Garden Grove Thriller Novel - Free ebook with coupon until Dec 31/15

FREE with coupon code YV67F until Dec 31/15

Can you handle a little darkness in your life?

A review left at your favorite retailer would be very much appreciated.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/587705

Grammatical Correctness, is it wrong?

Is being grammatically correct really correct?

From the beginning years of grade school, you were admonished to “watch your grammar.”  Through the years growing up, your grammar was corrected, your papers were graded on the use of proper grammar, and you were advised to fix your grammar.

Now you have made that final step and there is no turning back.  You have decided, “I am a writer.”  Great!  Now you can finally use all those perfect grammar skills that have been demanded from you all those years.  Are you ready?  No?  Good.

Is it correct to be grammatically correct?  The short answer is ‘sometimes’.  Should you write that way?  Sometimes.  In fact, there are no doubt some wonderful tombs parked somewhere on dusty shelves written entirely in perfect grammar, although I haven’t actually seen any personally.  Should you write your story in correct grammar?  Probably some, but not all of it.

As a writer, correct grammar is just as important as it was in grade school.  But, it is also important to know when ignore those grammar rules.

Consider the rough character.  He has lived on the streets, surviving the best he can.  He has a full history of problems and hardships that have driven him to this point.  Now imagine that character talking and thinking in perfect grammar.

Good writing draws the reader in.  It flows in their mind so that they are absorbed into the world you created, feeling and living it without consciously reading it.

Now here is a writing exercise you can practice anywhere.  Pay attention.  Pay attention and take mental note of the conversations around you and the words going through your own mind; not so much on what is being said, but on how it is being said.

Most people do not think or speak in proper grammar.  They use contractions a lot and at some point break various other perfect grammar rules.  People also often speak in incomplete sentences and using the forms slang speech common to their particular lifestyle, background, and community.  Speech and thoughts expressed in perfect grammar sounds formal.  It could be a good tool as well when you want that formal feeling in your story.  But it won’t likely draw the reader into the story in the long run.

You want your story to flow in the same way that most people’s thoughts flow naturally.  You want your characters and the situations you put them in to feel real.  Use formal proper grammar where needed, but also know that a more casual flow of thoughts and words are essential to make a story flow naturally.

Book Review - Twin Powers by David Pereda

Twin Powers starts with the kidnapping of ten year old Stephanie while on vacation in Cuba with her mother and twin sister by a mysterious stranger who appears to be an Arab tourist.  Her mother, Sonia, is given a message from a street vendor who happened to be there.

  “He said to tell you that this is payback,” the old man said, his voice cracking.  “That you would never see your daughter again.”

This leaves Sonia and the authorities wondering who could possibly have a grudge against her that they would kidnap her daughter to punish her for.

From there the reader is pulled along as Stephanie’s estranged parents, along with a professional assassin called in by the Cuban government, try to learn the identity of the kidnappers and track Stephanie down.

As the drama unfolds, suspicions shift, and they discover that a human trafficking ring has kidnapped the girl.  The deeper they go into the world of Middle East human traffickers, the more it begins to look like there is something more than sex slavery behind the kidnapping.

In Twin Powers, David Pereda has created a world of international intrigue that runs deeper than the story initially suggests, centering on the kidnapping of a child.

Twin Powers by David Pereda is published by Second Wind Publishing, LLC, and is available on their web site, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

Book Review: UnAlive by Kevin J. Fitzgerald

UnAlive is hailed as “Night of the Living Dead meets The Book of Eli.”  I had to watch Book of Eli after reading UnAlive to see if the comparison fits.  I would have to say that UnAlive is better than the comparison to Night of the Living Dead suggests, but The Book of Eli is not a bad comparison.

UnAlive starts with a decent hook; the mysterious character, Cian of the Nomos, the half-lives.  It sets the tone that something unusual is going to happen in a way that leaves you curious to learn more.

Something is happening in the world and, at first glance, it seems to be some kind of an attack.  General Pitman Grady leads the military investigation.  Dr. Kwom Thomas joined them as an unwilling guest brought in at the suggestion of Susan Grey.

Meanwhile Adam Gardner’s world is turned upside down and destroyed during what would have been a peaceful afternoon in the country with his wife and two sons, if not for the sudden withering death of the vegetation around him, followed by the movement of frightening shapes coming from the woods accompanied by terrible noises.  But this seems to be a dream and Adam awakes in prison.  We soon learn that it is memories, not a dream.

UnAlive jumps between the military’s attempts to find out what is going on in a world that seems to be dying en mass, Dr. Kwon Thomas’ The Two Natures study from his attempts to research the strange mass deaths of flora and fauna and worldwide collapse of life, an old priest, and Adam Gardner’s life in jail and flashbacks to his life before.

When the zombies, dubbed the UnAlive, take over the world, it becomes a race for survival and against extinction of the human species.  Meanwhile the Nomos, or half-lives, have their own agenda.  I would describe the Nomos as vampires before I would call them zombies. 

I was wary when I was asked to review a zombie apocalypse book.  I couldn’t help the inward groan.  I hoped for the best and was ready for the worst.  The obsession with zombies since Walking Dead made its debut has resulted in a saturation of bad zombie everything, and there have been too many bad zombie movies and books before that.  For the record, I do not dislike zombies themselves.  It’s just that the majority of zombie movies  and my few attempts at reading a zombie book have been B movie grade at best - B for B.A.D.  I do, however love The Walking Dead.  So you have some idea where my standards lie in the zombie world.  This book was worth the read.

