 978-1440567513

PURCHASE LINKS:

           

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WELCOME ALEC SILLIFANT

ALEC SILLIFANT

Alec Sillifant is close to being half a century old and is frayed at the edges with plenty of scars, physical and mental, to show for his time on the planet. He has been suffering a mid-life crisis since he was seventeen and it’s only getting worse.

His jobs have been many and varied: shelf stacker, bank employee, motorcycle despatch rider, kitchen salesman, bread delivery, administrator, home shopping channel call centre operative, to name a few. Some of these jobs even ended without him being escorted off the premises by two security guards; one place even said he’d be welcome back if needed work…but nothing was ever put in writing.

He has been writing since he went to school, some of it even made sense. He had a ‘Star’ letter published in a comic when he was a lad and since then has been paid for writing all kinds of stuff: TV comedy sketches, greetings cards, short stories, children’s picture books and a novel. He is, however, mostly skint, and has not one clue as to the cure for that.

Alec bumbles through life and, thanks to some pixies or something looking out for him, has managed to stay alive so far even though he has no idea what the hell is going on or what he should be doing to count as fulfilled.

Q&A with Alec Sillifant

Do you draw from personal experiences and/or current events?
Yes. Both. Next question.

However, there is rarely an event in life that happens in perfect ‘story mode’ so it’s down to the writer to make it more accessible and, maybe, more exciting to the reader. You may get the dot-to-dot outline handed to you but it’s your job to create a complete picture and colour it in. Also it helps if you add a big helping of pretentious rubbish, just like I did in the previous sentence.

Do you start with the conclusion and plot in reverse or start from the beginning and see where the story line brings you?
Depends. With short stories I tend to get most of it in one rush, with the concept and ending coming together leaving me to fill in the journey.

The novel, the one I actually finished, was an idea for a character and a situation, the rest of that just came along as I typed…and was mostly rubbish, so I had to type it again.

I find it hard to judge a job before finishing it and stepping back to take a look at the project from a distance. Once I have bolted down the bigger pieces I can go back in and tweak the details to suit. I also have trouble using too many engineering metaphors and they have to be taken out.

Often things take on a life of their own and what I was planning to write goes out of the window as the story takes me where it wants to go.

But with writing is anything ever perfect? I am sure I am not alone in going back over things I may have written years ago and seeing a better way to take the story or make changes to a character. I think the hard fact of it is, editing is never done but you’ve got to stop as close to ‘spot on’ as you can.

Your routine when writing? Any idiosyncrasies?
I wish I did have a routine, I need one for sure. I know the only way to get words on the paper is to get words on the paper but, man, it’s so hard to get myself sat down to do it. I want to, I really do, but the sad truth is, I’m lazy. I quite enjoy the act of writing – when it’s flowing well – but it’s just the effort to start that I find so hard, especially with a longer piece. For example I got 20,000 words into my latest attempt and then ‘phut’, I crashed and burned. My mind is determined to get back to it but my backside outweighs it and is nailed to the couch watching TV. Actually I am better at getting things done with some money up front, so if anyone reading this would like to spur me on…

Who are some of your favourite authors?
Yeah, tough one. To have a favourite author suggests I really enjoy everything they’ve written and, as with everyone, they can have off days. I enjoy reading, when my laziness allows it, and there have been very few books I have flung across the room in disgust after finishing them. Mr King is one hell of a story teller and there was one series – the name of which I can’t recall, which is a great help – that really got my attention when I was younger, couldn’t wait for the next instalment. But an all time favourite, I’ll have to pass on that one.

What are you reading now?
I’ve been trying to read some of the books you are supposed to read, you know the classics. Not the classics as in Jane Austen classics, way too heavy and…okay, boring. That’s the kind of stuff they force you to read in school which is a great help to literacy in my opinion, especially for boys. I mean the classics like ‘Tarzan’, which I read recently, and ‘Tom Brown’s Schooldays’ which I got to page seven on and then promptly lost the book.

Anyway at present it’s ‘Catch 22’ but, and remember I have mentioned I’m lazy, I’ve been reading it for four months and I’ve only got one chapter to go but, having said that, I am enjoying it and hope to finish it by early July.

Are you working on your next novel? Can you tell us a little about it?
I am…kinda, it’s the one I mentioned before that got to 20,000 words but I can feel my Muse at my shoulder urging me on and I may do it right after I finish answering these questions.

It’s a comedy (I hope) a complete jump from ‘Chaos’ and it is aimed squarely at the adult market. Basically it’s my attempt to bring the living dead back onto the side of the good guys. Zombies get such a bad rap nowadays.

It’s set in Victorian Liverpool and the three main characters are recently raised from the grave, much to their confusion. It’s a thriller of sorts, although you know ‘whodunit’ from the start, and it’s more about the chase and the foiling of evil plans. There’s a mad shape-shifting butler, a mad Scottish policeman, a clown that’s really, really mad and various other mad characters to some degree or other. Actually, they’re not all mad; I just like using the word. Mad. See?

Anyway, as you can probably tell it’s all very up in the air and very much at the first draft stage. Hopefully I’ll get back to it soon but I suggest no one make a bet on that.

Your novel would be a movie, who would you cast?
You know what, that’s never even crossed my mind to dream about…but seeing as how you’ve asked…

The leads, ‘Jake’ and ‘Angel’, would be unknown actors and have the looks of people in the real world. No good looking model academy kids from the catalogue world, kids that look like we did when we were younger. In fact if they were a bit world weary before their years that would be great; the odd frown line, that kind of thing.

As for ‘Mr Packard’, I’ve got him down. Jason Isaacs, a brilliant actor I once saw in a TV play showing the scariest under played nut job ever. Frightening it was. I loved it.

All other parts would be played by me in heavy make-up.

Manuscript/Notes: hand written or keyboard?
Manuscript always typed, so much easier and my PC spells far better than I do.

Notes are handwritten…badly. I often have no idea what I was making a note of when I come to read them back and I’m sure I’ve lost some good ideas over the years down to my illegible scribble.

Favourite leisure activity/hobby
My motorbike, though as I get older I ride less and less and the weather has got to be perfect. I’m not as brave as I used to be, nor do I bounce as well as I used to and even the thought of crashing nowadays can bring me out in road rash and bruising. It’s still the only way to get a smile on your gob when travelling though.

Favorite meal?
I’m not sure. Full English? Singapore fried rice? Steak and kidney pie, chips, peas and gravy? Cheese and bacon pasta bake? I’m not sure, I quite like food, it seems to stop me dying.

 “Should you wish to speak to Alec, do drop him a line on alecsillifant@yahoo.com “

ABOUT THE BOOK

Jake Highfield is a troubled child, abandoned at birth he spends his life bouncing between state institutions and foster homes. He lives by his own rules and answers to no one…until he is sent to The Academy, where they are used to dealing with the problem child.
Trained in the ways of espionage, Jake excels in his new role and finally accepts he has found a place he can call home until events beyond his control turn his new life upside down and he is thrust back on the streets again. But this time he is isn’t just fighting for his freedom, he’s fighting for his life.

BOOK DETAILS:

Print Length: 352 pages
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
ASIN: B004A7Z072

PURCHASE LINKS:

DISCLAIMER
I received a copy of this book, at no charge to me, in exchange for my honest review. No items that I receive are ever sold…they are kept by me, or given to family and/or friends.
ADDENDUM
I do not have any affiliation with Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. I am an IndieBound affiliate. I am providing link(s) solely for visitors that may be interested in purchasing this Book/EBook.