In UnAlive Kevin J. Fitzgerald gives us a zombie vampire apocalypse with some good descriptions of faces eating themselves from the inside and some scenes that would be Walking Dead worthy if they were adapted to film by a good director and film team.  The book has enough suspense to draw you deeper into the story.

UnAlive is self-published by Kevin J. Fitgerald and is available on Amazon and Goodreads.

You can follow Kevin J. Fitzgerald on Goodreads and Facebook.

Book Review - Everybody's Daughter by Michael John Sullivan

Michael Stewart is obsessed with finding something that was hidden in the basement of an old church.  He also faces his own demons, worried he isn’t being a good enough father to his teenage daughter Elizabeth and punishing himself for his belief he failed his wife before her death.

 

Unfortunately, nobody else seems to believe this hidden secret exists.  And how could they?  They believe he is crazy, his talk about travelling to the past through a tunnel in the church basement the delusions of a man who is not coping with reality.   But Michael knows it is real because he has gone through it before.

 

When Michael re-discovers the hidden passageway through time he vanishes.   Realizing what happened; Elizabeth is determined to follow her father.  Elizabeth finds the passage and emerges in Jerusalem centuries in the past just as she hoped, but her father is nowhere to be found.

 

Michael returns to the present to find Elizabeth missing.  He can only guess what happened to her, that she had followed him through the tunnel.  The world that was Jerusalem centuries ago is a dangerous world ruled by Roman soldiers and brutality.

 

Michael immediately realizes the danger his daughter in.  He has to find the way back.  He has to find her and bring her back!

 

But the tunnel has vanished and Michael cannot find it.  Complicating things more, he is everyone’s suspect in the disappearance of his daughter Elizabeth.  The three women in his life make it even more difficult.  His deceased wife’s friend blames him for her death and is convinced he is to blame for his daughter’s disappearance.  His sister and a woman who seems caught between being his friend and wanting more are both torn between his craziness, being unable to decide if he is guilty or innocent, and the need to help him find his daughter.

 

With the FBI investigating and following him, and the three women holding him back, it doesn’t seem that Michael will ever find his daughter.  The more Michael tries to convince those around him that his daughter is trapped in time; the more convinced they are that he is crazy and has done something to her.

 

His only real ally is his friend Dennis, the priest of the church who has his own reasons to believe this passage to the past exists.

 

While Michael fights his own battles in the present, desperate to find a way to return to Jerusalem in the time of Christ, Elizabeth faces the greatest danger of her life centuries in the past.  She reconnects with Leah, a woman she and her father met on their previous visit to Jerusalem in the time of Christ.  With no one who can save them the two women fight for their lives against a sadistic Roman soldier determined to own and control them both in his prison of savage cruelty.

 

 

Everybody’s Daughter mixes religion with the paranormal in a blend of miracles and sacrifice and the lesson that faith in the unbelievable is sometimes the only answer.  Michael John Sullivan treats the reader with a story of hope and despair, and finding salvation, all in a story that any reader can relate to.

 

 

Everybody’s Daughter is published by The Story Plant.

 

Book Review: Scorpion Bay by Michael Murphy

Working as an investigative reporter and a prosecuting attorney respectively, Parker Knight and his wife both had jobs requiring secrecy and chasing down sensitive information.




Unfortunately for Parker, his wife has been more secretive lately.



Worse, his investigative reporting instincts bring him racing to the scene of an explosion that would rip his life apart.



Crassly snapping off photos of the scene, including an injured woman; Parker stops by the woman only to come face to face with the horror of the reality of the situation.



The woman is his wife Erica. He is helpless as she dies in his arms.



This is the start of events that pull Parker deeper into the mystery surrounding his wife’s death.



Parker is compelled to find out why his wife died and bring whoever planted the bomb to justice. With the help of his friend from his days in the Special Forces, Justin Kendall, and Justin’s girlfriend Tina Banks, he starts digging into the secrets behind Biotech and its CEO Harrison Bradley.



Together they follow the one elusive lead he has, Wildflower, a path that leads Parker into being dubbed a vigilante. Parker finds himself unwillingly embracing his identity as a vigilante despite its hindering his efforts to avenge his wife’s murder and bring the man he believes is responsible to justice.





The thing that initially drew me to want to read Scorpion Bay was a comment the author made once about how he was so charmed with Scorpion Bay, a real place, that it inspired him to write a book about it.



Michael Murphy did justice to both the place and the dangerous feel of the name. Scorpion Bay is more than an action packed mystery, it draws you into its web of intrigue and plays on sub plots that make you wonder where they will take you. Just when you think you figured it out you learn not to make any assumptions.




Scorpion Bay is published by Second Wind Publishing, LLC.

March Mayhem – MAIM - March Amend & Improve Mayham

Tomorrow is the first day of March; the month legend has it Mother Nature totally plays us with a game of lions vs. lambs. If it we enter into March with weather that is calm and quiet like the lamb we can predict the month will end with the weather roaring like a lion, wreaking Nature’s vengeance on us all.


Of course most of us don’t actually believe any of this stuff and year after year Mother Nature has let us down and forgot her game by the end o f the month.

.

I do have my own prediction for March and it has little to do with the weather.

.

March is three months after NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), where writers around the globe pledge to put aside the daily vanities of life and throw themselves heart and soul into trying to write a 50,000 word novel from start to finish in only the thirty days of November.

If you are like me that is three months during which you have completely put that NaNo novel out of your mind to focus on other things. For myself December is spent stressing over Christmas, worrying over the lack of money to afford what is required of you, and getting little else done. The other two months I focused on writing and editing other projects, giving no thought at all to The McAllister Farm.

Three months sounds like a good break to me.

.

March also happens to be a free month, falling between Christmas/Hanukkah/whatever you celebrate around that time and the busy spring and summer time.

.

I predict March is as good a time as any to go back and tackle that first revision of the NaNo novel. A no holds barred attack in the same spirit of NaNoWriMo.

After three months of pointedly not looking at it or even thinking about it, it’s time to give that NaNo novel its first dose of merciless and aggressive editing.

Don’t stop to think or analyze. First impressions are everything.

This is not a carefully thought out edit meant to fix grammar and spelling or smooth minor flaws.

MAIM (March Amend & Improve Mayhem) that NaNo novel. Attack it without care with a big fat red marking pen (or the electronic equivalent). Cut and slash anything that on first impression is off, weird, doesn’t work, or just seems like extra baggage.

Scribble notes all over it, whatever strikes you as you tackle the beast. It doesn’t matter if the notes make much sense, impressions can lead to something later.

Anything that comes to mind: observations, ideas, questions, random thoughts, character traits, back story, behind the scenes story, what should have been, things you should link, etc. Anything goes.

.

EDIT: edit, deconstruct, improve, and transform that novel like you don’t care how perfect the final outcome is. This is only a first edit anyway.

.

Take one month, March, to completely go over the WIP start to finish and tackle the obvious. Amend, research, and outright challenge yourself. “What the hell was I thinking when I wrote THAT?!”

.

.

Starting tomorrow you have thirty-one days to beat that NaNo novel into submission, the iron master pounding a strip of iron into a shape that resembles the finished sword it will become.

.

It’s madness, but it’s my madness.

.

So tomorrow grab that NaNo WIP, put on your Mad Hatter hat, and pour the tea (wine in my case) and let’s have a writers’ editing party.

.

And maybe just for fun, the next time you write/edit using the services of your computer accessed dictionary and thesaurus, try running it in a foreign language. Oh, the madness just never ends.

Works In Progress and other stuff

A few months ago (a few? I lost track) I put my finished W.I.P. to bed after months of pouring over it stressing over perfecting it (can any book be perfect in the writer’s eyes?) to the point where I knew I was missing anything obvious.


A break was in order, to work on other things and completely put it out of mind. So I went to work finishing writing/editing other W.I.P.s

In that time ...



I finished writing two novels (pending editing): Forgotten Princess and The Gypsy Queen

I hit the half-point in one novel : The Green Fairy

I came close to finishing my 2010 NaNo novel that I abandoned that year (possible title Old Bones)



I wrote 6 short stories (5 pending editing)

- No Wine for Me, Thanks

- Gift in the Waves

- Hidden Window

- Spiral

- The Red Mitten

- The Widows’ Willow



And for November I am mostly concentrating on my 2012 NaNo novel The McAllister Farm (a prequel of sorts of my finished W.I.P.) and am well on track to meet and even exceed the 50,000 words by November 30th.



After the 30th, when December descends on us, I plan to give that sleeping W.I.P. one last look over and decide if I will finally take the plunge into trying to have it published.

Book Review: Carpet Ride by Norm Brown

Newlyweds Sam and Lynn Stanley embark on a cross country RV honeymoon with Lynn’s young son Andy. However their trips turns more eventful than they bargained for when they suddenly find a barely passable mountain trail blocked by what appears to be a large roll of carpet.

They have no choice but to run over the object, sending them out of control as Sam narrowly avoids sending them careening over the cliff to their deaths.

As Sam gets out, shaken, to investigate the object they ran over the reader gets the first hint there might be more to this scene than meets the eye.





Arriving at their new home, they find a police car waiting in the driveway for them. Officer Jenson of the Oregon State Patrol has already contacted Lieutenant Banyon to bring Sam in for questioning concerning their accident. Sam goes with the officer, leaving his new wife and her son to unpack.



At the police station Sam learns that he is being accused of running over a person in the road, is possibly facing charges, and there is no sign this carpet ever existed. The victim’s car, a Ford Taurus, was discovered at the scene with a flat tire and open trunk, suggesting that Robert Riddlin may have been walking in the road looking for help when Sam ran him down.



But how could this be?! There had been nobody in the road! Sam was sure of it!



From there things get stranger. Sam’s wife suffers an accident that could have killed her and he discovers strange coincidences that leave him certain someone is trying to kill him.





Sam’s friend John Canton goes to Boulder, Colorado to investigate the strange events from what him and Sam think is the source, the victim Robert Riddlin. There, he finds himself any ally in Cynthia Kildeer, Robert’s administrative assistant.



The two investigate, but seem to find more questions than answers.





Meanwhile, at home Sam tries to keep himself and his new family safe, finally falling on his wife’s old friend Martin to provide a safe haven, who we later learn has secrets of his own.





You quickly find yourself asking questions. What really happened to Robert Riddlin? Who is trying to kill Sam and why? Will they discover John’s deception and come after him too for play amateur sleuth?



Norm Brown takes you on a carpet ride of suspicion as you find yourself suspecting everyone who is deeply involved until the truth finally plays out at the end. This was an enjoyable read.



While the end comes as no surprise, all the hints were there, it is not so obvious that you figure it out halfway through the book.



I would have liked to get more explanation behind the whole Robert Riddlin affair, however there are more mysteries to the story than that, and Riddlin is more of a driving force to push the story forward and not the reason Sam and Lynn have been chosen to be pulled into their situation.




Carpet Ride is published by http://www.secondwindpublishing.com/.

Is this a Sign? (on Beta Readers)

I suspect this might be a sign of something. A sign of what I’m not quite sure.




I am a firm believer that a writer needs a test reader. Someone who is not intrinsically a part of the story through living and breathing it through months of writing and editing it. A fresh set of eyes. Someone who can read it as a new reader will, getting enthralled or bored, revelling in the characters or getting lost in a confusing plot. Someone who will immediately pick up on things the writer left out that is vital to the story that the writer missed because they already know it, or is confusing to the outside reader.

As the writer there is so much of the story, back story, pre-story, and post-story in your head. There is the life and dreams and unknown driving forces that make up the characters and surround the events that don’t make it into the story. All the behind the scenes stuff that adds to the vibe the writer puts into the story is in the writer’s head. Things you thought you hinted at but happen later, and missed the hint, leaving an obvious story gap in earlier chapters.

It’s almost inevitable for the writer to miss things; things that the reader will pick up because they don’t know what you know. Things that if left out will make the reader go “Huh? What was that? That made no sense.”



Here’s where the sign comes in.

I have two finished books (and untold works in progress).

One of these books is a 120,000 word novel. Something of a murder thriller with kidnapping, murder and an antagonist who is tortured by his own actions and his past. There are twists and surprises, psychological suspense, and an ending that is hinted at but may take some readers by surprise. (At least that’s what I was going for).

I’ve written this book (and re-written it) over a number of years and have spent so much time editing and re-editing and re-editing again (repeat many times) and have come to that point where I just can’t find anything else to change or fix.

I know the book isn’t perfect. There’s no such thing as a perfect book. Writing is art and as such is open to the very fickle interpretation of the individual.

I also know the book could use some improvements before calling it publishable and that I’m just not seeing them. That’s where the test reader comes in.

My spouse started reading the book.

To be fair, I do have to point out that with a major career change for him involving now working on shift work, and some weeks doing almost a double shift with overtime, and our lives being a big hodgepodge of irregularity and zero routine stability, he’s had little time for things like literary pursuits. He also is not a book reader. It’s just not his thing. He’s read maybe two or three books in his life outside of required school reading as a kid and teen.



The second book is my first attempt at a kids’ chapter book. I made a list of what a good chapter book needs according to the experts (a couple kids I asked) and set out to write it. I’m on book three of the series. I’ve gone through the first round of edits on book one.

The problem is, how do I know I’ve done it right? If it’s too easy they’ll be bored and uninterested with it. If it’s too hard they’ll get frustrated and not read it. It has to be just right.

So I gave it to the first test reader, my nine year old. This kid loves to read. And, like me, she loves to read horror (that’s my girl!).



Now here’s the sign.

The husband hasn’t even gotten through the first couple of chapters, and that’s after weeks. He did note a few suggestions and very good ones – two in particular that are more than just missed spell-check errors and will involve minor rewrites of those two scenes.

And then he seems to have abandoned all interest (and yes, I do know that lack of time is a factor too).

The daughter similarly has quickly abandoned her reading effort. She was initially miffed that I hadn’t spent endless hours creating a wonderful and colorful cover picture for it before presenting her with the draft manuscript. Quite frankly I just haven’t had the time and I’m not exactly the artistic type who can just sit down and draw a fabulous picture. Her initial response after pouting about the lack of a proper cover was to toss it aside with no interest in the story. She read just a little bit and abandoned it. When asked about the story she made some vague reference to something being confusing and that has been the end of that. She was uninterested in elaborating on what was confusing.



The question is – what do I make of this?

I could just chalk it up to the fickleness off a nine year old girl and forty year old non-reader.

I could peg it as being a lack of time in our disorderly lives.

One must also not forget that those closest to you, family and friends, are not going to share your passion just because it’s what you love any more than you share theirs for hockey and grade four playground melodrama. They are their own people and have their own interests.

Then again, maybe they just thought the stories sucked and are afraid of hurting my feelings, so they won’t tell me that.

But they are just one reader of each story, and their opinions will be just as subjective as every reader’s will be to their own personal tastes, experiences, and relationship to the writer. One reader might hate it, while a hundred others might love it. You might have a problem if it’s the other way around, but good luck finding 100 test readers when many of us can’t even find one.

So, maybe the stories do suck or maybe those two test readers were just uninterested.

“Is it me or is Memorex?” (Remember that commercial?) Maybe I need to scrap or rewrite the stories or maybe I just had the wrong test readers. Of course, I may never really know since generally speaking I am my own test reader and that is not such a good thing.



The important message here is to never put too much into what any one person’s reaction is.

Opinions of the people closest to you will be the most biased. Either they’re afraid even the gentlest criticism or suggestion might hurt your feelings, or they might go the opposite way and are unnecessarily rough just to prove they are not holding back.

Opinions of people who might harbor any jealousy or ill feelings will be even worse. Probably the worst next to the people who need to tear somebody else down just to make themselves feel better.

It’s not the opinion of the individual reader that is the most important. What is more telling is the general response by multiple readers.

And if you are like me and don’t have a pool of available test readers, and don’t have the money to pay readers, put on that tough outer shell and take no offence if that one person who does agree to read your manuscript doesn’t show the interest you were hoping for.

It might just not be their thing.

Book Review: Light Bringer by Pat Bertram

When strange things happen people go to Chalcedony. But what is so special about the little town?



Helen Jenks’ life changed with a drive home on a snowy night. That change came in the form of an infant girl, who she calls Rena, which she finds abandoned on her doorstep.


It becomes immediately apparent that Rena is not your usual kind of abandoned-on-the-doorstep baby. There is something special about the child. Helen soon finds herself living on the run with the child, but on the run from who or what?





And that is where her story ends and the real story begins.



Philip Hansen opens his door to unexpected guests, Agent’s Derrick and Hugh from the National Security Agency. Philip immediately suspects they are there to discuss the books he’s been checking out at the library. He sounds borderline crazy-guy conspiracy theorist, but Philip quickly shows himself to be no crazier than anyone else who thinks aliens are visiting Earth.


With a little help from an unlikely source, Philip escapes the two agents, who aren’t who they claim to be, and finds himself drawn involuntarily on a path not of his choosing.




Becka Johnson, baby Rena grown up and with a new name, returns to Chalcedony thirty-seven years after her adoptive mother found her.


Becka has decided it’s time to find the answers to her lifelong questions that center around “who am I?” And she believes those answers can be found in Chalcedony, Colorado where her life started on a snowy night on a stranger’s doorstep.





In a financial bind, Jane Keeler finds herself in Chalcedony searching for her sister George Keeler. Instead of finding her sister, she discovers an empty house, ransacked office, and abandoned car.


Georgy’s apparent wild ways make things difficult for Jane as she finds herself drawn by the need to investigate this mystery and learn her sister’s whereabouts. Only no one seems to believe her or to even care.



When the trio converges on Chalcedony with no knowledge of each other, things immediately take a turn for the strange.


Philip Hansen arrives to find himself thrust into the arms of Becka Johnson, literally, when he’s dropped off at her doorstep.


Things soon heat up for Philip and Becka when the strange things happening to each of them grow in intensity with their proximity, leading them forward on an adventure of discovery.


Jane is pulled into the strange events surrounding Philip and Becka, finding herself drawn into the midst of a bigger mystery than she’d anticipated.





In Light Bringer, Pat Bertram weaves a fascinating tale of a group of people connected by events in the past, beginning before they were even born, who are inexorably drawn together for the culmination of what was started so many decades before.


In drawing out the strange events linking these three, I also had the impression that the small town of Chalcedony, Colorado hides other secrets that could very well find themselves revealed in another tale entirely unrelated to this story.



Light Bringer is published by Second Wind Publishing, LLC.








Something apart from the story that you might find interesting is this excerpt from Light Bringer (Page 217).

There are three details in particular that will have a sense of familiarity if you have read Pat Bertram’s More Deaths than One.



Hugh & Keith in are in a conference room in the underground bunker going through files taken from George Keeler’s house



Excerpt:

Hugh lifted one transcript out of the file. “Here’s an interview she did with Bob Noone.”

“Who’s he?”

“You know. The weird guy.”

Keith laughed. “That narrows it down.”

“He’s the artist, the one you thought seemed like a chameleon.”

“Oh, him. His work sure mesmerized you. I could hardly drag you away.”

Hugh shuddered, remembering that a monstrous thing had seemed to lurk in the depths of the painting, pulling him in, captivating him in the archaic sense of the word: taking captive. He realized he’d been captivated in the same way by this place, the source of that dreadful hum. All at once he felt glad not to have found the source. Perhaps some secrets should remain unknown.

“What did he have to say?”

Hugh started at the sound of Keith’s voice. “He spouts the same rubbish as everyone else in that ridiculous town. Listen to this. ‘I didn’t move to Chalcedony until the late eighties, so I don’t know anything about the UFO flap, but if you want my opinion, it would have been a mind control experiment. Government is a beast without conscience, and when it teams with conglomerates, it can and will do anything. Even control us as if we were robots.’”

One Door Away From Heaven by Dean Koontz draws you along three parallel stories.




First, there is Michelina Bellsong, a somewhat damaged soul who lives with her Aunt Geneva, another somewhat damaged soul.



Micky immediately becomes acquainted with the young girl next door, Leilani Klonk. Nine year old Leilani seems older than her age, but she also lives with a terrible secret. She sees herself as an undesirable cripple, getting around with a leg brace and managing with a deformed leg and hand because of the debilitating damage done by her mother’s drug addiction while in her mother’s womb.



Over the course of the story, Micky and Aunt Geneva draw small hints about Leilani’s dark secret out of the girl. Leilani seems to be looking for help, but does not want to endanger her new friends either.







The second story is that of a mysterious boy who seems to have run away. But what he is running away from is much bigger than home and a family. He imagines monsters everywhere as he flees from his mother’s killers. As the boy draws us through his story we also learn that he is more than he first appears to be.



The ten year old boy decides to go by the name Curtis Hammond, the name of a boy whose family was murdered after he sought refuge and food in their home while they slept. The only survivor, their dog, becomes the boy’s companion on his journey.







Noah Farrel, a private investigator, brings with him the third story. He seems to be something of a mediocre investigator right from the start. Noah proves to be a reluctant participant, drawn into the story as their lives begin to converge when Micky becomes suspicious of Leilani’s parents and seeks the help of a private investigator.





As the lives of Micky, Leilani, Curtis, and Noah draw on inexorably towards the point where they will inevitably come together both Leilani’s and Curtis’ secrets are drawn into the open. Leilani’s by her deranged step-father and drug addicted mother and her attempts to survive, and Curtis’ by the relentless hunt of his pursuers.





Dean Koontz has stayed true to form in creating a suspenseful story that entices you into the lives of the characters with the need to find out where their lives will collide.

Book Review - Indian Summer by Dellani Oakes



Indian Summer by Dellani Oakes



Indian Summer, by Dellani Oakes, is a story that would appeal to the younger romance readers. It draws the reader into a world of the past that is not much different emotionally to the world of today. The suspense of the events surrounding the heroine draws you on through a plot that is not over-complicated and is an easy read.




Our story is set in the town of St. Augustine, Florida, which is under attack by the British.



It begins on February 15, 1739. Our heroine Gabriella Deza is a young girl of the tender age of fourteen. She is just coming into age where her mind and heart become awhirl with thoughts of boys and men instead of more childish pastimes.



As Gabriella is approaching her fifteenth birthday, and her big coming of age party, she becomes increasingly intrigued with her older sisters’ interests in men and marriage.



She soon begins to experience the first tingling of sexual attraction and the whirlwind emotions of an adolescent girl that can make a crush drive her mad and bring forth titillating fantasies.



Gabriella is also on the verge of discovering the more mature relationships and romance.



She soon finds herself considering two possible suitors. Dr. James Stevens, a surgeon attached with the fort and an Englishman is the first to show an interest. However, Gabriella’s attention is quickly drawn to the more exciting Manuel Enriques, a man her maid-servant encourages her to stay clear of for her own good.



As her fifteenth birthday draws nearer, Gabriella gets wrapped up in a whirlwind romance with Manuel. The romance becomes almost a torment for her as she finds herself terrified both by her own overpowering urges and Manuel’s passion for her.



However, before that day can come Gabriella’s world becomes turned upside down as the secrecy and intrigue between her father and Manuel deepens, taking her lover away from her for dangerous secret missions for her father.



At last, Gabriella’s big coming out party draws upon her, together with the promise that she will be permitted to marry Manuel. However, the dangerous events come home for her as the fort is attacked and Gabriella discovers the traitor in their midst. Gabriella flees for her life with her heart broken by the knowledge that her lover may be dead. Pursued by the traitor, she finds safety and solace with a new man whose passionate longing for her rivals Manuel’s and soon brings out her own passion for him.



Will Gabriella end up with her original suitor, the Englishman Dr. James Stevens who at first seemed to be the right match? Or will she stay with the aboriginals who took her in, get over her misgivings of betraying Manuel who very likely is dead, and let herself love Sailfish, the tribe’s chief’s nephew and next in line to be chief? And what of Manuel, whose death Gabriella was certain she witnessed but couldn’t quite let herself believe?



While Dellani Oakes stays true to the recipe for romance in many aspects, including the young innocent heroine falling for the older experienced man, she does stray in one significant way. It was a refreshing change to experience a romance where the obstacles involved outside forces instead of the usual emotionally abusive nature of the hero who inevitably wins the girl by treating her badly.



In this story the hero is neither abusive, nor treats our heroine badly at all. This is a true love story where love triumphs over situation and not one drawing on emotional strife to force the couple together.



I would recommend this to any young romance reader.



Indian Summer is published by Second Wind Publishing, LLC.

 

Book Review - Pat Bertram's More Deaths Than One

I felt a little anxious before I even turned that first e-page of More Deaths Than One.




I had never read a book written by anyone I knew before.



While I’ve never actually met the author, Pat Bertram, in person I do consider her to be a good online friend and a valuable writing ally.



What feels even odder to me than reading a published book by someone I know is sitting down and writing a review of a book written by someone I know, and one I count as an e-friend to boot. It’s even worse than that initial “What will they think?” phase of writing subject matter you perhaps wouldn’t want to write home to mother with.



And, perhaps, I should feel a little bit of guilt in not actually buying the book. I got the e-book when she was offering it up free to anyone who wanted it. But, I don’t regret it. Pat also never asked me to do a review on it. This, I do of my own volition – much to her chagrin or delight, all depending on what she thinks of my review I guess.



And so, with a small amount of trepidation, I turned that first e-page and eased my way into what may conceivably have turned into a dead man’s life.







Our hero, Bob Stark, is mostly notable for his very essence of being un-notable. In fact, he is so un-notable that even the people who know him seem to have trouble recognizing him when they first see him. This very plainness draws you in, making you like him for his simplicity and empathize with him for that unwanted feeling of invisibility that we all share at times.



His ordinariness also proves to be essential to the story. In fact, his very plainness plays you right into believing the possibility of the truth that comes out later in the story. You’ll have to read the story to find out why.



The story starts with the very ordinary Bob Stark having a very ordinary hot chocolate in the Rimrock Coffee Shop, where his solitude is intruded on by his waitress making a rather ordinary attempt at flirting with him.



Unfortunately for Stark, the ordinariness of his life ends there.



Stark learns from the newspaper that his mother, Lydia Stark, has passed away – again. Yes, after burying his mother once already, the woman apparently has died a second time, 22 years later.



Convinced it has to be a hoax, Stark decides to show up for his mother’s second funeral.



All the usual people are at the funeral, friends and family, including Stark’s old college girlfriend Lorena Jones. Stark watches the funeral as an outsider only to find himself with more than one shock. Not only does the funeral appear to be entirely real, the man his old girlfriend is with comes as a big shock too. Bob Stark finds himself staring at none other than Bob Stark. But how can this be? How can he be watching himself at his own mother’s second funeral?



Stark soon finds himself pulled along an inevitable series of events, his newly befriended waitress Kerry Casillas at his side.



Stark’s search for the truth draws him deeper into a web of secrecy, and deeper into danger as the pair find themselves trying to stay one step ahead of someone who seems intent on catching them.



He soon learns that the road to the truth lies in his own past, a past he in part has to rediscover as if learning it for the first time.



Bob and Kerry travel to Thailand in search of answers that lead only to deeper questions.



The answers to the mystery prove to be as shocking as looking at yourself at your own mother’s second funeral.





In More Deaths Than One, Pat Bertram has woven an intriguing tale of what can happen when the wrong people are given control over another’s life.


More Deaths Than One is published by Second Wind Publishing, LLC.

2010 NaNoWriMo Challenge - Chapter One

For your amusement and mine, here is a sneak peek - chapter one of my NaNoWriMo 2010 novel.

 

One

The woods behind my house are disappearing.

All those beautifully twisted old oak trees that fill our little suburb with their mangled skeletal fingers, clacking in the winds of the dark winter nights.

We live in one of those cozy little bedroom communities only a short drive outside the city, the communities that city people love to hate; one of those communities that continue to grow and multiply because city people, like me, grow up and move out to those cozy safe little communities. Somehow they feel more friendly and safer than identical communities in the suburbs within the city do.

The evil of crime and overcrowding is confined within the city limits. Or is it?

Sometimes, in those sleepy little communities, evil just sleeps a little deeper.



“Beep Beep Beep.”

The incessant beeping and growling of construction equipment relentlessly permeates the air, driving all the sleep deprived stay at home moms to distraction. And there are few things that are scarier than a marauding pack of grumpy housewives.

Last night was Halloween, the kids are all over-tired and cranky, and so are the mom’s, many of which were up dealing with sick achy stomachs from kids scarfing down piles of sweet candy bliss.

Deer jog across the road in single file. First one, who looks back to show its safe, then another, and finally after a pause in the road the last one brings up the rear.

They are unusually alert.

The chill frost in the air seems to be making them uneasy.

Their usual winter trail has been irrevocably changed and the crispness in the air has urged them to turn to their winter habits despite the lack of snow on the ground.

Trees have been ripped ruthlessly from the ground, the topsoil scraped away and carted off to be sold back to the homeowners, and roads for new houses are being roughed in by the hulking metal monsters that roam back and forth growling and beeping.

Canada geese fly overhead, their flight patterns seeming to make no sense while they make their practice runs in preparation for the great migration.

They seem confused, or perhaps they are just agitated.

Somewhere, in the blinding morning light of a kitchen, a group of mothers hunch over their hot coffees after sending their kids off on the school bus, plotting how they can shut up those infernal construction tractors that are taking away the woods, desecrating the adjoining farm fields, and have destroyed the tranquility of the quiet community to build a new housing development.



On the edge of an untouched part of the woods a lone figure stands silently, hunched against the cold in a thin worn jacket, watching the construction.

The old man shakes his head sadly; his leathery face is scarred with the lines of spending many years in the sun working the land. He turns and slowly shambles away on arthritic knees, muttering to himself.



The hulking front end loader chugged weakly, coughed, and let out a final death rattle before lapsing into silence.

With a tired grunt, the driver climbed down out of the machine to the man waiting below, the foreman Stanley Rutthers.

“The old bitch is dead again,” the driver mumbled.

“Vandals again?” Stan asked.

“Pretty sure.”

“Damn, that’s the third one this week.”

“She’s going to be out for a while this time to get fixed.”

“Hmph,” Stan grunted. “This job is getting expensive.”

He took off his hard hat, ran a stressed hand through his hair, realized and put the hat back on his head, giving it a meaty slap with his palm.

“I gotta go check out the rest of the site, see what else the vandals have been up to.”

Stan stalked away in a foul mood.



A group of men in rough dirty clothes, heavy gloves, and hard hats stood milling around, staring at a rocky pile of mud half spilled out of a large Cat front loader.

Stanley Rutthers approached the group, stopping to stand beside one of his most seasoned workers, Dave McCormack. The weather-lined look of their faces and over-worn clothes made them look almost like brothers.

“You check the plans?” Dave asked without turning to look at the foreman.

“Yeah,” Stan said. “They don’t match up. Somehow our plans are different from what’s at the office.”

Dave looked at him in surprise. He wasn’t really surprised, but you’re supposed to look like it when these things happen. This whole job has been a bigger carnival of mistakes and screw-ups than usual.

He dutifully made shocked noises.

“Which one was altered?” Dave asked. “No surprise they forgot to send the changes somewhere again.”

“That’s what’s weird,” Stanley said. “None of the copies look revised. It’s like the engineers drew up new plans, each one a little different, instead of just making copies of the new revised plans.”

“I don’t think anyone’s finding that joke funny.”

“No joke. They all insist they only drew up one new version and made copies of it. The chief engineer is right pissed about it.”

“I bet he is,” Dave said, almost amused.

“The inspector is coming down on our asses because the work doesn’t match the plans that he has too, threatening to shut down the whole job site.”

That changed Dave’s expression. He needed that money. Shutting down the jobsite means sending all the guys home, and sitting on your butt in front of the television with a beer doesn’t earn a pay check in this line of work.

“They’re trying to figure out how this could have happened and which set of plans are the right ones,” Stan said. “The boss is threatening to fire whoever’s behind the prank.”

If it was a prank, it was pretty well played out. The engineers seemed genuinely confused how this could have happened, and no one else had the skills to forge the blueprints.

“So, what’s with the bucket?” Stan asked; referring to why everyone was standing around staring at the Cat’s bucket.

“Some old bones turned up,” Dave said.

“Damn.”

Finding bones was dreaded by anyone running a job site, and all the workers too. They were almost always just some kind of animal, usually cow, but every once in a while they turned out to be human. When that happened they all prayed to the construction gods that they were fresh. The remains of a murder or accident victim could shut down the job site for weeks, but old bones possibly from some ancient native ancestor could shut down the site for months, or even indefinitely.

Usually they just covered up the bones, crushing them beneath the huge tires of the Cat without reporting them. But boys will be boys and they usually all wanted to take a look with eager morbid fascination.

And every now and then they’d get a green guy on the crew with too many morals who thought they should report the find just in case. This was one of those times.



“It’s just some animal,” one of the workers argued.

“I dunno,” the young worker with a higher sense of morals hesitated. “Seems kind of big for an animal.”

“It’s a farmer’s field. We’re going to find cow bones. This is the eighth cow bone we’ve found so far. They’re scattered all over the place.”

“Hey, we could make soup!” a jester from the crowd tossed in.

The young worker looked around.

“Looks like a wheat field to me.”

“Barley actually,” one of the men said.

“Whatever.” One of the men was getting annoyed. “There used to be more dairy and beef farms around here. It’s just a cow leg bone.”

“We probably still should-,” the young worker was interrupted.



A Cat some distance off lurched to a stop, the driver jumping out and running around to dig in the mud turned over by the bucket.

He whistled shrilly to get the groups attention, proudly holding up his prize with a big grin.

“Looks like we’ve got more’n cows!” he yelled to the crew.

Like a bunch of school boys trying to look too cool to be overly eager over someone else’s gruesome find, the men shuffled and ambled their way over to check out the new treasure.

Stan didn’t have to see what it was; he had a pretty good hunch.

“Damn,” he muttered.

The worker beamed as he showed off the yellowed scarred skull, a human skull. He hadn’t decided yet if he would add it to his trophies of weird construction discoveries or crush and bury it like the usual bones.

He was genuinely dismayed and disappointed when that decision was taken out of his hands.

The young worker with a perhaps overactive sense of morals was determined this bone had to be reported.

A few hours later the bulldozers and Cats slumbered, the workers stood around sipping old thermos coffee and complaining about lost wages, and the job site was closed.

Yellow police tape fluttered in the wind, police cars sitting idly by while a few uniformed men wandered around the job site. The rest stood around in clumps talking amongst themselves.

The crews coming to investigate the scene and excavate in search of more human remains should be arriving soon.

 

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo
By L. V. Gaudet
© November 2009



November is NaNoWriMo.

If you are anything like me, then you are probably shaking your head in a decidedly confused way right now while thinking, “Nanowriwhowhat? Huh?”

This is something entirely new to me. I’ve been writing off and on for years on my own with no contact with the world of writers and publishing. Now that I have become active in that dark dusty untouchable world of online schmoozing with writers and other writerly people, I am (suddenly this past week) seeing this phrase come up again and again.

I’ve learned a few things about the NaNoWriMo phenomenon. First, being that I appear to be the only one in my little online circle who has never before heard of it. The second being what NaNoWriMo is.

Simply put, it is a short form for National Novel Writing Month. It must be a big thing in the writing world; after all it has its own web page. Then again pretty much everything these days has its own web page.

By following this link you can read more about NaNowriMo, check out the sponsors, donate money, sign up to participate, and all kinds of stuff.

Basically what NaNoWriMo is about is whipping off a 50,000 word (175 page) novel from scratch between November 1st and midnight November 30th. It’s about writing your pants off, writing your face off, and writing pretty much everything else off as you write your heart out to pound out an average of 1,666 words per day. It’s not about writing a best seller list novel, or even about having a publishable manuscript come the stroke of midnight November 30th. It’s about tearing your heart out and putting it on the page, throwing caution to the wind, putting aside reason and everything your grade school teacher taught you, and just letting that story flow with all its wonderful charm, passion and mistakes.

Whatever imperfections, story stragglers, and unadulterated gibberish may have found its way into the novel can be fixed later. That is what editing is for.

It sounds like fun.

While I can’t join the ranks of crazed writers torturously flogging away at creating an entire novel in only 30 days, I can admire their moxie and hope that someday (when the kids are older) I can try it too.

In the meantime, I think I will honor NaNoWriMo for 2009 with my own personal nanowriting challenge. My challenge is this: can I bring my WIP (let’s call it Unnamed Murder Thriller) from its current 32,000 words to 50,000 words by midnight November 30th? That is only 18,000 words, an average of 600 words a day. But to add to the challenge, I must also continue the first edit of the written pages, that of seeking out and adding in where the story is lacking thus far. It will be an unlikely success, but fun to try anyway. Watch my blog for updates on my progress, or lack of it.